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

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00:00:18.020 So I've been praying, Lord, what can I do? What could I give to your people?

00:00:21.600 And this is one of the things that's been on my heart so, so, so much,

00:00:25.160 is, um, Lord, please let us learn the lessons that you providentially supplied over the last

00:00:33.140 two years and not forget them. People are so quick to forget our nation as a whole,

00:00:38.920 sadly, even conservatives and very sadly, even Christians. So did we not just learn that lesson?

00:00:45.400 Did that not just happen? You know? And then we fall for it again. We fall for it again. It's

00:00:50.760 like Charlie Brown, you know, and Lucy and the football. It's like, come on, Charlie Brown,

00:00:54.540 Good grief, Charlie Brown, right?

00:00:56.280 Like, right, that's, yeah, Nancy Pelosi, right? 0.99

00:01:02.120 That's Lucy, you know, she's moving the football.

00:01:04.340 So one of the things that I thought about was just,

00:01:06.660 speaking of Lucy, I thought about the Chronicles of Narnia,

00:01:09.320 and I thought about, you know, C.S. Lewis,

00:01:11.280 and he has apologetic argument.

00:01:13.040 You know, I would be presuppositional

00:01:14.240 in terms of apologetics,

00:01:15.500 but Lewis has some good things to say. 0.98

00:01:18.300 And one of his arguments was the liar, lunatic Lord. 0.70

00:01:21.140 You remember that argument? 0.97

00:01:22.600 That Jesus, you know, people want to say,

00:01:24.040 well, he's a good teacher, or he was a nice guy, or, you know, he showed us the triumph of, you

00:01:28.240 know, the human spirit, and compassion, and love, and mercy, and you can believe all these things

00:01:32.200 without believing his Lord, and the reality is you can't, and the reason why you can't is because

00:01:36.100 nice guys don't lie to your face, right, and so we can't just look at the life of Jesus, and the

00:01:40.860 actions of Jesus, we have to look at the words of Jesus, and in his words, he claimed to be God, 0.69

00:01:45.460 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

00:01:50.780 deceitful, he's wicked. Or in a best case, right, this worst case scenario is he's malicious. Best 0.99

00:01:56.880 case scenario, he's a crazy man, right? So liar, lunatic, or the third option is that he's Lord, 1.00

00:02:03.860 and everything he said is true. And so C.S. Lewis, you know, that's what he argues when he 0.99

00:02:08.760 writes on apologetics, you know, mere Christianity, books like that. But in his fantasy, in his fiction,

00:02:14.580 most notably The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he paints this scene. And in the scene, we have,

00:02:19.420 you know, the four siblings, you've got Peter, you've got Susan, you've got Edmund, you've got

00:02:23.460 Lucy. And Lucy, as many of you know, if you haven't read The Lion, Witch, and The Wardrobe,

00:02:28.060 as R.C. Sproul would say, what's wrong with you people? So, right, so go read that, you know, so

00:02:32.080 I'm not going to say spoiler alert. It's been out long enough. If you don't, you deserve to have it

00:02:36.460 spoiled. But Lucy, you know, she goes to The Wardrobe, and she goes to a magical land named

00:02:41.060 Narnia. And she comes back, she tells, she's the youngest, she tells her older siblings,

00:02:44.840 in this magical wardrobe, there's a whole nother world, all right? And I met Mr. Tumnus,

00:02:49.120 the fawn, and all these different things, and had a lovely time, and, and they're all, you know,

00:02:53.040 they don't believe her, but Edmund, it's not just, Edmund doesn't just disbelieve, Edmund is cruel,

00:02:58.440 he's mean, right, he's picking on her, and poking fun, and just, he's just a bully, but then he's

00:03:03.900 following her, a couple days later, following her, and, and to pick on her some more with, with

00:03:10.080 nothing but the worst intentions, and, and she goes back into the wardrobe, and it takes her,

00:03:14.460 transports her once again to Narnia, and he's following her to make fun of her, and he ends up

00:03:19.580 in Narnia also, and then they come back, and he's now been to Narnia. He's seen. He's touched. He's

00:03:28.980 heard. He's a witness that this is real, and he comes back, and Lucy's so excited with Peter

00:03:36.280 and Susan because she's like, now Edmund can validate my testimony. We have two or three

00:03:42.520 witnesses, right? The testimony can be established in the presence of two witnesses. It's not just me.

00:03:47.140 There's a second witness that can validate my argument. We went to North. Tell him, Edmund.

00:03:52.640 And he responds by saying, little girls, they just love to pretend. And she just melts into a puddle, 0.90

00:03:58.840 just completely destroyed, distraught, not just because she's being made fun of, not just because

00:04:03.760 it's demeaning and insulting to her intelligence, but because it's betrayal. It's a profound, deep,

00:04:10.280 intimate betrayal, and she is heartbroken by her brother, that her brother would stab her in the

00:04:17.600 back, and so Peter and Susan, the older siblings, still don't know what to believe, because Edmund's

00:04:23.360 saying, she's just pretending, and so Peter and Susan are talking one, you know, within the next

00:04:28.480 day, they're speaking with Diggory Kirk, he's the professor that the four siblings are staying with,

00:04:34.100 and he's like, what's wrong with the little girl, the weeping girl, is what the professor calls her,

00:04:38.400 and well she's you know she thinks she went to a magical world and edmund's been picking on her

00:04:43.100 and he's like yeah hence the weeping you know but well but why why is she weeping well what's really

00:04:48.300 going on and well she you know she thinks she found this magical world and he's like oh okay

00:04:53.700 but did she where oh in the wardrobe i've said like he's very interested instead of just saying

00:05:00.320 oh yeah that's a silly little girl pretending about a magical world he his eyes perk up he's

00:05:04.860 like, what magical world? Where was it? Where did you find it? You know, he's like, I'd like to go 0.92

00:05:09.120 too. And like, that's his, he immediately, and that's of course because he's been before, there's

00:05:14.080 another spoiler. But all that being said, he's like, well, where? And they're like, well, we didn't ask

00:05:19.220 where, because it's fantasy. Of course, this didn't happen. It's not real. So we're not asking

00:05:24.280 specific questions about the geographic, you know, location of Narnia, because it's not real.

00:05:29.240 It's not logical.

00:05:30.640 That's the word they use.

00:05:31.740 It's illogical.

00:05:33.380 And Diggory Kirk says, what do they teach children in schools these days?

00:05:37.340 And he says, logic?

00:05:38.920 So Edmund, the one who says she's pretending, he's usually the truthful one, isn't he?

00:05:43.620 Like, no, this would be the first.

00:05:45.780 He always lies.

00:05:48.020 And Lucy, Lucy, she's not truthful?

00:05:52.340 No, she's always credible.

00:05:54.800 Well, then logically, you should assume that Lucy is telling the truth.

00:06:00.960 Our legacy media, our political administration, they're Edmund.

00:06:06.560 All they do is lie.

00:06:09.340 And the reason I'm concerned is because we all agree.

00:06:12.000 For two years, they've done nothing but lie.

00:06:14.140 You can literally ascertain within 95 percentile of the truth

00:06:18.160 by believing the opposite of what you see on CNN.

00:06:20.200 And the difference between a conspiracy and a news story is three to six months.

00:06:28.120 And then Russia and Ukraine comes out.

00:06:32.100 And conservatives immediately side with Ukraine.

00:06:36.200 I'm just going to go there for a second.

00:06:37.960 Now, I don't think Putin's a nice guy.

00:06:39.140 I appreciate him curing COVID, right?

00:06:41.880 COVID, did you notice?

00:06:43.140 COVID disappeared.

00:06:44.060 So I appreciate, that's a contribution to the whole world, right?

00:06:47.500 So China brought COVID on the stage and Russia cured it.

00:06:49.740 So we have to thank him for that.

00:06:51.000 But my point is, I'm not a fan of Putin. 0.99

00:06:54.740 But I don't think Ukraine is the most innocent nation in the world either.

00:06:59.280 And my point is, if Edmund has always been lying for two years straight, right, then why should we go ahead? 0.99

00:07:09.300 That's right, more than that.

00:07:10.420 But very clearly for the last two years, then why should we immediately?

00:07:14.200 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.

00:07:19.380 what I'm saying is slow down. I think of the book of James, right? Be quick to listen, slow to speak.

00:07:25.520 And one of the reasons we want to be slow to speak is those who are quick to speak often provoke

00:07:30.840 the wrath of man. And there is a difference between the wrath of God, which is holy and good,

00:07:37.460 and the wrath of man. And what James says particularly about the wrath of man is that

00:07:42.720 it does not bring about the holiness of God. The wrath of God stems from the holiness of God,

00:07:47.740 but the wrath of man has nothing to do with the holiness of God. It's a carnal wrath. It's a

00:07:53.920 fleshly wrath. It's a fickle wrath, right? Our God, what makes God so holy is not that he is a God that

00:07:59.960 is absent of anger, but what makes God's anger so magnificent and in a frightening and terrifying

00:08:08.080 way, beautiful, is that our God who is angry, jealous is his name. Our God who is anger, our God

00:08:18.400 who is jealousy, our God who is a consuming fire and burns with a holy, righteous indignation and

00:08:25.340 wrath, he does so always for the right things, at the right time, at the right measure. God has never

00:08:32.760 been angry about something more than he should be. He has never been angry about the wrong thing

00:08:37.560 and not angry about the thing he should actually be angry about.

