Can Violence be a Moral Good?

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Sometimes I feel the weight of the world fall down on me, so heavy

00:12

And I need a friendly voice with some good theology

00:18

Calvinistic speaking So I mix a manly drink Pepsi Chupacabra And I hit the

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YouTube link Don't say hit, that sounds violent And I feel my troubles all melt away

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It's your Calvinist Podcast with Keith Barsky Beards and bowties, laughs till sunrise

00:47

It's your Calvinist Podcast with Keith Barsky He's not like most

00:57

Calvinists, he's nice Your Calvinist Podcast is filmed before a live studio audience

01:06

She punched a boy in church I'll just go to my room Hey, don't you move, what are you watching?

01:12

MTV Watch MTV George I'm not punishing her for doing the right thing Violence is never the right thing

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And welcome to Your Calvinist Podcast, my name is Keith Foskey and as always, I am your

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Calvinist Today on the show we're going to be asking the question Can violence ever be a moral good?

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And I'm joined today by my good friend, friend of the show And star of one of the most famous videos

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One of the most famous podcast intros in the world That is the Your Calvinist Podcast with Keith Foskey intro

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It is Uncle Rich Uncle Rich, how are you doing today, buddy? Doing good, doing good Yes, it is a very popular intro

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Except for a couple of people They will remain nameless Because you need to remove it

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Yeah, they said you need to remove that 70s intro And I said, first of all, it's 80s And you steadfastly refuse

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I absolutely refuse It is the Your Calvinist Podcast And it is with this

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Calvinist who's not just like all Calvinists I'm nice And I want to thank you today,

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Richard, for being on the show We've been talking about this subject for a while And what inspired this subject is several different things

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But not the least of which is that It's been over a year now Since you and I did our famous video together

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Which was the Denominations Go Shooting If you've never seen the Denominations Go Shooting video

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Go look it up on our channel It is the most widely watched one we've ever done on YouTube But it's not on TikTok And do you know why?

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Guns TikTok will not let you show guns Guns are a no -no I had a Bill Murray video that I made

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And it had a scene from Stripes Which is just them holding the gun, marching Wow And it got a strike

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And we were not allowed to have it on TikTok And I got a warning I got a slap on the hand

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Says, no, you will, mister, you will not do that And so TikTok I will no longer place any

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I have thought about refilming that video with water guns The denominations

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The denominations do nerf guns I wonder if just the word guns, though Would get it in trouble

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Well, if you do water guns Then you can do super soakers The denominations go super soakers The denominations test super soakers

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Okay, in the comments I just want you to tell us what you think we should do The denominations do super soakers

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The denominations do What was the other one? Paintball I don't know Oh, we can play paintball with each other

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There's also a video Have you ever been hit with a paintball? There's a video of me getting shot with a paintball gun On my lesser known channel

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Oh, I've seen that I have a lesser known channel There may also be a video of me tasing myself A lot of things exist on the interwebs

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That were happening well before anybody knew my name Yes They're grainy videos

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But you can definitely make out what's going on I have a funny story about the one of the tasing thing I just wanted to see what it felt like It wasn't a taser

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It was one of those ones you get from the flea market The stun gun type thing I buzzed myself on the heel

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Just to see what it felt like A company in California sent me

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A request to use it on TV They were going to pay me $25

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For the rights to use that video I don't know if it was like Tosh .0 or something It didn't say who it was

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It just said it was one of those clip shows And I said no I'm okay with it being on YouTube But I didn't want it on television

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And they offered you a whole $25 I wish I would have kept that letter That was pretty funny

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None of this has anything to do with what we're talking about It kind of gives you the spirit We're going to be talking today about the subject of Is violence ever the answer?

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We showed the clip at the beginning From the show Young Sheldon The sister had punched somebody in Sunday school

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Which we don't endorse We don't endorse violence in Sunday school But she had hit somebody because They were talking about her family

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And the mother says Violence is never the answer And so the question of today's show is

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Is violence ever the answer? But before we get there I have a few very quick things

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That I need to mention First of all I want to mention I received something in the mail

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From Reform Sage If you don't know who Reform Sage is Reform Sage produces a ton of really cool stuff

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A lot of stickers and things like this I have stickers on my laptop And things from Reform Sage And he sent me this very nice Quote from Martin Luther I'm a huge fan of Martin Luther And I just wanted to endorse his company

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And say hey this is a guy who's Putting out a great product And if you're looking for stickers

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Or anything else that he might have Go check him out Just google Reform Sage And you'll find him

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Also I want to mention 1689 Cigars Don't forget if you want a great quality cigar You can get one and get a discount

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If you put in hashtag Just the coupon code SuperiorTheology Don't forget also that we are a ministry

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Of Sovereign Grace Family Church If you want to know more about our church Sgfcjax .org

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You can find us online there And we support a missionary Scott and Jenny Phillips They're missionaries in Indonesia Just yesterday

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I received a letter from their family And it reminded me of how important it is To tell people about missionaries

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And about the fact That they always need support So if you want to know more about them

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You can look up DAO Ministries It's the Tao tribe It's who they go and minister to In Indonesia Just look up DAO Ministries And you'll find out all about them

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Scott and Jenny Phillips Please go and check them out Alright I think that's everything

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For the show Don't forget KeithFoskey .com If you want to get a hold of me If you have an idea for a future show

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And you want to reach out You can go to KeithFoskey .com You don't have to go to any email address You can email me right from the website

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It'll come directly to me I get it on my phone I'll see your email as soon as it comes through And I'll respond as I have time

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And if you have a great idea for a show Then maybe you'll be a future producer Of this show

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Helping us produce great content And also don't forget Fellowship Studios They're the ones who put the website together for us

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And it's a great group over there Family run business And they are producing great websites For people who need them

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Alright that's all the things I need to say So now let's talk about the stuff That we came together for today

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Rich is Rich has a pretty interesting background You're a country boy You grew up around guns

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And you humiliated me hunting once So you're a pretty good shot We were trying to shoot at rabbits

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And I had not zeroed in my rifle And I couldn't hit a rabbit to save my life And you were nailing it

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You had zeroed in at 100 yards And we were Six feet away And you're aiming through a scope

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And I'm like how does he keep missing Well it was a .22 And it was incorrectly zeroed

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I'm not even sure It was properly zeroed at 100 yards Whatever it was it was not good Alright so We're going to talk today about The subject of violence being a moral good

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We both are shooters We enjoy going out and shooting And I used to do competition shooting

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And I also have a background in martial arts Your daughter took karate with me For several years

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And just last night I was teaching karate I've been doing it now This is my 30th year in karate

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I started in 1994 So this year is my 30th year doing martial arts I have a 5th degree black belt in Shotokan Karate I have a 2nd degree black belt in What's called

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Modern Arnis Which is Filipino stick fighting And I've been doing it for a long time

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And A lot of people hear that And they immediately have questions

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Well how do you reconcile The fact that you teach karate Or teach martial arts

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With the fact that you're a Christian Aren't Christians supposed to be non -violent

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Aren't Christians supposed to be People who wouldn't engage in violence And again You and I did the shooting video

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And there are some people who came on there Why are Christians shooting guns Shouldn't Christians be promoting non -violence

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You're promoting violence by shooting guns Shame on you And shame on you Richard For shooting that rabbit

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I'm sorry I just want to eat And where this comes from This comes from the idea of Christians And pacifism

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And we're very aware of the fact That there are groups within Christianity That propose the idea

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That all Christians should be Pacifistic At least to the point that they're not willing

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To engage in any form of violence And we've seen this in things Movies like Hacksaw Ridge Which is a great movie

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I mean Andrew Garfield's a great actor And the movie itself Portrays a man who

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You know we could all say Whether we agree with him or not He stuck by his principles

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He didn't want to carry a gun And again this is an older movie So I hope

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I'm not spoiling it for anyone But you know I was saying something about Back to the Future Hey I was going to watch that this weekend

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It's 30 years bro I was going by Blockbuster tonight

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No you were not And the soldier in question Is Desmond Doss He went in as a medic

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And he didn't want to He took thou shalt not kill As you can't kill in any way shape or form

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Which we're going to talk about that in a little while Which I found interesting He stuck by his guns Ironically Stuck by his guns

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And I give him credit for that But what's interesting is

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I think about What if What if everybody In his unit decided not to pick up guns

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Somebody's got to pick up a weapon Sure Because if everybody's just a pacifist You're going to get run over That's an interesting

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And I know we're jumping way ahead of ourselves But I want to say this So I don't forget it later I don't know this is true

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So what I'm about to say is It's a question and a thought Maybe somebody in the comments will come in and say

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This is how it really is But it seems to me that People who are primarily pacifistic

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Have to live Places where People are willing to not be pacifistic

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On their behalf For instance Are there Amish people In Iraq? I don't know and I'm not saying there's not

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Again because I don't know But the Amish and Mennonites Tend to be more pacifistic

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And the Anabaptists were opposed to Violence and The use of force

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At least some of them were But This idea

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Of pacifism You can only really be a pacifist If there are people who are willing

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To do violence on your behalf Right? You have to have somebody who is willing to be

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The peace officer Or you have to be so far removed from society

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That you're not in any danger From anyone else You have to remove yourself From the cities

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You have to extricate yourself Way out there in the boonies somewhere And that's why I wonder

