The NXR Podcast - BONUS - Matt Chandler And The Danger Of Unbiblical Forms Of Church Discipline

00:00:00.000 Big news. Really big news. Our next Right Response Conference is in the works. We've got a number of

00:00:07.440 things already lined up and organized. This is what we've got so far. The whole conference,

00:00:12.800 three days long on post-millennialism and theonomy. And the speakers, Dr. James White,

00:00:20.120 Dr. Joseph Boot, Gary DeMar, and of course, yours truly, Pastor Joel Webin. We've got a great lineup.

00:00:27.620 We've got great topics.

00:00:29.160 If you want to find out dates and location and registration and anything else, go and

00:00:34.860 visit our website, rightresponseconference.com, rightresponseconference.com.

00:00:41.660 All right, first things first, before we get to old Matt Chandler, let's deal with the

00:00:47.580 real star of the show.

00:00:48.800 This is Franklin.

00:00:49.580 He's hungry, so I'm going to give him right to mama, but this is Franklin Joel Webin.

00:00:54.040 Say hi, Franklin Joel Webin.

00:00:56.860 There's a little bit of family resemblance, and he's not very happy.

00:01:01.200 Okay, I love you.

00:01:02.100 I love you, Bubba.

00:01:03.320 Bye-bye.

00:01:04.140 Bye-bye.

00:01:05.000 All right, we'll go ahead and dive in.

00:01:07.040 Welcome, guys.

00:01:08.360 So this Monday, as you know, is Labor Day, so we're going to take Monday off, and we

00:01:13.040 took this last Monday off because I was dealing with that little guy, which was great.

00:01:16.920 He was born on Sunday.

00:01:19.800 I don't know.

00:01:20.380 It's just, it's like God cares about the Lord's Day and the preaching of His Word or something

00:01:24.160 because I was able to go to church that morning and preach, I thought, one of my best sermons,

00:01:29.740 although my opinion, I'm sure, is biased. But I was able to preach God's word faithfully in our

00:01:33.660 series through the book of Hebrews. And then we went home. We were able to feed our girls. We

00:01:37.960 have three girls, Olive and Ruth and Eleanor, and put them down for a nap. And then within about

00:01:44.200 half an hour, my wife, Megan, was like, it's go time. And so we called the grandparents. They

00:01:49.860 came over, rushed to the house to watch the girls while they were sleeping. So that was a smooth

00:01:53.840 transition. They were all laid down. They knew that we might go at any moment, taking their nap.

00:01:58.660 Grandma and grandpa came over. We hopped in the car. We went to the hospital. And it was great.

00:02:04.980 It was successful. You just saw the proof, the fruit of that success. So we've got Franklin.

00:02:10.320 He was born, I think, at, I believe it was 9.19 p.m. 9.19 p.m. We got to the hospital probably

00:02:17.080 about 3.30. So it wasn't too long, a little less than six hours from checking in to holding

00:02:25.220 Franklin. And Megan has been recovering fantastically. She always does. I don't even

00:02:30.880 like talking about her pregnancies or her deliveries. I will not talk about her deliveries

00:02:35.720 with other women watching the show because I would be tempting you to sin, particularly in

00:02:41.960 the sin of envy. I'll just say, God has been so gracious to my wife. I have no doubt that it's

00:02:47.720 still not a cakewalk. It's not a picnic. But from what we hear from other women, God has been

00:02:53.700 exceedingly gracious towards my wife, Megan, with her pregnancies and her deliveries. And so now

00:03:00.060 the goal is just getting him to eat. One of the things that we struggle with with our webbing

00:03:04.880 babies is they tend to lose about 10%. Every baby loses, you know, from their birth weight,

00:03:11.380 to a few days later, but 10% is starting to get to the concerning zone. And all of our kids have

00:03:17.900 gotten about to 10% weight loss. And so it's trying to get them to eat. But so far it looks,

00:03:25.240 he did hit that 10%, I think like 10, 10.5% from his birth weight, which was eight pounds,

00:03:32.320 five ounces. He got all the way down to, I believe seven pounds, seven and a half ounces.

00:03:39.680 So from 8.5 to 7, 7.5, so almost a full pound.

00:03:45.280 And so that's not great, but since then he has been eating.

00:03:49.220 We've got a scale at home, and I think we just weighed him a few hours ago, and our

00:03:54.280 scale said 7.11.

00:03:56.020 So from 7.7 to 7.11, that's the right direction.

00:04:00.080 So keep us in your prayers, but know that everything in the Webbin household is good.

00:04:04.900 If it wasn't, I wouldn't be here because I love you.

00:04:08.600 but I love my family more and God requires me to love them more. But luckily things are going well.

00:04:14.120 The girls, we just put them down for bed. Franklin is about to do some dinner, late night dinner with

00:04:19.920 mama and things are going well. I even cleaned up the whole house today and I even weeded our

00:04:25.600 garden. So I'm using the time to try to keep things in order to make things good for the kids

00:04:31.340 and especially good for mom. So thank you for praying. Keep praying. Really the only prayer

00:04:36.100 is just that Franklin would gain weight.

00:04:37.720 And the other prayer for Right Response Ministries,

00:04:40.220 not so much the Webb and Household,

00:04:41.760 but our ministry is that Franklin,

00:04:44.500 part of the reason I brought him in here

00:04:45.500 was to show him to you guys,

00:04:46.600 but also to give him a taste of his bedroom.

00:04:49.300 Because a lot of people don't know this,

00:04:50.580 but this is Franklin's bedroom.

00:04:52.880 This is a room in my house.

00:04:54.480 And it was great having the studio in our home.

00:04:57.160 It was, you know, economic and affordable

00:05:00.200 and all those kinds of things.

00:05:01.900 But the thing is that my wife and I,

00:05:04.280 we keep producing arrows in our quiver. We keep having babies because we love babies. We love

00:05:11.620 God's word. We want to have several children because children are not a burden. They're a

00:05:16.280 blessing. But the problem is we only have so much space in our house. So pray for Franklin to put

00:05:21.400 on weight. That's a webbing prayer. But right response ministry's prayer would be pray that

00:05:25.940 the Lord would continue to provide. He's been gracious through your generosity. The Lord has

00:05:31.220 been faithful, but pray that the Lord would continue to bring in donations and funds so

00:05:36.060 that we can get the studio out of our house. We want to get it out of the webbing house,

00:05:41.540 but we also want to actually revamp and have a more professional studio. Right now, I would say

00:05:47.220 it's semi-professional. We've got some good cameras and okay lighting, but we want to get

00:05:52.340 more professional lighting. We could up our game with the lighting. We think we could just gear

00:05:57.680 of the room and more sound padding, things like that to get better quality sound for you guys in

00:06:02.600 these videos, better lighting. And then the biggest thing is just practical. Again, just getting the

00:06:07.760 studio out of the house. So I have another bedroom to put all the kids that the Lord keeps giving me,

00:06:12.380 which is again, a blessing. So that's it. A little update for Right Response Ministries and especially

00:06:17.760 the Webbin family. All that being said, that's not why you're here. Well, some of you, that might

00:06:22.500 have been why some of you in the comments, you're like, we're not here for Matt Chandler. We're here

00:06:25.280 to see Franklin. So I didn't want to disappoint. So you guys are my favorite people. The ones who

00:06:29.900 are like, we're not here for Matt Chandler. We're here for Franklin. But for those of you who are

00:06:33.740 here for Matt Chandler and hearing some thoughts on that, we'll go ahead and hop to it. But let

00:06:38.980 me pray. I don't always do this. I know that sounds bad. I pray as a pastor in my prayer life

00:06:45.140 and with my family and all those kinds of things, probably close to a couple hours a day spent in

00:06:52.120 prayer, either with my kids and catechizing and all these different things. In the morning,

00:06:56.160 we do family worship. In the evening, we do family worship, praying for my wife. And then

00:07:00.300 my pastoral prayers, I pray by name for each member at Covenant Bible Church, where I pastor

00:07:05.700 in Central Texas. But in terms of public prayer, we have lots of prayers in our Lord's Day liturgy,

00:07:12.580 and I pray before the sermon, and there's multiple pastoral prayers throughout the service on Sunday,

00:07:17.320 but I don't always pray when I'm podcasting, but I want to be exceedingly wise. I want to be

00:07:24.220 courageous, but I also want to be very wise and careful, wise and careful in this podcast. So

00:07:31.360 join me as I pray, just asking the Lord to guide me and to help me to be faithful and careful and

00:07:37.600 wise today. All right, here we go. Father, we come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

00:07:43.900 your son. We thank you for his sacrifice. We thank you that he has reconciled us to you by grace

00:07:50.300 alone, through faith alone, in him alone. And Lord, we pray for Matt Chandler and the village church,

00:07:57.920 the elders there, the deacons, the members. And we pray also for Acts 29 network, which I used to be

00:08:04.600 a part of as a pastor. Lord, I don't want to see that network fail. And I don't want to see the

00:08:11.080 Village Church fail. I don't want to see Matt Chandler fail. I don't want to see discord or

00:08:18.300 shame or difficulty with his marriage or with his children and his family and his church,

00:08:24.920 any of those things. So Lord, we pray for your grace. We pray for your provision, your protection.

00:08:31.360 Lord, we pray that whatever's going on, there's certain things that we are privy to that have

00:08:35.760 been publicly shared, which is what we'll discuss today. But you know the whole truth. You know the

00:08:42.560 whole story. You know all the things that have not been publicly shared. And Lord, we just pray

00:08:47.680 that you would work in the midst of a difficult situation, that you would bring clarity. And Lord,

00:08:53.480 I pray for the elders at the Vineyard Church, or the Vineyard, at the Village Church especially.

00:08:59.340 Lord, I pray that you would help them to be courageous, help them to be honorable, but

00:09:05.860 also Lord, help them to be humble and to not give in to any sin of envy or mutiny or division.

00:09:16.740 We don't know if any of that's going on in their hearts, but I know that that is quite

00:09:21.580 possible, that elder teams can be radically divided and that some of the things we see

00:09:27.880 from the public stage are actually just the fruit of private quarrels and disagreements and division

00:09:35.920 among elder teams. And so Lord, if there is any of that going on, Lord, I pray that the guys who

00:09:42.700 are true to your word would win. And whatever elders on that team who are involved in that

00:09:48.740 church, who have gone woke, who are drifting away from the sufficiency of scripture, who are

00:09:57.120 kowtowing to the spirit of the age, I pray that they would lose. If there are any elders like

00:10:05.400 that, that they would lose the battle and that they would be shamefully dismissed. And that

00:10:12.260 the village church would get back to some of its earlier days. And Lord, I pray that they would

00:10:19.120 reform in their convictions and biblical fidelity to be even better than they ever were. And that

00:10:24.800 they would get out of that woke nonsense that they've kind of delved into the last few years.

00:10:31.500 So Lord, we pray for repentance, not just with this situation, but all the other situations

00:10:36.600 that may be in the background and those situations that we know are in the background, like drifting

00:10:43.400 from the sufficiency of scripture with critical race theory and those kinds of things. Let this

00:10:48.080 be an opportunity for Acts 29 and for the village and for Matt Chandler to repent of those sins.

00:10:54.800 And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

00:10:57.260 All right, I've jotted down the briefest of notes,

00:11:01.060 but let me refresh my memory.

00:11:03.020 Okay, so the way I see it,

00:11:04.580 I think there are about four options here,

00:11:06.420 and I'm sure there are more,

00:11:07.620 but I wanna talk about four possible options.

00:11:11.460 And again, I don't wanna spend a bunch of time speculating.

00:11:14.320 Whenever I do speculate,

00:11:15.640 because I'm sure I will speculate a bit,

00:11:17.960 but I will do my best to be clear that it is speculation,

00:11:21.380 because I don't wanna make any definitive statements.

00:11:24.800 about things that we don't know for certain, because that's gossip or, well, no, that's not

00:11:32.320 gossip. Technically, if I make a definitive statement about something that we don't know,

00:11:37.220 and it turns out not to be true, that would be slander. That would be slander. If the definitive

00:11:41.560 statement I'm making about something we don't know that turns out not to be true is negative

00:11:47.020 and destructive, that seeks to tarnish their reputation, that would be slander by definition.

00:11:53.540 If I say something positive, not negative, but something positive, but again, making

00:11:57.900 a definitive positive statement about something we don't know, and it turns out not to be

00:12:02.180 true, that would be flattery, which is also a sin.

00:12:05.860 So I don't want to flatter.

00:12:07.060 I don't want to slander.

00:12:08.400 In terms of gossip, gossip is talking about things, even if you do know they're true,

00:12:13.980 not trying to destroy an image and also not trying to puff up somebody.

00:12:18.080 So it's neither slander nor flattery.

00:12:20.620 But gossip is having a conversation about someone behind their back, privately, with

00:12:28.540 no desire for it to be constructive or helpful for anyone, but simply to hurt someone in

00:12:37.180 their absence, that someone who should be privy to that information is not privy to

00:12:42.860 the information.

00:12:43.440 They're not there.

00:12:44.080 They're not there to defend themselves.

00:12:46.420 They're not there to share their side of the story.

00:12:50.500 That would be gossip.

00:12:51.680 Now, that said, you might say, well, Matt Chandler's not sitting in the room with you. 1.00

00:12:54.980 And I'm sure some of you probably will say something like that, something as stupid as 1.00

00:12:59.660 that. 1.00

00:12:59.920 And yes, that is a stupid thing to say. 1.00

00:13:02.120 Look, what we're talking about is public information. 0.99

00:13:05.200 And that's why I'm going to be careful about speculation.

00:13:08.160 And like I said, this is the disclaimer right out of the gate.

00:13:11.660 Anything that I am going to speculate, I will clearly label that as speculation.

