Another Statement and a Personal Declaration

Opening Banter and the Juan Soto Joke

All right. All right. Well, today is December 10th, Year of Our Lord 2024. And we didn't declare it this time, but there's been a statement. Yeah, that's right. A .D. Robles got the call. I tried to warn you.

I tried to let you know what would happen. But what I said was that if Juan Soto was signed by the New York Mets, that I'd be nice for the rest of the year. And I'm going to go ahead and be nice for the rest of the year.

You know what I mean? Listen, I know in your wildest fantasies, you know, you never would have assumed that all Steve Cohen, Jewish hedge fund billionaire, had to do was pick up the phone, call up A .D., tell me to shut it down, and I'd shut it down.

But, you know, sometimes it works just that simple. You know what I mean? He made the decision. He gave Juan Soto $765 million, maybe even $800 million. It's almost a billion dollars to play baseball.

And then on top of that, he gives his family a free suite at Citi Field. I mean, for a guy like him, that's just chump change, right? Not only does he get Soto, but then he gets A .D. Robles to be nice for the rest of the year.

It sounds like a steal to me. We got 20 days left in the year. Well, 21, I guess, depending on when I post this. But it's as simple as that. That's how it's going to be. And that's how it always is. So, you know, we're going to talk about this statement.

I don't really have too much to say about it. I didn't write it, but somebody showed it to me a few weeks ago and said, hey, would you sign this statement? It was Spurgeon. Spurgeon told me that. And I said, sure.

I agree with all this. This is not a problem at all. And there's a particular section, which is why I wanted to sign it. And I'll kind of point that out to you. Hold on a second here. My wife's at the gym, so I'm watching the baby.

Looks like he woke up.

Anyway, he has to go back to sleep. In any case, where was I? Where was I? Yeah, so we'll get to that in just a minute. But one thing I wanted to say is I wanted to just kind of just announce. This I will declare.

I'm going to declare this, that one of my trademark attributes is that I don't hold grudges.

You know what I mean?

Charity, Forgiveness, and Refusing to Hold Grudges

I mean, well, maybe I should lower that a little bit. I try my best not to hold grudges. And I've held very few grudges in my life. You know, life's too short for that kind of thing. You know, you've got to bury the hatchet as often as you can.

And sometimes you can't. And it's just that simple. But a lot of times you can if you're honest with yourself. And that's what I do most of the time. And so I just wanted to declare. This is me declaring that I still love Dr. James White.

I still love Doug Wilson. I mean, you know, Doug really hasn't had much to say about me. But Dr. White has said a few things. He's said a few things, you know, that kind of thing. But I love Dr. White.

And I'm pretty sure, I'm not going to tell you to go ask him, but if you want to, go right ahead. I'm pretty sure he loves me back. Yeah, that's right. I think Dr. White has a lot of love for A .D. Robles.

I think he does. And, you know, you might be, like, surprised to hear that because he's said some things to me and about me. And he doesn't seem to be too big of a fan. But I really try my best to see it from their perspective, right?

Let me tell you a little story. I don't know if I've ever told this on the YouTube channel before, but I definitely said it in a speech I gave. I believe at John Harris' conference, although it could have been another one.

But there was a time once where I was sitting in the pews, you know, minding my own business, just listening to the sermon. And all of a sudden, the pastor starts preaching about me. Now, he doesn't name me because that's a very common tactic.

But he's, you know, the person that he talks about in the sermon, the hypothetical person, it's just a little too detailed, if you know what I mean. And so I'm like, wow, he's preaching to me. He's preaching specifically about me.

And in the sermon, he gave some advice to this hypothetical person, which was me. And the advice was actually really good. And it's so good, in fact, that I actually thought about it before, and I considered it many times in my life when I do what I do and stuff like that.

And, you know, it's very good. It's something that I considered all the time. But I found it very personally offensive that he, instead of talking to me, which he had not done, he decided to instead preach about me.

