The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - What About Constantine, Martyrs, and Persecution？

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00:00:26.800 Much credit is given to Constantine for his role in calling together the church at Nicaea

00:00:33.740 and helping facilitate the foundational creed of the Christian church.

00:00:37.980 But did you know that a mere ten years later, in 335 AD, at the Council of Tyre,

00:00:45.700 Constantine exiled one of the fiercest defenders of the faith at that time, Athanasius?

00:00:53.520 See, Athanasius remained in exile until Constantine's death

00:00:57.860 and was only welcomed back by his son who restored him as a bishop,

00:01:03.380 who then went on to exile him again a year later.

00:01:08.080 Constantine the Great also continued to permit the continuation of pagan temples and rituals

00:01:15.200 and retained the title Pontifex Maximus, meaning the great priest of the Roman cults.

00:01:23.640 Sounds a lot like America's principled pluralism today, doesn't it?

00:01:28.640 Now, at first glance, these facts are pretty inconvenient for someone who just recently argued

00:01:35.200 that the state has a normative role in correcting the church.

00:01:39.380 If, after all, one of the greatest supposed examples was an emperor who exiled faithful bishops and continued to permit pagan worship, then the batting average doesn't look that great.

00:01:53.640 This is to say nothing of the countless martyrs of the Catholic Church, the supposedly terrible Spanish Inquisition, and even Martin Luther and other zealous reformers.

00:02:05.480 Now, if the state really is supposed to correct the church in certain matters, why all of the errors and excesses?

00:02:15.040 This episode is brought to you by our premier sponsors, Armored Republic and Reese Fund, as well as our Patreon members and our faithful donors.

00:02:24.940 You can join our Patreon by going to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries or you

00:02:33.280 can donate by going to right response ministries.com forward slash donate. So today we're going to

00:02:41.740 answer those questions. We've made the claim right alongside the Westminster Confession of Faith and

00:02:48.100 the Belgic Confession that the state has a role to play in suppressing heresies, protecting true 0.72

00:02:54.700 religion and safeguarding the Christian faith. Now we are going to defend this view against the

00:03:01.740 most common objections that we've heard. All right, welcome, welcome. Michael is just being

00:03:20.120 a humble servant and getting me a glass of water real quick um ga it is friday afternoon we are

00:03:25.340 very very happy to have you all with us uh so we in the providence of god produced and the episode

00:03:33.280 was written by our very own wesley todd god bless you did a great job um got a couple dates wrong

00:03:39.120 turns out uh that absolutely changes our overall argument how much well we got one date wrong by

00:03:45.780 10 years so i really scrub it like we need to pull this episode we pay millions of dollars to

00:03:50.620 pull it everywhere it is on the internet exactly yeah so it changes the argument zero uh but the

00:03:55.460 dates do matter and it's you know as soon as you figure that out correction here and who did you

00:03:59.040 it was michael reeves who who was it yeah so just um kind of setting the stage the first thing we

00:04:05.100 talked about was constantine and constantine's conversion as the roman emperor and it's in

00:04:09.260 330 ad not 320 as i said that he enters and he enters and goes to church in the hagia irene

00:04:15.700 which is not the Hagia Sophia, which I said.

00:04:18.460 The reason I said Hagia Sophia, and even in my mind, I was like,

00:04:21.120 I feel like that's much later, is because one of the lectures I reviewed as I studied

00:04:24.800 was from Gordon Conwell, professor, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.

00:04:29.220 He was the professor of church history, Ryan Reeves, who said Constantine went into the Hagia Sophia.

00:04:34.740 So on that one, I was wrong, but I was wrong because someone else is wrong.

00:04:38.240 And so should have double-checked that, but ultimately, wrong church, Hagia Irene,

00:04:42.500 instead of the Hagia Sophia. It was in 330 AD, not 320 AD, that Constantine attends church there.

00:04:48.540 Perfect. So yeah, so the overarching thesis that we presented is changed zero by that detail. But

00:04:59.080 the details do matter. We want to get it right. And here's the thing, and I know it's shocking,

00:05:04.060 you know, especially for older generations, particularly the boomer generation. They're

00:05:08.800 like we got them now we got them now um because there's you know there's a tool in our toolkit

00:05:15.580 that um sadly the older generation is completely unaware of that it even exists and it's called

00:05:21.720 um just admitting you were wrong yep so that's you know it's like i thought we had them i thought

00:05:27.420 we nailed them to the wall and they're still going and people are still listening how what

00:05:31.040 is the superpower uh the superpower is called an apology yep hey my bad uh we we got these

00:05:38.500 details wrong here's how we'll switch them if it actually did change the argument then we'd

00:05:43.100 reintroduce okay so and this is actually a decent counter to but it doesn't change the argument at

00:05:47.760 all any good argument is resting on tons of different pillars of evidence it's resting on

00:05:51.300 confessions it's resting on reformers upon different history in the medieval ages it's

00:05:56.380 going to the modern time none of it is dependent on any single pillar so if you take one of them

00:06:00.340 out well my whole thing falls apart a good odd argument especially on a topic like this which

00:06:05.020 we did is going to be built on dozens of pieces of evidence that bolster it and strengthen it and

00:06:10.600 give it its vitality right and i it's just something that i'm encouraged there are plenty

00:06:15.400 of weaknesses with um the younger generation like you know no generation is faultless every

00:06:20.460 generation has its its weak points and all those kinds of things and so we're perfectly aware of

00:06:24.840 that but i like that is something that encourages me um in general is i do feel like younger

00:06:30.440 generations are just more comfortable with saying, oh, we missed that. Whereas I feel like older

00:06:36.900 generations, this doesn't mean each and every boomer. I'm speaking in generalities, group

00:06:41.380 dynamics. I'm not, you know, there are always exceptions and praise God for them. But what

00:06:45.480 we're saying that is in general, a lot of times, sadly, like the older generation and even older, 0.88

00:06:51.960 you know, Christian ministers, they, you know, it's always, it's never an apology. It's just

00:06:58.080 a clarification or it's a doubling down or, you know, like, um, and, and I really think

00:07:02.780 that's, that's one of the reasons why, you know, not the only reason, but one reason

00:07:06.880 why I'm bullish on Christian nationalists is that most of the Christian nationalists

00:07:11.420 that there is a generational divide.

00:07:12.820 So most of them are on the younger side, most of them, you know, 45 years or younger

00:07:16.580 and, um, and, you know, just kind of returning to, um, some, you know, some older thoughts

00:07:23.560 and older writers and those kinds of things.

00:07:25.340 And for whatever reason, the younger generation doesn't seem to have at least the same degree of aversion towards just saying, oh, yeah, I missed that.

00:07:35.540 My bad.

00:07:35.920 Let me let me fix that real quick.

00:07:37.340 And OK, let me I'm going to weigh it now.

00:07:39.740 Does that change the substance of the overarching argument?

00:07:42.360 Yes.

00:07:42.720 OK, so let's go this way or no, it doesn't.

00:07:46.260 But it's still important to get the details right.

00:07:48.420 Sorry, I missed that.

00:07:49.480 um it's you know a movement that that's um that's that's okay with admitting

00:07:56.280 like ever that they were wrong is uh pretty hopeful pretty hopeful we've never made the

00:08:04.180 claim like notice the difference for example so we did an episode on genetics i have a bachelor's

00:08:08.240 degree and i have a master's degree in health and biology and all of these things we probably

00:08:12.400 spoke about genetics for about 40 minutes during that episode i maybe talked about constantine for

00:08:16.920 maybe 10. I don't have a degree necessarily in church history. So none of us here have claimed

00:08:20.940 we are the be-all, end-all authority on church history. We can go deep on every single topic.

00:08:25.460 We are qualified to lecture all through the early church, into the Middle Ages,

00:08:28.940 into the Reformation. We literally don't do that. We've never produced an hour and a half episode

00:08:32.520 where we're just talking about history because at the end of the day, we're not church historians.

00:08:37.100 In fact, we've talked about how we would like to tackle some topics, but we just don't feel

00:08:41.140 like we are expert enough or have the time to do the required amount of research.

00:08:46.340 right there's uh plenty of things that we hope to get to eventually yep um but as uh our friend

00:08:52.180 dr steven wolf would say uh do the reading so you'll suggest great episodes and i'll be like

00:08:57.400 that's great i just need 10 hours right to make sure i'm informed exactly to actually speak on it

00:09:02.080 so we'll get there eventually so anyway so uh we wanted to correct that right off the bat but then

00:09:05.980 we wanted to deal with some of the objections so this was kind of the talk of the town um for the

00:09:10.280 last few days was our episode it was a fan favorite and the people loved it and when i say that

00:09:16.220 of course i mean that um people lost their minds the right people loved it like really did like

00:09:21.020 they appreciated it and said thank you for like pointing out how historical this is right a lot

00:09:25.760 of people did appreciate it but a lot of people were like what this is backwards you know this

00:09:29.480 is completely untrue tell me you've never read the bible you know without saying you've never

00:09:33.980 read the bible tell me that you don't know um you know anything about church history like aren't you

00:09:38.760 like remember the um what what uh what what's that show with uh tobias he's uh arrested

00:09:46.780 development yeah remember the scene where he's like uh there are dozens of us like that's what

00:09:52.040 i always think of when it's like you know don't you know that they they drowned baptist there

00:09:55.960 were dozens of us dozens by the way steven wolf's tweet on that the other day was fantastic about

00:10:02.680 how baptists um will be allowed to worship in the new christian nationalism but but they can

00:10:09.380 optionally as an elective sign up for persecution if they want which is perfect because that is like

00:10:14.600 that is the baptist the great baptist dilemma is like baptists are they're more terrified of

00:10:19.560 persecution than anything in the world um being you know uniquely persecuted for being baptist

00:10:24.940 which is like like not even close to happening so like their greatest fear is something that

00:10:29.320 that's uh there's no signs of whatsoever um and yet and this is the the thing that's so peculiar

00:10:34.600 about baptists and yet it's also like their their their secret fantasy the greatest hope their

00:10:40.380 greatest hope they're like yeah so it's like on one hand they're like no baptists would be 0.93

00:10:44.860 persecuted on the other hand they're like and the greatest desire of my heart is to be drowned to be

00:10:51.580 like john bunyan steven wolf as a wonderful christian prince you know i think he he mapped

00:10:56.520 out a very amicable you know um accommodating position where he said uh you can have both

00:11:02.880 like uh you have my word yeah baptist will not be drowned but if you would like you can be

00:11:08.720 you can sign up for afternoon drownings and that's exactly what baptist in their heart of hearts

00:11:13.600 that's what they want um yeah so anyways all that being said we wanted to deal with some of the

00:11:18.040 objections and bring a little bit more details uh to the floor uh but i've got to say right here

00:11:24.300 real quick from the outset if you want to live stream our conference it's happening next week

00:11:28.240 thursday friday saturday april 3rd 4th and 5th and we are really really excited we've got

00:11:33.900 you know 15 different speakers everybody's flying in everybody's making their last arrangements and

00:11:39.600 and and we're up to about a thousand people that are going to be there in person and so i think

00:11:44.720 it's like 950 960 so really excited about that it's going to be a great time but for those of

00:11:50.420 you who are unable to come in person and you'd like to live stream, have all the content made

00:11:55.400 available to you online. You need to, we're making it available, but exclusive for our Patreon

00:12:01.080 members. So you need to go to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries. It's, it's

00:12:07.220 available only for our Patreon members and you have to sign up for the gold tier. Silver tier

00:12:11.860 gets you ad free early access to our Friday special, but this gets you the live stream for

00:12:16.980 the conference if you sign up for the gold tier so gold tier patreon.com forward slash right

00:12:22.100 response ministries and also uh we have for the very first time uh michael belch uh his book is

00:12:28.540 sitting here on the table he's going to be uh signing and selling uh physical copies at our

00:12:33.680 conference uh but it's also available that you can purchase on amazon do you want to tell them

00:12:37.960 just real quick name of the book the title is in defense of christian nations and you can find it

00:12:43.740 on amazon under that title we have it for kindle softcover and hardcover if you're coming to the

00:12:52.200 conference it will be slightly discounted as a promotional rate at the conference so if you want

00:12:56.800 to get a copy wait and get it there it'll be a little bit cheaper for you otherwise yeah it's

00:13:01.180 available on amazon right now awesome okay guys go ahead and take us all right so with any topic

00:13:06.260 there's the objections that you just like said like well this is a nitpicking point of history

00:13:10.460 doesn't really make a big difference. But I do want to say, like, there are people that have

00:13:14.220 genuine disagreement with us and bring up good points. So to the individual that would ever say,

00:13:18.580 like, hey, I see what you're saying. I understand where you're coming from. Historically, I take

00:13:22.260 difference here. I would say, by all means, like, you're fine to disagree with us. The only ask

00:13:27.320 would kind of be to say, okay, I disagree, but I do see where you're coming from. I understand

00:13:32.180 that's in the confessions. I understand how other reformers taught that. And so there were some

00:13:35.700 good faith objections, and I kind of categorized it into three buckets that we'll treat here in

00:13:39.740 these three segments. And the first one would be the objection to Constantine, to his status as

00:13:44.120 emperor, the things that he did. There's some modern scholarship that really casts doubt on

00:13:48.260 Constantine's status as a defender of Christianity, as a defender of the faith. So it'd be casting

00:13:52.900 doubt upon Constantine. We'll hit this here in the first segment. The second one would be kind of a

00:13:57.680 mention of, under the Catholic Church, all of the persecutions that happened in the Middle Age. So

00:14:02.220 if you say, well, the state should be involved and the state should care and meddle even in

00:14:06.680 spiritual affairs. Well, we kind of had about a thousand years of that and weren't there tons of

00:14:11.100 martyrs and everything like that. Spoiler alert, even on its worst day, honestly, it probably was

00:14:16.840 better than what we have going now on now in its best day. So we'll get into some of the statistics,

00:14:21.140 all of that. And then the final one, and it is valid, is, well, you say all of this, but ultimately

00:14:25.880 that's not our American tradition. The American tradition has always had a bit of a firewall

00:14:30.520 between church and state. Never true separation. There's always going to be a religious interest

00:14:35.480 of the state but we have the law congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of

00:14:40.120 religion we have the ban on no religious tests for public office and so people will say well

00:14:44.360 that's not american or even that's not baptist i'm well aware of the baptist faith and message

00:14:49.000 what it says about the civil magistrate i'm well aware of the 1689 and its differences from the

00:14:53.480 westminster confession of faith which is primarily the deliberate choice of silence yeah exactly

00:14:59.080 yep so we'll get into all of that but let's start off with constantine so as i already mentioned if

00:15:03.640 if you're just tuning in now, it was 330 AD, not 320 AD, as I said earlier this week, 330 AD that

00:15:09.700 he attends church in the Hagia Irene. Now the Hagia Sophia, which actually was the Holy Church

00:15:14.860 of the Apostles, which he did attend church at one point. So he literally went to the site that

00:15:18.480 it eventually became. Hagia Sophia is not built until later on. So he attends church at the Hagia

00:15:23.460 Irene. One of the big contentions with Constantine is that ultimately because he's an emperor and

00:15:30.200 because he has a political interest, and this is brand new in church history. I mean, the church

00:15:33.720 has always been persecuted, all the way up through Diocletian in the early 300s, like, to varying

00:15:38.440 degrees, some less, some more, but she never has an establishment. She never has any relationship

00:15:43.760 to power and to political power, and so there really is a view, and this would be more Anabaptist

00:15:49.000 in those who would hold this position, that Constantine comes in, in many ways, he ruins

00:15:53.400 Christianity, that Christianity was pure, and it was home church, and it was the church being the

00:15:59.080 church and feeding the poor and caring for these. But Constantine comes in and he begins getting

00:16:03.220 bishops together and caring about articles of faith. And he gives a political aspect to

00:16:07.440 Christianity that has really ever since, the argument would be since the 300s, since the

00:16:13.040 Edict of Milan in 313, that it's always had a political bent to it. Now, again, even some of

00:16:17.880 our detractors, they wouldn't go so far as to say that. But there certainly really is a perspective

00:16:21.900 that, man, he just, he wedded the religious and the political. And some would even go farther and

00:16:27.360 say that Constantine, when he brings the church together, for instance, and where he claims to

00:16:31.980 convert, that it wasn't genuine. That what Constantine's really doing here is he's got

00:16:36.540 these warring factions. I'm going to do my best to steal man the argument, but it's a bad one.

00:16:41.220 He's got the warring factions, he's got the pagans, and he has the Christians. And as

00:16:45.520 somehow get them to make peace with each other, he converts to Christianity, extends the olive

00:16:49.740 branch so that his kingdom, I mean, remember, the kingdom he forms by 324 when he defeats

00:16:55.320 licentious. It's a huge empire. You've got a lot of people to keep happy with each other. So he has

00:17:00.660 these squabbles, he has his religious differences, and he makes kind of a half-hearted conversion to

00:17:04.900 Christianity. He lets it onto the official roster of religions that can be practiced, and as an

00:17:10.100 attempt, again, not a genuine conversion, not because he really believed in the truth of

00:17:14.180 Christianity, but because he was trying to make peace. The best resource I have for this, this

00:17:19.980 would be Peter Lightheart's book, Defending Constantine. He does a great job engaging with

00:17:23.860 the scholarship on this. And I'm going to read a couple of quotes from this book that I think are

00:17:27.120 helpful. And so the first objection we'll get to right here is Constantine as the politician.

00:17:33.140 Didn't he come in and he give a political slant, a political bent to Christianity?

00:17:38.580 Nate, you can pull up this first quote here. So Peter Lightheart says this,

00:17:43.160 he, that is Constantine, was a politician preacher and his sharp language also pacified

00:17:48.640 militant Christians in his empire who muttered that their pseudo-Christian emperor was soft

00:17:53.160 on idolatry. His law against sacrifice was part of an effort to clear public spaces of that aspect

00:17:58.180 of the pagan cult considered most unacceptable in the eyes of Christians. And by the 350s,

00:18:03.220 sacrifice was rare enough that it took some daring to perform ones. You're talking really

00:18:07.400 only 37 years from the legality of Christianity to the point where sacrifice is becoming rare.

00:18:12.900 Constantine did not have to take up the sword against pagans. His legislation created an

00:18:17.340 atmosphere in which sacrifice gradually faded away. People are always products of their time.

00:18:25.380 When we talk about the conversion of Constantine, which is a huge moment in the history of 1.00

00:18:28.800 Christianity and the history of the West, it changes it forever. We have to remember that 0.95

00:18:32.900 Constantine is coming from a long line of emperors that literally were the head, not just of the

00:18:38.160 state. So it's not just the emperor and he has this political thing, and then there's pagan cults

00:18:42.220 and there's gods and this, that, or the other. Constantine comes in and the title he inherits

00:18:45.860 is head of the church and, or head of the state and the church, that the emperor is literally

00:18:51.080 considered the head of the pagan rituals, the head of the pagan cults. And so, yes, he comes

00:18:56.420 in as a politician. And yes, as we mentioned in the cold open, he doesn't necessarily do away with

00:19:01.460 immediately all of the false worship. He doesn't come in and shut down the temples. I think of

00:19:06.200 Josiah. I mean, he raises them, he salts the earth, he executes the priest. Constantine doesn't do 0.66

00:19:12.380 that. And it's funny because, you know, like we mentioned later on in our episode, we think a

00:19:15.720 Christian prince would do something about false religion. But there's a huge difference in an 0.96

00:19:20.140 American context. In a president, for example, I mean, every single one of our presidents, I believe,

00:19:25.280 have been Christian. Some Protestants, some Catholic, all of them have been Christian.

00:19:29.560 So you have a line of presidents that have been Christian, a people that have been Christian,

00:19:33.500 a society, a culture, an expectation. There's a huge difference between a president or even

00:19:38.820 someone stronger than that coming in and doing something about the Christian faith in that

00:19:43.180 context, 2,000 years removed from its origin to a literal pagan emperor who from one day to the

00:19:50.160 next is converted, who is the inheritor of all these rights. There just is a difference. And so

00:19:55.480 we give a strong defense of Constantine and yet understand that his sons and those that followed

00:20:00.400 him would have to take successive steps. And none of that means, well, he ruined it. He came in,

00:20:06.400 He didn't go all the way. He was like Josiah. No, God did an incredible work through him that was

00:20:11.260 intended to continue. It wasn't just going to be, I mean, you think about Rome, you think about how

00:20:15.260 big it was, how deeply ingrained the pagan practices were, other wicked practices, abandoning 0.96

00:20:20.960 children, homosexuality. I mean, these are ingrained in the culture for hundreds and hundreds of years. 0.73

00:20:26.660 Ordinarily, God takes time to fix things like that. So Constantine, I believe in his life,

00:20:31.980 especially from the writings of Eusebius, did an incredible job. Was a faithful man. He had his

00:20:37.860 flaws. He had his shortcomings. He exiled Athanasius. Even that is in many ways political.

00:20:43.080 Different enemies of Athanasius got to him first. They convinced him. And even then,

00:20:47.820 he doesn't excommunicate him, try to excommunicate him from the church, or execute him. He simply

00:20:52.840 exiles him. So we're well aware that Constantine had his shortcomings, as I have my shortcomings,

00:20:58.180 all of us have our shortcomings but in the sum total you look across his life and you really see

00:21:04.060 i think an incredible man an incredible leader and one who very politically savvy very politically

00:21:11.980 minded set the foundation for the glorious christendom that was going to be built later

00:21:16.480 on in the middle ages well said even the athanasius thing i mean there is it depends on um kind of how

00:21:25.880 you read it, like you said, Wes, Constantine helped call together the Council of Nicaea,

00:21:34.180 out of which the orthodox doctrine of the nature of Christ came to be. And still, the Aryans didn't 0.95

00:21:41.780 just go away, right? They continued to push, to put pressure on the empire and on the emperor, 0.96

00:21:49.600 both religiously but also politically. And so in one case, Athanasius was actually exiled five

00:21:54.800 different times as kind of the winds of public favor switched and swirled and came back and

00:22:01.740 forth. And one of the times he was exiled almost entirely on political reasons. And

00:22:06.900 the Arians were able to convince Constantine that as the Bishop of Alexandria, he was

00:22:13.620 pausing or halting grain shipments to Rome. He was exerting his political influence as a bishop

00:22:22.520 to keep Rome from being supplied by grain.

00:22:26.420 Another time, the Arians also claimed him

00:22:28.340 of having murdered a bishop.

00:22:29.860 It was surprising to everyone when the bishop

00:22:31.540 who was supposed to have been murdered

00:22:32.640 showed up at the defense of Athanasius, still alive.

00:22:35.580 Always inconvenient for the witnesses.

00:22:37.260 That's right.

00:22:37.680 The point is, there were a lot of factors

00:22:43.560 playing into some of the perceived persecution

00:22:46.300 of Athanasius in the church.

00:22:47.720 Some of them, yes, were on theological grounds

00:22:50.680 and heretics gaining political favor.

00:22:54.320 And some of them were just lies

00:22:56.100 and outright political fabrications

00:22:57.740 by Athanasius's enemies.

00:23:00.460 And all of that was part of the mix at the time.

00:23:03.080 It's very difficult.

00:23:03.920 When we espouse a principle,

00:23:08.540 the real world application of every single principle

00:23:11.780 is always going to be a little bit tricky,

00:23:14.860 a little bit muddy, a little bit cloudy.

00:23:16.560 Even the principles of wives submitting to husbands, 0.97

00:23:18.640 which we would all agree with. 0.58

00:23:20.000 In the real world, you start getting, well, what about this?

00:23:23.020 What about this situation?

00:23:24.060 What about, like, there are absolutely rock-solid principles, but the implementation of them,

00:23:29.600 sometimes it gets a little muddy and sometimes even can be applied too far or not far enough.

00:23:34.640 That's all we're saying with this principle of whether or not the state has some vested interest

00:23:39.400 and even authority to correct the church at times.

00:23:42.400 Yep.

00:23:42.820 I'm going to read this.

00:23:43.560 This is Peter Lightheart.

00:23:45.360 Psalm chapter 2, right?

00:23:46.560 It says, it doesn't just say to the people, right?

00:23:49.040 Peoples of the earth pay homage to the sun.

00:23:52.140 It says rulers of the earth kiss the sun.

00:23:54.800 And so this is extended.

00:23:56.140 Nathan, I didn't give you the quote.

00:23:57.340 It's a little bit long.

00:23:58.240 But I want to read this as the end of the first segment, where he really makes the case that

00:24:02.300 even in these excesses, which are true or even true of Constantine himself, they don't

00:24:07.120 imply a structural deficit.

00:24:09.540 That in the structure of it, there's nothing implied there that this is wholly unworkable.

00:24:13.780 So it's a little bit long, but track with me here.

00:24:15.260 Peter Lightheart says this,

00:24:45.260 her issues. A queen's bodyguard ought to keep his hands off the queen. But what does he do when she

00:24:49.900 turns harpy and starts scratching her face, scratching the face of her lady-in-waiting?

00:24:54.200 Once they noticed there was a queen in their midst, so his conversion, the Edict of Milan,

00:24:58.320 some emperors and kings were not satisfied with kissing the son. Some could not keep their hands

00:25:02.340 off her. Some wanted to steal a kiss or two from the bride and seduce her. Plenty did. There were

00:25:07.320 plenty of excesses, but it's important to notice the difference. Adorning and protecting someone

00:25:12.060 else's queen even protecting her from herself is not the same as violating her and the queen had

00:25:17.580 some responsibility to be true to her king she was not supposed to be flattered by the blandishments

00:25:22.120 of a constantine or justinian or charlemagne she was not to look wistfully at the emperor's court

00:25:26.980 as she too often did and remodel her own couriers in the image of the emperor's if the emperor tried

00:25:32.800 to steal a kiss he should be greeted with a good hard slap that happened as we have seen but did 0.94

00:25:37.180 not always happen and at times the queen was only too happy to take a tumble with the emperor

00:25:41.340 her provided he paid her handsomely for the pleasure there's a good biblical word for that

00:25:45.520 see revelation 17 and 18 and neither Wycliffe nor Dante nor Luther was afraid to use it all of these

00:25:52.220 were real and often horrific acts of unfaithfulness but they do not imply a structural flaw once the

00:25:58.700 emperor has kissed the son should he not honor the son's bride I think that was really well said

00:26:04.200 really really well wait good way to put that yeah the state we said in the first episode the state

00:26:08.920 has been given a physical sword and it's not for decoration paul literally says don't think he

00:26:13.340 holds this in vain right and the church has been given a real spiritual sword the church has not

00:26:18.140 been given the physical sword and the state not given the spiritual sword so in physical matters

00:26:22.820 like paul even says like i've handed a handed over hymenaeus and alexander real flesh and blood

00:26:28.940 physical people that they would be taught not to blaspheme right he doesn't say like i've handed

00:26:33.200 over the spirit and the idea and the entity of blasphemy real people handed over to satan he

00:26:39.300 says elsewhere in corinthians about the adulterer uh handed over for the destruction of the body

00:26:43.480 that power that sword has been given as we know from romans 13 to the state that's not lock that's

00:26:51.020 not hume like well maybe the state does this kind of thing god established it that way the state

00:26:56.340 does not wield the spiritual sword but he does have a physical one he can go too far but ordinarily

00:27:01.560 when he enforces the first table, within his bounds, he's doing what he's called to do.

00:27:07.540 Yep. Let's go to our first commercial break and we'll be right back.

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00:29:40.320 all right so moving on to the second common objection i think it's a good faith objection

00:29:47.000 or at least it could be good faith it's okay you've said that the state has an interest in

00:29:51.520 spiritual things but what we've often seen again and again is what would be seeming abuses of that

00:29:56.220 is that when they get into it because they're imperfect they go about and they persecute men

00:30:01.000 that we find in the final analysis well hang on we we love that guy i think of john bunyan and

00:30:05.860 pilgrim's progress he spent 12 years in prison under the authority of the british crown he wasn't

00:30:11.540 even it wasn't even like it was a catholic catholic crown and he was protestant he was

00:30:16.060 protestant they were protestant but he didn't have the authority to be a preacher he refused to step

00:30:20.440 down from his views and he spent 12 years in prison and i mean he wrote pilgrim's progress so

00:30:25.260 obviously he was uh he was busy while he was in there but we look at those and it's and i get it

00:30:30.900 and it's hard for people to fathom but like but wait we we see the abuses we see this going on

00:30:36.460 uh shouldn't that mean that we just we leave that be but it's the classic conundrum it's not whether

00:30:42.760 but which the state will always have its interest in morality and by extension religion so you look

00:30:49.480 at that and here's what i want to do to look at that you say that's bad but here's the question

00:30:53.520 okay bad in comparison to what a hypothetical perfect world a world with no sin a world with

00:30:59.680 no fallenness, a world of a perfect state. Well, of course, the state executing Wycliffe, for

00:31:04.200 example, its persecution of Luther, of course, those are bad things if our comparison is to

00:31:10.040 a perfect sunny day where nobody sins. But guys, we live in a fallen world and we will until the

00:31:15.800 return of Christ. And so let's use this example, the Spanish Inquisition. So in Spain, late 1400s,

00:31:23.500 the pope and he was compelled to do so but he by holy writ wrote to the civil leaders for the

00:31:29.680 carrying out of an inquisition the inquisition was basically testing people's faith we want to see

00:31:35.460 professions of faith we want to see the avoidance of heresies through all of today what we would

00:31:40.140 call spain and it lasted a good amount of time it lasts until the early 1800s like 400 years it was

00:31:45.300 about 350 years depending when you you kind of market and of course we always hear about it like

00:31:50.840 well, you know, things are bad now, but I mean like the Catholic Church and the Spanish Inquisition.

00:31:56.880 Let's actually get into the numbers. Nate, you can pull this source up. There's a bunch of

00:32:01.720 different, a bunch of back and forth, but I think this is the best summary of the different things

00:32:05.740 I read. This is quote number four. So quote number four, this is from William D. Rubenstein

00:32:14.340 back in 2004, and he says this, the Inquisition was only formally abolished in the early 19th

00:32:20.820 century, early 1800s. Yet it also seems clear that the number of victims of the Inquisition

00:32:25.280 can easily be exaggerated. Juan Antonio Llorente, in the 1700s, a fierce enemy of the Inquisition,

00:32:32.100 whose critical history of the Inquisition of 1817 and 1819, remains the most famous early

00:32:36.680 work attacking everything connected with it. So this guy, Juan Antonio, big critic of the

00:32:42.260 Inquisition, estimated the number of executions carried out during the whole of the period that

00:32:47.360 the spanish inquisition existed was 300 years from 1483 until its abolition by napoleon at 31 912

00:32:55.500 individuals with 291 000 condemned to severe penances most recent historians regard even this

00:33:02.160 figure as far too high you were talking about before the break there's uh sometimes what is it

00:33:08.360 i've heard a million yeah even thrown around yeah that during the middle ages the catholic church

00:33:13.240 was executing millions of supposed heretics i read that somewhere i don't have the source for

00:33:18.220 it so the way it's described it's kind of like uh you remember during like george floyd and people

00:33:22.160 were like there must be thousands of unarmed black men being shot by the police in the street right

00:33:26.580 the number was literally 19 yeah which is about equivalent to probably the number annually that

00:33:32.720 the inquisition actually formally executed 34 for us for heresy the highest estimate people a year

00:33:38.320 the highest estimate would be about 90 if we went with those 31,000 figures most estimate between

00:33:44.000 30 and 40 individuals across the whole kingdom a year executed for heresy and most of them executed

00:33:50.640 for heresy were not individuals that was like oh my goodness they called me to recite the apostle's

00:33:55.040 creed i stumbled over the words i called the son a created being within 15 seconds i was up in the

00:34:00.160 scaffolding these were hard-hearted heretics who had repeatedly obstinately refused to be corrected

00:34:07.280 so even in those cases we have i mean the church and the state wedded together they're going through 0.60

00:34:13.180 they expose jews out of land muslims they're going through not just christians like well you say you

00:34:17.940 profess christ we want to hear details and we want to test your life and we there's a grace period

00:34:22.660 they kind of gave so they'd come to a town and they would have like 40 days where someone could

00:34:26.320 come forward and they were promised the punishment would be lesser but it's often not clear who was

00:34:30.920 actually accusing them what they were being accused of what their recourse was and so certainly in

00:34:36.380 that we could say well there was some things maybe that were done wrong but but compare 40 50 90 at

00:34:44.460 most 90 executions across a whole year the population's estimated at about four to five

00:34:50.140 million so pretty small percent obviously it's smaller than our population population of what

00:34:54.740 of spain population of spain at the time so four to five million so you have 40 to 90 about a year

00:34:59.340 executed formally by the church by the state for heresy inquisition coming to people's house

00:35:04.320 grilling them on doctrine all that compare that to the body count of what we have today compare

00:35:11.220 that to the body count of abortion i mean right there is an easy one compare that to the body

00:35:16.360 count i mean which is about a million which is about a million annually 60 70 million across

00:35:23.420 the time since roe v wade uh compare that even to children that are castrated through surgeries

00:35:29.300 those numbers are in the thousands for each state of transitions a year 10 20 times multiples

00:35:37.480 compare the death count right here in austin texas about three weeks ago an illegal immigrant was

00:35:43.300 driving in the early hours a semi-tractor trailer and was intoxicated plowed into a section of stop

00:35:51.640 cars killed an infant killed a four-year-old i think three or four other people he shouldn't

00:35:57.160 have been here. He shouldn't have been driving. And that's just here, right here in the last two

00:36:02.560 weeks. Obviously, there's the Lakeland Rileys of the world, the individuals, but by the sheer

00:36:08.220 numbers, like, okay, I get it. But the Spanish Inquisition, yeah, maybe we don't go to people's

00:36:13.820 homes and grill them on doctrine. Maybe we assume the best of their confession. And so, well,

00:36:19.760 not the best look. But guys, you have got to get a grip of the picture when we talk about that.

00:36:25.020 it would be better, all else being equal, if these are the only two options to choose from.

00:36:29.680 A bit of an overzealous church and state. They're a little, as Peter Lightheart said,

00:36:33.920 they're a little entangled. They're a little close. They're taking too much of a romp together.

00:36:38.420 He's not protecting her. Even in those cases, better that than the state telling, dictating

00:36:45.720 these precepts that we have now that have body counts, not in the tens, not in the twenties,

00:36:51.180 not in the hundreds but of thousands of things that would have been unthinkable in that time 0.83

00:36:56.620 that really would have yep not to mention aside from just like abortion and uh transgenderism

00:37:03.260 and all those kinds of things but um just thinking of 2020 alone and you know the state shutting down

00:37:10.180 every single church in america for right weeks and weeks and then you know and then some states

00:37:15.580 you know for months um like like we're like oh man we can't you know we can't have christian

00:37:21.460 nationalism we can't have you know the state can't have the the kinds of powers that and here's the

00:37:26.940 deal like we we did this in the episode that we did on monday we didn't just say oh here's what

00:37:31.300 was going on with constantine but we quoted the westminster you know confession not the american

00:37:36.980 confession but you know the the the former confession which the difference is what like

00:37:41.520 about 100 years or so prior yeah philadelphia i think it's even maybe even later yeah yep so

00:37:48.280 uh the belgic confession as well the belgic and the belgic and so like and all and all of these

00:37:55.860 you know like with the westminster especially you know it says that it is the civil magistrate's

00:38:00.040 duty to suppress um all heresies and and blasphemies uh that that the state actually

00:38:06.800 has an obligation under God and a vested interest in helping to keep the church pure.

00:38:12.840 Now, that doesn't afford to the state the ability or the right to administer the sacraments

00:38:18.900 or to preach from the pulpit or any of these things, or even to dictate the forms of worship

00:38:24.080 of the church. 0.84

00:38:25.380 You know, like when you had the original Covenanters and, you know, people, you know, Puritans 0.97

00:38:31.120 that were coming to America,

00:38:34.240 the civil magistrate at that time in England, 1.00

00:38:37.100 he wasn't suppressing Trinitarian blasphemies like Arianism, 1.00

00:38:42.680 but he was telling them that they had to, 0.93

00:38:45.540 that it was mandated that they read the scoreboard

00:38:49.080 out of the sports almanac on Sunday morning

00:38:52.600 in their worship. 0.95

00:38:54.300 He was just being a troll.

00:38:58.320 He knew that that offended their conscience in a breach of the Christian Sabbath to talk about sports and recreation from the pulpit on a Sunday morning during the worship service.

00:39:11.480 And so he was abusing his power.

00:39:13.740 Let me use the example of the king of England now.

00:39:15.740 So you had a king then who was abusing his power.

00:39:18.100 We would agree those have no place on the Lord's Day in public worship.

00:39:22.340 But the king of England right now has largely abdicated his role in relation to the church.

00:39:26.780 and what he's basically served as is a rubber stamp for all the terrible reforms that the

00:39:31.740 church of england has undergone he's been supportive of its inclusion and giving of

00:39:36.820 blessings on same-sex marriage same thing with it was i think in the 70s at the anglican church

00:39:42.080 at least in england began to ordain women and the king stood right along and let it happen

00:39:47.980 so in these systems again like okay well he had some problems there to be sure those actually

00:39:53.360 pale in comparison to even today's king not in their positive doing not in his actual reforms

00:39:59.100 that he's instituted but the duty he's abdicated so you have the king there and he has a responsibility

00:40:04.480 in this case he took it too far he was errant totally get that but today he's largely abdicated

00:40:09.900 and the result has not been and because he's abdicated he stepped back he's not restraining

00:40:14.740 he's not suppressing man the church in england is doing really well it's doing terrible my brother

00:40:21.040 in christ england and the church especially as the king at least in that context and not every

00:40:26.840 nation not every country will have this set up will have a monarch reigning over the the church

00:40:31.860 and probably even ideally that's not the case as it is right now that's what they've had they've

00:40:36.340 had it for hundreds of years and right now you have a king abdicating right as the church is

00:40:40.860 imploding the numbers of the church of england it is going to be extinct in 50 years the church

00:40:46.800 of martin lloyd jones the church of uh john stott the the church is so the church of the

00:40:53.380 westminster divines yeah so much great theology so many wonderful architects so many treasures

00:40:59.480 of the faith that were handed down the king as steward is watching the royal family is watching

00:41:05.440 as they all go down the drain we don't look at that and say well thank goodness he stepped back

00:41:10.120 from his role thank goodness the state's not interfering no the king needs to get in there

00:41:13.660 and clean house yes i'm i'm sure glad that there aren't going to be any abuses from you know the

00:41:18.400 civil magistrate in england like there won't be christianity in england right the whole those 0.99

00:41:26.760 churches will be occupied by muslims yeah like they're all turning into muslim mosques and so

00:41:32.600 yes but but that's what you said earlier is just important for the listener to understand

00:41:37.660 And it's not whether but which, not whether but which.

00:41:42.300 You're going, so long as we live in a fallen world, until the final physical return of Christ, you're going to have sin.

00:41:49.780 You're going to have abuses of power.

00:41:51.640 All these kinds of things are going to happen.

00:41:53.400 And when we look at a whole over Western civilization, just in the last 50 years, 70 years, 130 years, and really stretching back even to the Enlightenment,

00:42:04.020 you know what we have is secular humanism and you know just like you know the scriptures that you

00:42:11.300 know saul has killed his thousands but david is tens of thousands it's like yeah like uh sacralism

00:42:16.780 has killed its dozens yep uh annually and it really martyred uh early reformers who were

00:42:23.060 literally just trying to take the scriptures and put them in the common tongue right that was wrong

00:42:27.200 So, like, sacralism has burned dozens at the stake, and secular humanism has vacuumed out 70 million babies.

00:42:37.960 And that's just a start.

00:42:39.920 That's just a start.

00:42:40.500 An entire millennium of Christendom is being leveled right now at the hands of secular humanism.

00:42:45.500 We all know it's easier to destroy something than to build something.

00:42:49.380 Wes, I have a question.

00:42:50.720 I'm going to give you a minute to think about it because I'm going to make another point.

00:42:52.840 But there's an objection that people will raise.

00:42:55.120 they'll say, well, the person being, the people being run over by the illegal immigrant, that is

00:43:01.940 not directly because of a state and religion connection. So some of your examples were related

00:43:07.940 to maybe people would categorize them as purely political decisions. And so maybe it would be good

00:43:13.060 to answer that. But I wanted to mention one other thing about the Spanish Inquisition. And well,

00:43:17.920 two things one is those numbers of 40 to 90 a year it is true that the inquisition kind of came

00:43:25.940 in cycles and some popes would push for it and some popes would pull back on it and so it's not

00:43:32.300 like they were meeting a quota every year like uh like a policeman is meeting a quota on the number

00:43:37.540 of you know um speeding tickets that he's giving out so there would have been times where perhaps

00:43:43.600 the violence or the torture would have been more pronounced than at other times and so it is

00:43:48.900 possible that you would look in the history of the spanish inquisition and you would see some

00:43:52.800 times where it was more frightful more torturous things like that and many more thousands that

00:43:57.900 weren't executed were yes they were they were put to the question as it were yeah but that proves

00:44:03.080 the opposite too that means that the spanish inquisition was not a constant in spain for those

00:44:08.620 350 years there were times where that really wasn't happening much at all now still people

00:44:15.400 will object and say well it still makes me shudder that there were whole machinations of power and

00:44:21.960 machinery of church and state and they had you know these places set up to interrogate and put

00:44:27.260 people to the question and they developed a whole theology of justifying torture because if you're

00:44:33.560 tortured and you're righteous God will preserve your faith and you know if you're not righteous

00:44:38.040 then you will die and god didn't preserve you and that was admittedly a bad um you know there was a

00:44:45.000 whole machinery as it were that was set up last west you mentioned remembering the time the 0.76

00:44:51.820 inquisition started what late 1483 yeah 1483 the reconquista historically didn't even end until 0.91

00:45:00.160 1492 officially which was the period where spain was driving the moor and the muslim back out of

00:45:06.700 spain back into africa they were literally still in the process of fighting for their existence 0.95

00:45:13.820 as a people as a religion as christendom and so yeah they were they were kind of jumpy about that

00:45:20.520 at the time right but they were coming out of uh what was it 700 years almost of literal constant 0.78

00:45:28.620 warfare trying to win back and beat back the the the muslim invasion of southern europe like and 0.92

00:45:35.760 Typically Jews that were helping them, and that's why they went then to expulse them. 0.98

00:45:39.120 And so the fact that they were trying to figure out how can we prevent this from happening again, 0.95

00:45:44.140 let's make sure that everyone in the nation is Christian, was a political consideration

00:45:48.980 because they were fighting a political war as much as they were a religious war. 1.00

00:45:53.220 And so the state said, we have a vested interest in making sure that the people here are not working with the Muslims 0.95

00:46:01.540 to counter our efforts of winning back our country. 0.98

00:46:05.760 Yep, absolutely.

00:46:07.240 Let's go to our next commercial break

00:46:08.460 and then we'll be back.

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00:48:20.740 and all of finance for chrysidom all right all right well welcome back here's the last objections

00:48:28.260 we had we tackled constantine real quick let me just put you on the spot right now you snap your

00:48:34.160 fingers um status quo what we have today secular humanism ruling the day or roman catholic christian

00:48:43.200 nationalism and uh you're not allowed to baptize your babies or you're not allowed to do a

00:48:50.140 believers baptize baptism you have to baptize your babies it's not even a question not that

00:48:54.980 both are perfect i i have a conviction but like right yeah oh my goodness like that's what like

00:49:01.380 i'm just i'm watching the chat and i'm trying not to um because sometimes it's just trying not to

00:49:06.440 crash out well yeah i mean there's there's a couple guys that most of the chats doing a great

00:49:10.920 job you know they're they're taking care you know take care of our light work right we've got you

00:49:15.340 know patriots in control we've got like you know true christian nationalists in the chat dealing

00:49:18.880 with um uh the you know the guys who are ngmi i'm not gonna make it but um but i'm reading it and i'm

00:49:28.060 and i'm like what like what world i just don't understand it i don't understand like what world

00:49:34.160 do you think we're currently living it you know like what we we have drag queen story out you know

00:49:40.120 like we we don't we don't even have america first we have israel first we have like you know like

00:49:46.860 we're it's globalism it's um we're giving you know we're a tax farm for ukraine and it's like

00:49:55.020 no we're going to be america first like so we're not going to be a tax farm for anyone no still

00:49:59.120 israel but not like vivek ramaswamy he's like campaigning and he tries to kind of take that

00:50:04.000 america first slogan right what does america first mean that means millions more h1b visas

00:50:09.580 because we have to fix our declining birth rate problem right how is this american first again

00:50:14.520 right can you help me out here connect some pieces so that we have globalism multiculturalism

00:50:19.860 tax farm for you know all the other nations of the world uh transgenderism drag queen story hour 0.96

00:50:25.900 lgbt mafia and and if all of that wasn't enough you know we have uh 70 million babies dead you 0.96

00:50:35.340 know conservatively just in the last half century just in the last 50 years and and baptists are 0.88

00:50:42.460 concerned that um that christian nationalism might mean that like what if what if it's really bad

00:50:49.680 and we have more than ever before we have 200 baptists over the course of the century

00:50:57.240 that die i'm like you mean 200 million no 200 the worst we've ever had in all of human history

00:51:05.500 uh it's like what are you talking about i don't i just i don't get it even fundamentally i would

00:51:11.040 say, and Daryl Cooper makes this point, how Christendom was formed, there was hierarchy

00:51:16.240 built in. There's hierarchy built into the Catholic Church. We're not Catholic, but you have a Pope

00:51:20.520 who's the first among the bishops. And then you have, I mean, even the peasant coming into church. 0.96

00:51:25.380 They come into church where it's not just an ordinary commoner who's preaching, but a man

00:51:29.020 who's been to seminary and has a whole life devoted. He's on an elevated stage above the people

00:51:33.960 giving out the words of God that they don't have. And in many ways, as imperfect as it was,

00:51:38.440 it just inculcated in a people the hierarchy and the orders that the spiritual was great and above

00:51:44.380 and that's what we aspired to and that within those churches and within that not everyone

00:51:48.680 was the same not all were capable of teaching not all were capable of the that life not all

00:51:54.320 were capable of being a pope the higher in service of the lesser cared and stewarded and and so that

00:52:00.620 hierarchy that we had the american one we have it just in our bones like the most successful

00:52:06.340 denominations in the united states are very flat as far as their structure they don't hardly any

00:52:12.020 of them have bishops if they do it's like methodism where the bishops don't really have any

00:52:15.960 local power they'll do a presbytery one level that's about it but honestly like methodist

00:52:20.780 baptist assemblies of god very flat structures that have no hierarchy to them has been the

00:52:26.900 american experience and i'm not talking in the last 20 years like 200 years right like those

00:52:32.420 have been the ones that have succeeded most over and against the roman catholic system

00:52:36.880 or not catholics but a structure that did have higher and lower superiors inferiors structure

00:52:44.220 to it and that also had um substance um rather than the subjective um that that was one of the

00:52:55.880 things one of the appeals still to this day i think with roman catholicism is the idea of

00:53:01.380 not having to question and wonder you know that like it's you know it's these robes and these

00:53:07.720 tassels and this candle and this incense and this cathedral and this stained glass and this bread

00:53:13.440 and this wine and this you know and it's um you know you come and you do confession in this booth

00:53:19.480 with this man who wears this you know these robes um and and you know like seven sacraments that are

00:53:26.620 all very, they're objective rather than subjective, they're tangible. You know, it's like, I'm, you

00:53:33.500 know, my children are going to be baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, going to get married in the

00:53:38.060 Roman Catholic Church, I'm going to take the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic Church, and I'm

00:53:42.820 also going to do confession from time to time in the Roman Catholic Church, I'm going to have last

00:53:47.520 rites read to me, you know, when I die, you know, dying, being blessed by the Roman Catholic Church.

00:53:51.960 You would grow up in one church, you would see a cemetery that your parents are buried in,

00:53:55.960 You would return to that seminary to be buried there?

00:53:58.440 Yeah, cemetery.

00:53:59.080 Cemetery, yep.

00:54:00.120 And so there was an objectivity.

00:54:03.280 And you know what?

00:54:03.940 To steal, man, to give the most charitable defense of the federal vision guys,

00:54:12.380 that's what they were looking at.

00:54:14.260 They were like, yeah, there has to be some objectivity of the covenant.

00:54:18.700 there has to be some kind of something that people can look to um and have some sense well it's you

00:54:27.220 know it's kind of timely that like right now there's you know a clip going viral with john

00:54:30.740 piper um which honestly i'm just kind of like surprised to see john piper you know in the

00:54:38.140 discourse again i haven't you know heard anything from john piper in a very long time yeah he entered

00:54:42.540 the chat it's been a while and um but it was basically you know him talking about uh the

00:54:48.600 warning passages like he's just quoting scripture and it's absolutely true but like hebrews 6

00:54:53.900 hebrews 10 and just saying like be careful you know brothers lest any of you right you know

00:54:59.700 should be found to have an evil unbelieving heart that would cause you to fall away from the living

00:55:04.380 god and he wasn't saying he's not denying the doctrines of grace and saying that you would

00:55:08.100 lose your salvation but he's saying that you could prove that you never had it to begin with

00:55:11.400 like for people who are a part of the visible church you know and and he's saying yeah and

00:55:16.660 and then he says you could fall away any one of you could fall away and he's like i could fall

00:55:20.520 away um and that's he's been consistent in that before that's something i i have never really

00:55:25.800 liked about um a particular point of piper's doctrine that i've never appreciated because he's

00:55:30.700 uh basically what he's saying is that um that you can never really have assurance right not full

00:55:37.360 assurance so you know to be fair to piper like he wouldn't say you can have uh the christian can

00:55:43.060 only ever have no assurance but he would just say you can grow in varying degrees of assurance but

00:55:49.460 you can never have full assurance in this life um and he would say that for himself he's like i could

00:55:54.500 fall away tomorrow right and uh and so that you know that's that is one of the weaknesses of

00:56:01.120 Protestantism is that everything is examine yourself, the conscience, the private life

00:56:11.020 of the individual, you're standing before God, and there's not many external, visible

00:56:19.100 monuments that you can point to, that you can lay hold of, that would provide a sense

00:56:26.660 of certainty and uh and confidence that this person is in this person is out this person is

00:56:32.500 a christian this person is not a christian like and and so as you know everything so that's just

00:56:38.080 matters of soteriology and ecclesiology but then beyond that you know like when it comes to um

00:56:45.640 clergy and ordination and those kinds of things you know like that's that's even my own story

00:56:50.740 which everybody now knows you know but like um yeah like especially within baptist tradition

00:56:56.740 not all protestants but but particularly baptists it's like we have all these non-denominant

00:57:02.180 non-denominational churches and it's like anybody can just start a church right you know and has

00:57:08.600 that been particularly good for the u.s now to but to be fair like we've seen you know other countries 0.99

00:57:15.380 that are Catholic, predominantly Catholic, and they suck too. 0.97

00:57:18.860 It hasn't been there. 1.00

00:57:20.440 So I'm not saying that it's a fail-safe because it's not by any means.

00:57:25.280 But the point is, whether it's Protestantism or whether it was Catholicism

00:57:30.160 or even within Protestants, if we had Baptist Christian nationalism

00:57:33.920 versus Anglican Christian nationalism or Presbyterian Christian nationalism, 0.78

00:57:39.340 what I want Christians to realize is I just want them to wake up 0.56

00:57:43.300 and see that any form, literally any form of Christian nationalism would be an immediate 0.69

00:57:50.380 and massive improvement on no Christian nationalism, on secular humanistic globalism.

00:57:59.440 That's the problem.

00:58:01.360 Go ahead.

00:58:01.700 And Wes, before we move to your point, the thing that, you know, as I've followed this

00:58:06.600 discussion a little bit, what is so strange to me is that, Wes, you said it at the beginning.

00:58:12.860 You said it's not whether but which.

00:58:15.400 We learned that from the Christian National Theonomists.

00:58:19.880 And to then imagine that the situation is this,

00:58:27.020 that we live in a society where the church is not enforcing,

00:58:31.860 or sorry, where the state is not enforcing a religion, is false.

00:58:36.160 The point is, every nation is fundamentally religious.

00:58:39.820 The state always enforces and promotes and protects a religious perspective and religious toleration or persecution to some degree.

00:58:53.020 It just so happens that our state currently is enforcing and promoting secularism and rapidly paganism.

00:59:01.740 And so when we say, yeah, of course the state has, say, a role to play in the public expression of religion, we're taking that almost as an a priori assumption.

00:59:12.860 We're not even taking that necessarily as an art—like, we are arguing for it, for the historical position of it.

00:59:18.760 But also, that is just the nature of nations and peoples.

00:59:22.900 They have a religious perspective.

00:59:24.820 Whoever is in power in that nation will enforce and promote and defend a certain religious perspective.

00:59:30.980 it is inevitable hey it's almost like a black pill like really it's this simple

00:59:35.600 it's a lot of it is just downstream of political will nate can you show this the one image that i

00:59:40.460 have this is a great example good brother flag of this to me on x this is from the michigan penal

00:59:46.360 code so the state of michigan here in the united states on the books section 750.102 still currently

00:59:52.840 on the books as i understand it still currently on the books blasphemy punishment section 102

00:59:57.720 Any person who shall willfully blaspheme the holy name of God

01:00:01.980 by cursing or contemptuously reproaching God

01:00:04.940 shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

01:00:06.880 705-103, cursing and swearing.

01:00:09.320 Any person who has arrived at the age of discretion 0.88

01:00:11.380 who shall profanely curse or damn or swear

01:00:13.960 by the name of God, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Ghost

01:00:17.120 shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

01:00:18.840 No such prosecution shall be sustained

01:00:20.740 unless it shall be commenced within five days

01:00:23.060 of the commission of such an offense.

01:00:25.180 Now, as I'm sure in Michigan,

01:00:26.740 they're patrolling the streets they hear you the cop get a little mouthy at the bar no there's no

01:00:32.920 will to enforce it the same thing with arizona they had books laws on the books yes for a long

01:00:37.580 time against abortion nobody enforced it had sodomy laws on the books i think all the way up

01:00:42.640 until i think at least the 70s if not the 90s and i hear like i don't think it's public information

01:00:50.980 but I've heard from some legislators

01:00:53.220 that in the

01:00:55.200 great republic of Texas we still have

01:00:57.120 sodomy laws on the books

01:00:58.500 but at the end of the day we're not

01:01:01.160 a nation of laws as Steve Dace

01:01:02.860 often says but we're a nation of

01:01:04.980 political will

01:01:05.720 the supreme court 0.99

01:01:09.100 overrode our laws

01:01:10.060 the supreme court overrode our laws

01:01:12.060 when we were in high school 0.51

01:01:13.880 activist judges took it upon themselves

01:01:16.140 to dictate morality

01:01:17.440 the state

01:01:19.220 dictated the morality of a people yep but the point is that like all these things that people

01:01:26.500 think is just so outlandish and foreign and that could never happen and that would be terrible and

01:01:31.300 i can't believe um we're not this is not a pipe dream this is not um this is not just some random

01:01:37.880 hypothetical we're talking about something that has happened before and it happened here yeah and

01:01:43.700 and not just hundreds and hundreds of years ago we're talking about decades world we're talking

01:01:48.100 about decades ago not that long decades ago and then the question is okay so how you know let's

01:01:54.620 just do a quick assessment how we've been doing you know like we changed courses uh we you know

01:01:59.680 we we stopped um being a christian nation and we started being a secular nation um and how how's it

01:02:08.580 going for us like do we have you know like are there less more trusting prosperous happy healthier

01:02:15.640 than we'd ever i would say so it's just you look at that it's like what what has the abandonment of

01:02:21.720 of christian nationalism gotten us it's gotten us no borders a full-fledged invasion of the third 0.63

01:02:28.500 world uh that is r-a-p-i-n-g you know uh women children um abortion on mass on demand for any 0.95

01:02:39.140 reason anytime um lgbt mafia uh exploitation of children that like all and and done by you know 0.80

01:02:49.800 it's given gotten as human trafficking you know with surrogacy um right from like federal politicians

01:02:56.360 bragging about it conservative pundits political pundits bragging about it and other conservatives

01:03:02.720 writing like congratulations this is great you know um and to michael's point earlier a lot of

01:03:08.920 ngos non-governmental organizations that were spiritually affiliated and churches particularly

01:03:13.660 the catholic church and the lutheran church were heavily involved in the use of state funds to

01:03:18.400 settle refugees and immigrants here so churches took it upon themselves to twist the scriptures

01:03:23.980 and to be overly welcoming and to bring in as many people as possible they took the state's 1.00

01:03:28.560 dime to do it again you have the state influencing the church and these churches and these spiritual

01:03:33.780 organizations took that money and shuttled them in by the millions and settled them and gave them

01:03:38.180 everything they need and supported them and taught them the language churches did that they did it on

01:03:43.160 the state's dime yeah nathan's back there eating chips because uh west just had a great point for

01:03:49.620 about three minutes straight and the camera was on me the entire time you were nowhere to be found

01:03:54.940 no nathan's just he's like i'm done i've checked it's friday well let's get to that last objection

01:04:00.260 because it's a good one and then let's deal with this uh the super chats also go ahead

01:04:04.020 so the final objection that that we saw to that is that that's just not the american way to do

01:04:10.760 things that in our history we have been very conscious of putting a wall between the church

01:04:16.160 and the state for example again the first amendment congress right there is congress

01:04:21.300 Unfortunately, there is a Supreme Court case that ruled that in Congress there's actually implied as well state Congresses.

01:04:26.900 So it's not as though, well, federal can't restrict speech, but the state of Oklahoma could.

01:04:31.600 So at the state and the federal level, we have the First Amendment, which does say Congress shall make no law respecting the free expression of the other things are allowed to exercise and then religion being one of them.

01:04:43.160 Same thing.

01:04:43.780 I think it's Article 6.

01:04:44.960 There's no religious tests required for public office.

01:04:47.840 And it's hard to face, and it's even sometimes hard to hold as a good citizen of the United States.

01:04:53.560 But ultimately, our allegiance is not first to the United States.

01:04:56.640 It's God, it's family, it's country, I think would be a good kind of ordering of those three.

01:05:00.880 And when the duty to God, the duty to uphold righteousness, the duty of the state to do good,

01:05:05.500 when that conflicts with, well, what about my constitution?

01:05:08.440 What about the will of the people? 0.97

01:05:10.160 And even the constitution, it's just so silly.

01:05:12.200 It's like, what's the first word? 0.87

01:05:13.640 Congress.

01:05:14.080 so congress cannot determine we're going to have the anglican church of america at the federal

01:05:19.900 level uh there's nothing in the constitution that doesn't that says that individual states

01:05:25.180 could not determine and i'm not even saying that that's necessarily a good idea but what i've

01:05:29.220 advocated for years now at least two or three years i helped in writing you know the statement

01:05:33.040 on christian nationalism and the gospel um but what i've advocated for is at the federal level

01:05:37.840 like we should we should declare ourselves formally declare ourselves as a christian nation

01:05:42.880 and it should not be confessional, but rather creedal.

01:05:45.640 It should be creedal.

01:05:46.560 And that would also, by virtue of being creedal,

01:05:49.000 Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, Chalcedon,

01:05:51.280 it would necessarily include not just all Protestants,

01:05:54.600 but it would include Roman Catholics as well.

01:05:57.100 So that's at the federal level, creedally, a Christian nation.

01:06:00.860 And then we should adopt formally some kind of preamble to the Constitution

01:06:05.180 that publicly and clearly, explicitly declares the name of Jesus

01:06:11.120 and the triune God.

01:06:12.880 as a preamble to the Constitution. And none of that would contradict the First Amendment. You

01:06:17.600 would not have to revise the Constitution at all. The First Amendment, Congress, so then you don't

01:06:23.140 have a federal national church of whatever, Presbyterian or Baptist or Anglican or Catholic

01:06:32.080 or whatever. But credibly, it is a Christian nation at the federal level. Then individual

01:06:37.700 states actually could, without any breach of the Constitution, could set up state churches.

01:06:42.080 I personally don't think that's a great idea, but states could do that.

01:06:46.620 The point is, people don't realize, people just don't know our history, not just Christian church history, but even American history.

01:06:55.120 They don't realize how Christian this country really was.

01:06:59.120 They're like, well, you can't do that because of the Constitution.

01:07:02.000 It's like, my friend, the Constitution would allow state churches, it would allow the adopting of a preamble to the Constitution.

01:07:10.740 it would allow creedal declaration not not you know at the federal levels a church but um but

01:07:18.900 but still at the federal level christian in a creedal sense an adoption of a christian preamble 0.95

01:07:25.340 state churches and putting all the homosexuals in prison that's your constitution that you're like 0.76

01:07:33.100 well i just want the constitution like no you don't want the constitution blasphemy laws like 1.00

01:07:37.060 michigan blasphemy laws like somebody calls jesus uh the bastard son of a whore jail right who would 0.95

01:07:44.600 say that a lot a lot of people would say that um but that like jail right away right um breaking 0.98

01:07:53.040 the sabbath blue laws on the books in many states still on the books jail there's states where like

01:07:59.560 shopping is not allowed in that county parameters new jersey one example not allowed on sunday and

01:08:03.700 that's my point that's what i want i just want the detractors to be honest and say because they're

01:08:08.640 like well we just love the constitution no you don't you love the de facto the de facto

01:08:16.360 veil that has covered the constitution since the heart seller act since the civil rights act like

01:08:23.680 what you love is not america's founding what you love is not america's constitution what you love

01:08:29.880 is 20th century post-war liberalism.

01:08:36.460 That's what you love.

01:08:37.620 Right-wing watch is a subsidiary of people for the American way.

01:08:41.100 We're people for the American way.

01:08:42.680 Right.

01:08:43.100 Their American way sounds a lot different than our American way.

01:08:45.740 And ours is more historical. 0.55

01:08:47.660 Who's in charge of the people for the American way?

01:08:50.540 Who founded it?

01:08:51.180 Who funds right-wing watch that clips us out of context

01:08:54.040 and tries to make us sound extremist.

01:08:55.500 I'm just curious, who is it?

01:08:56.460 You already know.

01:08:57.140 Is it an every single time kind of situation?

01:08:58.560 It's an every single time.

01:08:59.880 Back in the 80s, and the ERLC...

01:09:02.660 I was hoping maybe it wasn't this time, you know?

01:09:04.780 Well, disappointing.

01:09:06.240 The ERLC actually collaborated with them during Clinton's administration for a religious liberty bill.

01:09:10.940 Guys, things have been bad for a while.

01:09:12.860 But the point is, to your point, Joel, they haven't always been.

01:09:16.280 It's not as though we were an agnostic, democratic, come-as-you-are, open board...

01:09:22.380 We weren't that for a long time.

01:09:25.240 Amen.

01:09:25.740 And here's the point that we've been making for quite a while ad nauseum, but I'm going to make it again.

01:09:30.440 So, it wasn't that long ago.

01:09:32.680 It happened here, and it happened recently.

01:09:36.740 Christian nationalism. 0.61

01:09:38.540 So, here's the point.

01:09:40.040 Not only was it recent, and not only was it here, but here's the other thing.

01:09:44.480 People think, like, yeah, okay, so you're convincing me that, like, yeah, this might be our history,

01:09:49.640 and yeah, it might even be somewhat of our recent history, but it'll never happen again. 0.94

01:09:55.320 And this is the last piece of the puzzle that I think is a major white pill and that we should be encouraged by, 0.89

01:09:59.880 is, um, all of it got undone in the last 50 to 70 years, 50 to 80 years. Um, it's actually easier

01:10:09.060 to go back. It actually took billions and billions and billions of dollars to artificially

01:10:17.300 manufacture and propagandize and lobotomize, uh, a nation of people to, to remove themselves

01:10:27.780 from what comes logically reasonably naturally like to convince people that boys are girls and

01:10:34.460 girls are boys to convince people that you know a baby in the womb well i don't know i mean is it

01:10:39.000 really human maybe you know maybe uh it's a snail maybe it's a snail yeah maybe it's you know like

01:10:44.000 uh like who's to say that it's a human being it becomes human when it passes through the birth

01:10:48.100 canal yeah like until then you know it's it's as far as we know it's a potential you know uh you

01:10:53.260 know blue whale you know what like um and that like do you know how much money like how much

01:11:00.860 money at from the universities to television programs to um you know legacy media to um

01:11:09.400 to like the medical establishment like and that's not even to begin to talk about like

01:11:14.760 the politicians and all like do you have any idea how much money and manpower and intentionality

01:11:23.180 that it required in these last still only possible in the wake of a catastrophic world war that reset

01:11:30.160 the entire world that's the only way it happened so in these last 50 to 80 years um it's not just

01:11:35.880 like hey we've had christian nationalism here and we've had it recently like because that is

01:11:41.500 encouraging makes it seem less preposterous but people the last piece of the puzzle is people

01:11:45.220 could still say yeah but it'll never happen again it's like no no no you know what people thought 0.92

01:11:50.220 would never happen this right 70 million mothers murdering their their own children transgender 0.89

01:11:58.440 it's your drag queen story hour like if you had told people in the 1950s nightmares yeah that 0.87

01:12:04.940 this would happen they'd be like no yeah no the men storming the beaches at normandy like this is

01:12:10.220 what you're defending yeah this is what you're fighting for you are fighting for uh principled

01:12:14.540 pluralism so that we can have drag queen story hour yeah the blessings the british men like 0.74

01:12:19.180 you're there so your country can be hollowed out 60 years later this is what you're fighting for 0.99

01:12:24.920 and if you told them that they like i'm telling you you think there's no way we could get back

01:12:30.160 to a moral foundation um but but they and never in a million years would have believed that we

01:12:37.720 could have gotten to this because it's not just anti-christian it's not just anti-christ

01:12:42.120 it's anti-nature it's anti-reality it's anti-reason it's anti-logic it's it's it's

01:12:49.160 anti the natural world that god established it's a revolt what we've been experiencing

01:12:54.200 is a revolt against the natural order and nature will not like nature won't won't allow it not

01:13:02.380 not perpetually not indefinitely it will snap back the natural order will snap back nature

01:13:08.060 will find a way. Nature will win. And so it's going to snap back. So the only question is,

01:13:14.660 when this happens, this great reversal, which will happen, it is happening, whether you like

01:13:20.760 it or not, what is it going to snap back to? It's going to snap back to nature, but will it snap

01:13:25.580 back to a Christian view of nature, or an Islamic view of nature, or a pagan view of nature?

01:13:31.440 And because it's in our own history, and because Christianity happens to be true,

01:13:35.820 the triune god is the real god um snapping back to christian natural principles and natural law

01:13:43.560 and christian nationalism would be the most sensical it would be the most natural it would

01:13:49.120 be the most uh fluid you know transition that you could possibly have but my only concern is that

01:13:56.840 there's like 14 christians talking about it right seriously like so all these people you're you're

01:14:03.980 worried right you're christians and you're saying well i'm worried that there'll be abuses of power

01:14:07.740 or it's going to be roman catholic you know catholic integralism you know where you know

01:14:12.340 like okay well one way maybe to avoid that is maybe you could help us out and we could have

01:14:19.040 more than 14 protestants right talk about these things um but right now like you're right like

01:14:26.460 it's going to snap back to nature but it probably won't be protestant christian natural you know

01:14:32.860 worldview it probably won't be that because every single protestant has stood up and said

01:14:37.980 no right no we are like there's a lot of things we're uncertain about there's a lot of subjectivity

01:14:44.920 when it comes to protestantism but there's one thing that we universally and unanimously have

01:14:49.760 decided together and uh that's that protestants will lose we've decided that we are committed

01:14:55.780 to make sure that when things snap back to the natural order um by golly uh we're doing

01:15:02.700 everything we can to make sure that it's muslim pagan or catholic i'm like like this is your

01:15:10.820 legacy this jeff halfley this is the legacy of protestant boomers had a great yes quote

01:15:15.840 super chat and then yeah counterpoint let's do it well if you could go back nate so i can see

01:15:20.720 what he followed it up with so 499 super chat thanks jeff always great to see you baptist

01:15:25.200 complain about christian nationalism but as soon as 10 20 years ago it's like the 2000s baptists

01:15:30.100 enforced bans on alcohol sales and localities where they were strong enough in number go down

01:15:34.960 they oppose christian nationalism but have no problem in imposing baptist nationalism 1.00

01:15:39.520 or an issue that only baptists feel strongly about yeah it's a great point like of course

01:15:44.620 they did it they just they had the will then and what we lack now is the will but it was

01:15:48.860 it was something they cared about that's right so like blasphemy people saying that jesus is a 0.99

01:15:54.160 bastard of a whore baptists don't care about that right drinking there could be dancing right we're 0.99

01:16:01.360 talking the drinking and the dancing could be happening now no seriously and it's it's sad 1.00

01:16:05.620 we're baptists okay so we're not just trying to pick on the but like let's just admit that for a

01:16:09.160 second like when it like anybody can do you can like everybody is constantly saying you can just

01:16:13.780 do things that's right like if you have enough people with the political will you can just do

01:16:19.100 things. So, when Baptists have political will, they just do things. And what do they do? 0.98

01:16:26.040 They make sure that no one has a good time. They have the political will to make sure that there

01:16:32.480 is, you know, like regional misery. Like, we want to make sure everyone's bored. That's what Baptists

01:16:38.720 have the political will for. My own grandparents, you know, like my mom grew up, they would always 0.75

01:16:44.080 play 42 dominoes right they would have tournaments in the church um people bet on dominoes all the

01:16:49.380 time right and they were betting on dominoes back then but dominoes were allowed and uno

01:16:54.140 and was allowed and that's right and skip bow yep um but not playing cards and and it's not that

01:16:59.840 they banned gambling but the playing cards even without gambling just playing spades or playing

01:17:04.080 hearts or playing you know or playing war the highest card weren't allowed to do and my

01:17:08.040 grandfather who who is a wonderful christian man with the lord now in glory uh who i deeply love

01:17:13.540 and deeply respect it didn't matter like like baptists like when they had the numbers and they

01:17:20.320 actually still have the numbers little known you know secret but uh but when they had the numbers 0.74

01:17:24.720 and they and they had the political will um they joined together to do what to ban spades

01:17:32.280 and hearts and playing cards and beer and to be fair there were not as big of issues as we have

01:17:42.120 of the day that's true so the drag queen wasn't rolling into the library and they're like hey 0.96

01:17:46.080 don't go in there there's a book on alcohol it's gonna be fair but you are right like they they

01:17:50.300 do how to wield power everyone does that's the point that's the point they knew how to assert

01:17:54.740 themselves they knew people are political animals everyone is political it's not whether but which

01:18:01.360 everyone is political and you can stop something the moment that you want to like with covid

01:18:07.240 right well the science changed nope the political science changed covid and the lockdowns and the

01:18:13.500 jabs and the mask and it all stopped when when uh there was a new strain that wasn't as contagious

01:18:19.460 you know no it stopped the second that the american people said yeah we're done with that

01:18:25.820 yep that's all it takes the moment the american people are done with something and now we're done

01:18:31.840 with we're done with transgenderism we're done with wokeism we're done with it yeah yeah seriously

01:18:36.000 that's all it will take that's all it takes which is already in about a two-year process of people 0.94

01:18:40.300 dropping it like a hot potato that's right leaving the human rights council the new snow white movie

01:18:44.280 is like bond like i think it's like the worst rated movie second worst disney bomb so far

01:18:49.320 it like ever ever in a hundred year history that disney has been making movies they've been setting

01:18:53.320 money on fire lately i'll tell you what some some men just want to watch the world burn

01:18:58.020 but the point is like the moment that you're it's political will everybody is a political animal the

01:19:03.780 moment that you're you're had enough that you're done with something you can just be done with it

01:19:07.480 and you can do that with um you can do that with bourbon or you can do it with blasphemy

01:19:14.200 the choice is yours you know you can do it with playing cards you know or you can do it with

01:19:21.700 drag queen story hour um the choice is yours this is a little bit of a white pill because it means

01:19:26.900 that they could do it right they could do it yeah they know how to do always could have done it yep

01:19:33.080 And they, again, being Christians, broader than just Baptists, but like Christians at

01:19:38.060 any moment, you can just do things.

01:19:41.000 You can just wake up and say, no, yeah, we want a Christian nation.

01:19:44.300 We actually want a Christian nation.

01:19:45.960 We want public celebrations that recognize Christian holidays that are distinctly Christian.

01:19:53.540 And we can still have some of the things that are part of our heritage.

01:19:56.500 It's become a part of our culture.

01:19:57.880 Santa Claus, like each private family, they get to decide according to their conscience

01:20:02.460 and what they're going to do and yeah pastors probably shouldn't preach a sermon on santa they

01:20:06.160 should preach the scripture but in the public sphere like we're going to have some santa stuff

01:20:09.900 but we're also going to have christ and we're going to have santa bowing down to king jesus

01:20:14.080 we're going to reenact saint nick punching uh yeah and it'll be santa punching aries you know

01:20:18.780 like you can correct the behavior you don't want i was in the library it was maybe about a month or

01:20:22.540 two ago at this point i had a nasty shirt on my kids were there and i told him he couldn't come

01:20:26.680 around there like you can't be in the kids section yeah and he went and changed it i stood up to him

01:20:31.460 said he's like well that's just your opinion i said no it's not that is that objectively disgusting

01:20:35.300 shirt don't come around my kids you can start correcting people don't play that language don't

01:20:40.260 or don't play that music rap beautiful use that language don't wear that shirt you're not allowed

01:20:44.820 to do it who says me me and every other parent agrees with me like we have young children we go

01:20:50.100 out to eat and if there's a transgender server who's like obvious in their attire and and turns

01:20:55.620 out that they're going to serve our table and they come up to the table our family gets up and we 0.60

01:20:59.540 we leave two men holding hands hey don't do that not around my children yep yep all it takes is

01:21:05.560 the political will and um there are millions and millions and millions of christians in our nation

01:21:12.460 and they just need to be encouraged that you can you can just do things you can actually have a

01:21:18.080 christian nation you're allowed to have a country you're allowed to have a christian nation that is

01:21:22.660 our nation's heritage our nation's heritage is not just um it's not atheism it's not that's like

01:21:30.900 there were some deists in there there were some deists in there although i read an interesting

01:21:34.740 statistic last night that argued hard that it was maybe three or four it was five percent of them

01:21:42.240 and they went through the official registries of what church now some of them maybe went to church

01:21:47.260 and didn't share the conviction, but they were members, all but three of them, of established

01:21:52.320 local churches.

01:21:53.780 Right.

01:21:54.460 And that's just, even that, like, so one, it was minimal.

01:21:57.720 And even that, that's at the time of the founding.

01:22:01.060 You know, this is like late 1700s.

01:22:03.400 That's not even to begin to speak of, like, people forget that American history stretches

01:22:07.540 back further than just, you know, 1776.

01:22:09.840 Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%.

01:22:10.420 So you get to the Covenanters, you know what I mean?

01:22:12.500 And you get to the pilgrims and the Puritans and you get into like the 1600s, you know, and earlier 1700s and the colonies, 13 colonies.

01:22:22.700 And there's no debate to be had. 0.66

01:22:25.480 It's distinctly Christian, unapologetically Christian.

01:22:29.880 And for the most part, other than I think, what was it, Rhode Island or something that was Catholic, other than Protestant.

01:22:34.500 Maryland.

01:22:35.300 Or Maryland. 0.81

01:22:36.260 It's distinctly Protestant.

01:22:37.420 And so, yes, you can have a Christian nation in America.