00:13:16.260 I'm not going to make a definitive accusation or a definitive statement about something that we

00:13:22.260 don't know. So that means what we're talking about, we are allowed to talk about. You know

00:13:27.220 why? Because they chose to live stream it. The village church, their elders, somebody in charge

00:13:34.940 decided that this should be public. You might say, well, this should just be talked about with

00:13:39.180 the elders. Well, then why do they tell it to the church? Oh, okay. Oh, well, then this is just an

00:13:43.640 in-house conversation with the village church, okay, then why did they live stream it?

00:13:48.720 Look, they publicly put this information out there. The information that they publicly put

00:13:53.360 out there that they presented, that's the information that I'm going to discuss.

00:13:57.000 And I'm going to talk about possibilities of what might be going on, being clear to label

00:14:02.060 speculation as speculation, but then talking about some things that we really do know for certain.

00:14:07.060 And even with what we know for certain, the things that are definitive, the things that the village

00:14:11.660 church chose to publicly present, meaning it's fair game for us to commentate on for the good

00:14:18.060 of the church at large, the invisible universal global church. This is a public affair. There are

00:14:24.020 tons of Christians watching. There are people right now who their faith is going back and

00:14:30.680 forth, right? There are immature people in the faith that shouldn't be. They should be rooted

00:14:34.100 in Christ, not in Chandler, not in the village, not in Acts 29, but there are immature believers

00:14:39.600 that are being tossed to and fro right now.

00:14:42.900 Their faith is wavering.

00:14:44.860 It's hanging in the balance.

00:14:46.540 And so for the good of the global church,

00:14:48.780 the universal church,

00:14:49.920 I'm going to publicly address something

00:14:52.100 that is free game for me to publicly address

00:14:55.340 because the village church chose to put it out,

00:14:59.120 not just to their elders,

00:15:00.600 not just to their deacons,

00:15:02.120 not just to their members,

00:15:03.620 not just to everyone who happened to attend that Sunday,

00:15:06.060 but to the whole world, the whole world.

00:15:09.600 this wasn't leaked is my point. This wasn't leaked. This wasn't that somebody went to the village

00:15:15.640 that day and busted out their cell phone and recorded something that was supposed to be a

00:15:19.860 private members only conversation and then put it up on the worldwide web. That's not what happened.

00:15:25.260 That's not what happened. So this is free game, what we're talking about. And it matters. It's

00:15:30.500 worth talking about because people are wrestling with it. People need to understand, is it okay to

00:15:37.100 have a relationship with a woman that's not romantic and not sexual but too friendly and

00:15:43.920 what would be too these are conversations that we need to have these are things that amy bird

00:15:48.700 has been talking about and she's wrong she's wrong she is self-contradicting she's the type 0.99

00:15:55.660 of person and for those of you who don't know amy bird is a raging feminist with the opc which is 0.77

00:16:00.960 shocking but somehow that she just keeps being allowed to do what she does but amy bird has 0.96

00:16:06.400 basically said that, well, we believe in brother-sister relationships, which is the same

00:16:11.760 language that was used by Matt Chandler and the village and the elders there and the thing that

00:16:16.900 they publicly chose to put out to the whole world. We believe in brother and sister relationships

00:16:21.860 in Christ. We believe that a man and a woman who are not married to each other can have some form

00:16:28.140 of friendship, right? But then Amy Bird in the very next breath, she'll say that, but then the

00:16:34.480 very next breath she'll talk about the whole me too movement and and she sides with the me too

00:16:40.840 crazy people saying yeah something to the essence of yeah believe all women i but these people

00:16:46.520 these women claim to be victimized and i believe them so wait a second you're saying that men

00:16:51.300 should stick their neck out because of a brother the the the virtue of brother sisterly relationships

00:16:57.880 in christ that men should stick out their neck do something that makes them vulnerable take a risk

00:17:04.640 in befriending a woman in christ who is a sister in christ who they're not married to knowing that

00:17:10.840 that woman especially in our heated believe all women culture that we live in today may get

00:17:16.580 offended by that man right she might maybe he never makes it romantic or sexual what if she

00:17:22.360 ends up liking him and then he does the right thing let's say he's a married man like chan 1.00

00:17:26.860 and he turns her down but then she gets heated and says i'm gonna ruin you and say that you were

00:17:32.220 uh too chummy with me and too friendly with me and and yeah it wasn't romantic or sexual i don't

00:17:36.960 have text on you that would be binding in that way to to you know to prove it but but i could 0.94

00:17:41.260 say that you were inappropriate and that you were too friendly and i'm gonna ruin you and ruin your

00:17:45.520 reputation and this and that that's the culture that we live in so amy bird saying yeah brother

00:17:50.600 and sister relationship in christ we we we got to do that um the mike pence rule is a bad rule

00:17:56.960 that that's that's men treating women like they're all vipers like like women are just are just uh

00:18:02.940 walking uh biohazards they're just they're just uh just a living breathing risk and and that that 0.99

00:18:10.960 no man can ever be with a woman because because lord knows that that you know every woman is going 1.00

00:18:15.820 to want to be with him. That's just this narcissistic view of men that views women as

00:18:22.560 temptresses and views themselves as being so desirable that no woman could hold herself back

00:18:28.960 from him. And that's why we're in the problem that we're in. So Amy Bird is 100% with that

00:18:34.340 narrative. But then on the other flip side, in the very same breath, she's saying, oh, and also

00:18:40.120 every woman who claims to be victimized by a man, I believe. Do you see how that's contradicting?

00:18:46.780 Think about that for a second. Men should stick their necks out and be friends with women because

00:18:50.740 to do anything other than a man being friends with a woman who he's not married to, to not

00:18:55.640 be willing to do that is to be a prude like Mike Pence or Billy Graham, the Billy Graham rule, 0.61

00:19:03.120 and it's to subtly indict and accuse women of being temptresses and narcissistically view

00:19:09.180 yourself is irresistible. And yet, so men should be friends because it's rude not to be. Men should

00:19:16.180 be friends with any woman who pursues friendship. They should be willing to do that. And we should

00:19:21.540 believe all women when they say something about that man. Because anytime a woman claims to be 1.00

00:19:29.340 abused, 100% of the time she's telling the truth and the man actually is an abuser. Do you see how

00:19:34.540 those two things contradict one another? That's Amy Burt. So these are some of the reasons why

00:19:39.120 we're talking about it because it has larger application for the body of christ it has a

00:19:44.520 universal and invisible church relevancy so it's not just getting together and gossiping about

00:19:50.840 matt chandler so anybody's like well this isn't your business they made it our business i just

00:19:56.300 every time i do a podcast people do you know how many times people take one of my videos and and

00:20:03.400 they and they chop it up and and they they play part of the video and then they commentate on it

00:20:07.820 you know and say well this is why he's wrong about that and this is why he's wrong about that

00:20:11.520 and this is why he's wrong about that people do that all the time and and you know how often i

00:20:15.760 complain about it on my on my show on my podcast never you complain about it right now no i'm not

00:20:22.960 no they're allowed to do that because i'm producing and recording a public video public

00:20:30.760 content. This isn't, this isn't stolen from me. I am giving my consent to record this and to put

00:20:37.820 this on the internet. So if someone wants to critique it and I don't like what they have to

00:20:42.160 say, I could do a response if I'd like to, or I usually don't. What I can do instead is go play

00:20:49.360 with my baby boy because I don't really care. I don't lose sleep over it. I'm not worried about

00:20:55.800 it. I mean, all this members of my church are like, Joel, do you know how many people hate you

00:20:59.460 on the internet? And I just laugh. It doesn't matter. You know why? I care about people. I do

00:21:06.100 this whole internet thing because they are real people with real souls who really need Jesus.

00:21:11.540 You guys listening, those of you who support our ministry, you're real people. I'm grateful for you.

00:21:15.840 But for those of you who support, it means something. Those of you who don't and who hate

00:21:20.800 this ministry, it doesn't mean something. It doesn't. Because at the end of the day, I'm going

00:21:27.120 to stand or fall based on the standard of universal popular opinion of people on YouTube? No.

00:21:36.680 I'm going to stand or fall based off of God's judgment, his universal and transcendent

00:21:42.220 standard, his absolute morals and law. I'm doing what I'm doing because I believe it's right.

00:21:48.280 Right Response Ministries has a board. I could be fired. I have accountability. I have people

00:21:54.200 who, they're the ones who I am trusting to say,

00:21:58.060 hey, am I off?

00:21:59.600 Was I too harsh?

00:22:01.360 Was that not sound doctrine?

00:22:03.840 Was it, what?

00:22:05.080 And there's, no, no, brother.

00:22:07.080 You're not perfect.

00:22:08.440 You're not perfect, but you're faithful.

00:22:11.840 By God's grace, not because of you,

00:22:13.600 but by God's grace and God's grace alone,

00:22:15.580 you're faithful.

00:22:16.420 So go, keep going, keep going.

00:22:18.060 So guess what I'm doing?

00:22:18.820 I'm gonna keep going.

00:22:19.600 And when somebody talks about something, I don't care.

00:22:22.540 It's not gossip.

00:22:24.040 It's not.

00:22:24.460 They're allowed to do that.

00:22:25.420 I made it public.

00:22:27.060 You're allowed to critique public things.

00:22:29.100 So I'm going to give my commentary today, and it's not gossip.

00:22:32.920 And that's not a double standard.

00:22:34.100 Well, he wouldn't like it if people were talking about him.

00:22:36.020 That's why I just talked and said all the things that I just said over the last four

00:22:39.000 and a half minutes.

00:22:39.960 No, I don't care.

00:22:41.340 I don't care.

00:22:41.820 So for anybody who thinks that these kinds of things are gossip, feel free to just leave

00:22:45.540 right now.

00:22:46.540 I don't know why you're watching, except so that you can know what I'm going to say,

00:22:50.080 even though you disagree with it, so you can tell somebody about it and gossip.

00:22:52.460 Oh, gotcha. Okay. So hypocrites sign out everybody else who understands and has the

00:23:01.360 spiritual maturity, understand that this is a public thing and that it actually affects the 0.98

00:23:05.600 universal and invisible church globally that people are that maybe they shouldn't. Well,

00:23:11.060 they definitely shouldn't, but there are people with weak faith who are struggling with what to

00:23:15.080 and then also seeing like the Amy Bird stuff, the wider parameters of what is the nature of

00:23:19.820 relationship between a man and a woman? Are platonic relationships between a Christian man

00:23:24.840 and a Christian woman who are not married to each other? Are those even possible? Anybody who sees 0.65

00:23:29.240 the relevancy and importance of those kinds of conversations, you're in the right place.

00:23:35.420 That's what we're going to talk about. All right. So there's all the disclaimers. There's four

00:23:39.980 situations, potential situations. Now, some of this will be speculation and I'll do my best

00:23:45.280 to label those things. But in terms of what's going on at the Village Church, what in the world

00:23:51.080 is actually going on with Matt Chandler? Because I think that's kind of, we got to start there.

00:23:56.780 That's the problem. That's what people are wrestling with right now. They're like, okay,

00:24:00.540 so wait a second. It was specified by Chandler and reiterated that he's not disqualified from

00:24:08.000 ministry. And that these direct messages on Instagram with this woman, according to Chandler,

00:24:16.220 and it wasn't corrected by the guy who got up and followed him, his wife knew about it.

00:24:21.940 Her husband knew about it. And they were not sexual and they were not romantic. And that's

00:24:30.160 the elder's assessment. And that's the assessment of a third party. That's another thing that we

00:24:35.600 should talk about, because I think that's dumb. That is not biblical. This third-party organization 0.96

00:24:41.880 outside of the church's governance, outside of the ecclesiastical authority of the elders and

00:24:48.240 the members of that church, this extra party that I don't even know if the organization is Christian

00:24:53.040 or not. I know that when it came to the SBC, trying to measure all the accounts of all the

00:25:00.040 women who said that they were physically abused, sexually abused in the SBC, I know that the

00:25:05.580 SBC chose to put on payroll an organization that is not Christian and that actually is LGBT

00:25:13.580 affirming. So you're going to get the guys who agree with Sodom and Gomorrah to come and tell 0.97

00:25:21.180 the SBC, the people who are supposed to be the church, the people of God, what is moral and

00:25:26.960 what is immoral. Let me say that again. The SBC thought it would be a good idea to get Sodom and 0.91

00:25:33.560 Gomorrah to weigh in on morality and specifically cases of sexual abuse with the people of God.

00:25:42.120 That's the opposite of 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6, we always take it out of context

00:25:46.640 and we say, 1 Corinthians 6 says that we shouldn't ever sue somebody. That Christians, you know, 1.00

00:25:50.720 Christians should just let things go, right? Because it says, why not rather be wronged? 1.00

00:25:54.480 Well, that's true. There is something about allowing yourself to be wrong, not always trying

00:25:59.500 to be proven right. That's one lesson from 1 Corinthians 6. But the other lesson from 1

00:26:04.520 Corinthians 6 is not that believers can never actually have any real grievances, and not that

00:26:09.640 believers with grievances always have to sacrifice and allow themselves to be wrong, that they can't

00:26:15.100 have any avenue to pursue justice. No, believers can have a valid grievance, and they can pursue

00:26:22.220 valid avenues of justice with their grievances, even when their grievance is with another brother

00:26:28.840 or sister in christ what what what paul says in first corinthians 6 is not allowed is for two

00:26:34.940 believers in the church to go and seek justice a just ruling from the wisdom of the peanut gallery

00:26:43.300 aka pagans he says what you bring these things before pagans do you not know that we the church

00:26:53.540 are going to judge angels we're going to be judging angels one day and yet you're telling

00:27:00.280 me there's no one wise among you not one person in the church could weigh in with godly wisdom

00:27:06.840 not worldly wisdom not that is first of all demonic but but godly wisdom that is from above

00:27:13.820 not one person in the church born again by grace through faith in christ has wisdom which james

00:27:20.580 chapter one says, if anyone lacks wisdom, it's an easy solution. Ask God who gives without finding

00:27:25.460 reproach. So there's not one person who's asked God for wisdom among the people of God in the

00:27:31.140 church who can weigh in and help reconcile this situation, help you gain justice for your

00:27:37.440 alleged grievance. You have to go to pagans. So the big correction by Paul is not just that

00:27:42.740 Christians can't have grievances. It's not just that Christians have to let everything go. It's

00:27:46.920 not just that christians can't ever pursue practical means of justice in this life it's 0.54

00:27:52.100 that christians should not have to get the the the two cents from the pagan peanut gallery

00:27:59.360 that's the lesson which the sbc knew that lesson apparently no one of influence in the sbc

00:28:07.460 has read first corinthians chapter six now the village church i don't know this organization so

00:28:12.880 i'm not going to say it's pagan i don't know if it's lgbt affirming like what what the sbc did

00:28:17.820 with their organization that they brought in to weigh in on these cases but my point is

00:28:21.820 that is extra biblical especially so i'm going to start there especially for a baptist church

00:28:28.100 and for the record the village is a part of not just act 29 but the sbc the southern baptist

00:28:34.560 convention do you know one of the things that makes you a baptist church baptism joel baptism

00:28:40.980 That's true, but it's not just baptism.

