00:04:22.660All right, welcome to Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webber with Right Response Ministries, and in this episode, I'm very privileged to have as a special guest, Callie. Callie, can you go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners?
00:04:34.760Right. My name is Callie. I'm a sinner saved by grace. Married, have 11 grandkids. I pastor a small particular Baptist church in Victoria, Texas. Wrote a book on abolition and filmed a documentary on IVF. I spend most of my time just trying to build the kingdom of God and work towards his glory.
00:07:52.980So the interesting thing about IVF is the amount of backing that it gets from Christians in general.0.94
00:08:01.860The two largest demographics of people that support IVF are homosexuals because they cannot procreate and Christians.0.90
00:08:13.360and a lot of times they go about it because they want something good right that we recognize that0.93
00:08:22.800children are blessed from god that he has commanded us to be fruitful and multiply
00:08:28.480the earth was created to be filled with his image um and and that is a good thing and christian
00:08:40.560couples ought to seek to fulfill that command, right? And there's a difference between intentionally
00:08:48.860not having children and God in His sovereign providence closing the womb of women.
00:08:59.100We need to recognize that infertility is a result of sin in general, not a particular person's sin
00:09:08.620necessarily but but it's an effect of of the fall right and so we need to have compassion
00:09:19.340for couples that are suffering with infertility we need to um walk alongside them and love them
00:09:29.520and care for them and and while we're we're doing that we we need to look at children and
00:09:38.200and start asking ourselves questions about this process um do the ends of having children after
00:09:47.280your own likeness your own biological dna do they does that justify the use of any means whatsoever
00:09:55.100to achieve that end so is there a point at which having children becomes an i becomes an idol to
00:10:05.320where we are willingly engaged in sinful acts in order to get this good blessing.
00:10:13.520And I think part of the problem is we don't really understand the process of in vitro fertilization,
00:10:20.680what it is, what it entails, and what God has commanded about the one flesh union between a husband and a wife, right?
00:10:30.680So what I like to do when talking about IVF is start out, what is the process itself?
00:10:40.400And looking through the lens of the incarnation, start asking, is this a proper means by which getting children is either sinful or not sinful?
00:11:00.680And my parents were unable to conceive and so they adopted me and there are thousands of stories like that where God and his sovereign will chooses not to open the womb of a particular woman and they adopt a child and then the womb sometimes, but more often than you would think, gets opened.
00:11:17.880And so, you know, I have three younger siblings that are, you know, biological to my parents, you know, and but I know that the Lord, you know, in his will, he did that so that I would be adopted.
00:11:27.540But you're right. There does seem to at times to be this idolatry.
00:11:31.140And we want to be careful with that. Right. Because if I had a penny for every single Gospel Coalition article about the idolatry of family, the idolatry of children, like basically like any like basically every conservative Christian biblical thing that God says is a blessing.
00:11:46.360You can count on Timothy Keller to write an article about how it's, you know, an idol.
00:11:50.320And then every bad thing that the Bible actually calls as sin, you can count on the gospel religion to say, but really.
00:11:57.160But that's not what I'm talking about.
00:12:45.820Okay, so that's a good thing. Now, does that mean that there are not sinful means by which humans are created? No, there are definitely sinful means. You go out and have a one night stand and a child is conceived, that child has no less worth than a child that's conceived in a loving, monogamous Christian relationship between a husband and a wife, right?
00:13:09.620a child conceived in rape has no less value because of the sinful way that that child came
00:13:17.240into being conceived and and so what i like to look at is what is the process of ivf and are there
00:13:28.060parts to that that go against the natural order because we also don't want to say that technology
00:13:36.240is bad right because it's not technology is neutral in that sense it can be used for good
00:13:43.160or it can be used for bad but it of itself does not necessarily mean that you're you're involved1.00
00:13:50.660with something evil right where i'm pro medicine um i think that um having ob-gyns is a good thing
00:14:00.260I think that doctors dealing with infertility is a good thing.
00:14:05.860I think that when a woman is pregnant, having a doctor help her go through the pregnancy and deliver the baby is a good thing.
00:14:14.440But there's something about the actual conceiving of a new human that I think we really need to take a closer look at what is happening and what are the side effects sometimes as it happens.