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Are there Amish people in Iraq? Are there Amish people in Iran? Are there Amish people in Saudi Arabia? I don't know

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And that's what's interesting about the story about Desmond Doss At least how they portrayed it in the movies He enlisted

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Because he wanted to go And he felt like That his brothers Shouldn't just People in his town shouldn't be the ones to go die for him

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He should be willing to go And put his life on the line as well Okay that's all well and good So he went as a medic so he can save lives

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Not take them But at the same time While not picking up a weapon

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He's endorsing those that are Because he's going to in essence Fight alongside them

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Just not throw any bullets Help save those who are injured and wounded

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But he wanted to sign up Because he felt like I guess he had to some degree feel like That the war was justified

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Because he wanted to protect his country But he just didn't want to pick up a weapon to do it So you're exactly right

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He had to depend on everybody else around him to protect him While he's doing his job Not everybody could go in as a medic

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And still medics go in They're carrying weapons That was the big issue around At least how they portrayed it in the movie

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That he wouldn't pick up a weapon I brought up some of my notes here

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These are from my Class that I teach At the academy For anybody who doesn't know

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We have an academy at Sovereign Grace We make it available online To anybody who wants to take classes It's a two year program

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And one of the classes we do is on the subject of ethics And in ethics we talk about Life ethics, death ethics

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Things like euthanasia and abortion We talk about money ethics Capitalism, communism, things like that But then we also have an entire class

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On war ethics And under war ethics The first topic that we discuss is pacifism

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So I want to read just a section of this And kind of have us Talk a little bit about it

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Under pacifism It says pacifism is defined And this is a Merriam -Webster definition So it's very generic, very vanilla

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It says pacifism is Defined as Opposition to war or violence

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As a means of settling disputes That's fairly That's about as generic

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As you're going to get And then it goes on A pacifist would not be willing to serve as a combatant

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In the military Though some do serve in positions such as chaplaincy Medical or etc

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Nonviolent pacifists Are morally opposed to the use of violence And non -participatory pacifists

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Cannot participate in roles Even supporting war efforts So there are distinctions We would say

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Desmond Doss is a nonviolent pacifist He's morally opposed to the use of violence

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But he's willing to support The effort A non -participatory pacifist

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Would be a person who cannot Participate in any role supporting The effort because they're completely

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Opposed to all violence At all So there is a distinction there

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This would be the guy that if he was drafted He'd be willing to go to prison over Serving in the military

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Because he doesn't want to do that Was it called a conscientious Objector And then there are those who are

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Like for instance I think it was

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Muhammad Ali Was a conscientious objector But his was not because he was a pacifist He was a boxer

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His was the issue of he didn't support The purpose of the war The reason for the war

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And again that's a whole other conversation And when we get to the subject of just war That does come up Is a war

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Is the violent act justified Even if we say Some violent acts are justified

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You and I would have to agree That not all violent acts are justified And many if not most of them are not

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There's a very small window Of justifiable war And justifiable violence So going on Christian pacifism is the position

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That any form of violence is incompatible With the Christian faith And it's based on several passages

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And this is where we're going to get Into a little bit of the meat Of really what the conversation is

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Because ultimately you and I are both Biblical Christians We believe in the authority of scripture

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We hold to sola scriptura The scripture alone is our sole infallible Rule of faith and practice

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And therefore we have to agree That if the Bible says it's wrong It's wrong

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No matter how good we feel about it Or bad we feel about it There's a standard above us And that is

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God And the Bible is God's word So the passages that people generally cite Are from Matthew 5, 1

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Thessalonians 5 And Romans chapter 12 And 1 Peter 2 So I'm going to read them

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We can talk through them Talk about our understanding of them And maybe even if we disagree

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Maybe disagree on how we would understand it Or apply it in this particular situation But these are the ones that are typically

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The pacifist would say Here's the reason why I have to be this way Matthew chapter 5

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Verse 38 says You have heard it said, an eye for an eye And a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you Do not resist the one who is evil

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But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek Turn to him the other also

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Now I'm going to give you Your choice Do you want to listen to all of them first And then go back

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Or do you want to take them one at a time Let's take them one at a time so we don't get Confused a little bit

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Sure, I understand So this one here What's your thoughts about it And then I'll give my thoughts

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I'd always I won't say I'd always But I'd heard that the interpretation behind this

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Is more to do to More insult than physical injury I guess if I'm taking that correctly

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I've heard some other Interpretations that have to do with Right hand and left

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Hands and stuff like that I'm actually going to mention that I think it has to do more with Insult than Personal attack, like physical attack

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I may be wrong on that You may have to correct me on that one But it's been a while since I thought about it

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No, no, no, that's fine And on this The first part is the part that I like to point to When I'm addressing this with people

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And that is the Quote that Jesus is referring to here From the old covenant where he says

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An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth A lot of people have attacked that phrase They say an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

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Right, there's a I can tell you love that But you understand

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But the point is that had A judicial Place within the people of Israel Because that was how retributive justice

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Was to be handled If a person harms another person Then a judge

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Was supposed to enact justice Which was to give retribution For whatever the crime was

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An eye, if you take a man's eye You deserve to lose an eye

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And One of my professors I remember him saying He said if a man took my eye

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I'd want to kill him He said but I can't It's an eye for an eye Not a life for an eye

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So there's a balance in that But what had happened

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At least as far as I understand it Is by the time of Christ This had become a

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Excuse for personal Retribution Rather than the judge

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Having a standard of righteousness Which says if this happens this is the result And this is how justice operates

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Retributive justice Must be handled this way It had become well if you do it to me I'm going to do it back to you

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And no longer is there justice But now it becomes vengeance Now it becomes vengeance

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And there is a distinction Between justice and vengeance Even though some people would say it's the same

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No it's not And I think where it's not the same And maybe you have a different opinion But my reason for saying it's not the same

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Is the third party Introduced And that being the judge

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The one whose role is to enact justice And that's his job And that's why we vet

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These people and only put people in That are supposed to be good and moral people Even though I know we don't Now we have judges that are foolishly

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Legislating from the bench and things like that But the reality is these judges Are supposed to do right

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When you go before a judge you should expect justice He's called a justice of the peace That's his job

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Is to enact righteousness The word justice means the application

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Of righteousness Eric go ahead Well I was going to If I remember correctly in the

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Old Testament The Old Covenant If there was disputes among people

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That they could not Handle themselves They brought it to the third party

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The purpose of that man Was now going to make the call

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And whatever he decided that was what you did Yeah I remember somebody tried to do that to Jesus And Jesus said who made me an arbiter

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Tell this man to give me my Inheritance or I forget the exact Context but Jesus said who made me the arbiter

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Why am I the judge like in this situation Right Of course So in that situation

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If someone had stole something from you Or what have you And they're saying they didn't but there was evidence they did

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You brought it to him and he made the decision And you did And you owe this man

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And sometimes it was what you stole Plus some Yeah and the

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Old Covenant law does that It provides those rules If your ox Crushes this thing or does this

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This person owes this much more But anyhow That's the point you're trying to make there

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Yeah I think it had been misapplied Within the people To be a reason for personal vengeance

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Right And Jesus is saying to them listen I say to you don't resist the evil person But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek

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Turn the other to him also And we're Some scholars have come to conclude Why would

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Jesus mention the right cheek A strike to the right cheek Was from the left hand

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And the left hand was considered the weaker hand Even with people who were left handed Because they're such a minority group

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That to anything in the Bible that's left hand Is typically to be The lesser or weaker side

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So a man who's struck in the right cheek Is struck with the left hand Therefore it is not a physical assault

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It's an insult Right And so That's the

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Wait a minute did I say Yeah this is my right this would be his left Yeah okay yeah And other people have said it was the back of his hand

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Some people say it was a left hand thing Some people say it was the back of his hand So it's not a strike or a punch

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Or a gouge It's a pop Like an insult Like if you spit in my face

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I ain't gonna lie to you I'd be pretty mad That's I think the equivalent Of a modern thing

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And people do that People spit on each other as a sign of derision As a sign of hatred

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As a sign of disgust Right I mean they did it in Jesus' day too But that is similar

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Contextually I think to what's happening here Alright so I don't think that this is

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Even though it does say do not resist the one who is evil I don't think this is an absolute prohibition

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Against personal protection In any case I think there's a context Surrounding it

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The context of unjust Right because he uses justice You've heard it said this, this is justice

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And it's being used unjustly And if anyone does this to you You know

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Don't strike back, don't fight back Yeah if you're being insulted Yeah And I would even say

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And I would even say something Like a push

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Let's say a man pushed me That doesn't automatically Give me the right

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To enact violence on him And we may feel differently But this is kind of This is where when we come to The concept of personal protection

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Versus vengeance You push me, I want to push you back Right Now if you're harming my child

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That's different If you're threatening my life Which is going to harm my children, my wife and those things

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That's where the difference lies And I have some other passages I'm going to bring up later About on the other side of this But for now

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I don't think this is Forbidding that No 1 Thessalonians 5 .15

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See that no one repays anyone evil for evil But always seek to do good to one another and to everyone

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Again I think this Falls into the category of Vengeance, retribution Repaying So if someone's done something

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To you And this will go with a text you're going to bring up later From Exodus But if someone does something to you

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And then you later go and Find them and Enact Repay that evil

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With the same amount of evil or whatever An eye for an eye as they were taken out of context I guess you could say Then yes you're in the wrong

