The NXR Podcast - BONUS： Our Personal Testimonies With Jon Harris, AD Robles, & Joel Webbon

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.

00:00:03.440 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,

00:00:06.440 would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?

00:00:09.760 This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do

00:00:12.880 to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible. Thanks.

00:00:18.200 All right, welcome. This is something that's a little bit out of our normal wheelhouse and context,

00:00:23.580 But today I'm very, very privileged to have John Harris and A.D. Robles live in person in our studio.

00:00:31.680 We're stoked to have you guys. Thanks for coming.

00:00:34.600 Well, you're welcome. I'm glad to be here.

00:00:36.320 Great.

00:00:37.080 Thank you. Yeah, very glad to be here.

00:00:39.220 Cool. All right. So this is what we wanted to do.

00:00:40.960 We talked about, all right, what content should we do?

00:00:43.000 What would people appreciate?

00:00:44.020 And we think that it might be helpful for your followers, my followers, your followers.

00:00:48.700 A lot of people sometimes just want to know, what's your personal story?

00:00:51.060 why did you turn on the camera and start talking about the gospel coalition you know why did you

00:00:55.840 feel it was necessary to address these kinds of topics why is it that you got into this ministry

00:01:02.480 or whatever you want to call it that you find yourself in today so not origin story maybe from

00:01:07.360 birth eight pounds six ounce maybe not that far back but but where is it that kind of began this

00:01:14.140 journey of YouTubing, Gab, Twitter, writing books, podcasts, all that kind of stuff. So

00:01:21.820 anybody want to go first? Yeah, I'll go first. So, you know, my story, I always answer this

00:01:27.760 question slightly differently because I, depending on where I'm at in life, I emphasize certain parts

00:01:31.900 of it. But really what it boiled down to for me is that I had been aware of social justice and

00:01:39.080 sort of woke stuff in other areas right so one thing i used to follow a lot of atheists you know

00:01:45.180 online just because i was always interested in apologetics and stuff like that and there was

00:01:50.360 some there was a woke movement in atheism called atheism plus and i remember thinking wow this is

00:01:54.900 so crazy and and even some atheists you know would come out against it and and i really liked that

00:02:00.060 and all of that um and then right around trump's election which i was not even political in any way

00:02:07.000 during that election. And what I mean by that is I didn't vote. I never even considered voting.

00:02:11.200 Like it just wasn't something I thought about doing. I cared about politics, but it wasn't

00:02:15.760 active. Right. But right around that time, I started seeing a lot of evangelical leaders who

00:02:20.260 I'd read their books and been to the conferences and things like that. And they sounded identical

00:02:25.380 to these atheism plus people, except they would replace, you know, Jesus for the principles of

00:02:32.340 atheism that are very rigid as you as you know so but they were saying the same thing it just was

00:02:37.680 in a different context and I remember thinking to myself like this is just really weird and so

00:02:41.740 what I would do is I would put out a video every so often just to you know some thoughts about

00:02:48.340 you know responding to an article or something like that and you know basically like my mom

00:02:53.160 watched it and maybe a few other people would watch it um and so but I never considered that

00:02:58.940 this was you know going to be something i would do long term until one day i put out a video about

00:03:04.880 the mlk 50 conference which you know featured people like matt chandler and russell moore

00:03:10.120 and things like that and i did some content about that um and i'll never forget the response to it

00:03:16.460 first of all it went kind of viral for my context viral for me means you know at the time it was

00:03:21.900 like 100 people watched it you know like that um but the responses i kept getting were either

00:03:28.000 really positive like over the top positive or over the top negative and i thought that was so

00:03:33.680 interesting in fact somebody that i i knew personally who i knew knew me personally uh

00:03:39.480 said you know it was like something about white privilege or or or i forget exactly what it was

00:03:45.280 but it was just like like dude you know me like what's going on here so i knew that there was

00:03:49.040 just like a visceral reaction to it and that's when i decided to put more content out and um so

00:03:55.340 it was it was at that point i knew that i'm on to something here like you don't get like the

00:04:00.580 absolutely hot reactions and then the absolutely cold reactions for the same video unless there's

00:04:05.720 something really deep going on here and that's kind of why i started doing it 80 when was that

00:04:10.420 what year was that you remember i don't remember what was mlk 50 18 i think so we're probably

00:04:16.800 talking like four years ago okay and i had been doing it for probably six months leading up to

00:04:21.360 that. But again, very kind of, you know, just every now and then I'd pull an old Nine Marks

00:04:26.040 article out and talk about it. And, and that's, that's how it happened. It was just sort of by

00:04:32.240 accident. And the reactions kind of spoke for themselves that I was on to something.

00:04:37.160 That's cool. What about you?

00:04:39.000 Well, I remember sitting in seminary at Southeastern being very frustrated that I was

00:04:43.380 hearing all kinds of what today we would describe as woke nonsense. And a friend of mine sent me a

00:04:49.320 video of this guy named A.D. Robles. And it was very encouraging because I felt very alone. And

00:04:55.420 I know the other students who felt similar to myself felt the same thing. Like there's no one

00:05:01.120 out there representing what we believe. And it's like someone had turned a switch on and all of a

00:05:06.700 sudden it's either you're pacified or you're on this woke train. And so what inspired me to do

00:05:15.000 content was you know you have a voice like ad out there but there just weren't a lot of voices there

00:05:20.260 was hardly anyone and i could see even among the men who taught at southeastern uh who were against

00:05:26.320 what was happening at the school they were very just i i don't i'm trying to choose my words very

00:05:35.960 carefully here because i don't want to read into their hearts too much but they didn't want to do

00:05:40.500 much about it really for whatever reason okay so some of them have retired since then or tried to

00:05:46.480 transfer out or you know these kinds of things but there wasn't any pushback on that local level

00:05:51.800 at my school and I didn't see much pushback in a wider sense in evangelicalism so I did not have

00:05:59.340 the intention of building a platform or anything like that I really didn't think a lot of people

00:06:03.660 would see my videos but I thought well at least at Southeastern if I make a video about my experience

00:06:08.840 there and what was happening there, it would let students who feel the same way I do about

00:06:13.880 these issues know what they're getting into.

00:06:15.560 Because I thought it's happening in evangelicalism, but I didn't know how widespread.

00:06:20.160 I figured you can just go to another school maybe and avoid this.

00:06:23.520 And they're not really telling you on the front end what's going on.

00:06:26.100 So maybe they'll find my video and see, okay, this is what's happening and then steer clear

00:06:32.120 of that particular school perhaps.

00:06:34.580 Or at least if they come, they know what they're getting into.

00:06:37.060 So after some wise counsel and praying about it, I had already graduated.

00:06:42.800 I made this like hour and a half long video, which, I mean, that's pretty long.

00:06:47.180 And I didn't think a lot of people would get too invested in that unless they were really thinking about going to the school.

00:06:53.000 Like I wouldn't watch an hour and a half, right, unless I was going to go.

00:06:56.920 But that's not what happened.

00:06:58.120 I put it out there and the views just kept going up.

00:07:01.400 and uh i think by like the first week it had hit like a thousand views or something crazy and i

00:07:07.520 just thought what in the world is going on here and i thought well you know what i'll spend a few

00:07:13.660 more weeks just making videos about this topic because i'm getting emails from people all over

00:07:19.080 the country or facebook messages i guess and some emails from people saying john like i saw your

00:07:24.280 video it's happening here it's happening in like it was from everywhere especially in the southern

00:07:29.960 Baptist convention. And I was just blown away by, I was like, this isn't just at Southeastern. This

00:07:36.100 is like way worse than I thought it was. So I said, we'll take a couple of weeks. So I took a

00:07:41.860 couple of weeks, talked about social justice. I figured, I think, you know, that'll be it. And

00:07:45.200 then, and the views just kept going up. People kept asking more questions. And what became a

00:07:51.520 few weeks has turned into now, I guess that was like January, 2019. It's turned into now a few

00:07:56.780 years. So we're still talking about it. It's taken on different forms, but that's probably

00:08:03.180 been the primary driving force in my content has been social justice issues in the church.

00:08:08.320 And I believe God opens doors. He put this door there. He opened it. And I do believe that this

00:08:14.680 is something that's benefited a lot of people to help them think through some of these issues.

00:08:18.960 They don't have the time sometimes to put in all the research and also just to be a voice to push

00:08:25.740 back against this a bit and to say like there are people you're not crazy like there's people just

00:08:30.640 like you who see the same things no this isn't biblical and so it's an encouraging thing for

00:08:35.720 the people that already uh feel feel that you know the way that i felt about it so um so yeah

00:08:41.520 we'll see where it goes i don't know for how much longer it'll happen and but for right now there is

00:08:46.560 this this opening this platform to talk about these things and i'm just grateful that you know

00:08:52.460 God, you know, would use me in this way, even though I feel weak, I feel, you know, sometimes

00:08:57.460 incompetent to do it, but the Lord uses the weak things and I've seen his grace throughout this

00:09:02.160 whole journey. Yeah. Joel, do you mind if I just jump in and say one quick thing? Cause I, you know,

00:09:08.000 me and John were talking at lunch earlier today about, you know, how much longer we're going to

00:09:12.120 do the content and stuff like that. And something that I picked up on really early on, and I think

00:09:18.340 John, maybe just based on what you said, you kind of picked up on this as well.

00:09:22.000 There's a disconnect right now, I think, between the person in the pew, the regular Joe in the pew and the church leadership, because I think there's this tendency for the leadership to think it's all going to blow over.

00:09:33.600 You know, it's not that big a deal. It's not that bad.

00:09:36.380 In fact, I even spoke to one guy. I'll never forget this conversation.

00:09:39.440 This was shortly after John MacArthur kind of started going hard against social justice.

00:09:44.380 and I think at one point he had said that in his opinion this was the greatest threat to the gospel

00:09:49.360 he's seen in his career which is that's pretty intense language for his lifetime right and he's

00:09:55.300 an older man 240 years that's well I mean he's seen a lot and he's been involved in a lot of

00:10:01.860 controversy so um you know he's he's fought back against all kinds of in you know insane things so

00:10:08.040 for him to say that was a big deal and I'll never forget talking to an elder who I I knew knew me

00:10:13.280 And I knew, like, cared about me, but he was very against my tone and my, you know, naming names and stuff like that.

00:10:22.340 And I said to him, I said, look, just go with me for a second.

00:10:26.260 Let's just say you agreed with MacArthur that this was the most dangerous threat to the gospel in the last 100 years, like you said, right?

00:10:34.200 Let's just say you agreed with that.

00:10:35.300 wouldn't you think it'd be appropriate to name names and to maybe if if necessary use tone that

00:10:41.660 maybe during peace times you wouldn't use but during war times you would and i'll never forget

00:10:46.240 he looked me square in the eye and he said no and and to me like it just didn't there's such a

00:10:52.640 disconnect between that this is the greatest threat to the gospel we read paul talking about

00:10:57.660 the threats of his day and he gets aggressive he names names he does all these things and

00:11:01.840 you're telling me that even if you grant that it's still not appropriate to get a little upset about

00:11:07.280 it a little bit animated the person the pew is not like that they understand the threat they're

00:11:13.420 they're worried they have anxiety and maybe some of that is something that's sinful we should

00:11:17.640 consider but um as long as that disconnect between the person in the pew and the evangelical leaders

00:11:24.280 that are out there exists um there's going to be people in on youtube and on the podcast universe

00:11:30.820 that are going to step into that gap you know if pastors were taking this seriously as as they

00:11:35.240 should in my opinion i'd gladly stop talking because that's that's that should be their realm

00:11:41.020 in my opinion yeah well go that kind of like leads into my story but in terms of the people

00:11:46.300 in the pew and a disconnect you know between the clergy and the the congregation in my experience

00:11:53.200 it's like okay i think it's like half and half so yeah half of the people in the pew i i would say

00:11:57.700 maybe half of the people in the pew are like that like the walls are coming down the enemies at the

00:12:02.180 gate what are we doing you know the city's on fire um it's it's time to go to war it's time

00:12:06.840 to actually defend ourselves um but then at the same time you know my story is you know i i for

00:12:13.060 me it all started as church planting as a pastor and we started as a vineyard church and i came a

00:12:18.640 long way since then but i started as a vineyard church and then we were acts 29 i was actually

00:12:22.560 into Acts 29 as a Acts 29 pastor for about four or five years, um, left after Eric Mason wrote,

00:12:28.260 uh, woke church. And so that was like end of 2018 left Acts 29. Um, but that decision to leave Acts

00:12:34.320 29. And then what I began to start railing against from the pulpit in 2019, um, cost me about a third

00:12:41.600 of my church. Um, I like we, our church didn't grow. We shrunk, we lost. And it was 100% of the

00:12:48.480 people in the pew saying the same thing that that for you the pastor was saying but for me it was

00:12:52.880 the congregants saying it to to the pastor there your tone your tone your tone your tone and your

00:12:57.900 tone gentleness charity gentleness charity and i remember one of the things that i would tell them

00:13:03.360 as i'm taking you know meeting after meeting after you know uh family after family is leaving our

00:13:08.420 church and all these meetings uh 90 of them without exaggeration um primarily being led by

00:13:15.420 the wife and not the husband. So he's pretty quiet. And the wife's the one who actually has

00:13:19.880 the problem. And they're talking about tone and talking about charity and these kinds of things

00:13:24.720 and naming names. Is that really appropriate? And, you know, I picked for 2019, coming off of 2018,

00:13:30.720 leaving Acts 29, seeing, you know, what was brewing, the storm that was coming. I picked

00:13:35.200 first Timothy to preach to, you know, Hymenaeus and Alexander. I've handed, you know, or in the

00:13:39.860 very beginning, it's like, um, Timothy, I charge you, um, or, um, or I, I, um, I, I'm encouraging

00:13:46.560 you to charge certain elders, certain men, certain leaders in the church, not to teach any different

00:13:53.420 doctrine. And so, you know, that was like second sermon in the series and boom, people left. And

00:13:58.980 then 2000, uh, or when we got to first Timothy chapter two, verses nine through 15, I slowed

00:14:04.080 down instead of speeding through it. I did four weeks on that text. I only planned to do one week,

00:14:08.320 but I ended up doing four weeks and talking about the callings of men and women and the

00:14:14.500 distinction between the genders. One of my big lines was, it's not male and female roles he

00:14:19.640 assigned them, but male and female natures he designed them. The difference goes all the way

00:14:24.720 down to the way that we're made. And I started talking about how, and that extends, I believe,

00:14:30.300 that extends beyond the home and the church. If husbands are the head of their homes and then men

00:14:37.440 as elders and i would argue for a male diaconate are are the head of churches but then when we step

00:14:43.320 outside of homes which is the building block of any society is the family so that so we're saying

00:14:49.060 that an entire society is made up of even in a non-religious um uh culture a a entire society

00:14:56.300 is made up of the building blocks of families and men are explicitly called in scripture to lead

00:15:00.760 those but then women when we step out of the home women start leading their husbands you know like

00:15:07.120 it just doesn't make any so i was like all right the civil magistrate bears a sword the sword is

00:15:10.920 a phallus it belongs to men like and i started just you know and i mean i know those are strong

00:15:15.640 statements but i started thinking beyond the home of the church and say let's start there but i think

00:15:19.660 the implications i think we do need to to be more careful the further we get away from what scripture

00:15:24.460 explicitly says home and church but to act as though this is exclusive to those realms is

00:15:30.140 foolish and so i started preaching on that and started preaching on false teaching started

00:15:33.100 preaching on critical race theory started calling out matt chandler you know all those kind of 0.98

00:15:36.820 things and lost a ton of the church and it was all tone tone tone and one of the things that i said

00:15:41.360 was um i remember telling people i said um um a man will always be uh labeled as harsh if he has

00:15:49.840 the gall um to to fire off a round at someone who's charging if if his um comrades in that

00:15:59.020 moment are sitting on a blanket in the middle of a meadow thinking that they're having a picnic

00:16:02.720 right right so like the first guy to fire off around with a platoon when when everybody else

00:16:09.220 still thinks that this is just a drill right that that we're not actually at war there's not actually

00:16:14.520 a threat the enemy's not at the gates and this guy has the audacity to fire off around and then

00:16:19.200 everybody you know looks up from their sandwich and they're putting you know from the little

00:16:22.580 picnic that they're having and they see somebody bleeding you know uh laying down they're like

00:16:27.220 what did you do what's wrong with you it's like well i like we're at war right and they're like

00:16:33.440 no we're not and so i don't really think it's like here's explicit biblical principles of why

00:16:37.840 you cannot you it is inherently sinful to speak like this or to use this phrase or to call out

00:16:44.500 in it it is all 100 what you said it's um that that pastor lied to you i he lied to you because

00:16:50.820 he knew where he was smart enough to know where you were going with the question of course he did

00:16:53.820 exactly so he saw he saw your sneak attack coming so he he just blatantly lied to you but the real

00:16:59.500 answer is of course it's okay to name names and and to use strong language because the bible says

00:17:06.720 it's okay and the only reason everybody has a problem with it is because at the end of the day

00:17:10.940 we're not arguing about what's permissible in terms of of rhetoric we are arguing about whether

00:17:16.620 or not we're actually at war thanks so much for listening but real quick before you go do us a

00:17:21.940 small favor, take a moment and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly

00:17:27.900 the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people

00:17:33.260 as possible. Thanks so much.

The NXR Podcast - April 04, 2022

BONUS： Our Personal Testimonies With Jon Harris, AD Robles, & Joel Webbon

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