The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - Pushing Back the Curse： Neuralink, Epidurals, and TRT

00:00:00.000 The curse of sin for the rebellion of man pits him in an antithesis with the world he is called

00:00:06.120 to subdue. While the task is now much more difficult, the original mission and mandate

00:00:11.420 of humanity to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth has not been abrogated or canceled.

00:00:17.900 By grace, we resist and war against the world, the flesh, and the devil, but also against the curse.

00:00:25.160 Join us now as we discuss how Christians should think about pushing back on the curse. 0.80

00:00:55.160 Neuralink. How do we think about what Elon Musk is doing, putting chips in people's brains that

00:00:59.160 are high powered? And so to start off with, for a little bit of background, we talk about the

00:01:03.780 curse. We talk about Adam. We talk about man's mission. Man is placed in the garden. He's placed

00:01:08.420 upright and he's given a task. Adam is not in the garden taking a siesta. I think growing up,

00:01:13.300 I used to have this idea that, man, it's just, it's five o'clock all the time in Eden. Sun is

00:01:18.840 shining. He's got his wife near him. He's having pina coladas. No, Adam is put in the garden and

00:01:24.640 he's given a task. He's given the mission of probably the whole world around him. It wasn't

00:01:29.500 full of wickedness, but it was untamed. It was chaos. And so Adam is in what would be Ezekiel

00:01:35.900 28, a mountain garden that is a temple to the living God. And he said, you are to go out and

00:01:41.640 you're to take all the chaos and the woods and the disorder around, and you're to constrain them.

00:01:46.460 You're to take dominion over the animals and you're to fill the earth with the glory of God.

00:01:51.800 That's Adam's original mission.

00:01:53.380 Go out and show the waiting cosmos what God is like, imaged in man.

00:01:58.220 And you do this by ruling judiciously, by ruling well, by being wise, by displaying

00:02:04.660 all these attributes of God that are contained within you.

00:02:08.080 Adam does this, of course, by his own hard work.

00:02:10.260 He also has progeny that go out and multiply and fill the earth with God's image such that

00:02:14.720 Adam would have been maybe in the Middle East and he would eventually have had descendants

00:02:18.220 that would go and colonize, constrain, order, and make a society out of America and out of

00:02:23.900 Greenland and out of what we now call India. So that's man's original mission. Man sins. Eve eats

00:02:30.520 of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. She gives it to Adam, and God curses.

00:02:35.080 He curses the earth. He curses Adam. He curses Eve, and he curses the serpent. And the curse for man

00:02:40.600 was not that his mission is abrogated. The curse for man was not that you'll never complete what

00:02:47.560 i told you to now do cursed is the ground because of you by the sweat of your brow you will eat of

00:02:52.500 it all the days of your life from dust you are taken from dust to dust you will return the curse

00:02:58.320 for adam is at the ground that he was commanded to cultivate to make fruitful to bear fruit and

00:03:03.060 to display god's goodness would now do so at immense cost and that he himself would die that's

00:03:09.500 important to mention that the curse as it pertains to the man is not work the curse as it pertains

00:03:15.580 to Adam is that work would be increasingly more difficult. Work was always going to be

00:03:23.340 his task, his mission. And work, probably various degrees of work would have been harder than

00:03:30.700 others. There still would have even been hard work in the garden. But the difference is that

00:03:36.940 now man's work will work against him. That's the difference. A man could have worked hard

00:03:44.480 in a pre-lapsarian world before the fall, before sin entered the world. It's not just that he was

00:03:50.420 expected to work. He could have even worked hard, but hard work would have produced an incredible

00:03:56.220 amount of fruitfulness. Whereas now there are many cases, not always, but there are many cases

00:04:01.540 where a futility, futility is, is what we're speaking of. That's the curse. The curse isn't

00:04:07.480 work itself or even hard work, but it's futility where a hard work doesn't always pay off that

00:04:12.900 you could work hard and and yet because of certain circumstances produce very little so adam and i

00:04:20.480 like what you also said wes in terms of um the whole earth was not a garden right i take it as

00:04:26.380 you know that part of you know adam's eschaton speaking of you know what what was uh what was

00:04:32.160 adam's ultimate end what was he working towards what would he have achieved in this state of

00:04:38.540 innocence had he never fallen and eventually been able to eat of the tree of life and had resisted

00:04:44.060 the temptation to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And I think, you know, the

00:04:49.040 eschaton for Adam wouldn't have been that he eventually would have been beamed up and been

00:04:55.060 somewhere else in a heaven outside of earth, but that he would have taken this heavenly mountain

00:05:01.840 garden. Think like Mount Olympus. I mean, that's kind of what it was. Like God himself came down

00:05:07.120 and walked with man and his wife in the cool of the day.

00:05:11.900 It really was this divine place where God would actually condescend in his mercy and kindness

00:05:22.380 and that the spiritual presence of God would be with Adam and Eve always because God is omnipresent,

00:05:30.000 but especially in the cool of the day that God is, as it were, walking with Adam.

00:05:34.840 However, this played out, whether this was a Christophany, the second member of the Trinity in a human form, but before the incarnation.

00:05:43.040 So Christ still being a most pure spirit without body parts and passions at that time preceding the incarnation, but taking upon himself still a physical appearance to literally walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day in the same way that the angel, the Lord throughout scripture takes on a physical appearance when appearing to Joshua or the fourth man in the fire with, you know, Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego.

00:06:03.860 So maybe that's how it happened, or whether it was just this palpable sense of the presence of God, although it was not necessarily visible.

00:06:10.980 However, it happened.

00:06:11.860 We know that there was a special, God is omnipresent, so he was always present with Adam and Eve, but there was a special presence of the Lord as though it were him walking with them in the cool of the day, like a Mount Olympus kind of thing.

00:06:25.860 And I would even argue, you know, some of this gets into Michael Heiser and some of these things, you know, lesser gods.

00:06:31.260 But if you don't even want to go there with a divine counsel and just, you know, be extra safe, like call them angels, whatever you want to do.

00:06:37.520 But I think it's possible that there were other heavenly beings that probably appeared from time to time.

00:06:44.360 In the same way that God comes once a day in the cool of the day and walks with Adam and Eve, there were probably other angels.

00:06:50.320 Think of like Jacob's ladder, you know, of descending and ascending.

00:06:53.640 I personally of the persuasion that that's part of the reason why Eve was not caught off guard

00:06:59.020 when she is deceived by the serpent. One, the curse for the serpent as it regards the serpent

00:07:05.160 is that he would eat dust all the days of his life, crawl in his belly. So I don't believe that

00:07:11.120 it was just a physical animal, a snake. I think that it was cursed. And so before that, I think,

00:07:19.100 what did it look like? Likely, I think that the Satan, the Satan, it was likely a dragon

00:07:28.660 and could talk and that not all the animals could talk. It's not as though when sin comes into the

00:07:34.940 world, it's not like it was Narnia and then sin enters and now we have earth. I don't think all

00:07:40.520 the animals could talk, but I do think that there were potentially, hear me out, but potentially

00:07:45.540 dragons in eden not everywhere but in eden and that these were angels um and they had appearance

00:07:54.200 like dragons and spoke and uh one of them decided uh to turn against god so so for me i i see you

00:08:02.560 know um the fall of satan and the fall of man um as as potentially one foul swoop actually happening

00:08:10.400 at the same time that satan actually gets cocky and chooses to rebel against god and eve then

00:08:17.500 joins in that rebellion and adam joins his wife so all that being said the point is that that the

00:08:22.780 garden of eden was a phenomenal um magical uh divine place and the rest of the world back to

00:08:31.100 west's point um was was not and it doesn't mean that the rest of the world was filled with sin

00:08:36.940 because god calls all that he made uh good he says and it was good but we know because the bible

00:08:44.200 actually tells us this explicitly that adam was actually formed from the dust of the ground in

00:08:48.720 not in the garden but in a separate context a wilderness so there were wildernesses uh so the

00:08:54.320 idea of desolate places um uh wildernesses chaotic places um um that that that is clear and that's

00:09:03.560 prelapsed area that's before sin into the world so adam was made in one of these such places a

00:09:08.960 wilderness desolate type unruly place but then he was then placed by god into the garden so i think

00:09:17.060 his eschaton what was he working towards had they not fallen well one um finishing um this this

00:09:24.400 probationary period of of actually um uh fulfilling you know uh what god had called him to do and not

00:09:32.920 giving into temptation and sin. And then God having held out to him, I think upon that point

00:09:37.820 at the end of a probationary period, who knows how long, I think then God would have held out to him

00:09:42.620 from the tree of life. He would have eaten of that. And that that would have brought him to

00:09:47.200 an immutable state where he would from then on be not just unfallen, but now unable to ever fall.

