00:04:56.540All right, so here we are once again with A.D. Robles.
00:05:01.060A.D., I'm really glad that you joined the show.
00:05:03.660And as you know, our topic is really, if I were to sum it up,
00:05:07.680it's just, should I go to a church where I'm more spiritually mature than my pastor?
00:05:13.020Talking about the weaker brother, the person with weaker faith,
00:05:15.860and sadly, R.C. Sproul, he famously preached a sermon where he said that
00:05:19.680he talked about the tyranny of the weaker brother,
00:05:22.140the person who has less faith, whose conscience doesn't allow them to drink wine,
00:05:25.820and a conscience doesn't allow them to not wear a mask or not get the jab,
00:05:30.620that person seems to be the person who doesn't just have their conscience shaped in a particular direction,
00:05:36.840but they enforce that on everybody else.
00:05:39.240And when a pastor is in that position, it seems to cause a lot of problems.
00:05:43.380So should a Christian belong to a local church where their pastor is less spiritually mature than them?
00:05:50.040Yeah, so the way you've just described it, I would have to say no.
00:05:53.380You know, the whole idea of the weaker brother, you know, and the kind of, you know, his theology, you know, kind of binds them in ways that he shouldn't be bound.
00:06:04.460But, you know, you accommodate him and stuff like that.
00:06:07.240Look, we're supposed to be following our pastors as they follow Christ, right?
00:06:11.680And if our pastor is following Christ in a way that's like, you know, rule crazy in weird ways, like that doesn't make any sense.
00:06:19.060when i first heard your your question by the way joel not to extend my answer too much but
00:06:23.100i was thinking to myself like okay well what about like you know older uh christian who's not a
00:06:29.140pastor and you know they're they've seen a lot you know they've dealt with conflict a lot they've
00:06:34.780seen a lot of people struggle against sin and stuff and so maybe they're going to respond in
00:06:39.480a way that's more mature in the sense that they're going to be slower to anger you know slower to
00:06:44.180speak than maybe their pastor and in that way i would say yeah that could potentially be something
00:06:48.620where you, maybe you're older and you're older in the faith. And so maybe you've, you know,
00:06:52.940you've, you've fought your sin longer than your pastor has. And so, you know, maybe you're better
00:06:56.680at it in certain ways than your pastor. And that way I could see, okay, there's some flexibility
00:07:01.080there, but in the way you describe it, I would say absolutely not. Right. Right. Yeah, no, you're
00:07:05.800right. Spiritual maturity is a broad category and there's multiple different markers that we could
00:07:10.980put underneath that, you know, with the fruit of the spirit and all those things. But you're right
00:07:14.480for the purpose of this episode, we're, you know, for our listeners, I guess, to provide a little
00:07:17.960bit more clarity. We're talking about spiritual maturity as it pertains to the degree of a man's
00:07:22.960faith. Paul talks explicitly in Romans chapter 14 about the person who has weaker faith. He is the
00:07:29.440weaker brother. And just to reference it once more, some of our listeners will probably be
00:07:34.660familiar with this sermon. If you're not, I highly recommend it. Go check it out. But it's called
00:07:38.480The Tyranny of the Weaker Brother by R.C. Sproul, The Tyranny of the Weaker Brother. The weaker
00:07:44.800brother is the one who has weaker faith. His conscience will not allow him to enjoy wine to
00:07:50.000the glory of God. It will not allow him to eat meat. And so, you know, the apostle Paul says
00:07:55.760that, you know, we shouldn't offend, go out of our way to offend our weaker brother and his
00:08:00.400conscience. And so there are certain Christian liberties that we should be willing to lay down
00:08:04.520for our brother. The problem is when our brother also happens to be in an ecclesiastical position
00:08:11.420of authority. So like if we were asking the question, should the church have weaker brothers
00:08:16.800as members? Of course, of course. And everybody, including the elders, especially the elders,
00:08:23.140should be willing to accommodate them to some degree, right? So of course the church should
00:08:28.860have those who are weaker brothers in the faith. But when they're pastors, so I'll just,
00:08:37.500I'll get really, really clear here. What do you think, AD, about, have you ever heard of
00:08:42.380when a senior pastor at a church enforces a rule for the entire elder board that they cannot drink
00:08:49.260alcohol? Have you heard of that? Well, I'm a Presbyterian, so I don't know anything about
00:08:54.940those shenanigans. But you go to a Baptist church. But I have heard of such things, yeah. Well, let me0.99
00:08:59.220tell you something I heard one time. This makes it real for me, so I'll just tell the story.
00:09:03.160uh someone i knew was accepting a position at a seminary a southern baptist seminary and um
00:09:09.400he was told uh to to scrub his social media of any cigars or any you know you know mixed drinks
00:09:18.740he may have had on there and stuff like that right like that was something he had to do in order to
00:09:23.860take the job essentially wow he could do that stuff but he couldn't put it on social media
00:09:28.960at all like that was that was a rule and the problem with that and i think i i know you'll
00:09:33.360agree the problem with that is um okay give me a bible verse give me bible right you know and like
00:09:40.900that's the that's the problem is that it's it's tyranny so one thing that helpful category i think
00:09:46.880is authority of command versus authority of counsel right so that you can counsel something
00:12:01.840They would expect covenant eyes, for instance.
