Having Bold Christian Faith

Apologia Studios

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00:01

Hey, y 'all, welcome to CrossPolitik. Thank you for joining us. Pastor Toby.

00:08

Hey. Chuck Knox. What's up? The Waterboy. And who's this guy? Some guy. Came in off the street.

00:15

Pastor Jeff Durbin. I just wandered in. In the studio. Anytime, bro, anytime. I also got a special note for our club members.

00:23

Uh -oh. So the pints that I ordered are, I'm not happy with. So we're actually getting laser engraved pints coming.

00:32

So be patient. The pints are going post -meal? They're going post -meal, that's right. They're being glorified. Yeah, it's a really cool etched laser engraved logo into the pint.

00:42

Can this be Presbyterian too? Because right now it's Baptist. Is it? Why is it Baptist? What does that mean? There's nothing in here that's, you know.

00:48

Nothing strong? That makes it Presbyterian? Nothing strong. Nothing strong makes you water. I think the biblical word you're looking for is strong drink.

00:55

Strong drink. This is TV, so you gotta be, you know, different. It's different.

01:00

It's still good, though. It's still good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We also wanna let everybody know that we're gonna be going to Reform Con in Phoenix, Arizona.

01:07

Pastor Jeff, Phoenix, Arizona. Pastor Jeff Durbin's conference, Reform Con. Toby, you got the info for that?

01:13

Yeah, actually, first of all, I was just gonna introduce our esteemed guest. Jeff Durbin is a pastor at Apologia Church in Tempe, Arizona.

01:19

Yes. I just, I just, I just, I just wanna lift this off.

01:24

It just came with it. What kind of studio is this? Every time he comes here, I just gotta say this, every time

01:30

Pastor Jeff comes here, he always breaks up. He's messing the studio up. Do I really? Okay, I'm staying away from it.

01:37

I'm just, you can tell. Get close to the game, get close to the game. Okay, Pastor Jeff is not used to being, like, on the radio or on TV very much.

01:43

He doesn't do that very much. So, um. What is, where do I speak? Do I yell at the camera?

01:49

He's a professional. It says here Jeff's a popular speaker for camps, conferences, churches, and schools across the nation.

01:54

He's participated in outreach to various different religions. You are very busy with Mormonism.

02:02

Yep. There's a temple down there near you guys, right? Yeah, lots of them. Okay, wow. There's a couple of them, yeah. And so you're busy doing apologetics and evangelism with them.

02:13

Let's see, what else? You, you're featured on a series for the History Channel. Yep. Really?

02:18

Called The Stone Ages. About Christian approach to drugs and alcohol. Yeah. Can I tell you a quick story about that?

02:23

Yeah, please. Okay, so Breaking Bad, you know the TV show Breaking Bad. Yeah, never heard of it. You're not supposed to know about that.

02:28

I've heard of it. You've heard of it, okay. Breaking Bad, I'm convinced Breaking Bad is the best television show ever made, actually.

02:34

Really? But yeah, I'm maybe not supposed to reveal my cards on that, but that's what I think. So, just for a lot of different reasons in terms of storyline, actor, acting, just, it's just,

02:44

I think it's fantastic. Some guy's making like heroin in his basement. So basically, I'll just give you the nuts and bolts of the whole thing.

02:51

Basically, the guy gets cancer. He freaks out. So he's like, I gotta take care of my family. I'm gonna die. So he's a chemist.

02:57

So he starts making methamphetamine and selling it because he's like, I gotta just make this much money so that my family's okay when

03:03

I die. So it turns out, like growing, getting bigger, and as the show goes on, he becomes like the biggest meth guy.

03:09

But all of his, he breaks bad. Like he goes from being a chemistry teacher to breaks bad, and now it goes into this evil underworld.

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But what happens is, is now, because of all of his actions, the consequences now are just affecting everybody.

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So the show is honest about like his sinful choices destroy literally the whole city.

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Literally the city just gets destroyed because this man, at the end of the whole series, he finally confesses to his sin.

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He's like, I did it because I wanted to, and I was wrong, basically. And then he gets basically what he,

03:40

I won't give it away, he gets what he deserves. Oh, go ahead. And so basically, the director says, like the whole point in the series was he was trying to talk to the audience.

03:48

You weren't supposed to be rooting for him. He was the bad guy all along. And you reap what you sow.

03:54

And the director is an atheist too, isn't he? Yeah, exactly. This is why I really like it, because it's honest, and it ends up at the very end, like he says, as an atheist, you're not supposed to be rooting for this guy.

04:02

He's the bad guy. And they tell me, hey, the History Channel is contacting us, and they said they've been searching for somebody that's like a legitimate

04:09

Christian with a Christian approach to drugs and alcohol. They keep getting people about Celebrate Recovery and AA, but they don't have like a legitimate gospel -centered approach.

04:18

This is the History Channel. Like saying, we want a truly Christian approach. Should we find a Christian somewhere?

04:23

Exactly. It's funny. It should be easy. The History Channel, apparently, for like a long time, was literally calling around the country and interviewing people about a legitimately

04:31

Christian approach, and they couldn't find anybody that was just strictly Christian. So they get on the phone with me.

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We're on the phone for like two hours, and I'm talking to them about what the Bible says about our condition, our nature, why we use, and what the answer is,

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Christ. And they were like, you're our guy, so we want you to do it. So I was like, all right. So the History Channel comes out, and the day that I'm coming in for the filming at the hospital, my buddy, who's the

04:55

CEO of the hospital, he's also solid Christian, he's like, dude, can you believe it?

05:00

I was like, what? He's like, History Channel. I was like, yeah, it's cool. He goes, Dean Norris. I was like -

05:06

Who's Dean? Any relation to Chuck? Like, I don't know who this is. He goes, Dean Norris, bro.

05:12

He's Agent Hank Schrader on Breaking Bad. At the time, Breaking Bad was in his third season, and it was real popular, but I'd never seen it.

05:19

So I was like, and thank God I had never seen it, because it was really good that I didn't, because when

05:25

Dean Norris shows up, I'm like, what's up, bro? You were so chill. I'm like, hey. You were so chill. I saw that.

05:31

Yeah, I'm like, what's up, brother? So we hung out all day doing filming, and it turns out,

05:36

I found this out, we were supposed to do one part of the filming for only 30 minutes, and it ended up going over two hours, and Dean Norris was crying.

05:44

I'm preaching the gospel to Hank Schrader from Breaking Bad, I'm just preaching to him about Christ.

05:50

He's crying, and we finished. He goes, that was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard in my life. So my buddy goes, he goes, dude, if nobody else gets saved watching this,

05:57

I think Hank Schrader just got saved. Oh, man. So the whole thing is over now. I'm done, and they tell me after a long day, they're like, hey, man, just go home.

06:06

You've been here all day, just go home. So I'm driving home. My wife's in Kentucky with the family visiting her family, and I'm like,

06:13

I'll go get Breaking Bad just to see. So I get season one. I go home, and I stayed up till six in the morning watching

06:22

Breaking Bad, and then I got some sleep, and I went and got season two and season three, watched the whole thing, because my family was out of town, so I was just, so that was

06:32

History Channel, and they put it up, and they did have some good moments where they actually let me say what

06:38

I wanted to say. Jeff is also the host of a weekly radio. You have been behind a mic before. This is why

06:43

I was trying to introduce a forum conference, because we just got into it. Oh, this is more fun. Weekly radio program called

06:50

Apologia Radio. It's heard internationally via podcast at apologiaradio .com. Jeff is also a world champion martial artist with five black belts and a star in popular video games.

