The NXR Podcast - BONUS - How To Spot Counterfeit Courage In Big Eva & Local Pastors

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00:00:18 You know, I picked for 2019, coming off of 2018, leaving Acts 29,

00:00:22 seeing, you know, what was brewing, the storm that was coming.

00:00:25 I picked 1 Timothy to preach to, you know, Hymenaeus and Alexander.

00:00:28 Or in the very beginning, it's like, Timothy, I charge you, or I'm encouraging you to charge

00:00:38 certain elders, certain men, certain leaders in the church not to teach any different doctrine.

00:00:45 And so that was like second sermon in the series, and boom, people left.

00:00:49 And then when we got to 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 9 through 15, I slowed down.

00:00:55 Instead of speeding through it, I did four weeks on that text.

00:00:58 I only plan to do one week, but I ended up doing four weeks and talking about, um, talking

00:01:01 about the, you know, the, the callings of men and women and the distinction between

00:01:05 the genders.

00:01:06 One of my big lines was it's not male and female, uh, roles.

00:01:10 He assigned them, but male and female natures, he designed them.

00:01:13 Like the difference goes all the way down to the way that we're made.

00:01:17 Um, and I started talking about how, and that extends, I believe that extends beyond the

00:01:22 home and the church.

00:01:23 if if if husbands are the head of their homes and and then men as elders and i would argue for a

00:01:29 male diaconate are are the head of churches but then when we step outside of homes which is the

00:01:36 building block of any society is the family so that so we're saying that an entire society is

00:01:41 made up of even in a non-religious um culture a a entire society is made up of the building blocks

00:01:48 of families and men are explicitly called in scripture to lead those but then women when we

00:01:53 step out of the home women start leading their husbands you know like it just doesn't make any 0.56

00:01:58 so i was like all right the civil magistrate bears a sword the sword is a phallus it belongs to men

00:02:02 like and i started just you know and i mean i know those are strong statements but i started

00:02:07 thinking beyond the home in the church and say let's start there but i think the implications

00:02:11 i think we do need to be more careful the further we get away from what scripture explicitly says 0.75

00:02:16 home and church but to act as though this is exclusive to those realms is foolish and so i

00:02:21 started preaching on that and started preaching on false teaching started preaching on critical

00:02:24 race theory started calling out matt chandler you know all those kind of things and lost a ton of

00:02:29 the church and it was all tone tone tone and one of the things that i said was um i remember telling

00:02:33 people i said um a man will always be uh labeled as harsh if he has the gall um to to fire off

00:02:43 around at someone who's charging if if his um comrades in that moment are sitting on a blanket

00:02:51 in the middle of the meadow thinking that they're having a picnic right right so like the first guy

00:02:55 to fire off around with a platoon when when everybody else still thinks that this is just a

00:03:01 drill right that that we're not actually at war there's not actually a threat the enemy's not at

00:03:06 the gates and this guy has the audacity to fire off around and then everybody you know looks up

00:03:10 from their sandwich and they're putting you know from the little picnic that they're having and

00:03:14 they see somebody bleeding you know uh laying dead they're like what did you do what's wrong

00:03:20 with you it's like well i like we're at war right and they're like no we're not and so i don't really

00:03:25 think it's like here's explicit biblical principles of why you cannot you it is inherently sinful to

00:03:31 speak like this or to use this phrase or to call out in it it is all 100 what you said it's um

00:03:38 that that pastor lied to you i he lied to you because he knew where he was smart enough to

00:03:42 know where you were going with the question of course he did exactly so he saw he saw your sneak

00:03:47 attack coming so he he just blatantly lied to you but the real answer is of course it's okay

00:03:52 to name names and and to use strong language because the bible says it's okay and the only

00:03:58 reason everybody has a problem with it is because at the end of the day we're not arguing about

00:04:02 what's permissible in terms of rhetoric we are arguing about whether or not we're actually at

00:04:08 war and the reality is i think in the pew yes there's a disconnect from pastors in the pew

00:04:13 but i would also argue every other pew because it's about half of the pew i would argue every

00:04:18 other pew is filled with people who have been influenced by those pastors absolutely you know

00:04:23 so it still falls on pastors don't get me wrong but um but because it's so pervasive this problem

00:04:28 among pastors then certainly some infected some of the pews yeah there's no question about it and

00:04:34 you're you're very astute he of course he lied to me and what's so interesting about this is that

00:04:39 our my preaching style i try to avoid um like getting involved too much with sort of what's

00:04:48 happening right at this moment in evangelicalism so i try to stick in this stay in the text and

00:04:52 explain the text and i will make application but i do try to avoid you know naming names or like

00:04:57 or like that kind of stuff from the pulpit

00:04:59 because it's just not my style right

00:05:00 I don't think that's appropriate but

00:05:02 what's so interesting about it is this guy

00:05:05 who told me this is known for this

00:05:07 like he's naming names

00:05:09 constantly so long as it's safe names

00:05:11 Rob Bell or

00:05:12 Osteen oh yeah absolutely

00:05:14 Osteen you know and it's

00:05:16 so yes he was 100% lying to me

00:05:19 but I think your point is also astute

00:05:20 that there's a certain percentage of

00:05:23 those in the pews that take a lot

00:05:25 of their cues from those

00:05:26 who wrote the books that they read who want to speak at the conferences they go to and stuff

00:05:31 like that and so they are going to be influenced by this mentality where it's like you know tone

00:05:38 it's like tone really it's like majoring on on such a minor issue like okay so we have a

00:05:46 disagreement on tone if it's if it's war times and you don't think you think it's a picnic you

00:05:50 would agree that tone is you should get amped up so what we're really arguing about is it wartime

00:05:55 or not and the truth of the matter is to some of these guys and you know we can go into names later

00:05:59 if you want but to some of these guys there's literally nothing that could happen in the world

00:06:03 that would warrant the tone as long as they're not all doing it so once they all do and they start

00:06:08 you know uh circling the wagons and they've they've got all got a target then it's game on

00:06:14 for tone because people can say horrible things about john mccarthur right now and nobody will

00:06:18 call them out on it because he's an okay target so like they've got this little cabal this list

00:06:24 this guild and if you're not in it you're fair game if you are in it there's literally nothing

00:06:29 you could say or do that that that is fair game at that point right it's a very weird little

00:06:33 yep but you just touched on i think it's so true that there's this hierarchy beyond the church and

00:06:39 i've been at churches that have elders and say you know that's the most important uh you know

00:06:45 leadership position that our church holds but oftentimes those elders if they've been trained

00:06:49 at a seminary recently they're looking to be on that they're they're aspiring to be at bigger

00:06:55 conferences or get publishing deals and most people in the pew don't really understand that

00:07:00 because they they're not in that world but there's very much a professional guild that exists and

00:07:06 even small-time pastors you know out in country churches sometimes want to play to that and i

00:07:11 think a lot of uh people simple christians who just want to live their lives read their bible

00:07:15 raise their kids, they're, they're realizing something's off. Like my pastor in, in some

00:07:21 cases is not like, doesn't seem like he's a shepherd of this particular congregation. The

00:07:26 sheep aren't really his primary concern. There's like other like shepherds with bigger flocks that

00:07:31 he's trying to win the approval of or something. And so, uh, I think there, there's been this kind

00:07:37 of a crisis of, um, leadership and stability and trust. And, uh, it's happening in everywhere in,

00:07:45 every institution it's not just the church like this is just one area that we're focusing on but

00:07:49 people don't know if they can trust their doctors now they don't know if they can trust their

00:07:53 the governing officials they can't trust the media they can't trust entertainment industry

00:07:59 they can't trust education and now it's kind of down to the wire and they're like man i can't

00:08:03 really trust my pastor either and i think what you said just now about you know it's like every

00:08:09 other congregation like i don't know all the stats on like who's kind of lining up where but

00:08:12 i do know this i'd say every other pew every other pew within one congregation half of them are

00:08:18 yeah well and that you know really is that's probably true because i i've traveled a bunch

00:08:24 now at different churches across the country that have been the result of splits or they are

00:08:28 themselves uh gaining all kinds of people from churches that went covid crazy or woke that's

00:08:34 what we're doing right so yeah there's a lot of reshuffling going on right now the dust hasn't

