The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Calling Out ＂WOKE＂ Preachers By Name!

00:00:00.000 Hi, this is Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to Theology

00:00:04.360 Applied. In today's episode, I was privileged to have as a special guest, John Harris. He hosts a

00:00:10.040 podcast called Conversations That Matter. He's also written a few books, and he's really

00:00:14.680 specialized. The Lord has used him uniquely in the area of calling out the social justice gospel for

00:00:20.440 the heresy that it actually is. And so this episode, we've titled Calling Out Woke Preachers

00:00:25.360 by name. John throws some names into the ring, and so do I. It's intense, but it's good. I hope

00:00:33.980 you enjoy. Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:00:46.320 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. As I've already said,

00:00:50.160 And my special guest is John Harris.

00:00:53.220 He has a podcast that I'm familiar with called Conversations That Matter that I've been listening to, especially over the last month.

00:01:00.900 And he's had a lot of great commentary in regards to social justice and also in regards to, well, really a lot of things just in the past few days regarding the jab or the point, you know, before you get the point.

00:01:15.720 So anyway, so that's been really helpful.

00:01:17.740 And so I'm grateful for his ministry.

00:01:19.080 and grateful for his teaching. John, welcome to the show. Please introduce yourself to our guest.

00:01:24.140 Yeah, thank you so much. Well, there's not much to say about me other than I guess I kind of came

00:01:31.260 to podcasting and writing without a plan to do so. It just kind of happened, and here I am. But

00:01:39.620 I was saved by grace at a young age. I grew up in upstate New York. My dad's a pastor,

00:01:44.520 and I went to seminary and while I was there I found out that the social justice movement was

00:01:53.040 taking a hold and it really was something that happened very quickly almost overnight

00:01:57.440 and it concerned me greatly. I had been at secular university and heard a lot of the same talking

00:02:03.100 points and now they're coming out of the mouth of seminary professors so that's what inspired me to

00:02:07.620 start talking about this issue. Um, but, uh, I consider myself, you know, a furniture, a pair

00:02:13.560 man, a hiker. Um, I don't know. I, uh, I love studying the word of God and preaching and, uh,

00:02:21.620 I love cycling. There's a lot, I guess I don't want to give you all my hobbies, but, um, all that to

00:02:26.220 say, um, it, it wasn't what I was planning, but it was what God has for me right now to focus on

00:02:32.260 And it's helped some people. So hopefully, you know, as we talk today, some people will be just edified by our conversation, and they'll get to understand maybe some of the errors of this teaching. And not a lot of people want to go talk about errors and make that, you know, a big part of their life. But for right now, that's been a major part of mine.

00:02:54.240 So. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll go ahead and just jump right in a little bit of context here for our listeners. I've already shared this with John through email, but part of the purpose in doing this is a few months ago, we did an episode with a special guest, Justin Peters, and Justin Peters brings all the boys to the yard, you know, calling out the prosperity gospel.

00:03:17.840 and we're grateful for Justin Peters and really the whole, you know,

00:03:20.880 MacArthur camp and those guys.

00:03:22.620 And I think back to their Strange Fire Conference,

00:03:25.360 and I think that's when Justin Peters really came on the scene.

00:03:27.780 Other guys like Todd Friel would kind of be in that camp

00:03:30.260 and grateful for the master's crew,

00:03:32.620 grateful for their work against the prosperity gospel.

00:03:36.300 And that's important.

00:03:38.140 But I know that John would agree,

00:03:40.680 because I've been following him for a while now,

00:03:42.960 that this social justice gospel, this woke-ology,

00:03:46.920 critical race theory, neo-Marxism, that it is a heresy, or at least the tenets of it by way of

00:03:54.440 implication, if you follow the logic through. The only way you cannot be a heretic is if you're

00:04:00.120 just theologically and logically inconsistent, which we pray that some of our brothers are and 0.99

00:04:04.480 that they come back around. But it lends towards heresy, and many have shipwrecked their faith

00:04:10.260 because of it, and it's perhaps, I think, more dangerous, and I know you think this also, John,

00:04:16.000 because of how subtle it's, it's subtle nature. It's not $76 billion jet planes. You know, I mean,

00:04:22.700 like some of these guys, Jesse Duplantis, I mean, you listen to some of the things they say,

00:04:28.020 you know, Creflo Dollar, and they, they literally sound like a, like a rapper. It's not hard to

00:04:32.560 discern that, you know, now still they've deceived millions of people. And so that ministry is

00:04:38.480 important. Um, but me and Justin, when we were doing our episode on calling out false teachers

00:04:43.280 and the prosperity guys, especially, particularly,

00:04:47.300 we stopped short intentionally.

00:04:49.320 Him and I both, we stopped short

00:04:51.120 from calling out some of the woke guys.

00:04:55.000 And I have felt a strong conviction

00:04:58.360 over the past few months,

00:04:59.520 and I wanted to share this with our listeners,

00:05:01.520 a strong conviction over the last few months

00:05:03.180 that we should not have stopped short

00:05:06.680 and that we should have called out

00:05:09.800 some of these woke pastors

00:05:12.200 by name. And, uh, I've listened to John Harris and I think he's, he's the man for the job. So I

00:05:18.120 wanted to invite him to help me on this episode, calling out woke preachers by name. So the first

00:05:22.380 thing that I wanted you to do for us, John, uh, because the thing that made me and Justin Peters,

00:05:26.780 I think stopped short and, and to alleviate Justin Peters of any guilt, he probably stopped

00:05:31.480 short because that's, that's what I kind of led in that particular episode us to do. And he was

00:05:36.500 probably just honoring me. But we did stop short. I take full responsibility for that. And so I'll

00:05:42.380 just speak for myself. The reason why I stopped short is because this idea of, I think a lot of

00:05:48.600 Christians think if we call someone out for being a false teacher, we are definitively saying that

00:05:54.400 they are unregenerate. And so my question to you, John, is this, is certainty regarding an individual 0.98

00:05:59.860 salvation a necessary prerequisite for acknowledging that individual as a false teacher?

00:06:06.500 yeah i don't think so um and i just want to say you know joel i appreciate what you just said i

00:06:13.260 mean it takes it takes humility to say hey you know what i probably messed this up or i could

00:06:17.920 have done better and uh i i do that all the time uh we all do and uh some of the one of the problems

00:06:24.560 right now in my opinion is um there's a lot of guys that are probably you know and hopefully

00:06:32.200 ignorant about the social justice movement. They bought into maybe certain aspects of it in some

00:06:37.180 ways, or they've introduced it into their church, but they're not willing to admit that they were

00:06:42.380 wrong. And so, and that's one of the main things that concerns me about guys who may even be

00:06:50.480 Orthodox Christians. But what I see in scripture is a, there's calling out a false teaching and

00:06:58.880 false teachers, because the concern is the church, it's the sheep, that they could be mauled by

00:07:03.760 wolves. I don't see that coupled anywhere with this prerequisite that you must know for certain

00:07:12.100 that they have a relationship with Jesus and are going to heaven. If you do call them out,

00:07:17.360 it doesn't necessarily mean that you're stating that they're going to spend all of eternity in

00:07:21.640 hell. Really, it's just, that's a completely different focus. And so I've taken the tact that

00:07:29.560 the teaching is what the problem, that's the problem. And that's what's shipwrecking people's

00:07:36.340 faith. So when a false teacher comes in and says something false, it's really not that hard. It's

00:07:41.620 not rocket science. False teaching means teaching that's false. And yeah, specifically teaching that

00:07:48.640 is related to core doctrines that we would consider fundamental to Christianity and the

00:07:55.980 gospel in particular. You mentioned the word heresy, which just means really schism. It's a

00:08:02.080 simple word, but I would say right now, what we see in the greater evangelical world is a schism.

00:08:07.280 And I don't think anyone would deny that there's a schism. It's obvious. So I, yeah, all that to

00:08:14.280 say, it doesn't have to get personal, but this is a tactic that's used. If you call out false

00:08:18.740 teaching and you say someone's promoting it, immediately there's an offense. Like you're

00:08:22.660 saying, I'm not saved. It's like, well, I'm not saying that, but now that you're so defensive

00:08:26.900 about it and you're unwilling to be corrected, well, now we're going through kind of a Matthew

00:08:30.980 18 process and maybe people are wondering whether you are. So that's kind of the long answer, but

00:08:37.400 yeah. No, that's super helpful. And I think part of what you're getting to right there at the end

00:08:41.300 of your answer is that another important factor that I think Christians need to be aware of is

00:08:45.900 we're not talking, right, this isn't 2017, 2016, so we're not talking about somebody who preached

00:08:52.380 one sermon on racial reconciliation that got a little bit into the weeds with some critical race

00:08:58.300 theory assumptions, and then we're calling them out on a podcast. No, we're talking about

00:09:06.640 we're talking about guys who for five years now, I mean, give or take, most of these guys that

00:09:12.800 we're going to be calling out by name in this episode, it's been five years. And John and I

00:09:18.180 both know firsthand that they have been corrected directly, just like Paul went to Peter to his

00:09:26.360 face. They have been corrected directly dozens of times. And there has not been repentance.

00:09:34.100 So we're not talking about 2017, somebody gets up, preaches a sermon on racial reconciliation that really wasn't true to biblical justice and was more so of a social justice, kind of whatever.

00:09:48.760 And, you know, just to be frank, I can't remember, but I probably said some things in 2017.

00:09:55.000 I was a part of the Acts 29 network.

00:09:57.120 I don't know if I told that to you, John, but I was a pastor in Acts 29.

00:10:01.000 and, you know, and, and I don't think I was ever drinking the Kool-Aid, uh, as, as much Kool-Aid

00:10:08.200 as they were pouring, you know, I mean, every conference was racial reconciliation and every

00:10:12.380 conference we're repenting corporate repentance for, and it, which is funny, you know, cause it's

00:10:16.500 like if every year you're repenting and then it's like the next year you're like, okay, now this,

00:10:21.700 this last year has been a year and we all repented last year. And to my knowledge, I cannot think of

00:10:27.700 one instance this last year since my last annual repentance of committing the sin of racism um

00:10:34.660 so why does doesn't my repentance from last year count or or is this not repentance are we doing

00:10:41.320 penance is this the vulgate are we you know what's going on here and um and it was frustrating and

00:10:46.780 eric mason he came out with his book woke church and um that and uh and and building animosity

00:10:53.740 between some of the guys in my area, Acts 29 pastors, because of my outspokenness against

00:10:59.640 the racial reconciliation, which nobody, I'm not against racial reconciliation, but the way,

00:11:06.480 what they meant by that term, and certainly Eric Mason's book, all that, you know, came to a head,

00:11:12.200 and anyways, I, you know, I was, I was warmly invited to leave, and I, you know, also decided

00:11:19.120 to leave. And so my point is, uh, we're not talking about, you know, a one-off we're talking

00:11:24.300 about, um, individuals who for years now in conferences, in pulpits, in local churches,

00:11:31.020 in articles and writings and books, um, have, have been going down this path. Uh, so it's not

00:11:38.000 just a mistake. It's not a mulligan. Um, and they have been corrected and they're refusing to,

00:11:43.680 to, to repent. And so John, do you have any thoughts on that? You want to add anything?

00:11:49.120 I think you're spot on, Joel. There's a few things that we could point to along the way that would have been like moments of dividing lines, I guess. One would be the MLK 50 conference in 2018. Then later that year, you had the T4G conference where David Platt got up and gave a horrific sermon on justice.

00:12:16.620 jose uh yeah yeah let justice roll down like waters and then and the church is guilty of

00:12:22.400 racism and the rest of it was just well racial disparities exist so therefore we're in sin

00:12:26.840 because um we somehow tolerate these disparities or something like that uh then you have um after

00:12:34.100 that the resolution nine uh that was passed in the southern baptist convention in 2000 um i guess

00:12:40.440 was that 19 now i'm losing track the years are going by so quick yeah i think so and uh and yeah

00:12:46.000 those were the three big ones. I mean, there,

00:12:48.180 there's a lot of little ones you can point to in there, but there was kind of,

00:12:52.920 you know, the Shepherds Q and a, right. That one.

00:12:55.640 Yeah. I was there in person. Yeah. In person.

00:12:58.480 And I remember when that happened, I mean, I, I was just like,

00:13:01.780 this is historic. Like something just happened here.

00:13:04.000 This was not just like this panel. They didn't, they,

00:13:07.720 they didn't mean for this to happen. Like they got heated. I mean,

00:13:10.920 Moeller was, he was angry. He was defensive.

00:13:13.100 um because it was just like what do you disagree with with this statement well i'm just not you

00:13:19.300 know i just don't really sign statements you know him and ligan and and mark dever guys who who i

00:13:24.260 have really really appreciated and still appreciate on on certain aspects and certain points um but

00:13:29.980 it was just it was like why did you not sign the statement um well i wouldn't have written it that

00:13:36.000 way okay could you give me one tangible example what's one portion of the statement that you you

00:13:41.760 maybe you didn't even disagree but you didn't like the wording and they couldn't cite one example

00:13:45.900 and so really what was what was not said but absolutely said was um we couldn't sign the

00:13:52.720 statement because there's something going on behind closed doors that if we signed you know

00:13:59.280 and it just and to thousands of people it was just that like like the cover was ripped off

00:14:05.360 And everyone got to see, and we were like, you know, everyone was shocked. Like Ligon Duncan, Mark Dever, and Albert Moeller, they won't do this. They will not do this because, not because they have a theological reason, not because there's actually something wrong in the statement, not because they disagree with it, not even because it's worded differently.

00:14:28.240 That's what they're saying, but they can't give one tangible example of something they would have worded differently.

00:14:32.500 It's because they don't want to be aligned with this crew because of the optics, because of how it's going to look.

00:14:41.940 And these are guys that I've always, you know, as a young pastor, especially when I was in California a couple years ago, I mean, that's one of the biggest thing any Christian, especially pastor, struggle with is the fear of man, the fear of man, the fear of man.

00:14:53.860 And so these are men that I look to as as titans of biblical examples of what it is not to bow the knee to the fear of man.

00:15:03.840 And I remember being so disappointed.

00:15:07.360 I don't know if you felt that that sense, John, or what would you take away from from that panel?

00:15:13.900 Do you remember?

00:15:15.240 Yeah, I remember it.

00:15:16.380 Yeah, I wasn't there in person.

00:15:18.460 I was actually I was driving back from Liberty University and I started getting all these texts.

00:15:23.860 and uh I watched it later that night and I was up late because then they

00:15:28.240 I think one of the things that led to it being so big even bigger was they removed it I think

00:15:34.560 that night it was like the one session they deleted and then everyone was like freaking out

00:15:39.740 and I don't know that that had anything to do with uh trying to hide it because they uploaded it

00:15:44.240 again but um I just remember thinking like this is I wasn't surprised so much about um

00:15:53.180 Lincoln Duncan I mean he wrote the forward to woke church I saw what he said at T4G and I knew it was

00:16:00.040 it was way off um Mark Dever I wasn't actually that surprised about either um Jonathan I know

00:16:07.260 Jonathan Lehman and Thabiti Anabwile are involved with nine marks and both of them I would say very

00:16:12.620 much in the social justice uh type of vein and then um but Al Mohler was the guy that I honestly

00:16:19.640 it was really just people were telling me that we're close to him. I mean, people that were

00:16:24.480 really close knew him for years. They were reaching out to me saying like, he's, he's

00:16:30.260 waffling on this. He's not going to come through. And I just really doubted it. I thought, no,

00:16:35.440 he's going to come through. He's conservative. He's, and then when I saw that, I realized

00:16:40.020 I don't think he's going to come through. So it was, it was kind of a, an awakening for a lot of

00:16:47.360 people. We realized, those who were paying attention at least to it, that some of the men

00:16:52.940 that we thought were very solid theologically and have some track records of being solid were not

00:16:58.360 going to stand up to the current threat, which is, I would say, worse in some ways than the

00:17:05.440 prosperity gospel, because it is a false gospel, just like the prosperity gospel, but it's more

00:17:12.160 subversive and it has a political dimension. And so it's very well funded. There's a lot of

00:17:17.920 interest in trying to persuade Christians to vote Democrat or to not vote Republican or to shift

00:17:24.740 them more in more progressive direction. And that's not coming from Christians. That's coming 0.91

00:17:29.220 from secularists who really wish they could get rid of all these nasty Trump voters and these

00:17:34.600 pro-life voters so there's an engine behind this thing uh that is you know has a vested interest

00:17:42.680 and that we don't see that as much with the prosperity gospel so yeah i mean i remember

00:17:47.860 even john oliver you know making fun of prosperity gospel guys on a late night show you know so

00:17:54.560 you're absolutely right because i know right so hollywood and and you know any any major corporate

00:18:02.600 I mean, whether it's big corporate or whether it's tech or whether it's, you know, the government, you know, and the civil magistrate, none of them are going to suppress a video that we do calling out Benny Hint.

00:18:15.100 Right?

00:18:15.560 They don't care.

00:18:16.380 They don't have a vested interest.

00:18:17.720 But when we start saying something about social justice and the welfare state and, you know, these kinds of – because really what we're doing is we're finally – and I think this is the problem.

00:18:31.420 But I think what we're finally doing is we're saying, hey, the scripture applies to more than just marriage conferences, parenting conferences, and how to run your church on Sunday morning.

00:18:43.080 Because that's what it's been in America for the longest time is home and church, home and church, home and church, as though that's all the Bible has to say.

00:18:50.000 And that's why I appreciate guys like Doug Wilson, who some guys really don't like.

00:18:54.640 And there's some doctrines that I would disagree with, but Doug Wilson, you know, he's got the serrated edge, you know, so he's got your sharp tone.

00:19:02.460 And a lot of people, you know, they'll say a theological thing, but really a lot of them just don't like the way he says things, his tone.

00:19:08.820 But I think he's been just on the money again and again and again when it comes to applying the scripture to every realm of life.

00:19:16.220 You know, their whole saying with his church in Moscow, Idaho is all of Christ for all of life, all of Christ for all of life.

00:19:23.040 And that doesn't mean that the Bible speaks, right? The perspicuity of scripture, which is an unclear word that means clarity, you know, but the clarity of scripture, it doesn't mean that all scripture is equally clear. So it doesn't mean that the Bible speaks to all of life with the same clarity. But what it does mean is that the principles, God's law and his gospel have application and implications beyond just Jesus, Lord of my heart.

00:19:48.860 And I think American evangelicalism has had this private lordship Christianity.

00:19:54.420 He's the lord of my sweet little heart, and he has something to say about how I parent my children, how I love my wife, and the church I go to on Sunday, and that's it.

00:20:05.780 And now all of a sudden, you've got guys speaking out like you and I in the political realm, economically, and all these different things with legislation.

00:20:14.780 and uh and you're right so that like the guys who the social justicians in the church they're

00:20:21.420 going to have the world on their side and and it's it's formidable yeah well some some of it

00:20:31.660 like in my case it's a counter reaction to social justice warriors that have stepped outside of that

00:20:38.920 formula of home and church and they've decided they're going to quote unquote engage culture

00:20:43.660 That's the term they often use. And what they meant by that, though, was they're going to put a Christian veneer on progressive politics.

00:20:51.500 And the counter reaction has been, I think, a rediscovery for many people of the really thousands of years of Christian tradition and, of course, coming from biblical principles, but developed over time by a lot of people, a lot of smart people, people that thought deeply about the government.

00:21:14.160 I mean, John Calvin, even if you look at I mean, we're reformed guys here. So if you look back at the institutes, I mean, he has a whole chapter on the civil magistrate and thinks very highly of the civil magistrate and is very thoughtful about what that role is.

00:21:31.500 And we've had development in different regions and different traditions, but all Christian over thousands of years and centuries, and in our context, the English common law, very influenced by Christianity.

00:21:47.160 And so, and that influenced our founding documents and where we are today.

00:21:51.660 And so I think the social justice brand of Christianity ignores all of that.

00:21:56.620 They, they don't, they really just want to cherry pick a few scriptures, you know, let justice roll down like waters, you know, revelation is justice. What is justice, right? They never do. Yeah, they just assume the world's definition of these things. Revelation seven, look, every tribe, tongue and nation. So that means egalitarian equality and equity and diversity. And it's like, well, that that's not in the passage, but they just assume these things and press them into scripture.

00:22:24.500 I'm actually reading a book right now by a social justice warrior in the church.

00:22:30.240 And she makes this this whole her whole entire book is premised on Genesis one and two.

00:22:37.360 It's called The Very Good Gospel.

00:22:39.260 And it's like every time she goes to reference Genesis one and two, I'm like, that's not what it means there.

00:22:44.900 But she's got a pre-written script. 0.84

00:22:47.100 And then we'll put a little Christian veneer over it and make sure and hope that the Christians don't actually like look into it too deeply. 0.66

00:22:54.060 So they just kind of accept it. And that'll ingratiate us to the world. That'll make us hip and cool. 0.69

00:23:00.260 You know, they'll think that we're allies with them and they're not going to come and persecute us.

00:23:04.460 And, you know, like they want to do, they'll realize, no, we're actually on their side of this.

00:23:09.720 And I think that's a lot of the motivation behind it.

00:23:13.400 So I agree. I agree. I think part of the problem also is, you know, so just law and gospel, law and gospel.

00:23:19.540 And I think, you know, so the privatized lordship of Christ where he's Lord only of my heart, right?

00:23:24.640 That Jesus doesn't actually want anything beyond my, you know, this private relationship with Jesus and home and church, home and church.

00:23:31.820 There's that.

00:23:32.540 But then I think there's also in terms of the law of God, there's such an aversion in evangelicals to the law of God, right?

00:23:40.280 And anything that you start talking about obedience and immediately people think legalism or they think prosperity gospel.

00:23:46.700 like all the time I tell my church obedience brings blessing that's not the prosperity gospel

00:23:51.680 right so if I teach my kids hey every single day if you buy a lottery ticket you're gonna win

00:23:56.580 you're going to win eventually and it'll probably only take a week or two you're going to win you're

00:24:01.120 gonna be filthy rich that would be the equivalent of the prosperity gospel but if I teach my kids

00:24:05.000 hey if you get an education you work really really hard at a trade and you're faithful

00:24:09.220 and you don't get pregnant out of wedlock and you don't get into absurd debt then ordinarily

00:24:16.680 ordinarily, God is sovereign, and tragedy hits, you could get cancer, but ordinarily,

00:24:21.720 by the end of your life, you'll be reasonably wealthy. That's not the prosperity gospel.

00:24:27.220 That's called logic. That's just obedience brings blessing. Or the blessing of, if I keep my

00:24:31.840 wedding vows, which would be obedience to God's law, thou shall not commit adultery,

00:24:37.440 my children will be better off than if I was an adulterer. That's obedience bringing blessing.

00:24:45.200 And I think that just, you talk about the law of God, you talk about obedience, and the blessing that comes by obedience, and the imperative of obedience, and Christians immediately just start saying, legalism, legalism, just give me the gospel, give me the gospel, as though God's law has no bearing on the life of the New Testament Christian.

00:25:04.540 And I think, I'd like to hear your response to this, but I think part of that is because we have had historically such a wonderful nation with such just laws that the church kind of, you know, the church was able to say, you know, we don't really have to say a whole lot when it comes to justice in our nation because the civil magistrate is doing, in general, a pretty decent job.

00:25:31.300 And so I know the church's job is primarily grace and sacrament, or the ordinances, you know, and to the sword, the sword has been given to the state, not to the church.

00:25:43.100 But I think the church has a prophetic role in holding the state accountable to wield the sword justly according to, by what standard, by God's standard.

00:25:53.860 And I think the church has just kind of conceded and given up that role because I think we've gotten apathetic because we've had – the state has historically done a decent job in America with legislation, with justice, with those kinds of things.

00:26:09.120 And then it just got way off track, and then the church had lost its edge, so to speak, in terms of understanding biblical justice, understanding politics, understanding the law of God and its implications.