01:22:41.700 that is that is its foundation it's its heritage it's its history and the people the american

01:22:48.840 people the christians in america absolutely um have the ability the potential uh to get that

01:22:55.200 back it just requires the political will and people just saying that's it we've had enough

01:23:00.020 to confront people a little bit of will a little bit of spine and a little bit of testosterone

01:23:03.040 like the world doesn't end when you do that it's a little bit awkward

01:23:06.860 right and then life goes on right yep okay super chats here we go all right jeremy kearns great

01:23:14.600 brother looking forward to seeing him at the conference 999 thanks jeremy good afternoon

01:23:19.260 gentlemen i find some baptists impulse to cast doubt on the roman catholic church and cultural

01:23:23.900 christianity goes against the classical reformers argument that the lord has preserved his church

01:23:29.560 yes yeah yeah i agree like we are we are not that kind of baptist uh we

01:23:37.580 we actually think that there were christians before um martin luther

01:23:41.620 yep um the bar is someone asked me roman catholic like do you think i'm saying

01:23:46.580 i don't obviously know their heart but i said have you repented of sin and placed faith in jesus

01:23:50.800 like that is what's preached by the apostles in the epistles right repent of sin trust in jesus

01:23:56.020 right obviously we want to expand what that trust means what jesus who jesus actually is well he's

01:24:00.840 the you know he's the creative being like well hang on we got a problem there yeah but like that bar

01:24:05.540 that is the bar you and i really speaking you're right you and i have had this conversation several

01:24:11.040 times and it's a distinction that most people don't notice but when you see it it's it's you

01:24:15.380 can't unsee it and it's vitally important but there's a distinction in being saved by faith

01:24:20.880 alone versus being saved by faith and understanding and believing that we're saved by faith alone

01:24:25.780 right saved by faith in faith alone right are we saved by faith alone or are we saved by

01:24:31.200 affirming the doctrine of faith alone right like that actually is different like there are plenty

01:24:36.380 of of people well no child would be saved exactly they don't because they don't understand they can't

01:24:41.900 articulate you know the doctrine of sola fide and like um but but there are there are children

01:24:47.580 and even before you know the reformation like plenty of people who had faith saving faith and

01:24:54.600 they were saved by that faith alone without ever knowing of the doctrine of sola fide and you know

01:25:00.080 salvation by faith alone and so like that's that's what like when we get into soteriology it

01:25:06.560 absolutely matters we're not saying it doesn't matter and we're not saying that the bible doesn't

01:25:09.860 speak to it the bible does speak to how we're not just that we need to be saved but how we're saved

01:25:16.160 the bible absolutely addresses these things ephesians 2 um you know that we're saved by

01:25:20.220 grace alone through faith. And this is the gift of God. It is not your own doing. So, that no man

01:25:26.080 can boast. This is God's doing. And so, the Bible speaks to these things and we hold as Protestants

01:25:33.220 these doctrines for a reason. However, understanding being able to articulate the five

01:25:42.200 solas is not, it's ironic actually. It actually goes against the five solas if you hold adherence

01:25:49.880 and understanding of the five solas as a prerequisite for salvation right that actually

01:25:54.220 goes against because there's not a sixth sola that says and the sixth sola is being able to

01:25:59.240 affirm understand and articulate the previous five solas that's no it's it's faith alone trust faith

01:26:07.240 in faith alone is what saves when it's placed in christ right it's not uh like faith alone

01:26:13.180 it's just it's not other things attached to it it's faith it's the only thing that counts

01:26:18.040 towards christ and people wrongly in time there is a level of idolatry that we would see in the

01:26:22.220 roman catholic church they add some things on top of it sure but those things don't i would say they

01:26:28.240 don't necessarily invalidate the faith because it's faith not even the strength of the faith

01:26:31.540 but the object of the faith that's right so it's that faith alone that in christ that actually

01:26:35.500 saves and in his kindness in many ways in his kindness he counts that faith even when it's

01:26:40.480 marred with and i added this on top of it and i went to mass every monday tuesday and wednesday

01:26:44.840 and I did the Hail Mary. Those things can be added on top and someone still, not in every case,

01:26:49.580 but they can still be saved because the object of their faith at the core of it is Christ. It may be

01:26:54.580 a weak faith, a faltering faith, a faith, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. But that faith placed

01:27:00.060 in the right object, jumping out with a parachute, that actually works. You don't have to know

01:27:04.440 everything about it. A divided faith, I believe, help my unbelief, and certainly a small faith.

01:27:09.960 it's not. Jesus doesn't say the faith of a mountain. A mountain-sized faith could move

01:27:14.820 a mustard seed, but it's a mustard seed can move a mountain. So, small faith, divided faith,

01:27:21.860 weak faith, faltering faith. But the question is simply, is it true faith? And what makes the

01:27:28.260 faith true is its object. Is it Christ crucified? Do you believe that Jesus is the only begotten

01:27:34.600 son of God? Do you believe that he lived a sinless life? Do you believe that he died as a substitute,

01:27:41.480 that he died in your place, the wages of sin is death, and he took your sin and took your wage

01:27:48.140 for sin, the punishment, the just punishment, the wrath of God in his death on the cross? Do you

01:27:52.660 believe that he bodily rose from the dead? Do you believe that he ascended to the right hand of the

01:27:56.120 God, the Father Almighty? Do you believe that he's going to return to judge both the living and the

01:28:01.060 debt? Do you believe these things? And are you trusting in Jesus? And do you agree in what he

01:28:09.160 calls sin? And are you seeking, to the best of your ability, by God's grace and the empowerment

01:28:15.360 of the Holy Spirit to repent of your sin and to turn to Christ, knowing that you are a sinner and

01:28:20.060 that you continue in this life to sin, but you're seeking to put your sin to death? Do you believe

01:28:25.460 these things? So that doesn't mean every Catholic is saved. Certainly not. Every Protestant is not

01:28:30.420 saved there are plenty of professors only who are not uh truly saved but like when we look you know

01:28:37.660 all this back to jeremy kern's super chat but when we look at church history we don't believe

01:28:43.580 that it begins in the 1500s um we believe that god has preserved throughout all of time he's

01:28:49.840 preserved faithful remnant in every and and even with you know when you look at catholicism

01:28:56.040 There are ages where there were extreme excesses, and then there were times where there was less excesses.

01:29:03.200 There were good times and there were bad times.

01:29:05.080 The time of the Protestant Reformation was a particularly bad time. 0.57

01:29:08.580 And it's not the only bad time.

01:29:10.460 There were also some other bad times.

01:29:13.400 But there were plenty of moments, centuries, before the 1500s, where there were lots of faithful Christians who loved the Lord.

01:29:24.140 Yep.

01:29:24.980 All right.

01:29:25.860 Go ahead, Nathan.

01:29:26.320 Scroll up there, Nathan.

01:29:28.220 So we have Rubicon, 499.

01:29:30.360 Thanks very much, Rubicon. 0.61

01:29:32.880 As a bat, my independent fundamental Baptist disfee bros drive me nuts. 0.87

01:29:37.740 They are anti-knowledge and church history. 0.99

01:29:40.820 Ruckman and his crowd.

01:29:42.160 Why is this and how to fix it?

01:29:44.480 Love the show.

01:29:47.160 Anti-church history?

01:29:48.360 Yeah.

01:29:49.360 You have to be to be an independent fundamental Baptist. 0.92

01:29:51.620 Well, that's it.

01:29:52.160 And he wants to know how to fix that.

01:29:53.380 I don't know how to fix that.

01:29:56.180 I don't think you can.

01:29:57.060 I think you literally have to stop being independent fundamental Baptist.

01:30:01.540 There is a reason why IFB is particularly known as despising church history.

01:30:08.100 In many ways, obviously they would despise Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, and those kinds of things.

01:30:13.480 But in many ways, the great irony is that they share so much in common.

01:30:17.500 that they legitimately believe that basically everybody was faithless

01:30:24.500 until all of a sudden, in a very recent history,

01:30:29.920 that we finally went back to the Bible.

01:30:32.980 And we're the only ones who have.

01:30:36.420 So, yeah, I don't...

01:30:37.360 No assumptions. No high priorities.

01:30:39.600 We got to...

01:30:41.620 Right. And that's what I always...

01:30:43.500 That was one of the winning arguments for myself, even personally.

01:30:47.020 and wanting to become confessional and creedal was realizing, you know,

01:30:53.100 like somebody helped me understand.

01:30:54.960 They said, Joel, everyone, again, it's the old adage, it's not whether but which,

01:30:59.000 everyone's confessional.

01:31:00.340 It's either historic confession that's tried and true and written by better men than you,

01:31:04.480 or it's your own confession that you're making up as you go along that's in your head.

01:31:10.180 And that's what I realized is because that's how the independent fundamental Baptist wants to,

01:31:15.020 that's how they want to frame the debates

01:31:17.440 and it's a false dichotomy

01:31:19.120 they want to say, you know, on one hand

01:31:20.680 we have the Westminster divines

01:31:22.720 and on the other hand

01:31:24.100 we have the pure unadulterated word of God

01:31:26.940 in the King James Version

01:31:29.240 words of man versus the words of God

01:31:30.760 contained for us in the King James Version

01:31:33.140 and you know, if it was good enough

01:31:35.400 for King James, it's good enough for me

01:31:36.880 and that's not the debate

01:31:38.500 nobody is arguing

01:31:39.660 the Westminster Confession of the 1689

01:31:42.720 over and against the Bible

01:31:44.680 the question and here's what they're saying it's just the pure bible no it's not right every time

01:31:51.240 an independent fundamental baptist steps into the pulpit and begins to preach he's unless he's

01:31:56.380 simply opening up the bible and reading word for word the book of hebrews or the book of galatians

01:32:01.900 the book of ephesians and then without any interjection any commentary any addition and then

01:32:08.080 and then sitting down unless he's doing that and calling that the sermon then what he's doing is

01:32:13.680 he's interpreting everyone interprets it's so it's not on on in on one side we have the bible

01:32:20.940 and on the other side we have man's interpretation it's always man's interpretation the only question

01:32:25.720 is which man not whether but which so so that it's either um athanasius or fred and george and

01:32:36.040 bubba in alabama do they do they know greek and latin who who have why would you bother

01:32:44.020 like yeah so that's right i mean but that's like at the end of the day like literally like that you

01:32:48.400 have to understand that like when the independent fundamental baptist uh is saying it's the word of

01:32:52.840 god versus you know the doctrines of men no um it's the word of god interpreted by you versus

01:33:00.500 the word of god interpreted by people who were intelligent oh that's the difference so no you

01:33:06.560 don't fix independent fundamental baptist you leave independent fundamental baptist all right

01:33:11.360 i'm gonna go rapid fire since i think a lot of these are just thanks jeremy kearns 499 blessed

01:33:15.460 is the nation whose god is the lord and people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance psalm

01:33:20.280 33 12 king james version love it john inman great brother 20 super chat thank you john love you

01:33:27.380 gents we love you too john hopefully we'll see it's guys night tonight so yeah we'll see him

01:33:32.060 there john yeah jeff halfley uh 499 since world war ii the baptists fought the hardest to stop

01:33:37.760 liquor and protect segregation they almost privatized public schools to prevent the latter

01:33:42.120 yep that's true that the baptists they know how to potluck and they know how to mobilize

01:33:47.520 i they do i don't know what happened where we lost they know how to stop alcohol and stop 0.69

01:33:52.060 right they went to uh uh to keep segregation right that's what they were for yeah yeah yeah

01:33:57.420 yeah uh five dollars from rob another great brother met him here great stream guys thanks

01:34:01.900 thank you rob and then 4.99 jeff halfley mega red pill considering that 90 of the population

01:34:08.120 believes things on the basis of what they think is popular and will do them good in real life

01:34:12.720 i don't know what the second half of it is but basically um people are easily swayed yeah yeah

01:34:18.180 it was uh it was funny it was uh josiah lip and kai so like really honestly like most people it

01:34:23.180 could be a democrat party sign or swastika in their front yard they wouldn't really care either

01:34:27.400 way like people really are that influenceable so malleable you just have to win that's that's all

01:34:33.380 it takes you just have to win and it does not take a majority to win it takes um it takes a few

01:34:39.640 powerful influential strategic organized individuals um to just to win a popularity

01:34:48.180 contest and then all the npcs which is 90 95 percent of the population they'll just fall in

01:34:54.660 line like i mean you know we've said it before but i mean the the the turnaround how quick it

01:35:00.840 was the turnaround from she's so brat to doing the trump dance and i'm not talking about like

01:35:07.460 with conservatives i'm talking like like teenage girls right in public high school what like like 0.50

01:35:15.820 i i remember i witnessed it i i saw you know like like yeah i'm uh kamala like trump is uh

01:35:23.420 trump is uh uh colluding with putin you know and like the the russian collusion you know back from

01:35:30.320 2016 all like i know like i know those people they believed it they were passionate but here's

01:35:37.300 the deal like they didn't have any real conviction they didn't have real any real information and the

01:35:42.440 moment that all of a sudden trump won like all of a sudden people were embarrassed people are

01:35:48.920 still embarrassed that they voted for kamala or that they said anything positive about her right

01:35:54.080 like he won so scrub the tweets yeah exactly so then just it's just you change the chip in the

01:35:59.740 back of the npc's head that's what most people are they're non-player characters they're robots

01:36:05.000 And all you have to do, you don't have to, right?

01:36:07.500 Like when you're arguing with people, you have to remember, you're arguing with the

01:36:10.680 television.

01:36:11.760 Like it's not a real person.

01:36:14.200 They are not independent, self-thinking people.

01:36:17.540 That doesn't mean they're not made in the image of God.

01:36:19.240 That doesn't mean we don't love them.

01:36:20.220 That doesn't mean they don't have dignity, that we don't treat them with respect.

01:36:22.580 But you just have to realize, like if you think that through facts and logic and long

01:36:29.320 conversations that you have to actually convince and persuade 51 of the population in order to

01:36:36.020 enact change then you don't understand politics you don't you just said they'll all change on a

01:36:42.420 dime the moment that you win and you do not need the majority to win never have jeff followed up

01:36:48.180 that first half another super chat we have to take control of the institutions of influence

01:36:52.220 otherwise tens of millions of people will go to hell they follow the strong and popular right

01:36:56.760 That's right on.

01:36:58.500 And that's why Christian culture matters.

01:37:00.780 Well, Christian culture, there's a bunch of people who have false assurance and think they're saved and they're not.