00:14:29.940And is there an ethical way to do IVF or is all of it bad?
00:14:37.280Those are the things that Christians haven't been wrestling with publicly a lot.
00:16:20.860Go ahead. Right. So like right now, there's upwards in the United States, two million human beings that are stored in liquid nitrogen indefinitely, as long as the parents, you know, pay for storage of their incarceration until they are wanted or needed or will be used.0.88
00:16:45.940that's that should be a an issue for christians that seek justice and and i'm not talking about
00:16:54.700you know desperate inequalities or or anything like that i'm talking about actual justice
00:17:01.480right like we are incarcerating we're holding these humans captive
00:17:08.860until we're ready to have them right ready to ready to bring them to an understanding of christ
00:17:21.940right then because that is the telos of of all humans right and and when we're leaving these
00:17:29.500children in liquid nitrogen we're depriving them of the telos of man which is to know god and and
00:17:40.380glorify him we're not giving them that that opportunity we're neglectful in our duty as
00:17:47.780parents to raise up our children in the admonition of the lord right we're we're not bringing them
00:17:55.140to jesus is is one of the issues right every like the bible draws a clear line the dots are right
00:18:02.920next to each other it's not hard to connect them there's a clear line from every child that the
00:18:06.860lord gives to us that we bear that we beget through procreation we have a responsibility to provide
00:18:13.340for and to protect fathers particularly mothers also but fathers particularly to provide and
00:18:19.020protect and that would be physical provision for their welfare all those different things that
00:18:22.620Sadly, the state often swoops in, but that falls on fathers, familial fathers, and then also that would include the child's education to train them up and the fear and admonition of the Lord so that the father is ultimately responsible.
00:18:35.860He may outsource that to a biblically permissible party, such as the mother with homeschool as the father is working out of the home, or perhaps like a Christian classical education.
00:18:46.240He can't outsource that to the pagan secular state, but he can, you know, so anyways, but he bears ultimate responsibility.0.67
00:21:36.360And when they use her nutrition, that's just like death, right?0.99
00:21:40.380So we do these, we inject the women with chemicals, right?1.00
00:21:48.380And because women produce about 20 cycles, right, that's normal.1.00
00:21:56.060From the time they're born, they have these eggs already,0.77
00:21:59.460and then the baby releases those eggs on a specific time to go along with her cycle.
00:22:05.500And generally what happens is of this 20 or so eggs, one will advance ahead of all of the other ones.
00:22:15.280And if a couple has sex, then the chances of that one egg becoming fertilized can happen.
00:22:24.380And the rest of the eggs never get fertilized and they just kind of slough off.
00:22:28.780But what happens with stimulated IVF or mini-stimulation IVF is they go in and they retrieve all 20 of those eggs or sometimes less, 5, 10 of those eggs.
00:22:43.040And they pull all of those eggs that came from that cycle and then they fertilize each egg individually in a Petri dish.
00:22:52.500and uh they watch them over a period of days and and throughout that time most of them die
00:23:01.500and the ones that live will either be uh transferred back into the woman after taking a
00:23:08.560bunch of um hormones that tricks the body into believing that it's pregnant and they
00:23:15.440thaw out the children to match that time and then transfer the egg into the woman and hope that it
00:23:23.960transfers and transplants itself into the uterus the the attrition rate or the death rate is about
00:23:30.80090 so i i think that's the other aspect that christians need to look at it are are we willing
00:23:36.840to say that killing nine children in the hopes that i can have one child after my own likeness
00:23:45.680in my own biology is that something that is ethical and we don't have a tendency of looking
00:23:53.340in those terms right right and we're not talking you know just to make the hypothetical you know
00:23:58.060to set the stage you know as accurately as possible we're not talking about 10 children
00:24:02.280that would exist either way and and we're trying you know it's like we'd like to save all 10 of
00:24:06.480them, but we can only save one. Like if there are 10 children, um, that God has created, um,
00:24:12.820regardless then, yeah, then you save as many as you can. If you can only save one, then you save
00:24:17.020one. But we're talking about creating nine children for the purpose of death. Um, so that
00:24:22.640we don't have one. Um, so we're talking about, you know, we're not talking about children that
00:24:26.660are already out there. Uh, we're talking about, we're talking about creating children with,
00:24:31.720with the knowledge. And it's not like, well, we thought all 10 would work. No, like with the
00:24:35.500knowledge that, um, that, that 90% attrition rate, like that you're going to do this and, uh, you're
00:24:41.380going to be creating, you know, nine kids, uh, that will die and maybe one of them will, will
00:24:46.580torture and then it will die, you know, or maybe three of them will live, but we're going to
00:24:50.920incarcerate them. They're going to be frozen. Will you give your consent for that so that you can
00:24:54.340have one baby that you get to hold? Um, right. And, and Christians, uh, will sign and say, yeah,
00:24:59.920yeah we're our bible allows for that right because children are a blessing from god and
00:25:06.380and this is a good thing that we're seeking right so um there is something that they call ethical
00:25:13.580ivf um where children are not intentionally killed or are made um and then frozen i i think we need
00:25:25.400to say if children are killed or children are frozen that should be the easy part to go we're
00:25:31.180we can't be part of that right that's 99.9 percent of all ivf um what they call ethical ivf
00:25:40.860where they um pull the eggs from the woman and they freeze the eggs so those aren't humans right
00:25:48.440those are eggs they're not they're not in right they're not individual instantiations of humanity
00:25:54.520They are not human beings, they're eggs.
