Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 11, 2021


Ep 384 ｜ Rand Paul Offers Sane Solutions to America's Insane Problems ｜ Guest： Sen. Rand Paul


Episode Stats

Length

32 minutes

Words per Minute

173.61542

Word Count

5,698

Sentence Count

335

Misogynist Sentences

11

Hate Speech Sentences

13


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week. We made it to Thursday.
00:00:16.300 Tomorrow is Friday. So congratulations on getting this far. All right. Today I'm super excited
00:00:24.480 because I get to interview Senator Rand Paul. We're going to talk about all kinds of things in the
00:00:31.340 about 10 minutes or so that I have him. We are going to talk about his victory in making sure
00:00:40.140 that PPP money in the COVID relief bill does not go to Planned Parenthood. We'll talk about some of
00:00:46.480 the concerns that we as pro-lifers still have with the relief bill. We'll also talk about that viral
00:00:53.700 exchange that he had with the HHS assistant secretary nominee, Rachel Levine, and why parents,
00:01:02.820 why people of all kinds need to be concerned about that radical pick and the other radical nominees
00:01:09.460 that Joe Biden has selected. And we'll also talk about school choice. After that conversation,
00:01:18.220 I think we'll get into a little bit, if we have time, some of what's going on at the border. I
00:01:23.000 know we talked about that with Representative Chip Roy as well, but there are some more details that I
00:01:27.660 think I want to cover. And then there are a couple more things that I also want to talk about. So
00:01:32.460 it's a packed episode and I really want to leave you today with some encouragement. There's a lot of
00:01:37.120 craziness obviously going on in the world, but there's so much to rejoice over and to be thankful
00:01:42.160 about as well. So first let's talk to Senator Rand Paul.
00:01:51.780 Senator Paul, thank you so much for joining us. There are a few things I want to talk to you about
00:01:56.800 today. The first thing I want to talk about is something that happened last week. You claimed
00:02:01.820 victory in the fight over PPP money going to Planned Parenthood in the Senate COVID relief bill. Can you
00:02:08.320 talk a little bit more about that, how that was accomplished and what it actually means?
00:02:13.360 You know, the PPP money was intended to go to small businesses. So big enterprises like Planned
00:02:19.200 Parenthood were too big to qualify, but being devious like they are, Planned Parenthood decided to apply
00:02:26.000 for it by breaking themselves down into individual entities by city. And they did actually get like
00:02:33.080 $38 million. We found out about it and we contested it and then they were going to fix this. It wasn't
00:02:40.520 legal for them to do it, but they were going to fix this in this COVID relief bill and make it actually
00:02:46.140 legal for them to do what they had already done. We went to the parliamentarian and said, hey, this,
00:02:51.680 it does not have a budgetary impact. It doesn't meet what they call the bird rule. And so we had this
00:02:56.740 discussion, a freewheeling discussion with the parliamentarian. The parliamentarian ruled in our favor
00:03:01.740 and the Democrats had to take it out of the bill. So it was a small victory since we lost almost
00:03:08.420 everything else with the Democrats, but a big victory in the sense that we're hoping it will
00:03:13.320 prevent Planned Parenthood from getting government money. We had other votes on the Hyde Amendment,
00:03:18.200 which should prevent government money from going to abortion. And the Democrats voted lockstep not to
00:03:23.300 invoke the Hyde Amendment. And then on this, though, we did have a victory that we think will prevent
00:03:28.260 Planned Parenthood from getting tax dollars. Right. And that goes into what I was about to ask.
00:03:33.220 There are still concerns and maybe a little bit of confusion about whether or not any restrictions
00:03:39.660 for abortion funding actually made it into the bill. So do pro-lifers still have reason for concern
00:03:47.440 with our federal tax dollars supporting abortion through this bill?
00:03:52.300 Yes, because the Hyde protections were not explicitly put in. The Hyde protections were named after
00:03:58.200 Henry Hyde, who was a congressman from Illinois, who many, many years ago, when it used to not be as
00:04:03.480 controversial, even Democrats would support this, was that no matter what your opinion on abortion was,
00:04:08.920 people came to an agreement that government and tax dollars shouldn't go to paying for abortion.
00:04:13.200 Right. Now, no Democrat supports that. And we tried to put it into the COVID bill and it failed.
00:04:19.160 I was able to strip out some language, which we think would make it easier for Planned Parenthood.
00:04:24.140 But do we let our guard down? No. I've told my staff, let's watch them like a hawk.
