News Roundup: Hurricane Helene Response, Theobros, & Lawson Situation

Kids and family and animals are trapped. No way out, no supplies, and the only way in or out is accessible by helicopter.

Lake Lure, fire chief or assistant chief maybe, and he shut down the whole operation. No flight restriction when

I went in. It went in place 20 or 30 minutes after the confrontation. You know,

I'm so proud of my son because in his last moments, he wasn't screaming for me. He was screaming,

Jesus, Jesus, save me. Jesus, I hear you. Jesus, I'm calling upon you.

And his wildest dreams and everything that he wanted to be was a superhero, and that was his goal in life.

And instead, he's my hero because he reached for something past flesh, past human, past anything that even grown adults,

I think, would reach for. My son called out to the one God Almighty. Our house is back home destroyed and filling up with water.

The floors are caving in. Hundreds of people, that's happening to everybody around the city. You're telling us to go online to FEMA and apply, and you'll get immediate help for $750.

Well, OK, I went on FEMA. I applied, and I immediately got denied because apparently I have homeowner's insurance, and that's going to cover that.

And OK, sure, I know it will. It'll get taken care of. Thank God we're all safe and alive. I know it's just things.

It's a house, but it's not immediate. And I don't know, what is she talking about? I have no idea. Nobody I know has had immediate assistance.

Nobody's $750 what, to our cash app? What are you going to get? How are we going to do this? How are we going to get this?

So then if we get the $750, that'll barely cover the groceries that we've all lost and our freezers and refrigerators and everything.

Also, there's thousands of pine trees just like this one and oak trees and all these trees all over the entire city.

Power lines are everywhere. They're ripped apart. Poles are down. Transformers are down. It's going to take weeks to get this repaired in some places.

Mission Hospital was told, a private hospital, that they are going to go ahead and be the morgue center for body recovery.

All of the Army Chinook helicopters you're seeing flying overhead, they are doing body recovery.

FEMA said, and you can take this as a direct quote, said that they are too tied up at the border to send any more representatives.

Yeah, at the border. So anyhow, I guess border control trumps whatever's going on here.

So they told Mission Hospital they are not sending refrigerated trucks so that they can stack the bodies up.

And we also overheard that whatever fatality numbers you are hearing, and this is a quote, go ahead and add a couple of zeros.

So FEMA is too busy with the border. A private hospital and the Army are going to take over body recovery.

And private individuals with their private helicopters and their private planes are the ones who are flying in supplies.

I was at Hangar 10. I was picking up supplies. There was a stack for the Cajun Navy. There was a stack that looked like it was

ASPCA. These are all being sent by private individuals. FEMA is doing nothing.

We're in the States in the storm zone. What do they need after what you saw today? Oh, in the storm zone?

Yes, sir. I don't know what storm they're talking about. They're getting everything they need.

They're very happy across the board. We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have.

We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.

This all comes as the Biden -Harris administration spent over a billion dollars from a FEMA program on services for Mike.

I've been going all over South Carolina like most people. I haven't slept much. But look what's going on in Israel.

Our friends in Israel are surrounded by people that want to kill them. We have to help our friends to keep the war over there from coming here.

And on that sober note, we start the Conversations That Matter podcast this morning. I hope you're all doing well.

If you live in Western North Carolina, Eastern Tennessee, parts of Georgia, and even

South Carolina, you may not be doing so well this morning as your life is turned upside down.

The health doesn't seem to be coming. I could have included a lot more in that montage that I made this morning because I've been watching and reading a lot about this.

But I will let you know about one thing that I didn't put in there. This is a headline on the

New York Post. Governor Brian Kemp slams Biden administration for not doing enough on the

Hurricane Helene disaster. How do people say it?

I've heard it said, I think, different ways. But he says that essentially 11 counties initially were marked as disaster, emergency declarations for disaster status.

And a lot of people were outraged, he said, including me, because there was devastation in up to 90 counties.

And so this was just such a minimization. It was insulting. This is the kind of thing that we're seeing all over the place.

There was a really helpful thread that I saw online that I wanted to read for you.

This is not about the current hurricane, but this is actually about Irma.

And by a guy named Ryan Tyer, I'll pull it up on the screen so everyone can see what I'm looking at.

And this is what he says. And I don't know if I have time to read the whole thing. Let me summarize it for you, though.

Here's a picture of, I guess, Ryan and his team in the Keys and some of the supplies that they brought to,

I think it was Key West. He says, though, that during that ordeal, when was that hurricane?

When was that hurricane? Irma? It was a few years ago, I think, right?

I'm going to look that up real quick, just so I know exactly what

I'm talking about on this. 2017. Wow, you know, time flies so fast.

I thought that was a few years ago. It was more than a few. So I guess I'm just getting older. But Ryan Tyer talks about that.

And he says that if anyone's ever been out to the Florida Keys, you know that there's a series of bridges before you get to Key West that you have to cross over on each key.

In fact, I did it as a little kid while there was a storm. It was kind of scary. And there's only one way in, one way out.

There aren't multiple ways unless you have a boat to get at these areas. And there was devastation.

And radio, everything was down except they could, I guess, receive some AM radio signals.

So that's their communication with the outside world. It was only one way. They couldn't actually get a message out.

There was no cell phone service. This is before I think people had Starlink and that kind of thing.

They were trapped. No Internet, obviously. And Ryan talks about how he had a convoy of he had supplies to bring.

And FEMA would not let him in. They would not let him in to help the people who were there.

And they weren't doing anything themselves in this particular situation. And the people on the keys thought they had been forgotten about.

No one was paying attention to them. News, if they listen to their AM radio, the news is talking about other things, not talking about them.

And they just thought they were forgotten about. FEMA had set up in a local building some kind of an emergency response center, but they weren't actually doing anything.

And so Ryan basically says, look, this is what happened. We ended up we got on boats.

We went around the blockade and we got supplies in there. But the problem, at least what he thinks is going on, the problem, he says, is that the federal government has contracts with various organizations, companies that supply them with resources for these events and they're approved.

And if you come in with food and resources that are not approved, that are not part of these contracts, someone's losing money.

These companies that have made deals with the federal government are losing money. And that's the reason that he's not allowed to he was not allowed to bring these supplies in.

And so he learned that lesson back then. And he says it's been this way. He doesn't even know for how long, but he said that's the way it is.

It's this way. Even now, many people are complaining online that they have supplies.

They're trying to get past checkpoints. Fortunately, in Appalachia, there's many areas that you can get around, at least if you have,

I guess, a four wheeler or a mule. Some guy was taking a pack of mules up with supplies.

There's many areas that you can get around some of these, I guess, checkpoints. I don't know what you want to call them, but but there's people complaining online that they have resources and they just want to get them to people, whether it's by helicopter, whether it's by car.

You know, they were trying to off road and they're being stopped. And even reports out there that and I don't know enough to confirm, but they're saying that they're dropping off supplies at.

Centers for collecting resources and they're being confiscated by the federal government. And of course, people wonder, why would that be?

Well, this would be a potential explanation for it. If the federal government has contracts with various companies, someone's losing money.

If your resources you've donated are going there and not their resources. Now, I don't know to what extent this is all, you know, because private citizens, according to that one video

I just played you are, it seems like, able to get some resources in there. So I don't know exactly how all these rules work in detail.

But and I don't even know if the federal employees know, to be quite honest with you, it seems very complicated. It seems like a mess is what it seems like.

But this is a tragedy of biblical proportions. This is these places have been wiped off the map, essentially.

And they're not getting the resources that are illegal. Migrants are getting I've been all over the country this past year and everywhere

I go, I hear the same thing, even in heartland areas that migrants are coming here in large numbers.

They're brought here by the Biden administration and they are given all kinds of resources, credit cards that are filled up every month with, you know, something like twenty seven hundred dollars, depending on the area they're in.

It might be adjusted, but somewhere around two or three thousand dollars housing taken care of. And these people are given the opportunity potentially to have seven hundred and fifty dollars if they qualify.

And how many of them actually qualify? It's insane. They've we've spent billions of dollars on Ukraine, on Israel.

There are National Guardsmen in North Carolina who can't even go help their own families because they're being staged to go to Israel.

We've given so much money to migrants who are coming here. And in our own people in the

United States, our own citizens are left high and dry. This is this should

I mean, if the election is even close, that's insane. To be quite honest, that's insane to have a close election.

I just can't my mind almost can't comprehend it now. I can when I start thinking through corruption, indoctrination at public schools and all the other things that might contribute to this state of affairs, the media blackout on some of this stuff.

But this is absolutely reprehensible. And the government, it's like you had one job, right?

You had one job. And, you know, I know I saw some debates online. I even mentioned this on the American Churchman podcast that, you know,

FEMA shouldn't really have this role. The federal government shouldn't really have this role. Well, that's a nice thing to say at this stage when we're in a position downstream from a time when the federal government has taken these things on.

That not is that not only is that just assumed we pay them. They take our money for this kind of disaster relief and they spend it on migrants, illegal migrants.

That's what we find out. They're spending this stuff on the money that they take from us. I understand the sentiment.