00:09:53.420 And then going forward from there, what would he have done? I think that he and his posterity

00:09:58.920 and all of them enabled by their wives as helpmates, suitable helpmates, 0.99

00:10:04.580 would have expanded the Garden of Eden over the whole face of the earth, 0.76

00:10:09.160 eventually eradicating all these wilderness desolate places

00:10:12.980 to where the whole earth would have been filled with the glory of God

00:10:17.080 as the waters, the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

00:10:20.820 I think that would have been his eschaton, creating image bearers of the living God,

00:10:25.180 his posterity and discipling them to worship the triune God,

00:10:30.520 but also expanding this garden kingdom,

00:10:33.680 this garden mountain over the whole face of the earth.

00:10:36.960 So all that being said, what would that entail?

00:10:39.380 A lot of work, a lot of work and really hard work,

00:10:43.760 but it would have been work that worked

00:10:46.440 rather than work where the work works against you.

00:10:50.020 Because in Romans, it talks about how creation

00:10:54.880 is groaning under the curse, right?

00:10:58.200 And part of that is the creation itself knows

00:11:01.520 it's not supposed to be producing thaws and thistles

00:11:04.320 under the hand and direction of man's work, right?

00:11:08.500 And so when man plants and the earth produces thistles

00:11:11.820 and inhibits the prosperity and fruitfulness

00:11:15.080 of what man is doing,

00:11:16.380 the earth knows this is not what I'm supposed to be doing.

00:11:19.800 And there's sense of where it's groaning and crying out

00:11:23.060 because it itself, there's a sentience almost,

00:11:27.760 like even the rocks cry out, right?

00:11:29.960 There's a sentience where the earth knows that,

00:11:31.960 and Paul says it is not because of the earth,

00:11:34.100 but in the hope that the newness of life

00:11:37.040 that was promised under this administration of grace,

00:11:41.040 this age of grace would be extended even to the earth.

00:11:43.680 And it would be freed from that sense

00:11:46.920 where everything that it's doing is twisted

00:11:49.680 in turning contrary to the efforts of mankind

00:11:53.100 rather than harmonizing with it.

00:11:55.480 But one of the things that we don't often think about

00:11:58.000 with the curse is that God told Adam,

00:12:01.780 by the sweat of your brow, you will eat.

00:12:04.720 And what that means, because death was introduced then,

00:12:07.760 and because in the Garden of Eden, there was abundant food.

00:12:12.580 That meant that all of the work that mankind would do

00:12:17.120 was not gathering enough food to not die.

00:12:21.840 All of the work that they were doing

00:12:23.480 was to extend the dominion, the garden, the beauty,

00:12:28.140 the glory of the Lord across the earth.

00:12:30.240 Now under the curse, both because of death

00:12:32.280 and because of the fact that we eat

00:12:34.340 by the sweat of our brow,

00:12:36.340 I don't know what percentage,

00:12:37.540 let's say 90% of our work has to go to keeping us alive.

00:12:42.320 and and if we're lucky we have some work left over to extend the dominion of god across the earth

00:12:49.780 and that's that's the source of wars resource scarcity really it's just survival right and so

00:12:55.600 even national efforts of stewarding the land that god gives them and bringing forth from the land

00:13:03.640 that god gives them something that will honor the lord is turned on its head and a nation now

00:13:09.220 focuses on survival fighting off other nations that want its resources or pillaging other nations

00:13:15.240 nations for their resources and so the curse in a really extreme way has put a major slowdown like

00:13:24.820 we we think how could adam and eve have extended the garden across the entire earth first of all

00:13:31.520 it wasn't them they're going to be having kids and lots of kids and then not dying dying so

00:13:35.560 And all of their work,

00:13:39.280 all of it would have been focused on this mission,

00:13:43.160 not just the five or 10% that maybe if we're lucky,

00:13:46.160 we have leftover after we've kept ourselves

00:13:48.340 and our families alive.

00:13:49.420 No natural disasters, no wars.

00:13:53.040 There would have been nations,

00:13:54.600 but no war amongst those nations.

00:13:56.720 I mean, think of like how much money,

00:13:58.540 the trillions spent on military.

00:14:01.300 And that's all of that.

00:14:04.620 It's not just, you know, it doesn't just come out of thin air.

00:14:07.200 I know, you know, the government tries to make that.

00:14:09.620 But it's all a percentage of the production, the overall production of the United States,

00:14:15.340 the people, the citizens.

00:14:16.300 So the citizens of this country produce a finite amount.

00:14:20.180 It may be large, it may be small, but it's finite.

00:14:22.980 It's set.

00:14:26.260 And whatever we produce, a portion of it goes towards this, towards that, towards that.

00:14:29.580 And you're right, a large portion goes towards what we could call curse oriented, you know, line items on the budget.

00:14:39.600 So to think that, you know, that our efforts would be, you know, double, triple, tenfold had there been no curse.

00:14:48.180 One resource I'll mention here, I'm about 80% of the way done with this book at the moment.

00:14:53.560 So if the last 20% ends up being heretical, I apologize, but, um, it's from Founders Press

00:14:59.660 who they're pretty reliable. So it's getting the garden right by Richard Bracelos because it's

00:15:04.380 really great. If you want to study any more, he really lays the case for the fact that Eden was

00:15:09.720 a temple. It was the first temple. It was the garden paradise, but it was not just kind of a

00:15:14.300 little home for a while. It was the base of operation for spiritual and physical work to

00:15:20.480 extend across the entire planet yep i like that you said limited there because we're going to get

00:15:24.840 to this and as we talk about specific things that affect our limitations now adam pre-fall no sin

00:15:31.360 ever enters the world would still be limited if there was nation systems that had kings adam would

00:15:37.080 not have been king over all the earth and all the nations in the same way he would have been king

00:15:41.360 perhaps of a region but then a different distinct geographical region where adam did not have

00:15:45.700 visibility did not have line of sight couldn't hear relied on some form of news or information

00:15:51.680 transfer to get there someone else would have been king and that king would have likely had

00:15:55.180 kings underneath him because individuals can only focus on so much so adam was not this disembodied

00:16:00.180 spirit uh floating around that had all of this at his disposal that had i don't know the force

00:16:05.960 so to speak and that moving and uprooting trees and laying down pathways and putting up walls

00:16:10.900 was just something that was easy for him no he really had to do those things you talk about a

00:16:15.420 dragon defending against the dragon that was one of the things he should have done he failed that

00:16:20.540 he didn't protect his wife a lot of the reformers they actually held that uh adam and his posterity

00:16:25.760 they would have killed animals to eat and there would have been danger danger obviously from the

00:16:29.560 serpent but the danger of heights the danger of oxygen these were real challenges that human

00:16:34.240 beings even before sin enters the world i mean exactly would have had to navigate they wouldn't

00:16:39.240 have had to navigate sin they wouldn't have had to navigate interpersonal relationships and the

00:16:44.660 difficulty that comes there but there was still much that they were up against psalm chapter 8

00:16:50.400 i just really want to get across yes this is a glorious vision that god had for man yes this

00:16:55.200 was not a side project so you do an ant farm for your kids sets up an ant farm let's see what

00:16:59.620 happens maybe this will be cool psalm chapter 8 verse 5 speaking of man yet you have made him a

00:17:04.880 little lower than the heavenly beings this is the septuagint renders it angels in the original text

00:17:09.840 it would be god yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him

00:17:13.620 with glory and honor you have given him that is man dominion over the works of your hands you've

00:17:18.120 put all things under his feet all sheep in auction and all the beasts of the field the birds of heaven

00:17:22.400 and the fish of the sea which pass along the paths of the seas i've had a glorious mission he was the

00:17:28.680 image of god set out to the waiting virgin cosmos to show what god was like and even in the fall

00:17:35.400 not all of that is lost we'll get into the curse we'll get into what that affects we'll get into

00:17:39.500 how he pushed back against it but adam was really given a glorious mission and the key point is that

00:17:44.600 that's not abrogated so this mission for man was not canceled eight days into it adam adam's given

00:17:51.400 this task go out and do it he trips and falls up never mind pack it all up pull the first adam put

00:17:56.960 the second adam in god had a plan in it he certainly predestined and foreordained for christ to be the

00:18:01.800 full and true and complete adam in the second adam sense uh but but that wasn't abrogated man still

00:18:07.600 has this mission psalm chapter eight is post fall yep david writing post fall that even still and

00:18:13.440 christ is cited in hebrews chapter one of the psalm as well so mankind yes but in a greater sense

00:18:18.700 christ still dominion over the earth the image of god and it's a glorious task right yeah and

00:18:25.540 that's psalm eight is speaking it's it uh the interpretation is both um right what one passage

00:18:30.960 of scripture, especially messianic prophecy, it can have two meanings. No, no given text of

00:18:37.600 scripture can have two contradictory meanings. Right. But scripture can have more than one

00:18:43.200 meaning in terms of layers of meaning that does not, the two meanings, two or more meanings don't

00:18:48.920 contradict one another. And we know this because the apostle Paul tells us this. He says, you know,

00:18:53.520 when speaking of, you know, Hagar and Sarah, you know, he says, and this may be understood.