00:12:04.660whereas i that i think that that could be a really helpful tool that i think i could counsel i could
00:12:10.820say i think i feel very strongly young man that you would do well to put these protective measures
00:12:18.240on your phone or get rid of your iphone or this or that but i don't feel like the bible gives me
00:12:23.240jurisdiction to say you've got to stop sinning but i don't think the bible gives me jurisdiction
00:12:27.920to tell him my opinion of how how he stops sure what do you think yeah yeah yeah i i
00:12:34.620think i would agree with that you know and i think to be honest with you and and i think you probably
00:12:38.840would be right here with me on this if he hesitated it was like no i don't know about that covenant
00:12:43.000eyes thing i mean that's just that's i don't know about that like you'd probably want to ask more
00:12:47.020questions and have some more counseling sessions and be like okay i mean i'm not like i'm not gonna
00:12:51.700it's not in the law of god but like you're gonna have to explain that one to me that makes no sense
00:12:55.980you got to turn into the detective almost the interrogator almost a little bit for a minute
00:13:00.280there you know right um and so yeah i think i'm right there with you you you you can't you can't
00:13:07.560so this is another good one so right so we we've got we've got alcoholics out there and so people
00:13:12.520that are addicted to alcohol and then you know they they come out of that right you know so a lot
00:13:18.060of a lot of people have testimonies where they've been given over to wine and all this stuff and
00:13:22.180then you know they the lord finds them and then they kind of just put it away and so that's great
00:13:26.920So then, so imagine a person like that and, you know, you see them, you know, take a couple drinks or whatever, you know, to the glory of God and they're doing fine. And then one night they fall off the wagon, right? One night they just go in again. Are you allowed then to say, well, you see, you lost the right to alcohol. You just can't have it anymore. No, you're not. That's not in your purview. You can't say that.
00:13:50.580you might be able to counsel them, though, look, you know, you don't want to go back down that road.
00:13:55.800I mean, is it worth it? You know, is it worth it?
00:13:58.780But you wouldn't want to command something that you're not allowed to command.
00:18:05.900So there was this woman and this man and woman that we met there.
00:18:09.720They were married, and they told us their story.
00:18:12.140They met because one of them, I forget which one, went to their pastor and said, hey, I need help, and I'd like to get married.
00:18:19.620and they went through their CREC connections and found another person, whether it was a woman or
00:18:25.920man, I can't remember which it was. And they connected them and they made a love connection.
00:18:29.520It wasn't like an arranged marriage or anything, but the pastor was active and said, let's, let's,
00:18:34.060let's find you a wife, you know, let's find you someone. And it's like, what if guys were doing
00:18:39.400that instead of, you know, covenant, I'll help you, you know, maybe I can hook you up with someone,
00:18:45.200or maybe I can show you how to find a girl. You know what I mean? Like, you know, presumably
00:18:49.540the pastor's married a lot of times pastors are married i mean right you know i don't know like
00:18:54.300and so and the same thing with the wine for example right okay so so you know one of the
00:18:58.620things that some people think is that you know you're actually commanded to take wine and
00:19:01.980communion right some people think that grape juice is no good in that i would be of the persuasion
00:19:06.220that it must be wine that the bible okay great so so you're right there you're right there so
00:19:10.100think about the guy who's like okay here's the solution for you alcoholic no wine when god has
00:19:16.980commanded that wine is for your joy and he's commended it in one of the sacraments we only
00:19:22.260have a couple right you know what i mean so it's like man often the the weaker brothers sort of
00:19:29.560commands their tyrannical commands actually downplay what god has actually commanded which
00:19:34.140is a really insidious thing about them when you think about right right and you know i think and
00:19:39.680some people push back on this because they're going to be ardent 12 steppers and so and i i
00:19:44.620have some problems with the 12-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous and stuff that I personally
00:19:49.440don't think that is biblical. For me, I would say that what would it look like for a person
00:19:56.240to be truly sanctified who has been a slave to wine? I think if a person has been a slave to
00:20:02.560wine, then their full redemption, their full deliverance from slavery to wine is not the
00:20:08.620ability to never sip wine ever again, but the ability to enjoy it without, without sin. Um,
00:20:15.760that takes, and I think, you know, of course the AA person would agree with this and say that that
00:20:20.600takes a much greater degree of self-control. Um, and then they would argue and say that it's
00:20:25.420impossible because, uh, well, and it gets into identity and those kinds of things that, you know,
00:20:30.080once we know it's not impossible because we see people do it all the time. Right. Exactly. Right.
00:20:33.360I know already know it's not impossible. I know people who were a part of AA and who were, you
00:20:37.100know labeled as alcoholics and i'll never be able to drink again i cannot drink with self-control
00:20:41.900and i'm just like but the bible says that god has not given you a spirit of fear but a sound mind
00:20:47.560sober mindedness he's given you self-control self-control is a fruit of the spirit you do
00:20:51.900have it you're a christian you know and so yeah so anyways and i know that that gets into you know
00:20:57.180people want to talk about dopamine receptors and serotonin and you know the genetic side of things
00:21:02.320And there may be something to the sense that one individual physiologically may get more pleasure from a glass of wine than another individual in a genetic sense.
00:21:11.920And I think that there's probably some truth to that.
00:21:14.660But even in that regard, I don't think that that means that you are biologically hardwired to be a slave to wine.
00:21:21.460I think that even you, you enjoy wine more.
00:21:25.360Okay, but yeah, are you a slave of Christ or a slave of sin?
00:21:28.960You're a new creation in Christ Jesus and you have self-control.
00:26:32.420And if you think about about what they would say, and you got to catch them out of context, because once you if you were to make this argument all at once, they would know what you were doing.
00:26:43.520But if the government came out with a dress code for your for your wife, they would say, follow it.
00:26:47.740They would. If if if your if your wife's employer has a dress code for your wife, they would say, follow it.
00:26:53.720And so what what they've adopted is this kind of upside down kind of perverted pagan ideology where essentially what you've got is this hierarchy that essentially starts with the state up here and they've got the ultimate power, whatever they say goes and you got to do it.
00:27:11.640And the one who has the least power is actually the family unit. And that's not how God system works. God system doesn't work that way. It's actually opposite of the way God system works.
00:27:22.200I think you look at the Old Testament laws and you see punishments for adultery are very harsh.
00:27:28.340They're essentially punishments for – it's what you would punish someone for sedition in a country because it's essentially your turncoat on the primary unit of government, which is the family.0.50
00:27:44.240So that's why the punishment is so harsh.
