The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - 3 Tools For Judging Conspiracies

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00:00:30.000 The Bible warns us that the slugger justifies his laziness, claiming that there's a danger around

00:00:36.120 every corner, like a lion. That's Proverbs 22, verse 13. But the Bible also tells us in Ephesians

00:00:42.580 chapter 5, verse 11 through 13, that we are actively called to expose the deeds that are

00:00:48.360 done in darkness, even those dark deeds that are done by unbelievers. Continuing on,

00:00:54.880 Now, discernment, therefore, in biblical terms, it's not primarily a supernatural spidey sense

00:01:02.800 that tingles every time something bad is about to happen and it only is accessible to those

00:01:09.060 especially spiritual Christians. No, in biblical terms, discernment is simply the ability to

00:01:15.140 understand what the threats of our time are and to practically apply biblical principles to them.

00:01:22.600 So today's episode is this, three tools for judging conspiracies, three tools for judging

00:01:30.500 conspiracies. And before we begin this conversation, the first thing that I think is in order is simply

00:01:35.900 to introduce the crew. So. Hey, Joel, really glad to be here. Really excited for this. My name is

00:01:41.860 Michael Belch. I am a member at Joel's church and I teach for an online classical school,

00:01:47.200 logos online school and uh you know a fellow red pillar and believer in conspiracy theories

00:01:53.660 right amen except the only difference is we're trying to follow that red pill with a christ

00:01:59.860 pill and not you know the black pill and disparage you know what we need we need the pill that's

00:02:04.760 actually the do something about it pill the do something yeah i don't know what color that is

00:02:08.440 but we need that color of pill amen that's great here we go yep so my name is wesley todd uh

00:02:14.040 Christian. I'm also a husband, father to two children, one of them just born last month. So

00:02:18.820 God's really blessed our family. Work a regular corporate job, nine to five in health research.

00:02:24.940 Excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me on. Absolutely. Awesome. All right. So let's go

00:02:30.180 ahead and start the conversation. Three tools for judging conspiracies. And like Michael said,

00:02:35.120 I think the first thing that we should admit is, well, at least over these past few years,

00:02:40.500 the difference between a conspiracy and the truth is approximately three to six months so we we are

00:02:46.140 not you know going to sit here and lecture you from an ivory tower of sophistication saying i

00:02:50.940 can't believe you blue collar fly over country neanderthals believe in conspiracies no we we

00:02:57.140 believe in a lot of conspiracies because it turns out uh there are wicked people in the world and

00:03:02.700 sometimes wicked people actually organize together in darkness to accomplish wicked things yeah right

00:03:09.620 Yeah. No, I agree with that. And what's what's I think what is particularly difficult is admitting that you live in a time where things are bad enough that some of these conspiracies might be true.

00:03:24.860 And I know for myself, when I was thinking about BLM stuff and was this orchestrated behind the scenes, COVID stuff, is this orchestrated behind the scenes, the biggest thing for me was getting to the point where I had to admit the society and nation that I love has descended to the point where lying is not just expected, it's incentivized.

00:03:47.080 Right. Right. And being dishonest and hiding and power plays of this sort is something that can yield a lot of power, a lot of money, a lot of influence.

00:03:56.640 And because of that, it's more likely than not that these sort of conspiracies and plots are going on.

00:04:03.220 Yeah. And there's been so much propaganda, too.

00:04:06.380 So with the amount of information, the speed that it travels with, if you work a white collar job, you're getting bombarded with propaganda.

00:04:13.080 propaganda diversity is our strength love is love just just given to you as like this is fact

00:04:19.120 accept it why would you even think to question are you some backwoods hillbilly and so you and

00:04:24.540 bombard you are bombarded with any type of social media daily on a daily basis with things that you

00:04:30.520 should believe um to much greater degree than previous generations had to deal with they didn't

00:04:35.120 have to deal with that level of information control and bombardment right yep the you're

00:04:39.360 you're constantly the social media. And then of course the long house department, HR,

00:04:43.680 you know, with all the school moms that are, you know, constantly telling you to be moral,

00:04:48.080 to be moral, to be moral and to be moral is, you know, whatever the reigning dogma of that moment

00:04:53.220 is. And diversity, you know, is, is a big one. And, you know, with diversity, you know,

00:04:58.800 I preached on this even just as last Sunday, but diversity is not our strength, especially when it

00:05:04.300 comes to uh diversity of of lies or polytheism or plural like that's the whole idea principled

00:05:12.120 pluralism well wait a second if there is a transcendent truth that reigns above all the

00:05:18.500 like god be true though every man were a liar right so if if the word of god is true and there

00:05:23.940 is a transcendent universally absolute truth standard uh then principled pluralism just means

00:05:30.260 we're going to have this true transcendent standard and we're going to have a bunch of

00:05:34.820 other things that are other than true. You might call them deceptions and we're going to call that

00:05:39.080 a strength. No, that's just called compromise. I would much rather have a monolithic organization

00:05:46.920 or society that all ascends to one truth provided that that one truth is in fact true. The idea that

00:05:54.440 we all have compromising convictions and beliefs and different standards and weights and measurements

00:06:00.620 for what's even a virtue or what's a vice. This is not our strength. Diversity is our strength.

00:06:06.740 It was just rhetoric that has been used by some of our overlords in order to pollute our nation.

00:06:13.200 And I'm not even speaking about ethnicity or even immigration in a literal sense,

00:06:18.160 but the immigration of ideas. I'm talking about Marxism. I'm talking about false doctrine

00:06:23.840 coming into the church i'm talking about blm i'm talking you know and and immigration because

00:06:30.940 let's be honest it's it's a full-blown invasion you cannot you cannot bring people in without

00:06:36.660 bringing their ideas right and i remember hearing a podcast recently we live in texas

00:06:41.720 and the guy was saying that 2023 was the most favorable year for pro-muslim policies

00:06:49.620 in texas history wow and it's not that we want to hate muslims but the muslim worldview and the

00:06:57.120 christian worldview are diametrically opposed yes and it seems like to your point there is a

00:07:02.360 concerted effort to uh take many different steps that all combine to water down solid christian

00:07:11.200 western um values and worldview and um when that collapses then anything can go right then

00:07:19.500 anything can go right and even basic competency too that's where it almost can feel like a

00:07:23.400 conspiracy because it's actually the things we share that make us most able to pursue a harmonious

00:07:28.980 life when you share language when you share a place when you share values when you share a

00:07:33.000 calendar you share religion those actually sharing those things is what enables distinct people groups

00:07:37.380 to actually pursue what's good and right and so you see almost feels concerted almost feels

00:07:42.140 deliberate to say no no no uh all these different groups uh that that's what makes us strong no it's

00:07:48.540 not you guys speaking the same language pursuing a shared goal in physics or mathematics this side

00:07:53.380 or the other it's uh being diverse in every dimension yeah and that's the opposite it's

00:07:58.180 funny because that's the opposite of of genesis 11 with the tower of babel because god it's not

00:08:03.240 just man they don't just say look look we can do whatever we want so long as we say stay united

00:08:08.000 in the same way that like in genesis 1 and 2 you know adam formed before eve he's the only human

00:08:13.320 being on the planet adam doesn't notice his aloneness but god takes note of it and god says

00:08:17.760 it's not good for the man to be alone likewise in a similar fashion in genesis 11 it's not the

00:08:22.700 people congregated together who are building this tower to ascend to the heavens that take note of

00:08:27.780 themselves and say if we stay together if we you know continue to unite nothing is impossible for

00:08:32.920 us but god actually says let us go down and confuse our languages for if they remain united

00:08:39.160 nothing will be so god even takes note of the power of unity among his image bearing creatures

00:08:46.540 And just for the record, I don't know, I think the two of you both agree with this.

00:08:50.680 We've had some offline discussions, you know, our men's night with the church and stuff like that.

00:08:55.600 But I'm of the persuasion that Babel was not a curse.

00:09:01.680 I view Babel...

00:09:02.400 No, absolutely not.

00:09:02.720 Okay.

00:09:03.180 So I view Babel as like the original dominion mandate given in the garden pre-sin, so in a pre-lapsarian world, is to be fruitful and multiply.

00:09:10.600 and that the natural implication of that is that Adam and Eve would not congregate in the garden

00:09:16.100 because they would multiply so fruitfully, so successfully, that they would have to spread out

00:09:21.140 over the face of the earth with image bearers of the living God, aka worshipers, because this is

00:09:26.060 a pre-fallen world, so they would be their hearts bent towards God, bent towards heaven, and they

00:09:31.060 would also expand not only their posterity, their descendants, but also Adam in working and keeping

00:09:37.600 the garden, both defending it and the keeping aspect, but working it, that working would

00:09:42.660 include expansion and increase, so they would cover the whole earth with a garden city of

00:09:50.040 the Lord, this garden paradise, and fill it with image-bearing worshipers of the triune

00:09:55.080 God, and that was—so my point is, the dominion mandate, I think it necessarily—I think

00:10:01.840 you could say it's a necessary inference.

00:10:03.560 If you multiply successfully, you can't all live on one square mile.

00:10:07.600 with a billion people. So what were they going to do? They were geographically going to spread

00:10:12.920 out. And in the spreading out, Stephen Wolf even talks about some of these things,

00:10:17.020 and I think he's right. In spreading out, when they spread out really far, like different

00:10:21.500 continents, eventually, it may be 100 years before we go back and visit great, great, great,

00:10:27.720 great, great granddad Adam. And so we've been over here for 150 years and haven't gone back

00:10:33.940 to the mainland in quite a while, haven't visited, and oh, we didn't even really notice, but there's

00:10:39.260 some different dialects starting to emerge and some different cultures.

