Panel Discussion, Continued...

Good evening, thank you for joining us on Truth and Love. This is the third Truth and Love panel discussion.

This will also be our third installment dealing with the WOC, CRT, BLM, cancel culture, intersexuality, et cetera movements.

These are ideologies that are in opposition to Christianity and the Bible. However, they are being pushed heavily on us in society and in our schools.

We cannot sit on the sidelines and not defend the gospel. Those seeking to install these ideologies as permanent fixtures in our society are very smart.

Most strategic change begins with our children. Again, we cannot sit idly by while our children are indoctrinated.

We are citizens of Christ's kingdom. We must honor Christ as king, proclaim his gospel, make disciples, and teach them to observe all that he has commanded from our children to all the nations.

This will pass like any other false doctrine, yet as we live here now, it is our turn to defend and proclaim the gospel.

And that's kind of how I see it. Thank you for watching. If we can pray for you, let us know that we can do that.

We'd love to be able to do that. All you have to do is type me. If you have any questions, we'd love to try to address your questions.

A Bible question, a question about the topic that we're talking about tonight. This is our third panel discussion.

I'm the moderator, and I have a panel of one tonight. And so we're going to do our very best.

Some of the questions come from other panel members. I'm going to try to interpret their questions to the best of my ability, and we're going to address them to the best of our ability.

And we seek to glorify God and honor Christ in what we do, and we want to be biblical in doing it.

So I'm with Jesse tonight. Jesse, thank you so much for coming back on and joining me and helping me understand this issue from the best of your ability.

I really appreciate you. You want to introduce yourself again to everybody? Yes, my name is

Jesse Bland, and I'm just here to talk with Rob about these issues that I think that are pressing and extremely important, especially within the church.

Yeah. Let's go ahead and tackle these questions, and we'll see if we can have just a brief discussion tonight.

One of our panel members before Jonathan, he gave an example of one of his family members who fought in World War II.

He was a World War II vet, and he was looking to, him and his family are looking to receive a pretty large inheritance, from my understanding, because of what his ancestor as a white

World War II vet received, therefore, his ancestors are going to receive the benefits of what he as a white soldier in World War II received.

But the black veterans from that era, he said, didn't receive what the white vets received.

And from his perspective, the benefits that they did receive kind of helped promote and lead to the certain areas of town that are poor and kind of enabled the poor society, a poor side of town.

Basically, he was saying there was just an injustice there. There was an inequality in what the white

World War II vets received and the black World War II vets received. So that stemmed from the reparations issue.

And he was really encouraged by our discussion that we had after the video during our first panel discussion.

He was really encouraged by how you responded to the reparations question, and he wanted you to respond again,

I guess, on the video publicly, because he was encouraged and he wanted to learn more about your point of view from the reparations question.

So there was his example of the World War II vets, white versus black, and it seems like his family is going to receive a greater benefit because of what the white vet received versus the black vets.

And is reparations involved in that? How do you view reparations?

Yeah, go ahead. Give us what your thoughts are as far as reparations.

I don't know if I said this on the last video or not, but after the talk, but.

I am not for reparations. And here's why my thoughts are is that it would be extremely difficult, especially the way that we're talking about giving money out to people, a group of people who have sinned against another group of people.

And here's why. I don't know. How do we divvy that up?

How do we decide who, in fact, gets the reparations and who doesn't?

Do we just all give give it to all black people or do we just go back in history to decide who, in fact, was wrong and who wasn't?

I think the best form of reparation would not be for you to cut me a check. Let's use the stimulus checks as example.

I've been saying this for a long time. I think the best thing that Joe Biden or Donald Trump or whoever was in office at the time could do is get their hands out of my pockets.

And I'm taking that from when Malcolm X at the end of the movie said that, get your hands out of my pockets.

The best thing the government can do is to do their part and to remove themselves out of the situation.

We don't need more government interference because ultimately reparations are is saying that because.

I was sinned against my God is going to restore what was, in fact, a sin against me.

And what do I mean by my God? I mean, the federal government and I know we don't necessarily look at the federal government like that, but instead of instead of going before the face of God and, in fact, going in his word and seeing what his word says about this, ultimately, what we want to do is make a bigger problem out of a problem that was existing.

Now, I do acknowledge that those things could have been done. I believe that Jonathan was telling the truth.

But we can make that problem way worse by continuing to hand it and giving handouts to those who don't necessarily need it.

And I don't want you to give me anything because of the color of my skin.

The best thing you could do for me is to allow me to flourish, allow me to be in a free market economy to where I can succeed on my own.

And that includes minimum wage, that that includes a whole host of things.

I don't need you to pay me fifteen, sixteen dollars an hour because you feel like that would make you feel better.

I need you to move out of the way and let's see what God's word says about this. But the moment you begin to say that, then that means that we have to pivot from the

God who is the government to the God of scripture. And that's when it becomes problematic.

So I'm not for reparations. I'm for restitution.

So if the scriptures, if I have sinned against you, Rob, if if you and I have a problem, then if I've stolen something from you, what do the scriptures say about that?

Well, I need to pay you back 20 percent, 30 percent, whatever the percentage may be.