00:27:45.980It's like you have you have betrayed the one most important part of God's spheres of sovereignty, spheres of government.
00:27:55.220The family is the primary unit of the government that God gives us.
00:27:59.180And so not only are they beta pastors who would be like, you know, side with the woman no matter what, but they also have turned they've inverted God's authority structure.
00:28:10.680We have different spheres of authority, but the primary unit, in my opinion, is the family that God gives us.
00:28:16.360And they want that to be the weakest and the one that has the least authority when it actually has the most.
00:28:23.320I've heard it said before that if you think of like home church and state, it's basically the state is authority over virtually everyone, but a very, very small amount of authority.
00:28:35.280the church is authority over some people with a kind of like a medium degree of authority
00:28:42.200and the home fathers especially with their children husband with a wife but especially
00:28:47.340fathers with children have virtually limitless authority but over a very small group of people
00:28:53.140you know so it's like like a little bit of authority over a lot of people civil government
00:28:56.640you know some authority over some people ecclesiastical government pastors and churches
00:29:01.020and then like virtually limitless authority,
00:31:18.400I just had that side thought when I was thinking about that.
00:31:20.280That's a good thought, right? It's not only tyranny, it's demeaning.
00:31:23.060It's demeaning. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right.
00:31:25.320And so with that, like I think of, you know, when COVID-19 hit, you know, and bringing this, you know, making this really applicable to the, you know, the pastor question, because I get, you know, I'm sure you do too.
00:31:39.040People email guys like you and me and John Harris all the time, you know, saying like, I don't know if I can stay in my church, you know.
00:31:45.720And it's either because the church has embraced social justice and gone woke or it's, well, usually, you know, these birds of a feather, you know, they flock together.
00:31:56.280But, you know, or it's the civil tyranny thing.
00:31:58.860It's like my pastor is just drinking, you know, all the COVID Kool-Aid, you know, and my pastor's on his seventh booster shot, you know, and we haven't met as a church.
00:32:10.480You know, church has been canceled for 20 months, you know, or whatever, or, or it got uncanceled, but then Delta hit and we got canceled again.
00:32:16.460And now Omicron, the least deadly, you know, there's a cold going around, but it has, it has a Greek name.
00:32:26.100And, and, and my, what I'm saying is that like that, that pastor who's leading his church, you know, I think a lot of pastors just didn't think through these things.
00:32:36.400You know, so they said church is canceled and they don't think through the implications.
00:32:40.560Like what they're doing is they're using the ecclesiastical authority that God gave them to be keepers of the Lord's table and to administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, his body and his blood to his people to nourish them.
00:32:55.780And they're saying to the people of God that the Lord's Supper belongs to.
00:33:05.180they belong to his table christ is standing there saying come to me you know all who are weary all
00:33:11.820who are heavy laden come to me feast on my body drink my blood and the pastors are standing in
00:33:18.240between them they don't think of it like this but by canceling their church service the pastors
00:33:22.080who should be the ones who not bouncers right sometimes we can over fence the table but but
00:33:27.560pastors are they're also greeters welcoming the people of god to the lord's table and and instead0.57
00:33:32.660of that, they're saying, no, you blood-bought Christian who the supper was purchased for,0.66
00:33:40.360and it belongs to you. It's your right. You may not have it for a month, now for two months,0.92
00:33:45.380now for three months, now for four months, now for five months. Okay. Now you can have it again.
00:33:50.240Just kidding. Delta. Nope. It's gone for a month, for two months, for three. And they don't think
00:33:55.760of it like that. They think of just love your neighbor. We don't want to do any harm. And
00:33:59.000They're not thinking there, there's so many other, the Bible's a big book, right?
00:34:03.060It's not a 30 page pamphlet that just says, love your neighbor.
00:34:05.600And the only way to love your neighbor is by not getting them sick.
00:34:08.280Like, like, and these are, and, and, and I would be more sympathetic if these pastors
00:34:13.140weren't the guys who brag about being intellectuals and being theologically astute.
00:34:17.320So, so by their own admission, just like Jesus, the Pharisees, but because you claim to see
00:34:21.900right by their own admission, they know, they know the theological implications.
00:34:26.720So they're doing one thing to protect their neighbor, but that one thing is doing all these other things.
00:34:34.560And not just to their neighbor, but in this case, we're talking about what they're doing to their brother, to their sister, to the people of God.
00:34:39.520And so I look at that as like for a pastor to cancel the church service, I don't know, can you think of any, does a pastor have that authority?
00:34:54.680So when I start when the covid thing started, I got this wrong, in my opinion, because I said, yeah, you know, they would have the authority to do that.
00:35:02.660And they simply do not. That's so that I've changed my view on that.
00:35:06.860I got set straight pretty early on that one, maybe a few months or maybe a month into it, a few weeks into it.
00:35:12.740But no, no, because here's the thing. The pastor doesn't have any authority that God didn't give the pastor.
00:35:19.880right and so the only authority that exists is from god and so if it didn't come from god then
00:35:26.040it didn't come then it's not legitimate it's tyranny and so it's not the road to tyranny it
00:35:30.800is straight up tyranny so if if if you're right joel and i agree that you are that that christians
00:35:36.540have the right to that table and god and it comes from god it doesn't come from a man that that
00:35:41.620right well i guess the god man but anyway it doesn't come from it doesn't come from a regular
00:35:47.200man. If they have that, then they have it and nobody can take it away from them. So they either
00:35:54.600have it or they don't have it. And you got to make that decision. And so some of these guys are
00:35:59.160theologically astute enough to know that people have that right. And so they're the ones that
00:36:04.840really need to really take a good look in the mirror, a good hard look at what has happened.
00:36:09.200How did we get duped like this for so long? And so that it never happens again, because it's
00:36:14.180absolutely insane what's gone on. Nobody has that right.