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If someone was to physically attack me Trying to do me Physical harm and I defended myself

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I'm not repaying evil for evil I'm just defending myself Because I have a right to do that And we'll talk about that in a few minutes

26:36

I don't want to hurt him No We have a fourfold

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Thing that we teach The SAVE I don't know if I've ever talked to you about that It's an acronym

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I may have seen it when Taylor was doing

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Karate with me Well SAVE stands for Situational Awareness, Avoidance, Verbal Diffusion And ESCAPE All of those things we teach

27:01

Before any physical Connection If I know what's going on around me

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That's situational awareness If I'm avoiding all dangerous situations If I'm using my words

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Hey man, leave me alone I don't want any trouble Or even stop, I'm going to call the police Whatever, I'm using my words

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Verbal diffusion, whatever I've got to do Apologize, hey I didn't mean to step on your foot Or whatever, whatever I've got to do And then

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ESCAPE, I'm out I'm going to blind you with my behind I'm going to be like a doe, white tail

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I'm gone So all of those things Are the prelude to any physical Interaction Would be to try to avoid

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And get away Again, repaying evil for evil

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Is not the same thing It's not self defense, it's just vengeance Alright, so Romans 12 Is a longer passage

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It says, same thing Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought To do what is honorable in the sight of all

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If possible, so far as it depends on you Live peaceably with all I love that phrase, we're going to read the rest of it

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But just stopping right there Paul is indicating It's not always your choice

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As much as it depends upon you Live peaceably at all Peaceably with all I make this point a lot of times

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With people at church who come in And they say, I'm having conflict with my family I'm having conflict with whatever

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I say, well first of all Are you doing all you can do To live at peace with them And they say, well yes,

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I've done this, this, and this Okay, well You can't always be at peace with people Because some people won't let you be at peace with them

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That's why I didn't mention this When we were talking about Matthew 5 Because I knew it was coming up So I can tie it to it Talking about slapping the other cheek, being insulted

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If you're insulted You have the opportunity To stay at peace with that person

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And that's what this is talking about If it is possible For you to remain at peace

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Then do that Take the insult And move on Take whatever damage they're doing to you

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Provided it's not life -threatening damage And move on I mean That's how you harmonize

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Scripture That's not cherry -picking And it's not easy to do When somebody insults you

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Or especially if they insult your family Or your wife Your instinct

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I mean, I lose my sanctification real quick And I'm being honest It's just you and me

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And a thousand people on the internet But if somebody insults my wife It really is a struggle

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To not want to immediately Come to her defense In a very visceral way

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Well, I've had it happen On my job Because I don't work in a very I work in a very unsavory area of Jacksonville Matter of fact, the other day

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I happened to see there was a cop At one of my Dollar Generals And I went up to her and I just asked

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And he said, run! No, I went up to her and I asked her It was a female cop And I said, hey, you got a second

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I can ask you a question? She's like, sure, what you got? I said, years ago, Moncrief and Soutel That's where I work

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Was labeled as the most dangerous road in Jacksonville Has that changed? She's like, yeah it's changed, it's still the most dangerous road

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But it's expanded out and then she just pretty much Named my entire route It's expanded beyond just that And then she said, so I hope you got a gun

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In that truck To which I said, yes ma 'am She said, we'll keep it That's a police officer telling you that That's a police officer telling me that So I say that to say this

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This was Eight, ten years ago I was in a convenience store And my convenience stores are tight

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And I stepped on a dude's foot By accident I was trying to move around And it wasn't just like stepping on the toes

30:50

You catch somebody's heel and you break your foot And it kind of hurts And he got upset

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And kind of cussed me And I was like, bro, I didn't mean to do it It was accidental, I didn't see your foot

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I apologize and all that stuff And then he escalated and was like, man, I'll murder somebody's family That's where he went next

31:08

And I'm like, bro I don't mean to laugh That's where he went next I'm just saying

31:16

That's what he said next And I had a visceral response And I'm like, this guy just basically

31:22

Threatened to kill my family Because I stepped on his foot That's where he went with it

31:27

I know it's not funny But I'm laughing, I don't know why I kill your family

31:34

What did I do? It's his way of telling me he ain't somebody to mess with I know, but that's so crazy

31:39

Instead of just saying I'll beat somebody down I'll kill somebody

31:45

He's like, I'll murder somebody's family That's so wild And so the back of my neck is instantly hot

31:51

Back of my neck is instantly hot But I had to take a step back And I'm like, okay, whatever

31:57

I apologized again He settled down, he left But at that moment

32:03

I could have been like Okay, this guy just made a threat against my wife and children Let's go But it wasn't necessary Praise the lord, it wasn't necessary He was just posturing

32:15

That's just what they do He's peacocking He's posturing, trying to tell me

32:20

That he's the baddest man on the planet And I didn't leave him alone You don't touch me in any way, shape, or form And in those situations you can be prideful

32:27

And bow up to, or you can be like, whatever Finish my job, it doesn't matter And that's what

32:32

I did But I get what you're saying there It goes along with Live peaceful where you can

32:39

But there's times where people do things that just Inflame you Sure And your visceral response is

32:47

This guy needs to get hurt He needs to pay for what he just said to me or did to me And you have to remember

32:53

That's The Christian response is not always That's the worldly response

32:59

I see it every day I see it all the time, somebody will say something to somebody else Then this person will say something and escalate it

33:06

And the next thing you know there it blows We call it the ladder of escalation This is when I'm teaching self defense We say if Imagine a two sided step ladder

33:14

And the first guy says, well you're mom of this And you say, well you're mom of that And this, I hate this Eventually you're both going to meet at the top of the ladder

33:21

When somebody throws a blow or whatever But if you will stay here And he takes a step up And you're able to maintain your discipline

33:29

And stay at that rung of the ladder Then the reality is It's harder for him to take another step up If you're staying down here

33:37

You don't give him the next step Right And you try to disconnect, deescalate

33:42

And escape, right I don't want to be here That's just what you did, hey man I killed your family

33:50

You don't know my family, I'm out So yeah And this is all important When we're talking about this particular subject

33:58

Because people think when I say That violence can be a moral good People think that I mean all violence

34:05

No There's a lot of violence that's just bad And there's a lot that needs to be abandoned

34:11

What I'm trying to support And endorse is the idea That there does come a time As Ecclesiastes says

34:19

A time to kill There is that reality And I think that's there for a reason

34:25

Somebody says, oh that's old covenant Yeah but it's still there And it's a part of wisdom literature

34:31

That's timeless It's not intended to be An old covenant principle

34:36

Or law, it's a timeless principle There's a time to kill Right So if you're going to take that position

34:43

Because of the old covenant, there's not a time to laugh anymore Exactly, yeah That whole thing, and I read that A lot of times at funerals

34:51

Because time to mourn There's all that in there Right now is a time to mourn

34:56

And there will be a time to laugh And there will be a time to dance But right now is a time to mourn All those are true

35:02

So it goes on to say Beloved never avenge yourselves But leave it to the wrath of God For it is written vengeance is mine

35:07

I will repay says the Lord To the contrary if your enemy is hungry Feed him if you're thirsty Give him something to drink For by doing so you'll heap burning coals

35:14

On his head Do not be overcome by evil But overcome evil with good

35:21

Some people say Overcome evil with good marksmanship That's not That would make a great shirt

35:28

Do not be overcome with evil But overcome evil with good marksmanship No, but I think this

35:35

Again falls squarely In the category of vengeance He literally says

35:40

Do not repay evil Vengeance is mine says the Lord If your enemy is hungry That's assuming he's not

35:47

Killing you anymore If my enemy is hungry You know if he got a little tummy ache

35:52

While he's stabbing me I don't think that's the context That's not the time to make him macaroni

35:58

Yeah we're not making a bologna sandwich When you're poking me with your sword There is a context here

36:05

And when people say Well this is always the case You can never have any

36:10

Active personal protection based on this verse I would say that's Taking it out of context and using it

36:16

In a way that I don't think Paul ever intended Right And there are times

36:22

Where you can overcome evil with good And this might not This may not entirely fall

36:28

Into this context of this The example I'm about to give Because this isn't centered around vengeance I wasn't necessarily in any danger here

36:38

But There was a day I was out on the route And I saw A man and a woman

36:44

Walking up the sidewalk And they're obviously arguing And fussing

36:50

I couldn't really hear them because they're still several feet away But As they got closer

36:56

Now she's being mouthy I'll give you that But he started making

37:03

Threats against her Physically Because she's being mouthy And then they

37:09

Literally stopped within Eight feet of the back of my trailer while I'm unloading my stuff So I finished unloading

37:16

Because he's getting more and more Threatening Toward her And so I just stopped what

37:22

I was doing I just sat down and I'm just watching him Because if he lays a hand on her Then I've got to do something

37:28

If nothing else, restrain him Which is an act of violence And so at some point

37:34

She got fed up with him saying stuff And she's like I'm going to get this man over here, she pointed to me

37:39

To call the cops And he looked at me and said He ain't going to do nothing I said, sir,

37:45

I'll definitely call the cops And then I'm going to step in while they're on the way If you escalate this any further

37:53

So at that point He turns his attention to me Because now he's wanting Because now it's two roosters

38:00

Now he's wanting to bow up And She walked away when

38:05

He turned his attention to me And He starts kind of being threatening toward me

38:10

I said, hang on a minute, just chill out for a second I said If I was talking to your mama that way

38:18

What? Hang on, I kill your family But I said I'm sorry, it's just so random

38:25

Right But anyway I said Just chill out for a second, let me ask you a question

38:33

If you saw me talking to your mama that way Or talking to your sister that way Would you be happy with that?