But I don't need you to to repent for the sin of your grandfather because of what he did to my grandfather.

Those two things don't coexist. They don't go hand in hand, if that makes sense. Absolutely. And since you mentioned going to the scripture, that's what

I would like to do and get your thoughts on some scripture. I was looking at Romans chapter nine, verses 14 through 23, and I'll read it real quick, maybe share some of my thoughts.

And you can you can tell me if you think I'm on track, you can give me your thoughts. But Romans chapter nine, starting in verse 14, it says, what shall we say then?

There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom

I have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it does not depend on man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

Well, the scripture says to Pharaoh. For this very purpose, I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.

So then he has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires.

You will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who resists his will?

On the contrary, who are you, old man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the motor, what did you make me like this?

Will it or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honor, for honorable use and another for common use?

What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

And he did so in order that he might make known the riches of his glory upon a vessel of mercy, which he prepared before him for glory.

Even us, whom he also called not from among Jews only, but also from among the

Gentiles. Now, before I move forward and maybe sound harsh to some people, you know, this was this was

Jesus's lot. You know, this was God's plan for Christ. You know, Christ was used as as one of these vessels who

God poured out his wrath on. For our sake, for God's glory, but for our benefit and our sake, so so Christ was was made this vessel here on this earth as part of God's plan and endured hardship, even death on the cross for the forgiveness of sin.

And maybe you can see where I'm going when I when I looked at the scripture and read it earlier.

You have Pharaoh and you have those whom he enslaved, which was the

Israelites. And and then God's or Paul's understanding here or his writing here is telling us that, you know, that this was

God's sovereignty at work. This was God's plan at work. And he didn't know

God didn't seek or have Israel to seek reparations, but but to, you know, trust in his sovereignty, that he was he was working out something.

He was working out his gospel plan. And so it's

I was thinking of this through my mind and how harsh this sounds, because in my shoes,

I've not I've not lived in those harsh circumstances. So like those

I don't know your history, but maybe some of your ancestral background who lived in slavery or the

Israelites who lived in slavery or who went through the Holocaust, I've not, you know, lived in those shoes.

I don't know that experience, but yet I know the

Bible teaches me of the sovereignty of God. And we we all have family members who have, you know, had cancer, who have lost young people.

Right. We've all had different types of suffering in our life. And each type of suffering brings up that question, you know, why,

God, am I going through this circumstance? So it every difficult circumstance points us back to scripture and the sovereignty of God.

So how did you view this scripture? Am I in the going in the right direction?

How do you feel about that? Yeah, I mean, ultimately, within our context,

I know that is the Calvinist dream there for Romans nine, but you saw and Jacob and Jacob, I am not chosen.

And who can argue with God? Not not me. So but that is still applicable to every area of life.

And so like we were saying before we came on, that is that applies to what happened with my ancestors and what happened with your ancestors.

That that has God is sovereign over all of those events. And we cannot just act as if, as my brothers from the

Just Thinking podcast said, that the white man is sovereign over all of these events because that's not true.

We're giving him we're giving white people, we're giving black people too much credit. We've got to look at these good and perfect gifts ultimately come from the

Lord. Iniquity comes from us, but those things we see

God's hand weaving in and out of all of those circumstances, just like when we see in scripture with Joseph, Joseph says to his brothers, you meant it for me for evil, but God meant it for good.

We know that God is sovereign. It is not it is not us who is sovereign over all these things.

It is God. And so when we when we attack these issues, we need to do it from a biblical perspective.

And that's what CRT robs us of. It is grounded and rooted in evolution.

And that would make sense for those who believe in that. Right. But that should not be the song of the church.

The song of the church should be the scriptures. If we since we believe the word of God, we go, therefore, those two go hand in hand.

But we shouldn't be borrowing or as our brothers say, we use as an analytical tool.

We shouldn't use those as analytical tools that are not biblical.

We have the sufficient scriptures. And so, yes, God is sovereign over everything.

And so since he's sovereign, our responsibility is to look to his word. And as Christians, we know where to find it.

And we don't apologize for any of it. Same thing goes true with history. We look at history and we see that, yes, man is responsible, but God is ultimately sovereign for all of those things.

And I know that that sounds harsh. But where do I lean? If I have a situation like this, if I look back because of slavery, because of how we ended slavery, if I look back and say it was the white man, then ultimately what

I'm doing is putting him on the pedestal and not the sovereign God. And what is he what is that man going to do to rectify the situation?

He's going to make a bigger mess of it. But the scriptures are going to bring forth clarity and that and that's what we need to be looking towards.

Yeah. And to me, that kind of leads us to one more passage from Romans, and I really think that you hit it on it a lot.

Romans 12, 19, and the response that Paul has or would have us to give in situations like that, he says, never take your own revenge or never avenge yourself.

Beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God. What is written? Vengeance is mine. I will repay.

So, right. Yes, that seems to be what our response should be.

Yes. Yep. That's exactly what our response should be. And our response should be to love our neighbors.

I believe it's in Romans 12. They only have my Bible right in front of me. But he says, I believe in that same passage that in doing so, you are heaping burning coals on their head.