I understand the libertarian sentiment or the small government sentiment. I have the same one. I think if I if I could roll back the clock and say, let's get back to a time when

FEMA didn't take care of these things, state governments had more resources for these things. But state governments are in the habit of not having to plan for these kinds of things because FEMA is supposed to take care of it.

And it's and they're not they're not doing their basic job. And so that's the state of affairs we're in.

You could talk constitutionalism all day long. We're downstream from some of those battles and we're in a position where it's assumed and taken for granted that the government takes our money to take care of these things.

And they're clearly showing a favoritism for the aliens and and the people in foreign countries don't even live here than they are for their own citizens.

It is it's insane. It's insane. I don't know what else to say. But, you know, spread the word.

I made that montage. I made two montages this week of the disaster and the lack of response.

And I did that so you can share those things around. Maybe share it on your personal Facebook page. Share it with your friend who's voting for Kamala Harris and doesn't know about this.

They need to know that this kind of thing is going on. So, yeah, it's insane.

And I see the people coming in. Hurricane victims get seven hundred fifty dollars and FEMA workers get five hundred dollars a day.

Wow. Wow. According to Tim Miller. Drew Smith, when nations come under judgment of God and the

Bible, foreigners invade women come to leadership, natural disasters. Why are we surprised? Kiana Shaw says,

I joined a meeting, so got to go. But if you qualify, are you kidding me? Yes, I thought, too. I thought they all just got seven hundred fifty dollars.

I didn't realize there's this qualification process that will probably root out many of the people applying.

It's traitorous, Jonathan Benton said. It seems that way. It really does.

The Dems don't want to help because they don't want them to be able to vote. It's rather simple, yet hard to believe because it's so evil and corrupt.

That's what my dad said is the first thing my dad said when I was talking to him about this. He goes, those areas of Western North Carolina, the swing state of Georgia, they're not going to be able to vote.

The Democrats now have those states because they're swing states. And I said, I think it'll backfire. I think we'll do the opposite. Like the lack of response people will see and they'll vote for Trump.

I don't know anymore. I don't know anymore. I wonder. And the more they drag their feet, the less availability there is to vote.

And we don't even know the death toll. I mean, it's it's got to be in the thousands at this point. And the reports are just I don't even know if there's an official report that's not being released because what is

FEMA at? Like yesterday, I think it was like it's climbs over 200 or something. And I'm just thinking like I'm getting so many different numbers on this.

But people who are making videos that say they're on the ground are saying, no, it's it's much more.

And in some areas, people are traumatized. These are emergency workers are traumatized by what they're seeing. Bodies and trees, babies who are dead.

It is it is absolutely insane. All right.

Well, what about land grabs? I've seen a lot of talk about that. I don't know. I don't know what's going on there.

There's certainly a lot of people with opinions about that, that there's some mineral resources in western North Carolina and the government is going to use this to take some of those areas.

So could be I wouldn't put it past them at this point. I don't think they like you at all in the government.

And I think they're willing to line their own pockets and do whatever they need to do to keep their own power. And you are not even a second thought.

You are hardly a thought. All right. Now that we've talked about that, let me bring it to a constructive conclusion here.

If you want to give resources, this is my recommendation. I actually gave some money earlier this week to someone who is just a guy, just a guy who's got an off road vehicle, who knows where to go and is buying food and keeps making runs up there.

I found him on Twitter. I know personally some other guys. I know my brother said this weekend he's going to go up there and try to help in any way he can.

Those are the guys I would recommend you giving money to. I'm looking for personal connections with churches.

I'm sure there are some I don't know of any offhand yet. I know striving for eternity ministry says if you give to their disaster relief effort, 100 percent goes to the victims here.

I think Samaritan's Purse of all the large organizations would be the one that I probably trust the most.

So if you don't know of anyone in your personal life that you can give to, that's who I would recommend giving money to, because I don't think the government's going to do much.

At least they're not going to do what we would expect in a timely manner. And people need food and they need water and they need it now.

Please find out where you can give some money and resources from those going up there.

Thank God in some ways, I will say this, thank God it's Appalachia. I think of what happened in New Orleans.

What a mess. Part of the mess was also because of New Orleans. I have family down there in Mississippi and I know people in Texas who had the people from New Orleans come to their area.

And there's all kinds of problems. I'm not going to go into detail about all of it. Thank God, though, at least in Appalachia, there is more of a spirit of self -sufficiency and helping one another out.

This is why it's so tragic when the government says you can't help, because these are the kind of people that's what they do.

So hopefully there's enough red blooded Americans down there who are going to go up into the mountains and help those who can't help themselves.

I'm thinking of elderly people, thinking of people with children that they just can't sustain themselves.

I can't even imagine if my family was in this situation. Dr. Bob says he's from New Orleans. I believe

New Orleans is still a disaster. Yeah. So I've been told I haven't gone down there. I think I drove past there before the hurricane and I have not gone down there since.

Anyway, let us let us switch gears a little bit here. I know there's some other things I need to talk about on the podcast today.

One of the things I should probably make this announcement, just so people know, I am going to be

September 27th through 29th at the Fundamentals. Sorry, we just had that. My bad. October 11th through 12th.

The Future of Christendom Conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They have me doing like an 18 minute talk and then

I'm on a panel on Saturday. So that would be the 12th at the Future of Christendom Conference.

Links are at JohnHarrisPodcast .com if you want to sign up. October 18th through 19th, the

Jesus and Politics Conference in Syracuse, Indiana. Always a good time. I've been there many times and looking forward to it.

And then, of course, the Strong Pillars Conference, Jeffersonville, Indiana, November 2nd through 3rd. That's right outside of Louisville.

So I would love to see you there. I'm going to be speaking a lot there. I'm going to be doing three sessions and encouraging things.

We're going to talk a lot about how you as a person, as an individual and as a member of a family, can hedge against some of the threats that are out there right now.

And then there's some more dates as well. So check that out on the website. And I should probably remind people, if you want to support, there is a support tab on WorldViewConversation .com

or you can go to JohnHarrisPodcast .com and there's ways to donate if you care to donate and help me raise my little daughter,

Anna, which is that's where the money goes these days. I appreciate it.

And, you know, it's I've just seen God provide in amazing ways through this. So I appreciate it.

More comments. Michelle says, I live in central North Carolina and this is horrifying. Private citizens were on the ground helping way before any agencies.

How can we coordinate airdrops from private planes before agencies are even in route? I know. I know. And I saw one report.

I think it was from Georgia. There's like an air base or something with all these helicopters just sitting there. And it's just like, what is going on?

John, Woke Forest. Woke Forest is having its inaugural Pride Parade Saturday.

Of course, Southeastern did not even make a statement. But a group of us are going out to preach there. Pray for us. Sure. And you know what,

Drew, that's interesting, because I remember Wake Forest, the town of Wake Forest, canceled their

Christmas parade a few years ago because the Sons of Confederate Veterans who had marched in it for years were going to continue to march in it.

That must have been 2020 or so. And they said, well, we're just going to cancel the whole Christmas parade. So can't have a

Christmas parade, I guess. But, oh, the Pride Parade. That's interesting. Yeah. There's a reason people call it

Woke Forest. And I'm not surprised Southeastern wouldn't be. They probably said nothing about either one, to be honest with you.

All right. Let's let's switch gears a little bit here and talk about some other issues that I said

I was going to talk about on the podcast. First one, I'm going to play for you this video from Mother Jones, of all places.

And they're very concerned about the Theo Bros. And yours truly makes a brief appearance. Not my face, no.

But an article I helped co -write makes a brief appearance. I guess someone told me if you go frame by frame.

So I'm not the most prominent one in this video as a target for the scary right wing

Theo Bros. But this is this is what the left some quarters is what they're concerned about.

A lot of people making fun of this. They get hysterical. It is funny. But I'm gonna explain to you why I think they're doing this. Nationalist influencers.

Let me introduce you to the Theo Bros. We can't force people to to have faith in Christ, but we can as a people.

I got it. Let's go back to this guy. Just how he's dressed.

I don't know. And his, you know, the lisp and everything else. Let me introduce you to the

Theo. I mean, it's it's everything from the glasses to just everything about the guy.

It's he would have been in Matt Walsh's. Right. Am I a racist? You know, as the he could have played

Matt Walsh's character. Right. That's that I think that's part of the reason people are making fun of this. It is the NPR.

I'm sophisticated, but I'm also just super cringe.

The way I come across kind of ethos. And there's so I don't I probably should stay away from making fun of someone's appearance too much.

There's so many other things I want to say. But anyway, let me start it again and I'll try to have self -control.

We'll play it through. Yes, there are Christian nationalist influencers. Let me introduce you to the

Theo Bros. We can't force people to to have faith in Christ. But we can't as a people order that.

I'd rather have a Christian monarchy than our current state of affairs. We could argue that now is the time to arms again.

So the Theo Bros are a group of mostly millennial Christian pastors and influencers.

Many of them, most of them even will tell you that they are that they are Christian nationalists. We are indeed

Christian nationalists. They're purposely extreme and extremely online. So they're obviously connected to J .D.