00:36:17.380Right. So me and you would both, just to be abundantly clear,
00:36:19.900A.D. Robles and Joel Eben would both say that a pastor closing the church doors,
00:36:26.000effectively what that does is it bars the people of God from Christ,
00:36:31.320from Christ in the supper, from Christ in the preaching,
00:36:35.100from Christ in the singing of hymns and psalms and spiritual songs, from Christ.
00:36:38.960Joel, I don't want to interrupt you, but I just have to get this out
00:36:41.920because I don't know if you saw this, but I saw this.
00:36:44.180pastors trying to spiritualize this where it was like, God has judged us. And, and we need to look
00:36:50.240at this time where we can't have the elements as a sign of God's displeasure with us. And we need
00:36:55.780to lament it every day. And it's like, no, that's not what's happened. You've just decided that this
00:37:01.760is happening, right? You've decided God hasn't told us that because yeah, it's dangerous, but
00:37:07.100guess what? You know, the, the, the, the apostles did a lot of dangerous things to worship Christ
00:37:12.120on sunday uh in in the in the book of acts right the early church did a lot of dangerous things in
00:37:17.960order to worship church or worship god worship church worship god on sunday you know the way
00:37:23.300he was commanded like like that made me so sick to my stomach when i heard people saying oh it's
00:37:29.560lument it's the season that god has told us we cannot partake he did not say any such thing
00:37:34.680right yeah no you're absolutely right we just you know what happens when we assume you know
00:37:40.200but we just assume i you know like one verse it like uh one text it's always struck me it's just
00:37:45.740profound is you know when um when uh paul is is miraculously set free all the prison doors open
00:37:55.760all the prisoners are set free and like and the jailer is about to take his own life and then
00:38:02.380paul stops him and says we're all accounted for we're all here um nobody left you know on your
00:38:07.220watch and the, you know, the jailer and his whole household, his whole household, they,
00:38:11.360they, you know, they get saved, they get baptized. I'd like to think that he didn't have any infants.
00:38:15.660So his whole household that were, you know, but anyway, but the whole household gets saved.
00:38:20.060What kind of self-respecting jailer wouldn't have any infants?
00:38:23.460But so, but my point is like, I mean, I feel like, you know, you and I, like if we were in that
00:38:28.100situation and all of a sudden miraculously that, you know, we're, we're arrested, you know,
00:38:32.100persecuted for our faith and for preaching the gospel. And then the jail doors miraculously open
00:38:36.360up like i i'm not gonna stop and ask god what that means i'm just gonna i'm gonna god wants me
00:38:43.160to escape you know but but you know what i mean and but so it's and and that would be something
00:38:48.860that's pretty clear you know but like with with a a virus that kills you know one percent of the
00:38:55.780people who even get it you know like like 99 survival rate and now you know when most people
00:39:01.640have a vaccine which you know i don't know how effective but have a vaccine that's supposed to
00:39:06.000be effective and you know and and then more importantly than that a lot of people have
00:39:09.440actually already got the virus and have natural immunity like myself which is arguably 13 to you
00:39:14.280know 20 something times more durable than the vaccine like when all those things have happened
00:39:18.460then then if it's a 99 or was a 99 you know survival rate then now it's even even more so
00:39:24.340and if we have new strains that are less deadly than than the alpha and the delta and like then
00:39:29.420you know like so now we're talking about something that that really arguably could be as deadly as
00:39:35.120the flu and we didn't cancel church for flu. So all that to be said, you're saying that we just
00:39:40.880assumed, this happens and we immediately start putting words in the mouth of God and saying,
00:39:45.180this is a season, this is what God is doing. We're speaking for God. And so we're making
00:39:50.760things up instead of sticking to the script. What do we know? What we know is that on the
00:39:55.420first day of the week, Christ rose from the dead to free people from lifelong slavery to the fear
00:40:02.160of death. So he rose from the dead to free us from lifelong slavery to the fear of death so that
00:40:07.940we might gather on the first day of the week and the right worship of him. And, you know, that's
00:40:13.640the marching orders. That's what's playing. And instead we go for this weird, obscure, mystical
00:40:18.320thing instead of sticking to what is so clear. And so you and I would both say that's tyranny,
00:40:24.540right? That's outside of pastor's jurisdiction. Totally. And you know, it's tyranny because
00:40:28.960here's what i like to do this is not foolproof but it kind of helps me think through things so0.96
00:40:32.780i hear a woke pastor say something stupid about you know how he wants to you know i don't know
00:40:38.260do something that's that's totally ridiculous right and so what i like to do often is i like0.99
00:40:43.660to switch around the races right so i say okay if i said this about a white person or a black person0.53
00:40:48.660whatever the situation warrants would it be okay it's not foolproof but at least gives you an idea
00:40:53.980like is there some partiality here right so that do you know it's tyranny because think about this
00:40:58.560way what if there was a husband to go back to your previous point that was demanding that his
00:41:04.140wife for the rest of her life wear a mask for her own protection of course right also he then
00:41:11.080demanded we're not she can't go to the worship service for her own protection of course because
00:41:16.240it's dangerous out there and you know what covid's just the tip of the iceberg we got the flu we got
00:41:20.880everything you know we don't know maybe there's going to be a new novel something we don't know
00:41:24.340so she can't go to the worship service she can't partake in communion you know it's tyranny because
00:41:28.760they'd be all over that wow how dare you they're not the authority it's like well exactly yeah you
00:41:35.340know you don't either you're exactly right and so okay so yeah so the the mass thing so we talked
00:41:40.520about shutting down the church because that effectively bars people from christ so so let
00:41:44.580me ask this um what what about a pastor you know or a group of elders or whatever in a local church
00:41:49.780who require masks, not optional, but they require them.