00:10:43.120 Cold, we dress differently.

00:10:43.780 Exactly. Like, we have a lot of Germans in our area of Texas where we live that all came over,

00:10:49.540 you know, as refugees, you know, escaping World War I and World War II, and so now it's like on

00:10:55.600 the third and fourth generation. And it's funny because we have a family in our church that

00:11:01.980 actually are from germany um but like they moved here exactly they moved here like a year ago and

00:11:07.660 so they're like full-bred germans and and they even are able to notice that if they go up to

00:11:12.700 fredericksburg for instance which is a totally a german town um if they talk to any of hear anyone

00:11:18.780 talking in german in that town these fourth generation descendants they're like you don't

00:11:23.220 speak german the way we do it's a different dialect and and even some of the words we've

00:11:29.380 we we just have different words and so so that would my point is you would have had different

00:11:34.500 nations you would have had different nations different groups different languages different

00:11:38.500 cultures probably different flavors of food all those kinds of things but all christian oriented

00:11:43.740 right because we're not saying all cultures are equal some cultures are better than others

00:11:47.920 cultures that say hey you should show up on time are better than cultures that show up three hours

00:11:51.720 late that's just a fact that's not racism that's just a fact that has to do with respecting people

00:11:56.900 it comes from love for neighbor, it comes from the Christian worldview. But you could have

00:12:00.400 cultures, I think hypothetically, we could presuppose equal cultures morally that still

00:12:05.800 have distinction. Equal doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the same. They could be equally

00:12:10.580 committed to the Christian worldview, the triune God, but have different flavors in their food.

00:12:14.920 I'll do you one better, Joel. I believe that Babel was necessary, that the development of

00:12:20.520 language was necessary. I teach language, that's my day job. And as I've looked at Babel and

00:12:26.540 Pentecost, and then the scene of those gathered around the throne, where it says men from every

00:12:31.580 tribe, tongue, and nation. And as I've studied a variety of languages, and I've realized there are

00:12:38.780 certain concepts that one language communicates better than another language. For instance,

00:12:46.480 Russian does not have a direct object. So you cannot directly translate when Jesus says,

00:12:52.480 I am the way, the truth, and the life.

00:12:57.200 So it's a little bit more difficult in Russian to communicate the exclusivity of Christ.

00:13:02.400 However, you look at other languages are going to be able to communicate something unique

00:13:07.920 about God that a different language could not.

00:13:11.480 And I think when we gather around that throne, the myriad of languages, human languages that

00:13:18.060 are spoken will serve to illustrate facts about God that will even marvel other humans who spoke

00:13:26.220 other languages and hold up that jewel of God's holiness in a way that a single language would

00:13:32.560 not have been able to do. I completely agree, and it's funny, though, that you say that because I

00:13:36.740 just saw on Twitter yesterday someone who I don't even remember his name, but if I did, his name is

00:13:44.220 not of consequence. I'm not trying to throw him under the bus, but he was arguing with a Christian

00:13:48.600 nationalist who was making kind of the similar point that we're making now that Babel was not

00:13:53.380 a judgment. It was a judgment, but it was not a curse. It was actually discipline. It was God

00:13:58.840 getting man back on track, right? So in the garden, the dominion mandate, be fruitful, multiply,

00:14:02.960 that would have included necessarily expansion over the whole face of the earth and in expanding

00:14:08.480 over the dialects languages cultures everything we've just established well well man was disobeying

00:14:14.260 god that's what they were doing so they they were uniting and unity is good but the problem is they

00:14:19.100 literally say let us unite here build this tower not only to ascend to the heavens to be as god

00:14:24.440 but to make a name for ourselves so for our own glory rather than the glory of god and so that we

00:14:30.400 will not be scattered over the face of the earth so so we're doing this so that we won't um have

00:14:38.040 to obey. We won't have to do the very thing that God actually has called us to do. So when God

00:14:42.600 comes and confuses their languages, which causes them to disperse, it's actually not a curse.

00:14:49.480 It's not punitive as much as it is disciplinary. It's actually a mercy. It is a judgment. It is

00:14:56.640 a punishment of sorts, but not punitive as much as it is like the rod for a child, disciplinary,

00:15:02.080 because it's being used as a catalyst, and that's the mercy component, because their sin

00:15:10.100 should have cost them centuries. But in God's mercy, he throws in this supernatural catalyst

00:15:15.220 to get them back on the obedience track much more quickly than they otherwise would.

00:15:19.620 And so back to the Twitter thing, somebody was making essentially that point, and this guy on

00:15:24.380 Twitter was saying, a Christian guy, Reformed Baptist guy, a pastor, but he was saying,

00:15:29.600 no in heaven we'll all speak the same language and the guy countered and said which one which

00:15:35.060 one's the best like are we all speaking Hebrew is it Latin is it English is it Spanish you know

00:15:39.860 who wins out who's superior whose language was was the most moral you know and basically you know

00:15:46.380 asking that like and I don't think we will all speak the same language I think every tongue now

00:15:50.740 I think I think God will probably throw us a bone and we'll be able to understand other people's

00:15:56.080 language, whether that's supernatural or just with sin and sin being removed and glorified

00:16:02.920 bodies, glorified minds, I'll be able to pick up fluent Spanish in a couple of weeks instead of

00:16:09.320 years. But one way or the other, I think I'll be able to understand everybody either immediately,

00:16:15.540 supernaturally, or relatively soon with a glorified mind. But I don't think I'm going

00:16:20.120 to understand everybody because God just gives us one language. I think the whole idea is that

00:16:24.640 there are other tribes, other tongues, other cultures, and other skin pigment. There'll be

00:16:32.280 different shades, different colors. That's okay. That's great. That's better than okay. It's good.

00:16:36.880 It's wonderful. And getting to conspiracy theories, that's some of the lie of globalism.

00:16:41.280 So we're going to subsume all these different cultures and these particularities that are good

00:16:47.200 and right, and they demonstrate the glory of God, his power in making humanity. We're going to

00:16:52.220 consume them all into a giant consumerist androgynous glob now it's interesting because

00:16:58.720 it doesn't have to necessarily be a cabal of eight of the most powerful people that have just

00:17:02.900 unilateral i say goes no matter if i'm in switzerland right a certain economic forum

00:17:09.260 they could say something and it happens in texas it doesn't necessarily need to be but when there

00:17:14.080 are tons of different groups and they hate god right they can come together and say you know

00:17:17.960 globalism, that sounds like a pretty good idea. For one, we can take everything. We can rent it

00:17:23.100 out on a permanent basis. You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy to not own anything. And the image

00:17:28.280 of God that, like George Orwell, he talks about it in 1984. He says, imagine a boot on the face

00:17:34.220 of mankind forever and ever. That's propaganda. That's globalism. That's the continually rewriting

00:17:39.160 of history. And that's what globalism is, a boot on the face of man and saying, let's subsume

00:17:43.820 and homogenize all of these different things

00:17:46.680 that's God made for the purpose of money.

00:17:49.300 And again, are people literally coming together

00:17:51.980 and scheming, twiddling their fingers in the back?

00:17:55.080 Maybe.

00:17:56.960 Are they very good at it?

00:17:58.360 I don't think so.

00:17:59.280 But is that a necessary requirement?

00:18:01.660 I think that's your point.

00:18:02.640 So are there eight guys in a room doing this?

00:18:06.660 I actually lean towards yes.

00:18:08.380 However, and we'll get to that,

00:18:10.060 but your question I think is larger than that.

00:18:12.380 You're saying, but does sin require a cabal?

00:18:16.680 And the answer is no.

00:18:19.300 The reality is if, because Jesus said, he did not entrust himself to men for he knew

00:18:24.860 what was in the hearts of men.

00:18:27.500 And I think of, it's either 1 or 2 Peter that says, sin, it uses this phrase, sin, which

00:18:33.420 is common to man.

00:18:35.420 The reality is that people are unique, tribes and tongues and language are unique, and yet

00:18:39.940 in one sense people are very similar and one of those ways in which we are similar is when it

00:18:45.600 comes to sin uh greed is a pretty universal temptation right power um well power is not

00:18:53.240 inherently wicked in and of itself but uh abuse of power uh for self-gain yeah domination domineering

00:18:59.960 spirit um lust would be another one like there's a i mean these kind of sins especially if you're

00:19:05.220 a pastor and you do pastoral counseling, then there comes a certain point where nothing really

00:19:10.320 surprises you anymore. It's like, you know, somebody comes and it's like, you know, it's like,

00:19:13.800 okay, it's either marriage problems or it's lust or it's greed or it's slothfulness or, you know,

00:19:21.340 it's one of these, you know, nobody's that unique of a snowflake, you know, no one else is like me

00:19:28.120 when it comes to the topic of sin. And so all that being said, if you have a system like globalism

00:19:34.920 that would at least appear to satisfy

00:19:40.760 the need for power and greed,

00:19:44.320 just taking two sins, power again, not a sin,

00:19:47.580 but the abuse of power and greed.