Vance. There's this group called the I can't have self -control. Can someone explain to me what accent that is?

They're obviously like, what is that? What is that? They're online. What accent?

What region does that come from? I'd like to know. I don't think it does come from a region.

I don't know. I don't know. Anyway. All right. Let's keep going. A Rockbridge network of J .D.

Vance is was a founder. Peter Thiel is involved. And also this guy,

Chris Buskirk. And then, of course, Chris Buskirk, a great friend of mine who was involved in American Reformer, which is kind of the unofficial magazine of the

Theo Bros. OK, let me stop there for a second. You see the connections they're trying to make.

They look we got to attach this to J .D. Vance. We've got to prove that this is such a present threat.

And J .D. Vance is being influenced by these fringe dark characters. So this is the connection they make.

We're going to take one guy who has edited and published for American Reformer, who happens to run in some of these higher circles and then use him as the he's he's the link.

He's the link to all these other guys that publish at American Reformer, including myself. I've had a few pieces at American Reformer.

I think it's important to say that not all of them hold every belief. That being said, I think some common beliefs that I have encountered are that we should be repealing the 19th

Amendment. They'll talk about the dead constitution and how the Ten Commandments should take its place. I want a

Christian. What? What? The dead constitution and the

Ten Commandments should take its place. I know some of these guys. I follow their work. I've not heard that once.

And I don't think they have a source for that. A nation more than the 19th Amendment thing, too, by the way.

That's that's like Joel Webbins thing that he bangs a lot, hammers a lot. I don't I don't see that broadly.

I see there's other guys who will agree with him, but I wouldn't even say that. I don't even know. Like if if this is about American Reformer and people who publish

American Reformer, is there even an article on American Reformer saying that? I don't think so. A republic.

I think all Ten Commandments should be legislated and enforced. Some of them talk about prison reform and by prison reform, they mean public flogging instead of prison.

Some of them talk about X. But they mean so one guy, one guy in an anon account says this.

I just I'm not I'm just trying to say like their links are so in any academic setting.

This would be insulting. This would be. Well, it should used to be. This would be like you don't get a pat on the head for good work or at least you shouldn't.

This would be like, OK, like you're the guy with all the strings in the back room trying to make all these connections.

You found a tweet and now you're going to impose this tweet, make a hasty generalization. So it obviously not an honest piece at all.

And unfortunately for them, it's hysterical. And anyone who reads American Reformer knows this is hysterical.

Executing heretics involved in that is also execution of gay people. But it's not just online.

I can't even mimic it. It's not just online. Some people are weighing in.

They're saying it's the it's the gay region. It's the gay X. I don't know what it is.

It may. I don't know. Where did this guy come from? They're doing conferences, writing books, doing events.

One of the things that's been interesting lately is that some of their events have started to overlap with some events of more kind of mainstream politicians.

And I think probably the most prominent example was the

National Conservatism Conference where you had Doug Wilson speaking at this conference.

And of course, coming to the high treachery you were all no doubt anticipating, I would address, make all our teens woke by means of chemtrails.

And you had J .D. Vance speaking there. Wait, wait, wait, wait. That's the clip they take. He's joking about chemtrails.

They think they think it's serious. I think. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my goodness.

All right. America is a nation. It is a group of people with a common history and a common future.

Now, if Theo Bros are kind of the millennial posters of the Christian nationalist movement,

Doug Wilson is sort of like the boomer who passed the torch. He has sort of built his own little

Christian fiefdom in Moscow, Idaho. He he has this church. He has, you know, helped to start a school like a

K through 12 school there. He has a college there, New St. Andrews College, that he's he's helped to found as well.

Now, it's this community in Idaho that he's built, that Theo. It's Idaho, Idaho, not

Idaho. Theo Bros see as sort of a blueprint for what a

Christian America could and should look like. Creating a legal framework in which people could create intentional communities where they could build something new would be a good idea to allow people to experiment.

Just like Doug Wilson, so, too, do many of the other Theo Bros want to do this in various places in the

United States. Oh, my goodness. They want to do conferences and publish materials and preach sermons in other places in America.

Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Also built this other type of blueprint for Christian nationalist influencing.

He was telling me about how he has his kids helping him produce these very slick videos. The left is the cancer and Trump is the chemo.

He's taking some of these ideas. He is really making them for a broader audience and for a younger audience.

Now, at this point, you might ask, where are all the women? If you asked some of these guys where the women were, they would say they're they're at home, like taking care of the kids.

Godly women want to feed their men. Godly women are designed to make the sandwiches. When women were granted the right to vote, we were so muddled.

We thought we were giving the franchise to women when we were, in fact, taking it away from families. And just for the record, you know, yeah,

I think the 19th Amendment should be repealed. I think that because, well, first and foremost, because I'm a Christian. If we had a

Christian nation and women could vote, then within 50 years we would no longer have a Christian nation. They don't think that women should be in leadership roles.

They don't think that women should be out there voicing their opinions. As we are. So this is the main issue they're going to camp on.

This is the really scary thing is they're patriarchal. That's pretty much the that's that's the threat.

You know, Vance holds very particular views on gender. If you bought into an idea. Well, how do we jump to Vance?

How did we just jump to Vance? Vance is Catholic.

His wife is Hindu. From what I've read, he is a recent convert, I think, to Catholicism.

He I'm sure he is not. He's not reading any of these guys. I'm telling you right now, he's not reading.

I'm not I'm not going to say he never saw an article by any of these guys. I'd actually be surprised if he did, to be quite honest. I don't think he's reading

American Reformer. He probably doesn't even know who Doug Wilson is. But he this is the force behind J .D.

Vance. It's liberating to leave an eight week old baby to go work 90 hours a week at Goldman Sachs.

You've been had. You have women who think that truly the liberationist path is to spend 90 hours a week working in a cubicle at McKinsey instead of starting a family and having children.

To me, what it is is is sort of a value system to replace the fact that they're all fundamentally atheist or agnostic.

The people who are most deranged and most psychotic are people who don't have kids. It's clear that they see J .D.

Vance. They would make a better case with their video if they tried to draw a connection between Josh Abattoy and J .D.

Vance and said they're the same person. That would be a more direct line and start a conspiracy.

They look similar. Maybe they're this. Have you seen them in the same room? They can't even get a picture of them together.

So they must be the same person that would probably be more scholarly. So someone who will help further their vision of a country that puts

Christianity above all else. I think these guys saw one of their collaborators in the

White House. It would be proof to them that all of the effort.

One of their collaborators, J .D. Vance is one of their collaborators now. That they have made all of the time and money that has been invested, that it was all paying off.

There's so much more to this story, including connections to Project 2025. More about the web of J .D.

Vance and Theo Bros that I can't even dream of touching on in a video like this. So go read

Keira Butler's full piece at motherjones .com. We left all the actual connections for the piece because the video, we just don't.

We can't show you the connections. We have to show you these very, very thin, very dubious, really pathetic attempts at connecting.

So it's funny. People are making fun of it. I'm probably not even the best at making fun of it. Some people are really making fun of it online.

I just think it's hysterical. But I think there's something serious going on here.

There's a reason Mother Jones did this. And someone asked, they're just a very left -wing political outlet.

But this is what I said on X about this. I said, this might seem amusing to some, but it actually serves two strategic purposes for those on the left.

Validation of media roles is first. It provides a platform for lesser -known reporters, giving them a sense of purpose.

They position themselves as uncovering crucial insights that the leftist audience would otherwise miss. So it gives them a job, right?

There's a lot of leftist reporters out there and journalists, so forth. You got to make sure that you carve out a niche.

You got to justify your existence, right? This helps them do that. And it's, of course, it's kind of ridiculous.

It's hysterical. But it helps them showing like, hey, no one else saw this. I saw it.

I'm digging into it. And then the other thing is the amplification of allegedly fringe elements. This is the real reason.

By spotlighting individuals who are not widely recognized in mainstream media, the left can depict these figures as more significant than they are.

This tragic tactic not only boosts the visibility of these individuals, but also frames the right as holding more extreme views, thereby influencing public perception.

So that's, I think, what's going on here. They're taking figures that are scary to the left, especially, but scary to moderates.

They think they are, at least. And showing the quotes that are the most out of step with the mainstream liberal of today, and then trying to connect that to, and that's

J .D. Vance. That's the Republican Party. That's the mainstream. Be scared, because if J .D.

Vance gets elected, it's basically Joel Webben getting elected, right? That's what they're trying to do. So the right doesn't do this as much.

The right, I mean, I'm not saying the right doesn't. I've definitely seen stretches out there where guys will try to connect someone to a

Marxist. But usually you don't actually have to stretch it. Usually, hey, you could just say they went through the public school system and the college system, and that's enough.

Like, they definitely rubbed shoulders with Marxists if they went there. But, yeah, we can stretch things.

Everyone can stretch things. But this is the left's bread and butter. This is what they do. It's all connections to evil.

And then they spoil the whole lot. And it's like the F scale, right? They just use the F scale on everything.

It's like, oh, you love your parents. You submit to your parents. You honor them. You must be a little fascist. And that's connected to Germany.

