The NXR Podcast - THE INTERVIEW - How One Household Can Rival A King with David Reece

00:00:00.000 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:00:02.440 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webman with Right Response Ministries.

00:00:05.100 In this episode, I'm welcoming back to the show a friend of mine, a friend of yours probably.

00:00:09.960 You've seen the first show that we had with him.

00:00:11.620 It's Mr. David Reese.

00:00:13.080 He is the CEO of Armored Republic.

00:00:14.780 He's also a local pastor.

00:00:16.720 And the guy knows a lot when it comes to the law of God, its applications, covenant theology.

00:00:24.200 And I've been blessed by him, learning a lot from him and with him.

00:00:27.740 And so today we're going to be talking about the law of God, particularly as it pertains to the household and how the household is the sphere that God has sovereignly instituted, not only for welfare and training up children, but ultimately to be productive.

00:00:42.160 The household is where you have business, where you have production, where wealth is generated.

00:00:47.780 And so those are the things that we're talking about today, how to be productive, how to generate wealth by applying the law of God.

00:00:53.920 And for anybody who would charge us of it being, oh, well, that sounds like the prosperity gospel, obedience to God, you should listen to the episode because you're absolutely wrong.

00:01:02.360 So tune in now.

00:01:04.200 Applying God's word to every aspect of life.

00:01:07.660 This is Theology Applied.

00:01:15.320 All right.

00:01:16.000 Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:01:18.060 I am your host, as always, Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries.

00:01:22.080 And today I'm privileged to welcome back for the second time to our show.

00:01:25.260 We have Mr. David Reese.

00:01:26.580 He's the CEO of Armored Republic and a number of other businesses.

00:01:29.780 He's also a local Presbyterian, covenantal, post-millennial pastor.

00:01:34.280 And the cool thing is the two of us, we've just hit it off and we're developing a friendship.

00:01:39.300 And so David is actually going to be coming on our show.

00:01:42.240 Sometimes we sporadically have guests all over, but I'm doing an ongoing series with Mr. Reese,

00:01:48.620 probably about once every six weeks uh returning guest to our show so get used to him he's a

00:01:56.040 friend of ours friend of yours mr reese welcome back thank you i'm really excited to be here

00:02:01.540 we found that we basically agree on like everything except for giants and baptism right this is like

00:02:05.760 which i would like to say that one of those is really important giants

00:02:10.060 and the other one doesn't really matter

00:02:13.680 No, I'm just kidding.

00:02:16.620 Thanks for having me on.

00:02:18.600 I'm excited to be here.

00:02:19.460 I'm looking forward to continuing to talk about Christian power.

00:02:21.740 And I think that a lot of the men that you and I talk to are trying to figure out, hey, 0.78

00:02:27.060 how do we pick up the ruins of society that we're in and deal with the fact that our forefathers

00:02:33.240 built up a glorious Western civilization based upon the Protestant religion revealed in the

00:02:38.540 Bible.

00:02:38.780 and then our more recent forefathers inherited that thing and squandered the whole thing

00:02:44.440 and started eating food that was meant for pigs. And now we're going, how do we fix this?

00:02:49.840 Yep. Amen. So why don't you do this, Mr. Reese, if you would. Let's begin by you giving our

00:02:55.060 listeners just a brief recap of last time we talked. Absolutely. So last time we talked about

00:02:59.620 the law of God. And we started with the law of God because the law of God is the instruction

00:03:04.180 manual for how to exercise dominion, right? So the law of God teaches us what we're supposed to do,

00:03:10.260 and it also teaches us because it talks about blessings and curses that are attached. And so

00:03:15.160 it teaches us the blessings show us the nature of reality and the way that God providentially

00:03:21.120 blesses in his creation. And the curses show us about the nature of reality and the way in which

00:03:26.900 he providentially brings harm to the misuse. And so we talked about the law of God, and we had all

00:03:33.460 sorts of kind of these key things that are sort of like things like the three uses or the three

00:03:37.740 parts or, you know, the levels of the law. And so we talked about all of that together. And so the

00:03:43.780 law of God gives us instruction, and there's all sorts of useful organization of the law.

00:03:48.640 But in short, we have the idea that there's the two great commandments, love God, love neighbor,

00:03:53.180 that the 10 commandments are organized in two tables. So there's the first table, the first

00:03:57.600 four commandments teach us how to love God, and then the last six teach us how to love our neighbor.

00:04:01.900 and then we've got all the case laws that you organize underneath there and then you've got

00:04:07.100 like approved examples and disapproved examples and those give us all the detail so between all

00:04:12.000 of that we have this full spectrum view of the good life being taught to us by the law of god

00:04:18.220 and so in we in seeing that we can see how dominion is supposed to be exercised and so can i comment

00:04:24.680 on that just real quick i think that's so important because what you're saying and and i want to give

00:04:29.760 you a chance to address this also one of the regular objections that i'll get um you know with

00:04:35.000 with a few of the professional trolls on twitter and youtube that come in the comments um is it

00:04:39.900 must pay well i mean there's a lot of them there are a lot of them you're right and so but a lot

00:04:43.720 of times one of the things they'll say is they'll try to and sadly this comes from evangelicals and

00:04:48.140 i'm and many of them are i'm sure are legitimate brothers and sisters in christ who mean well

00:04:52.420 but they just they have no theological category to separate what you and i are talking about from

00:04:57.140 the prosperity gospel, which really is a heresy that really does damn millions of souls to hell.

00:05:02.000 It really is a big deal. But I feel like what we're trying to say when we say the law, like

00:05:07.020 one of the first statements you made that I think is so good, you said the law of God,

00:05:10.580 it's fruit or one of its purposes is giving us a roadmap for exercising dominion in the created

00:05:19.100 world. And right there, they would have a problem with that because they would read that as obedience

00:05:23.300 means you get stuff if i obey then god will give me a ferrari and and i just i want to say first

00:05:29.140 the prosperity gospel is not obedience bearing fruit the prosperity gospel is actually in the

00:05:35.340 absence of obedience you can simply have wishful thinking and faith faith not even in christ as

00:05:41.340 the object of your faith but faith in your own faith the strength of your faith rather than the

00:05:45.480 object of your faith a power of positivity a manifesting a person who doesn't they're not a

00:05:51.760 doer of the word, but a mere hearer and then speaker trying to speak things into existence,

00:05:57.120 ex nihilo, that's a damnable heresy. But if we're training our sons and daughters and our

00:06:03.220 children's children saying that if you obey God, yes, he's sovereign. And sometimes you obey God

00:06:08.380 and you get hit by a truck. That happens. That's tragic, but that's real. And let God be true in

00:06:13.680 every man a liar. He's still just, he's good. All of his purposes are holy and good. But ordinarily,

00:06:19.320 So not as a guarantee, but ordinarily, when you live by God's rules, things go well in God's

00:06:26.240 world. What we're doing is we're not advocating for the prosperity gospel. We're actually pushing

00:06:31.840 back against some well-meaning evangelicals who would render the law of God as arbitrary

00:06:37.100 and capricious. Would you add anything to that? Absolutely. And I think what you just said was

00:06:42.680 just so, absolutely. And I think, but in addition to that, even when we don't get the blessings in

00:06:48.660 this life, every time you seek to glorify God in faith by doing what he commands, there is always

00:06:56.800 a reward on the day of judgment. So all of the elect who do every small, Christ won't forget a

00:07:03.860 single one of the small good works that he causes us to do by his Holy Spirit through the use of his

00:07:09.660 word in our hearts, none of those are going to be forgotten. They're all going to be rewarded,

00:07:13.500 not as a covenant of works, but graciously, those works are going to be accepted through

00:07:18.700 the mediation of Christ and be rewarded. So that idea that, like you said, the idea that there's

00:07:24.540 a providential blessing that God generally brings, but there's also a providential blessing that he

00:07:29.700 always brings at the day of judgment. Amen. All right. So go ahead and just take us into

00:07:35.240 our conversation for today. Sure. So just to finalize on this idea of law, I want to emphasize

00:07:40.080 this again for people who didn't hear the last time. The three uses of the law are very

00:07:43.440 important. We need to remember the law is not for justification. That's an illegal use of the law.

00:07:48.100 We don't say our good works make it so that we are righteous before God. We are guilty in Adam.

00:07:52.420 We're guilty because of the corruption of our nature from conception, and we are breakers of

00:07:56.080 the law and all sorts of particular points. So that being the case, what we realize is that the

00:08:01.040 law, first of all, shows us our need of a savior. It's a mirror. Secondly, it's a chain that binds

00:08:06.360 and restrains the wickedness of men. And then thirdly, it's a lamp unto our feet. So we're

00:08:11.280 going to be talking about the lamp unto our feet portion, the usage of the law. And that's going to

00:08:16.080 have an effect on the rest of the culture, the unbelieving elements of the culture to restrain

00:08:20.460 the evil there and to cause them to consider their mortality and their need for salvation.