00:04:29.320 I'm on the Small Business Administration Committee, which oversees this PPP program.
00:04:34.740 So we are going to watch them like a hawk and we will be vigilant.
00:04:38.260 And we'll let you know if they try to get taxpayer money.
00:04:41.580 We're also going to be watching them to see if they try to claw back the 38 million that
00:04:45.660 Pan Parenthood already got. Right.
00:04:47.980 A couple of weeks ago, in your exchange with the nominee, Rachel Levine, you voiced a lot of concerns
00:04:54.740 that a lot of parents have, probably whether they identify as conservative, liberal or moderate.
00:05:01.100 And that kind of became a viral moment. Obviously, you got pushback from from people on the left side
00:05:06.920 of the aisle. How likely is it that Rachel Levine will be confirmed?
00:05:11.380 Every every Democrat will vote for and maybe a few Republicans.
00:05:16.780 So unfortunately, she'll be confirmed. It is now normal in the Democrat Party to believe that a child
00:05:22.920 can choose to take hormones to change their sexual appearance and can even choose to have surgery
00:05:28.920 without their parents, their parents consent or even to override their parents lack of consent.
00:05:35.060 So imagine a 10 year old wants to take hormone blockers. I don't even know how a 10 year old
00:05:40.560 even knows what that is. But a 10 year old wants to do that. And the parents say, no,
00:05:44.920 these people are so bizarrely radical that they would let the 10 year old's decision override
00:05:51.100 or trump the parents decision on whether or not this child should have this. They also lie to us when
00:05:57.940 they say, oh, it's all reversible. The the puberty blockers may be reversible and probably are.
00:06:04.720 But at age 14, they start giving large doses of hormones. They give testosterone to girls or
00:06:12.000 estrogen to boys. And the changes that happen to the body at that point in time are not reversible.
00:06:18.260 And you can give enough testosterone to a 14 year old girl that she grows a beard.
00:06:22.740 She doesn't go back to looking like a girl or having the appearance of a girl when you stop.
00:06:27.000 What you've done is permanently altered her body. And this should not be done to a 14 year old
00:06:32.540 with or without parental consent, but absolutely shouldn't be done to override parental lack of
00:06:38.560 consent. And what do you think, if you're able to speculate, is behind trying to subvert parental
00:06:45.520 consent when it comes to this? We've all been 14 years old. We all know teenagers. We understand the
00:06:51.260 frontal lobe is not even developed. There are a lot of ramifications that we don't even know
00:06:55.780 when it comes to these kinds of processes. Rachel Levine even said that there should be
00:07:01.360 an accelerated process for, I think, what were called street kids. Why? Why are we trying to
00:07:08.920 why are we trying to go around what seems to be the only buffer between these kids and procedures that
00:07:17.720 could have lifelong negative consequences?
00:07:19.980 I think it shows you that there's nothing mainstream about the Biden administration.
00:07:25.660 You know, he ran on this concept that he was middle class Joe. He had middle class,
00:07:29.620 working class values. Well, I tell you what, you go to a union worker in Boston that he thinks he
00:07:34.780 represents or a union worker in Kentucky and you ask them, should your little girl or little boy be
00:07:41.020 given hormones against your wishes? People are going to kick you out of their house. They wouldn't talk
00:07:46.280 to you. They won't be associated with you if you believe that. So the Democrats are overreaching
00:07:50.940 here, but Biden's, the people at Biden's ear are the far left. This is an extreme view. There are not
00:07:57.360 very many Democrats in the country, frankly, who think that a child at 10 can make this kind of
00:08:02.980 decision or a child at 14 can make this kind of life changing decision. So I think the Democrats are
00:08:08.040 making a mistake here. And this is a very, very extreme position. These people also advocate that
00:08:15.080 when a 10 year old goes in, actually the ages are even less than that. 10% of the kids going to
00:08:20.600 these clinics are between the ages of three and 10. They go in and they say, oh, well, they get
00:08:26.320 psychological counseling. And my question is, who gives them the counseling? Well, other people who
00:08:31.360 have already decided to change their sexual appearance through surgery or hormones. You think
00:08:35.760 they're getting advice from anybody who says, hey, wait a minute, you don't need to be doing this.
00:08:40.900 This is really extreme. No, they're hearing only one side because who works in these gender dysphoria
00:08:46.100 clinics? People who are advocates for this kind of thing. And so, you know, the child gets sort of
