Becoming a Cheerful Warrior with AD Robles

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slash careers. He literally told people he was going to destroy
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Striving for Eternity. And I kind of laughed because I got a couple of radio interviews out of it.
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I had new donors. Because the thing is that people were going, I still remember a guy that I became friendly with years later.
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And then I got on his website and he had this forum. And he literally said, I don't know who this
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Andrew Rapport guy is, but man, the way he dealt with this guy, this Pharisee, was so gentle and polite, which is not the way
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I always handle things, but it was really funny. Welcome to The Rapport Report with your host,
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Andrew Rapport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the
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Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
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Welcome to another edition of The Rapport Report. We're here to give you biblical interpretations, applications for the
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Christian life. I am Andrew Rapport, your host, the executive director of Striving for Eternity and the
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Christian podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member of one of the 50 plus heavily vetted podcasts.
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So you're guaranteed to find something to listen to there. Well, even if you're an atheist, you'll find something to listen to and hate it, but it's still the truth.
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So go for it. Strivingforeternity .org is the one website where you could go for Striving for Eternity and Christianpodcastcommunity .org
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for the Christian podcast community, if you want to see all of our podcasts. So today
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I have with me A .D. Robles. And so we met at the
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Overcoming Evil conference that TruthScript put on, John Harris from Conversations That Matter.
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And we got to meet there for the first time. First time I got to hear him there, I knew actually nothing about him,
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I don't think. Before that, we hit it off very well. I really learned a lot from this brother.
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And so I wanted you guys to gleam from him as well. So we're going to talk a little bit about what he talked about at that conference, but I think you're really going to get a lot out of that.
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So first, A .D., if you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself, let folks know who you are and some of the things you're doing so people could start to follow you and stuff.
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Absolutely. Well, thanks for inviting me on for sure. And yeah, you might not have known anything about me, but I knew a little bit about you before the conference.
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I know a bunch of times, always in a positive context. So I'll just lead with that.
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Not to keep you waiting, but I'm on YouTube. That's where most people know me. I was a pastor of a very small church in Vermont, and I just started commenting on all of the craziness with all the woke church stuff.
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So I'd hear pastors that I respected talking about white privilege and things like that.
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And I just I had a different perspective. So I just put my opinions out there. Nobody listened to it except my mom. And then
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I started commenting on a conference that the ERLC put out about Martin Luther King.
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And apparently that was the thing that everybody found me on because they were looking for, hey, you know, this conference sounds a little weird.
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Like, let's see what other people are saying about it. And I was really one of the only ones talking about it. Well, not the only one, but one of the only ones.
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And so that's kind of how I became known by people. And so I do YouTube a couple times a week. Typically, I'm also on the
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Fight Last Feast podcast network with the guys up in Moscow, Idaho. And I use
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Twitter as well, mostly for fun. So if you go there, I don't know if you'd necessarily be edified by what's on Twitter, but you don't go to Twitter really to be edified.
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So it's more for comedy. And that's what I do now. And I basically talk about I still talk about some of the
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Woke Church stuff, but mostly I just talk about Christianity and the way it kind of confronts and faces the culture and stuff like that.
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A lot of issues of Christian nationalism, political stuff, things like that. That's what I do. So if you're interested in that,
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I have a very unique style, I think. And you'll definitely laugh if you watch my YouTube channel.
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But you might be angry, too. I mean, who knows? There's a little bit for everybody. Yeah, now your podcast. I know because that's what
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I follow more is the podcast. It's easier for me. And it's just AD on FLF Network is the podcast.
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Yeah, that's right. AD on FLF Network. So if folks want to search for that, but I think you do more on the
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YouTube then because you haven't put out you're not putting out several times a week on podcast.
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I have to start being a little more consistent with that. I used to do it every single week, and then it kind of switched.
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And that's completely my fault. It's not like they're trying to get rid of me or anything like that. At least I don't think so. That's an area for improvement.
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Thank you, Andrew. But here's the thing for folks who want to follow you on the podcast.
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You mentioned you have a unique style. You do. It's it is something where the thing I like about your podcast, at least it's coming from your
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YouTube channel, is the fact that you cover like a broad range of different topics.
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You definitely don't hold back on your opinions. That's for sure. But they're also short.
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And maybe I should watch the videos because there are some where it's like, hey, I'm just out here fishing. And you're just recording something because it's like,
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I'm not going to get a chance to talk about this later. So I'll talk about it now. So there's a lot of things like that that make it kind of really neat.
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But so I've really got a lot out of that. And I think others should get to know who you are, follow you.
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It is funny how you have something like that one conference that they were doing with the
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Martin Luther King. And you might think, oh, I'm just doing this all on my own. Like you said, just your mom's listening.
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And all of a sudden, you have a whole bunch of people. I have a friend that just had Jenna Ellison just retweeted something that he had put out against the campaign,
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He Gets Us. That's it. Yeah. So he shared something, a perspective on the
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He Gets Us. And now he's getting like all kinds of spam of people that are hating on him because he criticized them.
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You know, a three page tweet saying how judgmental he is. Yeah, yeah. Which fits very well with what we wanted to talk about.
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It was really refreshing. You did a talk at that conference that I appreciated. It was more rather than being, and this is what
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John had asked me to do as well. Instead of giving, hey, walk through a text of scripture, he wanted something more practical.
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And you did a really good kind of encouragement to guys to say, hey, get into ministry, but know what you're getting into.
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And so for the audience, because there's probably people in our audience, I'm sure you've got full -time pastors.
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You have people who are in full -time ministry, vocational ministry. You have people who are in no ministry at all, maybe nothing outside their church.
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There's people who may be thinking, should I do, you know, should I set up a YouTube channel? Should I do a podcast?
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Is that really ministry? There was a lot that you unpacked about that helps people to say, yes, do it, but know what you're getting into.
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And I think my talk, I don't remember if it's online. I think it might be on John's channel. So you can go look at it. It definitely applies to people interested in ministry, but really it applies to anybody.
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If you are going to be talking to people about issues that are in the culture they're being talked about right now, like you referenced that it's called, he gets us, that's the campaign.
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He gets us. People are talking about that right now. And if you're going to talk about that, it's definitely worthwhile in my opinion, whether it's in a ministry context or not, but you just need to be ready for their responses for the pushback, for people to write three page articles about why you're a bad person or whatever.