07:03

Really, video games? Mission Impossible, The Untouchables. You know,

07:08

I did the voiceover for NBA Live 2K. Nobody asked. I did. Did you really? I did, yeah. Shut up. Did you really?

07:15

Yeah, my basketball team in California got asked to come and do the voiceovers in the studio. Really? Yeah, I was playing college ball down there.

07:21

Jeff even played Michelangelo and Donatello for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, as well as Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat, the

07:28

World Tour, and the younger crowd may even have seen him as a fighter in MTV's The Final Foo.

07:34

Yep, I saw that. Really, did you? Did you really see it? Yeah. That roundhouse when you kicked old boy out the ring was just like, ooh.

07:42

Yes. Jeff is married to his bride, Kandi, for how long is this, 14 years, longer? That's old. I think that's, wait, it's over 20 years.

07:48

Oh my gracious. 20 years. You need to update your - That's supposed to be fixed by now.

07:54

Apology. We need a church secretary. You need to pay your intern. How many kids do you have, four?

08:00

I have four children. Okay. And how many grandkids? Now I have three grandchildren.

08:06

Yes. One is here, I can play with him, and two are in the womb. Pre -born. Yes. Two are on their way.

08:12

Thanks for joining us. And my son is, I'm here because I'm filming stuff with Toby and Doug, and I dropped my son off here, and his family's living to go to New St.

08:23

Andrews, which everybody who's watching this, if you have children around the age of college age, they should all go to New St. Andrews, period.

08:30

Hold on, I wanna ask, why? Why should the kids go to New St. Andrews? I mean, there's so much to say, honestly, about that.

08:36

I mean, I've known about, obviously, NSA for a long time. I think it's the rigorous standards. It's the whole package in terms of how to think like a

08:46

Christian, live like a Christian, act like a Christian. I think that NSA is developing Christians to go win the world for Jesus.

08:53

Yeah. And it's the whole shape of the worldview. Like, I mean, teaching rhetoric, even, how to argue, how to think like a

08:59

Christian. I think it's the academic standards, and it's the whole perspective of the world, and it's just all the parts and pieces.

09:07

And also, you see the fruit of NSA if you come to Moscow. You see the fruit of NSA and the culture that's developed through the people.

09:15

And so, it's funny, I'll tell you. So, somebody said to Sage, they were like, Sage, you better come back. And he is coming back.

09:21

We're doing this so he comes back to win Phoenix. So, yeah.

09:27

We're local. We keep kids, bro. Yeah, Pastor Luke prayed before the church over Sage. You hear what happened?

09:33

Pastor Luke prayed over Sage before the church, and goes, Lord, and bless him, take care of him, keep him safe, give him good community, and Lord, please keep him

09:41

Baptist. I was like, well, I don't know if that's gonna happen, but you know, either way.

09:48

So. Keep the Presbyterian off. Bind the

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Presbyterians. I think I was like, we got bigger things to worry about. But what were we talking about?

10:01

Just - NSA, why NSA? So, NSA, we're talking about why SNA, NSA. So, yeah,

10:07

I think that like, for example, like we got here and Sage, somebody was like, you know, you need to make sure you come back.

10:13

And he was like, this is how he saw it. He said, well, they're fine with Moscow. Like they're winning everything. They're doing what they're supposed to do.

10:19

Like Phoenix needs it. So I'm coming back. Like that. So he understands the mindset of like what

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NSA is and what Christ Church is doing and this whole community, like what the purpose is in terms of Christ, his lordship, his rule, his reign.

10:33

Sage was, you know, come back. He's like, well, Moscow's covered. They're doing what they're supposed to be doing. Like we need it over here.

10:39

I'm coming home. So this actually segues really well into what we want to talk to you about. It's related to ReformCon, which you can find out about reformcon .org.

10:46

And I'll talk about it a little bit more in next segment. But so thinking about engaging culture, bringing your faith to the public square, you guys have been doing this quite a bit, actually down in Arizona.

11:01

I haven't been able to see them all, but I've seen a number of videos where you guys are talking to your city council.

11:09

And then - Going to the Monday night meetings and showing up. And talking to them specifically about abortion.

11:14

Yep. But so what sparked this idea? What's the goal?

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And how are you thinking about this? So, well,

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I mean, it's Matthew 28, 18 through 20. If someone wants to really get it just down to its foundations.

11:30

Go baptize the babies and all. Yeah, right. That's in there, right? Is it in the Greek? Don't help them get it.

11:37

Yeah, yeah. These are Presbyterian arguments, y 'all. So no, it's the thing about Christ's authority in heaven and on earth.

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Like that is the substance of what's underneath us. And I know it's what's underneath you guys.

11:52

All authority means all authority. There and here, heaven and earth. And so in terms of like how we've approached this since the very beginning of Apologia, it's been with that mindset and vision.

12:04

Christ rules over everything in heaven and on earth. And it's the call of the gospel to go and to proclaim his lordship and the call to repent and believe in every area of life.

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Now, somebody might say like, well, isn't that what we all believe? Well, yes, but like, are we living and acting in accordance with that?

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And so like when we go to the Mormon temple in Arizona, it's because those people are lost. They're dead in their sins and trespasses.

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They need Jesus. Christ is the ruler of the world. They need to repent and believe in a hurry and they're following a false

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Christ. So we go there and then we go to Mill Avenue. We might go to, you know, but when we go to the abortion facilities is because God commands us to uphold justice and to defend the fatherless and to hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.

12:45

So we do it there. We go to the abortion mill. We save lives there. Thousands of children have been saved because of EAN.

12:51

And then we think about - And abortion now. Yeah, and abortion now. And we think about the legislature. It's because Jesus is the boss.

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He's the king of kings. And the legislature has to answer to Jesus. They have to obey Jesus.

13:05

They have to obey his law. It seems like there's also the civil magistrate in Romans 13 is a minister of God.

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The word is actually deacon. Deacon. Right, Romans 13. So, and the reformed tradition,

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I'm going back to John Calvin and Luther and so on, called on civil magistrates. They have really significant teaching, a teaching role, a sort of nurturing role, or we might say like a catechetical role.

13:32

Yeah, I'm going to let you finish. I'm going to let you finish. You're going to let me? But we got to go to break. When we come back, we're going to finish talking about - I want to hear this, yes.

13:37

Christians in culture. Next on Crust Politics. I think it's the first time he's never, he's like never not done it.

14:21

I don't know. I'm starting to feel like - I was drinking. I don't know what I'm doing. It's because I was drinking. Uh -oh.

14:27

Hey, welcome back to Crust Politic. With us in the studio today, we're very grateful to have Pastor Jeff Durbin from Apologia Church, Apologia Radio, and their church community is sponsoring

14:42

ReformCon 2019. You can find out more about this at reformcon .org.

14:48

This is going to be October 24th to the 26th, this fall. And in Mesa, Arizona, Reformation in the

14:54

Public Square. Have you ever wondered what our responsibility is to the culture? Why did

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Paul bother to argue in public with the Jews and philosophers of his day? And how did the

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Reformers change the world through scripture? Those are the questions you guys want to answer. And, oh, look, there

15:11

I am. Oh, wow. I'm going to be there. Gabe, you're going to be there. What's the website? What's the website? Knocks your ears there on the picture.

