The NXR Podcast - BONUS - 5 Lessons Every Christian Should Have Learned Over The Past 2 Years

00:00:00 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.

00:00:03 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,

00:00:06 would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?

00:00:09 This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do

00:00:12 to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible. Thanks.

00:00:18 So I've been praying, Lord, what can I do? What could I give to your people?

00:00:21 And this is one of the things that's been on my heart so, so, so much,

00:00:25 is, um, Lord, please let us learn the lessons that you providentially supplied over the last

00:00:33 two years and not forget them. People are so quick to forget our nation as a whole,

00:00:38 sadly, even conservatives and very sadly, even Christians. So did we not just learn that lesson?

00:00:45 Did that not just happen? You know? And then we fall for it again. We fall for it again. It's

00:00:50 like Charlie Brown, you know, and Lucy and the football. It's like, come on, Charlie Brown,

00:00:54 Good grief, Charlie Brown, right?

00:00:56 Like, right, that's, yeah, Nancy Pelosi, right? 0.99

00:01:02 That's Lucy, you know, she's moving the football.

00:01:04 So one of the things that I thought about was just,

00:01:06 speaking of Lucy, I thought about the Chronicles of Narnia,

00:01:09 and I thought about, you know, C.S. Lewis,

00:01:11 and he has apologetic argument.

00:01:13 You know, I would be presuppositional

00:01:14 in terms of apologetics,

00:01:15 but Lewis has some good things to say. 0.98

00:01:18 And one of his arguments was the liar, lunatic Lord. 0.70

00:01:21 You remember that argument? 0.97

00:01:22 That Jesus, you know, people want to say,

00:01:24 well, he's a good teacher, or he was a nice guy, or, you know, he showed us the triumph of, you

00:01:28 know, the human spirit, and compassion, and love, and mercy, and you can believe all these things

00:01:32 without believing his Lord, and the reality is you can't, and the reason why you can't is because

00:01:36 nice guys don't lie to your face, right, and so we can't just look at the life of Jesus, and the

00:01:40 actions of Jesus, we have to look at the words of Jesus, and in his words, he claimed to be God, 0.69

00:01:45 and if he lied about that, then he's not a nice guy, right, he's malicious, he's a liar, he's 0.99

00:01:50 deceitful, he's wicked. Or in a best case, right, this worst case scenario is he's malicious. Best 0.99

00:01:56 case scenario, he's a crazy man, right? So liar, lunatic, or the third option is that he's Lord, 1.00

00:02:03 and everything he said is true. And so C.S. Lewis, you know, that's what he argues when he 0.99

00:02:08 writes on apologetics, you know, mere Christianity, books like that. But in his fantasy, in his fiction,

00:02:14 most notably The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he paints this scene. And in the scene, we have,

00:02:19 you know, the four siblings, you've got Peter, you've got Susan, you've got Edmund, you've got

00:02:23 Lucy. And Lucy, as many of you know, if you haven't read The Lion, Witch, and The Wardrobe,

00:02:28 as R.C. Sproul would say, what's wrong with you people? So, right, so go read that, you know, so

00:02:32 I'm not going to say spoiler alert. It's been out long enough. If you don't, you deserve to have it

00:02:36 spoiled. But Lucy, you know, she goes to The Wardrobe, and she goes to a magical land named

00:02:41 Narnia. And she comes back, she tells, she's the youngest, she tells her older siblings,

00:02:44 in this magical wardrobe, there's a whole nother world, all right? And I met Mr. Tumnus,

00:02:49 the fawn, and all these different things, and had a lovely time, and, and they're all, you know,

00:02:53 they don't believe her, but Edmund, it's not just, Edmund doesn't just disbelieve, Edmund is cruel,

00:02:58 he's mean, right, he's picking on her, and poking fun, and just, he's just a bully, but then he's

00:03:03 following her, a couple days later, following her, and, and to pick on her some more with, with

00:03:10 nothing but the worst intentions, and, and she goes back into the wardrobe, and it takes her,

00:03:14 transports her once again to Narnia, and he's following her to make fun of her, and he ends up

00:03:19 in Narnia also, and then they come back, and he's now been to Narnia. He's seen. He's touched. He's

00:03:28 heard. He's a witness that this is real, and he comes back, and Lucy's so excited with Peter

00:03:36 and Susan because she's like, now Edmund can validate my testimony. We have two or three

00:03:42 witnesses, right? The testimony can be established in the presence of two witnesses. It's not just me.

00:03:47 There's a second witness that can validate my argument. We went to North. Tell him, Edmund.

00:03:52 And he responds by saying, little girls, they just love to pretend. And she just melts into a puddle, 0.90

00:03:58 just completely destroyed, distraught, not just because she's being made fun of, not just because

00:04:03 it's demeaning and insulting to her intelligence, but because it's betrayal. It's a profound, deep,

00:04:10 intimate betrayal, and she is heartbroken by her brother, that her brother would stab her in the

00:04:17 back, and so Peter and Susan, the older siblings, still don't know what to believe, because Edmund's

00:04:23 saying, she's just pretending, and so Peter and Susan are talking one, you know, within the next

00:04:28 day, they're speaking with Diggory Kirk, he's the professor that the four siblings are staying with,

00:04:34 and he's like, what's wrong with the little girl, the weeping girl, is what the professor calls her,

00:04:38 and well she's you know she thinks she went to a magical world and edmund's been picking on her

00:04:43 and he's like yeah hence the weeping you know but well but why why is she weeping well what's really

00:04:48 going on and well she you know she thinks she found this magical world and he's like oh okay

00:04:53 but did she where oh in the wardrobe i've said like he's very interested instead of just saying

00:05:00 oh yeah that's a silly little girl pretending about a magical world he his eyes perk up he's

00:05:04 like, what magical world? Where was it? Where did you find it? You know, he's like, I'd like to go 0.92

00:05:09 too. And like, that's his, he immediately, and that's of course because he's been before, there's

00:05:14 another spoiler. But all that being said, he's like, well, where? And they're like, well, we didn't ask

00:05:19 where, because it's fantasy. Of course, this didn't happen. It's not real. So we're not asking

00:05:24 specific questions about the geographic, you know, location of Narnia, because it's not real.

00:05:29 It's not logical.

00:05:30 That's the word they use.

00:05:31 It's illogical.

00:05:33 And Diggory Kirk says, what do they teach children in schools these days?

00:05:37 And he says, logic?

00:05:38 So Edmund, the one who says she's pretending, he's usually the truthful one, isn't he?

00:05:43 Like, no, this would be the first.

00:05:45 He always lies.

00:05:48 And Lucy, Lucy, she's not truthful?

00:05:52 No, she's always credible.

00:05:54 Well, then logically, you should assume that Lucy is telling the truth.

00:06:00 Our legacy media, our political administration, they're Edmund.

00:06:06 All they do is lie.

00:06:09 And the reason I'm concerned is because we all agree.

00:06:12 For two years, they've done nothing but lie.

00:06:14 You can literally ascertain within 95 percentile of the truth

00:06:18 by believing the opposite of what you see on CNN.

00:06:20 And the difference between a conspiracy and a news story is three to six months.

00:06:28 And then Russia and Ukraine comes out.

00:06:32 And conservatives immediately side with Ukraine.

00:06:36 I'm just going to go there for a second.

00:06:37 Now, I don't think Putin's a nice guy.

00:06:39 I appreciate him curing COVID, right?

00:06:41 COVID, did you notice?

00:06:43 COVID disappeared.

00:06:44 So I appreciate, that's a contribution to the whole world, right?

00:06:47 So China brought COVID on the stage and Russia cured it.

00:06:49 So we have to thank him for that.

00:06:51 But my point is, I'm not a fan of Putin. 0.99

00:06:54 But I don't think Ukraine is the most innocent nation in the world either.

00:06:59 And my point is, if Edmund has always been lying for two years straight, right, then why should we go ahead? 0.99

00:07:09 That's right, more than that.

00:07:10 But very clearly for the last two years, then why should we immediately?

00:07:14 So all I'm saying is, I'm not saying, and therefore this is true and that is false or this is true and that.

00:07:19 what I'm saying is slow down. I think of the book of James, right? Be quick to listen, slow to speak.

00:07:25 And one of the reasons we want to be slow to speak is those who are quick to speak often provoke

00:07:30 the wrath of man. And there is a difference between the wrath of God, which is holy and good,

00:07:37 and the wrath of man. And what James says particularly about the wrath of man is that

00:07:42 it does not bring about the holiness of God. The wrath of God stems from the holiness of God,

00:07:47 but the wrath of man has nothing to do with the holiness of God. It's a carnal wrath. It's a

00:07:53 fleshly wrath. It's a fickle wrath, right? Our God, what makes God so holy is not that he is a God that

00:07:59 is absent of anger, but what makes God's anger so magnificent and in a frightening and terrifying

00:08:08 way, beautiful, is that our God who is angry, jealous is his name. Our God who is anger, our God

00:08:18 who is jealousy, our God who is a consuming fire and burns with a holy, righteous indignation and

00:08:25 wrath, he does so always for the right things, at the right time, at the right measure. God has never

00:08:32 been angry about something more than he should be. He has never been angry about the wrong thing

00:08:37 and not angry about the thing he should actually be angry about.

00:08:41 His anger has always been in proportion.

00:08:43 It's been the right measure.

00:08:44 It's always been timely, and one of his key traits

00:08:46 is that he's long-suffering and therefore slow to anger.

00:08:49 So he is long-suffering.

00:08:51 He is patient.

00:08:51 He is kind.

00:08:52 So his anger comes exactly at the right moment

00:08:54 when the fullness of the measure of his wrath has been filled up.

00:08:59 So it's always at the right time.

00:09:00 It's always in the right measure, and it's always for the right things.

00:09:05 It's always in the right things.

00:09:06 And so we, too, if we don't want to look foolish, if we don't want to have egg on our face, if we don't want to be embarrassed, then I think we should be a little bit slow, a little bit slow, a holy suspicion.

00:09:21 And really, this stems from a Vantilian, Calvinistic, Reformed, presuppositional worldview.

00:09:29 Right?

00:09:29 Nothing is neutral.

00:09:31 Nothing is neutral.

00:09:32 And I want us to see that here in a moment.

00:09:34 So here are five lessons that Christians better have learned over the last two years and that 0.54

00:09:40 Christians better not forget. We should not have to be taught these lessons more than once. The

00:09:47 Lord is patient. He is kind, but we should not put the Lord to the test. How many times must he teach

00:09:54 us? Once should be enough. Praise God he's gracious and willing to do it usually more than once,

00:10:00 But we should do our best to take away the lessons he's given us.

00:10:03 So here's five lessons.

00:10:04 Number one, they all start with a P.

00:10:06 I try to do some alliteration, make it easy on you, make it easy on me.

00:10:09 All right, the first one, post-millennialism.

00:10:12 All right?

00:10:13 Now, amen, right?

00:10:16 Half of you, amen.

00:10:17 Now, but here's the beauty.

00:10:18 Here's the beauty.

00:10:20 All of you, what you're going to love about it, if you're not post-millennial, this is the beauty.

00:10:23 You're not here.

00:10:24 You're not here unless you want to make a difference.

00:10:27 So none of you are the pre-meal that's just putting their head in the sand.

00:10:30 So I don't want to make a straw man for pre-meal, you know,

00:10:33 and just get a high five with the post-meal guys over there behind the cookies later on.

00:10:38 So I'm not going to pick on the pre-meal people, right?

00:10:39 John's pre-meal. Praise God, right? 0.63

00:10:41 And so you're not, you're all here to make a difference.

00:10:44 So you're all living as though you're post-meal, right?

00:10:47 So I'm encouraging all of you, right?

00:10:50 So here we go.

00:10:50 So the first lesson is post-meal.

00:10:52 The second, patriarchy.

00:10:53 It's another P for you.

00:10:55 The next one, third lesson.

00:10:59 Third lesson is presuppositionalism.

00:11:01 And I'll get into some of the things

00:11:02 that I kind of introed with.

00:11:04 So presuppositionalism.

00:11:05 And the fourth one, proper ecclesiology.

00:11:08 I had to put an adjective there to get the P.

00:11:10 Proper ecclesiology.

00:11:11 And then the last one is going to be,

00:11:14 after proper ecclesiology,

00:11:15 Protestant-resistant theory.

00:11:17 And I'm going to read.

00:11:18 I never manuscript,

00:11:19 but I'm going to read

00:11:19 so that I am concise and efficient.

00:11:22 So here we go.

00:11:23 post-millennialism, a.k.a. play the long game, play the long game. So regardless of where you're at

00:11:28 with your eschatology, pre-mill, post-mill, on-mill, either way, in terms of our practice,

00:11:33 play the long game. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my background, I planted and

00:11:37 pastored a church in San Diego, California for several years before moving to Williamson County,

00:11:41 Texas in December of 2020 to plant the church that I now pastor, which is Covenant Bible Church

00:11:47 located in Georgetown, Texas. Now, by God's grace, I had the privilege of baptizing over 100 people

00:11:52 during my pastoral service in California.

00:11:54 But over the years, I have come to desire more

00:11:57 than merely planting churches and baptizing converts.

00:12:00 Do not misunderstand me.

00:12:02 I never want anything less than this.

00:12:04 I simply have grown to desire something more.

00:12:07 When I moved to California in 2009,

00:12:10 I bit off way more than I could chew.

00:12:12 My only aspiration was to plant a church

00:12:14 and to see people come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

00:12:17 In part, this was due to my specific theological convictions

00:12:21 which at the time I was not even aware that I held to such doctrines.

00:12:26 But these doctrines were present, all the same, influencing every decision I made.

00:12:31 For instance, I assume that Jesus, who would likely come back at any moment,

00:12:36 had decreed that everything in this world would continually spiral out of control until he returned.

00:12:41 I also assume that the only thing of any real eternal value

00:12:45 was preaching the gospel and saving lost souls.

00:12:48 So aspirations for founding schools, starting businesses, or running for local political office all seem like worldly and carnal endeavors to me.

00:13:00 Sure, these things may have provided some cover, some fire cover, for a little bit. 0.92

00:13:07 These things would have maybe provided some benefit to Christians and society at large. 0.61

00:13:12 Still, I assumed that the value would be short-lived. 0.68

00:13:15 After all, I had been taught that even such atrocities as abortion

00:13:19 would never actually end by legislation, but only by heart transformation.

00:13:24 And for anyone who doubts that statement, let me remind you that it rhymes, so it must be true.

00:13:29 I never stopped, right, but I never stopped to wonder, just for a moment,

00:13:34 why there are approximately 1 million abortions in America each year, but only 16,000 homicides.

00:13:40 Apparently, legislation does matter.

00:13:43 Apparently, as it turns out,

00:13:45 people tend to gravitate towards whatever form of murder

00:13:48 happens to be legal.

00:13:50 Yes, we want to see hearts genuinely changed

00:13:52 by the power of the gospel.

00:13:54 But throughout human history, deterring wickedness,

00:13:57 even in the hearts of unbelievers,

00:13:59 through the second use of God's law, theonomy, 0.60

00:14:03 if I had a P word for that, I'd get it.

00:14:04 By God's law, legislating it, imposing morality,

00:14:09 because nothing is neutral,

00:14:10 that has also proven to be quite effective.

00:14:14 Now, suppose we all,

00:14:15 that all we're called to do

00:14:16 is plant churches and preach the gospel.

00:14:18 Well, then why not commit to exclusively doing this

00:14:20 in the most challenging places in the world

00:14:22 where the gospel appears to be most needed?

00:14:24 That was my mindset when I was 23 and single,

00:14:27 and that's what moved me to California, right?

00:14:30 If that's all we're doing is planting churches

00:14:32 and saving souls,

00:14:33 preaching the gospel, converting, baptizing,

00:14:35 making converts, and making disciples

00:14:38 and teaching them, you know,

00:14:38 complementarian relationships in their marriage

00:14:40 in their home and those things. If that's all we're doing, if that's the whole enchilada,

00:14:43 then why not do it in the most difficult places you could possibly go? Which is why I went to

00:14:48 California. But it's also why I was a hypocrite. Because if I really believed that, that's what 0.99

00:14:52 I would have said, but if I really believed, then I shouldn't have planned in California, go to North

00:14:56 Korea. Let's all go to Ukraine. What's wrong with you? Do you really care? Do you really care? 0.97

00:15:02 Why aren't you in Canada? Why aren't you in New Zealand? Why aren't you in Australia?

00:15:05 Let's not stop with California.

00:15:07 Let's go where it's really hard. 0.97

00:15:09 Go to China. 0.99

00:15:10 Get in the game. 0.99

00:15:12 Right?

00:15:12 If that's all it is, if it's just planting churches and snatching souls from the fire,

00:15:16 then go where the fire is the hottest.

00:15:18 That was my mindset.

00:15:20 Why not commit to exclusively doing this in the most challenging places in the world

00:15:24 where the gospel appears to be most needed?

00:15:26 Heck, why stop with California?

00:15:28 If we're serious about following Jesus, we'd move to Russia or Ukraine.

00:15:31 on the other hand if it's possible just possible just throwing it out there guys i'm not saying

00:15:35 this is true just possible that jesus might tarry for a while say a few thousand years or more

00:15:41 and he intends to actually restore the world instead of making it dissolve like snow and

00:15:46 annihilating it and he's going to redeem all things and not just the church but all things

00:15:53 the cosmos to himself then there may actually be some merit in playing the long game and planting

00:15:58 deep roots and a place that

00:16:00 actually can produce crops.

00:16:02 In California, I felt like I was a farmer

00:16:04 in the middle of the Sahara.

00:16:07 And one of the things

00:16:08 that changed my mind was my theology, for sure.

00:16:11 Another thing that changed my mind was the

00:16:12 three little girls sitting in the back of the room. 1.00

00:16:15 You know,

00:16:16 that got me dangerously close to becoming a

00:16:18 Presbyterian, right? And you know how

00:16:20 men become Presbyterians? 0.61

00:16:22 Their wives. And you know how the wives become Presbyterians? 0.77

00:16:24 They say, which one of these says that my babies are good?

00:16:27 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:16:27 yeah, yeah, we baptize our babies in this house, you know, and so I, you know, I came right up to

00:16:32 the line. I'm right there, as close as you can get to being a Presbyterian while still being a

00:16:36 Reformed Baptist, but the deal is what moved me, what changed my mindset about ministry, about

00:16:40 church planting, about everything that got me out of California, all these different things in Texas

00:16:45 is I started thinking maybe a momentary tactical retreat might be a good idea if we're not just

00:16:52 trying to win the present battle but the war and if the war is going to go on for a long time

00:16:57 part of the reason why we lose is because we think that everything's going to be finished in the next

00:17:02 15 minutes and so we don't play with a long you know how notice here's one thing i hope you took

00:17:08 this away from john's lecture did you notice that one of the things that john did was he tracked

00:17:13 through multiple people multiple efforts and multiple not just decades centuries how everything

00:17:19 today came about. The left, they play the long game. They're post-millennial. We should be too.

00:17:27 We should be too. So all that being said, perhaps Christians would be wise to momentarily fall back 0.99

00:17:33 behind enemy lines to rebuild and regroup for a generation or two. That's the first lesson. 0.71

00:17:37 Play the long game. Post-millennial. All right. Number two, and you could do it as a non-post-millennial,

00:17:44 But that's, think long-term, wherever you're at, eschatology.

00:17:49 All right, patriarchy, that's number two.

00:17:51 We were talking about this as we were recording, me and John and A.D.,

00:17:54 we thought, you know, one of the things that we said is, 0.99

00:17:56 it's good to have a word like shibboleth, right?

00:18:00 Now, if you're not familiar with that story in the Bible, you know,

00:18:03 the Ephraimites, there was a certain thing, a certain Hebrew word

00:18:07 that they could not pronounce without their accent betraying them, right, 0.97

00:18:11 ousting them. 0.95

00:18:12 And people would know, oh, you're not actually Hebrew. 0.75

00:18:14 You're not actually the people of God, right? 0.85

00:18:17 And J.I. Packer, actually, it was J.I. Packer who said this once upon a time, a few decades

00:18:21 back, back with the battles, you know, with inerrancy and those kind of things.

00:18:25 And people were thinking, even the conservatives, the good guys, they were thinking, well, let's

00:18:28 lower the bar a little bit and say something, right?

00:18:30 Let's use a different word that means exactly the same thing.

00:18:33 It means exactly the same thing.

00:18:34 And they're right.

00:18:35 Technically, it means the same thing, but a different word, right?

00:18:38 infallibility, or this, or that, you know, but not inerrancy, because it just trips people up,

00:18:44 that word. And J.I. Packer said, sometimes it's good to have a word that trips people up.

00:18:48 Sometimes it's good to have a shibboleth word that the enemies of God, that reveals them,

00:18:53 that gives them away, that they can't say. Patriarchy is a good word. 1.00

00:18:59 Complementarian is not good enough anymore. Patriarchy is a great word. I can find a whole 1.00

00:19:04 lot about where you're at doctrinally, what you think about the Lord Jesus Christ. I can find out

00:19:08 real quick where you're at. If I say, yeah, I'm patriarchal, and I have a wife and three daughters,

00:19:13 right? And they're like, oh my gosh, we've got to rescue your wife and three daughters. They must

00:19:16 be oppressed, you know? And it's like, okay, yeah, so we're not on the same page, you know? Or they're

00:19:21 like, God bless you. Man, your wife and three daughters are probably blessed because God is a

00:19:25 father. You know why I'm patriarchal? I'm patriarchal because God identifies himself as a father, and so

00:19:30 we have a heavenly father, and we live in the father's world, and we live in the father's world

00:19:34 according to the Father's rules,

00:19:35 and God the Father, the Heavenly Father,

00:19:37 who made his fatherly world with his fatherly rules,

00:19:39 has determined to minister to all peoples

00:19:42 and all creatures and all creation through fathers

00:19:45 in three divinely instituted sovereign spheres,

00:19:49 the home, the church, and the state.

00:19:50 He works through familial fathers in the home,

00:19:52 he works through civil fathers in the state,

00:19:55 and he works through ecclesiastical fathers,

00:19:58 which is why elders should be men in the church.

00:20:00 God the Father blesses all people through fathers.

00:20:04 And it is not a coincidence, therefore,

00:20:07 that the political left, the cultural left, 0.70

00:20:09 those who are enemies of God, 0.75

00:20:10 want to destroy fathers. 0.98

00:20:13 They hate fathers. 0.96

00:20:15 Now, all that being said, here's the irony.

00:20:17 They hate fathers because they serve their father. 0.64

00:20:21 They are children of the devil, John chapter 8, 0.99

00:20:25 the father of lies. 0.97

00:20:27 When he lies, he speaks his native tongue, 1.00

00:20:29 for he is a liar and the father of lies. 1.00

00:20:32 And the reason why they always lie, 0.99

00:20:34 the reason we can identify them as Edmund

00:20:35 and get a pretty good idea of what's actually true

00:20:38 by believing the opposite of what they say

00:20:39 is because they lie.

00:20:42 And why do they lie?

00:20:43 Because they're a chip off the old block. 0.99

00:20:45 They lie because they're just like their daddy, the devil. 1.00

00:20:49 And they must be born again. 0.99

00:20:52 And unless they are born again,

00:20:55 not of water, not of the flesh,

00:20:57 but spiritually born again,

00:21:00 supernaturally born again

00:21:01 with a new heart,

00:21:02 with a new nature,

00:21:04 then they will continue to do

00:21:05 what their father does.

00:21:06 And their father,

00:21:07 until there is rebirth,

00:21:08 until there is regeneration

00:21:09 by the grace of God,

00:21:11 by grace alone,

00:21:11 through faith alone,

00:21:12 and Christ alone,

00:21:12 unless that takes place,

00:21:14 their father is not God.

00:21:15 God is not a universal father.

00:21:18 God is a universal creator.

00:21:20 Did you know that?

00:21:20 There's a difference.

00:21:21 He is the creator

00:21:22 of all of creation.

00:21:23 So he's universal creator.

00:21:25 He is not a universal father.

00:21:26 He is only the father

00:21:27 of the Lord Jesus Christ and those who have union with him by the Spirit through faith.

00:21:32 Apart from that, God is not your father, but that does not mean that you are fatherless. You have a

00:21:36 father, even if God is not your father, your father is the devil. And children always bear 0.98

00:21:43 a striking resemblance to their father. If the devil is your daddy, you will do what the father,

00:21:50 your father does, and he is the father of lies. He's the father of lies. That's why I'm patriarchal. 1.00

00:21:56 everything is father everything is society everything in culture and certainly everything

00:22:01 in the bible it's it's fatherly language we can't escape it it's a good word shibboleth

00:22:06 liberals can't say it we can immediately identify all right so during my pastoral tenure in

00:22:11 california i regularly championed the cause of christians being willing to sacrifice for the

00:22:15 mission of jesus i passionately preached against the evils of the prosperity gospel which truly is

00:22:20 evil. Still, I foolishly conflated this health and wealth heresy with just a genuine, honest desire

00:22:26 to make money, start a family, purchase a modest home, and leave up an inheritance for your

00:22:31 children's children. That's not the prosperity gospel. That's the Bible. Now, that said, books

00:22:37 like Radical, perhaps you've heard of it, books like Radical by David Platt served as my inspiration. 0.59

00:22:44 But I fail to recognize how truly radical it is for a Christian man to marry a woman in his youth.

00:22:50 to remain faithful to her throughout his entire life,

00:22:53 to give to her the blessing of many children,

00:22:56 and to work hard to provide for each of them.

00:22:58 See, in my assessment, the American church 0.98

00:23:01 has too many men who are eager to go to third world countries

00:23:04 as missionaries, including the up-and-coming

00:23:07 third world country of California,

00:23:09 but not nearly enough men who are willing to fight

00:23:11 for this country by simply establishing godly households

00:23:15 and demonstrating faithfulness to their wives and children.

00:23:19 I am now convinced that the vast majority of men in our churches

00:23:22 don't need teaching about how to be pastors.

00:23:24 Instead, they need teaching about how to be men.

00:23:27 They need to be taught how to be husbands, how to be fathers,

00:23:30 how to be sons, how to be brothers, how to be entrepreneurs,

00:23:33 how to start businesses, how to start publishing companies,

00:23:35 how to be authors and write books and artists and all the rest.

00:23:39 I wasted far too much time engaging with the men in my previous church

00:23:43 about peripheral doctrines and the prospects of

00:23:46 maybe one day the Lord will call you to be a pastor or a church planter. And I invested far

00:23:50 too little time talking about the fundamentals of what it means to be a Christian man.

00:23:54 And so in this way, I failed these men. And in this way, I failed myself. Most importantly,

00:24:00 I failed the Lord Jesus Christ. Now these days, I think young Christian men seem to have a lot 1.00

00:24:06 in common with the Samaritan woman in John chapter four, verse 16 through 20. Here's the text.

00:24:11 Jesus said to her, go and call your husband and come here.

00:24:15 And the woman answered, sorry, and the woman answered him, I have no husband. 0.91

00:24:20 Jesus said to her, oh, you're right in saying you have no husband,

00:24:23 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. 0.99

00:24:26 What you have said is true.

00:24:28 The woman said, oh, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

00:24:31 And immediately changes the subject.

00:24:33 Our father is worshiped on this mountain,

00:24:35 but you say in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

00:24:38 Now, see, when a pastor confronts young men in the church today about family matters, about biblical masculinity, matters of marriage, matters of family and parenting, these men will often attempt to change the subject.

00:24:51 Sir, I perceive that you are a theologian.

00:24:53 Could you flesh out for me the specific details of superlapsarian as it pertains to the doctrine of limited atonement?

00:24:59 It's precisely at this point that a wise pastor will simply respond by saying no.

00:25:05 Instead, let's talk about your marriage. 0.97

00:25:09 Let's talk about your porn habit. 0.74

00:25:11 Let's talk about your parenting. 0.96

00:25:13 Let's talk about how you lose your temper.

00:25:15 Let's talk about that.

00:25:17 It is true that God calls some men to stand up in the pulpit as pastors,

00:25:20 but not before these men learn how to stand up for their own wives and their children as husbands and fathers.

00:25:26 Biblical manhood in this country has been dying a very slow and painful death for decades. 0.88

00:25:31 But when we emasculate Christ's church by championing every feminine characteristic as though it were a virtue 0.70

00:25:37 and demonizing every masculine trait

00:25:40 as though it was a toxic vice,

00:25:42 then what else should we expect?

00:25:44 Yes, we need more faithful pastors,

00:25:46 but we won't get any

00:25:47 until we have more faithful men.

00:25:50 For if a man does not know

00:25:51 how to manage his own household,

00:25:52 how will he care for the household of God?

00:25:55 And this is pervasive in evangelicalism

00:25:58 and in the reformed camp. 0.86

00:25:59 Men who have not managed their own household, 0.53

00:26:01 their children aren't serving the Lord, 0.99

00:26:03 their marriages are a wreck,

00:26:04 they've been divorced,

00:26:05 they've been remarried,

00:26:06 all those kinds of things,

00:26:07 there's a problem and guys aren't addressing it. Let's continue to go. So what does the Bible

00:26:11 have to say about true masculinity, biblical masculinity? Perhaps the best place to start 1.00

00:26:16 is by looking at some simple biblical commands. As we investigate these commands, I will attempt

00:26:21 to demonstrate from my own personal story how a plain reading of scripture is ultimately all it

00:26:27 took to convince me that I needed to move out of California. Number one, men as sons, men as sons.

00:26:33 Exodus 20, 12 says,

00:26:35 Honor thy father and mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God has given you.

00:26:39 Although obedience to our parents is a temporary command issued to younger children while they remain at home,

00:26:45 the command to honor our fathers and mothers is a lifelong command that continues even for adult children.

00:26:50 Now, for quite some time, my parents were doing everything they could to transition from Bay City, Texas,

00:26:55 that's in Matagord County, to San Diego, California, when I was pastoring there.

00:26:59 They desperately wanted to be closer to their adult children, and let's be honest,

00:27:02 mainly the grandchildren. Although my parents were diligently trying their best to achieve this goal,

00:27:08 it was doubtful that two individuals who had lived most of their adult lives in one of the poorest

00:27:12 counties of Texas would be able to successfully retire in one of the most expensive cities

00:27:16 in the nation, which actually was just rated the worst city in the nation to live in. Beat San

00:27:21 Francisco even, in terms of the ratio between cost of living and jobs. San Diego, horrible,

00:27:28 horrible place economically to live. Now, over time, I became convinced that I had an obligation

00:27:35 to help provide for my aging parents by ensuring that they were able to fulfill their heart's

00:27:41 desires. 1 Timothy 5, verse 4 says, but if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first

00:27:46 learn to show godliness to their own household and make some return to their parents. For this

00:27:53 is pleasing in the sight of God. Now, although this biblical text specifically references elderly

00:27:57 widows, I have come to believe that it is still pleasing in the sight of God when adult children

00:28:03 earnestly seek to make some return to their parents, even when both father and mother are

00:28:07 still living. That's men as sons. That made me leave California. What about men as fathers? Here's

00:28:12 another biblical command. Genesis 128, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

00:28:18 As the scripture testifies, children are most assuredly a blessing from the Lord. Psalm 127 3.

00:28:23 and while I will maintain that scripture allows for some measure of careful and ethical family

00:28:28 planning, that is contraceptives that do not impose abortive risk, the pill I believe is sin,

00:28:34 I am convinced, however, that in most circumstances married couples will do well to have several

00:28:40 children. That's Psalm 127 verse 5. However, procreation is just one small portion of the task

00:28:47 that the Lord has assigned to parents. In addition to producing offspring, the father must be

00:28:52 willing and able to protect and provide for his children. Now, at the risk of sounding overly

00:28:59 simplistic, protect and provide, you might say that every man needs a job, provide, and a gun,

00:29:05 protect. Two vital commodities that California politicians are working tirelessly to eradicate.

00:29:11 Guns and jobs. There will be no guns, there will be no jobs in California, says Gavin Newsom,

00:29:17 and he's doing a bang-up job. If that's his goal, nailing it. Now, a significant component of this

00:29:24 provision, fathers provide and protect, this provision includes the children's education.

00:29:29 Here's another verse, Ephesians 6, 4. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them

00:29:34 up in the discipline and instruction, the fear and admonition of the Lord. In light of biblical

00:29:40 texts such as this, it appears evident that a Christian man cannot merely abdicate his fatherly

00:29:45 duty by handing his children over to the secular state to be educated. This is especially true in 0.57

00:29:51 a state like California, but let me be clear. I believe it's just as true in Williamson County.

00:29:57 Now, this means that a husband and wife will be required to homeschool their children or pay a 0.95

00:30:04 significant amount to place each of their kids in a private Christian school, not Christians in 0.88

00:30:09 education. You know there's a difference, right? Right? Well, our kids have Christian teachers in 0.96

00:30:14 their public school. They identify as Christians. There's a difference in Christians in education

00:30:18 and a distinctly Christian education. A Christian education doesn't just mean a Christian is 0.57

00:30:22 teaching it. It means the education, the content, the curriculum itself comes from a Christian

00:30:28 worldview. And that doesn't just mean a 45-minute Bible class and then we go into pagan doctrine.

00:30:33 No, it means math through a Christian worldview. It means engineering, right? I want a Christian

00:30:39 engineer, right? It's just like what Martin Luther said. The first implication of the gospel

00:30:46 and the cobbler is not that he makes Christian shoes, but he makes good shoes, right? So if you

00:30:50 start a restaurant and you have John 3, 16 on the bottom of the inside of the cup, that doesn't

00:30:54 necessarily make it a Christian restaurant. You know what makes it a Christian restaurant? When

00:30:59 the owners of the restaurant submit to the law of God and they love the Lord Jesus Christ and they

00:31:04 make good food. They make good food, right? So a Christian engineer is somebody who builds a plane

00:31:10 that doesn't fall apart in midair, and who recognizes the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's the

00:31:16 basis for them building that plane, right? The atheist, he can't account for the way that he

00:31:22 lives. His worldview doesn't validate his life, right? He believes everything is chaos. Everything

00:31:27 is random. The whole scientific method and all of it, observation completely falls apart if you

00:31:33 don't believe that the world was designed by a creator, by an architect, and therefore we can

00:31:38 expect to detect reoccurring consistent patterns, right? The atheist doesn't, they have no basis 0.85

00:31:45 for patterns in the cosmos, and therefore they have no basis for laws of physics and laws of 0.85

00:31:51 gravity and all these, no basis whatsoever. So I don't want a committed atheist building the plane 0.95

00:31:56 that I'm going to get my wife and children on. Now, you know what? In God's common grace,

00:32:01 not special grace, regeneration, but in his common grace, atheists don't actually believe what they

00:32:06 claim to believe. And that's why atheists make good planes. Because they believe like atheists,

00:32:12 but they build planes like Christians. Because only Christians can build good planes. Period. 1.00

00:32:18 So, all that being said, you need your kids not just to have Christians in education, but to get 0.53

00:32:22 a Christian education. And there's only really two ways to go about that. It means that your wife 0.53

00:32:27 can't supplement your income, husbands, because she's got to do homeschool. Or it means that 0.57

00:32:34 all of your expenses that you already have, go ahead and add about a grand monthly to send your

00:32:41 kids to a Christian school. And I would advocate for that being a classical Christian school.

00:32:47 my point is this part of biblical masculinity is money and that doesn't mean that you have to be

00:32:57 rich to follow jesus but what i'm saying is there is a cost to discipleship there is a relational

00:33:03 cost mother and father if you want if you're not willing to lose mother and father and this and

00:33:08 for my sake you're not worthy of me there's a relational cost when jesus calls someone to be

00:33:13 his disciple. You beg and you plead for all of your

00:33:17 relationships to follow Jesus with you. Jesus has called me.

00:33:21 He's called me, and I am following him, and I hope, I pray

00:33:25 that you would heed his call and come with me. Come.

00:33:29 We found the Messiah. We found him. Come and see. But sometimes

00:33:33 they don't come, and therefore you must leave some of the

00:33:37 closest and dearest relationships in your life. Leave father and mother. So there's a relational cost.

00:33:41 right but but there's there's not just a relational cost there is a financial cost

00:33:46 to following jesus there is here's one of the financial costs right and this will

00:33:51 prove that john and ad are not pastors and i'm the pastor in the group part of the cost is 10

00:33:56 of your income well that's law giving that's old testament you know all right i'm down for gospel

00:34:03 giving all right this new testament well it's not it's not you know the tithe is not in the

00:34:06 New Testament. It's just gospel giving. My question, though, is how come gospel giving always in real

00:34:13 dollars and cents equates to less cash in the offering plate than law giving? And if we're

00:34:19 going to be theonomous, which I am, you don't have to be, but I am, then what we hold when it comes

00:34:24 to the civil law of God is the general equity. And that's not just theonomous. I mean, that's

00:34:29 Westminster. If you're confessionally reformed, that's 1689. That's Westminster. That's the

00:34:33 doctrine of the law of God, right? The moral law of God, the Ten Commandments, endures forever.

00:34:37 And the civil law, we take the general equity, right? So don't muzzle the ox while he treads the

00:34:42 grain. And it's not just because God is concerned about oxen, although our compassionate God is.

00:34:46 He has compassion on all he has made, says the Psalms. But he's also using the general equity,

00:34:52 Paul does in the New Testament, to make an argument for paying pastures from the ox thing,

00:34:56 right? In the same way, we take the general equity of building a border, a fence line around the

00:35:00 perimeter of your roof, because when it was hot in the summer months, people would sleep on top of

00:35:04 the roof with no AC to get a cool breeze, and if there wasn't a border, you might roll off, you

00:35:09 might get seriously injured or die. And we take the general equity of that, and we don't go around

00:35:13 and police, say, if you don't have a border on the top of your roof, then you're getting a fine.

00:35:18 But what we do is we take the general equity, thou must esteem and defend and cherish the

00:35:22 sanctity of human life. And what we do is we take the general equity of that civil code, case law,

00:35:28 given to Israel, and we apply that with something like speed limits. And our nation has done this. 0.72

00:35:34 This is why our nation has such just laws. And you can link the justice of our law system

00:35:40 directly to the monetary wealth. Our nation has prospered because our nation has been just.

00:35:50 And our nation has been just because our nation has been Christian. Well, wait a second. I don't 0.84

00:35:54 think America is a Christian nation. Here's the deal about America. I believe that America is 1.00

00:36:00 currently an apostate nation because I believe that America made a covenant with God. That doesn't

00:36:06 mean it's on par with the covenant that Israel made with God. That's unique. That's unique, and it

00:36:11 doesn't mean America is the equivalent of Israel, and it certainly doesn't mean America is the

00:36:15 equivalent of the church. No, but I do believe that individual nations, ethnic nations, they

00:36:22 ultimately are underneath the lordship of jesus christ he is lord and you either love him or hate

00:36:28 him bless him or curse him but every individual has a relationship with jesus it's a good one or

00:36:32 a bad one and likewise every single nation has a relationship with jesus and the reason why is

00:36:37 because the nations not just does god give them not only does god give them the permission to

00:36:44 exist but god ensures not only that it's right for them to exist today but that they will

00:36:49 indefinitely exist until jesus comes back because the nations are his inheritance they are his

00:36:54 inheritance and so america made a deal with god and that's why we've been so blessed we modeled

00:36:59 our laws and all these things off of biblical law biblical law taking extracting the general

00:37:05 equity from the civil law taking the moral law the ten commandments and putting it in two or three

00:37:10 witnesses and as we've turned our back on biblical justice and all these different things we're all

00:37:17 of a sudden, it's not a coincidence that we turn from

00:37:19 justice, and we're also experiencing inflation.

00:37:22 Right?

00:37:23 There is a blessing with obedience.

00:37:25 There's a blessing with obedience.

00:37:27 That's not prosperity gospel. Prosperity

00:37:29 gospel is this. If I teach my daughters

00:37:31 that every single week, on Fridays,

00:37:34 on their way home from school,

00:37:35 if they stop, and let's say it's legally, you know,

00:37:37 able for them to do this, they stop

00:37:39 and they buy a lotto ticket. If you

00:37:41 faithfully buy a lotto ticket once a week,

00:37:43 you eventually will win the lottery. That's

00:37:45 prosperity gospel. But if I tell

00:37:47 my daughters, and our son now on the way, if I tell my son, I'll use him as an example, if I tell

00:37:55 him, if you keep your vows to your wife, you love your children, you fear the Lord, and you work hard

00:38:00 with integrity, then eventually you'll do pretty well. You'll do pretty well. And you might say,

00:38:08 that's the prosperity gospel. No, that's not the prosperity gospel. That's work. That's sowing and

00:38:14 reaping God will not be mocked that's that's just that's the basic principles of scripture you might

00:38:19 say well but there are times where that doesn't happen right you work hard you have integrity

00:38:22 you fear the Lord and you get cancer yeah that's that's true but but but that's the minority and

00:38:27 when you get cancer bless the Lord he gives and takes away he's still sovereign and everything

00:38:31 he does is for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes

00:38:34 but but for us to to say well there are exceptions to the rule people suffer and then to make the

00:38:41 exception, the norm. That's the very thing that the left does, right? It's always taking everyone

00:38:46 down. How do you get equality? You suppress everyone down to the common denominator, the lowest

00:38:51 rung. And we do that in our theology. Because somebody is suffering, has cancer, and lost their

00:38:56 job, we say, well, I guess we shouldn't really teach people that if they're faithful, God will

00:39:00 bless them. Because sometimes it doesn't happen. But Paul makes no caveats. He makes no disclaimers.

00:39:06 And this is the New Testament. He quotes, he quotes the fifth commandment. Children, honor your father

00:39:11 and mother and then without any equivocation he gives the same blessing the same promise for this

00:39:16 is the first commandment with a promise that it will go well with you and your days will be long

00:39:19 in the earth but but what about children that are obedient and and die and drown in a pool at five

00:39:24 years old god forbid i i don't know ask the apostle paul he doesn't include that no parenthetical

00:39:31 statement no no disclaimer obedience blessing obedience blessing not not faith in the lottery

00:39:40 ticket blessing. That's prosperity. But also, we don't want to be prosperity, but we also don't

00:39:45 want to be poverty. What we want to believe is biblical theology. Work, sowing, you will reap.

00:39:53 God is faithful. He will not be mocked. And I think that us kind of buying into a poverty gospel,

00:39:59 some of these teachings coming from John Piper. And I think us buying some of these things,

00:40:03 along with things like two kingdom theology, along with things, I think, in the eschatology realm,

00:40:08 but all these things together in a mixed bag basically said

00:40:11 Jesus is coming back any second so you really don't need to put down deep roots

00:40:15 and if you do put down deep roots well God is

00:40:18 like Russian roulette you know like God there's no rhyme and reason to God

00:40:22 God is just a loose cannon he does whatever he wants he's random you know and

00:40:26 God is sovereign but sovereign and random are not the same thing but that's how we

00:40:30 taught so we said like yeah you can obey but that really doesn't guarantee blessing even though the Bible

00:40:34 explicitly says it does. Explicitly. And we did all these things

00:40:39 because we were afraid that to say anything other than that, all of a sudden

00:40:43 you would be like Kenneth Copeland. And I just want to say, brothers and sisters, this is a

00:40:47 sliding scale. There is a massive difference, a massive distance

00:40:51 between Kenneth Copeland and believing that

00:40:55 if we obey, the Lord blesses us.

00:40:58 It can't just be like, if you obey, God is sovereign, you'll probably die. You know, anyways, Shadrach, Meshach,

00:41:03 and Abednego, you know, like that's the outcome for everybody. Okay, yeah, them, but there's also

00:41:07 Abraham, right? They're not the only biblical example. Some were thrown to the lions. Some

00:41:11 were drawn in quarter, sawed in two, right? And the Bible commends them in the Hall of Fame. 0.93

00:41:17 But others were rich and blessed. And so for us to say, well, don't work hard and don't do this

00:41:24 and don't play the long game and all these kind of things, because who knows what's going to happen?

00:41:27 That's why we lose. Now, if you're pre-mill because it's your actual conviction, praise God,

00:41:33 good on you. But if you're a self-fulfilling prophet, shame on you. If you're trying to make

00:41:40 your pre-meal doctrine correct by acting in such a way to ensure that we lose, shame on you. Dig

00:41:49 deep. Plant deep. Put down foundations. Play the long game. Think generational. A good man leaves

00:41:59 an inheritance for his children's children. That's a spiritual inheritance. Yes and amen.

00:42:04 Cannot be less than a spiritual inheritance. But could it be more? Could it also be a financial

00:42:10 inheritance? Is it not a shame? Think about this. Is it not a shame that the boomer generation

00:42:16 is proud to drive cars with a bumper sticker that says, I'm spending my grandchildren's 0.89

00:42:22 inheritance. What would God say about that? It's a shame. It's a shame. It's an indictment of an

00:42:31 entire generation. They're not thinking biblically. I want to build wealth because I need a $58

00:42:42 million jet plane. No. No, because I want to be faithful to the Lord. And I don't want to have a

00:42:49 disney fairy princess view of economics i want to read the bible and thomas soul

00:42:54 i want to be wise because i want to win i want to do a lot for the kingdom i want to plant churches

00:43:02 i want to make disciples and i want to baptize them and i never want to do less but as i get

00:43:08 older and i have children and i start thinking down the line decades centuries i want to do more

00:43:15 Never want to do less.

00:43:17 But I want to do a lot more patriarchy.

00:43:20 So be post-mail.

00:43:22 Or at least play the long game.

00:43:24 Be inconsistently pre-mail.

00:43:27 And then also, be patriarchal.

00:43:30 Be patriarchal, okay?

00:43:32 After that, the next one is be presuppositional.

00:43:35 This is what I started with, Edmund, Lucy, the whole Chronicles of Narnia.

00:43:38 I'll go quick.

00:43:39 The myth of neutrality.

00:43:40 That's what I mean.

00:43:41 You've got to learn this lesson over the last two years.

00:43:44 we learned this lesson. Don't forget it. We should not have to be taught this a second time

00:43:49 because we were already taught it like 10 times in the last 22 months. We should not have to be

00:43:55 taught again. Presuppositionalism. Everyone has an allegiance. Neutrality is a myth. Everything is

00:44:01 moral, and it's either for Christ or against them. It's of the utmost importance that we remind

00:44:07 ourselves that although we should resist the temptation of politicizing everything, everything

00:44:12 is still being politicized for us by someone else.

00:44:16 Christians must exercise, therefore, careful discernment

00:44:19 as we swim through the sea of information

00:44:22 provided by secular sources.

00:44:24 Now, do Christians hold to the doctrine of common grace?

00:44:27 Yes.

00:44:28 By borrowing from the Christian worldview,

00:44:30 can an atheist make certain discoveries 0.91

00:44:32 that are actually true? 0.79

00:44:34 Yes.

00:44:35 However, as Christians, we must recognize

00:44:38 that every man has an allegiance.

00:44:40 Matthew 12, 30.

00:44:41 whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. In other words,

00:44:46 Christians must better familiarize themselves with the myth of neutrality. Now, a few years 0.98

00:44:53 ago, I was profoundly challenged by a small book that presented a concise rebuttal to the two-kingdom

00:44:58 theology, particularly R2K, radical two-kingdom theology that comes out of Escondido, Westminster.

00:45:05 In this book, the author pushed back on one two-kingdom advocate, his assertion that there's

00:45:10 nothing moral or theological about making stir-fry. Now, the author did this by providing

00:45:15 examples of a certain cannibalistic tribe that would fry their victims' flesh with vegetables

00:45:20 in a pan. Apparently, even stir-fry cooks are influenced by their theology. Even stir-fry

00:45:27 can be moral. It's not neutral. Now, it's been said, never let a good crisis go to waste.

00:45:33 Ever heard that? Crisis is key for the political left in our nation because individual liberty

00:45:39 always seems to get in the way of progressive political agendas.

00:45:43 So how does the political left find its way around these pesky provisions

00:45:47 outlined in a little thing called the Constitution?

00:45:50 What they do is they incessantly search for ways to convince the masses,

00:45:54 the public, to trade in their liberties for something else.

00:45:58 It's a classic bait-and-switch maneuver,

00:46:00 and almost nothing historically has served as more enticing bait

00:46:04 than public safety.

00:46:06 personal liberty for public safety a terrible trade to be sure but a decision that our nation

00:46:14 has been willing to make time and time again in the 70s it was global cooling you might have

00:46:20 forgotten that one in the 80s it was global warming later this evolved into climate change

00:46:25 and then as if right on schedule our politicians have informed us that we're entering into a

00:46:30 climate crisis now due to this claim the democrats attempted to slip elements of the green new deal

00:46:35 into the relief package for COVID-19.

00:46:38 What do they have to do with one another?

00:46:40 But there it is, right there.

00:46:42 Again, crisis is key for any political leader

00:46:44 that yearns for more power.

00:46:46 However, for this crisis strategy to work,

00:46:48 the ruling elites must somehow convince

00:46:50 the general public that the crisis actually exists.

00:46:54 This task requires at least two primary institutions,

00:46:58 academia and the media.

00:47:00 The myth of neutrality encompasses everything,

00:47:02 even the collection and presentation of data.

00:47:06 When we read studies which promote themselves

00:47:09 as politically neutral and strictly following the science,

00:47:13 we should do so with a certain degree

00:47:15 of what I like to call holy suspicion.

00:47:17 If any two spheres have been completely monopolized

00:47:20 by progressives in our nation,

00:47:23 they are undoubtedly the spheres of academia and the media.

00:47:28 The left owns our nation's universities.

00:47:30 Think Harvard, Yale, Oxford. 0.95

00:47:32 And they ruled them with an iron fist.

00:47:35 Therefore, if we genuinely believe that neutrality is a myth

00:47:38 and that our theology and morality influence every area of our lives,

00:47:43 we must commit to exercising careful discernment as we read any academic report.

00:47:49 Again, the political left dominates not only universities, but also the legacy media.

00:47:54 Universities do the research, and the media presents their findings.

00:47:58 godless Yale, and the godless New York Times

00:48:00 working in perfect concert. 1.00

00:48:03 Once more, can unbelievers contribute in helpful ways

00:48:05 due to God's common grace?

00:48:07 Absolutely, yes and amen.

00:48:10 So as Christians, there are many times

00:48:12 when we should be willing to read these academic reports.

00:48:15 I am merely advocating that when we read them,

00:48:18 we read them as Christians. 1.00

00:48:22 Slow to speak, quick to listen, 0.97

00:48:25 examining against the unchanging standard of the Word of God.

00:48:31 Being slow, being wise, exercising discernment. 0.98

00:48:35 There appear to be at least two common pitfalls for Christians

00:48:38 during these trying times. 1.00

00:48:40 First, there are Christians who can ignore 1.00

00:48:43 any negative possible outcomes without credible reasoning 1.00

00:48:47 simply because we can't stomach the results.

00:48:51 This is called denial.

00:48:52 Now, denial, while possessing the veneer of courage, is actually a subtle form of fear.

00:49:00 Denial is not courage.

00:49:02 Denial is actually fear cloaked in courage.

00:49:06 If it's baseless, denial.

00:49:09 If you've got a reason, an objective reason from the Word of God to deny something, then deny.

00:49:14 Now, second, we can believe everything, and this is where most of our nation would fall,

00:49:19 we can believe everything the moment we hear it without any ounce of suspicion,

00:49:23 without any scrutiny.

00:49:25 Our secular universities and left political medium

00:49:28 have overplayed virtually every crisis there has ever been,

00:49:33 often pulling crises out of thin air.

00:49:36 It behooves us, therefore, to remember that these are the same people

00:49:40 who assured us that everyone would be dead by now

00:49:42 if we did not begin using solar panels and driving electric cars.

00:49:46 Therefore, Christians need courage

00:49:47 so that we do not give into the temptation

00:49:49 of baseless denial.

00:49:51 And yet, Christians also require courage

00:49:54 so that we stop immediately forfeiting

00:49:56 all of our God-given rights

00:49:57 every time we hear a negative report

00:49:59 simply because it flies under the banner of science.

00:50:04 Numbers 13, 30 through 32.

00:50:06 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said,

00:50:08 Let us go up at once and occupy the land,

00:50:12 for we are well able to overcome it.

00:50:16 Then the men who had gone up with him said,

00:50:19 we are not able to go up against the people

00:50:21 for they are stronger than we are.

00:50:23 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report,

00:50:27 a bad report of the land that they had spied out saying,

00:50:30 the land through which we have gone to spy out

00:50:33 is a land that devours its inhabitants

00:50:35 and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.

00:50:40 Let's be like Caleb.

00:50:42 Let's be like Joshua.

00:50:43 Let's not, when we get a bad report,

00:50:46 not basis denial, right?

00:50:48 There's a fine line between faith and insanity.

00:50:52 Okay, we don't want to be insane.

00:50:55 I've said it like this in the past.

00:50:57 Sometimes, sometimes wisdom is a euphemism for fear.

00:51:00 Have you noticed that?

00:51:01 Sometimes wisdom is a euphemism,

00:51:02 I'm just being wise. 0.99

00:51:03 No, you're being cowardly. 0.99

00:51:04 You're being cowardly. 0.99

00:51:05 But then also sometimes faith is a euphemism 1.00

00:51:07 for foolishness.

00:51:09 So there's a very thin line, a razor's edge 0.87

00:51:11 between faith and foolishness.

00:51:13 We want faith, but not insanity,

00:51:15 not baseless denial.

00:51:16 And likewise, there's a very razor-edge,

00:51:18 thin line between wisdom and fear.

00:51:20 We want to be wise, but not cowards.

00:51:23 Not labeling it as wisdom

00:51:25 when really it's just cowardice.

00:51:27 Right, so let's be filled with faith,

00:51:29 filled with wisdom.

00:51:30 Not fearful, not foolish.

00:51:32 Let's be presuppositional.

00:51:34 Let's recognize the myth of neutrality.

00:51:36 Let's have holy suspicion.

00:51:38 Let's exercise discernment.

00:51:41 Let's work our way,

00:51:42 navigate through all of the lies.

00:51:46 Christians should be able to do this.

00:51:47 We should.

00:51:48 We should not take the bait.

00:51:50 We should not be so easily deceived.

00:51:52 Proper ecclesiology.

00:51:53 How much time do I have?

00:51:54 Zero, huh?

00:51:55 4.30.

00:51:55 What time did we start, Nate?

00:52:00 53 minutes.

00:52:01 I'm going to go for seven more minutes.

00:52:02 Here we go.

00:52:02 Allow me to be abundantly clear.

00:52:04 I firmly believe with every fiber of my being

00:52:05 that the church,

00:52:06 not merely individual believers themselves,

00:52:08 but the gathered assembly of these believers on the Lord's Day is absolutely essential.

00:52:13 The church is essential, and I'm talking about the church when it churches,

00:52:17 the church when it assembles, the church when it gathers on the Lord's Day

00:52:21 for the rightly preached word, the rightly administered sacraments,

00:52:26 church discipline, the whole nine yards.

00:52:28 That is essential.

00:52:29 However, what I noticed over the last two years is this. 0.60

00:52:32 Even among Christians who are convinced that the church is essential,

00:52:34 many remain suspicious of its genuine necessity. 0.98

00:52:38 This suspicion is likely because many Christians,

00:52:41 they understand, they affirm that the church is essential,

00:52:44 but they don't see how the church is unique.

00:52:47 They think it's essential, but they don't think it's unique. 1.00

00:52:50 In our day, there appears to be an alarming amount of Christians 0.98

00:52:52 who are simply unaware of what actually occurs

00:52:55 in the gathered assembly of the saints on the Lord's Day.

00:52:57 They fail to see how what takes place at church 0.93

00:53:00 is categorically distinct from what individual Christians do

00:53:03 all week long in their private practices of piety.

00:53:05 prayer scripture reading fasting therefore pastors must labor to teach their congregations that when

00:53:12 we come together on the lord's day we do not merely experience the heightened benefits of

00:53:16 individual christian practices due to the reality of being surrounded by other brothers and sisters

00:53:21 in christ instead what takes place in the gathered assembly is a spiritual reality that occurs in no

00:53:27 other earthly context according to scripture when true churches that is orthodox churches

00:53:33 orthodox churches with which faithfully proclaim both law and gospel when true churches gather

00:53:39 together on the lord's day and rightly administer the ordinary means of grace which is to publicly

00:53:44 preach the word publicly pray the word publicly sing the word psalms hymns spiritual songs and

00:53:50 publicly see s-e-e-c the word in the sacrament of the lord's supper and baptism when churches true

00:53:57 churches gather together for this purpose the bible tells us that christ himself begins to walk

00:54:02 among the lampstands. The lampstands are the churches themselves, and Christ holds the angels

00:54:08 of these churches in his right hand. The angels are the gospel ministers who've been tasked with

00:54:14 the faithful proclamation of God's word. And as these angels begin to preach, a double-edged sword

00:54:20 does not merely proceed from their mouth, but from the mouth of Christ himself, and it begins to

00:54:26 pierce the hearts of men all that is according to revelation chapter 1 verse 10 through 16 now

00:54:32 since some of you do not appreciate my exegesis of revelation allow me to present a biblical case

00:54:39 from matthew 18 verse 17 through 20 if this is my exegesis baked in if the impenitent church member

00:54:47 currently under formal church discipline refuses to listen to the two or three witnesses who have

00:54:52 confronted him, then tell it to, not the elders of the church, not the presbytery, but the gathered

00:54:58 assembly on the Lord's day. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, the gathered assembly

00:55:04 of church members, elders, deacons, and members on the Lord's day, if he refuses to listen even to 0.96

00:55:09 the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector, aka as an outsider no longer 0.83

00:55:15 considered to be a brother or sister in Christ. Truly, Jesus goes on, truly, I say to you, whatever 0.93

00:55:21 you, the gathered assembly of the church, bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you

00:55:29 loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about

00:55:35 anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. For where two or

00:55:41 three are gathered in my name, that is, wherever a true church exists and is assembled, there I am

00:55:50 among them. So according to Jesus, the minimal requirement for constituting a biblical true

00:55:56 church is the presence of two or three baptized believers who have made a public and credible

00:56:02 profession of their faith and who have covenanted with one another in a local context to follow

00:56:09 all of Christ's commands while teaching others to do likewise. And when true churches, that's

00:56:15 Jesus' definition of a church. And when true churches that meet this definition

00:56:19 gather in Jesus' name on the Lord's day for the ordinary means of grace,

00:56:23 preaching the word, praying the word, singing the word, seeing the word,

00:56:27 when this takes place, Jesus promises to be present

00:56:30 among them. In other words, Jesus who is always present

00:56:35 with all believers at all times by virtue of the indwelling

00:56:39 ministry of the Spirit, this Jesus who is always present promises

00:56:43 is to be uniquely present at church.

00:56:47 And the reason why pastors and churches

00:56:49 were completely fine to do church online,

00:56:52 and some of them are still doing it,

00:56:54 is because although they claim church is essential,

00:56:57 you can't actually logically believe

00:57:00 in the essential nature of church

00:57:02 unless you believe this thing you're calling essential

00:57:05 also happens to be unique.

00:57:08 And for most of us,

00:57:09 we did not have proper ecclesiology

00:57:11 going into March 2020.

00:57:13 we thought there's no real difference

00:57:15 between church and our

00:57:17 private practices of piety. Really

00:57:19 the only difference is relationally.

00:57:21 The community. And I can go and see

00:57:23 people on a Tuesday night. Our small

00:57:25 group still meets. I still have

00:57:27 the relationships. And I'm leading worship

00:57:29 in our home and we live stream the sermon.

00:57:31 And we're completely

00:57:33 comfortable giving up, gathering together

00:57:35 on the Lord's Day, Hebrews 10.25

00:57:37 because, although we would say

00:57:39 church is essential, we did not

00:57:41 see that church is unique. And what makes church unique, among many things, is that Christ promises

00:57:46 to be uniquely present. Christ is present on the Lord's day when your biblical church, if you belong

00:57:52 to biblical church, when you show up on the Lord's day for church, Christ is there in a special way,

00:57:59 in a way that he's not in your home, in your living room, with your family worship. Christ is not, and

00:58:03 I'm the pastor, but Christ is still, he is not present in my living room when I do family worship

00:58:08 with my family. He's not present in the same way that he is on the Lord's Day when we meet at a

00:58:13 barbecue restaurant because that's church. Church is special. It is. The Bible tells me so. So proper

00:58:21 ecclesiology. I'm going to skip the rest of that. Here's the last one. Number five. Number five is

00:58:25 got to remember Protestant resistant theory, right? That's a real quick topic. But Protestant

00:58:30 resistance theory, I'm just going to read a couple paragraphs of what I wrote. When it comes to the

00:58:33 christians duty to submit to the civil authorities it is vital that we rightly interpret the whole

00:58:38 of scripture it's crucial that we recognize that romans 13 that is the biblical text that is so

00:58:43 often cited for why churches should comply with every government regulation that it says nothing

00:58:48 explicitly about christians being required by god to submit to unrighteous rulings handed down

00:58:53 by tyrannical overlords instead romans 13 merely describes god's good and holy purposes for civil

00:58:59 governments. And therefore, the text assumes that Christians would do well to submit to these 0.57

00:59:04 civil governments. Now, all that be said, here's the text. Therefore, Romans 13, my exegesis baked

00:59:11 in. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed. And those who

00:59:16 resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to those with good conduct, but those

00:59:21 with bad. Would you have no fear of the one who has authority over you? Then do what is good,

00:59:26 and you will receive his approval for he is god's servant for your good but if you do wrong be afraid

00:59:32 for he does not bear the sword in vain for he is a servant of god an avenger who carries out god's

00:59:38 wrath on the wrongdoer therefore one must be in subjection all right now notice this is what the

00:59:43 text does not say it does not say would you have no fear the one who's in authority then do whatever

00:59:48 he says no it says then do what is good according to who don't you think the assumption of the

00:59:55 apostle Paul's. It's not, would you have no fear of the one who rules over you? Then do whatever

00:59:59 he says is good, regardless of whether or not it measures up to God's unchanging standard.

01:00:04 No, would you have no fear of the one who rules over you, the civil magistrate? Then do what is

01:00:07 good. And what is good? What is truly good, that which is in accordance with God's law. That's

01:00:14 what Paul's saying. You don't want to be afraid of the one who rules over you? Then do what is

01:00:17 good, and you will receive his approval. So Paul's assuming that the civil magistrate is moral,

01:00:23 that he's functioning as an avenger, God's avenger, as a servant, God's deacon. That's what he's

01:00:29 assuming. You'll receive his approval for he is, the text doesn't say this, an autonomous agent

01:00:34 working on his own behalf for his own benefit. No. Instead, the text says, would you have no fear

01:00:40 of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, that is what is objectively good according

01:00:44 to God's unchanging moral standard, and you will receive his approval for he is God's deacon. He

01:00:50 works for God. And he has to submit, ultimately, to God's design for government and function within

01:00:57 God's perimeters for civil authorities. That is for your good. And for your good, what is your good?

01:01:03 That is your true and lasting good in accordance with what God commands in Scripture. Sadly,

01:01:09 Romans 13 was misused time and time and time again by cowardly pastors seeking to biblically 0.99

01:01:15 justify their sinful compliance and cowardice. So all that being said, five lessons that we better

01:01:23 have learned over the last two years and we better not forget because we're going to be tested again

01:01:27 and again and again on these same five points. Number one, play the long game. Dig deep. Build

01:01:34 to last. Maybe Jesus comes back tomorrow, but I think we need to pretend as though, live as though

01:01:41 he may tarry for a while. Think generationally. A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's

01:01:46 children. So play the long game. The next one, patriarchy. Patriarch. Build families. Build

01:01:53 households. And build on the rock. Build in faith. Love your children. Love your wives. Start

01:02:01 businesses. Run for local office. All these different things. The next one, presuppositional.

01:02:06 No. Neutrality is a myth.

01:02:09 Holy suspicion.

01:02:10 Be slow to speak, quick to listen,

01:02:12 exercise discernment, all these things.

01:02:15 The next one, proper ecclesiology.

01:02:18 Church is not the same.

01:02:20 It's not the same as your quiet time with the Lord

01:02:22 or your family worship.

01:02:24 Jesus is always present with believers

01:02:27 by virtue of the Holy Spirit,

01:02:28 but he promises to be uniquely present

01:02:30 on the Lord's Day when the church gathers together.

01:02:33 Proper ecclesiology.

01:02:35 Church is a big deal.

01:02:36 It's essential because it's unique.

01:02:38 And lastly, number five, the one that I just did,

01:02:41 Protestant-resistant theory.

01:02:43 Understand Romans 13.

01:02:45 Understand that we don't just have to roll over

01:02:47 every single time the state says something.

01:02:50 Great example of that would be the Gospel Coalition. 0.59

01:02:53 Right?

01:02:53 They would say, hey, if Caesar says, do this,

01:02:56 even though it directly contradicts God's law,

01:02:58 you better do it. 1.00

01:02:59 But women, if your husband says you shouldn't dress that way, 1.00

01:03:03 you don't have to submit to your husband. He's being 0.99

01:03:05 abusive. And you don't have to

01:03:08 submit to abusive authority. So the

01:03:09 gospel coalition, what they're giving away is they're saying

01:03:11 authority in the home, not a big deal, but authority

01:03:13 of the state. Oh, authority

01:03:15 of the state. That's because they're statist.

01:03:18 Exactly what John was teaching.

01:03:20 They're statist. That's where their hope is. That's where their

01:03:21 allegiance is. Whereas we would say, no, these are

01:03:23 sovereign spheres. It's like a Venn diagram. There's overlap.

01:03:26 It's not state, church,

01:03:28 home. It's not a hierarchy.

01:03:30 There are three different

01:03:31 spheres that God has divinely instituted, and they are beside one another, not on top

01:03:35 of one another. The state is not over and against families. It is not

01:03:39 superior to families. And the church is not superior to families, either.

01:03:44 And any time anyone in a position of authority, civil

01:03:47 authority, familial authority, or ecclesiastical authority, oversteps their God-given

01:03:51 jurisdiction according to the unchanging standard of Scripture, that's

01:03:55 called tyranny. And we don't submit to it.

01:03:58 right? Defying tyrants is obedience to God, right? That's John Knox, Scottish reformer.

01:04:08 All right, let me pray. Father God, thank you for your word. Thank you for the lessons you've taught

01:04:12 us. Please, please, please help us not to have such short-term memories. Help us to remember.

01:04:19 In Jesus' name, amen. Thanks so much for listening, but real quick, before you go, do us a small

01:04:25 favor, take a moment and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly

01:04:30 the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people

01:04:36 as possible. Thanks so much.

`witch hunt`	Both words, anywhere in the episode.
`"witch hunt"`	The exact phrase.
`witch OR hunt`	Either word.
`"alpha male" -"high value"`	The first phrase, but not the second.
`(feminist OR feminism) AND (marriage OR divorce)`	Parentheses group alternatives.
`"decline civilization"~5`	Both words within 5 words of each other.

`misogyn*`	Any word starting with "misogyn": misogyny, misogynist, misogynistic…
`feminizm~1`	Words one letter off: catches typos and transcription errors.

`person:"Andrew Tate"`	Episodes where they host, guest, or are mentioned.
`host:"Glenn Beck"`	Episodes they host.
`guest:"Jordan Peterson"`	Episodes they appear on as a guest.
`mentioned:"Andrew Tate" -host:"Andrew Tate"`	Talked about on other people's shows.
`show:"Bannon's War Room"`	Episodes from one show.

`topics:abortion`	Episodes tagged with a topic (see the Topics page).
`summary:"Andrew Tate"`	Words in the episode summary. Summaries are machine-written and can be wrong.

`"great replacement" AND episode_date:[NOW-1YEAR TO NOW]`	From the past 12 months.
`lockdown AND episode_date:[2020-01-01T00:00:00Z TO 2020-12-31T23:59:59Z]`	From one year. Dates need the full time, as shown.
`"high value" AND misogyny_count:[100 TO *]`	Episodes with 100 or more sentences flagged as misogynistic. Also: hate_speech_count, toxicity_count, word_count.

The NXR Podcast - March 24, 2022

BONUS - 5 Lessons Every Christian Should Have Learned Over The Past 2 Years

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript