The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Alcohol, Marijuana, & The Law Of God

00:00:00.000 On today's episode of Theology Applied, I'm privileged to have as a special guest

00:00:04.020 Pastor Doug Wilson from Moscow, Idaho. Our topic was

00:00:07.940 weed, alcohol, and the Christian. Pastor Doug Wilson has just

00:00:12.160 finished publishing a book called Devoured by Cannabis, and in this episode

00:00:16.020 he shares some of the profound insights with us.

00:00:19.680 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology

00:00:24.400 Applied.

00:00:30.000 Today I'm privileged to have on Theology Applied as a guest, Pastor Doug Wilson in Moscow, Idaho.

00:00:36.820 We've had Doug before talking about Christians in California, but today we're going to discuss

00:00:42.640 another topic. We're going to discuss alcohol, marijuana, and the Christian. Pastor Doug has

00:00:48.740 just finished writing a book called Devoured by Cannabis, Weed, Liberty, and Legalization.

00:00:54.600 And from what I've been able to ascertain by following his ministry, in the past, it seems as though he was for, or at least okay, had a permissible attitude towards the legalization of marijuana, not the use of recreational marijuana, but the legalization.

00:01:11.120 But it seems as though you've changed your tune on that particular topic.

00:01:14.880 So, Doug, could you just tell us where you're at on the topic of marijuana?

00:01:18.640 um yeah i used to have more in terms of the legalization of it i used to have more of a

00:01:26.040 libertarian take where i thought it was sinful i thought it was a sinful abuse of um um

00:01:33.840 god's creation to get high and i thought the church should discipline and i thought family

00:01:41.080 should discipline, but I didn't think there ought to be criminal penalties. I now think that

00:01:49.540 it should be decriminalized, but not legalized. So I don't think that an 18-year-old kid who's

00:02:00.060 caught with some marijuana should be sent off to the state penitentiary to live with a bunch

00:02:05.280 hardened criminals i i don't think that's a good solution he would survive though if he just says 0.73

00:02:12.400 that he's a woman then he could be thrown in the female penitentiary probably do okay there's also

00:02:17.340 all sorts of options yeah um so uh what i what i propose at the end of this book i i i expected

00:02:27.620 some pushback from christians on that question because there's a strong libertarian streak

00:02:34.660 among conservative Christians. Sure, it's a sin, but let's not make it criminal. There's a difference

00:02:42.540 between a sin and a crime. But I've been surprised since the release of this book,

00:02:50.160 I've been surprised at how much pushback I've been getting from Christians who think that

00:02:55.160 smoking weed is okay, that there's no sin associated with it. And that's part of the 1.00

00:03:01.560 reason for not wanting to have it legalized is I'm starting to realize how many people

00:03:07.000 take their moral, use as their moral compass what is against the law in an earthly sense

00:03:15.720 instead of taking their cues from scripture.

00:03:19.380 So I do agree that there's a difference between a sin and a crime.

00:03:25.440 Covetousness is a sin, but nobody wants it to be a crime.

00:03:28.420 uh lust is lust is a sin but it shouldn't be a crime nobody wants to lust police right so um

00:03:36.220 there is a difference between a sin and a crime and what i propose at the end of this book is

00:03:42.820 that we have drug courts where if someone is convicted of possession or selling or whatever

00:03:48.120 they um they go to a drug court and they either pay a fine or they go to rehab

00:03:55.120 right okay and and that's it okay yeah that makes a lot of sense could you just for our

00:04:03.920 listeners and for myself as well could you help to parse out the distinction between

00:04:08.020 criminalization and legalization you mentioned earlier that one might be okay but the other not

00:04:14.260 yeah legalization would be um hey everybody you can smoke pot for whatever reason whenever you

00:04:22.240 want, however you want. So in Washington State, right next to us here, recreational use is now

00:04:29.980 lawful, which means that the use of marijuana, there are no restrictions on it legally. You

00:04:38.000 can't get in legal trouble for smoking marijuana. That's legalization. Decriminalization means that

00:04:46.000 You could be charged under another category.

00:04:49.840 So a crime would be something like burglary or assault or rape.

00:04:57.080 And jaywalking would be a misdemeanor.

00:05:01.580 It's against the law, but it's not a crime.

00:05:05.140 Okay.

00:05:05.880 Okay.

00:05:06.400 What would you say to the person who pushes back and says, well, we don't, you know, we don't make it illegal to drink Drano under the sink. 0.99

00:05:14.860 if a person wants to be stupid they can be stupid how would you deal with that 0.96

00:05:18.280 yeah if if and there's a whole section in this book on that so the the issue is um what it boils 1.00

00:05:26.080 down to is this principle society has a right to defend itself okay so if someone got drunk

00:05:35.220 you know uh bought a bottle of whiskey went home got drunk and stayed home then under a theonomic

00:05:44.280 Republic, in Moses' Israel, there would have been no criminal penalties associated with that. 0.62

00:05:51.640 Okay? Whether it was Drano or Johnny Walker or whatever, if it stays home, then it really is 0.84

00:06:00.800 none of society's business. But part of the issue is illustrated by drunk driving. Drunk driving

00:06:10.140 is a different matter because now all of society is involved right okay so um society has a right