00:26:22.480 or like the 1689 talks about even the civil law having a general equity right that's what paul

00:26:28.080 does when he says don't muzzle the ox while it treads the grain he's saying all right if you

00:26:31.600 muzzle your ox while it's treading the grain as a new testament christian that's that's really just 0.67

00:26:37.160 it's foolish but it doesn't necessarily it's not necessarily a sin but it's foolish but here's the 0.91

00:26:42.200 general equity let's apply it to paying a pastor a wage and so even the civil law like whether it 0.98

00:26:48.120 be a precipice on on the roof you know like you could you could say well that's uh speed limits

00:26:52.380 and seat belts or what however you would but there's a general equity and i think christians

00:26:56.140 have just they've gotten rid of the ten commandments even and and even more so civil

00:27:01.240 laws and and general equity and all the just as though that hasn't that's all legalism that's all

00:27:08.160 irrelevant and now and now the state has shifted from justice you know to social justice which is

00:27:16.280 not justice and the church uh is is just is just biblically dull and and not prepared to

00:27:23.740 to to uh to speak out what do you do would you agree with that or could you add some stuff to

00:27:29.640 that yeah no all great points joel um yeah so historically in america uh i think because it

00:27:38.660 has been such a christianized country and most of the people coming uh even if they were a different

00:27:45.140 variety. I mean, you had, um, you know, within that big tent of Christendom, you had Catholics

00:27:49.860 and Quakers as well, but everyone had a general respect for the Bible and, uh, for the virtues

00:27:56.680 expressed in it and those applied to the civil government. And so when you have a country that

00:28:02.000 starts out with seven of 13 of its states are basically theocracies, uh, in, in the modern

00:28:07.940 parlance, they would have at least called them that they would have, uh, required some kind of

00:28:12.200 a religious test to even hold office. You can trace kind of this secular slide that's happened

00:28:19.640 over the course of the last 250 years. And we're to the point now where the church is kind of like

00:28:26.480 in a bunker. Christians who actually take the Bible seriously are the kooks now, and they're 0.96

00:28:34.880 very sensitive to that, I think. They don't want to be thought of in a negative light, but they

00:28:40.160 know they are. And they're feeling more and more like they're kind of a minority. And even though

00:28:45.260 maybe there's a general respect for the Bible, it's nothing like the way that people hundreds

00:28:52.760 of years ago respected it. So today, I think Christians who are trying to grope for some 1.00

00:28:59.140 kind of irrelevance are using the social justice movement as that opportunity. Lincoln Duncan even 0.94

00:29:05.060 kind of said as much in that Shepard's Q&A when he talked about his grandchildren and how he wanted

00:29:10.400 them to not be courted into the arms of the LGBTQ lobby. And the price he had to pay was to get woke 0.89

00:29:20.780 on race. If he got woke on the race issue, maybe they wouldn't go that far. So you can already see

00:29:26.780 this calculation going in his mind. Please like me. Please like Christianity. And if you think

00:29:33.020 that we're you know kind of uh hip and cool and with the revolution that's going to overturn

00:29:38.580 society and create a utopia maybe you'll like us and so um i think christians have forgotten

00:29:44.120 largely kind of like i said before there's thousands of years of tradition and uh the

00:29:50.520 scripture has been applied in many different contexts to to the political realm but christians

00:29:54.920 have largely forgotten about that and and i think you're right they haven't had to think about it

00:29:58.980 deeply. Most of the people that got elected to the office claimed to be Christian or were trying

00:30:05.060 in some way, or they pretended to try to apply some form of Christianity. And so it just wasn't

00:30:12.140 something the church needed to get involved with. Everyone knew the Bible stories. Everyone had

00:30:16.540 their basic virtues kind of formed in them when they were young in Sunday school and that kind

00:30:24.680 of thing. So now we're to a point where the church is like, the leaders in the church are

00:30:30.420 like, that's not true anymore. And we never, we kind of got lazy. We didn't, we haven't developed

00:30:37.780 at least recently. I shouldn't say we haven't developed. We haven't recently applied. We're

00:30:43.360 not used to applying the standards that we've been given to the current context. And so I'm

00:30:50.380 encouraged uh there's a lot of people like yourself um who are we're actually doing that

00:30:56.160 now and we're just bypassing the evangelicals who would rather um gain merit from the state and

00:31:04.560 uh try to be liked by them uh we're concerned about being liked by god because he's the only

00:31:10.380 one that we are required to please so right and and in god's merciful providence you know you said

00:31:16.680 were bypassing some of the, you know, we could call them gatekeepers in the past with evangelicalism.

00:31:22.360 In God's merciful providence, I think of 500 years ago with the Reformation, it's not just that,

00:31:27.360 you know, God put a fire in Luther, you know, to stand up to Roman Catholicism in his day. But

00:31:34.020 at the same time, providentially, there was also this little thing called the printing press,

00:31:39.180 you know, and it's funny how God and his sovereignty sometimes couples reformation

00:31:42.600 the church with innovation um in the culture and in technology and i and i think of how merciful it

00:31:49.540 is um of the lord uh as the church is is is going a direction that you and i would have some some

00:31:56.880 serious concerns about um but for the lord uh simultaneously um to with with the internet and

00:32:05.020 social media and what we're doing right now with where you can just you can sit in a bedroom with

00:32:09.420 your phone, you know, and be able to be heard by thousands of people. And I just think what

00:32:15.580 merciful providence of the Lord at a time when the church is, you know, so like when Rome's

00:32:21.100 ramping up indulgences, God not only, you know, puts conviction in the mind and heart of a reformer

00:32:28.260 to stand against it, but he also provides the technical, technological, I should say,

00:32:33.960 means in order to spread that reformation. And I see something similar occurring in our day.

00:32:42.000 It's a scary, but also really exciting time to be a Christian.

00:32:48.380 Oh, yeah. There's a lot of negative things we could focus on, but hey, we get to live at a very

00:32:54.120 important time in human history. And we're going to be able, hopefully, if we aren't persecuted

00:33:00.380 to the point of dying or something, we'll be able to tell our kids and grandkids, you know, about

00:33:04.140 when we stood and that kind of thing. So this isn't time to shirk away from battle. But one

00:33:10.520 of the things and I don't know if you were going to get here. And if I'm going premature with this,

00:33:14.000 you just let me know. But I as I think you wanted to talk about kind of the social justice gospel

00:33:21.840 and that the whole social justice panoply and why it's heretical and some of the names of the

00:33:27.500 false teachers so i can you know if you want to probe any of these things we can do that but i'll

00:33:33.320 just briefly if you want go through why i think it's a heresy or or a false teaching is the word

00:33:39.040 i usually use so um so most of your listeners probably i'm guessing here would be uh have no

00:33:46.540 problem saying prosperity gospel hey that's that's wrong that's a false gospel i want them to think

00:33:51.780 though for a moment about you know joel osteen for a minute let's say the first time joel osteen

00:33:57.000 let's say, gave an off-color message where he's just kind of like, you know, there's something

00:34:01.980 just off about that. Think of yourself, if you didn't know anything more about Joel Osteen,

00:34:07.660 you just heard that one message, what would you have done if you were sitting in the audience

00:34:11.640 or if you had the opportunity to talk to him? You probably would think you'd want to give him

00:34:17.200 the benefit of the doubt at first. Well, maybe he's just talking about God's blessing, but he

00:34:22.240 went a little too far there, almost acting like it's guaranteed. Let me talk to him. Let's figure

00:34:29.240 out what he's actually getting at. And I think that would be the appropriate, instead of denouncing

00:34:35.780 him as a heretic at first, I think that would be the appropriate posture. And I think all of us

00:34:39.860 have tried to do that with the social justice movement. Most of us, I should say, who are

00:34:44.560 trying to engage this. When we see someone say something off, we want to engage it. But over

00:34:51.060 time like you said at the beginning there's been repetition there's been confrontation there's been

00:34:55.400 reject rejecting that confrontation and i think it starts out kind of like paul confronting peter

00:35:02.020 and and all it really takes it doesn't even take false teaching this is really key all it really

00:35:06.940 takes is being unclear about the gospel that's all that's all peter was doing paul said he was being

00:35:12.980 unclear about the gospel he was sitting in a place that his actions were saying do you agree with

00:35:19.780 these judaizers because that's what it looks like and that's all it took for him to oppose him to

00:35:23.720 his face and so there's nothing wrong with doing that so that's that's the first thing i just wanted 1.00

00:35:29.680 to say is even if this what i'm about to describe is a slight infraction which i don't think it is

00:35:34.480 there is um precedent for confronting that so the issue with the social justice stuff there's a few

00:35:41.560 things but number one it's a different epistemology meaning their idea of truth and how you find truth

00:35:47.200 and what truth is. They believe that they're postmodernists. They have a version of usually

00:35:52.100 standpoint epistemology where someone has a greater insight into reality because of their

00:35:57.320 social location. So that would mean some external feature like their race or their gender or

00:36:02.540 something like their sexual orientation. They have access to truth that we don't have. That's

00:36:08.400 just like Gnosticism. And it's solely based on their identity. It's not based on what scripture

00:36:15.140 says, everyone has access to the Bible and to the truth. Approved workmen, you need not be ashamed.

00:36:21.480 The Brians studied the scripture. It takes work. It takes digging a bit, but it's not, no one's 0.64

00:36:29.100 prohibited because of their social location from understanding scripture. You might have to learn

00:36:33.660 a language, you know, that kind of thing. But it's not like there's a wall that they're going

00:36:37.960 to hit and they just can't go past it because they're a white male or, you know, they're a 0.81

00:36:43.140 black female or whatever the case may be so that's number one um that destroys revelation you can't 0.91

00:36:49.220 have a revelation that you can rely upon if standpoint epistemology is true um the second

00:36:54.620 thing is um the the metaphysic of social justice so their theory of reality social justicians kind

00:37:01.360 of look at reality and they see one thing they see oppressors they see oppressed they have very firm

00:37:07.080 designations for those classes and all of reality becomes one thing that's why racism is like on the

00:37:12.380 mcdonald's menu right it's everything's racist uh you walk into a room you know like the cops do

00:37:18.040 look at the crime scene with the flashlight that that can show blood and it's like everything's

00:37:23.020 blood and that's just an inaccurate reading of reality itself and and the creation god's given

00:37:29.600 us he's given us five senses um he's given us a mind that can think and reality is made up of a

00:37:35.180 lot more than just power. We're just oppression. There's a fuller spectrum that the Bible conveys

00:37:43.400 to us about what reality actually is. So that's the second thing. Third thing is their ethics.

00:37:47.920 Their ethics are redistributive. They're egalitarian instead of distributive and

00:37:56.080 hierarchical. So scripture presents hierarchies. God's even woven some of them into creation.

00:38:02.920 when there's an unjust hierarchy there's a there's a way to deal with it and it's not revolution it's

00:38:08.180 reformation and um primarily i will get more into that if we want but uh broad painting with broad

00:38:14.920 strokes that's what scripture teaches and um and then justice is blind justice you don't treat

00:38:21.540 someone differently just because of some external feature or how it will benefit you or they're your

00:38:26.320 cousin or they're poor and you have compassion you you apply the law evenly and so that's biblical

00:38:31.840 justice. Social justice is you account for disparities. So you actually have to be racist

00:38:37.800 or have to be sexist to apply it in the way they actually want to apply it. So those are some of

00:38:44.080 the big things. And then one last thing, and then I know you probably have a point to make, but

00:38:50.040 their gospel, their gospel that they give us when it's syncretized with Christianity is completely

00:38:58.740 antithetical to the Christian gospel. And it's just like the prosperity gospel, except

00:39:04.060 instead of an individual getting rich and that being the point, the gospel becomes an engine

00:39:09.580 for egalitarian social change. So it's all of society gets better. All of society is going to

00:39:15.000 prosper and you're going to have a utopia if everyone just gets together corporately and does

00:39:19.360 this thing. And oftentimes it comes across just like the Galatian heresy. So gospel issue, you'll

00:39:26.060 hear that term a lot, or gospel above all, or the just gospel conferences. In fact, in the book,

00:39:32.880 it's not out yet, but I just wrote it, and it'll probably come out in about a month.

00:39:36.500 I have a whole chapter on this, and I just go quote after quote of guys like Russell Moore,

00:39:42.600 and Matt Chandler, and David Platt, and a lot of these guys, and where they talk about the gospel,

00:39:48.520 and then they smuggle works in. There's some kind of a law that you have to follow,

00:39:52.300 and that's the gospel and the gospel and the law are two separate categories so um paul would

00:39:59.520 enantimatize the social justice gospel and he would be calling out today russell moore david

00:40:05.460 platt the bd anabwile tim keller uh the list goes on and on he would call them out and he would say

00:40:11.680 this is false and the guys that like al moeller uh who um you know maybe there's actually some

00:40:18.860 things I could argue that Al Mohler might be on more on their vein, but best case scenario,

00:40:24.060 someone like an Al Mohler, uh, would it be like a Peter who's like, you're being confusing here,

00:40:28.920 man. You're being unclear about the gospel. Why are you eating with them? You know? So,

00:40:33.680 um, that's really fair. A lot of guys with Mohler, just real quick to interrupt,

00:40:37.660 but yeah, please with Mohler. Cause, cause if you listen to the briefing, I mean,

00:40:40.780 most of the briefing, I really agree. Although the one thing with the briefing is sometimes I'm

00:40:44.140 like, Hey, you know, like I'm, I'm all for ending abortion, but, um, there's some other stories

00:40:49.280 that I feel like you're not hitting on purpose, uh, to stick to, you know, but so it's not even

00:40:54.540 what he says. It's, it's what, what he chooses to talk about. But anyways, the point is when you

00:40:59.120 think of Southern seminary and you think of guys on staff and you think of books on the shelf,

00:41:02.840 you know, and I've talked, talked to guys, uh, seminary students and those kinds of things.

00:41:07.100 It's, um, I think Michael O'Fallon described it as the Mott and Bailey. Could you, could you

00:41:11.680 explain that uh briefly are you familiar with the mott and bailey strategy of just did you hear did

00:41:16.680 you hear michael yeah talk about that yeah yeah well um i'm not sure who came up with that

00:41:22.000 originally i think james lindsey told me about it a few years ago uh and he so it's just like a

00:41:27.560 trojan horse that's that's the analogy i usually use but the mott and bailey is like uh the mott

00:41:32.220 is in a field and that's where people it's like you go into the tower and you defend yourself and 0.99

00:41:37.900 then the bailey's you come out i guess and so um they all right so like a term like black lives

00:41:45.280 matter would be a montan bailey type term where of course like does anyone disagree with that right

00:41:50.400 black lives matter everyone agrees with black lives matter and so but the but what they're 0.80

00:41:55.660 smuggling into it um when you're not looking when you're not paying attention is okay now you have 0.85

00:42:02.100 to listen to black voices and do whatever they say and it's only these approved voices who by 0.81

00:42:07.260 the way are socialists and they're going to tell you how to redistribute your platforms and your 0.93

00:42:10.360 income and your influence and all that so like that that that somehow that's what black lives

00:42:15.700 matter is and you're like wait a minute hold on like i just think they have intrinsic work

00:42:20.340 and so um that's often how the social justice movement progresses by these very simple obvious

00:42:26.580 truths that no one disagrees with but then they smuggle into them all these other uh terms and

00:42:33.120 assumptions and then they vilify you if you disagree with any of those assumptions and they 0.83

00:42:38.140 say well you you clearly then don't believe black lives matter if you're not willing to give up all

00:42:42.400 your income or something so um so the mot the mot is like the fortress the bailey is like where all

00:42:49.360 the serfs are and all your agriculture and crops and the village and so so basically the bailey is

00:42:54.800 like we're advancing we're taking ground we're we have an agenda a very progressive aggressive

00:43:01.500 agenda and we're pushing this and we're pushing that we're talking about reparations you know

00:43:06.220 but then the mot is like your your fortress where whenever you're being countered with an argument

00:43:11.720 um the mot is the more easily defensible portion of of your your position and so it's like you're

00:43:19.020 out there on the bailey you know boom expanding expanding expanding going for reparations going

00:43:24.200 for critical race theory going for this going for that and then and then somebody calls you on it

00:43:29.300 And we see this within evangelicalism, and Michael O'Fallon at least said that Mulder may be an example of it.

00:43:35.680 That's not fair.

00:43:36.480 If Michael O'Fallon was listening to this, he would say, no, he is an example of it.

00:43:39.980 But the point is, to be fair to Michael O'Fallon, he would say he is an example of it.

00:43:43.260 But the point is that you press somebody like Mulder, and then boom, they can go back and retreat exactly what you're saying, John, into the easily defensible mot, the strong tower, and say, look, all I'm saying is that black lives matter. 0.87

00:43:57.860 Are you going to disagree with that? 0.63

00:43:59.700 Well, I'll show you what I'll share a personal story with you about Danny Akin.

00:44:04.680 I had a 45 minute phone call with him about a year and a half, maybe two years ago.

00:44:08.820 Now, I don't remember now, but it was a little while ago, but it was all about Southeastern,

00:44:13.480 which is where I graduated from.

00:44:15.080 And and he did this throughout the entire conversation, basically.

00:44:19.240 It's like, all right, Dr. Akin, you have a professor there, Matthew Mullins.

00:44:24.200 He said that if you are white, you should not adopt a black child because you won't be able to give them the life that they they should deserve and that they need.

00:44:34.180 And there's there's a lot of assumptions behind this. And, you know, and and then what what he did was, well, you know, we just we just believe in diversity here at Southeastern.

00:44:47.060 We just believe that people should be accepted and included. And that's the kind of thing throughout the conversation I kept running into is I cite a specific example of something. Okay, you know, Walter Strickland said this, he conflated the law in the gospel and was a social justice version of the law. That's liberation theology.

00:45:06.400 well what he was really trying to say is that we we just need a world where you know that that that

00:45:14.120 kind of thing and so that's the mutton bailey where it's like you never can quite you can't

00:45:18.900 pin jello to the wall you can never quite understand or they'll never they'll never give

00:45:22.840 you the right to think that you've understood them they'll always say what we're really trying

00:45:26.920 to do is something that everyone already agrees on we just want to fight racism here we we just

00:45:31.840 don't want women to be oppressed it's like yeah but you said something that you're saying that

00:45:37.000 women should be preachers no we just don't want them to be oppressed so and then what happens is

00:45:42.020 for any onlooker so for any any third party right so you they do something that's on the bailey it's

00:45:48.720 aggressive it's it's crt it's reparations it's neo-marxism i mean it's it's socialism it's

00:45:54.560 communism it's it's way out there it's clearly against god's word you call them on it right so

00:45:59.540 then your conservative christians with a spine the biblical biblical justicians we call them on it

00:46:06.220 and then boom they they retreat back to the mott and say look all we're saying is it

00:46:12.740 some simple cliche thing that everyone and that's just that's just you and them but there's this

00:46:19.000 third party watching and what it looks like to the third party is we're being we're being harsh

00:46:24.620 right isn't that isn't that the play again and again and again well okay but john your tone

00:46:31.160 though you know or you know and it's just in that 11th commandment is the 11th commandment is strong

00:46:37.600 with you young padawan you know like it's just like this thou shalt be nice um and all of a

00:46:43.140 sudden it's more important the bible does care about what we say right we want to rebuke i think

00:46:47.740 of paul's admonition you know rebuke your opponents with gentleness not knowing if god might grant to

00:46:52.000 them repentance um that they may that they may turn um and we always forget the last part where

00:46:57.300 it says after having been taken captive by satan to do his will right so they've been right so our

00:47:03.600 battle is not against flesh and blood however it's against principalities however the one who

00:47:08.300 we are battling with does take flesh and blood captive to do his will and so that doesn't mean

00:47:14.360 we pick up a sword and we slice down flesh and blood but but we do pick up a sword a double-edged

00:47:19.060 sword sharper than a double-edged sword the word of god and we demolish strongholds and

00:47:23.740 vain philosophy and every empty lofty opinion that sets itself over christ and uh and it's not

00:47:30.700 i mean that imagery is not a sugar and spice everything nice you know mr rogers imagery it's

00:47:39.060 it it is a it's warfare and and it's supposed to be warfare and and and so and i i can't help but

00:47:46.180 think, I really think that part of it, see, this is what I think, give it five years, right? If

00:47:51.780 things continue to go the way they are in the church and in our nation, in five years, I think

00:47:57.320 a lot of guys who called people like you, John, and me, and Votie Bauckham, you know, and Michael 0.59

00:48:03.060 O'Fallon, these kinds of guys, a lot of the Christians who genuinely are, we don't know,

00:48:07.540 we don't have election goggles, but let's say five years from now, let's just say they truly

00:48:11.060 were regenerate. I think a lot of those guys who were calling us harsh today and a couple of years

00:48:15.380 ago, in five years, if God doesn't send serious reformation to our nation and to the evangelical

00:48:22.420 church, in five years, I think they'll be saying the same things. And so my point is, the difference

00:48:28.680 is, it's not that objectively, what we're saying, or even how we're saying it, is objectively harsh

00:48:35.900 by biblical categories. The reason why it's perceived as harsh is because we have the majority

00:48:41.320 of Christians in the church today who don't realize we're at war so so when when you shoot

00:48:47.120 when the enemy is storming the camp and you pick up your rifle and you see them right like like

00:48:52.700 like Elijah's servant you know um or Elisha's servant and you see just this just multitudes

00:48:58.780 and they're storming the camp and and you scramble and grab your gun and pick it up and and boom you

00:49:04.540 pop one in the head you will immediately be indicted and accused of being harsh if

00:49:11.180 if the three comrades that you're sitting with having a picnic with if they're so blind and so

00:49:18.280 deaf that they they that they have no awareness whatsoever that the camp is being stormed they're

00:49:23.600 like dude we're out here having a picnic you just picked up a gun and popped off around what are you

00:49:29.740 like you're reckless you're harsh you're you're you're immature there's still a lot of youthful

00:49:36.460 angst and zeal in you that needs to get worked out you know with maturity over time maybe

00:49:41.620 maybe you're not ready to be a pastor maybe like and that's what you hear and that's what you hear

00:49:45.600 and that's what and i like that illustration because i think it rings true i think that

00:49:48.620 it's not that in clear objective categories we are missing the fruit of the spirit that is

00:49:53.080 gentleness or we are actually engaging in harsh rhetoric that would be a sinful harshness um it's

00:49:59.420 it's that we are using biblically permissible language so it's not just what we're saying is

00:50:04.420 true theologically i believe in many cases even how we're saying it does fit biblical qualifications

00:50:11.280 for um for the fruit of the spirit for godly character not just in what we say our content

00:50:17.380 but in how we say it our tone and yet it's being it's being condemned again and again and again

00:50:23.240 because number one the content they have no refutation for because it's true and and so

00:50:29.160 it's easier to condemn the man than the message when the message is true and and then in terms of

00:50:34.160 the man i think one of the reasons the man is being written off in terms of well it's not what

00:50:38.240 you said it's how you said it it's your tone is because not because he's objectively doing

00:50:43.560 something sinful but because we we are we're we're watchmen on the wall saying that the enemy

00:50:50.260 is at the gate and the whole town is having a picnic and don't want to be interrupted and none

00:50:56.120 of them can see the flames yeah that's excellent that's excellent you know what i mean and so

00:51:00.560 what are you doing you're ringing bells you're blowing horns you're shouting sit down peace

00:51:07.720 peace when there is no peace yeah right and a few years from now when they break through the walls

00:51:12.320 and god forbid maybe not but but if things continue and they break through the walls

00:51:17.580 And all of a sudden the evangelical church can see them, you know, well, that's already happened. I think, yeah, you're right. That's already happening. I mean, we have, there's a seminary that has not made it public yet. That's going to be trying to it's in North Carolina. I'll say that much.

00:51:36.220 And they're going to try to sue the federal government, essentially, because of the directives coming down from the Biden administration on gender rules and that kind of thing, that they just they can't have their statement of faith and abide by those rules, especially when it comes to dorms and those kinds of things.