00:25:57.040And then they thaw out two of those eggs over time and they fertilize those two eggs and then do the transfer there.
00:26:08.260I've talked to several couples that are going through that.
00:26:13.120And the reason they chose that route, even though it's way more expensive and the vast majority of IVF doctors won't even do it,
00:26:19.800is because they do recognize that killing and freezing children is wrong,
00:27:47.440Yeah, no, I think that that's a good point.
00:27:49.160I think that, um, you know, one of the things that I've noticed as a pastor is that when it comes to, you know, conversations with congregants about, you know, family and children and sex, you know, marriage counseling and all those kinds of things that we participate in as local pastors.
00:28:05.400I've noticed, and I used to do this as well, but I think the Lord, by his grace, has changed
00:28:10.460my heart and sanctified me in this area.
00:28:12.220But when we think about sex, we know that sex, God has instituted sex for multiple purposes.
00:28:20.840Procreation, I would say, I would argue is one of the chief purposes, but we know that's
00:29:31.320And so there is, I think, a theological argument that is worth serious consideration to be made about what are God's purposes for sex and has God given man the right to divide those purposes?
00:29:45.180Right. Now, you know, so where does this leave us?
00:29:50.700my position is that the creation of a new human is regulated by god right that the means by which
00:30:01.900that happens god has prescribed for us how that is okay so you're gonna apply husband and a wife
00:30:07.680you're gonna as a particular baptist you're going to apply the regular principle to the one flesh
00:30:12.200yeah i get that right yeah okay go ahead um but what what do we do with with these children that
00:30:20.140are already created that are you know in liquid nitrogen that are frozen you know because we're
00:30:27.940going to have people in our congregation that just don't know right and they've always thought
00:30:33.660that ivf is a good thing because we're seeking children and they come to a realization wow okay
00:30:39.400this this is bad two million children we have like say three families in our congregation that
00:30:46.820have a total of 15 children in liquid nitrogen they can't have that many children right so what
00:30:53.220what do we do am i is it okay to what do we do with these children right and i would say it's
00:30:59.200the responsibility of the parents and the church to rescue these children right these are our
00:31:06.300children covenanted to our church let's find them good christian homes let's adopt these children
00:31:13.820right um so some people ask then why is embryo adoption okay even though it falls under the
00:31:25.040umbrella of ivf and like back to your regular principle argument saying so there's still going
00:31:30.040to be a third party in this holy to what's meant to be two party one flesh union you're still
00:31:37.120inviting the third party how come it's okay with the adoption but not the creation because
00:31:41.860see and that's the thing it's because i think that the issue is in the creating of the new human
00:31:48.140right so i don't find it bringing a third party in as a doctor to do um checkups on the pregnant
00:31:57.240wife right i don't think that at all or the delivery of the child i think those are good
00:32:04.740technologies and doctors that we ought to use right um and so if there was real quick if there
00:32:11.720was a complication in the pregnancy it would be completely fine to bring in the third party that
00:32:15.740medical expert to bring them in right to save the child so what you're saying is yeah we don't bring
00:32:21.060in the third party for the one flesh union of creating life um correct but what we're talking
00:32:26.600about in the case of adoption is bringing in the third party like you would bring in a doctor if
00:32:30.340the child was already implanted in your womb you would you would bring that third party in
00:32:35.020for the preservation and the saving of of life and that's what i i think that's a solid argument go
00:32:41.160ahead the the problem is that i'm like even the success rate of embryo adoption is abysmal it
00:32:53.380There is a high likelihood that the children are going to die before being born.