00:06:19.260 to defend itself against drunk drivers it doesn't have a right to defend itself against people

00:06:26.440 getting drunk because there's no need for a defense uh they can we can have a penalty for

00:06:32.060 drunken disorderly or drunk driving but if someone got charged because they drove up to

00:06:39.840 their hunting cabin with a six pack and drank too many of them that's that shouldn't be against the

00:06:46.840 law right and it and it's not against biblical law so here's this is one of the one of the

00:06:53.580 essential uh issues in this whole thing the half-life of alcohol in the body the half-life

00:07:00.700 is a matter of hours okay the active ingredient in marijuana thc stays in the system for weeks

00:07:11.100 is is it doesn't disappear so if you if you have too much to drink uh at a party the next day

00:07:19.700 the alcohol in your system is gone um that's not the case with marijuana okay it's it's it's

00:07:28.320 simply not the case so uh if i had a if i were if i were flying delta let's say and uh the pilot

00:07:37.760 had had too much to drink two weeks before but had not had a drink since it wouldn't be any

00:07:46.620 issue with me but if he had been getting stoned every weekend for a number of weeks before but

00:07:55.300 hadn't had anything to smoke for a week there's still a possibility of flashbacks this the drug

00:08:02.780 is still in his system okay and that means uh that means that there's no such thing as going

00:08:11.200 up to your cabin and you know getting stoned out of your gourd and then coming back unaffected

00:08:17.840 If you're dealing with society at all, you're still impaired or potentially impaired.

00:08:28.740 The other thing that goes along with this is that because there's been a great deal of pressure from the public to make this drug legal, politicians are following the pressure.

00:08:44.320 And that means that certain things, you're not allowed to ask certain questions, all right?

00:08:52.960 So, for example, whenever there's a school shooting, everybody wants to know, where did they get the guns?

00:09:02.740 These are 18-year-old boys.

00:09:04.700 Where did they get the guns?

00:09:05.760 What kind of gun is it?

00:09:07.420 Can we make the gun manufacturers liable for it?

00:09:10.260 nobody, nobody is allowed to ask what drugs were the boys on? Right. Okay. And there,

00:09:19.540 and there are two sorts of things. They could be, they could be on drugs administered by the school

00:09:25.800 nurse, right? Legal medications dispensed by the school nurse. What drugs were those? Virtually

00:09:34.480 every school shooting in the last number of years, virtually all of them, drugs have been involved

00:09:40.120 and that's not part of the public discussion at all, because the public doesn't want to talk

00:09:46.580 about drugs. They want to talk about guns, right? At the same time, how many of these school

00:09:54.400 shooters, how many of these kids smoke pot? Well, there's a strong correlation, particularly with

00:10:02.300 young men, teenage men whose brains are still forming. There's a strong correlation between

00:10:08.600 smoking pot and psychotic episodes so when when someone goes around the bend and you know goes

00:10:17.320 postal as we say uh one of the reasonable this is not an accusation this is what i would do if i were

00:10:24.640 a private detective this is what i would do if i were a cop on the case i would ask was he smoking

00:10:31.700 pot all right there's there there are significant statistical reasons for believing that there's a

00:10:40.260 connection between pot and psychosis and it's not a one-for-one correlation but it's a strong

00:10:47.480 correlation so and this is something we accept with other materials so let's say you have a

00:10:54.560 person, let's say you have 100 people who smoke a pack of Camel cigarettes a day, unfiltered

00:11:01.620 Camel cigarettes, okay? Now, everybody in the country knows that cigarettes cause lung cancer,

00:11:09.340 right? The surgeon general tells you this on posters, on a pack of cigarettes, that this

00:11:16.320 increases your risk of lung cancer. But if someone smokes a pack of cigarettes a day and they're

00:11:23.940 unfiltered cigarettes, out of 100 people, 15 of them will get lung cancer. 85 of them will not

00:11:32.020 get lung cancer. Now, I'm not saying smoking was good for them, but 15 getting lung cancer is

00:11:37.960 statistically significant, and we all know that, right? It doesn't cause lung cancer one for one,

00:11:47.840 but it causes lung cancer a lot. I think it's a comparable sort of thing

00:11:53.560 with marijuana and psychosis okay so um so uh does society have a right let's say 100 young men in

00:12:04.780 your town um say hey we want to start smoking pot every day and you know that 10 of them

00:12:13.480 are going to go nuts okay you know does does society have an interest in that

00:12:22.820 And I would say, yes, there's an interest in that. And it doesn't mean that you lock everybody up forever. It doesn't mean you come down with a heavy hand. It just means that you, you, the corporate society has an interest in the case and can express their views on it without exercising tyranny.

00:12:42.300 All right. So what I would like to see is a system where if someone is caught in possession of marijuana, they go to drug court, they plead guilty, they pay a fine, the money goes into an account that helps pay for people going to rehab, or they can pay no fine and just go to rehab.

00:13:06.760 And if they successfully complete the rehab, then they owe nobody anything.

00:13:14.620 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

00:13:16.580 Well, that's very helpful.

00:13:18.340 I want to compare now alcohol to marijuana because I think the hypothetical professing Christian YouTube troll might have a few things to say about that. 0.68

00:13:29.360 And so I'd like us to counter that hypothetical devil's advocate.

00:13:33.540 so i i got a little bit written here um that i want to read and then turn it to you so um for

00:13:39.900 alcohol the unit of measure i want to get technical because that's what people do they they're going

00:13:44.200 to get technical and try to make an argument that allows for recreational marijuana use for the

00:13:49.040 christian so for alcohol the unit of measure is uh what's referred to as the standard drink

00:13:54.120 uh that is any drink that contains 14 grams of pure alcohol or 0.6 fluid ounces or 1.2

00:14:01.340 tablespoons. A standard drink is conventionally defined as the alcohol content of 12 ounces of a

00:14:07.840 5% alcohol, such as a beer, or 5 ounces of a 12% alcohol, like a glass of wine, or an ounce and a

00:14:15.200 half, a shot, of 40% alcohol, 80 proof. But for marijuana, however, a much lower dosage is needed

00:14:23.800 to induce a state of intoxication. Studies show that intoxication would occur at the ingestion of

00:14:30.520 less than seven milligrams of THC, which would be the equivalent of alcohol and beer, THC and

00:14:36.940 marijuana. And that is approximately the equivalent of four puffs of a marijuana cigarette. So you've

00:14:43.900 already discussed that there's much longer lasting effects, but also there's a much higher potency

00:14:49.840 that, you know, you and I, you know, with our size and stature and those sorts of things,

00:14:55.960 We could likely drink three 12-ounce beers and be completely fine, whereas I have not experienced anyone taking one puff, four puffs of a marijuana cigarette, and you're intoxicated, according to the data.

00:15:15.600 And so I don't really know anyone who's taking one puff or two puffs to stay beneath that line.

00:15:21.200 So how would you respond to someone who says, well, you can drink and not get drunk?

00:15:25.100 Drunkenness is what the Bible condemns, and I'm using marijuana without getting intoxicated, Pastor Doug.

00:15:31.520 Right.

00:15:32.280 So, here's the, I think, a straightforward, easy answer for it.

00:15:40.260 In Scripture, if you look at wine, look at alcohol, you can see multiple uses in Scripture where it's lawful.

00:15:48.200 Okay?

00:15:48.760 um so in scripture um you can drink in order to there's the lawful uh use of quenching your thirst

00:15:58.920 all right there's the lawful use of uh celebratory you know toasting at a wedding

00:16:05.160 there's the lawful uh lawful sacramental use um this is the cup of the new covenant so you um

00:16:14.120 You have numerous lawful uses of wine or strong drink in Scripture.

00:16:22.560 There's one use that's prohibited in Scripture, and that's where you drink to get the buzz.

00:16:29.800 You drink, Paul says, be not drunk with wine wherein is excess or dissipation.

00:16:37.060 So there's one use of alcohol that is prohibited.

00:16:41.600 okay now that one use of alcohol that's prohibited is the only reason that people

00:16:48.640 smoke dope okay it's for the effect now i grant i grant that someone in order to let's say i was

00:16:57.960 debating someone on this subject in washington where it was legal and the my debater my debating

00:17:04.720 opponent took lit up a joint and took one puff and then put it out and then said did i just sin

00:17:13.040 okay i would i would say no you didn't sin with the marijuana cigarette you sinned in the point

00:17:19.600 you're trying to make but you didn't sin with the marijuana cigarette um because a micro dose of

00:17:26.480 marijuana is not a problem if someone sprinkled marijuana leaves on their head that's not a

00:17:33.520 problem if someone touched a joint to their forehead that's not a problem if someone took

00:17:38.560 a micro dose of smoke into their lungs such that it had no effect that's not a sin there's also no

00:17:47.020 point right no nobody takes a puff of of a marijuana cigarette because it pairs nicely with

00:17:55.860 the fish. Yeah, no, I agree. Now, you did say the buzz, you mentioned the term buzz. And I find it

00:18:04.560 funny, because anytime I've been in the presence of unbelievers, what Christians call buzzed, 0.87

00:18:13.660 unbelievers just call drunk. Have you ever noticed that? You know, the Christian will say, 0.59

00:18:19.360 I'm tipsy, whereas the unbeliever who doesn't have anything ethical, you know, pitfall to avoid is 1.00

00:18:25.420 completely content to say yeah we got drunk the other night um but this buzz and maybe you're 1.00

00:18:31.500 defining buzz a different way um with wine i just want to point out and i want to hear your thoughts

00:18:36.440 on this i think you'll agree um there is a reason why the christian opts for wine and not welches

00:18:41.820 um and and so you know maybe buzz isn't the best word for it but there is the bible speaks to

00:18:47.720 a gladness of heart so i think of you know psalm 104 14 and 15 it says you make grass grow for the

00:18:53.640 cattle and make vegetables for humans to use in order to get food from the ground. And you make

00:18:59.220 wine to cheer human hearts. And so there is a gladness factor. And so we're not saying,

00:19:07.340 I believe you agree with this, we're not saying that wine is permissible because it can be used

00:19:11.560 to a specific degree to where there are zero effects. We're saying, no, there are mild effects

00:19:18.360 And those mild effects in the appropriate context, God actually says are good.

00:19:24.520 Would you agree with that?

00:19:26.040 Absolutely.

00:19:26.940 So when someone says, what does that passage mean, wine to gladden the heart of man?

00:19:32.380 What I think of is a wedding banquet with the father of the bride toasting everyone.

00:19:37.940 And it wouldn't be the same if he did it with lemonade.

00:19:42.320 Right.

00:19:43.600 Yeah.

00:19:45.360 I agree.

00:19:46.920 Okay, great.

00:19:47.860 Let me see. I've got a couple more questions here. In light of the continuing rise of demonic

00:19:54.960 ideology, such as socialism, communism, Marxism, this cultural Marxism kind of shifting from

00:20:00.420 economics to identity politics and race, but also critical race theory coming out of that,

00:20:07.580 how serious is the issue of America's fascination with marijuana? Because I think some people might

00:20:13.300 say, why now, Doug, why write a whole book on this when it seems like the country is going to hell

00:20:18.820 in a handbasket with much more serious threats? Why is marijuana such a serious issue? Or is it

00:20:26.840 that serious of an issue? Or perhaps we could ask the question like this, is there a correlation?

00:20:32.340 Because I think there might be, is there a correlation between the state's insistence of

00:20:36.440 legalizing recreational use of marijuana and every other tenant of their liberal agenda that

00:20:42.940 they're trying to cram through yeah one of my jokes is that socialists want a nation of pot

00:20:48.540 smokers because they need uh people who can follow their arguments that's good yeah so um yes i think

00:20:58.940 there's a connection if let's say let's say i'm uh i'm an evil dictator okay i want to take over

00:21:07.540 I want to seize power. I want to run the country for my own designs. What kind of a population

00:21:14.780 would I prefer? Would I prefer a nation of pot smokers if I'm going to try and take over? Or 0.98

00:21:22.760 would I prefer a nation of independent businessmen who get up at six in the morning and go to work

00:21:29.560 and work hard? Okay. Well, I want the pot smokers. The pot smokers are going to be easier

00:21:37.120 they're going to be easier to bribe

00:21:39.960 they're going to be easier to manipulate

00:21:41.920 they're going to be easier to lie to

00:21:44.120 okay

00:21:45.720 so

00:21:46.500 it's really interesting

00:21:50.160 because both in America

00:21:51.960 today both the left and the

00:21:54.140 right are

00:21:55.460 interested in liberty and freedom

00:21:57.620 but they have very different

00:21:59.520 very different conceptions

00:22:01.760 of liberty and freedom

00:22:03.800 so the left 0.99

00:22:05.240 The left wants me to have freedom and liberty to look at pornography, to smoke dope, to engage in sexual intercourse with whoever I want. 0.97

00:22:16.460 You know, they want me to have that kind of liberty.

00:22:18.580 But all of those liberties that they want me to have, I could participate in in a six by eight prison cell.

00:22:29.280 OK, I can read porn in a prison cell.

00:22:32.660 I can use drugs in a prison cell.

00:22:35.240 I can, you know, so they want me to have the sorts of liberty, to have the sorts of liberties that slaves might be given.

00:22:47.900 Okay.

00:22:49.160 Now, the right conservatives, what does liberty mean to them?

00:22:53.540 liberty means for a free man it means being able to move anywhere in the country you want to

00:23:00.280 without a vaccine passport to start to to build a little shop where you start manufacturing widgets

00:23:08.180 that you sell to the people who want to buy widgets and you sell them for a price that 0.59

00:23:12.940 they're willing to pay and that you're willing to part with them for and you can keep the profits

00:23:17.800 and then you can hire whoever you want and then you can pull up stakes three years later

00:23:23.440 and move your business to another part of the country you this that kind of liberty cannot be

00:23:30.240 exercised in a six by eight prison cell right but that's because it's true liberty actual liberty

00:23:38.160 not pretend liberty so gk chesterton said it well over i think a century or more ago

00:23:45.240 he said that free love talking about sexual license he said free love is the first and most

00:23:53.060 obvious bribe that can be offered to a slave so what what you want to do is say are are these

00:24:02.580 people are free people who are functioning independently of the government or are these

00:24:08.220 people people who are being bought off by the government with easy access to ebt cards welfare

00:24:17.200 payments, subsidy payments, easy access to marijuana, substance abuse, what's actually

00:24:28.060 going on?

00:24:29.120 Yeah, I believe that there's a deep connection between the moral laxity that we're seeing

00:24:37.600 and the kind of economics that people want to cram down our throats.

00:24:44.860 I completely agree.

00:24:46.320 As you were speaking, it just made me think of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, starting in verse 11 and 12, says, we urge you, brothers, backing up to the second half of verse 10, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, 10.

00:25:02.260 We urge you, brothers, to do this all the more and more and to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs, your own business.

00:25:09.820 So you spoke of business to work with your hands.

00:25:14.060 So working, starting a business, starting schools, publishing houses, those kinds of things, as we instructed you.

00:25:20.520 And then verse 12 is insightful, as most scripture tends to be, all scripture, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

00:25:30.440 And so I think as you're talking about both the political left and the political right, there are different views of liberty.

00:25:36.140 What actually constitutes true freedom? The types of freedom that the political left seem to constantly be wanting to progress in our nation are the types of freedom that ironically cause people to become less independent or rather more dependent upon the state where the kinds of freedom that conservatives and true freedom loving people aspire towards is it's not just the freedom to do what I want.

00:26:03.840 It's freedom from dependency on the state. It's freedom from, it's an independent freedom. It's

00:26:10.740 the freedom to be able to live on my own, provide for my family, make certain prudent decisions

00:26:17.180 without incessant restrictions. And so it's, I think of, you know, the left calls it freedom,

00:26:24.520 the right calls it freedom. But I think it's perhaps helpful to talk about independent freedom

00:26:29.840 versus dependent freedom, a freedom that only exists

00:26:34.240 so long as you're dependent on the government

00:26:36.440 to provide for your every whim and need.

00:26:39.400 Would you agree with that?

00:26:40.680 Absolutely.

00:26:42.740 Yeah.

00:26:43.280 So let me ask you this.

00:26:44.640 So you started in the beginning by,

00:26:47.020 you mentioned that infamous phrase 1.00

00:26:49.160 that we hear so often from Christians, 0.86

00:26:50.720 the law of the land. 0.99

00:26:51.440 And you said that part of your concern

00:26:53.920 with the legalization of marijuana

00:26:56.300 is that Christians take their cues from the state

00:26:59.640 unfortunately rather than the scripture and so um the law of the land i i hear that you know

00:27:06.380 that phrase used so often and i know that you have also especially in 2020 and 2021 now

00:27:12.900 with everything that's happened with you know coronavirus and and draconian lockdowns from

00:27:18.080 the state um where where in scripture could you help us where in scripture is that romans 13 where

00:27:24.440 we get this phrase, the law of the land, and how is that, because people would say, I'm

00:27:30.480 obeying God's law, aka the scripture, by submitting to the law of the land.

00:27:35.360 Why is that wrong-headed?

00:27:38.140 Okay, so it's wrong-headed for a number of reasons, and we need a lesson in basic civics

00:27:47.980 first. So, Romans 13 was written to the church at Rome that was the capital city of a pagan

00:27:56.740 empire that had no believing laws, no believing traditions, no believing institutions at all.

00:28:06.020 Okay? So, it was a Christian church starting from scratch. That means that when Paul arrived in Rome, 0.92

00:28:14.240 He didn't start circulating clipboards and petitions to get the gladiatorial games banned.

00:28:22.000 Right.

00:28:22.640 He had bigger fish to fry.

00:28:25.960 What Paul wanted to do was plant churches.

00:28:30.040 Now, the planting of these churches all over the Roman Empire is what resulted in the gladiatorial games being banned three centuries later.

00:28:40.020 But it was going to take some time.

00:28:42.700 Okay.

00:28:43.300 Okay, so Paul was in a very different situation than we are in, all right, because the existing authority, when he wrote Romans 13, and someone said, what are these existing authorities that you're talking about?

00:29:00.480 he would say the emperor the senate the here are the laws this is what i'm dealing with and

00:29:06.840 these laws are all fundamentally pagan they're built on wrong assumptions but these are the

00:29:13.440 people you should pay attention to right now okay now a christian in the 21st century

00:29:20.920 when a christian asks who are the existing authorities what are the existing authorities

00:29:27.680 right now yeah when the christian responds well the emperor is these you know whoever the guy on tv

00:29:34.780 is telling me what to do fauci is the existing authority or um you know uh i've saw a great

00:29:42.940 meme where it says you know i believe the science and the retort is no you believe the television

00:29:49.120 All right. So there's this talking head on television telling you that this is the law.

00:29:57.360 The governor comes on and says, everybody has to stay in the basement or you all have to stand six feet apart or you can't go out without wearing a mask. 0.81

00:30:07.040 OK. OK. Now, when the Christian talks that way, as though the governor of Illinois or the governor of Michigan or the governor of California

00:30:18.100 is in the same in the same relationship to him that the roman emperor was in to the average 0.88

00:30:26.320 inhabitant of rome what they're doing there is they're ignoring the actual existing authority

00:30:32.580 the actual the actual existing authority is the constitution right okay so we have since the

00:30:42.140 apostle paul wrote those words we've had 2 000 years of christian history church planting

00:30:48.140 civilization forming bringing our laws and our customs and our constitutions into closer

00:30:55.440 conformity with scripture all right that means if the if the president of the united states

00:31:03.460 or the president of some intergalactic thing came on the television and said everybody

00:31:10.860 everybody has to wear a pink beanie tomorrow because i said so okay now the reason i would

00:31:20.460 disobey him is not because i think it's okay to disobey the existing authorities it's because i

00:31:27.160 don't think it's okay for him to disobey the existing authorities that's right yeah right

00:31:32.320 so the president the president has no authority to tell me to wear a pink beanie

00:31:37.920 he has no authority um it's a shame because you would look fantastic in a pink beanie

00:31:44.780 i think i think it'd be a good look for you it'd be fabulous yeah fabulous so um when

00:31:53.540 when someone says you must do thus and such the response ought to be by what standard are you

00:32:03.440 what authority are you appealing to when you you're telling me to do this so when our governor

00:32:10.320 when the governor of idaho declared an emergency and and declared a lockdown on the basis of his

00:32:17.340 gubernatorial powers to declare an emergency i went and read the idaho code and he did not have

00:32:25.860 the authority to require what he was requiring of us okay now so here's the just to make it

00:32:34.260 make the problem a very simple one and to stay with the illustration of the pink beanie if the

00:32:40.860 president says you must wear a pink beanie and i go look at the constitution and i see that james

00:32:46.640 madison had the foresight to include and under no circumstances made the president tell you to wear

00:32:53.100 pink beanie okay i can read i have a copy of the constitution i read this and then i look at the

00:33:01.820 declaration the president just made right okay now my objection to him is that he is disobeying romans

00:33:11.820 13. If I go out without my beanie, I'm not disobeying Romans 13. He is. So the thing that

00:33:23.520 Christians don't recognize is that we have a highly developed constitutional system,

00:33:34.220 court system, legislative. We've got dual federalism. We've got divided government at 0.99

00:33:41.380 the federal level. We have a federal judiciary. We have federal legislative authority in Congress,

00:33:48.060 and that's divided. So there's a House and a Senate. Then we have a federal executive.

00:33:52.640 Then the next layer under is every state has those three functions, judicial, legislative,

00:34:01.900 and executive. And all of the states, with the exception of Nebraska, have bicameral legislatures.

00:34:09.120 So Nebraska has unicameral legislature.

00:34:12.380 All the rest have bicameral.

00:34:14.200 So we have divided the authority.

00:34:17.160 The existing authority that is established in our system has been spread thinly and pushed into every nook and cranny.

00:34:27.740 And if the president suddenly stands up and says, I am the king of the universe, and I'm going to require you to start doing these bizarre things,

00:34:39.120 He has no authority to do that, has no authority to say that.

00:34:43.740 He's not an absolute dictator.

00:34:45.680 He's not an absolute despot.

00:34:47.600 He can't do certain things. 0.88

00:34:50.200 Now, when he tries to do them, if Christians stand by and let him do those things, then they are the ones disobeying Romans 13. 0.97

00:35:00.420 Because they are the ones disregarding Paul's instruction to obey the existing authorities. 1.00

00:35:09.120 I completely agree. Put another way, you could say that, you know, when Paul's writing in his letter to the Romans, it's one big difference is, you know, we're not we're not subjects of a monarchy, but rather citizens of a democratic republic, at least for the time being.

00:35:28.400 And so that's a massive difference. And so you're saying all these human officials, because the highest civil magistrate in our land is not a human official by design, but rather a document.

00:35:39.740 All these other human officials in our land are actually lesser magistrates that ultimately are called to submit to the highest being the federal and state constitutions.

00:35:50.740 And so when they're not obeying Romans 13, when a lesser human civil magistrate is in rebellion towards their authority, namely the Constitution, then our rebellion to that lesser civil magistrate is actually submission to the higher authority and righteous.

00:36:10.560 Would you agree with that?

00:36:11.960 Absolutely.

00:36:13.640 That's absolutely the case.

00:36:15.060 Because you can watch the new president on television, put his hand on the Bible and raise his hand and swear to uphold an authority that's higher than he is.

00:36:28.260 Right. That's that's fundamental. That oath means something.

00:36:32.460 yes sir yeah that's right um so this is the way that so so that so then we could say that you know

00:36:39.520 christians you know the way that they say the law of the land first um it sounds like we're saying

00:36:44.520 well it's wrong-headed because it's it's wrong in its face because um the first problem is that

00:36:49.100 many christians in our nation today don't even know what the law of the land is so so what we've

00:36:53.820 basically ascertained thus far in my assessment is um many christians who are going around and

00:36:59.260 incessantly quoting, well, the law of the land, the law of the land. They're not even submitting

00:37:03.320 to the law of the land because they've forgotten or perhaps never learned that the law of the land

00:37:08.460 is actually a higher authority than their governor or their president or anything like that, namely

00:37:13.180 the constitution. That said, what happens if America falls? I know you're post-millennial and

00:37:20.380 so am I, but that doesn't mean America is going to last, but the kingdom is going to continue to

00:37:24.740 advance and um but it may advance through other nations and so if if america falls and we find

00:37:30.940 ourselves in this dire scenario where where we don't have um a constitution as beautiful as as

00:37:38.780 the one we have today and and those freedoms are not there and with the highest civil magistrate

00:37:43.860 um it no longer is is the constitution of the united states but it is a human official it is

00:37:48.900 monarch and we we are subjects and he is a tyrant and abusing his power um then at that level right

00:37:55.900 because we've already i think uh thoroughly discussed the law of the land at one level

00:37:59.900 but what do you do if you're a christian in china for instance um and and you know there's one child

00:38:05.860 policy you know that they held for a long time and now uh everybody all the nations are starting

00:38:10.140 to wake up and realizing uh-oh we actually are kind of have um the opposite problem than we

00:38:14.860 thought we're not going to have enough people and so you know now there's incentives and different

00:38:18.500 nations for people to have two or three kids but let's say it's you know it's it's the good old 0.94

00:38:22.760 days of china with the one child policy and there's forced abortions and all those kinds of 0.90

00:38:27.000 things and that is uh in a very real sense the law of the land because there is not a higher

00:38:32.420 civil magistrate earthly authority to appeal to that has righteous laws then what right all right

00:38:39.360 so then you're back uh let's say there's a re-establishment of paganism so we're back in

00:38:45.800 the state of, right now we have a Christian heritage, we have Christian structure of our

00:38:50.560 laws, there's a great deal of residual Christianity in our legal framework. But let's say we

00:38:59.220 apostatize fully, and we are back in paganism, a resurgent neo-paganism has taken over,

00:39:08.320 okay? Well, then we're in the same position that Paul and Peter were in, and this is where you

00:39:15.640 You go and say, okay, the Apostle Paul, who wrote Romans 13, was executed by Rome.

00:39:24.460 Right.

00:39:25.860 Okay.

00:39:27.320 Peter, who wrote 1 Peter 2 on the Emperor, Peter escaped from jail.

00:39:35.660 He disappears from the book of Acts, a wanted man.

00:39:41.340 Right?

00:39:41.520 So Peter escaped from King Aretas, Paul escaped from King Aretas by running a roadblock.

00:39:47.620 He was lowered from the city wall of Damascus, evading arrest.

00:39:54.260 So basically what I would do in that situation, what I would encourage other Christians to do, 0.92

00:40:01.780 is maneuver yourself to the point where your resistance is fundamentally revolving around the worship of God,

00:40:11.520 And secondarily, around issues involved with the Ten Commandments, forced abortion, God's moral law.

00:40:21.100 So I wouldn't want, in that circumstance, the battle to be about some tertiary or further down the list constitutional right that you would have in a free republic.

00:40:40.120 I would want to insist first and foremost on our right and obligation to worship God and to preserve and protect life.

00:40:48.780 So that's where I think that not so much standing up for you can maybe categorize it like this.

00:40:54.000 Not so much resisting to preserve your own personal comforts and liberties, but rather more so resisting the state to preserve your freedom to be obedient to Christ.

00:41:08.000 Right.

00:41:08.300 so with that said so this is the way that i would exegete romans 13 and and i think that you would

00:41:14.400 agree and i want to hear if you have any extra thoughts with this because so first we can appeal

00:41:18.800 to the constitution because we do live in a nation with a christian heritage um and that that was

00:41:23.900 working from the scripture as as these documents were written and these documents supersede in

00:41:28.680 terms of um law of the land in terms of authority um human and paul yes and paul did that to the

00:41:35.980 extent that he had rights as a Roman citizen, he wasn't shy at all about using them.

00:41:41.840 Right. No, yeah, you're right. Do you not know that I'm a Roman citizen and they're afraid and 0.60

00:41:47.220 then they just want to release him quietly? He's like, no, no, no, no. You're going to publicly

00:41:50.720 admit that you're wrong on this one. Yeah, you're going to come down here and escort us out.

00:41:54.820 That's right. He holds their feet to the fire. So Romans 13, the way that I would execute it is

00:41:59.840 like this. And I, you know, if you want to push back, if you disagree, or perhaps you just have

00:42:03.960 something to add. I've written this, therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resist what God

00:42:09.820 has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. I'm reading the text as is for now.

00:42:14.860 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is

00:42:19.660 in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant,

00:42:24.060 God's deacon. He works for God for your good. We might say that Christ, not Caesar, is head of the

00:42:29.480 church. You could even say Christ, not Caesar, is head of the state, whether they acknowledge him or

00:42:33.940 not. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is a servant

00:42:39.820 of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection.

00:42:45.980 Now, what I've written is this. Notice the text does not say, would you have no fear of the one

00:42:50.020 who is in authority? Then do whatever he says, whether it's morally right or wrong, and you will

00:42:55.020 have his approval for he is an autonomous agent working for his own benefit instead the text says

00:43:00.760 would you have no fear of the one who is an authority then do what is good that is what is

00:43:05.020 objectively good according to god's unchanging standard by what standard and you will receive

00:43:09.920 his approval uh his being that back to the civil magistrate for he is why are you going to receive

00:43:15.780 the civil magistrate's approval because he works for god he's god's servant that is he works for

00:43:20.780 God and is obligated to function within God's parameters for civil authorities. And in so far

00:43:26.820 as he does that, it is for your good. That is your true and lasting good in accordance with what God

00:43:31.940 calls good. Unfortunately, Romans 13 has been frequently misused by cowardly pastors and their 0.75

00:43:38.260 congregants have picked up on that discipleship, seeking to justify their sinful compliance and 0.90

00:43:43.800 cowardice. Is there anything that you would disagree with or something you would add?

00:43:48.060 Nope. I agree with that entirely. Amen.

00:43:51.600 Great. Amen. Yeah.

00:43:52.940 So I think that's – so first, we live in America.

00:43:56.580 We're not subjects of a monarchy, but we are citizens of a democratic republic.

00:44:01.080 Secondly, if America falls and we revert back to a pagan state, even in that scenario, we're ultimately called to do what God commands.

00:44:11.800 And this isn't saying, you know, would you have no fear of the one who rules over you? 0.64

00:44:15.080 then make him happy by doing whatever he says, whether it's in accordance with God's law or not.