00:51:56.040 i know publicly now there's um there i can't remember the name of it there's a bible college

00:52:01.760 i was just looking at it ozark bible college or bible college of the ozark something like that

00:52:06.820 i think but they they were also challenging it but in both cases they did not know of any other

00:52:12.620 bible schools or seminaries or christian institutions willing to challenge it with

00:52:18.720 them and so we have a situation where um the the christians for some reason think that if they 0.89

00:52:28.240 whistle past the graveyard it's all going to be okay and we'll make it through and uh there's

00:52:33.200 light at the end of the tunnel and that's just not the case you're going to have to fight these 0.62

00:52:37.340 things and uh being woke on blm is not going to save you when the the gender police come to your 1.00

00:52:45.200 door, right? One of the things I think, and we're seeing this with COVID as well, and we're seeing

00:52:52.780 this in a whole bunch of categories, actually, if you think about it, is this kind of blind trust

00:52:57.820 of authority. No matter how many times egalitarians who hate hierarchy say they want to rip down

00:53:04.560 hierarchy and they hate hierarchy, hierarchy is inescapable. And even if it's unspoken, there

00:53:09.680 will always be a pecking order. There will always be a hierarchy of some kind. So right now we see

00:53:14.340 with this kind of uh the tyranny of the lab coats you have a lab coat and the government's

00:53:19.400 authorization then you're you're basically you have authority that is approaching divinity you're

00:53:25.580 infallible you have pure is the driven snow goodness i mean you have all and you're unelected

00:53:32.140 you're yeah dr fauci you're talking about an unelected official who's made it through what

00:53:36.060 five i think five presidencies and you're talking about like a 40-year reign without ever having

00:53:43.420 been elected i mean that's that's way more power than the president you see that this my point is

00:53:48.820 you see the same thing though in the church you see that we we can say all day like we believe in

00:53:53.700 the autonomy of the local church if we're baptists we believe um if you're presbyterian you believe

00:53:58.460 in the presbytery but in in either case there's something else going on and i've seen this

00:54:03.680 almost across the board there's there's a model that's not being talked about because it's not

00:54:09.900 really defined, but there's kind of like this celebrity pastor kind of technical. I don't know

00:54:15.840 what you even how to even describe it, but there's people in positions of authority and it's, it's

00:54:22.200 very disrespectful in many people's minds to say anything bad about, you know, JD Greer or David

00:54:27.800 Platt or any of these guys, but they're not my pastor. They're not, you know, what, what authority

00:54:33.900 do they actually have? Well, all, all they are is they have a local church and they're a pastor

00:54:39.520 there. And so there's no reason that they can't be challenged, but there's an unspoken kind of

00:54:45.620 like, well, they're the experts because clearly why, because they have a good social media presence

00:54:50.080 because that's what I'm saying. That's what I was saying earlier about the gatekeepers. I think

00:54:54.280 there have been gatekeepers for a while now. And I don't know how exactly what you're saying. I,

00:54:58.500 I don't have a whole lot of answers because I don't, I also don't know how, how they got elected,

00:55:02.780 how they got, how this oligarchy within evangelicalism was formed. But what you're

00:55:08.100 saying is it's real it exists right it's kind of you know like that touch not the lord's anointed

00:55:12.720 like what we would you know what the what the prosperity guys would say you know now i mean

00:55:17.200 obviously it's a little bit different to be fair but you know but um but it's it's this anointed

00:55:21.900 oligarchy that can't they cannot be challenged um and if and if it is then immediately um the

00:55:28.060 scrutiny is on the challenger um and and their and their tone and their character and you know 0.98

00:55:33.660 you weren't gentle you were harsh and those kinds of things and and um and a blind eye is turned to

00:55:39.340 like but what if what he said is true should i actually investigate this no that you know and

00:55:44.100 and so that's certainly a thing and i think one of the things that makes me hopeful is that i think

00:55:50.160 that that's being broken up i in the sense that i think that all of a sudden um people just a lot

00:55:57.860 of christians i think are waking up because of what's happening in our nation this last year and

00:56:01.420 a half has been horrible and amazing at the same time in God's mercy, because that's what

00:56:08.900 discipline is. Discipline is not pleasant for the time, but it is amazing because of what it

00:56:15.240 produces. And I think the Lord has been disciplining his church and judging the nation.

00:56:21.280 And so in that, there's already been a lot of blessings. And I think one of them is that

00:56:27.340 that Americans in general and Christians in particular are all of a sudden questioning

00:56:32.200 authority, um, in, in a good way, in a good way. And so I think that, um, all of a sudden people

00:56:38.940 are willing to, to actually, well, just, just, and I agree with what you said, but, um,

00:56:45.380 I would want to phrase it probably this way. It's not, it's, it's not so much that they're

00:56:49.160 questioning authority itself. And I know you're not saying that, uh, they want, we want authority,

00:56:55.200 We want but we want proper authority. We don't want this fake artificial hierarchy that it has been set up by people that have an interest in it.

00:57:08.220 But they're not they don't actually represent or help the people that they're supposed to represent and help.

00:57:13.380 And there's kind of like people are waking up and like, wait a minute, I don't have to listen to him. Right.

00:57:18.840 If you're in the Southern Baptist Convention. Right. Ed Litton is the president. Right. He's a pastor of a church.

00:57:23.240 well look uh doug wilson's a pastor of the church james white's a pastor of the church

00:57:28.140 uh jd hall is a pastor of a church they're all pastors of churches but there's sort of a a sense

00:57:35.140 in which people will treat um or it's popular it's approved by the gatekeepers to treat certain

00:57:42.160 pastors with disdain and you can say all manner of disrespectful things against them online or

00:57:47.320 wherever and that's fine there's nothing wrong with it because they're the divisive ones they've

00:57:52.620 convince themselves that that's their justification. But don't touch someone, like you said, don't

00:57:57.740 touch the Lord's anointed. Don't talk about Ed Litton. Don't talk about the guys who are in

00:58:01.780 favor of the revolution. That's an artificial hierarchy. There's no reason they should receive

00:58:08.020 preference or favorability just because of their political position or what they believe about

00:58:14.100 politics. John, real quick address, because I've heard you on this before and it's fantastic.

00:58:18.780 so for a moment there you said they're the divisive ones what does paul the apostle paul

00:58:25.220 what does he say about which party is responsible morally responsible for division

00:58:30.480 do you know what i'm hinting at yeah yeah but like my point is that my point is somebody can

00:58:37.960 come into the church and introduce different doctrines and they can do it kindly they usually

00:58:44.400 do that's that's usually why they're successful is they do it kindly with a smooth tone and they 0.79

00:58:49.640 lend you know they lead uh weak-willed women astray and is what the scripture and then someone

00:58:55.980 opposes them and usually the one who opposes them with with fidelity and faithfulness is is the one

00:59:02.300 who uses strong language but the apostle paul is very clear that the one who is opposing with

00:59:08.000 strong language is not the the divisive party the the party that's that's morally culpable for

00:59:13.900 division is the party it doesn't matter their tone's irrelevant it's the party that introduced

00:59:19.880 the false teaching that's the divisive party right you think of even what first corinthians

00:59:26.180 uh i think so i can't remember the text yeah yeah well early on in first corinthians i i want to say

00:59:33.120 like in the first like four chapters chapter two or three um it's it's the portion where they're

00:59:39.080 talking about where paul's addressing you you've tolerated a sin that the gentiles won't even 0.87

00:59:44.220 tolerate and they're like you know that's that's like our badge of honor that's like look how 0.99

00:59:51.080 great we are yeah five thank you yeah um they uh they they were wearing this as like a badge of

00:59:58.760 honor like this is something that they're that's so it's great about them they're not going to

01:00:03.260 confront this and paul's like uh hold on like you're tolerating this way too much and you need

01:00:09.280 to be confronting these kinds of things there is a place for that we're supposed to admonish the

01:00:13.820 unruly um encourage the faint-hearted help the weak so we got to like do some triage we got to 0.99

01:00:19.680 figure out okay who's unruly who's faint-hearted who's weak but um if you were a jerk right if you 0.93

01:00:24.780 went up to someone who was weak and you started admonishing them um that wouldn't be appropriate 0.96

01:00:30.440 and that there would be some maybe in that scenario you could say hey you're being too harsh but if

01:00:36.240 you're yes someone who's unruly being harsh that's exactly what you're called to do and

01:00:43.160 paul used very strong language at times he called he basically said in galatians like i wish these 0.93

01:00:47.900 judaizers they they would get a a real circumcision they go all the way right all the way um so 0.85

01:00:54.380 So I mean, that's themselves. Yeah. Yeah. I see. I don't even want to say it because I'm like, you know, I want to say because this is the Bible. But yeah, but I feel that's right. But you're right. No, you're right. I think. So that's a huge thing. So one, so we can say, because I think this is helpful. I hope our listeners will be blessed by this. But how do we define the sin of harshness biblically? So I think what we're getting at together, we're kind of doing it tandem. But one is your content.

01:01:22.380 First and foremost, before how you say something comes into play, it's what you say, the substance, not tone, substance.

01:01:28.620 Tone matters.

01:01:29.400 There's a biblical precedence for tone being important, but not over and against, not overshadowing substance.

01:01:38.880 Substance trumps tone, but tone still matters in biblical terms.

01:01:43.360 So first, what are you saying?

01:01:46.200 That's one of the things to consider when we're trying to discern is so-and-so being harsh.

01:01:50.460 So first, what are they saying?

01:01:51.860 is it biblical is it true is it faithful to the scripture secondly what john's getting at is who

01:01:57.440 are you saying it to so what are you saying what's the doctrine what's the content and then and then

01:02:01.940 who are you saying it to right are you saying it to um the smoldering wick and the bruised reed

01:02:07.260 because the scripture says that if we want to be christ-like that he doesn't despise he doesn't 0.88

01:02:11.260 snuff out the smoldering right that would be a weak convert and the puritans did a lot of great

01:02:16.100 work on this um thomas i'm thinking of thomas watson baxter um the reformed pastor um but but

01:02:23.420 this idea of it is hard it takes discernment like john's saying but the difference between a false

01:02:27.900 convert and a weak convert and so part of the reason you know like i mean the apostle paul

01:02:32.640 who's bewitched you right i was just there all the time you know i i come back to his his letter 0.99

01:02:38.340 to the galatians who's bewitched you you're you're you are so foolish and that's sharp language he's 1.00

01:02:42.820 saying basically you are so foolish it seems as though you must have had a spell cast on you 1.00

01:02:47.920 because surely you could you could not be this foolish on your own it this has to be a supernatural 1.00

01:02:52.980 foolishness that's how foolish you're being right that's strong language um but but but what's in 0.99

01:02:58.840 question there is is this a weak convert or a false convert is this a denial of the gospel or 0.98

01:03:04.520 is this something that's tertiary and so so i think categories for discerning like am i being

01:03:09.220 sinfully harsh is first substance of what I'm saying. Is it biblically true? Second, um, the,

01:03:15.120 the audience, who am I talking to? Is this a sweet old woman who, who, you know what I mean? Or, or 0.72

01:03:20.340 is this, um, uh, uh, a pastor who should know better and who's been corrected for five years

01:03:26.360 and, and refuses to repent. Um, so what am I saying? Who am I saying it to? And, and then,

01:03:32.200 and maybe you could add a couple more to this, John, but I think then we would say, and how am

01:03:36.540 i saying it tone so i i would put personally i would put tone down here as like a a third in

01:03:42.860 in a list of priority i would say first what am i saying second who am i addressing and then thirdly

01:03:48.540 how am i saying it and i think that evangelicalism on the whole has has basically reversed that and

01:03:54.200 said how you're saying it is what's firstly important and and i think in many evangelical

01:03:59.720 circles it's the only thing that's important it's all that matters is just how you're saying

01:04:05.360 something and so if you can gently introduce error then you're the good guy and then anybody

01:04:13.320 who opposes them even if they do say something nice even if they have a nice tone simply by

01:04:19.200 nature of being the opposer simply by nature of addressing having to address you're wrong right

01:04:26.000 because it's not just refute that it's refute those for titus chapter 1 verse 9 an elder that's

01:04:33.220 one of his qualifications he's got to be able to teach what's true and refute people that also

01:04:37.960 first timothy chapter one says uh verses three through five uh you know that um um to that this

01:04:44.200 is why i left you here is to charge certain persons not just certain ideas but to charge

01:04:50.660 that mean that word charge it's a charge word charge it's that means to sharply rebuke and

01:04:55.580 confront certain people and and so my point is that's one of the qualifications of being an elder

01:05:01.560 in Christ's church is the ability to teach sound doctrine and the ability to rebuke,

01:05:09.740 to charge, to confront not only bad doctrine, but the people peddling, the people, not just

01:05:17.720 the ideas, but the people. And so my whole point is that I think, you know, if somebody introduces

01:05:24.040 error into the church softly, which they typically do, and that's why it tends to be successful,

01:05:29.500 even if you try to softly and gently which we should try to gently oppose them

01:05:35.080 just by nature of you being the the the person who's you're you're the one who's picking a fight

01:05:42.140 and so no matter how gently you say it and i think it was gentle at first you said this earlier john

01:05:47.760 but i think at first when this first started creeping in i think there was a lot of i i think

01:05:51.900 like you used the joel osteen um analogy you know or illustration like the first time he was a little

01:05:57.880 bit off and how you would approach him. And I think, I bet you that probably was nine times

01:06:02.960 out of 10, as this was creeping into pulpits around the nation. Um, I bet you most congregants

01:06:08.740 and most elders and most, you know, who are on the biblically sound, faithful side of things

01:06:13.200 probably did address it very, very kindly, gently, humbly. Um, but then there was resistance

01:06:21.600 and then you up the ante and you're like, no, no, no, no, this is it. And then all of a sudden

01:06:27.560 And what happens is that people are like, Joel, John, you're disrupting the peace, right?