00:19:49.840 And it would satisfy,

00:19:50.760 it's a system that would satisfy that for not,

00:19:53.620 and that's why in some sense,

00:19:55.500 I lean away from the eight guys in a room

00:19:56.920 because that actually would work,

00:19:59.160 globalism would work out for a lot more than just eight guys,

00:20:01.600 which is part of the reason why we've been successfully prodded along in that direction

00:20:07.060 because there there actually is an incentive for enough people not just eight people but a lot of

00:20:12.520 people uh to where everybody without having to have some global summit in switzerland uh they

00:20:18.100 can all instinctively just know yeah i want that oh shipping more jobs overseas yep i'm for that

00:20:23.880 yeah oh yeah uh more more of this less trade tariffs less you know whatever oh yeah i'm for

00:20:28.300 that it's viable i'm in this serves me it doesn't have to be it serves you know it serves me like

00:20:33.660 jeff bezos is is an example in terms of uh not necessarily he's a part of the illuminati or

00:20:38.240 anything like that although who knows but my point is uh you know it's been said jeff jeff bezos

00:20:43.560 earned his first billion uh but was handed his second and uh and and of course that's you know

00:20:49.020 it's a generalization so that you can poke some holes in that but the sense is like there is a

00:20:52.980 real sense in which the dude you know was collecting things in his garage and shipping

00:20:57.580 them uh you know in the good old days the early days uh-huh and and and did work hard right and

00:21:03.000 maybe he could have been more fair with this or whatever but he did work um but when covid happened

00:21:07.980 uh that second billion i mean it doubled amazon's uh amazon's footprint yeah um and and why because

00:21:15.940 uh because covid and the regulations the levers that were pulled by politicians during uh that

00:21:21.520 time shut down every brick and mortar mom and pop in-person store to where now unless you were

00:21:28.400 already there unless you had already arrived at at the the capital and the system and the

00:21:34.060 organization and the ability the viability to just ship everything from a warehouse without having to

00:21:39.360 have interaction with people where you can have a guy drive a truck you know and wear gloves and

00:21:43.660 drop off a box unless you were already there and amazon was already there then you could not

00:21:47.960 compete and so amazon for the last three years until very recently had no competition um and so

00:21:54.400 they earned uh their first billion and uh and were handed the next and so my point is if you're

00:22:02.320 jeff bezos and they're talking about it's 2020 they're talking about covid regulations are you

00:22:07.760 for them or against them right now you might be for them because you know and everything in your

00:22:13.340 rhetoric you know publicly you're saying well it's because of physical safety and i don't want

00:22:17.840 grandma to die and blah blah blah but but do you have at least the the potential of an ulterior

00:22:25.260 motive yeah yeah pfizer stood to get so many billions like whatever drug manufacturer made

00:22:34.900 it to the point where they had an approved covid vaccine billions and billions of dollars years

00:22:39.360 worth of operating expenses so even that factor alone not attributing any malice anything i don't

00:22:43.700 know even right there you already you don't have incentive or you have the incentive to be like

00:22:49.040 yeah it's safe let's get this trial done oh they died but maybe we could attribute it to that

00:22:56.220 right there just on money alone greed in the heart of someone just seeing like because the

00:23:00.460 governments were going to pay for it governments all over the world were lined up ready to give

00:23:05.500 and ship cash to these people yeah there didn't have to be a group talking about let's get something

00:23:11.160 lethal they didn't have to maybe they did maybe they didn't uh greed alone explains um things

00:23:17.140 like that right it explains it for the companies and then to go one step further it also explains

00:23:21.460 it in terms of legislation for the politicians if there happen to be several politicians that

00:23:26.460 are invested in pfizer personally speaking fees consultancy fees oh oh i see so all all that being

00:23:35.240 said and we got to cut to a commercial real quick but all that being said that gets us into our

00:23:38.980 three tools for judging conspiracies is one of the questions you should ask when you're considering

00:23:43.940 a conspiracy is, is there enough people in the world with sin, as Peter says, which is common

00:23:49.640 to man that would stand to gain in their fleshly desires if this thing panned out? And if the

00:23:59.400 answer to that is yes, there's a ton of people with this common sin that's common to man that

00:24:07.560 that if this thing were true, it would, it would fulfill their fleshly desires, not just for eight

00:24:14.560 people, but for a lot of people, or maybe it is eight people. And in that case, those eight people

00:24:18.940 must be very powerful people. And if you can answer that question, yes, then I think that

00:24:24.920 is a conspiracy that might be worth some time exploring because it really does stand a chance

00:24:29.500 of being true. So we'll come right back, but let's go and cut to a quick commercial.

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00:26:06.460 all right we are back uh so let me just take a moment before we hop back into our discussion

00:26:13.380 about judging conspiracies rightly from the word of god i want to give you guys a little bit of

00:26:17.460 just the vision for this show so the idea is that we're going to be live streaming doing this show

00:26:22.580 every single week so our our flagship show that we've called theology applied where i interview

00:26:27.340 somebody and they're piping in remotely uh guys like doug wilson or whoever brian survey um that's

00:26:33.340 going to continue, but it's going to move from Tuesday, which is historically where we've had it,

00:26:37.260 to being on Mondays. So we're going to have three shows a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday,

00:26:42.080 all at 4 p.m. Central Time. So Monday will be Theology Applied, the interview that I do remotely

00:26:47.020 with someone every Wednesday, 4 p.m. Central Time, is Theology Applied, the live stream. That's what

00:26:52.200 we're doing right now. And it's going to be me and Wesley Todd and Michael Belch every single week,

00:26:57.180 Lord willing, at 4 p.m. Central Time. And part of the reason we're doing this, the strength of

00:27:01.800 of the live stream is, you know, we've got the guys not just piped in remotely, but in person

00:27:06.920 in the studio. Um, it allows for a more natural conversation, but it also by being a live stream,

00:27:11.860 it allows for us to hit some general topics. That's today would be an example that how to

00:27:15.960 judge a conspiracy, right? We could do that this week or next week or next week or next week.

00:27:19.700 And that's kind of evergreen. It's, it's always going to be relevant. Um, but, uh, the idea for

00:27:25.040 the Wednesday show is that at least, you know, part of the time, probably about half the time

00:27:30.880 would be our goal. We might have something on deck, notes, and plotted out an episode that's

00:27:37.100 an evergreen type thing, but we're going to drop it last minute because, boom, something that's

00:27:42.600 relevant for Christians just hit the news the day before, and because we have a live stream,

00:27:48.320 we can address it in a quick fashion. Whereas Theology Applied the interview, which now will

00:27:54.500 be on Mondays, and the Friday show, which is going to be called The Friday Special, Theology Applied

00:28:00.460 the special, those are prerecorded, most of those episodes. And so the Wednesday opportunity with

00:28:06.700 this live stream, 4 p.m. Central Time, it gives us the opportunity to actually address things that

00:28:13.100 might have happened just 24 hours before. So we will address some news cycles. But at the same

00:28:19.620 time, we're not going to sit here and pretend to be the Daily Wire, something that we're not and

00:28:23.880 something that in that case we don't necessarily want to be. But we're going to do what we feel

00:28:29.880 that we can speak to.

00:28:30.820 So there may be a huge news story

00:28:32.280 that we don't address

00:28:33.680 because somebody else,

00:28:35.720 you know, Tucker Carlson

00:28:36.560 can address it better than we can.

00:28:38.000 But there may be something else

00:28:39.080 that drops.

00:28:39.680 It's like, no, no, no, no, no.

00:28:40.860 No, this, we've got something

00:28:43.480 to say about.

00:28:44.120 The Bible has something very clearly

00:28:45.660 and Christians need to know what's up.

00:28:47.520 So, all right.

00:28:48.060 So all that being said,

00:28:48.840 back to the conversation.

00:28:50.720 Three tools for judging.

00:28:52.180 So let's jump into,

00:28:53.140 we've kind of alluded to it already,

00:28:54.320 but the first tool

00:28:55.320 that we are recommending

00:28:56.740 if you want to discern

00:28:59.100 and evaluate conspiracies, and that is, I think I said, don't be an ostrich, don't put your head

00:29:05.460 in the sand. Don't be a bumblebee just jumping around from flower to flower. Conspiracy to

00:29:10.660 conspiracy. Yep, yep. Have discernment, right? Have discernment. And I guess before we talk

00:29:16.580 about discernment, I really want to stress a growing conviction that I have that we as Christians

00:29:22.740 have an obligation to actually take our heads out of the sand. The times that we live in are

00:29:28.960 times where um virtue is not praised and and so even before with the remnants of christendom we

00:29:37.000 had men who perhaps valued honor and truthfulness and um honesty and that is increasingly not the

00:29:46.060 case and so if christians are not going to bring the truth to bear on society no one else is at

00:29:51.120 this point very few people are and so as i thought about the bumblebee and the ostrich

00:29:56.540 I had a special desire to say, we need to bring the truth.

00:30:00.960 It is appropriate and Christian and part of our mission of the Great Commission to teach our nations, right?

00:30:09.560 And part of that means teaching them what is true, teaching them how to discern truth, teaching them how to reject falsehood.

00:30:15.840 And this really is part of Christian duty, not to put a tinfoil hat on, not to be someone who is engaged in, I guess, intentionally inflammatory conspiracies, but some of the things that are going on are inflammatory, are serious, and are the sort of thing that needs to be talked about.

00:30:37.640 it needs to be exposed yeah christians actually have a biblical uh obligation it's a command

00:30:42.740 to uh not take part in the deeds done in darkness but rather expose them so we actually have a

00:30:49.400 biblical command to expose um conspiracies but we also have a biblical command not to hole up in our

00:30:55.680 home and say there's a line in the streets right uh that's what uh that's not what the fearful

00:30:59.500 person does that's what the uh lazy person does and he uses fear and conspiracies as an excuse

00:31:06.080 excuse to actually you know justify uh the fact that you know really what's going on is he just

00:31:11.860 he doesn't want to go out in the world and and do his job like there may be a man who is failing

00:31:16.500 his obligations as husband and father uh leading his family in family worship and and uh being a

00:31:22.400 faithful member in his local church uh because he's online looking at all these conspiracies

00:31:26.780 and he may you know he may use that verbose language and saying well but there's a lion

00:31:31.660 in the streets and i've got to expose the lion and blah blah but like it's like well um yeah but

00:31:37.440 but 17 of those lions out of out of the 18 are actually not real um and uh exposing deeds done

00:31:46.100 in darkness uh does not trump our other moral obligation which is even higher which is to um

00:31:51.500 to love our families and provide for our families protect our families you wanted to say something i

00:31:55.860 think oh it's just that's paul in second corinthians when he enters his letter he's like

00:32:00.800 we commended ourselves to you as men of sincerity.

00:32:03.260 We weren't peddlers of God's word.

00:32:04.660 That's good.

00:32:05.060 We didn't come to you with flash and with pomp.

00:32:07.220 We tried to come to you with sincerity, bringing the word of God,

00:32:10.920 and I'm certain he made sure to insulate himself,

00:32:13.800 to not be bringing sensational claims back from Jerusalem.

00:32:17.540 He said, no, we commended to you with honor, and that's a good example.

00:32:22.460 Yeah, really good.

00:32:23.340 Michael, could you read some?

00:32:24.400 You wrote down some questions in preparation for this episode.

00:32:27.260 So this is still on principle number one.

00:32:28.880 So if you're keeping count, let me just say all three of them real quick, but we'll finish

00:32:32.860 on one, then we'll move to two and three.

00:32:34.560 But all three of them, just so you know, principle number one, do not be gullible and do not

00:32:38.640 be oblivious, but have discernment.

00:32:41.400 Principle number two, focus on conspiracies that affect you and your family.

00:32:46.020 That's so helpful.

00:32:47.560 Focus on things that actually affect you at home.

00:32:50.420 And then principle number three, learn to think.

00:32:52.940 Logic, reason, right?

00:32:55.000 It's almost like number three is like if you, you know, the old illustration that's used

00:32:58.920 a lot of, if you know how to detect a real dollar, then you can find the counterfeits.

00:33:04.600 So again, principle number one, do not be gullible, do not be oblivious, have discernment.

00:33:10.500 So the first principle, don't be naive, don't be gullible.

00:33:13.300 Second principle, focus on conspiracies that affect you and your family, conspiracies that

00:33:18.280 hit close to home.

00:33:19.380 Third principle, learn to think, learn logic and reason.

00:33:23.920 So all that being said, still back with the first principle about not being naive and gullible, you wrote down some questions.

00:33:30.840 You said, here are some helpful questions that can help Christians evaluate what they are being told, whether or not this should fall into the fake conspiracy box or something evil is really going on.

00:33:42.020 Right. And one of the big aha moments for me, and actually, Joel, you said this a while ago, is that it's okay and even good to use, as it were, common sense to root things out, right?

00:33:58.640 And so these questions, you're not going to find necessarily a Bible verse for them, but they are common sense and knowing the nature of man principles that will help us evaluate whether there's something to this conspiracy theory.

00:34:11.580 So the first one is what motives might be involved?

00:34:15.040 And we kind of talked about this with Amazon or Pfizer.

00:34:18.100 Are there motives that could lead someone

00:34:20.220 or a group of people to take advantage of the situation?

00:34:22.920 Right, which doesn't guarantee

00:34:23.980 that there's something nefarious happening,

00:34:26.520 but it says the likelihood is higher.

00:34:29.340 Yep, yep.

00:34:29.940 The second one is what larger pattern of events is going on?

00:34:35.740 Does the emergence of,

00:34:38.160 or would Amazon be incentivized

00:34:42.300 to have fewer retailers?

00:34:45.040 Is there an election going on?

00:34:46.440 Is there a resurgence of conservatism globally?

00:34:48.880 Do we need to shut that down?

00:34:50.700 Is there a bigger pattern going on

00:34:52.420 that this fits into?

00:34:54.260 And number three,

00:34:58.220 who is the one spreading the particular narrative?

00:35:01.580 Who is the one spreading the particular narrative?

00:35:04.580 Read that, for instance.

00:35:05.920 For instance, during COVID, Amazon supported lockdowns, Pfizer pushed vaccines.

00:35:10.240 Did they stand to gain from those narratives?

00:35:12.460 This was not just some guy in his basement saying, oh, there's this virus.

00:35:18.260 There were powerful players who stood to gain and were in some ways interconnected.

00:35:24.280 So with whatever the latest big news is, who's pushing it?

00:35:28.920 Yep.

00:35:30.060 What do they stand to gain if what they're pushing actually turns out to be true?

00:35:34.820 Yep.

00:35:35.920 what would they stand against so if it's like hey the bubonic plague is happening and everyone in

00:35:40.460 the world is going to die unless you get the vaccine well who's saying that oh the vaccine

00:35:44.840 company right and all the politicians that are invested in that vaccine and their stock okay

00:35:50.640 well that again doesn't necessitate that it's a lie but it should you know that should ding our

00:35:56.640 radar a little bit and then what's the larger pattern um well it's um is it uh 2020 and it

00:36:04.520 happens to be an election year with the most contentious president ever you know uh at least

00:36:09.100 in the last you know 50 years the red hot economy that a lot of people wanted to see derail yeah

00:36:14.380 right because that economy was going to be the horse that he was going to ride into the second

00:36:17.700 term like oh okay so that like that should cause you to to stop and and think a lot you know like

00:36:24.200 um that yeah that should cause you to now after i wrote this actually wes and i were talking and

00:36:28.860 we came up with the fourth one that that was so good that i wanted to share it so i'm going to

00:36:32.320 read it, but I want you to expand on it, if you would. So the fourth way to evaluate, to have

00:36:37.580 discernment, in our time in particular, okay, in our time in particular, is who or what is being

00:36:43.580 mocked or laughed at. Because we live in a time, well, when righteousness prevails,

00:36:50.760 wickedness will be mocked and laughed at. But when wickedness and unrighteousness prevail,

00:36:56.460 then evil men will laugh at and will mock and will try and get you to have a feeling

00:37:02.160 of revulsion for what is good and right. And so we feel like in this time that we live in,

00:37:08.020 you need to look at what is being mocked, who is asking you to mock it, and where do they stand on

00:37:13.940 the morality spectrum. And I think that you had some really good insights on that.

00:37:17.640 Yeah. So a great example would be late night shows. So Stephen Colbert, John Oliver,

00:37:21.500 they're very carefully, this isn't my insight, this is someone else's, but they're very carefully

00:37:25.220 programmed to give you a little snippet of facts. So 10, 20 seconds of information and overview on

00:37:30.520 the topic and then it's some type of punchline so if you have john oliver talking about homeschooling

00:37:34.620 gives like an example you know like a family doing a quirky reciting the alphabet and then he pulls

00:37:39.760 up their example of the guy that they would hate their coastal elites this is the midwest guy who

00:37:44.920 pulled his children out of school because he's like i don't like the instruction coming from

00:37:48.800 teachers on sensitive topics that are inappropriate for children and just laughed at them and it

00:37:53.680 repeats over and over and over again to the point that you should you are being programmed you are

00:37:58.660 being instructed it's being demonstrated you should laugh at these people can you believe

00:38:03.040 there are idiots out there not getting the vaccine go have your horse paced and die again and again

00:38:09.140 and again and so when you see like these people are being laughed at you're being told by pundits

00:38:13.280 you're being told by news mock these people laugh them hold laugh at them hold them with derision

00:38:17.940 exactly wait we live in a time that upholds wickedness and pushes down righteousness so

00:38:22.800 is what i'm hearing an actual mockery that should be coming towards wickedness or are they actually

00:38:28.040 making fun of the righteous. Or at the very least, I was going to say to point two, it's a lot easier

00:38:33.460 to not jump into first than to jump in and get yourself out. If you got COVID wrong and maybe

00:38:38.700 shut down whatever would be your business or what have you, repentance is the way out. And repentance

00:38:45.080 is painful. God would rather obedience rather than sacrifice. And we can repent. We can get out of it.

00:38:50.780 But it is a lot easier to just pause. Let's take a second. Hang on. Then to jump in, to want to be

00:38:57.120 popular to want to go on the march for blm and then later on the videos are coming out and you've

00:39:01.980 got to do the hard work of swallowing your pride and repenting of it right no that's really good

00:39:07.420 so so what's being mocked who's doing the mocking who's being mocked um but then with that i think

00:39:14.300 uh considering like degrees you know so it's like uh because you know there's always going to be a

00:39:19.800 late night show comedy is there's always going to be that in any society any culture there's going

00:39:24.500 to be some kind of entertainment comedic um you know out output and so somebody's going to fulfill

00:39:30.240 that role but but i think you know the question to consider is um are they making fun of the same

00:39:35.400 thing in the same group again and again and again um are the jokes even good or is this like a

00:39:42.340 comedic guy who's who's literally not even making a joke um you know like the blinking lights you

00:39:48.240 know with his live audience are saying laugh or we'll shoot you in the head laugh laugh dance

00:39:53.120 monkey dance you know like this is funny you will laugh you know like that's john oliver like john

00:39:57.940 oliver hasn't made a joke in 20 years like that dude's not funny you know like and so so if it's

00:40:03.480 like every single episode you know for three weeks straight the audience is you know you you can't

00:40:10.880 see them you know but there's you know guys you know john oliver's goons point pointing guns at

00:40:15.380 their heads forcing them to laugh because it's not even funny but it's then it's like okay there

00:40:19.640 might be something here you know so i think it's like you know who who's making fun who's doing the

00:40:24.780 mocking who's being mocked but also how desperate that that's what i'm getting at is how desperate

00:40:30.420 um is this group and and saying we've got about because it's one thing if you just do a one-off

00:40:35.340 joke right but it's another if saturday night live does a sketch and then another sketch and

00:40:40.900 then another sketch and because then you you might say either this is comedic gold there's only

00:40:46.080 really again you know so getting them back to motives this is either comedic gold or there's

00:40:51.600 an agenda yeah yeah and when the comedy that's hap air quotes uh is aligning with the other three

00:40:59.880 that we said is it aligning with the um the seeming motives and narrative and things like

00:41:06.380 that coming from government and big tech and all these things now all of a sudden you you start to

00:41:11.580 that the mockery is actually not so much to,

00:41:15.940 the case has kind of been won by that point.

00:41:17.920 It is to teach us how to treat those who disagree.

00:41:22.080 Well, that's what's so hard, I think, about conspiracies

00:41:25.280 is conspiracies are in our day and age

00:41:27.200 are gonna be primarily pushed by media.

00:41:29.820 It's gonna be Hollywood, it's gonna be actors,

00:41:33.140 it's gonna be shows, it's gonna be talk hosts,

00:41:34.920 it's gonna be, so it's gonna be people in media.

00:41:39.300 and one you know in asking that question of like are is it the possibility of a serious ulterior

00:41:44.520 motive well one serious ulterior motive for media to push a conspiracy that the conspiracy having

00:41:51.980 something to do with danger you know or fear or uh threat or what um well one constant ulterior

00:41:58.640 motive that they have is if more people stay home they watch more stuff you know you know i mean

00:42:04.460 like what do people do during covet you think that you know i mean like how did that work out

00:42:08.800 from amazon and then you order amazon and you watch tv like what you know and so like whereas

00:42:15.320 if everything's fine if there is no line in the street as proverbs you know talks about if there

00:42:20.360 is no line in the street you know where people go in the street right yeah they go to work they go

00:42:25.760 on maybe they go on a cruise or a vacation they do something besides just watching uh television

00:42:31.080 so the media which is one of the chief um groups responsible for pushing conspiracies always has

00:42:37.160 an underlining motive in pushing conspiracies that threaten people's safety because if people's

00:42:43.960 safety is threatened they stay at home and at home they consume media you know so that like

00:42:49.700 i think that's a constant thing that we're battling that there's you know there's always

00:42:53.460 so it you know it always could be true you know on on the motive basis all right so we should move

00:42:59.380 on to principle number two number two uh focus on conspiracies that affect you and your family

00:43:03.460 and really specifically that affect the spheres of responsibility and duty that God has given to

00:43:09.800 you. I don't mean just, you know, you and your two kids at home, you and your wife and your two kids

00:43:14.360 at home, although that's a big part of it. But also, you know, you're called, if you're a man

00:43:18.060 and you're out in the workplace, you're called to work. So if there's a conspiracy threatening to

00:43:22.340 shut that down, or your neighbor, your literal neighbor, right? So the conspiracies that affect

00:43:28.480 your ability and your family's ability to carry out the duties that god has given to you need to

00:43:34.380 be investigated first because those though we have to we have to be honest like when churches closed

00:43:41.300 for more than a little while that was sinful yeah that conspiracy tricked otherwise up to that

00:43:48.960 point godly men and pastors and elders and deacons as far as we knew and they bought into it and that

00:43:54.720 caused them and their congregations to sin, right? And so the conspiracies that threaten

00:44:00.060 to pull you from your duty of building God's kingdom, and I don't mean just in a spiritual

00:44:04.480 sense, but of carrying out your duty towards God need to be investigated before who shot JFK.

00:44:11.980 Right. And that's a great example. There are a million different conspiracies you can get

00:44:17.280 totally lost on YouTube or Reddit or whatever, I don't know, whatever the cool kids are looking

00:44:21.940 at today, totally lost and, and, you know, waste your life. You can waste your whole life, you

00:44:26.460 know, looking into the Illuminati or, you know, but the question is like, what's affected, you

00:44:30.640 know, so with COVID and shutting out churches, it's like, well, my, my wife and kids can't go

00:44:34.980 to church today. Okay. Well, that's, that's one to get to the bottom of BLM. I think, you know,

00:44:40.100 DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion. You know, I think that's worth looking at if you work for a

00:44:46.580 big company and, and you're trying to provide for your family and leave generational wealth,

00:44:51.220 right a wise man or a good man proverb says leaves an inheritance for his children's children yes

00:44:55.740 that's a spiritual inheritance it can be nothing less but oh i believe it is more and so you're

00:45:00.400 seeking to do that and you're getting constantly passed up at work and you you'd start to notice

00:45:06.020 you can't help but notice that the last 10 guys that have been promoted instead of you all happen

00:45:10.800 to not be white or not male or not heterosexual well that actually does affect you that actually

00:45:17.260 And so to be involved with that particular conspiracy of the DEI woke agenda, yeah, that actually, that's not just losing yourself in an obsessive capacity about something that's random or irrelevant.

00:45:34.140 No, that actually is affecting you.

00:45:35.780 It's affecting your neighbor.

00:45:36.720 And it sure is going to affect your kids.

00:45:38.940 If you've got little white kids, those little white kids, I mean, I've got white kids.

00:45:43.920 And they're not going to stand a chance if the world keeps heading the direction that it's going.

00:45:49.140 So I'm encouraged when Gay, the professor, which is just perfect.

00:45:55.980 I love that her name's Gay.

00:45:57.760 But like with Andrew Isker, the fake and gay of Trash World, it's like, now you can just call it Gay.

00:46:03.100 Because Gay, the actual person, this former head of Harvard, turns out is also fake and plagiarized.

00:46:10.720 So fake and gay is really just gay.

00:46:12.580 is personified in a person and now has a picture. Praise God. So it makes things easy. But the point

00:46:17.700 is that when she was dethroned by like Rufo and all these, like, I'm grateful for that because

00:46:23.640 it's not just a random who shot JFK. That is a sign of truth winning the day. That's a sign of

00:46:32.700 advancement and productivity that says my kids might actually stand a chance at getting into

00:46:40.260 school. My kids might actually be able to get hired, that we might go back to merit. And merit

00:46:49.320 is what Christians want because Christians, if they're faithful Christians, merit is our friend

00:46:55.560 because we're not afraid of work. I want merit because I plan to work hard at shaping my children

00:47:02.800 like arrows, to be sharp, to be straight. And so merit is the friend of my children. Sinful

00:47:10.180 partiality is not the friend of my children. Not virtuous. There's a strain too of evangelicalism.

00:47:16.200 There's an influence of pietism in it, but it's very functionally Gnostics when we think about

00:47:20.340 conspiracies that affect the body and the health. There can be a huge amount of putting your head

00:47:24.700 in the sand. Just to give an example, fluoride is generally added to the water supply, the FDA

00:47:30.140 and the CDC, they would say like 0.7 milligrams is a safe amount. It's supposedly to prevent

00:47:35.280 cavities. Well, fluoride is a neurotoxin. The Lancet, one of the most prestigious medical

00:47:39.760 journals in the world is like, yeah, this is actually neurotoxic. Now you can get a filter

00:47:44.480 for your home. You can get a filter for your faucet. Look up if your city, I filter it at the

00:47:49.640 garage. I filter it at the sink, run the cup through a sieve. No. But if I was to tell you

00:47:54.820 that and say, hey, this should be something to consider. You don't have a well, you're on city

00:47:57.820 water it somehow comes up and you were to say i don't care that's dereliction if you're a father

00:48:03.100 or even a mother to say this could be affecting my kids uh this could be a problem and i don't

00:48:07.960 even care enough to look into it that's not even saying like you have to believe this you have to

00:48:11.780 take action but hey uh this could be going on and you say we got to care about holiness brother

00:48:17.080 we've seen that a lot recently of like well no men shouldn't be strong or women shouldn't pursue

00:48:21.180 beauty uh we should just pursue godliness and holiness don't dress well don't get guns don't

00:48:25.940 work out don't like right why because give all your money away right because your future isn't

00:48:30.580 your treasure is in heaven yeah yeah uh-huh yeah but i i also um i treasure christ most of all

00:48:36.520 uh but i that doesn't mean that i treasure nothing else i treasure my wife also i treasure my kids

00:48:41.620 also they have to live here for a while i have to live here but my children lord willing will

00:48:45.860 live here even longer than me um i i remember you know when i you know well i'll say it like this

00:48:52.580 um did you ever did you ever meet that guy you know who who um who was like kind of like a rough

00:48:58.680 and tumble dude who had like you know tattooed you know uh moderation is for cowards you know

00:49:03.520 like that kind of right well that's like sounds really good and i had a season of life you know

00:49:08.380 years ago where i thought hey that makes sense and i get that and um but then you know what one

00:49:12.520 bible verse and there's several but one that just kind of breaks breaks that notion is um physical

00:49:18.040 training is of some value. And so what I think the pietist does is they say that personal

00:49:25.780 practices of piety are of infinite value, eternal value, and they are. But then they say,

00:49:33.040 and by consequence, everything else is of no value. But the Apostle Paul doesn't speak in

00:49:38.560 those terms. He doesn't say that worldly things are of no value, but heavenly things are of

00:49:44.160 ultimate value. In fact, the word worldliness, which is used in a negative sense, is a total

00:49:50.640 different way than many of the Christian nationalists or post-millennial guys would

00:49:55.620 be using the term today. When we say worldly, we're not talking about the boastful pride of life,

00:50:00.260 the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes. That's the way 1 John is speaking of worldliness.

00:50:05.080 When we say that we love the world, well, there's another guy who loved the world,

00:50:09.620 john 3 16 for god so love the world um and and and yes that means people um but it also means

00:50:17.240 the cosmos his creation which he said is good and so we're saying no we care about the world and

00:50:23.500 we're not just going to give it away to our enemies because we have our pie in the sky

00:50:28.260 somewhere else that's why we're losing that's that's a major factor for why we're losing

00:50:32.620 nihilism pessimism um all these things which i think come from dispensationalism i think it

00:50:39.000 comes from premillennialism. I think it comes from, you know, pietism, just this, it's, we've

00:50:45.420 got to shift from that. So all that back to the physical training. The Bible, that's just one

00:50:50.020 example, and there are others, but just one example. Paul doesn't say spiritual training

00:50:55.180 is of infinite value and physical training is vain. Nope. Nope. Said the Bible, never. Physical

00:51:01.480 training, it's, and Paul admits it has, it is, it is not comparable to spiritual training.

00:51:06.720 it's not on the same uh level it's not but that doesn't mean that it has no value and that's i'll

00:51:12.700 be honest that's hard uh for me because what i want to do is i want to pick the three things that

00:51:17.480 that uh matter most and do all of those things and nothing else you know what i mean but that's

00:51:23.540 not actually the way god constructed human life there are actually a lot of things with triage

00:51:30.140 with like with varying degrees of value and so it takes discernment and wisdom to live

00:51:35.540 well in the world. And some of those virtues enable other virtues. Like I want to, by God's

00:51:40.700 grace, live a long life to be 80 years old and able still to see and to play with my great

00:51:46.180 grandchildren. I'm going to have to get into some off the beaten path material just to try to

00:51:50.780 understand how to order my diet, not take the exercise advice. That's all out there. That's

00:51:54.860 common. Andrew Isker's book, The Boniface Option, is a great source of him saying like, hey,

00:51:59.480 you know, maybe fast food and the XXL fries baked in seed oil, these aren't good for you.

00:52:05.540 You're told that they are, but they're not.

00:52:07.540 And if you want to live a good long life, which I think is a noble aspiration, you're

00:52:11.660 going to have to go off the beaten path and take a little bit of ownership for it too.

00:52:14.920 And the question is why?

00:52:16.000 It's always why.

00:52:17.000 So I want to live a long life.

00:52:19.060 Why?

00:52:19.700 Because my treasure is here on earth and I have no hope for after I die.

00:52:23.260 Okay, well, that's bad.

00:52:24.680 But if it's like, no, I want to live a long, like I remember my dad telling me this, you

00:52:28.280 know, and I've heard other guys say it as well, but I just, it was so, so encouraging.

00:52:31.300 my dad who who has been a faithful father and a faithful husband for decades and decades um i

00:52:37.380 remember him saying you know joel one of my life goals is to outlive your mom and the reason why

00:52:41.940 is so that he could care for her as she's dying wow that's good okay so the question is why so

00:52:47.300 if the why is well i just i want to live forever you know and and attain to transhumanism and

00:52:52.280 upload my consciousness to you know to minecraft and walk around you know whatever in the cloud

00:52:57.260 you know like well okay well then that's demonic that's that's stupid but if it's not i want to

00:53:01.780 live a long time because i want to play with my great grandkids and be able to disciple them

00:53:05.120 and invest in their life or i want to outlive my wife so that i care for her as she's dying

00:53:10.180 instead of her caring for me um that well that's godly that is that is piety sounds like how paul

00:53:17.040 said it's better for me to stay right for your sake for you and because of that uh knowing that

00:53:22.920 i'm convinced that i will remain at least for a while longer so those are good things same with

00:53:27.620 money so like right now we're talking about uh health but think about that so here's part of

00:53:32.580 the problem i'll just say john piper love him um and he has helped me tremendously i learned so much

00:53:38.920 over the years from john piper but i do think that there's a certain point where you can attack

00:53:43.020 the prosperity gospel um it's so extremely that you actually embrace a poverty gospel right and

00:53:50.740 And so, like, because what we've been talking about with the long life kind of thing and what food you eat and working out, physical training of some value, not no value, but some value, all that is in the health category, right?

00:54:00.680 Well, you only need two more categories to complete the prosperity gospel lie, which really is a lie, health, wealth, and, you know, healthy, wealthy, and wise, you know?

00:54:09.100 And, yeah, like living for those things as the ultimate end, yeah, is terrible.

00:54:16.420 but but um but wanting to be healthy is not inherently bad and likewise so if while we're

00:54:22.880 at it health and wealth i think that's worth talking about as well like are there actually

00:54:27.860 uh pious motives godly motives for wanting to attain financial wealth in this life i the answer

00:54:35.580 is undoubtedly yes yes and then power power is the same thing conservative this is why we always

00:54:41.320 lose and christians are are christians make conservatives actually look good with this

00:54:46.300 sadly but uh christians actually think that the goal is you know well the wicked are the ones who

00:54:52.300 are exercising power they're the ones who are you know doing this and doing that and so what we're

00:54:56.760 going to do is forsake power theology of the cross i'm like like this you know the theology of the

00:55:02.800 cross theology of suffering it's like yeah that's part of the gospel stories take up your cross and

00:55:07.100 follow me that's part of the story but it's like they forget that like he was dead for 72 hours

00:55:12.600 that's it and that now he lives forever more i mean jesus was dead for 72 hours then he took

00:55:18.640 his life back up again and not only that but then was glorified and ascended to the right hand of

00:55:25.140 god the father almighty and said even before his ascension all authority on earth and in heaven

00:55:31.540 has been given to me so he forsook power and authority unto uh even unto death even death

00:55:37.840 on a cross philippians 2 right the emptying of himself not kenosis theology but the emptying

00:55:43.320 of himself taking the form of a man and being willing to die even death on a cross a humiliating

00:55:47.700 death and and all of that for approximately 72 hours yeah and if we include you know the

00:55:52.360 humiliation of christ and his his earthly ministry and being mocked and those things leading up his

00:55:56.820 mock trial then okay we could even say years okay years but then he he rose he rose from the grave

00:56:03.240 he took all power and authority back up and ascended to the right hand of the father and

00:56:06.660 he's been doing that for 2 000 years and he did those things in order to gain that that's right

00:56:12.900 that position and that uh status and then paul even says that who would suffer with him if not

00:56:17.700 to reign to reign with him yeah like that's that's part of it and that reigning sure like i can just

00:56:23.380 here the pietists watching you know saying like it's a rain but not now never here like you reign

00:56:29.380 spiritually later once you're dead you reign in the 17th dimension where it doesn't matter

00:56:35.520 that's where you reign um no uh that will happen that will happen and even then it will actually

00:56:41.180 matter it won't be the 17th dimension it'll be heaven come to earth yeah but uh but we also

00:56:45.860 reign now like you you good biblical theology that keeps with christian history that's not

00:56:51.120 just a post-war consensus that people came up with, you know, 15 minutes ago. That kind of

00:56:55.640 theology, it's going to include polycarp and, you know, being eaten by lions or drawn and quartered,

00:57:02.520 torn apart, beheaded, burned at the stake. It's going to, the blood of the, you know,

00:57:08.000 the blood of the martyrs is the seedbed for the church. All that is true. If your theology does

00:57:11.580 not include that, and even at some level rightly emphasize that, then you don't have biblical

00:57:16.480 theology um but your theology must also so we're not saying this instead of that as a substitute

00:57:22.860 we're saying this and that your theology must encompass a theology of suffering in the cross

00:57:27.660 and the martyrs you got to be able to do something with 2 000 years of church history and martyrs

00:57:31.460 you also need to be able to do something with constantine and charlemagne charlemagne and

00:57:36.640 richard the lionheart duke gregory and that you got to be you know all the other guys and

00:57:40.700 defenders of the west you got to be able to do something with that too yep besides just condemn

00:57:47.160 it as an ignorant libtard that's never read anything about the crusades and just says they're

00:57:53.700 bad because someone told me they were bad right which is what we kind of all do that's kind of a

00:57:58.880 conspiracy we kind of all do that until you read pill and you start actually reading well think

00:58:02.960 about right 40 years of public schools like the crusades were bad yep and and now that's just the

00:58:08.820 zeitgeist say well we have you know muslim extremism we have christian extremism too

00:58:14.500 and so really same thing we got to give up the power if we overuse it we could end up with the

00:58:19.720 crusades again well hopefully many aspects of it like that would be a good thing to see um christianity

00:58:26.040 established in europe in the west yep and part of part of is the third way ism where you make uh you

00:58:32.860 make two fallible individuals or parties or whatever uh you make them equally fallible right

00:58:39.700 when in reality it's not that simple it's actually much more complex uh there are multiple very it's

00:58:45.440 a multi-variant you know uh equation and so like you know i remember uh tim keller would do that