And pretty soon you're holocausting a whole population. And it's because you respect your parents. Like, they make these crazy connections.

And that's just what they're doing here. It's what characterizes them. Okay. So I figured

I'd address this since people were talking about it online. And then last but not least, if anyone has questions about that,

I should probably say let's get those in because I have one more thing to talk about today. This was hysterical for sure,

Terry Strange says. Ryan says there's a lot of online content with Doug and Joel discussing the 19th

Amendment and the damaging statistics it has done to women in our country since then. Yeah. I mean, that's possible.

I even talked about the 19th Amendment briefly in a sermon not long ago. I just don't think it characterizes the movement.

They're trying to come up with, like, the fundamental things that characterize the movement. And by the movement, it's just people who publish at American Reformer, basically.

I don't even know. Has Joel even published with American Reformer, though? I mean, this is somewhat elastic. So it's the guys who are

Christians who are right wing, who are younger. I guess that's the rubric. And I wouldn't say that characterizes them.

If you ask most of those guys, most of those influencers, would they say that the 19th

Amendment was a mistake? Maybe. That's possible. But it doesn't color.

It's not like the thing that they're so hyped up about, maybe with the exception of Joel. Joel talks about that quite a bit from what

I understand. So I'm just saying, like, you're trying to come up with something that characterizes the whole movement and bind it together with some glue that attaches everyone to each other on a common vision.

That's really not it. But anyway, at least not at this point.

Not right now. All right. Let's see. I'm curious what this comment says.

Ruth says, Kathy Hart. King Ahab wanted a vineyard in Jezreel. Naboth said land had been in his family and wouldn't sell.

Jezebel got two liars to testify against Naboth. Killed Naboth. Ahab got the vineyard. This must be a conversation

I'm dropping in the middle of. I'm not sure what it relates to. And I can't figure it out.

I'm sure there's a conversation going on in the live chat for sure. So if you want to be part of it, go to the live chat on Facebook, on X, or on YouTube.

Okay. Let's move on. Let's talk about this situation with Steve Lawson a little bit.

Pray for me. Pray for me with all of this. But pray for me that I handle this rightly.

Because I've been in a little bit of consternation over it.

I think I mentioned on the last podcast, even Friday night, I received some news. And it really bothered me. Anyway, I worked through it and everything.

But it was related to this. And I just need wisdom.

And I want the words that I say to be edifying. And there is a lot of very strong opinions.

I'll put it that way out there. And a lot of people who seem to think they have a lot to lose with their institutions or churches.

On this matter. And I pointed out, and I've said this already.

That I think the longer it goes with the perception of hiding details and covering up.

Not that you have to give the lurid specific details. But not really naming the sin.

All that kind of thing. I think the worse it gets. And you see this on many of my videos. I've gotten private emails and comments on public videos.

From people who are members of Trinity Bible Church. Which Steve Lawson, I guess, used to go. Because what

I'm being told is he hasn't. His family, or at least his wife and him, have not been there since.

So, does he go there? I'm going to leave that out there.

I don't know. But the thing is, people who contact me. And who leave comments and stuff. Don't seem to know either.

And they're coming to me to try to get details on. It's just crazy. That shouldn't be. That shouldn't be.

Why are they reaching out to an internet guy when they're at the church? It's kind of a nutty situation in some ways.

Is that the right word? Crazy? Nutty? It's odd. I'll put it that way. Let's go with odd. It's an odd situation.

We'll put it that way. This was what was said from the pulpit at Trinity Bible Church last

Sunday. It's a waiting with eager expectation to find out. Lord, I don't know what you're doing.

And what you're up to. But I know you're doing something. And I'm going to do all I need to do right now.

But I'm going to wait. Because I'm going to let you guide me through these difficulties. So why does

David need patience? David's just like us.

He has a natural inclination to want to have answers quick.

I don't want to wait. You have to imagine, David was dying for the

Lord to answer his questions. How did this happen, Lord? How long is it going to be before it's over?

When are you going to clear this up for me? I need it now. And if you just tell me now, I'd feel so much better and I could just go on.

Let me stop and say this. This struck a chord with me, given the experience over the last two weeks.

There's no one in here that has more questions than me. And I'd love to have all those answered.

Just a few. The Lord doesn't want to answer them right now. And I gained valuable insight from David.

He's exercising patience. Especially when these troubles escalate. Because he came to understand better than most of us.

It's going to be at God's timing before he gets the answers. And that's instructive.

That we need to surrender our plans and our times to God's plan and trust

Him in His timing. David keeps telling us over and over again,

I'll wait. I'll wait.

So why? Why does God place so much of our Christian life in standby mode? Okay. According to Grace2U's website, this is all public.

Let's see if I can pull it up. So Kent Stainback, that's who you just heard,

Elder at Trinity Bible Church. He is also, I guess, a board member with Grace2U. I'm not sure if he has other positions in other parachurches.

But he was giving the message. That's what he said, according to Protestia. And then there was also an article that was dropped.

Let me see if I can pull that up for you. And we'll go over that. I'll talk about the video, but also talk about the article.

It's called All the King's Men. And this is by Clint Archer. Clint Archer.

And Clint Archer, let's see. So he, I don't think he's at Trinity at all.

I don't see his name on their leadership list on the website.

But anyway, we'll read through it. So what does it say about Clint Archer? Clint, I guess he was in, now serves as pastor of Christ Fellowship in Mobile, Alabama.

So this, I don't know if this is super, super relevant since this isn't coming from the church.

But this is, I think Cripplegate is a blog that is a bunch of, it's really

TMS guys, right? Master Seminary guys started. And so they weighed in on this. And I saw a few people sharing this on social media.

So I figure I'll talk about it as well. Here is, let's see, here's the article for you.

So you can read along or you can at least see it if you want to read along while I go over it. All the

King's Men in Mobile, Alabama. Steve Lawson is a legend. When he was ousted from a large church in 2003 for Calvinism, 400 people left with him.

That group met in a warehouse and called Lawson their pastor. Christ Fellowship Baptist Church was born.

16 years later, I found myself in the front pew of that church, listening to him preach at his installation service.

And many of our members, he says, were saved or introduced to the doctrines of grace by Steve Lawson. So he was instrumental by God is really the point he's making.

Says it's been a week now. I've sat quiet and listened to Job's companions theorizing on YouTube and Facebook.

So this is where I think people like me would be probably included in this. You know, we're like Job's companions.

Now, I can tell you 100 % that it's been the opposite with the people who are actually directly affected by this, who have reached out.

Like they're so grateful that someone's saying something about it because they feel like it was just memory hold, erased, nothing to see here.

But this gentleman is saying it's Job's companions that are theorizing.

By the way, what I've said, I'm not theorizing on. If I tell you if I'm going to theorize, I tell you I'm theorizing. But when

I've talked about this, it really hasn't been theorizing. It's been what I know to be true. Anyway, there is one reoccurring issue with these online opinions, which this is also an online opinion.

I just would point out that I would like to address their critique of official statements. I get why there is a craving for more information.

Most of us are bewildered believers desperate to make sense of something that apparently defies reasonable explanation. More specifics would certainly help with that.

Others are mere gossip mongers. Cough, Julie, cough, salivating for purient details to use as clickbait or to satisfy their morbid curiosity.

They feel entitled to more information. I want to stop there and just mention something here. If that's true, if it's true that there's some there's people out there that are, let's say, someone who really wants to put this out there as in the mainstream as much as possible.

And they want to meet to type of narrative to go along with it. That look, this this this church, this ministry, this industry, it's patriarchal.

This woman's a victim. Maybe they can. What if they even get this woman to come on the record eventually and say,

I was a victim. This is what I was told. It was a cult. You know, just those people are out there that want to do damage.

I think it's helpful to agree at this point that, yeah, there's those people are out there. I think that's going to influence how we react.

And I don't think it's going to be necessarily what this gentleman thinks it should be. But but those people are out there.

Let's just note that they feel entitled to more information, frustrated that they aren't insiders. Still, others who badly want to believe the best are just clinging to some hope that all of this is some kind of misunderstanding or overreaction that might allow an exoneration of a hero.

Yeah, and I've seen that, too. Even after everything that's been revealed, there's some people still clinging to that. My church office shares a wall with.

OK, this is not. All right. So he's got an attachment to one passion ministries.

Steve Lawson. OK, OK. So now he's his analogy. When Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, all the king's horses and all the king's men were commissioned to pick up the pieces.

Before we judge the success or failure of their efforts to put things back together again, the difficulty of this task needs to be factored in.

The king's men didn't push anyone off the wall. They're the ones assessing the mess. Let's step back and let them work.

This is why more difference between. This is way more different.

Trying to read this whole. There is way more difference. There we go. Between a quarterback and an armchair quarterback than just an armchair.

The men dealing with this are not just on the field dealing with real people they know personally.

They also possess training experience. OK, got it. Overnight, they were summoned to thread a needle, walking a tightrope in the eye of a hurricane.