00:08:52.340 groomed in a way. The child is, you know, everybody says, oh, you're so brave and everybody loves the
00:08:56.920 child for making the decision. The child just sees all this attention and wants more. And children who
00:09:03.040 are left alone, American College of Pediatrics has looked at this, about 90% of kids who are left
00:09:09.140 alone, not given medical intervention, and not given all this affirming, all these people telling
00:09:14.440 them that this is a great decision. Just leave the kid alone, let them grow up. 90% of the kids end
00:09:19.700 up deciding, you know what, that's not what I want. It was just a phase. Well, we've certainly seen not
00:09:24.960 just in this area, but in a lot of areas, especially over the past year, the exchange of actual science
00:09:29.680 for scientism, this kind of ideologically driven pseudoscience to back all far left policies and
00:09:39.380 agenda items that this new form of the Democratic Party has. The last thing that I want to talk to
00:09:46.180 you about, we talk a lot about education, the public school system, school choice on this podcast. You
00:09:51.460 just introduced the School Act. Can you talk a little bit about that?
00:09:54.640 What this does is there's already federal money that goes to poor kids. It goes to the school
00:10:00.860 district where a poor kid goes to school. What I'd like to say is the money goes to wherever that
00:10:06.420 child or their parents choose to go to school. So we have a lot of failing public schools, particularly
00:10:11.540 in our urban areas, particularly for poor kids. They've been failing not just last year, the year
00:10:16.240 before, for decades. Generations of kids are growing up in the inner city and getting a crummy
00:10:22.300 education and never getting ahead in life. I'd let the parents choose to take the kid out of a failing
00:10:28.120 school, go to another school, and then this money would follow them. What would happen is either the
00:10:33.180 school will get better or they'll go out of business. But the thing is, I've seen the results of
00:10:38.580 this. I've been to boys' Latin school in Philadelphia. I've been to a girls' school in Chicago where the kids
00:10:46.740 come from poor, broken homes, from neighborhoods infested with drugs. And guess what? When you give them a good
00:10:52.220 education, they thrive. They look you in the eye, shake your hand. These are the kind of kids that
00:10:57.240 at boys' Latin school, virtually all of these young men go to college. Whereas at the public school,
00:11:03.200 it's probably a 5% or 10% level and probably half of those flunk out. These kids go to college. It
00:11:08.360 works. Education is a great equalizer, but it's not going to work if we just keep saying go to the
00:11:14.000 crummy school that the Democrats are willing to provide for you and they keep you poor and they keep
00:11:20.060 you unsuccessful. But we have to do something better. And I'm a Republican who believes that
00:11:25.220 everybody should get a choice on where they go to school. Yes, and amen. We agree with that on this
00:11:30.420 podcast. Thank you so much, Senator Paul, for your time. I really appreciate you talking to us.
00:11:36.020 Thank you.
00:11:41.600 All right. Before I get into what I want to talk about next, I do want to mention something. So you
00:11:46.180 might've noticed that Senator Paul did use female pronouns for Rachel Levine. As you may know,
00:11:52.740 since we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, Rachel Levine is a man who dresses as a woman.
00:11:59.440 We've also talked about the use of pronouns. And as Christians, we do not believe in bearing false
00:12:06.220 witness. And we also believe in Genesis 1, that God made them male and female, that he made us male and
00:12:11.620 female in a purposeful and a loving and a wonderful, intentional way that we thank him for. And that
00:12:19.740 there's not any gray area when it comes to that. And we believe that loving our neighbor and loving
00:12:25.960 people who identify as transgender is something that we are absolutely called to do. But God defines what
00:12:32.860 love is. The same God who defined what gender and sex are in Genesis 1, 1, which is male and female,
00:12:39.860 is also the God that is love, the Bible tells us. So if that God who is love says something is true,
00:12:47.660 says something is, then agreeing with God and proclaiming what God says is good and what God says
00:12:55.460 is true and what God says is right is also love. So it is not love to simply take on the definitions of
00:13:03.400 what the world says is love when it comes to preferred pronouns and when it comes to so-called gender identity
00:13:09.540 ideology. But rather, it is the most loving thing that we can do to agree with God and to speak
00:13:16.000 the truth in love as gently and as kindly as we can to continue to be hospitable, to continue to be
00:13:21.800 selfless and service-minded to all of our neighbors, no matter who they are or how they dress. We have
00:13:28.160 talked about this. I'll put a link to a past episode in the description of this, the biblical telos of
00:13:34.500 gender, where we talk about all of these very complicated issues from a biblical perspective.
00:13:40.440 So I do encourage you to go back and listen to that if you have any questions.
00:13:46.500 All right. First, I want to do this funny story. I want to talk about this pastor who his sermon
00:14:06.160 kind of went viral because he was telling people that as a woman that you have to look hot, that you
00:14:18.520 can't look, I think the word that he used was butch, and that you need to be a trophy wife for your
00:14:27.500 husband. And so I think it's really important for you to not just listen to this, but to get on YouTube
00:14:32.220 and actually watch this because it just makes it even funnier. I'll play it for you now.
00:14:37.300 Then I want you to know a need that a man has that he won't ever tell you about, but since I'm the
00:14:41.600 preacher man, I'll say it. Your man needs an attractive wife. Now, look, I'm not saying every
00:14:49.220 woman can be the epic, the epic trophy wife of all time, like Melania Trump. I'm not saying that at all.
00:14:58.660 Now, most women can't be trophy wives, but you know, like her, maybe you're maybe a participation
00:15:04.340 trophy. I don't know. But all I can say is not everybody looks like that. Amen.
00:15:11.700 Not everybody looks like that. But you don't need to look like a butch either.
00:15:17.800 Hey, here's something you need to know. You need to know this. Men have a need for their women to look
00:15:24.780 like women. All right. Yes, I do see how men have a need for women to look like women. I think
00:15:39.040 comparing comparing our value or placing our value in our looks and comparing people to Melania Trump
00:15:49.060 and holding Melania Trump up as like what women should strive to be. But if we fall somewhere
00:15:54.360 under that, like it's okay. I think that that is so superficial. I do not think that that's any kind
00:16:01.200 of message that the church needs today. Like I just think that there are so many other messages that
00:16:07.180 women need to hear from the Bible and according to the gospel. And that is absolutely not one of them.
00:16:13.560 Let me read you this passage from 1 Peter 3, 3 through 5.
00:16:17.360 Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold or jewelry or
00:16:22.100 any clothing that you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable
00:16:30.060 beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy
00:16:36.220 women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands. So it goes on to
00:16:42.060 talk about the godly nature and the godly attributes of a woman and of a wife. Ultimately,
00:16:49.460 this is going to be what attracts a man to you is going to be the godly and the gentle spirit within
00:16:56.860 you. Of course, I don't think gentle means that you can't have opinions. Obviously, I'm a very
00:17:01.020 opinionated person. I don't think it means that you actually have to be, you actually have to whisper
00:17:05.820 when you speak, that you have to be soft-spoken in that way. But a form of humility and submission
00:17:11.580 to the Lord, a desire to live a godly life, is going to be ultimately what attracts the husband,
00:17:20.140 if God has called you to be married, what attracts that man to you. Now, that said, do I think that it's
00:17:27.020 wrong to wear makeup and to get highlights and to brush your hair and put your hair up and to want
00:17:35.900 to look pretty for your husband? Not at all. I do think that that is a form of love. And of course,
00:17:40.940 we do know that men, that they are more visual than women are. And of course, it's wonderful to feel
00:17:47.880 beautiful, to feel attractive, and to feel appealing to the person that you love. That's something that we
00:17:53.020 all desire. And I do think it's important for us, for men and women, to put in effort when it comes
00:18:00.860 to simply making sure that we are properly maintaining fitness and hygiene and things like
00:18:09.980 that. Because we know that our bodies are a temple and we do so to glorify God, not to earn the approval
00:18:16.340 of other people. I do not think that the priority needs to be placed, though, on external beauty. The
00:18:22.780 fact of the matter is, is that we are all going to age, that our weight is going to fluctuate,
00:18:28.420 that our ability to keep up with the trends or even look good in certain trends is going to change.
00:18:35.440 And what lasts is that abiding love and companionship and covenant commitment that a man and a woman have.
00:18:46.040 That doesn't mean that physical attraction goes away or that it should go away. I don't believe that
00:18:50.820 it should. But women don't need to be focusing on being like Melania Trump or being any kind of
00:18:58.900 trophy wife. And quite frankly, if you watch the video, I think that this guy is a little bit
00:19:04.460 hypocritical for trying to call out women for how they look. Women also care about appearance and
00:19:12.180 fitness when it comes to men to a certain extent, too. But the Bible is clear that what is most
00:19:19.940 important, what lasts the longest, what pleases God the most is not anything external, but what's going
00:19:27.500 on in our hearts. Our godliness, our holiness, our submission to the Lord, our love, our gentle
00:19:36.920 spiritedness, our selflessness. Those are the things that God approves of, that God loves, that God
00:19:45.940 delights in, whether or not we meet worldly standards of what it means to be beautiful.
00:19:54.220 And so I just think it's important because I think it's so easy to listen to a sermon like that and to
00:19:58.840 be discouraged because maybe you don't like how you look when you look in the mirror. Maybe you make a lot
00:20:04.300 of efforts to be attractive and to feel beautiful, and you're still insecure and you're still
00:20:12.020 self-conscious. You hear something like that and you wonder, well, am I ever going to be able to
00:20:16.820 attract someone? Like, am I ever going to truly be able to be seen as beautiful by anyone? Does God
00:20:23.400 even think that I'm beautiful? And God is so gracious and so loving and so merciful and so tender
00:20:29.540 towards women that He tells us, look, it's not about the external adorning. It's not about that.
00:20:36.300 I created you, as Psalm 139 says, so beautifully, so wonderfully, so intentionally. And what I care
00:20:43.440 about is that you are cultivating the spirit of Christ-likeness inside you by the power of the
00:20:50.820 Holy Spirit. That is so encouraging and so much more edifying than this stupid, superficial sermon
00:20:57.300 that this pastor gave. So I just wanted to clear that up. If you were a woman who saw that and you
00:21:04.300 were discouraged by that, you felt put down by that, like God has a different word for you in Scripture.
00:21:11.180 Like He has something different to say. We can look to Jesus. We can look to God the Father to see
00:21:18.000 the gentleness and to see the love and intention and care that God shows in particular towards
00:21:25.840 women. And that's why the church has for so long been a refuge for women. That's why the church for
00:21:33.520 so long has been the place where women can find solace and women can find the kind of security they are
00:21:42.420 trying and failing to find in the world. And it should be that. And so pastors should create
00:21:48.600 churches that way. Ministries should create places that way that make people who are looking for
00:21:55.900 clarity, who are looking for true, selfless, godly love, who are looking for actual value that comes
00:22:04.420 from their creator. The people who are looking for those things and they can't find them in the world,
00:22:09.400 the church needs to be a place that offers that.
00:22:22.760 All right. That was one subject I just wanted to make sure that I covered this week. And then
00:22:28.160 there's one more that I want to end on and it'll lead us into our final bit of encouragement. And so
00:22:33.460 first, the bad news. You guys know we've talked about James Coates. We've talked about the pastor from
00:22:39.280 Alberta being placed in jail because he refused to limit the capacity of his congregation to 15%. He
00:22:46.920 allowed anyone to come in who wanted to come in and hear the gospel and hear expository preaching
00:22:51.920 in person. And for that, he was arrested. They have tried to get him out of jail, but unfortunately,
00:22:58.360 he's in jail at least until May. I had his wife on the podcast last week. We talked about all the details
00:23:04.840 of this before that as well. So go back and listen to those episodes. We also talked about,
00:23:10.940 I think it was Monday, how there was a child sex predator in the same city that was released from
00:23:16.660 jail without any conditions to speak of. He had been guilty several times of preying upon molesting,
00:23:25.320 sexually assaulting six and 10-year-old kids in this community. He gets put in jail. And because the
00:23:31.400 laws are so loose when it comes to this, in the name of criminal and social justice,
00:23:35.220 he's just been released into the community with nothing except a tweet warning from the police
00:23:40.160 department. Well, there's been another sex predator that's been released in the same city without any
00:23:46.600 conditions. And so this is yet another convicted child sex predator that the Edmonton Police Service
00:23:55.620 issued a warning about his name is Russell Sikia. I don't know how to pronounce his last name.
00:24:03.620 According to this report, he has a history of breaking into homes and sexually assaulting women.
00:24:07.520 He also has a history of voyeurism and breaking into the homes of women, including minors when they
00:24:12.580 are sleeping. So this is a person who has been arrested. He's been put in jail and now he's been
00:24:16.280 released without conditions because as we talked about on Monday, the process for getting out of jail
00:24:22.120 has a bunch of different factors that don't actually have to do with protecting the community
00:24:26.100 or protecting potential victims or past victims at all. It is all in the name of compassion,
00:24:31.300 in the name of social justice. And we talked about how social justice fails us. It's not God's
00:24:36.360 definition of justice. And we have to be so careful about this. This is also evidence that elections
00:24:42.400 matter, like politics matter. Politics matter because policies matter because people matter. Policies
00:24:48.940 affect people, especially the most vulnerable. And you'll remember something that Erin Coates said,
00:24:55.280 the pastor of James Coates last Thursday, is that she didn't really know how the political processes
00:24:59.680 worked. Like she wasn't completely aware of all of the charter rights in their area and what they all
00:25:06.920 meant. And so whenever we have the temptation to bury our head in the sand because we don't want to
00:25:14.440 think about politics and we just politics is just a losing game and that it doesn't matter. Look, part
00:25:19.900 of loving your neighbor is making sure that there are policies that are in place that align with God's
00:25:27.000 justice that allow them the freedom to provide for themselves that are work in the way of their
00:25:34.280 security. And because these policies affect them, these policies affect them. Policies matter because
00:25:41.900 people matter, which means politics matters. So we can't just bury our head in the sand and pretend
00:25:47.460 like politics don't matter. They do. They do matter. Now, again, for all of the people who have been
00:25:53.860 saying, ah, this is not really persecution. James Coates just needs to limit his congregation to 15%.
00:25:59.420 He just needs to bow down to Caesar and to say, okay, sorry, you guys can hear the gospel in person
00:26:05.640 today. You're not allowed to hear the gospel. Oh, you need in-person counseling. Sorry,
00:26:10.040 we just hit our capacity for 15%. Oh, you're lonely. You're depressed. You're struggling with
00:26:15.960 alcoholism. Your husband just left you. You're a single mom. Sorry, we've reached our capacity. You
00:26:21.520 can't come in our doors today. That's what the state expected him to do. And there have been
00:26:25.900 Christians in the United States who have said, yeah, that's what he should have done. Amazing to watch.
00:26:33.100 And by amazing, I mean severely depressing. And they just say, well, he violated these restrictions.
00:26:39.000 He violated these regulations. Are you going to change your two now that we have seen in the
00:26:44.300 exact same city that two sex predators have been released into the community without any
00:26:49.920 conditions? Are you really going to tell me that he's not being treated differently than anyone else
00:26:53.680 because he's a Christian? Well, if that's not persecution, then what is? Like, what do you
00:26:59.300 consider persecution? Do you have to live in Iran to be persecuted? Do you have to like attend an
00:27:05.780 underground church in China to be persecuted? 2 Timothy 3, 12-13. Indeed, all who desire to live
00:27:13.180 a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and imposters will go on from
00:27:18.760 bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. Thankfully, it doesn't matter whether or not
00:27:25.560 people on Twitter and Christians who desperately just want to lick the boots of state officials,
00:27:32.480 it doesn't matter whether or not they think that this is persecution. I think that our definition
00:27:38.540 of persecution should expand. No one is saying that what's happening in Canada is the exact same as
00:27:44.700 what's happening in the Middle East to Christians or what's happening in China. No one's saying that
00:27:49.120 it's the exact same thing and that it's the exact same danger and the exact same peril and the exact
00:27:55.460 same kind of suffering. No one is saying that. We're just saying there are different forms of
00:28:00.020 persecution. 2 Corinthians 4, 16-18 says this. So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is
00:28:07.280 wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light, momentary affliction is
00:28:13.040 preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that
00:28:18.040 are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the
00:28:22.060 things that are unseen are eternal. And I have heard John Piper preach on this, and he says,
00:28:28.700 whether it's slander or criticism or whether you are actually becoming some kind of martyr,
00:28:36.980 whether you are tortured or arbitrarily imprisoned for sharing your faith, all of it, all of it
00:28:42.980 counts as something that is building for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs
00:28:49.680 all of the heavy or light afflictions that we are enduring here on earth. Why are we quibbling over
00:28:54.800 whether or not James Coates is enduring our definition of persecution? The fact of the
00:28:59.520 matter is, he shouldn't be in jail. He shouldn't be in jail because it's not God's definition of
00:29:04.400 justice. And what we're seeing is corrupt social justice. What we're seeing is people taking God and
00:29:11.040 his definition of justice out of the picture, giving grace and nuance to child sex predators by
00:29:17.840 releasing them without any kinds of conditions, but keeping the pastor in jail because somehow he poses
00:29:22.960 more of a threat. I think we've seen something like this before. It's almost like the corrupt
00:29:28.120 human heart does not change. And yet we do have hope. Matthew 5, 10 says, blessed are those who
00:29:35.060 persecuted, or those who are persecuted for righteousness's sake. Blessed are those who are
00:29:40.760 persecuted for righteousness's sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. James 1, 2 through 4.
00:29:46.860 Count it all joy, not just be okay with it, not just tolerate it, but count it all joy,
00:29:51.860 my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith
00:29:56.340 produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete,
00:30:02.160 lacking in nothing. So again, we see that persecution builds for us good things, like how gracious and
00:30:08.500 good and wonderful is God that he doesn't just say, okay, endure it, figure it out, tolerate it for a
00:30:15.280 little bit. It'll all be over soon. And then you won't have to deal with it anymore. He says,
00:30:19.300 no, this is actually productive. It's doing something. It's doing something eternally,
00:30:24.080 and not just something, but it's doing something good and glorious beyond your wildest imagination.
00:30:29.600 And you have hope and you have joy knowing that every time you are persecuted, every time someone
00:30:35.400 slanders you, every time someone mistreats you because of your faith or mistreats you because you
00:30:42.840 are following the Lord, that it's not for nothing, that it's doing something for you. It's doing
00:30:48.340 something for God's glory. And the Bible tells us that we get to rejoice over that. And so in the
00:30:54.000 midst of all the craziness that's happening right now, as we are seeing Christianity being categorized
00:31:00.020 as something that it's not being condemned as harmful and violent and wrong, even in the midst of
00:31:10.820 all that, even in the midst of hostility, which the church has always seen, by the way, since its
00:31:15.760 foundation, we can rejoice. And we can know with confidence that as Jesus said, the gates of hell
00:31:20.780 will not prevail against the church. The word of God is not going to fail, that the gospel is not
00:31:26.020 going to stop advancing. I mean, there's one thing that I do agree with when it comes to John MacArthur
00:31:31.740 stance on religious liberty is that we can have all of the restrictions on religion in the world.
00:31:36.320 The church ain't going to stop. We're not going to stop. And let us rejoice over the testimony of James
00:31:41.180 Coates, that he is willing to persevere in that way. Let us pray for him. I hope that some of you
00:31:45.560 who have been so hard-hearted in this situation are beginning to soften, and at least that you would
00:31:50.320 open your heart to praying for him and praying for his family. But let us rejoice together. Let's
00:31:55.180 rejoice in what's happening, that God is going to be glorified, that the gospel is going to be shared,
00:31:59.880 that God's kingdom is going to be advanced, that Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday,
00:32:04.200 today, and forever, is going to prevail. That one day he will rule in perfect peace. There will be a
00:32:10.200 new heaven. There will be a new earth. There will be no more evil. There will be no more wickedness.
00:32:14.500 There will be no more earthly governments. There will be no more manipulation, no more sickness,
00:32:19.240 no more sorrow. We get to rejoice over that. That's our hope. That's our victory. That we can know
00:32:25.240 absolutely for sure. And we can have complete and total confidence that what we are called to do
00:32:31.300 right now is to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, to love our neighbor as
00:32:35.260 ourself, to pray without ceasing, to wait fervently and patiently for the coming of our Lord. And until
00:32:42.020 then, we have joy. All right. That's what I want to end on today. I will be back here on Monday.