00:08:25.700 And so those first two uses there. But as Christians, if we're saved, what we need to do

00:08:30.040 now is we need to figure out how do we live? How now shall we live? That's Schaeffer's famous

00:08:34.180 you know famous question so as we go into this the first thing is we need to be careful to not

00:08:41.500 forget the goal right it's the law of god doesn't just tell us how to use power in sort of a like

00:08:47.260 here's a bunch of instructions for different machines and then that's it he tells us the goal

00:08:51.400 we're supposed to use the machines for right so we we use life we use all the stuff here we use

00:08:56.620 all the things and all the institutions for a goal and so the goal is the glory of god god is

00:09:02.420 the definer of good. God is the good. We're trying to fill the earth with the knowledge of God as

00:09:06.440 the waters cover the sea. We do that by knowing God and we do that by showing the knowledge of

00:09:10.880 God to other people, both with our words and with our actions, the double witness of words and

00:09:14.960 actions. So as we do that, we're filling the earth with the knowledge of God. And that happens by the

00:09:20.240 church being increased by people coming to faith, them increasing in their faith, and then the

00:09:26.660 projection out with the cultural things that are made there. So there's an external filling and

00:09:31.720 there's also this internal filling of individuals as they know God. So the goal there is to fill

00:09:37.580 the earth with the knowledge of God. So that accords with human nature. God designed us to be

00:09:43.720 rational creatures, and we're designed to know God. We are the image of God. And the image of

00:09:49.600 God is also perfectly present in Christ incarnate. And so we are to be renewed after the image of

00:09:56.620 God. And in being renewed after the image of God, we increase in wisdom, which is knowledge of God,

00:10:03.120 knowledge of the good and of his law, right? Wisdom is the knowledge of what's good and how

00:10:07.160 to get it, right? So God is the good. His law teaches us how to live in such a way as to

00:10:11.940 encourage and increase with the knowledge of God, both for ourselves and others. And then on top of

00:10:16.800 that, there's this idea that, okay, fine, our purposes, our affections, our loyalties are going

00:10:21.740 to be rightly built out. So we're going to become more holy, that holiness aspect. And then we are

00:10:27.760 going to make better choices, righteousness. So that idea of rationality being designed so that

00:10:33.460 when it's properly used, what we're doing is we're having wisdom, holiness, and righteousness

00:10:37.300 increased. And we've been given this command, this mandate to go out to fill the earth and to

00:10:43.500 subdue the earth. And so that work, that work of the positive construction and then the preserving

00:10:50.740 of what has been advanced, what has been made, is the two sides of that, the working and keeping.

00:10:56.640 And we have, as individuals, we're all given the offices of prophet, priest, and king,

00:11:01.900 which is prophets are using their wisdom to teach and correct. We have priests who are seeking to

00:11:08.340 be holy, and they're doing that in praying down blessing to get, and they are sacrificing to

00:11:15.920 preserve. And kings provide and they protect. They provide a sphere where good work can be done in

00:11:23.020 and they protect that so that the good work that others do is preserved there. So the individual

00:11:28.120 on a basic level is supposed to use those offices to do the work of glorifying God by knowing him

00:11:35.020 and showing him. And that's sort of the goal. And that results in the filling of the earth with the

00:11:39.020 knowledge of God. So that goal, that's what we're really striving for.

00:11:42.620 That's awesome. Great recap. All right. So today, power, Christian power.

00:11:50.400 So the individual is given power, right? And you don't have any power. You are a slave 0.98

00:11:55.340 unless you know the truth or unless you know the gospel. So, you know, the response that we find

00:11:59.980 when Jesus says that to the Jews, they go, we weren't, we were never born slaves. You know,

00:12:03.240 we're, we're children of Abraham and all that. Well, you know, I'll tell you what, I don't care

00:12:06.560 what, how great your church is. I don't care how Christian your family is. If you do not believe

00:12:10.940 the gospel, you're a slave to sin and to save into the world. And so the knowledge of the gospel,

00:12:17.380 the knowledge of the fact that Jesus Christ paid for the sins of his elect and provided a perfect

00:12:21.860 righteousness for them is necessary for you to be free. So the knowledge of Christ is that which

00:12:28.180 sets a man free. And if he's free, now he has liberty. And that liberty is for the purpose

00:12:33.520 of exercising power to do what's good. Augustine defined liberty as the ability to do what's good.

00:12:40.000 And so that idea that we are not just free to do whatever we want, but we are free to do what's good.

00:12:46.080 So that's the empowerment of the individual.

00:12:48.520 And as the individual is given that power by God, there's a grant of authority in the dominion mandate.

00:12:54.580 And in being given the knowledge of the gospel, there's an empowering of the soul so that you can now make your body into an instrument, a weapon of righteousness.

00:13:04.080 and so what we want to do as individuals is to exercise power so that our bodies are tools

00:13:11.260 they're they're they're instruments they're weapons of righteousness and so we are swords

00:13:15.460 and trowels and we use the word of god to construct to build and to guard now if that's the case as an

00:13:22.320 individual and we think about that and we work together right the individual can work but the

00:13:27.660 working together with others is far more powerful there's a division of labor principle the church

00:13:32.300 itself is even made for that, but the household is made for that, and friendship is for that.

00:13:36.540 And so this idea of, we just talked about the knowledge of God being the good and the law

00:13:40.900 being the instruction manual of how to get what's good. And so a friend is somebody who's committed

00:13:46.920 to what's good, and he's committed to your good, and he knows the means to use. So you can't walk

00:13:53.860 together unless you're agreed. So this idea of true friendship. So the idea that a friend is

00:14:00.420 somebody who has this mutual commitment to what's good means you can't be friends with anybody unless 1.00

00:14:04.160 they're a Christian. It's just not possible. I'm not saying you're not authorized. I mean, 1.00

00:14:08.500 frankly, you're not authorized. But in addition to that, you can't. You can pretend like you're

00:14:14.740 friends, but if they're not committed to your good, then really they're your enemies.

00:14:18.280 Right. You can be friendly. You can be cordial. You can be respectful. But yeah.

00:14:24.040 Absolutely.

00:14:24.360 No, you're absolutely right. That was not as much anymore because our church that I'm pastoring

00:14:31.620 here in Texas now is more mature, and also I'm just getting older. But when I first started out,

00:14:37.980 when I was in California and pastoring, and before I should have even, but even when I was doing it

00:14:44.120 fairly well, I still was younger and attracting younger people, and there was more immaturity in

00:14:49.940 the church and in myself. And so one of the frequent FAQs, questions that I would get is

00:14:55.580 asking for counsel with, how do I do this friendship with this non-Christian? I have 1.00

00:15:01.400 this non-Christian friend that I'm really close to, and we're disagreeing, they're gay, or they're 0.83

00:15:08.080 gay affirming, or there's this, or there's that, and the other. And what I would always tell them 0.99

00:15:12.080 is, I would say, Jesus is the friend of sinners, but Jesus was never friends with an unrepentant

00:15:16.520 sinner for a prolonged period of time he was the friend of people who so so he's a friend of you

00:15:21.200 know because that's always used out of context he'll say well he was the friend of tax collectors

00:15:24.740 you mean the tax collector who says he'll give four times back what he's defrauded that tax

00:15:29.140 collector you know or or you know the friend of a prostitute you know like the one who's you know

00:15:33.720 weeping and drying his feet you know with her hair and like um and so jesus is absolutely the friend 0.57

00:15:38.920 of sinners that's the only reason he's my friend you know but but he's the friend of repentant

00:15:43.240 sinners and so i just always encourage them to you know not to be rude or but but to but to be

00:15:48.760 forthright in your allegiance your loyalty fidelity to christ not the friend but to christ

00:15:54.960 um and then and then you don't even have to make the decision you do that and one of two things

00:15:59.580 will happen uh your friend will get converted or they will reject you you won't have to reject them

00:16:05.080 they will they'll just they really like they'll say you're mean even when you're not being mean

00:16:09.780 and by an objective standard um you're you're being hateful when you're not being hateful

00:16:14.500 you're actually being loving right and so it you just be faithful to christ and it the person will

00:16:20.440 make the decision god will either make the decision uh you know in his sovereign grace

00:16:24.520 through regeneration by the spirit or the person will make the decision um by saying i don't want

00:16:29.460 to be your friend because you actually sound like jesus and i hate him the danger of centralized

00:16:35.180 power is often represented by the word king. As Americans, we hate the word king.

00:16:42.220 Civilian ownership of body armor is about helping people to have increased power to resist tyrants

00:16:48.460 and criminals. And so Armored Republic is about helping you to preserve your God-given rights to

00:16:55.400 the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ because he is the king of kings and he governs kings and he

00:17:00.700 will judge them. This is armored republic, and in a republic, there is no king but Christ.

00:17:08.960 We are free craftsmen, and we are honored to be your armor spread choice.

00:17:14.200 right and i think that that right there if we're actually being friends to these people or trying

00:17:33.300 to be friendly like you said right the result is as we try to seek their good and tell them what

00:17:38.200 is good and how to get it they're going to hate us or they're going to get converted right yeah

00:17:43.260 Those are the only two options that I can think of.

00:17:46.540 Yeah.

00:17:46.820 Right.

00:17:47.580 Okay.

00:17:47.840 So go on.

00:17:48.560 I'm sorry.

00:17:49.100 I wanted to throw that in there.

00:17:50.980 Yeah.

00:17:51.740 I think to slightly expand on that, just we're commanded, we're not commanded to hate our

00:17:57.660 enemies.