Now, that does not negate that we seek justice.

Right. That does not we don't we don't have one or the other. Right. You and I believe,

Rob, that the Messiah came to bring forth justice to the nations. But how do we do that on a biblical level?

That should be the question that we ask. What is the role of the government in that instance?

What's the responsibility there? But on an individual level, I should be able to come to you or you should be able to come to me in love and say,

OK, if I have sinned against you, here's my response. And if I've sinned against you, this is what

I should do as a result of my sin. I should repent. And your responsibility is to forgive me. So how is it that within the church, if we have these simple elementary doctrines, how is it that we are holding fast to?

I am still wronged by a set of people, a certain group of people when in all reality, we need to give that over to the

Lord. And if there is if there needs to be discipline, we need to handle it biblically and not with anything outside of the word of God.

And I really appreciate the passage that you shared, you know, we're not to keep. Steaming coals of fire at each other, burning down each other physically, but we are to keep on each other kindness, which will be like burning coal on them.

And that that should be our our heart toward one another is heaping on one another.

Kindness and that be our our our horse that pulls our cart.

Right. We're taking us in the right direction. And you're leading us into the next question talking about justice.

What is biblical justice? We get that word confused, of course, all these other words, the world tries to take it, steal it, twist it, make it its own.

But what does the Bible say? Justice is it with me? Your thoughts on justice?

Well, the Bible gives us what we see in our nation.

We see case law in our nation that comes straight from scripture. So when we look at justice, we have to do it on an individual level.

Right. And that's another reason why I can't look at reparations and say, because I'm black, I deserve a check or because I'm black.

I need A, B and C, because white people from however many 400 years ago suppressed my people who were around 400 years ago.

So I need to look at it on an individual level and say, OK, is this, in fact, justice?

Because we believe, as I hinted at a minute ago, as the scriptures tell us in Isaiah 1 and 2,

Isaiah 42, we believe that Christ, the Messiah, came to bring forth justice to the nations.

Well, how does he do that? He does that by first and foremost, the proclamation of the gospel.

Right. But he also does that by making disciples of those nations.

And when we have nations that are discipled, there has to be a law in which they are discipled into.

So if they are discipled into a nation and we believe that he will have the nations, but if they if they are discipled into a nation, then the law that which they derive the justice comes from the word of God.

And so we have to look by on an individual basis what the scripture says about law.

We can't just hunker down on all black people are always right because that's not justice.

The Bible tells us that if we have something that may be wrong, that we have to bring two or three individual lines of witnesses.

That means that requires work, not even just one eyewitness, two or three individual witnesses.

So so in order to bring that charge to to the courts, that's what the scriptures require.

That's much harsher punishment than what we have and what we see today. And immediately what we do is when there is a case that is drawn, let's say there's a white cop and a black man that has been killed.

We immediately take the side in our culture because we'd be conditioned that the black man was automatically right.

Instead of looking at the case from a biblical perspective and saying, OK, well, maybe the black man wasn't right.

And what we do as conservatives is say, well, automatically the cop was right and we can't do that either.

We have to be able to look, OK, at this individual case. What happened? What what took place and how can

I with the scriptures look at this and say, OK, well, this was right or this was wrong, but I believe that's what biblical justice is.

It's case law. It's not necessarily the whole group of people that I can just put on trial at once.

And we definitely need to pray for it, as you were talking about that analogy, which was a real, real analogy.

And it's happening and it's happened. And we've watched it on TV as I've listened to you describe that.

I was just thinking about how we need to be praying for even more our leaders who are involved in those situations, lawyers, judges, senators, governors, presidents, because.

If they are to stand up for justice, if if they are to do it right, there's repercussions, you're not going to make both sides happy.

Right. And people get death threats for less than that. You know,

I would hate to know how many death threats people get if they were to stand on truth in those circumstances because they wanted to just follow the right path.

Much less say I'm trying to follow the word of God, just following the right path. They would get death threats.

They would have their home burned down. There's political repercussions. And so these people need our prayer, not just that they would follow

God's word, follow the right path, but they would be brave to do that and that they would be protected in doing that because we will honor

God in biblical justice. Like you were talking about. Right. It's so scary.

A couple of things that I jotted down when I was looking at justice, because I know you have a both and in scripture,

I see. I see on one hand where you look at government and you look at Romans 13.

Boy, we're saying in Romans today, Romans 13, one through four, he tells us.

Verse four, for it is it is a minister of God to to you for good talk about the government.

But if you do what is evil, be afraid for it is it does not bear the sword for nothing, for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.

So it seems like a role or one of the main roles of the government is to protect, reward the righteous and punish the evil doer.

And that seems to be a heavy part of one side of this.

This dialogue is that justice is taking care of what's right and what's wrong morally or in the justice system that that side of things.

But, you know, the Bible does speak to taking care of people and that being a form of justice.

And I looked at James chapter one, verse twenty seven, and it says pure religion is this that we visit the orphans and the widows and abstain from or be unstained from the world.

And when I read that, I was like, we want to protect the orphans, the fatherless.

A lot of times scripture calls it the fatherless. We want to protect them from oppression and we want to protect the widows from oppression of the world.

But then what does it mean when it says be unstained from the world? Well, that's oppression on ourselves that we want to protect ourselves from so that we're not stained by this world.

So, I mean, it's just that version is just full of oppression that we want to seek justice in those situations.

So biblically, do you see those things in that way? Yeah, I would say yes and amen.

And my mind immediately goes to Gary DeMar when he talks about the different spheres of government that God has set up.

And what you were just describing in the book of James is it would be applicable to the church, right?

And even in a more intimate setting, if I know if my mother is a widow or your mother is a widow, it is your responsibility to take care of your mother first, according to the scriptures.

But if you're not in the picture and there's someone else that's not in the picture who can do that in your family, then she should be, if she is a believer, be able to go to the church.

And what we have done is we've mixed those two with Romans 13. In Romans 13, we talk about, well, this is the job of the government to bring forth justice to the criminal, as I was touching on with the black man or the white cop or however the case may be.

That has everything to do with the government dealing with those people justly.

But what we've done is mix those things and said that this is the responsibility of the government. And that goes back to my previous point.

And that's because we have confused and thought that, in fact, that God is the

God of our system today, whether you be on the left or the right, is the government.

The United States government is, in fact, God. And it does not matter who you are. We do not really want

Jesus Christ to be God, because the moment we enter into that conversation, that's when things begin to flip, because we begin to really see that the

God that we want is not the God of scripture. So it's very important that, yes, we bring forth justice to the widow, to the orphan and also to the one who is a criminal.

But we also have to keep those lines from being muddy. We have to be able to see that the scriptures teach us that there is self -government, there is family government, there's church government and there's federal government.

And it's in that order. And so, yes, I say yes and amen to both of those things.

But we also have to make sure that we were able to keep those things clear and think in those different categories, because it's extremely important.

And I think that's where we where the argument breaks down at when it comes to the left and the right.

And then you and I would say, no, we don't really want either one of you guys to represent us. We want Christ to represent us.

I'm kicking myself because I didn't write the reference. I know it's in Deuteronomy, but I didn't write down the reference.

But you tell me if you think I'm on the right track pulling an application out of this verse.

It's a verse talking about justice. But it speaks to, I think, what you were talking about, if it's cursed to be anyone who perverts justice, give justice to the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow.

But if it's cursed to be anyone who perverts justice, and you think, and I'm not studied it,

I'm just curious if I'm pulling something out of it that's not there. But what you're speaking to is making sure we don't muddy those lines, blur those lines and keep keep the roles where they were intended to be separated.

And so if we give the role of the church or the role of the family to the government, are we perverting justice?

Is that what Deuteronomy is? I don't I don't know specifically the verse, if that's what it's saying. But you definitely can make that application, because if we if if the church, if my pastor comes in here and tells me that my house rules,

I'm not I'm not talking about if I'm sinning. But if he tells me that it's wrong for me to tell my kids not to jump on the couch and I'm insane and he's going to practice church discipline and I can tell him, oh, wait, wait a minute.

That's not biblical, right? But the same thing rings true for the government.

That was the whole problem that we had with COVID -19. The government decided that they and they showed us the true colors.

They really believed and we we believe them as well. They believed that they were

God. And we said, oh, yeah, you are. So we should shut down the church. Yeah, God understands that there are roles that he has given.

And and our responsibility, if we want, if the church wants to see real change.

Then we should really focus on, OK, what is my responsibility? What is my sphere of influence that I can affect affect right now, today?

And that's me. That's me as an individual. I can repent and believe the gospel, right?

Mm hmm. But I can really believe the gospel, not just that Jesus died and rose from the dead.

And those things are essential, but that he is king, that he is our sacrifice.

Yes. And amen. But he is king over every area of our life. And so when we start to think like that, it transforms everything.

And we begin to see that, OK, well, if he's king here, then how am

I supposed to act with the way that I love my wife? But not only how am I supposed to act with the way that I love my wife and my children, but how am

I supposed to act within the sphere of the church? Because these are two different things. And then how am

I supposed to act when I am on my job? And then how am I supposed to act in the way that I conduct my my vote?

You see, we can't muddy Jesus's kingship in those areas. And when we begin to think clearly in that regard,

I believe that we'll begin to think clearly in all these other areas.

So I think you're spot on, Rob, that yes, that verse may not be talking about that specifically, but I think that we are.

We have muddied those waters. We've looked at it and said, well, this is the job of the government. Therefore, I don't need to get involved here.

This is the job of the government to protect the widows. That's what we have welfare for, right?

No, that's not what we need welfare for. We don't need welfare at all. What we need is the church to do its responsibility.

And ultimately, when you look back at it, you look back and you say, well, I really need fathers to be fathers.

I need fathers to love their wives like Christ loved the church. I need fathers to love their children.

And then if that's the case, if we look at the welfare numbers, we realize that, oh, then I really don't need this money.

If I have a man doing what the word of God says, it kind of does away with all of this.

