The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - Steven Lawson and Why Men Fall

00:00:00.000 Recently, we have witnessed a series of moral failures from prominent Christian leaders.

00:00:08.840 While it is true that we see examples of this throughout the scripture and Christian history,

00:00:15.740 it is worth asking, is there anything about modern Christianity that leads itself to moral

00:00:22.080 compromise? What can faithful Christians do to build their lives and their society in a way

00:00:29.300 that prevents this sort of end? Tune in now as we examine these questions.

00:00:40.500 All right, guys, we are going to hop to it. We need to be a little bit shorter with our

00:00:48.180 live stream today. My daughter is sick and I need to help my wife take care of her. 1.00

00:00:52.580 But it's an important topic. A lot of guys by this point have weighed in. The news came in

00:00:56.580 over the weekend it was friday i believe thursday i think thursday or friday um so it's been a few

00:01:02.340 days at this point uh disclaimers up front number one uh i do think that in this case with the public

00:01:10.320 leader um that the sin uh needs to be publicly uh presented however in terms of who should do that

00:01:18.540 primarily the people who need to make that statement need to be the elders of steve lawson's

00:01:24.080 local church um and i do think that they're probably going to need to be a little bit more

00:01:28.480 specific than simply inappropriate relationship and in part because um if it's not uh terribly

00:01:36.500 bad right then that leaves you know just an open door for people to think the absolute worse

00:01:41.020 and number two uh if it is terribly bad um then it's deceitful and makes people think that you

00:01:48.040 know that it was harmless uh maybe they're you know maybe they're just getting coffee together

00:01:52.760 every now and then. So there probably do need to be some more details with that and in a way that

00:01:58.360 protects the young woman, her identity. She's sinned. She has to confess that and make that

00:02:04.900 right in order to be restored in right relationship and right standing as a member in a local Bible

00:02:11.200 preaching church. But her name doesn't necessarily need to be made public. And then, you know,

00:02:17.880 on behalf of Steve Lawson, his family, his wife, his children.

00:02:22.080 So you don't need to be unnecessarily detailed, but it does require some details.

00:02:26.760 But again, the point is, in terms of the audience, who should provide those details,

00:02:31.860 the elders of Steve Lawson's church, and then an argument could also be made for TMS,

00:02:36.380 the Master's Seminary, and Ligonier, because Steve Lawson was representing both of those ministries

00:02:42.360 as a teaching fellow with Ligonier,

00:02:44.940 and I believe he was the dean of a doctoral program in ministry

00:02:50.400 for TMS, the Master's Seminary.

00:02:52.980 So those would be the three parties,

00:02:54.980 first and foremost is local church,

00:02:56.340 and then TMS and Ligonier,

00:02:58.560 that would have the right to make statements.

00:03:02.040 And I do believe that there needs to be more clarity,

00:03:05.180 but also tempering that with wisdom.

00:03:09.400 and uh you know but more clarity than has been dropped now but that's not our live stream today

00:03:15.220 so i just want to make that clear out the gate if you clicked on here because you thought you're

00:03:18.600 going to get some kind of secret intel um even if we had it um it's uh we're just we're not the

00:03:25.680 ministry uh to launch that it's not our position and um yeah it's it's great to get clicks and

00:03:31.300 views uh but not that way so um but what we are going to do is we're going to talk about this

00:03:36.820 larger problem of why does this keep happening there's a lot of guys who have continued to fall

00:03:41.180 uh we've got some thoughts on the matter i do believe there are some direct correlations and

00:03:46.160 some of them will surprise you i'll just lead off with this uh to kind of hook you and keep you to

00:03:50.700 stay you know uh keep you tuned in um i i do think uh john harris talked about this and so i want to

00:03:58.060 give him credit i think he did a good job uh with this particular insight uh but i do believe there

00:04:03.340 is a direct correlation between um cowardice and a lack of character or to say the other way

00:04:10.400 character and courage go hand in hand and when courage is absent um it doesn't definitively

00:04:17.320 prove but it does leave room to at least question when when uh when um courage is absent to cause

00:04:26.180 room to question, is there perhaps also character that is lacking as well? I'll just be honest,

00:04:34.240 the correlation between cowards with COVID and moral failures remains undefeated.

00:04:41.320 And I thought maybe Wes, you could pick up there and then Michael, and then I've got some scripture

00:04:44.880 that fits that, that I'd like to read. Yeah. I might've shared this before, but so before we

00:04:49.680 moved to Texas several years ago, we attended a church in New Jersey where I was finishing up

00:04:54.100 school. And we came to that church in 2019. It was actually just when we started going there,

00:04:58.500 the pastor there had a little bit of a scandal where he got caught plagiarizing sermons. And

00:05:02.180 we did this whole thing. He got caught, came out, gave the teary-eyed confession, and we kind of

00:05:06.420 thought everything was good. Well, then COVID happened, so church shut down. We were in New

00:05:10.740 Jersey. I mean, we were shut down for good, for months on end. Black Lives Matter happened.

00:05:16.500 And real quick, was your church meeting in somebody else's venue or did it have its own

00:05:20.580 church building were you forced to shut down not at all we had our own venue this is in new jersey

00:05:25.900 i mean it was it was close to communist russia out there right we had our own venue and there 0.56

00:05:31.360 weren't i think california would probably be worse actually as far as rules or laws or police

00:05:35.660 enforcement so covet happened because we were in california but we didn't have we were meeting in

00:05:40.940 elementary school as a church plant so we had no choice in the matter but what we did was we

00:05:45.380 quickly within four weeks started meeting um just at another church outside they wouldn't let us in

00:05:51.380 the building but we were and we were very grateful to that church and so having an outdoor service and

00:05:56.440 at that point when we started our outdoor service on the books it was still uh technically illegal

00:06:01.600 thanks to gavin nusolemi um it was still illegal at that time to have even a um drive-through

00:06:08.020 service where you stay in your car right you know and watch through the like like a drive-in movie

00:06:12.580 Yep. So, none of that going on. Had our own building. And Black Lives Matter happened.

00:06:17.340 It gives a terrible, terrible sermon. It said, if you're white, you need to shut up and listen. 1.00

00:06:21.620 So, he told his parishioners. About three to four months later, we finally, so this is September. 0.98

00:06:26.420 This is, the summer has passed. People have been without the Lord's Supper, have been without

00:06:30.760 teaching in person, without worshiping the saints for months. And it comes out that he'd been having

00:06:34.860 an affair for over a year. So, all the way back when he was plagiarizing in 2019, he'd been having

00:06:39.440 the affair then, and then COVID happened. And the theme that runs through all of that,

00:06:43.940 how is it that you could take a moral stand, that you could risk the state coming down on you,

00:06:48.280 risk arrest when you know you're guilty? That's the theme that runs through all of this. So the

00:06:53.720 courage to stand up and fight is also correlated to you really knowing what it is that you've

00:06:58.560 been doing. Doug Wilson said something during COVID and it was really helpful. He said,

00:07:03.020 many pastors will not open because their mortgage is too big, their wives are too worried,

00:07:07.340 and their browser history is too scandalous so firsthand uh that's a man that i looked up to

00:07:12.900 and uh yeah turns out he was compromised for a long time and when the moment came

00:07:18.320 uh he didn't stand to stand for anything right guilt um what i would say is that uh guilt is the

00:07:25.800 the foothold for fear and and then fear of course uh completely just uh you know uh destroys courage

00:07:35.060 And so guilt takes the wind right out of your sails.

00:07:40.220 And I understand that as Christians, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

00:07:46.040 That's true.

00:07:47.780 But living in secret sin and not being willing to confess it puts a lot of things into question.

00:07:56.160 For instance, are you in Christ Jesus?

00:07:58.640 I don't have an opinion on the matter in the case of Steve Lawson,

00:08:02.020 and i'm not going to try to judge whether or not uh he's regenerate right i'm not going to do that

00:08:07.120 my my you know if i if you forced me uh to to you know to make a decision on the matter i would say

00:08:13.640 i think he probably is i think he probably is a christian uh but the puritans had a decent

00:08:19.400 theological framework for for this phenomenon for lack of a better word because it really is

00:08:24.040 in the christian life or at least should be a phenomenon something strange and abnormal

00:08:29.120 but the puritans called it prolonged like sin that is prolonged and in secret unconfessed

00:08:36.700 prolonged sin they would talk about it as one of two options either a sign that you're not a

00:08:42.300 christian at all or living underneath the fatherly displeasure of god they called it the fatherly

00:08:48.460 displeasure that there was actually a way for someone to uh one for their character to prove

00:08:53.680 in the final analysis you know matthew chapter 7 depart from me i never knew you that you never

00:08:57.860 actually belonged to Christ in the first place, and that you were merely a professing Christian

00:09:02.680 and not a true Christian. That is a viable category for those who are living in prolonged,

00:09:08.320 unconfessed sin. However, another category was that it was possible to be living in a prolonged

00:09:16.180 sense underneath the fatherly displeasure of God. And what they meant by that was, you know,

00:09:20.540 fatherly, so he is still your father through, by grace, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:09:26.300 so if you're a christian there is no there's no halfway house there's no stepchild status

00:09:32.020 for the christian like you are fully adopted as a beloved son of god but there's a way of sitting

00:09:37.720 at the father's table um where he is legitimately your father and yet still um having an overwhelming

00:09:45.860 sense of his displeasure that he loves you he receives you as a son um but he is displeased

00:09:54.140 with you living under a cloud and um and so um that could be steve lawson or it could be the

00:10:00.680 former it could be that that he was never converted in the first place again if i had to guess i would

00:10:04.400 guess the latter uh but the point is um again back to harris for just a moment he did i think a pretty

00:10:10.360 good job because you know john harris 80 robles a few of these guys um early on 2017 and 18 and 19

00:10:17.480 uh took you know they kept meticulous receipts on the wokeness that was creeping in uh you know

00:10:24.580 uh with southern baptist and you know in southern seminary and for john it wasn't um southern but it

00:10:30.980 was um uh southeastern eastern um and so you know john went to southeastern and so they're you know

00:10:36.100 they were keeping these you know meticulous receipts of wokeness and compromising these

00:10:40.800 kinds of things well before covid you know years before and then when covid happened they were you

00:10:46.040 You know, guys like A.D. Robles, guys like John Harris were very much taking clear receipts.

00:10:51.320 And so John has the receipts on Lawson. 0.92

00:10:54.160 And the reality is, as much as you may think that Steve Lawson was a lion in the pulpit in terms of his expository preaching, the dude was an absolute coward on COVID.

00:11:08.120 And social justice. 0.89

00:11:10.320 And social justice.

00:11:11.260 So to put it into perspective, here would be an example.

00:11:13.240 right so you work for the master seminary and our personal friends with john mcarthur and as

00:11:19.180 steve lawson himself by his by his own uh admission as he said uh he named one of his kids john

00:11:25.300 after john mcarthur and another one grace after grace community church um and so so they were i

00:11:31.860 mean there was nothing hidden in terms of um this is john mcarthur's boy he was sproles boy too but

00:11:38.120 but also john this is john mcarthur's john mcarthur's boy and um their buds their friends

00:11:43.360 and uh with the statement on social justice in the gospel that john mcarthur you know was a big

00:11:49.220 part of and promoting that and signing that uh steve lawson never signed it which is kind of

00:11:55.400 shocking when harris told me that i just assumed that every you know all the masters guys signed

00:11:59.820 it you know like um even and here's the thing even ligonier and ligonier i would say ligonier

00:12:05.660 is and i appreciate ligonier i'm not trying to cast shade but uh when it comes to cultural

00:12:10.540 political issues ligonier is pretty quiet right now i'm not saying sprawl always was right but

00:12:16.000 ligonier as an organization with sprawl having passed away before a lot of this stuff really

00:12:20.720 came to the forefront he sprawl passed i believe it was december 2017 and since sprawl's passing

00:12:26.340 i mean these guys right you know like you you can get a full biography of jonathan edwards you know

00:12:31.460 or knox or calvin um roman's commentary for 5.99 for 5.99 no let's let's be fair for your gift of

00:12:37.880 any amount right we'll give you as a special thank you which is 5.99 so but the point is

00:12:44.180 uh these guys were not talking about blm right these guys were not talking about covid uh the

00:12:48.580 ligonier guys and yet to their credit i i want to say that um you know macarthur is much more

00:12:55.000 comfortable speaking to political issues of the day um than ligonier ligonier is much more silent

00:13:00.700 And even Ligonier came out and signed the statement on social justice and the gospel because they agreed with it and because of MacArthur's influence.