15:19

I think you're going to be there. You guys cut the black man off? Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, yeah.

15:26

That's messed up. So, anyways. Everything's right, Jeff. Check it out.

15:33

Very excited to be there with you guys. Looking forward to that. Yes. I'm excited to have you guys, yes. Thank you for having us.

15:39

.org. Yeah, so excited. There's going to be a bunch of other speakers. Joe Boots going to be there. Joe Boots coming.

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James White. Yes. Andrew Sandlin. Andrew Sandlin. Doc Sandlin. Yeah, it's a bunch. There's a bunch.

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We also have, like, Sheologians is coming to do a live broadcast and all that stuff. We're going to be dealing with them. So, it looks like we're teaming up with Sheologians.

15:56

Yeah, we're teaming up. Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. The way we want to build it, too, in such a way is you're not being just crammed full of information.

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I've been to conferences where it's like, I would never come back. One workshop after another. Yeah, exactly. It's like 9 a .m.

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to like 6 p .m. It's like one after the other. And each guy is trying to give the next sinners in the hands of an angry

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God message. So, by the time you get to noon, you're like, oh no. You're feeling pretty beat up. Yeah, you're feeling pretty beat up. Yeah, yeah. You gave me a pub.

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You got saved like three times. Yeah, yeah. So, we want to make sure everyone gets fed.

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There's fellowship, that it's a meaningful and important time for everybody in terms of transformation in our thinking and how we're supposed to engage.

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But also, we want it to be like a really fun time together. So, we want like really great food there. Yes, thank you.

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And stuff like that. So, we want to have like unique things to eat and like really cool stuff from the area.

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Like last time we had like somebody, people came and where they do that live, they make your ice cream in front of you.

16:50

It's called Creamistry. I think it is. And they use like the - Cold stone, cold stone. No, no, they use - It's a different one.

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You don't even have it here, I don't think. Cold stone does the same thing. What is this stuff? It's like nitrogen, liquid nitrogen. Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

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They make your ice cream in front of you with liquid nitrogen and like just, it's wild. So, this is like Post Mill.

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Yes. Totally Post Mill ice cream. Yes, completely. One of the things you want people to walk away with from a conference, because like you said, conferences,

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I mean, it's not, we don't have a lack in right now in Reform Evangelicalism of solid, great biblical speakers.

17:19

Yeah. And conferences that are going on. What do you want people to walk away with that you think will be pretty unique from most conferences?

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That if you see how, from the Old Testament through the New Testament, how

17:30

God has always changed the world. He has changed it with his prophets, with his people, engaging error, engaging lies, engaging darkness in the public square.

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They were going out into the world and they were creating godly conflict and controversy always.

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And it always came at a cost. Like Acts chapter nine, it says that when Paul goes, after he comes to Christ, he takes a beeline to Damascus.

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The first thing he's doing is going into a religious context to actually start a fight. Starts arguing for the truth about Jesus as Messiah.

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And it says that the church is built up. They experienced peace. It was multiplied. We're like, yay.

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And then it says, and some people wanted him dead. So that's the result is like the church grows, it's built up, they experienced peace.

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And then people are taking oaths to kill Paul. And so we want to actually get people into the public square to start fighting and dying.

18:24

If you look at Acts, sorry, I'm interrupting. No, no, no. I think that's exactly right. And I looked,

18:30

I did this one time, I noticed that, that very point that you're making one time. And so I started looking through and by my count, there's actually 14 public controversies in the book of Acts.

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And best I can tell 13 of the 14, Luke adds lines like that, because we've been trained to think, oh no, this is bad.

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Oh no, he got stoned. Oh no, he got thrown in jail. Oh no, he got beaten. Oh no, there was a riot.

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Oh no. But Luke knows that. And so around every single one of them, he says, and the church was greatly encouraged.

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Many people came to the faith. So many were baptized and there were persecutions and there was fighting. Many of the leading women of the city believed.

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Over and over again, because the book of Acts is like the story of evangelism by riot.

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Evangelism by controversy. This is how God does it. And we have to get our heads and our hearts around that.

19:25

Amen, Toby, that's really good. You need to make a clip of what he just said and just go put it out so we can just share it and share it and share the truth.

19:33

YouTube probably won't let us post it because they're trying to push back on Christians. That's true. So why is it that it seems like most, so we got people out there sharing the gospel.

19:41

There's a lot of ministries that are well -known for sharing the gospel, but it seems like that if you look on YouTube, you guys seem to get a different kind of confrontation with how you share the gospel.

19:51

You know what I mean? There's a different type of - More people are mad at you. That's exactly right. No, absolutely. Can't you say it nicer?

19:57

Yeah. Where it seems like people really try and shut you down. And I'd look at that, I'm like, man, okay, these guys are sharing the gospel.

20:02

There's a different type of attitude about it. I don't know if it's the security of it, but there's more fight that's there that happens.

20:09

And I don't know, I love my other brothers that are out there sharing, but I wonder if there's something particularly about the way you guys are doing it, maybe the places you guys are doing it.

20:16

Now that you're in a college square, where you see the college square, you expect that. Going in front of abortion clinic, there's a different type of engagement there.

20:23

Yeah, yeah. And when you go in front of the city council that is not expecting any Christians to be there at all. It's different.

20:28

It's a different kind of engagement there. So when we talk about the public school, I think most time people just think about it as a college campus.

20:34

Right. All right, that's the open square I get to preach. Or maybe I'll go down to the court area where they give me the little, what do they call it?

20:40

A free speech zone? Yeah, free speech zone, yeah. But you guys are kind of thinking about, well, let's move past those free speech zones into what?

20:49

Everywhere. Everywhere. And I think this is the public square today as well. Right here, this.

20:55

That's where, when we say the public square, we're talking about where everybody is gathering, where they're at, right? And so this right here in your pocket is the public, you're now engaging the world constantly, dropping stuff into the world.

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You drop a video, you drop a blog, you drop audio, a podcast, whatever it may be, you're dropping that, a quick video where you're talking.

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I mean, the world's doing that constantly. They're engaging, they're talking about cultural issues, and they're just doing it just like this in their hand.

21:21

And it's being seen by millions of people. They're talking, engaging, engaging in discourse in the public square like this.

21:28

And it's instantly. And getting shadowbanned. They're talking to the world. And so it's engaging in that realm too.

21:33

Even Trump. Even Trump, even Trump. With his thumbs. Yeah, exactly. But I think what's important too is that people can hear oftentimes, they can say like, engage in the public square, they can see some controversial stuff that we've done or you guys have done.

21:45

We all do controversial stuff. Yeah, right. Yeah. And they could say, well, I don't know, like that seems like a lot of trouble.

21:52

And they might get the wrong interpretation that engaging the public square means sort of like going out and just being like one speed, right?

21:59

Like, and just - 100 miles an hour. I gotta go out there and just start yelling in the public square. It's like, well, not necessarily.

22:05

That's not what I mean by engaging in the public square. I don't think everywhere Paul went, he was standing up on a block, shouting at everybody.

22:11

There were times where he was sitting in the synagogue and he was reasoning with people. And there was only one Paul. Yeah, there was only one

22:16

Paul. I mean, you know, Barnabas helped him out and Silas helped him out and he had some sidekicks. Yes. And he trained some younger men like Titus and Timothy.