I'm sorry, especially with what's going on in North Carolina with an actual hurricane. I can't

I can't take that analogy seriously. Let's let's pretend that wasn't there. It's not that drastic, guys.

All the while, like Atlas bearing the weight of the oh, my goodness, bearing the weight of the evangelical world on their backs.

So this is we're trying to get sympathy for the elders, I guess, at Trinity. You know,

I I'm sorry, guys, my sympathy. I can't just all the people have reached out to me who know

Steve personally, who have said basically, oh, look, yeah, he had a train of churches behind him and ministries that didn't.

Things didn't go well. And here's another story about his anger and his outburst. I'm not surprised.

I could see this happening. And I'm like getting all these. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't have I understand it's a tough position, but I don't have the compassion

I do for parachurch leaders or leaders in the church who didn't catch this, who didn't see this.

I understand sometimes you're blindsided. But if the clues if there are clues out there, if this guy was.

Not as accountable as he should have been. And I've already talked about this on previous podcasts. My compassion is way more towards the people in the pews and the people who are who are so affected by this ministry.

That's where my compassion is primarily. Not saying I don't have any compassion for leaders who are in this position and feel unequipped or whatever.

But. That's when I think of Humpty Dumpty analogy, I'm thinking of them, they're the Humpty Dumpties. They were pushed over the wall by Steve Lawson and what he did.

And it's almost like I'm in a and us, it's not just me, it's like we are in a different paradigm than some of the people who are thinking about this.

And I think for those who have seen who feel betrayed by everything, who have felt like every institutions let them down.

Regardless of where in the mountains of North Carolina, you know, you're waiting for FEMA to come and you feel like everyone forgotten, everyone lets me down.

It's I think that the. Confidence in leadership is at an all time low and for good reason.

And this doesn't help it, but it's the the posture here is have compassion on those people, on the leaders and.

And trust them, trust the experts, really like trust the experts, they've been trained. And that's something that I think people they're just not going to do anymore.

Most people, they don't have that. They want to. They want to trust. We want to trust the experts.

We've just been bitten so many times. He goes on. I don't know.

This is really the main point. I don't want to do the wall of words thing where it's just repeating. He thought it was surreal that Ali Beth Stuckey was weighing in and trying to parse words.

Well, yeah. Yeah, because the statement that the elders made was so ambiguous and open to interpretation.

Of course, people are going to be parsing where they they don't know what it's like in First Corinthians, the unclear sound.

How will people know what you're saying? That's what that was. So, yeah. Let's see.

The Facebook fact checker should surely recognize that, like with vomiting stuff comes out in waves.

The imagery here is just so drastic. Yes. Some things will come out in waves there.

You have developing stories, but you don't just try to like when you have a developing story, it's usually better not not to just conceal the whole thing.

Like there's no requirement. Like, why? Here's the thing. Like, why would you have to know every fact in intimate detail before you come out with some basic things?

You are able to make decisions, right? You are able to cancel this, erase his existence, really. You're able to have some stiff penalties.

His existence is gone. It's gone from G3. It's gone from Master Seminary. It's gone from the church.

It's just gone. And we were able to coordinate, get that all together. We assess that this problem was of this magnitude, right?

But hey, we don't know the actual facts and we can't really judge because things come out in waves and we got to really wait to make an assessment.

You've already made an assessment. That's what we saw the public flogging, but we don't know the reason, right?

That's how a lot of people think about it. I don't know if I want to read more of this. It's basically more of the same.

So, all right. That's kind of the tenure of that article. And then there was this article from Protestia that came out.

And in this article, additional details are becoming known concerning the adultery, naming a sin.

That's an actual sin in scripture. And recent disqualification of former Trinity Bible Church Pastor Steve Lawson, according to inside sources speaking to Protestia on the condition of anonymity.

And I don't mind admitting this. So, I've talked to, well, let me wait, let me wait.

The fixture is in conservative reformed evangelicalism was living a double life in the heart of a reformed community. The young woman

Lawson developed an inappropriate relationship with is an alumnus of the Masters University. However, the two did not meet because of Lawson's role as head of the doctoral ministry program at TMS.

But due to her attendance at the church that housed the seminary where Lawson taught,

Lawson served on the board of TMU. But this appears unrelated to his relationship with the woman who had attended

Grace Community Church as a child with her family, moved away and returning to the area to attend college at TMU.

According to witness close to the situation, the woman's family was close to Lawson and supportive of his ministry. Lawson accepted the lead preacher position at Trinity Bible Church in Dallas.

Around the same time, the young woman graduated from TMU and Lawson's time away from the home teaching expository preaching at TMS provided both the proximity to the young woman and the distance from the family needed to engage in what amounted to not just an affair, but a secret second life that reportedly saw him paying for travel for the young woman to rendezvous with him during ministerial trips.

I have seen people publicly post about this, but obviously there hasn't been an outlet of protestous stature that has gone with it yet, but this is the first time.

While Trinity Bible Church and various ministries Lawson was involved with have been relatively silent on the particular circumstances, what appeared to be his immediate firing from ministry and his materials swift removal from the internet is likely the end of a months -long investigative process as the inside sources report that illicit nature of the relationship between Lawson and the young woman was suspected as early as March.

Reports have publicly circulated of whistleblower reporting their concerns with Lawson's interaction with the young woman only to face retaliation from authorities at both

Grace Community Church and the Masters University, but Protestia has yet to confirm the validity of such claims. Any evidence that affiliated ministries or staff at Grace Community Church knew about Lawson's double life has yet to materialize.

Yet Grace to you director Phil Johnson said that she currently lives nowhere close to any of the ministries.

That's pretty much it. All right. All right. So what do I where there's a few things we're going to get into some Bible study on this too, and I'll be willing to take questions.

I'm not going to guarantee I'm going to answer all of them. I've had to think long and hard about what what to say what not to say.

I will say this what protest the information Protestia has available to them that they're basing this article on.

I have also had available to me for a few days. And since last week,

I was at a men's retreat, though. And, you know, there was other things going on. And it's not just me.

I have found out that much of the information that they're reporting on and more that gives more specifics is seems to be almost common knowledge behind the scenes.

It's not public, but it's it's it's leaking out there in various ways. And so this is what

I want to say about Protestia here, because I'm going to defend them a bit for coming out with this. You remember what we just read in that article on the cripple gate?

There are people with nefarious intentions, right? There are people who want to go out there and they're going to pin this all in John MacArthur.

There's people that that's the white whale, right? That's what they want to take down. And they want to take down his theology with it.

They're going to want to take down patriarchy. They're going to want to prove that this is the result of some kind of, you know, hyper biblical fundamentalist position on women.

And so this young, innocent woman was girl, we'll say, was she she was helpless, almost.

She was a victim in this case and a victim of the patriarchy. Those kinds of people exist.

Can we agree they exist? Can we agree they're out there? Can we agree if they wanted to, they could they could try to make this sound this way.

If that's true, and if you you know what I know and what Protestia knows and you know that this stuff is like wildfire right now going behind the scenes, people are finding out about this all over the place.

Who do you want to who do you want to hear this story from? Do you want to be shocked immediately by all these details coming out, including perhaps who the woman is?

Although I don't think a Me Too representative would want to out the victim unless the victim wants to come out and say, quote, unquote, victim, that they were, you know, that they were a victim.

But, you know, do you want all of the evidence, all the screenshots and emails and texts and all the things that some of which

I've seen with, you know, which sometimes people send me them and it's like the names blotted out. I'm like, I can't do anything with this.

There's no I can't verify some of that stuff. Right. But if that's all going around, if that's all swirling out there as the article at Cripplegate admits, hey, there's a lot of people that are there's there's even speculations.

Sure, there's speculations. Some things we can verify. Some things are speculation. Got it. But this stuff is all swirling around out there.

Who do you want putting it out there, that information? Do you want it weaponized and used against biblical theology and John MacArthur?

Or do you want this to come from sources who can actually tell the truth from the lies and admit?

And the way Protestia framed this is it was an adulterous relationship. This is a woman, guys.

This is a woman. She is in when this started, she was in her mid 20s.

She's not a little innocent church girl. This is someone who who was it takes two to tango.

And this was someone who was involved with Steve Lawson. It doesn't go just one way.

It goes both ways. Protestia is not giving all the information on this, nor should they have to give every single bit of detail.

But I'm telling you, the way it's framed is important. And I think that you need to know that this isn't just some

I'm not saying there isn't any element of, you know, when you have like victimhood.

Because when you have someone who's so well respected, this hierarchy is inevitable. When you have someone who's so well respected.

And let's say, you know, you're going to master's university. You're at the church. You're in a family that has connections and you're that's where you are.

Then sure, this guy is going to be really important and sure, you're going to have a deep respect for him. And sure, does that give him some a measure of influence?

Sure, it does. No one's saying it doesn't. But it doesn't mean that the female in this case is stripped of all responsibility in the matter.

It doesn't mean there's not someone who's also a homewrecker out there. OK, don't think of this just in terms of helpless victim.

And that's what some people are doing. And so I think that that's why Protestia had to put something out there like this, because they saw what was potentially coming.