38:39

And he His shoulders kind of dropped a little bit He's like, well no That's somebody's daughter you're talking to Imagine if her daddy was standing here

38:49

Would he be okay with you talking to her that way? Would you be okay with somebody Talking to your daughter that way?

38:55

Well no Bro, you got to learn to calm down And all of a sudden now I'm having a 20 minute conversation

39:00

About controlling oneself When dealing with The weaker sex He's like, you're right, you're right, you're right

39:06

He actually gave me a fist bump, walked off And they come back through later She's still being mouthy, but he's acting totally different toward her

39:13

Which was a good thing And it's kind of the idea of overcoming evil with good Just take a step back

39:18

And if you can get the man to listen Maybe you can reason with the fella And that's a great

39:25

Story And it goes along with something else we wanted to talk about And that was the idea of strength under control

39:30

Right Because you're not a little dude I mean I don't know how many people have really watched the video

39:35

But you're a pretty solid fella I mean you're six foot Six one at least I mean you're taller than me

39:42

And you're You carry heavy things for a living So you're not a weak person

39:49

I mean bread's heavy I'm not doing bread They're twenty pound, twenty five pound cases

39:55

Yeah I mean you're out there Walking in and out of a trailer all day Pulling stuff out

40:01

You're not a weak Physically weak looking person You know

40:07

And so you have a Presence that can be physically

40:12

At least It's enough to say Hey okay this guy's gonna be strong He's gonna be big

40:18

He's gonna be a lot to wrestle with if I have to wrestle with this dude And That in and of itself can be

40:25

Helpful But I tell you Weak Weakness is also a

40:34

Projection And people do project weakness I've seen very big men who just Have no intimidation factor at all

40:41

Because they just appear weak Right And I've seen little people Well not little people but like littler

40:47

Smaller guys Brother Mike Collier He's one of our elders He's a little guy but he's

40:52

He's not physically intimidating But he's the kind of guy who you know Is at least willing to stand his ground

41:00

He's not gonna be easily just Pushed aside Well I'll give you I won't necessarily say he's not physically intimidating

41:08

Because even if he has a smaller stature When you start speaking to him And he has a

41:14

He has a He has a confident enough presence That's it That you would know

41:21

Okay he might be I might have 100 pounds on this guy But I'm gonna know

41:26

I've been in a fight If I take him on And I know he's not gonna back down from me either You're not gonna shout this guy down just cause he's small

41:33

That's right So Mike if you listen to this You got an

41:39

Intimidating presence A little bit But that's I think men should

41:45

To some degree be able to Not in a way that's Like you know you're trying to Scare everybody just for the sake of scaring them

41:53

But you should be able to When you stand your ground The other guy knows okay he's not

41:59

Messing around Have a confidence about you Because as a husband

42:05

As a father It's your job To if your family

42:11

Or if someone Just random anybody Innocent people are being threatened

42:16

You may have to stand in that gap They gotta come through you And sometimes your presence alone is enough to get someone to back off Oh yeah

42:25

There's in my save seminar That I teach I have a picture Two pictures of Jennifer my wife

42:31

One of them is her Walking with her shoulders forward She's looking at her phone You know she's

42:37

Just looks like a victim And the next picture is her She's shoulders are back keys in her hand

42:44

Purse is on her shoulder But she's holding it And she's walking with that confidence And it's just a still picture

42:50

But I say which one of these is more likely to be a victim The person who looks like a victim

42:57

People who are Criminals people are criminally minded They look for they don't look for a fight

43:02

They look for somebody who's going to be the victim They're looking for prey That's right and what's the difference between predator and prey

43:09

Prey doesn't know it's prey Prey will always be Oblivious To the fact that they are being preyed upon That's it

43:19

See we're teaching self defense Well speaking of Having a presence

43:24

I remember A lady that used to go to church with us She was in Walmart And self awareness

43:30

She had her Two year old with her Sitting in the cart

43:37

And she kept noticing Everywhere she went in the store there's this guy And he's just kind of hanging around But he keeps watching her

43:44

Watching her So she decided to do a little experiment

43:49

She left the clothing section And went over to the frozen food ice cream section And within minutes

43:55

Dude's over there He ain't got no cart He's just looking for an opportunity And so she started making her way toward the door

44:03

And here he is Forty feet behind her And he's coming to follow her out in the parking lot

44:08

So now she can still carry it in her purse And on her hip She had two pistols with her all the time

44:14

I got two guns One for each of you And she wasn't no small stature woman

44:19

We'll put it that way She spun the cart around And made a beeline for him And started making noise

44:24

Hey man, why you been following me all over this store And drawing attention to him And suddenly the old boy is out the door and exit stage left

44:31

He was looking for a victim But when she showed she wasn't a victim And then called him

44:37

And called attention to what he was doing to everybody else The other three hundred people in the store Suddenly this man became very very timid

44:44

And hauled tail And then she followed him out in the parking lot And now she's chasing him

44:49

Got a security guard with her She's calling 9 -1 -1 She's taking pictures of him And she's making him known on social media and the whole world

44:56

Look out for this bozo He got in his car and took off But that's what you gotta do They're looking for prey

45:03

But if you show you got some teeth They're gonna back off But if you're not aware

45:11

Then she'd have never seen him She'd have started walking to her car He'd have closed the distance And maybe attacked her at the car

45:17

And who knows if he was looking to steal the child Whatever the case may be I know we're running long on stories

45:23

These are all good things I don't think I ever did this seminar I said I might do it as a podcast

45:28

But the Save Seminar we talk about this I do this at businesses and I do this at churches

45:34

Where I go in And I talk about just those four things The first thirty minutes is situational awareness

45:39

Just what you just talked about Personal confidence Projecting confidence Keeping your eyes on things

45:45

Head on a swivel All those things are super valuable And that's what saves your life If you're in the fight

45:51

You messed up somewhere Bruce Lee has a great

45:59

Some books were published posthumously After he passed away And what they did was they took pictures That he had done in self -defense

46:07

Like training And they used those to teach And they're like books on self -defense And books on training and stuff

46:13

And there's a picture of him And this is the smartest thing you've ever seen in your life It was a picture of him walking towards the corner

46:19

Of a building and turning And then it was the next picture He walked in a circle

46:27

And the difference was If you walk in a corner and you turn You're now blind to the corner If there's somebody standing there

46:33

You might walk into them Or if there's somebody to threaten you They're right there But if you go in a circle around the corner

46:39

If you go three foot away from the wall And walk in a circle Then you'll see if somebody's there Before they have a chance to startle you

46:46

Or grab you or whatever And you can go the other way And that one little bit

46:51

Of just genius thinking Don't be married to the wall The other day

46:57

I had to go downtown I had to go downtown Jacksonville at 10 o 'clock at night And walking downtown

47:02

Jacksonville at 10 o 'clock at night Was very intimidating Because I mean it's just There's a lot of homelessness

47:07

There's a lot of people around You don't know who these people are And you don't know why they're sleeping on the sidewalks And things like this And I'm having to walk

47:13

And I'm thinking of all these things I've trained other people to do One, don't go to downtown Jacksonville At 10 o 'clock at night

47:19

Don't do that Well that reminds me There's a I forget the name of the book

47:26

Jocko Willick does a Jocko podcast He served In Ramada And he said urban warfare is the worst

47:34

Because of all the buildings All the blind spots And if you're trying to be situationally aware

47:40

In downtown Jax Surrounded by 100 foot, 200 foot buildings

47:45

And there's a corner every time you turn around And you may not be able to run the circle Because you'll be in the street You've got to be married to the wall

47:53

So you've got to be ready when you're around the corner If somebody's going to jump you, you've got to be ready to go So that's the difficulty

47:59

I've learned too, eye contact does a lot And what I mean by that is I wear shades

48:06

One, it's sunny and I'm working But when I'm doing convenience stores It's purposeful because you can't see my eyes

48:12

And so I'll be looking forward Walking forward, but I'm scanning Constantly And I've had on more than one occasion

48:19

Where as I walk by A couple of guys They'll move in behind me

48:26

As I'm walking to the truck And I've literally stopped, turned around and looked at them And when

48:31

I do that They break and go back to where they were standing They were hoping I wouldn't notice I was about to get jumped

48:37

Is what was happening They saw me get paid in a convenience store And they knew

48:42

I got paid They knew I had money in my pocket And they moved in behind me Now if I hadn't been paying attention

48:49

I'd have never seen it, and as soon as I opened that trailer I'm getting to put my stuff up They're on me

48:54

But as soon as I turn around and they see that I've seen them They move away Because they realize, okay

49:01

Now he's on to us I wish I had the video, but there is a video And I forget what kind of animals it was

49:07

But it was a predator prey animal situation I think it was like Some type of a bull

49:12

And some type of a lion But the bull was sitting there eating and the lion was going to jump And the bull turned and pointed his horns

49:18

That's all you had to do? And the lion went I'll go to find another one that don't see me coming

49:24

Right So the last verse we're going to look at Before we get to the positive case

49:30

This is all kind of responding And I know we've kind of gone in different directions But 1 Peter 2, 18 -24