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Yes. But remember, there's tons of Christians coming to the Lord who are being faithful in their callings.

22:29

Yes. And being faithful in their business, being faithful in training up their children, being faithful in their marriages.

22:36

And that's how the Roman empire collapsed. That's right. Exactly. That's how the Roman empire became

22:42

Christian. I even think that, you know, cookies are warfare. I was gonna say ice cream.

22:47

Absolutely. What'd you call that? Liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen ice cream. A big Texas bowl of ice cream.

22:54

That's exactly right. It's evangelism. And I don't know how people know how dangerous it is for your homeschooling group of people or your school to say, hey, let's go make some cookies and take it to our

23:04

Synod. Right? Or our mayor. Well, this actually goes back to what we were talking about with New St.

23:11

Andrews College earlier. But the vision of that college centers around the old transcendental values of truth, goodness, and beauty.

23:18

Yes. And the old philosophers saw something in sort of their, in the natural theology, in terms of like the natural revelation of the world.

23:27

Like these are these transcendental truths. The Christians came along and said, no, that's from God.

23:33

God is the ultimate source of all truth, all goodness, all beauty. And these three things, they coexist, they reinforce one another and they point to one another.

23:42

They drive us to one another, but just ultimately driving us to Jesus Christ in whom all truth, all goodness, all beauty consists, which is why all of them are weapons in our warfare.

23:53

So some people are really good at the truth sword. You know, this is the word of God and boom.

24:00

And they got the rocket launcher of the word of God and the sledgehammer of the gospel and they go to it and they go to it.

24:07

But you know, we also need the cookies. Gotta have some cookies. The beauty of -

24:13

Gotta have some nitro ice cream. You gotta have the beauty of good food, the beauty of the goodness of a husband loving his wife.

24:21

That's right. Laying his life down for his wife. I mean, that's a picture of the gospel, Paul tells the Ephesians. Like, you want to proclaim the gospel?

24:28

Love your wife sacrificially, like Jesus loved the church and gave himself for her. When people see that, I mean, and you think,

24:35

I mean, I've thought about this somewhat in terms of our culture. Like, I mean, our culture is disintegrating. I mean, the kind of crazy, crazy nonsense we're seeing, the

24:44

LGBTQP whatever, Gestapo. Gestapo.

24:50

There's a tubby man, there's a tubby man who - In a dress. In a dress who told a woman to wax his giblets.

24:59

And the world, and the world actually says to her, no, you should have done that.

25:06

Like, and you should lose your business. And it's like, you know, not very long ago, people would have all in unison waved our fingers and our heads at the tubby man dressing, cross dressing, saying, how dare you ask of her to touch your business?

25:20

But now the government says, no, you must touch his business, her, shim, business.

25:28

And if you don't touch his business, you lose yours. And that's happening now.

25:34

Eric Erickson pointed out is like, they wanted us to bake cakes, and now they want us to wax giblets.

25:39

Giblets. It's like, that went really fast. But the thing I'm pointing out though is, is that, okay, so that insanity is going on.

25:45

And that insanity is an utter dead end. There is nothing there but death and sadness and sorrow and suffering.

25:52

It's all that is there. And we're near the end of the pit. There's not much more.

25:58

I thought last year we were near the end of the pit. I mean, they can have like bestiality, you know, brothels if they want, you know what

26:07

I mean? But like, we have the list in the Bible. Like we kind of know what the options are. But here's the thing, the darker it gets out there, the brighter the light of the gospel gets.

26:16

And so when a man loves his wife and loves his kids and trains them up in the nurture and admonition of the

26:22

Lord, you know, doing math to the glory of God around a kitchen table is powerful.

26:29

Okay, that's going to actually take down this, all this darkness. It's warfare.

26:34

That goodness, that beauty, that truth to the glory of God is powerful. And that's why

26:40

I think you're right. We were talking to Voddie Bauckham one time about his ministry in Houston, Texas, related to all this, where he said, they just started praying for their city council members.

26:49

And sending letters. And they would send them a letter after they prayed for them. And they would get letters back from people who were like on the opposite end of the spectrum politically, like didn't agree with them anything, thanking them profusely and saying, we've never had anybody say they were praying for us before.

27:03

Yeah, wow. We talked to Mike Chereau, the president or CEO of C12, this

27:10

Christian businessman organization. I was telling you about this, Jeff. And he was telling us on the show, he says he's talking also, he was in San Antonio where they did the whole

27:19

Chick -fil -A, you know. Banned him from the airport. Craziness. And he starts meeting with the city council members in San Antonio and just explaining to them what this is doing to Christians, what they're doing.

27:31

And these guys, they say, well, no Christian's been talking to us. We didn't know. We didn't even know there were

27:36

Christian businessmen out there. We didn't know that this was going to have this kind of effect. Now, you know, you can ask whether they're being completely legit or whether they're, you know, fudging details, whatever.

27:45

But like, Christians need to be loving their rulers. Praying for their rulers.

27:52

First Peter says to pray for all those in authority over you and to minister to them. What's the website that if we want to go to ReformCon, when is it?

27:59

And where can we get it? Reformcon .org. It's the 24th through the 26th.

28:04

October. October 24th, 26th. Go register there. And by the way, if you do, it's two days

28:09

ReformCon and then one day is free End Abortion Now conference. Okay. Very good. We're going to have a blast out there.

28:15

Have a good time. If you're single, get married. If you're married, have kids. And if you have kids, go baptize them. Until next week, love

28:21

God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Go fight, laugh, and feast.

28:27

This is Cross Palate. All right. Well, the rapture's not happening.

28:35

The world is not about to come to an end. What do we do now? If everything's going to end in the next 10 years, then what you've done is you put a set of training wheels on evangelical

28:50

Christians. I'm not alone in all of this. This isn't an individual.

28:55

We're not an army of one. There's a community at large here. Jesus bought this city, my city, my nation, my state, with his blood.

29:05

And so I'm working towards that. I know you thought it was over, but it ain't over yet.

29:21

All you Cross Palatinate people out there, we got another segment with the brother, Pastor Jeff Durbin.

29:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're so good at that, man. Oh, man.

29:35

I can keep going. Are we at church? Or is this Jay Leno? Do you know how to do this?

29:41

What, no, I don't. You don't know how to do this? No. Okay, it's real simple. Start preaching on something,

29:46

John 3 .16. What, John 3 .16? Jesus loves the world, his people, so much that he gave himself so that they could have eternal life for all eternity.

30:01

He's getting it, now he's getting it. Yeah, I feel it now. He's feeling the rhythm. Oh, that's when he started doing the dance.

30:11

Yeah, well, that's the, yeah. See, you can catch on to it. Listen, Furtick, Steven Furtick, he gets it.

30:19

That's not exactly encouraging. I know, I know. But thank you for being back. So we were talking,

30:25

I ended, I'm sorry, the first segment, I cut you off, and it's what I do because I kind of control the clock. So, but you were saying -

30:31

Deeply offended. My bad. David's the deep state. I don't know what that means.

30:38

No, but I was thinking about, one of the things we have to recover in all this is a deeply biblical understanding of the civil magistrate's job.

30:48

And so we live, we have, I think, two major extremes that we're up against. One is, well, we have this bloated

30:55

Jabba the Hutt state. Right? The nanny state. Star Wars reference. It's like, it's over, you know, it's just obese.