So that's my defense of Protestia. And everything they said in that article is 100 percent accurate from everything that I've seen in the conversations

I've had. Now, here's the thing. You don't have to believe it, by the way. You don't have to believe. I think in news, in journalism, when you're not required to believe someone, when they say we have sources that have decided to remain.

You know, they don't want to go public at this point or whatever. They're there. They fear reprisal. They feel they fear retribution.

They're not going to come out. That's generally I don't go with those things because I'm like,

I can't really back it up. But then what happens is the media organization, they're willing to hinge their own reputation.

They've seen enough to say we verified this. We've corroborated this. We're willing to hinge our own reputation on it.

This can get you in trouble if you haven't actually done the work of corroboration. Right. But if you're a reputable source and you've done the work of corroboration and you say this needs to come out there, there's really it doesn't like defy or.

It doesn't abrogate journalistic standards necessarily. Not. Yeah, absolutely. We've seen this abuse.

We've seen CNN and other organizations do this where we have an insider source that Trump blah, blah, blah.

And, you know, in its speculation or it comes out later, it wasn't true. And that just makes the credibility of the news organization go down.

So I get it. I get people's frustration with that. I get the people who say, well, we can't verify it. I think the only thing you need to know, the only thing you need to be prepared for.

And this is what the protest story was preparing you for is potentially in the future. The angle that you saw admitted could be coming or is out there from the

Cripplegate article, that angle that will try to pin this on John MacArthur, on ministries connected to John MacArthur, on patriarchy and biblical complementarianism.

That's what you can expect to see. And as long as you're aware of that, that you know, details may come out and it may be connected to that.

You'll be more prepared for it when it does come. And you'll at least be able to say, OK, someone else said something, tried to warn about this.

It's not a shock. This is and it doesn't necessarily relate to that.

This is someone who, you know, it's framed as this is adulterous. So that's my defense of protest.

We'll get into some scripture here in a moment in First Timothy five, because I want to do that. But I'll get into some questions and we'll go from there.

Love your work and following for years off topic. So when you can. So when you can thoughts on Neil Shenvey and Pat Sawyer's new

CRT Bert RTS did an interview with him. I appreciate the four ninety nine Palpatine's dermatologist,

Palpatine's dermatologist. That's a great that's a really great avatar there. I haven't read it.

I've seen, you know, I've seen little clips from it and I've read the introduction, I think. And I don't

I didn't see it as that worth it, to be honest with you. I saw it as a third way, you know, just from the introduction.

And I know enough about Neil to know that he's his critiques of CRT, I think, are fairly inaccurate or inadequate,

I should say. And and there's more I could say more, but it doesn't really matter because I don't.

So the thing is, you know, Neil is the kind of guy like he'll like he recently did a what organization was it?

Now I'm trying to remember. It was a major organization in Christianity. It was a board meeting.

They had a mat and he was trying to like talk about CRT to board members. Man, I wish I could remember the name of it.

And I can't. Anyway, he's the kind of person that some of these mainstream companies will bring in to do mainstream

Christian that his companies will bring in. I don't see him as someone who is he's not going to like he's not going to have a popular level appeal with people who are in the pews who have really been ravaged by this stuff.

And there's a number of reasons for it. Probably one of the major ones you can go look at his back and forth with Megan Basham about her book

Shepherds for Sale and his defense of J .D. Greer, which I thought was fairly pathetic. And it's just there's no trust there when when the very people trafficking in CRT adjacent ideas are being defended by him.

And it's hard to take him seriously as he's the big critic of it. But he's the kind of guy that I would

I'd expect to be a critic if he was like, you know, people say controlled opposition.

I don't know if I want to use that term, but like. He's like the. The big

Eva friendly critic of CRT, right? That's how I see him. So I don't know. More could be said, I guess, but I don't really

I don't think I don't know if he's worth it. Like, I don't think he has the influence. Maybe in some organizations, people will bring him in, but I just don't see him having the popular influence at this point.

And it's a it's a it's an issue that still exists. In some ways, it's worse because the

D .I. is drilling down deep. But I think it's not hot like it was in the narratives of somewhat settled.

And so and that's when I publish. That's when Bode Bachum published. I think it's like too late.

Right. It's too little, too late. It's you know, I'd say go back to those books if you're going to use a book.

All right. I don't want to spend more time in that. How old is Lawson? Seventy three. How could he be old enough to be this girl's grandfather?

I'm not resolving her at all, but just yuck. Yeah, it's kind of yuck. That's what my wife said immediately. She was just like, wait, how old?

And I'm like, oh, he's growing his 20s. He was what, 60, probably in his late 60s when this started.

Yeah, it's definitely yuck. MacArthur isn't even patriarchy. He takes that weak complementarian position. Well, you know how the critics spin all of that stuff.

It's all one soup to them, right? Complementarianism, patriarchy, all of that. Big Yehuda says the continued failure to reveal the woman's identity is extremely suspicious.

I'll say this about this. And I'm putting it out there for that, because I know they watch.

I know that enough of them watch. For those in parachurch ministries who have erased

Steve Lawson. Erasing this girl.

Or if she's even existing on any website, still erasing what's left of this girl's.

The trail. I don't know how else. I'm trying to be delicate here. If you erase her off your websites, just be straight about it.

You create suspicion. You arouse more suspicion. And I'm not the only one that knows this is those kinds of things.

The people who are enemies of John MacArthur's ministries, they notice those things too.

So I'll just say that. Please be prudent about this stuff. This is a political fight.

And it's not just a theological fight. This is a political fight. And you have to be prudent about these things.

It doesn't do you any good to just scrub her. OK. They tried to do it.

And by the way, I'll say this, too. I don't I'm not convinced at this point that this woman's identity has to be revealed.

And I've gone back and forth about this in my mind about whether and what purpose could it serve.

Right. And. This is someone who is not in the public eye yet.

Yet. She she you know, but she did make a decision to.

Have a romantic relationship with someone who is very much in the public eye. And I've debated, does that put her in the public eye?

Is that is that a choice to like? Either way, I don't know that it's necessary that we know who she is.

Unless you're a guy who's going to date her in the future or something. But then I think that's going to come out on a personal level.

Just be a prudent guy. Ask the girls you date their history and, you know, just just be use some common sense.

But I don't think for broadly speaking, I can't see at this point at least a a reason, a positive reason that her identity necessarily needs to come out in all of this.

I think the details are enough there for you to to see what the nature of Steve Lawson's sin was, which is really,

I think, has always been the issue here. What was the nature of the sin? Why was he all of a sudden publicly flogged?

In other words, erased in a you know, he was disciplined before everyone's eyes.

But then why? We can't we don't really know. And so I think, you know, now, right, you know.

Let's see what else other questions, does she not belong to a church at this point?

I don't know. I don't know. She did. She was, according to the article, she was at Grace Community Church and she attended the

Masters University. So right now, I I'm not aware. I don't know. Other questions and we'll can you share thoughts on loss and silence?

Well, I'm not going to speculate. I have my own suspicions. I'm not going to share those.

So I'll just say I think it's bad. You know, if anyone owes an explanation, it's really

Lawson that owes an explanation to the people that he's influenced so much in ministry, especially his church.

I think that's the biggest thing that's weird to me is like if the elders were saying, hey, we're going to treat this privately.

Lawson's still at our church. We're going through a disciplinary process and a restoration process. OK, so Lawson is still there.

He's still under their guidance. He's still he's attending his wife. You're going to see his wife. You're going to see, you know, the church body is available to use their gifts to comfort and to rebuke if that's necessary, but to comfort and to help the wife, especially.

And then and I got people, multiple people from the church reaching out and publicly saying things online that we haven't seen her.

We haven't seen him. We don't have the where we're told we we should not contact her, these kinds of things.

And that's the kind of thing that I'm like, man, like it's, you know, that's not good.

So pray, obviously pray for this whole situation, pray for wisdom. But, you know, every day that goes by, your credibility is being lost.

And maybe this is the last thing I want to say about this. I noticed it doesn't even matter who someone who's very high up at a parachurch organization that Lawson was at.

I noticed that person online telling people that you need to wait for the church to give details.

You need to be patient. In fact, that's what we saw here. Even with the church, you know, you need to be patient at the time this person was saying it last week.

I had confirmation that the plan was the plan of the church was to not further say anything publicly about the details, at least at that time.

And the plan for those parachurch organizations, including the one this individual was part of, was to just reroute everyone back to the church.

What that means and why I'm telling you this as people who potentially are in that church and who are people who are influenced by Steve Lawson quite a bit.

I'm telling you this to just say don't necessarily expect maybe plans can change. Right. But don't expect that that plan will change.

Don't expect that the church is going to publicly come out with more details. OK, I know people are telling you patience, patience, patience.

But my understanding is that is the plan is not. And it's been two weeks.

Right. And the punishment's already been out there. That should be obvious. I probably shouldn't have to say that, that that's the plan they're going with. But don't expect.

So the patience thing, like patience for what? What's coming out? What are we waiting for? What are we being patient for?

Right. I just. Yeah, I think you're you've gotten the details you're going to get.

