In which the government sets itself up as an alternative to Christ, provision, authority, and lordship? Why do so many Christians love this particular idol? Tune in now as we explain. There are many dangers to christianity that christians do well to expose and fight against. However, one danger however, that many christians not only tolerate but seem to embrace wholeheartedly, that danger is the idol of statism.
00:02:07.720It's unfortunate that it has to happen, but a good use of government power.
00:02:11.020Well, 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.
00:02:31.880So, for instance, there was, in May of 2024, that was just this year, there was a couple
00:02:40.280in Vermont who had received a foster child into their home and had been caring for the
00:02:47.140child for some time, and they had signed a parental rights pledge at a local elementary
00:02:54.620school that basically was arguing that parents have the right to decide if their children
00:03:01.680are going to take gender-changing hormones or whether or not the state can impose that
00:03:10.020on parents and say, no, we're going to do it whether you want it to be done or not.
00:03:14.220And so they had been in favor of parental rights.
00:03:16.600They had signed this petition at this local elementary school, and shortly thereafter
00:03:20.220they got a knock from the government caseworker.
00:03:24.620And the government case worker said, I don't, I think we're going to have to revoke your foster care license.
00:03:32.200Now, 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.
00:03:46.140And 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.
00:04:06.440And 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.
00:04:25.720You're not going to be able to care for these poor, vulnerable children.
00:04:30.080Now, the problem is that statistically, Christians are overwhelmingly the families who are willing to take in foster kids in these situations.
00:11:28.100And I think that there is a similar maxim that needs to be coined, out of the abundance
00:11:31.940of the government's, you know, righteousness or unrighteousness are the laws that it makes.
00:11:37.400And 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?
00:11:54.960So think about even the idea of salvation, right, where we would say, even as Christian
00:12:03.220nationalists, this is something that needs to be said, we are not trying to create a
00:13:06.060For 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,
00:13:15.560really kind of started rising 2012, 13, 14. You really started seeing it 2015 through 17. And then
00:13:22.500boom, it was full blown, you know, with the woke wars of 2020 and those kinds of things and played
00:13:27.120into COVID. And that's where, you know, Chang and some of these, you know, quacks started saying0.99
00:13:31.280that, you know, the vaccine for COVID is kind of like, you know, Christ's redemption and, you know,0.94
00:13:35.680all these blasphemous, ridiculous things. Well, the rise of the social gospel, at first, some of
00:13:41.000the guys on the right, taking the correct biblical position, began to push back and combat it. But
00:13:47.680with, I think at first, initially the wrong strategy. We combated it at one level, but I
00:13:52.760think it's a two-prong approach that needed to happen. And by God's grace, that has fully
00:13:58.420happened now in 2024. But the two-prong approach is this. One, initially, guys were pushing back
00:14:06.460against the social justice warrior, social gospel movement by saying, well, this is a perversion of
00:14:13.820the gospel. It's committing the Galatian heresy, which is adding works to the finished work of
00:14:20.380grace, the work of the Spirit, right? If this work had begun by the Spirit, are you now trying to
00:14:25.480perfect it or to finish it by works of the flesh? You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?1.00
00:14:31.440You know, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the gospel and the gospel0.99
00:14:36.320being a free grace, grace in total, total grace by grace alone through faith alone and
00:15:22.140But 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?
00:27:48.740The 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.
00:28:00.840So 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.
00:29:32.680So the point is, God has given, society is like a three-lane highway, right?
00:29:42.220And 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.
00:29:47.580And God did not give any of those things.
00:29:49.320This is a shocking thing to a lot of people, although they listen to this podcast, so they probably already agree.
00:29:54.400But God did not give the state, the government, the responsibility of providing food for children or health care or education for children.
00:30:02.560And when the state comes in and tries to do that, it's taking the role that God gave to the family.
00:30:08.600And 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?
00:30:21.660Not that it came in and took them, but there were gaps.
00:30:25.580There were people, there were responsibilities and duties falling through the cracks.
00:30:29.080And so the state had to drive all over the freeway to pick up the slack for this.
00:30:33.820And a lot of Christians, in particular, put the blame on the church.
00:30:37.240They say, well, the church stopped providing health care and food and education, and so obviously it's going to be the state.
00:30:45.100And so you're going to pick it up from there, Joel.