31:03

I mean, we have regulations just out the wazoo. We have - Because we want that.

31:08

And it's because we have asked for it. We have asked for tyranny and we've been given tyranny.

31:15

But frequently, the response, the knee -jerk response is maybe kind of a hardcore libertarianism that basically just says, you know, which is verging on anarchism, actually.

31:30

Message. As long as you don't hurt anybody. No state at all. No civil magistrate at all. And, you know, and again, part of it is because our conservatives have so little backbone.

31:40

So our conservatives for so long will be like, I'm a conservative, which basically means while the liberals are going 80 miles an hour off the cliff, the conservatives go 60.

31:48

And some of them are campaigning to promise to go only 55. Right. So we will destroy

31:53

Western civilization a little bit slower than the hard leftists. And so you kind of understand the kickback.

31:59

The pushback is like, forget you people. You understand the ditches, really. I don't trust any of you people. Just kill it all.

32:06

Which is part of, I think, the whole, like, this is Trump. I mean, Trump, like this is the Trump phenom.

32:11

Is he's, you know, just going to be this bull in the China shop. And he has put a lot of hurt on the

32:17

Democratic and Republican party. He's done both. Killed a bunch of the regulations. But we have to get back to saying, but what does the

32:24

Bible actually say? And the Bible lays out three basic governments.

32:30

The church, the state, and the family. These are the basic spheres of jurisdiction that God has given.

32:36

He's established among men. And he gives them specific duties, specific jobs.

32:42

And to go beyond those jobs is to disobey God. And so the civil magistrate's job, according to Romans 13, is to punish evildoers and to encourage righteousness.

32:54

And in fact, this is maybe like crazy inside baseball for Presbyterians, but there's two versions of the

33:03

Westminster Confession of Faith. I don't know if you knew that. Jeff, you're our Baptist friend. I just want to.

33:09

Yeah. I've heard of the Westminster Confession. The what? What year was that?

33:14

But there's a British version and there's an American version, actually. And the Americans being as, you know, jumpy as they were about the crown and the parliament and everybody.

33:24

They had a big change. You know, they were a little bit reactionary. And so I actually personally prefer the

33:29

British version. Okay. And the British version actually says that the civil magistrate has a job to encourage godliness.

33:37

Yeah, absolutely. In the people. And that's Romans 13. In the prophets, it promises that,

33:43

I think this is in Isaiah, it promises that godly magistrates, it says a vision of the post -millennial vision, that godly magistrates will be like nursing mothers.

33:54

And, but I don't think that means the nanny state. Right. That doesn't mean, you know. Some leftist hears that and they go, ooh.

34:01

Yeah, right. I like post, what's a post what? What eschatology is this?

34:07

I'm professional. And this actually happened though, Jeff, is the thing. We've been reading and Jonah Goldberg, are you familiar with who

34:14

Jonah Goldberg is? He's a conservative pundit. Yeah. He used to write for National Review. Okay, yes. Has a book out called.

34:21

Liberal Fascism. Liberal Fascism, which is basically one of my new favorite books. And if you've never read it, read it.

34:26

But he actually mentions post -millennialism in this book. Because at the turn of the century, early 1900s, or turn of the 20th century, a bunch of whacked post -millennialists basically believed that they were gonna bring about the post -millennial vision through the state.

34:43

Yes, yes, yes. I know, yeah. And so they were all about like sort of Christianizing the state, but also they didn't have a biblical understanding of the limits of the biblical state.

34:53

Right. And so they were just, they were the beginnings though of the welfare state. I mean, unfortunately, post -millennial

34:59

Christians are basically to blame for the welfare state. Isn't that kind of like.

35:05

It's not all their fault, but man, we gotta own it. Isn't that a little bit like what Pharisees were, they believed the Messiah was actually gonna come through the state.

35:11

Yeah. A little bit. But my point being though is, I think if we go back to the Bible, we understand their job is to punish evildoers, obey the law of God.

35:19

And in doing that though, I think the primary purpose of doing that is actually to teach people what justice is, what obedience is.

35:26

There's three uses of the law in historical reform. Well, no, that's not it.

35:31

That's a different kinds of law. Three uses of the law. One is to actually drive you to Christ, show your sin, drive you to Christ.

35:40

One is to lay out for those who have become Christians, what the righteous way of life is.

35:46

And one is to punish evildoers. Restrain evil. And restrain evil. But those are teaching moments.

35:53

And so there's this interesting, the family's job is to actually train up the children to teach them well.

36:02

But the - Not the state? No. Yeah, get your kids out of the public schools. Quickly. Quickly, especially the government schools.

36:07

I have no business doing this. But there is a call to the government, to the civil magistrate, to the ruling authorities to support and uphold righteousness, to encourage it.

36:19

Now, a good bit of that is getting out of the way of families and churches and businesses. And by the way, everybody, that's inescapable.

36:26

Even the liberals are expecting that. They just have a different form of sanctions and Levitical laws that they want to rule by.

36:33

Everybody's expecting that of the government, by the way. The whole idea of a neutrality or secularism is a lie.

36:40

Secularism is a religion. Yep. That's right. They have a God and they have law. It's basically humanism with the curtain.

36:47

I mean, man is the standard. Right. They say it's neutral. It's not. But that's the thing is.

36:54

So my thought is, as we try to take the culture, as we bring the gospel to the public square, we need to be educating the civil magistrate on what

37:04

God says their job is. That's right. Yeah. And that obviously includes things like you need to protect unborn babies.

37:09

You should not allow any babies to be murdered in your city, in your state. That's your job before God.

37:15

It's a real basic thing to protect life. Right. But it also includes, you need to repent of being in everybody's business.

37:22

That's right. You need to stop, all these regulations, many of them, most of them are absolutely ungodly.

37:30

Well, can I just say this too? And I'm 100 % with you, but just the way that we pick churches tells us that we have the government that we deserve.

37:39

What do you mean? So when we go and look for a church, we look for a church that is there to nanny us.

37:45

Oh yeah. To meet our needs. What kind of children's ministry do you have so that I can drop my kid off that you can take care of them while I'm going through church service?

37:54

And does the worship band fit my style of preference? Yeah, yeah. And if you have that, then I'm willing to be there.

37:59

And so it's the same thing. That's not a freedom mindset. Yeah. You talk about going to NSA. We talked about that earlier and having a, the reason the education, the reason that you need the quadrivium is because you need to understand what freedom looks like.

38:12

Yeah. Freedom doesn't look like everybody taking care of you. No, freedom means being a man.

38:17

That's right. And taking responsibility for yourself. And exactly. And having something to give to take care of someone else if the needs be there.

38:24

But first managing your own house. And so it's hard for us, I think when people see what you guys are doing, they're trying to figure out, how do

38:30

I even engage this? How do I do this? Well, the first place to look in is like, Lord, let me repent first of what

38:36

I'm doing in my own house. Yeah. Because when you have that in order, it's easy for you to see how you can engage other things because it works out from there.

38:43

Like, you know. Yeah. Like when you talk about with a family, well, a man that's taking care of his house, is taking care of his family, is educating his children, he understands what responsibility is.

38:50

And that starts bleeding out to his neighbors. Right. And even to his mayor, his city. Well, if you're gonna take care of your family, you need to have, you know, you gotta work.