And if more details come out, they're probably not going to be surprising to you at this point. Maybe they're going to come from an unfriendly source, but you'll be ready for it at this point because there are outlets like Protestia and like Phil Johnson last week who

I commend for coming forward with more details and saying what was being communicated very widely in private and saying it publicly.

So so you are not in the dark anymore. You know, I think what I would as someone who if I were influenced by Steve Lawson and saw this public flogging without an explanation, you've got the details that I would expect and that I would want myself to have.

OK, I got it. There was a romantic relationship. I don't know. I don't have to know all the intimate facts about it, but it was sinful.

It was romantic at the very least. It was with a girl that could have been his granddaughter.

That girl did attend Grace Community Church, did go to Masters University. This was carried on for the course of years.

There was suspicions allegedly back in March about this. But there's also people who have come out and said they weren't entirely surprised because of his track record with churches and outbursts of anger he'd have.

And most importantly, perhaps the fact that he didn't travel with his wife and didn't talk much about his wife and these these kinds of things.

So that's it. That's I think that's it. That's what those are the relevant facts. He's a sinful man that needs to repent, pray for his repentance.

And we can move on at this point, knowing that there's a biblical category for this.

Adultery would be that category. I noticed that some are saying online, like, well, you know, it's not really adultery because, you know, they both claim that there wasn't technical fornication going on.

OK, I can't confirm or deny that, but whether there let's just say best case scenario, it wasn't physical, which is

I know a lot of you have a hard time believing that for years. How do you carry this on? And it's nothing physical. Let's just try to let's just assume that this was just romantic.

And there was some very romantic exchanges between them over the course of years.

That's still a violation of your marriage covenant with your wife. You're giving something to another female that belongs to your wife and you are expressing the intent to go for in having a relationship that leads to that kind of thing.

You're on the path towards that kind of thing. So that's what I would say about that.

And I've said my piece. So that's it. I might get fired. I might take some firing for this.

But harm is done. Can he be restored? Yes. But will he be able to lead a church again? Doubtful in elders would be wise not not to trust it for a long time.

Yeah, we've talked about that on the podcast. Tom Rush came on and talked about it. Okay, I'm trying to think, was there anything else

I wanted to share with you before ending the podcast today? She needs to be disciplined as well.

Kim Murphy says, Yeah, I mean, it's just, yeah, if she's going to a church that needs to be taken care of.

Last, it's the last opportunity. Oh, yes, we're going to talk about First Timothy five. This is most important thing.

How could I forget? Okay. So I defended protesty. I said, Look, what they shared is 100 % accurate. And I could see why they were doing it.

They're helping. Honestly, they're helping these institutions by doing this because they are coming out and they're, they're taking the wind out of the sails of someone who is the enemies of these institutions and want to blame patriarchy and that kind of thing.

Right. So someone came out and said, basically, look, and I've seen a few people saying this. First Timothy five says he can't bring an accusation against an elder.

I'll read the section, the relevant section. First Timothy five, the elders, verse 17. You want to follow along with me?

I'm reading the NASB verse 17, and ASB 1995 for 75. The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.

And that was Steve Lawson, right? For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing, and the labor is worthy of his wages.

Do not receive an accusation, verse 19, against an elder, except on the basis of two or three witnesses.

Those who continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning.

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and his angels to maintain these principles without bias, without bias, doing nothing in a spirit of partiality.

Well, that's important to, you know, they're, they're an elder sins. They, you know, they're do nothing in a spirit of partiality.

They need to be warned about like, and if, if anything, the passage is telling you it needs to be more public because they were in the public eye and people need to be warned about the sin.

They have been an example to the flock. They have been a template for what to do, how to be spiritual, how to be spiritually mature that we do the spiritual disciplines.

We're the ones that you should respect, right? And if one of those people falls, then it train wrecks other people's faiths.

And they look at that and I talked about some of this, they're discouraged, but they're also looking at, well, if that's what a godly man does,

I guess I don't feel so bad about my sin. I guess I can go do this too. And that's why it says, Hey, look, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest will also be fearful of sinning.

What's the focus there? The people, the people who have followed this person as an example, you need to care for them.

And I see so many people out there caring for Steve Lawson, caring for the ministries, caring for the elders of the church.

What about the people that he was an example to? That's why I do what I do. That's why I talk about it on the podcast.

That's the only reason because he wasn't ever an example to me. I didn't listen to him.

I didn't care for him. There were things I saw about him. I didn't like years ago. That doesn't mean I'm better than you for recognizing that there was something off.

I didn't expect this, but it's not for me. It's for you because I see how many people are heartbroken and tempted to sin and all the rest because of this incident.

And they're not, they're not being addressed, not broadly. I don't see it. And so look, it's a lie to say that someone, you know, you just, you could be at the pinnacle of godliness and you just all one day you'd catch yourself.

And no, this is little by little, this kind of thing happens. And you can make progress in your sanctification.

It's possible. Don't get black billed on this. So this is the one people are harping on here though, because the context doesn't really support it, but the verse they're harping on is 19.

Do not receive an accusation against an elder on the basis of two or three witnesses. Now, let me take you through the interpretation I see out there that I think is bonkers.

This is a bonkers interpretation. You got to have two or three people before you can ever say anything of an elder.

You can't talk about the specifics of this relationship. You got to have two or three. Now, I'm satisfied that there's two or three.

You don't have to all believe that people don't want to come forward publicly. That's fine. But, you know, I've, I've, I've, I've talked to people.

So, okay, I'm satisfied with that. But let's just say that the, the interpretation is that you have to have two or three before you can ever accuse an elder of anything, or at least you can ever even bring up the possibility that an elder may have sinned.

Okay. Got it. If that's the case, what do, what has to happen before an accusation?

Well, there has to be some kind of coordination, right? You have to have two or three people that coordinate with one another and say, Hey, did you see this person do this?

Yeah, I did. I also saw them do it. Let's coordinate together and then let's go bring this accusation together.

Now, if that were to happen, if there was this coordination going on, then what would that be called by the same people who say you can't bring an accusation?

I'm just telling you for a lot of these guys, I'm pretty sure it would be called gossip, slander.

You're talking behind someone's back. Well, it forces you to, right? You have to talk. You can't talk about it in public.

You have to coordinate with people behind their back. Get two or three witnesses before you can go public. That's the way that people are interpreting this.

And so it's one of those, like, if you do it, you're in trouble. If you don't do it, you're like, like, you're not, you're not supposed to talk about it behind their back.

But then if you don't, you can't find the other witnesses to coordinate. So that's the, I'd like to suggest to you, that's not the interpretation of this passage at all.

Let me read for you from John Calvin on verse 19 against an elder received out an accusation after having commanded that salary should be paid to pastors.

He likewise instructs Timothy not to allow them to be assailed by calumnies or loaded with an accusation.

But what is support supported by sufficient proof, but it may be thought strange that he represents as peculiar to elders, a law, which is common to all.

I'm going to say that again, a law, which is common to all. God lays down authority, this law as applicable to all cases that they shall be deceived, decided by the mouth of two or three witnesses,

Deuteronomy 17, Matthew 18, 16. This is the church discipline process that everyone goes through. It starts off with one person.

It then two or three witnesses, then before the church, right? That's how this works. It's the church discipline process, the process everyone goes through.

That's what it's talking about here. Why then does the apostle protect elders alone by this privilege as if this were peculiar to them, that their innocent shall be defended against false accusations?

Well, he says, I reply, this is as, as a necessary remedy against the malice of men for none are more liable to slanders and calumnies than godly teachers.

Not only does it arise from the difficulty of their office, that sometimes they either sink under it or stagger or halt or blunder in consequence of which wicked men sees many occasions for finding fault with them.

But there is additional vexation that all, all they perform their duty correctly. So as to commit any error, not to commit any error, they never escape a thousand censures.

And this is the craftiness of Satan to draw away the hearts of men for ministers that instruction may gradually fall into contempt.

All right. Let's just say that this standard that is brought up in first Timothy chapter five is intend is an application of the standard that is for all people in a church discipline scenario.

Now, if the church discipline scenario fails, if this is where things get dicey, right?

If you have a church discipline scenario where there isn't, they haven't gone before.

So, so in the church discipline, you get to that stage, right? You, you go before the whole church and then you have, you have the punishment essentially.

And the whole church is supposed to be aware of the sin so that they can then go confront this person if they see them.

And that's how it's always worked at my church, right? You see them in the store or whatever, you can confront them or you go talk to them and you say, we, you know, we, we want to see you restored to fellowship, right?

That's the purpose of church discipline is restoration. That part of the problem here is it's being treated like, you know, hush, hush.

The elders are, they're doing their thing. Nothing to see here. We're doing our thing. And let's just extend this out publicly to all the ministries.

This guy was part of to erase him. So you're all seeing the punishment, but it's like you're, this is what people are saying to me from the church.

Like you feel deprived of actually participating in that third step of being able to, to come to comfort or whatever you need to provide to, to chase into you.

Like you're not part of the process, like you're kept out of it, which isn't the church discipline process. Things get dicey when they break down.