00:17:58.640 We're commanded to love our enemies. 1.00

00:18:00.160 So when you have somebody that you spend time with and they're not a Christian, that 0.99

00:18:05.020 doesn't mean, okay, great, hate them because they can't be your friend.

00:18:07.380 That means you love them.

00:18:08.900 You apply the law of God to them, right?

00:18:11.400 What is love?

00:18:12.040 love is the desire for the good of the object, right? And so if you love a person, you're seeking

00:18:16.240 their good. And the way you know how to seek their good is by the law of God, right? You can try to

00:18:21.500 make stuff up all you want, but you don't know how to seek somebody's good unless God tells you,

00:18:25.920 because he's the designer. He tells us what we are, what we're designed for, and he tells us

00:18:29.660 how to seek each other's good. So the law of God is how we seek each other's good. And so if you

00:18:33.480 have an enemy, somebody who's seeking your destruction, that's what they're doing, because

00:18:37.140 if they don't know God, then whatever thing they're trying to encourage you to spend your

00:18:40.840 time on and to give your affections to, they want to destroy you, right?

00:18:44.320 If somebody is worshiping their own belly and they want you to come worship your belly 0.61

00:18:49.300 with them, then they're seeking your destruction, right? 0.85

00:18:52.500 So whatever the thing is that they're worshiping that's not the God of the Bible, when they

00:18:57.080 are trying to spend time with you, they're trying to corrupt and destroy you, and they

00:19:01.380 don't even, they might not even know that, right?

00:19:02.760 They go, well, I think this is good.

00:19:04.120 This is what the good life is.

00:19:05.200 We should go do this together.

00:19:06.320 And their self-deception makes it so they're seeking your destruction.

00:19:09.760 so they're your enemy and you should love them you should love them by applying the law and by

00:19:14.540 teaching them truth amen like we said before that's going to result in them either coming to

00:19:18.700 love the same god that you do or they're going to hate you amen so that that's so helpful and it's

00:19:23.420 relevant even with you know things that are going on right now in our world and in our nation and

00:19:27.660 in my case in my state uh of texas i mean you constantly are hearing you know um the usual it's

00:19:35.040 usual suspects you know the beth moore types the russell moore anymore right you know michael moore

00:19:39.760 russ russ moore uh beth moore the all three you know three peas in a pot uh there's not much

00:19:44.320 difference these days between them but um one of the things that you hear is that the rhetoric

00:19:48.800 the rhetoric of constant you know it's just constantly punching down on blue collar salt

00:19:53.360 of the earth christians uh evangelical christians you know and uh and one of the things you'll hear

00:19:58.240 as it pertains to politics and as it pertains to our border right so some of the things right now

00:20:03.120 taking place is you know how how could you claim to be a christian aren't you ashamed of yourself

00:20:08.540 christian how could you claim to be a christian and not love your neighbor um your your uh

00:20:14.080 immigrant neighbor who's you know who's trying to uh better themselves and just provide a you know

00:20:19.620 a future for their child and and is getting cut up and razor wire you know like you're you're 0.97

00:20:24.580 slashing uh uh mothers and babies and you and it's just i mean it's such a wrong you know perverse

00:20:31.700 twisted framing of what's going on um but but the point is saying love your neighbor love your

00:20:38.540 neighbor but uh but what becomes so quickly um obvious and apparent is uh love is uh completely

00:20:45.820 you know malleable it's it's whatever the person wants to define love at at any given moment and so

00:20:52.320 if love is breaking the law if love is uh they can just shape it any way they want and also what

00:20:59.180 I was going to say is, I think it's helpful, one, to like, what is love? By what standard? But then

00:21:03.680 also to be able to speak in categories, right? Like when I'm reading the Beatitudes in Matthew

00:21:08.800 5, you know, blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy. Does that mean that in the

00:21:14.160 civil realm that every judicial judge should pardon every single time an individual is found

00:21:20.280 guilty of a crime? You know, that there's somebody who's guilty of rape and all right, we found you

00:21:25.220 guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, and all charges have been dropped, you're

00:21:31.720 free to go. If he's a Christian judge, does that, because he's trying to obey the words of Christ

00:21:37.480 in Matthew 5, you know, blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy, or are there actual

00:21:43.180 hermeneutical categories? I feel like that's something that Christians can't think in

00:21:49.000 categories anymore. Do you have anything to add about that? Yeah, I think the two examples you 1.00

00:21:53.940 just laid side by side are actually great when you think about immigration and the idea of the

00:21:57.220 love of the immigrant everybody's thinking about welfare programs right right and it's like let's

00:22:01.300 use the state to coercively extract money from people and then let's give that to somebody else 0.61

00:22:06.440 how generous right it's it's it's like it's like walking up to somebody with a gun telling them to

00:22:11.360 give you their wallet and then you give their wallet to somebody else you're like see how

00:22:14.460 generous i am i am am i not merciful you know and so this this sort of like ridiculous idea that you

00:22:21.280 can be merciful with somebody else's rights you can be merciful with somebody else's property

00:22:25.900 and it's a joke it's a disgusting thing and so um the the the example of giving you know welfare 0.98

00:22:33.460 money to people who are who are immigrants who are arriving illegally through extreme you know

00:22:39.120 the course of extraction by taxation is one thing on the other side a judge also you know it's not 0.86

00:22:43.960 merciful for the judge to fail to punish it's merciful if the victim chooses to not give the

00:22:50.580 maximum penalty. And so in the Bible, in the law, in the principles of general equity, you have this

00:22:56.320 idea of there's a maximum penalty that the victim has a right to extract. And it's the job of the

00:23:01.840 civil magistrate to make sure to get that right for the victim. At the other side, the victim can

00:23:09.440 choose to take less or to take nothing, but there are some crimes that there's an obligation for the

00:23:14.640 state to administer a minimum penalty for, for example, murder. And so the idea that the victim

00:23:21.000 has a right to choose a lesser penalty, that is mercy on their part. But it's not always a

00:23:27.160 requirement to give people mercy. God is not one who gives mercy to everybody. He has zero mercy

00:23:33.340 to the demons, zero. And it was totally just, righteous, glorious, and holy for the Lord God

00:23:41.220 Almighty to give zero mercy to the demons. And so when we think about the reality that God has

00:23:47.780 the right to do that, and he also doesn't command us to give mercy in every instance.

00:23:53.860 And instead, in fact, some people don't have a right to grant mercy. I think that's the

00:23:58.340 important thing. So those are the categories I would want to give people.

00:24:01.700 Yeah. So are you in the position to grant the mercy? Do you have a right? Is it your mercy to

00:24:05.740 give, but, and super helpful, uh, categories and, uh, and whether you're mandated to show mercy or

00:24:11.440 whether it's an option that the Lord is leaving to you to show mercy. And then one other category

00:24:15.680 is just think, uh, that, that I'd like to add is just thinking in terms of, um, who is the object

00:24:20.220 of mercy, not just who has a right to administer it, but who is the object of, of receiving that

00:24:24.380 mercy. Um, and sometimes we're just too narrow in our thinking. So it's, I'm going to have mercy

00:24:29.480 on a murderer but is that if he's an unrepentant murderer is that merciful to society to let this

00:24:38.140 murderer loose who very likely is going to murder again you could argue that it's actually i'm

00:24:43.780 showing mercy to one person but at the cost of cruelty to many others and and so keeping you

00:24:49.800 know there's just a lot of moving pieces that's brilliant and i think sometimes it's wicked to

00:24:55.220 show mercy, right? Exactly. So this idea of, you know, if you have a child who is in rebellion

00:25:01.080 against a parent and the parent says, I'm just going to show them mercy and not discipline for

00:25:04.440 this thing when I explicitly told them and they didn't hear, if you don't swat that kid, you hate

00:25:08.760 him, right? Like the mercy of not disciplining a child when you have a responsibility to discipline

00:25:15.300 them, that's an act of hatred. And so we have to understand that there are times when there's a

00:25:19.960 duty to do it. So a worthy recipient of the mercy. And the category that we typically, like we

00:25:25.040 typically are like worthy recipients of mercy isn't the whole point of mercy that nobody's

00:25:28.700 worthy you know and and so but the reality is that there are different categories of mercy right so

00:25:33.080 the mercy of god and saving us of course nobody's worthy but we have it on the basis of the worthiness

00:25:37.700 of christ and then the idea that you know for example in um in the church you have the you have

00:25:44.360 you know the mercy ministry the diaconal ministry and that diaconal ministry involves giving cash

00:25:49.140 money to people sometimes right and so if you just give money to anybody who wants it like you're

00:25:53.700 going to squander it. And there might be people who are, you know, but for a little bit of cash,

00:25:58.440 they can't get their house in order. They can't reform. And if they had a little bit, they might

00:26:02.480 be able to see things, you know, properly put into order. And so this idea of a worthy recipient,

00:26:06.720 where there's a person who is desirous of doing good, they do not have the means to do it. And

00:26:11.620 so they are of character such that you believe is not going to be a waste of the money. That's

00:26:15.820 one example. There's a similar type of thing for the worthy recipients of pardons or of mercy or

00:26:21.420 clemency in the civil sphere or in the household. And so we need to realize that there are things,

00:26:27.380 there are biblical criteria and thoughts to be considered for the extension of mercy by those

00:26:32.360 different authorities in those different spheres. So the object of mercy, absolutely.