38:58

Right. So it means you're gonna have to business. Right. You're gonna do business in the public square. That's right. How are you gonna do that? You can do that to the glory of God. You can do that in the name of Christ.

39:05

Yeah. You know, and that has to be done. And when people start, you know, you're an artist, well, then do your art to the glory of God.

39:12

Do your art in the name of Jesus in accordance with his word. Are you involved or interested in justice or social matters?

39:20

Well, maybe you need to run for city council. Right. Or maybe not. We need that. But here's the thing is like, we're all born in sin.

39:27

And so we actually need to spend our lifetime of learning what it's like to be a free man. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And so we're constantly, our tendency is to constantly go liberal because of our sin nature.

39:39

Our tendency is to constantly want other people to do things for us, to govern us and so forth. And so one of the things we constantly, we regularly say on the show is courage begets courage.

39:48

And one of the things that I like about what you guys are doing with Apologia and Abortion Now and what you're doing with the city council is you guys are demonstrating courage, but I think you're doing it in a,

39:56

I think a way that actually strengthens the mom in the house. Yeah. You know, strength and all of a sudden, I don't, you know,

40:02

I don't look at you and all of a sudden I'm not doing, I'm not doing what I need to be doing. I'm not going to the city council and preaching like Jeff is.

40:08

I look at you and see what you guys are doing. And I'm encouraged to go do what God has called me to do. We don't want to think that the high calling is to go preach to the city council, but you guys want to be a good example, be courageous in such a way where the mom at home is courageous.

40:21

Truth in your realm. Proclaiming truth boldly in your realm. That's right. And being faithful, just being faithful in your realm.

40:29

I mean, I remember years ago, this hit me while I was reading a book. We went on vacation to a beach, Oregon coast, which is just beautiful.

40:36

That's aight. And I was reading a book. That's aight. That's aight. Better than Texas. You need a wetsuit to jump in there.

40:42

Better than Texas. I was reading a book by Paul Johnson on Mozart. And it's just this fascinating book.

40:49

His biography of Mozart is just this brilliant. I mean, you know, he was composing symphonies when he's like nine or 11 or something like this.

40:57

Crazy. But the way he wrote, the way he described how Mozart did music. I mean,

41:02

I never once thought, oh, I want to compose music. Right, right. I never once stopped and be like,

41:08

I'm gonna be a composer. Like, that is not in the cards for me. Right, me neither. People ask me what musical instrument

41:15

I play. And I say, I play the radio, right? That's my instrument. You know, I play iTunes. What are you talking about? Pandora.

41:21

But the thing is, is reading about Mozart inspired me to do what I do to the best of my ability, right?

41:29

And that's what we all want to be doing, is doing what God's called us to do. You're a mom, you're a wife, you're a husband, you're a father, you're a architect, you're a builder, you're a pastor, you're a missionary, you're a politician, even politicians.

41:43

Jesus even loves politicians. Yes. Police officers. I mean, whatever God's called you to do.

41:49

He know how to use this thing. You do this in obedience to Jesus. And not only are you being faithful in building the kingdom and pushing it out into the public square, but you're inspiring others to do the same.

41:59

And the thing is, Christians are called to break the disconnect between what the Bible says about the world and who

42:05

Jesus is as king of kings, lord of lords, and what you're doing as a calling, as a vocation. Right. And that's the problem.

42:11

There's no disconnect. We've disconnected Jesus from the public square. We've disconnected Jesus from plumbing. We've just, you know.

42:17

Yeah. And that's the central issue right now in the church is that we think that, hey, I got to go over here and work, and then

42:23

I'll go to Jesus in the church on Sunday and I'll live out Jesus in the four walls of the church.

42:29

But that's why we have the political nightmare that we have now is because we just rejected, ejected

42:35

Jesus from the public square. Ejected. Yeah, rejected and ejected. I got two questions for you, Jeff, I want to ask. One of them is, you guys started going to the city council and started talking when, how long ago?

42:45

November, last November. Last November, so it's about to be a year. One of the things I've been interested, what kind of fruit have you guys seen is kind of the first question.

42:52

Yeah. How, what's come of that? It's been incredible. We knew that we needed to go to the public square because the fight can't just be at the abortion mill saving the lives, because as long as the magistrate is not upholding justice, we're just going to have to keep being there at the mill.

43:09

We want to stop being at the mill. We want no more babies killed there. So we know we have to - The police should be at the mill. Exactly.

43:15

We have to go to the God ordained realm that is able to uphold justice.

43:21

And we have to go proclaim the gospel and lordship of Jesus Christ to them to plead for the lives of these children.

43:28

That has to be the next stage. It always was, but we could only do a step at a time with these churches. First, get them equipped, get them out, saving lives.

43:35

Get Christians actually saying, this is murder. You need Christ. We'll help you.

43:40

Like, and doing that now across the country, 400 some odd churches now are doing that. Local churches around the country and in Australia, Northern and Southern Ireland, Canada.

43:49

Participating in the abortion now. Are participating now with an abortion now. We've been able to equip them, train them all for free. Not one penny from these churches.

43:56

It's just been giveaway, giveaway. Because we said, we want no excuses. We will help you. We will give you everything.

44:02

We'll train you and equip you. Everything that's come in funding has come from Christians who wanna help outside of that. So we knew next stage was okay.

44:08

Now we gotta get them involved in the media and we gotta get them at the legislature. So we started in November. First person to do it was

44:14

Pastor Zach. Morgan went there, basically proclaimed the law of God, the gospel itself, and pled with them to please uphold justice.

44:25

Stop the slaughter of these children. So then we started going and doing it together. All of us did in December, I think we went and proclaimed.

44:31

We even wore black robes as a symbol to them. They probably didn't even know what it meant. But we knew what it meant.

44:40

I'm glad you're Presbyterian. Yeah, historically, we knew what it meant. And it was a symbol to, so we wanted that to speak to people who understood what that meant and like what part of history we're appealing to where Christian ministers used to speak to the legislature and talk about the gospel law of God.

44:56

Well, there was a former Baptist there too, don't worry. Trans -Presbyterian?

45:01

Yeah, some trans -Presbyterians, some cross -dressing Baptists. We are sorry for Gabe.

45:08

So what happened was, and how you talked about it, was how

45:14

Mozart inspired. Well, in this case, there was an inspiration along the lines of people who actually knew we can do this too.

45:22

And so churches started going and we started seeing it pop up. Oregon, California, Florida, all over the country started popping up.

45:30

New York, it went everywhere. It went like wildfire. Yes. And then it got to the point where it wasn't just pastors going to proclaim the

45:38

Lordship of Christ, the call to repentance, uphold justice to the legislature, but now it's also women.

45:43

And then it was children going to plead to the legislature saying, please stop the slaughter of these children, obey

45:50

Jesus, come to him to live. And the crowd shouting down children. Did you see the little black girl that walked up and she can't even see over the podium?

46:00

And she preached the law of God and Christ to the legislature.

46:06

I'm like, talk about like turning on, like you show that to Christians and say, tell me you can't do this.

46:14

Is she baptized? Do it, do it, do it. I knew it was coming. He knew it was coming. You can't preach it if you're baptized.

46:20

Listen, if she professes faith, obviously we should baptize her. I'm just saying, the baby's up there.

46:26

Let's start with baptism. So out of the mouth of nursing babies. So the interesting thing is because of that, listen, this is for real guys.