And also when you have accountability that goes beyond the local church.

It gets, it gets dicey. This is someone with an international pulpit, so to speak.

And so I talked about this in a previous video already that, you know, you have to take those things into account. You can't be ecclesiocentric about these things, which

I see there. The role of the elder has been greatly inflated, I think, by some people to just be like, you know, the elders have a holy huddle where they just, you know, they have this information.

They're all privy to, and they keep you in the dark, even in a church discipline scenario. And that's like not the purpose of the church discipline scenario is to restore the individual.

So they've confirmed there's, and it's now been confirmed by more than two or three that these are the issues with Steve Lawson.

And it's time to take the warning, as the passage says, not to follow him in sin.

That's why there's a, there should be a public element here. And also at the same time, if you know him, try to restore him by confronting him, comforting his family, if that needs to be there.

That's the whole purpose. Do we see a breakdown of this process? It sure seems like it. It sure seems like it.

And that's why people are having a really hard time. But I reject the interpretation of this, that it's like, you can never say anything about an elder unless you get your buddies together.

And then it's like, OK, I'll get my buddies together. And now, now you're going to say I'm gossiping. OK, got it.

Like, that's how this works. So, no, that's not. No, the interpretation is you bring them through the same church discipline process.

You bring everyone through. That's two or three witnesses. That's how it's confirmed. OK, last chance for questions.

Then we're done. Michael, she has not been properly rebuked, though. She has been protected.

Why are other pastors perhaps involved with her? Who knows? But why protect her? Yeah. Why protect her from,

I guess, from public exposing her publicly? I'll just say that I've had counsel.

There's been godly counsel who have who I consider godly, who have wanted this, who have wanted to protect her.

So that's given me pause. All right. So that's one thing. The other thing is.

She's not I've said this before, but she's not in Steve Lawson's situation. She's not. So people aren't looking to her as an example.

Right. So not in the way that Steve Lawson was looked to. It may be that on a local level, there's some people who have or whatever.

But from my understanding, this is known among the people close to the situation.

So it just it doesn't seem necessary. Now, that doesn't mean if her information is revealed,

I'm not going to say that. I don't really have any basis from which to say it's necessarily in and of itself wrong to reveal who she is.

I don't I can't think of a principle that would. But I also don't think of I can't think of a good use that it would serve if the purpose is to warn people who were influenced by Steve Lawson.

He's the one that was influencing people. He's the one that had the platform. He's the one that had a spiritual position. So that's how

I'm seeing it. If you have thoughts that I haven't considered, I'm willing to consider them. But that's how

I'm looking at it. All right, John, these verses apply to a trial or pretrial action.

Lawson was already tried and tried. That's part of the point I'm trying to make and punished before we ever heard about the situation.

I know. I know. It feels like cart before the horse. Betty, why not forgive and pray for repentance that bears genuine fruit of change over time?

Please pray for your wayward. Oh, this is a situation that I'm sorry. I guess I this is not related to the Steve Lawson case.

I already explained why this isn't gossip. It's not gossip if it's public and it's not slander if it's true. Simple way to put it.

In fact, I made the case in a previous video that the whisperer part of this is like the hush hush behind the scenes.

Like you're not like that. You can make a better case for that being gossip than you can for like, oh, you publicly said it.

You're the gossip. This is weird. This is odd. Brianna Hill, it's my understanding that she isn't even part of that church.

Do we know if she's a believer, a part of any church? Well, she's not part of the Trinity Church. No. So I don't know.

I don't know if she's part of a church where she is. Given all the information, you know, now, do you believe

Lawson is a true Christian? Oh, man. I don't know where Lawson's at.

And part of the problem is there isn't a church discipline process that's rendered.

Well, it seems like they've rendered a verdict, but then you don't really know it. I would assume if he's living in a sinful way for a period of years and I'll say this, if he's not repentant about it, then we're told what we should do.

Treat him. Think of him as a Gentile and tax gatherer. Right. So so far, Lawson hasn't come out.

He hasn't repented. So I don't know what else to tell you. As time goes on, that's going to become more and more obvious.

And we're just going to end up by default treating him that way. Why do you have to be in the know to understand that this discipline is even happening?

These ministries depend on donations and need transparency. Now, I'm thinking of the idea of letters of recommendation or introduction from First Corinthians 16, 3 and Second Corinthians 3, 2.

Second Corinthians 3, 2 says you yourselves are our letter written in our hearts, known and read by everyone.

I'm not sure if I understand the point. I'm sorry, Charles. I think it's probably a good point you're making.

That, you know, perhaps. Yeah, I don't know. Sorry, I'm not going to comment. I don't know if I understand it. Any comments about Ray Ortlund endorsing

Kamala Harris? Yeah, he did do that. I saw that. And then he erased it and is like, I'm being misrepresented. Yeah, OK. Yeah, Ray Ortlund did.

And I think there's a lot of people on the evangelical left who are doing this. But is protecting her biblical?

Kiana Shaw in the Old Testament, both were brought out. That's a good point. If they are going to protect her publicly, then can we at least know if her church has disciplined her?

You know, and I don't have access to that information. I don't know. So I don't know what church, if she is attending a church, what church she would be at.

So you make a good point. That's a strong point, Kiana. I'm not going to lie. It's something I got to chew on a little bit more.

I think I think you make I don't know what else to say. This has been

I think this has been handled in a very sloppy fashion. And I know people are gonna be mad at me for that.

That's just I'm calling it as I see it. And so it's made this more difficult to navigate. But if you're in pastoral ministry.

Then I'd say at the very least, the church would, you know, here's the thing.

So so that is a civil case. That is a civil case you're talking about there.

But I don't know why it wouldn't transfer to the church situation. It makes it harder when she's not at that church.

But but, yeah, there does need to be accountability. You would think at least maybe this has happened. The elders, you know, call up a church.

She's at if she's at one and say, look, this is what's going on. Oh, now.

Yeah. Charles is saying what? Second Corinthians three one, which says, are we beginning to commend ourselves again or do we need like some people letters of recommendation to you or from you?

Oh, I see. That's a good point, Charles. I didn't even think of that. Yourselves are a letter written in our hearts, known and read by everybody.

That's a good point. That was one of the ways there was accountability in the New Testament times.

It wasn't just everything ecclesiastical local church like churches would recommend like there was this cooperation going on where they would.

Yeah, that's a good point, Charles. This wasn't all handled through parachurches either. I mean, that still happens, right?

Like there's letters of recommendation. But, you know, I guess this would apply in that like you're making something more broadly known, whether the character is good or bad.

You're broadly proclaiming outside the local church context, a person's character. If they're going to be in ministry.

Good point, Charles. Good point. There is I think there is a responsibility here that it's more broad than just the local church.

OK, why not publicly state the fact that his footwork that this footwork is being done?

I don't know what you mean. I think I have stated everything that that. I've given my opinion.

I don't know what else to say. Yeah, footwork is being done. There you go. Vlad says this is another good reason why women shouldn't go to seminary.

I don't think that she was actually a seminary. She went to master's university, but she wasn't a master's seminary.

I shudder to think that Lawson's mistress is getting ready to come out and claim abuse.

Both Steve and other family, other women sinned against God, their church and families. Well, that's now you get it.

You get why Protestia would come out with an article like that and with the possibility that that could happen.

I think they're doing a great service to these parachurches, to be honest with you, when they when they did that. Mature Christians, you'd think, wouldn't be so easily tempted, sadly.

That's the other thing. I don't buy that much. Steve Lawson was a mature Christian. I just don't buy it. Sorry. I don't.

I think that there was for years. He's being platformed at all these conferences and he's engaged in this.

Sorry, I'm not going to say this guy's a mature Christian at all. All right.

I'll take one more comment and then we got to go. It seems like they they are setting it up to have her be able to do that.

Yeah, I think so. I think they're setting it up for that. Yeah. They they don't they wouldn't they meaning like these church leaders and so they wouldn't think that's what they're doing.

But yeah, like if you're if you don't give any details and then, you know, oh, surprise, these details were known.

And here's a some survivor's blog talking about it. But then, yeah, I mean, you're just setting yourself up.

There's no doubt about it. All right. That's it for the podcast. You can certainly keep commenting or if you have my private info, you can send me your concerns, your cries of outrage, your anger at me.

That's all good. Or you can, you know, encourage me to those. Those things are acceptable.

I take both cash or check because let me tell you,

I've had every kind of opinion sent my way about this. So trying to do what

I think is right before the Lord. And I love all of you out there. Thanks for streaming today. God bless.

I'm going to go now with my wife and my little baby and see the fall foliage. So pray that we have a safe time.

By the way, I should have led with this. But yesterday I was riding my bicycle and I got a phone call.

I took a stop and across the street there were these two guys. It came outside. They started.

They shot a gun, not in my direction, but they shot a gun and then they started coming towards me and shouting at me.

I got out of there. Weird stuff happened. I don't know.

I was in a rural area and I'm like, man, so crazy stuff out there. Everyone's on edge.

Everyone's on edge. That's my takeaway here. All right. That doesn't happen today. God bless.