But that's what it ultimately goes back to. I think you're spot on with that, Rob. Now is where I think we need to move in a practical direction.

That's where the question is, Lita, and I think it's a good time for that because we want to I want to know what

I need to do. I want to share what I believe the Bible has us to do practically, as you've touched on already, starting in our home, locally, in our local government, in our state, nationally.

What does it look like for me? And we want to look at both sides of this. We believe that these ideologies are false.

They're in opposition to Christ. They're in opposition to the Bible. So we practically how can

I defend against these ideologies at home and locally, nationally?

But then on the flip side, these ideologies do touch on things that are bad.

Racism is bad. Hate is bad. It's evil. Those things that it wants to some of those things that it wants to bring out are evil.

And the Bible does speak to those things. So on the positive side of it.

Practically, what can I do at home and locally and nationally on a positive note, according to Scripture, to to defend or fight for those things?

So when you talk about justice and racism on the. At home.

Yeah, first of all, what is racism? Right, I mean.

I know that sounds like a silly question to me and you, because you look at it and say, oh, I'm racist if I don't like white people or I'm racist if I don't like black people.

But is racism as we have defined it historically, or is it racism because of automatically you have got.

An upper hand because of your. Power structure, you are automatically given an advantage because you're a white male, you are automatically have white privilege, that's not what we talk about when we say racism, when we say racism.

I don't want you to have to repent for something that's not real. It's not a good idea to try to change things by telling a lie.

Matter of fact, it's a lie and God will not honor it. So we shouldn't look at an idea and say,

OK, I need to repent for my white privilege, which is not racism. It's a lie.

Right. And so what we need to do is define, OK, well, racism is if I have hate for someone who has more melanin in their skin or less because black people, contrary to popular belief, can be racist.

I know them. Then those things need to be repented of.

That's racism. So if you see that, then you need to immediately say,

Lord, forgive me, you and you need to be honest about that. You need to tell people that there was we're not saying at all that there was not real racism here.

Jim Crow was real, right? Slavery was real. Those things really did happen.

But we can't automatically put everybody in the same category and say that all the people who looked at racism and were white, all the people who were white were automatically racist.

We can't do that. So that's I believe that's number one. What is racism and identify it? And if you have it, number two, repent of it.

But but the most important thing that you can do in your home is I believe what you're doing is teaching and proclaiming the word of God to your wife, to your children.

Those things are extremely important. And looking at it from a perspective of Deuteronomy six and Ephesians six, when these issues come up, they should be constantly in our mouth because they're everywhere.

I mean, you started the monologue by saying that it's in the public schools. It is all over the place because this is, in fact, our new place of worship.

And this is the place that we all go and we say, OK, we can say yes and amen to white privilege.

We can say yes and amen to the oppression of the black man for the last 400 plus years.

We can say yes and amen to all these things. It's you and I who look at these things and say, no, we cannot say yes and amen to these.

We cannot say yes and amen to that. We can say yes and amen when those things that are true racism need to be repented of.

And so I think we need to define our terms, because a lot of people just automatically assume when

I say racism, we're saying the right thing and then continue to be faithful. Look, God is not going to our

God is patient, right? I mean, Christ died 2000 years ago, and I don't know how many years it took to overthrow the

Roman Empire, but it did not happen in one day. And so for for Christ, as we believe to to have the nations, we have got to be faithful in the small things.

And if in doing so, that will be blessed. And I know that sounds silly, but it's the truth.

I hear it all the time. This has no future.

I don't know if it was I believe it was Doug Wilson that said stupid does not last.

It can't because what is it going to do if you're killing your babies?

If if you are marrying the same sex, what does that eventually do?

It runs out. And what is going to be there to pick up the tattered pieces?

It's going to be the church. Right. You can't replicate something that's not there, right?

If you have same sex marriage and I know this is supposed to be Gay Pride Month, if you have same sex marriage and you have abortion, those two don't go hand in hand.

So who will be left? It will be the faithful. And what kind of kingdom are we?

What kind of nation are we going to build for our children? And that's where we have to start.

It starts with us. So. Should we be involved?

We want to start at home. We want to teach our children. We want to teach our wives.

But like I said at the beginning. We don't want to sit on the sidelines.

Right. We want to be involved. And I believe that it's

OK that we teach our children to that. It's OK to be involved in politics.

Oh, absolutely. That it's OK to see that as a as a career, but so that you can love your neighbor by changing laws.

Honor God by changing laws. Love your neighbor by changing laws. Small things, find small things that you can do locally that could eventually and I think

I think you were hinting at this, God being patient, us having a long view of the future, a long term plan, so that, you know,

God, we do small things and we build on the small things. And if all of us are doing small things, you know, a lot can be accomplished.

But if we if we just have the attitude of live and let live, you know, we're not going to be honoring to God.

We're going to fail our family. We're going to fail the kingdom and our our life that God has given us to to be productive.

And like I said, proclaim and protect and defend the gospel while we're here in the life that God has given us.

So, yeah, and I think I think God will send us ways in which we can serve him in small ways, right above and beyond what he's already commanded to do in scripture, you know, which which is teach your family and be faithful to your family.

Right. And I would say yes and amen to that. And and you're right, once the once we get through cleaning up the mess, we do we have to be involved in the political sphere, but we also have to be careful how we're going into it.

And and what I mean by that is, and I believe you would agree with me, we cannot pretend to be neutral.

Those days are over with the days of what Jesus common law is, just what we do, because that's just who we are as Americans.

We see that that is not true. Bodie Bauckham has named his book rightly when he calls it fault lines.

So we have got to understand that if we're going into politics, if we're going to engage in the political sphere, then we need to do so in a manner that says,

OK, I'm standing. On the word of God. Yes, we need it. Like you said, yes, we need to be involved in those things, but we need to be unapologetically

Christian in the midst of that. So when we're fighting for bills, we need to do so in a way that honors

Christ and not in a way that pretends as if, well, everybody agrees with this.

Right. And honestly, the best thing that has happened is it is the last year or so has showed us,

OK, well, who's on your side and who's not? Jesus said, you're either with me or you're against me.

So it really shows us, OK, where do you stand in the church? And I think a lot of these issues have been brought forth to light because God in his grace has allowed these things to show us, hey, look, they're

Levitical law. When it comes to COVID is not sufficient, but my word is sufficient.

So, yes, we get involved in politics. Amen. But do not get involved.

And when they ask you, are you a Christian? You say, yes, I'm going to leave my Christianity at home. Don't do that.

Get involved in politics and do so unapologetically, just like everybody else.

I think I heard Tony Evans say once, everybody else is coming out of the closet. You might as well, too. And I think that's where we need to be in the church.

I know that's where we need to be. And if we are, then that's what ultimately would change things.

But it has to start in the household of God first. We have got to make sure that the world will not repent until we repent.

And I'm more convinced of that today than I was a year ago, because if we're buying into critical race theory, then they are.

If nobody is speaking prophetically to these things, then we're just going along.

And all they've done is call us names. And we just buckled at the knees because they called us names instead of doing what

Jesus said when they call you names. Rejoice. That's right. We're not going to have everybody's not going to love us.

I can't remember if it was Brian McLaren or not. I think he wrote the book How to Win Friends and Influence People.

And that's not that that's not the responsibility of the church. Our job is to proclaim the fullness of the gospel and watch

God say and listen for God to say, well done, good and faithful servant. We the

Bible tells us if we seek to live a godly life in this life, we will be persecuted. But our responsibility is to be faithful in the midst of that.

And we know that God is going to honor that. We see it time and time again in scripture, whether that be with persecution in our life, but in the next life, our children will benefit in their children.

Maybe it may take generations, but their children will benefit from our faithfulness. And we see that in our nation.

We stand on the backs of giants because of their faithfulness. So, yes, get involved in politics.

Yes, be faithful in your family. But don't do it because, oh, this is this is conservative values.

No, no, this is not conservative values. Conservative values has Bruce Jenner running in California.

We don't want those kind of conservative values. We want to be unapologetically Christian. That's right.

And that and that goes back to what you were saying earlier, when we teach our children, we teach them more than just Jesus is king at church.

Yes, Jesus is king. When you become a mommy, when you become a dad, Jesus is king.

When you become a custodian, Jesus is king. When you become a senator or president or whatever vocation that you choose or whatever path you go on,

Jesus is more than king. Just that church. Right. He's king in every aspect of life and therefore act like it.

Yeah, that's true. That's exactly. Yeah, you're exactly right. Well, I know you have to go in just just a minute.

Jonathan brought up this question and I couldn't help but want to go along with it because it's an eschatology question.

So how does eschatology play a factor in how we view our current circumstances and respond to them?

Now, I'm sad that the other guys are not here with us because we we have differing views on eschatology.

So therefore, we're going to have a different response. So and I know you have to go here in a few minutes.

So I actually have time, Rob. I wasn't looking at 815 Eastern Time. You're an hour ahead of me.

I'm looking. So I've got a little bit of time. OK, all right. But yeah, go ahead.

I'm sorry. No problem. Yeah, looking at eschatology, there's different views.

I think you and I hold a similar view to eschatology, so we're going to view our circumstances.

Similarly, but also differently in in all the ways that we just discussed,

I think that there would be total agreement no matter what your eschatology is.

But since this question was brought up. Through the lens of eschatology, how do we view and we need to be say at the forefront,

I guess, both you and I currently hold the post -millennial eschatology view, which means

Jesus is currently reigning, has authority in heaven and on earth. And he is he is working to put all the enemies under his feet.

That's that's the positive progression. And I think that's probably the best way to put it.

A lot of people say that we are we are trying to make the earth a good place for Christ to come.

No, that's not what we're doing. He's already king and he's doing that himself. Yeah. And so I think the best way to say it is he is.

Progressively putting his enemies under his feet and that last enemy is going to be dead.

And as he is doing that. It's going to be there's going to be a positive response here on earth as more enemies die underneath his heel.

And so that's our viewpoint. And so how do you view our current circumstances with the post -millennial viewpoint?

For me, it has been I'll start off kind of with the testimony.

I remember two years now, my daughter came to my wife and I and she was reading through the book of Revelation.

And I said, I don't know, Michaela, please leave me alone. I didn't really have a solid foundation when it came to eschatology.

I came out of a seeker sensitive church. I didn't know Christ growing up.

My grandmother was Catholic and she would take us to church every now and then. And so when I got involved in church, for me, that wasn't something that I really touched on.

And I always knew that the book of Revelation was a difficult topic. And when I say eschatology, that's what people immediately think.

That's why I'm going there. But I'm going to broaden it here in a second. So for so when she said that,

I began to listen a little more clearly to those who kind of talked about it a lot.

And one of our brothers, Jeff Durbin, Gary DeMar, that I referenced earlier when it came to the spheres of government,

I began to listen to them a lot more. And as a result, and then my wife and I, we took a trip that same year.

And we had an entire conversation on where we have landed. Why do

I think that that is important? Because if you don't see

Christ as king now, and I know that my brothers who are premillennial would say, yes, he's king, but not really.

And I know my all millennial brothers would say yes and amen with us to a certain extent. A lot of the things that we would say would be very similar when we talk about him being king and he's

Lord over every area of life. And they would say a lot of them would say yes to that. But I hope they would correct me if I'm wrong.

But they don't really they believe that he reigns kind of in a spiritual realm and he's not really going to have an impact on life in this world until he comes again.

So the kingdom of darkness will grow at the same rate as the kingdom of light.

And the scriptures do not teach that you kind of reference that when Jesus talks about leavening the whole lump, when

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is like the mustard seed and it grows slowly over time.

And so that's what we see in scripture. And so from Genesis all the way to Revelation, there has been the promise, the promise of the seed.

Of the woman in the seat of the serpent. And we know that in all of us, all three positions would say yes and amen to the seed of the woman crushing the head of the seat of the serpent.

And that was Christ. But what did he come to do? And I've referenced it a few times.

He came to bring forth justice to the nations. Jesus came.

All of us would say yes and amen that he died. He lived a sinless life. He died on the cross.

He suffered the just wrath of God. And as a result, his righteousness was imputed to the church.

And he rose again from the dead. And now he is seated at the right hand of the father. But we, as post -millennialists, would say that him being seated has an impact right now.

And we have seen it throughout history. We would argue that the scriptures from Genesis 12, 3, where God promised that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars and the sand on the seashore.

We would say that Christ, when he came, he proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom.

And that gospel is laid out in Isaiah 11, where he talks about the nations will flow to the

Messiah. Isaiah chapter 1, Isaiah, or I'm sorry, Isaiah chapter 2,

Psalm 110, 1, all these marvelous passages that talk about the

Messiah and what he will do. And even if you look at the servant songs that my pastor went through a few months ago, all you see over and over and over again is that the

Messiah will come and he will save the many. And the many, he will bring justice to the nations.

It's always been a nation, a national world response that Christ came to save, not just you, me, plus a few, but he came to save, in fact, the world and not in a universal sense.

Not that everybody in the world will be saved, not that everybody in the world is going to heaven, but that when we look back over the scope of history that Christ has, in fact, been victorious.

And so what does that mean? That means that since he is king, that when

I speak to an area that we are in now, when we look at critical race theory,

I can look to his word and say, OK, this is what my king said. This is what

Christ said here in the New Testament, but also in the Old Testament, because we don't look at the

Old Testament and say, OK, this is God's word emeritus. This is not

God's word out to pastor. This is God's word for today. And so if I can apply it, if I can do like you did with Deuteronomy, if I can do with many of the people who set up this nation, did with Leviticus and Exodus and see,

OK, how can I apply God's word in such a way that can be held here in our time?

And that's what we're saying is that if Jesus came to bring justice to the nations,

I don't have to look for another tool. If Jesus's word is sufficient and we would all say that it is,

I don't have to look for anything else. But my other brothers who are premillennial and all millennial would say, yes, he is king, but not in that sense.

And we don't really believe that there's going to be victory throughout because this is what is the distinction.

We say that there's victory throughout history, not just at the end. We would all say yes and amen to that.

But we look for a steady victory throughout history and not something that is always on an incline.

But something that is steadily growing. And then we have times of decrease.

Right. And I believe now we are in the midst of that time of decrease in the judgment of God. But we see that throughout the scriptures.

And so what we need to do is say, OK, Lord, we're in the midst of your judgment. But we're not giving up.

That's right. We're not saying like, how Lindsay? Well, it can go to hell in the handbasket. It's not our responsibility.

And that is really the mindset that has been adopted by the majority of the church.

And that's why our hand has been we've been following and not leading.

And so as a result of us following and not leading, this is what you get. And if the church is not leading, if we have put our basket under our light, under a basket, as Jesus said, then look at the culture.

But if we are the ones who should be proclaiming the truth and we aren't.

Then who's going to step up and lead? There's a void there and it's going to be filled by somebody. So all that to say this.

The all millennials, we love them, the premillennials, we love them. But I believe the most consistent eschatology is the postmillennial eschatology, because it doesn't just speak to the end times.

It speaks to Christ and his kingdom right here and right now. And if Christ and he is, if Christ is king, then

I don't have to go anywhere else. I don't have to, as a black man, go to the nation of Islam.

I don't have to go to critical race theory because I have his word.

And a lot of my brothers have went, a lot of black people have went to the nation of Islam.

And what do they say, Rob, when I ask them? They say, well, because the nation of Islam teaches us how to live.

It teaches us how to eat. It teaches us how to love. It teaches us how to impact government and societies.

What is that? They understand that they were created to have dominion.

As men, and so what do they what do they run away from the church and what do they run to something that is false on its head, but they think it gives them a false sense of security.

And what I'm saying is and what postmillennialism ultimately teaches is Christ is king and his word is sufficient.

You don't have to go to another religion. You don't have to adopt critical race theory.

You look to the scriptures, you interpret the scriptures that takes work, which rest in that.

And you trust that in doing so, you will have victory. Last thing and I'll stop.

Revelation 19 says that we are like Christ is

Christ pictured as the one riding on the horse. Well, what's coming out of his mouth is the sword. What do we have to change and heal the nations that we see in Revelation 20?

It's the word of God. And so when the revelate, when the word of God comes, that is what brings forth healing.

It's not. It's not anything else, because everything else is insufficient.

Amen, and I appreciate what you said about what the common idea or what seems to be common in the church now is removing of our hand from responsibility.

From what's going on in the world, I don't want to be involved. It's going to hell anyway. I don't want to be involved.

But and it sends me straight to Romans chapter one. When we remove our hand and we don't get involved, what does

God then do? He removes his hand, right? Judgment. Yeah, and that's what we're seeing now.

Like you were talking about. We're in that decline because we removed our hand and God removes his hand and we are in that judgment period, right?

Probably. And so one of the questions that seems to be posed when we talk about these things is, oh, why do we see so much bad?

Why do we see bad things happening? Why do we see so much evil? And it makes me think about Ephesians chapter six, starting in verse ten.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

For our stroke was not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the full armor of God that you may be able to resist in the evil day and having done everything to stand firm.

And so the answer to that question is, what do you think you're going to see? Christ is putting his enemies under his feet.

What do you think Satan and the rulers and the powers and authorities in the heavenly places?

What do you think that they're, you think they're just going to bow down? They're going to resist, right?

And that's what they're doing here. They're resisting the authority of Christ. They're resisting his kingship.

They're resisting his, um, his process of putting evil in his enemies under his feet.

And so it's what we're seeing is exactly what we should be seeing that resistance from these, these powers, these forces of darkness against, uh, in the heavenly places.

And Paul tells us to, to put on the full armor of God that we may stand firm in the evil day.

So let's put on full armor of God and you, um, you clearly proclaimed the gospel.

And, and as, as Bible believing Christians, as post -millennials, post -millennialist, we, um, we don't beg with a weak gospel.

We, we herald and proclaim that Jesus is King. Therefore you must repent and believe the gospel, put your faith and trust in him to be safe because he is

King. And you presented that gospel clearly that Jesus lived a sinless, perfect life.

Who died on the cross, um, was buried, rose from the grave, ascended into heaven, where he sits at the right hand of the father, where he was given all authority in heaven and on earth.

He is our King and he came so that we may be forgiven. So if you do not know him as your personal

Lord, as your savior, as your King, we want you to know him tonight.

So we, we proclaim and herald the gospel, repent of your sins and believe the gospel because we want you as our brother and sister in Christ.

And we want you in this fight with us as we move forward with Christ and his kingdom and we proclaim the gospel.

Jesse, I appreciate you so much. I appreciate you. No problem.

I appreciate it, Rob. Absolutely. I hope, I hope that we can have many, many more conversations, um, with, with you and with the other guys, uh, appreciate all of you so much and, uh, appreciate your family.

Um, if you don't mind, would you close us in prayer? Yes. Father, we thank you.

We thank you for, um, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you

Lord for in the midst of uncertain times, you are in fact still on your throne.

And you're not on your throne wondering what's next. Your word tells us that when the nations rage, you laugh.

And so we ask you that in the midst of this, what seems like chaos to us, that you will help us to trust you help us to not be so wound tight that we think that we have got to solve all the problems.

Help us to understand that you are King. Help us as your church, Lord, to believe that help that to be our focus.

Help us to not disengage father, but to engage in the truths that are found in your word and help us to seek your face, help the church to understand that more than now, more than ever, that we need you, that we need to lean on you as prophet, priest, and King.

We just thank you Lord Jesus for the gifts that you have given to us. I thank you

Lord for the opportunity to be with my brother who is states away on a computer, um, and to be able to proclaim the truths of your word.

We just thank you so much Lord for your grace and for your mercy. And we ask you Lord that you will do exactly what you say that you will do, that you will bring forth justice to the nations in your time.

We pray these things, Jesus in your wonderful name. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys for watching.

If you're so willing, would you give us a like a heart or share, help us in reaching our community with the gospel of Jesus Christ and with his word.

We, we thank you again for watching. Remember that Jesus is King go live in that victory and let's continue to go out there and proclaim his gospel.