00:30:46.880Yeah, so that's just a misunderstanding.
00:30:53.860The church certainly has plenty to repent of.
00:30:56.500The church certainly has failed for decades and decades and really centuries.
00:31:01.540But the church particularly here in America has failed immensely over the last few decades.
00:31:06.660But 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.
00:31:29.720Yeah, exactly, the destitute elderly. And so if we think about the ministry of welfare making
00:31:35.300practical physical provision for those in need, the reality is that biblically speaking, 1 Timothy
00:31:43.1205 is one of the key texts for this, but also multiple Old Testament texts in the Pentateuch.
00:31:47.980But 1 Timothy 5 is a great New Testament passage that, you know, Paul, the whole thing that he
00:31:53.660says about, you know, in the case of widows and the care for widows is he gives certain guidelines
00:31:58.520And notice this. First, he deals with, and he's talking about guidelines for admitting a widow
00:32:04.300into the church's care. If the church is going to take that widow on the payroll, essentially,
00:32:11.880and cover her rent and her grocery bills and her healthcare and cover all of her basic physical0.90
00:32:18.300needs, there's strict criteria for that. The first category is faithfulness. Faithfulness is,
00:32:26.100you know and he runs through all these things uh is she uh did she wash the the feet of the saints
00:32:30.900um does does she have children um you know was she married to one man so uh not oh well i'm a
00:32:38.260widow i don't have a husband like you know like the the woman uh at the well you know the samaritan
00:32:43.720woman at the well in john chapter four and jesus says well you're right to say that you don't have
00:32:47.180a husband you've had five husbands and the man you are now with is not your husband so paul is
00:32:52.040very specific a harlot does not qualify it would have to be a woman who has been with one man
00:32:57.260one husband and who is faithful to that man not an adulterer but faithful to that man in marriage
00:33:01.960the man has now died she's older in age and he sets out this criteria he says if she's younger
00:33:08.540so there's a practical a spiritual criteria of faithfulness and then a practical criteria of
00:33:14.560how needy is she? So on the spiritual side, was she faithful in marriage and not an adulterer?
00:33:22.740There's their fidelity. She was married to one man. And then also, has she washed the feet of
00:33:26.900the saints? Is she a good Christian? Is she a virtuous woman? And also, has she raised up
00:33:33.120children? AKA, just to put it in plain terms, feminists need not apply. She's a lover of1.00
00:33:41.520children. She had children and loved her children. She loved her husband and stayed with him.
00:33:46.660And the fact of the matter is simply that her husband is now dead. And what's kind of baked
00:33:51.300into the pie there is the assumption, and Paul gets to this explicitly in the same text,
00:33:55.980the assumption that not only has her husband died, but she also has no children that could
00:34:00.480care for her needs. Her children have also died or are sick in such a way that they're incapable
00:34:06.980of helping or they've been imprisoned so something has happened to her entire family and so she is
00:34:13.020truly destitute so there's a faithfulness criteria in the spiritual category she washes the feet of
00:34:18.640the saints she's a good christian woman she had one husband was faithful to him she's a um a faithful0.60
00:34:24.180woman who has fidelity and she's a lover of children aka she's not a feminist she doesn't
00:34:29.640have blue hair then on the physical side and this kind of overlaps a little bit but one is that she1.00
00:34:35.800is too old to remarry. She must be 65 years of age, the apostle says, or higher. And so if she's
00:34:44.160younger, Paul says, he doesn't command because he can't command it. The scripture does allow for
00:34:51.740singleness, but he urges with apostolic weight, not the authority of definitive command, but the
00:34:59.260authority of strong counsel. And he says, I urge younger widows to get remarried, to not make a
00:35:06.180vow of celibacy, because then what he's getting at is they'll be led astray and led astray into
00:35:14.520marriage. Well, marriage is a good thing. How can that, she just changed her mind. What Paul's
00:35:18.100probably getting at by way of implication and reading the text, what he's probably, what's
00:35:22.680probably implied here and included implicitly is he's saying younger women should not make a vow
00:35:28.860to remain single, but rather they should be content in their singleness as they are open
00:35:34.280and looking to be remarried. So she's got to be 65 years old or older. That's a physical0.51
00:35:41.980characteristic. So she's elderly and destitute, and she has no family members who could care.1.00
00:35:47.420And here's the Apostle Paul. He goes even one step further. This is the first century that is
00:35:53.840already poor i thought they were all communists no this is the jerusalem church no uh this is
00:35:59.880the first century that's incredibly poor by by many of our modern western standards today
00:36:05.080and paul um and incredibly patriarchal god bless them um and the apostle paul says that even if
00:36:12.300the woman has a daughter uh who is able to help provide for her mother's needs that even the
00:36:19.000daughter should do that before what? All this, everything that I've listed so far, it's all
00:36:24.520towards one end. And what is the end? That the church not be burdened. That the financial burden
00:36:31.620of caring for this destitute individual, an elderly widow, should not fall on the church
00:36:38.120if what? What's the common denominator? If there is anyone at all in the sphere of the family
00:36:45.340They 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.
00:37:02.320And 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.
00:37:15.300and she's 65 years old or older she can't work with her hands she's got arthritis she can't
00:37:21.200remarry because she she's she's not fertile she's at the very end of her life she's not appealing0.93
00:37:26.080to young men looking to marry all those kinds of and here's the thing uh if there's all that
00:37:31.360but she's uh not a christian she's not a believer and you know and she doesn't have children because
00:37:36.980she never conceived children because she had disdain for marriage right and uh then guess
00:37:42.020what? You starve. You starve. That's what? Because the church will not be burdened by the wicked.
00:37:50.200However, if she meets all these qualifications and she washed the feet of the saints,
00:37:55.800she loved the house of God, she was a faithful Christian, all these things being met,
00:38:00.700if they're all met, then and only then is she added to the church's financial burden. But here's
00:38:07.700the deal. Not with a food drive, canned food, not with a Chili's gift card. She is added on in the
00:38:16.140same way that the staff of that church, the pastors and elders, every single one of her physical needs
00:38:21.800is going to be met. So she's not getting a $50 gift card a month. She's getting, in today's terms,
00:38:27.900she's getting thousands of dollars a month. She is getting a livable wage, except it's not a wage,
00:38:33.080It's coming in the form of charity, and yet it's good and right.
00:38:36.020And there is a sense in which it is charity, but there is a sense in which it is also a
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00:54:12.540All right. Welcome back. Time to land this Boeing 747 one way or another here.
00:54:19.240I'm going to answer a question from the comments. I'm going to answer another question. I'm going
00:54:22.520to give it to you, Michael, to answer the question. So a gentleman named Ryan Gallimere
00:54:26.900raised a number of objections, basically asking a couple questions. And one of the notes he said is
00:54:31.400basically, aren't you all Baptist? And don't you know that Baptist history would preclude the types0.84
00:54:36.280of things that you're talking about? So, Joel, we talked about religion. We talked about enforcement
00:54:41.040of morality aren't baptists supposed to fight for and believe in religious liberty there's different
00:54:48.280types of religious liberty the religious liberty in the context the 1700s the 1800s the london
00:54:53.880baptists i think of nehemiah cox jeremiah ball some of these other guys the religious liberty
00:54:58.640that isn't thought there among this european protestant these european protestant nations
00:55:03.660is not the religious liberty that some people get to be islamic and some people get to be jewish and
00:55:08.080some people get to be Buddhist. The religious liberty in view there is a state religion,
00:55:12.740an official church or denomination of the state that then punishes expressions of Christian faith
00:55:18.960that differ from it. So the Presbyterians, for example, drowning the Baptists because they don't
00:55:24.240baptize their children. What's in view for all of these guys, again, is not, we want to see Main0.91
00:55:29.200Street have a Baptist church, a Presbyterian church, and then a mosque, and then a synagogue.
00:55:34.800That's not at all in view whatsoever.0.72
00:55:37.740Religious 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
00:55:50.180The first word of the First Amendment is Congress.
00:55:53.060The idea is that at a federal level, there will be no state church, no national church.
00:55:58.080So the United States of America, all 50 states at the federal national level, will not have an official state-sanctioned church.
00:56:08.380The United States is officially Anglican, Episcopalian, or Baptist.0.93
00:56:13.680Because 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
00:56:24.040To 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
00:56:34.900So 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.
00:57:06.680But 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.
00:57:17.480But we're not doing forced conversions.
00:57:19.800we're not saying you must be a christian we would say you have the right to in your heart believe
00:57:25.820certain things you're just not going to blaspheme god and you're not going to promote this false
00:57:29.660religion in the public square right exactly so so the point is number one the first word of the
00:57:33.600first amendment congress so at the national level um washington was not that's what the founders
00:57:39.440were concerned about uh just because england had a state church and that's part of what they were
00:57:43.880fleeing and so they're saying there's not but but 10 i believe it was nine or 10 out of the first
00:57:48.820original 13 colonies had state churches but they didn't want a federal one and they didn't want
00:57:55.000congress to be able to do it so that's the first amendment that's see see when you read this uh
00:58:00.240you you have post-war consensus brain aka mush brain or no brain and so when you read this um
00:58:07.740it's you're like well they wanted to carve out you know liberty for principled pluralism so that
00:58:12.540you could have atheists and you can have satanic monuments you know in a state capital in iowa0.89
00:58:17.540And 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
00:58:30.240You know, and so no, they weren't thinking about the freedom of butt sex.0.96
00:58:33.980That was not their biggest concern.0.89
00:58:35.940What 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.
00:58:43.340But 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.
00:59:00.940So 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.
00:59:14.060So Congress at the federal level cannot set up a national church.0.89
00:59:17.980colonies were setting up state churches, and none of it was to carve out room for Judaism
00:59:25.380or Islam or Buddhism or any other kind of heresy or sect, but it was to carve out religious freedom
00:59:33.960for different consciences within the Christian Orthodox boundaries to worship God freely without
00:59:40.940persecution from the state. That's the point. Yeah. That gets into the second comment from
00:59:45.380him that I wanted to address. And there's a little bit, it can almost seem like a contradiction on
00:59:49.140the face, so I'll address it if you're thinking it as I speak through it. We'll get to it. So Ryan
00:59:54.040asked, well, would you, before, would you gentlemen advocate for enforcement of the first table of the
00:59:59.780law? So you have the Ten Commandments, you have the laws that pertain to right worship of God.
01:00:04.540You shall not have any other gods before you. You shall not make images, take the Lord's name in
01:00:08.760vain, and violate the Sabbath day. So we call that the first table of the law. It deals with how man
01:00:14.000relates to God. The next six commandments deals with how man relates to his fellow man. Thou shalt
01:00:19.980not steal, thou shalt not murder, commit adultery. Those are man to man. So first table, God and man.
01:00:25.080Second table, man and man. And so we, even right now, even as bad as things are, we still have,
01:00:30.300generally speaking, enforcement of the second table of law. Murder and theft are criminalized,
01:00:35.720they're punished at some level, so we have that. And so his question is, okay, I can see that and
01:00:40.360maybe even conceive a christian nation that would get strict on these things and really
01:00:44.760right into law you cannot do these things thinking about like homosexuality that would fall under0.87
01:00:50.460thou shalt not commit adultery because the positive command it's not just don't do this thing
01:00:55.100it's don't do this thing and hold the marriage of one man and one woman in high esteem so that would
01:01:00.880for example homosexuality would be a violation of that commandment so not only and we're saying0.82
01:01:06.300it would not only be a sin but also a crime yes it would be a sin it would be a crime and that's0.88
01:01:10.340a sliding scale it's not just like well you know 16 year old boy um brushes the hand of another
01:01:16.92016 year old boy on a on a youth camping trip and uh and you know blushes and has a crush on him
01:01:24.680and you know we're going to take him to the gallows right yep that's not that's not what
01:01:28.400we're saying but but you get to some of these extreme uh expressions that degrade all of society0.68
01:01:35.520especially coming after children right drag queen story hour these kind of things or pride parade
01:01:41.680these kinds of public express expressions of degeneracy uh where the guy's not wearing pants
01:01:48.200in san francisco uh you know naked or or very close to it exposing themselves in front of children0.51
01:01:54.900slapping each other's private parts um yes and those cases yep off with your head fair trial0.64
01:02:01.340and then deaf yep and then so ryan i'll read his comment just to really make sure i'm addressing
01:02:08.080his point he said i specifically asked about the state we're talking about statism enforcing the
01:02:13.080first four commandments of the decalogue to which we say yes at a public level we're not talking
01:02:19.460about in your home uh looking through your kindle and making sure on sunday you were reading
01:02:23.760weren't reading anything else besides the bible right but at a public level true false worship
01:02:29.060of other gods not tolerated uh the making as reformed we would say the making of images
01:02:35.000of christ or god the father again not allowed in the public square the sabbath blue laws we had
01:02:41.400these in our nation they were here for hundreds of years we have blasphemy laws sabbath all of
01:02:46.240those things so and the dichotomy is you think oh my goodness how could you be so tyrannical and how
01:02:52.500could you talk about statism and then turn around and say well we would outlaw false worship we0.60
01:02:57.160would islam is on that list judaism is on that list you would outlaw these things you would
01:03:01.500outlaw uh activity economic activity on the sabbath you would outlaw blasphemy so you're0.62
01:03:07.160talking about the idol of statism but then over here you would want a state that would actually
01:03:10.920enforce those things michael i'll give it to you the answer is simple this isn't hard you have to
01:03:15.400sit down think about it for two minutes and you realize what the answer is but say someone poses
01:03:19.680that question to you wait isn't this aren't you christian nationalists you're talking about
01:03:23.200idolatry of the state you're christians like you idolize it right you're christians and that is
01:03:27.720i've been reliably taught uh beaten into my subconscious that christianity a christian
01:03:33.800political theology is synonymous with libertarianism right tell me that tell me uh
01:03:41.100you guys don't disagree with that do you michael statism is idolatry because the state
01:03:47.780takes on a role that is not what god has given to it right and that implies that there is a role
01:03:55.320that god has given to the state a good and proper role and and this was is this is at the core
01:04:00.360of the romans 13 discussion around covid when people were saying yeah you have to submit to
01:04:05.680the ruler so well yes but the ruler has been commanded to punish what is evil and encourage
01:04:13.840or reward what is good well who gets to determine what is evil and what is good god god gets to
01:04:20.660determine that and not only that but this verse is so strong it calls the state the deacon of god
01:04:26.560that means that god has this idea of a nation functioning even under the curse in the fall
01:04:32.200at peak efficiency and productivity and what he does is he says to to keep the state that a nation
01:04:40.540running well, I need a servant to enforce justice and to promote goodness. Aha! It's going to be
01:04:48.540the government. The government has been given the right and duty to punish evil and promote what is
01:04:56.160good. And so when we turn the question back on, well, what's good, what's evil, we have to find
01:05:01.760ourselves in God's moral law and the principles of the law. And so for a state to uphold what is
01:05:07.460good and punish evil when it comes to breaking the sabbath to blaspheming to public worship of
01:05:12.660false gods or the true god yes it's not an idolatry because that is what god told the state to do
01:05:19.280in fact to not do that is a form of idolatry right because the state is rejecting the rules
01:05:26.200that god has given to it right so the solution as we seek a christian nation call it you know
01:05:30.940mere Christendom or Christian nationalism or whatever you want to call it, revival.
01:05:36.380But as we seek obedience to Christ in every sphere of life, not just in our homes privately,
01:05:43.380not just in our churches corporately, but even in the state publicly, in the public square,
01:05:48.280as we seek this in obedience to Christ and his law word, it's going to require that to accomplish
01:05:57.520this in the realm of the state it's going to require something a little bit more thoughtful
01:06:03.300than just saying the state has to be smaller now i do believe for the record i do believe
01:06:08.980that our current bloated state would in the final analysis be much smaller yeah i really do um i
01:06:16.840don't because i don't think you'd have nearly as many for one you get rid of uh even in companies
01:06:22.800you know but but also in the state the equivalent of the hackling hens aka you know women who chose
01:06:30.000not to have kids but still want to be mothers but in this case of adults we call them hr that's1.00
01:06:36.400right so you would get rid of all those types of roles in the state which that right there would0.99
01:06:41.200get rid of about half of the state all your h are you know school marms not moms but marms spelled1.00
01:06:48.440N-A-R-M-S. You know, so you get rid of the state-sanctioned longhouse, and that gets rid0.63
01:06:55.900of about half of your employees right there. We've already talked about welfare and these kinds of,
01:06:59.940so there'd be a lot of different things, but there would be things that remain. A strong military
01:07:04.840is right, biblical. You would have some kind of police force to enforce justice,
01:07:11.400not just with the military abroad, but then also domestically here. But even in that,
01:07:16.400here's part of the thing. You have to understand, Ryan, when it comes to the Ten Commandments,
01:07:22.180what we're talking about is, again, you've got to think in theological categories. There's a
01:07:27.120distinction. Now, there is overlap, but think not just one circle, but a Venn diagram, two circles
01:07:31.660with a good bit of overlap, but not complete overlap. So, that's what we're talking about
01:07:36.680with three circles as we talk about sphere sovereignty, the home, the state, the church.
01:07:40.000Now, think about it with two circles, sins and crimes. Sins and crimes, it overlaps these two
01:07:45.480circles. They're not completely distinct, but they're also not completely synonymous. There
01:07:50.380are areas where a sin is a crime, and where a crime is a sin. But there are also certain cases
01:07:57.140and examples that could be made where something is a sin, but it is not a crime. Or there is,
01:08:02.840sadly, because we live in the fallen world, there is a category where there could be something that
01:08:07.220is deemed by a wicked, unrighteous state as a crime, but it's actually not a sin. Like, for
01:08:13.820instance the state made it a crime in 2020 to go to church yeah right but um but it was not a sin
01:08:21.780if you disregarded the state as we did and went to church so we were not sinning as we committed
01:08:29.060a crime i'm putting air quotes if you're listening on a podcast platform it was never truly a crime
01:08:34.760but it was in the technical sense for for that time that window of time in 2020 it was deemed
01:08:40.580by our government a crime to go to church and yet it certainly was not a sin to go to church
01:08:46.240because we had a wicked state coming up with wicked legislation so with a fallen government
01:08:52.480which we're always going to have is just to what degree the varying degrees of fallen governments
01:08:57.160all know until christ returns you're going to have the state made up of people and people are
01:09:02.380sinners and so you're going to have some kind of fallen government and so it stands in theory
01:09:06.700that you will probably always have at least some examples of something that has been deemed by the
01:09:11.820state to be a crime, but is not actually in the sight of God a sin. And you'll certainly have,
01:09:17.980right, that's that category over there, you'll certainly have things, a host of things that are
01:09:23.160sins, but are not crimes, or at least should not be crimes if you have a just righteous state.
01:09:30.420For instance, back to the Decalogue, even within the Ten Commandments, the Tenth Commandment,
01:09:35.500which is not the first table of the law, Ryan. It's actually the second table, not pertaining
01:09:40.360to vertical love for, you know, love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. But this
01:09:45.660is actually our horizontal love for our fellow neighbor. This is one of the commandments, namely
01:09:49.980the 10th, thou shalt not covet. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods or his wife or his
01:09:55.380house or his male servant or female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your
01:09:59.460neighbor's. Now, here's the deal. We do not want, we are Christian nationalists. We want a Christian
01:10:04.820nation. We do not want within the realm of the civil magistrate, the coveting police. So if you1.00
01:10:11.260ever watch, you know, think Tom Cruise and Minority Report, we do not believe it is a biblical
01:10:16.260principle of over-policing. We think there should be swift, just punishments when a crime has
01:10:25.620occurred and sufficient evidence has been brought forth to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, that's
01:10:32.140a christian concept by the way innocent until proven guilty that's a christian concept you're
01:10:36.600welcome unless it's been proven in a fair trial with witnesses and evidence once that's happened
01:10:42.920we think there should be swift judgment swift fair judgment it should be proportional eye for eye
01:10:50.240tooth for tooth life for life proportional it should actually bring judgment down on the head
01:10:57.160of the guilty party and not the righteous. So the right person is getting the punishment. It's the
01:11:02.560right degree, proportional punishment, and it's also swift punishment. It's not delayed justice.
01:11:08.980When justice is delayed, the Old Testament says, then the people are invoked towards doing more
01:11:15.040crime. They think that they can get away with it. So it's swift justice. So here's the deal. You've
01:11:19.880got to have people in the state. These are state civil magistrate positions carrying the sword
01:11:25.080that are able to carry out these things that's that's justices and judges and juries and lawyers
01:11:31.740defense and and prosecutors and it's some police force and it's it's first responders it's all
01:11:38.660these different things that is necessary but that's when a crime has been committed and it's
01:11:45.220been proven what you don't have is the minority report tom cruise style um looking into the future
01:11:51.720to try to predict a crime that might be committed, a.k.a. the coveting police.