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And I think that the whole purpose of my talk was about being able to deal with that in a joyful way, because if you don't, there's a lot of problems that come about and you're going to be very discouraged and you're going to be, it's not going to, there's a whole bunch of things that could happen.
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So that's what my talk was about. And I think that that kind of attitude of joy and cheerfulness is so necessary, especially in times like these.
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That's what it was about. The thing that we end up seeing people get into ministry thinking it's going to be all rosy and everyone's going to appreciate them.
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Big mistake. Yeah. You know,
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I was thinking of posting today, if you really want to know who your friends are, get into ministry and you'll find out who aren't your friends, because man, ministry seems to be a thing with the social media where...
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I remember when I started out with Striving Fraternity. I had, as you know, right, I'm a dispensationalist, and I have no problem with people that disagree with me, and we talk it out and have fun discussing our differences.
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But the thing I discovered is that there are people that don't care that you disagree. They would rather use a minor disagreement to build a platform for themselves.
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And I remember the first time I saw this, there were a bunch of guys, theonomists, that were saying things about dispensationalism.
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And one of the guys said, I said, dude, you know, this is not what dispensationalists hold to. And he literally, his response was, he texted back, he goes,
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I know, but it gets clicks. And the more people that click, the more that they're responding, the more, when
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I post something, they're going to see it. And I'm like, so you're just doing this for algorithms? And he's like, yeah.
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And I remember talking to Matt Sleck, who I know you said you listened to him years ago. Yeah, I used to love listening to him.
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And I said, Matt, this is crazy. And this is what Matt literally told me, some of the best advice he gave me.
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He says, look, Andrew, let me explain how ministry works in this century. People look for someone that's a little bit bigger than them, that has a platform.
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They try to tear that person down so that they can get some of the support and the people that follow that bigger person to follow you.
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You get to be a little bit bigger, and then you move on to someone else to attack. And I'm like, no, that's crazy. That can't be how ministry works.
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He's like, oh yeah, it is. I said, well, how do you tackle that? He goes, oh, very simple. You ignore it and keep producing good content.
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And that has been some of the best advice. And much of what you said at that conference, which resonated with me, was exactly that, was just ignore the conflict, just ignore it and keep producing good content.
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I think one of my main points, if I'm remembering correctly, was you got to get over yourself. You know what I mean? You got to get over yourself.
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So if somebody thinks that A .D. Robles is the biggest idiot of all time, which nobody definitely thinks that, nobody, you've got to be okay with that.
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And you got to realize that at the end of the day, as much as you think your message is important, which
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I think mine is, you're really not all that great. So if you're not above being lied about, because sometimes people will just flat out lie, like you mentioned here, like they know that you don't believe these things, but they say you do.
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So that's a flat out lie. That's not even anywhere near what a ministry should do. But sometimes it's, sometimes it's like, it's not necessarily a lie, but it's, but, you know, they kind of twist it to make it seem so dangerous and shady.
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And you're involved in all these secret meetings with other dispensationalists trying to get another bill to Israel or whatever it is.
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You know what I mean? Like, and it's like, they twist it. And so it's like, again, either way, though, you're not above being lied about.
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You're not above being slandered. You're not above being twist, your words being twisted. It shouldn't happen.
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But when it does happen, you shouldn't be like all surprised. This happens all the time. And so you've got to be okay.
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When people have called me racist many times. And at this point I laugh at, it used to be like, oh, no, I'm not a racist.
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And here's why at this point I just laugh about it and move on. You know what I mean? I, you know,
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I'm not above being lied about in that way. Because I mean, it was funny how you worded it actually in the conference.
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It wasn't just get over yourself. It was get over yourself. You're not that great. Yeah, exactly.
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And that was a really important point because, and maybe you could dig into this a little bit more, because a lot of people get into ministry thinking they are great.
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And you talked about that, that people think because they get a platform online or get a bunch of people that just they think are listening to them, that they start thinking too highly of themselves.
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Yeah. And so that was your first point that you made on being, as you called it, becoming a cheerful warrior.
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The, what are some ways that practically people could do? I mean, you mentioned one, right?
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Just ignore the, ignore the nonsense. How do we get over ourselves though? And really like remind ourselves we're not that great.
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Well, before I even get into that, I think like you got to look at the benefits of getting over yourself too, because there's the list is so, is so great.
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But I think one of the biggest things that improves in your life when you get over yourself is that you start to keep really short accounts with people.
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You don't hold things against people because it's like, when you're not over yourself and you think you're like up here and you're, you know, you're getting lied about and stuff like that.
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And you don't, you know, you're above all that. You hold things against people forever. And it's just, it creates this like weird bitterness and hatred inside you that you hold onto.
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Maybe you don't tell anybody, maybe you do. It's not going to lead to good results for you personally, but also even your content, you know, you're going to slip in zingers here and there that are unnecessary whenever you have a chance.
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You're going to undermine people that you shouldn't be undermining. Because here's the thing, this is the thing that you also got to realize about these ministry guys that build platforms by lying about you.
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Just because they've done that does not mean that every single thing they've ever produced is tainted now, or every single thing they've ever said or done is tainted now.
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Look, people are a mess. I do good things, but I also do bad things. You know what I mean? So if every good thing that I've ever done is now null and void, or any good thing
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I've ever said is now null and void because I disagreed with somebody on Christian nationalism, let's say,
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I don't want that standard used against me. So don't use that standard against other people. So you just have to get over yourself, right?
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And also it leads to this, when you don't get over yourself, it leads to this weird fight about credit, getting credit for things, right?
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There's a funny story that I'm not going to go into it because I don't really want to name this name right now, but he's very interested in getting credit for being the first to have noticed something, the first to have said this, the first to have done this.
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And I was just joking around with him. And I was like, you know, I've got video proof that I was actually way before you.
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You stole it from me. And I just was joking around with him. And I just sent him this video where I was like, no, I was saying this before.
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He was very gracious about it and stuff like that. I was like, you know, it's really not about, I wasn't the first one to invent this either.
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This is all God's truth. You know, like, I'm not, I don't need credit for it. You know, like, please stop this.
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This is dumb. You know what I mean? Anyway, so, I mean, those are just two of the benefits that I kind of highlighted in my talk.
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But one thing that I think you asked about, how do we get over ourselves, right? How do we do it? One thing that has been so helpful to me is
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I have a biological brother who's a minister in the PCA. And because he's my biological brother, that means we grew up together, right?
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He knows all about me. He knows everything I've ever done. He knows every stupid thing I've ever done. He knows that I'm not that great.
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He's not impressed with me at all. And it's great to have men in your life who are not impressed with you at all.
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And they might think you're smart. My brother thinks I'm smart. My brother thinks I'm funny. My brother thinks I'm all these great things, but he also knows
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I'm not all that. And so having guys like that are in your corner, maybe they watch your content, maybe they don't, but they can keep you like in check sort of.
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It's helpful if it's a family member, but it doesn't have to be. That is so good because my brother will knock me down a couple of pegs anytime he needs to.
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And I know he's my friend. I know he's on my side. He's not trying to destroy me. That is so helpful.
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And so Andrew, I'm sure you've got people in your life like this that know you pretty well. I would argue that's probably the biggest thing that you need to have.
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You cannot surround... We all hear horror stories of ministers or even leaders in the secular realm that surround themselves with yes men.
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And it's poisonous. You cannot operate well with just a bunch of yes men around you.
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It's not the way to go. In fact, one of the ways to get on the board at Striving Fraternity, there's two requirements we have.
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One, you have to have a heart for the ministry. But two, and I challenge anybody to think of another board that has this as a requirement, but we do.
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You have to be able to demonstrate that you're willing to correct any of the speakers.
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So whether it's me as the executive director or any of our other speakers, you have to demonstrate that you would have a willingness to correct us.
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So you can't come on the board and be a yes man because by the way we do it...
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I remember we had a guy that got on the board and all of the questions... At that time,
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I was the only speaker and all of the questions were, okay, if you saw Andrew do this, what if this? We hang up from that meeting.
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He calls me the next day and says, dude, you are serious about this. All of the questions were about putting him in a situation.
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What would you do if you saw Andrew doing this or that or this? And the board wanted to know that he actually was going to correct me if he thought that he saw things.
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That was like the big thing they were greeting him on or voting on him for. And he was blown away by that, that we take it serious.
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Don't always agree with everyone in the board, but I don't want to be surrounded by yes men. You have to know what to do in a situation like that.
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And I think a lot of people know what to do, what should be done anyway, but the willingness to do it is a completely separate matter.
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People know that when you have a problem with somebody as a Christian, you got to go to him and talk it out, right?
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People know that it's very clear in the Bible. And it's just common sense too. I mean, it's just, you know what you should do, but that so rarely actually happens.
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Having the willingness to do it and go to them and talk to them, that even the first step of any kind of church discipline is so often just ignored.
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And people don't have the willingness to do that. And instead they go behind the scenes and do various things and undermine people.
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That happens when you think you're above it. You think you're above it. You're too good for that. How could this nobody challenge me?
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You know what I mean? Like, you think that you're above that first, like kind of basic thing. That's really good that you have that as a requirement because, you know, yeah, people know what to do, but the willingness to do it is the key.
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Yeah, because look, unfortunately, what we see with ministries is like, I mean, I know for a fact
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I've had this happen where someone pulled some work that I did and they're like, oh, well, someone came to us.
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Someone we just trust explicitly. And yet that person never wanted and has no desire to get the full side of a story.
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They have half a story that they got from a family member and the family member I've never met, but they got that story and it works.
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And now they're going around saying things. It's like, okay, so you're saying they have integrity, they're explicit, but yet they haven't checked their homework.
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And it's like, oh, well, we're not interested in doing that. We don't have time. Well, if you don't have time, then you shouldn't take any actions, right?
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I recently, and I can't divulge the details of this, but I recently helped broker a conversation between two guys that had, they hadn't talked in three years and there was all this conflict in between them.
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And there's a couple of reasons why this conversation never happened. But anyway, I was able to sort of broker this conversation to happen.
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And you know what? Everyone there was a Christian. And so guess what happened when they finally talked?
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It got solved pretty quickly too. I mean, you know, maybe not as quick as people would have liked, but it got solved and it got, and everyone kind of realized, you know, there were some things that I didn't know that before, that I can see your perspective now and, you know, and, and things like that.
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And I think sometimes these ministries that you're talking about that kind of create these, these controversies in order to grow.
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I think sometimes that the reason these conversations don't happen is number one, they think they're too great. They're not over themselves.
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But number two, they're worried it's going to get solved. They're worried they don't want it to get solved.
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You know, there's some kind of perceived benefit there. And it's always just a perceived benefit. There really isn't an actual benefit.
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It's just the perception of a benefit. So anyway, I think like in my case, it's my biological brother.
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That's my key guy, right? But there's, there's other guys in my life too. Like my pastors, for example, have zero problem pulling me aside and things like that.
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And they have before, you know, talk things out to talk things out. So I give them a lot of credit for that. They're good pastors. And so the benefit of a biological brother in my case is that there's no temptation for me to think that my biological brother's out to get me because I know he's not.
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I mean, I've known him for 40 years, you know? So like having a friend that they can come to you and attack something you're doing or saying, but you know they're not an enemy is so beneficial.
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And in the church, we should have tons of guys like that, that we know they don't have it out for me.
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They don't want bad things for me, but yeah, they're still confronting me. They're still attacking me about something that I'm doing.
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That's so helpful. Let's take a very current example of this, right? With what you said, just because someone says something wrong, that they, you don't agree with whatever, if they've taught good things, we don't throw everything, everything they've done out.
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This is one of the complaints I've had with the handling of recently with Alistair Begg, right?
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Sure. He gives one bad advice. Okay. And if 40 years, if like, that's the only thing, then that would be really, really good, right?
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I mean, so you look at this and say, but there's people, I mean, I was shocked how many people are doubting his salvation over this.
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And I'm going, guys, like, chill, right? I really hope that's not the standard that's going to be used on me.
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Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Because I look at that, and you had a really good point about the bitterness.
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I think so few people understand how the bitterness ends up creeping in. And really, bitterness just stunts a
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Christian's growth. Whenever that bitterness starts, you stopped growing at that point, because all you're thinking about, oh, this person, he's so bad.
