The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - Statism： The Idol Western Christians Love

00:00:00.000 there are many dangers to christianity that christians do well to expose and fight against

00:00:10.280 there is one danger however that many christians not only tolerate but seem to embrace wholeheartedly

00:00:16.980 that danger is the idol of statism in which the government sets itself up as an alternative to

00:00:24.060 Christ, provision, authority, and lordship. Why do so many Christians love this particular idol? 0.68

00:00:31.320 Tune in now as we explain. 0.87

00:00:42.380 All right, welcome back, gentlemen. Good to be back with you all again. As always,

00:00:46.380 looking forward to our discussion again today. And today, the topic on order is the topic of

00:00:52.360 statism. And we are going to explain statism here in a few minutes, but to get us started,

00:00:57.160 I thought I would give us a couple of thoughts and comments in an area that most people on a

00:01:04.960 gut level would just assume, yes, this is a good thing. This is a good thing. And that is the area

00:01:11.700 of foster care, CPS, and child protective services, CPS. Other states use a different acronym, DOT,

00:01:20.260 or something. I don't know. There's a different one. But the governmental organization that steps

00:01:25.640 in when the sphere of the family is dysfunctional, sinful, there's abuse, that sort of thing. And we

00:01:31.080 would all agree, as we're talking here about government overreach and statism, that the

00:01:38.260 spheres, Kuyper's spheres, the state, the family, the church, they're not totally distinct from one

00:01:44.700 another, right? There's appropriate overlap. And so this is one where I think a lot of Christians

00:01:48.700 would be inclined to say, yes, this is good, because there are, sadly, families where there's

00:01:54.240 abuse, there's neglect, there's other circumstances, and the state has to come in and provide a

00:02:00.200 measure of protection for children who are in these situations.

00:02:03.720 And a lot of us would just say, yeah, that's great.

00:02:06.800 Like, not great.

00:02:07.720 It's unfortunate that it has to happen, but a good use of government power.

00:02:11.020 Well, what I wanted to try and do was give some examples of how care for the most vulnerable and the most needy and the most helpless, namely children, has been leveraged in the U.S., and some of them are in England, to promote wicked and sinful ideologies.

00:02:31.880 So, for instance, there was, in May of 2024, that was just this year, there was a couple

00:02:40.280 in Vermont who had received a foster child into their home and had been caring for the

00:02:47.140 child for some time, and they had signed a parental rights pledge at a local elementary

00:02:54.620 school that basically was arguing that parents have the right to decide if their children

00:03:01.680 are going to take gender-changing hormones or whether or not the state can impose that

00:03:10.020 on parents and say, no, we're going to do it whether you want it to be done or not.

00:03:14.220 And so they had been in favor of parental rights.

00:03:16.600 They had signed this petition at this local elementary school, and shortly thereafter

00:03:20.220 they got a knock from the government caseworker.

00:03:24.620 And the government case worker said, I don't, I think we're going to have to revoke your foster care license.

00:03:32.200 Now, right there, alarm bells should be ringing because already the government is issuing licenses over who is going to be able to care for a foster care child.

00:03:46.140 And I was listening to an attorney named Robert Barnes, who was saying that the government often will prefer to go with a state approved state licensed family rather than a capable next of kin, because it provides them the ability to regulate, to follow up and to require that foster families line up with the ideology.

00:04:06.440 And in this case, the ideology was, if you do not take these retraining classes on LGBTQ acceptance training, and if you do not affirm that children have the right to identify however they want, you're going to lose your foster care license.

00:04:25.720 You're not going to be able to care for these poor, vulnerable children.

00:04:30.080 Now, the problem is that statistically, Christians are overwhelmingly the families who are willing to take in foster kids in these situations.

00:04:40.720 I mean, it's not even close.

00:04:42.240 It's Christians by a mile who are the ones who are volunteering to open up their homes when children need to be placed somewhere.

00:04:48.660 And so the state of Vermont, it also happened in the state of Connecticut and several other.

00:04:56.880 there was one in england just within the last six months um where more and more of these families

00:05:04.180 are being told because you do not agree to the lgbtq propaganda and religion you are not going

00:05:12.180 to be allowed to in some cases adopt and in some cases foster these children and all of this is on

00:05:18.960 heels, in 2023, the Biden administration proposed an executive order that said the rule was

00:05:29.440 proposed to establish an environment free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the

00:05:35.040 child's LGBTQIA plus status. This was under Title IV-E and Title IV-B. And it says under these two

00:05:42.960 titles, prospective foster parents will be required to undergo training, quote, to be prepared with

00:05:48.640 the appropriate knowledge and skills to provide for the needs of the child related to the child's

00:05:53.540 self-identified sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. And that was a

00:05:59.300 quote from the executive order. Here's the point. We're talking about statism today, which is,

00:06:06.400 in a nutshell, when a government of a nation takes for itself the privileges and responsibilities

00:06:14.760 that God has ordained to one of the other two spheres, or, so that's kind of horizontally,

00:06:19.860 the government is stealing from the family or from the church the duties and obligations

00:06:26.060 that God has given, or reaching upward and stealing from God the right to determine what

00:06:32.980 is good and evil, or determine what rights belong to the state.

00:06:38.000 And I think of that classic passage, and Joel, you turned me on to it years ago, when Jesus

00:06:42.460 says, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and render unto God that which is God's.

00:06:46.840 One of the things that is God's is the ability to determine what the duties are.

00:06:54.800 You know, when a parent leaves, when a mom leaves and say, I'm old enough that I have

00:06:59.560 kids that can stay home, right?

00:07:00.960 They don't, we don't take our kids everywhere.

00:07:02.760 They're 16, you know, 17, et cetera.

00:07:05.560 But when we leave, we might say, son, you do this, and daughter, you do this.

00:07:12.460 And that's it.

00:07:13.120 And if we leave, and my daughter or my son then says, no, no, no, no, I'm going to make

00:07:17.460 a different plan, right?

00:07:18.860 I now am taking from mom and dad the right to determine who does what while they're gone.

00:07:24.820 Then that child is not stealing from the other person.

00:07:29.100 They're stealing the authority that is mine, right?

00:07:31.820 And so when the state either takes the role of the parents or the role of the church or

00:07:38.040 reaches upward and takes from God the privilege of assigning the duties, of making the rules,

00:07:44.100 and of determining what is right and wrong, then the state sets itself up as God. And that is what

00:07:50.980 statism is in a nutshell. It is the idea that the state becomes God. Right. The state becomes God.

00:07:58.260 If there's no God above the state, then the state is God. Correct. Yeah. So I wanted to start there

00:08:03.000 because that's an example where a lot of us would say, well, of course, the children need to be

00:08:06.580 cared for. But even at that level, in the society that we live in now, where supposedly it's for the

00:08:12.100 children, once you start hearing it, it doesn't go away, and it's frustrating. The children are

00:08:16.140 now invoked for everything. And I was guilty of it at one point, too, when we would raise money

00:08:20.580 for mission trips. You show a picture of an impoverished kid, right, of course, for the

00:08:25.060 children, for the children. But the children are always invoked when there's about to be a power

00:08:30.300 a money grab right and so even in the case where it truly is for the children it's an area this

00:08:37.520 this attorney that i was listening to robert barnes said these are his words not mine it's on

00:08:42.740 his youtube channel he said cps and that whole department is the most corrupt government

00:08:49.480 department that he's ever dealt with and he's done criminal prosecutions the whole nine yards

00:08:54.200 because he says they get to determine how you get to parent.

00:08:58.160 They tell parents who are at risk,

00:09:00.680 you have to do this, you have to do this,

00:09:02.200 you have to pay this, you have to agree to this,

00:09:03.840 all of these things, and it's a total power play.

00:09:06.680 And the state comes in and intrudes on the rights 0.97

00:09:09.340 of fathers and mothers.

00:09:12.300 And so even from the most seemingly innocent place

00:09:16.020 in the society that we live in,

00:09:18.520 the state establishes itself

00:09:20.780 as the one who gets to make the rules,

00:09:22.560 the one who gets to determine what a family can do what a church can do what christians are allowed

00:09:28.720 to do or not do and in that sense my goal with the episode today we're going to get into lots

00:09:33.880 of things today but i hope as we start the goal that i hope we see is that statism is an idolatry

00:09:40.020 because the state challenges the authority of god and steals the roles of the church and the family

00:09:47.300 and because it's an idolatry it's not just a political preference it's a theological issue

00:09:53.660 that christians need to be aware of and that we need to be willing to speak against so that's my

00:10:00.020 opening pitch any comments on that gentlemen someone made a great great comment 80s nostalgia

00:10:04.420 guy and he noted marriage as another example where the state got involved now the state because

00:10:09.740 well maybe not but because there are children involved i think the state has some level perhaps

00:10:13.780 and recognition. But think about the effect, the even tutoring effect, that as no fault divorce

00:10:19.200 became a thing, that at the state level it was said, you can divorce your spouse for no fault

00:10:24.900 whatsoever. There doesn't have to be adultery, there doesn't have to be any of these things.