00:26:37.020 That's good. I think some people, without trying to be disrespectful, I think it's a helpful

00:26:43.020 description, but some people are, because of sin and because of the rebellion against God,

00:26:48.500 uh they they are they're a black hole you can you know and that's how welfare has been um for you

00:26:54.180 know decades now you know uh it's just oh well maybe if we throw more money at it that's how the

00:27:00.600 public education system has been for decades you know maybe if we just um and it's just it doesn't

00:27:04.880 matter how many billions it's just it's just a black hole it's just uh whereas you know and what

00:27:10.480 it makes me think of is when jesus says um you'll always have the poor and i remember thinking about

00:27:15.360 that years ago you'll always have the poor with you but you will not always have me you know as 0.58

00:27:19.420 he's talking to you know judas who's like oh we could use this for the poor which of course you 0.90

00:27:23.980 know he took charge of the money bag and he wanted to be able to skim from the top and take it for 0.82

00:27:27.720 himself so he didn't care about jesus or the poor right but jesus says you always have the poor

00:27:31.560 um and i thought about like why why why are we always going to have the poor and uh the reason

00:27:37.740 why is until christ's final return we'll always have the poor with us because we'll always have

00:27:41.660 sin and that's not to say that every poor person that it's uh that it's directly due to their

00:27:47.700 individual sin um but often it is so so an individual person is poor because of their

00:27:53.840 sinful choices or in some cases like north korea there's probably a lot of people who are poor

00:28:00.620 and it's not because of their individual choices but it's still because of sin somebody else's sin

00:28:06.100 is depriving them of opportunity but there is no scenario where someone is poor and it's not

00:28:12.600 directly correlated to someone's sin um and and and to believe anything else and i know that some

00:28:18.260 people say oh that's oversimplified or that's too uh too you know they don't like it but but the

00:28:23.820 reason why i think it matters is because to say anything otherwise is still saying that poverty

00:28:28.860 is um because of someone's sin but namely uh god's it's to indict god it's to say that god

00:28:37.220 created a instead of a god created a zero-sum game god god is capricious he's cruel he uh the

00:28:44.920 very commandment that he gave us uh he knew would ultimately be our very demise be fruitful and

00:28:50.880 multiply but he put us in a context where multiplication overpopulation would ultimately

00:28:56.020 And he's sitting in the heavens, look at those obedient creatures, you know, sealing their own.

00:29:02.100 I mean, what kind of view of God do you have to have to think that, no, I just reject that entirely.

00:29:08.440 I think that the world that God has created has more than enough, not only that everybody could have what they need,

00:29:14.460 but that everybody could be wealthy and have a great deal of dominion.

00:29:20.000 There would still be hierarchy, even in a prelapsed area without a fall, still hierarchy.

00:29:23.760 But one of the things that you know when God is Israel's God, one of the things that shows off Yahweh and his infinite wisdom, the queen of Sheba comes to Solomon in his kingdom.

00:29:33.640 And what does she say?

00:29:34.360 Even the servants here are blessed, happy.

00:29:37.500 Right?

00:29:37.780 So when you see a kingdom where even on the lowest rung of the ladder of hierarchy, even they're doing really, really well.

00:29:45.080 where the servants are richer than some of the completely free CEOs of another society.

00:29:54.240 And so I believe that in terms of God's law and God's creation, what he's provided, there's plenty.

00:30:00.620 And so I have to believe when Jesus says the poor, you always have the poor with you.

00:30:04.160 It's not because of some pessimistic, nihilistic view of the way God made the earth

00:30:09.160 and that things just are going to get worse and worse and worse until Jesus comes back.

00:30:12.320 Now, the poor we're always going to have with us in some capacity because we will always have sin with us in some capacity.

00:30:18.160 However, as a post-millennial, I do believe that the overall trajectory is up and that when Christ does return, I think poverty will be mostly abolished.

00:30:28.060 But even then, I think the poor will still be with us in a lesser capacity because sin, I think there's a direct link.

00:30:35.120 Any thoughts on that?

00:30:36.620 Absolutely.

00:30:36.920 And I think what you just said is backed up by when Proverbs says, for example, that there's much grain, you know, in the fallow ground of the poor, for example, right?

00:30:44.180 This idea, why?

00:30:45.360 Because of injustice, right?

00:30:46.560 So the tyranny, communism, you know, envy, covetousness, you know, exalted and put into law restrains the poor from working because you go, if I work, somebody's going to take it.

00:30:56.840 Like, why would I do this?

00:30:57.720 So whether it's a bandit or a bandit with a badge, right?

00:31:00.640 In either case, the concern is that the fruit of my labor is worthless.

00:31:04.120 so there's this not applying of work to the capital goods that are available because of the

00:31:10.180 injustice and so in addition to that you know i agree with you that the idea of the poverty is

00:31:15.000 ultimately a relative poverty in the sense that you know the doorman in heaven is poor in comparison

00:31:19.280 to the guy who used to govern 10 cities right but but you know the streets are made of gold so i

00:31:23.320 mean you know so that's pretty well in the resurrection the new in the new heavens and

00:31:27.380 new earth sorry that's my that's my old dispensationalism coming up um so the uh and

00:31:31.940 then the the last thing is um you know this idea that if you also look across time right the you

00:31:38.140 know the poor today live better than the kings of yore you know like this this this we can't we

00:31:44.680 can't call up a minstrel to come and talk to us and entertain us whenever we want instead we have

00:31:49.000 you know 175 channels and you know youtube and you know google and blah blah blah blah and all

00:31:54.660 the podcasts that have ever been done so we have we have more wealth even when we're poor than the

00:31:59.640 kings of previous days. So building off in from there, if we think about this idea of work,

00:32:07.500 and we talk about the division of labor, God has given institutions for the division of labor and

00:32:10.800 the organization of labor. And so the institution that goes next is the household. And the household

00:32:15.820 is a covenant institution. And one thing I want to mention briefly here is this category that

00:32:22.180 exists in scripture, but is not really the same sort of ongoing institution of authority as much

00:32:27.840 is there is a certain degree of obligation. And the thing that's connected to the household

00:32:32.220 is this sort of idea of the clan or the connection of not the immediate family, but the broader

00:32:37.620 family. And so you think about, for example, the scriptures talk about how if a man won't care for

00:32:42.760 his own, he doesn't provide for his own, he's worse than an unbeliever. And that applies out 1.00

00:32:47.020 to widows. And you go, okay, what widows are these? Are these widows that are part of the 0.99

00:32:51.420 immediate families, like a daughter who becomes a widow? You care for her? Okay, sure. But then

00:32:55.820 it's also talking about things like you think about like you know grandmothers and and you know

00:33:00.220 aunts and stuff like that and so these are the widows that are connected they're not a part of

00:33:03.400 the immediate family they're not a part of the household but they are part of sort of the clan

00:33:07.140 and so that category of the extended family in the bible there's there's an obligation there so

00:33:12.320 there are certain covenant duties there and the double portion inheritance that you read about

00:33:16.040 in the old testament is about the idea of the continued passing on of the obligations to the

00:33:21.840 clan. And so one son gets a double portion of inheritance in order to care for the women and

00:33:28.340 potential orphans and widows or whatever that could come out of a household, but also sort of

00:33:32.520 the connected ones in terms of the broader family. So the household is the institution that I want

00:33:40.180 to emphasize here. The individual in the household, we think they're too small, right? We do not

00:33:46.760 understand the grant of authority given to the individual and to the household. The magnitude

00:33:53.260 of power that God has given and concentrated into the individual and to the household is something

00:33:59.540 that we don't get. We all think if I could be king, if I were the Christian prince, then what

00:34:05.360 I would do is I would make sure that everything was great. Well, you know, your goal would be

00:34:08.800 you'd see justice done in the land and your goal would then to be to see patriarchs leading their

00:34:14.360 families well, having good businesses and estates put into good order, and individuals governing

00:34:19.340 themselves well. And you want the church to be preaching the gospel. And so if there's good

00:34:24.360 doctrine, right worship, good government in the church, and there's civil administration that's

00:34:30.120 just restraining evil, if individuals and households aren't governed well, there's no wealth produced in

00:34:36.040 the land. There's nothing good accomplished. The children will be awful. The next generation will

00:34:39.760 be corrupt. There will be no good men to lead in the church or in the state. So the work gets done,

00:34:45.180 the stuff gets built, the things get made in the household and by individuals. And so I want to

00:34:51.740 emphasize this extraordinary power that you have. You have a fiefdom in your household where you can

00:34:57.880 govern with the law of God. And whatever government agency with whatever three letters in their name,

00:35:04.080 they can tell you whatever they want and your household you can laugh disobey stomp on the

00:35:09.900 order and do the opposite and say god is king here not you know whatever whatever the agency is

00:35:15.880 and so this this idea of the individual in the household getting the work done so i want to

00:35:21.760 emphasize we think these things are too small they are far bigger than we think they are and so

00:35:28.120 one of the things that i've talked about in the past is this idea of you know what is amazon except

00:35:32.500 for house bezos right what is facebook but house zuckerberg you know and and so this this you know

00:35:38.580 we all know about house elon it's big these things are big right so house musk is huge right so if

00:35:45.720 we're going to think about this you can make a household that's a trillion dollar household or

00:35:50.000 three trillion dollar household you can have thousands of servants you can do all sorts of

00:35:54.300 stuff you can partner with others to build things and we we fail to understand the magnitude of what

00:36:00.720 can be accomplished with the household. And what's weird is that the godless have figured it out.