00:08:37 even quite subtle i think it's starting to but um one of the things ad and i were talking about

00:08:43 this morning and i think it's just so interesting i don't know like what we would need to do to

00:08:48 figure out maybe more specifically what's actually going on but one of the the ways to look at this

00:08:54 is uh men overwhelmingly watch ad's content and my content mine too it's like 73 that's it's

00:09:01 probably yeah the same for me at the youtube i think it's probably like 65 70 percent uh men

00:09:07 and it it seems to me like men for like the last 20 years or so at least have been

00:09:14 so like pushed aside by evangelical churches evangelicals try to reinvent themselves every

00:09:20 10 years and they really do cater when they reinvent themselves to like middle class women

00:09:26 in the suburbs generally their styles of music like the way they even decorate their church

00:09:31 it's just like the personality a pastor is supposed to have is very emotional and uh just

00:09:37 it's not this masculine persona and it's it's what a lot of women tend to want and that's just

00:09:41 my observation uh that men tend to be alienated from the church they're not um they're not writing

00:09:48 songs that men are going to even like want to sing as much they're they're not catering to men

00:09:51 So like men, I think like Christian men who just want to like read their Bible, do what it says, live for the Lord, they're tend to more often than not, I think, see through this because they're not in that guild that we just described there.

00:10:07 They don't care about the fluff, the icing, any of the stuff that evangelicals use, the pretty ribbons to get people in.

00:10:14 And they're really just focused on like the meat, like what's the like the the actual like solid like biblical stuff that that we're coming here for.

00:10:23 And so the tone and the style doesn't influence them.

00:10:28 And I think they're they're seeing through it a little bit more.

00:10:30 Not to say there aren't women. There are definitely women who are seeing through this for sure. 0.99

00:10:34 Totally. And I know some of them and I'm so grateful for them.

00:10:38 But but I think primarily evangelicals tend to be politically conservative.

00:10:42 So that that's raising an antenna already.

00:10:44 And then, and then again, it's men who are then helping, uh, I'm taking big, big scale

00:10:50 here.

00:10:50 There's women that are helping their husbands wake up, but more, more often than not, it

00:10:53 seems like it's men that are waking their wives up and saying like, hold on, like this

00:10:58 is not.

00:10:59 I think that's the problem right there.

00:11:00 Yeah.

00:11:01 Um, that last part, everything you're saying is absolutely true until you got to that last

00:11:04 part.

00:11:04 And I would push back on whether or not that statement is true.

00:11:07 In my experience as a pastor, um, all the men, just virtually all the men.

00:11:12 so i say every other pew we could just say if all the men were sitting on a pew and all the women 0.79

00:11:16 then it is all the men like virtually all the men are like yes this is ridiculous i see through it 0.83

00:11:21 this is a a thin facade um but that last part we said they're waking up their wives i would say

00:11:28 half of the men that's what that's where we lost i think that's true because there's a ton of guys

00:11:32 who are watching both of you they're watching me they're watching eric khan they're listening to

00:11:37 michael foster they're listening to doug wilson they're like um and and i know this because i

00:11:42 pastored a church with men like this um and and they're and they're talking to me and they're on

00:11:48 board and they're excited um and then word gets to their wife and then they come back to me later

00:11:54 on maybe it's a week later maybe it's a few months later and all of a sudden something's different

00:11:59 and and it's like they're begging me they're not not they're not correcting me or chastising me

00:12:04 but they're begging me could you please tone it down a little bit and i'm like why for what for

00:12:09 who like this isn't we were just talking about this and and you were so on board like what

00:12:13 happened oh the the head of your home is sent you to talk about this your wife that's what that's

00:12:21 what actually happened pretty harsh and then if you don't yeah yeah and they need those men need

00:12:26 to be to be chastised and and they weren't actually leading their wives their wives were

00:12:30 leading them and their wives led them right out of the church and the men left but it wasn't because

00:12:35 the men weren't on board um the men were on board they were excited for the first time they actually

00:12:40 came alive in a church and under a minister's preaching and felt like we're doing something

00:12:45 we're going to war we're gearing up i've got a sword i'm going to use it there is an enemy there's

00:12:50 a purpose there's a mission there's a vision like and and um but their lack of leadership in their

00:12:56 home allow their wife the position to pour cold water on all of it and then and i i watched those

00:13:02 guys who were my friends leave the church and you could tell like the rich young ruler that he he

00:13:07 walked away sad it like i've watched men walk away from masculine pastors not saying i'm the perfect

00:13:13 example but walk away from not just my church but other ministries other local churches where there

00:13:18 actually was a man's man preaching and and men like the rich young ruler walking away sad because

00:13:23 because the minister said there's one thing that you lack you need to uh correct your wife

00:13:29 and they walked away sad because they had much wealth or they had an unruly wife i wouldn't

00:13:35 disagree with that yeah i think you're right i think that's absolutely one thing that i think

00:13:38 about especially with the woke church stuff uh there's one character in the woke church movement

00:13:43 who i haven't thought about for probably a year until just this moment so it's a man named kyle

00:13:47 Howard and um it's he's a pathetic man I mean it's he's a very sad case I think he's a tragic 0.65

00:13:53 story right um I used to laugh about his antics but really just makes me sad because he's just 0.98

00:13:58 a shell of a man he's he's constantly you know poor me it's hard to be me I'm traumatized but

00:14:03 I was I was joking this just today actually there's a picture of a of a cot a piece of

00:14:08 cotton a cotton field in my uh my hotel and I just remember thinking man you know I could be

00:14:12 real triggered by that put me in the cotton room right but he would get he would go on twitter and

00:14:19 he'd be literally serious that he was triggered by this and he would seem i wept about it and

00:14:24 stuff like that oh and anyway so um most of his followers and the people who retweet him and stuff

00:14:30 are women and that makes sense to me because a woman's kind of nurturing nature right they don't

00:14:36 they don't want to see a man in pain they don't want to see anyone in pain like when my kids are 0.64

00:14:40 hurt you know and they need comfort they go to mom because that's where they get their comfort

00:14:45 from women and it's a beautiful impulse for women to comfort people right that's one of their their

00:14:49 prime you know you know skill sets is doing that you know even adults when you know you see sad

00:14:55 stories of of adults males dying and they call for their mom you know like because that's just

00:15:00 it's it's in there right so men on the other hand though we i want to comfort my sons but sometimes

00:15:06 it's like you know what you're okay it's time to get up and you can walk this one off right

00:15:10 right um and the impulse that i have there is a good impulse because they do need to learn how to

00:15:16 brush themselves off and pick themselves up but the but the impulse for my wife is also a good

00:15:20 impulse because you know it's sometimes you do need comfort right and when you know when you're

00:15:24 a wife and you're uh your husband's helper there's going to be times when you need to be just

00:15:28 for him and comforting him and and things anyway bottom line is that this this woke stuff i think

00:15:35 regularly appeals to women just naturally

00:15:37 because they want to make it okay, right? 0.58

00:15:40 And I think men are naturally suspicious of it

00:15:43 because they're like,

00:15:44 what is this, are you crying over a picture?

00:15:46 Is this serious?

00:15:47 I cried over the picture that John pointed out

00:15:49 with the Gospel Coalition Christmas concert,

00:15:52 the picture of the transgender.

00:15:53 That made me go. 1.00

00:15:54 I was triggered by that.

00:15:56 I felt like I needed to write a soap opera,

00:15:58 you know, crying.

00:15:59 Go ahead.

00:16:00 I was triggered.

00:16:02 My point, no, but my point is like,

00:16:04 in the home if if i were to always let my wife get her way and comfort them always and it's never

00:16:11 time to stop to crying because you know it's not that bad like you you know i think we'd all agree

00:16:16 like you would ruin your sons if you did that they never knew what it was like to be like man that

00:16:22 really hurt but i'm just gonna walk this one off right um so so so we i think we all probably know

00:16:29 husbands that that do defer to their wives and all that kind of stuff and we have sympathy for them

00:16:35 and we know that that's not right you know given our beliefs right um we need to have just as much

00:16:40 courage telling men in the woke context or or or any theological issues context where their wife

00:16:47 is basically commanding the situation that it's it's just as dangerous to allow your wife to to 0.87

00:16:52 rule you in that way as it would be for your kids right we know we don't want our wives 1.00

00:16:56 making our boys into women 1.00

00:17:00 by how they treat them.