00:18:59.200 good analogously, allegorically, you know, through the doctrine, you know, the banner

00:19:06.420 of analogy. And so, so we, we know that it meant one thing for Abram and Abraham, but

00:19:13.420 then it also had a higher interpretation, a higher meaning that, that was revealed at

00:19:19.100 the proper time later. So yeah, on its face, you know, Hebrews, you know, Hebrews picks

00:19:24.480 up Psalm 8 and says that it has its ultimate fulfillment in Christ. And that is absolutely

00:19:29.480 true. But Hebrews 8 on its face also still has meaning and is also true that mankind

00:19:37.900 is a glorious thing, that God is mindful of man and cares for man and that he has a glorious

00:19:46.260 mission that's laid before him. So let's go ahead and cut to our first commercial break for the day.

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00:21:01.980 registration will not last long all right so here's the big monkey wrench in the system

00:21:08.540 pietism uh the origins of pietism just to give a 60 seconds of it so after the reformation there

00:21:16.500 was a really big war it's called the 30 years war it was old than some 8 million deaths it was really

00:21:20.520 terrible for all of europe and it was between protestants and catholics so there's a really

00:21:24.040 powerful catholic family that wanted to maintain control over protestant germany and protestants

00:21:28.700 that didn't want to have anything to do with it as they fought a 30 years war from 1618 to 1648

00:21:35.260 left millions dead due to war famine starvation whole protestant towns would be wiped off the

00:21:41.000 face of the map just by being attacked and so what happened was lutheran ministers began to

00:21:45.060 really focus on the intellectual tenets of the faith. So, their sermons would be two-hour polemics

00:21:50.100 against or defending justification by faith alone, preaching against Roman Catholicism.

00:21:55.320 And there's a real emphasis on intellectual assent just to these certain points. Affirm this,

00:22:00.900 affirm that, affirm this minute point of doctrine as they battled and pushed back against

00:22:05.160 the Catholic armies. What came out of that was a reaction was Lutheran pietism. And so,

00:22:10.920 Lutheran pietism, Philip Spenner would be kind of the father of this. As they said,

00:22:14.840 you're losing the emphasis on the new birth, on spiritual living, on godly living. They cited

00:22:20.500 passages, so I think of 1 Peter 3, where it says that we're sojourners on the earth, strangers.

00:22:25.740 There's also some passages in Hebrews. And we've lost that emphasis. And so what we need to do

00:22:29.900 is we need to get out of these political, we need to get out of these military, we need to disembody,

00:22:35.640 disconnect ourselves from all these affairs that are taking away our affections for Christ.

00:22:40.440 And there's certainly some of that. So there's an overreaction of just polemical preaching

00:22:44.660 that's all intellectual, but the pendulum swings this way. And that's what you have then Lutheran

00:22:49.440 pietism, because right to Anabaptists refuse to engage with the civil magistrate. And that 0.91

00:22:53.960 eventually then becomes one of the three components of American evangelicalism. It's

00:22:57.820 Scottish Presbyterianism, Lutheran pietism, and Anglicanisms from the UK. And so those then become

00:23:03.840 American evangelicalism. And that pietism aspect of it is the one that's very, very reserved and

00:23:09.880 very hesitant to get involved in earthly affairs. You hear like Jesus is involved in politics.

00:23:13.600 Jesus is neither a donkey nor an elephant.

00:23:16.740 That's coming from this pietistic historical element of American evangelicalism.

00:23:21.960 And two of the big names that really took this pietism thing and they put a reform label on it in the 2000s, 2010, even now into our time, David Van Drunen and Michael Horton.

00:23:32.660 So Michael Horton wrote Beyond Culture Wars, this idea of we need to get out of this culture war business.

00:23:37.000 It's just back and forth. 0.99

00:23:38.460 Harm's a Christian witness. 1.00

00:23:39.560 We shouldn't have anything to do with it. 0.74

00:23:40.860 And David Fandrunen, he's the academic side, so maybe you haven't heard of him, but I guarantee his thought has been something that you've encountered.

00:23:48.260 He writes that in the same way, we shouldn't be involved in these things, that the common kingdom isn't our concern, it's governed by natural law.

00:23:55.700 You mean the earthly kingdom.

00:23:57.220 Yes, the common earthly kingdom is governed by natural law.

00:23:59.960 But he also makes points that this creation mandate, that this dominion mandate has been abrogated.

00:24:05.440 So he says this, this is in his book, Life in God's Two Kingdoms.

00:24:09.000 God does not call Christians to take up the original cultural mandate of Genesis 1,

00:24:13.560 but calls them to obey the cultural mandate given in modified form to Noah and Genesis.

00:24:17.480 The goal of this commission is not to provide a way to earn or attain new creation,

00:24:20.960 but to foster temporary preservation of life and social order until the end of the present

00:24:25.860 world. The idea being, we don't push back against the curse. We're just here as sojourners. We're

00:24:31.400 just here as pilgrims. We don't strive against it. He says also this, he says that common grace

00:24:36.920 preserves nature and only special redemptive grace consummates it that nature's end is not

00:24:42.680 restored and perfected by grace but that nature's end is merely preserved it's merely awaiting the

00:24:48.360 consummation of special grace so there's a lot there but westminster escondido that's where

00:24:53.500 michael horton and van juden and you know some of these guys are um but van juden even you know he

00:24:59.620 goes so far as to say you know passages like what you cited earlier michael that uh creation itself

00:25:04.640 groans with eager expectations, longing, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed.

00:25:11.400 Van Druden even says of that particular passage of scripture that creation is groaning. Yes,

00:25:18.460 he can't deny that because it's explicit in scripture, but he says that what creation is

00:25:23.720 longing for, so it's groaning under the pains of the curse of sin, but what it's wanting,

00:25:30.760 what it's desirous of, and more importantly, what will be given to it. What God is going to do

00:25:36.260 is he's going to destroy it. So creation is not groaning with eager expectations for the sons of

00:25:43.100 God to be revealed, because in the revealing of the sons of God in our redemption, that creation

00:25:50.180 will be redeemed alongside us. No, Van Druden would say, no, creation is longing for a mercy

00:25:56.780 killing. It wants the sons of God to be revealed, not because in our redemption, creation will

00:26:04.020 receive its redemption as well. No, in our redemption, creation will be taken out back

00:26:09.340 behind the woodshed and put down. And creation is so miserable under the curse and pains of sin

00:26:16.080 that it's like an animal that's too far gone, that's been hit by a car, like a deer,

00:26:23.080 And it's just kind of barely moving its head.

00:26:25.880 And you can tell, you know, it's like the most merciful thing that you can do at this point is if you carry, you know, go ahead and pop it.

00:26:32.040 If not, then put it in reverse and hit it one more time, you know, and then maybe take it home to the wife and kids and have some, you know, some venison. 0.92

00:26:39.700 But the point is that that's that's this, you know, retarded two kingdom view. 0.97

00:26:45.680 It's R2K. 0.97

00:26:46.480 It's, you know, it's radical two kingdom.

00:26:49.340 They've kind of coined it and said, no, it's reformed two kingdom.

00:26:51.920 Don't let them have that.

00:26:52.900 it's not reformed two kingdom. There is a classical two kingdom view that I actually

00:26:56.880 don't prescribe to. I prescribe to a lot of it, but I actually would have some differences and

00:27:00.820 be a little bit more Vantillian in some of my thought, a little bit more Kyperian, and I could

00:27:05.120 be wrong. But I have the utmost sympathies and appreciation and respect because it is worthy of

00:27:11.940 respect. It is the reformed traditional position of a classical two kingdom position. That is not

00:27:17.600 the position of Westminster Escondido. It is not reformed two kingdomism. That would be classical

00:27:22.600 two kingdom. There's is radical two kingdom, or retarded two kingdom, you could use that word as 0.99

00:27:28.460 well. But it is certainly the R does not stand for reformed. So that is I mean, and that you just 0.94

00:27:33.360 have to understand that is a whole different outlook on creation on man's responsibility on

00:27:39.800 our mission on the world, the universe, all these different things. The only thing that Van Druden

00:27:45.040 actually believes the only physical thing in all the created cosmos that will transcend from this

00:27:51.600 life to the next is our physical bodies. And he affirms that because to not affirm that you would

00:27:57.900 be a heretic that you have to, but he looks to, you know, that's, that's his goal is like, you

00:28:02.540 know, what is the absolute bottom line? And for everything else, it's all going to be burned up

00:28:09.420 with fire, but not as a metaphor and not speaking of, you know, an old covenant, you know, being

00:28:15.420 done away with and wrapped up as a garment. No, he, he believes a whole, not one covenant being

00:28:20.380 replaced by another, but this whole created physical cosmos in a literal annihilationist

00:28:26.640 type sense will be burned up with fire. And, and then the, the big reason why we're talking about

00:28:32.820 it is, okay, so how then shall we live? So what does that kind of view, what kind of impact,

00:28:42.060 what fruit does that bear in the average Christian's life? And what I would argue is you

00:28:47.060 don't have to look far to find it. It's the fruit that we, it's the lion's share of fruit that we

00:28:53.500 have in the evangelical church right now, which is what? We're sojourners, we're just passing

00:28:58.960 through. We're foreigners. We're strangers. We're aliens. This world is not our home. This world is

00:29:04.520 not my home. Not of this world, you know, bumper sticker. And there's really not a dang thing that

00:29:09.820 we can do about it. The world is under a curse and the curse will have the final say. But Jesus,

00:29:16.900 he's not going to restore the world. He's not going to save the world. But he will come and

00:29:22.900 uh, and he'll pluck us up out of it, uh, in the proper time. It is, um, it is, it's, it's weird.