49:36

It's several verses It says Servants be subject to your masters with all respect

49:42

Not only to the good and gentle But also to the unjust for this gracious thing When mindful of God one endures sorrows

49:48

While suffering unjustly For what credit is it when you sin and are beaten for it And you endure But if when you do good

49:56

And suffer for it You endure This is the gracious thing in the sight of God For to this you have been called

50:03

Because Christ also suffered for you Leaving you an example So that you might follow in his footsteps He committed no sin

50:09

Neither was there deceit found in his mouth When he was reviled he did not revile in return When he suffered he did not threaten

50:14

He continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly He himself bore our sins in his body

50:19

That we might die to sin and live to righteousness By his wounds you have been healed So there's a lot in that that really doesn't apply to this specifically

50:26

It's specifically the passage that says When he was reviled he didn't revile in return And when he suffered he did not threaten

50:32

So the argument from the pacifist side of this Is that Well Christ Was punished

50:41

Christ suffered He never defended himself Therefore we

50:47

If we are you know Going to follow our masters example We should not defend

50:52

Ourself and so that That one is a little more Contextual for me

50:59

And I'll give you my thoughts if you want me to go first My thought on this is There are specific reasons

51:06

Why Christ never Defended himself in regard To his crucifixion because One this was the very purpose

51:13

For which he came into the world He said if I wanted to I could call down a legion of angels

51:18

And all this would be over You guys would be you know a pile of goo And it would all be done

51:25

But When he would pile it He could have got himself out of it there too That's right There is a reason for this receiving

51:33

I do think there is an example in Christ Of loving our enemies Because he never

51:39

Showed anything but love To even those who hated him Willingness to tell them

51:45

They were wrong though He called them brood of vipers and everything else But at the same time he was

51:51

Our ultimate example Right But the context

51:57

Is so different when you think of someone Breaking into your house in the middle of the night Versus Christ being taken before Pilate And beaten

52:05

So that's my take And the reviling he was receiving Was You know

52:13

More insult than injury Yes he was He was flogged by Pilate Pilate had him flogged and all that Yes he was beaten

52:22

But reviling he received From the common folk Was insult

52:28

Spitting Some people struck him as he went by And stuff like that But as you were saying contextually

52:36

This was all With the Cross in mind

52:41

And so It's a different story for us But yes we can follow the example of If someone is

52:50

Calling you names And saying all manner of evil things about you And telling lies

52:55

And even in the public square or whatever You have to ask yourself the question Is any of this

53:02

True Is it really any harmful to me Yes it Bruises my pride maybe

53:09

But that doesn't mean I get to go and Do the same to them You know and start

53:15

Insulting them in the public square And saying all manner of evil about them Because eye for an eye

53:21

You just let it go But that's not in the context Like what you said with If someone breaks in my home

53:29

Or if I'm At Arby's And some maniac comes in With a gun and starts shooting the place up And shooting other people

53:40

You know Even in that situation with your save With the situation of Awareness and even escape

53:48

In that moment If I'm armed And he's killing people

53:53

I may have to help my family escape But then I may have to engage this man

53:58

To save others Escape is not always the answer But that passage there

54:03

Has nothing to do with What we're talking about as far as Violence as a moral good

54:09

That's right I agree Because Christ was He couldn't

54:17

He was unwilling To fight back because to fight back Means he would be jeopardizing The purpose in which he came

54:24

So anyway So I want to jump to just war theory But before I do I just want to mention this Because this is part of my notes

54:30

I'm looking at my notes that I teach from There's an argument that All of the early church fathers

54:36

And all of the Early church was all pacifistic Because none of them fought back

54:42

When they were persecuted and things like that And so there is an argument That What Augustine introduced

54:51

Which is just war theory which we're going to talk about Of course Augustine not coming on the scene

54:56

Until the 5th century That this was Actually in opposition to what the church

55:02

Had lived and done Up until him And just war theory basically says that There are times when loving your

55:10

Neighbor would require Acts of violence That's the basis for just war theory

55:15

So for instance the best example I've heard Is What you just said If I'm walking along and I see a man being abused or assaulted

55:23

I have two or three choices One I can Simply ignore him

55:32

Or I can Try to talk

55:37

I can try to be a diplomat And try to talk the person out of it Which is what you did And that worked

55:43

Diplomacy can have its place But at the end of the day

55:49

If diplomacy doesn't work If this person is out of his mind Cannot be reasoned with If a violent act

55:57

Has to be taken That violent act Is not the lesser of two evils

56:02

As many people would say Well it's just a lesser evil No it's actually a moral good It's a moral good to engage in violence

56:10

On behalf of the person who is being assaulted So even if the only action Was that I Do a full on bear hug

56:17

Just jump up behind him, grab him and squeeze him Until he passes out I mean that's the heart of jiu jitsu right there

56:24

I mean You either You squeeze him around the neck Until he passes out That's why

56:30

I always loved Helio The one who invented it

56:36

It was the old man, Gracie Royce No Royce is his son There's Royce and Horian and those guys

56:43

But this is what he said Many men can take a punch But nobody can take being choked

56:50

Eventually everybody passes out And so if I just grab The guy from behind And I squeeze him until he stops breathing

56:58

And passes out Is that violent action That I've done, and it is

57:03

Choking somebody out is a violent action If that violent action that I have done Is that an evil

57:09

Or is it a moral good I would say it's a righteous action In that moment because If someone is

57:21

Threatening harm on someone else You don't know to the Degree of what the harm they intend to do

57:29

And if we're Going to understand that Everyone is made in the image Of God, they're image bearers

57:36

Of God And we also know That the old covenant carried a very high price

57:42

A life for a life If you take someone's life, your life is required Of you So if Their intent to harm could

57:51

Lead to them killing Someone else Then you stepping in And preventing that action

57:59

Or preventing them even from harming Someone else made in the image of God Is a righteous act because You are protecting that Which God has made

58:08

You're protecting the image bearer Just like when men and women Stand outside of abortion clinics pleading for people

58:15

Not to kill We're saying don't take that life Because it's an image bearer of God That baby is an image bearer of God I mean this happened at West Nassau last year

58:24

With my own With Brock One of the kids in his class

58:29

Some moron Senior brought Brownies or something laced

58:35

With some drug And this kid ate it And then he had like a

58:40

Schizo kind of episode And he attacked the teacher Oh boy And like grabbed her by Either the chest or the throat

58:50

And what's interesting in that situation Is Because I asked Brock about it Did anybody in the room

58:57

Specifically the other males in the room Move to help this woman

59:02

And he said no So I did He stood up and he went

59:07

And he grabbed the boy like you said He just grabbed him around his arms Now Brock's as big as I am now

59:13

Grabbed him around his arms Picked him up off of her And then went and kind of pinned him against the wall

59:18

Until they could get Grown men in the room But he held him in place while he's having a meltdown

59:25

Eventually he quit fighting And kind of just laid to the ground And Brock just kind of sat on him

59:30

So to speak But he helped him contained Until the principal and vice principal got to the room

59:36

But Two things, one he Protected the woman which is what he's supposed to Kudos to Brock, let's go get ice cream

59:44

But second You get your reward But second, none of the other boys in the room

59:50

Even made a move Had Brock not been present They'd have just He said there was people with the phones out

59:57

I don't understand that bull crap Why are you filming someone being Assaulted when you should be

01:00:03

Stepping up and doing something about it So anyway The term that I Got from Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman And he is, he speaks at Police groups

01:00:17

And he speaks now at churches and stuff And he's a former army ranger The term that he uses is a term that I Picked up immediately and have used it ever since And that's the term benevolent

01:00:27

Violence Benevolence is when something is done out of love As opposed to malevolence

01:00:32

When it's done out of hatred or evil So benevolent violence Would be violence that's done out of love

01:00:39

Brock did what he did because he loved that teacher I mean when I say love He may not love his teacher like he loves his mama

01:00:45

But he loves her in the sense that she's a fellow human being He loves her in the sense that she's An image bearer of God and he's not going to watch

01:00:51

Somebody be injured when he has the Opportunity to protect them By engaging in a form

01:00:57

Of benevolent violence and that's where I say violence can be a moral good So with that Being said, oh and I do want to Add this in,

01:01:06

I mentioned earlier About the time between Christ And Augustine There is a professor, his name is

01:01:13

Andrew Holt, he's a PhD He teaches at Florida State College of Jacksonville So he's right here, he has written on The subject of This assertion about the early church

01:01:23

And regarding the pacifism And he makes some really good arguments So if anyone is interested

01:01:28

I can put a link to his articles And stuff in the Thing, we just don't have time

01:01:34

To get through it right now, but he argues that The context is different For the early church, like they're not serving in the military

01:01:41

And things like that because Of the context that they're in, which is They're not able to because of Not that they're not willing to Fight, but because of the

01:01:50

Religious aspects Of serving, like having to Pay homage to Caesar And things like that, which early

01:01:57

Christians didn't do And even the fact, Jesus is Lord Was a response to Caesar Which is Caesar's Lord, right?

01:02:03

So those things were Different, and the context Historically the context is different And they were being attacked and persecuted

01:02:13

Specifically for their faith That's right, that's right So it's a much different situation Than now, and Jesus never told a soldier

01:02:23

To repent of being a soldier Even John the Baptist When he had the soldiers come to him, what do we do?