00:58:51.800 with um democrats and republicans you know jesus isn't on the right he's not on the left uh but

00:58:56.720 and and that's true in a sense i mean republicans suck you know i i say it like this you know we

00:59:00.660 have two parties one is way made up of sinister wicked men and the other one is made up of of

00:59:05.380 demons you know so that's republicans wicked men demons they're not even human at this point that's

00:59:10.900 democrats and so you know but they're both bad but notice in my little you know funny illustration

00:59:15.520 they're not equally bad right wicked men are still an improvement from spawn of satan um you know and

00:59:22.540 so um what keller he didn't say this but what it did often he wouldn't necessarily explicitly say

00:59:28.460 but what it did is a lot of people picked up that rhetoric and they decided well jesus isn't on the

00:59:32.900 right or the left but then what they implicitly took from that is that jesus is equally distanced

00:59:37.880 from the right as he is from the left which means that both the right and the left are equally

00:59:42.740 unbiblical equally apart from uh the way of jesus you can do that with the crusades right so like

00:59:48.620 and reading about the crusades some of the later crusades especially um some of those i think i

00:59:53.320 think there actually were some sinful motives involved and and there was you know ways where

00:59:57.020 they really weren't keeping in with the standards of just war theory and those kind of, but a lot

01:00:01.740 of them were. A lot of them. The earlier ones, especially. The earlier ones, especially when

01:00:05.440 it's like the main reason they're going in is not just to capture the Holy Land, but it's to go and

01:00:09.040 save Christian women that are being raped, you know? And so, you know, and all their Christians

01:00:14.020 that have been beheaded and they're going to, you know, to exonerate them. And so all that being

01:00:18.620 said, there were sins on, because you're talking about two, you're talking about people. So in

01:00:23.900 both cases muslims and christians they're fallible however the problem is one of the techniques is

01:00:29.660 that people go in they'll say well well uh both are fallible and and then implicitly or sometimes

01:00:34.420 just it's outright said they're equally infallible right um now the muslims and christians were not

01:00:40.340 equally infallible that's a joke right yeah the the christians were fallible men but many of them

01:00:46.660 regenerate who love the lord and many of their leaders and then the muslims were terrible their

01:00:51.420 entire fortunes yep yeah literally gave it as an act by the time they got to the war they had given

01:00:56.940 it along the way to all these villages and all yeah it's insane richard the lion heart i'm i'm

01:01:03.040 convinced he you know if they're if they're if what we do in this earth you know uh does accumulate

01:01:08.580 rewards in heaven and one of those rewards is is your seating distance from the throne how close

01:01:12.860 you get to be to christ uh richard the lion heart i think is going to be like front row seats and

01:01:17.780 so far that i'm i'm gonna have to bust out binoculars just to be able hey richard you know

01:01:22.740 because i'm gonna be so far back you know i'm here too me and you we both did it you know we did it

01:01:28.100 you had the heart of a lion i had the heart of kind of like a domestic house cat but the same

01:01:32.560 kind of feline family you know so anyways all right so anything else on principle two the things

01:01:37.900 that affect your family because that was so good michael to say not all right not just conspiracies

01:01:42.240 in general because there's a million of them so how do i narrow it down well what stand the chance

01:01:46.400 it being true because it's with powerful people that actually have an ulterior motive that was

01:01:49.880 number one and then number two is uh which conspiracy uh is affecting my wife right my kids

01:01:55.900 well and that actually leads me to the part that's really going to get us in hot water here but

01:01:59.320 uh interestingly the first conspiracy that i can find in the bible is conspiracy theory i should

01:02:06.860 say is when the serpent convinced eve that the godhead had conspired against her to keep her

01:02:14.260 from wisdom. And she fell to that false conspiracy theory. And so the last thing that I wanted to say

01:02:22.980 about this point is sometimes the conspiracies that hit closest to home, whether there's actual

01:02:29.440 harm and you need to guard against it, or this is a deceitful conspiracy that we're falling into,

01:02:35.440 sometimes our wives are going to be the most prone to fall into those conspiracies, the lies 1.00

01:02:40.720 that are told them from the world.

01:02:43.380 And so in the same way that husbands,

01:02:45.960 we have an obligation to protect our wives and our families,

01:02:50.160 we have an obligation to protect in this area as well,

01:02:53.120 guarding them, keeping them in truth,

01:02:55.140 instructing, listening to them.

01:02:57.560 Yes, a woman's intuition is wonderful and inexplicable.

01:03:00.280 And there was one time when my son had a tonsillectomy

01:03:06.140 and he was home and just that afternoon,

01:03:09.920 she said we need to make sure we go to the store and get ice okay go get some ice she comes home

01:03:15.400 that night his his scabs split open and he's bleeding all over the place the way to deal

01:03:20.220 with that is to put ice on the back of the neck and before that afternoon we didn't have any ice

01:03:24.460 in the after in the house right you know so there is a sense where woman's intuition we should we

01:03:29.200 should listen to and heed especially if you're married but we have an obligation as men as

01:03:33.500 husbands to protect from lies and to help our families walk in truth amen all right well let's

01:03:39.560 take a moment real quick, and then we'll pick up with the third principle, which is one of the

01:03:43.680 easiest ways to tell a counterfeit is if you familiarize yourself with the real thing. So

01:03:47.460 learning to think, using reason, using logic in a biblical way. But real quick, let's go ahead and

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01:05:19.340 giveaway drawing. All right, so here we are. We're going to go ahead and land the plane now

01:05:24.400 with principle number three. So if you've been with us this whole time, three tools for rightly

01:05:30.060 judging conspiracies. The first one was don't be naive. Look at motives. Does a group of people,

01:05:37.720 powerful people, or enough people, just a lot of people stand something to gain if they push this

01:05:43.560 certain agenda? That might lend towards it, a conspiracy being true. Number two was you can

01:05:48.380 give your whole life away looking into a million different conspiracies, but we do actually have

01:05:53.080 as Christians an obligation, especially as men, to expose the deeds done in darkness and to protect

01:05:58.120 our wives and children. So the second principle when judging conspiracies is, does this conspiracy

01:06:03.400 hit home? Does it affect me, my wife, my children? And then the last one, the last tool for rightly

01:06:09.340 judging conspiracies is that we need to learn how to think, familiarize ourselves with the authentic

01:06:15.520 article, like a dollar bill, and then we'll be able to recognize the counterfeits. We need reason

01:06:20.240 than logic. I was really struck as I was reading some of this book by Isaac Watts, which is just

01:06:27.860 called Logic. And he says in the introduction to his book, he says, logic or reasoning,

01:06:34.620 the ability to think is the cultivation of our reason by which we are better enabled to

01:06:39.600 distinguish good from evil, as well as truth from falsehood. And both these are matters of

01:06:45.580 the highest importance, whether we regard this life or the life to come. As it regulates our

01:06:51.100 judgment and our reasoning, so it secures us from mistakes. Reasoning, logic keeps us from mistakes

01:06:57.100 and gives us, this is startling to some of the pietists, it gives us a true and certain knowledge

01:07:04.400 of things. And it furnishes us with a method so that it makes our knowledge of things both easy

01:07:09.780 and regular, it guards our thoughts from confusion. And there was a way of ordering thought and life

01:07:17.540 that emerged out of Christendom, which in and of itself was a safeguard in some ways against

01:07:23.400 conspiracy, against false thinking, against error of action and of thought that we frankly have

01:07:30.900 lost. And I think there's, you know, to jump into conspiracies, you think of the way that the

01:07:36.700 United States public education system has devolved under Dewey and progressive methodologies since

01:07:43.800 then. And of course, it's designed to not teach us to think, to not teach us truth, to not teach

01:07:48.460 us virtue, but to teach us to take what we're told and to have no ability to evaluate them or hold

01:07:55.880 them up to the light and discern them, whether they be right or wrong. Right. Part of what you're

01:08:00.980 talking about right now is just being generalist. You cannot be an expert at everything. You can be

01:08:05.820 an expert in one thing maybe if you're incredibly gifted and talented for the record we need

01:08:11.320 those we need christians who are experts in vaccinology or in monetary policy or in all

01:08:16.400 of these things we do because right now we don't have them yep um and i'm not saying there's not

01:08:20.160 an individual christian out there that is an expert in a particular medical field what i'm

01:08:23.880 saying is that um all of our experts at least overall have discredited themselves we don't

01:08:29.000 trust them anymore so we've lost the media experts we've lost medical experts we've lost

01:08:33.220 political experts we like um from from uh the white house from from politicians to uh medicine

01:08:39.940 to media uh to uh certainly academia that would be another like at every single level

01:08:45.520 are institutions institutions are you would expect the the premier leaders of institutions

01:08:51.220 that's where you'll find your experts um and and all that is crumbling right now um and so we do

01:08:57.780 need institution i don't think a society especially as large as ours is uh societies actually

01:09:03.180 because there's a temptation in me as a conservative biblical Christian to just

01:09:06.680 cheer on the destruction of our institutions because they're all so corrupt. So I'm glad

01:09:10.900 that they're falling, and I really am. But there's a hubris, I think, if the Christian's

01:09:15.500 not careful to say, yeah, good riddance, we don't need Harvard. No, we need a Harvard.

01:09:19.820 We need institutions. I'm grateful for Nate Fisher and Josh Attaboy and those guys that are like

01:09:26.080 Abattoi, sorry, Attaboy. Those guys who are building institutions like New Founding,

01:09:31.780 they're working on it. That's why we're, you know, even with right response, it could just be

01:09:35.380 a webcam and it's just Joel, you know, like you don't have to build a team. You don't have to

01:09:39.680 invite other people on. You don't have to have a ministry name and, you know, and actually have,

01:09:43.640 you know, all that, you know, I have a board with right response that holds us accountable.