00:32:59.060That's just the reality of having these humans that are created and then frozen.
00:33:05.180And I don't think that should stop us from trying to rescue these children, providing them a home, giving them a name, showing them love as humans.
00:33:15.240and, you know, hope that you will be able to hold this baby
00:33:42.840But that does not change what my duty is to humans, right?
00:33:48.000The love I give to my enemy is either going to be the love of God that turns them to repentance, or it's going to be coals that they're heaping on their head.
00:33:59.400I don't get to choose what it is, and it doesn't change the love that I give them.
00:34:02.840But the love that we give, the word of God going forth, still has a purpose.
00:34:06.800It never returns void, and that doesn't mean that every time the word of God goes forth that it results in salvation.
00:34:11.300But it never returns void because God has multiple purposes.
00:34:13.980But the love and the word and the truth and the training and the generosity, all these things still need to go out.
00:34:21.340Because God has, whether it's for the damnation of the reprobate or the salvation of the elect, whatever it is, God has a purpose.
00:41:51.020And we all every one of us start out sons of Adam.
00:41:55.520Right. And it's not once we're born and reach, you know, year and a half age and sin for the first time, which would be younger than that.
00:42:03.740you know, probably like nine, 10 months, you start, that's when I see my little kids, you know,
00:42:07.840right around the nine month age is when they start rearing their back, you know, when you're
00:42:11.460changing their diaper and it's like, you're not just crying because you're uncomfortable.
00:42:15.720You're being defiant. This is, this is it. And so, but it's not just like they become that we
00:42:21.400become sinners because we sin. No, we sin because we're sinners that we're actually, and we're not
00:42:28.160just born in sin. We're conceived in sin. So I completely agree with you. One more,
00:42:33.740follow-up question with that though um what do you think right so elect infants i'm with you
00:42:38.560um agree with that um what do you think in terms of children of believers right so paul talks about
00:42:44.880the children believers being holy i recognize you're a particular baptist you're not presbyterian
00:42:48.900i understand that you would um you don't want to create the halfway house you know with a covenant
00:42:54.460children before regeneration you're either in you know in christ or in adam um so i get all that um
00:43:00.860But with that said, do you think that perhaps, I guess what I'm saying is pastorally wanting to comfort people in our church, Christians, who have a miscarriage or have a child die.
00:43:14.960I remember, oh my goodness, horrible story.
00:43:17.520I think it was, you know, maybe seven, I don't know, maybe it was 10 years ago, but I remember it was right before Christmas.
00:43:22.580and uh there was a family in the town where i grew up and their two-year-old pulled on the plug of a
00:43:29.540just old you know not the flat screen high you know technology nice tvs that we have today but
00:43:34.300an old big tv that's you know that's weighs a ton and pulled on the cord it was up high up on a on
00:43:41.340a dresser and it fell and crushed the child and killed him and this two-year-old died right before
00:43:46.260christmas time and it was a small town so everybody knew the family and just absolutely tragic i'm
00:43:51.860thinking pastorally like can i give any more comfort right elect is elect god right there's
00:43:57.760nothing about the creature that binds the creator to to choose one over the other there's no there's
00:44:04.500no such thing as elect semen right there's there's no such thing as regenerate biology
00:44:09.480but we do have scripture that talks about god keeping steadfast covenant to generations the
00:44:17.280children of believers or even just one believing spouse the children are holy so can we even as
00:44:24.420particular baptist with a view of a particular baptist version of covenant succession can we
00:44:31.480give not a guarantee but can we give added consolation and added added comfort and hope
00:44:38.080that that by virtue to the members in our church who are faithful christians saying
00:44:42.520And we do think that that that that God has a particular kindness towards the children of believers.
00:44:49.380Yeah. So I would say so, because here's the thing.