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And meanwhile, and I've had this happen. I had a brother come to me in church, in my church.
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He came three years after an event occurred to ask my forgiveness. He had been holding a grudge against something.
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What it was was that I became a deacon, and at the time, I was 23, 24 years old, and I became a deacon.
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He was in his 30s. And he thought that somehow I was too young to be a deacon.
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He held a grudge because the church voted for me over him. And for three years, and everything that happened in church, he thought
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I was doing it because I was rubbing it in his face. And meanwhile, I had no clue.
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When he brought it up, I'm like, oh, I was like, brother, I'm sorry that you were going through this.
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He's like, but you were thinking of it. I'm like, no, actually, I never gave it a second thought. It shocked him that I wasn't thinking about it because he was, and he thought
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I always was, because he was. So bitterness is this funny thing that it plays on us where we really get stuck in a past event, and forgiveness is the solution, but there's so many people that either, like you brought up, some ministries, these discernment ministries,
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I'm using air quotes, right? These discernment ministries that say, oh, we do discernment, and yet they're not really very discerning because they don't focus on the fact that, you know, they'll cut corners and say things they know, man, might not be true, or they know it's not true just so that they could get attention.
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And it's a thing where that behavior is something that I think in certain groups, like you pointed out, they don't want to get the problem fixed because if the problem gets fixed, it reveals that they might be, what's that word that Fonzie from Happy Days had a hard time saying?
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Wrong, right? Okay, my, hey, my audience is just boggled that I actually got a pop culture reference.
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I had a guy that he wants me to wear a t -shirt on Apologetics Live that says, I don't get your movie reference, but hey, you just got a pop culture reference from the 80s.
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That's about as pop culture as I could get. But what follows up with this is really your second point in your message was that we should not get defensive, and they really play hand in hand.
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Why, like, if we're going to be cheerful in tackling the cultural issues and doing ministry, why is it important not to get defensive?
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I think getting defensive, so this is one of those things, right? If you get over yourself, you won't get defensive because someone calls me a racist.
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I don't care anymore. I used to, I don't anymore. I don't get defensive over it. And here's the thing about being defensive.
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Oftentimes, people that are your detractors, they call you outlandish things just to get you on record denying it, right?
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And so they want you to be out there. They don't expect you to say, yeah, I'm a racist. They don't expect that.
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That's not why they said it. They said it so that you defend yourself from the charge of being a racist. And this is twisted, but this is how it works out there.
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Pagans do this all the time. And what they want is for there to be many examples of you defending yourself against a certain charge that's outlandish, right?
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If there's some truth to it, of course, you got to defend yourself. But if there's no truth to it, you got to get over yourself.
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I'm not above being slandered in this way. When you get defensive, it gets to the point when there's enough of this, people that aren't really paying attention, they're like, well, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire.
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I mean, he wouldn't be being called a racist if he wasn't one. And look at him here, he's defending himself. He's obviously taking this very seriously.
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I think getting defensive is what they hope you will do when they call you something outlandish, right?
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And so I think nobody, I'll never forget this one for my whole life. You know, you know, Dr. White. Dr. White was accused of being a racist long before it was cool to accuse people of being a racist because of some comment he made.
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I don't remember, it doesn't even matter because it was all preposterous. And so what he did was he fired up his
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YouTube channel and he got a bow tie on and everything. And he made like a two hour episode about why he wasn't a racist.
26:57
And it was great. I mean, he obviously isn't a racist, but it was fine. All the information was fine, but that doesn't do anything for you.
27:05
You know what I mean? It really doesn't because it's not like your detractors are going to say, oh, I guess we were wrong about Dr.
27:11
White. They're just going to say that's exactly what a racist would do. You know what I mean? They're crazy.
27:17
So I'm not saying that Dr. White was getting defensive there. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. I'm not making any determination on that.
27:23
But I would prefer if it was me that was being accused of being a racist, which again has never happened. I would just laugh about it or ignore it.
27:30
You can laugh or ignore it or I guess you could defend yourself if you want. But the thing is like when you laugh about it, your detractors are just going to get, they hate you no matter what, so it doesn't matter.
27:39
And your followers and the people that aren't really paying much attention, they're just going to be like, oh, this is preposterous, just like every other accusation of racism
27:47
I've heard in the last 10 years. And I think that cheerful attitude about it is strategically
27:52
I think more beneficial these days than the very staunch, like I'm going to write 100 ,000 words on why
28:01
I'm not a racist. I think strategically more often than not being cheerful about it and just kind of chuckling it off or ignoring it is usually the best course of action.
28:11
Andrew, the other day, it's probably a year ago at this point, some wacko on the internet said that I was an anti -Semite.
28:18
And the reason why I was an anti -Semite, a covert anti -Semite. And the reason why is because I had shared a meme on Easter with Hulk Hogan in it.
28:26
And Hulk Hogan is code for Heil Hitler, apparently. And so anyway, that might be true.
28:34
I have no idea. I was just sharing a meme with Hulk Hogan, you know? So I had two choices. Once I had this accusation,
28:41
I could get really defensive over it, or I could just be like, this is a wacko. Let's have a little fun with this. That's what
28:46
I did. And I think strategically, less people took it seriously than would have if I said, well, here's why,
28:53
I have a Jewish friend and I'm talking to Andrew here. And you know what I mean? Like, I list 10 reasons why
29:00
I'm not an anti -Semite. So I don't know. And also I think this does wonders for yourself too, because you know, there's no truth to it.
29:08
You know, there's nothing there. Someone's just slandered you in a way designed to try to destroy you.
29:13
And I think when you take it all seriously and get all bothered by it, that takes a lot of effort. That's painful,
29:19
I think. I think when I just laughed about it, it was over in five seconds. This guy still, of course, thinks
29:25
I'm an anti -Semite, but I don't care because he's just a wacko on the internet. It's different though, Andrew, too. Like if somebody from my church said, hey,
29:32
I saw you share this meme and I'm a little concerned that you're a covert anti -Semite. I talk to him because this is someone in my real life.
29:39
I talk to him, you know what I mean? But the internet, I think oftentimes, it's different than interpersonal relationships.
29:47
And I think the way you handle things on the internet sometimes doesn't line up with the way you would handle it if it was my brother that came to me or you or someone that I knew a little bit.