00:41:53.620You cannot come and worship the Lord Jesus Christ
00:42:47.880And so we say the Bible speaks to those things, that on the Lord's Day, the Bible talks about modesty, the Bible talks about prudence, the Bible talks about all those kinds of things.1.00
00:42:56.580So the Bible does say that we should dress and even tells us how to dress.
00:42:59.780It doesn't say so specific like as in three-piece suit.
00:46:27.900If anything, it's like, okay, so it's more contagious.
00:46:32.560but from all the data that we can see it's it's more mild and it's symptoms right now there's not
00:46:38.180globally globally in terms of data as of today that we're recording this so i when this airs i
00:46:43.820don't know if it'll be the case but today it's uh december 7th as i'm recording this there's not
00:46:48.780one case globally of somebody being hospitalized or or death due to the omicron yep i don't care
00:46:56.920anything about this at all but but imagine if it if it's all true what you just said it's it's more
00:47:01.300contagious and it's and it's less uh serious wouldn't that be the best case scenario like
00:47:06.280for a variant that's my point so it's like everyone's going to get this so it's going to
00:47:10.880push out everything it's going to push out delta it's going to push out alpha so every so more
00:47:16.140people are going to get or they would if we if we weren't all you know if we weren't all vaxxed
00:47:21.620but uh more people would get this it would become the dominant strain which is also the happens to
00:47:28.160be the most mild strain. It's almost like God knows how to preserve people, his creation,
00:47:35.880his image bearing creatures, like even built into the framework of a virus. Like that's what viruses
00:47:40.220do. They, you know, they, they become more contagious, but they become also more mild in
00:47:44.360terms of their symptoms. And then they become endemic. It's just something that we live with.
00:47:48.000And it's, you know, Spanish flu all of a sudden becomes, you know, a hundred years later, it's a
00:47:51.840cold and, you know, or there's a flu season that we have every year. And sometimes it's a bad flu
00:47:55.880season. And sometimes it's not about like, that's, we know that we're going to live with COVID.
00:47:59.720We're shutting down the virus. Joe Biden's not God. The state is not God. So we deify science,
00:48:05.000we deify the virus and we deify the state, you know, and, and all these things are false. And,
00:48:10.660but yeah, so we know that tyranny with the state is wrong. That the state doesn't have that kind
00:48:16.960of authority to do these things. But then, but then I think we think pastors do. And we would,
00:48:22.460And what's frustrating for me is that I feel like Christians will kick at the goads when it comes to a pastor exercising authority that he actually does have, like preaching God's word boldly.
00:49:20.580And then a pastor preaches God's word boldly, and like Paul, who addresses Hymenaeus and Alexander, names people, this pastor names false teachers, and so, yeah.
00:49:32.560It's the King David syndrome when he was having Bathsheba.
00:49:36.740It's like he had this huge, ridiculous sin in his life, apparent, and he didn't care at all.0.75
00:49:45.500So he overreacts when he hears the story about the lamb.
00:49:49.540it's just a lamb and he overreacts and he kind of just goes in it's like it's like and we just
00:49:55.980talked about this with the weaker brother you know like imagine if they just gave god's prescription
00:50:00.240it always downplays god's prescription get married that's the prescription you don't need covenant
00:50:04.960eyes get married it's like it always works out that way when you make up your own stuff and you
00:50:11.180pass it off as god's law you end up downplaying god's actual all the pharisees were doing this
00:50:15.980with the corbin thing they made up their own law and what do they do when what by doing that they
00:50:20.580overturned a big glaring law to honor their father and mother right you know what i mean
00:50:25.160right it's it never it never leaves god's law alone it's not like they're they're coming out
00:50:30.320with this nonsense wear a mask and it doesn't affect anything else in their teaching it definitely
00:50:35.540does yeah you're absolutely right so this is one of my last questions this is the big one that'll
00:50:40.760be the most relevant for our listeners um at what point do pastors who messed up on this right i'm
00:50:48.260talking about the pastor who yeah you know like not not just you know cancel their church for
00:50:53.560you know three weeks or something like but like cancel church for months you know and and then
00:50:58.460when they did come back um would not let the congregation sing um not just mask optional but
00:51:05.160but prescribed mass, you know, or, or didn't serve the Lord's supper for a year, you know,
00:51:11.260I'm just naming examples. Literally as I'm naming, I'm like, that's ridiculous. Nobody did that. And0.91
00:51:16.480then I have to keep reminding myself, no, like, like thousands of pastors did that. They did that.
00:51:20.680So, all right. So let's say that, that pastor now is their church's meeting on Sunday,
00:51:26.800mass are optional. They serve the Lord's supper, maybe with some gloves or whatever,
00:51:31.740but they're serving the Lord's Supper, you know, and, and they're singing as softly and as
00:51:37.480effeminally as possible, but they are singing. I went, he's changed his actions, but should he be
00:51:47.100trusted? What, like, so some of these guys, it's the same with the social justice thing, right?
00:51:51.880So like, let's say, let's say it's David Platt. All of a sudden, let's say David Platt starts
00:51:56.960preaching biblical justice no partiality your eye shall not pity the poor or the rich you know
00:52:02.440two or three witnesses the evidence has to be weighed uh you know those kind of things like
00:52:07.080when when do you you know i saw one of your videos recently where you you commended
00:52:12.160jonathan lehman who you've you know who you've taken to the mat several times
00:52:15.680sure but you still said like but i don't know yet like when do we yeah when do we
00:52:20.100because forgiveness and trust are not the same thing i would say i would say i can forgive my
00:52:24.600pastor, even if he never changes his actions. I can forgive that guy because I've been freely
00:52:29.160forgiven in Christ. So I see forgiveness is free because I've been freely forgiven. But trust I see
00:52:33.440is something that's earned, right? There are qualifications for an elder for a reason. You
00:52:37.280have to be qualified. You have to be credible in order to be worthy of being trusted in that
00:52:42.660position. And so for me, I'm like, I know lots of guys, I mean, close friends, close friends who
00:52:48.740are now taking the right actions. They're now taking, like their church is meeting,
00:52:53.360you know they're serving the lord's supper they're even saying something you know like yeah this is
00:52:57.940ridiculous but i'm like yeah but yeah but dude you you were on the wrong side of this for a long time
00:53:05.460and adamantly on the wrong side adamantly on the wrong side i don't trust you yeah i get it man
00:53:11.520no that this is the big question right because i did say that that's the first place my mind went
00:53:16.040the jonathan leeman video i did which i don't know i mean i don't trust him yet i mean i don't know
00:53:20.240what it would take for me to trust him. I don't know, but, but you're a hundred percent right.