00:36:06.860 And so they have tried to reorganize society with the corporations, with DEI and ESG and all this

00:36:14.520 nonsense. And so this junk, which is the methodology of spewing out the satanic nonsense, 0.97

00:36:21.320 is the mechanism by which they've replaced the chaplaincy of great households with the HR 0.98

00:36:26.660 department. And so we don't realize the extent to which Christian men built great estates and had

00:36:33.400 households and trained their sons and daughters to be able to rule and to be able to accomplish

00:36:38.360 things. There is power in the individual and there's power in the household. And I want men

00:36:43.320 to realize the power that God has given to them and the capability that they can exercise. And

00:36:47.900 to realize also that a small number of people in the beginning turns into great numbers across a

00:36:52.580 few generations. We saw 70 heads of household in the end of Genesis going into Exodus, and when

00:37:01.080 they're in Egypt, by the time, 215 years later, there's 600 and something thousand men leaving

00:37:08.480 Egypt. So there is an enormous capacity to increase the number of people that are godly and

00:37:15.100 that know God from the household. So we think about child rearing, and we think about these

00:37:19.140 things. And we think about, oh, yeah, we need to do family worship. Absolutely you do. And you need

00:37:22.840 to lead your household and make sure that your family is applying the principles of the Lord's

00:37:27.280 Day and doing all of these things. But you also have six days a week to build wealth and to figure

00:37:32.540 out how to exercise dominion with your family. And so the household is the ministry of welfare,

00:37:40.080 health care, and education. I stole that from Pastor Phil Kaiser. If you guys haven't listened

00:37:44.460 to Pastor Phil Kaiser at all, you're missing out. Just turn this show off. Just go listen to Pastor

00:37:48.800 but just this idea of welfare health care and education and so men you're the master of your 0.94

00:37:57.060 home and your wife is queen right she's the mistress of the home so you rule together and

00:38:02.600 as that means that it's your job to make sure that everybody has a proper assignment they've got 0.70

00:38:08.120 work to do that is worth doing but you know one of the reasons why daughters you know want to be 1.00

00:38:13.560 feminists and go off to college is because their dads are so bad at managing them that they're 1.00

00:38:17.780 board. So what work can you give her to do? What noble calling and good work can you give her to 1.00

00:38:26.960 do and to make it so that she, as a princess in the home, as a woman, as a maiden of honor,

00:38:34.240 as a shield maiden in your house, what can she do that is good work? What are you assigning her to 0.81

00:38:40.600 do and helping her to do things? What are you asking her to read? What instruction do you want

00:38:45.980 her to do. She is the image of God, and she should have excellent work to do, and hospitality should

00:38:51.920 be a part of it. If you're not hospitable, what do you think the glory of your women is going to

00:38:56.100 be shown off in? Hospitality is one of those places where your wife and your daughters get 0.95

00:39:01.280 to gloriously display the beauty that's created by the gospel, and where the resources you generate

00:39:07.360 get to be used in such a way that you can offer things. You talked about the Queen of Sheba

00:39:11.740 coming to Solomon and the hospitality, like her mind is blown by his answers and her mind is

00:39:16.540 blown by the beauty of the hospitality that's offered there. And so, you know, involve your

00:39:21.700 women in helping to do that and to have the great conversations where they can, you know,

00:39:25.960 Titus 2 disciple other women. And so this work, there's so much to do there. But, you know,

00:39:32.620 brother, I'd be curious, you know, have you seen any, you know, powerful examples of where

00:39:36.900 where you've seen hospitality used in some sort of great way that the Lord has powerfully used in

00:39:42.980 some home. All right. Everybody's been asking, can I live stream your conference? And the answer is

00:39:48.940 a resounding no. You will be there in person or you will not be there at all. I'm just kidding.

00:39:54.600 You actually can live stream the conference. We're excited to announce we're making it available to

00:39:58.980 anybody and everybody who wants to watch this conference right as it's happening, which is

00:40:04.200 March 1st and 2nd. That's a Friday and Saturday of 2024. What conference am I even talking about?

00:40:10.260 It's called Blueprints for Christendom 2.0. We've got Pastor Douglas Wilson. We've got Dr. Joe Boot.

00:40:16.240 We've got Brian Sauve. We've got Eric Kahn. And then of course, yours truly, Joel Webb. And we've

00:40:21.220 got seven primary sessions in the conference, each one being probably 50 to 60 minute long

00:40:27.300 sessions, lectures, sermons, whatever you want to call them. And then two live panels,

00:40:32.860 each being an hour and a half long now one of the panels is on biblical patriarchy we're going to

00:40:37.680 have pastor douglas wilson available for that panel and we decided to get eric khan because

00:40:43.280 eric khan biblical patriarchy let's just be honest it's a sensitive topic but eric khan i think is

00:40:49.220 known as one of the most nuanced careful and sensitive individuals especially on the twitter

00:40:53.820 streets so we're going to have him as a part of that panel it'll go really well then the second

00:40:57.880 panel is Haunted Cosmos live show. You've got Brian Sauve and Ben Garrett talking about the

00:41:03.880 most unhinged things imaginable. Hopefully some things that are actually truthful. Now there will

00:41:09.400 be some truthful things. They're going to stick to scripture and when they speculate, and you know

00:41:12.800 they will, they'll at least let you know that it's speculation and they won't pass it off as though

00:41:17.380 it's in the infallible word of God. So live stream this conference. How do you do it? Go to patreon.com

00:41:23.400 forward slash right response ministries again that's patreon.com forward slash right response

00:41:31.080 ministries a lot of guys charge 50 bucks 60 bucks 80 bucks we are asking that you would simply

00:41:36.880 partner with us for 10 a month and let's be real you could do it one month live stream all the

00:41:43.540 content and then cancel your subscription and if you do no harm no foul if you want to stick with

00:41:48.420 us and support this ministry what god's doing through right response then praise god that's

00:41:52.640 great and we thank you either way technically it's only 10 bucks yeah yeah in my own home by

00:41:58.640 the grace of god my wife is extremely hospitable and it's something that um i have to be um looking

00:42:05.460 for opportunities to exercise hospitality because i'm an elder um in christ church and that's one of

00:42:10.780 the uh one of the qualifications that an elder must be hospitable um but it's i i like what i

00:42:16.380 you know just some of the ways you word things are really helpful they're concepts that i'm

00:42:20.380 familiar with and that i practice in my in my own life in my home in my church um but but i like

00:42:26.440 you said i can't i can't even remember exactly how you said it but just it was quick and passing but

00:42:31.100 um that the husband is uh he's providing the resources uh not even the resources but just

00:42:36.880 but just the capital um but but it's it's it's the women in the home that the wife is queen of

00:42:43.120 the home and then you know these daughters as princesses or or um shield maids is that what

00:42:47.660 said shield made shield maidens shield maidens um you know who are gonna then translate i mean 1.00

00:42:52.700 they're taking um money that that is not hospitable and but then making it flowers and food

00:43:00.940 and um you know and candles and you know all these kinds of things um but i remember being convicted

00:43:06.700 to you know to my shame um i'm a little bit of a neat nick and i remember you know uh in my

00:43:13.420 selfishness and sin not wanting necessarily to exercise hospitality because hospitality makes a

00:43:19.500 mess and and then you know and i was able to do all these other things in in in my vocation in

00:43:24.760 my mission in my ministry um and i did not realize my wife the lord used my wife to um to help me see

00:43:32.120 more clearly and she did it respectfully and um you know but she came to me she said joel you're

00:43:37.720 um, you're not allowing me to have a ministry. I, I, I love, I love our kids. And that's my

00:43:43.860 chief ministry is your helpmate with the kids, but also, um, like the home is my domain.

00:43:49.080 And if nobody's in it except for our family, then I can only minister to our family and no one else.

00:43:54.780 Um, you know, and that, you know, this was years ago, but it challenged me. And then,

00:43:58.880 you know, I remember when we moved to Texas, um, you know, for the first year and a half,

00:44:03.040 every single Saturday, we had everyone in the church over now, granted the church was small

00:44:06.540 time but still i mean we'd have 40 sometimes 50 people in our home on on saturdays and i would be

00:44:11.580 you know i'd take it my job was the meat but my wife was everything else food wise you know but

00:44:17.100 also um decor and and just making the house warm um and inviting and um yeah and i would say for a

00:44:25.260 year and a half by the grace of god and his grace through the agency primarily predominantly of my

00:44:30.700 wife um and and my children they're little but but helping mama as much as they can um that

00:44:37.040 that i mean there's a sense in which i can say that our church today exists because of that

00:44:42.140 foundation for the first year and a half as a church um eating and breaking bread with one

00:44:49.280 another and then we would do some extended we called it extended family worship you know with

00:44:53.200 everybody and you know a bible story for the kids and singing a psalm you know and uh and spending

00:44:58.240 some time in prayer and ending with the doxology and, um, and preparing ourselves for the Lord's

00:45:03.200 day, going into the, uh, to the Sabbath.

00:45:05.260 And, uh, it, I mean, that was really like cult.