01:37:05.580 Christian culture lends towards, you know, false conversions.

01:37:10.220 But what does secular humanistic culture lend towards?

01:37:14.060 What does Islamic culture lend towards?

01:37:16.080 What does Jewish culture lend towards? 0.56

01:37:18.760 Well, what it lends towards, and those is like, well, in those contexts, you know, the few, the proud, the genuine, the authentic Christians, you know,

01:37:25.680 and their faith is purified you know like gold and like yeah that's true uh-huh there's um in

01:37:31.200 those cultures there are some people who are bold as lions with genuine faith that go to heaven

01:37:36.780 and 95 of the population goes to hell in christian culture yes there are some false conversions and

01:37:45.520 there is some false assurance um but the vast majority of people and this gets back to like

01:37:52.540 what is salvation what does it take to be saved faith of a mustard seed the in in christian

01:37:58.280 cultures um i like i i am of the persuasion and i got so much flack for this you know we did that

01:38:04.420 clip where it's like more people will be in heaven than hell and people lost their minds they're like

01:38:07.820 tell me you've never read the bible without telling me like you're a heretic and then i just

01:38:11.720 just retweeted them and put a quote from spurge right and then of course what they did was they're 0.81

01:38:16.520 like well you know like i guess i was wrong this time but you're still a wolf and i'll get you next 0.53

01:38:20.760 time yeah i'll get you the least genuine apologies i've you know you know like you're still a wolf 0.96

01:38:25.860 and you're going to hell and we hate you but also yes yeah i guess you're correct um so but the but 0.82

01:38:31.400 the point is like what what spurgeon spurgeon believed that there were time periods uh where 0.98

01:38:36.740 it was gin you know like the majority of people were christian right the majority like the jeff

01:38:44.480 half lee is absolutely correct the majority of people follow the what's popular they follow

01:38:51.520 whoever's in in leadership and even believe what they're told to believe that's right

01:38:57.720 yes better 20 of your populace is christian truly regenerate and 80 profess it then 20

01:39:03.860 is regenerate and that's the only 20 professing it same amount of people heaven and hell

01:39:07.960 but that 80 percent professing going to make for a much better ordered society orienting people

01:39:14.960 towards in the future right heavenly and earthly good and what i want to say is i i personally i

01:39:21.020 would like i want to say it's even better than that i reject that premise i don't believe in

01:39:25.900 the 1950s i just don't believe i don't believe uh that the vast majority of people were professing

01:39:31.680 only and that and that they're all in hell i actually don't believe it i actually believe

01:39:35.800 that the average person

01:39:36.920 was a born-again Christian.

01:39:39.340 And they may have not had

01:39:40.500 the most robust doctrine.

01:39:42.120 They may have had 0.88

01:39:42.960 some legalistic, silly things

01:39:45.180 that we'd be like, 0.71

01:39:46.000 that's not in Scripture.

01:39:47.020 Where do you get that?

01:39:48.000 They may, but a childlike faith,

01:39:51.480 like you sit them down,

01:39:53.500 tie them to a chair

01:39:54.200 and give them truth serum.

01:39:56.080 And they genuinely would say,

01:39:57.780 even though a lot of it 0.99

01:39:58.600 is just cultural morays, 0.99

01:40:00.060 but they genuinely would say, 0.98

01:40:02.860 yes, I actually believe

01:40:04.000 that Jesus is the Son of God.

01:40:05.800 I'm trusting in him that he died on the cross for my sin.

01:40:09.060 I believe that. 0.86

01:40:10.680 I believe that when Christianity wins the day, 1.00

01:40:13.740 in moments of Christendom, in the Dark Ages, 0.99

01:40:15.660 he had all these people who were uneducated,

01:40:18.640 most of them couldn't read,

01:40:20.100 they didn't know the ins and outs of Christian doctrine,

01:40:23.480 but they knew the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

01:40:28.500 because those battles were fought by the minority once upon a time,

01:40:32.240 and they won.

01:40:32.760 And then it became dominant.

01:40:34.580 And then all these post-generations were able to take those precious truths for granted.

01:40:41.900 They believed the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

01:40:46.320 Jesus is the Son of God.

01:40:47.660 He was born of the Virgin Mary.

01:40:49.400 He lived a sinless life.

01:40:50.360 He died on the cross for my sin.

01:40:51.920 He bodily rose from the dead.

01:40:53.540 He ascended to the right hand of God the Father.

01:40:56.080 And I'm trusting in Him and repenting of my sin.

01:40:59.440 And those people were Christian. 1.00

01:41:03.400 and to live in a world like that again 0.97

01:41:06.220 where there's some

01:41:08.240 bad theology, there's

01:41:10.040 a bunch of Catholics, there's a bunch of 1.00

01:41:12.480 independent fundamental Baptists 1.00

01:41:14.280 who's to say what's worse 0.72

01:41:15.460 there's crazy

01:41:18.280 views on all sides that we

01:41:20.220 would disagree with but there's a

01:41:22.200 universal sense of

01:41:24.380 Christ is King

01:41:25.840 Jesus is Lord

01:41:27.360 and yeah that is

01:41:30.240 a much better society temporally

01:41:32.920 And it also is far more conducive to heavenly good eternally.

01:41:37.440 Genuine conversion.

01:41:38.960 Yep.

01:41:39.840 Tyler, thanks very much.

01:41:41.000 499.

01:41:41.760 Looking forward to reading your book.

01:41:42.960 Thanks very much, Tyler.

01:41:44.320 We will look forward to seeing you too at the conference next week.

01:41:47.660 And Jeff puts a cap on his discussion.

01:41:49.620 499 again from Jeff.

01:41:51.480 Kids believe because of the influence of their parents.

01:41:53.740 Nations believe because of the influence of the leaders.

01:41:55.500 The only thing I would add to that is ultimately everyone believes because the Holy Spirit moves in their heart.

01:42:00.760 It just so happens to be that he often moves in the heart of children through the teaching and training of their parents and in a nation through the influence of the leaders.

01:42:10.900 Right.

01:42:11.040 We're not denying the way that God saves.

01:42:12.760 He saves sovereignly as a work of the Spirit.

01:42:14.700 But the Spirit sovereignly moves through providence and human agency.

01:42:20.940 It's like, well, if it's just the Spirit, then why even evangelize at that point?

01:42:25.080 But we would all say, well, yeah, but the Spirit is pleased to work with the gospel being proclaimed.

01:42:29.960 So the same way that the Spirit uses prayer, the Spirit uses evangelism, well, the Spirit also uses governments and cultures that are Christian.

01:42:40.480 Because, yes, it is. 0.86

01:42:42.940 You're talking about first and second causes.

01:42:45.480 They're not pitted against each other.

01:42:46.760 There's no contradiction.

01:42:47.800 So in the ultimate sense, the Spirit.

01:42:50.060 But in the temporal human agency, human sense, people, culture, parents, Christian governments, school, was it a Christian school or not?

01:43:05.900 And of course that's true, because if it's just a crapshoot, spirit, you know, like just whatever, you know, he just randomly does things, you know, and it's like, yes, he does sovereignly do things, but he does it through human means. 0.76

01:43:19.040 And if you don't acknowledge that at all, then what benefit is there in being Western rather than being born in Iran? 0.96

01:43:33.980 So I guess there's literally no tangible or eternal benefits whatsoever in being born in a Christian country versus a Muslim country. 0.99

01:43:43.360 But we all know that there are. 1.00

01:43:45.060 Of course there are.

01:43:45.860 I want to acknowledge this question.

01:43:47.940 i don't i'll say i'm not an expert and so i'll not answer but do acknowledge the question what

01:43:52.740 do you know about the catholic literature saying that they changed the sabbath to sunday

01:43:56.420 constantine made it happen i know that was one of the topics debated early on it was the date

01:44:00.500 of easter as well as the transition from saturday to sunday but because i'm not well read enough on

01:44:06.100 it i don't have anything to offer but at some point we could definitely talk about the sabbath

01:44:10.180 i do know that in the new testament already they were meeting on the lord's day yep which was the

01:44:15.300 first day of the week so that we yeah i i can't speak to the same as west i can't speak to

01:44:19.700 constantine and what he did and how much the catholic literature but we do know that in the

01:44:24.420 first century church there was already the pattern of meeting on the lord's day right and we see that

01:44:30.020 even you know in scripture you know like paul saying like when you gather together on the first

01:44:34.260 day of the week taking a collection you know for the saints and so like we we know that that like

01:44:38.500 they were daily breaking bread and that's not a reference to the lord's supper communion but

01:44:42.660 but community and potlucks and just being together relationally.

01:44:47.700 So they were daily getting together to submit themselves,

01:44:50.160 breaking bread, sharing a meal, the apostles' teaching, and prayer.

01:44:53.840 So we know that. The early church was doing that daily.

01:44:56.720 But then we also know that there was something particular

01:44:59.040 that was happening on the first day of the week.

01:45:00.980 There was probably a larger gathering,

01:45:02.860 and that's why the apostle Paul says that that would be

01:45:05.340 the most conducive context for taking this offering.

01:45:08.800 And then, of course, we also know that Jesus, the resurrected Lord,

01:45:11.240 appeared to his disciples on the first day of the week.

01:45:15.220 So he resurrected on the first day of the week,

01:45:16.920 and then a week later appeared to them again on Sunday,

01:45:20.180 the first day of the week.

01:45:21.060 So that's why we call it the Lord's Day,

01:45:22.660 the day that the Lord rose from the dead.

01:45:24.760 And from that pattern of twice, not just once, but twice,

01:45:27.560 the Lord being resurrected and appearing to the apostles

01:45:29.560 on the Lord's Day, first day of the week,

01:45:31.160 and then doing it a week later on the first day of the week,

01:45:33.700 not on the Jewish Sabbath, but on the first day of the week.

01:45:36.520 And then Paul, still already in his lifetime,

01:45:39.480 And when Peter's still alive, you know, some of the many of the apostles still alive is already referencing that, yes, there's a daily congregating of believers that seems smaller and more organic.

01:45:50.500 But there's a more official, formal congregating of believers that happens on the first day of the week.

01:45:55.780 And that's where it makes sense to take a collection of alms for other Christians that are suffering and are poor and in need. 0.65

01:46:03.780 This pattern was already well underway.

01:46:06.840 But what hadn't happened yet was the temple hadn't yet been destroyed. 0.86

01:46:11.820 And so Christians were still, many of them, though, to be fair, had been progressively one by one, would get banned and kicked out of the synagogues and wouldn't be able to. 0.81

01:46:23.900 But for those who still could and hadn't been kicked out yet, they would be meeting on the first day of the week as Christians.

01:46:28.820 but they would also be going to the synagogue on the last day of the week um the jewish sabbath

01:46:34.100 on saturday so that they could um evangelize and and talk to you know to you know their kinsmen

01:46:42.160 according to the flesh jews and tell them about the gospel and reason from the scriptures as paul

01:46:47.080 did um he he did that you know and would do that in any city that he was in any jewish city he was

01:46:52.180 in and as long as they would have him until they would kick him out so um i i don't view it as like

01:46:57.540 for me from what i've read definitely theologically and in terms of historically i'd have to study

01:47:02.400 more but i don't see it um from the study that i have done as like this clear transition of it was

01:47:07.680 saturday and now it's sunday it but it was actually um that in the first century church with the

01:47:14.320 apostles it wasn't that sunday replaced saturday it was uh that that sunday came alongside saturday

01:47:20.560 So you still had the Sabbath until 80-70 and the final completion of that old covenant

01:47:27.360 was wrapped up and done away.

01:47:28.920 So you had like this interim period of 40 years from the resurrection of Christ and

01:47:32.620 his appearance to the apostles to the full completion and doing away with the old covenant

01:47:39.420 given to Israel in 80-70.

01:47:41.420 So you had a whole generation, 40 years of this overlap, and it was both days.

01:47:45.360 So it wasn't that Sunday just replaced Saturday.

01:47:47.700 is Sunday for the Christians came alongside in addition to Saturday. And then Saturday was done 0.68

01:47:54.060 away with by force, by virtue of there's no more temple and we're all dispersed. And a bunch of us

01:48:01.620 are, you know, a bunch of Jews are now dead, you know, as Titus has destroyed Jerusalem and the

01:48:05.880 temple's gone. And that just became the pattern. So, all right. Well, thank you guys for tuning 0.94

01:48:11.860 in. And we hope to see you guys at the conference this next week. Very much looking forward to it.

01:48:17.140 April 3rd, 4th, and 5th. And make sure, if you're not able to make it, make sure that you're able

01:48:21.140 to catch the live stream by going to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries,

01:48:26.900 patreon.com forward slash right response ministries, and you got to sign up for the gold

01:48:31.320 tier. Sign up for the gold tier and you'll be able to live stream the conference, seven main

01:48:35.380 sessions, three panels, all happening next week. And we look forward to seeing you soon.

01:48:47.140 Thank you.

The NXR Podcast - March 28, 2025

THE LIVESTREAM - What About Constantine, Martyrs, and Persecution？

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