00:10:28.360 You can divorce your spouse because they burnt the toast. So the state, from the highest level,

00:10:33.200 not the church, not the word of God that dictates what marriage and divorce is,

00:10:37.500 but the state came down in our country in the last 70 years and said, you can actually do this.

00:10:42.260 divorce is legitimate marriage is able to be broken this that or the other so just like you're

00:10:47.400 talking about foster care getting involved to a degree it should never have been and now how what

00:10:52.740 50 of marriages end in divorce because people were taught for 70 years when the state said

00:10:57.520 you can divorce them just uh give us the paperwork go ahead and file the thing pay us of course you

00:11:02.940 are 500 pay your attorney as well we'll let you go we don't care they were involved in something

00:11:07.400 they shouldn't have been involved in to that level in the first place.

00:11:10.840 Yeah, yeah.

00:11:12.300 So definitions are really, I think, Jesus said, out of the abundance of your heart, the

00:11:19.740 mouth speaks.

00:11:20.680 And I think, how do we know what is in the heart of a government or of a state?

00:11:26.140 Is it good or evil?

00:11:28.100 And I think that there is a similar maxim that needs to be coined, out of the abundance

00:11:31.940 of the government's, you know, righteousness or unrighteousness are the laws that it makes.

00:11:37.400 And so whenever we see laws that redefine good as evil, evil as good, or that seek to take on a role that God has not given to it, the state is trying to become God, right?

00:11:54.960 So think about even the idea of salvation, right, where we would say, even as Christian

00:12:03.220 nationalists, this is something that needs to be said, we are not trying to create a

00:12:07.560 utopia on earth.

00:12:09.640 We are trying to order society according to God's principles, and we believe that will

00:12:16.500 lead to blessing and flourishing, but it's because Christ will be king.

00:12:21.080 And the more and more and more that Christ is king, the more the blessings of Christ will be evident.

00:12:26.780 So we are not trying to create a political utopia.

00:12:30.560 That consequence is secondary to the fact that a nation would be more and more submitted to Christ.

00:12:37.920 But political utopia is an attempt to provide an alternate salvation, right?

00:12:43.360 Or the social justice movement, the Christianity, the social gospel.

00:12:46.820 Christianity is now a process of bringing equity and justice on the earth.

00:12:51.880 We are going to bring equity and justice to the earth.

00:12:55.060 And when that has happened, the Christian mission has been fulfilled.

00:12:58.720 This is an alternate plan of salvation that the state then says, we can bring this about for you.

00:13:05.520 Right.

00:13:06.060 For the record, the problem with the social justice, you know, or social gospel movement that we saw with Tim Keller and Russell Moore and these kinds of things, you know,

00:13:15.560 really kind of started rising 2012, 13, 14. You really started seeing it 2015 through 17. And then

00:13:22.500 boom, it was full blown, you know, with the woke wars of 2020 and those kinds of things and played

00:13:27.120 into COVID. And that's where, you know, Chang and some of these, you know, quacks started saying 0.99

00:13:31.280 that, you know, the vaccine for COVID is kind of like, you know, Christ's redemption and, you know, 0.94

00:13:35.680 all these blasphemous, ridiculous things. Well, the rise of the social gospel, at first, some of

00:13:41.000 the guys on the right, taking the correct biblical position, began to push back and combat it. But

00:13:47.680 with, I think at first, initially the wrong strategy. We combated it at one level, but I

00:13:52.760 think it's a two-prong approach that needed to happen. And by God's grace, that has fully

00:13:58.420 happened now in 2024. But the two-prong approach is this. One, initially, guys were pushing back

00:14:06.460 against the social justice warrior, social gospel movement by saying, well, this is a perversion of

00:14:13.820 the gospel. It's committing the Galatian heresy, which is adding works to the finished work of

00:14:20.380 grace, the work of the Spirit, right? If this work had begun by the Spirit, are you now trying to

00:14:25.480 perfect it or to finish it by works of the flesh? You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? 1.00

00:14:31.440 You know, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the gospel and the gospel 0.99

00:14:36.320 being a free grace, grace in total, total grace by grace alone through faith alone and

00:14:41.380 Christ alone and no mixture of works.

00:14:44.060 Works, good works, obedience to Jesus Christ come about as an evidence, as a confirmation

00:14:50.260 or a sign, the result of this free grace gospel, which is received by faith.

00:14:56.040 But it is not received by faith and works.

00:14:59.240 The grace is truly grace.

00:15:00.580 It's received by faith alone, and it results in works.

00:15:04.240 And so the first kind of, the first pronged approach in combating the social justice gospel

00:15:11.020 was saying it's not the gospel.

00:15:13.380 It is a gospel heresy.

00:15:15.460 It's the Galatian heresy to be specific.

00:15:18.000 It is mixing works and grace.

00:15:21.440 And I get that.

00:15:22.140 But then the problem is, is that that group continued and now finds themselves pushing back on guys who are actually, are actually faithful and saying, well, you guys are, are just, you're, you're just like the woke, except you're the woke, right?

00:15:43.580 Right.

00:15:43.720 you know uh you're just like the social justice warriors except you're the christian nationalist

00:15:49.080 warriors um and you're making the same mistake just in the other direction you know we had 1.00

00:15:54.820 you know you're you're the um the left arm or the right arm of the left is you know like stupid 0.99

00:16:01.480 phrases like that that only an atheist like james lindsey and you know his puppet michael fallon 0.99

00:16:06.200 could come up with but like that those kinds of phrases right there's there's the left you know

00:16:10.800 those guys who are communists. And then there's, you know, just the right, you know, the controlled

00:16:15.040 opposition, the right version of the left, which is post-millennials, it's Christendom guys,

00:16:21.480 it's Christian nationalist guys, it's the dissident right, the new right, whatever.

00:16:26.040 And to be honest, we kind of set them up for that trope. By what we did is we initially,

00:16:34.460 in 2017, 18, 19, 20, we agreed with them. We were team, you know, sovereign nations or team, you

00:16:41.780 know, we were lined up, you know, linking arms with these guys. And we were attacking the guys

00:16:46.160 on the left, the social justice warriors, the social gospel with only a one prong approach.

00:16:51.640 We're attacking it by saying, this is the Galatian heresy. This is a works-based righteousness.

00:16:57.360 You're mixing with the gospel. You're mixing works and grace. You're saying that, you know,

00:17:02.720 it's not enough to just believe in Jesus, but you have to do justice, right? The Malachi,

00:17:08.220 the verse from Malachi that they called it the great, you know, there's the great commission

00:17:14.320 to go and preach the gospel to all nations, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the

00:17:19.240 name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all I have commanded.

00:17:23.420 That's the great commission, Matthew 28. But then they kind of coined this phrase,

00:17:27.400 the great requirement. I don't know if you remember that from Malachi, that you are to love mercy,

00:17:32.500 Micah, thank you. Micah 6.8, to love mercy, do justice, or do justice, love mercy, and walk

00:17:39.380 humbly with your God. And that was the woke crowd, the guys on the left, the social gospel guys. And

00:17:45.020 they were saying, if you're not doing the great requirement, then you're not doing the gospel.

00:17:52.120 And that was a perversion because the gospel is not something to be done. It is something that

00:17:57.360 has already been done. The gospel is not marching orders for the church. The gospel is the

00:18:03.460 pronouncement of the marching orders that Christ already received from his Father and fulfilled

00:18:08.780 perfectly and completely. So, the gospel is a pronouncement of what's been done. It's not

00:18:14.660 an announcement of what needs to be done. And so, that was a correct way to combat it,

00:18:20.980 guys, the conservative crew, and saying, adding the great requirement and mixing the great

00:18:26.680 requirement with the Great Commission and with the gospel. This is the Galatian heresy. It's a

00:18:31.420 works-based righteousness. That's a problem. But the second prong that we neglected, this is the

00:18:38.220 whole point, the second prong that we neglected is we also should have said, well, wait a second.