00:28:43.640 All right, so think about this.

00:28:45.560 Baptists have a particular view of baptism.

00:28:48.600 It's in the name, Baptist. 0.72

00:28:50.060 They are credo-baptists.

00:28:51.080 They hold to a believer's baptism, 0.88

00:28:52.900 that baptism should follow, not proceed,

00:28:55.520 but follow a credible profession of faith.

00:28:57.680 So baptism is in the name of Baptist.

00:29:01.820 But there's a bunch of guys that I know

00:29:03.460 that because they're infant,

00:29:04.800 they hold to infant baptism, pedo-baptism,

00:29:07.260 baptism of the children of believers

00:29:09.760 without a credible profession of faith, 0.78

00:29:11.800 they're like, hey, I'm Presbyterian.

00:29:14.220 Well, here's the deal. 0.76

00:29:16.240 Baptist, right?

00:29:18.060 Baptism is in the name for Baptist,

00:29:20.400 but Presbytery is in the name for Presbyterians. 0.71

00:29:24.660 So if you're baptizing babies,

00:29:27.280 but you don't belong to a Presbytery,

00:29:30.440 you are not Presbyterian.

00:29:32.520 See, the two main issues,

00:29:34.660 both in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith

00:29:37.500 and the Westminster,

00:29:38.220 sister. The two big areas that they differ, because they're like 96% the same. The two big

00:29:43.940 areas that they differ, one is baptism. Everybody knows that. Infant baptism versus believer's

00:29:48.860 baptism. Paedo, credo. But there's another thing. The second thing is church polity. That word 0.95

00:29:55.500 polity simply means governance. Who's in charge? And you might say, well, God's in charge. Jesus

00:30:01.280 is the head of his church. Great. That's a great spiritual answer. And it is, it is technically 0.51

00:30:06.280 biblically true but the question is who has human authority who does jesus lead through jesus is

00:30:14.200 head of his church absolutely the bible is is the final arbiter of all truth it is the final

00:30:20.340 authority but the question is who gets to say what the bible says what do you do you say the bible is

00:30:27.600 the final authority what do you do when you have two people who both say the bible is the final

00:30:30.820 authority, but don't agree on what the Bible says, then you need to understand, you need to have

00:30:36.220 polity, church polity, a certain structure, governance to be able to decide when disagreements

00:30:41.800 arise, and they will, to be able to decide who gets the final interpretive authority on the Bible.

00:30:48.960 Who gets the interpretive authority? That's the question. Now, that's one of the things that I

00:30:54.500 think is a strength, a massive strength, in being not just a Calvinistic Baptist, as Chandler is,

00:31:00.480 or MacArthur. Now they're very different, but they're both, neither is confessionally reformed.

00:31:05.500 They are Calvinistic Baptists. There is a great strength in being confessionally reformed because

00:31:11.040 the first authority in terms of who gets to interpret the Bible, Bible's the highest authority.

00:31:16.940 Bible's the only infallible authority. That's the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. But in terms of who

00:31:21.740 gets interpretive authority, who gets to say what the Bible says? What does it actually mean? What's

00:31:28.140 the correct interpretation? The confession. Okay, if it's beyond the confession, it's outside of

00:31:34.560 those parameters, then you go further, right? Presbyterians, the lead pastor, the teaching

00:31:39.800 pastor, teaching elder, pastor of a Presbyterian church is not a member of his local church,

00:31:46.060 which I don't like. I think pastors should be members in their own church that they pastor.

00:31:50.720 But in the Presbyterian, that's one of the things that I disagree with. Just like my disagreement

00:31:55.060 with baptism, I actually have stronger disagreements with Presbyterian polity.

00:32:00.420 One of the things is that their teaching elders are members of their presbytery, not their

00:32:06.540 local church.

00:32:07.520 I don't like that.

00:32:08.400 Now, their presbytery is outside of the local church and would oversee a region of multiple

00:32:14.260 local churches.

00:32:15.620 And then it goes higher and higher and higher.

00:32:17.320 And then you have your general assembly.

00:32:19.580 You have like the PCA gets together and it's over all of these Presbyterian churches.

00:32:25.060 in America. But the point is polity. There are tiers. There is hierarchy. There is governance

00:32:32.680 for deciding who interprets the Bible. When we both disagree on what the Bible is saying,

00:32:40.140 its interpretation, who wins out? How do we resolve those matters? How do we solve those

00:32:45.880 matters? So first and foremost, as a Baptist, the Presbyterian, I might understand. The Anglican,

00:32:53.840 I might understand, right? There are a few major forms of church polity. One is an Episcopal form

00:32:59.860 of church polity. Catholics, Roman Catholics adhere to this. Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox or

00:33:06.200 Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, they agree with this. But also, of course, Episcopalians.

00:33:12.660 And that's your hierarchy where it goes all the way up. And the way that you can tell who has

00:33:17.280 more authority is by the size of their hat. The bigger the hat, and I'm literally, literally an

00:33:22.600 actual hat right the pope has the biggest hat whoever has the biggest hat that's the guy who's

00:33:26.920 in charge but it's a hierarchy going up okay um there's presbyterian polity they have presbyteries

00:33:34.040 right so it's not just one man at the top and to be fair um episcopalians would be different than

00:33:40.520 than roman you know the pope is that's unique to roman catholicism but greek orthodoxy is basically

00:33:47.600 the same except they have a plurality of popes instead of a singular pope but the same same

00:33:51.600 thing, an Episcopal polity, right? Where you go from, you go from priests to, to bishops, to,

00:33:57.580 you know, to cardinals and all the way up. Okay. There's the Baptist polity. Okay. I'll get to

00:34:03.520 that last because that deals with Chandler, but there's Presbyterian polity. And I've already

00:34:06.900 kind of described that where you have, they get that a lot of that's from Acts chapter 15. The

00:34:11.140 reason why I disagree is because Acts chapter 15 has apostles. Apostles are sitting on this council

00:34:16.780 in Jerusalem. So there's a council in Jerusalem that appears to oversee not just the local

00:34:21.460 church in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem church, but other churches. It has authority to send like

00:34:25.820 Paul and Barnabas to go and check out what's going on, you know, in other places. And so

00:34:30.400 Presbyterians would use that to say that there's a council that oversees, right? It's not one guy,

00:34:36.460 it's not an Episcopal hierarchy, but there is a council that is outside of just one local church

00:34:41.540 that oversees multiple churches in a region, okay? So that's your Presbyterian polity. Here's

00:34:47.620 the deal. Baptist polity, the name of the game. This is the hill. Baptists will die on two hills. 0.99

00:34:54.040 This is what makes you a Baptist. Literally, this is it. You baptize believers and then autonomy of 0.86

00:34:59.980 the local church. You baptize believers only and autonomy of the local church. Meaning when it

00:35:10.400 comes to Baptists, yeah, sure, you could belong to denomination, but technically in theological

00:35:15.020 terms, it's an affiliation, it's a fellowship, but it's an association. But the SBC is not

00:35:22.340 actually in technical terms, a denomination. It's called that, it's called the largest

00:35:26.340 Protestant denomination, you know, all these different things. But any true Baptist will 0.99

00:35:31.080 tell you, no, no, no, it's not a denomination. Meaning the SBC, what they can do is they can

00:35:35.480 remove your status as an SBC church. But what they can't do is the SBC cannot come into your

00:35:41.760 local church and make any authoritative decisions. Why? Because that's what it means to be a Baptist.

00:35:49.900 Baptists believe in two things, baptism for believers and autonomy of the local church.

00:35:54.740 Now I'm a particular Baptist and that's, I don't just mean I'm particular about things, which I am,

00:35:59.540 but that's, that's the actual term, a particular reformed Baptist, meaning I'm confessional.

00:36:04.680 I hold to the 1689, so I don't have just two things. I've got a bunch of things. But a bunch

00:36:10.100 of those things I share with my Presbyterian brothers. The two things that set me aside that

00:36:13.640 make me different and unique from them, again, are the same two things, autonomy of the local church

00:36:17.900 and baptism of believers, a believer's baptism, okay? So autonomy of the local church, what do

00:36:22.700 we mean there? There is no ecclesiastical, no formal official, you can have somebody counsel,

00:36:28.220 you can have this, you can have that, but there is no formal official authority from outside of

00:36:33.140 the local church. Now, we can object at this point and say, well, wait a second, you know,

00:36:37.140 the elders bring in this third party. Um, they're not bringing them in to make a binding decision.

00:36:41.520 The elders are making the decision at the village church. Um, but they just want to bring someone

00:36:45.520 else in to observe, to observe. And I think that's where right there, I start to get a little bit

00:36:53.020 wary. Okay. So in their defense, I'm sure that that's the case. I'm sure that's the case that

00:36:57.720 there's, they're not saying, Hey, this, this organization, we're going to give them full

00:37:01.260 ecclesiastical authority to make the decision of whether or not to fire Chandler, whether or not

00:37:05.660 to send them on a paid sabbatical and keep them or blah, blah, blah, blah. They're not going to

00:37:09.140 get to make the decision. I'm sure that that's the position of the elders at the village church.

00:37:15.840 But then why are you bringing them in? I just, first Corinthians six, I would just say, as Paul

00:37:19.920 said, is there no one wise among you? Do you not know that we will be judging angels?

00:37:28.500 Like you couldn't, the village church is a big church, right? And if this is as serious as it

00:37:33.880 seems like they're making it. I mean, it seems like they're making it serious to do it in front

00:37:38.440 of everybody. Chandler is immediately on an indefinite sabbatical, relieved from his role

00:37:45.420 as preaching pastor at the village. And he immediately following suit was relieved of his

00:37:51.380 role as president of Acts 29. I mean, they're making it seem really serious. So if something

00:37:55.320 this serious, I'm sure there's lots of problems going on in the village church. There's plenty

00:37:59.020 of work to be done as an elder. I'm sure they have their hands full, full plates for an

00:38:03.780 elder at the village church but this seems like like top priority and and with a plurality of

00:38:11.080 elders many of them dozens of elders like nobody had the time to read the messages and nobody was

00:38:18.500 wise among you nobody can make this call no pastor right we got to go to the peanut gallery always

00:38:25.040 and and so then you have to start to ask the question why what what what does the peanut

00:38:29.500 gallery have to offer? Well, I think there's one thing, right? And here's some speculation. I told

00:38:34.420 you I'd name it when I, when I was going to do it. All right. So I'm about to do it. Here's some

00:38:38.060 speculation. Here's one thing that the peanut gallery has to offer PR. And what I mean by that

00:38:47.780 is that the elders at the village church is woke as Chandler has been the last few years that I

00:38:56.060 don't appreciate. That's why I left Acts 29. Some of the things that he's done, his

00:39:01.540 Baptocostal stuff with dreams and visions of pirate ships and sharks. I don't know if you

00:39:07.300 guys remember that. You can look it up. Pretty easy to find. But there's some wacky mystical

00:39:12.420 prophecy stuff that I don't like. And then even more than that, the woke stuff that I really

00:39:19.560 don't like. But as wacky as those things are, I'm sure the village church, there's gotta be

00:39:28.800 a regenerate elder or two, even with the church being bad. And I don't think it always was bad,

00:39:34.660 but I think it's gotten kind of bad. But even with the church being bad, I bet you they still have

00:39:39.580 some faithful elders. I say regenerate, I'm being facetious. More than that, regenerate and faithful

00:39:46.820 with some wisdom, why can't they weigh in? Why can't they just decide in-house what to do?

00:39:54.380 Why are you getting someone else? I think this is why. The reason why you get someone from the

00:39:57.920 outside who very likely is not a Christian, that doesn't have your standard, God's standard, 0.63

00:40:03.140 for these kinds of things, why do you get them? Because you get the non-Christian group to weigh 0.66

00:40:07.500 in because the non-Christian group is going to be able to tell you what all the non-Christians 0.72

00:40:12.660 are going to think. Why do you get the non-Christian group to weigh in? So that they can tell you what

00:40:18.200 all the non-Christians are going to think. And these days, a lot of pastors and a lot of churches

00:40:24.580 and a lot of denominations like the SBC really, really, really care what all the non-Christians 0.94

00:40:29.500 are going to think. So they're not just trying to render a righteous judgment according to God's

00:40:33.980 standard in his word, to actually just decide what to do in the matter. They're also deciding

00:40:39.680 how to do it, how to publicly do it. What's our PR stunt? How do we public? And I guarantee you,

00:40:49.600 I guarantee you from those assessments, that's where they got the idea to do it this way,

00:40:55.220 to get ahead of it, to make it this public thing. I'm very sure. Okay. So the speculation is,

00:41:02.840 I think that that's probably part of the motive. How do we get ahead of this so that we don't get

00:41:07.060 ripped apart by the pagans we we need a few pagans to coach us on how to appease the pagans

00:41:13.960 because we live in a pagan culture that hates churches and even though matt chandler has as

00:41:21.060 kind of you know kowtowed to to some of the left with his woke rhetoric with his support of eric

00:41:30.560 mason who wrote woke church and was on the international board for acts 29 when i was a

00:41:35.700 Even though there's been some of these concessions from the village, from Chandler, we should know by now that you can't ever be leftist enough.