29:55
You know what I mean? The internet changes the game, I think a little bit to how you would strategically want to respond to some of this stuff or not.
30:02
Well, that's why we have the term keyboard warriors, right? In fact, here's a quote from you from your talk at the conference.
30:09
Quote, the internet can rob you of your joy. People focus on the smallest details.
30:15
Not everyone is laser focused on your pet peeves, unquote. I thought that was great.
30:22
And that's really summarizing what you're saying right now. Yeah, that's right. The internet. Yeah. Go ahead, go ahead.
30:28
No, you go ahead. No, I was going to say like, and this is really true in the theological circles that you go, you ride in on the internet, you know, because there are people on the internet that are so focused on your dispensationalism,
30:41
Andrew. And that's all they think about on the internet. I'm not saying that's their whole lives, but on the internet, this is what they talk about, right?
30:46
And so they might care so much about this and you care about it.
30:52
It's not all you talk about. You talk about many other things, but every single time you bring something up, they're only thinking about dispensationalism.
31:00
And so if you have to now adjust yourself, your schedule and get all crazy about this one person attacking you on this one pet peeve of theirs, you're just never going to find any cheerfulness, any joy on the internet.
31:13
You have to sometimes tune these people out. I've got people on my YouTube channel that comment all the time and I've got great commenters, you know, and they're not afraid to say
31:21
I'm wrong about things. I love that. But then there are some that are like so focused on one thing and no matter what
31:27
I'm talking about, they're going to bring it back to this one thing. Those people, you just kind of have to ignore them. You know what
31:33
I mean? You just have to. It's the best thing to do. You know, I had a guy, an atheist, wanted to debate me.
31:39
He wanted to debate me on something Matt Slick said. I'm like, okay, go debate Matt Slick.
31:45
Like, don't debate me. I didn't say that. So then he wanted... He's willing to debate atheists. Go to him.
31:51
I'm like, yeah. So he then wanted to debate me on something that one of my ministry partners at the time,
31:56
Anthony Silvestro said. And I'm like, but that's not... Like, I haven't said that. Go debate Anthony, you know?
32:01
So we come up with a topic and then we agree to the topic. And the topic was evolution is a theory.
32:10
I said, okay, let's talk about that. He then changed it to evolution is just a theory. Well, that makes a big difference.
32:17
And I kept pointing out to him, because he keeps posting that I'm dodging a debate.
32:24
And I said, I'm willing to debate you, but you changed the topic again. Like, first you wanted to debate what other people say.
32:29
Now you want to... So what ends up happening is he does the show and he actually,
32:35
I only watched five minutes. He lied 10 times in five minutes. So I didn't watch any more of it.
32:41
Like, I'm like, I'm not even going to respond to this. But it was funny because he did the show.
32:48
I told him, he's like, we're going to debate at this time. I'm like, well, I can't, I'm going to be in the air. Like, I'm flying home.
32:55
Like, I physically can't do a debate from an airplane. Like, it doesn't work that way. So he tried saying that I was dodging it.
33:02
I'm like, I'm willing to do it. So he does it two hours ahead of time. And he says he's doing it so that I don't somehow break in to the show he's going to do.
33:13
I'm like, okay, first off, I don't even have the link. Second, I was telling you I was flying so that I wasn't going to make it no matter what.
33:20
And now you're even telling your audience you did it early to prevent me. And you're saying that I'm the one dodging, right?
33:27
And then he spends two hours saying he takes, he basically found a message I did on how to evangelize to LGBT.
33:34
LGBT, MQ, and I added an M in there, right? So I added all their letters. M is for minor attracted people.
33:41
So he spends two hours from what I understand, convincing people that I'm saying that all homosexuals are attracted to minors.
33:50
And I'm like, does that mean that all homosexuals are lesbians too? Because you have LGBT, they're also all bi.
33:58
They're also all trans. They're also like, so it doesn't even make sense, right?
34:05
But it's like you said, if I tried to defend that, it's not going to do a single, I mean, I had so many people that were responding to me that listened to his thing.
34:15
And at first I was trying to say, I was trying to reason with him. I realized there was no reasoning with him. So I just ended up,
34:20
I just went, so my response became, so does this mean that Steve is scared to debate me? So does this mean he's too scared to do it?
34:28
Like that, I just kept posting that over and over, right? And then it just stopped because they weren't getting the reaction they wanted.
34:35
And I just went back to the main thing. You realize he's doing this because he's scared. He's dodging. He said it in the first two minutes, right?
34:43
What's he scared of? You know? Yeah, yeah. So you had a little fun with it. I like that.
34:48
Exactly, exactly. You know, and there's times you can have fun with it. There's times you just ignore it. Oh yeah, totally.
34:54
I mean, I try to choose different strategies depending on the situation. Mostly though, I just ignore it.
35:01
And on Twitter, you won't, if you go to my Twitter, if anyone goes on Twitter and looks me up, they will very rarely see me interact with somebody that's antagonistic.
35:10
And if I do, it's never more than one tweet. Like I'll let them have the last word every time. And listen, if people like to spend their time doing that,
35:18
I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm just saying for me, it's really not, it's not worth it. Once you determine that the person you're dealing with is not reasonable, they're just looking for something, whatever it is, you just gotta let it go.
35:30
You just gotta let it go. And I would argue that nine times out of 10, probably more than that, people that call you outlandish names like racist or misogynist or something like that, they're not after any kind of understanding.
35:42
They're just fools raging. And to get into the muck with them would be foolish to do.
35:48
But every now and then there is someone out there that's worth engaging or maybe worth having a little fun with.
35:55
You just gotta pick your spots, I think. You know what I mean? You gotta pick your spots and you'll find a lot more cheerfulness. And it's more attractive too.
36:01
I think that's one of the things I said in the talk I gave is that if you think about the people that you like to follow the most, for me, these people are cheerful.
36:10
They're joyful. We talked about Matt. We keep talking about Matt Slick because man, I gotta start watching him again. I haven't in so long.
36:16
But one of the things I loved about Matt when I used to watch him was he was cheerful.
36:22
Yeah. He was joyful. People would say crazy things to him and he would just kind of chuckle and he'd keep going and keep doing his thing.
36:30
And I disagreed with Matt on a number of topics, but he was always so like, I liked his style.