01:02:29

He said, don't extort money I forget The ones that he said, but Among the things that he said,

01:02:36

I know one was don't extort money But he never said Lay down your sword and don't be a soldier anymore

01:02:42

When Jesus had The centurion come to him He didn't say, hey, I'll heal your

01:02:47

Servant, but you've got to stop being a soldier You've got to Jesus also told his disciples

01:02:54

When he sent them out Get yourself a dagger or a sword Because they're going to be

01:03:00

Because of the context of that day The roads they were walking, there were marauders There were people who would

01:03:05

You could be attacked Get you a sword Because you may need to defend yourself

01:03:11

And the other question I would ask before you get to the other thing Was Christ Flipping tables and hitting people with whips

01:03:20

Was an act of violence Benevolent violence Because what was he doing? He was protecting

01:03:26

He was exercising physical church discipline There you go But that goes back to Meekness and strength under control

01:03:34

That you were going to talk about That's where we're headed Because it comes to I think that we would both agree

01:03:42

And I hope the viewers would understand what we mean Retaliation Is not what we're endorsing

01:03:49

But protection is what we're endorsing And protection can be Applied to an individual

01:03:55

And protection can be applied to Myself So I can either protect you

01:04:00

I can protect my family or I can protect myself Because I have that right And this falls into a category of Authority as well

01:04:10

One of the things that We know is that God establishes Basically in the scriptures

01:04:15

Three spheres of authority I think we've talked about this before The family, the church and the state So within the family there's authority

01:04:22

And within the church there's authority The elders and the leaders of the church Have authority to exercise

01:04:28

A certain type of rule And the government According to Romans 13 and other passages Has an authority

01:04:36

Inherent with that authority Is also the responsibility of protection The government does not bear the sword in vain

01:04:41

For what reason? To bring justice upon the evildoer And this is why when the government

01:04:47

Does wrong we have to call them out You are a minister of God According to Romans 13 and your responsibility

01:04:53

Is to minister properly And you're not doing so Church as well

01:04:58

The church protects from bad doctrine It protects from those who would bring

01:05:03

Sin into the church That's where church discipline comes into play But the home

01:05:09

I as a father Have a responsibility to protect My home Jesus said a strong man protects his house

01:05:16

Now immediately those who disagree Would say well he's talking about the devil Because he is in the context of that he's saying

01:05:22

The reason why The casting out demons The devil wouldn't cast out demons Because a strong man protects his house

01:05:29

He's not going to cast out The devil's not going to cast out devils But the point that Jesus is making

01:05:36

Is a rudimentary basic truth And the truth is A strong man protects his house

01:05:43

And the only way you can Go in and plunder The strong man's house

01:05:48

Is you have to bind the strong man Because if you don't bind him He's going to stop you

01:05:55

That's such a Basic thing That a man's responsibility In his sphere of authority which is in his home

01:06:03

Is to protect his home Right And those who would rob people Of the ability

01:06:10

To protect their home By saying well as a Christian you can't do that And somebody said nobody's saying that No there are

01:06:17

There are people who say that I'm going to say this very quickly And I know this is one of the things we were going to banter about John Piper's Statement Which was

01:06:32

Essentially And this has been several years ago And I'm not a Piper hater Piper's done a lot of good things

01:06:38

And he's spoken to many people's lives And he's done a lot of good things So nothing I'm saying is meant to cast aspersions on Sometimes people say things that are

01:06:46

That's right People say things that are wrong And we can disagree with them You've got to call balls and strikes

01:06:51

Even on your own team Right I mean John MacArthur is wrong on PTSD Yeah Yeah So you've got to call balls and strikes

01:07:00

Right This one is a ball This one didn't make it across the plate

01:07:05

And that's John Piper's Statement when he said Well if a man breaks into my house and he's going to kill my family

01:07:12

I'm not going to kill him Because if I kill him I would send him to hell

01:07:17

If he kills my family my family's going to go to heaven And so I'd rather him kill us And we go to heaven

01:07:23

And him have the opportunity later to repent Than for me to kill him And rob him of that opportunity to repent

01:07:29

And then he goes to hell I've consigned his soul to hell And my immediate response is

01:07:36

I don't think that that's biblical In many ways I know you have a lot of thoughts about it

01:07:41

So I'm going to let you go But my immediate thought is That sounds genuinely loving

01:07:48

But I don't think it is And I'll say why in a minute But I want you to go first Well the first thought

01:07:54

I had when I heard that And this might be an interesting take For some folks But as theologically astute

01:08:05

As John Piper is And he understands Election and predestination

01:08:11

And all those things He has a reformed understanding Of soteriology And he knows that Christ will lose none that belong to him

01:08:20

And those are the elect If a man breaks into my house And I kill him

01:08:28

And he goes to hell He wasn't one of the elect in the first place That's the way

01:08:34

I look at it Because if he's one of the elect And he's supposed to come to faith in Christ Before he dies

01:08:40

Then I will shoot him And he will survive And I can witness him later But I'm Sound theology tells me

01:08:48

I can defend my house And here's the other thing too He's taking responsibility For sending this man to hell

01:08:54

Scripture tells us we're born Dead in our trespasses and sins This man was on the way to hell before he got to your house

01:09:01

That's the point Whether he died in a car wreck Before he got to your house

01:09:07

Or he died at the hand of your gun Going off because you're defending your family He's on the way to hell anyway You're not sending anybody to hell

01:09:15

You have a responsibility According to Exodus 22 If a man breaks into your house You kill him so he dies

01:09:21

The blood guilt is not on your hands But if he breaks into your house And you go hunting after him later And you kill him

01:09:27

His blood's on your hands Because that's vengeance One's self defense The other is vengeance

01:09:33

Period the end He's trying to sound like he's got some moral high ground here

01:09:39

Because well I'll just let him kill me and my family Because he still needs to be witnessed to Brother Again You have the right to defend your family

01:09:51

According to scripture God laid that out in the law Period That's old covenant

01:09:58

We just talked about what Jesus said in the new covenant He told his disciples Get you a weapon and defend yourself if necessary That's the context being implied

01:10:07

In telling them to get a weapon Defend yourself You may have to defend yourself violently

01:10:12

And kill someone else But if they're trying to hurt you You got a right to defend yourself

01:10:18

Don't buy the sword and go robbing people And killing people just to kill them But you can take someone's life

01:10:23

If they're trying to take yours or your family's Christ would agree with that So I don't

01:10:29

It's like he forgot his theology all of a sudden Forgot his scripture When he makes this claim that Well I would let him kill me

01:10:38

Because I don't want to send him to hell Well you're not the one sending him to hell We're born

01:10:44

Heading in that direction The only difference is whether you're one of the elect And when your appointed time unto salvation comes

01:10:50

That'll happen That's just the way I look at it And It's a

01:10:57

It's a very strange take To say that It's almost like he's

01:11:05

I hate to say Bragging to some degree Like how pious I am Because I'll let somebody kill me

01:11:12

Over me killing them And that might be a step too far But I don't understand

01:11:18

Why he would even say that I know you have a different thought on it I was going to say I don't know if I would say he was bragging

01:11:26

I genuinely think he thinks that I don't think he was just trying to posture But I mean

01:11:33

It's been a long time since I've seen the clip There's a lot of There's a lot of Thoughts that we could have about his motives

01:11:40

You know about why he would say it But I don't know I mean you could be right I'm just saying I don't necessarily think that's his reasoning

01:11:47

I think that What you just said Some people I'm sure some of the comments are going to say

01:11:54

You're just a determinist You're a Fatalist or whatever

01:11:59

But we are We hold the same theological view

01:12:04

As Piper This is an inner This isn't as if he is like An Arminian or provisionist

01:12:13

He's in the same camp as us So he would hold to a certain form Of at least compatibilism

01:12:19

So he would certainly Not be able to deny Other things that he said So what you've said is fair certainly within his context

01:12:26

He seems to be violating his own understanding Even if other people would disagree And say well I don't see it that way

01:12:31

But that's the way he would see it Right So I think that's fair The issue

01:12:38

I have And this really came to me very recently And that is the fact that I have children who are not yet saved And so Guy breaks into my house

01:12:49

Oh and by the way John Piper has a son Who's not saved He's very well known on TikTok and things like that And I've talked about the fact that that's very sad

01:12:58

I did a whole show On Piper's son and how sad it is When I see that I think what if that were my son as a pastor

01:13:05

It would break my heart to see my son repudiating The gospel that he's been taught But now it's not

01:13:12

You know somebody comes in And kills my family we're all going to heaven Well what if we're not? What if I have children that are not yet saved

01:13:19

I mean that changes the dynamic Completely Dr. Piper You know that changes for me everything

01:13:25

Because one Even if all my children are saved They still are under my protection

01:13:32

And two If my children aren't saved Now we're dealing with a whole other Situation Okay this guy who's willing to take their lives

01:13:40

He deserves protection but not them Because ultimately he's going to have to be Protected from me

01:13:46

Right and I'd be interested to see What his response to that Nuance would be

01:13:52

Because if he If one In one instance

01:13:58

If everybody in his family is saved from Teenage down to Four years old whatever

01:14:04

Because I mean that could be the context Of someone's family You should let the assailant kill you and your family Because you're going to heaven and he's not

01:14:11

But he may one day Come to faith in Christ so you're doing the right Noble thing but if you say

01:14:18

Okay well what if two of your kids aren't Saved so him killing them sends them to hell And then you say

01:14:24

Well then it's okay to kill him Then you're talking out of both sides of your mouth Because now it's okay to Kill him because you don't want your kids to go to Hell but it's okay for him to Kill your kids if he's going to hell and they're not

01:14:37

When The correct proper View of this should be

01:14:43

Regardless You can take off the table the Armenian And reformed understanding of soteriology The harmonized

01:14:50

View of this should be If a man breaks into your house And you kill him so he dies

01:14:56

Because he's trying to harm your family You're not Guilty of his blood

01:15:02

That's what scripture says And for those who don't know I know you referenced the scripture earlier

01:15:08

It's Exodus 22 I used to have this printed on my shirts I still do

01:15:14

Pistol classes I'm certified With NRA to teach but Ever since they passed

01:15:19

The constitutional carry nobody cares to get The classes anymore which I do think People need to take classes But used to when people

01:15:27

Needed to get to be able to carry they wanted to have a class I went through your class And Exodus 22

01:15:33

Says if a thief is found breaking in And is struck so that he dies there shall Be no blood guilt for him but if the

01:15:39

Sun rises on him there shall be blood Guilt for him he shall surely pay If he has nothing then he shall be sold for his

01:15:45

Theft so the idea is if a man Is caught in the act breaking into your Home and he's struck and the idea

01:15:51

Of the striking here is the idea of striking Someone in the midst of personal protection This guy's in your house in the middle of the night

01:15:57

I'm walking to get milk and I walk In eye to eye with some dude I'm going to tell you Something I'm going to become the most dangerous man in the world

01:16:04

For about 30 Seconds that's about all I have wind for But I got about 30 seconds of good wind in me

01:16:09

And I'm going to eat his face like a pit bull on Crack right then I am going To become very dangerous as one

01:16:15

Get on one guy on Joe Rogan said I will wear your skin I mean for that Moment right because you're in my house

01:16:23

My kids are in danger At that moment I'm if that's it And think about the context of 22 he

01:16:29

Says a thief he's just coming In to steal stuff yeah it doesn't Say he's coming in to kill anybody

01:16:35

That's right he's just coming in to steal He's in the wrong place and if you strike him as you die He's in the wrong place so you're

01:16:41

Defending your belongings yeah Yeah and so he dies I remember Somebody said well you shouldn't Somebody shouldn't be killed just because They're taking your stuff well

01:16:50

I like my stuff First But before somebody takes that out of Context right

01:16:56

I do understand that There is a difference between protecting law and protecting Property but ultimately I do have a right to my

01:17:01

Home too right I have a right to the Sanctity of my home my Home has a lock on it for your protection

01:17:07

Yep Yep And I'm not here trying to sound like a tough guy or anything Again I'm big you know people know who

01:17:13

I Am you know I ain't no big tough guy I'm just a big guy but In that moment

01:17:19

Are you willing to be tough Are you willing to stand up Are you willing to Like you said about Mike you can tell

01:17:28

He's the type of guy who will stand Up for himself are you willing to be That guy in that moment and this

01:17:33

Gets to what we're going to kind of We got to get to those other videos we want to look at But yeah and keep in mind too

01:17:40

You may It may sound like we're trying to come off As tough guys Understand when

01:17:45

I say if I'm going to confront The man in my house I'm going and doing it knowing that This man may have skills and abilities that I'm not aware of he may kill me

01:17:55

That's right but I'm standing in the gap Between him and my wife and children That's right if anything

01:18:01

If he comes in with a gun And it's three o 'clock in the morning And I don't have time to get to mine

01:18:06

And I bum rush him and he puts two in my Stomach but I'm able to Get on him and fight him till my last

01:18:13

Breath my wife's got time to get her gun That's right and then she takes him out I may be done I may be off to glory

01:18:19

But she's still here My children are still here and that dude ain't That's the point

01:18:25

We have in our house That's our rule I go to him you go to the gun I go to him you go to the gun

01:18:32

Because if he just comes in the door He's my priority To give him

01:18:38

Many pounds of problems Coming his direction where he can deal With me while you protect the kids

01:18:44

And I've gone as far as With Crystal This happens none of the children wake up Here you're shooting lanes

01:18:52

Know what the backstops are There's a lot to be said For that people say oh you're paranoid

01:18:58

I've taught my children in the middle of the night If they hear something if they hear me yell Or tell they need to get down on the

01:19:04

Ground and crawl under the bed They do not need to come looking for me They don't need to come to me I will come to them

01:19:10

You get down you get under the bed and you Stay where you are until I come and get you That way I'm not seeing silhouettes

01:19:16

In the dark You get down underneath I've taught when we leave

01:19:21

Brock and Taylor With little ones for a couple hours I've taught Brock If someone's trying

01:19:27

To get in this house and you're aware of it Ahead of time you know where they are Fifteen is and a lot of times he'll

01:19:33

Go ahead and hang it on his little thing He's got it ready to go But Taylor's job is to get the

01:19:39

Girls get her to a specific spot That we've mapped out in that house And hide behind the door

01:19:45

And Brock's job is to get the weapon And greet them As they come through the door or the window or whatever

01:19:51

Or worst case scenario Get yourself behind the same door As the girls so when they open that door

01:19:57

You put thirty In his direction But if they never come through that door

01:20:04

And they steal everything in the house I don't care But if they come through that door You kill every one of them

01:20:09

That's self defense And you've got to train your family to do this Because if I'm not here the next person to do it is my son

01:20:17

So anyway Well we've talked about a lot of stuff And we brought two videos with us

01:20:23

And we're getting We're getting along I know But I hope people listen Especially this last part to hear what we were saying

01:20:31

And again I did this whole class on war ethics If people want to go back and find it They can find it through our

01:20:39

Through the Sovereign Grace Academy So they can actually hear more of the argument From a biblical perspective on these things

01:20:44

But we brought two videos These are from Not a Christian man

01:20:50

So I want to say from the outset We're asking the question Is violence a moral good

01:20:56

We've made a biblical I think a biblical argument for that Both from the passages we looked at And from looking at the passages that are usually used against it

01:21:03

So we've looked at both sides And This is a man named

01:21:10

Jordan Peterson Many people already know who he is But if you don't this is a man who Who is conservative

01:21:16

At least in most of what he talks about He is a psychologist And he talks about the importance

01:21:23

Of strength And the danger of weakness And I think that's something to be considered

01:21:29

And he does talk about the Bible Sometimes a lot of what he I've read his book 12 Rules for Life Some of what he says about the

01:21:36

Bible A lot of what he says about the Bible Is taken from a textual critical perspective

01:21:41

What's called the He reads a lot of his psychology Documentary hypothesis He mentions a lot

01:21:46

Not by that name But you can tell if you're familiar with it It comes into play So anyway having said that I don't endorse everything this man says

01:21:54

But I want to listen to two quick videos We're going to comment on them And then we're going to draw to a close We're getting to the hour and 30 mark here

01:22:00

So we'll make this our final thing It's helpful for people to hear

01:22:05

That they should make themselves competent And dangerous and take their proper place In the world Competent and dangerous?

01:22:12

Why dangerous? Because it's the alternative to being weak And weak is not good

01:22:18

The people who shoot up the high schools They're weak How is it good to be dangerous?

01:22:24

Because it makes you formidable And life is a very difficult process It's not for You're not prepared for it

01:22:31

Unless you have the capacity To be dangerous That doesn't mean that you should be cruel

01:22:37

It doesn't mean any of that There's a statement in the New Testament The meek shall inherit the earth But the meek isn't well translated

01:22:43

It means something more like Those who have swords And know how to use them but keep them sheathed

01:22:50

Will inherit the world That's a way better way of thinking about it You have to be powerful and formidable

01:22:56

And then peaceful in that order Now I'm just going to play the next video Because he explains more about that meekness

01:23:03

And that's where we're going to finish up Those who have swords and know how to use them But keep them sheathed

01:23:08

Will inherit the world And that's another thing I've been telling you That's a big difference

01:23:15

It's so great One of the things I tell young men And young women as well But the young men really need to hear this more

01:23:21

You should be a monster Because everyone says you should be harmless Virtuous You shouldn't do anyone any harm

01:23:29

You should sheath your competitive instinct You shouldn't try to win You don't want to be too aggressive You don't want to be too assertive

01:23:35

You want to take a back seat No, wrong You should be a monster

01:23:41

An absolute monster And then you should learn how to control it Do you know the expression It's better to be a warrior in a garden

01:23:48

Than a gardener in a war Right, right, exactly That's exactly it And that's exactly right So yeah

01:23:55

First of all The thing about meekness I've never heard that as an interpretation of Blessed are the meek

01:24:02

As far as the sword and the sheath If that's a right or wrong interpretation of that Greek phrase

01:24:07

Or if that's an idiomatic thing I'd have to look that up to know But I would agree with this

01:24:13

And I know you will as well Because we talked about it And that is the idea that meekness Is not weakness And when

01:24:19

Jesus said blessed are the meek He's not saying blessed are the weak Right You can't be meek if you're weak

01:24:27

That's not the same Well I think he's drawing his conclusion Based on the fact that Christ was considered to be meek

01:24:34

But The word meekness Has with it the idea of power under control

01:24:39

Here you have God in the flesh He's demonstrating

01:24:46

That he has more power than anyone But he controlled it To the nth degree So I think that's kind of where he's drawing from I mean he flirts with The right interpretation of the text a lot