00:44:54.420Profession doesn't save you like that in the sense that we need to confess.
00:45:01.960All that confess to God, all that profess his name will be saved.
00:45:07.060He's not saying that just by opening your mouth and saying anything, you're going to be saved because you can only.
00:45:12.520do that if changed your heart um it's it is god that changes hearts and minds and brings his
00:45:23.220children to himself it is god that teaches his children and and they're going to be blessed
00:45:28.560it is god himself like you're bringing up that that bit in romans like unless you how are you
00:45:37.360going to believe unless you hear i think that the greek there leans towards hear god right not not
00:45:45.300hear about god but like hear god himself um and i don't think that that necessarily means um you
00:45:53.360auditorily hear right i believe in the means of grace where it is the spirit of god applying the
00:46:00.100work of christ on on uh the people of god through word and sacrament um and i do believe that
00:46:09.180children can be saved i believe that children in the womb can be saved how that works i don't know
00:46:16.980but i do believe that john the baptist recognized jesus that's right you know and left with joy
00:46:22.660he was he didn't just recognize jesus and shudder he was excited about jesus he loved jesus
00:46:28.460so i don't believe doctrine saves us i don't believe that saying that we believe the right
00:46:35.360things saves us and i think what the are what justifies us is faith that's given to us by god
00:46:44.080that's right um and and he does that through the work of his spirit and the work of the spirit can
00:46:50.600do that to infants can do that to children in the womb it can do it to a 90 year old guy on his his
00:46:58.120deathbed right who's mute so who's when it can't speak right right um god can save whoever wants
00:47:08.000to however he wants to but he has promised that there is something about fidelity within a um
00:47:18.040a marriage covenant to family that he he holds to like um the church that i pastor right now
00:47:27.940Three-fourths of our baptized membership, they're minors.
00:47:40.260And the largest, I don't want to say the largest, I think a very important, one of the most important evangelistic mission fields that we have is our family, right?
00:47:55.020And mothers and fathers teaching their children.
00:48:00.660And I think there is a special loving kindness that he does give to Christian families that are doing that to protect the children until justification has to happen in time and space.
00:48:19.900you know we we deny like gill's version of eternal justification and stuff like that
00:48:25.540it happens in time and space um you know obviously it has to happen before you die
00:48:31.860and that god honors those types of um family fidelity right because it is where i lean on that
00:48:41.760so i do think we can comfort them um and i think that that is a good time to comfort them
00:48:49.880you know i completely agree because it is a real loss like it's this is not only a human
00:48:56.580that has died which should be sad for us anyways but this is your child that god
00:49:02.160gave to you to watch over i mean the child belongs to him regardless he's he's just entrusted that
00:49:10.460child to you for this time for the express purpose of bringing him to the knowledge of jesus
00:49:18.120That, that, that is your goal and how that goes about in life. Okay. You're, you're free to do
00:49:25.800however you do in order to accomplish that. You know, as long as you're, you're not doing
00:49:31.300something sinful. Right. And I think God does bless that. Yeah. Amen. When you were talking
00:49:40.000about like, you know, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, you know, like
00:49:43.380those who profess Jesus. I think one thing that we often don't think about that I think would be
00:49:48.660helpful for our listeners, I don't know if I've ever discussed this before on our show, but
00:49:53.160I remember thinking about this a lot when I was preaching through 1 John. 1 John, so much of it
00:49:59.540is about assurance of salvation. I ended up writing a book on it, am I truly saved? And just
00:50:04.260giving multiple tests for the individual to be able to see, like, am I in the faith? Examine
00:50:10.680yourself to see if you're in the faith. And John gives the test of obedience, the moral test. He
00:50:15.940gives the truth test, the test of doctrine, biblical doctrine, and a right confession of
00:50:21.820Christ that's both biblical, the actual person and work of Christ as the Bible states, but also
00:50:28.240personal, right? The apostle Paul, Galatians chapter two, it's not just that Jesus, that he
00:50:33.680lived and died and rose again for someone somewhere out there, but that the son of God loved me and
00:50:39.360gave himself up for me so it's a biblical confession that's also a personal confession
00:50:43.800and it's a you know a biblical meaning accurate confession of both the person the work of christ
00:50:48.340so the doctrinal test the truth test and then the moral test you know obedience john says again and
00:50:53.280again are we walking in his commandments not because our obedience saves us but it is an
00:50:57.920evidence of faith that saves us you know the fruit of faith and then you know there's also the love
00:51:03.060test right that having love for one another right even you know that will love for the least of
00:51:08.580these, whatever you do for the least of these. Yeah. But Jesus is the least of these, my brothers,
00:51:12.580you know, that you're not just that you're visiting the prisoner. There is a biblical,
00:51:16.160you know, a category for love for neighbor. And we have a global neighborhood because we have
00:51:21.380universal neighborhood because we have a universal creatorhood of God is the creator of all, but we
00:51:25.720have not universal brotherhood because we don't have universal fatherhood. God is father, the
00:51:31.100Lord Jesus Christ, and all those who have union with him by faith. And so otherwise, you know,
00:51:35.640there's another father, the father of lies, you know, the devil. And so all those things being
00:51:40.320said, so there's a love test, but I started really thinking, you know, in terms of that
00:51:45.980doctrinal test, the truth test, a right, a biblical and personal confession. I really
00:51:51.380started thinking about that profess with your mouth and believe in your heart and you will be
00:51:54.760saved. And what I came down to that I think is accurate as I've checked it against, you know,
00:52:00.660Puritans and the reformers and those kinds of, is that we don't often think about it like this,
00:52:04.780but a profession is a work. And that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter. But I would say that
00:52:12.300your profession of Christ as Savior and Lord is a work. It's simply the first, and almost in terms
00:52:21.480of chronological time, it's the first and almost immediate work. But it is a work. It is the result,
00:52:29.740the fruit, the evidence, one of the first results, fruits and evidence of faith. And so we are saved
00:52:35.920by grace is the gift of God so that no one can boast. That grace is received through faith. Faith
00:52:42.180is the instrument that lays hold of grace. But then if we're trying to place in our order salutis,
00:52:48.180you know, like a profession, the profession would be an evidence, a fruit, a work, just like
00:52:53.500obeying the 10 commandments, you know, it would, and it just would be the first work. So my point
00:52:58.480is that if God saves someone by grace through faith, um, and, and they're mute, they're still
00:53:06.580saved because, because, um, the person who doesn't profess because of unwillingness, we would say,
00:53:12.920well, that's, you're not saved, not because professions save you. Um, grace through faith
00:53:18.620saves you, but grace through faith bears fruit. And someone who is, who is refusing to make a
00:53:24.360profession. We say, your lack of fruit, your refusal to bear fruit in one of these clear,
00:53:29.560clear areas of scripture, right? If somebody refused to be baptized, I would question their
00:53:34.440salvation. And rightfully so. If somebody refused to be faithful in marriage, all those different1.00
00:53:38.960things. And so it would be the refusal of a profession. It's not that the profession saves
00:53:44.160you. It's just that you're refusing to bear fruit in this area, which means there's a lack of
00:53:49.800evidence of the grace through faith that actually does save you. So, so I think that's important
00:53:55.440for people to understand. You're not saved by casting a spell and, and having the right
00:54:00.560pronunciation and articulate. If you say these words in this order and enunciate and emphasize
00:54:05.860that, you know, this inflection, you know, like, no, no, no, you're saved by grace through faith.
00:54:10.160That's it. And a profession, if we had to categorize it, the profession of Christ that
00:54:15.180is both biblical and personal. It's not grace. It's not faith. It is a work. It is an evidence.
00:54:23.240It's simply one of the first works and evidences of the person who has been born again by grace
00:54:28.400through faith in Christ alone. And so if somebody is unwilling, that calls serious things into
00:54:33.800question. I would be confident saying, I'm sorry, I can give you no assurance of being a brother.
00:54:38.500you won't profess Christ. You will not confess Christ as Lord, you know, but, but the person
00:54:44.960who's unable, that's a completely different story. Right. Would you agree with that?
00:54:49.780You know, you, you know, like you're talking about this and, and we hear phrases that are
00:54:56.120from the Bible of like repent and believe, right? Like you, you need to repent and believe
00:56:47.440He will finish the work that he did in you.