00:45:08.300 It's at the culture, it's at the tone, it's at, uh, some, some of the doctrine, the philosophy

00:45:13.120 of ministry, uh, the foundation in many ways for our local church.

00:45:16.340 So you can say in a real way, I'm this, I was this church planter, but my wife with

00:45:21.500 the gift of hospitality in our home, in many ways was setting the foundation, uh, for our

00:45:26.620 local church that's thriving today.

00:45:28.240 That's beautiful.

00:45:29.580 My experience was the same in terms of building out of Puritan Reformed Church in Phoenix,

00:45:34.200 that the hospitality is, you know, largely was able to do that.

00:45:37.360 And I think that's where ministry, like you said, that's where the women get to do the ministry.

00:45:41.200 It's where they get to speak, it's where they get to teach, it's where they get to have doctrine that they get to talk about. 0.99

00:45:45.060 And so we deprive them of that. 0.61

00:45:46.880 I think oftentimes women want to become ministers because they had dads and husbands that didn't want to be hospitable. 0.73

00:45:52.340 Wow, that's good. 1.00

00:45:53.100 And I think so feminism is often a weed that comes out of that garden that we didn't fill with anything worth growing. 1.00

00:45:58.240 And so that's one of the dangers there. 1.00

00:46:00.760 But you also said the idea that hospitality is messy.

00:46:03.020 And I think that is true.

00:46:05.360 And we can't deny that.

00:46:07.360 Stuff gets broken.

00:46:08.500 Chairs get spilled on.

00:46:09.980 The white furniture becomes not white anymore because coffee was spilled on it.

00:46:13.900 And so all that stuff happens.

00:46:15.880 And it's just like with the ox.

00:46:18.320 Oxen cause a mess in the barn, but much grain comes by the strength of an ox.

00:46:23.000 A lot of mess comes from hospitality, but so much glorious fruit comes from hospitality.

00:46:29.300 And so you just gave a beautiful explanation of that proverb, honestly, as you were explaining what you did with your wife there.

00:46:36.400 But I think this idea, the household, the household has work to be done, productivity to be made, capital to be done, give work to your children.

00:46:45.320 When children are small, you were just talking about this, right?

00:46:47.500 This idea that the small children, you don't really save time initially.

00:46:52.240 by giving them work to do right supervising them is more work than doing by involving them

00:46:57.160 right but it's good for their soul it's good for your soul and they become competent right and so

00:47:05.960 that and and it it accustoms you to delegate i i've met a lot of really competent men who do

00:47:13.200 not have the presence of command because they haven't practiced command with their wife and

00:47:18.960 children. We feel awkward commanding our wives to do anything. And so husbands, if you haven't 0.81

00:47:23.980 commanded your wife to do anything, are you exercising authority? And so this idea that

00:47:28.360 there's work to be done, and then there's the same with the children. And so a lot of that

00:47:33.580 training should be done by the wife. So if you haven't given your wife any commands that you 0.98

00:47:37.160 can remember recently, here, men, I would encourage you to command your wife to help to train your 0.89

00:47:41.620 children to do some sort of chore, even if it's a waste of time, apparently, because it will turn

00:47:46.740 them into useful. And it will also help you men to become accustomed to command. And I hold the

00:47:52.020 line on that. And get used to the idea of giving commands when people don't want to receive

00:47:55.840 commands, even if your wife pushes back. Right. And if you're cringing as you're 1.00

00:47:59.180 listening to this, first, you're probably, the feminism runs deep in you. The feminism is strong 1.00

00:48:05.500 with that one. But then two, right, it's your suppressed feminism that you're not aware of, 1.00

00:48:10.160 you know, but it's there. But then two, you're imputing something that Mr. Reese did not say.

00:48:16.120 he did not say rudely, command your wife. The word command does not necessarily dictate that

00:48:24.360 it's rude or that it's harsh or any of that, but it is a command. It could be the most kindly

00:48:30.400 spoken word you can imagine, but it is a command not because it's mean instead of kind, but because

00:48:38.020 it's a command instead of a suggestion. It comes not from meanness, but it does come from very real

00:48:42.720 authority. And I'll use this kind of language and I'll go viral on YouTube and everybody will hate

00:48:47.280 me. Mostly Christians. Mostly Christians will be the offended ones. It's sad. You feel like you're 1.00

00:48:52.940 on the same team, but they're the ones that they can't believe that I would say X, Y, and Z. But

00:48:58.320 that should, not only are some men not giving commands, issuing commands in their household

00:49:03.840 to their wife and to their children, but they're so, that's so foreign to them. Just even listening

00:49:10.760 to you tell them to do that is making them cringe you know anything that you would say to a guy like

00:49:17.500 that or or even perhaps a woman who's listening is like so to the to the people that are cringing

00:49:21.960 my goal in every time i speak is to make you cringe um now my what i want to say is yeah

00:49:29.560 you know joel i think i think what you said is fantastic that you know that's that's that's

00:49:33.500 feminism there right if you believe in biblical patriarchy or you want to call it complementarianism

00:49:38.740 whatever soft word you want to use that means the husband has authority over the wife if you

00:49:43.440 believe what the bible says about that then you know guess what authority includes get the authority

00:49:48.180 includes the ability to give a command to the person under authority right if you cannot give

00:49:51.900 a command to somebody if there are no commands they're lawful for you to give and that person's 1.00

00:49:55.480 obligated to obey you you have zero authority that's right right so so either you're a feminist 1.00

00:49:59.900 or you believe in the biblical order of the husband being the one in authority in the marriage 0.98

00:50:05.880 And if you do believe that, then a part of the way a husband loves his wife is by giving her

00:50:10.760 work worth doing and helping to coordinate the division of labor.

00:50:15.420 Lazy husbands don't command anything, and they expect their wife to do everything. 0.73

00:50:20.720 Hard-working husbands that seek to love their wives distribute the work.

00:50:26.040 They divide it.

00:50:26.800 You can do it by discussion.

00:50:28.080 But you also give commands of, here's how I want to lead to glorify God, and I need you

00:50:33.640 to do this thing.

00:50:34.300 and you listen if your wife says that would be hard because of this that the other thing

00:50:38.500 we're gonna have an extra week to do it can we do this instead you can go sure but your approval

00:50:43.580 of that you know you're you're listening carefully you're caring for her you're loving her

00:50:47.900 and your your your approval of that is still your exercise of authority you're making the call

00:50:52.640 right and so listening to wise counselors is a part of how you wage war well and we're in

00:50:56.880 spiritual warfare and we're trying to take over the world so listen to your counselor your wife

00:51:00.940 should be your principal counselor when you're at the table of war if you don't listen to your 1.00

00:51:04.380 queen you're an idiot and so you should listen to her you should talk to her and then sometimes you 1.00

00:51:09.780 have to disagree with her and give her commands even that she might disagree with but you show 1.00

00:51:14.420 your respect for her by talking to her about these things and having her be your principal counselor

00:51:19.400 doesn't mean you talk to her about everything and lay all of the burdens on her but she should be

00:51:22.960 your principal counselor your best friend classic example of that i i mean trumpkin right i think

00:51:28.960 you know prince caspian it's like he's he's not he's not for the plan he's he's you know speaking

00:51:33.960 his objections and all those kinds of things but then finally it comes down to and he's like i'll

00:51:37.400 go i'll go on this mission you know to see if if this worked you know whatever the the narnian

00:51:42.020 magic of aslan and the whole you know narrative up to this point is very clear that he's he thinks

00:51:47.420 it's all folklore he doesn't he doesn't believe that there's any narnian magic of aslan and

00:51:51.500 doesn't even necessarily believe that aslan is is real and you know and so he's responded to

00:51:55.960 and said, like, I thought you didn't even believe this stuff.

00:51:58.700 And he said, it doesn't matter if I believe it.

00:52:00.640 Well, you've been disagreeing the whole time.

00:52:02.180 He's like, yeah, you've had my counsel.

00:52:04.260 You know, you've heard my advice,

00:52:06.260 I think is the word he uses, advice.

00:52:08.240 You've heard my advice,

00:52:09.620 but now's not the time for advice anymore.

00:52:11.240 Now's the time for orders.

00:52:12.900 And I know how to take an order.

00:52:14.500 And he goes and does the very thing he doesn't even believe,

00:52:16.840 but he understands.

00:52:18.100 And I think of, you know, the centurion,

00:52:20.760 you know, which he says, like, I'm a man.

00:52:22.740 You know, you don't even have to come to my house.

00:52:24.240 You can just give the command.

00:52:25.100 but that that's that's a real good verse to perfectly illustrate what you're saying because

00:52:28.820 he says i understand god's authority christ i understand your authority because i'm a man

00:52:34.620 in authority and then what does he immediately cite as the example for what it's like to be

00:52:38.340 in authority i give a command to someone to go here and he goes you know so he like he naturally

00:52:44.360 can't even speak of authority without the uh implicit uh description of authority being

00:52:51.320 issuing a command. If there is no issue of command, you don't have authority. And so just

00:52:56.020 stop saying, I'm self-complementarian. Just say, I'm a feminist who hates the word of God. Like, 0.99

00:53:00.480 just be honest. So, yeah. So that's what we would say to you, who cringed about this.