01:06:34.400 You're disturbers of the peace.

01:06:37.240 Lock these men up.

01:06:38.240 Like Paul, I mean, the apostle Paul was charged as one who incites riots, one who stirs up riots.

01:06:44.440 When like Paul's like, I'm not the one causing a riot here.

01:06:48.640 I'm preaching Christ and him crucified.

01:06:51.600 and everybody is losing their ever loving minds and throwing things and yelling and you know what 1.00

01:06:58.000 i mean like and burning down buildings you know like black lives matter movement i'm not the guy

01:07:02.320 doing that you know what i've never i've never heard that the uh riot in nephesus compared to

01:07:08.760 blm but that's uh that's a that's probably a fair comparison i guess um yeah no you're you're right

01:07:16.580 about i think i think everything you just said i agree with and that your way of uh prioritizing

01:07:21.580 You know, the content, who you're talking to, and then the tone is absolutely correct.

01:07:28.860 As far as naming names, there's just so many passages.

01:07:31.580 I mean, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm.

01:07:35.080 I urge Yodio and Syntyche.

01:07:37.540 You see Jesus rebuking the Pharisees while they're standing right there.

01:07:42.520 In fact, the rich young ruler comes to him and he turns away.

01:07:45.440 And then he looks at his disciples.

01:07:46.760 They know who he's talking about.

01:07:48.020 And he starts talking about the guy right behind his back, you know.

01:07:51.580 John the Baptist says, you know, go tell Herod that old fox, you know.

01:07:56.640 So there's there's just there is a precedent for this naming names.

01:08:01.340 And even when names aren't named, it's because the audience knew who was being referred to.

01:08:06.140 If you don't know who is being referred to, it doesn't really help.

01:08:08.860 So and there's no disembodied heresies floating out there without someone to propel them.

01:08:15.880 And so we have some heresies are named after names.

01:08:20.060 they are you know like so yeah go ahead sorry yeah maybe we should call the social justice

01:08:26.260 syncretism i don't know kellerism or something but yeah i mean it's it may and in the future

01:08:31.640 well in the future it may it may be that they pick some prominent teacher and they do that but

01:08:37.480 um but yeah i mean it's it's it's really an aversion to confrontation which is i think

01:08:44.840 part of something much bigger in our culture right now where men don't want to be men they don't want

01:08:49.880 to, uh, confront evil. Um, in fact, I mean, I, I don't know if you grew up this way, but I grew

01:08:55.660 up, um, my, my parents, uh, let me watch a lot of like old Westerns and war movies and things when

01:09:02.100 I was a kid. And, um, I'm not saying all of, you know, what's portrayed there is always good or

01:09:06.880 the way that men should act. But one thing I think is, um, indisputable, they were men and

01:09:12.600 they were trying to at least portray men and how, you know, men, men are going to go out and they're

01:09:17.640 going to get the bad guy and they're going to save the day or whatever at great personal sacrifice

01:09:22.280 to themselves and we don't have that a sense of that anymore it really i guess since the 1970s

01:09:28.940 especially even in hollywood you see the this anti-hero character and if they're going to be

01:09:34.240 tough it's going to be for themselves they're out for their own gain they won't sacrifice themselves

01:09:38.700 for anyone else uh they're only for themselves they're selfish and um and we're to the point

01:09:45.280 now where i look around and i see the tyranny that's before us uh with the covid stuff overreach

01:09:51.640 or the blm stuff and you wonder where the men are and sometimes they'll complain behind closed doors

01:09:57.300 but they're not actually going out there and doing what they need to do and so when someone does do

01:10:02.680 that it stands out people see that and people think well what's why is he doing that what's

01:10:08.500 his problem um hundred years ago that i mean a lot of the things that i'm saying i would have

01:10:14.100 been considered tame probably, uh, for saying some of them. So, um, we've just really become

01:10:21.280 effeminate as a culture. I don't really know what else other word to get to it. And I think that's

01:10:25.760 a symptom of it. So, no, you're right. It's yeah. It's men in soft clothing. You know what I mean?

01:10:30.820 Like, what did you come out into the wilderness to see, you know, soft clothing, like, you know,

01:10:35.140 those, those guys live in palaces. You didn't come out to see limp wristed, fairy, you know,

01:10:39.180 effeminate men. That's, uh, you came out to see a man, John the Baptist, right? A voice crying out 0.83

01:10:44.000 in the wilderness eating locusts and wearing camel skin right like basically jesus is saying you know

01:10:48.520 like john the baptist the prophet um but what was a what was a prophet like he had grit he's like

01:10:55.660 john wing that's what he was like he was masculine that's that's that's what it that's part of what

01:11:01.600 it entails and and i think i think this is part of it also you know so like we want to emulate christ

01:11:06.300 and and so we we want to we want to look at christ and we want to say all right first and

01:11:11.840 the gospel is not be like jesus right because if that's the gospel then then we all go to hell

01:11:16.020 and so that praise god that's not the gospel be like jesus is law um not gospel so that the gospel

01:11:21.820 is jesus was jesus in your place um and so thank god jesus um so that's the gospel but but the law

01:11:28.300 is important so we're we're not saved by our attempts to be like jesus we're saved by jesus

01:11:33.700 living and dying in our place um and and our our our faith by grace through faith in christ

01:11:41.100 alone now that said first john 4 19 if if you know um that we love because he first loved us

01:11:50.420 and so it's god loved us in christ in the beloved he awakens our hearts through through the the

01:11:57.460 power of the holy spirit in regeneration to that love and we cannot help but love god in return

01:12:03.560 And then in that love, the first question the Christian asks is, all right, I have now been awakened to God's love for me in Christ Jesus.

01:12:12.640 I am responding with a love for him.

01:12:14.680 God, I want to love you with everything I have.

01:12:16.580 What can I do that would be loved to you?

01:12:20.300 Not to earn your favor, but in gratitude for the free favor I've received by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

01:12:26.560 And Jesus says, if you love me, you'll obey me.

01:12:30.300 Right?

01:12:30.580 You'll obey me.

01:12:31.540 And, and, and I, so, so all that being said, then, okay, you know, how do I obey Jesus? And what do I obey? Well, love, love God and love your neighbor. And then, well, how, how, what does it mean to love my neighbor? You know, and because a lot of people think what it means to love your neighbor is to put mask on your kids and, and everybody get the jab and, you know, and, and we ruined the entire nation and our economy and livelihoods and suicide has gone up and chronic depression, all this kind of stuff in the name of loving our, our, our neighbor.

01:12:59.520 so we need to look to the law of God

01:13:02.160 because God defines how we love our neighbor

01:13:04.280 and God defines how we love him

01:13:06.440 even like the regular principle of worship

01:13:08.880 worshiping in spirit and in truth

01:13:11.200 on the Lord's day

01:13:12.580 we don't get to just do church

01:13:13.800 any way we want to do church

01:13:14.980 God has things to say

01:13:16.680 God has guardrails on how we obey him

01:13:20.220 how we love God and how we love people

01:13:21.620 we don't get to decide how to love God and love people

01:13:23.880 so all that being said

01:13:24.740 we want to imitate Christ

01:13:26.580 so it's the law of God 0.99

01:13:27.760 but Jesus models the law

01:13:29.040 He fulfilled the law.

01:13:30.500 And so we're looking at Christ.

01:13:31.640 We want to model him, imitate him.

01:13:33.180 And I think one of the big issues is that everyone's down to try to imitate Christ in his love.

01:13:39.280 Everyone's down to try to imitate Christ in his humility, right,

01:13:43.660 when taking off his outer garment and wrapping a towel around his waist

01:13:47.860 and washing the feet of his disciples.

01:13:50.080 These are the kinds of things we want to imitate.

01:13:52.340 What we don't want to imitate is Christ's polemic. 0.89

01:13:54.720 we don't want to uh imitate his his his discourse with the pharisees we don't want to imitate um

01:14:02.280 hymns you whitewashed tombs um you know we don't want to imitate that and and so my point is

01:14:09.000 every single christian we're saying be like jesus and and when i fail and i fail all the time um

01:14:16.780 but but when i fail to be like christ um in my attempts for instance to love my wife

01:14:23.240 There's a lot in the church at large.

01:14:25.840 There's a lot of grace for that.

01:14:28.320 There just is, you know, there's more understanding.

01:14:31.660 There's more grace, more mercy.

01:14:34.440 So long as I'm repentant, I want to get better.

01:14:37.520 I want to love my wife as Christ loved the church.

01:14:40.400 Or in parenting my children, you know, when I fail.

01:14:44.080 So when we fail to imitate Christ in love, there's grace.

01:14:47.220 when anyone fails to imitate Christ or we might add when someone succeeds in imitating Christ in

01:14:54.440 his boldness in his confrontation in his polemic there's no grace at all and so and so I think like

01:15:01.320 even Donald Trump as an example not saying the dude's a Christian or anything like that um what

01:15:06.960 I am saying though is um I miss him in in the Oval Office my goodness you know so um you know

01:15:15.340 But my point is, you know, I'm going for Ron DeSantis.

01:15:18.600 We'll see.

01:15:19.020 But, you know, Trump, I'm not saying he did it right.

01:15:23.300 I'm not saying I would defend him or endorse him, you know, as an elder in a church or anything like that.

01:15:30.080 But I think just people looked at Trump and they saw his Twitter account, right, and all these kinds of – and it's just – and they just blasted him and blasted him and blasted him.

01:15:40.000 And I think that that's what's in people's minds of like what you were saying, John, about being a man and the old Westerns and that kind of image.

01:15:48.420 I really think that there's just anyone who attempts.

01:15:51.580 What I'm trying to say is Trump, I think, at least tried to be a man.

01:15:54.620 And I think in a lot of ways in terms of his policies, he succeeded.

01:15:57.620 In his rhetoric, I think a lot of times he went too far.

01:16:00.040 But at least he stood up.

01:16:02.940 And one of the most iconic things he said is they don't hate me, they hate you, and I'm just standing in the way.

01:16:07.500 And I think that was true.

01:16:08.480 and so we look at that

01:16:11.660 and I think a lot of evangelicals look at Trump

01:16:13.440 they look at the backlash, the bad press

01:16:15.920 and they think

01:16:16.520 that's what happens when someone tries to

01:16:19.340 stand up, that's what happens when someone

01:16:21.560 tries to be a man and so nobody even wants

01:16:23.720 to try

01:16:25.380 I don't know, what do you think?

01:16:28.200 You're not rewarded for it

01:16:29.840 in the eyes of

01:16:31.260 the media elites

01:16:33.700 so

01:16:34.280 you wouldn't do it for self-interest

01:16:38.060 But that's part of what being a man truly is. You have responsibilities outside yourself and you fit into a hierarchy, whether if you're a husband, you have responsibilities over your children and over your wife to protect them, to love them, to nurture them, to not in a way that a wife would nurture, but in providing, in encouraging.

01:17:01.880 if you're a leader in a church then you know the same what would apply to the church if you're a

01:17:07.860 leader in government uh the same that would apply to your constituents but even if you're just

01:17:13.300 someone in a community uh you have we're not born blank slates without any attachments we have

01:17:19.480 attachments and obligations as we just grow up um in in a community of people and men take that

01:17:27.600 seriously. Real men, they want to do their best for that. And I think in some ways, a knowledge of

01:17:36.780 the divine, of knowing that you're going to be judged for this, probably helps foster some of

01:17:43.160 that. But, you know, just having good role models and examples, Paul even said, you know, follow,

01:17:50.520 basically, follow me as I follow Christ. And so it's good to have some good role models. And today,

01:17:56.960 that we don't have a lot of that so there's there aren't men being held up as positive examples of

01:18:02.220 this only negative examples if anyone ever tries to be a man they're made fun of all the sitcoms

01:18:08.760 make fun of them so um so what we do need and i and i'm starting to see this a little bit at least

01:18:16.100 in some quarters of christianity is uh good examples and there's plenty of them out there

01:18:21.480 but uh christian manhood illustrated by people who um do have uh do take their responsibilities

01:18:30.660 seriously uh and and can exude uh that kind of um whatever that thing is that people want to follow

01:18:39.620 you know yeah that quality right and so um i i am starting to see that uh and i there's a lot

01:18:47.280 of young men right now um i think the jordan peterson kind of phenomenon showed this a lot

01:18:52.420 more but there are some smaller figures now in christianity i think that are starting to kind of

01:18:58.580 have the same effect on a mini scale but someone who is willing to buck the system because they

01:19:04.100 loved others because they cared about truth that's infectious that's young men without fathers

01:19:10.160 who have come from broken households who have moved you know three times and you know don't

01:19:15.580 have a sense of place. They're looking for that stability somewhere. And this is the golden

01:19:19.880 opportunity for Christians who, I mean, look, we got the man's man of all time, Jesus Christ. I

01:19:27.480 mean, look, that guy went to the cross and was punished in a ways and had more pain inflicted

01:19:35.420 on him than anyone else ever in human history and emotional and physical. And yet he endured it for

01:19:43.460 the joy set before him and to please his father and to redeem a people,

01:19:48.420 he accomplished something. And, and, and that's what men wanted.