00:53:23.740Like you got to earn that. Right. So let's just say, God willing, David Platt starts teaching
00:53:28.040rightly on this. And what I don't want to do is give them the list. Cause sometimes what I'll see
00:53:32.660is somebody repents and then they're given a list by everyone on social media, what they have to do
00:53:37.760in order to really repent. You know what I mean? And I want to do that. Yeah. I don't want to do
00:53:42.340that. But what I do want to understand is the reality that, you know, you, you know, your trust
00:53:48.320has to be earned and it's earned over time. And it's, and it's not something that anyone can just
00:53:52.340kind of turn on. You know what I mean? It's just, I don't, it's not that it's not like it's a
00:53:57.380mystical thing, but it just, you, you, you build trust over time. You can lose it really quick
00:54:02.000and maybe never get it back, you know? So the thing with it, so let's make this as practical
00:54:07.360as possible. Like, what would you do if you're in a church like this, where they're basically
00:54:10.680doing the right things now, but it took them a long time. And, you know, you don't know what
00:54:14.660to do? Should I leave my church? What should I do? I think that you need to have hard conversations
00:54:20.040about, and it's got to be like back room. Like how did this go down? What happened? You know,
00:54:26.540what were you thinking? How did the conversations go? Like, was there like, like, was it just easy
00:54:33.580for you to believe CNN or like, did you wrestle? Like you want to know the play by play, right?
00:54:38.880let's talk, let's talk, let's talk, you know, you know, how this all went down. And I think
00:54:44.580those conversations, you'll kind of get to see sort of where they were at and where they're at
00:54:49.120now, the differences. My pastor, you know, I think he probably, so when he called me and said
00:54:54.320they were closing down, like I said, I got this wrong in the beginning. I was like, okay, I
00:54:57.780understand, you know, I support you. And I should have said that I should have said that I don't
00:55:02.880support you and you shouldn't do it. I think honestly, when he called me, he was kind of
00:55:06.520fishing for that now that i've talked to him but he's kind of sensed this right so he he came to
00:55:10.620his senses fairly early on you know probably longer than he should have should have but when
00:55:15.460he decided when when when they decided to do nothing no no more restrictions nothing he called
00:55:20.540me he was very excited and he took the time to take me through the whole process what had happened
00:55:25.660you know what the conversations were like what they're thinking now what the future holds as
00:55:30.920well that's key and emphatic this will never happen again that's yeah that's i don't care
00:55:37.000what else happens i'm opening that church yeah that's really and if you have a pastor who's
00:55:42.180willing to look you in the eye and shake your hand and say look i've learned my lesson and here's
00:55:46.200what we're doing in the future that means a lot man yeah but if you get the wishy-washy well you0.91
00:55:51.940know we got it maybe you know homicron you know it might be a little scary you kind of know what1.00
00:55:55.860you're dealing with right then and there they haven't learned any lesson they just came out0.92
00:55:59.440when the cover was enough that they felt like they could get away with it.
00:57:11.660I don't want to be too specific because I don't want to throw people under the bus.
00:57:14.580But where they prescribe three years of penance.
00:57:17.720right like yep like um you need to you need to read these exact books um this exact amount
00:57:24.240um six days a week you can take off the sabbath for three years do a writing assignment you know
00:57:29.600i've seen this so many times yeah in order to prove in order to prove that and you know and
00:57:35.060they'll use like acts like doing good works and keeping with repentance but the thing is like
00:57:39.740with doing good works and keeping with repentance the holy spirit decides what those good works are
00:57:43.740man doesn't prescribe them. The Holy Spirit grants repentance, right? Repentance is a gift that is
00:57:51.000granted and the fruit, the good works, they're good fruits of the Holy Spirit that begin to
00:57:56.680become more evident and are increasing as the person is walking in repentance, which is a gift
00:58:03.220granted by God and therefore being formed more into the image of Christ. And the fruit of that
00:58:07.480may be increased study habits because of a greater desire for God and His holiness that
00:58:13.600comes with the knowledge of the Lord, or it may be this, or it may be that. But when we start
00:58:17.620prescribing penance, and we can call it doing good works and keeping with repentance, and that's
00:58:25.280using biblical language, but I don't think that that's honest. I think it's penance. It's penance.
00:58:30.300And my point is, in saying all that, is just to say that I think that one of the things that I
00:58:37.060can put on the list, right? So we don't want to be hypocrites and do everything that we
00:58:40.600just said not to do. But one thing that I would put on the list is this. In order to trust a
00:58:46.040pastor again, I feel like he has to repent. I feel like that's a fair thing to put on the list.
00:58:51.840And with repentance, yeah, you can get subjected. Well, what does it mean to repent? What does it
00:58:55.660look like? How do you outwardly observe somebody else's repentance? Well, the good works that are
00:59:03.480keeping with repentance, those might be different. The Holy Spirit is going to sovereignly ordain
00:59:07.920those things. But these are two good works. And I want to hear your thoughts. Two good works that
00:59:12.160I think are always going to be evident, going to be evidenced when someone repents.