01:24:59

But then he goes off somewhere else But I think that's where he's coming from With that And that's why he uses the idea of You have to have the capacity

01:25:09

For violence That one video where he's being interviewed By the guy and the guy's questioning Well if I have to be dangerous

01:25:16

Well that means I want to hurt someone He said no you just need to be capable of it That's right Doesn't mean you have to do it

01:25:22

But like when he references the schools If someone is shooting up a school

01:25:28

Well that man is weak Because as he said further in that other video We didn't clip it all

01:25:33

He said it takes strength to be good You can't be good If you're weak

01:25:39

That's right Weak men turn out to be the bad men Nine times out of ten

01:25:45

Because there's a weakness somewhere In them And that's why he flips it

01:25:51

On the other side of You have to have a capacity to be able to do violence And we're talking about Benevolent violence

01:25:58

Because if there's someone shooting up a school Or like I mentioned earlier shooting up an Arby's Or whatever the case may be

01:26:04

It is then incumbent upon you To have the capacity To be that warrior that's in the garden

01:26:10

That's right You're just going about your business You're pruning your vegetables

01:26:15

And you're as peaceful as you can be But you're not harmless When it's time to do harm in the name of good

01:26:22

You have the capacity to do so To some degree I mean you're trained You're a black belt in karate

01:26:29

I have no martial arts training But I can hurt you if I need to Some way

01:26:36

I'm biting, I'm scratching, I'm doing something But I'm coming at you And if you get the better of me

01:26:42

So be it But I'm going to step in and do harm where I have to Because In the situations that call for it

01:26:50

Like someone else's life is being threatened Or they're doing harm to someone else You can't

01:26:55

And we joked about this prior to the conversation But it can't be like the final episode of Seinfeld Where Yeah Just watching the guy get robbed

01:27:05

And we're laughing about it Laughing and making jokes They're taking his food money John Pignett played the role

01:27:12

And he's a heavy set guy So they're cracking jokes about his weight and all And they get rung up for good Samaritan law Because they didn't do anything

01:27:18

That town said if you don't help someone who's in distress You're going to jail So that was the whole joke about it

01:27:24

But that's the idea If you can sit there and watch Someone be physically attacked and assaulted

01:27:30

And do nothing You're weak It requires strength to step up And have the capacity to do what's necessary And that's the point he's making

01:27:40

And That translates to scripture From what we've talked about today

01:27:46

In its entirety Is that in scripture It gives us the right to defend

01:27:52

The innocent And sometimes Defending the innocent Do what you can to be peaceful As much as you can

01:27:59

In defending the innocent So that's what he's saying there And scripture gives us the right to do that As far as I can tell

01:28:08

Until somebody proves me scripture otherwise Contextually and correctly Not just cherry picking

01:28:13

And reading something into the text that's not there Which I think is what they have to do With some of those texts we brought up earlier

01:28:18

Yeah I just can't see How you can be Christian and pacifist

01:28:25

Yes you can be peaceful Not completely pacifist There are times where you can

01:28:30

You can diffuse the situation Like I said we're recovering everything we talked about But that's what he's saying

01:28:35

The capacity Do you have the capacity For benevolent violence

01:28:42

When it's necessary The idea of weakness Is really what

01:28:48

I think Peterson is Keying in on And there's a phrase that's becoming more and more

01:28:54

Popular and I think because people are seeing That it's true And that is that weak men create hard times

01:29:00

Hard times create Strong men Strong men create good times And good times create weak men

01:29:06

And it's a vicious cycle And we're in a time right now Where there are a lot of weak men

01:29:12

And they're creating hard times And those hard times Will have to produce strong men

01:29:18

Out of that and this is a different This is not about benevolent violence But it still goes to the same idea Of weakness

01:29:25

As Christians we are not called to be weak A woman I think

01:29:31

Cannot Submit to and love A weak man I mean she can

01:29:37

She does what scripture tells her to do right Scripture says to submit But in that submission

01:29:43

He has a responsibility To lead her well To be a strong man for her Intellectually physically all of those things

01:29:50

And you think about What does the bible tell the woman to do If she doesn't understand something

01:29:55

She goes to her husband That means he's supposed to be on the front lines Not only the physical but also the spiritual

01:30:01

And the emotional and all these things He's supposed to be out in front He's supposed to be leading And this epidemic of weakness that we have

01:30:08

Is destroying families Men who call themselves strong Because they can sire 30 children

01:30:13

With 15 different women That's not strength that is weakness on display Because you don't have the strength

01:30:19

To father those 30 children You just have the strength to sire them Or you have the self -control

01:30:25

Your lack of self -control Your weakness and being able to control Your own inhibitions Has led to you having 30 kids by 15 different people

01:30:31

Absolutely And it's disgusting That's one of the caveats I wanted to make here We're not just talking about physical strength

01:30:40

Because You know If I bench press 500 pounds But I abuse my wife

01:30:47

I'm not a strong man I'm a very weak man It's weak, it's strength

01:30:53

Physical strength is great But it's being Basically having

01:30:59

Strength of character That flows into everything else That's why the fruit of the spirit

01:31:05

Is love and joy and peace and patience Kindness, goodness, gentleness Faithfulness and self -control

01:31:11

Thank you slugs and bugs Self -control is the last thing he mentions

01:31:17

Because it requires self -control To love, to have joy, to have peace To have patience, to be good

01:31:23

Patience is a big one That's self -control But self -control is the anchor of all of that And that requires

01:31:32

Strength In a myriad of ways Beyond just physical Now, do

01:31:37

I believe there is profitability In training your body In being physically strong Well yeah, because in situations where If a 6 foot 4, 240 pound

01:31:48

Very large man Comes in my house to do harm I'm going to go at him But I'm going to have a hard time doing it

01:31:55

Because he's probably going to throw me around a little bit But He's also got knees, if I can get a hold of one with a bat

01:32:02

We might be able to level The playing field We've given you all kinds of great ideas today Take a bat to the knees

01:32:07

But there is something to say for physical strength And training your body so that you

01:32:13

Can protect your family But I've seen Small of stature men

01:32:21

Display strength In a way outside of Physical strength That has

01:32:27

Diffused many a situation So It's not always about the size of the man

01:32:33

Or the ability to Lift mountains and throw Do all that stuff

01:32:39

But anyway The point he's making there is Weak men

01:32:47

Are more Apt to violence than strong men And Weak men are more apt to use

01:32:53

Malevolent violence Because it helps them get their way That's what they want

01:33:00

It's not about protecting others It's not about protecting family It's about getting what I want And that's how you can ultimately determine

01:33:07

Whether it's malevolent or benevolent Is this about simply getting what I want

01:33:12

Or is this about doing what Is the righteous thing to do Protecting others is righteous Protecting your home is righteous

01:33:18

And even protecting yourself I would argue There's a certain righteousness in that Particularly depending on Your role in life

01:33:27

I'm protecting my children's father I see it that way And The church

01:33:34

We were talking about the state The church and the family The home And the state is supposed to bear the sword

01:33:42

Justice You're supposed to protect your family There's also an element in which the church Not only protects in a spiritual sense

01:33:49

But if you have a family If you have a If you as a pastor If you have a family in your church

01:33:56

That you're shepherding And the husband's become abusive to the wife It's your responsibility with the other elders

01:34:03

To confront this man And if you're Confronting that this man doesn't

01:34:09

Handle the issue You get the authorities involved Because there's a lot of time women In those situations

01:34:16

Almost have like a Munchausen syndrome Kind of thing going on where they don't really want Well he still loves me

01:34:21

You make the excuses for him for what he's doing Might not be Munchausen but They make excuses for what he's doing

01:34:27

And they don't want any repercussions To come to him Because they still love the man But they don't realize that he needs to be held accountable

01:34:36

Because it's not going to stop So if that's happening In the context of the church The church needs to step up And protect in that sense

01:34:45

And there is an element If you and Mike and Andy Were to go approach a man who's

01:34:51

Abusing his wife and it's evident that he's doing so He may become violent With you He may attack her in front of you just to show

01:34:59

He's going to do it And that's when you have to what? You have to demonstrate benevolent violence

01:35:05

Squeeze him like a python He's going to pass out

01:35:11

And you have to Understand that you have a biblical Right and responsibility to do so Yeah The Lord allows for this to happen

01:35:20

I hope a lot of what we've said has resonated with people And maybe has led to some questions Thank you for spending your morning

01:35:27

With me, I appreciate it And bringing your ideas and sharing with everybody And we'll

01:35:33

See in the comments section if people agree with me Yeah, last time they did So we'll see, but thanks

01:35:38

Uncle Rich, I appreciate it No problem And thank you guys for being a part of your Calvinist podcast Today, if you've hung with us this long

01:35:45

I really appreciate it, I know it's been a long show Today, but hopefully some of it And a lot of it was encouraging to you

01:35:51

And would cause you to look further into this issue If you have questions, and if you do have a question You'd like for us to address on a future episode

01:35:58

Send it to me at KeithFoskey .com If you liked the show, hit the thumbs up If you didn't, hit the thumbs down button, twice

01:36:04

Thank you for listening to your Calvinist podcast My name is Keith Foskey, and as always I've been your Calvinist, may

01:36:09

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01:36:35

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