00:44:20.180 That's not in the text. That's not Romans 13.

00:44:23.460 So even if we weren't in America, so we'd say point A, see the Constitution.

00:44:27.980 And in a worst case scenario, then see the Bible.

00:44:32.460 And point A, we should see the Bible also.

00:44:34.400 And the Constitution is the attempt was to mirror the Scripture and God's moral law

00:44:39.000 and the Ten Commandments on the courthouse and all that. 0.81

00:44:41.260 If we don't have a Constitution, we're in a pagan state, see the Bible. 0.51

00:44:45.080 So my last question, I guess, on this topic would be, okay, so we're going to prioritize, we're going to do some theological triage, some civil resistance triage here for the Christian.

00:44:58.780 And we're going to, first, we're going to hold to worship and God's moral law.

00:45:02.860 That's where we're going to resist the strongest if we're in that pagan state that's telling us to, you know, forced abortions and those kinds of things. 0.70

00:45:09.040 um at what point like like our own nation and and our history at one point um is it is it 0.66

00:45:16.740 appropriate um to resist with things like taxation to say no that's you know the state

00:45:23.780 has as far past you know competing with with what god demands in the 10 percent and and i know that

00:45:29.220 i've i think i got this from you that anytime the state rivals you know how much should the state

00:45:33.520 tax will probably less than than what god requires so less than 10 percent um and we're you know

00:45:38.220 depending where you live in the nation, you know, 30, 40 and what, you know, what, what economic

00:45:43.040 bracket you fall into. At what point can Christians resist righteously? It's still in submission 0.89

00:45:50.260 ultimately to God's law and not just being rebels without a cause. Can they resist righteously on

00:45:57.240 things that don't impede worship? Or maybe they do by way of implication. Maybe that's the answer,

00:46:02.240 but they don't directly impede our worship and obedience to God's 10 commandments, the Decalogue.

00:46:08.220 But they are tyranny, nonetheless.

00:46:12.220 Right. 0.98

00:46:14.560 So what I would urge Christians, whenever it gets to the point of resistance, to whatever extent possible, submit yourself.

00:46:27.280 You don't want to function like an isolated, atomistic scofflaw, as though you're the only one that makes any decisions.

00:46:35.900 um in calvin's book four of the institutes calvin begins reasoning um begins laying out

00:46:46.960 the framework for the doctrine of the lesser magistrates so i would much prefer if i'm going

00:46:53.100 to engage in tax resistance i would much prefer to resist the federal government by submitting

00:47:01.080 to the governor of my state or submitting to the mayor. The governor and the mayor are lesser

00:47:07.480 magistrates. So if the governor of Idaho said, for example, we believe that you're collecting

00:47:15.700 taxes for unconstitutional and immoral purposes, and I'm urging all Idahoans not to send in their

00:47:23.500 forms this year i would be right there okay now there when when the situation is dire

00:47:32.300 uh sometimes and let's say it's a matter of survival um if you if you give the midianites

00:47:40.520 all of your grain you're going to you're going to starve um and you need to feed your family 0.96

00:47:48.220 that's why Gideon was in the wine vat threshing threshing his grain in there he was threshing

00:47:56.380 his grain in hiding okay so I think it's a it's appropriate to resist to conduct tax resistance

00:48:06.060 on your own authority if it's a matter of survival earlier than that earlier than that

00:48:13.500 If it's a matter of convenience or convenience is not the right word, but preference, I would only organize together with other believers, ideally under an established governmental authority who's willing to defend you against the higher encroaching authority.

00:48:36.280 yeah that's really helpful so it's not it's not christ church uh going up against it's no it's

00:48:43.140 it's let's let's get in the right sphere here with the spheres sovereignty and and that um let's

00:48:48.840 right do we have anyone in in our church community who fears the lord who's a christian brother who

00:48:54.000 um also has who's also in the civil he is a civil magistrate he's he's in the state in that sphere

00:49:00.760 let's work through that avenue. And sometimes, as in the case of Gideon, Gideon was a private

00:49:06.860 individual when he was conducting the tax resistance, but he became the leader.

00:49:14.980 He became a judge when the Spirit of the Lord came on him.

00:49:19.960 That's really helpful. So, okay, concluding now, any other further thoughts on

00:49:25.900 weed alcohol legalization theonomy the whole nine yards yeah i i do i believe that

00:49:34.160 societies ought not to make laws ought not to do anything coercive including with weed

00:49:40.040 simply on the matter of convenience or preferences or things like that i think we coercion for the

00:49:48.220 christian is a big deal and so i i think that no one ought to be coerced into anything unless

00:49:55.240 a scriptural case can be made for it and that's what i attempt to do in in this book that's great

00:50:03.160 yeah the freedom of the conscience amen well doug thank you so much for coming on the show

00:50:08.040 it's um an honor to have you and i've benefited so much from your your ministry so thank you very much

00:50:13.800 thank you um pleasure to be with you as a special thank you for your gift of any amount we'll be

00:50:20.040 And thank you for your generous support.

The NXR Podcast - July 07, 2021

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Alcohol, Marijuana, & The Law Of God

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