00:56:50.860Um, I think it would help people a lot more if they read a little bit more of like the
00:56:59.940marrow controversy and, uh, saw how these men, um, tried to work their way through this
00:57:09.220idea of, of works versus grace, you know, like, what does it look like?
00:57:15.980Because we don't want to end up with, you know, ideas like Piper puts out with final justification or some of the federal vision, which has its other issues of monocovenantalism.
00:59:23.580You know, you bring up 1 John, and one thing that I find really fascinating about that is when he talks about fellowship one to another, right?
00:59:35.680That's the same word for communion, participate, to share.
00:59:40.860There is a real spiritual union that goes on between believer to the next believer.
00:59:51.500And I would argue that it's the same spiritual participation that we have and union we have with Christ that brings believers spiritually together as one body.
01:00:05.300And it's not about hanging out or having lunch or doing nice stuff together, but that it's an actual supernatural event.
01:00:15.440And I think that's one thing that's really lacking in a lot of modern churches is the understanding of the supernatural.
01:00:34.060and um post enlightenment we have this uh you know like we bow down to it we go okay yeah no
01:00:42.500there is a spiritual realm but we we act as if it's not real or dealing with anything spiritual
01:00:49.860is more superstitious and obviously we deny Rome and the superstition there but we need to
01:00:58.260I think grab a hold of the very real, I mean, that's what the whole means of grace is based off of.
01:01:05.320And I think it helps us to do that when we recognize that spiritual union is one believer to the next believer as well.
01:01:13.420That there's a spiritual unity that binds us as a spirit.
01:01:17.660That's right. Yeah, that we are actually discerning the body and the body being actually the people, the people of Christ.
01:01:25.940No, you're absolutely right. And I think one of the reasons with our enlightenment version of Christianity, because we've tried to marry these things, which is impossible, but because we've gotten too big for our britches and too intellectual and all those kind of things, what you're talking about is precisely the reason why churches were so quick to close their doors with COVID and so slow to open them.
01:01:47.740Because at the end of the day, people don't actually believe that something happens when the saints gather together on the Lord's day for the administering of the ordinary means of grace, right?
01:01:57.640First Corinthians chapter 10, just as there is one bread, we who are many are made one, that something actually happens.
01:02:04.960And, you know, Matthew chapter 18, like where two or three are gathered.
01:02:07.520It's not just two or three guys in a college dorm at a Christian campus, you know, with a djembe and an ovation guitar singing Kumbaya, my Lord, right?
01:02:14.920No, Jesus is talking about being uniquely present, particularly with authority, given the context of church discipline.
01:02:22.360But he's talking about the Lord's Day gathering.
01:02:24.580And when he says two or three, well, why does he say two or three?
01:02:27.300Well, because you can have a small church.
01:02:36.120They've been baptized into the Lord Jesus.
01:02:38.860And baptism is how the one joins the many.
01:02:41.240And in the Lord's Supper, the renewal oath ceremony that we have, the many are made one.
01:02:47.100And when these ordinary means of grace are rightly administered by biblically qualified officers, ordained officers of the church and the saints are gathered together on the first day of the week when Christ rose from the dead, the Christian Sabbath, he promises Christ who is omnipresent, always present with believers by virtue of the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit.
01:03:07.640But he's always present, but he promises to be especially or uniquely present in that earthly context.
01:03:14.760And there is no other earthly context, but the church gathered where Christ promises to be uniquely present.
01:03:22.400And what we said when we closed our doors and guys didn't open them up for months is we said, you know what?
01:03:27.320At the end of the day, we don't need Christ.
01:03:31.140And if you press them on that, they say, of course we need Jesus.
01:03:33.840But we've got Jesus in our living room with Zoom.
01:03:36.460And it's because they're too big for their britches, they're too practical, they're too scientific, too, you know, not real science, but the science, you know, too enlightened, it's the enlightenment, to just, to believe that good old time religion of the supernatural that like, no, no, something, something magical happens and not like magical and some, you know, like some mystical.
01:04:01.580You know, what's interesting about that?
01:04:03.100Yeah, and I would say that I think what happened during the COVIDs and the tyranny from the state and all of these institutions closing their doors and not worshiping, showing that they actually worship, I think that was a good thing.
01:04:22.960I mean, Jesus said to preserve his church, that he is going to present her, the entire church, holy, blameless, and spotless, that as a priest, he is purging the sin from within.
01:04:36.580And, you know, I think it was a great show of false churches.
01:04:48.660And a lot of people that thought that they were Christians come to realize that they're not.
01:04:52.960A lot of, you know, small faith Christians inside some of these churches started to recognize that their churches aren't true churches, that they've, while every church has a mixture of truth and error, they recognize that theirs has devolved into a synagogue of Satan.
01:05:33.920It was hard, but the Lord, it was his merciful providence to lift the veil.
01:05:39.400And for some people, it was already lifted, but for the normies, right, that's what the kids call it.
01:05:43.740You know, they didn't see a lot of these things until the last two and a half years, and that was a mercy of the Lord to actually reveal to his sheep, no, this really is a problem, and this person really is a wolf, and this person really, and so I completely agree with you.
01:05:58.060And for the record, I think there are churches that got it wrong that still are true churches, but here's the linchpin.
01:07:13.840So what do we do? What do we do? What do we do with the leadership of like fill in the blank denomination, whether it's the SBC or Presbyterian or Reformed Baptists that for the past 50 years have said that, you know, abortion is health care.
01:07:34.400And instead of treating it like homicide, we should try to limit access to this bad thing.
01:07:45.160They're still not repenting of, you know, being on the side of legalizing abortion or at least being the religious backing for keeping abortion as health care.
01:08:02.780You're closing health care facilities in Texas, okay, but it's still completely legal in every single state for a woman to kill her own pre-born child.0.99
01:08:14.960And the church, by and large, still backs these health care laws.0.69
01:08:22.120What do we do with the leadership that, like we were talking about before, for 40, 50 years are saying that the creation of humans, where 90% of them are going to die and a large percent are going to be frozen, incarcerated without due process, and you're behind that still?
01:08:42.420I mean, what kind of repentance are we asking for from these religious leaders, even when they finally come out and go, OK, maybe this is a they're not even doing that for abortion.
01:08:54.100They're saying, no, abortion is bad, but our strategy is still good.
01:08:57.280I'm like, we need to show the bloody city and expose the sin.0.67
01:09:06.700Why do we think that the COVIDs and the tyranny of the state coming down on us, we're polluting the land with our abominations?
01:12:38.140And we're learning about the Caronquas because they were kind of like in
01:12:40.240Galveston area, you know, in Corpus Christi, and that's right where we were.0.53
01:12:43.800But they were cannibals. They were eating each other, you know?0.57
01:12:47.000And so like, I mean, you, you know, like slavery, right?
01:12:49.780Like every nation in the world had slaves, every,
01:12:52.980every nation in the world virtually had slaves,
01:12:55.280three percent of the african slave trade was was north america the rest was south america and then
01:12:59.860other african nations buying slaves from other african nations and then of course europe um0.94
01:13:04.200you know so yeah we dispossessed the people from the land um and the people who dispossessed them
01:13:09.320we didn't i should say our our forefathers did they dispossessed right right and they were righteous1.00
01:13:15.800now they had their problems too i'm not saying they were perfect um i don't like the salem witch
01:13:19.760trials i don't think that that was according to god's law with two or three witnesses um you know
01:13:23.840So there was problems in, you know, Boston, Massachusetts, there were problems over here that, you know, but the covenanters, the founders, these guys, they were more righteous and God gave them the land.
01:13:34.900And I believe that God providentially gave them the land for a reason.
01:13:52.600Right. So for us to be, you know, plagued by, you know, we weren't plagued by, you know, the bubonic plague or some kind of, you know, I do, I'm not a COVID denier.
01:14:00.760I think there actually was COVID, but it certainly, I mean, it was, it was nothing like, you know, like the Spanish flu, which was no respecter of persons, right?
01:14:07.140It wasn't just elderly and vulnerable and comorbidities.
01:14:09.860You'd be 17 years old and healthy and drop dead.
01:14:12.160And the state asked the church, they didn't command it.
01:14:14.120They asked the church to close a hundred years ago with the Spanish flu and the church in America closed for three weeks, three weeks, and then got back.
01:14:21.740So I think like for us to actually have a real plague, because COVID is not a real plague.
01:14:28.900It is a real illness, sickness, but a virus, but a real plague would be well within God's