46:33

This is a powerful thing because God, I mean, there's so many moments over the last, say eight or nine years that you can point to, you can go, this was a turning point for the gospel and local churches.

46:45

Babies are murdered here is one of those things. Little moments like there's not just us, people associated with us, but little moments that I can point to for EAN when we started saying, we'll train you as churches and getting you out there.

46:57

Now we have churches on the street preaching the gospel. This is murder, don't kill your kids. And then this legislature thing.

47:03

Well, listen, eight, nine years ago, this is true. You weren't hearing liberals and leftists and those in pro -choice are saying things like, we're talking about banning abortion in our state.

47:14

And they're saying murder is now in the language. It's because the church has started to get into the public square saying law of God, this is murder, stop killing children, end this.

47:27

Demanding the legislature to actually ban and criminalize abortion because Christians are now doing that to legislature, it's part of the language.

47:35

Do you know what happened? I went to the rally in Phoenix recently. I mean, there was, it was vile so much.

47:41

Just, it's crazy. The pride rally? No, no, it was about abortion. And it was because of what happened in Alabama, in Arizona, they're holding rallies.

47:51

You know what the conversation was at this rally? It was people were all, these women were talking about, they're gonna criminalize abortion.

47:57

They're gonna ban abortion. That conversation wasn't happening nine years ago where people are actually saying on the other side, criminalize, ban, murder, that's in the language now because it's happening now in the public square at every level.

48:14

One of the things that, I mean, when end up, when Babies are Murdered here came out, one of the shocking things, it wasn't that they were having abortions and that people were talking about abortion.

48:23

One of the shockers that come out of that to me was the fact that we had conservative Christian people who were actually playing the game with the left on the abortion stuff.

48:34

Yes. And who were sitting back, who should have been engaging. That was the most shocking thing that come out of this.

48:40

And somebody was, I think, watching some of the stuff that went down in Texas, that was kind of like, what is going on? And it was the fights that we've seen here, even in our own state with guys who claim to be pro -life, but even in the conservative side, we can't get them to put forth a bill that would end abortion it just to present it.

48:56

But with Heather Scott. Yeah, in Idaho. Right, and it's like, wait, hold on. I thought we were conservative and Christians and people who weren't in abortion.

49:03

So that's been the most shocking thing to come out of that. People in our own team have kind of been fighting. I think it's just so good what you guys have been doing.

49:10

And I think it would be great. One of the big things that a lot of these pro -life people say is they say, okay, but then the feds will come for us.

49:20

What do we do then? And I think what they need to hear is we'll stand with you. That's what we say to them.

49:27

We will stand with you and there are thousands and millions of Christians that will stand with you if you will stand.

49:34

And so they need to be called to obedience and repentance. And they also need to be encouraged because I mean, that's what's gonna change this tide because they see the fight, they see the mob, they see the liberals that are angry and have a lot of money and have all the power and everything else.

49:54

But we need to come alongside them and assure them that we're gonna be there for them, that we're real, that we're not just, it's not just a political ploy.

50:07

I mean, they've been told for years that this is just politics. And we need to make sure that we're presenting to them,

50:16

I think, a full or picture of family, of Christian culture.

50:21

Yeah, full orb, that's right. I mean, the whole LGBT trans craziness, insanity, fascism is connected to all this.

50:30

They're the people that wanna kill the babies. They are trying to destroy the family intentionally.

50:37

And so, I mean, we need to help them see this. Can I say something? I don't wanna interrupt. No, go ahead.

50:42

That's what we do here. You just reminded me of something. When I was just in New York City filming for some content at the original

50:48

Margaret Sanger birth control clinic where all launched from, and then at Stonewall Inn, I found myself in the gayest part of New York City, in the gayest place

50:57

I've ever been. Gay ice cream stores, the big gay ice cream store, everything's gay, I mean, it's everywhere.

51:02

And it was foul, gross, disgusting things taking place all around me. And we recognized about a mile and a half, two miles of walking in this area where Stonewall is and everything else.

51:13

We recognized thousands and thousands of people everywhere. And it was just some difficult moments to even be around at times with like half naked men dressed in skirts and something around.

51:25

And we noticed something, my son was the only kid that we saw for hours.

51:32

And it was the only child anywhere to be seen. And telling you we're in New York City, thousands of people, and all of us notice, he's the only kid.

51:41

And it was amazing, he's 10 years old and these grown men didn't know how to behave around a 10 year old.

51:47

They're speaking foul, they're dressed foul, they're doing foul things. It's a good thing my son's been raised in a

51:54

Christian home that understands what the nature of fall is and sin is, because he can handle it because he's aware of it.

52:01

But these grown men don't know how to behave around a 10 year old. Their culture is done, they are dead.

52:07

They are done. It's that dead end we were talking about, it's the utter dead end. That's right. It's not if we keep sending our kids to them to be educated by them.

52:13

That's why they want our kids. Yes. That's right. Because they don't have any kids. No, say that, talk about that, because I think that needs to be, that needs to be.

52:20

They don't have any kids. Yeah. And so they want ours. Yes. So 90 % of children are being educated by public schools in the

52:26

US. Yeah, government schools. And how many of them are from Christian families? And by, well, a lot. Way too many.

52:32

By the end of, by the freshman year in college, up to about 80 % of Christians are losing their faith by the end of freshman year.

52:38

So we got 90 % of kids, pagan or Christian, going to government schools. And in particularly, our

52:44

Christian kids are losing, 80 % of them are losing, up to, by their freshman year in college. And no wonder they want our kids.

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What were we watching the other day that where the lady said our kids on the show? We were watching. Oh, yes.

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Rashida Tlaib and Presley. Yeah, it was Ayanna Presley. Who said that all the kids that are in cages, they're all our kids.

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Yeah. That are trying to get here illegally. All our kids. But this is statism. And it's all about, you know, like basically the kids belong to the state.

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I mean, and this is what John Dewey said. So John Dewey is the godfather of the modern public education system.

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And he said, basically, we need to get the kids away from their pastors and their parents. And there's a recent tweet from this public school teacher, just days ago.

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He says, new teachers, I'm sorry if we veteran educators have misguided you about the profession. It's not about cute classrooms and trendy ideas.

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It's political. It's advocacy. It's the frontline of battle for the future of our nation. Go no further if you're not ready.

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And what's next to his name? He's got a gay flag. The big gay flag. Right. They know it.

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We don't know it. They need our children. Yeah. We don't think education is political. We think education is neutral.

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Because they're not making them. They're not making babies. They're not making them. They can't make babies. They cannot make them.

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And they murder the ones that they make. We've bought into the lie that math is neutral. We've bought into the lie that education is neutral.

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The reason that we dropped, and Christians, they get it when it comes to fighting on the pro -life.

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They have a conscious that's bound. They're like, oh, I get it, okay. But I've watched Christians really shrink back from the sexual fight.

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So much so that it's inside the PCA. Oh, I know. And the SBC. And the SBC. But I've watched

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Christians in the public school. When we got Obergefell, they were like, even Christians saying, you know, hey, if the law wants to do that, you know. It's the law of the land.

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They're like, darn it. We don't understand. This is a worldview. It's full -orbed. It's not just abortion.

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It's the whole thing. It's all of it. And we get it here.

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And then when it comes to all the sexual stuff, we don't fight the same way. Because if you start fighting the sexual stuff the same way that you're fighting the abortion stuff, you're the hater far worse here than you are there.