01:19:53.020 He could have avoided.

01:19:54.940 And he could have, that's right.

01:19:56.320 In that vein, in that masculine vein. Like, so he, you're right.

01:19:59.400 At great cost of himself to the benefit of others, but, but also he's,

01:20:05.840 you know, for which of these works, right? His miracles healing people,

01:20:08.340 for which of these works are you seeking to kill me? None.

01:20:11.500 nobody had a problem with his works but it's because you make yourself out to be equal with

01:20:17.460 god aka what the pharisee said was it's because of what you say it's not what you do it's your

01:20:23.500 words and so at any point jesus could have avoided the crucifixion um by not speaking

01:20:30.120 courageously as a man does you know and that's so jesus set this example of masculinity by

01:20:37.240 sacrificing himself, taking great

01:20:40.340 pain, great cost to himself to the benefit

01:20:42.240 and the life and the welfare of others, everything you're

01:20:44.300 saying, but then also adding to that

01:20:46.180 and at any step in the road

01:20:48.260 even in his correspondence with Pilate

01:20:50.320 at any step he could have ended it

01:20:52.040 not just by calling a legion of

01:20:54.200 angels down when he

01:20:56.340 was already hanging on the cross, I'm saying no

01:20:57.940 in practical terms

01:20:59.280 he had the constant temptation

01:21:01.960 just as we do, except he resisted

01:21:04.240 it perfectly, but the constant

01:21:06.140 temptation at any point to just stop talking. Just let it slide. Just let it go. Don't say

01:21:13.000 something confrontational. Don't say something courageous. Don't speak up. Don't speak out.

01:21:19.220 That's what hung him on the cross, right? He got nailed to the cross because of his speech

01:21:26.300 and because he was calling out sin. He was calling out the cultural norms, all these

01:21:33.660 kinds of things that um well he was following the pharisees you know that they're making their 1.00

01:21:39.380 proselytes twice as much a son of hell as they are and you'd be better if a millstone was hung 0.98

01:21:44.300 around your neck and i mean he said some things that go way past a lot of the things trump said 0.98

01:21:51.480 as far as harshness um and and yeah i mean he made bitter enemies because of it but you see that i

01:21:58.660 mean this principle that god resists the proud gives grace to the humble for those who were

01:22:02.460 sinful, but humble and repentant. I mean, he was gentle. I mean, he said, my burden is light.

01:22:09.940 My yoke is easy. So, you know, in Jesus, we have this figure that wants to defend the weak

01:22:16.520 and then wants to take on the bad guys, really expose them for who they are. And throughout,

01:22:25.920 in our context but western history is filled with these examples we see this template repeated over

01:22:33.140 and over imperfectly uh in people like george washington and um like i'd reference those old

01:22:39.100 cowboy movies and stuff that's that's kind of like they're they're trying to reach for something

01:22:43.420 they're trying to copy something a template that's already been laid down and that template is what's

01:22:48.040 been destroyed and that that's that's a forbidden template you're not supposed to be like that if

01:22:53.820 you're a man. And I think here's the takeaway in my mind. This is like the big lesson here

01:22:57.860 to wrap sort of like everything we're talking about up. But if you are a leader in a church

01:23:02.640 or no matter how big your platform is, if you want to let the bad guys get away with what

01:23:09.960 they're getting away with, maybe you'll even help them a little. You know, you give them a little

01:23:13.000 bit of a boost by sort of strapping Christianity to their agenda or something. You'll have an easy 0.61

01:23:21.920 life possibly i mean you take that gamble a little bit they could turn on you but you have a better

01:23:26.540 chance of having an easy life and people won't have a problem with you as much and you'll be

01:23:31.160 able to get through life maybe you'll have a little more material prosperity you'll be thought

01:23:36.620 of a little better but in the end you won't actually be respected not real respect you won't

01:23:44.400 have you know little boys aren't going to be growing up with stars in their eyes looking at 0.98

01:23:49.100 you because you saved the day and are a war hero or something like that there you're a coward that's 0.99

01:23:54.580 what you are and you have an easy life but you're a coward and you're going to be servicing a church 1.00

01:23:59.520 for other cowards who also are interested in the same thing they want their ears tickled but if you 0.99

01:24:04.820 are willing to take a stand to call out the names of people who are wrecking men's souls um and and 0.55

01:24:11.480 then physically even perhaps damaging people and communities um it's not going to be easy for you

01:24:17.500 But you can put your head on your pillow at night. You can have the pleasure of the Lord. You can actually know a joy that's even deeper. And you'll have actual respect because you're worthy of it. I don't want to say anyone's worthy of anything, but you've actually earned it to some extent.

01:24:34.980 No, you're right.

01:24:35.520 Yeah, you've earned it to some extent.

01:24:36.760 Yeah, we're all worthy of help.

01:24:39.060 But no, but you're right.

01:24:40.060 Trust and respect is earned.

01:24:42.840 And that doesn't mean that we can earn salvation.

01:24:46.440 But no, in a horizontal human sense, like love.

01:24:50.980 So forgiveness, we forgive freely

01:24:52.640 because we've been freely forgiven.

01:24:54.220 And forgiveness, I think, likens to love.

01:24:56.700 So I can love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me.

01:24:59.880 But trust is a different category.

01:25:02.240 And I think forgiveness falls underneath the love banner.

01:25:04.980 and and respect i think falls underneath the trust banner and the bible agreed yep by the

01:25:10.700 bible's mere mere commandment merely by the bible's commandment for us to be discerning

01:25:15.820 that right there by way of implication tells us that the christian worldview says that trust

01:25:20.920 is not assumed right if trust is assumed then there's no basis of discernment and so

01:25:26.260 so trust therefore must be earned over time by action and word and and faithfulness and those

01:25:32.760 kinds of things and so absolutely like we we earn trust and uh and and by proxy we earn respect and

01:25:40.340 yeah man i like michael scott on the office i want people to be afraid of how much they

01:25:47.020 they love me i want i want people to respect i don't want to just be loved or liked and i think

01:25:54.000 that's what it's not even true love what guys are settling for right now it's not even the love of

01:25:58.680 they're parishioners, they're settling for just their approval. It's not love. It's just being

01:26:04.800 liked. And I don't want to be liked. I want to be loved and I want to be respected more than even

01:26:09.780 being loved. I want to be respected because I'm a man. Respect matters more to me than even love.

01:26:16.500 And just, I think the way that God's designed men. And so everything you're saying is great.

01:26:21.300 Let's go ahead and wrap up. So we named a lot of guys. We named Matt Chandler. You talked about

01:26:26.040 tim tim keller and we talked about eric mason and russell moore and we named a lot of guys

01:26:31.620 let's let's end the episode with you just giving me name and reason as briefly as you can who are

01:26:38.600 the two guys in evangelicalism that you're the most concerned about two guys name them yeah if

01:26:45.760 you could just maybe give me two two guys okay yeah that's hard because i feel like every week

01:26:51.820 it's like a new guy that i'm like okay that's that's that's a guy who's kind of you can give

01:26:55.940 me 17 guys if you want but yeah so um yeah i just actually went back um and listened to

01:27:03.260 the 2018 lecture at t4g by david platt because i i hadn't really focused on him a lot but with

01:27:11.280 the current issues at mclean i wanted to just kind of review uh some of his stuff and i would say

01:27:17.800 yeah he he's definitely i mean he basically links um he uh the easiest way for me to put this is

01:27:25.800 in that particular speech and this has gotten worse in other things he said but he um accuses

01:27:32.300 people he accuses the church he accuses everyone in the room uh at the conference of sin and grave

01:27:38.920 sin i mean they need to repent they're in danger of the judgment of god because there's disparities

01:27:45.400 between black and white and they don't do it. They don't do enough about it. That is not just 0.94

01:27:52.040 a different take on sin or a different like, you know, category. I'm going to categorize this as

01:27:58.240 sin when it's not. That's like a different concept of sin. You can passively be guilty of things that

01:28:05.580 previous generations might have done or things that you really are not even tangentially related

01:28:12.780 to the things that are outside your purview you may not be in sin at all but you you are because

01:28:19.100 of the world that in the environment that you inhabit and this is pure marxism pure social

01:28:25.280 justice stuff um but it it it actually tampers with an understanding of sin itself when you do

01:28:32.960 that and um when you when you tamper with sin and what sin actually is you you start tampering with

01:28:39.820 the gospel. So, um, what, what, what is the good news actually? Uh, you know, what, um,

01:28:47.400 you're, you're going to constantly be guilty. There's no way to really repent of it. There's

01:28:52.600 no way to get out of it. You're going to be on the hamster wheel forever. There's really no

01:28:56.380 flight at the end of the tunnel of forgiveness in that paradigm. So that's David Platt. I'll try to

01:29:01.680 be quicker with you okay so um yeah so so like tim keller right um he constantly um what he does

01:29:11.260 often is he'll make justice this obligation that um like if you don't give this is a quote from him

01:29:23.100 like in 2010 he said if you don't um and i'm kind of summarizing it a little but he is in uh i think

01:29:28.860 it was in the Christianity Today. It's our obligation to give the poor as much as we can

01:29:35.440 possibly give them. And it's all based on need. It's if because someone's poor, we have an

01:29:41.040 obligation to give them as much as we can possibly give away. Now, that may sound really good. But

01:29:46.540 if you start to apply that, if you call that justice and say that's what justice is, and you

01:29:50.720 conflate charity with justice, which is what he's doing, then you get into this weird position where,

01:29:56.280 Okay. Justice is also a concept that, you know, apply that to the gospel. Everyone needs forgiveness. God doesn't forgive everyone. So is God now unjust? So it gives you into these weird spots. And so Tim Keller is another guy I think of as like a big threat.

01:30:12.840 I'll give you just two more because I know we've got to wrap up, but these are Southern Baptist

01:30:17.820 guys, and they're smaller names, Jarvis Williams and Walter Strickland, because I've done a lot

01:30:22.500 of work on them. Jarvis Williams has integrated critical race theory into Christianity more than

01:30:28.000 anyone else I know, and the main issue with that is he comes up with a Galatian-type heresy at the

01:30:33.460 end of the day. The gospel is about racial reconciliation, and racial reconciliation means

01:30:38.000 that you have to platform these voices you have to accept these narratives uh you have to teach

01:30:44.460 history a certain way it's very specific it's like it's pretty long um but um he makes that

01:30:50.600 part of the gospel that that's what that's what paul's talking about uh in ephesians and in

01:30:56.260 galatians he's what he's what he's trying to do is um break down that dividing wall of ethnicity

01:31:02.480 and, and bring Jews and Gentiles together. But he then reads into that critical race theory.

01:31:08.400 So dangerous guy. That's not what that's talking about. And then, and Walter Strickland is pushing

01:31:15.340 liberation theology. He's one of the easiest in my mind, because there's several times that he

01:31:21.020 actually conflates the law with the gospel. And he literally adds works to the gospel.

01:31:26.860 And we'll say things like, like there's one quote where he even says that the gospel is loving the

01:31:31.940 lord uh with um loving the lord or loving loving god and loving your neighbor is the gospel it's

01:31:38.620 like that's the law man that's what condemns you but then his his version of love is liberation

01:31:42.760 theology so um those are four guys so i'll give you a bonus too but um guys i'm concerned about

01:31:48.480 guys who in different ways uh are um promoting ideas that either if you think through them

01:31:57.080 Logically, they destroy the gospel or they do directly actually tamper with the gospel.

01:32:04.380 Yeah, I completely agree. 1.00

01:32:06.200 That's super helpful.

01:32:06.980 I'm going to throw on one myself right here at the end.

01:32:10.100 Since I used to be in Acts 29, I'm going to throw Matt Chandler in there.

01:32:13.400 And I'll do it by saying this.