00:08:41.080 His anger has always been in proportion.

00:08:43.100 It's been the right measure.

00:08:44.400 It's always been timely, and one of his key traits

00:08:46.900 is that he's long-suffering and therefore slow to anger.

00:08:49.900 So he is long-suffering.

00:08:51.140 He is patient.

00:08:51.840 He is kind.

00:08:52.520 So his anger comes exactly at the right moment

00:08:54.940 when the fullness of the measure of his wrath has been filled up.

00:08:59.100 So it's always at the right time.

00:09:00.540 It's always in the right measure, and it's always for the right things.

00:09:05.200 It's always in the right things.

00:09:06.600 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.

00:09:21.480 And really, this stems from a Vantilian, Calvinistic, Reformed, presuppositional worldview.

00:09:29.240 Right?

00:09:29.520 Nothing is neutral.

00:09:31.080 Nothing is neutral.

00:09:32.340 And I want us to see that here in a moment.

00:09:34.020 So here are five lessons that Christians better have learned over the last two years and that 0.54

00:09:40.740 Christians better not forget. We should not have to be taught these lessons more than once. The

00:09:47.100 Lord is patient. He is kind, but we should not put the Lord to the test. How many times must he teach

00:09:54.400 us? Once should be enough. Praise God he's gracious and willing to do it usually more than once,

00:10:00.980 But we should do our best to take away the lessons he's given us.

00:10:03.840 So here's five lessons.

00:10:04.800 Number one, they all start with a P.

00:10:06.320 I try to do some alliteration, make it easy on you, make it easy on me.

00:10:09.100 All right, the first one, post-millennialism.

00:10:12.600 All right?

00:10:13.680 Now, amen, right?

00:10:16.240 Half of you, amen.

00:10:17.660 Now, but here's the beauty.

00:10:18.980 Here's the beauty.

00:10:20.000 All of you, what you're going to love about it, if you're not post-millennial, this is the beauty.

00:10:23.860 You're not here.

00:10:24.920 You're not here unless you want to make a difference.

00:10:27.360 So none of you are the pre-meal that's just putting their head in the sand.

00:10:30.680 So I don't want to make a straw man for pre-meal, you know,

00:10:33.260 and just get a high five with the post-meal guys over there behind the cookies later on.

00:10:38.060 So I'm not going to pick on the pre-meal people, right?

00:10:39.960 John's pre-meal. Praise God, right? 0.63

00:10:41.500 And so you're not, you're all here to make a difference.

00:10:44.060 So you're all living as though you're post-meal, right?

00:10:47.100 So I'm encouraging all of you, right?

00:10:50.020 So here we go.

00:10:50.420 So the first lesson is post-meal.

00:10:52.080 The second, patriarchy.

00:10:53.880 It's another P for you.

00:10:55.440 The next one, third lesson.

00:10:59.260 Third lesson is presuppositionalism.

00:11:01.600 And I'll get into some of the things

00:11:02.600 that I kind of introed with.

00:11:04.040 So presuppositionalism.

00:11:05.480 And the fourth one, proper ecclesiology.

00:11:08.620 I had to put an adjective there to get the P.

00:11:10.400 Proper ecclesiology.

00:11:11.740 And then the last one is going to be,

00:11:14.360 after proper ecclesiology,

00:11:15.900 Protestant-resistant theory.

00:11:17.400 And I'm going to read.

00:11:18.280 I never manuscript,

00:11:19.180 but I'm going to read

00:11:19.840 so that I am concise and efficient.

00:11:22.780 So here we go.

00:11:23.220 post-millennialism, a.k.a. play the long game, play the long game. So regardless of where you're at

00:11:28.280 with your eschatology, pre-mill, post-mill, on-mill, either way, in terms of our practice,

00:11:33.400 play the long game. For those of you who are unfamiliar with my background, I planted and

00:11:37.120 pastored a church in San Diego, California for several years before moving to Williamson County,

00:11:41.460 Texas in December of 2020 to plant the church that I now pastor, which is Covenant Bible Church

00:11:47.320 located in Georgetown, Texas. Now, by God's grace, I had the privilege of baptizing over 100 people

00:11:52.120 during my pastoral service in California.

00:11:54.560 But over the years, I have come to desire more

00:11:57.160 than merely planting churches and baptizing converts.

00:12:00.660 Do not misunderstand me.

00:12:02.120 I never want anything less than this.

00:12:04.600 I simply have grown to desire something more.

00:12:07.820 When I moved to California in 2009,

00:12:10.760 I bit off way more than I could chew.

00:12:12.700 My only aspiration was to plant a church

00:12:14.580 and to see people come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

00:12:17.760 In part, this was due to my specific theological convictions

00:12:21.780 which at the time I was not even aware that I held to such doctrines.

00:12:26.260 But these doctrines were present, all the same, influencing every decision I made.

00:12:31.700 For instance, I assume that Jesus, who would likely come back at any moment,

00:12:36.640 had decreed that everything in this world would continually spiral out of control until he returned.

00:12:41.700 I also assume that the only thing of any real eternal value

00:12:45.740 was preaching the gospel and saving lost souls.

00:12:48.540 So aspirations for founding schools, starting businesses, or running for local political office all seem like worldly and carnal endeavors to me.

00:13:00.400 Sure, these things may have provided some cover, some fire cover, for a little bit. 0.92

00:13:07.600 These things would have maybe provided some benefit to Christians and society at large. 0.61

00:13:12.340 Still, I assumed that the value would be short-lived. 0.68

00:13:15.780 After all, I had been taught that even such atrocities as abortion

00:13:19.060 would never actually end by legislation, but only by heart transformation.

00:13:24.600 And for anyone who doubts that statement, let me remind you that it rhymes, so it must be true.

00:13:29.220 I never stopped, right, but I never stopped to wonder, just for a moment,

00:13:34.520 why there are approximately 1 million abortions in America each year, but only 16,000 homicides.

00:13:40.560 Apparently, legislation does matter.

00:13:43.280 Apparently, as it turns out,

00:13:45.280 people tend to gravitate towards whatever form of murder

00:13:48.020 happens to be legal.

00:13:50.280 Yes, we want to see hearts genuinely changed

00:13:52.560 by the power of the gospel.

00:13:54.680 But throughout human history, deterring wickedness,

00:13:57.960 even in the hearts of unbelievers,

00:13:59.760 through the second use of God's law, theonomy, 0.60

00:14:03.180 if I had a P word for that, I'd get it.

00:14:04.420 By God's law, legislating it, imposing morality,

00:14:09.420 because nothing is neutral,

00:14:10.600 that has also proven to be quite effective.

00:14:14.000 Now, suppose we all,

00:14:15.620 that all we're called to do

00:14:16.680 is plant churches and preach the gospel.

00:14:18.540 Well, then why not commit to exclusively doing this

00:14:20.700 in the most challenging places in the world

00:14:22.920 where the gospel appears to be most needed?

00:14:24.740 That was my mindset when I was 23 and single,

00:14:27.960 and that's what moved me to California, right?

00:14:30.700 If that's all we're doing is planting churches

00:14:32.420 and saving souls,

00:14:33.880 preaching the gospel, converting, baptizing,

00:14:35.920 making converts, and making disciples

00:14:38.040 and teaching them, you know,

00:14:38.900 complementarian relationships in their marriage

00:14:40.420 in their home and those things. If that's all we're doing, if that's the whole enchilada,

00:14:43.920 then why not do it in the most difficult places you could possibly go? Which is why I went to

00:14:48.160 California. But it's also why I was a hypocrite. Because if I really believed that, that's what 0.99

00:14:52.380 I would have said, but if I really believed, then I shouldn't have planned in California, go to North

00:14:56.260 Korea. Let's all go to Ukraine. What's wrong with you? Do you really care? Do you really care? 0.97

00:15:02.160 Why aren't you in Canada? Why aren't you in New Zealand? Why aren't you in Australia?

00:15:05.340 Let's not stop with California.

00:15:07.560 Let's go where it's really hard. 0.97

00:15:09.280 Go to China. 0.99

00:15:10.520 Get in the game. 0.99

00:15:12.020 Right?

00:15:12.240 If that's all it is, if it's just planting churches and snatching souls from the fire,

00:15:16.860 then go where the fire is the hottest.

00:15:18.520 That was my mindset.

00:15:20.840 Why not commit to exclusively doing this in the most challenging places in the world

00:15:24.600 where the gospel appears to be most needed?

00:15:26.600 Heck, why stop with California?

00:15:28.080 If we're serious about following Jesus, we'd move to Russia or Ukraine.

00:15:31.200 on the other hand if it's possible just possible just throwing it out there guys i'm not saying

00:15:35.860 this is true just possible that jesus might tarry for a while say a few thousand years or more

00:15:41.240 and he intends to actually restore the world instead of making it dissolve like snow and

00:15:46.460 annihilating it and he's going to redeem all things and not just the church but all things

00:15:53.140 the cosmos to himself then there may actually be some merit in playing the long game and planting

00:15:58.340 deep roots and a place that

00:16:00.340 actually can produce crops.

00:16:02.840 In California, I felt like I was a farmer

00:16:04.660 in the middle of the Sahara.

00:16:07.680 And one of the things

00:16:08.640 that changed my mind was my theology, for sure.

00:16:11.140 Another thing that changed my mind was the

00:16:12.500 three little girls sitting in the back of the room. 1.00

00:16:15.720 You know,

00:16:16.480 that got me dangerously close to becoming a

00:16:18.460 Presbyterian, right? And you know how

00:16:20.520 men become Presbyterians? 0.61

00:16:22.440 Their wives. And you know how the wives become Presbyterians? 0.77

00:16:24.740 They say, which one of these says that my babies are good?

00:16:27.120 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:16:27.720 yeah, yeah, we baptize our babies in this house, you know, and so I, you know, I came right up to

00:16:32.940 the line. I'm right there, as close as you can get to being a Presbyterian while still being a

00:16:36.380 Reformed Baptist, but the deal is what moved me, what changed my mindset about ministry, about

00:16:40.920 church planting, about everything that got me out of California, all these different things in Texas

00:16:45.440 is I started thinking maybe a momentary tactical retreat might be a good idea if we're not just

00:16:52.860 trying to win the present battle but the war and if the war is going to go on for a long time

00:16:57.980 part of the reason why we lose is because we think that everything's going to be finished in the next

00:17:02.960 15 minutes and so we don't play with a long you know how notice here's one thing i hope you took

00:17:08.700 this away from john's lecture did you notice that one of the things that john did was he tracked

00:17:13.060 through multiple people multiple efforts and multiple not just decades centuries how everything

00:17:19.620 today came about. The left, they play the long game. They're post-millennial. We should be too.

00:17:27.800 We should be too. So all that being said, perhaps Christians would be wise to momentarily fall back 0.99

00:17:33.340 behind enemy lines to rebuild and regroup for a generation or two. That's the first lesson. 0.71

00:17:37.520 Play the long game. Post-millennial. All right. Number two, and you could do it as a non-post-millennial,

00:17:44.280 But that's, think long-term, wherever you're at, eschatology.

00:17:49.020 All right, patriarchy, that's number two.

00:17:51.420 We were talking about this as we were recording, me and John and A.D.,

00:17:54.020 we thought, you know, one of the things that we said is, 0.99

00:17:56.200 it's good to have a word like shibboleth, right?

00:18:00.960 Now, if you're not familiar with that story in the Bible, you know,

00:18:03.320 the Ephraimites, there was a certain thing, a certain Hebrew word

00:18:07.480 that they could not pronounce without their accent betraying them, right, 0.97

00:18:11.460 ousting them. 0.95

00:18:12.000 And people would know, oh, you're not actually Hebrew. 0.75

00:18:14.400 You're not actually the people of God, right? 0.85

00:18:17.000 And J.I. Packer, actually, it was J.I. Packer who said this once upon a time, a few decades

00:18:21.840 back, back with the battles, you know, with inerrancy and those kind of things.

00:18:25.080 And people were thinking, even the conservatives, the good guys, they were thinking, well, let's

00:18:28.380 lower the bar a little bit and say something, right?

00:18:30.880 Let's use a different word that means exactly the same thing.

00:18:33.260 It means exactly the same thing.

00:18:34.660 And they're right.

00:18:35.420 Technically, it means the same thing, but a different word, right?

00:18:38.220 infallibility, or this, or that, you know, but not inerrancy, because it just trips people up,

00:18:44.380 that word. And J.I. Packer said, sometimes it's good to have a word that trips people up.

00:18:48.520 Sometimes it's good to have a shibboleth word that the enemies of God, that reveals them,

00:18:53.880 that gives them away, that they can't say. Patriarchy is a good word. 1.00

00:18:59.640 Complementarian is not good enough anymore. Patriarchy is a great word. I can find a whole 1.00

00:19:04.720 lot about where you're at doctrinally, what you think about the Lord Jesus Christ. I can find out

00:19:08.020 real quick where you're at. If I say, yeah, I'm patriarchal, and I have a wife and three daughters,

00:19:13.720 right? And they're like, oh my gosh, we've got to rescue your wife and three daughters. They must

00:19:16.640 be oppressed, you know? And it's like, okay, yeah, so we're not on the same page, you know? Or they're

00:19:21.200 like, God bless you. Man, your wife and three daughters are probably blessed because God is a

00:19:25.240 father. You know why I'm patriarchal? I'm patriarchal because God identifies himself as a father, and so

00:19:30.300 we have a heavenly father, and we live in the father's world, and we live in the father's world

00:19:34.200 according to the Father's rules,

00:19:35.620 and God the Father, the Heavenly Father,

00:19:37.360 who made his fatherly world with his fatherly rules,

00:19:39.920 has determined to minister to all peoples

00:19:42.140 and all creatures and all creation through fathers

00:19:45.280 in three divinely instituted sovereign spheres,

00:19:49.520 the home, the church, and the state.

00:19:50.820 He works through familial fathers in the home,

00:19:52.740 he works through civil fathers in the state,

00:19:55.720 and he works through ecclesiastical fathers,

00:19:58.160 which is why elders should be men in the church.

00:20:00.660 God the Father blesses all people through fathers.

00:20:04.800 And it is not a coincidence, therefore,

00:20:07.140 that the political left, the cultural left, 0.70

00:20:09.120 those who are enemies of God, 0.75

00:20:10.600 want to destroy fathers. 0.98

00:20:13.660 They hate fathers. 0.96

00:20:15.160 Now, all that being said, here's the irony.

00:20:17.560 They hate fathers because they serve their father. 0.64

00:20:21.700 They are children of the devil, John chapter 8, 0.99

00:20:25.120 the father of lies. 0.97

00:20:27.360 When he lies, he speaks his native tongue, 1.00

00:20:29.340 for he is a liar and the father of lies. 1.00

00:20:32.400 And the reason why they always lie, 0.99

00:20:34.020 the reason we can identify them as Edmund

00:20:35.780 and get a pretty good idea of what's actually true

00:20:38.160 by believing the opposite of what they say

00:20:39.860 is because they lie.

00:20:42.440 And why do they lie?

00:20:43.540 Because they're a chip off the old block. 0.99

00:20:45.600 They lie because they're just like their daddy, the devil. 1.00

00:20:49.720 And they must be born again. 0.99

00:20:52.540 And unless they are born again,

00:20:55.900 not of water, not of the flesh,

00:20:57.920 but spiritually born again,

00:21:00.640 supernaturally born again

00:21:01.780 with a new heart,

00:21:02.560 with a new nature,

00:21:04.100 then they will continue to do

00:21:05.340 what their father does.

00:21:06.420 And their father,

00:21:07.540 until there is rebirth,

00:21:08.960 until there is regeneration

00:21:09.820 by the grace of God,

00:21:11.040 by grace alone,

00:21:11.720 through faith alone,

00:21:12.240 and Christ alone,

00:21:12.840 unless that takes place,

00:21:14.080 their father is not God.

00:21:15.600 God is not a universal father.

00:21:18.180 God is a universal creator.

00:21:20.160 Did you know that?

00:21:20.800 There's a difference.

00:21:21.360 He is the creator

00:21:22.420 of all of creation.

00:21:23.860 So he's universal creator.

00:21:25.120 He is not a universal father.

00:21:26.320 He is only the father

00:21:27.360 of the Lord Jesus Christ and those who have union with him by the Spirit through faith.

00:21:32.000 Apart from that, God is not your father, but that does not mean that you are fatherless. You have a

00:21:36.780 father, even if God is not your father, your father is the devil. And children always bear 0.98

00:21:43.420 a striking resemblance to their father. If the devil is your daddy, you will do what the father,

00:21:50.160 your father does, and he is the father of lies. He's the father of lies. That's why I'm patriarchal. 1.00

00:21:56.180 everything is father everything is society everything in culture and certainly everything

00:22:01.060 in the bible it's it's fatherly language we can't escape it it's a good word shibboleth

00:22:06.100 liberals can't say it we can immediately identify all right so during my pastoral tenure in

00:22:11.300 california i regularly championed the cause of christians being willing to sacrifice for the

00:22:15.760 mission of jesus i passionately preached against the evils of the prosperity gospel which truly is

00:22:20.360 evil. Still, I foolishly conflated this health and wealth heresy with just a genuine, honest desire

00:22:26.360 to make money, start a family, purchase a modest home, and leave up an inheritance for your

00:22:31.700 children's children. That's not the prosperity gospel. That's the Bible. Now, that said, books

00:22:37.900 like Radical, perhaps you've heard of it, books like Radical by David Platt served as my inspiration. 0.59

00:22:44.060 But I fail to recognize how truly radical it is for a Christian man to marry a woman in his youth.

00:22:50.360 to remain faithful to her throughout his entire life,

00:22:53.700 to give to her the blessing of many children,

00:22:56.420 and to work hard to provide for each of them.

00:22:58.960 See, in my assessment, the American church 0.98

00:23:01.240 has too many men who are eager to go to third world countries

00:23:04.620 as missionaries, including the up-and-coming

00:23:07.200 third world country of California,

00:23:09.280 but not nearly enough men who are willing to fight

00:23:11.800 for this country by simply establishing godly households

00:23:15.760 and demonstrating faithfulness to their wives and children.

00:23:19.380 I am now convinced that the vast majority of men in our churches

00:23:22.500 don't need teaching about how to be pastors.

00:23:24.740 Instead, they need teaching about how to be men.

00:23:27.760 They need to be taught how to be husbands, how to be fathers,

00:23:30.620 how to be sons, how to be brothers, how to be entrepreneurs,

00:23:33.440 how to start businesses, how to start publishing companies,

00:23:35.660 how to be authors and write books and artists and all the rest.

00:23:39.280 I wasted far too much time engaging with the men in my previous church

00:23:43.180 about peripheral doctrines and the prospects of

00:23:46.240 maybe one day the Lord will call you to be a pastor or a church planter. And I invested far

00:23:50.620 too little time talking about the fundamentals of what it means to be a Christian man.

00:23:54.780 And so in this way, I failed these men. And in this way, I failed myself. Most importantly,

00:24:00.860 I failed the Lord Jesus Christ. Now these days, I think young Christian men seem to have a lot 1.00

00:24:06.520 in common with the Samaritan woman in John chapter four, verse 16 through 20. Here's the text.

00:24:11.860 Jesus said to her, go and call your husband and come here.

00:24:15.000 And the woman answered, sorry, and the woman answered him, I have no husband. 0.91

00:24:20.340 Jesus said to her, oh, you're right in saying you have no husband,

00:24:23.000 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. 0.99

00:24:26.520 What you have said is true.

00:24:28.720 The woman said, oh, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

00:24:31.760 And immediately changes the subject.

00:24:33.740 Our father is worshiped on this mountain,

00:24:35.380 but you say in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

00:24:38.420 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.

00:24:51.620 Sir, I perceive that you are a theologian.

00:24:53.880 Could you flesh out for me the specific details of superlapsarian as it pertains to the doctrine of limited atonement?

00:24:59.400 It's precisely at this point that a wise pastor will simply respond by saying no.

00:25:05.460 Instead, let's talk about your marriage. 0.97

00:25:09.320 Let's talk about your porn habit. 0.74

00:25:11.460 Let's talk about your parenting. 0.96

00:25:13.280 Let's talk about how you lose your temper.

00:25:15.620 Let's talk about that.

00:25:17.240 It is true that God calls some men to stand up in the pulpit as pastors,

00:25:20.960 but not before these men learn how to stand up for their own wives and their children as husbands and fathers.

00:25:26.820 Biblical manhood in this country has been dying a very slow and painful death for decades. 0.88

00:25:31.040 But when we emasculate Christ's church by championing every feminine characteristic as though it were a virtue 0.70

00:25:37.700 and demonizing every masculine trait

00:25:40.240 as though it was a toxic vice,

00:25:42.700 then what else should we expect?

00:25:44.740 Yes, we need more faithful pastors,

00:25:46.700 but we won't get any

00:25:47.760 until we have more faithful men.

00:25:50.060 For if a man does not know

00:25:51.180 how to manage his own household,

00:25:52.540 how will he care for the household of God?

00:25:55.020 And this is pervasive in evangelicalism

00:25:58.260 and in the reformed camp. 0.86

00:25:59.800 Men who have not managed their own household, 0.53

00:26:01.760 their children aren't serving the Lord, 0.99

00:26:03.080 their marriages are a wreck,

00:26:04.540 they've been divorced,

00:26:05.340 they've been remarried,

00:26:06.380 all those kinds of things,

00:26:07.080 there's a problem and guys aren't addressing it. Let's continue to go. So what does the Bible

00:26:11.960 have to say about true masculinity, biblical masculinity? Perhaps the best place to start 1.00

00:26:16.800 is by looking at some simple biblical commands. As we investigate these commands, I will attempt

00:26:21.660 to demonstrate from my own personal story how a plain reading of scripture is ultimately all it

00:26:27.360 took to convince me that I needed to move out of California. Number one, men as sons, men as sons.

00:26:33.620 Exodus 20, 12 says,

00:26:35.280 Honor thy father and mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God has given you.

00:26:39.960 Although obedience to our parents is a temporary command issued to younger children while they remain at home,

00:26:45.160 the command to honor our fathers and mothers is a lifelong command that continues even for adult children.

00:26:50.320 Now, for quite some time, my parents were doing everything they could to transition from Bay City, Texas,

00:26:55.800 that's in Matagord County, to San Diego, California, when I was pastoring there.

00:26:59.480 They desperately wanted to be closer to their adult children, and let's be honest,

00:27:02.900 mainly the grandchildren. Although my parents were diligently trying their best to achieve this goal,

00:27:08.120 it was doubtful that two individuals who had lived most of their adult lives in one of the poorest

00:27:12.480 counties of Texas would be able to successfully retire in one of the most expensive cities

00:27:16.920 in the nation, which actually was just rated the worst city in the nation to live in. Beat San

00:27:21.840 Francisco even, in terms of the ratio between cost of living and jobs. San Diego, horrible,

00:27:28.640 horrible place economically to live. Now, over time, I became convinced that I had an obligation

00:27:35.560 to help provide for my aging parents by ensuring that they were able to fulfill their heart's

00:27:41.020 desires. 1 Timothy 5, verse 4 says, but if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first

00:27:46.900 learn to show godliness to their own household and make some return to their parents. For this

00:27:53.100 is pleasing in the sight of God. Now, although this biblical text specifically references elderly

00:27:57.920 widows, I have come to believe that it is still pleasing in the sight of God when adult children

00:28:03.060 earnestly seek to make some return to their parents, even when both father and mother are

00:28:07.440 still living. That's men as sons. That made me leave California. What about men as fathers? Here's

00:28:12.560 another biblical command. Genesis 128, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

00:28:18.340 As the scripture testifies, children are most assuredly a blessing from the Lord. Psalm 127 3.

00:28:23.560 and while I will maintain that scripture allows for some measure of careful and ethical family

00:28:28.340 planning, that is contraceptives that do not impose abortive risk, the pill I believe is sin,

00:28:34.440 I am convinced, however, that in most circumstances married couples will do well to have several

00:28:40.440 children. That's Psalm 127 verse 5. However, procreation is just one small portion of the task

00:28:47.540 that the Lord has assigned to parents. In addition to producing offspring, the father must be

00:28:52.620 willing and able to protect and provide for his children. Now, at the risk of sounding overly

00:28:59.000 simplistic, protect and provide, you might say that every man needs a job, provide, and a gun,

00:29:05.080 protect. Two vital commodities that California politicians are working tirelessly to eradicate.

00:29:11.160 Guns and jobs. There will be no guns, there will be no jobs in California, says Gavin Newsom,

00:29:17.300 and he's doing a bang-up job. If that's his goal, nailing it. Now, a significant component of this

00:29:24.020 provision, fathers provide and protect, this provision includes the children's education.

00:29:29.820 Here's another verse, Ephesians 6, 4. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them

00:29:34.940 up in the discipline and instruction, the fear and admonition of the Lord. In light of biblical

00:29:40.140 texts such as this, it appears evident that a Christian man cannot merely abdicate his fatherly

00:29:45.600 duty by handing his children over to the secular state to be educated. This is especially true in 0.57

00:29:51.100 a state like California, but let me be clear. I believe it's just as true in Williamson County.

00:29:57.900 Now, this means that a husband and wife will be required to homeschool their children or pay a 0.95

00:30:04.780 significant amount to place each of their kids in a private Christian school, not Christians in 0.88

00:30:09.460 education. You know there's a difference, right? Right? Well, our kids have Christian teachers in 0.96

00:30:14.140 their public school. They identify as Christians. There's a difference in Christians in education

00:30:18.940 and a distinctly Christian education. A Christian education doesn't just mean a Christian is 0.57

00:30:22.980 teaching it. It means the education, the content, the curriculum itself comes from a Christian

00:30:28.520 worldview. And that doesn't just mean a 45-minute Bible class and then we go into pagan doctrine.

00:30:33.720 No, it means math through a Christian worldview. It means engineering, right? I want a Christian

00:30:39.700 engineer, right? It's just like what Martin Luther said. The first implication of the gospel

00:30:46.580 and the cobbler is not that he makes Christian shoes, but he makes good shoes, right? So if you

00:30:50.860 start a restaurant and you have John 3, 16 on the bottom of the inside of the cup, that doesn't

00:30:54.740 necessarily make it a Christian restaurant. You know what makes it a Christian restaurant? When

00:30:59.120 the owners of the restaurant submit to the law of God and they love the Lord Jesus Christ and they

00:31:04.320 make good food. They make good food, right? So a Christian engineer is somebody who builds a plane

00:31:10.620 that doesn't fall apart in midair, and who recognizes the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's the

00:31:16.020 basis for them building that plane, right? The atheist, he can't account for the way that he

00:31:22.060 lives. His worldview doesn't validate his life, right? He believes everything is chaos. Everything

00:31:27.780 is random. The whole scientific method and all of it, observation completely falls apart if you

00:31:33.540 don't believe that the world was designed by a creator, by an architect, and therefore we can

00:31:38.780 expect to detect reoccurring consistent patterns, right? The atheist doesn't, they have no basis 0.85

00:31:45.700 for patterns in the cosmos, and therefore they have no basis for laws of physics and laws of 0.85

00:31:51.660 gravity and all these, no basis whatsoever. So I don't want a committed atheist building the plane 0.95

00:31:56.900 that I'm going to get my wife and children on. Now, you know what? In God's common grace,

00:32:01.280 not special grace, regeneration, but in his common grace, atheists don't actually believe what they

00:32:06.720 claim to believe. And that's why atheists make good planes. Because they believe like atheists,

00:32:12.300 but they build planes like Christians. Because only Christians can build good planes. Period. 1.00

00:32:18.520 So, all that being said, you need your kids not just to have Christians in education, but to get 0.53

00:32:22.480 a Christian education. And there's only really two ways to go about that. It means that your wife 0.53

00:32:27.420 can't supplement your income, husbands, because she's got to do homeschool. Or it means that 0.57

00:32:34.320 all of your expenses that you already have, go ahead and add about a grand monthly to send your

00:32:41.560 kids to a Christian school. And I would advocate for that being a classical Christian school.

00:32:47.720 my point is this part of biblical masculinity is money and that doesn't mean that you have to be

00:32:57.720 rich to follow jesus but what i'm saying is there is a cost to discipleship there is a relational

00:33:03.200 cost mother and father if you want if you're not willing to lose mother and father and this and

00:33:08.640 for my sake you're not worthy of me there's a relational cost when jesus calls someone to be

00:33:13.580 his disciple. You beg and you plead for all of your

00:33:17.720 relationships to follow Jesus with you. Jesus has called me.

00:33:21.440 He's called me, and I am following him, and I hope, I pray

00:33:25.140 that you would heed his call and come with me. Come.

00:33:29.360 We found the Messiah. We found him. Come and see. But sometimes

00:33:33.620 they don't come, and therefore you must leave some of the

00:33:37.620 closest and dearest relationships in your life. Leave father and mother. So there's a relational cost.

00:33:41.600 right but but there's there's not just a relational cost there is a financial cost

00:33:46.360 to following jesus there is here's one of the financial costs right and this will

00:33:51.880 prove that john and ad are not pastors and i'm the pastor in the group part of the cost is 10

00:33:56.260 of your income well that's law giving that's old testament you know all right i'm down for gospel

00:34:03.300 giving all right this new testament well it's not it's not you know the tithe is not in the

00:34:06.440 New Testament. It's just gospel giving. My question, though, is how come gospel giving always in real

00:34:13.040 dollars and cents equates to less cash in the offering plate than law giving? And if we're

00:34:19.380 going to be theonomous, which I am, you don't have to be, but I am, then what we hold when it comes

00:34:24.480 to the civil law of God is the general equity. And that's not just theonomous. I mean, that's

00:34:29.120 Westminster. If you're confessionally reformed, that's 1689. That's Westminster. That's the

00:34:33.260 doctrine of the law of God, right? The moral law of God, the Ten Commandments, endures forever.

00:34:37.220 And the civil law, we take the general equity, right? So don't muzzle the ox while he treads the

00:34:42.540 grain. And it's not just because God is concerned about oxen, although our compassionate God is.

00:34:46.900 He has compassion on all he has made, says the Psalms. But he's also using the general equity,

00:34:52.120 Paul does in the New Testament, to make an argument for paying pastures from the ox thing,

00:34:56.660 right? In the same way, we take the general equity of building a border, a fence line around the

00:35:00.520 perimeter of your roof, because when it was hot in the summer months, people would sleep on top of

00:35:04.480 the roof with no AC to get a cool breeze, and if there wasn't a border, you might roll off, you

00:35:09.560 might get seriously injured or die. And we take the general equity of that, and we don't go around

00:35:13.720 and police, say, if you don't have a border on the top of your roof, then you're getting a fine.

00:35:18.300 But what we do is we take the general equity, thou must esteem and defend and cherish the

00:35:22.840 sanctity of human life. And what we do is we take the general equity of that civil code, case law,

00:35:28.340 given to Israel, and we apply that with something like speed limits. And our nation has done this. 0.72

00:35:34.040 This is why our nation has such just laws. And you can link the justice of our law system

00:35:40.580 directly to the monetary wealth. Our nation has prospered because our nation has been just.

00:35:50.260 And our nation has been just because our nation has been Christian. Well, wait a second. I don't 0.84

00:35:54.980 think America is a Christian nation. Here's the deal about America. I believe that America is 1.00

00:36:00.180 currently an apostate nation because I believe that America made a covenant with God. That doesn't

00:36:06.460 mean it's on par with the covenant that Israel made with God. That's unique. That's unique, and it

00:36:11.440 doesn't mean America is the equivalent of Israel, and it certainly doesn't mean America is the

00:36:15.020 equivalent of the church. No, but I do believe that individual nations, ethnic nations, they

00:36:22.960 ultimately are underneath the lordship of jesus christ he is lord and you either love him or hate

00:36:28.080 him bless him or curse him but every individual has a relationship with jesus it's a good one or

00:36:32.920 a bad one and likewise every single nation has a relationship with jesus and the reason why is

00:36:37.700 because the nations not just does god give them not only does god give them the permission to

00:36:44.780 exist but god ensures not only that it's right for them to exist today but that they will

00:36:49.060 indefinitely exist until jesus comes back because the nations are his inheritance they are his

00:36:54.680 inheritance and so america made a deal with god and that's why we've been so blessed we modeled

00:36:59.720 our laws and all these things off of biblical law biblical law taking extracting the general

00:37:05.960 equity from the civil law taking the moral law the ten commandments and putting it in two or three

00:37:10.640 witnesses and as we've turned our back on biblical justice and all these different things we're all

00:37:17.420 of a sudden, it's not a coincidence that we turn from

00:37:19.340 justice, and we're also experiencing inflation.

00:37:22.780 Right?

00:37:23.340 There is a blessing with obedience.

00:37:25.680 There's a blessing with obedience.

00:37:27.280 That's not prosperity gospel. Prosperity

00:37:29.320 gospel is this. If I teach my daughters

00:37:31.180 that every single week, on Fridays,

00:37:34.320 on their way home from school,

00:37:35.240 if they stop, and let's say it's legally, you know,

00:37:37.380 able for them to do this, they stop

00:37:39.480 and they buy a lotto ticket. If you

00:37:41.220 faithfully buy a lotto ticket once a week,

00:37:43.240 you eventually will win the lottery. That's

00:37:45.180 prosperity gospel. But if I tell

00:37:47.160 my daughters, and our son now on the way, if I tell my son, I'll use him as an example, if I tell

00:37:55.100 him, if you keep your vows to your wife, you love your children, you fear the Lord, and you work hard

00:38:00.720 with integrity, then eventually you'll do pretty well. You'll do pretty well. And you might say,

00:38:08.460 that's the prosperity gospel. No, that's not the prosperity gospel. That's work. That's sowing and

00:38:14.120 reaping God will not be mocked that's that's just that's the basic principles of scripture you might

00:38:19.500 say well but there are times where that doesn't happen right you work hard you have integrity

00:38:22.440 you fear the Lord and you get cancer yeah that's that's true but but but that's the minority and

00:38:27.760 when you get cancer bless the Lord he gives and takes away he's still sovereign and everything

00:38:31.360 he does is for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes

00:38:34.260 but but for us to to say well there are exceptions to the rule people suffer and then to make the

00:38:41.680 exception, the norm. That's the very thing that the left does, right? It's always taking everyone

00:38:46.480 down. How do you get equality? You suppress everyone down to the common denominator, the lowest

00:38:51.460 rung. And we do that in our theology. Because somebody is suffering, has cancer, and lost their

00:38:56.340 job, we say, well, I guess we shouldn't really teach people that if they're faithful, God will

00:39:00.560 bless them. Because sometimes it doesn't happen. But Paul makes no caveats. He makes no disclaimers.

00:39:06.160 And this is the New Testament. He quotes, he quotes the fifth commandment. Children, honor your father

00:39:11.380 and mother and then without any equivocation he gives the same blessing the same promise for this

00:39:16.940 is the first commandment with a promise that it will go well with you and your days will be long

00:39:19.700 in the earth but but what about children that are obedient and and die and drown in a pool at five

00:39:24.220 years old god forbid i i don't know ask the apostle paul he doesn't include that no parenthetical

00:39:31.720 statement no no disclaimer obedience blessing obedience blessing not not faith in the lottery

00:39:40.880 ticket blessing. That's prosperity. But also, we don't want to be prosperity, but we also don't

00:39:45.520 want to be poverty. What we want to believe is biblical theology. Work, sowing, you will reap.

00:39:53.540 God is faithful. He will not be mocked. And I think that us kind of buying into a poverty gospel,

00:39:59.200 some of these teachings coming from John Piper. And I think us buying some of these things,

00:40:03.520 along with things like two kingdom theology, along with things, I think, in the eschatology realm,

00:40:08.100 but all these things together in a mixed bag basically said

00:40:11.300 Jesus is coming back any second so you really don't need to put down deep roots

00:40:15.700 and if you do put down deep roots well God is

00:40:18.940 like Russian roulette you know like God there's no rhyme and reason to God

00:40:22.360 God is just a loose cannon he does whatever he wants he's random you know and

00:40:26.820 God is sovereign but sovereign and random are not the same thing but that's how we

00:40:30.960 taught so we said like yeah you can obey but that really doesn't guarantee blessing even though the Bible

00:40:34.740 explicitly says it does. Explicitly. And we did all these things

00:40:39.520 because we were afraid that to say anything other than that, all of a sudden

00:40:43.180 you would be like Kenneth Copeland. And I just want to say, brothers and sisters, this is a

00:40:47.200 sliding scale. There is a massive difference, a massive distance

00:40:51.540 between Kenneth Copeland and believing that

00:40:55.160 if we obey, the Lord blesses us.

00:40:58.100 It can't just be like, if you obey, God is sovereign, you'll probably die. You know, anyways, Shadrach, Meshach,

00:41:03.040 and Abednego, you know, like that's the outcome for everybody. Okay, yeah, them, but there's also

00:41:07.100 Abraham, right? They're not the only biblical example. Some were thrown to the lions. Some

00:41:11.860 were drawn in quarter, sawed in two, right? And the Bible commends them in the Hall of Fame. 0.93

00:41:17.120 But others were rich and blessed. And so for us to say, well, don't work hard and don't do this

00:41:24.160 and don't play the long game and all these kind of things, because who knows what's going to happen?

00:41:27.700 That's why we lose. Now, if you're pre-mill because it's your actual conviction, praise God,

00:41:33.040 good on you. But if you're a self-fulfilling prophet, shame on you. If you're trying to make

00:41:40.260 your pre-meal doctrine correct by acting in such a way to ensure that we lose, shame on you. Dig

00:41:49.100 deep. Plant deep. Put down foundations. Play the long game. Think generational. A good man leaves

00:41:59.500 an inheritance for his children's children. That's a spiritual inheritance. Yes and amen.

00:42:04.680 Cannot be less than a spiritual inheritance. But could it be more? Could it also be a financial

00:42:10.920 inheritance? Is it not a shame? Think about this. Is it not a shame that the boomer generation

00:42:16.620 is proud to drive cars with a bumper sticker that says, I'm spending my grandchildren's 0.89

00:42:22.640 inheritance. What would God say about that? It's a shame. It's a shame. It's an indictment of an

00:42:31.860 entire generation. They're not thinking biblically. I want to build wealth because I need a $58

00:42:42.160 million jet plane. No. No, because I want to be faithful to the Lord. And I don't want to have a

00:42:49.440 disney fairy princess view of economics i want to read the bible and thomas soul

00:42:54.960 i want to be wise because i want to win i want to do a lot for the kingdom i want to plant churches

00:43:02.760 i want to make disciples and i want to baptize them and i never want to do less but as i get

00:43:08.360 older and i have children and i start thinking down the line decades centuries i want to do more

00:43:15.720 Never want to do less.

00:43:17.320 But I want to do a lot more patriarchy.

00:43:20.580 So be post-mail.

00:43:22.160 Or at least play the long game.

00:43:24.720 Be inconsistently pre-mail.

00:43:27.980 And then also, be patriarchal.

00:43:30.700 Be patriarchal, okay?

00:43:32.180 After that, the next one is be presuppositional.

00:43:35.700 This is what I started with, Edmund, Lucy, the whole Chronicles of Narnia.

00:43:38.500 I'll go quick.

00:43:39.260 The myth of neutrality.

00:43:40.960 That's what I mean.

00:43:41.820 You've got to learn this lesson over the last two years.

00:43:44.100 we learned this lesson. Don't forget it. We should not have to be taught this a second time

00:43:49.360 because we were already taught it like 10 times in the last 22 months. We should not have to be

00:43:55.320 taught again. Presuppositionalism. Everyone has an allegiance. Neutrality is a myth. Everything is

00:44:01.840 moral, and it's either for Christ or against them. It's of the utmost importance that we remind

00:44:07.440 ourselves that although we should resist the temptation of politicizing everything, everything

00:44:12.320 is still being politicized for us by someone else.

00:44:16.280 Christians must exercise, therefore, careful discernment

00:44:19.460 as we swim through the sea of information

00:44:22.680 provided by secular sources.

00:44:24.640 Now, do Christians hold to the doctrine of common grace?

00:44:27.480 Yes.

00:44:28.700 By borrowing from the Christian worldview,

00:44:30.920 can an atheist make certain discoveries 0.91

00:44:32.540 that are actually true? 0.79

00:44:34.620 Yes.

00:44:35.660 However, as Christians, we must recognize

00:44:38.020 that every man has an allegiance.

00:44:40.200 Matthew 12, 30.

00:44:41.380 whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. In other words,

00:44:46.880 Christians must better familiarize themselves with the myth of neutrality. Now, a few years 0.98

00:44:53.340 ago, I was profoundly challenged by a small book that presented a concise rebuttal to the two-kingdom

00:44:58.360 theology, particularly R2K, radical two-kingdom theology that comes out of Escondido, Westminster.

00:45:05.280 In this book, the author pushed back on one two-kingdom advocate, his assertion that there's

00:45:10.420 nothing moral or theological about making stir-fry. Now, the author did this by providing

00:45:15.700 examples of a certain cannibalistic tribe that would fry their victims' flesh with vegetables

00:45:20.580 in a pan. Apparently, even stir-fry cooks are influenced by their theology. Even stir-fry

00:45:27.460 can be moral. It's not neutral. Now, it's been said, never let a good crisis go to waste.

00:45:33.940 Ever heard that? Crisis is key for the political left in our nation because individual liberty

00:45:39.340 always seems to get in the way of progressive political agendas.

00:45:43.060 So how does the political left find its way around these pesky provisions

00:45:47.620 outlined in a little thing called the Constitution?

00:45:50.820 What they do is they incessantly search for ways to convince the masses,

00:45:54.460 the public, to trade in their liberties for something else.

00:45:58.840 It's a classic bait-and-switch maneuver,

00:46:00.820 and almost nothing historically has served as more enticing bait

00:46:04.740 than public safety.

00:46:06.420 personal liberty for public safety a terrible trade to be sure but a decision that our nation

00:46:14.740 has been willing to make time and time again in the 70s it was global cooling you might have

00:46:20.660 forgotten that one in the 80s it was global warming later this evolved into climate change

00:46:25.220 and then as if right on schedule our politicians have informed us that we're entering into a

00:46:30.180 climate crisis now due to this claim the democrats attempted to slip elements of the green new deal

00:46:35.800 into the relief package for COVID-19.

00:46:38.320 What do they have to do with one another?

00:46:40.460 But there it is, right there.

00:46:42.460 Again, crisis is key for any political leader

00:46:44.600 that yearns for more power.

00:46:46.260 However, for this crisis strategy to work,

00:46:48.820 the ruling elites must somehow convince

00:46:50.600 the general public that the crisis actually exists.

00:46:54.160 This task requires at least two primary institutions,

00:46:58.020 academia and the media.

00:47:00.340 The myth of neutrality encompasses everything,

00:47:02.680 even the collection and presentation of data.

00:47:06.960 When we read studies which promote themselves

00:47:09.320 as politically neutral and strictly following the science,

00:47:13.280 we should do so with a certain degree

00:47:15.020 of what I like to call holy suspicion.

00:47:17.760 If any two spheres have been completely monopolized

00:47:20.900 by progressives in our nation,

00:47:23.600 they are undoubtedly the spheres of academia and the media.

00:47:28.160 The left owns our nation's universities.

00:47:30.400 Think Harvard, Yale, Oxford. 0.95

00:47:32.720 And they ruled them with an iron fist.

00:47:35.660 Therefore, if we genuinely believe that neutrality is a myth

00:47:38.440 and that our theology and morality influence every area of our lives,

00:47:43.080 we must commit to exercising careful discernment as we read any academic report.

00:47:49.400 Again, the political left dominates not only universities, but also the legacy media.

00:47:54.580 Universities do the research, and the media presents their findings.

00:47:58.520 godless Yale, and the godless New York Times

00:48:00.940 working in perfect concert. 1.00

00:48:03.240 Once more, can unbelievers contribute in helpful ways

00:48:05.900 due to God's common grace?

00:48:07.460 Absolutely, yes and amen.

00:48:10.180 So as Christians, there are many times

00:48:12.160 when we should be willing to read these academic reports.

00:48:15.820 I am merely advocating that when we read them,

00:48:18.540 we read them as Christians. 1.00

00:48:22.340 Slow to speak, quick to listen, 0.97

00:48:25.080 examining against the unchanging standard of the Word of God.

00:48:31.580 Being slow, being wise, exercising discernment. 0.98

00:48:35.920 There appear to be at least two common pitfalls for Christians

00:48:38.720 during these trying times. 1.00

00:48:40.880 First, there are Christians who can ignore 1.00

00:48:43.720 any negative possible outcomes without credible reasoning 1.00

00:48:47.940 simply because we can't stomach the results.

00:48:51.340 This is called denial.

00:48:52.500 Now, denial, while possessing the veneer of courage, is actually a subtle form of fear.

00:49:00.380 Denial is not courage.

00:49:02.200 Denial is actually fear cloaked in courage.

00:49:06.280 If it's baseless, denial.

00:49:09.020 If you've got a reason, an objective reason from the Word of God to deny something, then deny.

00:49:14.600 Now, second, we can believe everything, and this is where most of our nation would fall,

00:49:19.000 we can believe everything the moment we hear it without any ounce of suspicion,

00:49:23.440 without any scrutiny.

00:49:25.360 Our secular universities and left political medium

00:49:28.080 have overplayed virtually every crisis there has ever been,

00:49:33.120 often pulling crises out of thin air.

00:49:36.260 It behooves us, therefore, to remember that these are the same people

00:49:40.180 who assured us that everyone would be dead by now

00:49:42.360 if we did not begin using solar panels and driving electric cars.

00:49:46.120 Therefore, Christians need courage

00:49:47.980 so that we do not give into the temptation

00:49:49.940 of baseless denial.

00:49:51.900 And yet, Christians also require courage

00:49:54.220 so that we stop immediately forfeiting

00:49:56.020 all of our God-given rights

00:49:57.740 every time we hear a negative report

00:49:59.960 simply because it flies under the banner of science.

00:50:04.380 Numbers 13, 30 through 32.

00:50:06.100 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said,

00:50:08.920 Let us go up at once and occupy the land,

00:50:12.220 for we are well able to overcome it.

00:50:16.320 Then the men who had gone up with him said,

00:50:19.220 we are not able to go up against the people

00:50:21.420 for they are stronger than we are.

00:50:23.480 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report,

00:50:27.880 a bad report of the land that they had spied out saying,

00:50:30.380 the land through which we have gone to spy out

00:50:33.680 is a land that devours its inhabitants

00:50:35.720 and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.

00:50:40.640 Let's be like Caleb.

00:50:42.020 Let's be like Joshua.

00:50:43.600 Let's not, when we get a bad report,

00:50:46.340 not basis denial, right?

00:50:48.300 There's a fine line between faith and insanity.

00:50:52.400 Okay, we don't want to be insane.

00:50:55.020 I've said it like this in the past.

00:50:57.160 Sometimes, sometimes wisdom is a euphemism for fear.

00:51:00.520 Have you noticed that?

00:51:01.220 Sometimes wisdom is a euphemism,

00:51:02.460 I'm just being wise. 0.99

00:51:03.260 No, you're being cowardly. 0.99

00:51:04.540 You're being cowardly. 0.99

00:51:05.180 But then also sometimes faith is a euphemism 1.00

00:51:07.920 for foolishness.

00:51:09.320 So there's a very thin line, a razor's edge 0.87

00:51:11.500 between faith and foolishness.

00:51:13.440 We want faith, but not insanity,

00:51:15.440 not baseless denial.

00:51:16.600 And likewise, there's a very razor-edge,

00:51:18.500 thin line between wisdom and fear.

00:51:20.280 We want to be wise, but not cowards.

00:51:23.220 Not labeling it as wisdom

00:51:25.580 when really it's just cowardice.

00:51:27.600 Right, so let's be filled with faith,

00:51:29.440 filled with wisdom.

00:51:30.100 Not fearful, not foolish.

00:51:32.560 Let's be presuppositional.

00:51:34.420 Let's recognize the myth of neutrality.

00:51:36.260 Let's have holy suspicion.

00:51:38.380 Let's exercise discernment.

00:51:41.040 Let's work our way,

00:51:42.680 navigate through all of the lies.

00:51:46.300 Christians should be able to do this.

00:51:47.780 We should.

00:51:48.580 We should not take the bait.

00:51:50.520 We should not be so easily deceived.

00:51:52.380 Proper ecclesiology.

00:51:53.400 How much time do I have?

00:51:54.100 Zero, huh?

00:51:55.260 4.30.

00:51:55.820 What time did we start, Nate?

00:52:00.620 53 minutes.

00:52:01.340 I'm going to go for seven more minutes.

00:52:02.300 Here we go.

00:52:02.860 Allow me to be abundantly clear.

00:52:04.080 I firmly believe with every fiber of my being

00:52:05.900 that the church,

00:52:06.860 not merely individual believers themselves,

00:52:08.580 but the gathered assembly of these believers on the Lord's Day is absolutely essential.

00:52:13.780 The church is essential, and I'm talking about the church when it churches,

00:52:17.820 the church when it assembles, the church when it gathers on the Lord's Day

00:52:21.840 for the rightly preached word, the rightly administered sacraments,

00:52:26.740 church discipline, the whole nine yards.

00:52:28.280 That is essential.

00:52:29.460 However, what I noticed over the last two years is this. 0.60

00:52:32.300 Even among Christians who are convinced that the church is essential,

00:52:34.940 many remain suspicious of its genuine necessity. 0.98

00:52:38.180 This suspicion is likely because many Christians,

00:52:41.000 they understand, they affirm that the church is essential,

00:52:44.060 but they don't see how the church is unique.

00:52:47.020 They think it's essential, but they don't think it's unique. 1.00

00:52:50.060 In our day, there appears to be an alarming amount of Christians 0.98

00:52:52.800 who are simply unaware of what actually occurs

00:52:55.200 in the gathered assembly of the saints on the Lord's Day.

00:52:57.740 They fail to see how what takes place at church 0.93

00:53:00.500 is categorically distinct from what individual Christians do

00:53:03.300 all week long in their private practices of piety.

00:53:05.840 prayer scripture reading fasting therefore pastors must labor to teach their congregations that when

00:53:12.180 we come together on the lord's day we do not merely experience the heightened benefits of

00:53:16.500 individual christian practices due to the reality of being surrounded by other brothers and sisters

00:53:21.020 in christ instead what takes place in the gathered assembly is a spiritual reality that occurs in no

00:53:27.400 other earthly context according to scripture when true churches that is orthodox churches

00:53:33.380 orthodox churches with which faithfully proclaim both law and gospel when true churches gather

00:53:39.020 together on the lord's day and rightly administer the ordinary means of grace which is to publicly

00:53:44.020 preach the word publicly pray the word publicly sing the word psalms hymns spiritual songs and

00:53:50.060 publicly see s-e-e-c the word in the sacrament of the lord's supper and baptism when churches true

00:53:57.060 churches gather together for this purpose the bible tells us that christ himself begins to walk

00:54:02.800 among the lampstands. The lampstands are the churches themselves, and Christ holds the angels

00:54:08.960 of these churches in his right hand. The angels are the gospel ministers who've been tasked with

00:54:14.320 the faithful proclamation of God's word. And as these angels begin to preach, a double-edged sword

00:54:20.580 does not merely proceed from their mouth, but from the mouth of Christ himself, and it begins to

00:54:26.840 pierce the hearts of men all that is according to revelation chapter 1 verse 10 through 16 now

00:54:32.980 since some of you do not appreciate my exegesis of revelation allow me to present a biblical case

00:54:39.600 from matthew 18 verse 17 through 20 if this is my exegesis baked in if the impenitent church member

00:54:47.420 currently under formal church discipline refuses to listen to the two or three witnesses who have

00:54:52.540 confronted him, then tell it to, not the elders of the church, not the presbytery, but the gathered

00:54:58.000 assembly on the Lord's day. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, the gathered assembly

00:55:04.360 of church members, elders, deacons, and members on the Lord's day, if he refuses to listen even to 0.96

00:55:09.280 the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector, aka as an outsider no longer 0.83

00:55:15.280 considered to be a brother or sister in Christ. Truly, Jesus goes on, truly, I say to you, whatever 0.93

00:55:21.840 you, the gathered assembly of the church, bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you

00:55:29.420 loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about

00:55:35.840 anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. For where two or

00:55:41.560 three are gathered in my name, that is, wherever a true church exists and is assembled, there I am

00:55:50.060 among them. So according to Jesus, the minimal requirement for constituting a biblical true

00:55:56.000 church is the presence of two or three baptized believers who have made a public and credible

00:56:02.180 profession of their faith and who have covenanted with one another in a local context to follow

00:56:09.560 all of Christ's commands while teaching others to do likewise. And when true churches, that's

00:56:15.480 Jesus' definition of a church. And when true churches that meet this definition

00:56:19.020 gather in Jesus' name on the Lord's day for the ordinary means of grace,

00:56:23.700 preaching the word, praying the word, singing the word, seeing the word,

00:56:27.320 when this takes place, Jesus promises to be present

00:56:30.940 among them. In other words, Jesus who is always present

00:56:35.180 with all believers at all times by virtue of the indwelling

00:56:39.180 ministry of the Spirit, this Jesus who is always present promises

00:56:43.320 is to be uniquely present at church.

00:56:47.460 And the reason why pastors and churches

00:56:49.720 were completely fine to do church online,

00:56:52.040 and some of them are still doing it,

00:56:54.340 is because although they claim church is essential,

00:56:57.600 you can't actually logically believe

00:57:00.600 in the essential nature of church

00:57:02.960 unless you believe this thing you're calling essential

00:57:05.200 also happens to be unique.

00:57:08.300 And for most of us,

00:57:09.420 we did not have proper ecclesiology

00:57:11.540 going into March 2020.

00:57:13.320 we thought there's no real difference

00:57:15.740 between church and our

00:57:17.740 private practices of piety. Really

00:57:19.680 the only difference is relationally.

00:57:21.940 The community. And I can go and see

00:57:23.700 people on a Tuesday night. Our small

00:57:25.620 group still meets. I still have

00:57:27.760 the relationships. And I'm leading worship

00:57:29.600 in our home and we live stream the sermon.

00:57:31.860 And we're completely

00:57:33.060 comfortable giving up, gathering together

00:57:35.860 on the Lord's Day, Hebrews 10.25

00:57:37.520 because, although we would say

00:57:39.840 church is essential, we did not

00:57:41.860 see that church is unique. And what makes church unique, among many things, is that Christ promises

00:57:46.880 to be uniquely present. Christ is present on the Lord's day when your biblical church, if you belong

00:57:52.140 to biblical church, when you show up on the Lord's day for church, Christ is there in a special way,

00:57:59.240 in a way that he's not in your home, in your living room, with your family worship. Christ is not, and

00:58:03.980 I'm the pastor, but Christ is still, he is not present in my living room when I do family worship

00:58:08.060 with my family. He's not present in the same way that he is on the Lord's Day when we meet at a

00:58:13.760 barbecue restaurant because that's church. Church is special. It is. The Bible tells me so. So proper

00:58:21.080 ecclesiology. I'm going to skip the rest of that. Here's the last one. Number five. Number five is

00:58:25.780 got to remember Protestant resistant theory, right? That's a real quick topic. But Protestant

00:58:30.100 resistance theory, I'm just going to read a couple paragraphs of what I wrote. When it comes to the

00:58:33.520 christians duty to submit to the civil authorities it is vital that we rightly interpret the whole

00:58:38.400 of scripture it's crucial that we recognize that romans 13 that is the biblical text that is so

00:58:43.500 often cited for why churches should comply with every government regulation that it says nothing

00:58:48.060 explicitly about christians being required by god to submit to unrighteous rulings handed down

00:58:53.140 by tyrannical overlords instead romans 13 merely describes god's good and holy purposes for civil

00:58:59.460 governments. And therefore, the text assumes that Christians would do well to submit to these 0.57

00:59:04.560 civil governments. Now, all that be said, here's the text. Therefore, Romans 13, my exegesis baked

00:59:11.640 in. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed. And those who

00:59:16.800 resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to those with good conduct, but those

00:59:21.700 with bad. Would you have no fear of the one who has authority over you? Then do what is good,

00:59:26.760 and you will receive his approval for he is god's servant for your good but if you do wrong be afraid

00:59:32.820 for he does not bear the sword in vain for he is a servant of god an avenger who carries out god's

00:59:38.260 wrath on the wrongdoer therefore one must be in subjection all right now notice this is what the

00:59:43.840 text does not say it does not say would you have no fear the one who's in authority then do whatever

00:59:48.440 he says no it says then do what is good according to who don't you think the assumption of the

00:59:55.780 apostle Paul's. It's not, would you have no fear of the one who rules over you? Then do whatever

00:59:59.040 he says is good, regardless of whether or not it measures up to God's unchanging standard.

01:00:04.140 No, would you have no fear of the one who rules over you, the civil magistrate? Then do what is

01:00:07.820 good. And what is good? What is truly good, that which is in accordance with God's law. That's

01:00:14.360 what Paul's saying. You don't want to be afraid of the one who rules over you? Then do what is

01:00:17.900 good, and you will receive his approval. So Paul's assuming that the civil magistrate is moral,

01:00:23.080 that he's functioning as an avenger, God's avenger, as a servant, God's deacon. That's what he's

01:00:29.440 assuming. You'll receive his approval for he is, the text doesn't say this, an autonomous agent

01:00:34.860 working on his own behalf for his own benefit. No. Instead, the text says, would you have no fear

01:00:40.040 of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, that is what is objectively good according

01:00:44.320 to God's unchanging moral standard, and you will receive his approval for he is God's deacon. He

01:00:50.300 works for God. And he has to submit, ultimately, to God's design for government and function within

01:00:57.820 God's perimeters for civil authorities. That is for your good. And for your good, what is your good?

01:01:03.900 That is your true and lasting good in accordance with what God commands in Scripture. Sadly,

01:01:09.440 Romans 13 was misused time and time and time again by cowardly pastors seeking to biblically 0.99

01:01:15.040 justify their sinful compliance and cowardice. So all that being said, five lessons that we better

01:01:23.200 have learned over the last two years and we better not forget because we're going to be tested again

01:01:27.400 and again and again on these same five points. Number one, play the long game. Dig deep. Build

01:01:34.140 to last. Maybe Jesus comes back tomorrow, but I think we need to pretend as though, live as though

01:01:41.360 he may tarry for a while. Think generationally. A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's

01:01:46.600 children. So play the long game. The next one, patriarchy. Patriarch. Build families. Build

01:01:53.100 households. And build on the rock. Build in faith. Love your children. Love your wives. Start

01:02:01.460 businesses. Run for local office. All these different things. The next one, presuppositional.

01:02:06.240 No. Neutrality is a myth.

01:02:09.220 Holy suspicion.

01:02:10.320 Be slow to speak, quick to listen,

01:02:12.640 exercise discernment, all these things.

01:02:15.780 The next one, proper ecclesiology.

01:02:18.220 Church is not the same.

01:02:20.160 It's not the same as your quiet time with the Lord

01:02:22.820 or your family worship.

01:02:24.720 Jesus is always present with believers

01:02:27.040 by virtue of the Holy Spirit,

01:02:28.520 but he promises to be uniquely present

01:02:30.560 on the Lord's Day when the church gathers together.

01:02:33.980 Proper ecclesiology.

01:02:35.420 Church is a big deal.

01:02:36.540 It's essential because it's unique.

01:02:38.780 And lastly, number five, the one that I just did,

01:02:41.660 Protestant-resistant theory.

01:02:43.420 Understand Romans 13.

01:02:45.280 Understand that we don't just have to roll over

01:02:47.340 every single time the state says something.

01:02:50.220 Great example of that would be the Gospel Coalition. 0.59

01:02:53.040 Right?

01:02:53.280 They would say, hey, if Caesar says, do this,

01:02:56.900 even though it directly contradicts God's law,

01:02:58.800 you better do it. 1.00

01:02:59.880 But women, if your husband says you shouldn't dress that way, 1.00

01:03:03.620 you don't have to submit to your husband. He's being 0.99

01:03:05.940 abusive. And you don't have to

01:03:08.020 submit to abusive authority. So the

01:03:09.920 gospel coalition, what they're giving away is they're saying

01:03:11.520 authority in the home, not a big deal, but authority

01:03:13.980 of the state. Oh, authority

01:03:15.940 of the state. That's because they're statist.

01:03:18.300 Exactly what John was teaching.

01:03:20.000 They're statist. That's where their hope is. That's where their

01:03:21.860 allegiance is. Whereas we would say, no, these are

01:03:23.840 sovereign spheres. It's like a Venn diagram. There's overlap.

01:03:26.180 It's not state, church,

01:03:28.360 home. It's not a hierarchy.

01:03:30.380 There are three different

01:03:31.760 spheres that God has divinely instituted, and they are beside one another, not on top

01:03:35.780 of one another. The state is not over and against families. It is not

01:03:39.900 superior to families. And the church is not superior to families, either.

01:03:44.460 And any time anyone in a position of authority, civil

01:03:47.640 authority, familial authority, or ecclesiastical authority, oversteps their God-given

01:03:51.880 jurisdiction according to the unchanging standard of Scripture, that's

01:03:55.880 called tyranny. And we don't submit to it.

01:03:58.860 right? Defying tyrants is obedience to God, right? That's John Knox, Scottish reformer.

01:04:08.960 All right, let me pray. Father God, thank you for your word. Thank you for the lessons you've taught

01:04:12.440 us. Please, please, please help us not to have such short-term memories. Help us to remember.

01:04:19.400 In Jesus' name, amen. Thanks so much for listening, but real quick, before you go, do us a small

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The NXR Podcast - March 24, 2022

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

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