00:18:43.220 We're saved by grace alone, free grace, and not a mixture of works. It really is all of grace to

00:18:48.360 be received by faith in Christ alone. But upon receiving this grace of salvation through faith

00:18:54.180 alone in Christ alone, we do good works. And the problem with the social gospel is not just that

00:19:01.200 it mixes works and grace, but even for the few guys on the left that distinguished the two that

00:19:06.880 knew better than to commit full-blown heresy, even the guys who distinguished the two and kept

00:19:12.980 gospel and works separate, grace and works separate, the problem was that the works that

00:19:18.780 they were insisting that the church should do were not good works they were evil it was it was not

00:19:26.800 biblical justice so those works like like well the great requirement micah 6 8 you should you

00:19:32.360 know love mercy and walk humbly or love mercy do justice and walk humbly with your god well the

00:19:37.220 problem with the woke is that they hate mercy right otherwise if if you love mercy then why 0.69

00:19:43.380 don't you be merciful with all the white colonizers and just let them let them be forgiven well no we 0.55

00:19:48.020 need that there's no love of mercy there there's a love of writing every single wrong right love 0.91

00:19:53.100 keeps no records of wrongs first corinthians 13 well no they they want to check every record and

00:19:57.620 go you know uh think about you know the 1619 project and when america really started and

00:20:03.080 and reparations for anybody who was oppressed even though you know you're black but actually

00:20:07.940 you didn't even you're from nigeria and your parents arrived here 40 years ago you've never 0.79

00:20:12.620 there's you were never a slave in america but you're going to get reparations because of your 0.97

00:20:17.020 skin pigment, history be damned. It wasn't good works. It was hating mercy. It wasn't doing 0.92

00:20:23.740 justice. It was doing injustice. Social justice is injustice. That's what it is. And then it was

00:20:30.400 never walking humbly with your God, but it was walking with complete arrogance and pride. And so

00:20:36.120 my point is this, that now you have a more mature conservative movement on the Christian right,

00:20:42.700 call it whatever you want, new Christendom, mere Christendom, Christian nationalism,

00:20:48.480 the new right, whatever you want to call it. There's a lot of different guys. Some are post

00:20:51.980 mill, some are all mill, some are pre-mill, historic pre-mill. There are different brands

00:20:57.540 and different stripes. But the point is what they have in common is they're saying grace and works

00:21:02.820 are separate. They are distinct. The gospel is not by works, but grace alone. But the person who

00:21:09.360 receives the gospel by grace through faith in christ is a new creation and will do good works

00:21:14.640 and then these good works it is justice it's just biblical justice not social justice which includes

00:21:22.460 not showing favoritism to the rich but also according to deuteronomy not showing favoritism

00:21:29.140 to the poor your eye shall not pity the poor so we don't just help someone simply because they're

00:21:35.380 poor we look and we hear a victim narrative we hear someone cry out victim i am oppressed

00:21:40.380 and we actually have two or three witnesses we actually weigh what's going on we ask for certain

00:21:46.440 evidence to be presented and we determine has a real injustice actually occurred because if not

00:21:51.760 then it's if an injustice has not already occurred then there's actually an injustice that is 0.72

00:21:58.120 occurring what is that injustice that is occurring bearing false witness a a liar a slanderer who is

00:22:05.320 showing up, playing the victim card, pretending to be oppressed, because really they're just a

00:22:11.000 neo-Marxist who wants to find some kind of class association, usually based on race or gender,

00:22:16.960 so that they can get a stuff grab from somebody else who worked hard to earn it. And so to embrace

00:22:24.560 that is not to do justice, but precisely the opposite, to do injustice. And so all this being

00:22:30.220 said my point is just against the social justice crowd um it's it was at first and i thank god for

00:22:38.400 some of the early guys god used them and some of them were able to mature and and grow in their

00:22:44.220 theology and then some of them just stayed right there because at the end of the day they don't

00:22:47.420 want a christian nation right they want the 1980s back um and part of it is because usually these

00:22:53.220 tend to be older guys and it's because they made a lot of money in the 1980s the 1980s were really

00:22:57.580 good for them you know um and and so they're like let's get the world back to where it was when 0.93

00:23:02.560 we were able to make you know dollars on the penny with workers in china and you know employ usury 0.84

00:23:08.760 and you know charge these kinds of interest rates as we're managing this head they're boomers right 0.97

00:23:14.280 boomers got a boom you know and and so they you know they they don't want a christian nation they

00:23:19.280 they want you know our uh principal pluralism uh our great democracy hashtag 1980s let's bring it

00:23:26.000 back so they don't like wokeness but they also don't like christian nationalism because that's

00:23:30.420 a little too christian if we do this uh then i would have to it doesn't mean that i'll be poor

00:23:35.440 but i'd have to work i i could still actually be successful make money but i have to work i

00:23:40.300 couldn't just rip people off i'd have to do it the honest way right exactly we couldn't just

00:23:43.920 rip people off that and then like the 1980s and i like ripping people off you know i've gotten

00:23:48.820 really good at that that's that's kind of my mo so uh that's a little too christian no thank you

00:23:53.380 please and thank you keep that for yourself so all that being said there were guys who joined

00:23:57.900 the crew because wokeness was taking away their cash it was eating at their bottom line because

00:24:02.920 they were they're white guys in their 50s white heterosexual christian men and wokeness was coming

00:24:07.700 in and saying you don't deserve your stuff right and we're going to destroy your business and so

00:24:11.420 they drew a line in the sand and they thought you know christianity will be the flag that we wave

00:24:15.820 and then we came back and it's like all right we're getting back to the 1980s that's great

00:24:19.740 And then the young buck said, 1980s doesn't really do it for me.

00:24:23.660 I kind of like King Alfred.

00:24:24.800 Let's go back there.

00:24:25.720 Let's keep going.

00:24:26.300 You know, and then all of a sudden we become, you know, they're just the right arm of the

00:24:29.980 left, which really is just another way of saying those guys are actually Christian. 0.69

00:24:34.700 We wanted the pseudo Christian version where we could rip people off and make a lot of

00:24:38.860 money. 1.00

00:24:39.380 So that's kind of where we're at today.

00:24:40.960 Yeah.

00:24:41.620 Yeah.

00:24:42.380 Good.

00:24:42.640 Well, I think we'll hit our first commercial break and then we'll come back and unpack

00:24:45.700 a little bit more statism and also some things that conservative Christians should not be afraid

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00:27:03.940 All right, welcome back.

00:27:05.460 So we're going to talk a little bit about what statism is,

00:27:08.640 And then we're going to talk about how we got here a little bit.

00:27:12.080 So let me read this definition here.

00:27:17.200 So statism is when the state becomes society.

00:27:23.320 Okay, so if we think about a nation, the state means the government.

00:27:28.880 It's supposed to be a tool used to keep society functioning in justice.

00:27:34.800 Not in justice, with justice.

00:27:37.540 So in statism, that gets reversed, and society becomes the tool for the state.

00:27:42.860 So that's what he's saying here.

00:27:43.640 The social order is indeed an appendage of the political establishment.

00:27:47.520 And here's how he describes it.

00:27:48.740 The social order, society, comes to depend on the state for sustenance, health, education, communications, and all things coming under the head of the pursuit of happiness.

00:28:00.840 So when the state or the government becomes the way, the means that a society achieves or is provided for, provided for its health, its education, its communications, and everything else that men pursue, work, jobs, all of it, food, when the state is the one providing for those things, it has become a total state.

00:28:24.820 It has become God.

00:28:26.920 And we think about, like, Acts 17 talks about in God, we live and move and have our being.

00:28:33.240 But the state wants to be the provider.

00:28:35.720 It wants to be the insurer.

00:28:37.400 It wants to be the one who guarantees.

00:28:39.500 And this is exactly what Caesar did.

00:28:41.700 He set himself up as the salvation of mankind.

00:28:46.500 And he promised, I will be the one to ensure the rain and the sun and peace and prosperity.

00:28:53.440 Right?

00:28:53.600 And we look back then and we say, well, yeah, there's obviously statism.

00:28:56.780 But we have the same exact thing now where the government says, give us your money, give us your belief system.

00:29:03.160 We will make sure there's peace, comfort, entertainment, food, jobs, health care, all of those things.

00:29:09.860 We'll change the weather.

00:29:11.320 We will literally change the weather for you.

00:29:14.060 We'll eradicate, you know, you know, colds that are, you know, just absolutely, you know, we'll make sure that no one has a sniffly nose.

00:29:24.460 That's right.

00:29:24.920 Now you will get myocarditis and, you know, 30-year-old, perfectly healthy young males will drop dead, but you're welcome. 0.85

00:29:32.440 Yeah.

00:29:32.680 So the point is, God has given, society is like a three-lane highway, right?

00:29:42.220 And God has said to the state, you stay in this lane, to the family, you stay in this lane, to the church, you stay in this lane.

00:29:47.580 And God did not give any of those things.

00:29:49.320 This is a shocking thing to a lot of people, although they listen to this podcast, so they probably already agree.

00:29:54.400 But God did not give the state, the government, the responsibility of providing food for children or health care or education for children.

00:30:02.560 And when the state comes in and tries to do that, it's taking the role that God gave to the family.

00:30:08.600 And that leads to a common objection, Joel, that you wanted to tackle, because the inclination is to say, well, the state is huge because in some ways it was given these things, right?

00:30:21.660 Not that it came in and took them, but there were gaps.

00:30:25.580 There were people, there were responsibilities and duties falling through the cracks.

00:30:29.080 And so the state had to drive all over the freeway to pick up the slack for this.

00:30:33.820 And a lot of Christians, in particular, put the blame on the church.

00:30:37.240 They say, well, the church stopped providing health care and food and education, and so obviously it's going to be the state.

00:30:45.100 And so you're going to pick it up from there, Joel.

00:30:46.880 Yeah, so that's just a misunderstanding.

00:30:52.720 Don't get me wrong.

00:30:53.860 The church certainly has plenty to repent of.

00:30:56.500 The church certainly has failed for decades and decades and really centuries.

00:31:01.540 But the church particularly here in America has failed immensely over the last few decades.

00:31:06.660 But if we're talking about the ministry of welfare, the role of, you know, making physical, practical provision, whether it be shelter, food, clothing, these kinds of things, and especially for those most vulnerable in society, in biblical terms, that would be, you know, predominantly widows and orphans, and the elderly would kind of be, you know, that would be included there with widows.

00:31:29.000 The destitute elderly.

00:31:29.720 Yeah, exactly, the destitute elderly. And so if we think about the ministry of welfare making

00:31:35.300 practical physical provision for those in need, the reality is that biblically speaking, 1 Timothy

00:31:43.120 5 is one of the key texts for this, but also multiple Old Testament texts in the Pentateuch.

00:31:47.980 But 1 Timothy 5 is a great New Testament passage that, you know, Paul, the whole thing that he

00:31:53.660 says about, you know, in the case of widows and the care for widows is he gives certain guidelines

00:31:58.520 And notice this. First, he deals with, and he's talking about guidelines for admitting a widow

00:32:04.300 into the church's care. If the church is going to take that widow on the payroll, essentially,

00:32:11.880 and cover her rent and her grocery bills and her healthcare and cover all of her basic physical 0.90

00:32:18.300 needs, there's strict criteria for that. The first category is faithfulness. Faithfulness is,

00:32:26.100 you know and he runs through all these things uh is she uh did she wash the the feet of the saints

00:32:30.900 um does does she have children um you know was she married to one man so uh not oh well i'm a

00:32:38.260 widow i don't have a husband like you know like the the woman uh at the well you know the samaritan

00:32:43.720 woman at the well in john chapter four and jesus says well you're right to say that you don't have

00:32:47.180 a husband you've had five husbands and the man you are now with is not your husband so paul is

00:32:52.040 very specific a harlot does not qualify it would have to be a woman who has been with one man

00:32:57.260 one husband and who is faithful to that man not an adulterer but faithful to that man in marriage

00:33:01.960 the man has now died she's older in age and he sets out this criteria he says if she's younger

00:33:08.540 so there's a practical a spiritual criteria of faithfulness and then a practical criteria of

00:33:14.560 how needy is she? So on the spiritual side, was she faithful in marriage and not an adulterer?

00:33:22.740 There's their fidelity. She was married to one man. And then also, has she washed the feet of

00:33:26.900 the saints? Is she a good Christian? Is she a virtuous woman? And also, has she raised up

00:33:33.120 children? AKA, just to put it in plain terms, feminists need not apply. She's a lover of 1.00

00:33:41.520 children. She had children and loved her children. She loved her husband and stayed with him.

00:33:46.660 And the fact of the matter is simply that her husband is now dead. And what's kind of baked

00:33:51.300 into the pie there is the assumption, and Paul gets to this explicitly in the same text,

00:33:55.980 the assumption that not only has her husband died, but she also has no children that could

00:34:00.480 care for her needs. Her children have also died or are sick in such a way that they're incapable

00:34:06.980 of helping or they've been imprisoned so something has happened to her entire family and so she is

00:34:13.020 truly destitute so there's a faithfulness criteria in the spiritual category she washes the feet of

00:34:18.640 the saints she's a good christian woman she had one husband was faithful to him she's a um a faithful 0.60

00:34:24.180 woman who has fidelity and she's a lover of children aka she's not a feminist she doesn't

00:34:29.640 have blue hair then on the physical side and this kind of overlaps a little bit but one is that she 1.00

00:34:35.800 is too old to remarry. She must be 65 years of age, the apostle says, or higher. And so if she's

00:34:44.160 younger, Paul says, he doesn't command because he can't command it. The scripture does allow for

00:34:51.740 singleness, but he urges with apostolic weight, not the authority of definitive command, but the

00:34:59.260 authority of strong counsel. And he says, I urge younger widows to get remarried, to not make a

00:35:06.180 vow of celibacy, because then what he's getting at is they'll be led astray and led astray into

00:35:14.520 marriage. Well, marriage is a good thing. How can that, she just changed her mind. What Paul's

00:35:18.100 probably getting at by way of implication and reading the text, what he's probably, what's

00:35:22.680 probably implied here and included implicitly is he's saying younger women should not make a vow

00:35:28.860 to remain single, but rather they should be content in their singleness as they are open

00:35:34.280 and looking to be remarried. So she's got to be 65 years old or older. That's a physical 0.51

00:35:41.980 characteristic. So she's elderly and destitute, and she has no family members who could care. 1.00

00:35:47.420 And here's the Apostle Paul. He goes even one step further. This is the first century that is

00:35:53.840 already poor i thought they were all communists no this is the jerusalem church no uh this is

00:35:59.880 the first century that's incredibly poor by by many of our modern western standards today

00:36:05.080 and paul um and incredibly patriarchal god bless them um and the apostle paul says that even if

00:36:12.300 the woman has a daughter uh who is able to help provide for her mother's needs that even the

00:36:19.000 daughter should do that before what? All this, everything that I've listed so far, it's all

00:36:24.520 towards one end. And what is the end? That the church not be burdened. That the financial burden

00:36:31.620 of caring for this destitute individual, an elderly widow, should not fall on the church

00:36:38.120 if what? What's the common denominator? If there is anyone at all in the sphere of the family

00:36:45.340 They can meet this physical need first because the moral obligation under God, in terms of sphere sovereignty, the moral obligation for physical welfare falls squarely, first and foremost, on the family, the household.

00:37:02.320 And only if there is no viable family member to meet these needs, there is no husband, there is no sons, there are no brothers, there's no uncle, there's no daughter, there's none of this.

00:37:15.300 and she's 65 years old or older she can't work with her hands she's got arthritis she can't

00:37:21.200 remarry because she she's she's not fertile she's at the very end of her life she's not appealing 0.93

00:37:26.080 to young men looking to marry all those kinds of and here's the thing uh if there's all that

00:37:31.360 but she's uh not a christian she's not a believer and you know and she doesn't have children because

00:37:36.980 she never conceived children because she had disdain for marriage right and uh then guess

00:37:42.020 what? You starve. You starve. That's what? Because the church will not be burdened by the wicked.

00:37:50.200 However, if she meets all these qualifications and she washed the feet of the saints,

00:37:55.800 she loved the house of God, she was a faithful Christian, all these things being met,

00:38:00.700 if they're all met, then and only then is she added to the church's financial burden. But here's

00:38:07.700 the deal. Not with a food drive, canned food, not with a Chili's gift card. She is added on in the

00:38:16.140 same way that the staff of that church, the pastors and elders, every single one of her physical needs

00:38:21.800 is going to be met. So she's not getting a $50 gift card a month. She's getting, in today's terms,

00:38:27.900 she's getting thousands of dollars a month. She is getting a livable wage, except it's not a wage,

00:38:33.080 It's coming in the form of charity, and yet it's good and right.

00:38:36.020 And there is a sense in which it is charity, but there is a sense in which it is also a

00:38:40.700 wage because it is giving a return.

00:38:43.480 That's what Paul also says in the same text, 1 Timothy 5.

00:38:46.740 He says that if she did have children, the children should care for her needs because

00:38:51.120 children should learn to give some return to their parents, which is good and pleasing

00:38:55.760 in the sight of God.

00:38:56.900 The parents cared for them when they were young, and the parents should care and be

00:39:01.280 responsible in such a way that when they're old, they don't need their children's help,

00:39:04.660 but rather can give an inheritance, not only to their children, but their children's children.

00:39:09.220 However, if the parents, not because of fault of their own, but the parents fall on hard times

00:39:13.880 and find themselves to be destitute, especially in the case of a husband dying an untimely death,

00:39:20.400 and there being a widow left in the wake of that tragedy, then the children should give some

00:39:25.500 return, which means that it is charity. It is a gift, and yet it's a return. There is a

00:39:31.220 sense in which also it is deserved. It's been earned by a mom who was for decades faithful and

00:39:37.920 loving and sacrificial and raised those children. And so too, at the church level, if there are no

00:39:43.560 children, there's no uncle, there's no brother, there's no this, there's no that, there's no

00:39:46.840 daughters, there's no sons, nobody is able to care for her needs. And she was a saint,

00:39:52.040 a saint, a member of good standing in the local church. Then the church will give some return.