And I found that to be very disrespectful, very offensive, and I was upset about it. But, you know, at the end of the day, maybe I'm just in my own head. Maybe he wasn't really preaching about me. Maybe he didn't know.

Maybe other people didn't know that he was preaching about me. So, you know, we got in the car after church, and my wife definitely knew. She was very upset. You know, she gets upset about that kind of thing.

And so, you know, we got home. We didn't want to talk about it in front of the kids. So, you know, the kids did their thing, and we started talking about it. And she was very upset, and I was upset. And then I started thinking about some of the previous interactions I've had with this particular person, this pastor.

And for a variety of reasons, and I don't want to get too detailed here, but I had a really strong suspicion that this person felt, in a way, threatened by me.

You know what I mean?

A little bit. You know, just because I have a strong personality and this kind of thing. And so I started thinking to myself, you know, it doesn't make it right to not talk to somebody directly instead of, you know, kind of passive-aggressively preaching about them.

That's not right. It's not the Christian thing to do. It's not a good thing to do. I don't agree with the strategy. But if it's true that this person does feel somewhat threatened by me, and for whatever reason he felt like he couldn't just come directly to me, and he has this really good, godly wisdom that he wants to give to me, but he just, for whatever reason, can't do it directly.

I'm not going to excuse that, but for whatever reason, he's chosen not to. Out of love and concern for me, you know what I mean? Out of love and concern for me, he decided to preach to me directly from the pulpit.

Now, it still doesn't excuse not coming to me directly. Sometimes you got to put on your big boy pants and do it. But at the end of the day, if I'm looking at this in the best possible light, the advice was good, it was wise, it was godly.

I got to be honest, like, at that moment when I thought about that, I stopped being frustrated. I stopped being offended. I stopped being angry. And it made me feel kind of warm inside.

You know what I mean?

I felt like, man, this guy cares about me. He cares about my soul. The advice he gave me was actually really good. And if I hadn't thought of that before, he had no way to know if I thought about it before.

I mean, he should have, because he should have talked to me about it before. But he didn't know. And if I had never heard that advice before, it would be extremely helpful. And maybe, you know what, maybe I need a reminder.

You know, God speaks through the pastor from the pulpit on Sunday morning. Maybe I needed to hear that advice again.

You know what I mean?

Maybe that was a perfect opportunity. You know, whatever. He should have done it a different way. Let's not get bogged down by that kind of stuff. At the end of the day, he just did it out of love for me.

And at that point, I stopped. I just stopped being angry about it. I stopped being frustrated about it. And I kind of felt like, man, maybe I should reach out to this guy. Maybe we should talk more. Maybe I should be the one.

You know, if he's not going to be willing to come to me, maybe I'll go to him. And that's kind of how I saw it after that.

Good man.

Very wise. Good advice. And I just stopped being angry.

You know what I mean?

I'm not going to hold a grudge for these kind of issues of etiquette and stuff like that. And, you know, honestly, I think a lot of people that are very frustrated with Doug Wilson, very frustrated with James White, very frustrated with Jeff Durbin, you know, and all these kind of various players in the last couple months and things that they've done.

And I'm not going to excuse any of them. And if you want to see what they've done, just look at my past, you know, month and a half, two months of videos. I'm not going to take them down. All that stuff still stands.

It all still stands. And at the end of the day, as misguided as I think their concern over antisemitism is and stuff like this, as misguided as I think it is, I do honestly think it comes from a place of genuine love and concern.

And I'm not going to be too mad at them for that.

You know what I mean?

Honestly, you know, there are some things that need to be sorted out. I'm not saying you just sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened. But what I am saying is I do think we need to give some benefit of the doubt when it comes to the motivations of people that have earned benefit of the doubt over time.

It doesn't mean that they're right. It doesn't mean that they're good in the strategies that they've used and the tactics that they've used and things like that. That doesn't mean any of that. But at the end of the day, A .D. Robles declares, and I'm not saying you have to adopt this, but, you know, I'm declaring it for myself.

I love James White, Dr. James White. And I'm pretty sure he's got love for me too. If you got him at the right moment, you know what I mean? You know, and I don't think he drinks any alcohol, but, you know, whatever his favorite drink is, you know, he just took a nice sip of it.

And the mood was right. And he was in, you know, maybe he just came back from a 100-mile bike ride or whatever it is he does. And you say, hey, what do you think about A .D. Robles?

You know what I think he'd say?

I think he'd say, you know, in many ways he's a troubled young man, but I like the guy.

I've got love for him.

That's what I think.

I think he does. I like A .D. Robles. I don't care. Who knows it? You've got to catch him at the right time, though. As long as the video camera's off, I think we'll be okay. And so I just wanted to say that, you know, I still am on the Fight Last Feast network.

I'm not burning that bridge. I like being on the Fight Last Feast network. I know Gabe loves me. I know Toby does, Chocolate Knox. I know these guys love me. You know, I don't know that Doug Wilson loves me, but I think he does.

I think he does.

And it doesn't mean you have to take all his advice, too. If it's not good advice, you know, you just leave it alone. It's not a problem. He's not your pastor, or maybe he is, some of you guys that are at this church.

But even pastors, too, like they have good advice for you. Sometimes they don't have that great advice for you. I mean, it's not the case that every single thing the pastor says that you need to do is something that's necessarily the right thing to do.

But it doesn't mean you don't trust the pastor. It doesn't mean that you just throw him out, you know, like a used toy or something like that.

You know what I mean?

My father has great advice for me, and sometimes he's got advice that's not so great. And sometimes, you know, my father, even though he has great advice, sometimes he doesn't act in a way consistent with his advice.

And you know what? That doesn't mean the advice is terrible.

You know what I mean?

It means he's a person. It means that he can be flawed and all these kinds of things. I've got a great father. I've said this many times. And so that's what I want to say today, you know what I mean? Juan Soto's sign, I'm being nice and I'm being generous, but I'm being sincere at the same time.

I really do believe that at the end of the day, that the things that Doug has done, the things that Dr. White has done, I don't agree with them, and you can go back and find out all the problems I have.

You know what I mean?

Last month was Festivus. I got a lot of problems with you people, and you had to hear about it. But now we're in the glorious season, and it's a time for charity, Christmas charity. And that's what I have to say to you today.

I've declared it. I love Dr. White, and I'm pretty sure he loves me too. In any case, let's shift gears here. Let's see. I took my notes from the Steve Cohen call. Let's see what else he wanted me to do.

Oh, right, the statement.

The Statement on Natural Affections and Racial Ideologies

The statement on natural affections. A statement on racial ideologies threatening the church. Now, I didn't write this, and if I had written it, there might be some things that I would have left out or maybe added and stuff like that.

But overall, I mean, I agree with pretty much everything in the statement.

You know what I mean?

Does there need to be a statement? I mean, probably not, but I agree with, at least with this one, unlike the Antioch Declaration, I personally agree with all these things. And I'm just a podcaster, so it really makes no difference.

But I personally agree with all these things. Now, the stuff here about, let's see, the Nazism and stuff like that. This was the one hesitation I had to signing this statement. Not because I disagree with the denials here, but I don't want to, like, I've said many times that I think that 99 of antisemitism is completely fake.

And I don't necessarily believe that there's this very significant rise of Nazis in the church that want to just kill all the Jews or whatever. I don't believe that, and I still don't believe that. Nothing has changed.

But, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, I'm not a Nazi.

I don't know if that's surprising to you.

And, you know, I pretty much believe a lot of the story that I was taught, you know, in high school and stuff like that. I've got some of the story, I'll be honest, has some of the hallmarks of propaganda that I should not believe.

But I really haven't looked into it. It's really not a concern of mine. So where I stand, and I'm not totally close to some of the revisionist stuff either. Like, you know, if you've got a good revisionist argument, you know, I'm not going to look at you sideways and wonder if you really hate Jews or not or anything like that.

I'm not going to, you know, it's not like I can't be friends with you if you're a revisionist. That doesn't make any sense to me to do. But, you know, so this is the one hesitation I had of signing this.

Not because I don't agree with it, but because I don't really think this is threatening the church. I don't think this is, like, this huge movement. Maybe it's growing now, and I think, you know, you could thank a lot of what happened last month for that.

But I'm not like, listen, we could still be friends if, you know, you think that, you know, the stuff we learned in high school was 100 propaganda. We could still be friends, you know. But, so anyway, that was my hesitation.

Like, I don't want to give the impression that I really believe that anti-Semitism is on the rise. I just don't believe that. That being said, the stuff I really liked and that I wanted to, the reason why I wanted to sign this is the stuff about natural affections, right?

Because there are, you know, duties and loyalties that are real and that they're there because of Jesus Christ and our identity in Christ. And that's cross-culturally, and that's cross, you know, it doesn't matter your nationality and all of this kind of stuff.

But also there are loyalties and duties that arise from just, you know, where and when you were born. And those are real. And those things that tie people together, I didn't always believe that that was real.

And I know now that it is real.

Israel. Israel.

It's Israel.

Yeah, that's it.

No, it is real. So this is the part that I really like because what I do see, especially with a lot of, like, sort of the hangers-on of the Antioch Declaration, they don't think that there are any loyalties or duties when it comes to your ethnicity, nationality, whatever the case may be.

They think that that's fake, and that's not real, and there's no way that those loyalties could actually compete. You know, the ones in Christ are so much higher that the other ones, you might as well just disregard them.

I don't think that that's good at all. I don't think that that's right. I don't think that's true. And I think that's very damaging. And so for those reasons, I thought this was worthwhile to declare.

It was actually not a declaration. It's a statement. And so there you go. And so I think, you know, as far as my signature on that, that's why I wanted to do it. Because I think that when you're thinking through what a nation is and how can you assimilate to a nation, too, I really did like the part as well that talked about the possibility of assimilation.

I believe that for sure. But I don't think it's a quick thing. I think it said in the document that it takes more than a generation.

You know what I mean?

It's not just the first people that come over. They're instantly assimilated. It's not like that. I like that part, too. And so, you know, I think, you know, for that reason, that's why I wanted to sign this statement.

And I'll be honest about, you know, my hesitation. It's not because I think that Hitler was a Christian prince or anything like that. And if you believe that, I mean, we can still be friends. At least on my end, we can still be friends.

I think it's not correct. But, you know, I mean, I don't really know enough to really fight you about it. So I'm not going to. But so it's not that. But I just don't want to give rise to the impression that this is really much of a concern.

This is like it's just a small amount of people. And they do exist. But, you know, it's really not relevant to me. I have no interactions with them and no dealings with them. You know, nobody's calling me up like Steve Cohen did the other day and let me know about the Soto signing and how I had to shut it down.

I had to hold it by end of the bargain. Well, nobody has that on the Nazi side.

So there you go.

But in any case, you know, that's that's the statement here. I mean, does this need to exist? Probably not. But I was happy to say yes to Joseph when he asked me to sign it. He got some help from Yuri, I think.

Maybe I'm not 100 percent sure on that. I like Yuri quite a bit. I mean, it's not the first time I've said that. But in any case, there you go. There you go. So another statement for the year 2024.

Wow.

This is this is the big one, too. You know, if you don't sign this and, you know, obviously, you know, you're obviously obviously you're a neo-Nazi. And and of course, you know, you you hate Jews. I mean, that's obvious.

And and all that stuff. I mean, that's just it could not be more clear and obvious. That's oh, man. In any case, in any case, that's the video for today. I hope you found it helpful.

God bless.