36:36
I was attracted to it. I thought his kind of cheerful attitude was just very good.
36:42
I liked it. And people, this is the thing, people want to hear from people that are cheerful.
36:48
They like that. It's attractive. And so if you think your message is important, I would argue cultivating a cheerful personality and you don't have to be like over the top, but just like not easily rattled, not easily frustrated, not easily flying off the handle and getting too serious about things.
37:06
These are serious topics, but you don't have to always be serious, especially when you're getting accused of crazy things and people are treating you poorly.
37:13
There are times to assert your rights. The apostle Paul did. There are also times that you can just kind of chuckle it off and move on, you know?
37:21
And Matt Slick was a master at that. He'd open, I don't know if he still does this, but he used to open it to phone calls and stuff, his radio show.
37:27
And, you know, some crazy people would call him and he talked to him a little bit and then he'd move on.
37:33
Yeah, well, the thing I always love is he'll be like, okay, put your right hand in front of your face, turn it to you and then smack yourself in the face.
37:39
We actually had a guy actually do that live. Like the guy actually took the instruction and smacked himself and Matt and I burst out laughing because he actually did it on video.
37:48
It was like, wow. But, you know, you're right. I mean, early in the ministry, you know, one of the things is people online read a lot of tone into what's written.
38:01
And growing up in a Jewish household, Jewish people were trained to debate. It's just, it's like a family activity.
38:08
You just, hey, you're taking this topic, you're pro, you're con, go for it. You know, it's an iron sharpening iron type of skill, which is why
38:14
I think so many Jewish people become lawyers. It's the only profession you can get paid to debate.
38:21
And so, but I don't have all the emotion that people think I have when I'm responding to things.
38:27
And I just look at it and I'm like, I just want to correct people. Like I want people to be accurate. And I did not realize how little people were paying attention.
38:35
And I'd keep going and going and it was completely useless. I think it was,
38:41
I think it was Gabe Hughes. I can't remember if him or someone else that told me this. And it's, I just don't want to take credit for something that wasn't original with me that I know wasn't original with me.
38:50
But I think it was Gabe Hughes that said he's got a two or three post rule. Someone posts something, he'll respond once and they don't respond.
38:59
You know, they go on the attack again. He'll do like one more response just to let it go.
39:05
And then you can have the last word. Like just, here you go. And I got into a thing I would do with folks if we go back and forth.
39:12
And this is so funny because there's only once I've done this, I don't know how many times, dozens and dozens and dozens of times, if not like a hundred,
39:21
I would do this. And only once did someone not respond. I'll say to, I'll say to someone, they're going back and forth.
39:27
I'll be like, so I'll use you as the example in a bad way, but you're coming at me. And I'd be like, A .D. listen,
39:33
I'm not going to read whatever you say next. And you're going to, I'm going to show you how you can know that you're dealing in pride because I'm telling you,
39:42
I'm not going to read it. And you're going to feel like you have to respond. Even though I'm not going to read it, you have to respond.
39:52
That's pride. And it's amazing. Every time they respond and I just toss it.
39:57
I don't, I'm not reading it, just gone. I just delete that email. Right. And it's just so funny because like they, they respond and I'm like, just there you go.
40:07
You want the proof. Here's the, only once did I have a guy not respond. And so it's just, it's just, it's, yeah, it's amazing.
40:15
You can tell him, look, I'm not going to read it, but this is what a prideful person would do. You're going to respond because you feel like you got to prove yourself.
40:21
And I think a lot of times, and I want to get to, in a moment, your third point was to keep short accounts.
40:26
I want to get to that. But I think a big part of the problem is we have a lot of people that when they're looking at this, they're stressed out.
40:35
They just, they're kind of not dealing in a right frame of mind. And maybe, just maybe what some of these people on the internet need to do, maybe just take a step back.
40:44
And what you need to do is go to mypillow .com, get yourself a good pillow so you can get a good night of sleep and maybe be a little bit more cheerful in the morning and less defensive when you come to the internet.
40:57
Now, if you're going to do that, use the promo code SFE, that stands for striving for eternity, so that they know that you heard about them from us.
41:05
So that while you're getting a good night's sleep and waking up as a cheerful warrior, instead of a keyboard warrior, you will help out this ministry.
41:14
They'll know that you heard about them through us, and they'll keep supporting us. We'll be glad. But you can check out all those things. If you really are that uncheerful keyboard warrior, maybe you'll need to also get their three -inch mattress top or two to get that extra cushion of sleep that you need to wake up cheerful.
41:30
Just a thought, you may need that. Just mypillow .com, use the promo code SFE. So A .D.,
41:39
if you could, you mentioned in your talk, keeping short accounts. And we've kind of, this is your,
41:46
I think people that are following with this, you've kind of talked through this because a lot of your talk was going back and forth on these things.
41:52
But why is it important for us to keep short accounts, especially online? Well, I mean, the easy
41:58
Sunday school answer is because we're commanded to. But listen, listen, it is very helpful.
42:05
I think the internet has, and I'm not going to blame the internet for this because this is just a part of the sin nature.
42:11
But the internet has exacerbated a lot of our tendencies to really kind of assume things about people and to assume the worst about people and to think and to tempt you to think that everybody is thinking of the exact same things you're thinking of.
42:27
You had mentioned, of course, when you were a deacon, this person thought the whole time you're trying to stick it to them, even though you hadn't ever thought about that.
42:35
I used to have a friend, this is a funny example, this isn't really that serious, but I used to have a friend who would oftentimes, he'd come through the door and he'd say, are we going to do it?
42:44
And that's all he'd say. And I kept telling him, dude, Ellie, I'm not in your mind. What are you talking about? Because in his mind, he was thinking of something and he'd been thinking of it the whole way over to my apartment.
42:54
And so he just asked me if we're going to do it. And it's like, I'm not, I don't know what you're talking about. The internet has exacerbated that so much.
43:00
Everyone thinks that everyone's talking about the same stuff. So the thing about keeping short accounts is if you commit to doing this, you will have a lot more friends and just be a much more approachable and likable person.
43:15
Because this is the thing, there are people that have said crazy things about me. And if I just wrote every single one of those people off for the rest of my life,
43:24
I would be alone and miserable and everyone would, and I would hate everyone and everyone would be out to get me and I'd never get over myself.