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Like now, you know what I mean? Because that's one area where it's like, that's what Christians are supposed to do that. But they're supposed to let people love each other because they're not hurting.

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It's hard to get Christians to get the understanding and wrap around their head. To see all that. To see all of it together. I think

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Francis Schaeffer was the one that said that the modern Christians, our major problem is that we see everything in fragments rather than seeing the whole thing.

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And I think that's going on here is it's, yeah, they're murdering babies. That's a problem. And that's got to stop. We need to stop it.

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But it's bigger than that. You want to know why modern Christians do that is because they read one Bible chapter at a time.

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One chapter of the Bible at a time. We don't read the whole Bible. We don't read books at a time. We don't even read the Bible. We have like inspirational calendars of one verse on it.

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We're like, I read my Bible today. So no wonder we think fragmented. And part of it, all you have to do is look at history.

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Is slavery wrong? Was slavery wrong the way that America was doing it? Absolutely. That was wrong. Man -selling was wrong.

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But if you try and fix it without a, there was something else underneath that that was causing the fallout of it.

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And if you don't deal with both of those, you can end slavery like they did wrongly, the way they wrongly ended it.

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And then you will have a problem later still, which is why we still deal with the problems that we're dealing with now. Still dealing with the ramifications of ending it with bloodshed.

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No, yeah. We turned to the state. We turned, we worshiped God, the state. And now we have, you know, seven more demons.

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Exactly. And that's how it comes. But we should learn those lessons. We should understand where we're at in the story, in the narrative, and see, okay, so we're fighting here.

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This is an issue. Where's our flank? Yeah. Our flank is if you're single, get married.

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If you're married, have kids. And if you have kids, go baptize them. Or don't. But seriously. I didn't mean to close out the show.

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It's my point. It's serious. And, you know, and regardless of you actually baptize them, the point is raise them up in the nurture and ambition of the

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Lord. That's what we mean. We mean, make them disciples. Raise them up in Jesus. And when you do that, that's the flank.

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If you don't give your kids to them, if you train them up to know, to discern between good and evil, to know their

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Bibles, to recognize the plays that are being run. Those are some powerful arrows. The numbers are easy, guys.

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They aren't having babies. We're having babies. Do the math. We win.

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We win. And their worldview is ugly. It's a fat man in a dress.

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That's their worldview. It's a fat man in a dress. That's their icon, right? And we have,

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I mean, marriage, you know, the beauty of a Christian wedding. You know, a man and a wife.

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And it's undeniably beautiful. It's beautiful. And to take a shot at the church a little bit on this, for far too long.

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You always want to shoot at the church, Gabe. Because I love the church. I know. For far too long, we've been raising up our children not to become members in our own congregation.

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We've been losing our kids. We sent them off to children's church. We sent them off to children's church. For 18 years, we're like, you're not ready for this. Whatever the situation is, is if you guys, if churches can't disciple their own kids to become members, to fill their pews, then you've lost.

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Right? That's the, I mean, I can't tell you. I can't tell you how many churches I've been a part of. I've been in six different states and everything.

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How many churches that have not, the next generation has left the church and did not fill the pews. Well, and this is because the church frequently does

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MTV light for their youth group ministry. Right? So even like we're sending them to the public schools where they get full octane secularism all day long.

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And then they go to church on Sunday and they get watered down secular humanism for their

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Sunday school classes and their youth groups. And entertained. It's all entertainment. It's MTV and it's all - Their favorite worship song that's like Coldplay.

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Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what smoke machines are. Exactly. And then we're like, why don't they want to come to church?

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Because your church sucks. Yes. They were - You do the world bad. And we're raising up a generation of cowards.

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Yes. On top of all that. Being a coward is a sin. People are going to be in hell for being cowards.

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Just for cowardice. People will be in hell for being cowards. We've got cowards. And I'm not just trying to be on fire here, but it's true.

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We're talking about like, what's wrong. We were talking about the legislature and the stuff we've learned as we go to preach the gospel to the legislature.

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We have professing Christian pro -lifers in the legislatures that we're going to talk to. And you know what they say to us?

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They say exactly that. They say, well, I can't. They'll say it publicly. We can't possibly really make this a sanctuary city.

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We can't possibly end abortion because we've got to deal with the federal government. So you're a coward.

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So what it is, is you're a coward. You know that it's murder. You know that it's wrong. You profess to believe in Jesus Christ and to be pro -life.

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And you blame someone else. And you are a coward because now you're afraid of who? This federal beast. And here's the amazing thing.

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In Arizona right now, it is currently against the law. It's a criminal act to have an abortion. Never been changed.

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Same in Idaho. Never been taken off the books. If you just merely, as someone on the legislature, just go, see that law?

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We're upholding it. And then the federal government's going to come to you and say what? That some men in robes had an opinion on something?

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All they have to do is ultimately just be courageous and say, well, our constitution says that Congress makes law.

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So if you want to make a law on abortion, maybe we'll consider upholding that one. But for now, we're going to uphold our state one because all you have is an opinion from a

01:00:07

Supreme Court. You have no law made that governs me right now. The problem is that legislator won't smoke weed. Yeah, and that's my next thing.

01:00:13

My next point was to say in terms of like, how do I know it's cowardice? Because the same people who are ruling in these legislatures are willing to defy the federal government in terms of marijuana.

01:00:26

So if you're willing to actually say, I'll fight the federal government so people can smoke a J, but I'm not going to fight the federal government to stop this child from having its skull crushed, you're a coward.

01:00:37

And then we raise these children in youth groups that are just entertainment centers that have fog machines.

01:00:42

Like you said, it's worship that's like cold play and all the rest is the experience of not being fed, they're not being challenged.

01:00:48

So we send them off in the world and they see a man with a mangina telling someone to wax him and they go, well, that seems like a bad idea, but what can

01:00:58

I do about it? It's like, well, because you haven't seen your leaders or anybody around you go into the culture in the public square to die.

01:01:06

And declare truth, that's right. It's back to what Knox, you were saying earlier, it's all about me. It's serving my needs, comfort, comfort.

01:01:12

And rather than seeing men fight, rather than seeing people like a

01:01:18

Paul who actually believe that the gospel flourishes under controversy.

01:01:24

When you figure out, okay, where do I need to land this punch? Where does the gospel land here?

01:01:29

Where's the sledgehammer land here? Where's the idol I need to tear down here? And you know that it's going to make everybody mad.

01:01:36

And you say, that's exactly where I need to go. That's where I need to hit because that's where the idol is.

01:01:41

That's where their precious is. And that's where the gospel can do the most good.

01:01:49

That's offering time. It's offering time. I'm done. Your club members are getting their pints.

01:01:56

They're laser engraved pints, hopefully the next month. If you're not a member yet. You know where to go.

01:02:02

You know where to go. fightlathfeast .com. Brother Jeff, you made my soul happy today, brother. Thank you for being here. Praise God, thanks guys.

01:02:08

What's y 'all's website again? Apologyofstudios .com. Bring your love offerings. Reformcon .org.

01:02:15

Go get your tickets. Come join us. That's right, all of us will be there. If you're single, get married. If you're married, have kids.

01:02:21

Don't send them to government schools. And if you have kids, go baptize them. Close your ears. Until next week, love

01:02:26

God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Go fight, laugh, and feast to the glory of God.