00:59:19.580A change, repentance is to change, a change in their action and an acknowledgement of failure
00:59:26.000or sin in their word. Meaning that if I'm repenting, that means I'm changing. So I'm
00:59:32.520going to stop doing the thing that I'm repenting of. I'm going to stop sinning. And I think that
00:59:39.680repentance has to be in word and in deed. So I'm also going to, with everyone that I sinned against,
00:59:47.200I'm going to say, I'm sorry. I'm going to acknowledge. I'm actually going to acknowledge
00:59:53.220that I sinned. And one of the things that just drives me at the wall with pastors is pastors
00:59:59.260will change their position when they realize they were wrong and never, ever, ever admit it.
01:00:07.380And the problem is, it's like, well, you know, why does he have to admit it publicly? Because
01:00:10.700I'm talking about when a pastor sins publicly, if you shut down your church, you send, not just
01:00:16.660your sin was a public action, but it's also not just a public context that you send, but you send
01:00:24.180against the church so you you send against every member of that church by barring them from the
01:00:30.560lord jesus christ so you owe in my opinion every single member in that church an apology from
01:00:36.440robbing christ from them and disobeying god's word which means you can't just change your position
01:00:42.480in your actions and pretend like you never did that i don't know about you but i just feel like
01:00:49.040that's so common that i'm seeing guys they're coming around now and my the reason why i'm
01:00:53.700said about this is now that you and Harris and sovereign nations and founders and all these guys
01:00:59.120and Wilson are like, God is using this grassroots thing to blow off the lid, not just with COVID,
01:01:04.280but with the social justice thing. I'm worried, AD. I'm worried, brother, that we're going to win
01:01:09.960because Christ is going to win. But the moment we actually start winning, these guys are going to,
01:01:16.460they're just going to stop using that language, that critical race theory language. And they're
01:01:20.900going to and they're even going to start preaching different messages but they're and they're going
01:01:24.700to pretend like they were always on our side right like albert moeller's going to run out in front of
01:01:29.160the you know the conservative parade and act like he engineered it you know and yep and they're you
01:01:33.980know some of them are ideologues but some of them are opportunists and and with those guys um i feel
01:01:38.920like one of the requirements that i want to hold is um does he ever with his mouth say i was wrong
01:01:48.240yeah yeah that's right that's right well the thing about that is i understand that i i totally do i
01:01:54.560mean you know republicans have been getting away with this kind of thing for a long time in fact
01:01:58.680your governor i think today got away with something like this where you know he all of a sudden is
01:02:03.100no vaccine mandates after it's totally safe and everyone and the judges have all ruled you know
01:02:08.200he comes and rides those coattails really well anyway he just copies um de santis after he sees
01:02:16.080desantis take the risk and it pay off after it's worked yeah it's taking the risk and it's worked
01:02:20.720then he'll come on that's right but anyway um but yeah this is this is this is something but i think
01:02:25.600that the internet though is and the the the ease of information sharing that we have right now
01:02:32.520is gonna not it's gonna make it so that they can't get away with that anymore i mean they can change
01:02:37.900their messages all day but it's still it's like okay so let's talk about all this do you still
01:02:44.600believe all this because you could change your wording all day long, but we're not going to play
01:02:49.000that game anymore. We've, we've seen too much now. The genie's out of that bottle, you know,
01:02:53.380you can't unscramble that egg. So yeah, I hear you. I hear you. I think that the, you know,
01:02:57.800the requirement of admitting that you were wrong, I honestly don't even, I don't even hold that as
01:03:03.080a requirement. It's just basic repentance. It's like, you know, I was wrong. Like I didn't,
01:03:08.540I didn't do what I was supposed to do, or I did do something I wasn't supposed to do like that.
01:03:12.380It's got to start there, because if you're not even willing to say that and just you're going to pretend like it never happened, that's actually not repentance.
01:03:18.880Right. You know what I mean? That's not repentance. Exactly.
01:03:21.660Yeah. I don't feel like that's doing good works and keeping with repentance. Admitting that you're wrong is repentance.
01:03:26.320How do you repent without saying like you said, it was a sin that was very public against people.
01:03:32.600Like it wasn't like, you know, OK, well, I, you know, I cheated on my taxes, you know, you know, 10 years ago.
01:03:38.300and so like who do i repent to you know you're not going to call up uncle sam
01:03:41.920you know what i mean like they don't care they don't even they don't even know how to get their
01:03:45.560computers are from the 70s they probably don't even go back 10 years so it's like so it's like
01:03:49.380what do you do then well okay so then you don't cheat on your taxes anymore and just keep it to
01:03:53.040yourself i can understand someone that would want to do that right but when you're actually like
01:03:57.620there's people here that you borrowed from the table like you need to you need to admit that
01:04:02.980and i think so and here's another thing too just to add one more wrinkle you know just i know we're
01:04:07.560wrapping this conversation up. But, you know, if your pastor did this and closed for way too long
01:04:13.200and you talk to him and, you know, he's not convincing you, right? Like, in other words,
01:04:18.380you don't know that he's repented. Yes, he's doing the right thing now, but like, there's
01:04:22.820no indication that he understands what was wrong about it. Like, as a father, you know,
01:04:29.220you're actually completely within your, this is not tyranny to say, I don't trust this man. And
01:04:34.600And so I'm going to go find a church where I can trust the pastor because my
01:04:38.600family has a right to that table. You know what I mean?
01:04:42.240My family has the right to work, you know,
01:04:44.280even if you're Baptist and they're not baptized yet,
01:04:46.160like they have the right to worship with their friends and,
01:04:49.580and see the, the, the sacraments distributed rightly and,
01:04:53.740and things like that. Like they have that right. So as a father, you're,
01:04:57.040this is not about, you know, you know, you know, you're, you're,
01:05:00.300um, tyrannizing your pastor. No, no, you, you, you have responsibility for your family.
01:05:05.220That's right. That's right. No, I completely agree. And I just, yeah, I completely agree.