00:13:09.700 And they probably thought about it and thought, like, what would Sproul do?

00:13:11.840 We want to honor his legacy.

00:13:13.060 Sproul would agree with MacArthur.

00:13:14.420 We know he would.

00:13:15.420 So, yeah, we're not going to necessarily do a 20-part series on why, you know, DEI and affirmative action and wokeness and these kinds of things are a cancer, you know, and neo-Marxism and critical race theory.

00:13:26.800 But we'll at least come out and get MacArthur because MacArthur was getting a ton of flack.

00:13:30.700 So it was Tom Askell and the G3 guys, Josh Bice, these guys who were involved with the statement, they were getting a ton of flack because one of the things people were saying is no credible ministry, no credible ministry or minister has signed your statement.

00:13:43.520 It's just a couple guys at the top who wrote the statement, and then just all these hundreds of pastors, but it's just hundreds of nobodies.

00:13:54.960 You know, every Tom, Dick and Nancy, I believe one person once said, you know, nobody's that nobody cares of and who pastor small churches of 100 people, you know, in rural Kansas or whatever.

00:14:06.800 But but then, you know, Ligonier comes out and says, well, we're going to get John MacArthur's back.

00:14:12.020 We're not going to talk about it much, but we will sign the statement.

00:14:14.500 So here's my point. You've got Steve Lawson, who's a teaching fellow and was personal friends with Sproul, working as a leader, teaching fellow with Ligonier, and as the dean of the doctoral preaching ministry program at the Master's Seminary with MacArthur.

00:14:34.260 So he's with both of these organizations. Both, one writes the statement or is involved in it, and another signs the statement, and he doesn't.

00:14:42.920 and you know he probably got some pressure you know with those organizations that network and

00:14:48.220 those friendships but on covet we're talking like late 2021 not 2020 right so we're not talking

00:14:54.260 weeks we're not talking months we're talking over a year and he's they're still like oh we're gonna

00:14:59.280 you know like i don't know what we're gonna do about you know we're like we're gonna require

00:15:03.100 masks or we're gonna um you know social distancing social distancing in the church but and everybody

00:15:08.560 who's new Stephen Lawson you know said like yeah the dude is deathly afraid of COVID and on BLM

00:15:15.200 like a deafening silence on BLM even though his his whole like what do you have to lose

00:15:20.940 all the guys you work for right you're not gonna get fired for it you're not gonna get fired for

00:15:25.140 it other guys actually had to risk Lawson it would be very little risk however the uh the the

00:15:32.000 connection between um secret sin and and cowardice fear remains undefeated here's one

00:15:39.860 verse to illustrate this point to use some bible uh so this is uh hebrews chapter 2 starting verse

00:15:45.300 14 and we'll also read 15 says this since therefore the children share in flesh and blood

00:15:50.340 he himself likewise this is christ partook of the same things that through death that is his death

00:15:56.840 he might destroy the one who has power of death that is the devil and verse 15 now deliver all

00:16:04.320 those who through fear of death all those so the devil has power over death so by jesus death he

00:16:11.080 could conquer the devil who has power over death and the devil who had power over death what did

00:16:16.200 he use that power to do uh he uh jesus would be delivering all those who through fear of death

00:16:22.940 were subject to lifelong slavery yeah what what is one of the key elements that subjects a person

00:16:29.360 to lifelong slavery and slavery to sin slavery to the devil the fear of death he who has power

00:16:37.980 over death that was the devil utilize that leverage that power of death to enslave and to

00:16:46.120 take captive people to subject them to lifelong slavery because of their fear of death so the one

00:16:53.080 who has power over death knew that people image bearers of the living god have a fear of death and

00:16:58.540 he utilizes and plays off of those strings the fear of death to subject people to lifelong

00:17:04.440 slavery but what did jesus do by his own death he he stripped and neutralized disarmed the devil

00:17:12.520 who has power over death by removing death's sting we still die if jesus tarries we still die

00:17:18.500 but oh death where is your sting the fear of death for the christian has been neutralized

00:17:23.080 death still comes um even sprawl said this once famously he said um am i afraid um of death no

00:17:30.680 um no fear in death right no um you know uh it's uh what what is the line no um no guilt in life

00:17:38.620 No guilt in life, no fear in death.

00:17:40.300 So he said, am I afraid of death?

00:17:41.580 No.

00:17:42.060 He said, am I afraid of dying?

00:17:43.760 Yes. 0.98

00:17:44.580 Like, that's still going to suck. 0.91

00:17:46.040 Dying is not going to be a picnic for most of us. 0.95

00:17:48.420 Maybe a few of us get lucky and peacefully, you know, just have a massive heart attack

00:17:52.160 in our sleep and wake up and we're surprised, right?

00:17:54.580 Hey, I'm in heaven, you know?

00:17:55.540 But for most of us, dying is going to be immensely painful.

00:17:59.560 And so to have a fear of dying, sure.

00:18:04.100 But a fear of death is different.

00:18:06.120 and and so all that being said um the point is that uh there is something to be said for for

00:18:13.640 those who were deathly afraid i mean you got john mccarthur and uh and you know i'm not saying

00:18:19.940 steve lawson is a spring chicken he's not i think he's 74 73 something like that um but by comparison

00:18:25.900 he's a spring chicken with john mccarthur who's like 170 you know he's not you know but like

00:18:31.680 John MacArthur's well into his 80s, mid-80s at this point, and here's, you know, Steve Lawson's in better health.

00:18:39.040 John MacArthur has had to wrestle with health issues these past couple years.

00:18:42.980 He's in better health.

00:18:43.800 He's a decade younger, and MacArthur's saying, yeah, let's bring 5,000 people in the room without social distancing, and let's pick back up and do church.

00:18:53.000 And Steve Lawson for, like, MacArthur's back up fully running.

00:18:56.960 and a year after macarthur's and macarthur honestly frankly i don't want to pick on him

00:19:02.140 i've picked on him in the past but he was late he was late i'll just say that he was late um

00:19:06.840 now granted it is california granted it is a large church but he was late uh but here's the point if

00:19:12.260 macarthur was late then good night steve lawson that guy was if if macarthur's late steve lawson

00:19:19.040 is a year plus after being late um that's how late he was and uh and then on blm he's not just late

00:19:26.640 uh you know they say better late than never he was never on that one never never came out and

00:19:32.000 and harris's point and it was incredibly insightful i'll say this and let you guys have it

00:19:36.600 but um that's not the whole point is that's not random that's not it's not random that um there's

00:19:46.320 some huge political cultural moments where the church has to take a stand and um and one of the

00:19:52.920 guys who it actually would be easy to take a stand he's surrounded his entire tribe all his

00:19:59.780 employers are are actually rooting for him to take a stand other joe blow blue collar christians took

00:20:06.560 a stand and lost their livelihoods over it and they were still willing to take a stand steve

00:20:11.780 lawson like it wouldn't have even taken that much courage and yet he didn't do it and i think that

00:20:18.240 But there's a correlation to be drawn between, oh, come to find out, some massive deficiency with character, and also, oh, is that maybe why you didn't have quite the zeal?

00:20:30.540 Is that maybe like great technical sermons and exposition?

00:20:34.860 Great.

00:20:36.200 Zero application.

00:20:38.340 Zero application. 1.00

00:20:39.480 Maybe applying a little bit to a marriage in the home.

00:20:41.540 maybe applying to you know a church ecclesiastical you know the you know ecclesiology and maybe

00:20:48.120 church polity but beyond that speaking to the culture at large speaking to politics at large

00:20:53.420 Lawson was not known he was not a Puritan in that sense he was not known for a lot of helpful

00:20:59.420 tangible practical application for the cultural moment of the day for the political moment of the

00:21:05.520 day it was just here's the text i'm going to exquisitely exposit it for you in a very technical

00:21:11.760 way uh that every preacher would envy you know and um and show that i am a technically polished

00:21:18.640 you know ivory tower preacher um and right now you know marxism marxism is destroying your home and

00:21:25.020 inflation is is stealing you know picking your wallet and you can't feed your kids i don't really

00:21:29.020 have much to say about that but um let me get into the technical analysis of this greek word and

00:21:34.980 blah blah blah um maybe just maybe his style of preaching the neglect of application uh his

00:21:42.160 failure on covid his failure on plm and then this latest news maybe they're not isolated

00:21:47.560 maybe those things are connected at a data point on the statement of social justice i'll turn it

00:21:51.200 over to you michael the church we were at before i remember when that came out i think i signed it

00:21:55.800 even though i'm a nobody right and i sent it to him and he looked at it and he's like well

00:21:59.280 i don't know i don't really feel the need to sign it he was from westminster his dad was friends

00:22:02.980 with timothy keller and then about six months later this is this is the evangelical church

00:22:07.880 scandal to scandal he was removed in this case it wasn't for adultery or infidelity it was abusive

00:22:12.880 behind doors like like yelling at you know your your female intern staffers like it was actually

00:22:17.160 legitimate and so again catch the pairing tough issue comes out man i could take a stand i could

00:22:22.360 lose people and i think i remember as a young man thinking like oh i'm sure he's got a reason or he

00:22:26.840 sees something no actually he's probably just cowardly and cowardly because he was a domineering

00:22:32.460 hard man, who in many ways was insecure. I think of Occam's razor as kind of this principle that

00:22:37.300 the simplest explanation is often the most likely. You can get into all of this, why he maybe had

00:22:42.380 this reason, and this is what he saw, and this is how he used the text. Yeah, okay, maybe, or maybe

00:22:47.040 he was just compromised and wasn't willing to take the stand that needed to be taken.

00:22:51.120 Right. I also heard what John Harris said about courage and vice, and immediately I thought of

00:22:59.000 a couple of connected passages and the first is in 2nd Samuel 11 where it talks about King David

00:23:03.720 and it says in the spring of the year the time when kings go out to battle David sent Joab

00:23:09.680 and his servants with him and all Israel and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah

00:23:14.320 but David remained at Jerusalem and then of course the very next story is David and Bathsheba right 0.76

00:23:20.340 where David was not out where a king should be he was not out defending his people he was not out

00:23:26.140 on the front line protecting israel advancing the kingdom of god in the way that he should and be

00:23:30.900 and so the question is um and i think it can go both ways the question is chicken or egg but my

00:23:36.420 point is it can go both ways i think so because a lack of courage is sin right a lack of defending

00:23:43.060 your people as a king or defending your congregation as pastor out of courage out of fear is sin right

00:23:50.140 And that will only beget more sin.

00:23:52.500 Right.

00:23:52.780 Sin, we fool ourselves by thinking that we can somehow isolate individual sins.

00:23:58.560 Like, yeah, I really, you know, I stink in this area, but it's, you know, it's just this area.

00:24:03.920 It's like, think of a tree, you know, well, Jesus, you know, it's like, I just came up with this right now.

00:24:12.140 Obviously, this is, you know, Jesus' illustration, but, you know, a good tree cannot bear bad fruit.

00:24:16.900 Likewise, a bad tree can't bear good fruit or a stream.

00:24:20.180 It's going to have fresh water or salt water.

00:24:21.920 It's not going to have both.

00:24:22.820 You're not going to have a fresh water stream pouring out salt water or vice versa.

00:24:26.680 Well, what we do is we sometimes think that to take this analogy a little bit further,

00:24:33.140 I don't think Jesus would mind.