01:32:14.880 I remember being in the conference.

01:32:16.920 It was about four or five years ago.

01:32:18.960 There was a panel.

01:32:20.160 It was Eric Mason, Leonce Crump.

01:32:24.180 Who else?

01:32:24.880 Eric Mason, Leonce Crump, Brandon Washington, and Thabiti. Thabiti was the main plenary speaker

01:32:32.000 for this conference. And so Thabiti was there and there was one other guy, I forget his name,

01:32:35.840 but it was five black guys who were either on the board or leaders in the X-29 network or like

01:32:41.320 Thabiti were a guest speaker for that particular conference. And Matt Chandler was the moderator.

01:32:46.440 And we were once again having a conversation about race, except of course, like all conversations

01:32:51.680 about race. It was all minorities, right? Black voices being elevated, getting to talk. No white 1.00

01:32:58.020 person gets to talk. It's just shut up and believe, right? You just shut up. You listen, 1.00

01:33:02.120 no cross-examination, no questions. You just believe. And it's all, none of it's factual,

01:33:06.100 none of it's substance or statistics, right? If you ask for statistics, then you're being

01:33:12.280 oppressive, you know? But it's all, it's story. It has to be story because that's the only thing

01:33:17.740 will work and so it's just this manipulative emotionally manipulative play of just story

01:33:22.440 after story from these men about how you know when i get pulled over by a police officer you know

01:33:27.940 right they check the trunk of the car you know or and i'm not even saying that those things didn't

01:33:31.940 happen but what i'm saying is that doesn't prove anything that you know like i because we can we

01:33:37.280 can find five white guys in the room who can get up you know and so um and okay an individual police

01:33:44.880 officer maybe it was racial first we don't even know it's racial second even if it is racial that

01:33:48.980 doesn't say that it's systematic so anyways you you get it so that's going on and then at the end

01:33:55.020 I remember Chandler he says this he says um and he's just listening asking questions and it's just

01:34:00.680 kind of like this layup and it was right after some some shooting happened I can't remember which

01:34:05.020 shooting it was but um probably like like several of the shootings one that eventually you know

01:34:10.440 after hindsight was proven that it was justified on the police officers,

01:34:15.360 you know, like Michael Brown, you know, something like that.

01:34:17.800 But I remember Eric Mason saying, I'm so angry, I can't,

01:34:20.760 and he was like, I don't even know where I am right now.

01:34:22.200 I'm dizzy, you know, I can't even see.

01:34:23.580 And I remember being like, I remember being angry.

01:34:26.820 I was angry.

01:34:28.060 Because it was like, this was two days after a shooting took place.

01:34:31.240 You and I, neither one of us know if it was actually unjust,

01:34:35.920 if what the police officer did was actually unjust.

01:34:37.680 You don't know.

01:34:38.760 and in your presumption, in your arrogance, you're sitting up there and saying, I'm so angry right

01:34:44.820 now. And as all five of these men continue to give story after story, all these, the women,

01:34:49.820 because it's pastors and wives conference, all these white women, white pastors, wives are crying

01:34:54.220 and you can just see the shame and the guilt for this sin that none of them had committed,

01:34:58.860 right? Maybe a couple of them. And then at the end, it's like the audacity, the cherry on top.

01:35:04.220 chandler asked okay so what can we do um to fix it like what are some and i remember he said what

01:35:10.520 are some books that we could read and i remember leon's crump he responded by saying you see this 0.92

01:35:15.360 is is this is the problem this is what we call the the numinous negro and he said you know did

01:35:21.520 you ever watch the green mile with tom hanks you know it's always you know even in the movies 0.69

01:35:25.340 there's always some magical negro who fixes the white man's problems you got a an iphone you can 0.67

01:35:30.720 google you find out what books to read uh that you know and and i i wasn't this was two five again

01:35:37.720 four or five years ago five or six years ago actually and so i wasn't well versed in this

01:35:42.380 but i didn't realize what what he was actually and then he proceeds to recommend like critical

01:35:45.980 uh racecraft was one of the books he recommends it's riddled with uh crt and so anyways but but

01:35:51.620 after i mean so matt chandler the president of act 29 has you up here has appointed you to a

01:35:56.600 position on the board, you know, has you up here to speak to all these people where you're just

01:36:00.520 chastising every pastor and wife in the network. And then he's asking you, what can we do to fix

01:36:05.960 the problem? And you just belittle him and belittle all of us, you know, and then you answer the

01:36:12.500 question with heretical, horrible books that no Christian needs to read other than to objectively 0.97

01:36:17.400 point out what is wrong in it. And I didn't have a language for it at the time, but I realize now 0.89

01:36:23.320 in hindsight what what he was referencing was absolutely this social justice crt intersectionality

01:36:30.220 he was referencing ethnic exploitation so he didn't use that word um and and and if he had

01:36:36.600 i wouldn't have known what it was but he's saying this is the numinous negro right the white man 0.92

01:36:40.300 relying on the black man to fix his problems even the problem of being racist towards the black man 0.91

01:36:44.240 um which is essentially that's not a verbatim quote but that is what he said that is that is

01:36:49.660 the spirit of what he said and so what he's getting at is is you're engaging in ethnic 0.70

01:36:53.880 exploitation and and and i now look back and i realize the madness of crt is this idea of all 0.86

01:36:59.400 right all white people are racist or really everybody's racist but white people are more 0.93

01:37:03.460 complicit more morally guilty because they benefit as the hegemony the dominant group 0.98

01:37:09.280 from racism more than everybody else and so what do you do to atone for your sins well you got to

01:37:14.700 do your anti-racist homework and what is that anti-racist homework well it's it's calling out 0.64

01:37:18.980 racism in yourself and racism in the system and society at large but you can't do that as a white

01:37:24.280 man because you're blind to it you're privileged you've been blinded by your privilege so you have

01:37:29.560 to partner with a person of color someone who's of an oppressed intersection some you know and

01:37:35.860 that's exactly what chandler was doing he's following the crt he probably didn't even know

01:37:39.580 you know but he's he's doing what he's supposed to right we want to do our anti-racist homework

01:37:43.380 and and can you help us can you be our eyes and ears because we're blinded by by privilege and

01:37:48.220 And, and, but, but Leon's Crump follows the script perfectly, just like Robin DiAngelo

01:37:53.500 and all that kind of stuff.

01:37:54.180 And they didn't even know they were doing it probably.

01:37:56.460 And I certainly didn't know at the time, but it's exactly the, it's exactly what we see

01:38:01.100 from all the, you know, from the Frankfurt school and all this kind of stuff. 0.81

01:38:03.720 And so Leon's Crump, without skipping a beat, says, this is the new Miss Negro. 0.88

01:38:07.360 And so basically what he's saying is you're, you're, everyone's racist. 0.97

01:38:10.320 You're, but you're morally complicit because you're white. 0.89

01:38:12.660 You benefit from racism the most. 0.94

01:38:14.440 therefore you must atone from that that sin of racism by doing your anti-racist homework but you

01:38:19.500 can't do it because it involves seeing something that you can't see because you're blinded by

01:38:23.800 privilege you need us which is precisely why you have this panel going on right now why we've been

01:38:28.340 appointed uh to the board rather than somebody else who's been in the network and been more

01:38:32.480 more faithful and and then and then when you ask for us to help you see be your eyes and ears so 0.82

01:38:38.520 you can do your anti-racist homework then you're done messed up aaron turns out you're racist twice

01:38:45.300 because you've just engaged in ethnic exploitation by using a person of color simply to posture

01:38:50.180 yourself as a good white and all that my point is none of the language i'm using crt intersectionality

01:38:56.440 language that we've all come to recognize after the fact thank god for guys like james lindsey

01:39:02.280 that guy i mean that guy has been a wonderful friend um to to the church he's not a brother

01:39:07.720 in christ but god has used him in his common grace wonderful friend none of us had the language at

01:39:12.240 the time i didn't have the language at the time but i look back now and it was it was all to the

01:39:17.700 t um critical race theory it was all social justice it was all ethnic um um ethnic gnosticism

01:39:25.180 ethnic um that you know that the whole like like votie talks about ethnic gnosticism and

01:39:30.140 and the uh ethnic uh the standpoint epistemology you know relativism like and and it was all right

01:39:37.340 there and everyone the result of it was it wasn't it it there was no racial reconciliation there was

01:39:44.940 no unity unity is not the fruit of this stuff the result of it was manipulation guilt shame

01:39:51.800 division and anger and i was one of the people and i remember just to use a chandlerism and i'll end

01:39:58.720 with this you remember the the famous you know chandler video that went viral you know like

01:40:04.540 Jesus wants the rose, right?

01:40:06.820 The guy's preaching.

01:40:07.860 So who would want this rose after passing it around,

01:40:10.080 all the petals fall off? 1.00

01:40:11.020 That's what a girl's like if she gives away her sexuality 1.00

01:40:13.520 and her virginity.

01:40:14.780 And Chandler says, and I felt, I was visibly angry

01:40:17.840 and I wanted to shout out, Jesus wants the rose.

01:40:20.920 Well, in that meeting five years ago,

01:40:22.700 even though I didn't have all the language I have now

01:40:24.540 to define exactly what was going on at the time,

01:40:26.880 I remember, to use Chandler's own words, being angry.

01:40:30.660 At Chandler, being visibly angry.

01:40:34.540 because the guy who said jesus wants the rose the hero the guy that i looked to that i admired

01:40:42.200 all of a sudden he had become the bad guy all of a sudden it's like he completely sold out

01:40:47.620 completely compromised i could his whole video that jesus wants the rose i could do a video

01:40:52.760 exactly like that except he's now the preacher he's the preacher who's who's destroying the

01:40:58.580 gospel who's destroying the rose who's making hundreds of women cry and he's overseeing this

01:41:04.120 whole thing letting it happen um women being guilted for a sin that they haven't even committed

01:41:09.780 and and i'm you know so i gotta throw matt chandler that that would be my name you know i feel like

01:41:16.560 near and dear to my heart a guy that i i have appreciated and loved a guy whose network i was

01:41:21.920 a part of i was a pastor in acts 29 and that guy let the network go to crap um absolutely go to 0.99

01:41:28.920 crap. And so, so I'll toss in on top of your, I see your Tim Keller and I see your Jarvis Williams

01:41:36.400 and I raise you a match. So, all right, John, well that, that's it. Let, let our, let our

01:41:40.500 listeners know how they can follow you. I know we've gone long on this. I really appreciate your

01:41:44.320 time, but let us know how can our listeners follow you and pray for you? Yeah, my pleasure.

01:41:50.640 Where can they listen? I guess worldviewconversation.com is the website that has all the links to my

01:41:56.600 social media or you can just go on youtube type in conversations that matter but if you go to

01:42:01.500 worldviewconversation.com my books are up there and um articles and that kind of thing uh pray for

01:42:09.020 me um there's a lot going on right now um I'm just in in some transition I just moved back to

01:42:16.560 upstate New York where uh I spent most of my time growing up and um where you know I got a lot of

01:42:23.280 friends in the medical community and they are in danger of losing their jobs right now. So this is

01:42:31.920 kind of, I feel like I like landed into a war zone a little bit and just a little surreal to watch

01:42:37.500 kind of what's happening. But yeah, just pray that in this new season of my life and I'm getting

01:42:46.200 involved in church and all of that, that, you know, just be faithful and be able to help the

01:42:52.460 situation that's confronting us, especially with the gospel. But also, I, you know, I feel like I

01:42:57.820 want to do, I feel so bad for these people. I want to do something. I'm not sure what that is.

01:43:02.160 But that's the main thing I always ask people to pray for, just faithfulness

01:43:05.520 and good time management. That's, there's a lot going on. So, you know, that I keep the Lord

01:43:11.760 first. So that's my, those are my personal prayer requests, at least. And I appreciate you asking.

01:43:18.100 Great. John, thanks so much for coming on the show. God bless you, brother.

01:43:20.740 yeah my pleasure have a good one as a special thank you for your gift of any amount we'll be

01:43:26.580 happy to send you a free digital book from our store to access this offer visit right response

01:43:31.960 ministries.com offer we highly recommend pastor joel's book am i truly saved if you or someone

01:43:38.900 you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of god this would be a great resource as a reminder

01:43:44.400 to get this offer go to right response ministries.com offer and thank you for your generous

01:43:49.880 support.

The NXR Podcast - September 15, 2021

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Calling Out ＂WOKE＂ Preachers By Name!

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