00:39:57.320 even that it's charity it's a gift it's generosity but even that in a sense is a wage it's a return

00:40:04.560 for what she has in a real sense earned by being a faithful follower of christ and lover of his

00:40:11.260 bride over the course of decades now where does the third sphere that's the church and the family 0.99

00:40:17.160 where's the third sphere of the state come in when it comes to meeting the needs of widows and

00:40:22.540 orphans great question it doesn't yes it doesn't ever because when it does come in do you know

00:40:29.340 what happens oh well the church the reason why the state does welfare and all these things and

00:40:33.900 take so much of our taxes and blah blah is because the church failed no it's because daddy's failed

00:40:38.740 yes it's because fathers failed and here's here's the worst part about it right so if the last thing

00:40:45.120 i'll say a chicken or egg scenario well what came first did the state start taking the rights and

00:40:52.380 also with that simultaneously taking upon itself the responsibilities rights and responsibilities

00:40:58.240 of familial fathers and then fathers therefore loosened up yes or was it the other way around

00:41:06.760 did fathers loosen up in their duties to provide for their own households in such a way that the

00:41:12.840 state was all too happy to step in the answer is yes right so so the answer is what came first did

00:41:19.200 the did the state encroach on the household and then the fathers became apathetic or did

00:41:26.340 fathers become apathetic and then the state encroached on the household and the answer

00:41:30.860 of course is yes it's both but here here's the the last thing that this hurts

00:41:35.920 with all these things um if america were to repent um it is going to be painful yeah and

00:41:47.480 part of the reason we're in the mess that we're in is because uh a lot of people don't even see

00:41:52.800 it and then the few that do see how high this cost really is because repentance has a cost

00:41:58.700 it's costly and and for those who see the cost a lot of them realize like no way we can't repent

00:42:04.540 it's too costly now of course the reality is that's wrong the reality is that sin is always

00:42:12.180 in the long term more costly than repentance repentance cost dearly in the moment but then

00:42:18.560 bears the fruit of righteousness sin is pleasurable hebrews says in the moment but then bears long-term

00:42:24.920 fruit of of destruction and so sin long-term you never want to go long on sin sin long-term

00:42:33.040 is is always more costly than repentance but in the short term in the short term repentance often

00:42:40.120 in temporal ways in tangible physical ways repentance is initially more costly than sin

00:42:48.480 but long term sin always far more costly than repentance now what what i mean by this okay um

00:42:55.720 if our nation is going to change i'm just going to be real frank here um mass deportations right

00:43:02.340 mass deportations it's gonna hurt um people that you love family members you know people that

00:43:11.660 you have to go back yeah we're sorry you have to go back um millions will have to go back

00:43:18.180 um that's tough uh here's another one that'll hurt uh jobs have to come back no more uh no more 0.97

00:43:27.500 paying a dime for a job that should cost a dollar because we're outsourcing it to some third world

00:43:33.580 country um that's going to hurt corporations initially some of them will be crushed um

00:43:40.640 no more usury right no more 18 interest rates that is at first going to cause economic upheaval

00:43:49.080 before things get better right jews hardest hit no no usury all right that one that's going to 0.86

00:43:54.280 an 18 year old can't buy things from forever 21 on credit you would be so tyrannical to take that 0.97

00:44:00.880 off the table here here's another one homosexuality right there need to be legal sanctions and 0.70

00:44:06.400 penalties like uganda i would argue that for extreme cases ordinarily involving things such 0.66

00:44:13.220 as incest or rape or pedophilia i repeat myself that's just homosexuality um those kinds of

00:44:21.640 extreme cases when there are two to three witnesses and sufficient evidence and a fair trial 0.58

00:44:26.820 they would merit capital punishment in lesser instances it would not necessarily merit the

00:44:34.560 death penalty but there would still have to be sanctions and legal penalties that's gonna hurt

00:44:40.940 at first here's another one you're gonna have to ban birth control right you're gonna have to ban

00:44:46.660 anything that aborts a fetus. You're going to have to ban the morning after pill. And you're

00:44:54.040 going to have all these babies all of a sudden with teenage moms. 1.00

00:44:57.960 On a shotgun at weddings. 1.00

00:44:59.160 And that's going to hurt. Here's another one. This is the last one, getting back to welfare.

00:45:03.940 Yes.

00:45:05.440 People will have to starve. There will be children and women that starve. And the church, 1.00

00:45:13.360 is best it can will step in for the righteous for those who are believers um and here's the thing

00:45:21.200 to add on to everything that i said earlier that's the criteria all that stuff from first

00:45:26.360 timothy five that's the criteria for adding a widow onto the roster of being physically

00:45:31.140 financially cared for by the church however to cross reference and pair that principle

00:45:36.640 with a larger 30 000 foot view principle found in galatians i believe it's chapter five the end or

00:45:42.860 the beginning of chapter 6 the apostle paul says so often as you have opportunity do good to all

00:45:49.620 but especially the household of faith so that that last clause that is prioritize the household

00:45:55.100 of faith you do not do good for the unbeliever at the cost of the righteous that is a wicked

00:46:00.520 unbiblical principle you do not do good for the enemy at the cost of your friend you don't do that 0.53

00:46:08.280 So 1 Timothy 5, see point A, you do that first, there is a clear criteria for who gets help

00:46:14.080 first.

00:46:15.400 And then if the church in its coffers has more resources to give that to the extent

00:46:23.000 that it would not then penalize and hurt the righteous, then the church actually could.

00:46:29.040 If all the righteous widows have been cared for, then beyond that, the church could take

00:46:33.000 on some secular widows some widows with blue hair but at least by god's grace they feel some 0.96

00:46:39.500 some regret now right it's like i never had kids i was stupid i bought into feminism please help me 0.92

00:46:45.640 all right well we've cared for all the the older women who were not like you who washed the feet 0.95

00:46:50.780 of the saints all these women who are better than you they got cared for first but we have some

00:46:56.620 left over, and if all the ants can eat, then okay, the grasshopper can come in too, okay? And because 1.00

00:47:03.080 repentance is a real category, certainly that person is welcome to the Lord's table, meaning

00:47:07.880 communion, the Lord's supper, the church, and fellowship with the church. They're not necessarily

00:47:12.300 welcome to the church's coffers, to the tithes of the righteous. But if we have more to spare,

00:47:20.520 then yes, we welcome them in. But after the church has done all that it can, the reality

00:47:25.620 remains that there will still be lots of impoverished widows and orphans who who don't

00:47:31.980 get cared for that and but here's the deal there are very few things more motivating that's for a

00:47:40.380 man that's right even a wicked man here's the beauty what does jesus say i believe it's in the

00:47:45.760 sermon on the mount he says if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your kids

00:47:51.980 and what are the good gifts? If your son asks for a loaf of bread, who would give him a stone? Or

00:47:57.540 if he asks for a fish, who would give him a scorpion or a serpent? If you then, being evil,

00:48:03.720 know how to give good gifts to your kids, how much more will your Father in heaven give the

00:48:08.500 Holy Spirit to those who ask? And so the point there that I'm making is this. Jesus is speaking

00:48:13.940 to a crowd of people. Some are his disciples, some are not. And yet Jesus in a blanket address

00:48:20.340 is is calling all of them at least in a general total depravity sense evil and he's saying just

00:48:26.540 the reality of nature right the law of nature natural law baked into the pie even with in a

00:48:35.460 prelapsarian world even with total depravity even with sin residing within the members of our flesh 0.74

00:48:41.680 even the unbeliever who's unregenerate who doesn't have the holy spirit dwelling within them 0.92

00:48:45.680 simply the law of nature and being made in the image of god and that vestige of the image of god

00:48:50.920 still being it's been tarnished but it has not been utterly destroyed it's still uh it's still

00:48:56.000 intact a wicked evil man when he sees his own posterity his flesh and blood starving yep by

00:49:05.080 golly um that guy who never would get a job all of a sudden uh that guy's driving a ups truck he's

00:49:12.580 doing whatever he has to do because his babies aren't going to starve but what does a man do

00:49:18.140 if the state steps in and says you know what um provision is hard you know it's really hard

00:49:25.380 and so uh don't worry about it if you go and decide to become a criminal and try to steal

00:49:32.080 uh worst case scenario you get caught you get thrown in jail the rest of your life and you're

00:49:39.100 unable to make an income, guess what? I promise that your old lady, your baby mama, and all your

00:49:47.520 kids that you've had with seven different women, not a single one of them will miss you. In fact,

00:49:53.000 it might even be better if you're gone. We'll make sure of that. And so then what does that say to

00:49:57.860 the young man? And sadly, statistically, let's be honest, the young black man, what does it say to

00:50:03.680 it says crime is on the table yeah crime's on the table and so my point is all this is to say 0.99

00:50:10.300 if we keep going the direction we're going um that cost is by far exponentially the highest cost

00:50:16.340 that's brought the devastation that we that we've experienced thus far and we haven't even gotten

00:50:21.400 close to how bad it could be so that so the most costly scenario is that we continue on the path

00:50:26.960 of sin. That is by far exponentially more costly long-term. But initially, in the immediate sense,

00:50:35.260 the most costly scenario is repentance. Repentance will make it get better to where

00:50:41.060 not only is it not costly, but we're actually receiving dividends, dividends in the long-term.

00:50:47.660 But initially, the cost is high because that cost, what it means is mass deportations,

00:50:52.900 no more usury, economic upheaval, women and children in some cases, sadly, God forbid,

00:51:01.680 even starving, the church being stretched as thin financially as it possibly can.

00:51:11.180 All those things would happen in the short run. But 100 years from now, and really even just 20

00:51:16.740 years, 30 years, 50 years, you would see an America like you've only dreamed about. 0.99

00:51:22.900 And that, ladies and gentlemen, is called Christian nationalism, the big, scary Christian 1.00

00:51:27.200 nationalism. 1.00

00:51:28.180 And we should go back there.

00:51:29.360 All right, let's go to our last commercial for the day, and then we'll come back with

00:51:32.900 a few more thoughts.

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00:53:16.760 Also, see the show notes below.

00:53:19.220 The danger of centralized power is often represented by the word king.

00:53:23.960 As Americans, we hate the word king.

00:53:27.560 Civilian ownership of body armor is about helping people to have increased power to resist tyrants and criminals.

00:53:36.100 And so Armored Republic is about helping you to preserve your God-given rights to the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ,

00:53:42.540 because he is the king of kings,

00:53:44.660 and he governs kings, and he will judge them.

00:53:48.240 This is armored republic,

00:53:50.180 and in a republic, there is no king but Christ.

00:53:54.200 We are free craftsmen,

00:53:56.040 and we are honored to be your armor spread of choice.

00:54:12.540 All right. Welcome back. Time to land this Boeing 747 one way or another here.

00:54:19.240 I'm going to answer a question from the comments. I'm going to answer another question. I'm going

00:54:22.520 to give it to you, Michael, to answer the question. So a gentleman named Ryan Gallimere

00:54:26.900 raised a number of objections, basically asking a couple questions. And one of the notes he said is

00:54:31.400 basically, aren't you all Baptist? And don't you know that Baptist history would preclude the types 0.84

00:54:36.280 of things that you're talking about? So, Joel, we talked about religion. We talked about enforcement

00:54:41.040 of morality aren't baptists supposed to fight for and believe in religious liberty there's different

00:54:48.280 types of religious liberty the religious liberty in the context the 1700s the 1800s the london

00:54:53.880 baptists i think of nehemiah cox jeremiah ball some of these other guys the religious liberty

00:54:58.640 that isn't thought there among this european protestant these european protestant nations

00:55:03.660 is not the religious liberty that some people get to be islamic and some people get to be jewish and

00:55:08.080 some people get to be Buddhist. The religious liberty in view there is a state religion,

00:55:12.740 an official church or denomination of the state that then punishes expressions of Christian faith

00:55:18.960 that differ from it. So the Presbyterians, for example, drowning the Baptists because they don't

00:55:24.240 baptize their children. What's in view for all of these guys, again, is not, we want to see Main 0.91

00:55:29.200 Street have a Baptist church, a Presbyterian church, and then a mosque, and then a synagogue.

00:55:34.800 That's not at all in view whatsoever. 0.72

00:55:37.740 Religious liberty is underneath the banner of the Christian religion, free expression of the conscience to worship in the way that is most right to you, under the banner of being Christian. 0.65

00:55:50.180 The first word of the First Amendment is Congress.

00:55:53.060 The idea is that at a federal level, there will be no state church, no national church.

00:55:58.080 So the United States of America, all 50 states at the federal national level, will not have an official state-sanctioned church.

00:56:08.380 The United States is officially Anglican, Episcopalian, or Baptist. 0.93

00:56:13.680 Because if that were the case, that at the national level, it's Anglican, and then Texas at the state level is Baptist, then that's good reason for war. 0.86

00:56:24.040 To have at the national level that the national bird is the bald eagle and the Texas state bird is the mockingbird, you don't fight wars over that, right? 0.97

00:56:34.900 So you're not going to say, oh, you know, mockingbird versus eagle, let's go to war and let's have 650,000 people die.

00:56:42.320 That's just not a big deal.

00:56:44.580 But freedom of worship is, and lives would be lost very possibly.

00:56:50.300 That would set the conditions, make them ripe for heating up a civil war between states and Washington.

00:56:57.880 And it would violate something that God has given to a human, which is the right of conscience.

00:57:04.540 Right.

00:57:04.840 Right.

00:57:05.040 And so the state is...

00:57:06.680 But the right of conscience within secondary and tertiary matters, not the right of conscience for full-blown idolatry, not the right of conscience for paganism or Moloch worship.

00:57:17.480 But we're not doing forced conversions.

00:57:19.700 Right.

00:57:19.800 we're not saying you must be a christian we would say you have the right to in your heart believe

00:57:25.820 certain things you're just not going to blaspheme god and you're not going to promote this false

00:57:29.660 religion in the public square right exactly so so the point is number one the first word of the

00:57:33.600 first amendment congress so at the national level um washington was not that's what the founders

00:57:39.440 were concerned about uh just because england had a state church and that's part of what they were

00:57:43.880 fleeing and so they're saying there's not but but 10 i believe it was nine or 10 out of the first

00:57:48.820 original 13 colonies had state churches but they didn't want a federal one and they didn't want

00:57:55.000 congress to be able to do it so that's the first amendment that's see see when you read this uh

00:58:00.240 you you have post-war consensus brain aka mush brain or no brain and so when you read this um

00:58:07.740 it's you're like well they wanted to carve out you know liberty for principled pluralism so that

00:58:12.540 you could have atheists and you can have satanic monuments you know in a state capital in iowa 0.89

00:58:17.540 And so that you can have, you know, butt sex displays, you know, in the month of June at Pride Parades, you know, for children and drag queen story hour that the founders were thinking about that. 0.98

00:58:27.640 No, the founders weren't gay. 0.98

00:58:29.540 Praise God. 0.99

00:58:30.240 You know, and so no, they weren't thinking about the freedom of butt sex. 0.96

00:58:33.980 That was not their biggest concern. 0.89

00:58:35.940 What the founders were thinking about is we're leaving England, not because England is Christian and we're pagan and don't want to worship Jesus.

00:58:43.340 But because England, the king at the national level, is getting into the minutia and wrongfully binding the conscience, and the state is exercising authority over local churches in such a way that it is binding the consciences of men in tertiary and secondary matters.

00:59:00.940 So they came to set up a distinctly not secular, but a distinctly Christian nation, but with religious freedom within those Protestant Christian bounds, a pan-Protestant nation.

00:59:14.060 So Congress at the federal level cannot set up a national church. 0.89

00:59:17.980 colonies were setting up state churches, and none of it was to carve out room for Judaism

00:59:25.380 or Islam or Buddhism or any other kind of heresy or sect, but it was to carve out religious freedom

00:59:33.960 for different consciences within the Christian Orthodox boundaries to worship God freely without

00:59:40.940 persecution from the state. That's the point. Yeah. That gets into the second comment from

00:59:45.380 him that I wanted to address. And there's a little bit, it can almost seem like a contradiction on

00:59:49.140 the face, so I'll address it if you're thinking it as I speak through it. We'll get to it. So Ryan

00:59:54.040 asked, well, would you, before, would you gentlemen advocate for enforcement of the first table of the

00:59:59.780 law? So you have the Ten Commandments, you have the laws that pertain to right worship of God.

01:00:04.540 You shall not have any other gods before you. You shall not make images, take the Lord's name in

01:00:08.760 vain, and violate the Sabbath day. So we call that the first table of the law. It deals with how man

01:00:14.000 relates to God. The next six commandments deals with how man relates to his fellow man. Thou shalt

01:00:19.980 not steal, thou shalt not murder, commit adultery. Those are man to man. So first table, God and man.

01:00:25.080 Second table, man and man. And so we, even right now, even as bad as things are, we still have,

01:00:30.300 generally speaking, enforcement of the second table of law. Murder and theft are criminalized,

01:00:35.720 they're punished at some level, so we have that. And so his question is, okay, I can see that and

01:00:40.360 maybe even conceive a christian nation that would get strict on these things and really

01:00:44.760 right into law you cannot do these things thinking about like homosexuality that would fall under 0.87

01:00:50.460 thou shalt not commit adultery because the positive command it's not just don't do this thing

01:00:55.100 it's don't do this thing and hold the marriage of one man and one woman in high esteem so that would

01:01:00.880 for example homosexuality would be a violation of that commandment so not only and we're saying 0.82

01:01:06.300 it would not only be a sin but also a crime yes it would be a sin it would be a crime and that's 0.88

01:01:10.340 a sliding scale it's not just like well you know 16 year old boy um brushes the hand of another

01:01:16.920 16 year old boy on a on a youth camping trip and uh and you know blushes and has a crush on him

01:01:24.680 and you know we're going to take him to the gallows right yep that's not that's not what

01:01:28.400 we're saying but but you get to some of these extreme uh expressions that degrade all of society 0.68

01:01:35.520 especially coming after children right drag queen story hour these kind of things or pride parade

01:01:41.680 these kinds of public express expressions of degeneracy uh where the guy's not wearing pants

01:01:48.200 in san francisco uh you know naked or or very close to it exposing themselves in front of children 0.51

01:01:54.900 slapping each other's private parts um yes and those cases yep off with your head fair trial 0.64

01:02:01.340 and then deaf yep and then so ryan i'll read his comment just to really make sure i'm addressing

01:02:08.080 his point he said i specifically asked about the state we're talking about statism enforcing the

01:02:13.080 first four commandments of the decalogue to which we say yes at a public level we're not talking

01:02:19.460 about in your home uh looking through your kindle and making sure on sunday you were reading

01:02:23.760 weren't reading anything else besides the bible right but at a public level true false worship

01:02:29.060 of other gods not tolerated uh the making as reformed we would say the making of images

01:02:35.000 of christ or god the father again not allowed in the public square the sabbath blue laws we had

01:02:41.400 these in our nation they were here for hundreds of years we have blasphemy laws sabbath all of

01:02:46.240 those things so and the dichotomy is you think oh my goodness how could you be so tyrannical and how

01:02:52.500 could you talk about statism and then turn around and say well we would outlaw false worship we 0.60

01:02:57.160 would islam is on that list judaism is on that list you would outlaw these things you would

01:03:01.500 outlaw uh activity economic activity on the sabbath you would outlaw blasphemy so you're 0.62

01:03:07.160 talking about the idol of statism but then over here you would want a state that would actually

01:03:10.920 enforce those things michael i'll give it to you the answer is simple this isn't hard you have to

01:03:15.400 sit down think about it for two minutes and you realize what the answer is but say someone poses

01:03:19.680 that question to you wait isn't this aren't you christian nationalists you're talking about

01:03:23.200 idolatry of the state you're christians like you idolize it right you're christians and that is

01:03:27.720 i've been reliably taught uh beaten into my subconscious that christianity a christian

01:03:33.800 political theology is synonymous with libertarianism right tell me that tell me uh

01:03:41.100 you guys don't disagree with that do you michael statism is idolatry because the state

01:03:47.780 takes on a role that is not what god has given to it right and that implies that there is a role

01:03:55.320 that god has given to the state a good and proper role and and this was is this is at the core

01:04:00.360 of the romans 13 discussion around covid when people were saying yeah you have to submit to

01:04:05.680 the ruler so well yes but the ruler has been commanded to punish what is evil and encourage

01:04:13.840 or reward what is good well who gets to determine what is evil and what is good god god gets to

01:04:20.660 determine that and not only that but this verse is so strong it calls the state the deacon of god

01:04:26.560 that means that god has this idea of a nation functioning even under the curse in the fall

01:04:32.200 at peak efficiency and productivity and what he does is he says to to keep the state that a nation

01:04:40.540 running well, I need a servant to enforce justice and to promote goodness. Aha! It's going to be

01:04:48.540 the government. The government has been given the right and duty to punish evil and promote what is

01:04:56.160 good. And so when we turn the question back on, well, what's good, what's evil, we have to find

01:05:01.760 ourselves in God's moral law and the principles of the law. And so for a state to uphold what is

01:05:07.460 good and punish evil when it comes to breaking the sabbath to blaspheming to public worship of

01:05:12.660 false gods or the true god yes it's not an idolatry because that is what god told the state to do

01:05:19.280 in fact to not do that is a form of idolatry right because the state is rejecting the rules

01:05:26.200 that god has given to it right so the solution as we seek a christian nation call it you know

01:05:30.940 mere Christendom or Christian nationalism or whatever you want to call it, revival.

01:05:36.380 But as we seek obedience to Christ in every sphere of life, not just in our homes privately,

01:05:43.380 not just in our churches corporately, but even in the state publicly, in the public square,

01:05:48.280 as we seek this in obedience to Christ and his law word, it's going to require that to accomplish

01:05:57.520 this in the realm of the state it's going to require something a little bit more thoughtful

01:06:03.300 than just saying the state has to be smaller now i do believe for the record i do believe

01:06:08.980 that our current bloated state would in the final analysis be much smaller yeah i really do um i

01:06:16.840 don't because i don't think you'd have nearly as many for one you get rid of uh even in companies

01:06:22.800 you know but but also in the state the equivalent of the hackling hens aka you know women who chose

01:06:30.000 not to have kids but still want to be mothers but in this case of adults we call them hr that's 1.00

01:06:36.400 right so you would get rid of all those types of roles in the state which that right there would 0.99

01:06:41.200 get rid of about half of the state all your h are you know school marms not moms but marms spelled 1.00

01:06:48.440 N-A-R-M-S. You know, so you get rid of the state-sanctioned longhouse, and that gets rid 0.63

01:06:55.900 of about half of your employees right there. We've already talked about welfare and these kinds of,

01:06:59.940 so there'd be a lot of different things, but there would be things that remain. A strong military

01:07:04.840 is right, biblical. You would have some kind of police force to enforce justice,

01:07:11.400 not just with the military abroad, but then also domestically here. But even in that,

01:07:16.400 here's part of the thing. You have to understand, Ryan, when it comes to the Ten Commandments,

01:07:22.180 what we're talking about is, again, you've got to think in theological categories. There's a

01:07:27.120 distinction. Now, there is overlap, but think not just one circle, but a Venn diagram, two circles

01:07:31.660 with a good bit of overlap, but not complete overlap. So, that's what we're talking about

01:07:36.680 with three circles as we talk about sphere sovereignty, the home, the state, the church.

01:07:40.000 Now, think about it with two circles, sins and crimes. Sins and crimes, it overlaps these two

01:07:45.480 circles. They're not completely distinct, but they're also not completely synonymous. There

01:07:50.380 are areas where a sin is a crime, and where a crime is a sin. But there are also certain cases

01:07:57.140 and examples that could be made where something is a sin, but it is not a crime. Or there is,

01:08:02.840 sadly, because we live in the fallen world, there is a category where there could be something that

01:08:07.220 is deemed by a wicked, unrighteous state as a crime, but it's actually not a sin. Like, for

01:08:13.820 instance the state made it a crime in 2020 to go to church yeah right but um but it was not a sin

01:08:21.780 if you disregarded the state as we did and went to church so we were not sinning as we committed

01:08:29.060 a crime i'm putting air quotes if you're listening on a podcast platform it was never truly a crime

01:08:34.760 but it was in the technical sense for for that time that window of time in 2020 it was deemed

01:08:40.580 by our government a crime to go to church and yet it certainly was not a sin to go to church

01:08:46.240 because we had a wicked state coming up with wicked legislation so with a fallen government

01:08:52.480 which we're always going to have is just to what degree the varying degrees of fallen governments

01:08:57.160 all know until christ returns you're going to have the state made up of people and people are

01:09:02.380 sinners and so you're going to have some kind of fallen government and so it stands in theory

01:09:06.700 that you will probably always have at least some examples of something that has been deemed by the

01:09:11.820 state to be a crime, but is not actually in the sight of God a sin. And you'll certainly have,

01:09:17.980 right, that's that category over there, you'll certainly have things, a host of things that are

01:09:23.160 sins, but are not crimes, or at least should not be crimes if you have a just righteous state.

01:09:30.420 For instance, back to the Decalogue, even within the Ten Commandments, the Tenth Commandment,

01:09:35.500 which is not the first table of the law, Ryan. It's actually the second table, not pertaining

01:09:40.360 to vertical love for, you know, love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. But this

01:09:45.660 is actually our horizontal love for our fellow neighbor. This is one of the commandments, namely

01:09:49.980 the 10th, thou shalt not covet. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods or his wife or his

01:09:55.380 house or his male servant or female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your

01:09:59.460 neighbor's. Now, here's the deal. We do not want, we are Christian nationalists. We want a Christian

01:10:04.820 nation. We do not want within the realm of the civil magistrate, the coveting police. So if you 1.00

01:10:11.260 ever watch, you know, think Tom Cruise and Minority Report, we do not believe it is a biblical

01:10:16.260 principle of over-policing. We think there should be swift, just punishments when a crime has

01:10:25.620 occurred and sufficient evidence has been brought forth to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, that's

01:10:32.140 a christian concept by the way innocent until proven guilty that's a christian concept you're

01:10:36.600 welcome unless it's been proven in a fair trial with witnesses and evidence once that's happened

01:10:42.920 we think there should be swift judgment swift fair judgment it should be proportional eye for eye

01:10:50.240 tooth for tooth life for life proportional it should actually bring judgment down on the head

01:10:57.160 of the guilty party and not the righteous. So the right person is getting the punishment. It's the

01:11:02.560 right degree, proportional punishment, and it's also swift punishment. It's not delayed justice.

01:11:08.980 When justice is delayed, the Old Testament says, then the people are invoked towards doing more

01:11:15.040 crime. They think that they can get away with it. So it's swift justice. So here's the deal. You've

01:11:19.880 got to have people in the state. These are state civil magistrate positions carrying the sword

01:11:25.080 that are able to carry out these things that's that's justices and judges and juries and lawyers

01:11:31.740 defense and and prosecutors and it's some police force and it's it's first responders it's all

01:11:38.660 these different things that is necessary but that's when a crime has been committed and it's

01:11:45.220 been proven what you don't have is the minority report tom cruise style um looking into the future

01:11:51.720 to try to predict a crime that might be committed, a.k.a. the coveting police.

01:11:57.240 Coveting is a sin.

01:11:58.880 Coveting is not a crime.

01:12:00.740 And one of the clearest distinctions, this is a little bit overly simplistic, but I think

01:12:05.620 it's generally true and helpful.

01:12:07.220 One of the clearest distinctions when begging the question, what's the difference between

01:12:12.740 a sin and a crime?

01:12:14.800 Sins are public and private.

01:12:17.660 you can sin privately not just publicly but also privately aka the realm of thought a lustful

01:12:24.600 thought think matthew chapter 5 the one who looks at a woman lustfully in his heart sin is at the

01:12:30.300 realm of the heart it can be private it can be something that you say it can be something that

01:12:35.140 you do but it could also even be something that you think greed is a sin but not necessarily a

01:12:41.300 crime unless it's acted upon to the extent of for instance murder or theft coveting is a sin

01:12:49.160 but it's not necessarily a crime unless that coveting see the book of james right why are

01:12:55.100 there factions and divisions among you is it not your desires even you covet and do not have

01:13:00.160 therefore you commit murder so how is coveting how would coveting be legislated by a christian

01:13:06.400 government? Well, the answer is simple. A coveting would be legislated against by a Christian

01:13:12.060 government the very moment that covetousness gives birth to theft or murder. This is not heart. 0.77

01:13:19.360 This is not heart. So, all that back to the first table of the law, commandments one through four,

01:13:25.460 C point A, how do you tell the difference between what is merely a sin and that which is a crime

01:13:31.560 that should actually be legislated against and enforced by the civil magistrate that which is

01:13:36.720 private versus that which is public so you don't have the coveting police you also don't have the 0.54

01:13:42.920 islamic police where you send in christian soldiers to raid homes that neighbors have 0.96

01:13:50.500 called a hotline about that they're suspicious that i think we got a muslim living catty corner 0.80

01:13:55.880 you know across the street and you know i i i don't know i think we might have i saw a funny 0.97

01:14:00.880 hat eats this ramadan season that's right i saw a funny hat the other day i think we might have a

01:14:05.500 jew over there we need to go in and round him up no that's not what we're talking about yeah but 0.88

01:14:10.020 that's different than like israel when it gets to the public level the the public square we are 0.96

01:14:17.580 going to set up um a public altar right to a false god an asherah pole or um or an altar high place

01:14:26.280 to molek or uh no you can't do that you can't do it in israel and you can't do it even in a 0.53

01:14:33.000 new testament christian country at least you shouldn't be able to now again that doesn't

01:14:38.200 round people up in their homes you can be a muslim and live here and in fact here's the irony i'll end 0.92

01:14:43.720 it with this you're better off being a muslim living in a truly christian nation of the kind 0.97

01:14:50.180 that i'm conceiving of that we're conceiving of today you would be better of as a muslim and and 0.96

01:14:56.460 forced to privately worship with your family in your home and never actually be able to have 0.74

01:15:02.680 a mosque right and never be able to have a muslim school or some kind of public you know muslim

01:15:09.040 parade or or event you'd be better off as a muslim privately worshiping with your family 0.98

01:15:15.240 loved ones in your home in a christian nation than you would be as a muslim in a muslim nation 0.97

01:15:21.600 and an atheist would be you bet you far better off in a christian nation than they would be

01:15:29.320 in a truly consistent atheistic nation because we've never had an atheist nation we're on our

01:15:36.040 way and if you finally got one the closest that we've had to atheist nations in the past would be

01:15:42.000 communist i was about to say they've been one debatably yep what's the body count on that

01:15:47.160 yeah right uh it makes the holocaust and six million whatever you believe about that even

01:15:52.700 if it was six million or even if it was 12 million adolf hitler only dreamed of killing as many 0.55

01:15:58.840 people the numbers the same numbers of mal of stalin of all the communism communism kills on

01:16:06.660 a slow day 10 times what fascism does on on its on its best week yeah yeah uh its best year right

01:16:15.200 so all that being said the point is this we're not arguing for christo fascism although it will

01:16:22.300 look like fascism to a lot of moderns because they're communist right and justice and liberty

01:16:30.180 and righteousness and virtue and not degeneracy always looks like fascism to communist and that's 0.97

01:16:38.600 currently what we have in the west is a bunch of neo-marxist libtard communist so the fourth of 0.90

01:16:45.420 july is tomorrow so i'm just i'm feeling very american today you know so i'm saying libtard 0.90

01:16:49.540 and these kinds of things so all that being said that's what we're advocating for yes the first

01:16:53.940 table of the law must be legislated to honor god to protect neighbor um to protect against degeneracy

01:17:00.940 and public idolatry that would lead the people astray but that is different still distinction

01:17:06.480 between sins think private crimes think public it's still uh still going to protect uh even the

01:17:14.760 freedom of pagan worship at the private level for individuals and families you're not going in and

01:17:21.260 rounding up the Muslims. But no, no more public synagogues of Satan, no more mosques, no more

01:17:27.260 atheist displays, no more high places, no more Moloch, no more Asherah polls. It all comes down.

01:17:34.740 Why? Because it's an affront to God. It invites his judgment instead of his mercy. And because

01:17:41.520 it's not loving for your neighbor. It makes the country a worse place for your neighbor.

01:17:46.980 Ironically, even the neighbor who wants to do it, the neighbor who wants the public expression

01:17:52.460 of idolatry, would actually have a happier life if we told them no.

01:17:58.800 Amen.

01:17:59.600 I want to close with a quote from R.C. Sproul, and he tells a story, it's been told before,

01:18:05.640 but it's worth mentioning here, of a time in the 70s when he shared a cab with Francis

01:18:10.760 Schaeffer.

01:18:11.580 And it was towards the end of Francis Schaeffer's career, and R.C. Sproul, among other things,

01:18:16.020 at one point in the conversation, asked Francis Schaeffer, what is the biggest threat to the

01:18:20.660 church? Now, that's important, to the church, not to our republic, not to America, to the church.

01:18:27.060 And Sproul says that Schaeffer answered, without hesitation, statism. Statism. Because statism

01:18:34.720 is an idol that hides behind a government program, behind provision, welfare, seemingly good things.

01:18:44.700 It's also not, is not something that is immediately, obviously religious.

01:18:49.460 It's not immediately a counter Christian claim.

01:18:54.300 And yet it is an insidious idol.

01:18:55.980 And Joel, as you went through the destruction that welfare has caused in society, that's

01:19:01.060 the destruction from the state taking on one small rule that doesn't belong to it, which

01:19:05.980 is provision of food and money, right?

01:19:09.660 when the state takes on all of these other things, it inevitably leads to the destruction

01:19:15.220 of entire nations and societies. Because of that, Sproul, in this article that I quote in the

01:19:21.240 article, which by the way is available to Patreon supporters, Sproul closes his article, and I'm

01:19:27.460 going to close my comments here with this quote. Sproul says, throughout the history of the

01:19:32.160 Christian church, Christianity has always stood over and against all forms of statism. Statism

01:19:38.620 is the natural and ultimate enemy to Christianity because it involves the usurpation of the reign

01:19:45.140 of God. If Francis Schaeffer was right and each year that passes makes his prognosis seem all 0.86

01:19:52.400 the more accurate, it means that the church and the nation face a serious crisis in our day.

01:19:58.920 In the final analysis, if statism prevails in America, it will mean not only the death of our

01:20:04.020 religious freedom, but also the death of the state itself. We face perilous times where Christians

01:20:10.540 and all people need to be vigilant about the rapidly encroaching elevation of the state 1.00

01:20:16.940 to supremacy. Amen. Great. That's good. R.C. Sproul, God bless him. Rest his soul. All right,

01:20:24.560 let me end by saying this. I want to do a better job at the end of every episode reminding you guys

01:20:28.780 to join us over at Patreon, okay?

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01:20:54.200 I don't know about you, but for me, I like to listen,

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01:21:58.140 events and then hitting uh deeper concepts like we did today statism those kind so everything will

01:22:03.880 be relevant and timely sometimes it'll be um a topic uh that you just you just need to be more

01:22:09.280 educated on and then sometimes it'll be a current event like uh you know like the debate you know

01:22:14.040 but what are we going to say about the debate right if if i'll say this um if that was your

01:22:19.140 first time realizing joe biden has dementia please don't vote in this election sit this one out right

01:22:24.920 let the adults handle it um i was watching cnn and msnbc enjoy reading like like all you know

01:22:32.080 pretend shot what like he's not there he's he's declining in his cognitive ability so anyways

01:22:40.300 um definitely oscars should be given out to you know like the play acting was amazing um but

01:22:46.140 Anyways, so, you know, we will address current events.

01:22:49.200 We just didn't have anything, you know, that was,

01:22:51.720 nothing out of the ordinary happened recently

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01:22:58.320 has seen for four years with Joe Biden.

01:23:00.120 So we're going to do it twice a week,

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01:25:48.660 Happy Fourth of July.

01:25:49.760 Happy Independence Day.

01:25:50.780 Yep.

01:25:51.720 America.

01:25:52.160 Thank you.

01:26:00.320 Thank you.

The NXR Podcast - July 03, 2024

THE LIVESTREAM - Statism： The Idol Western Christians Love

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