00:17:02 And so we're willing to rebuke people for that.

00:17:05 But we also need to be willing to rebuke our friends

00:17:07 who we know know what's right,

00:17:09 but they just kind of let it ride, let it happen.

00:17:10 That's right.

00:17:11 It's what you said last night

00:17:12 when we were getting dinner together.

00:17:14 They're waiting for it to blow over. 0.76

00:17:16 But the reality is it reminds me of the armies of Israel.

00:17:20 Standing on one mountain,

00:17:21 the valley in between on the other mount 0.89

00:17:23 is the armies of Philistine.

00:17:26 uh philistia and and goliath is going out day after day taunting you know mocking god and

00:17:33 taunting the armies of the living god and all of them are you know the israelites are shaking

00:17:37 knees trembling waiting for it to blow over um and probably reassuring them so this this will pass

00:17:43 this too shall pass this too shall pass it'll blow over it'll blow and it did blow over because one

00:17:48 actual man chopped off his head yeah so so all these guys are like it'll blow over see that

00:17:55 that's the thing so these guys like all the way full circle what you said they will call out names

00:17:59 they'll call out joel jolo scene they'll call out rob bell but this is what they're doing um they

00:18:03 are completely comfortable uh going up and kicking the the already slain rotting corpse of goliath

00:18:12 once david already killed him so so it's so that's the problem is it like so you got a bunch of

00:18:19 pastors over here right patting themselves on the back right virtue signaling is that this pseudo

00:18:24 courage they're all standing in a circle kicking goliath but but his four other brothers are still

00:18:30 alive and large walking and terrorizing their families these they have a responsibility so

00:18:35 their sheep being slaughtered ravaged you know giants just taking them and eating them and and

00:18:40 these pastors over here kicking goliath that david already chopped off his head and then the david is

00:18:44 over here trying to take on the next one you're describing the rise and fall of marcel podcast

00:18:49 yeah you know what i mean yeah at the time they were all doing the same thing that they always do

00:18:54 with with mark driscoll yeah which is yeah you know no big deal and then it finally blows up

00:18:58 right i don't even know i don't know all about this story so i'm not going to go too deep into

00:19:02 it but now it's safe right to criticize mark driscoll right so they're all doing it knowing

00:19:07 that 10 years ago they were all defending him the way they defend everybody so whether mark

00:19:12 driscoll is right or wrong again i don't know about the story that much um they're doing what

00:19:16 they typically always do yep and so and so now it's new people that are being criticized and

00:19:22 and win 10 years when it's safe to criticize whoever it is i mean who knows who's going to

00:19:26 be the one to fall but when it's safe to criticize platt or chandler or whatever they'll all be doing

00:19:31 the same thing kicking the corpse again and for our listeners just to clarify when ad says safe

00:19:36 what he means is um when the battle's already been won it's already been yeah that's when it's safe

00:19:42 It's safe when actual men with actual courage are willing to step out and be attacked on

00:19:48 both sides, the giants they're attacking and the people who are supposed to be on their

00:19:51 team.

00:19:52 So this is, really, the illustration would be more accurate if David walked out from

00:19:56 among the ranks of Israel and had to fight Goliath on one side and hold his shield on

00:20:01 the other because Israel's throwing rocks at him, telling him that he's being harsh.

00:20:05 And that's where we're at right now.

00:20:07 Well, there's a term for it.

00:20:08 It's called counterfeit virtue.

00:20:10 It's not real. 0.98

00:20:10 It's fool's gold. 0.97

00:20:12 And so we've talked about how one of the motivations here is that there's this guild they're playing to many of these woke pastors. 0.98

00:20:20 That could be one motivation.

00:20:22 Another thing is they want to impress men naturally do this.

00:20:26 They want to impress, please gain the favor of their wives, of women in general sometimes.

00:20:31 and if if that's what's driving the church like appealing to these middle class you know suburban

00:20:39 women then the church is just going to naturally fall into whatever the knee-jerk emotional 0.96

00:20:45 response is to a lot of this stuff and then they'll they'll they'll you know and that's that 0.73

00:20:50 in and of itself is a virtue signal there's counterfeit virtue there like you're not really

00:20:53 putting any skin in the game you're not sacrificing yourself you're just going on with the crowd and

00:20:58 you know nothing significant is actually even happening but then afterward like you said with

00:21:02 kicking the corpse um when it and i'll give you an example of this uh i was looking into willie

00:21:07 rice this last week right running for the spc uh presidency and willie rice like hosted a super

00:21:15 woke panel and i know for those listening if you're uninitiated into all of this uh i mean we

00:21:20 disagree with social justice for a variety of reasons but among them is it destroys the very

00:21:27 basis for revelation itself by making truth subjective in some way based on a social location

00:21:33 it also subverts christian ethics because it makes justice somehow equal disparity and lady

00:21:40 justice takes her blindfold off to treat some people different than others so there's no equality

00:21:44 before the law disparity equals discrimination right they assume that it also oftentimes will

00:21:51 merge with the gospel in in heretical ways where it's like some kind of a gospel work or it's part

00:21:56 of the gospel or it's you're failing to live out or understand or obey the gospel if you don't do

00:22:01 the social justice thing which which is very dangerous um and it flattens reality it shows

00:22:07 instead of looking at people in the image of god which they're obsessed with talking about

00:22:10 but it actually is an sort of laying an abstraction over everyone so everyone's ones and zeros you're

00:22:16 looking at them as some level of oppression and you're reducing them down to that so anyway willie

00:22:21 rice does this panel in 2020 and like he hits all of those things like in the panel like i'm like

00:22:26 okay speaking the woke language it's all critical race theory he talks about white privilege one of

00:22:30 the guests uh recommends robin d'angelo like he's talking about as a white man i can't understand i

00:22:35 need your stories you know we can't question these stories we like people don't understand the the

00:22:41 racism that's still around because it's systemic and it's embedded and it's like the whole nine

00:22:47 yards is in this like hour and a half almost presentation yet if you look at willie rice

00:22:52 today and the stuff he's saying about crt he's like oh it's it's against it's against what we

00:22:57 believe as christians it's horrible it's and so i've tried to like make sense of this like how

00:23:01 do you and he's one example among many but like how do you have a guy who's gonna like you know

00:23:06 blast crt now that it's safe to do so and it's on you know crt is like becoming less popular the

00:23:12 pews are getting onto it they're they're understanding that that's what's i think this

00:23:15 is the move you guys are doing and now they're like oh no we're not doing that move we're against

00:23:18 it just like you are meanwhile though they haven't like repented of or recanted any of the previous

00:23:25 things they've taught they're still kind of bringing it in subversively through other channels

00:23:29 so it's like the it's a counterfeit virtue of like i want to please these people so i'm going

00:23:35 to say the right thing i'm going to be against this because i'm a you know i i want to i mean

00:23:40 i can't question everything in willie rice's heart i don't know but on a on a broad scale

00:23:43 yeah um there's they're trying to bend to public pressure somehow instead of just remaining true

00:23:50 to like what does the word of god say absolutely and and part of the reason they're doing that

00:23:54 though we should be encouraged by that you guys especially should be encouraged by that because

00:23:58 part of the reason that they're playing both sides is because now there actually are two sides

00:24:02 for the longest time they didn't have to pay any homage they didn't have to do any lip service

00:24:07 any counterfeit virtue um because everyone was on the woke side and now there are certain words

00:24:13 they can't say right and there's certain things they have they have to decry like cret now they

00:24:19 still absolutely believe all the same things they still have a diversity council you know at their 0.91

00:24:23 seminary and in their local church and all these kind of things so they still actually believe all

00:24:27 the tenets in terms of conviction but they at least in their language have to decry certain

00:24:31 things because the pushback the battle the the fight is working like there is we're winning and

00:24:39 and, and the tide is turning. And I think like, for me, just thinking like pastorally. So you

00:24:44 said like, you know, part of it's because the dust is still, still settling. So like, as you

00:24:48 guys were like standing up and doing this thing for you guys, it was like, all right, I'm getting

00:24:51 like thousands of views, you know? So it's like 2018, 17, you know, and, and you guys are taking

00:24:56 a stand, you're saying stuff and you're like, Whoa, I'm onto something. There's a lot of other

00:25:00 people who are thinking, and it's either love, hate. Nobody's like, this was an interesting

00:25:03 video. You know, it's like, this was everything or, or go to hell, John, you know, or what it

00:25:08 It's like one or the other.