43:32
You know what I mean? There are people that will come to me and say, hey, I know that you probably are sick of me by now because I've said all these things about you.
43:41
And honestly, like I'm not perfect at this obviously, but I've committed to just filing stuff and just that it's over, it's totally over.
43:49
You don't have to, look, maybe I was right. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you were right. Maybe you're wrong, but we're still friends. We're still on the same team.
43:55
You don't have to like grovel to like talk to me again. It's just, listen,
44:01
I'm going to go back to my biological brother. There are probably issues that we never resolved, that we never apologized for, that we never, but we forgot about them.
44:10
You know what I mean? We forgot about all of them. You know, over 40 years, there's tons of stuff like that. You just have to understand, like you gotta treat friends like friends.
44:18
You know what I mean? Friends have to remain friends. And like, there's nothing that I hate more.
44:23
And I'll just be straight up about this. In recent controversies with Christian nationalism, I saw this so often where people would say,
44:31
I'm done with James White. I'm done with G3 forever. And they just get on Twitter and say that.
44:37
And you know, listen, I have opinions about G3 and James White and all this stuff, right?
44:43
But like at the end of the day, I have to recognize that our list of friends is running short. So even if G3 never apologizes for whatever perceived slight they said to this guy or whatever they did, there's going to be a time when you're going to recognize that these are friends.
45:02
You know what I mean? And they have to remain friends. And if you hold these kinds of things, listen,
45:09
I'm not going to get into it. But yeah, there were some things that shouldn't have been said that were said, and they may never apologize for it.
45:14
But at the end of the day, like we're on the same team, we're the same family. You don't have to necessarily trust them ever again.
45:20
That's the thing too. You know, you get like with the Alistair Begg thing, right? That you brought that up and that whole controversy.
45:26
And I like Alistair Begg. And I don't blame anyone for saying, yeah, you know, the next time he has some cultural commentary,
45:32
I don't know if I'm going to really be jumping on YouTube to check it out. You know what I mean? Like, I get it. I get it.
45:37
I'm not saying you have to trust him or feel the same way about him. But at the end of the day though, you should recognize that he's your friend, right?
45:44
He's a friend. And you don't have to necessarily trust every friend with everything.
45:49
I've got some friends that I would trust to have my back in a foxhole, like a literal foxhole.
45:54
But I wouldn't necessarily trust them with coming over to my house to feed my chickens or something like that.
46:00
Or I wouldn't ask them about a deep theological issue. But if I was in trouble, I'd call them up real quick.
46:06
And likewise, there are people that I would talk a theological, a deep theological issue out that I wouldn't ask who to vote for or something like that.
46:13
That's okay. That's totally okay. The body has different members for different purposes. And so when you keep short accounts with people, there are some things that you can get over certain stuff.
46:25
And if you can't, then you have to somehow hash it out with that person. And if it's just someone on the internet, okay, fine.
46:30
I mean, you can't necessarily hash it out with everybody on the internet. But you have to do this because otherwise everyone knows the story about like the people that used to love you on YouTube and now they hate you because of one thing, just one thing.
46:41
And now you're the worst. You're the devil. You can't be that guy. You know how annoying that is. And you know how damaging that is to the person that's like that, where it's like, they held you up to this high and they figured you agreed on everything.
46:53
And then they stopped liking you the minute you said something they didn't agree with. Just don't be that guy in reverse.
46:59
You know what I mean? I think that's really it with the keeping short accounts thing, you know? And of course, there's always exceptions to this.
47:05
I mean, there's always some people that like you probably would never trust again, but that doesn't mean like, that doesn't mean that you have to now treat them like the enemy.
47:14
You know what I mean? You know, it was a thing where I remember early in the ministry, there was a guy called up the ministry, gets me on the phone, and I did not know he was recording the conversation.
47:25
And he puts out this post and he was putting it everywhere. I mean, everywhere.
47:32
He had this thing and he said, how Calvinistic is Andrew Rappaport of striving for eternity of ministries?
47:38
And basically he was trying to tell everyone I wasn't Calvinistic enough. Now his definition of Calvinistic enough was in the conversation toward the end, it became, because he had this recorded and he posted it everywhere.
47:50
He basically, I ended up like in talking through, I realized the guy believes that the
47:56
London confession of faith is equal in authority with scripture, which even the confession would deny, right?
48:04
But it was really interesting because he thought, he literally told people he was going to destroy striving for eternity.
48:12
And I kind of laughed because I got a couple of radio interviews out of it. I had new donors because the thing is that, like people were going,
48:20
I still remember a guy that I became friendly with years later, and then I got on his website and he had this forum.
48:27
And he literally said, I don't know who this Andrew Rappaport guy is, but man, the way he dealt with this guy, this
48:34
Pharisee was so gentle and polite, which is not the way I always handle things, but it was really funny because he thought he was destroying me.
48:43
And what it actually did because he was so aggressive and I wasn't, it backfired on him. But here's the thing, this is why
48:49
I tell the story. We fast forward 15 years and the guy reaches out to me and he contacts me and says, he said,
48:57
I need to ask your forgiveness. He goes, I don't even remember what I did to you, but I know, like that's it.
49:05
He couldn't even remember, but he goes, I know I was trying to destroy you and I don't even remember what it was over.
49:12
And so I told him what it was and he was like, man, I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me? We talked on the phone and he just realized that like, he probably did this with others and something happened where he realized, oh, you know, need to correct these things.
49:26
And the thing is that I think part of the issue of being defensive even is the point of, do we feel like we have to be the ones to correct it?
49:35
Or can we, I know this is going to sound crazy for Christians, AD, it's going to sound crazy. Could we just let
49:42
God handle what he can handle? That's right. I mean, like what a crazy idea of saying, you know what,
49:48
God, it's in your hands. I'll try to do what's right and then I'll give it to you and let you handle it.
49:55
And sometimes it may be years later that all of a sudden you get a call out of nowhere where someone wants to apologize.
50:02
I've had that happen probably a half dozen to a dozen times where someone contacts me saying, look, you know, and some of the things they were doing,
50:11
I didn't even know about, you know, they were doing stuff and they're like, hey, I was saying these things about you.