01:09:47.200 You don't have to do all that. Why do that? Why not just, you know, I mean, a phone is powerful

01:09:51.340 enough. I can just put my phone up and record videos and drop them on Twitter. But what I'm

01:09:54.720 trying to do is build an institution because we need institutions and institutions traditionally

01:09:59.700 carry a sense of trustworthiness, credibility, and that instinct is right. It's actually not

01:10:06.540 good for society, the place that we currently rest, where institutions right now, when you

01:10:10.800 hear the word institution, your first inclination is distrust. That's not a good thing. That's not

01:10:16.960 winning. Exactly. That's massively problematic. But right now, though, I think, so yes, let's

01:10:21.740 rebuild institutions, Christian, biblical institutions, but we also do need that your

01:10:26.780 every man, your everyday Christian does need to be a generalist. He may never be an expert in any

01:10:32.820 field, but he should be able to be a generalist who generally knows logic, knows reason, knows

01:10:37.820 how to think. And that does apply to something, just to bring it home to a practical example,

01:10:42.120 something like COVID. I remember people, and this was Christians, arguing with me like,

01:10:46.660 well, you're not an expert, you're not an epidemiologist. And I remember saying, well,

01:10:49.620 I don't have to be, because my argument isn't on the basis of epidemiology. My argument,

01:10:55.300 And you know, here's how I know it was right.

01:10:58.720 Well, I've known it was right for three years.

01:11:01.080 But if it wasn't apparent enough, it became very apparent when Francis Collins, who was

01:11:06.760 supposed to be an expert and a Christian, just recently came out and said, whoopsies,

01:11:11.940 you know, so we missed a few things.

01:11:13.640 And then he goes on to list it.

01:11:14.780 You know, we were looking at like densely populated cities like New York.

01:11:18.460 You know, we weren't thinking about how this would affect, you know, a rural place.

01:11:21.100 about everything that he says is things that i was saying in april of 2020 um you know why because

01:11:27.420 you don't have to be francis collins you don't have to be an expert in a particular field to

01:11:32.020 realize those things because they're no duh things yeah we need some more no duh christians and i

01:11:37.820 think that's what a generalist is a generalist is able to just look at the lay it could we could be

01:11:42.260 talking uh plagues you know um or wannabe plagues you know or we could be talking politics or we

01:11:48.920 could be talking academic but a generalist is able uh he's just got a good bs detector he's able

01:11:54.520 to just in general say no that's dumb that's dumb well why is it dumb you're not an expert on this

01:12:01.120 well it's dumb for these very practical reasons people will be trained by some institution it's

01:12:06.780 not like well we can have these institutions and or we could not and people could be taught to be

01:12:11.160 think things the wrong way or they could be neutral or we could do the hard work of teaching

01:12:14.300 them. And C.S. Lewis, he does a great job

01:12:16.400 in Abolition of Man because he points

01:12:18.400 out how modern textbooks, when they say,

01:12:20.280 don't say the waterfall is beautiful, say

01:12:22.160 I simply perceive the waterfall is beautiful.

01:12:24.540 You're dumbing man down. And then he says, when the

01:12:26.340 propagandist comes, the hard

01:12:28.300 heart dulled to nature and to natural

01:12:30.380 affections and to seeing beauty and a

01:12:32.300 soft head hasn't been trained in rigor,

01:12:34.380 he says it's going to stand no chance.

01:12:36.660 You dumb man down, you abolish him,

01:12:38.280 you create men without chests, and the

01:12:40.100 propagandist comes along and he

01:12:42.280 is ripe for the taking. He's going to take him right

01:12:44.260 along so someone's going to train people how to think they're going to come out and they're going

01:12:48.000 to reach 18 years old and they'll be taught some way somehow from someone how to think to a better

01:12:52.980 to a lesser degree why not be us why not be christian parents christian schools christian

01:12:58.680 churches that do that education amen yep completely agree well any final thoughts as we go ahead and

01:13:04.360 land the plane only thing i'll say is hopefully i'm putting nathan on the spot here but maybe

01:13:07.880 in show notes if we do that or in in the youtube we did we did come up with some resources that

01:13:13.160 might train in thinking better because let's be honest um all of us uh are in a situation where

01:13:20.720 even the best and brightest are not nearly the thinkers that the men of previous generations

01:13:26.900 were and so all of us need training all of us need help in this area yes and so uh we did kind

01:13:32.140 of i researched a couple of good okay we'll see if we can put them in the description so a couple

01:13:36.480 of books the one that i just mentioned now uh logic the right use of reason in the inquiry

01:13:41.320 After Truth by Isaac Watts. Another one, it's not training on logic, but it is on understanding

01:13:46.260 ideas. It's called The Consequences of Ideas, Understanding the Concepts That Shaped Our World

01:13:51.000 by R.C. Sproul. And then there's a video series by Greg Bonson called Critical Thinking and Formal

01:13:58.340 Logic. It's long. It's 19 episodes on YouTube. So those are the three that I'll mention.

01:14:04.900 Awesome. Super helpful. And one last component. So we're doing three shows a week, Lord willing,

01:14:10.040 starting now this is our first week of the new year but that's the goal for 2024 and moving

01:14:13.740 forward is uh theology applied three times a week with three different formats theology applied the

01:14:18.580 interview on monday uh that's kind of the you know what what you guys have been following us have

01:14:22.760 seen you know where somebody remotely comes in so that's on monday at 4 p.m then theology applied

01:14:27.120 the live stream and that's going to be every week with michael and west lord willing um the three of

01:14:31.900 us that's a live stream 4 p.m on wednesdays and then theology applied the special and that's where

01:14:36.660 i also have two guests but guys the special will be uh quarterly seasons um and so i've got andrew

01:14:42.300 risker and ad robles um this friday will be the first episode and so that'll be uh quarter one

01:14:47.460 for january february and march and then i've got brian silvey and ben garrett for q2 and then i'm

01:14:52.140 lining up guys you know for q3 and q4 and the special is going to be you know eight to 12

01:14:56.300 episodes on one singular topic going deep that this wednesday is going to be a you know one

01:15:01.080 topic just for the week and then we move on in some cases though we may have something that's

01:15:05.240 like, all right, this is going to be a three-parter, you know, a little bit of a deeper

01:15:09.500 dive. But again, one of the strengths of the Wednesday live stream is it's not just the same

01:15:13.820 two guys for eight to 12 episodes, but Lord willing, it's us three guys for the course

01:15:18.580 of this whole year. And Lord willing, we'll see what comes next year and continuing. And so

01:15:22.820 building some rapport, building a relationship, practicing, getting better. This is our first

01:15:27.340 one. So we'll get better for you guys who are watching, but getting better. But then the live

01:15:32.560 stream also by being a live stream, not prerecorded. It allows us to hit a big world news items. If

01:15:38.380 something drops on Tuesday or even Wednesday morning, we could hit it that afternoon. And so

01:15:43.140 we can have fresh content by not prerecording it. But then the last thing I just, I felt like I had

01:15:47.600 to say this because we kept referencing it. So I think, you know, just go ahead and show our hand

01:15:51.500 here. Um, this show it's, it's going to be alive and therefore fresh, uh, relevant, but it also,

01:15:57.760 I think the advantage of the show is that, uh, it's going to have a lot of preparation,

01:16:01.000 a unique amount of preparation in the sense that part of the reason why i got michael and wes is

01:16:07.860 that they're both good speakers but they're also both very knowledgeable and they're good writers

01:16:12.040 and so what i've asked them to do is that they're going to alternate each week actually writing a

01:16:18.640 1500 word article with you know citations and resources and quotes pulled and an outline so

01:16:26.020 that this Wednesday special, again, 4 p.m. Central Time, the Wednesday live stream, is arguably our

01:16:32.940 most prepped show, our show with the most careful, meticulous preparation. We're not going to be

01:16:39.420 flying by the seat of our pants. So these guys are writing a whole episode out for us, and we're not

01:16:44.520 just reading it from the script. It's a natural conversation, but a lot of research has been done,

01:16:49.560 and so you guys are going to hear good, zippy one-liners that you've come to know and love

01:16:54.800 from Joel Webben, but you hopefully will also be hearing lots of facts, Michael and Wes especially

01:17:01.200 bringing that. So I'll say something that hopefully by God's grace is true, and it usually is,

01:17:06.100 God's pretty gracious, but then they'll also be able to give a citation for that. And to go even

01:17:11.600 deeper with that or more specificity, da-da-da-da-da-da, or so-and-so said. And so I think

01:17:16.160 it'll be our most timely show because it's a live stream. We can hit events quick, but it'll also be

01:17:22.360 one of our most prepared shows. Wes, you want to tease the topic for next week? Yeah. Topic for

01:17:27.900 next week. Why power is not a bad thing. Evangelicals shouldn't have an allergen, a aversion,

01:17:35.200 a put your hands up. And I think one of the big reasons is because it gets you off the hook.

01:17:39.340 You're not powerful. Nobody expects anything out of you. So tune in next week. That's great.

01:17:43.540 Cool. Thanks for tuning in, guys. Thanks.

01:17:52.360 Thank you.

The NXR Podcast - January 03, 2024

THE LIVESTREAM - 3 Tools For Judging Conspiracies

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