00:25:10 But for me, I was having that same kind of experience,

00:25:13 but behind a pulpit.

00:25:15 And I don't want to play the world's smallest violin,

00:25:17 but it was hard because it was like,

00:25:19 these aren't just YouTube comments.

00:25:21 And I know you guys had real people,

00:25:22 real friends and family.

00:25:23 So I don't want to make light of that.

00:25:26 But for me, it was like,

00:25:27 these are people paying my salary.

00:25:28 This is what I do for a living.

00:25:29 I've got kids.

00:25:30 And it was hard.

00:25:32 And so I was in real time watching

00:25:35 exactly what Voddie Bauckham talked about,

00:25:37 you know with fault lines and so that's what you're saying is like the dust is still settling

00:25:40 and now it's like so now i have a church where i talk about way more of these things with way more

00:25:45 candor and way more boldness and clarity not beating around the bush at all way more than i

00:25:50 ever did in my previous church in california um and all it does is just more people come more

00:25:56 people come more people come and i'm not saying there won't in the future be some problems with

00:25:59 that some people who maybe are you know they like this a little bit more than maybe they like

00:26:04 the gospel of jesus christ you know who who are you know maybe um they they hate they hate wokeness

00:26:11 but not necessarily because they love jesus because there are other reasons they hate wokeness

00:26:15 besides love for jesus you know like james lindsey does not love jesus hates wokeness you know so

00:26:20 so i may i will pastorally have to sort through some things um down the line but right now though

00:26:26 what's unique and so i'm not saying everything's perfect now problem solved but what's unique is

00:26:30 it like the fault that the uh the fault lines have shifted back in the day it was like reformed

00:26:37 not reformed that was the big right those are the two big categories underneath that and the

00:26:40 reformed you have the subcategories of um like continuationism versus cessationism presbyterian

00:26:46 versus baptist of course um and then maybe i don't know maybe complementarian you guys you know but

00:26:51 it was like i'm reformed and i'm going to fall into one of these you know categories maybe i'm

00:26:55 like sovereign grace you know and we're prophesying and we like you know instruments of worship or

00:26:59 whatever or maybe i'm you know presbyterian opc you know and but it was reformed that was a big

00:27:05 fault line and now it's so crazy so like we planted this new church now i'm in texas covenant bible

00:27:11 church in april of 2021 in my home we started with 20 people we already now have 100 and so it's been

00:27:18 less than a year already 100 people we're now meeting at a barbecue restaurant where john's

00:27:21 gonna be preaching this sunday so i'd add that to your resume that's a special thing so um but like

00:27:26 it's it's exploded but what's funny is i'm right now i just did a membership uh class and so i'm

00:27:31 doing all my membership interviews with with these people who are pursuing membership at the church

00:27:36 and um they're not all reformed i never in california was like i just assumed if you're

00:27:42 coming to my church it's because you're you're a calvinist right and so i'm like having to talk

00:27:45 about the doctrines of grace i'm like i haven't talked about the doctrines of grace i mean i do

00:27:49 every sermon but i haven't like yeah had to persuade someone who's pursuing membership in

00:27:53 my church in like seven years you know what i mean it's so it's funny you know what i mean it's

00:27:58 weird it's like i got continuationist oh it makes perfect sense you know and because because and

00:28:03 and here's the thing they know i'm a calvinist they don't like it but but but they're humble

00:28:07 about it they know i'm a cessationist they don't like it but but they're humble about it um because

00:28:12 that's not the biggest issue anymore that's right that's not if you remember maybe two two and a

00:28:18 half years ago it's like right after the sbc 2018 to i don't know to somewhere in 2019 there

00:28:24 was this sort of like unity unity unity like these issues they're not that important i remember like

00:28:29 danny aiken posting something about like southern baptist convention has never been more united than

00:28:34 it is right now and like and and it's just a name it and claim it man you know what i mean

00:28:39 yeah speak it before it was i was like what are you talking i remember this tweet when i back

00:28:47 when i had twitter back in the day i i put out in like late or i guess it would have been 2019

00:28:52 like early 2019 somewhere maybe um anyway i said like like what are you talking about i think it

00:28:57 was in reaction to that tweet like it's the house is on fire it was like one of the dog like this

00:29:02 is fine you know and um i got like pushback i remember like and this is public i remember like

00:29:07 guys um one of them was like chris bolt i remember came out and was like like i didn't know what i

00:29:12 was talking about really and like you know this it's really the thing we got to worry about is

00:29:17 the calvinist arminian debate and so i'm like are you like really because this stuff is so

00:29:22 fundamental like we're talking about like hey is like reality objective or like are there like

00:29:27 subjective like that's right categories and like you know social locations that are barriers to

00:29:32 knowing truth like that's so much more basic the conversation of the salvation god falls under the

00:29:37 parameters of true and false right we have to figure that out first like it's and that's why

00:29:43 james lindsey as an atheist is like this conversation pertains to me true and false

00:29:48 now he doesn't have a reason a defensible reason for that you know i would push back presupposition

00:29:54 and say why do you care about true but like but it affects he's right to recognize it affects

00:29:58 everyone or like like hey should like we steal from folks like is that okay or like should we

00:30:02 not it's like oh no no no calvinism arminianism is bigger than no it's not like that's so basic

00:30:07 It's so basic and so many people get it.

00:30:10 Like you keep mentioning James Lindsay, which is a great example because he is a good avatar for a lot of atheists that I know that get it.

00:30:17 They understand fundamentally, you know, because they have to live in reality.

00:30:20 That's right.

00:30:21 Right.

00:30:21 So they can deny God's existence, but they still have to live with God's existence and what he's created.

00:30:26 Right.

00:30:26 So they understand that fundamentally there's some issues here.

00:30:30 And I remember talking to you, John, on the way here, actually, just today.

00:30:36 whereas like there's so many things that i think are so important uh about theology that i just

00:30:40 i choose not to talk about because it's like we just have bigger fish to fry fundamental fish

00:30:46 that we need to fry up all every day because it's it's just such a a threat to just our everyday

00:30:53 lives and so what's what's happened is churches have i don't want to call it a new orthodoxy

00:30:58 because that sounds heretical but like what's what's important to people as far as being orthodox

00:31:02 are basic stuff like like you know basic human sexuality um do you have a spine or are you just

00:31:10 going to shrink the first time the government tells you that you can't go to church today

00:31:13 because it's too dangerous like the covet stuff has made this even more clear it's like how how

00:31:18 about this for orthodoxy is your church open like people are just looking for an open church and

00:31:25 it's like so so we've gotten so debased that it's like one way to know if it's a solid church or not

00:31:30 is if it's meeting that's right you know what i mean the old days we used to we used to joke in

00:31:35 the old days like you check their elders list if there's any women you don't go it's not obviously

00:31:39 not nowadays is is it open yep is the church open yeah no it's wokeness if we could boil it down to

00:31:45 like two big categories it's like you know with coven all the kind of stuff like the big category

00:31:50 is tyranny right political tyranny medical tyranny tyranny and then and then with all the the race

00:31:56 stuff and and all like it's it's wokeness and if those two things if somebody did a conference

00:32:02 called resisting tyranny and wokeness that would be super helpful and that would be so that's like

00:32:08 right on the money that's what we need i feel like i would speak at that that's something i

00:32:12 think i might be able to you would be great you would be fantastic you know it's so amazing though

00:32:17 because we've i think we've all all joked that if you do a venn diagram of woke churches and

00:32:22 churches that were covid tyrants it's a circle it's just one circle they're all the same but

00:32:26 it's the same issue anyways like the in both cases it's a central authority that's going to

00:32:33 be the savior and the you know it's going to redistribute things it's going to save us from

00:32:36 whatever the threat is it's just like more power to the government more consolidation well what

00:32:42 go ahead so people yeah sorry sorry to cut you off no no you're good so so the people that are

00:32:46 at your church joel that are like you know i don't understand this doctrine of grace thing but you

00:32:51 know you're open they like they're getting it because you're actually worshiping god your help

00:32:57 comes from god right and so these churches that are like well you know the government's going to

00:33:01 save us all by redistributing our money the government's going to save us all by making

00:33:05 sure we're all uh vaccinated like where does their help come from right it doesn't seem to

00:33:10 come from god no matter how many psalms you can pretend to sing on sunday if you're singing songs

00:33:15 but then you're deferring to your actual savior that's so apparent to people you know people that

00:33:21 honor God. You know what I mean? So you can end up with, like for me, I'm a Presbyterian. I go to

00:33:27 a Baptist church, and it's awesome. I love being there because I know the pastor, when he gets up

00:33:33 on the pulpit, he's worshiping and serving God. There's no question about it. He has a spine. He

00:33:38 loves the Lord. Look, you can talk all about how God is your Savior and is the King of kings and

00:33:43 Lord of lords, but if you have no spine, you don't actually believe it. Right, and that's what I want

00:33:47 to remind people is okay we we want to be um our speech seasoned with grace we want um we want to

00:33:53 be the people who if our brother sins against us seven times in one day and comes and i've got an

00:33:58 interesting view on that though and he comes to you and repents we forgive him seven times um so

00:34:04 we want to be forgiving we want to be filled with grace um but we also want to be um jesus commends

00:34:10 the shrewd servants is that you know the sons of darkness are more shrewd than the sons of light

00:34:15 we're called to be you know as innocent as doves but also is shrewd or cunning as serpents and so

00:34:20 i know this sounds bad but i it's not i i truly believe this is not anti-gospel it's not anti-grace

00:34:26 but it is pro-wisdom and pro-discernment which is not an option but biblically we are commanded

00:34:31 to exercise discernment and one of the ways we can tell if a tree is good or bad is the fruit

00:34:37 that it bears and so i want to urge christians um you can forgive and there's a debate to be had

00:34:43 even about that but um but you cannot forget you cannot forget the last two years and i would argue

00:34:49 right because pastors fail i'm a pastor i'm a sinner saved by grace just like everybody else

00:34:55 pastors fail um but these last two years i think in the providence of god were different this is

00:35:02 not just like any other failure that a pastor might might might have or any other mistake i

00:35:08 think you look back on these last two years because guys are coming around now right so

00:35:12 who is it willie nelson it's not right the doobie smoking uh sbc guy no willie rice yeah so i'm just

00:35:19 kidding but uh um you're definitely in sexist now yeah so yeah so so willie rice you know like

00:35:25 decrying crt but i listened to the panel because you had it in one of your podcasts and i listened

00:35:30 to you played like the whole panel or at least like 20 minutes of it i listened to the whole

00:35:34 thing i was like this is hilarious that is so hypocritical so night and day and what i want

00:35:39 to say is that yet like repentance is a thing god does grant and i believe as a calvinist it is a

00:35:45 gift and it's granted by god the difference between judas and peter at the end of the day

00:35:50 is that jesus granted repentance to peter and and chose not to grant repentance to judas so

00:35:55 repentance is a thing god changes hearts he changed saul and i'm sure it took a little while

00:36:00 for Saul of Tarsus who became Paul for, for Christians to say, we can trust this guy to

00:36:05 warm up to him, you know, after he killed their uncle or something like that. So I, so, so God

00:36:09 does change hearts and we should be willing to, to reconcile and, and eventually, you know, bring

00:36:14 them back in. But I think in, at least I'm only 35 years old, but still in my 35 years of living,

00:36:19 there has never been what I would call a test, right? So people fail all the time. But what I

00:36:25 would say is the last two years, this was the test. So when guys say, Oh, well, yeah, I got it

00:36:30 wrong you know but i see now and i'm coming and i'm like but no no no like right so there are

00:36:34 homework assignments every day right and and there are maybe you know projects once a quarter

00:36:39 but this was like this was these last years this was the sats this was the test how you performed

00:36:46 i believe how a pastor performed over the last two years is not if you perform poorly it's not

00:36:53 a fluke it's not a one-off it's not i had a bad couple years no these were the years this was

00:36:59 the test everything in your life led up to this and you failed and it's and i think we should be

00:37:05 slow to trust these guys again very slow well god god god is gracious to us even in this because i

00:37:13 would agree with everything you just said um you know forgiving someone doesn't mean be foolish

00:37:17 you know what i mean so i get that um but god god even though that was the sat's he's given us like

00:37:23 some bonus sat's since then it's like right just like a little humility would go a long way like

00:37:28 You get these major things wrong, COVID, this woke stuff, all this, and you're the kind of person that the next time CNN puts out a video of a police shooting, you've always been the one, oh, yeah, it's racist, without any information, right?

00:37:42 And then sometimes they even apologize after the fact.

00:37:45 I remember Greer apologized for something he did, kind of.

00:37:52 Apologized is a sliding scale when we're talking about evangelical leaders, right?

00:37:55 So, but he at least acknowledged that maybe he shouldn't have.

00:37:59 The point though is that God keeps giving us these opportunities to see who's learned their lesson.

00:38:03 And, you know, I don't want to get too in the weeds about Ukraine, Russia, but just to see everybody just swallow the narrative instantly, like no thought whatsoever, instant.

00:38:13 It shows you that nobody's learned their lesson.

00:38:15 Everyone's just going to jump back in to whatever they're spoon fed.

00:38:18 Oh, yeah.

00:38:18 And so, and that's the real issue.

00:38:20 It's like, it's like, it's a matter of authority, right?

00:38:23 They get spoon-fed something, and they just jump on it.

00:38:27 Oh, I'm sorry.

00:38:28 Go ahead.

00:38:28 The next time they're spoon-fed something else about racism, they're going to jump on that.

00:38:32 Even those who say they're against Gren's critical theory.

00:38:35 Remember the Ahmaud Arbery situation?

00:38:38 There was a bunch of guys that said something like this.

00:38:40 You see, now, I've been very hesitant to jump on these things, but this one I cannot abide.

00:38:46 And it's like, well, what are you talking about?

00:38:48 You saw 30 seconds of a clip, even less.

00:38:50 What do you mean you can't abide it?

00:38:51 Because this one, the media really promises

00:38:54 is really racist this time.

00:38:56 So it's like a little humility would go a long way.

00:38:58 But the thing is, so few leaders will ever show it.

00:39:02 So they got COVID wrong.

00:39:04 They failed the SATs.

00:39:04 And they continue to fail because God

00:39:06 keeps giving us more tests.

00:39:08 When I said the test, I'm saying the last two years

00:39:10 was the test.

00:39:11 Totally, totally.

00:39:12 So I'm with you.

00:39:13 It wasn't like an SAT in the sense

00:39:15 that you show up for one day and take it.

00:39:17 It was two years of a string of tests.

00:39:20 Yeah, just again and again and again.

00:39:21 they failed them all yes they you know like instead of pass with flying colors they failed

00:39:25 all two years of tests yes with flying colors and i'm like yeah that guy should we should be very

00:39:30 very slow and to your point john i'm sorry to keep jumping in because what you said was like

00:39:35 when i when i said jd greer apologized you're like well true true because that's another thing

00:39:40 it's like yeah willy rice you said you know he did this panel whatever and now he's against

00:39:45 critical theory you know it would be nice to show a little humility and say you know i used to

00:39:50 believe this right now i see it's wrong i could believe someone like that i could understand that

00:39:55 that's right and i might be suspicious but at least that would give me something yeah what they

00:39:58 do instead is pretend like they never said anything it's just like run out there's no

00:40:02 repentance and act like they've been leading and that's exactly i it's it is it's it takes

00:40:07 humility it's uncomfortable but i had to do that our church we closed down before yeah our church

00:40:12 closed down for two weeks two weeks when covet hit and and i felt like i gotta tell the church

00:40:17 something so i did a quick little video less than 10 minutes and i sent it to the members in the

00:40:21 church uh talking about romans 13 how we need to submit to the civil magistrate and i had to

00:40:26 and i had to you know and so we skipped we skipped two weeks with within within two weeks

00:40:32 it's a trap uh within two weeks i realized oh my gosh i i'm completely wrong it took me two more

00:40:39 weeks so four total um to convince enough of my elders one of them i was never able to convince

00:40:45 but to convince a majority of them to where we could outvote um the the tyrant and then and then

00:40:51 my first sermon to the church was a correct exegesis of romans 13 and and not with the

00:40:59 fine print being and this is what i've always believed but with the beginning of the sermon

00:41:03 being you may remember when i sent out a video that said the exact opposite of what i'm about 0.99

00:41:09 to preach you drew attention i'm not going to treat you as though you are so stupid yeah that 0.99

00:41:14 you can't notice the contradiction the blatant direct contradiction between what i'm going to 0.98

00:41:18 preach from god's word today and what i said four weeks ago i was so you might be wondering what

00:41:24 these contradict can they both be right we're not relativist let me let me put you at ease there's

00:41:28 a real simple answer i was wrong yeah but here's the deal even guys who are in our camp they don't

00:41:35 do that i know who those guys are i want to go back if i could uh to something you said earlier

00:41:41 and you kind of hinted at this it's a it's an authority issue the whole thing boils down to

00:41:45 an authority issue and with the ukraine situation that's happening right now there's guys that

00:41:50 were even like the skeptical of the covid narrative skeptical of blm and all that but

00:41:55 they're like within like 12 hours they couldn't have shown you the donbass region on a map they

00:42:00 didn't know who zelensky was but they're like all in for like you know white hat black hat we need

00:42:06 to send in military support and all this. 0.97

00:42:11 That's the thing I think that was disconcerting

00:42:13 for me a little bit.

00:42:14 It's not like your political position on that

00:42:16 as much as it is like,

00:42:17 why did it take so little to convince you?

00:42:20 Like a few images, most of them,

00:42:21 like a lot of this stuff is fake news anyway

00:42:23 that we've figured out.

00:42:25 And a narrative coming from where?

00:42:27 Coming from the media again.

00:42:29 The same media you recognized was lying to you for years.

00:42:32 So it reminds me of something,

00:42:33 if I could just do a shout out to Brother Joseph Spurgeon.

00:42:36 out there. He's on Facebook, and I don't know, I think he's on the Fight, Laugh, Feast Network,

00:42:40 too, right? Yeah, yep, picture of the podcast. He was, him and I were at a conference, and he had

00:42:46 said, it was in a really great sermon, that one of the points he made was that Christians are very

00:42:51 skeptical about what the media says about them, personally. Like, the media's always liars when

00:42:57 it talks about them, but when it talks about those other guys out there, right, it's like, oh, we

00:43:01 believe what it says, and I remember thinking at the time, I was like, I've never really thought

00:43:06 of that but I started the wheels started turning and I'm like that's actually very true like we we

00:43:10 do tend to like look at the media and think like oh what it's saying in an area that I'm not

00:43:15 knowledgeable about is probably true even though I know in the areas I am knowledgeable about

00:43:19 it's spreading lies sure and and so we I don't know that's a weakness somewhere that we got to

00:43:25 like get over and be like okay the authority is obviously number one it's the word of God

00:43:29 we trust what that says if the media reports anything contrary to human nature or whatever

00:43:34 We've got to be skeptical of that because the word of God's our authority.

00:43:37 But then, you know, we got to do the work of trying to find sources that are going to tell us the truth and not just, you know, go with the narrative that's out there.

00:43:45 Right.

00:43:46 And that's knee jerk.

00:43:46 I told you that.

00:43:47 Like, I remember you text me in AD about the Russia thing and you're like, this is crazy.

00:43:51 And I don't understand why so many like just hook, line and sinker people believe in this narrative.

00:43:54 And if I speak out against it, it's like this is a really sensitive thing where like even people who are anti-CRT and anti-woke and anti-civil and medical tyranny.

00:44:03 um are are you would think that they they would have suspicions about this too but they don't

00:44:08 and i remember i texted you one of the things i said was that the the first thing that made me

00:44:12 think of was the scene from the line the witch in the wardrobe where you know lucy goes into

00:44:16 narnia through the wardrobe the first time then she comes back she tells all of her siblings about

00:44:19 it and they're giving her a hard time and of course don't believe her and treating her like

00:44:23 she's crazy or or like she's lying and it sets up the framework for c.s lewis with his you know 0.99

00:44:28 his apologetics his liar lunatic or lord argument you know so lucy is either a lunatic she's she's 1.00

00:44:34 gone mad or she's a liar um and there's a moral deficiency or or she's telling the truth and and 0.99

00:44:39 everybody all of her siblings peter and susan edmund don't believe her then edmund follows her 0.74

00:44:43 just to pick on her one day and and they go in a second time but this time edmund's with her

00:44:47 and then they come back and and lucy's like oh it's so wonderful because this time edmund came

00:44:51 into the the wardrobe so now he can vouch for me he can validate my testimony that this place

00:44:56 actually exists and so she's like um edmund tell him tell him tell peter and susan you were in

00:45:01 narnia you saw it and edmund says oh silly girl just pretending and uh and she just weeps she

00:45:07 becomes just a puddle of of just shame and and embarrassment just weeping and not just shame and 0.71

00:45:12 embarrassment but this real personal hurt and betrayal from her brother who saw with her his

00:45:18 own eyes and is just cruel just malicious and cruel and and just wants to hurt her and so

00:45:24 professor diggory diggory kirk who's who's you know the the person that they're staying with

00:45:28 because the parents are at the war and all that kind of stuff he's kind of their guardian um the

00:45:32 older siblings peter and susan go to him and they're talking to him and he's like what's wrong

00:45:36 with the little girl with lucy she's the weeping girl um they're like well she's you know she's

00:45:40 very sad he's like hence the weeping obviously she's sad what she's sad about and they're like

00:45:44 well edmund you know edmund was pretending that narnia exists with her and she really believes

00:45:49 in it um but then you know let her down and and you know he was egging her on he was he was

00:45:54 enticing her by he shouldn't have enabled her he was enabling her by pretending that narnia is real

00:45:59 and he's like well why why isn't it real um and they're like well it's of course illogical that

00:46:04 a whole other world would exist in wardrobe and he says logic what do they teach kids in schools

00:46:09 these days and he's like so edmund is usually the truthful one right and they're like well no this

00:46:14 would be the first and lucy she's usually lying well no she's normally always truthful he said

00:46:20 then logically you should assume she's telling the truth right as fantastical as it might sound

00:46:28 and so i'm thinking about that principle i know i i just did the whole book of narnia you guys are

00:46:33 you're both looking at me like is he gonna wrap it but but my point is i that principle is a

00:46:38 profound principle that we should apply i think when we come into any news um if the source is

00:46:44 the legacy media and our political leader like have they said anything true over the last two

00:46:51 years what why should we immediately assume that they all of a sudden started today and the thing

00:46:57 is ignorance is fine if you don't know you don't know we can't possibly with everything going on

00:47:01 the world know everything and apply what the bible says to everything because we're limited

00:47:05 and that's totally fine it just but you know you don't jump on the bandwagon in ignorance so

00:47:10 that's uh yeah it's a concern i have that you know where when are we going to have that um

00:47:17 and many of us do so i'm not trying to like paint with broad brush here but like

00:47:21 there is a problem somewhere along the line even with christians where we we tend to just believe

00:47:27 narratives coming from people that like they don't even share our our basic uh ideas about ethics and

00:47:33 uh the agenda that we would have for the world theirs is diametrically opposed but we believe

00:47:38 them it's like without information so so we got to check up on things if it's important enough to

00:47:43 yeah here's one question i have and then maybe we could end with this but um remember the i don't

00:47:50 know how to pronounce it and i'm the pastor between the three of us so you guys are just

00:47:53 gonna make fun of me but ephraimites is that how you say it ephraimites ephraimites yeah okay

00:47:58 i think i had a can that would like get rid of those things

00:48:01 so the ephraimites right the word that they couldn't pronounce shibboleth okay

00:48:08 right is that how you say it shibboleth i think so it sounds right yeah shibboleth so there's this

00:48:11 there's one hebrew word that they you know aren't able to pronounce and and their their failure to

00:48:17 pronounce this word would oust them you know where they would be caught that they weren't actually 0.59

00:48:22 israelites that they in and so they couldn't fly under the radar and pretend right and so my

00:48:27 question is um as guys like willie nelson willie rice as guys are and he's not the only one he's

00:48:35 just one example but but now that we're winning at least in some sense that doesn't mean that

00:48:39 there's a lot of work to do but the tides are turning there is at least a remnant enough to

00:48:43 where um the opportunists right they'll still be the ideologues and they'll just out they'll show

00:48:48 their own colors because they're proud to do so but there but there are the opportunists who play

00:48:53 the field and as these guys who haven't actually repented but are simply simply just following the

00:48:59 money following the fame following the the tide as these guys start to shift and and and are trying

00:49:06 to speak the language and and they can now say oh yeah woke i'm not woke oh yeah crt is bad um

00:49:13 what is what is our our variation of shibboleth in this hour that those guys still what are the

00:49:19 words they still can't say i don't know about words necessarily but but doctrines but but to

00:49:26 me it's like you know critical race theory i've i've used the term on my channel before but if

00:49:33 you had a way to just see how many times i use that word or crt i just very rarely use it because

00:49:38 it really doesn't even matter to me so much exactly what you know school this came from or

00:49:42 whatever right um so to me it's whether or not they're they're they're accepting sort of this

00:49:49 idea of of you know racial reconciliation kingdom diversity they're still using that kind of lingo

00:49:55 because honestly like like racial reconciliation like it sounds like a nice term but it it all it

00:50:01 is it just means critical race theory that's what it means like racial reconciliation the the actual

00:50:06 battles many of these battles have been won for a long time where you know blacks couldn't come to

00:50:11 the same restaurant as you that's not that's not a thing anymore right that's not a thing anymore 0.65

00:50:15 so like you know churches that that didn't allow you to join if you were black or puerto rican

00:50:20 And maybe they still exist, but point them out and everyone will criticize them, including me.

00:50:24 So, like, to me, like, anyone who's still talking about this as if it's a major issue in the affirmative, right?

00:50:31 Like, oh, yeah, you know, we're still fundamentally racist culture.

00:50:34 I don't care what terms they use to describe themselves.

00:50:36 Pretty much to the man, they're all critical race theorists.

00:50:39 No, you're right.

00:50:40 So it's not really a term.

00:50:41 It's just that because I have a feeling that I don't know this about Willie Rice, but I have a feeling he'll probably still talk about stuff like that, you know,

00:50:47 about how we knew we need to eliminate the disparities and things like that oh yeah well

00:50:52 he's a critical race he had one sermon i was so this week i have two podcasts dropping about him

00:50:56 because i listened to like five of his sermons and he had one where literally the first half of

00:51:00 the sermon was 1619 project stuff he literally took a sequence from phil visher i recognized it

00:51:05 because i was like this this is the same exact order and the same exact thing phil visher talks

00:51:10 about to talk about you know show disparities and and then the second half of the sermon was like

00:51:15 1776 like he was trying to like wed these things together in this weird weird way um and and so

00:51:23 like he starts off the sermon with saying like the the death of george george floyd has affected

00:51:28 all of us and you know the racism in this country right and then but i'm sorry like i don't have to

00:51:33 hear the rest of the sermon you're already in critical race theory land yeah you're assuming

00:51:37 that was racism that killed george floyd and somehow the church is somehow complicit and we

00:51:42 need correction and the disparities are evidence of this yes but but yet i'm also going to say we

00:51:47 are thankful for the police and we don't think all those monuments should come down in america

00:51:52 is a great place i'm going to stand for the flag and it's like yeah well like you're just trying

00:51:56 to please like you're just playing the field you're an opportunity and what we're definitely

00:52:00 not saying i don't speak for you but i think i can in this case yeah do it is that there is no

00:52:04 racism in the country obviously there is the people are racist there are races out of course

00:52:09 What we're talking about, though, is sort of this, this, this is like the biggest problem that we face.

00:52:14 It's a public health crisis, you know, and then like, for example, he's 100% right. 0.90

00:52:19 Anyone who mentions George Floyd as evidence for the racial divide in our country is obviously not talking from a biblical worldview. 0.99

00:52:27 Because the only reason it is evidence of anything is because they're forcing the issue and pretending it is right.

00:52:32 So so it is evidence of something. It's not a racial divide. It's a fundamental ideology, ideological divide.

00:52:38 but the thing is like like at this point anyone talking about this that's not critical of it and

00:52:45 and saying you know and fighting against this kind of stuff i'm sorry but they're embracing

00:52:50 critical race theory on some level and most of them whole cloth yep no i completely agree i mean

00:52:56 i think asking because another way you can rephrase the question you asked is okay yeah you

00:53:00 guys are answering it perfectly just the opposite side which is super helpful you're saying these

00:53:04 are like instead of there are certain good words that they can't say uh which is kind of like the

00:53:08 way i phrased the question but you guys are saying there are bad things that they still say

00:53:11 every time i've ever heard somebody say this guy this guy talks about systemic racism but they do

00:53:15 it the right way every single time i've heard that they do it exactly like everybody does

00:53:19 they use different words can i give an example of that so at uh liberty university there was a

00:53:24 professor of evangelism that was teaching a class and using the curriculum that they were providing

00:53:30 for him and it had a term in it called it was cultural awareness or and um or no cultural

00:53:36 intelligence sorry cultural intelligence i'm like i've never heard that term before and right this

00:53:40 is right when critical race theory is kind of like not really that you know you shouldn't really say

00:53:44 that right it's out of vogue it's yeah people's antennas go up but like cultural intelligence

00:53:48 like they'll never suspect so i was reading i was looking at the curriculum because there's a student

00:53:52 in the class who gave it to me and i'm like this is just like the same racial reconciliation stuff

00:53:57 repackaged for this new term and um and then i remember i like did a podcast on it and and i i

00:54:04 got you know people from the school were mad at me like I didn't understand what he was really

00:54:07 saying like the whole nine yards that I'm used to and then all of a sudden like I heard the term

00:54:13 pop up in a crew lenses institute video they're doing this whole thing and it's blatantly pro

00:54:19 critical race theory and they start using this term cultural intelligence and then there was I

00:54:23 think it was after that I saw an ERLC piece and it was using the phrase cultural intelligence and

00:54:28 I was like wait a minute like is this the new word is this like they're switching because like the

00:54:33 other and that's what the left does so often like now everyone's like motivated about critical race

00:54:38 theory the left is on to something else right they're always two steps ahead and so you have

00:54:41 to i think ad what ad's saying is absolutely true and you have to understand like what are what do

00:54:47 they actually believe like conceptually right uh you know what so so a good question maybe would

00:54:52 be something like do we get a better interpretation of reality and the bible in particular the more

00:54:58 diverse perspectives represented in the interpretation process like that might that's

00:55:03 a good question it's a trap question i like it yeah and like these guys could lie like they could

00:55:07 like we're assuming consistency and even asking a question but you know that would get more at

00:55:11 the heart of it uh you could ask like hey does this disparity in in health care and i don't know

00:55:17 you could list you know all sorts of other things income like does that does that necessarily mean

00:55:22 it's a it's an issue of justice right like if someone says that that's a justice issue then

00:55:27 you know like automatically like okay you're wrong then that's just not what the bible tells us so

00:55:31 like you just have to be really i think shrewd in thinking through these questions and if you have

00:55:36 like a pastoral candidate coming in and you you want to test them on these things you're just

00:55:40 gonna i did an episode where i had like 10 of them like 10 questions i came up with to like

00:55:45 you know yeah yeah so yeah just think through like what would be a good question in whatever

00:55:49 moment we're in you know that would get to the heart of the issue i think keeping it open-ended

00:55:54 would be good too like you know racial disparities a problem or are they sinful you know and and if

00:55:59 if so why kind of thing like like because honestly keeping it open-ended don't help him out you you

00:56:05 would be like he's gonna have to say if he's woke he's gonna have to say yes i'm interested in the

00:56:12 explanation right because that'll tell you everything you need to know you know what i mean

00:56:15 if it's like you know you know yes but you know sometimes these things happen like okay that's

00:56:22 one thing but like if it's yes any explanation that he gives is very likely going to be very

00:56:27 woke um now i could be wrong maybe they have a good explanation and and that's fine it'd be the

00:56:32 first time i've ever heard one but yeah but there you go i mean this thought just came to me what

00:56:37 like here would be like maybe a good idea for a pastoral search committee if you give them like

00:56:40 a document to fill out give them a scenarios to navigate like real church scenarios like okay you

00:56:45 have a girl comes to you says they're abused by someone in the church like do you you know just

00:56:50 walk us through like how do you handle this scenario is your you know do you believe them

00:56:55 immediately do you like what do you do do you call the police do you like um and you may come

00:57:01 up with other scenarios like these are real scenarios i'm thinking of someone comes into

00:57:04 your church uh like a family that says hey it's racist to sing these anglican uh these anglo hymns

00:57:10 which is a real situation sure that the pastor told me about um like what do you do do you cater

00:57:15 to their preference just because they're you know and why would you cater to like they have to think

00:57:20 through this and and that's going to reveal the assumptions so yeah that's a that's a really good

00:57:24 point and the other thing too is whether or not they're they know the terms when they explain

00:57:30 themselves you're going to know what their foundations are because the thing is a lot of

00:57:33 times people are like well i've never even read a critical race theory book it's like you know you

00:57:37 understand like you can you can be influenced by an ideology that you can't identify we all can be

00:57:43 i mean even i can be we have to be humble about this like we could be our the way we think through

00:57:47 things can be affected by a system of thinking that we couldn't even name we all have presuppositions

00:57:54 and we're not aware of all of them so so i think yeah keeping it open-ended and and and i don't

00:57:59 even know how we got on this topic but keeping it open-ended is the shibboleth question there it is

00:58:03 that's right it's a legitimate question yeah keeping it open-ended you know and hearing them

00:58:07 out but to be honest i i think you know john agrees with me like if they're at this point

00:58:12 i've seen so much i've heard every explanation under the sun about why this guy's different

00:58:16 if they're talking about this kind of stuff the george floyd incident at all in a in an affirming

00:58:22 kind of way they're i mean they're woke that's bottom line you just got to figure out a way to

00:58:26 get them to admit it right yeah or or they don't even have to admit it you can just walk away or

00:58:30 you can just walk away and just say no that's a that's a possibility with that being said though

00:58:34 i think that's just one of the difficulties is people are trying to find church and and i think

00:58:37 some people have milked it a little bit guys who we would agree with you know and some of you may

00:58:41 be listening to this and you've made youtube your church you've made gab your church and like and

00:58:45 you agree with us and we agree with you and we're thankful for your support but all three of us would

00:58:49 say you need to go to church absolutely you need to get in a church and i think some people are

00:58:53 kind of like well the church has discredited itself and yes it has we all those things we

00:58:57 sympathize we agree um but you need to get in a church i think part of the difficulty is

00:59:02 people just are struggling finding finding a church because it's like

00:59:06 you know like there's just the the dust is still settling and we're still looking that's why i'm 0.76

00:59:12 saying like are there good words that we can use that that that that the woke won't be able to

00:59:17 articulate right are there because because that's what we've had in the past right so with the

00:59:22 reform non-reform divide um any church that had on their website we're calvinist or we're reformed

00:59:28 you know like there were people who who like were who hated you can just fly the confederate flag

00:59:34 yeah no you're right yeah that could be it that could be it um what well one thing that i do is

00:59:39 i'll try to use the word patriarchy like because there's not a lot of guys who will say i'm

00:59:43 patriarchal and that immediately it's like well what does that have to do with the woke thing

00:59:46 but that like that helps to like so what are the identifying like because like driscoll back in the

00:59:52 day right so with acts 29 like despite you know faults and strengths i you know i'm kind of torn

00:59:56 on driscoll i like a lot of stuff about him and don't like some stuff but the point and what i

01:00:00 definitely i think all three of us would agree is that christianity today uh driscoll doesn't need

01:00:04 to be tried by a bunch of feminists so so whoever you know whatever he did that's wrong um christianity 0.65

01:00:10 today is not in the place this is why i like coming on your show because you're the one who

01:00:13 gets in trouble not me you're gonna get in trouble for your laugh but your agreeable laugh ad yeah

01:00:19 by comparison i'm the i'm reasonable russell moore and beth moore the sisters um two sisters uh but

01:00:25 anyways so all that being said like you know driscoll had a flag and we weren't even sure

01:00:30 what it was you know what i mean there weren't actual terms it was just we knew he was a calvinist

01:00:35 yeah but then there were intangibles that we couldn't even articulate but that but that we

01:00:40 knew this is who he is and if you're a part of his network right and yeah it can become too

01:00:46 all about one man or whatever but if you're a part of his network i can expect if i like these

01:00:50 things and i think these things matter i can expect to find these things instead of trying

01:00:55 20 churches over the course of three years i can find a church that is acts 29 a part of driscoll's

01:01:01 network and expect to have some and and so what i'm saying everything's still kind of it's still

01:01:06 too new it's still still too recent the dust hasn't even settled exactly but we eventually

01:01:11 are going to need some some way of being able to say like i don't want to spend three years to find

01:01:17 a biblical church that's not woke yeah i don't want to go to a church and make friendships deep

01:01:21 meaningful friendships over the course of 18 months and then find out that they have a diversity

01:01:26 council you know because all of a sudden they're asking me to be on it because i'm you know

01:01:30 one 18th cherokee indian or whatever you know like i'm sorry by the way so forgive me anyways

01:01:36 he possessed me earlier at lunch and i paid for your meal it was reparations right

01:01:41 i'm not one 18th i was just making of a random example so neither is elizabeth warren you're

01:01:48 good okay yeah no you're right so anyways my point is we're gonna need that we're gonna need

01:01:52 the shibboleth word or flag or something and not because we're trying to make it about us not

01:01:58 because it's man-centered not because we need one guy you know his face you know it's not none of

01:02:04 that but there is something practically helpful about about helping christians who feel lost right

01:02:10 now who haven't been a member in a church for two years some of them it's because they're milking

01:02:14 covid and those kinds of things but someone they literally it's not their fault they can't find a

01:02:18 church and we need to be able to yeah help them if i can say quick and closing i mean this is

01:02:23 the reason that we did put discerning christians.com together so we do have a network there

01:02:29 that people can go and you can add your church you know you can look at and see if there's churches

01:02:33 in your area uh usually i recommend two people check out if they don't find anything there do

01:02:38 like go to sermon audio just see what's in your area and the beauty is you can listen to these

01:02:41 guys and, you know, see what you think first. You can search their sermon library, which will also

01:02:47 help you, you know, get a good idea. But, you know, the important thing is like not just to

01:02:53 trust God in this. God has his people in every place. God hasn't gone anywhere. Truth is still

01:02:58 solid out there. God's raising up people and he uses the weak people sometimes. It may not look

01:03:05 like what you think. It may be like a church plant. You may be the guy that needs to like step

01:03:09 it up and and plant the church so a lot of people are doing that right now so you know don't don't

01:03:15 have a crisis of faith in in the things that actually matter they haven't gone anywhere

01:03:19 they're still there like your god's still there your family's still there your you know your

01:03:24 hometown it's still intact the buildings are still up the people are still that you know still just

01:03:29 need jesus unless it's in ferguson missouri no some of the buildings are still up yeah but um

01:03:36 But, like, yeah, I mean, it feels like, I think, crazy that so many things have changed

01:03:41 that people's heads are still spinning trying to figure out what's going on.

01:03:45 You know, and I think that's the whole conspiracy things about that

01:03:47 is, like, trying to figure out what's a paradigm that makes sense of this.

01:03:50 But the things that really, really, truly matter, they're still there.

01:03:53 They haven't gone anywhere.

01:03:55 So, just, you know, take hope.

01:03:56 That's good.

01:03:57 All right.

01:03:57 Well, thanks for tuning in.

01:03:59 Thanks so much for listening.

01:04:00 But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment,

01:04:04 and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show.

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The NXR Podcast - March 21, 2022

BONUS - How To Spot Counterfeit Courage In Big Eva & Local Pastors

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