01:05:10.160And I, you know, I'm thinking back, remember, you know, when, when we closed our doors,
01:05:14.020I was in California at the time. So there was an added pressure and being a part of, you know,
01:05:17.300the Soviet state of California. And so, but I, you know, I put out, I remember so, so etched in
01:05:22.720my mind, I put out, cause I was like, I got to say something, you know, I got to announce that
01:05:26.520church is closed this sunday and i gotta say why and so i put out a 10 minute video and where i
01:05:32.740exegeted horrifically romans 13 i said this is why and i talked about how um you know people in
01:05:41.940america and uh and even christians uh we have a propensity towards being rebellious and so we
01:05:49.480want to be rebellious against the state you know and it was just i look back now and i'm ashamed
01:05:54.520of what i said and when we when i realized it took me about two weeks to realize that was wrong
01:05:59.900took me another two or three weeks to convince a majority of my elders i was never able to
01:06:04.680convince one of them but a majority of the elders to outvote the the tyrant and then you know and
01:06:10.500then we started having church again and that like the first sermon that i preached no it was the
01:06:15.680second sermon actually the second sermon that i preached to the church included a public apology
01:06:22.060and an explanation of why my previous exegesis of Romans 13 was unbiblical and then providing
01:06:31.080a new exegesis of Romans 13 and what it actually means with an apology for leading the church
01:06:39.420astray, for teaching falsely, teaching something that was wrong, and then allowing the fruit of
01:06:46.320that teaching in my own life to bar them from christ and to cancel the church you know and
01:06:52.360and my and my point is that i'm just like you say like these guys aren't going to get away with it0.96
01:07:00.420but i'm like i don't know man i'm just like i i don't know yeah people are dumb you know like
01:07:07.660or if people just want you know because i'm like when you know oh man i gotta be careful i've got
01:07:14.900a lot of optimism here because no yeah yeah you can just go ahead and stop right there no um no
01:07:20.400i get what you're saying though no i get what you're saying and i have a lot of optimism though
01:07:24.340because i think that you know as as you know and and this is not i'm not trying to be you know
01:07:29.960against you know the older generations and stuff like that i i have nothing but respect for the
01:07:34.620older generations but the thing is that the younger generations are are more into sort of like
01:07:40.480you know weirdos on youtube like me and you and stuff like that and so they're more willing to
01:07:47.560hear the non you know big conference speakers than i think some of the older generations are
01:07:52.000they're more comfortable with that um so i have a lot of optimism in the sense that like like god's
01:07:57.360going to use you know the internet in a way that's going to be very very powerful and it's going to
01:08:01.780be very hard to get away with these lies i think a lot of lies are being exposed for what they are
01:08:06.600these days you know i think you know i think back to the election and like there's some shenanigans
01:08:10.780going on there whatever you think about how legitimate the shenanigans are there's something
01:08:14.820going on that no question about it i think they've been doing this for decades but they've been just
01:08:19.780no one no one had any way to know but now it's like it's just exposed it's just it's hard to
01:08:25.360hide this stuff now so i have a lot of optimism in that way but i i understand your fear i get it
01:08:29.960it's, it's, it's not, uh, it's not easy, right. It's not easy to do. Um, but, um, there was
01:08:36.440something that you said that I wanted to comment on. Oh, um, what you said, by the way, about
01:08:42.180people in America, you know, having a tendency to rebel, that might be true. That might not be
01:08:47.020wrong, but, but the, but the truth is though, that in that moment, and I think we all kind of
01:08:51.320realized this, you know, maybe a month in, you said a couple of weeks, you know, a lot of us
01:08:54.980about a month in, we're like, there is some rebellion here, but it's not the rebellion we
01:08:59.300said was going on that's it's actually rebellion against god is what it is that's right that's
01:09:04.340right yeah no you're right absolutely right so yeah so i guess i don't know in summation i would
01:09:09.360say that you know if you're if your pastor if your pastor you know shut down for a couple weeks
01:09:15.420and what that's one thing but if you've had if your pastor shut down his church i'll say it like
01:09:19.860this if he's shut down his church more than once like reopened and then shut down again oh man yeah
01:09:26.500If he's shut down for months at a time, not weeks, but months at a time, even in the very beginning, if he has mandated mass, if he is prohibited, even if it's two services, but in one service he's prohibited singing, those are huge red flags.
01:09:44.580And so my question is, if he's not doing that now, okay, that means he's repented indeed.
01:10:19.660that you need to watch out for as well.
01:10:20.880because you what what you're basically saying is and I think what I was saying is that you need to
01:10:26.880start having some hard conversations with your pastors about all this and what they've done
01:10:34.080they've preempted this knowing this is coming and they started to write these poor me it's hard to0.98
01:10:39.400be a pastor I'm so discouraged articles like a bunch of whining little sissies about how COVID
01:10:45.360it's just so stressful and like now I gotta deal with this the Atlantic article that I did a six0.92
01:10:50.660part series on was just a big whining article. Eric Raymond for the gospel coalition is famous
01:10:55.680for these kinds of poor me. It's hard to be a pastor articles. And he wrote another one recently.
01:11:00.240We're so discouraged. And all of that is trying to bind your conscience that you're going to
01:11:05.680make your pastor's life difficult by asking him these hard and necessary questions.
01:11:10.900Don't fall for that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure their lives are difficult. Every pastor's life is
01:11:15.860difficult. Guess what? It's hard. You know, living as a Christian, it's not always easy,
01:11:19.620Right. We get that. So you don't want to like purposely seek to give your pastor grief, but don't let them trick you in saying you can't ask any questions because otherwise I'm going to be so discouraged.
01:11:32.340Right. Tough luck. It's hard to be a pastor. And you know what? If you did something that was sinful in this way, like like a lot of us did and not saying you're alone, you're going to have to deal with it.