00:24:34.680 I think it's fair to the text and the point that he's making.

00:24:37.540 But think of isolated branches on the tree.

00:24:40.200 um we sometimes fool ourselves in thinking that we can have good roots um uh you know to say i

00:24:47.940 have bad roots but i'm going to have good branches good fruit that's foolish or good roots and and

00:24:52.540 bad fruit that's foolish but what we do is we think um i can have one bad root and all the

00:24:58.480 others be good and that'll manifest with one bad branch and all the others so that we think we can

00:25:03.320 have a designated root and one designated root and all the rest are healthy and one designated

00:25:08.880 branch and all the rest are healthy and that all these other branches will be producing

00:25:13.160 perfectly uh poison free apples you know what i mean that like like i can give these this fruit

00:25:19.300 to my kids and it's not going to harm them it's it's healthy it's good it's nutritious and over

00:25:24.960 here it's perfectly poisoned apples so fully poisoned apples on one branch but then fully

00:25:30.360 non-poisoned not not a drop of poison perfectly healthy fruit on it sin doesn't work like that

00:25:36.400 well but that that branch branches out and begins to have it may be it may be one branch is

00:25:43.280 particularly bad or initially initially that's when you cut the branch off that's when you cut

00:25:47.820 the branch exactly exactly pluck out your eye cut off your hand yeah if it causes you to sin better 0.67

00:25:52.800 better to miss a branch and go to heaven than to go into hell with all your branches yeah and so

00:25:57.060 and so the point the point is you're right initially and that's why you best you best be 0.91

00:26:01.260 killing sin or sin will be killing you john owen you know so um incredibly difficult puritan to

00:26:06.340 read everyone's i'm going to read the mortification that's right it's like i've never read a single 0.60

00:26:09.500 puritan before so please don't start with you can get brain freeze or something like that yeah

00:26:13.700 because his sentences are like mine you know but but he puts them in written form and but you know

00:26:19.180 it's just a sentence will be like three pages long so anyways the point is um we think that we can

00:26:24.340 we can somehow isolate um sin to where i'm only going to sin in this area and it's not going to

00:26:29.980 effect any other area so you're right so it's it's you know chicken to the egg it's a two-way

00:26:34.020 street uh in david's case it's um i'm not going to go to war and and maybe it's fear but also

00:26:41.000 i think you could throw apathy in there as well so yeah so it could be a lack of courage but it

00:26:47.100 can also just be a lack of zeal and you can have a lack of zeal because you're cowardly you can

00:26:50.920 have a lack of zeal because you're lazy both are viable options so whether it be apathy or fear

00:26:56.220 um there's that lack of zeal and courage that um where you withdraw from the battle i'm not

00:27:03.360 going to fight the battle like i'm gonna i'm gonna continue to do technical exegetical analysis

00:27:08.040 and wow all my doctoral students that i'm teaching and and just you know um you know

00:27:14.300 hit the conference circuit and and and you know blow everyone's mind with you know my exegetical

00:27:20.780 prowess um meanwhile uh there is on the books uh legitimate discrimination against white people

00:27:30.080 and our kids are going to have a really hard time growing up in this world right and and but i'll

00:27:37.060 leave that to the daily wire and matt walsh right you know like like sometimes you know people are

00:27:42.160 like oh you know the daily wire and hear me i i do think that the daily wire is pretty like it's

00:27:48.640 pretty normie um we are we are a good bit uh to the whatever you would put the daily we're a good

00:27:54.940 bit to the right of the daily wire um but the point is part of the reason it's like the daily

00:27:59.600 wire got so much success is because uh they you know i think even they were late to the game but

00:28:04.880 they talked about things way before the evangelical church did and i'm not just talking about your

00:28:09.400 your nominal evangelicals um but they talked about things before reform guys did they talked

00:28:16.360 they certainly talked about things before lawson did so the point is that you know when when it's

00:28:20.880 time to go to war if you stay behind be it fear or be it um apathy for either reason um you you

00:28:29.560 become i think uniquely susceptible uh to to sin um in other areas and likewise if you're sinning

00:28:37.500 in other areas right because which came first the chicken or the egg in david's case it's i'm not

00:28:41.620 going to go to war and then he falls yeah in lawson's case it could have been that could have

00:28:45.460 the other way around fell yep right and had been falling for a while um but then you know and so

00:28:51.000 then the battle came and he didn't go to war let me make one other quick point here um so i'm going

00:28:55.920 to read two verses um this is second in the in seven one since we have these promises beloved

00:29:01.440 let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit bringing holiness to completion

00:29:07.060 in the fear of god so there is a sense where our fear of god leads us to personal piety to holy

00:29:13.620 living and to integrity but also and this is this is something that i think we need to just

00:29:20.280 really recognize is a failure of our time acts 5 29 peter and the apostles answered this is the

00:29:27.580 the jewish leaders we must obey god rather than men and the fear of the lord is not only for

00:29:34.300 personal holiness but it's for public battle and obedience yeah and we can't separate the two and

00:29:40.760 if you don't fear the Lord enough to obey him publicly, you have to question whether you fear

00:29:46.980 the Lord enough to obey him, quote unquote, privately. That's really good, Michael.

00:29:52.160 Yeah. Let's hit our first commercial and then we'll be back.

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00:31:58.540 Okay, welcome back.

00:31:59.920 So we're going to move on with this discussion.

00:32:01.820 And really, we don't want this discussion to necessarily just be about Steve Lawson.

00:32:06.980 Right.

00:32:07.320 Right?

00:32:07.860 This is, what can we learn about this?

00:32:10.220 Yeah, we've made our point.

00:32:11.180 We've made our point.

00:32:11.380 Now we want to talk about just for us.

00:32:13.380 Yep.

00:32:13.780 Yeah.

00:32:14.280 For men.

00:32:14.820 And the question is, is this an epidemic?

00:32:17.380 Is this unusual in church history?

00:32:18.980 I mean, because we've seen a series of these, you know, back to Robert Zacharias and Tony Evans.

00:32:24.840 Alistair Begg didn't compromise himself morally.

00:32:26.760 but just a disappointing stance of of courage in the culture one way or another a lot of guys have

00:32:32.280 fallen recently weren't there some other names too uh td jakes i mean i don't know if we he's

00:32:36.860 implicated with uh diddy's the whole lawsuit going on there so that's not just i met a woman it's

00:32:41.820 like this man potentially allegedly yep was in very deep um trying to think of other ones we

00:32:47.360 are at azerdia oh yeah art azerdia he was the apologist uh he was a single man uh yeah who

00:32:53.240 you know he's a good man he's repented i want to be clear about that he's repented it has been

00:32:58.320 um multiple years at this point and everybody who knows him he's had accountability everybody

00:33:03.760 who knows him he has repented and um has been walking in uh repentance but you're thinking

00:33:08.740 of si yep um i figure his last name si si bruggan kate what is it that's not a name you just made

00:33:16.560 up anything that is say it say it again cy brogan kate brogan kate brogan kate that's not that's

00:33:23.920 but he was a professional apologist is the point that was the occupation and he had to step down

00:33:27.840 from that yeah um so a lot of guys yeah point and but but here's the thing it's like well td jakes

00:33:33.680 he doesn't count you know he's a prosperity gospel heretic and it's like amen uh tony evans

00:33:38.720 you know like i don't know if he's as bad as td jakes but he's bad um i get it you know but um 0.60

00:33:44.320 and then ravi zacharias wasn't uh publicly a heretic um but his theology sucked you know like

00:33:50.400 i mean ravi ravi was never the the craziest thing about ravi isn't his fall the craziest thing to me

00:33:57.360 about ravi is the fact that uh that people were so impressed with him in the first place i just

00:34:02.720 i don't get it like the dude was not a theologian by by he wasn't he was he had a philosophy he had

00:34:08.400 a command of philosophy and he could he could explain apologetics with hillsong too it's not

00:34:13.280 It's not just reformed guys.

00:34:14.480 Yeah, you're right.

00:34:15.000 Well, that's my,

00:34:15.980 but my point is,

00:34:16.820 so it's across the board

00:34:18.020 and that's been for decades,

00:34:19.520 for decades across the board

00:34:20.600 if we're talking about T.D. Jakes

00:34:21.820 and Carl Lentz

00:34:23.260 and these kinds of things.

00:34:24.800 That's been for decades, for sure.

00:34:26.920 But I do think that it is notable

00:34:29.760 that I could be wrong,

00:34:31.180 but it seems like there has been an uptick

00:34:32.820 within the reform board

00:34:34.380 because it's not just like guys

00:34:36.460 that we would disagree with

00:34:37.380 and some of the guys

00:34:38.040 arguably not even Christian.

00:34:39.980 You look across the board

00:34:41.260 over the last seven years

00:34:43.620 And you'd like to think that this phenomenon, this epidemic that you're going to talk about,

00:34:48.360 that the angel of moral failure passed over the reformed house, it did not.

00:34:54.660 It did not.

00:34:55.840 We've got the same stats.

00:34:57.460 So this is largely anecdotal, what I'm about to say.

00:35:01.060 I didn't have time to do a really, really deep dive into this.

00:35:04.520 It would be an interesting question to do some more research on.

00:35:07.480 But what I did do, and what surprised me was I didn't do a lot of research on this

00:35:11.900 because I thought I would be able to do just a little bit of research

00:35:14.520 and I would find tons of examples.

00:35:16.380 And then I would populate this.

00:35:17.540 I was going to make a different point today.

00:35:19.860 My point was going to be, well, this has always been happening,

00:35:21.760 so what do we do about it?

00:35:23.060 So I started doing some historical research,

00:35:25.460 and I'm sure listeners who are well-versed in church history,

00:35:29.380 there are obviously some.

00:35:31.180 But I did not find lists, long lists and notable examples

00:35:36.700 through church history of church fathers and major theologians,

00:35:39.760 major public institutional figures in the church

00:35:44.280 who were defrocked or disqualified from ministry

00:35:47.000 because of sexual immorality.

00:35:49.260 Now, that's not to say it's not there.

00:35:51.160 There were popes, and, you know, Pope John XII

00:35:55.000 had multiple children with multiple wives.

00:35:57.160 I mean, so it did happen.

00:35:59.420 But my point is...

00:36:00.440 In the Catholic Church.

00:36:01.240 In the Catholic Church.

00:36:02.180 That's a classic. 0.99

00:36:03.060 You expect that.

00:36:04.480 This was 900, so this is, you know... 0.95

00:36:06.600 Okay, all right, a better Catholic Church. 0.82

00:36:09.000 Yeah.

00:36:09.760 But the point is, the research that I found, funny enough, people were mad at, Luther was disqualified for his anti-Semitism, you know, or, you know, Calvin for condemning that guy to death.

00:36:23.900 Servetus.

00:36:24.080 Yeah, Servetus, yeah.

00:36:25.360 But as far as sexual immorality goes, there was not a long, long list.

00:36:30.760 There were some that were maybe some rumors and things like that, and so.

00:36:33.920 Well, and that's still the way it is today.

00:36:35.440 It's so frustrating, but it's like, you know, for 40 years, people hated Doug Wilson.

00:36:38.620 Right.

00:36:38.720 absolutely hated him um and say what you will like i i would have disagreements with doug wilson

00:36:45.220 um i do have disagreements he's aware of those probably you know he's he probably disagrees

00:36:51.600 with me even more than i disagree with him but the point is this uh say what you will but for

00:36:56.100 40 years he was blacklisted by even like ligonier for instance right right so you know uh lawson

00:37:02.340 he's good he's good for ligonier uh doug wilson's not doug wilson back in the day you know shared

00:37:07.600 of stage and panels and things like that at conferences with rc sproul right yeah but then

00:37:11.740 eventually piper mccarthy yep but eventually was blacklisted um piper actually was one of the few

00:37:16.720 guys actually actually uh would continue um to minister uh from time to time with doug wilson

00:37:22.720 but everybody else want to give him the time of day he was completely blacklisted and say what

00:37:26.400 you will but the point is this um all three of his kids and every single one of his grandchildren

00:37:32.000 which i believe is like 19 at this point um and i think he just had his first great grandchild

00:37:39.000 um beckham merkel and beckham ben merkel their son i think their son just had his first kid

00:37:46.380 so like four generations at this point uh not a single one of them is you know not professing

00:37:52.740 faith and love in the lord jesus christ and all of them are you know members in good standing

00:37:57.460 a local church and doug used to always say i think i'm sure he still says that um a man's credentials

00:38:03.300 the most compelling is true credentials um is uh the laughter at his dinner table well i thought

00:38:09.700 it was interesting in the tucker carlson interview that you know they talked about some geopolitical

00:38:14.500 things and theological things the thing that absolutely floored tucker is that all of doug's

00:38:18.820 kids and grandchildren grandchildren who are in the area come over every saturday night which is

00:38:23.300 like all of them and i know except for a couple that floored tucker you know not his eloquence

00:38:28.660 or theological reasoning or what it was it was that testimony right so well that's because doug

00:38:32.900 was speaking so the eloquence is not fair enough if it was re if it was writing you know then you

00:38:37.300 could say doug has some eloquence uh he's a he's a great writer uh speaking yeah i never quite

00:38:42.420 think so but the point i wanted to make here is there were issues through history that men were

00:38:50.580 were defrocked for, were removed from office for. In the very early church, it was the pinch of

00:38:56.980 incense to Caesar, right? And so there was a cultural, political, theological issue of the

00:39:02.200 time, and there was a huge debate over whether or not Christians and ministers who had made a

00:39:08.000 pinch of incense to Caesar could even be restored to the faith. Wes, you mentioned the usury one.

00:39:13.260 Yeah, Nicaea, they had a big debate, and there was a ban on clerics that charged usury,

00:39:17.700 and if any cleric went on to charge usury, they were defrocked.

00:39:21.520 So early on, it was like, if you were found out in the office of pastor

00:39:25.620 to be loaning someone and being like,

00:39:27.260 you've got to give that back to me at 10%, that's any usury.

00:39:30.040 That's not just exorbitant.

00:39:31.160 That was any usury.

00:39:32.140 Any interest.

00:39:33.100 Any interest.

00:39:33.840 Nicaea said, no, you've lost the role of pastor, a resolution or a decree.

00:39:37.940 So it's not that the Christian church has never removed pastors from office, 0.99

00:39:43.500 but just from a cursory reading of history it seems like it the the reason why men are being

00:39:51.140 removed from office in our generations is higher on the sexual morality side way and so i we just

00:39:59.480 have to be honest about that we have to be honest about the fact that we live in a hyper individual

00:40:04.280 sexualistic culture, which has hyper-sexualized everything and made not only sex, but even the

00:40:12.920 interaction between men and women. Human history has never seen men and women run in the same

00:40:18.800 circles like they do now. And even pastors and women running in the same circles like they do

00:40:25.100 now. We are really in uncharted waters here. And so it doesn't surprise me, actually. It saddens

00:40:31.340 me but it doesn't surprise me that we see so many pastors in the last few decades who have fallen

00:40:37.100 specifically to sexual immorality i saw a woman on x today who retweeted uh somebody might have

00:40:43.540 been gabriel hughes uh but retweeted some pastor who said that you know something to the tune of

00:40:49.000 the billy graham rule is good yeah and we should follow it um and uh she retweeted him and said

00:40:56.140 the billy uh graham rule is you know misogynist and uh like basically like you know on the one

00:41:02.080 hand it's like uh you want to be in a room alone with me like you're uh you're a predator and then

00:41:06.560 it's like you won't be in a room like that's what women maybe would have said a few decades you're 0.89

00:41:10.540 a few decades ago they would have said you want to be in a room alone with me you're a predator 0.50

00:41:14.800 now it's you won't be in a room alone with me you're a misogynist and so anyway so she like

00:41:19.360 she retweeted um this guy who's advocating for the billy graham rule as a positive thing

00:41:24.740 um and she which for the record is don't be don't ever be alone with a woman don't ever be alone

00:41:30.440 and so um yeah mike pence did the same thing um but but you know what kind of breaks the mold

00:41:36.600 and ruins the whole episode because there's a guy with character but zero courage i know

00:41:40.880 like the character point the story's not done being written that's right the character might

00:41:45.240 come out just like it did with lawsuits you're right uh but i just i just want to make sure

00:41:49.980 the public record is clear that mike pence has zero courage that guy's a joke all right so that

00:41:55.160 being said um and you know what if i had to bet and i hate i hate to root against them but

00:41:59.600 if i had to bet uh we will find that uh the character was not quite there like we thought 0.51

00:42:04.100 because you can't have an iron man character that's right yeah and be that much of a loser 0.98

00:42:12.000 coward that like your whole nation needs you and you are just a traitor coward um i just don't i 0.98

00:42:19.840 don't believe the character's there i can't i can't believe it because the correlation does 0.98

00:42:22.920 exist the episode's back on our point still stands okay so uh we're back we are so bad right now i

00:42:28.900 just talked myself back from the ledge uh but but the point is that you know this person's retweeting

00:42:33.380 you know uh the billy graham rule is good and we should do it and and she's saying you know again

00:42:37.580 if it was decades ago it would have been like uh any man who wants to be in a room alone with me

00:42:42.160 is a predator now it's like uh this is misogynistic and said the billy graham uh rule is used by

00:42:48.020 misogynist uh to make sure that women can never be right um it's not to keep women out uh out of

00:42:54.100 the bedroom it's to keep them out of the boardroom and then i mean i looked at that and i was like

00:42:58.620 dude you already it's like you already sold it was on board i was already sold on the billy

00:43:03.820 graham rule for to keep women out of the bedroom as a protection of fidelity and purity uh but

00:43:08.920 you're telling me that it'll keep women out of the boardroom also i'm the biggest fan of the

00:43:13.580 billy graham rule that you could pause there's only upsides you're telling me exactly it'll guard

00:43:17.760 against adultery and feminism it's the billy graham rule is probably the greatest rule that i've ever

00:43:24.300 heard of in my life it should be one of the ten commandments and it is number seven do not commit 0.53

00:43:29.700 adultery right right uh the westminster exposition and for anyone like wanting to get in the ten

00:43:34.420 commandments man the larger catechism is so good westminster larger catechism because it goes into

00:43:39.280 what is commanded, for example, in the seventh commandment, and then what is forbidden. And it

00:43:43.400 goes through all of those things. And some of those would even be like the inclination or the

00:43:47.460 pre-sin or the spending time around or giving your heart in those early stages of sin. So it's not

00:43:53.080 just in the commandment, like, don't literally do this act. It's saying, no, no, no, don't commit

00:43:57.420 adultery is this broad thing to guard your heart against anything. I think of Jesus in the Sermon

00:44:02.700 on the Mount. You've heard it said, I shall not commit adultery. I'm telling you, when you look

00:44:08.180 at a woman with lustful intent you've committed already in your heart one other aspect an older 0.93

00:44:13.080 man said this i'm not older but he said this and i think it rings true and it's good to hear

00:44:16.880 young men will win the battle of lust and they'll become go on to become preachers and businessmen

00:44:22.240 and everything like that and they think they've they've conquered sexual temptation like i'm not

00:44:26.600 my 20s i'm not my 30s my testosterone is not over 1000 i've kind of beaten that but there's something

00:44:32.540 that comes in he said on the latter half that a lot of men aren't prepared for and that's the

00:44:36.540 A lot of successful men, particularly.

00:44:38.560 Exactly.

00:44:39.120 That's the dynamic of power.

00:44:41.680 When you're powerful, when people listen to you, when the room kind of is drawn to your

00:44:47.280 attention, men can find really easily, it's really accessible to them to really enjoy

00:44:52.980 that.

00:44:53.220 And then when you have that type of power over a woman who's in your proximity, be it 0.97

00:44:56.900 an intern, be it a church member, we see a lot of this happening, that women are drawn

00:45:01.060 to your personality, to what you say.

00:45:02.900 It's not hard to imagine at 50, 60 years old, your wife's not particularly thrilled with

00:45:07.560 your sermons, but this young girl who is very, you're a celebrity pastor, you're paying

00:45:13.120 attention to her, that dynamic of power, and we see people do this, and it can be an emotional

00:45:17.860 affair.

00:45:18.420 So it's not even then sexual.

00:45:19.720 He's older and she's younger.

00:45:21.700 There's nothing going on in that sense, but emotionally, he's feeding off of the adoration

00:45:26.660 and, in a sense, the worship that she's giving him, that he adores the type of adulation,

00:45:32.360 the praise that he's getting and feeds off of it and becomes this idolatrous worship of

00:45:36.980 the power dynamic, not necessarily the lust and the sexual aspect, but the power that he holds.

00:45:42.220 And so that's a good reminder towards the second half of life, especially for those, like you said,

00:45:46.600 they're successful, there's powerful people, look up to them. Be aware of, and sometimes it's

00:45:51.620 probably genuine from young women. Sometimes it is probably sometimes flatterous, but be aware of

00:45:55.560 the flattery and the praise and how that could take your heart to love it and to treasure it

00:45:59.860 and really start to get an identity in it.

00:46:01.880 That's a great point.

00:46:02.740 Yeah.

00:46:03.680 Yeah, you know, it's something that for young men,

00:46:07.920 they want to face a battle, right?

00:46:10.180 And so even though lust is a formidable battle,

00:46:13.980 it's something that a young man can get his mind around like,

00:46:16.600 okay, this is something that I kill, right? 0.58

00:46:19.960 Kind of instinctive. 0.99

00:46:20.980 The dragon.

00:46:21.720 Yeah, dragon, that sort of thing.

00:46:23.080 And what you're talking about, Wes, is a good warning

00:46:26.260 because it's not really a dragon, right?

00:46:29.620 It's not some great beast, and you don't dream about—as a young boy, you dream about slaying dragons.

00:46:37.380 You don't really dream about slaying the kind of koala that comes up next to you, right?

00:46:42.380 And yet sin is deceitful in many, many forms.

00:46:45.140 It's not just strong and powerful.

00:46:46.840 It's deceitful.

00:46:47.560 It tricks, and it appeals to our desires.

00:46:52.560 And I would suppose that what you say is right, Wes.

00:46:55.400 As we mature and as men become more influential, they may have a greater desire to be approved of or to receive accolades or to be recognized by even more and more people.

00:47:07.040 Right.

00:47:08.120 And you had that off early.

00:47:10.600 Yeah.

00:47:10.660 Because every sin, there were sins committed ahead of time.

00:47:13.240 So if a man goes into adultery, there's probably some type of pornography, if not at least mental fantasy.

00:47:18.640 So first it was giving into those.

00:47:20.840 Then was the lying about spending your time.

00:47:22.640 It's not like Steve Lawson, through the time that he had this inappropriate relationship, was able to be forthcoming.

00:47:27.820 Like, oh, honey, where were you?

00:47:28.900 Oh, I was with so-and-so.

00:47:29.980 So it's the lies that accompany it, the mental thought that accompanies it.

00:47:33.620 Somebody's probably given into years ago that laid the foundation, laid the groundwork. 0.95

00:47:38.920 Well, I'm okay to spend some time one-on-one with women. 1.00

00:47:41.560 That then eventually culminates in the sin. 0.51

00:47:44.180 And so think about that, that the little compromises that litter the trail often build up to then something further down the road if they're not cut off at the pass with repentance.

00:47:54.020 Yeah.

00:47:54.200 Right.

00:47:54.920 Last thing that I think would be worth talking about is I was just thinking about.

00:47:59.260 Is this a big section?

00:47:59.960 Do we need to get another commercial break?

00:48:01.260 Yeah.

00:48:01.800 Well, it's not that big.

00:48:04.120 We'll come back because there's a couple of, you know, maybe housekeeping items that I would like to address.

00:48:10.040 But I think we should talk a little bit just about the idea.

00:48:12.840 I've seen a lot of people say, well, this is just the problem of celebrity pastors.

00:48:18.700 That's a category that shouldn't exist. 0.96

00:48:20.840 And because it does, as long as you have celebrity pastors, you're going to continue to have affairs and adultery.

00:48:29.120 And I don't know.

00:48:30.880 I don't have to speak first.

00:48:32.560 What do you guys think about that?

00:48:33.800 I think I'm going to play the Uno reverse card on people who raised that.

00:48:39.100 That may all well be, but I would say the bigger problem with celebrity pastor is the fact that you are utterly devastated to find out this news about Steve Lawson.

00:48:48.780 Like you in your heart have elevated that man to too high of a position, right?

00:48:53.460 So the celebrity pastor phenomenon that we see in Scripture in 1 Corinthians, Paul says not to be of Apollos or of Peter or of himself, but to be of Christ, right?

00:49:03.920 And so the celebrity pastor phenomenon may be an issue, but it's in the hearts of us

00:49:08.840 who, it's good to have godly mentors, it's good to have fathers in the faith, all of

00:49:14.320 that is good.

00:49:15.440 I remember years ago, I was probably in college, and I was very, you know, reading a lot of

00:49:22.600 John Piper at the time, and there had been an earthquake in Minneapolis, and I think

00:49:29.460 this was in facebook was around and this one of my friends posted and some people had died in the

00:49:34.620 earthquake or or bridge had collapsed or something like that and my friend one of my friends first

00:49:40.700 post was don't worry everyone piper was not on the bridge not we're praying for the people in

00:49:46.920 minneapolis you know we're praying for those who lost loved ones first first thought bridge

00:49:52.460 collapsed in minneapolis was it john piper right and this idea of celebrity pastors i think cuts

00:49:57.940 the other direction people who are just like it is very sad we're right to be upset the name of

00:50:04.460 christ has been defamed but if this is shaking your faith if this has rocked you to your core

00:50:09.560 then also you might be guilty of this idolization of of a celebrity pastor so i i don't think that

00:50:17.300 it's necessarily moral failure is necessarily inherent to speaking at conferences i guess is

00:50:22.080 my short answer that's good do you have some thoughts not too many i think of paul when he

00:50:26.480 as in Corinthians, you have many teachers, but you have not many fathers. Unless you attended

00:50:30.240 Steve Lawson's church and you were a member there, there's a real sense in which he wasn't

00:50:34.060 your spiritual father. He was a teacher, he was an instructor, but the reverence and the honor

00:50:39.060 and the holding up, that is due to fathers. Unless you attended his church, that might have been,

00:50:43.520 like you said, misplaced. What seemed like a solid teacher, many men have seemed like that,

00:50:49.140 but when they fall, it shouldn't be them falling from the status of father, and that does happen,

00:50:53.420 but maybe from the status of this man i listened to uh but the message and his life and character

00:50:59.460 didn't bear it out right and i would just add to that that's a great passage to to use i would say

00:51:04.640 that and playing off of both of you guys what you're saying michael is kind of like cutting

00:51:08.400 the other way um you know that um there is a way of of caring too much about vainglory and fame and

00:51:15.020 those kinds of things and the fear of man the praise of man certainly um an individual celebrity

00:51:20.400 type pastor could sin in that way but there's also you know sin from the other side of the aisle

00:51:25.240 in terms of you know people placing someone up on a pedestal and giving just far too much um

00:51:30.580 credibility and uh and weight to a certain individual and then taking that with what you

00:51:35.900 said wes of like uh the weight should be placed with fathers but but looking at that text you

00:51:40.920 know what paul says um is um you know you have many teachers but few fathers i think one of the

00:51:47.700 reasons why that father weight is given by spiritual sons and daughters right your average

00:51:53.040 joblo christian it needs a spiritual father every christian needs a spiritual father and so you've

00:51:58.300 got all these spiritual sons and daughters they're going to um attach father glory father uh father

00:52:06.340 weight or as back to wilson again like a father hunger their father hunger is going to to drive

00:52:11.120 them to attaching a father glory to um someone to to someone and and if there aren't any father

00:52:18.700 figures then they're going to give a father weighted glory to um to someone who's not a

00:52:25.280 father yeah and um and i think the problem that the apostle paul states is you know it's just as

00:52:31.020 prevalent today as it was back then i don't know if it's more prevalent and i i certainly wouldn't

00:52:37.160 say it's less but i think that's still the the ratio the problem is this the ratio of teachers

00:52:42.380 of fathers is uh is not great too dang high yeah there's way way more teachers than there are

00:52:49.000 fathers um and so so then what happens so here's my point is you can say well um shut it down right

00:52:56.560 give the call like shut it down you know like shut down every podcast shut down every conference

00:53:00.960 shut down every seminary every you know every large church john mccarthur that's it's time to

00:53:06.120 go be with jesus somebody cut the brake lines let's you know let's let's send the man home

00:53:09.520 you could do that i'm being facetious of course you can do that but the alternative is um what

00:53:17.320 if we just had more fathers yeah right like like so you can you can always i think the the impetus

00:53:22.840 is always on less celebrity pastors less podcasts less conferences less this well part of the reason

00:53:31.080 just to be frank part of the reason why people will drive or fly yep across not just countries

00:53:36.720 but but the world continents yeah continents to be a part of xyz conference and tune in and listen

00:53:45.920 to all the podcasts from so and so um is is because they um because the local pastors who

00:53:53.800 should be the fathers aren't there right there's so many of them have failed there's so many young

00:53:59.860 men who i mean that's like one of the most frequent emails that i get on on almost a daily basis is

00:54:06.600 just saying um you know i i talked to my pastor the other day and i'm and i'm looking for counsel

00:54:12.620 and and help and um and you know i'm struggling i'm a young man in a new marriage or this that

00:54:19.120 and the other and uh i'm struggling to pay the bills and i want to i want to provide it by a

00:54:23.240 house but you know but i don't know how to do this and how to do that mortgages are through the roof

00:54:27.320 and um and and my wife you know she's uh constantly berating me she's frustrated with me

00:54:32.600 and uh this that and the other and my pastor's uh council um it all sums up in this happy wife

00:54:38.820 happy life right and these are reformed pastors right like i'm not just saying that this isn't

00:54:44.100 just the council that would come from td jakes this is like this is your average reformed pastor

00:54:49.260 who should know better who um is a feminist he is it's like oh no he's not joe that's not fair

00:54:55.740 he's a complementarian uh-huh yeah a feminist right complementarian feminist is this you know

00:55:00.560 corporate needs to tell the difference between these two pictures it's the same picture like he

00:55:05.080 all he thinks is like well servant leadership but here's the deal it's the tail wagging the dog it's

00:55:10.060 always it's always the other way around it's the tail wagging the dog so so um servant leadership

00:55:14.240 what does that mean it means that you lead by serving right so um so if your leadership is

00:55:20.360 being questioned in your marriage or with your children or with this or with that um if there's

00:55:24.240 if no, you know, there's no respect, we'll serve harder, right? Because you lead by serving.

00:55:30.540 Instead of saying no servant leadership is that you serve by leading. Your leadership is a service.

00:55:37.440 My leadership in our church and in my home, that is the chief service that I provide. Are there

00:55:44.540 opportunities like Jesus who washes his disciples' feet? Are there opportunities to actually serve,

00:55:50.640 to go up to the church building that we don't have,

00:55:53.880 but Lord willing, we'll have eventually,

00:55:55.520 and nobody is able for whatever,

00:55:59.120 then I'm going to wash the toilets this week?

00:56:01.160 Sure.

00:56:01.720 Should a pastor be willing to do that?

00:56:03.280 Sure.

00:56:03.780 But that's not his primary service.

00:56:06.120 If 90% of his pastoral time is scrubbing the toilets,

00:56:11.560 that might sound noble, but that's not.

00:56:14.780 That means people are spiritually starved.

00:56:16.900 He needs to be studying.

00:56:18.060 He needs to be praying.

00:56:19.280 He needs to be preaching.

00:56:20.340 he needs to be leading he needs to be leading so it's not serve uh it's not lead by serving

00:56:26.580 no it's it's serve by leading but my point is that is not the counsel that most reformed pastors who

00:56:35.040 who allegedly believe in male headship and these kinds of things that's not the counsel you're

00:56:39.760 going to get instead you're going to get um oh your wife uh um is physically abusing you i get

00:56:45.900 these emails you know like she's punching you in the face because she knows that she can get away 0.95

00:56:49.980 with it because like or she's threatened to divorce you because she knows the entire law

00:56:54.780 system legal system in our country she'll get the kids she'll get the house she'll get like 0.99

00:56:58.880 so she is threatening divorce or she's taking you to court she's punching you the face she's 1.00

00:57:03.640 cursing you out and the counsel will be you probably just didn't lead her well enough right

00:57:08.680 you know you did and when i say lead aka serve her right enough um you did but did you grovel

00:57:15.660 enough like were you physically on your hands and knees 24 hours a day begging like did you

00:57:21.020 did you really really strive with a happy wife happy life uh strategy did like this is this is

00:57:28.060 the reformed pastor council that you'll get and so my point is that's just one example the

00:57:33.080 exasperating of young men so then what do these young men look for like well he's not he's not

00:57:38.760 going to be a father right to me yeah he's not going to be a father so then they're listening

00:57:42.560 to my podcast i don't have time to to make thousands of phone calls every single week

00:57:47.000 i can't counsel all these young men i do my best with the material that i put out by the grace of

00:57:51.440 god uh but i've got a wife i've got kids and i've got a church um and and so the the point is these

00:57:57.640 guys it's like well it's it's all the celebrities fault because they uh they just want praise and

00:58:02.520 they just want to be on this uh look i'll just i'll just i'm gonna shoot you straight um in terms

00:58:07.800 of um in terms of money cash i'll just talk about that for a second um right response um is not

00:58:15.620 making the bills we are at a deficit every single month and um and i don't know if right response is

00:58:20.860 going to be able to continue to make it next year just to be completely frank um because it turns

00:58:26.120 out that all these young men that all the older men have disparaged they're the ones who follow

00:58:30.200 my ministry and young men you know i love you but i'm just going to shoot you straight a lot of you

00:58:34.900 don't have jobs and and and are not like if you want to talk about uh markets that are not viable

00:58:41.380 um uh the the uh post-millennial patriarchal young 20s and 30s male market if you're looking

00:58:51.200 for cash right right stick to stick to ligonier right those guys have cornered you know the

00:58:57.380 market both with women and men um and a lot of times the women are the ones who actually have

00:59:02.500 control over the the checkbook and are able to write that for your gift of any amount um and so 0.95

00:59:08.280 like if you want to get donations then um then you yeah be soft complementarian right and uh and

00:59:15.720 and you need to be fluent in boomer theology well as you know if you follow this channel i'm not

00:59:21.140 i do not speak boomer theology it's it's it's a it's it's not a second language for me i i'm not

00:59:27.220 fluent in it and i don't ever plan to be um and so uh yeah a lot of our followers are young

00:59:32.380 and i think the last time we looked at the metrics it's like 87 percent male right and 13 percent

00:59:39.520 female 13 percent uh females out there who are listening and you're not hate watching you

00:59:43.460 actually are listening and appreciating god bless you we're super grateful for you don't want to

00:59:47.480 hate on our 13 but let's just let's just be frank 87 is young men and um and a lot of them 0.98

00:59:55.240 financially are struggling because they entered a world an economic world that the boomers 0.87

00:59:59.540 shattered they absolutely destroyed it they they exported all the jobs overseas they brought in all 1.00

01:00:05.960 the immigrants because love your neighbor meant somehow that we should love people in ghana on 0.60

01:00:10.960 the other side of the world and not our literal neighbors not even our own kids and so uh you

01:00:16.000 you've got guys who are paying four thousand four thousand dollars for a mortgage right they make

01:00:20.140 forty five hundred bucks like the math doesn't matter the math doesn't matter and so so we're

01:00:25.440 not Ligonier God bless Ligonier I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm not trying to hate on him but um but

01:00:29.980 Ligonier takes him what is it Nathan six million dollars annually I think it's uh it's a massive

01:00:37.760 amount of donations um and they've worked for it they spent a long time R.C. Sproul was great I've

01:00:44.120 got nothing bad to say about them but the point is uh the the point is that um a lot of young

01:00:50.780 people young women and especially young men that's that's my heart and and you know what here's the

01:00:56.220 deal it's like things are are tight financially okay whatever um but if you want to know who's

01:01:02.080 going to win the war long term uh whoever wins the hearts of the young men yeah you lose the hearts

01:01:07.520 of the young men and you lost i don't care how how much you take in annually right i don't know

01:01:12.360 how many cruises that you have you know you're suffering in persecution themed cruise

01:01:17.020 that's like such an irony and that's a real thing by the way look it up um i won't say the ministry

01:01:22.100 i already said it 40 times um but the point is like uh it doesn't matter how big you are

01:01:28.480 how much you have uh you lose the hearts of the next generation of men and uh and you ultimately

01:01:34.760 lose the war and so we're willing uh to be tight and and play at a deficit and a disadvantage

01:01:40.980 today because we want to win not just today's battle but tomorrow's war and uh and that means

01:01:47.620 we are going to not disparage but rather we're going to be a ministry that loves young men and

01:01:52.360 so the point is here's the deal all you guys complaining about celebrity pastors um they're

01:01:57.400 looking for fathers and a lot of local pastors you think it's like well they're looking for

01:02:02.100 teachers and ignoring fathers here's the sad reality some of these guys these young guys

01:02:08.120 ogden is like well i don't like brian silvey i don't like eric khan i don't like steven wolf i 0.98

01:02:11.880 don't like andrew isker i don't like joel webbin i don't like okay well let me just shoot you 0.69

01:02:15.340 straight these 30 something year olds and it's sad this is pathetic we're not trying to brag 0.98

01:02:20.680 this is not to say this is how awesome we are this is to say this is how pathetic you are okay 0.98

01:02:25.820 this is the lay of the land right now guys are desperate for fathers and and and what it should 0.96

01:02:32.400 be you actually think this is how deceived you are you actually think the problem right now

01:02:36.840 is that all these young men in their local churches

01:02:39.800 are ignoring their local pastors who are great fathers

01:02:43.340 and preferring the 35-year-old teacher

01:02:46.020 like Brian Sauve or Eric Conn or Joel Webb.

01:02:49.280 It's the opposite.

01:02:50.800 The 60-year-old man in the local church of 150 people

01:02:54.620 who has the time and has that young man in his congregation

01:02:58.100 and has the access and the availability to be a father to him

01:03:01.380 only berates him instead of fathering him. 1.00

01:03:04.920 tells them you're worthless uh you're a neo-nazi you're a racist you're a misogynist uh happy wife 1.00

01:03:12.800 happy life serve harder and what does leadership mean absolutely nothing what is it good for 0.99

01:03:19.240 nothing right serve leadership just means serve well what about women in leadership yeah well

01:03:23.560 when it's women it's real leadership but when it's men just serve and that's your pastor and

01:03:28.620 i'm talking about the reformed church right now right i'm talking about reformed pastors

01:03:32.980 spineless feckless pastors when that's your pastor it is not that all the young men are

01:03:40.100 despising their fathers and calling teachers going to teachers instead uh with new christian

01:03:45.920 press and right response and yada yada no it's that the guys who are twice their age who should

01:03:51.160 be fathers aren't and we from a distance with a podcast are exercising more fatherly spiritual

01:03:58.800 pastoral care and we are pat we we are are are we are virtually remotely from a distance spiritually

01:04:07.580 fathering and pastoring thousands of young men because you won't do it local pastor so so we

01:04:15.020 can we can hate on the conference circuit and we can hate on the celebrities and all that and

01:04:18.700 there's something to be said for travel just for the record we host an annual conference one of

01:04:22.060 reasons i host a conference it's because then i don't have to leave i i travel extremely a very

01:04:28.920 i went to my the church i planted in san diego this last weekend what a blessing precious people

01:04:34.200 they invited me back there's been some struggles in the past by god's grace there's been reconciliation

01:04:38.680 i got to go back and preach probably scared a lot of the new guys you know the old guys who were

01:04:44.580 there when i was there before they knew what they were getting into but some of the new people like

01:04:48.020 oh my goodness i i was fiery but here's the deal if you're going to preach hot you better preach

01:04:52.360 short i preach for 40 42 minutes it's possible it is possible don't but don't don't get any ideas

01:04:57.600 that's that's for their church you preach an hour on sunday too michael only because only because

01:05:02.640 joel opens that door every week so i preach for 42 minutes probably scared you know the the daylights

01:05:08.020 out of out of a lot of the new people but here's the point um all the leadership uh we had uh we

01:05:13.720 had a great meal together they invited my wife and uh got to have saturday night got to have a

01:05:18.900 dinner together it was uh you know reconciliation brotherly love a lot of kindness um just i can't

01:05:25.860 tell you how much i was blessed by it and and and reconciliation that i didn't know if god would

01:05:29.920 bring in this life and he did which is amazing so don't don't ever give up um but but and and a lot

01:05:36.660 of the credit goes to them their kindness and their willingness to to welcome me and my wife

01:05:40.360 back in but here's the point i got on a flight at 2 p.m on saturday with my wife so there's another

01:05:46.040 thing billy like my wife came it wasn't just me 2 p.m on saturday and uh and then was getting on

01:05:51.420 a flight at 2 p.m on sunday there's a 24 hour because we have young kids and we don't leave

01:05:57.540 them we don't leave them they were with grandma and grandpa they were in good hands and they were

01:06:01.720 with grandma and grandpa for a whopping 24 hours you know a little bit longer because by the time

01:06:06.120 the plane plane got home but you get the point 30 hours whatever it was um that that's about it that

01:06:12.120 in a couple ogden trips where i either bring my family with me or it's a short trip and i go right

01:06:17.920 right back home um and it's not because i don't get invitations i am turning down invitations

01:06:22.620 on the regular people all the time and it's not because i don't love the people who ask it's not

01:06:26.780 because i i it wouldn't bless people um it's because i have a six-year-old five-year-old

01:06:32.880 four-year-old two-year-old and a baby on the way um i am in the throes of the little years yeah

01:06:39.840 and uh and we have a church that's three and a half years old and in the process of of trying

01:06:44.000 to get a building which we cannot afford send help please pray i know you can't you can't donate

01:06:49.840 we've already established that all you young dudes you can't donate maybe one day when you

01:06:53.920 when you are able to uh remember little right response that didn't you know beat you over the

01:06:58.340 head every day maybe 10 years from now when you have a job you repay the favor but the point is

01:07:03.620 that um we are in the throes of it as a family as a ministry as a church all those kinds of things

01:07:09.280 and um and also i hate i hate traveling and so we don't we don't travel so there's a way of having

01:07:15.480 like charles spurgeon before the internet before podcast there's a way of being a celebrity

01:07:20.220 because somebody else is typing up your sermons and printing them out you know and and you know

01:07:25.000 in the london times you know every week in the monday newspaper there's a way of being a celebrity

01:07:29.420 these days especially with technological advances there is a way of being a celebrity

01:07:33.200 and for relatively afford affordable ways to get your material out to thousands of people

01:07:38.980 if not even millions of people um but without necessarily being um on the conference circuit

01:07:46.220 there's a difference between um having a podcast and i'm traveling every other weekend without my

01:07:52.300 wife. There's a difference. So one, there are different tiers of the celebrity minister kind

01:07:58.180 of thing. And then number two, C point A, yeah, maybe it's a love of glory. Maybe it's a love

01:08:06.240 of the praise of men. Maybe there are some problems. We know, Steve Lawson being case in

01:08:12.880 point, we know there are some problems with the celebrities. But if I can be frank, and I already

01:08:17.740 have but i'll just say it once more i don't think it's just um these guys just want to have a

01:08:22.820 podcast these guys just want to be famous these guys just love the glory that comes from men

01:08:26.360 rather than the glory that comes from god i think it's also um maybe maybe not as many young men in

01:08:33.140 your church pastor would be listening to my podcast if you were a better father to them

01:08:39.440 you have you know many teachers but few fathers where's the impetus right so we read that by by

01:08:47.140 the apostle paul you have many teachers but few fathers and we think um the teachers need to take

01:08:52.440 it upon themselves to be less the problem is too many teachers no the the problem that the point

01:08:57.920 that paul's making is the problem is too few fathers so paul's not saying you have many

01:09:01.900 teachers and so the teachers need to take it upon themselves and say you're fired you're fired i'll

01:09:07.000 voluntarily quit you know it that's not the point he's making he's saying the fathers need to step

01:09:12.040 up we need more local spiritual fathers and uh and until we get them then yeah you're gonna have

01:09:19.700 pastor reform pastor you're going to have a sizable portion of your church and you can

01:09:25.360 preach sermons against us if you like that's fine and some of you do you know who i'm talking about

01:09:29.600 you can do that and behind the scenes you can whisper and gossip and slander that's all fine

01:09:34.140 but whether you like it or not no matter how hard you try you will have a decent sized portion of

01:09:40.500 the young men in your congregation continuing to listen to New Christendom and continuing to listen

01:09:44.680 to Right Response. And it will not stop until you step up and become a masculine father. And until

01:09:49.980 you do, we will have the hearts and ears of your congregation, whether you like it or not.

01:09:54.840 And you will lose the war. You could win a battle. You can get one of our conferences

01:09:58.880 canceled by spreading a rumor. You can do this and that. But in 10 years' time,

01:10:04.380 if we win the hearts of the young men, and we will, and you lose them voluntarily because you

01:10:10.340 said it you don't care um your ministry ultimately will crash and ours by the grace of god and by his

01:10:18.080 grace alone will continue to flourish and the option is yours i actually here's the thing i

01:10:23.520 actually don't want that to happen right i don't want your ministry and your church to fail i would

01:10:28.580 actually be happy if we in the long run got less and less views and less and less donations and

01:10:35.020 less and less this and that because local churches like yours pastor were flourishing because you

01:10:39.720 repented and said i'm going to stop disparaging men with courage and even more importantly stop

01:10:45.300 disparaging the men in my own church and i'm going to be a courageous father to them to where

01:10:50.500 they don't have to go looking for fathers somewhere else that would be great you know maybe we could

01:10:55.540 consider that option so that's my thought on the celebrity thing it's good because right now what

01:11:01.800 you'll see is just like well this just is proof that we should have uh zero celebrity pastors

01:11:06.000 okay i i hear you um but you're saying this as you're still you know have the ligonier app on

01:11:12.840 your phone you're saying this as you're still using your john mccarthur study bible you're

01:11:16.260 saying this as you're still quoting uh charles spurgeon who was a celebrity you know in his day

01:11:20.080 like um i don't think that that's the problem i really don't charles spurgeon as far as we know

01:11:25.980 never never committed adultery didn't have an affair i i i don't think that charles spurgeon

01:11:31.480 being popular not just after the fact but he was popular while he was alive in his day known by

01:11:36.620 thousands and thousands all over um i don't think that's what makes men fail right i think what

01:11:42.620 makes men fail is the lack of courage like we've already talked about that steve lawson sadly seemed

01:11:48.140 to possess that lack of courage that they like david they pull back when it's the time when

01:11:53.060 kings go to war and at some point in their ministry they stop going to war john mccarthur

01:11:57.240 god bless him i disagree theologically on plenty of things but the dude is 80 something years old

01:12:01.240 and uh every time it's it's a season for war macarthur's at war yep yep you gotta give him

01:12:08.000 props god bless him that that is honorable um and so i think guys stop going to war and they sin

01:12:14.200 i think also guys hit the conference circuit there's a difference again between between um

01:12:19.760 having notoriety from a podcast or a book versus i'm gone um right i'm gone you know uh 20 weeks

01:12:28.060 a year right out of the year and my wife isn't with me a lot of that time so that's another

01:12:33.300 thing that we can hedge up um and then everything else we've discussed on here but then another

01:12:38.780 thing the the last thing that i've been saying in this whole segment is um you want to guard

01:12:44.440 against the celebrity culture um then then then be a father to the young men in your church in

01:12:53.820 such a way that they don't possess the same degree of wonderlust looking for brian sauvet

01:13:01.560 stephen wolf and andrew risker right the the popularity of these kinds of men in large part

01:13:08.420 not entirely there are multi-factors but in large part the popularity of these young men

01:13:15.140 is directly correlated to the deficit to be found in the older men the lack of courage in older men

01:13:23.760 and their immediate willingness to disparage

01:13:26.980 the young men in their charge,

01:13:28.880 there's a direct correlation between that

01:13:30.740 and the rise of these young guys.

01:13:35.100 Boniface option, great book.

01:13:36.820 Andrew Isker did a great job.

01:13:40.380 But just, again, just to put a head on it,

01:13:44.140 why didn't a pastor in his 60s write that book?

01:13:48.600 Because there's only one of them named Douglas Wilson.

01:13:51.900 You can only write so many books.

01:13:54.200 He's already written 50.

01:13:56.340 Seriously, what do you do when your entire generation has one guy who can boast of being patriarchal and speaking to politics and admitting that maybe America is not a racist country and that the Civil War, that the history with that maybe got a little bit revised because the victors get the spoils,

01:14:20.680 including the right to write the history books um doug wilson has been saying that for 40 years

01:14:25.100 alone alone for 40 years saying no we're not a racist country and yes men actually should lead

01:14:33.380 as patriarchs everybody else was like i'm soft complementarian and i'm and and i don't want to

01:14:40.620 be a racist like the confederates like that has been like and i'm talking about the good guys

01:14:45.000 again the conservative guys doug wilson stands alone entire generation one of the largest

01:14:50.420 generations the boomers one dude one dude um maybe if there were more dudes like that

01:14:57.280 then one of them could have written uh the case for christian nationalism yeah and then you know

01:15:02.500 all of you guys who are so mad at stephen wolf uh wouldn't have to worry about it nobody would

01:15:06.220 know his name right but um but if there's a gutter or a crown line in the gutter and

01:15:12.920 and no boomer will pick it up

01:15:15.320 you can't get mad

01:15:18.660 at the 30s and young 40s

01:15:21.200 and 20 year olds who bend down and say

01:15:23.160 well I'll pick up that crown

01:15:24.680 like that's just you made that decision

01:15:27.300 by throwing the crown

01:15:28.960 in the gutter we picked it up

01:15:30.760 you threw it down

01:15:31.820 and so this is what you get

01:15:34.680 this is what you get

01:15:36.220 you get some young guys

01:15:37.840 with some influence

01:15:40.180 you don't necessarily

01:15:42.240 you're not really excited about and then your young guys and your church are listening to us

01:15:48.300 but the problem is not we need less teachers the problem is we need more local fathers you step up

01:15:55.900 and um and maybe maybe we'll step back you step up we'll step back um but you step down

01:16:04.260 and so uh so god exalted us right i said like it's a saul and david situation right that god

01:16:13.840 just keeps increasing david as saul keeps shooting himself in the foot um as ad robus would say

01:16:21.840 didn't have to be this way did not have to be this way and a lot of the young guys did not want

01:16:26.680 it to be this way i'm one of them didn't want it to be this way and and believe it or not you think

01:16:31.540 like go off king he's just you know telling it like it is no i'm actually being this entire time

01:16:35.980 have been incredibly reserved with my speech and i'm not saying some of the names and i'm not giving

01:16:41.960 some of the examples and i'm not i'm being very reserved and very careful um it's real easy to

01:16:48.580 just say well this is the fault of celebrities and joel you have a podcast that makes you a

01:16:52.900 celebrity too and so it's your fault and one day you'll be just like lawson maybe um but as i've

01:16:59.080 already said, maybe there's a few other things that you could consider as well. All right,

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01:18:02.320 Visit the word soap.com today. Again, that's the word soap.com. Everyone needs soap. So wash

01:18:09.900 yourself in the word. All right, we are back here. This is our final segment. And basically,

01:18:19.280 I just wanted to talk a little bit about our church, Covenant Bible Church. You can go to

01:18:24.700 covenantbible.org, covenantbible.org if you want to check out a little bit about the church. But

01:18:30.220 basically, we right now, the church is three and a half years old. So, you know, my family and I,

01:18:36.520 we moved in december of 2020 handed over the church there in california and um and they're

01:18:42.580 doing great by the way uh but then moved to central texas we're in georgetown texas williamson

01:18:48.320 county georgetown texas uh north of austin it is a separate county by god's grace and has a little

01:18:53.400 bit of a buffer so uh some of the uh the austin degeneracy is not quite so bad uh in our neck of

01:18:59.860 the woods but um if you're looking for a church in that area the first thing is um come uh if you're

01:19:05.180 willing to come and check it out you can again go to covenantbible.org uh to find times and address

01:19:10.980 and uh join us for a sunday service we'd love to have you but then secondly i just wanted to

01:19:15.680 put it out there i don't always talk about the church i try to keep somewhat separate right

01:19:20.640 response and the local church ministry but i kind of wanted they are two different organizations

01:19:24.980 they're two different organizations two different boards two different you know all of it two

01:19:28.580 different you know financially the finances are completely separate all of it um but the church

01:19:33.800 is uh we're just kind of um facing a challenge the church is three and a half years old right it's

01:19:39.880 three and a half years old so it's a young church um but because of right response ministries and

01:19:44.340 the way that that's excelled the church you know the church too the church went from uh 20 people

01:19:48.940 on the couch in my living room 20 people including kids the families that came with me from california

01:19:53.360 and then my wife and kids so it's 20 of us and then went to like now we're like 230 240 people

01:19:59.300 on a sunday which is awesome um and god has been immensely kind but the church has grown so so

01:20:05.720 quickly and and even more than that right response has grown so quickly and because of the kinds of

01:20:10.680 things that we address and because it's especially right now an election year and you've got all

01:20:15.080 these leftist organizations with the 1.2 million followers or 700 000 followers or whatever

01:20:20.100 clipping out 12 second clips of the hottest take you could possibly imagine from joel webin and

01:20:24.600 then putting it out for millions of people to see um our church it's not even so much we need a

01:20:29.920 bigger building although we we are kind of we're full physically full um and so we we would like

01:20:36.160 if god would be so kind to have a larger space but more than that um we we need not just a larger

01:20:42.500 space we need a safer more secure space in other words we're currently just we're renting um and

01:20:48.580 um are we're done uh with renting uh we have been informed that that that ship has sailed

01:20:54.200 we've got a few more uh months and then and then we got to be out and so we are trying to and it's

01:20:59.340 like well let's just go uh you know people say uh we'll just go find a public school in the area

01:21:03.540 it's like like have you met me um like at like i mean think about that you guys are allowed on

01:21:10.040 public school grounds to be clear it's just the things you say yes i am allowed on public school

01:21:14.080 grounds yes that's not the point but the point is um there are are a ton of people if if if

01:21:20.000 covenant bible church pastor joel webbins church started meeting at a school let's just assume

01:21:24.000 they say yes they'll probably say no but um that my reputation will probably precede me but even

01:21:28.540 if it didn't um somebody some parent in that school district or somebody in the local community

01:21:33.140 where the school is is located is going to see the next right wing watch campaign and blah blah

01:21:37.920 and like oh that's a misogynist or oh that's the racist or oh that's the whatever and and then

01:21:42.660 there there is going to be an email and phone campaign on the superintendent with that school

01:21:47.820 and we will get booted we will this is not hyperbole or oh he's you know have some faith

01:21:53.080 no have some wisdom let's i mean let's just be honest for a second uh there is no place that we

01:21:57.740 can rent so we we actually have to have a building that's ours um and the problem is you know church

01:22:03.520 plants that are three and a half years old tend to you know most churches don't plant in the living

01:22:08.640 room and three and a half years later buy property right like that's just financially and especially

01:22:13.920 in you know joe biden slash kamala harris's economy that's it like that's a tall task three

01:22:18.840 and a half years 20 people on the couch in your living room to uh not not just renting a bigger

01:22:24.740 space but but actually having security this is your property and so that's where we're at right

01:22:29.100 now with covenant bible church um trying to figure out um and we by the grace of god he's he's been

01:22:35.480 incredibly kind we actually have a couple options um but we are having to raise some money and um

01:22:42.620 and praying that god would be faithful uh to provide through the saints and um and part of

01:22:48.580 it is i think right now the plan is that we would put right response studios in the church building

01:22:54.180 to offset some of the costs the monthly cost for the church um but for right response to

01:23:00.080 get a new studio which we need and so i just i wanted to put this out to you guys for your

01:23:04.880 prayerful consideration but for right response to be able to have the studio that we need

01:23:08.900 basically there's there's just our needs are continuing to expand as we grow we need more

01:23:13.340 space uh nathan right now our sound guy you know most of you don't know this but nathan is uh he

01:23:18.960 is currently in a closet i'm walking a literal closet it's a walk-in closet it's uh nathan is

01:23:25.440 like a living breathing harry potter over there in a cupboard you know he's you know yeah he's

01:23:29.980 the house up dobby yeah there you go um and so nathan is literally in a closet and um and we we

01:23:36.560 are in a a small 340 i think i measured a couple because we're looking at like 340 square foot

01:23:43.660 room and uh and it's tight and there's more stuff that we want to be able to do and and we need also

01:23:49.740 we need a team we need an administrator there's so many emails that i can't ever respond to i want

01:23:53.840 to but i can't i have to be with my family i have to my kids are not going to grow up fatherless

01:23:58.360 i'll tell you right now i will disappoint all of you uh to make uh to make those five little people

01:24:04.200 happy so that to me is it's not like ah who i choose today never even a question i got another

01:24:09.400 email my kids talking to me sorry your email doesn't get answered like it's easy easy decision

01:24:14.240 always will choose the kids always will choose the wife and i will always choose my local church so

01:24:19.160 it's wife kids church then you um that said our church we need a building and we need more pastoral

01:24:25.940 staff we need we and so that takes money the building takes money the the pastoral staff

01:24:30.880 takes money and if we get more pastoral staff then one of the things that i would like to do

01:24:34.600 is continue to i always as long as the lord would would have me i would always as long as the church

01:24:39.680 would also have me i always want to be a pastor with the church um but i would love to be able

01:24:44.540 to give some pastoral duties to a pastoral staff and then with the right response i would love to

01:24:49.000 be able to um not ignore every single one of your comments and emails and things and be able to get

01:24:54.060 some help, some administrative help with Right Response. So all that being said, we're trying to

01:24:58.180 use two organizations to be financially strategic to where we can accomplish this monumental task

01:25:03.600 of taking two organizations that are barely over three years old and somehow get property

01:25:10.300 that is really, really, really not affordable in our current economic position that we're in as a

01:25:18.060 country. And so for the church to be able to afford property, Right Response is going to try

01:25:22.980 to offset that cost and kill two birds with one stone get that that'll get us a bigger studio

01:25:27.540 and then we can be like a subtenant for covenant bible church and offset the monthly cost there

01:25:32.520 and then write response also we need the money for an administrator to get nathan out of a closet

01:25:37.280 and then you know we'd like to get some more equipment and then with the church with covenant

01:25:41.700 bible church we need some more money for for the property and and then also pastoral staff and so

01:25:46.360 everything is growing we're trying to be faithful we're doing our best to be faithful and i think

01:25:50.740 we have we have operated on a shoestring budget we have you guys would be shocked if you know

01:25:56.100 as a local church and as a ministry um how much we do with with very little new christendom don't

01:26:03.500 want to pick on those guys love the ogden boys they're some of my closest friends um but i'll

01:26:08.060 just say this um ogden has uh they've got some uh they've got some cash um they're doing they're

01:26:14.960 doing good you know and and they need more too i'm not i'm you know i don't i don't want to i

01:26:18.720 don't think we have to steal from peter you know to pay paul um but but the ogden guys uh by god's

01:26:23.780 grace they you know they have their church owns a building right and has for years and years and

01:26:27.680 years they don't have a mortgage and uh and they've got the basement and and lord willing i'd like to

01:26:32.100 see them get better space in the future but but new christian doesn't have to pay rent you know

01:26:36.560 they can use the church's basement uh the church does so you've got no mortgage with the church

01:26:40.580 no rent with new christianom and it's just and and then and so they've been able to uh spend that

01:26:46.200 money instead of on property on a team and so it's like you've got four guys and everything

01:26:50.580 we've done you guys we brought you on this year right but before this year and you guys talk about

01:26:55.960 paying people peanuts you know like you guys it's like it's it's peanuts as you know uh but the

01:27:01.480 point is but we wanted to try to give you something and and i'd like to be able to give you guys more

01:27:05.220 next year and as we've talked about that privately and blah blah blah and you know but the point is

01:27:09.780 this um we before you guys coming on this year um it's me and nathan yep that's it that's all

01:27:16.640 it's ever been it's me and nathan and the first goal was always pay nathan and so that's what we

01:27:21.740 did was we worked really hard and by god's grace we were able to get nathan finally a livable wage

01:27:27.400 this year this was his first year to get a livable wage and uh but now it's like we need nathan we'd

01:27:33.000 like to give you guys a little bit more because i want to use you more uh we we want to do multiple

01:27:37.200 the live stream we'd like to do this here's our goal so i'm kind of um revealing you know showing

01:27:43.120 our hand a little bit but the goal is we'd like to do monday wednesday friday live stream three

01:27:47.980 times a week right now we do monday and i do an interview and then friday is the friday special

01:27:52.200 we want to do the monday wednesday friday live stream because there's things happening all the

01:27:56.060 time that we want to be able to have a quick turnaround and address and uh but i can't ask

01:28:01.420 michael and and west to triple their time um like you can't do that without them pulling back from

01:28:07.700 their jobs their day jobs right and if they pull back from their jobs they take a cut and if they

01:28:12.280 take a cut then they need a raise over here they like i can't ask them hey you know your kids we

01:28:17.560 eat ramen noodle for the next three years take one for the team that's not how we're going to do it

01:28:21.320 so so we we need i hate that ministry involves money i do but it does it's just it's unavoidable

01:28:28.360 it's a part of life and so we want to do more as a ministry and for the record the friday special

01:28:32.400 we want to continue that uh but we're probably going to make it the the saturday special or

01:28:36.100 something like that but three live streams monday wednesday friday that's the goal for next year

01:28:39.900 um we need a bigger studio uh we need an administrator uh we need to be able to

01:28:45.200 better compensate these guys would never say it i'll say it for them better compensate uh michael

01:28:49.460 and west um and and and then as a church covenant bible church um we need property because we are

01:28:56.180 um we've been politely warmly invited out of our space invited to come in no invited to go out

01:29:02.240 we've been um you know kicked out of our space and uh and the renting strategy of this school

01:29:09.480 or this coffee shop or when it fit in a coffee shop but this school or whatever this this art

01:29:14.160 studio um i'm telling you um no no and and well what about another church honestly i hate to say

01:29:22.800 this but i have more faith that the public school district would be slower to kick us out if they

01:29:29.040 if they got a campaign about about uh these bible thumper misogynists you know whatever fuddy

01:29:34.240 duddies um if there was a campaign on on the local school public public school mind you i think the

01:29:40.060 public school would cave slower to kicking us out than uh the average evangelical church because

01:29:46.000 people have said that too why don't you meet an evangelical church you know you could have an

01:29:48.920 afternoon service or an early morning service well one we've asked they've all told us no and

01:29:52.620 we've asked dozens yep um and two even if one said yes uh they would be saying yes before getting the

01:29:58.760 campaign uh once they start getting the calls shut it down shut your down once they start getting

01:30:04.640 the calls um i i honestly the the superintendent at a public school versus the average pastor at

01:30:11.460 evangelical church i really don't know which one i mean corporate needs you to see right that's

01:30:16.280 right it's the same picture so um that's where we're at and we need your help um so you guys

01:30:22.100 want to say anything that that's all i got is just we need help come visit if you're looking

01:30:26.960 for a church like young men um like i moved our family we're down we're from the northeast we

01:30:33.040 moved down here a couple years ago and it's not easy and it's we have grandparents that are back

01:30:37.080 and everything but um but being in a church where you actually agree with what's going on

01:30:41.060 where your children if you stay there by god's grace could have other children that they could

01:30:45.080 marry families you know there's not a price tag big you could put on it like well there's pros

01:30:49.540 and their cons like no especially in a time like ours like if donald trump gets elected november

01:30:54.940 5th and we wake up and it's been a landslide do you think the left takes their bag and goes home

01:30:58.820 no they don't but i was talking to my wife uh i don't think i don't feel in danger here right if

01:31:03.980 i was in new jersey if i was in new york if i was in california honey we might we might be away for

01:31:08.700 that week we need to get farther out into the country this is a great place to be just with

01:31:13.040 everything that's going on politically and the advantage of um loving your pastor there's a lot

01:31:17.260 of great people here so you're on the fence it doesn't hurt to visit a couple hundred bucks

01:31:21.840 spend the day falls beautiful weather but um yeah you are warmly welcome i want to tell a quick

01:31:27.040 story because west what you said i mean in a church that um where we we are so i mean not

01:31:33.200 that i don't have disagreements with joel but they're minor and they're few um but where you

01:31:38.220 know i i'm confident about what my kids are being taught and so my mom wonderful christian lady

01:31:43.440 but not happy that we use real wine right right so it was so funny because my mom was having a

01:31:50.680 conversation with my kids and my 11 year old goes but abuela that's what we call our grandma

01:31:55.660 but abuela when we drink the wine pastor joel says we taste a little bit of the white hot

01:32:02.600 wrath of god in our throats and that's what jesus felt on the cross

01:32:06.620 you're not there you're not swaying abuela yeah that's not going to sway abuela no it's not but

01:32:13.140 my point is he he picked that up from the preaching that's cool yep there is an argument to be like

01:32:18.100 wes you did a good job i like uh i i don't i haven't checked my uh reform calendar but uh i

01:32:23.300 think we'll probably do for the the wine uh insufferable debate that happens on reformed

01:32:28.040 i think it's david abasheba next and then okay and then uh grape juice versus wine but uh you

01:32:33.800 Last time that one came up on the calendar, you argued, and I thought you made a really good point about the one, like the warmth with, you know, with the, you know.

01:32:43.880 Of love.

01:32:44.700 Yeah, the warmth.

01:32:45.660 A lot of it, yeah.

01:32:46.540 Affection, yeah.

01:32:47.200 Like there's a reason that wine is prescribed.

01:32:49.600 The warmth, but then also the bite and the sting of death that Christ took on our behalf so that the sting of death no longer is for us.

01:32:56.900 But we're remembering the sting that he faced in our place.

01:32:59.660 and like there's a lot of and and that wasn't just you know things that um you or i have come

01:33:04.800 up with right the puritans like made james jordan yeah james jordan like guys have made um great

01:33:10.820 you know biblical arguments for that so just since you use that example i don't know people

01:33:15.740 will lose their minds like you use wine in the lord's suburb yeah and we have it every week

01:33:19.240 but the good lord intended like this is like why agreeing with your church matters so much yes how

01:33:23.960 many evangelical churches take juice but have also robbed in their preaching the love of god and the

01:33:28.980 wrath of god right you can't disassociate the sacraments that we've been given and so when

01:33:33.460 you neuter one to not be offensive oh what a surprise also the preaching that comes from the

01:33:38.620 pulpit is also not offensive it also doesn't contain the wrath of god and then because it

01:33:42.900 doesn't contain the wrath which is tied up with the love right use the love of god for sinners in

01:33:47.280 christ so you neutered it down and it actually literally physically did that when you substituted

01:33:51.720 juice for wine and so many of you are taking juice on sunday i did it for many years at other churches

01:33:56.580 we were in but uh but you're being taught through that it's a discipleship means and uh it matters

01:34:02.260 it's not literally the only thing um right it's not the only i wouldn't leave a church over it

01:34:06.640 right it's a good church in many other regards but it does matter there is a right answer we

01:34:10.840 have the right answer i was like whoa that's so arrogant like yeah uh the positions that i

01:34:15.620 currently hold are the positions that i think are right like find me the dude who's like i know this

01:34:20.220 is the wrong position i'm still gonna hold it everybody thinks they're right yeah yeah so we

01:34:24.400 think we're right like everyone in the entire world thinks they're right um that's that could

01:34:28.620 be arrogance but but not inherently so so yeah but it it matters there is a right answer we think

01:34:33.880 that we're taking um we think we have the right answer on that and then you know as since we're

01:34:38.980 on it with wine one more reason that we have wine is um with the lord's supper is because we're not

01:34:43.060 feminist and seriously do your own work but uh prohibition the temperance movement uh the whole

01:34:49.980 the whole idea of of um especially among baptists sadly and i am one

01:34:55.820 but uh but this whole idea that's got to be grape juice and we don't you know we don't want

01:35:01.820 to offend with alcohol um that is uh that's directly correlated and tied to the feminist 0.96

01:35:07.720 movement um and uh the temperance movement and pushing uh it was it was ornery women uh rebelling

01:35:15.440 against their husbands and um yeah so we like our church we're not we're not feminist and honestly

01:35:21.260 that's usually who it offends it's not a coincidence that it's abuela that's true it's grandma well my

01:35:26.300 dad's not too happy about it okay but but he probably is less bothered than the mom and so uh

01:35:31.260 yeah so it's like i can't believe that they have wine it's like well that's okay because uh your

01:35:37.220 husband uh he's not going to leave the church over it and uh and he is going to bring you to church

01:35:42.620 with him and you can look into the statistics i mean you guys know this but like when a woman

01:35:48.280 takes the kids to church right uh the husband rarely comes and when the kids grow up that

01:35:53.120 they stop yep when the husband uh takes the family to church the kids grow up and they keep going to

01:35:58.780 church um we're we're in it uh for first and foremost the glory of god and secondly uh the

01:36:04.360 hearts of men particularly young men we want to win the next generation of men and that's not

01:36:08.140 because we don't love women uh the most loving thing i believe that we can do as a ministry as

01:36:11.960 a church and with right response for women is uh win the hearts of young yeah um because if we can

01:36:17.040 win their hearts they'll win your heart and um and uh they'll love you provide protect and uh you'll

01:36:23.280 be a whole lot happier women being liberated um from traditional marriage and traditional biblical

01:36:29.180 principles as uh only lent towards women uh suffering and being miserable and the statistics 0.80

01:36:34.940 bear it out again and again so all right that's all we got if you want to help out um financially

01:36:40.040 pray about it uh if all you can do is pray we appreciate your prayers prayer works prayer prayer

01:36:45.020 is real uh but for those of you who are able to if you would like to make a donation to right

01:36:49.920 response helping right response does help the local church because we're looking at teaming

01:36:54.960 up with the property those kinds of things you can go to right response ministries.com forward

01:37:00.200 slash donate right response ministries.com forward slash donate um and if you want to

01:37:04.940 specifically help out with the church, you could go to covenantbible.org, covenantbible.org,

01:37:10.520 click on give, and it's self-explanatory. And then, of course, if you can't give, please pray.

01:37:17.680 And then lastly, if you're in the area, or even if you want to make a trip,

01:37:21.400 come and visit us. We'd love to meet you. All right, thanks for tuning in.

01:37:34.940 You

The NXR Podcast - September 25, 2024

THE LIVESTREAM - Steven Lawson and Why Men Fall

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