50:17
And like, there was a guy who I went to church with and we, unfortunately, he was put under church discipline and it fell upon me to be the one to talk to him and try to bring witnesses and things.
50:28
And it's not anything anyone wants to be the one to do that. But he blamed me for things and he was just bad -mouthing me to people
50:36
I didn't know about. And then he's like, you know, and he starts responding to YouTube videos
50:41
I'm doing. I'm like, hey, are you so -and -so? He's like, yeah, and you should know what you did. I'm like, what did
50:47
I do? Like, I had no clue. And it ended up turning into where he emailed me and started just a lengthy six -page email.
50:55
And I read through that. And so I tried dealing with it and saying like, look, let me just give you a different side of the story.
51:01
And he was like, I didn't know all that. He's like, oh, will you forgive me? And it was like, yeah.
51:07
Now, I'm not saying that's always going to happen, but it's hard, I think, because we do still struggle with pride and our pride wants to correct it.
51:18
Our pride wants to defend ourselves. And it's hard to just say, no,
51:23
God, you got this. You can handle this. You're right about that. Your pride wants to be the one that says the thing that solves it or whatever it is, or comes to some kind of realization.
51:35
Yeah, and I think of the times in my life where there was conflict that was really weird and just unnecessary.
51:41
And oftentimes, like there's one story in particular where me and this guy were arguing about something and we spent like an hour on the phone just like yelling at each other.
51:50
And nobody, it was so weird. Like nobody really even said anything. It was just like, like it was just got solved somehow.
51:58
And it's like, we were just like yelling at each other, yelling, yelling, yelling. And I don't even remember what was said, but both of us just stopped and we both started weeping and it was solved like that.
52:10
And it was just like, that was like very mysterious. And like, obviously not any of us doing that.
52:17
That was the Holy Spirit doing something. And it wouldn't always be like that quick, but sometimes it's totally out of your hands.
52:23
None of us were saying anything edified to the other. And afterwards we were just like, oh yeah, man, like we're on the same team.
52:33
Just let me know if you need anything like that kind of thing. And that was that. And so, yeah,
52:38
I mean, in my pride, of course, I had like my list of arguments and he had his and we really wanted to get our zingers in there and we did.
52:47
And none of that solved anything and we didn't care. And anyway, bottom line is, yeah, it doesn't happen all the time that way, but when it does happen, it's really beautiful and it's memorable.
52:57
And I'm sure you could list off all kinds of stories right now of times where that had happened and I could do the same.
53:02
It's good stuff, man. And I think, especially in this time of the internet, there are people that love you today that will hate you tomorrow.
53:09
And there are people that hate you today that will love you tomorrow. And a lot of times, God's working things out that you have no idea that he's working out.
53:19
I mean, pretty much that's all the time. You know what I mean? So making sure that you're doing your part of not thinking yourself better than you are, doing the simple things that God commands you to do, talking to people, keeping short accounts.
53:32
These are simple things that everyone on a test could get the right answer. But the willingness to do those things is very important.
53:40
And sorry. No, I think, folks, I hope this is helpful for you to learn to be a cheerful warrior.
53:48
I mean, we gotta take on the culture. We gotta take on false teaching, but we don't have to take on one another so much.
53:56
And even there are times we have to take on one another, but we could do it in a cheerful way. So any last words you have, any ways that people can find you?
54:04
You know, I'll just say this, you know, first of all, you can find me on YouTube, A .D. Robles, R -O -B -L -E -S. Same thing on Twitter.
54:10
You can find me there as well. And I think that the thing that is so important about this conversation, but also just our lives in general right now as Christians in the time and period that we're in, you really need to be able to make a distinction between who's a friend and who's an enemy.
54:25
We don't try to destroy friends. We try to correct them. We try to, we can argue with them. That's all good.
54:31
You don't try to destroy them. And our enemies, really, we're not necessarily trying to destroy them either, but there's just a different, there's a different way to deal with someone who's an enemy and someone who's a friend.
54:40
There's different ways to deal with them. And sometimes they might look similar, but the end result is different.
54:46
When the Philistines are on the other side of the battle, yeah, you're trying to destroy the Philistines. You know, you're, you're not literally, but you know what
54:53
I mean? You try to destroy that, but your friends, sometimes they're not going to be wanting to do the same things you're doing, or they think you're wrong about certain things and stuff like that.
55:01
But there has to be some kind of distinction there. There has to be some kind of thing where, you know, we're, we're arguing, but we're, we don't hate each other.
55:08
You know, Andrew, you're wrong about dispensationalism, but I'm not trying to destroy your ministry. There's gotta be some kind of distinction there.
55:16
Well, we'll, we'll all be corrected in heaven. That's one thing for sure. So A .D., I appreciate you coming on.
55:22
I hope this has been helpful for folks. Just a quick note for our listeners. Hey, I just want to give a shout out to all of you.
55:28
Thank you for sharing this. I know we took several months off because of my health. We've come back, and I know that the,
55:36
I don't, I'm not a big guy that looks at all the numbers, but I know that the listens had, or the downloads had dropped.
55:42
That was expected. I asked you guys if you would share it, share these episodes as you find them helpful, valuable, if they're of value to you, they might be valuable to someone else.
55:50
Just, you know, maybe if you know five people that this episode would help, go text this out to those five people.
55:57
And you guys have been doing that. How do I know? Because I saw that we're back in the top 100 in the religion section for the
56:03
United States. So we got back into the top 100. That's only because people are downloading, people are going.
56:10
So, so I appreciate you guys doing that. If this is valuable to you, let others know about it.
56:15
It helps not only the person you're sharing it with, but it helps us as well. So we are grateful for that.
56:20
So with that, we'll be, the event's coming up. I don't know when this is dropping. So I probably already back from the
56:27
Open Air Theology Conference. I'll talk about that at some point about the great time that I had there. And we'll be discussing exactly what we talked about in this episode.
56:36
We'll be hashing through theology, calling each other, all kinds of names, ribbing one another, all in good fun and enjoying every minute of it.
56:46
So that's what I'm looking forward to. And even Matt Slick will be there. So with that, folks, hey, that's a wrap.
56:55
We'll see you next time. Marinated in Louisiana spices, hand battered and flipped.
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Makes no sense. They're $5 .99 for six pieces. Taste them. Crunchy outside. And juicy inside.
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