00:53:07.540 Yeah, there you go. Tell us how you really feel.

00:53:10.540 That's great. So I know we're getting close to the end of our time here. So I wanted to

00:53:16.240 make sure we're doing this flyover, right? We're talking about the house. And I wanted to emphasize

00:53:20.900 the individual in the house. The individual is a prophet, priest, king, and you need to do the work

00:53:25.780 of working, building stuff up and keeping it, preserving what's been attained to. And we have

00:53:30.920 the goal of glorifying God, filling the earth with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

00:53:34.720 We have the household where there's a division of labor and you build an estate. The man is a

00:53:39.480 master of the house. He is also a husband to his wife and he actually has authority over her. It's

00:53:45.140 distinct from the authority and the relationship that he might have over servants. And then there's

00:53:49.800 also the father relationship, which is different and distinct from the authority and relationship

00:53:54.080 with servants or with a wife, right? And so those three offices of master, husband, and father are

00:54:01.900 three offices of authority, and you need to be a prophet, priest, king in all of them. And so

00:54:05.980 you disciple servants, you put the word of God on your property, right? That's how you manage 0.82

00:54:09.820 the estate as a master. As a husband, you wash your wife with the word, and you care for her,

00:54:15.100 you're leading her, you'd be a prophet, priest, king, right? With your children, you disciple

00:54:18.260 them you raise them up in the fear and admonition of the lord you you give them the padilla of god

00:54:23.100 right this this idea of of caring for them as a prophet but there's also the priestly work the

00:54:28.560 relational and then there's there's the kingly work right there's provision and protection and

00:54:32.500 so you work through all of that and the household you're building an estate you're passing on wealth 0.54

00:54:37.880 and wisdom to your children and you need them to work with you you need them to to take responsibility

00:54:43.660 things you give them jurisdictions you give them resources and you help them manage their time and

00:54:48.080 money that's put at their disposal. And you need to give them money that they can waste. They can

00:54:53.420 fail to do stuff. They steward badly. And then you can teach them how to steward better. And this

00:54:59.260 idea that it takes risk, right? The entrepreneurial spirit starts at home and giving jurisdiction and

00:55:04.600 resources to children and to a wife. And so that idea, I want to encourage that. And we are all

00:55:11.360 accountants and we take a 10th and give it to the Lord in a tithe. And we're all project managers

00:55:15.840 and we take a seventh of our time

00:55:17.180 and give it to the Lord on the Sabbath.

00:55:18.660 And he makes us account for time

00:55:20.360 and makes us account for money with those things.

00:55:22.580 So the household is the principal place

00:55:24.180 where that stuff happens.

00:55:25.820 The church is a place where there's authority

00:55:28.480 and there's covenant relationship

00:55:29.600 and there's cooperation.

00:55:31.120 You have right worship, right doctrine,

00:55:33.400 right worship, right government.

00:55:34.740 And part of that government is the mercy ministry

00:55:36.740 of the diaconal care like we talked about.

00:55:38.860 And in the state, right,

00:55:40.120 what we have is the exercise of the sword,

00:55:42.200 the praising of what's good,

00:55:43.340 But then there's also the use of the sword to punish criminals, to stop ongoing criminal activity as the night watchman, so to speak, and then the waging of just warfare.

00:55:53.740 And so these exercises of authority, when you think about the mandate of these various institutions, which are the ones that build the most culture?

00:56:01.520 It's the household.

00:56:02.120 The individual does it in friendship, in covenanted relationship, in the household, and the church creates a place where the truth is taught so that that can be manifested in terms of the beauty of the household.

00:56:14.620 And then the state is helping to hack off the worst cancerous elements of society and to use the sword.

00:56:21.620 But it's not constructive.

00:56:22.800 It's destructive.

00:56:23.340 And the church is giving this wisdom and caring for people,

00:56:28.340 helping to prevent the loss of orphans and widows and the worthy poor with the mercy ministry.

00:56:33.440 But they don't generate any – it's not the church-owned industry.

00:56:37.000 It's not the church-owned farm.

00:56:38.280 It's not that the church has a limited purview.

00:56:41.740 And the household is where all those resources come from.

00:56:44.040 Yeah, I love what you're saying because it's in terms of the scope of individual people

00:56:48.320 that you're in authority over.

00:56:50.660 The household is the smallest.

00:56:52.040 uh whereas you know a christian prince you know if you're constantine you're over a lot of people

00:56:57.360 um and you know and then within the church you know you could have you could be over a few hundred

00:57:01.740 people depending on the size of your church and then if you you know depending what church polity

00:57:05.300 you would prescribe to whether it's you know uh regional presbyteries or even a national level

00:57:10.100 if you know like depending on different positions or if you happen to be i would disagree with the

00:57:13.660 polity but have an episcopal uh episcopal polity you know um with you know bishops and and things

00:57:19.060 like that so but my point is in in both the state and the church realm uh those spheres you can you

00:57:24.680 can have a very very broad scope in terms of numbers of people that are under your authority

00:57:31.040 but in terms of um not people but in terms of realms i don't know exactly what word or or just

00:57:38.460 um a subject matter topics or um super the depth of the influence exactly the state is get bad guys

00:57:45.960 And the church, it's word, sacrament, but in both cases, it's fairly narrow in terms of the subject matter, but could be broad in terms of the number of people under your command.

00:57:57.100 In the household, you may only be over five people, right?

00:58:00.460 You may have a wife and four kids, but in terms of the breadth of what you're doing, you're talking about schools, education, markets, the economy,

00:58:12.040 like building roads and house like construction and i mean it's uh art and i mean it's like that's

00:58:20.280 all that little household is building the world so that's absolutely right and that that idea that

00:58:27.960 there's so much that can be done and the law of god commands all that stuff to be done anybody

00:58:33.480 who's bored um you know they they don't understand what we're commanded to do and you know you can 0.99

00:58:39.560 You can go try to amuse yourself to death, and you can try to go study stupid or worthless 0.99

00:58:44.700 things or find worthless work. 0.99

00:58:47.140 But if you go, okay, the law of God gives me a list of good works to do, and you're

00:58:52.820 never going to run out of worthy work, and you're going to find you're so overwhelmed

00:58:57.420 with worthy work to do that you have to delegate to your wife and children, and you're going

00:59:01.420 to find that if you're productive, you're going to generate capital.

00:59:03.980 And if you have capital, you can start to buy other people's time.

00:59:07.060 And if you can start to buy other people's time,

00:59:08.660 you can start to direct it to do more,

00:59:10.240 and you give them money, which gives them capital.

00:59:12.620 And as they're productive, you reward them with more that they're stewarding,

00:59:15.720 and you reward them with more rewards as they steward those things well.

00:59:19.260 And so the amount, the way in which, and you can disciple those people.

00:59:23.140 Abraham had his 318 catechized servants.

00:59:26.400 How many servants have you catechized?

00:59:28.520 That's what I would encourage people to think about.

00:59:30.060 If you're in management, if you have authority, do that.

00:59:34.400 Like, just teach people the Word of God and get fired for it.

00:59:40.000 Like, just do that.

00:59:41.940 The Lord will provide.

00:59:42.960 He'll help you to do other stuff. 1.00

00:59:44.180 Find Christian employers.

00:59:44.920 If somebody gets fired because they were teaching somebody the Bible or the Westminster Shorter Catechism or something like that, 0.99

00:59:50.600 and they were talking to people about the law of God, give me a call.

00:59:52.760 Reach out to me.

00:59:53.360 You know, real David Reese, at real David Reese on Twitter.

00:59:57.520 You DM me, whatever.

00:59:58.500 Like, let's talk.

00:59:59.580 Like, I'd love to know you, and I'd love to see if we can find a place for you.

01:00:02.960 So that idea, we have a duty to speak the word of God and to disciple in all of those places.

01:00:09.960 And as we increase property, we can apply the word of God to it.

01:00:12.600 So I want people to realize that is where the power is.

01:00:16.180 And even the king relies upon the grain from the field of the person who's managing the farm.

01:00:22.300 Right.

01:00:22.900 Amen.

01:00:23.400 That's good.

01:00:24.140 Any final thoughts or things that you really want to hit in this episode as we land the plane?

01:00:28.420 i think that that idea of dominion that dominion is for the glory of god and it's so that you can

01:00:35.700 put the word of god on the doorpost right deuteronomy 6 teaches us that we should put the

01:00:40.180 word of god on the doorpost of our house so the household is to be ruled by it and then we have

01:00:45.080 the gate as well right the idea of the public institution is supposed to be ruled by the word

01:00:49.220 of god but when it goes into the household it talks about the idea of of you know putting the

01:00:54.180 word on your forehead, which symbolizes your thoughts being governed on your right hand.

01:00:59.800 And think about the mark of the beast, right? The forehead and the hand. Well, this is the

01:01:02.680 mark of God when the law of God governs your thoughts and governs your actions. And so this

01:01:06.800 idea of the word of God governing yourself, and then you teach your children, everybody under

01:01:11.800 your authority, the word of God at the set times of morning and evening, and you teach them as you

01:01:16.220 walk by the way and as you're just kind of going about the day. And those things, that idea that

01:01:21.340 you're looking for opportunity whether it's in the handbook for your company or whether it's while

01:01:25.020 you're going through whatever and you're whatever meeting and you start the meeting with prayer and

01:01:28.400 you know maybe go through a little bit of the scriptures and proverb or whatever by the way

01:01:31.340 proverbs is a great book if you're if you're trying to figure out how to teach your employees

01:01:34.640 the word of god at all the book of proverbs is just going to be amazing for you the law of god

01:01:38.280 also everybody's afraid of you know like you're like well i'm gonna get up and just tell them the

01:01:42.000 gospel every time like the law of god is a part of discipleship that's what you do this is all

01:01:45.900 applications so i want people to realize deuteronomy 6 with that that the the shema the

01:01:51.780 famous text about hero israel it's telling us to apply the word of god in all of these things and

01:01:57.380 we're told to teach our children these things remember the fifth commandment honor your father

01:02:01.780 and mother it doesn't just apply to your literal father and mother it also applies to people in

01:02:06.780 authority in all the covenant spheres and children commands that apply to children when you think

01:02:10.860 about this idea of teaching they apply to everybody in all the covenant spheres that are under

01:02:14.580 authority with that real quick that's so good i would just as a practical resource recommendation

01:02:20.100 beyond this episode i would recommend thomas watson uh the ten commandments and i think

01:02:24.240 he he lists a few different categories but he says you know there's familial fathers there's

01:02:28.440 ancient fathers uh so so guys who aren't just the generation immediately preceding but you know

01:02:33.540 looking back to athanasius as a father you know and um but then there's also of course spiritual

01:02:38.940 fathers um you know ecclesiastical fathers within the realm of the church and then civil fathers

01:02:43.540 And this shows you how much our revisionist history of, you know, moderns and soft evangelicalism has just absolutely castrated us.

01:02:54.340 But Thomas Watson, who is not that long ago, chronologically, in terms of time, he cites Constantine as his example of a, and it's a raving endorsement of him as a civil, good example of a civil father.

01:03:08.300 And he says, and Constantine was a nurturing father, you know, and he says, uh, uh, as

01:03:13.520 such a nurturing father that he, uh, with great vigilance, uh, he, you know, attacked

01:03:18.140 those who attacked the church, you know, and, you know, and so he's just like talking about

01:03:22.160 how wonderful Constantine and I'm like, yeah, I like Constantine, you know?

01:03:25.880 And so, uh, so anyways, but I just say that to echo what you're saying that, um, the Puritans

01:03:30.740 certainly thought in those terms and Thomas Watson being one of them that I, and that

01:03:34.480 book is so helpful because he goes through the 10 commandments, exegeting the commandments

01:03:37.560 themselves but then what the puritans did so well that so many modern even within the reformed camp

01:03:42.680 modern theologians will not do today and i don't think it's because they just can't i think it's

01:03:47.480 i think part of it is a lack of courage to be frank um but they they won't provide application

01:03:52.900 but the puritans they'll give the exegesis um but then they'll say and now to application and so

01:03:58.400 what does it mean to honor your father on a tuesday afternoon at 3 23 p.m you know and and it's just

01:04:03.820 and that's what people hate about the puritans they're like that's where you said well they're

01:04:07.440 puritanical it's like but today and maybe some of their applications were were a little bit off

01:04:12.280 they're fallible but but today uh guys they don't have the courage to offer any any practical

01:04:17.740 application at all they'll give you the theory here's god's law here's the theory of what it

01:04:22.560 might look like in a very general you know a very vague sense to be obedient to god's law

01:04:27.820 um and then and then you say okay and then what would it look like to issue a command from a place

01:04:32.720 of authority in your home to your wife they'll be like uh no comment you know because they don't

01:04:38.740 want to you know and but uh the puritans that was a generation where um where they weren't so um

01:04:44.520 dominated by uh this you know the spirit of the age and feminism and actually the men um had not

01:04:50.160 yet been castrated and uh and had the courage to actually answer questions like that so all that

01:04:54.860 being said the ten commandments by thomas watson absolutely says exactly what uh what david's

01:04:58.860 in terms of many different kinds of fathers,

01:05:01.840 not just your biological father and mother,

01:05:04.440 and that that honor is a lifelong command

01:05:06.280 and not just when you're in the house

01:05:09.080 of your biological father and mother.

01:05:10.660 And it's really, really helpful.

01:05:12.720 And that comes straight from Scripture.

01:05:14.140 His description of Constantine as a nurturing father,

01:05:16.500 that's just a paraphrase of Isaiah

01:05:17.780 when it talks about kings and queens being nursing fathers.

01:05:20.340 And this idea of being ancient and being a father,

01:05:24.360 you can find texts of Scripture in that

01:05:25.660 and in the church and in the state.

01:05:26.860 And then you also find this idea of people who were particularly gifted in something,

01:05:31.340 you know, somebody who is the father of the metal workers or whatever, right?

01:05:34.020 When you look at like Tubal Cain or whoever, you find that language applied to all that

01:05:37.520 kind of stuff.

01:05:38.100 So the scriptures use the language in that way.

01:05:40.520 And so I appreciate that.

01:05:41.920 And I think that Thomas Watson's fantastic there.

01:05:46.580 William Perkins has amazing stuff on the household.

01:05:49.820 William Perkins has amazing stuff on the household.

01:05:51.400 So I want to give one application to people to close on before you take us out, and that

01:05:57.480 is just to make sure that I can frustrate some more people and give some ruffled feathers

01:06:00.760 since you were talking about nobody willing to give applications.

01:06:03.820 If you teach your children to say, yes, sir, yes, ma'am, or yes, dad, yes, mom, give us

01:06:08.420 some sort of honoring address, that really helps them to be able to accept commands.

01:06:12.180 It makes it so that they become accustomed to receiving.

01:06:15.080 And fathers, if you want to see honor come to you, focus on making sure your children

01:06:20.600 honor your wife make sure that they are giving respect to her and give her this job of defending

01:06:26.520 your honor one of the kids disrespects you you want her to come to the defense of your honor

01:06:30.640 and if one of the kids disrespects her you want to come to the defense of her honor there's a

01:06:33.820 mutual support there you don't want her to have to fight all your battles for you for disrespect

01:06:37.180 from the kids but this idea that you both come to each other's aid to defend each other's honor

01:06:42.360 and you're encouraging that so the way you honor your wife is going to help people in terms of

01:06:48.220 children in terms of understanding that she is honorable and should be honored. You don't honor

01:06:52.860 her as your superior, but you honor her and her station as your queen. And then wives, any wives

01:06:58.120 that are listening, your children are not going to respect you unless you respect your husband. 0.71

01:07:02.200 And so the way you respect your husband is going to make them understand the way that they should

01:07:07.900 respect you. And so honoring titles, this is something everybody hates. Sarah called her

01:07:11.760 husband Lord. If you happen to call your husband husband or sir, or say yes affirmatively, or do

01:07:17.720 any of that kind of stuff, it will be a startling thing to everybody around you. And if you do

01:07:23.780 honoring references, and if your husband gives you an affectionate reference, that's a way of

01:07:28.680 him honoring you as a special person in his life, as his queen. And so we all expect husbands to be

01:07:33.720 affectionate to wives and to say things like, you know, beloved, come here, or honey, or whatever,

01:07:38.240 there's all that. But what, if a wife gives an honoring title to her husband, everybody freaks 0.70

01:07:44.060 out. So try it. It's a really powerful witness. You know you've hit the right target when everybody 0.99

01:07:47.940 freaks out. Yep. Yes, sir. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming back on the show. And I

01:07:52.320 look forward to part three as we continue this series on God's law and sphere sovereignty and

01:07:58.420 all these different things. How can people follow you if they want to? And feel free to plug,

01:08:03.680 because I know we have mutual friends and there are other shows that you're a part of. You're a

01:08:08.040 guest with other ministries. Plug whatever you want to plug real quick for guys to keep up with

01:08:12.660 what you're doing thanks brother uh so at real david reese on on twitter is a place that i try

01:08:18.640 to post um my you know my church is puritan reform church so puritan phx.com you can find

01:08:24.060 sermons there and stuff my business armored republic.com but i've also done some really

01:08:28.300 great shows um with um uh with chocolate knox um he has knox unleashed um and he and i have done

01:08:36.120 some really neat stuff talking through some of the things on the spheres and some in-depth things

01:08:40.640 there too and trying to give some uh you know higher level stuff here as we're talking about

01:08:46.060 things and you and i are going to be talking about christian power in a more focused way

01:08:48.800 but we've talked about some of the institutions and some of the some of the ways of kind of

01:08:53.180 thinking about nurturing um and and things like that and we've also talked about civil covenanting

01:08:58.460 to some extent there so you and i are covering things from a different perspective and going

01:09:01.760 over stuff um and i've had a chance with chris arnson to have some really neat conversations

01:09:05.820 about doctrine including the trinity and stuff like that on iron sharpens iron so those are

01:09:10.060 places where people could find more of that material. But I think my sermons are some of

01:09:13.780 the easiest places to get a lot of systematic stuff there. So thanks for the opportunity to

01:09:17.360 point those things out. Appreciate it, brother. You're welcome. All right. Well, thanks for

01:09:20.740 coming on the show and to the listener. We'll see you next time. God bless.

The NXR Podcast - February 19, 2024

THE INTERVIEW - How One Household Can Rival A King with David Reece

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript