Ignoring the Commandments and Teaching Others to do the Same

AD Robles

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There are two kinds of dangerous liberals, and I'm talking about political liberals but also theological liberals.

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They're very similar worldviews, I would say, for both. But there's two kinds that I think that you need to be concerned with.

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And I would say worried, but I'm a post -millennial guy. I'm worried about things in the short term, but in the long term,

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I know Christ is putting his enemies under his feet, and the reality is that theological liberals and political liberals have aligned themselves against Christ, and so I would say that Christ considers them enemies.

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Now, there's two kinds, like I said. There's the kind that are schemers, right, like they know exactly what they're doing and they know what their goals are.

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They have a strategy, a plan of attack, and they implement it in order to accomplish their end goal.

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So they're very self -aware about what they're trying to do. I would say that most politicians fall into this category, maybe not all politicians, like that Alexandria Ocasio -whatever -her -name -is.

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She doesn't strike me as a schemer. She strikes me as sort of a flies -by -the -seat -of -her -pants type socialist.

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But there are people like Senator Feinstein, for example. She's a schemer. She understands exactly what she's doing.

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She knows she doesn't really care about sexual assault. She doesn't care about those kinds of charges.

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What she cares about is political power, and so she held onto these accusations until the right moment to have maximum effect, and she's effective at her scheming.

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A lot of people are effective at their scheming, and so that's one kind of person that you need to be aware of, someone who's self -aware, they understand, they're trying to break the cords of Western civilization, they're trying to upend things, change things, completely reject

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God's law. That's what they're trying to do. That's their goal, and they go about it with reckless abandon.

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That's what their mission is. Certainly those kind of people can be very dangerous, there's no question about it, but I would say that the vast majority of people are not schemers.

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They're not very self -aware about what their mission is. They're just acting according to how they've been taught and according to how they feel emotionally, but they're really not thinking ahead.

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Now, in the Christian worldview, thinking ahead is something that is absolutely part and parcel of the

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Christian worldview. God implemented the Sabbath, a whole day of rest from work, that requires a little bit of thinking ahead.

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You have to prepare things beforehand so that you don't break the

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Sabbath when the Sabbath comes. You still need to eat on the Sabbath, you still need to have a fire on the Sabbath, but you can't start a fire on the

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Sabbath, so there's a certain level of planning ahead that God's people did that the pagan nations didn't have to do.

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The same thing with the Sabbath year, there was a whole year where the harvesting was not happening, things like that.

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That required a certain level of planning ahead. Planning ahead is a godly thing. Living day to day and not thinking about the future is an ungodly way to live.

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That's part and parcel of a Christian worldview, but there's an entire realm of people out there that don't think ahead, that they're living in the moment, they're completely emotional and quite irrational.

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I'm going to give you an example of someone that I think is in that camp. Now I could be wrong, this could be a planner, this could be a schemer,

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I'm not sure, but I think personally that he's not. I think he doesn't really think very carefully about things.

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Of course I'm talking about Kyle J. Howard. He is one of the most manipulative, emotionally manipulative people that I've ever come across in my entire life.

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Absolutely abhorrent, disgusting kind of rhetoric. Let's read this thread and I'll show you what

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I mean. He says, Dear Evangelicals, you must work on your exegesis. Your lack of applying the word has massive consequences to abuse victims and survivors.

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If two or three witnesses was required for an accusation of sexual assault, no rapist or child molester would ever be charged with a crime.

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Now, this is a very sneaky, slippery comment because what he's saying here is that if you stick with two or three witnesses, then that actually is hurting sexual assault victims or child molestation victims and things like that, and so you shouldn't stick with that.

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Now, if you notice, he's worded this very carefully. He's saying if two or three witnesses are required for an accusation of sexual assault.

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I don't really know too many people who are saying that. Instead, what most people are saying is two or three witnesses are required to establish a matter.

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So in other words, for a conviction. Do you see what I'm saying? Not an accusation, for a conviction. So when a woman comes to you and says, hey,

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I've been assaulted, you can believe her. That's not a problem, but if you're going to convict whoever she says is the rapist or the person who assaulted her, you're going to need corroborating evidence.

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The other thing is, too, that people have long understood that two or three witnesses is we need to apply the general equity of that.

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Back in the day, two or three witnesses, you needed to be eyewitnesses a lot of the time because they didn't have forensics.

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They didn't have evidence, video evidence or audio evidence or cell phone pings, things like that.

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So we apply the general equity with our modern technology and we don't necessarily need an eyewitness, but we do need corroborating lines of evidence.

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You see what I'm saying? Anyway, he continues, he says, if you publicly state that you require two or three witnesses for a sex crime to be credible, you're telling every person in your congregation who has been or will be sexually assaulted that you'll not believe them, they should not be believed because of the

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Bible's expectations of justice. Again, this is so manipulative. If you, in other words, let me just retranslate this for people who don't speak

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Kyle Howard. What he's saying is if that you go by this biblical standard, then you, what you're saying is you don't care about sex crime.

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That's preposterous. That's absolutely preposterous. It's sneaky.

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It's manipulative because here's the thing, what he's doing is he's preying upon a very good and right concern for men because men want to protect women, at least in Western society they do.

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Men want to protect women and that's a good godly thing. That's part of our job. Our husbands are supposed to protect our wives.

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That's very good, but what he's doing is he's preying on that desire that you have, a godly desire and saying, well, if you want to do that, you have to agree with me politically because this is all politics here.

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I mean, Kyle G. Howard says this is about exegesis, but it really isn't about exegesis as we'll see in a minute.

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And if it is, I mean, he's one of the worst exegetes I've ever seen in my entire life, but actually I don't think it's about that. It's about politics for him, but this is not true.

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If you care about women, if you care about God, because here's the thing, we have to love God first and then we love our neighbor and if you care, if you love

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God and you love your neighbor, then you must do things according to God's standard and two or three witnesses to establish a matter is absolutely required.

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It's a non -negotiable thing. It's a non -starter to say that you don't need two or three lines of witness and again, doesn't necessarily need to be an eyewitness.

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We apply the general equity. It's very easy to do and we can say, well, forensics counts, things like that might count as well.

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He says this, Matthew 18, two or three witnesses required to, in order to establish a church member is refusing to repent of prior to excommunication.

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New Testament does not say two or three witnesses. Two people must have witnessed actual offense. Come on, people.

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Basic exegesis. So this is so his his his first point, I would assume this is what he feels like this is a strong point is we don't need two or three witnesses because it's actually not about an actual offense.

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It's about refusing to repent. And this is just stupid. I mean, the reality is the New Testament's applying court case law that from the

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Old Testament to the church setting as well. So this is a different application of two or three witnesses. It's not what we're talking about here.

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We're talking about criminal charges. So it's a different thing. Basic. Come on,

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Kyle. Basic exegesis. He says this in Deuteronomy 17 and Numbers 35, two or three witnesses were required for a capital offense.

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Deuteronomy 19 has this passage, which on the surface can seem to justify a universal claim of two or three witnesses.

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But historical context is necessary to fully grasp what is happening here. So he's going to try to make a distinction between capital offenses and other kinds of offenses.

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And the reality is that sexual assault is a capital offense, according to Scripture. You see,

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Kyle, it's not about exegesis for Kyle for Kyle. It's about political power. It's about whatever serves his purposes at the time, because he's not even consistent with himself.

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I mean, I'm sure that he disagrees with what happened to Emmett Till. But, you know, Emmett Till, there was one witness and it was a woman.

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Shouldn't we just have believed her? Obviously not because Emmett Till didn't do it. But you see, here's the thing.

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It didn't serve his purpose. It doesn't serve his purposes to talk about Emmett Till in that way. But it does serve his political purposes to talk about Kavanaugh in that way.

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And Kyle G. Howard is inconsistent. He's a sneaky, sneaky man. And it's not about exegesis for him.

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This is all preposterous. This is all just a subterfuge. So anyway, so yeah, so he's trying to make a distinction between capital offenses and non -capital offenses.

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You can't make that distinction, first of all. And second of all, it doesn't matter because sexual assault is a capital offense, according to Scripture.

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He says, contextually, we know from other passages that the universal two or three witnesses related to capital offense in this passage, as seen in later, multiple witnesses are required to avoid false witnesses.

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Being a false witness came with capital punishment. This text, however, is not a universal decree that all cases must have multiple witnesses.

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It's a general principle laid out to protect against false witnesses. During a time in Israel, a judge would hear all cases, including cases with no witnesses.

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Yeah, well, that's very true. But there was also times in Israel where if you were a jealous husband and you thought your wife was cheating on you, you would bring her before a priest and she would drink the cup of the adulteress and she'd go through an ordeal to define if she was guilty or not.

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You see that Israel is a very different place than the United States. That's why we don't apply the law one to one.

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We apply the general equity. There was also a time in Israel where because of the sin of Saul, that his sons were killed.

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You see what I mean? So we don't we don't apply that because the law specifically says that we don't punish the sons for the sins of the father.

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And so we need to have good biblical exegesis, right, Kyle? So we need to know the difference between prescription and a description.

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I mean, that's very basic hermeneutics, right? You see, this is the thing. You can't you can't you can't apply the law one to one to today.

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This is why we talk about the general equity, because we don't do that today. We don't have priests today. We don't have the same kind of special relationship that Israel had with them.

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It's just a different thing. So we apply the general equity. We don't apply it one to one. It's just that simple. Anyway, I feel like I'm going to scream if I see one more pastor use the two or three witnesses to dismiss claims of sexual assault.

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Folks, stop using the Bible to silence victims of sexual violence. Stop using the Bible in a way that makes predators comfortable in your churches.

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Again, Kyle J. Howard has completely changed the issue. Nobody's saying that we need two or three witnesses or otherwise we just dismiss the claim.

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No, we hear the claim. When we listen to that person, we believe that person. Most people are saying that. But if you're going to take the next step and want civil or criminal charges brought against someone, the standard goes up.

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That's not something that pastors are making up. That's in the scripture. That's in the scripture. It takes two or three witnesses to establish a matter.

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And again, it doesn't have to be an eyewitness. Today in our modern world, we've got forensics and we can do things that can we can understand if a thing happened or not, that that's just the reality.

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And so for him to say that pastors are just making this up out of thin air, it's not biblical. Kyle doesn't understand what the

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Bible says. He's pretending to be a teacher of the law, but he doesn't understand what he's talking about. Now, the question that I think that we all have to ask is, is he just, you know, foolish and doesn't understand these things and he's just pretending to understand it?

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Or is he a schemer? I think personally that he just doesn't understand what he's doing because he's not thinking ahead about what kind of a world this would create if his standard of evidence were accepted instead of God's.

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Let's finish this up. He says, side note, if you think we're still under Mosaic law, I'd also encourage you to work on your covenant theology.

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The Mosaic law was for Israel. We gathered principles, but we are not under the Old Testament law. We're under the New Testament law, the law of Christ.

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So this just disregards his entire argument up here because he's saying that we're not under the Old Testament law. And the reality is that this is why we apply the general equity of the law instead of the law one -to -one.

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We apply the general principles of the law. Kyle J. Howard likes to say he's reformed. Well, if he's reformed, which I don't believe that he actually is, then he would affirm the

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London Baptist Confession or the Westminster Confession. I think he's a Baptist, so it would probably be the London Baptist Confession.

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Both confessions talk about the general equity of the law. And so the reality is that we're not under the law, but obviously the law is still the definition of justice.

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I mean, Kyle's talking about justice all day long. Where does he understand justice? The New Testament? Oh, that's great.

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Well, guess what Christ quoted to talk about justice? He quoted Deuteronomy. He quoted the

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Old Testament. So if you're getting your justice idea from Christ, then you're getting it from the Old Testament. And so I don't even know what that last part is supposed to mean, except that we all agree we're not under the law.

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Everyone agrees with that, and this is why we don't apply the law one -to -one. This is why we apply the law, the general equity of the law.

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That's what Christ did as well, by the way. And so this is the reality. So here's what

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Kyle is suggesting that you do. He's saying, you know what? The Old Testament law, it doesn't apply to us. So we don't have the same standard of justice that they used to have.

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So here's what we got to do. We got to listen to what my standard of justice is. This is arrogant. Kyle G.

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Howard is one of the most arrogant people, one of the most manipulative people I've ever seen in my life. And what he's telling you is to say, don't worry about what the

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Bible says about witnesses in criminal cases. Worry about what I say. And what I say is whatever's politically expedient for me at the time.

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That's disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. And it's just very transparent. Most people that aren't complete zealots can understand that it's very transparent.

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He's just, I mean, look, look. Here's the reality. If we accepted Kyle's little thing here and said, well, you know, accusation is credible just because it's made.

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And, you know, listen to her story. If she's emotional, if she's convincing, then you act on that.

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And you act on that. You don't let somebody have a job because someone's made an accusation. Or you may,

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I don't know, lock them up in jail. I mean, I think he makes a distinction between criminal proceedings and this kind of a proceeding.

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And there is a distinction there, but actually the principle is the same. I mean, even in this thread, he talks about how the principles applied in a church setting, right?

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This is not a criminal case in the church in Matthew 18. So the principle of two or three witnesses is the same, whether you're in a criminal hearing, a civil hearing, a church hearing, family hearing, whatever it is.

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The two or three witnesses principle applies. God applies it that way. And so we need to apply it that way.

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Look, if you follow Christ, you have to do the things that Christ did. And Christ accomplished the law perfectly. Now, Christ was the ultimate trustworthy person.

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Like nobody has been more trustworthy. Nobody has been more convincing. Nobody has been better deserving of our belief than Christ.

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Even Christ held himself to this standard. If you look at the verse, I'm going to post it at the end of this video.

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Christ says that if I testify about myself, my testimony is not valid. It's not true.

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But there's another that testifies about me. See, here's the thing. The Trinity itself requires this evidence of two or three witnesses.

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See, here's the thing. Christ didn't hold, Christ didn't skirt this law at all. He held himself to this standard.

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He was not under criminal persecution. But he said, look, what I'm saying about myself, if I'm the only one saying it, then you shouldn't believe it.

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It's not valid. But there's others who say it. He's talking about the Godhead who testify about him.

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So here's the thing. So if you follow Christ and you're following the law of Christ, well, you better hold yourself to the same standard that Christ held himself to, the law of God.

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But Kyle's saying that just that the accusation is made, that it's automatically credible. Honestly, can you think one step ahead?

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What do you think is going to happen to black people, to minorities, if one witness is all that's required and an accusation is all that's required?

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This is not going to go well for minorities. It's not going to go well for minorities if we accept this standard.

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So here's the reality. The question is, is Kyle J. Howard a schemer or is he just not thinking straight?

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I think he's not thinking straight. Now, I know a lot of people think that he's a schemer. And it's possible because there's so much ignorance in this thread.

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It's hard to understand how someone could be so ignorant about the scripture and about how arrogant it is for him to say, you know what?

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I know God's law says this, but I say this. Kyle J. Howard is absolutely pretending to be a teacher of the law, just doesn't understand what he's talking about.

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It's just that simple. He doesn't understand what he's talking about. He's saying two or three witnesses is not the biblical standard.

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I say it is, and I can point to the scripture to prove it. Kyle J. Howard can point to nothing to prove it except his opinion and accept what's politically expedient for him at the time.

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I think that's extremely dangerous. I think the Bible says people like Kyle, at the very most, will be leased in the kingdom of heaven because they're telling people not to obey the scripture and to do what they're doing, but this is not a

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Christian worldview. This is not a good sign for a guy like Kyle J. Howard. I know he talks about love, but he's not treating people with love because when you reject two or three witnesses as the scripture commands, you're not loving people.

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No matter how flowery your language is, no matter how many hearts you use in your tweets, no matter how much you say,

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I love you, beloved, no matter how often you say that, if you're saying we don't follow the scripture, you're not loving

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God and you're not loving your neighbor. It's just that simple. I mean, this is one of the ten commandments. Do not bear false witness.

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Two or three witnesses is an application of that commandment. Kyle's saying don't follow that commandment.

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Don't worry about bearing false witness. That's what Kyle J. Howard is saying. So he's not loving neighbor. It's just that simple.