00:29:31.160 It's like, you didn't think it could be done just when you think of covenant theology and you think

00:29:35.300 of, you know, the Westminster confession stuff, but, uh, Westminster Escondido has, has done it.

00:29:41.300 God bless them. I didn't think it was possible, but they found a way to achieve

00:29:44.860 the exact fruit of Anabaptist theology while being Presbyterians.

00:29:49.460 Yeah. It's quite a feat.

00:29:51.080 It's impressive.

00:29:51.640 It is impressive.

00:29:52.900 i mean one of the ironies here wes is i if i remember my history correctly it was actually

00:29:59.940 some of the events of the 30 years war maybe it was before that but there was a massacre

00:30:05.140 of protestants by uh catholics which was the turning point there had been a concerted effort

00:30:13.380 to get martin luther to um agree with the doctrine of the lesser lesser magistrate

00:30:19.580 and he had resisted and resisted and resisted.

00:30:22.540 He had said, no, God sets, you know, the king in authority.

00:30:25.380 And there was a massacre of, it was a huge,

00:30:28.040 it was thousands of Protestants who were massacred

00:30:29.700 in one day by this Catholic army. 1.00

00:30:33.440 And I wish I had thought I had to look up

00:30:35.520 the name of the massacre, but it was that massacre,

00:30:39.940 which is right in the context of the 30 Years' War

00:30:42.200 that finally convinced Luther, you know what?

00:30:45.080 Maybe we do sometimes need to look to lower,

00:30:48.520 because by his reasoning, the king of France was, you know, you cannot argue against it because he

00:30:56.420 was the Lord's anointed. And even though he had massacred all these Protestants, he was nevertheless

00:31:02.560 the Lord's anointed and there can be no working in a political sense against him. And it was that, 0.94

00:31:06.980 that conflict that led Luther to, towards the end, agree with the principle of the doctrine of the

00:31:15.680 lesser magistrate. And, you know, it makes sense in this, you know, in regards to the fact that

00:31:20.780 none of us are doing theology in a vacuum. We're all a product of place and time. So when you

00:31:26.040 think about it, just, you know, pan out 30,000 foot view, you don't have to be like a Luther

00:31:30.240 historian, you know, expert on Martin Luther to realize, okay, what was the Leviathan, the primary,

00:31:36.320 there's always a few at any given moment. It's never as simple as just one, but what was one

00:31:40.360 of the primary leviathans uh tyrants of of luther's day well it wasn't uh necessarily a

00:31:48.040 caesar in the sphere of the state but it was the pope in the sphere of the church that was his

00:31:52.940 his you know he was on the run for for his life because of the pope the abuses of the church so

00:31:59.640 he was um ultimately and predominantly concerned about tyranny and abuses of power within the

00:32:05.400 church so he was all too comfortable early on in his life uh with combating the abuses of the pope

00:32:13.280 by finding refuge and protections you know by by bolstering up by giving even maybe too much power

00:32:19.640 to the state in order to to combat this you know because there's there's two leviathans here well 0.92

00:32:25.620 one wants to eat him and the other one doesn't so what's he what's he going to do well he's going

00:32:30.280 to, in his theology, he's going to put pen to paper and talk about how, well, this Leviathan

00:32:35.280 is totally fine, you know, and, you know, to go against the state is to go against God

00:32:40.220 and this, that, and the other, because it's, you know, that's, that's who's saving his

00:32:44.900 life and protecting him from, from Rome, Roman Catholicism.

00:32:48.700 But you're right, later on, he started to see a little bit more clearly, but Luther

00:32:52.700 is not, God bless him forever.

00:32:55.740 He was no trifle,

00:32:59.620 but he was probably not the best

00:33:02.760 for political theology.

00:33:03.940 Right.

00:33:04.520 I want to get into-

00:33:05.220 Sorry, one other thing.

00:33:07.000 A name that people may have heard,

00:33:08.560 and it's been five or six years

00:33:11.020 since I read this book,

00:33:11.940 but I'm pretty sure in Kevin DeYoung's book,

00:33:16.540 What is the Mission of the Church?

00:33:19.100 He's arguing against the social justice push

00:33:22.580 in the church,

00:33:23.120 but i'm pretty sure in that book he articulates the same thing that the church is merely called

00:33:28.000 to watch and wait and and to bear witness to the coming christ right and he's arguing against

00:33:34.240 social justice which i'm all for but he i'm pretty sure i remember him going as far as saying the

00:33:40.640 church really has no business establishing true justice um on the earth and to some degree he's

00:33:48.400 right but christians certainly do right right and this idea that it's where we conflate the church

00:33:54.160 and christians and the mission uh what christians are supposed to do in the world with what them

00:33:58.480 what the church is supposed to do we have to be careful with our language here um because i i

00:34:03.120 wouldn't in principle disagree with de young on that point but to make that point and not to follow

00:34:08.800 it up with however god has called christians to be involved in the total uh restoration of

00:34:16.000 of beating back the curse, which was what I mean,

00:34:19.000 I think of the conversation we had a couple of weeks ago

00:34:21.660 about healthcare and how early Christians believed

00:34:24.900 that salvation was a total salvation.

00:34:27.740 And that when we heal the body,

00:34:29.280 we are pointing forward to the ultimate healing

00:34:32.980 in the body that will happen at the resurrection.

00:34:36.000 That has been ingrained in the church from very early on.

00:34:40.320 The idea that the gospel has a tangible application

00:34:44.420 in providing healing to people. And certainly, I think one of the points we want to make in this

00:34:49.720 podcast is that the gospel that Christians carry to the nations has application in beating back

00:34:56.400 many, many of the areas of the curse as well. Yeah. I just want to add four quotes and then 0.75

00:35:02.580 get into some specifics because this is not Retarded Two Kingdom. It's not the Reformed 0.99

00:35:06.760 tradition. So, I mean, this is even Aquinas. Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.

00:35:11.400 hermann vistias grace supposes nature which it perfects francis turretin grace does not destroy

00:35:17.000 nature but makes it perfect hermann boving grace restores nature and takes it to its highest

00:35:21.500 pinnacle reform view has always been that grace perfects nature you mean salvation grace when

00:35:27.540 people become new creations brings nature as god made man to be to its highest pinnacle yep exactly

00:35:35.780 So over and against, all grace does is hold on, get us on the life raft, wait for rescue.

00:35:41.960 No, grace takes who you are, doesn't obliterate that, doesn't destroy it, doesn't take you

00:35:47.940 and make you just a weak man that talks in a low, soft tone of voice.

00:35:52.400 No, grace takes you as a man who you are, makes you the best man that God has called

00:35:56.220 you to be.

00:35:57.440 So we push back against the curse.

00:35:59.260 Grace does not destroy who we are, but helps us take it to its highest pinnacle.

00:36:04.060 Technology does a lot of good.

00:36:05.780 So I think of just healing.

00:36:07.460 That is an objective good.

00:36:09.380 Death, injury, these things, they're part of the curse.

00:36:13.260 God's curse for man is that things like broken bones and death and sickness and diabetes 0.98

00:36:19.240 and all of these different things, those wouldn't have been in a prelapsarian world.

00:36:23.240 So when we push it back against those, we push back against them with innovation.

00:36:26.880 We push back against them with medicine.

00:36:28.440 We push back against them, against these curses with technology.

00:36:32.960 Those are good things.

00:36:34.260 And we can say that.

00:36:35.780 Here's the double-edged sword, though. A lot of technologies that have improved our earthly

00:36:40.340 standing, the ones that have actually done a really good job of it, also often come with

00:36:45.060 some negatives. So I think of the internet, for example. The internet has done a lot of good.

00:36:50.000 It's done a lot of bad. And it's done a lot of bad, sure, in pornography, but also crime,

00:36:55.380 organization. There are hitmen that can be hired on the dark web, weapons, the transfer of

00:37:01.300 information. So one way or another, Pandora's box of the internet has opened, but technology and

00:37:06.760 seeking to overcome our limitations, I didn't say overcome the curse, but overcome our limitations

00:37:11.040 oftentimes leads us down paths that were never intended for man in the first place. 0.50

00:37:17.260 It was never in God's intended plan for a man to have access to and view as many women as a man can

00:37:23.320 now on the internet. It destroys what man was created to do. And so we'll talk about a little

00:37:28.140 more some specific technologies technologies in the next segment we have to be really careful are

00:37:32.400 we trying to overcome a limitation of the curse or are we trying to overcome a limitation of man

00:37:37.640 should you know and have at your fingertips every single morning all the news and all the bombings

00:37:42.980 and all the earthquakes and all the tsunamis and all the crime that is happening in all major

00:37:47.240 countries across the world not even adam would have probably had that nor need to be appraised

00:37:52.320 of it we're limited geographically with sight with sound with information that we can take in

00:37:57.140 like a practically limited in literally how much information can be processed by our brains.

00:38:02.300 Maybe God designed it that way. The curse was not that you would be limited. The curse was not that

00:38:06.700 your vision wouldn't be able to see for a hundred miles. The curse was work and toil and sickness

00:38:11.520 and sin. But some of these limitations, I think God built in for a reason and in his wisdom when

00:38:17.140 he created man. Yeah. What you're getting at is the distinction between the two categories of

00:38:22.860 finitude and fallenness. So fallenness is something that we want by the grace of God to

00:38:28.540 push back on. We want to do this with the three primary enemies of the Christian, which is the 0.98

00:38:34.560 flesh, the world, and the devil. And we want to start at home. So the first arena where the 1.00

00:38:39.400 Christian begins to push back on fallenness is by waging war against our own indwelling sin, 0.91

00:38:46.940 that I beat my flesh and make it my slave. Paul says in Romans 7 that sin still resides within 0.88

00:38:53.760 the members of my being. I find this a lot at work, that what I want to do good, evil is right

00:38:58.720 there with me, so that the good that I want to do this, I cannot carry out. Oh, what a wretched man

00:39:02.760 I am. And so we're, you know, through the process of sanctification, we're waging war against the

00:39:09.860 the first enemy of the flesh. And then, but beyond that, we also want to push back on the curse of

00:39:17.040 sin, not just as we find it in our own individual hearts, but as we find the curse of sin in the

00:39:24.220 world around us, when we see that with our family and not just, and that comes to discipling with

00:39:30.120 our wives and children, but not just the spiritual side, but also the physical side. There are

00:39:34.560 elements of the curse that happen when a family member is sick. And if as best we can, as much as

00:39:41.780 the Lord allows, we want to make use of certain discoveries and certain means in order to push

00:39:47.660 back sickness and to bring, restore that loved one to health. And then we do it at a larger level

00:39:53.620 nationally and, you know, in society at large in the world, doing that with pushing back the curse

00:40:00.460 on food, right? So famine, right? A lot of people throughout time have died because of famine.

00:40:06.040 And so, okay, so how can we stop that? You know, how can we stop locusts from eating, you know,

00:40:10.720 three fourths of our crop, you know, to where this year we just don't have food and, you know,

00:40:14.880 and most of our people are going to die or how can we actually harvest more, you know? And so in

00:40:20.360 doing that, you know, you're pushing back on the curse at every level, you're pushing back on the

00:40:25.780 curse that is upon nature. Um, but there are times where the pushback is, um, is going beyond

00:40:33.700 restoring nature and including ourselves at every level, physical, spiritual, emotional.

00:40:39.660 There's, there's a certain level where we're pushing back on the curse that's upon nature.

00:40:43.420 And I'm including ourselves as natural in, in this category of nature. Uh, the certain point

00:40:48.260 where you're pushing back that curse. And then there's a certain point where you're trying to

00:40:51.260 make man something more than man. There's a difference in, I want restored man. It's different

00:40:58.860 to say, I want to see man restored, rather than saying, I want to see man become God. Man was

00:41:06.300 never intended to be God. And so, fallenness is a curse. Finitude is not. Man was always going to

00:41:12.940 be finite. Adam, pre-sin, was always going to be finite. He wasn't omniscient. He didn't know

00:41:17.840 all things. And it's not particularly healthy for us to know everything that's going on. Like Wes

00:41:25.200 said, everywhere else, like everybody, you know, getting upset about, you know, all the Ukraine

00:41:29.060 flags and people's bios and social media. Now it's like, oh, you know, I support the latest 0.58

00:41:34.180 thing. Now it's the Israel flag. And here's an idea. I don't support terrorists in Hamas. I also

00:41:42.580 don't support sodomite Israel. I don't support either of them. So I also happen to be like 1.00

00:41:51.360 thousands of miles away. I'd like to see the billions of dollars that people work hard

00:41:56.420 to earn in our nation actually go towards our nation, like stopping a military-aged invasion

00:42:03.720 of our southern border instead of invasions of another country on the other side of the world

00:42:08.840 that is not our greatest ally um that that kind of part of the reason why like we're so easily

00:42:14.780 duped is because of the internet it is because it's moving past uh pushing back on the curse

00:42:20.600 fallenness and into the realm of trying to somehow defeat not fallenness but finitude

00:42:26.260 not restoring man but trying to elevate man to be god and that's that's not yeah i gotta pick

00:42:34.580 up on that with AI. So AI is going to make the task of discerning real content, real pictures,

00:42:41.200 real videos, real written material. They're going to make it real hard. It's going to make it real

00:42:45.900 hard, almost impossible. And maybe that's because man is not meant to be able to generate a novel

00:42:50.880 based on a dream he had last night, the work done by someone else. Maybe we shouldn't be able to

00:42:55.860 just create images of, I don't know, a dolphin flipping over a Burger King. Maybe we shouldn't

00:43:02.180 have just unlimited creativity just at our disposal but do the hard work of creating

00:43:06.360 actual beautiful images like christendom of the past made like these sculptures that are here on

00:43:11.240 the wall all ai makes and i use ai daily and i get the use case but it just makes a lot of things

00:43:17.700 that are really not material at all and so what we're going to do we're going to render the

00:43:22.620 internet obsolete because it's going to be so full of just procedurally generated fluff content

00:43:30.300 and we're going to do it to ourselves in our maddening pursuit for unlimited productivity

00:43:35.600 which is just making slides and writing words and making websites that they don't connect to

00:43:41.360 something real this ministry connects to something real we're in a real building we have a real

00:43:45.800 conference within the advice we give is always to terminate in the practical it has a real

00:43:52.080 practical tangible physical use a real church part of a real church not in the metaverse as

00:43:57.300 real bread real water real word right yeah and so we render ourselves obsolete when we try to

00:44:03.700 overcome those those limitations and be god i will generate feature-length movie just at the whim of

00:44:10.580 a hat a dream i had last night well maybe we shouldn't have that ability at our fingertips

00:44:14.820 one more thing that i want to add to this and then we'll go to our last commercial break for

00:44:18.020 the day but so we want to push back on the curse that represents fallenness and not push back on

00:44:24.020 humanity itself that represents or includes finitude. We were meant to be finite. We were

00:44:29.380 not meant to be fallen. Another kind of category distinction, when I think of Democrats, you know,

00:44:36.780 and just, you know, liberals, they, what they often try to do, but sadly, I think the right

00:44:44.200 has joined them in many regards in this endeavor. But what they try to do often is not pushing back

00:44:51.180 on the curse that is on nature but pushing back on nature itself and so that's just another it's

00:44:57.860 really not another category it's another way of saying what what i just said earlier so pushing

00:45:02.180 back on fallenness but not pushing back on finitude because finitude being finite is the

00:45:07.660 design for creaturely things creatures are finite we weren't created to be um uh the creator who is

00:45:15.640 forever praised, Ahmed. We are created to be creatures. And creatures, necessarily, one of

00:45:21.020 their attributes is finitude. And so, we push back on fallenness. Creatures don't have to be.

00:45:27.080 Being a creature does not inherently include fallenness. But it does inherently, necessarily,

00:45:33.680 include finitude. Well, likewise, as we're pushing back on fallenness, we need to make sure that

00:45:38.820 we're pushing back on the curse that is upon nature, and not pushing back on nature itself.

00:45:44.320 And technology often crosses that line.

00:45:49.720 It's one thing to push back on famine, right?

00:45:54.320 It's one thing to push back on droughts.

00:45:57.660 But there's a certain point where it's like, okay, I'm pushing back on droughts so that people don't starve, so that we can grow food.

00:46:05.640 Or I'm pushing back on locusts, right?

00:46:08.880 Okay, but what means are you using to push back on that?

00:46:12.240 are we spraying toxic chemicals in the sky to accumulate clouds right right which was a

00:46:19.120 conspiracy like 15 minutes ago and then oh turns out that one was true too you know or these

00:46:24.340 pesticides um are we you know are we killing bugs so that people don't starve but uh now all these

00:46:33.400 people have autism right you know or whatever it may be or another example back to democrats

00:46:40.420 because i mentioned them something that you know they would be infamous for would be like uh instead

00:46:45.580 of health care um you know uh on one hand they'd be like yeah we want to push back on cancer and

00:46:53.440 assuming that the means are are ethical then great that's a worthy endeavor let's do it cancer is a

00:46:59.460 part of the curse that's a part of fallenness that's not finitude that's fallenness let's push

00:47:04.380 back on cancer but then they want to further go and say you know we don't want to just stop it

00:47:09.620 pushing back on the curse that's on nature, but we're going to actually push back on nature itself.

00:47:14.460 We're going to play God. So we're going to, as included in our healthcare, isn't just cancer

00:47:20.400 treatment, but included in our healthcare is killing unborn children in the womb and turning 0.96

00:47:27.260 girls into boys and vice versa. Well, that's not pushing back on the curse on nature, unless you're 0.65

00:47:32.960 telling me that children and procreation is a curse, which they view it as very much as it is,

00:47:38.320 that it is a curse or unless you're telling me that that being born a boy is a curse or being

00:47:44.700 born a girl's good which they very much view that it is so that's that's as we're seeking to

00:47:50.480 right now we are in an unprecedented time there's always been tools right the tower of babel right

00:47:56.660 that was a tool it was a cutting edge innovation they just came up with you know the most cutting

00:48:02.200 edge technology for the time what was it the brick yeah right that's what it was it was you

00:48:07.320 know it was mud and straw that's that's what it was and they were like with this technology we

00:48:12.420 can build a tower to the heavens and god doesn't even say that you can't uh he actually stops them

00:48:17.820 from doing it um you know so so that like that was their technology of the time uh there's always

00:48:24.100 been tools and all ai is so long as it's narrow ai because we really don't have open ai it's not

00:48:30.860 sentient and i personally of the persuasion that that's uh something that is outside of the bounds

00:48:35.340 that God won't allow to be created.

00:48:37.400 But regardless of what you think about that,

00:48:38.960 our current status, we have narrow AI,

00:48:42.940 which I would argue is also a tool,

00:48:45.600 just like the brick, except a lot more complex.

00:48:49.080 So it's much more sophisticated, but it is still a tool.

00:48:52.860 However, I'm willing to concede

00:48:54.400 that there's nothing novel in that sense,

00:48:56.240 that it's just tools.

00:48:57.160 And different periods of human history

00:48:58.800 have always had tools.

00:48:59.780 But I am willing to concede and say

00:49:01.260 that we are living in a time

00:49:03.740 where unlike the bronze age or the stone age or you know uh you know the industrial age and then

00:49:09.560 the silicon age which we're now in and going even further past it i would argue that although it's

00:49:14.820 just a tool more sophisticated but just a tool like any other age of humanity we have um the

00:49:21.040 the rate of innovation the rate of technological technological advances that are happening in our

00:49:28.260 current generation, I really do believe are unprecedented. I don't think it's ever happened

00:49:34.420 in human history. And so the point is that the likelihood of these tools, they may all be it,

00:49:43.040 just tools, but the likelihood of these incredibly powerful, sophisticated tools being used to push

00:49:49.280 back against nature itself, damaging and harming nature rather than the curse that is upon nature

00:49:56.500 or trying to overcome finitude, make man into God rather than overcoming fallenness,

00:50:03.140 that likelihood of sophisticated, powerful tools being abused and hurting nature itself

00:50:11.380 rather than the curse and trying to eradicate finitude itself, which is actually a good thing

00:50:16.660 rather than fallenness, I think that's at an all-time high, that likelihood. And so for us

00:50:21.320 to have this conversation for Christians to be wary, for them to look at something like 0.84

00:50:26.020 neural link which we'll talk about in our final segment after this last commercial but for them

00:50:30.060 to look at neural link and say man it could maybe make a guy walk who's a paraplegic it could maybe

00:50:37.140 make a guy see who's blind and that is a curse on nature but also it's unprecedented and it could

00:50:44.800 maybe also take over his brain or with the power of thought he could be looking at porn 24 7 and

00:50:52.580 curating wet dreams at night when he said that should probably also be considered not not to

00:50:58.680 even mention it that it could be potentially hacked what if everybody has neural link one day

00:51:03.860 and then you know elon just decides or by that point let's be honest like the government would

00:51:08.820 have taken it from him and they just say you know what we'd like a little bit more of a docile

00:51:13.740 population and with neural link there's actually ability to drip a little bit of this one chemical

00:51:18.980 that will make people just a little less ambitious.

00:51:21.640 You know, there's some protests going on

00:51:23.040 that we'd like to calm.

00:51:24.560 And, you know, as far as it's, you know, BLM, 0.50

00:51:26.560 we're like, yeah, let's do it, you know.

00:51:27.960 But then all of a sudden it's like, you know, 0.99

00:51:29.840 Christians who are protesting something

00:51:31.360 in a righteous manner.

00:51:33.020 And, you know, so these are not small things.

00:51:37.580 Well, that's because one of the limitations

00:51:40.320 that we do legitimately have

00:51:42.320 is the limitation of the time that it takes to discern.

00:51:48.060 and regardless of how discerning you are and Joel you're pretty discerning but it still takes

00:51:54.460 contemplation and when we're talking about societal level changes it takes number one a

00:52:00.020 society who's willing to do the work of thinking and number two it does take time to consider

00:52:05.320 will this technological rollout this technological innovation will it be good will it be bad will it

00:52:12.180 be on the net, will it be positive or benefit? Will it lead to great atrocity? Can we find a

00:52:20.600 way to limit it so we can turn it towards good? That's one of the limitations that we have as

00:52:25.420 humanity. And so the rate of change that you're talking about is something we need to at least

00:52:30.000 reckon with. Previous technological revolutions spanned generations. And now we're getting

00:52:37.580 multiple right within one generation yes right and and you know so i i sympathize i'm i'm one

00:52:44.440 of the parents who you know the kids are are going on from one thing to the next to the next

00:52:50.720 to the next and and it's very difficult to keep up and and that's just one of the limitations

00:52:55.320 that god put on us as society that we have to be honest about yep all right let's go to our last

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00:55:23.920 your free 30-minute consultation today. All right, well, welcome back to the final segment.

00:55:28.840 We're going to go rapid fire. Neuralink, epidermals, epidurals, TRT. One thing you noted,

00:55:33.720 though, we're talking about tools. A tool's ability for misuse is often proportional to

00:55:37.880 how useful it is. There's candlesticks on the shelf. There are no crowds worried about the

00:55:42.360 misuse of candlesticks. It's helpful. Hold up a candle if you have one. But the misuse factor is

00:55:47.520 pretty low and so we're developing the game clue right unless one of the weapons listed that is

00:55:53.400 true go ahead yep um so we have these tools they're becoming more and more powerful i'm

00:55:58.440 going to give a good example because it emphasizes when used well pushing back against the curse and

00:56:02.840 not nature and that's trt which stands for testosterone replacement therapy so if you're

00:56:07.500 a man you need to be testosterone maxing you just testosterone it's it's all aspects of a man's

00:56:13.480 quality of health. It's his energy. It's his drive. It's his recovery. It's his sleep. It's

00:56:18.040 his libido. Everything that is good about man is good for men to be driven. It's good for men to

00:56:22.360 get good sleep. It's good for men to be strong. It's good for recovery. All of those things are

00:56:26.100 mediated at some level with other factors by your testosterone level. Testosterone goes down with

00:56:31.580 age, which increases your propensity to broken bones, your ability to not recover as well,

00:56:36.560 your ability to not build muscle mass. So you have men that they have testosterone and it begins to

00:56:43.240 go down as they age and now developed is something called TRT testosterone replacement therapy

00:56:47.740 via injection where they can raise those levels to a level that would be pretty high for someone

00:56:53.060 40 50 back to the level of a 20 year old and objectively it does improve your health so now

00:56:59.020 here's the difference a 20 year old man says I want to be jacked I just want to be huge and he

00:57:05.740 says I'm gonna I'm gonna take this my levels are already normal I'm not experiencing the decline

00:57:10.740 of age i'm not nearing death my bones are not brittle and broken but i want to transcend the

00:57:16.740 limit that i should have for being muscle bound and so i'm going to take this well actually it

00:57:21.240 takes men uh that do it during the childbearing years and makes them sterile until they get off

00:57:25.680 of it so you push back against the nature of man which is to have kids in pursuit of an end that

00:57:31.180 is not manly but if you're 45 and you're truly done having kids it's impossible now and your

00:57:36.500 levels are lower than they would be on average it's a result of the curse that's a result of

00:57:40.320 sin entering the world. There's a huge difference between that. So notice the distinction. 20 years

00:57:45.260 old, I want to overcome the limitations of lifting, weightlifting, recovery, all of that

00:57:49.260 at the cost of what God made me to do. Versus over here, I'm pushing back not against the way

00:57:54.160 God made me, but against the effects of the curse of sin. That's a valid category for you to talk

00:57:58.580 with your doctor and say, I've gotten it tested. I'm here in my 40s. I no longer am able to have

00:58:03.040 any kids. I think this would really help me be more productive, be more energetic, sleep better,

00:58:08.600 recover better and be better able to take care of my body to be around for my grandkids to be

00:58:13.180 around for my great grandkids etc yeah that's good let's talk about um neural link so neural link uh

00:58:22.340 i have my degree in neuroscience by the way so i am qualified to talk about this a little bit

00:58:26.640 some of our that's your degree neuroscience neuroscience and behavior that was my bachelor's

00:58:30.640 where did you do that at columbia university small small little uh community community college

00:58:36.020 uh no i have my degree in this sometimes when it comes to human malfunctions so walking vision

00:58:42.500 sometimes it's literally in the legs your nerves are crushed by an accident that's not the problem

00:58:46.740 with the brain sending signals to the legs to tell them to walk uh that's there is no nerve there

00:58:52.180 there's no muscle there to innervate and activate so sometimes the problem is not the brain but

00:58:56.600 down here but sometimes the problem is the brain because of trauma because of things that happen

00:59:01.180 because of birth defects everything's working there's a muscle there there's bone there's leg

00:59:05.480 that all can be moved but the brain itself fails to actually send the signal down the spinal cord

00:59:10.240 and so elon musk's neural link company himself he's not the ceo but he is on the board of it

00:59:14.780 is aimed at a brain implant that can selectively activate certain regions stimulate certain regions

00:59:20.660 to produce effects that the brain otherwise can't produce so it can't send that signal to the legs

00:59:25.400 to walk very complicated during their first human trial it also enables other things you were

00:59:30.660 talking about earlier uh individuals can control a cursor on a screen using their brain and some

00:59:35.960 guy just went a mario kart game against his friends with a neural link oh really i'm pretty

00:59:41.040 sure yeah that's awesome yeah well it's uh it's it's innovative it's it's interesting

00:59:45.980 so you have this technology but musk has also said that it has the potential that the pleasure

00:59:51.120 that it could induce by being able to selectively target flood with dopamine certain sections of

00:59:57.080 your brain its ability to do that could create pleasure that would surpass any drug we've talked

01:00:02.060 about the problem of pornography in the internet and so you have a tool that can make people walk

01:00:07.760 but my goodness you have a tool like you mentioned earlier that can be abused and here's my warning

01:00:12.920 at what point is the technology gets more and more integrated with us are we going to say enough

01:00:17.600 man's goal is not to be replaced by cyborgs we we are still going to be human that is what it means

01:00:22.580 to be human is to maintain the faculties God has given us. But first it was photographs. Then it

01:00:27.540 was movies. Then it was a TV in your home, but it was really big and really unmovable. So you just

01:00:31.440 had it in the living room. And then we had 24 hour television and then televisions got smaller.

01:00:35.540 And then we had the computer, but it wasn't laptops. So it had to stay at a desk and then

01:00:38.980 it was laptops and then it was a cell phone. And now it's a wearable on your wrist and now it's

01:00:42.900 come up to your eyes. And now it's even wanting to go all the way into your brain. At what point

01:00:47.700 are Christians going to say, we don't actually need all of these things. They provide some 0.97

01:00:51.740 benefits they help with some of our finitude which can be good there's nothing necessarily

01:00:55.460 wrong with with knowing more things at a certain level but at what point are christians going to

01:01:00.160 say i don't actually need this to be presented mature in christ uh maybe i'm not able to walk

01:01:05.800 as well maybe i'm not able to see as well maybe i'm not able to live to 150 but that's okay but

01:01:12.120 i don't necessarily need this that's more an open question that's something i've been thinking

01:01:16.160 through would i really want to somehow live till 150 just on a concoction of chemicals and

01:01:22.040 mechanical devices and stimulants would i really want that or maybe could i accept right yeah it

01:01:28.520 depends on if it's a viable fruitful life still at that point or if you're joe biden right right

01:01:35.700 no those are but those are good questions raised west that's really thoughtful well you got anything

01:01:42.480 michael on that hi i i don't know i think that um a couple of months ago i was having a couple

01:01:51.420 of conversations with some of the guys in our church and it's actually something that

01:01:55.220 lord willing when i have some time i'd like to do a deep dive on at some point but the question of

01:02:01.260 what is it to be human right and in this case the question was are we try part or two parts

01:02:07.640 body, body and spirit or body, soul and spirit. And this is a question that has been asked before

01:02:12.920 the reformers talked about it quite a bit, Charles Hodge. Um, and a lot of the reformers

01:02:18.100 came down on the side that we are two parts or body and spirit. But I think that the question

01:02:24.000 of what it is to be human needs to be asked and answered in our time. And I'm not saying right now

01:02:28.900 I have the answer to this, but how are we going to know when we are pushing past legitimate

01:02:36.800 limitations and how are we going to know when we are simply improving on something that god gave us

01:02:44.160 like glasses to see further right um and and even you know you could say well glasses are corrective

01:02:50.460 what about binoculars that help healthy eyes telescopes exactly and so the the really it goes 0.54

01:02:57.540 back to the theme that we've been talking about space space is fake and gay telescopes aren't real

01:03:03.780 There we go. 0.92

01:03:04.400 It goes back to the question that we've been kind of hovering around for a couple of weeks now of the telos of things.

01:03:11.240 And in my opinion, the answer to some of the questions that we're asking about Neuralink or testosterone or AI,

01:03:19.600 these sorts of things really boils down to what is the telos?

01:03:22.940 What is it to be a human?

01:03:24.580 What is the purpose of a human?

01:03:26.140 What are the good natural limitations that God gave to humans that we ought not cross?

01:03:32.420 Right. And I don't think that we're living in a particular moment in history where we necessarily have the most credible and qualified people to answer that question.

01:03:42.820 That's true.

01:03:43.300 So to answer the question of where am I pushing back on fallenness versus finitude, pushing back on the curse on nature versus pushing back on nature itself, you're exactly right.

01:03:54.040 The only way to answer that question is to know what is man for.

01:03:57.180 Yes.

01:03:57.400 So you have to be able to speak to the actual purpose of man, which means that the ones who are going to hold in check the innovators and the people in technology are going to be the theologians and the philosophers of which we currently have none.

01:04:15.220 That's right.

01:04:16.080 Like I was thinking about this today.

01:04:17.540 I was just, you know, and I'm not talking about it.

01:04:19.660 I wasn't like scrolling through and reading posts by Joe Biden, you know, or Nancy Pelosi.

01:04:23.560 I was just looking at reformed Twitter.

01:04:25.780 and it was just overwhelming and i like overwhelming and i'm not even trying to you

01:04:32.520 know pat myself on the back here because i like i'm not impressive i did not go to columbia west

01:04:39.440 is pretty impressive michael you in your own right you're pretty impressive um the reason i seem

01:04:43.960 impressive is because all you need currently in the reformed evangelical world to stand out

01:04:48.660 is an iq of about 85 and just a little bit of testosterone if you're if you're a man

01:04:55.660 yeah like seriously the bar is so low i was looking at reform twitter i thought

01:04:59.300 um the reformed world is bereft of thought yep there was no thought no one can think

01:05:09.240 no one and it's like and there's all these people with voices and i understand people

01:05:13.760 listening in like oh you know the pot calling the kettle black like that's you joel you're the one

01:05:18.340 who you know and that's fine if you hate joel that's that's fine you know i don't know why

01:05:22.280 you're watching, but feel free to do something else with your time. But I understand that this

01:05:26.940 is a barrel that could be pointed right back at me or anybody else. But there's a lot of people,

01:05:31.500 and I'll just be frank, there's a lot of people who had some generally good, it wasn't insightful.

01:05:37.400 And that's what we have to recognize. It was not insightful. It was not intelligent. It was

01:05:41.740 not impressive, nothing. It was the most obvious, blatant truths, perhaps, that are even in

01:05:49.680 existence. Uh, but the world had so lost its mind and the church had so discredited itself

01:05:55.460 that in 2020 with BLM and with COVID just a basic thought put you on the map for being a thought

01:06:03.700 leader. Um, but now four years later, those people still have their platforms and it is becoming

01:06:11.500 painful to watch. Like seriously, like I, I, you know, regularly, you know, uh, constantly controlling

01:06:17.920 myself um exercising self-control not to embarrass people especially women um you know but there are

01:06:25.540 many christian women in the public sphere in the reformed world um who uh they you know it's like

01:06:34.020 how does this person have a following like honest to god how in the world did this happen and it's

01:06:39.560 like well we know how it happened we like let's just be honest we know how it happened um it was

01:06:44.460 2020 the whole world lost its mind the church you know 85 of it capitulated and this woman had the

01:06:53.040 courage just to say um hey uh we shouldn't be racist uh in any direction and that's it literally

01:07:02.420 they had like they literally that's all they said and uh and that was enough to make a celebrity

01:07:07.800 right in 2020 that's how low the bar was but the problem is now that person right so so that

01:07:14.240 person you know just you know was just the little kid it would be like the little kid saying the

01:07:18.140 emperor has no clothes but then making him the emperor right that's what happened since 2020 is

01:07:23.620 the little kid became the emperor when the reality was he was not smarter or more intelligent or more

01:07:28.880 credible or more qualified than anybody else in the kingdom he just was more honest and honesty

01:07:34.160 matters i'm not trying to downplay honesty it's an incredibly important virtue but it is not

01:07:39.120 sufficient in and of itself um my by god's grace uh one of the biggest things that we teach our

01:07:45.260 children their mother and i is the importance of honesty and i think for the most part we have

01:07:50.200 honest children we do um but they're not qualified to run the country and they're also not qualified

01:07:55.840 to be pastors in the church and they're not qualified to be theological or philosophical

01:08:01.040 thought leaders for the culture at large what right now the the world and sadly not it's not

01:08:08.120 the world and even, no, the world and especially the reformed church is completely bereft of

01:08:14.620 thought. 1.00

01:08:15.100 We're talking about some of the dumbest people imaginable, Democrats and reformed leaders. 1.00

01:08:25.700 I mean, they are neck and neck right now, neck and neck in a race for who can prove 1.00

01:08:32.380 that they possess the lowest IQ.

01:08:34.800 And right now, I mean, it's neck and neck.

01:08:36.880 I couldn't tell you who's going to win that race.

01:08:38.440 Lowest IQ and lowest testosterone. 0.85

01:08:39.800 And lowest testosterone.

01:08:40.980 It does affect men's ability to say controversial things.

01:08:44.540 A low T man cannot assert strong opinions because he could get beat up for it.

01:08:49.880 So he doesn't.

01:08:50.940 Right.

01:08:51.300 So all that being said, my point is just to say that in protecting, as right now we have massive innovation and fast, very fast pace.

01:09:02.260 and a broad, a breadth, a wide breadth of all the different innovations.

01:09:07.580 And it's all just tools, but they're becoming exponentially more powerful.

01:09:12.000 And not by generation to generation, not like, you know, a thousand years later,

01:09:16.980 then you have, you know, then you move from stone age to bronze age.

01:09:20.060 No, we're not talking about in a thousand years.

01:09:22.760 No, we're saying by the day, almost by the hour,

01:09:26.300 you have exponentially growing technology in terms of its capacity.

01:09:31.080 and not just its depth degree of capacity but its width in terms of application and all the

01:09:36.960 different variations of it and yet that's that's simultaneously happening in a current culture a

01:09:43.620 current generation that is bereft of serious thought especially serious theological or

01:09:51.860 philosophical thought and so so then as as you have all this innovation the danger is crossing

01:10:00.260 the line from we're no longer pushing back on the curse on nature but we're pushing back on nature

01:10:04.140 itself no longer pushing back on fallenness but pushing back on finitude um the one thing that

01:10:10.500 we've needed now in in all of human history perhaps more than any other time is to know the

01:10:15.360 line and we have the least amount of people who are able to tell us where that line is yeah so we

01:10:21.380 are screwed and that's a post-millennial just for the record i am very bullish on the long term

01:10:26.080 on the short term i think we're going to get crushed i didn't know it was black pill wednesday 0.97

01:10:31.040 yeah my bad but yeah in the short run i think i think we've got a world of hurt coming yeah

01:10:37.500 any thoughts from you guys as we land the plane with this episode all right just two things to

01:10:42.680 two examples to be practical we always think we can interrupt a certain part of a process

01:10:47.640 but still get the same result so ozempic for example is a glucogen-like peptide that is

01:10:53.560 induced when you eat to completion and it's been extracted and purified and now injected for the

01:10:59.220 idea that you give this to people and they eat less right so this brilliant idea where we can

01:11:03.500 just shortcut the process by injecting you with this and what's resulting is we talked about this

01:11:08.380 two weeks ago a lot of side effects people that have ibs irritable bowel syndrome for life uh and

01:11:14.380 even in there you're like well diabetes and uh and gluttony those are result of the curse right

01:11:19.180 yes but the the means that god gave to mediate them was not an injection it was for you to put

01:11:25.680 your body through cardiovascular exertion to lose the weight that was excess deposit and you try to

01:11:32.080 shortcut that it's not ton different from hormones to a transgender individual well we'll just pause 0.98

01:11:38.540 puberty oh we'll induce something different just by this injection the monster in frankenstein 0.97

01:11:43.620 is not the monster it's the scientist who creates this abominable thing right so that's 0.98

01:11:49.060 zempic um just go go take a walk eat better epidurals uh my wife she did the research she 0.95

01:11:56.100 did both of her birth natural she didn't do them i'm not saying they're wrong to do uh but it can

01:12:00.220 have negative effects on the mother because pain releases oxytocin which is a bonding chemical so

01:12:04.540 a lot of times moms will bond better when they haven't had an epidural and it can get through

01:12:08.640 to the baby and the baby actually experienced some of the effects of the anesthesia struggled

01:12:12.780 to nurse so there's some reasons even there well well pain with childbearing is part of the curse

01:12:17.860 actually says in Genesis, I will multiply your pain with childbearing. It was already going to

01:12:22.820 be a difficult experience. And again, I'm not saying blanket ban on epidurals, no Christian 0.99

01:12:27.340 should get them. But if you look into it and you look at the effects, you look at studies and you 1.00

01:12:31.380 say, well, maybe God did intend there to be some pain and some difficulty with the process of

01:12:37.660 bringing new life into the world that we're completely circumventing. And we just try to

01:12:41.960 circumvent it, but we realize it has all these downstream effects we never even accounted for.

01:12:46.340 And so don't think that God created simple machines that a cog can be swapped out of and swapped back in, or just needs a little bit of injection to fix something that's been wrong.

01:12:55.680 He's created us to be integrated, organic, connected creatures that require discernment and how to live well, how to navigate, and how to care for.

01:13:04.440 Very helpful.

01:13:05.300 It's funny, though, as you were talking, I completely agree with the overarching principle.

01:13:08.380 It's just funny.

01:13:09.140 I was thinking about our children, and with my wife, she's done natural, and she's also done epidural.

01:13:16.340 with her deliveries and, um, the natural, uh, deliveries, um, were, uh, by far the hardest,

01:13:24.540 uh, with nursing, um, the epidurals was, uh, those were, those were the kids that

01:13:31.080 nursed the best. Yep. So I don't, I don't know if that proves where we have to discern and say,

01:13:36.320 okay, I'm going to know these might be the downsides. That's what you say. I don't believe

01:13:40.920 you i don't believe you go ahead i'm sorry what were you saying no that's exactly where every

01:13:47.320 person has to say okay i've done one this way done the one this way i know the literature i know this

01:13:52.020 is a side effect to potentially expect i know what this might result in because discernment is not

01:13:56.580 saying never use neural link oh it's totally okay well what is it being used for who am i what do i

01:14:02.200 need what am i pushing back against that's actual wisdom actual discernment that i can't give you

01:14:07.200 from this table and what does it open the door to not just like uh reading the literature for

01:14:10.780 what it is today but what could it be tomorrow right like what you know uh because in 1999 to

01:14:18.460 say hey i think we're gonna have the internet in our home that's a decision you have to remake

01:14:22.440 and remake it's not a one and done kind of thing it's like well today like the internet in our home

01:14:27.160 we're dialing up d d d d d you know and able to like um okay but a little bit later on it's going

01:14:32.840 to have all of these dangers and all these risks and um and that's the thing with neural link when

01:14:37.820 you're putting something in your body it's not just i've read the literature and what it is today

01:14:41.580 well today it will help me see and overcome blindness or today it may help me walk but it's

01:14:46.840 also what does this technology implanted in my skull allow for guys who maybe don't have such

01:14:55.380 benevolent intentions um you know if they ever were to control this what does it allow i mean

01:15:02.600 it's like the oppenheimer kind of thing you know like that like wrestling with the ethics of like

01:15:07.720 did i just save the world or destroy it and well and one of the things that is concerning is that

01:15:14.760 we as a people are seemingly determined to get rid of any guard rails right you think about the

01:15:23.320 the quote-unquote vaccine safety protocol that is supposed to fence in any new vaccine releases

01:15:31.160 Well, it was just completely arbitrarily dismissed when we went through COVID.

01:15:36.060 And so that was theoretically something that's supposed to take.

01:15:39.480 Like when the question about the vaccines was being debated initially, I thought we're not going to have to worry about this because the protocols require that it can't even be mandated for, what, five, seven years, something like that.

01:15:51.040 Nope.

01:15:51.520 Immediately they're going to be mandated.

01:15:53.700 And so that's the Constitution protected us from that.

01:15:56.700 Yes.

01:15:57.480 Thank goodness.

01:15:58.340 That's that's to your point.

01:15:59.780 And my conservative governor.

01:16:00.680 we seem less interested in um discerning and it's just production new better faster more information

01:16:12.920 we've spent so much time asking what we can do yeah that we're not asking the question what we

01:16:17.740 should and no one wants to ask that question what should we do just because you can do something

01:16:22.600 doesn't mean you should the men's health clinic would give any 20 year old man who walks in there

01:16:26.400 and complained of this out of the other testosterone he would you could go get it so

01:16:30.440 it's not a question of will they let me and if they let me i definitely need it you have to do

01:16:34.460 the thinking yourself all right well that's today's episode thank you guys so much for

01:16:40.160 tuning in and we hope to see you again soon

The NXR Podcast - June 05, 2024

THE LIVESTREAM - Pushing Back the Curse： Neuralink, Epidurals, and TRT

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