00:41:50.720 And so, yeah, the left still hates. 0.95

00:41:53.400 I'm talking about the political left, talking about godless people who want to trans kids, right, and tell little white kids in school that they're inherently immoral and colonizers. 0.97

00:42:03.800 I'm talking about that group. 0.53

00:42:05.700 um, yeah, that group doesn't like, uh, woke churches because woke churches, even woke

00:42:11.560 churches aren't woke enough, not enough, at least not the village. Maybe some of them,

00:42:16.020 if you've completely sold out with all orthodoxy, you're a universalist. Um, you, you've denied the

00:42:21.920 bodily resurrection and, uh, the virgin birth and, and all these kinds of, and you're gay affirming 0.99

00:42:27.700 and blah, blah, blah. Uh, but the village is not that right. The village has some problems. I've 1.00

00:42:32.000 already detailed those. But the village is not that far by any stretch, by any stretch, which

00:42:38.900 means, so praise God, they're not that far. But what that means is that unbelievers are not going 1.00

00:42:47.560 to like them no matter what they do. So why care? Why care? Well, and I think part of the reason why 1.00

00:42:54.560 is because they're trying to preemptively fend off any kind of attack that would come from the

00:43:00.660 outside and not from the outside, from other ministries like mine or from other churches or

00:43:06.160 denominations. No, no, no. I think they're trying to fend off from the news circuits,

00:43:11.380 from media outlets, non-Christian, unbelieving media outlets that would want to come in here 0.94

00:43:17.180 and try to me too the whole situation and destroy the village, whatever's left of it. 0.88

00:43:24.380 Right? I mean, I'm sure they've taken a hit with all their woke antics over the past few years,

00:43:29.080 and they're definitely going to be taking a hit right now with what's going on.

00:43:32.760 But if there's anything left, if there's anything left when this is all said and done of the

00:43:36.920 village church and Acts 29 and these kinds of things that Matt Chandler has been at the

00:43:42.140 helm of, the locust will come, the leftist news, legacy news, media, organized, they

00:43:53.720 will come and devour whatever's left. They will destroy all of it. No stone left on top of another

00:44:00.980 stone, right? Like the Jerusalem temple in 80, 70 style. They will do that because it's a perfect

00:44:07.500 me too moment. It's a perfect believe all women kind of moment. And as far as we know, this 0.99

00:44:12.320 particular woman isn't even complaining. It was her friend that confronted Chandler, right? At the

00:44:18.440 church. That's what they've told us publicly. At the church, a friend of the woman that he was

00:44:23.420 DMing on Instagram, she confronted and said, I don't like this. This is inappropriate. It's too

00:44:29.340 chummy. The way that you're joking, your jokes are inappropriate. We don't know what those jokes

00:44:34.740 were because we've been told on the one hand that they're not sexual or romantic. So they could be

00:44:39.220 jokes about drinking. They could be alcohol or something. I don't know. Something that's

00:44:43.120 inappropriate, but it's not sexual and it's not romantic. But the point is, it's not even that

00:44:46.920 woman that Chandler's been messaging, it's her friend. But the deal is, even that friend could

00:44:54.740 make a lot of trouble, could make a lot of trouble by going to the unbelieving world and shining a

00:45:01.860 light on here's a church even, and you might say, oh, well, they wouldn't criticize the village

00:45:06.860 because Chandler has been, you know, he's been dancing to their tune. He's, you know, he's been

00:45:12.860 jumping through their hoops with all of his woke stuff. No, it's not enough. It's not enough

00:45:17.380 for the pagans. The village still believes that marriage is between one biological man and one

00:45:25.060 biological woman. That's bigotry to our culture today. And so, yes, they would hop on any

00:45:30.720 opportunity to destroy Matt Chandler and destroy the village church. So, I think that's why the

00:45:35.640 pagans were consulted, right? So, that's that. But 1 Corinthians 6, it doesn't matter. It doesn't

00:45:40.300 matter why. It doesn't matter how hostile the unbelieving world might be in any given cultural 1.00

00:45:45.660 moment. God's word is true in all seasons. In all seasons. 1 Corinthians 6, is there not anyone wise

00:45:54.640 among you? Meaning, deal with it in-house. And especially if you're a Baptist and one of your

00:46:00.000 go-to dogma beliefs as a Baptist is autonomy of the local church. We deal with things in-house.

00:46:06.300 then deal with it in house and, and don't go outside. Okay. So, all right. So one possibility

00:46:14.480 is that they went outside with all these things and we want to consult, you know, the peanut

00:46:19.200 gallery over here and we're going to make this big public statement. And cause, cause I think

00:46:23.180 a lot of people just, why are you making this such a big deal? So serious if it's not serious,

00:46:28.160 cause you're basically saying this is really serious, but we want to let you know it's not

00:46:32.040 serious that's why we're all confused but they but they did it publicly they wanted us all to

00:46:38.360 know they made that decision if you're tuning in right now on the live stream they made that

00:46:42.340 decision we're going to make this public information for everyone to watch we want everyone

00:46:48.000 to see this this is not an in-house conversation with just our elders or even just our church and

00:46:52.760 its members we want to make this public for the whole wide world because it's serious we also

00:46:59.160 want you to know that it's not serious. And that's why we're all confused. This is very serious.

00:47:05.900 He is stepping down from ministry effective immediately and indefinitely, no return date.

00:47:12.760 And also he is absolutely not disqualified. And it absolutely was not a breach of 1 Timothy 1

00:47:21.220 and Titus, or 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, because it was not sexual or romantic. It was not adultery.

00:47:26.700 he's still a one-woman man but also kind of not but he is he's he's not a one-woman man

00:47:34.720 as ideally as you would like but he is not not a one-woman man to the point of disqualification

00:47:40.880 but effectively he needs to function as though he's disqualified immediately because it's so

00:47:46.740 serious but also he's not disqualified because it's not that serious right that it's confusing

00:47:53.920 okay so why make it so serious if it's not that serious one possibility uh because maybe it's more

00:47:59.440 serious than they're saying all right so here's another speculation so maybe number one is maybe

00:48:05.060 it's worse and let's pray that's not let's pray right now father god we pray that it's not worse

00:48:10.920 lord um i love matt chandler i've met him in person gotten to speak to him um i've been under

00:48:17.620 his leadership in the past i'm bummed about the way that he's been going with acts 29 in the

00:48:22.440 village and the woke nonsense, but Lord, we want good things for him, good things for his church,

00:48:29.860 good things for his wife, his marriage, his kids, his family. And so Lord, I pray, I pray that there

00:48:36.340 is nothing worse than what's been said. That when they said that this relationship with this woman

00:48:44.940 is not sexual or romantic, I pray that that would be true and that it would not be worse and that

00:48:49.420 there would not be other women that surface later. So Lord, we pray that it wouldn't be worse.

00:48:54.680 We ask for your mercy in that regard. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. So one potential,

00:48:59.640 it could be worse. Let's pray it's not. Number two, here's a second potential, could be true.

00:49:06.080 True meaning the very, very confusing thing that we were told, that it's really serious so that

00:49:13.600 everyone needs to know and he has to be dismissed immediately and indefinitely but also he's not

00:49:20.900 disqualified because it's not that serious so the very serious thing that's not serious could be

00:49:25.800 true and i don't even i just and so then when you're wondering well then then why are they

00:49:33.140 make it if it's true that it wasn't romantic if it's true that it wasn't sexual if it's true

00:49:37.540 that it's just this woman there's no other women and there's nothing else going on behind the

00:49:41.360 saints, and there's no other moral failure in his life. If all that is true, and it's true that it's

00:49:46.740 not disqualifying by biblical standards of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, then why is he going on

00:49:52.620 a paid sabbatical immediately? If all that's true, why are you acting? If it's true that it's not

00:50:00.140 serious enough to disqualify, why are you treating it so seriously? And again, in that case,

00:50:07.220 I think that there are a couple sub options. Okay. Um, if it's, if it's really not romantic,

00:50:12.860 it's really not sexual. It's really not disqualifying. If it's really not disqualifying,

00:50:17.180 then here, here are your options. One, one, um, the me too thing and just trying to get ahead of

00:50:26.340 it. Uh, this friend of this woman was really upset and threatened Chandler and threatened

00:50:31.820 the elders to shed some light on something to expose this and to use it to make things bad

00:50:39.160 for them publicly, um, to go to some kind of source or this or that. And they wanted to get

00:50:44.560 ahead of it. Um, and they wanted to announce it first because somebody else was threatening to

00:50:49.980 publicly announce it. So they wanted to, to get out with the information first, right? So that's

00:50:56.020 one potential is, um, if what they're saying is true, it's really not disqualifying. Then why do

00:51:00.860 why are you acting kind of like it is the way they're handling it is the way you would handle

00:51:04.940 an elder who's actually disqualified that's my point the way that they're handling it is the

00:51:11.960 way that you would handle an elder who actually is disqualified while saying that he's not

00:51:17.820 disqualified and he's not fired he's going on a paid sabbatical so so why are you doing it this

00:51:23.920 way if he actually isn't disqualified, if what you're saying is true. I think because somebody

00:51:31.520 was going to make this a nightmare for you. That's one option. And so you had to get ahead of it and

00:51:37.140 you had to be serious enough about it to where if that person then dropped their story later,

00:51:43.140 people would say, well, Chandler was always, he was already honest about this. We heard it from

00:51:48.880 him first. He confessed. And he even admitted that although it wasn't sexual or romantic,

00:51:56.120 it was inappropriate. And the elders of the village church did a good job. And they told

00:52:02.640 him he needed to take time because he wasn't healthy and he needs to get restored. And they're

00:52:06.060 going to be working with him and working with his family. The village church takes sin seriously.

00:52:10.640 And even though it wasn't sin to the point of being disqualified, any kind of sin they take

00:52:15.400 seriously, especially among leaders. See, I think that's one possibility. So why do you treat it so

00:52:22.140 seriously if it's not disqualifying? Because you don't. I'm telling you, that's not what you do.

00:52:27.020 That's not what you should do. I've been a pastor for a while. It's not a good move.

00:52:31.540 But you do do that, not because this is how sin should be treated. A man's disqualified or it's 0.72

00:52:38.040 not. See, that's the problem with this. It's this third category. It's an unbiblical category. 1.00

00:52:42.900 So the biblical categories, there's two categories.

00:52:45.300 You're a pastor, someone brings something against you.

00:52:48.320 Maybe it wasn't wise, but it's not disqualifying.

00:52:50.820 You might offer a concession or apology and say,

00:52:53.140 hey, I'll try to do better in the future,

00:52:54.180 but this is not disqualifying from office

00:52:55.920 and I'm going to continue.

00:52:57.920 And the elders back you up.

00:53:00.040 Say, yep, because we have objective metrics

00:53:03.240 in the word of God for the qualifications for an elder.

00:53:06.440 And this does not breach those.

00:53:08.500 These are not subjective qualifications for elders.

00:53:10.800 They are objective metrics from the word of God.

00:53:13.700 You're either in or you're out.

00:53:15.200 You either crossed the line or you didn't.

00:53:17.280 If you didn't cross a line, but maybe you got close to the line or there's, I don't

00:53:22.780 know, the metric for elder is the standard is not perfection.

00:53:26.520 So elder is still sin.

00:53:27.700 But the question is, is the sin disqualifying?

00:53:30.180 If it's not disqualifying, right?

00:53:31.580 There are two categories.

00:53:32.500 If it's not disqualifying, you just, you move on and you apologize privately.

00:53:38.680 if there was sin, not disqualifying sin, but still sin because elders still are imperfect,

00:53:43.560 morally imperfect, then you apologize to the necessary party. If there's something to apologize

00:53:48.780 for, you maybe add some increased accountability in that particular area with your fellow elders

00:53:54.120 and you press on. Maybe even take a couple of weeks off. Sure. But you don't make this big

00:54:00.600 public announcement and take a sabbatical that's indefinite with no return date and tell everybody

00:54:07.440 you really, really, really messed up, but you didn't really, really, really, really,

00:54:10.940 really mess up. So the two categories are, it's not disqualifying, and so you move on.

00:54:19.100 Or it is disqualifying, and I'll say it like this. Here's the simple rule of thumb. If it

00:54:25.160 is disqualifying, you don't get a paid vacation. You don't get money from the church to go on a

00:54:32.680 sabbatical you don't get to keep your job is what i'm saying if an elder really is disqualified

00:54:38.960 he's fired he's removed from the office and he's fired from staff at the church that's what happens

00:54:45.320 effective immediately not vacation see you guys later i'll return sometime in the meantime i'm

00:54:49.640 going to keep getting paid immediately no no fired immediately donald trump style you're fired right

00:54:55.280 that so it's either either disqualified and you're out or qualified in and you're in and somebody

00:55:02.080 still has a grievance, and the person with the grievance, you tell them to take a hike

00:55:05.760 because their grievance is illegitimate, or you make a concession because their grievance

00:55:11.420 is legitimate, but it's not disqualifying.

00:55:13.620 You messed up, but it's not disqualifying because we have objective metrics of what's

00:55:17.460 in, what's out, what's disqualifying, and what's not disqualifying.

00:55:20.880 And so maybe you add some accountability, maybe even take a couple weeks off from the

00:55:24.540 pulpit, but you don't make this big worldwide public announcement with tears.

00:55:29.640 I mean, the guy was like, something's going on.

00:55:32.080 he was as he said disoriented he distraught disoriented i think is a euphemism he was

00:55:41.640 disturbed he was disturbed so it's either disqualifying and you're out not paid vacation

00:55:50.360 but fired or it's not disqualified uh fine and and you're in and if you do take a two-week break

00:55:57.700 nobody knows you don't announce it to the church i'm taking two week what break because

00:56:01.100 because on my Instagram, I sent some, like, no, no, it's private. You protect the pastor's dignity.

00:56:10.260 He sinned. But if it's not a disqualifying sin, the sins that you have to rebuke publicly,

00:56:15.020 this is in scriptures. 1 Timothy 3 is your qualifications. 1 Timothy 5 talks about

00:56:20.280 rebuking an elder before them all publicly so that the rest may stand in fear.

00:56:25.380 but that's if someone persists in sin and the implication is because it's on the heels of

00:56:32.820 first timothy three with the qualifications if it's a disqualifying sin a persistent disqualifying

00:56:38.860 sin and there's a public rebuke and some measure of explanation uh to to the congregation to the

00:56:47.600 members of the church, he's being rebuked for this. And he is disqualified for this, committing

00:56:55.720 this sin, which the Bible says is disqualifying for a man if he holds the office of elder.

00:57:02.980 So there's two categories. You're not disqualified. Take a week off from the pulpit, maybe.

00:57:11.140 If you messed up, maybe say, I'm sorry. If you need to say, I'm sorry. And ask a couple of the

00:57:17.580 elders to check in on you more regularly. Maybe delete your Instagram account. But you do those

00:57:25.880 things and it's just like nobody's the wiser. You don't share with the whole wide world and you're

00:57:33.060 not in tears and you're not taking an indefinite leave of absence. You don't do that if you're not

00:57:43.460 disqualified. So you're either not disqualified, in which case you don't do what the village just

00:57:48.320 did, what Chandler just did, if you're really not disqualified. Or you are disqualified,

00:57:53.260 but in which case you also don't do what the village just did. You don't have a man who

00:57:58.660 actually is disqualified and then pay him to take a vacation. You fire him. Two categories.

00:58:06.340 that only, only two categories. So my first concern is the peanut gallery pagan group coming 1.00

00:58:16.320 in. That looks like help us with our PR because somebody is going to try to meet to this. 1.00

00:58:23.100 Somebody outside of the church or inside of the church or whatever, help us get bulletproof

00:58:27.480 so that we can survive this. That's my first problem going outside. Is there not anyone

00:58:33.760 wise among you. You're going to judge angels one day, the elders, the church, you can handle this.

00:58:39.300 And you're doing that as a Baptist. And Baptists, we're in-house. We're autonomy to local church

00:58:44.400 guys. That's my first thing. Going to the pagan peanut gallery. Number two, the third category.

00:58:50.340 Qualified, disqualified. There's not dis, but also not dis, qualified, qualified, dis, qualified,

00:58:59.100 qualified, disqualified. No, that's just, that's not a thing. That third category is not a thing.

00:59:05.600 You're either disqualified, fired. Qualified, a week off. And privacy. And some added

00:59:15.600 accountability, but it's not this public, no. So, yeah, it makes me think that things are worse,

00:59:25.920 and it is disqualifying, it was sexual, and it was romantic, or that's speculation. I told you

00:59:31.140 I'd say when it's speculated. That's speculation. I actually don't think it's that. I really don't.

00:59:35.360 Could be. I hope it's not. I've already prayed for you guys just joining on. We've literally spent

00:59:39.260 time in this podcast praying for Chandler about that. I hope it's not that. I pray it's not that.

00:59:44.740 That it's not actually worse. That it really wasn't romantic, and it really wasn't sexual,

00:59:48.660 and that it's really not disqualifying. I pray that that's all true. So then why make such a

00:59:55.700 big deal. I think just, I think it's tipping the hat to the pagans. I think it's PR, getting ahead

01:00:02.780 of some situation. I think it's, yeah, I think it's a PR stunt. Or, here's the other option,

01:00:10.320 and this is the last option, or the elders are divided. And I don't have time to share my story,

01:00:19.760 which I've given tiny bits and pieces over the last couple of years. And one day I will do

01:00:27.000 probably a full show on it. So I'm not going to go into my whole story today. Someday I might.

01:00:35.520 But I'll just say this. Over the last two years, you need to know this because some of you guys

01:00:40.600 are pastors. And so you already know this, but a lot of you guys, you're listening to this,

01:00:44.120 you're not pastors. And you know what you felt over the last two years, right? It's

01:00:49.600 it's COVID tyranny, civil tyranny, medical tyranny. Churches shut down for months,

01:00:57.240 forcing pastors requiring you cannot come to Christ as the, as the saints gathered together

01:01:04.160 on the Lord's day and to the Lord's table without a mask. It's what does it take you to get to the

01:01:09.980 Lord's table to worship with the saints? Faith alone, plus a mask, plus a jab, plus a, anytime

01:01:17.460 time it's faith plus, you might want to sit a couple of plays out. That's a bad move. And you

01:01:23.140 guys know that. Churches did that. And so one of the things is massive division. And if that wasn't

01:01:30.180 enough, just a couple of months later, summer of love, 2020, right? Burning down half the country,

01:01:38.440 looting, rioting, critical race theory, George Floyd, right? If he gets four like global 0.64

01:01:45.920 funerals with a zillion, quadrillion people in attendance, but your grandma,

01:01:53.140 she dies alone in a nursing home, thanks to Cuomo, and she doesn't get a funeral.

01:01:58.440 You do a little memorial at your house. Yeah, yeah. It was the tyranny with COVID

01:02:07.460 and the wokeness with CRT. Those were the two big things. Since then, though, it didn't stop.

01:02:15.020 Since then, what has happened most recently?

01:02:18.060 Well, most recently, Roe got overturned. 0.93

01:02:21.200 Praise God.

01:02:21.920 It was never about Roe, but still, praise God, Roe got overturned.

01:02:25.420 Objectively, less babies will be murdered.

01:02:28.720 Will there still be pills and potions?

01:02:30.320 Yes.

01:02:31.500 For the abolitionists, will you have to go?

01:02:34.780 Will we, because I would be joining you, have to go to Walmart and to the pharmacy section

01:02:38.820 to preach God's word and the gospel there instead of Planned Parenthood

01:02:43.740 because it's been shut down in some of the red states.

01:02:46.260 Yes, there's still a fight to be fought.

01:02:49.540 Roe, we should have functioned

01:02:50.460 as though it was never a thing.

01:02:51.440 It was a Supreme Court opinion.

01:02:53.200 It was never law.

01:02:54.360 It's always going to be state by state.

01:02:56.700 Incrementalism is good

01:02:57.700 insofar as it represents state by state,

01:03:00.180 not splitting the penny a million ways, 0.97

01:03:03.000 the pro-life industry just making money off of suckers 0.78

01:03:05.720 that never actually wants to end abortion, okay? 0.88

01:03:07.780 So that's what we should have been doing.

01:03:10.440 That's still the plan, state by state. 0.99

01:03:12.080 Let's abolish abortion. 0.97

01:03:13.740 That said though, Roe being overturned was still a blessing, still a blessing. Even if you're an 0.99

01:03:20.060 abolitionist, it's a blessing. You might be saying, well, it doesn't do anything. No,

01:03:23.520 it objectively does something. And at minimum, this is one of the things that it does.

01:03:28.300 It rips back that thin little veil over the pro-life industry that shows people,

01:03:33.400 shows the public that they were never about life. And that's a blessing. That's a blessing.

01:03:39.620 It is a blessing when God reveals the hypocrites.

01:03:45.800 And that's what we've been seeing for the last two years.

01:03:47.680 We've been seeing it in politics, all the neocons, your Liz Cheney's, your Mitt Romney's.

01:03:54.020 You're seeing it with the pro-life industry.

01:03:56.340 Oh, you never actually wanted to abolish abortion.

01:03:58.800 Oh, I see.

01:04:01.660 But sadly, we've been seeing it in our churches, with CRT, with the churches that closed down

01:04:08.040 for five months, open back up, but wouldn't do any singing, no singing allowed, had to wear a mask,

01:04:15.220 different sections. Those who have the vaccine can sit over here and those who don't can sit

01:04:23.000 over there. Oh, and then here comes Omicron and they shut it. Here's a rule of thumb. If your

01:04:27.420 church shut down twice leave your church if it's shut down again with omicron leave your church

01:04:38.160 but joel they have great nope leave your church they have good doctrine yeah they don't apply

01:04:42.880 they don't apply their doctrine it doesn't matter that they have good doctrine they're they're not 0.78

01:04:47.280 progressives they're not but they're not woke joel yeah but they're tyrants they're tyrants so

01:04:52.500 they're not woke, but here's the deal. You can be progressive. You can be a pietist.

01:04:59.800 Both churches need to be left. My whole point is this, in terms of division among elders, 0.98

01:05:06.020 that is possible. This is speculation, but possible at the village church, especially with

01:05:10.160 an elder team that large, and especially with the lay of the land over the last few years,

01:05:15.720 the last two in particular. My point is this, everyone has felt the division. How many of you

01:05:21.020 have left a church, right? Not, not just I'm a chronic church hopper and I go to, you know,

01:05:25.720 I've been going to different churches every three to six months for the last 20 years. Okay. If

01:05:29.720 that's you, you need to repent. That's wrong. That's wrong. I'm talking about the people who

01:05:34.180 I was a faithful member, Pastor Joel. I'm not a church hopper. I, I, I, I'm not overly critical

01:05:39.700 of Christ's bride. I love the church. And I was a faithful member in my church that I thought was

01:05:43.940 biblical with my pastor who I thought had a spine for 18 years. But then he was at BLM rallies 0.90

01:05:53.460 and our church was closed on Sunday. So I left. For you who's listening, who has that story,

01:06:03.260 good. You did the right thing. You definitely should have left. And whatever means you have

01:06:09.400 at your availability, you should be calling him out. Even after leaving the church, you should

01:06:14.400 be calling him to repentance, praying that God might bring him to shame. Shame is, there's a

01:06:21.460 grace of shame. There's a grace of shame. Paul even says, if anyone does not take account of

01:06:27.200 what I write in these letters, um, no longer, it says, um, uh, remove him from you that he might

01:06:33.840 be ashamed, but regard him as a brother. Meaning there is a way to use the grace of shame to bring

01:06:43.680 about people's repentance. So it's not inherently always 100% of the time wrong to shame people.

01:06:49.280 So shame that pastor. So my point is some of you guys, you left churches because crazy stuff

01:06:54.460 were happening, right? That's for the churchgoer. That's for the Christian, the member. I'm going

01:06:59.380 to give you the other side of the story as an elder, as a pastor, what pastors were experiencing

01:07:03.580 the last two years. These things went down, COVID, BLM, and then the Roe thing, Roe being

01:07:12.960 overturned. That's what I was going to say. Let me say this real quick. Roe's overturned. And a

01:07:17.320 lot of you guys, your pastor, he didn't say a word. Roe was overturned and your pastor, nothing.

01:07:26.420 that following Sunday, not a word, crickets. No, thank you, Lord, for your justice. And if anyone

01:07:36.120 in the church did thank the Lord and say, and we need to push for more, more justice, because this

01:07:42.300 is nothing compared to God's justice and what we need, we need abortion abolished. We need equal

01:07:48.280 protection. That means equal protection by having equal penalties, meaning that a mother who kills 1.00

01:07:55.660 her baby in the womb should have equal penalties under the law for any other homicide, any other

01:08:01.580 murder. Some of you guys said that and your pastor told you that you were being contentious.

01:08:06.060 Your pastor told you that you were being quarrelsome. Your pastor told you that you were in

01:08:10.100 sin. So not only did he not publicly say a word when Roe was overturned, thanking God for that 0.94

01:08:14.880 decision, but he actually, the only words that he did say were to you guys who were thanking God

01:08:20.840 for his justice on abortion

01:08:22.540 and saying that we need more of God's justice,

01:08:25.200 the word that he said was not to the world,

01:08:27.660 but to you telling you to be quiet.

01:08:31.300 That's your experience.

01:08:34.120 COVID tyranny, so civil tyranny, medical tyranny,

01:08:37.140 woke CRT, intersectionality,

01:08:38.960 and then spineless pastors who say nothing.

01:08:44.240 Guys who preached against abortion for years,

01:08:46.620 right, you thought you were in a conservative church,

01:08:48.400 preached against it for years,

01:08:49.580 then row action. It actually happens. There's more that needs to happen, but it actually happened.

01:08:54.900 A good start. And your pastor, not only did he not thank the Lord or say anything publicly to

01:09:00.620 celebrate that, but, but, but he told you to be quiet because you were celebrating that

01:09:04.800 and you left. Well, here's my deal. This is what I'm saying over the last two years at the elder

01:09:11.940 level, all these things that you've witnessed that you've been disappointed by from your pastors,

01:09:17.360 from your churches, your organizations, not everybody agreed. Let me say that again.

01:09:24.700 Lots of churches disappointed you. Your church may have disappointed you, but here's something

01:09:29.760 you should know. That doesn't guarantee. If your church took the wrong side on one of these issues,

01:09:38.760 it was faithless instead of faithful. Your church taking the wrong position doesn't mean that all

01:09:45.040 of the elders, all the leaders of that church wanted to take the wrong position.

01:09:52.680 Churches at the elder level, behind the scenes, behind closed doors, where you, Christian, you,

01:09:59.080 member, have not been privy to this information. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have known.

01:10:04.260 I'm not even saying this is right, but I'm just saying this is the reality.

01:10:09.320 There have been more church splits over the last two years. I'll say it that way. There have been

01:10:14.460 more church splits over the last two years than in the previous 10 or 20 years before that.

01:10:23.080 Why am I in Texas now and not in California anymore? Reason number one, I have children

01:10:28.240 and I love them. I don't like that. I'm a listener in California right now,

01:10:33.640 Joel, I can't believe you said. I don't know what to tell you.

01:10:39.360 Steve Day said it recently. He did a whole episode. It was fantastic.

01:10:42.680 it. He gave the exact number of all five states that were pivotal in turning the election for

01:10:52.120 Trump rather than Biden, all five states that ended up going blue, but were right on the edge,

01:10:57.580 that their electoral votes combined in those five states would have swung the election to where

01:11:01.960 Trump would be in office instead of Biden. And the votes that these states went blue by,

01:11:08.240 all five of them combined it was like 100 it was like 150 000 or something like that or it might

01:11:17.280 have been 500 000 i can't remember the exact number but it was less than a million and then

01:11:21.740 his whole point in the episode was six million people in california voted for trump six million

01:11:28.060 people, pardon my French, pissed in the wind, and if a fraction of them, like 10% or less

01:11:38.260 of them, had lived in these five states, and had gotten out of California, and voted conservatively,

01:11:46.600 13 service members wouldn't have died in Afghanistan, very likely.

01:11:52.860 like like like elections have consequences and and where you live matters we are in a cold

01:12:02.600 civil war it's heating up but we're in a cold civil war and and part of the polarization that's

01:12:08.740 happening in our nation is political it's cultural but it's also geographical and it needs to be

01:12:13.300 that's a good thing we are polarizing geographically and we need to be and you might

01:12:20.040 well, I'm a missionary to California, or I, you know, like California needs churches, or

01:12:24.540 I understand that. But California is a little bit different than North Korea.

01:12:29.280 You know why we send missionaries to China? Because a lot of people in China can't get out. 1.00

01:12:33.620 And you know what's happening, actually, as we've sent missionaries to all these places, 1.00

01:12:36.960 but we haven't actually raised our own children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. China's 0.74

01:12:41.460 now sending missionaries to us. You know how many kids from the boomer generation, 0.85

01:12:48.820 their kids grew up to be atheists and deny the faith like Abraham Piper

01:12:52.840 because they were laid on the altar of global missions, on the altar of being a missionary.

01:13:02.660 We're being missionaries, you know, and by living in this blue state or by doing this thing or by

01:13:07.120 doing that thing or, or giving our money to this or doing it. And so, yeah, we can't afford private

01:13:11.260 schooling because we're trying to be generous and we're living in this place that taxes us,

01:13:14.560 you know, uh, out to wazoo, you know? So yeah, but we, we put our kids in public school, but,

01:13:19.540 but we're doing a five minute devotional time as a family at night. And that that'll counteract,

01:13:23.740 uh, the 40 hours of, of, of public atheistic indoctrination that they receive every week for,

01:13:29.640 for the better part of 18 years. And then, and then 20 years later, you hear these parents crying

01:13:35.800 as, uh, you know, unconditional election, you know, the Lord just saves who he wants to save.

01:13:40.020 You know, I had nothing to do with our parenting. We raised our kid to know the Lord. I don't know

01:13:44.020 why they turned out to be an atheist. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. You don't want to admit it. 0.91

01:13:53.360 But you know why.

01:13:59.080 So yeah, the world is polarizing. And not just in terms of ideology, not just in terms of our

01:14:04.840 opinions, our views, our virtues, not just politically or culturally, but geographically.

01:14:09.640 So why did I leave California? Because I have kids and I love them. I want to raise them

01:14:13.140 the right way. And I have more resources and more freedoms and more ability to do that

01:14:17.960 in a state like Texas than I do in California. Secondly, because I want to build, not just

01:14:22.540 my household, my kids, but I want to build. And here's the deal. I don't want to go and plant

01:14:27.120 a garden in the Sahara Desert. Sure, I could maybe do some fancy agriculture and irrigation

01:14:36.520 and channeling some water and do this and do that. But I'd rather just go somewhere where

01:14:41.120 there's good soil and water. And why do triple aerial backflips to try to be fruitful in the

01:14:50.940 desert if you could go somewhere else that's not a desert? So I did that at the family level,

01:14:58.580 the Webbin household with my wife and my kids. I didn't want my wife to have to work outside of

01:15:02.880 our home anymore. My wife was having to work half time as an RN, as a nurse in California, 1.00

01:15:10.680 because the church didn't pay me enough to live.

01:15:14.600 And in California, San Diego, where we were,

01:15:18.200 it was just God awfully expensive.

01:15:20.800 So I did it for my wife.

01:15:22.740 I did it for my kids.

01:15:23.620 But also, it's not just our household.

01:15:26.000 I want to plant a church.

01:15:28.140 And I don't want to just plant a church.

01:15:29.940 I want to start a school.

01:15:32.220 I want to be able to help my son start businesses one day.

01:15:35.680 I want to start a publishing company.

01:15:37.860 I want the men in my church to seriously consider running for local office, city council. 0.97

01:15:44.720 There's a lot of things we want to do, and I'd like to not do it in the Sahara Desert.

01:15:48.900 I'd like to be able to plant all these trees, not just web and household trees, but covenant

01:15:52.880 Bible church trees and publishing company trees and right response trees and the classical

01:15:58.140 Christian school that we want to start trees and local politic trees.

01:16:02.200 I want to be able to plant all these trees somewhere where there's not just sand.

01:16:07.860 Like an actual dirt with water and a reasonable amount of sunlight.

01:16:14.280 So there was that reason.

01:16:16.560 But the last reason, the last reason is because me and my elders vehemently disagreed.

01:16:25.440 We were not aligned.

01:16:28.560 And that's not a unique, special one in a million story.

01:16:33.020 I can tell you story after story after story after story after story. Over the last two years,

01:16:40.660 I cannot tell you how many pastors have reached out to me about them and their fellow elders

01:16:48.340 being divided. Pastors did not agree on the COVID issue. And I'm not talking about pastors,

01:16:56.660 meaning John MacArthur and Tim Keller. I'm talking about pastors in the same church.

01:17:00.400 they did not agree about covid they did not agree about black lives matter they did not agree

01:17:10.660 over over how how political i mean just just even the big 30 000 foot view things

01:17:16.640 how much politics should be in the pulpit i believe that the statement jesus is lord

01:17:22.760 is the most politically profound statement

01:17:26.720 ever made in all the universe.

01:17:29.060 I believe that politics should be in the pulpit

01:17:31.660 because we believe in all of Christ for all of life.

01:17:35.800 I believe in the whole counsel of God

01:17:37.620 for the whole of human society.

01:17:39.360 I am not going to preach that Jesus is content

01:17:43.580 with a privatized lordship of your sweet little heart.

01:17:48.540 Jesus is Lord of Lords.

01:17:50.400 Jesus is king of kings.

01:17:53.480 He rules the nations with an iron scepter and every knee that will not bow will break

01:18:00.160 because Christ is going to receive the nations one way or another as his inheritance.

01:18:08.460 And he is ruling and reigning now, not waiting to come back and rule one day, but ruling

01:18:15.220 and reigning now.

01:18:16.580 And that is not an impotent, merely spiritual, ethereal, theoretical reign.

01:18:22.740 It is a tangible, earthly, physical, significant rule and reign in heaven and on earth.

01:18:30.980 All authority in heaven and on earth.

01:18:33.720 Which means when I preach, I preach not politics first and foremost, but I preach Bible.

01:18:39.380 I preach a text.

01:18:40.900 I say, this is the word of the Lord.

01:18:43.300 Thus saith the Lord.

01:18:45.200 Hosea chapter five, first Timothy chapter three, this is God's word. This is the meaning of faithful

01:18:52.100 exegesis and interpretation of God's word. And this lastly is the application of God's word.

01:19:01.180 Listen, if you are committed to expositional preaching, I have a text and here's the exegesis.

01:19:06.860 And then you sit down, you did not preach. That's not a sermon. That is an audible commentary.

01:19:12.280 everyone could have just stayed home that's an audible commentary it is not preaching it is not

01:19:19.160 a sermon a sermon is three parts revelation not i have a dream not i have an idea not i have a

01:19:24.920 church growth strategy i have a revelation the revelation is a text give me a text that's number

01:19:31.600 one number two interpretation this is the text and this is what god means by it this is the faithful

01:19:37.880 exegesis interpretation of the text. But the third part, application. If all you do is say,

01:19:44.160 here's a text, here's its meaning, commentary. Here's a text, here's its meaning, here's its

01:19:49.460 relevancy. Here's how it applies. And not just 17 points to be a better parent. It's not, we have

01:19:56.200 treated the word of God as though its only application was the home and the church, our

01:20:00.940 marriages, our parenting, and our church growth seminars for the last 50 years, and this is

01:20:07.400 precisely where it's gotten us. Stop that crap. We cannot afford to be so dumb, so naive. 0.99

01:20:17.960 Innocent as doves, yes, but shrewd as vipers. Innocence is not the same as naivety. We have 1.00

01:20:26.920 than naive. No, the Bible applies to everything. We don't just preach the same text every week.

01:20:33.040 We preach text by text by text, the whole Bible, expositional preaching, the whole counsel of God.

01:20:39.240 And we apply it not just to the same arenas in human society every week, marriage, parenting,

01:20:44.840 marriage, parenting, marriage, parenting. No, we apply it to culture, politics, academics, media,

01:20:51.540 arts science education everything free markets economics vocation everything

01:21:02.700 the word of god is sufficient the scripture says second timothy chapter three it is sufficient

01:21:09.280 it's god-breathed inerrant it's infallible and it's sufficient to make the man of god complete

01:21:15.500 for every good work, not just the good work of parenting, every good work. And it is infallible

01:21:23.560 and breathed out by God. It's sufficient for all of life and godliness. Life is a big, broad,

01:21:33.960 all-encompassing word. It's not just that scripture, some guys will say, oh, I believe

01:21:37.680 in the sufficiency of scripture. Okay, but here's the next question. For what? Sufficient for what?

01:21:42.560 Sufficient to get you to heaven.

01:21:44.460 Sufficient to be saved by grace alone, through faith alone, Christ alone.

01:21:47.900 Sufficient for salvation.

01:21:48.940 No, the Bible is most certainly sufficient for salvation and a whole lot more.

01:21:54.840 It's not merely sufficient for salvation.

01:21:57.920 The Bible is sufficient.

01:21:59.080 My Bible says what it's sufficient for.

01:22:02.300 The Bible says it's sufficient for life, not just salvation, life.

01:22:07.200 And not just eternal life.

01:22:08.780 Not just the life to come.

01:22:09.920 Not just the life then.

01:22:11.020 The life here.

01:22:11.840 the life now, life, all of it, every good work, good works in the home, good works in the church

01:22:19.620 and good works in the public square. So politics, yes. But my point is elders divided over this.

01:22:28.580 My elders divided over these things. We divided over tyranny. We didn't, we didn't agree on

01:22:35.960 tyranny. I said that Gavin Newsom was a tyrant. I had a couple of elders say, California's doing 0.83

01:22:42.480 a great job with COVID. I couldn't believe that, but that's what was said. That's a big disagreement.

01:22:49.220 That's a big disagreement. I remember when the panel went down, the infamous panel,

01:22:55.640 John MacArthur, you got Jay Mack, Phil Johnson, you got Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, and Al Mohler,

01:23:02.940 Shepherds Conference. I was there in person with my elders at that conference. And I remember the

01:23:08.560 sharp dispute between Phil Johnson and Albert Moeller. Phil Johnson asking some pointed questions.

01:23:16.040 Sure, maybe he could have worded him better, but it was not inherently immoral the way that he said

01:23:20.680 it. Not what he asked, not even how he asked it. It was not inherently immoral. Everybody could

01:23:25.980 say something better. Oh, I wouldn't have said it like that. Great. Great. Good for you. Okay.

01:23:30.820 but it was not inherently immoral the way that he worded these things and al moeller was irate

01:23:37.420 he was incredibly defensive why wouldn't you sign the statement on social justice in the gospel

01:23:43.380 well i just i i well i talk about this for for uh 15 minutes every day you know with a brief

01:23:50.520 it like no dude no we know why you didn't sign it right tell me well i i didn't like the way

01:23:56.980 things were worded. Okay, could you give me an example? One example, Phil Johnson asked. One

01:24:01.080 example. Tell me a thing that was worded a way that you didn't like it to be worded.

01:24:06.500 Well, I'm just not somebody who signs statements. No, no, no. It's not that you disagreed with the

01:24:12.800 wording. You didn't sign it because you've got guys at your seminary, Al, who would have lost

01:24:20.060 their minds if you signed this. That's why. Because you may not be woke, although I think

01:24:26.100 you might be, but you're definitely harboring some woke guys. And this has been documented.

01:24:32.660 John Harris has done a great job with this. This is well-documented. This is not speculation. This

01:24:37.020 is fact. But here's my point. A bunch of churches there for that panel, whole elder teams, local

01:24:43.620 churches with all their elders there, me there with my elders. And me and my elders had a sharp

01:24:49.020 dispute, again, over that. Not just a sharp dispute over Gavin Newsom, whether or not he's a tyrant,

01:24:53.940 but we had a sharp dispute over over whether or not

01:24:58.140 this whole woke thing going on with with al moeller was legitimate i remember arguing say i

01:25:06.900 know phil johnson didn't do anything wrong and having the elder phil johnson is a bulldog he's 0.99

01:25:11.820 phil johnson is a bully phil johnson is a jerk and then i'm listening to all the podcasts after 0.98

01:25:18.200 that right because everybody was giving their two cents of that panel and all the guys who say 0.99

01:25:22.220 phil johnson was in the wrong all those guys are woke now did you know that

01:25:26.160 and the guys who were saying no albert moeller's being overly defensive

01:25:31.320 this is weird something's fishy all those guys are the guys who have stood the test of time

01:25:36.580 have been faithful phil johnson was not in the wrong he wasn't but my point is all the way back

01:25:45.200 then with that it's fracturing and the reason why i'm sharing this it's not it's not oh you know

01:25:51.040 the world's smallest violin, woe is me. No, no. I'm sharing my experience to say this is multiple,

01:25:57.540 this was even pre-COVID. For multiple, what you have to realize, Christian, who is not a pastor,

01:26:03.140 for those of you who are not pastors, what you have to realize is from like 2015, 16, for sure

01:26:07.940 by 17, there have been massively polarized, it's what Voddie Bauckham wrote. If you haven't read

01:26:15.160 his book, Fault Lines, you need to read it. All these fault lines, right? We knew the old fault

01:26:19.720 lines. We played for, for, for 50 years, we played this, this national game of musical chairs with

01:26:27.940 churches where we're, we're all picking, you know, which chair we're going to sit in. Oh, I'm on this

01:26:33.460 side of the aisle. You're on that side of the aisle. And, and we're doing it over the old fault

01:26:37.700 lines. The old fault lines were things like, are you Presbyterian or are you Baptist? Do you baptize

01:26:42.680 believers only? Or, or are you, you know, pedo Baptist? Are you confessional or not? Sabbatarian 0.98

01:26:48.280 or not? You know, that's small fault line. Nobody ever really cared too much about that.

01:26:53.400 Here's another big one, even bigger than the Baptist Presbyterian thing, but are you Calvinist

01:26:58.180 or Arminian? That was a big one. Here's another one, cessationist or continuationist? Here's

01:27:03.120 another one, complementarian, which we realized that dog won't hunt. That doesn't hold water.

01:27:08.200 Complementarian wasn't enough. What we need is biblical patriarchy, which is where I've been for 0.92

01:27:12.420 the last few years. But at the time, I was complementarian. I thought that was the right

01:27:17.980 position. Yeah, I'm complementarian. Not realizing that the problem with complementarianism is it

01:27:22.660 puts the roles of men and women as though they were arbitrarily assigned by God. Like men and

01:27:27.880 women are really no different, but God just arbitrarily assigns a role of helpmate to woman

01:27:34.140 and assigns a role of protector and provider and leader and headship to men. Like God just assigned 0.56

01:27:40.720 the role of flying to birds, but it has nothing to do with their hollow bone structure and feathers

01:27:46.200 and wings, right? And God just assigned the role of swimming to fish as though it had no relationship

01:27:52.920 to the fact that they have scales and fins and gills. That's complementarianism. Complementarianism

01:27:58.980 indicts God as an arbitrary role assigner. It says God is arbitrary. Biblical patriarchy says,

01:28:05.740 no, we have different roles because we actually have different natures. Men were born to lead,

01:28:10.040 women aren't just not when we're born to nurture so biblical patriarch is the right thing but here's

01:28:14.900 the deal back in the day egalitarianism complementarianism egalitarianism do you

01:28:20.060 have male elders only or do you have some female elders do you let a female preach oh you don't

01:28:26.060 call her an elder but she's preaching underneath the authority of the elders i remember that one

01:28:29.440 that's still that card still gets played right but that that was another dividing line uh this

01:28:34.440 guy has women preaching all right he's on that side of the aisle i'm over here we're not on the

01:28:38.600 same team, right? We play this big game of musical chairs for, and it wasn't just we played the game

01:28:42.900 once and sat down 50 years. I'm saying for 50 years, continually throughout that time, we were

01:28:47.180 playing, and it's like, we all finally felt like we got in our seats. Okay, I know now, all right?

01:28:52.920 I'm Baptist, you're Presbyterian, Reformed, Arminian, Complementarian, egalitarian,

01:28:58.340 cessationist, continuationist, confessional, you know, not confessional, whatever. And everybody

01:29:03.400 sat down and then boom boom boom boom boom all these fault like these new fault lines we didn't

01:29:12.360 even know were there underneath the surface in the earth the tectonic plate started rumbling and

01:29:19.460 shaking with these new we thought that we were we were ready for the earthquake like we had already

01:29:24.940 sat down we put our seatbelts on we were good we knew like okay if an earthquake goes off you know

01:29:30.820 I'm going to be saying bye Arminian brothers and I'm good,

01:29:33.280 but I'm going to be over here with my Calvinist brothers on this side.

01:29:35.520 We're all buckled in and like,

01:29:36.700 but then I lost half of my Calvinist brothers too,

01:29:40.240 because there was another fault line in between us called CRT.

01:29:44.460 And then another one with,

01:29:46.220 with COVID tyranny.

01:29:49.080 And then another one just philosophically and doctrinally like,

01:29:52.220 how do you read Romans 13?

01:29:54.480 Do we all,

01:29:55.180 yes,

01:29:55.440 sir.

01:29:55.820 Caesar.

01:29:56.120 Yes,

01:29:56.320 sir.

01:29:56.640 Caesar.

01:29:56.940 Yes,

01:29:57.120 sir.

01:29:57.440 Caesar.

01:29:57.900 Or,

01:29:58.260 or actually is there Protestant resistance theory?

01:30:00.820 is rendered under Caesar, what is Caesar's?

01:30:04.520 Sure, and who decides what is Caesar's?

01:30:07.900 Does Caesar decide what is Caesar's?

01:30:09.500 What if Caesar says everything is Caesar's?

01:30:10.920 Because that's what Caesar tends to do.

01:30:13.420 Is there ever a point where we can say,

01:30:15.040 no, no, no, God has specifically said

01:30:16.360 this is not your Caesar.

01:30:17.900 No, no Caesar, bad Caesar, down Caesar.

01:30:21.540 Can we do that, right?

01:30:23.260 All these became the new fault lines.

01:30:25.260 That's what Vodhi wrote about in his book.

01:30:26.600 And from like 2015, 16, 17,

01:30:30.820 All the way up to Roe, that would be one of the last major of the new fault lines that went off.

01:30:36.700 It was CRT and intersectionality and all under the guise of racial reconciliation conference, racial reconciliation conference, a lament for social injustice.

01:30:46.620 And it's the whole social justice kind of thing that was coming in.

01:30:49.580 And then it's civil tyranny.

01:30:51.200 And then it's medical tyranny.

01:30:53.080 And then it's Roe being overturned.

01:30:56.080 And my pastor doesn't say a word, not a word.

01:30:58.200 and I say a word on social media

01:30:59.860 and he sends me a text

01:31:00.880 and tells me that I need to tone it down, right?

01:31:03.400 All these things start happening.

01:31:04.700 And what I'm saying is you saw that.

01:31:07.200 If you're not a pastor,

01:31:07.900 you saw that from the perspective of, 0.99

01:31:09.920 well, that really sucks. 0.97

01:31:11.200 I'm really disappointed. 0.97

01:31:12.240 Now I have to find a new church

01:31:13.200 and I can't find a new church.

01:31:14.320 All the churches went woke.

01:31:16.240 All the churches are COVID tyrants.

01:31:18.260 All the churches compromised.

01:31:19.680 Yeah, that's tough.

01:31:20.760 That's tough.

01:31:21.600 And I've been counseling a lot of you guys on that issue.

01:31:24.540 But what I'm saying is behind closed doors

01:31:27.540 at the elder experience, what you didn't see is that every single one of these local churches

01:31:34.440 was fighting an internal battle. You just saw which team of the elders won. And if the good

01:31:43.040 team won and you were a faithful Christian, then you stayed because the church was faithful.

01:31:46.960 If the good team lost and the bad team won and they went woke or they compromised or they became

01:31:51.200 tyrants and they shut down the church for seven months or whatever, then you were a faithful

01:31:54.720 christian you left what you didn't see is it is it the elders were duking it out not every elder

01:32:02.460 what was the churches that that stayed strong not all those elders were good guys

01:32:08.560 they stayed strong because because the guys the elders who were good guys they won the good guys

01:32:15.660 won and the bad guys lost and the churches that that took the wrong side they closed down forever

01:32:21.260 they were at BLM rallies, but they wouldn't open their church. It's not because there were

01:32:25.660 no faithful elders there. It could be, but there are cases where there were faithful elders,

01:32:29.320 but the faithful elders lost. They lost. The bad guys won. And what I'm saying is there are always

01:32:37.660 divisions and quarrels and disagreements with elders. It is a very polarizing, just the nature

01:32:45.440 of the work, leading a church in the scripture, it's theology. People have a lot of opinions

01:32:55.300 about theology. You know who really has a lot of opinions about theology? Pastors. Pastors have a

01:33:01.480 whole lot of opinions about theology. So what do you do when you have a plurality of pastors

01:33:05.920 with a plurality each of opinions about the scriptures? What you do is you have disagreements.

01:33:15.440 They have disagreements. But what if you do if you live in a unique historical moment

01:33:19.680 where some of these things are unprecedented, at least for our generation, and nobody really

01:33:27.380 knows where to stand or knows where to look to? We all say, well, John MacArthur, he stood his

01:33:32.840 ground. Well, okay, but my church in California also, I was in California at the time, we started

01:33:39.000 gathering again before John MacArthur. And my point is not to brag and say, we beat MacArthur.

01:33:43.400 my point is to say, we couldn't look to MacArthur. When we made the decision to gather,

01:33:47.500 we were going against what MacArthur was currently saying at that time. So we couldn't look to an

01:33:51.280 older man and say, we'll follow the faithfulness of MacArthur. MacArthur at that time was still

01:33:54.920 writing. He had just wrote an article talking about how the Ninth Circuit court was the highest

01:34:00.060 law in their land. And even though they knew it was a perverse court and that it was a pagan court

01:34:05.660 and that it had lots of unjust rulings about other things, they still ruled. And Romans 13 means we

01:34:10.480 submit to the highest ruler in the land, and the Ninth Circuit Court is the highest ruler. And so

01:34:17.440 even though we said we're going to meet on Sunday, we changed our minds, we canceled.

01:34:22.120 That was my example from John MacArthur that I had to go off of. Now, two weeks later, he wrote

01:34:27.980 Christ, not Caesar, the head of the church, which directly contradicted the article that he put out

01:34:32.560 two weeks before. And they did directly contradict. John MacArthur, it did not hold his ground the

01:34:39.460 whole time. He was wrong, and then became right. He was wrong, and verbally said he was wrong.

01:34:47.400 Well, he didn't say he was wrong admitting, but he said wrong things verbally, and then he changed

01:34:52.340 his opinion. But here's the deal. My point is, pastors already are opinionated. Pastors already

01:34:57.860 disagree. And then all of a sudden, you've got all these new fault lines, things that we had never

01:35:02.020 dealt with before, and we don't have other guys to look to. Because the other guys to look to,

01:35:07.000 like well here's the problem we did have other guys who looked to one of the reasons why me and

01:35:11.880 my elders disagreed on covid and our church reopening is because the elders who disagreed

01:35:16.400 with me i'm saying let's reopen you know who they were citing as their proof text for why we

01:35:21.960 shouldn't reopen macarthur because macarthur was saying that churches shouldn't open they should

01:35:29.820 submit to the law of the land and i was saying trying to say humbly and i'm sure i didn't do

01:35:36.240 it perfectly, but I was saying, I like MacArthur, but he's wrong. And you know who agreed with me

01:35:41.660 two weeks later about MacArthur being wrong? MacArthur. But my point is, it's been a divisive

01:35:51.320 time. And if you got all those things going on, it's like, well, Chandler's been getting woke.

01:35:55.520 Yeah, I agree. It's a problem. I left Acts 29 over it. So it's serious. I don't want to make

01:36:00.640 light of that i left a network that i liked that i had friends in over that there's a few other

01:36:06.540 things but that was the big one chandler's getting woke okay but here's the deal the village church

01:36:11.060 is massive there's a bunch of elders my point is i bet you there's some guys who who aren't on board

01:36:18.080 with the wokeness or again i said i tell you when i'm speculating this is speculation it's possible

01:36:24.280 maybe chandler's going unwoke maybe chandler has been having conversations with his elders saying

01:36:29.080 I don't think this was the right path. Maybe we need to, and maybe some of the elders say,

01:36:32.700 no, no, no, no, we're staying woke. My point is this. We don't know any of that. I don't know.

01:36:39.940 It's speculation. I'm not making any definitive claims, but I am saying this.

01:36:44.600 When you have extra biblical categories, you're either disqualified, aka you're fired,

01:36:50.180 or you're not disqualified,

01:36:52.400 a.k.a. take a week off

01:36:54.600 and then hop back to it, bro.

01:37:01.440 But you're not fired.

01:37:03.660 You're getting a paid vacation

01:37:04.540 for an indefinite period of time.

01:37:06.080 Something really serious happened

01:37:07.060 to the point where I'm in tears

01:37:08.180 and this is unbefitting of the pastor,

01:37:10.080 but it's not disqualifying.

01:37:13.460 That's an extra biblical category.

01:37:15.760 That's a third category. 0.74

01:37:16.620 You're either out or you're in.

01:37:18.620 Disqualified or qualified.

01:37:19.500 on. That's a third category. And my point is with that third category, that makes me wonder

01:37:25.200 what's going on. Was someone threatening to expose these things and have their Me Too moment with

01:37:31.020 some pagan news outlet and they wanted to get ahead of it? And that's why they got the third 0.69

01:37:35.120 party come in? Not just to investigate the DMs with Instagram, but to actually give them a PR

01:37:42.040 our plan for how to move forward. And the last thing I added with all the fault lines is that

01:37:49.580 the reason why I said all that to say, another piece of the puzzle is also, you just got to

01:37:53.700 keep in mind, elders disagree. And I know Chandler said, this is what the elders said,

01:37:58.540 and I agree with them. You know what I have said, I agree with my elders before,

01:38:06.440 when I absolutely did not agree with them.

01:38:11.760 Why did you do that, Joel?

01:38:14.060 Isn't that lying?

01:38:15.700 Yeah, it was a sin.

01:38:17.260 I should not have said that.

01:38:19.620 Why?

01:38:20.560 Why would you say you agree with your elders

01:38:22.340 when you don't agree with them?

01:38:26.260 Because I was afraid of my elders.

01:38:31.200 Because my elders were abusive

01:38:34.100 and manipulative.

01:38:36.440 because I thought my elders were conducting a mutiny against me.

01:38:45.100 Because I thought I was going to lose my job with a baby on the way.

01:38:52.200 My job that didn't pay me enough to begin with.

01:38:54.980 My job that there are reasons.

01:38:57.580 And I'm not saying they're valid reasons.

01:38:59.260 I'm not saying they're virtuous reasons.

01:39:00.860 I'm not saying that they are biblical reasons.

01:39:04.380 fear is sin dishonesty is sin my point though is to say there are moments it gets heated

01:39:15.280 at the elders table sometimes you know it gets heated you know that you've had disagreements

01:39:22.140 with family members with close friends with fellow church members over these last two years

01:39:25.760 about these new fault lines these issues you know it's polarizing you know it's divisive

01:39:30.720 and all i'm saying is this it's been divisive for elders on the same team too

01:39:34.560 and and and we have i think yet to see all the fallout that there's going to be and i'm not

01:39:41.040 talking about the village i'm talking about across the whole landscape mark my words for years

01:39:47.180 i'm not saying a century a hundred years but i think for the next five to ten years

01:39:53.380 we're going to see church after church after church split split split crumble crumble crumble

01:40:00.220 and i think a big part of it will be because of embracing things that don't please the lord

01:40:07.140 and therefore are not sustainable like woke ideology but also a lot of these splits will

01:40:12.680 because half of the elders embraced it and half of them didn't and you never knew you never knew

01:40:18.500 but but not everybody was on board one church was doing something that looked really good

01:40:23.560 but there were some bad guys on board that might eventually win and what happened and another

01:40:29.900 the church that you think was really bad, right? The lead pastor was woke. He's preaching woke.

01:40:34.700 A majority of the elders are woke, but some other guys weren't. And maybe eventually they grow and

01:40:39.880 get the upper hand. There's some stuff. There's some stuff behind the scenes. There's some stuff

01:40:49.420 in that elder's room, at that elder's table. We don't always agree.

01:40:53.820 and that doesn't mean that we're disqualified some of us are but it does mean that we're

01:41:02.320 we're sinners elders are sinners the qualification for eldership is not sinlessness

01:41:07.120 if the qualification for eldership is sinlessness then jesus is the only one who's qualified to be

01:41:12.560 an elder but the bible teaches that jesus although he is the chief shepherd first peter chapter five

01:41:17.980 he has under shepherds who hold the office of elder to help manage we don't own the sheep

01:41:23.720 They're his sheep, but we help as under-shepherds to manage his sheep.

01:41:28.200 And we do it as sheep ourselves.

01:41:31.460 As those, we are helping manage sinners as sinners ourselves for the only one who is

01:41:38.380 truly sinless.

01:41:40.040 An elder must be above reproach.

01:41:42.220 He must be the man of but one wife.

01:41:44.300 He must not be given to much wine.

01:41:46.220 An elder must be able to manage his household.

01:41:48.440 An elder has qualifications.

01:41:50.060 There are certain things that an elder may not do.

01:41:52.020 But that doesn't mean for him to be qualified, he doesn't commit these sins, that still doesn't

01:41:57.760 mean that he's sinless. And the last couple years has been, it's been hard to be a Christian.

01:42:06.840 And without sounding insensitive to those of you who are not pastors,

01:42:10.700 it's been hard to be a Christian. But I would argue it has been just as hard, if not harder,

01:42:16.160 to be a pastor. It's been really hard. You guys have lost friends. So have we. We've lost fellow

01:42:25.320 elders. We've lost close friendships. We've duked it out. Sometimes the good guys win. Sometimes

01:42:30.940 they don't. And sometimes the bad guys who lose look like the good guys because they lick their

01:42:40.020 finger and put it in the air and the wind starts to blow differently and starts to change. And then

01:42:43.740 they hop on the right rhetoric and nobody's the wiser. Nobody ever knows that they are actually

01:42:48.080 arguing for the exact opposite position. And they just take it to their grave. You just don't know.

01:42:55.780 That happens. And that may be happening at the village.

01:43:02.380 Someone's either trying to tank the village with some big public news story, me too, hashtag

01:43:09.420 moment, or there's something going on at the elders' table. It has to be one of those things.

01:43:19.940 Because otherwise, if the elders are united and no one's trying to take down the village,

01:43:24.620 I'll tell you one thing that I know. Being an elder, being a pastor for several years now,

01:43:29.160 one thing I know is you do not make a man go up behind the pulpit

01:43:35.020 who is emotionally unstable,

01:43:41.580 in tears, distraught, disturbed,

01:43:44.700 his own words, disoriented,

01:43:47.820 and grovel and apologize

01:43:53.120 with specificity,

01:43:55.640 not just before the church,

01:43:57.780 but publicly live-streamed to the world

01:44:01.360 for something that is

01:44:04.000 not disqualified.

01:44:09.340 Unless

01:44:10.100 your elders have a coup

01:44:12.840 or you're trying to make him grovel

01:44:16.640 in order to appease

01:44:19.940 the Me Too people

01:44:21.360 who are already threatening

01:44:22.800 to post something

01:44:23.640 if you didn't get to it first.

01:44:27.280 Some speculation?

01:44:29.300 Yeah.

01:44:29.560 but there's something going on because this is an extra biblical category. Disqualified,

01:44:36.540 no paid sabbatical, fired. Qualified, no indefinite sabbatical, take a week off,

01:44:45.000 we'll see you in a couple weeks. But the third category of not disqualified, not sexual,

01:44:51.920 not romantic, also indefinite, immediate leave of absence. I'm embarrassed.

01:45:00.860 I'm ashamed. I'm disoriented.

01:45:08.620 Something's fishy. Something's fishy. I think division with the elders or someone was threatening

01:45:16.100 with some me too thing to expose the church, expose something. Maybe neither, maybe something

01:45:23.260 else, but something, something. And it matters. It matters because they put it out for everybody

01:45:31.080 to see. It's fair game. It's public. We're allowed to talk about these things. And the reason why it

01:45:36.780 matters in terms of fruitfulness, being constructive for you, listener, the reason why it matters in

01:45:42.680 that regard is because you need to know, because some of you probably didn't know this until you're

01:45:47.500 hearing me say it. Some of you, it didn't sit right, but you didn't know how to word it. Now

01:45:51.040 you do. You need to know this is not a biblical response to sin when found in a pastor. This is

01:45:58.540 not how a church should respond to their pastor being in sin. The sin is either disqualifying

01:46:05.200 or it's not. If it's not disqualifying, that doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

01:46:09.580 That doesn't mean there's not something to do,

01:46:11.520 but the thing, the work to be done

01:46:13.560 with a non-disqualifying sin in a pastor

01:46:16.420 is work that is done that saves his dignity.

01:46:19.760 It's work that is done privately.

01:46:22.820 It's not dragging him and his family

01:46:25.640 and their reputation through the mud.

01:46:28.280 It's not a DEFCON 5 level, immediate, indefinite,

01:46:34.120 I'm gone, I'm disoriented, I'm in tears.

01:46:37.140 I, that's, that's not the way you handle stuff like this. It's not. So my prayer is that

01:46:45.540 it really wasn't sexual, that it really wasn't romantic, that they're being truthful about

01:46:51.500 those things, that there are no other women, that Chandler really has been a one woman man.

01:46:57.780 That's my prayer at that level, that it's not a bona fide moral failure.

01:47:01.540 I pray that it's not that

01:47:04.840 but it's something

01:47:07.260 and if it's not that

01:47:08.900 if it's not just

01:47:09.660 they're lying

01:47:10.400 and it's actually a lot worse

01:47:11.580 if it's not that scenario

01:47:14.180 that it's actually

01:47:14.800 just a lot worse

01:47:15.480 and they're not being truthful

01:47:16.300 then the only other scenarios

01:47:17.800 is some icky stuff

01:47:20.260 going on with the elder team

01:47:21.320 or

01:47:23.080 somebody threatening

01:47:25.540 to make all these DMs public

01:47:27.640 to shame Chandler

01:47:31.320 to shame the village

01:47:32.220 to try to take them down

01:47:34.160 and they had to get ahead of it.

01:47:39.540 And that's kind of

01:47:40.240 the world we live in.

01:47:41.120 I still don't think

01:47:41.700 that's the right approach.

01:47:43.920 I don't think

01:47:44.560 that's the right approach.

01:47:45.500 I think that's PR

01:47:46.280 and not necessarily repentance.

01:47:49.020 Could be,

01:47:50.000 but it doesn't look good.

01:47:52.880 That's not the right approach.

01:47:54.560 But that is the world

01:47:55.480 that we live in.

01:47:56.100 We are like sheep among wolves.

01:47:57.620 Jesus said that.

01:47:58.380 We live among ravenous wolves. 0.99

01:48:00.000 We live in a pagan culture. 1.00

01:48:01.320 that hates Christianity. Do you know why our culture hates men? 0.95

01:48:07.620 Because strong masculine headship relates to Christianity. Do you know why our culture hates

01:48:16.300 white people? Because the last 500 years, Christianity has mostly taken root in predominantly 0.98

01:48:24.580 Western white civilizations. That's changing now. Praise God. Christianity exploding in China and 0.81

01:48:32.400 Brazil and all over the world. But think about that. It's not arbitrary. Why the attack on 0.63

01:48:37.620 masculinity? Why the attack on colonizing and Western society and culture and whiteness? And

01:48:43.580 why the attack on the family? Why the attack on children, wanting trans children? Why the attack 0.97

01:48:49.760 on babies in the womb with abortion. All of it is just, it's the framework. It's all just the 0.72

01:48:56.240 fruit and different tenets of Christianity. Who's actually being attacked? What is the

01:49:03.020 common denominator across all of it? What does our world truly hate? Jesus. Jesus.

01:49:12.640 And they'll do anything they can. You can't make Jesus fall. He's impeccable.

01:49:18.160 Jesus is sinless. He's seated at the right hand of the Father. The world had its chance. They

01:49:23.000 crucified him, but he's resurrected and ascended and reigning. You can't do anything to Jesus,

01:49:28.120 but what you can do, if you can't take out Jesus, what you can do is you can smear and pervert and

01:49:35.560 twist and defile those who represent Jesus. And that's what Satan has always done ever since the

01:49:43.780 beginning. And that's what he's doing now. And it seems as though he's ramping things up

01:49:48.300 these last few years. And I hope by God's grace that he doesn't win. I hope that Chandler comes

01:49:54.480 out above reproach, not sinless, but above reproach. And I hope that the Lord uses this,

01:50:02.640 not only that he's proven above reproach in this area, but in the areas that he has not been above

01:50:07.400 reproach, namely being woke, that Chandler repents, that the Lord uses this to draw him

01:50:13.660 near to God. And my prayer is not that the village crumbles, but that the village thrives

01:50:20.180 out of this. And that anybody who may be threatening to do something that caused them

01:50:24.920 to respond in what I think is an extra biblical way with this situation, I hope that the Lord

01:50:31.900 in his mercy crushes that person or those people. That he would shut the mouth of lions who seek to

01:50:41.820 devour. I'm not a fan of Acts 29 anymore. You guys know that. I'm not a fan of Chandler. I'm

01:50:47.000 not a fan of the village, but I love them. I'm not a fan, but I love them. I want their best.

01:50:53.440 And if Chandler comes back and he's qualified, they told the truth and he repents of his

01:51:02.240 wokeness and he wants to start preaching the gospel, the actual gospel again, then I'm for

01:51:08.460 I'll forgive Chandler in a heartbeat. The Lord used him in my life immensely. I like that guy.

01:51:16.040 I don't want him to fail. I like that guy. I'm grateful to Matt Chandler. I am. I'm grateful

01:51:21.200 to Mark Driscoll too. I am. I know there were mistakes there, but the Lord used those guys

01:51:28.020 immensely and none of us should be rooting for their destruction. All right. Thanks for tuning

01:51:33.900 in. For those of you who came in late, you got to go back and watch the recording, not because it's

01:51:39.560 my best podcast, not because there's a whole lot of good information. Lord knows I went super duper

01:51:43.660 long. You need to go back and watch the recording for the first two minutes so that you can see

01:51:48.100 Franklin. I brought him on the camera. Franklin, little baby Joel Franklin. He was born just a few

01:51:53.340 days ago. All right. Thanks so much. We'll skip next Monday because it's Labor Day, but we'll

01:51:58.200 pick back up, Lord willing, the Monday after that. So I'll see you guys live with our Q&A

01:52:03.140 in about a week and a half. Today was not really a Q&A. It was just a Joel's thoughts on Chandler.

01:52:09.000 I will read the comments. I haven't got to look at them as we were going along,

01:52:12.660 but I'll read the comments. I know you guys will have points and you'll have questions.

01:52:16.280 And maybe I'll do a follow-up where I really engage your questions next time. So God bless,

01:52:23.520 and we'll see you again in the near future, Lord willing.

01:52:27.460 Thanks so much for listening.

01:52:28.740 But real quick, before you go,

01:52:30.660 do us a small favor, take a moment

01:52:32.500 and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show.

01:52:35.920 This is undoubtedly the best way

01:52:38.280 that you can help us get this biblically faithful content

01:52:41.180 to as many people as possible.

01:52:43.320 Thanks so much.

The NXR Podcast - September 02, 2022

BONUS - Matt Chandler And The Danger Of Unbiblical Forms Of Church Discipline

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