Joel Osteen, Toby Sumter, Chalk Knox, and Gabriel Wrench define theonomy as legislating God's law, arguing all Christians must uphold biblical justice while distinguishing enduring moral principles from fulfilled ceremonial laws like the Sabbath. They critique modern evangelicalism for secular softening, asserting America is an idol nearing its 250-year imperial lifespan that will dissolve into "fertilizer" for God's kingdom unless repentance occurs. Ultimately, they urge faithful worship over nationalism, viewing national collapse not as a cause for rejoicing but as a necessary purification where the church's worship acts as a battering ram to build the New Jerusalem. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
Time
Text
Welcome to Theology Applied00:03:12
Hi, this is Pastor Joel with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to another episode of Theology Applied.
In this episode, I was privileged to be joined by Toby Sumter, Chalk Knox, also known as David Shannon, his real name, and Gabriel Wrench.
They're the three hosts of Cross Politic, a podcast that I highly recommend.
And so they come on the show.
Our topic is theonomy, God's law, legislating God's law in the civil realm, all of Christ for all of life.
And we apply a lot of this conversation, the theological framework, to the The subject of America, how America has done this successfully, how America has failed, and our predictions for whether or not the nation of the United States of America will continue, or whether or not, perhaps because of our rebellion, our time as a nation is up.
So I think you'll enjoy.
Also, if you're willing to support Right Response Ministries, you can do so by making a donation of any amount on our website, rightresponseministries.com.
Again, that's rightresponseministries.com.
If you're not able to support the ministry financially, you can still support us through prayer as well as subscribing to our YouTube channel, clicking the bell so that you'll be notified with new content as it arrives.
And a big one is simply sharing our content with your friends and family members and encouraging them to subscribe as well.
Finally, before we get started, if you are a Christian andor conservative company or ministry or organization that wants to partner with Right Response Ministries, And sponsor some of our shows through advertisements, we would love to partner with you.
So please reach out to us at advertise at rightresponseministries.com.
Again, that's advertise at rightresponseministries.com.
We'll be able to send you our media kit, our pricing, and our strategy to help your business succeed.
And now, enjoy this episode of Theology Apply.
Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
This is Theology Applied.
All right.
Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied with Right Response Ministries.
As I've already mentioned, we're privileged to be joined with special guests from Cross Politics.
We've got Toby, we've got Chuck Knox, and we've got the water boy, Gabriel Wrench.
So without further ado, guys, go ahead and just introduce yourselves to our listeners.
I'm Pastor Toby Sumter, Associate Pastor at Christ Church, and married to Jenny, Father of Four.
Yep.
And yeah.
It's funny, you just introduced this.
I don't know what to say, except I guess if you can't tell that I'm the chocolate knocks, I don't know what's wrong with you.
But okay.
Especially between the three of us.
Between the three of us.
Between the three of us.
But I guess so I'm married to Sharon.
She has given me seven beautiful children and a filmmaker and dripology.
There we go.
Hey, and I'm Gabriel Wrench, Waterboy.
I serve as a deacon at Christ Church here in Moscow, Idaho, which is partially why we call him the Waterboy.
Yes.
And it's all connected.
Am I advertising Starbucks?
Applying Biblical Principles Today00:15:27
Better not be.
I'm married to Annie and I got three.
Just wonderful, happy, joyful kids that keep me on my toes.
Go baptize your kids if you have children.
You asked for it, Joel.
Yeah.
So by having them on the show, then I just got to take the punches with the baptism baby.
All right.
So this is what we want to do with this episode.
I wanted to discuss theonomy, God's law, applying it in the civil realm, executing justice, all those kinds of things.
And you guys, I've learned a lot from you.
On this topic, and been a long time listener.
So, I just wanted to basically, I'll start with this.
There's a lot of guys who prescribe to the Westminster Confession or they prescribe to the 1689, and yet they have an incredible aversion to the word theonomy.
What is theonomy?
Why are people so bothered by it?
Blah, You know, it's funny.
You know, there's a lot of people that are, I've seen articles written against theonomy, and I always get concerned when they start writing articles against it.
I don't want to talk about that really.
I really want to ask you how do you start exercising what the civil magistrate is supposed to do as it relates to justice?
And how do you get there from a Christian perspective and position?
And as soon as somebody starts exercising some form of justice from a biblical position, I'm just like, well, that's theonomy.
And so I don't know what the fight really is all about.
I want to take away kind of some of the stereotypes that people feel about theonomy.
Forget all that.
What does it come down to?
If somebody steals, what should be the thing?
What is justice?
What is justice in the case of stealing?
What is justice in the case of murder?
And where'd you get it?
And where'd you get it?
When it's time for it to apply, whose fear is supposed to apply the judgment for those things?
And so when it comes down to it, every Christian, regardless whether they like the term or not, better be a theonomist.
Because if they're not a theonomist, they are then saying that we don't need God's word as it relates to justice and we can make it up as we go.
And the other presuppositional question to ask is if you're criticizing theonomy, what standard are you using to criticize theonomy?
Exactly.
Right.
Exactly.
That's just what a theonomist would say.
So I think.
Go ahead, John.
Well, I was going to say real quick, what do you think?
You know, I remember when you guys had Jonathan Lehman on the show, and I thought that was one of my favorite episodes, and it revealed a lot.
And it seems like what Lehman was advocating for is like, well, of course, we need God's justice.
And of course, you know, there is a right and a wrong, and it's not relative and it's not subjective.
But then what he did, this is my takeaway, and I want to see if you guys agree.
What he did was he made it mystic that he kept using the word wisdom.
Well, it's just wisdom.
Christians just need to have wisdom.
But it seemed like what he was communicating in that is not a wisdom that is inherent.
Inherently found in the word of God, but a wisdom that comes, I don't know, like that's more mystical.
What do you feel like he was doing there?
Right, yeah, from above, but not from a book from above.
You know what I mean?
That's right.
I agree with you, Joel.
I think that that's exactly what I took away as well.
And I think that's a misunderstanding of what wisdom is.
Biblical wisdom is an application of God's word.
So this goes back to actually the building of the tabernacle in Exodus.
Um, God gives wisdom, uh, to the artisans to construct the tabernacle, and it says so that they can uh follow the instructions that God gave to Moses on the mountain.
Bars, I mean, it's so the you know, you think even the modern concept of um, you know, creativity and being an artist, we have this we many Christians have even imbibed this sort of postmodern um notion that creativity and artistry and beauty is sort of winging it subjective, it's completely subjective, you're making it up as you go along.
The the you know.
It to be for it to be really beautiful, it has to be really authentic, which means you had you didn't you just made it up on the spot, you just splattered the paint, you just you know, you know, it's emotional, it's emotive, and I would say mystical.
And so, I think to the extent that we think wisdom is that kind of artistry, it's subjective and it's winging it, then it's absolutely right, it's mystical.
But biblical wisdom is the skill and the art, I would say, of applying God's word on the ground to particulars, yeah, exactly.
And so, that goes all the way back to Exodus.
The artisans of the tabernacle did not have the freedom to make it up as they went along.
I mean, people who made it up, having to do with anything with the tabernacle, got burnt.
Yeah, or stoned if they're a prophet.
It's right.
But that's, I think you're absolutely right.
Biblical wisdom is applying God's word.
And so, and I'd love to have that follow up conversation with Lehman and say, that's my understanding of wisdom.
Of course, the biblical law has to be applied with wisdom.
Of course, it's case law.
It doesn't apply to every single situation.
You take biblical principles and then you apply them to the particulars on the ground.
Of course.
But the question that I think you're pressing rightly is, but where do we start?
And we have to start with biblical principles.
The word of God is our light, it's our truth.
And if we don't start there, then yeah, we've got big problems.
That's good.
Would you guys agree with this statement?
I'll make a statement and see what you guys take it.
So, the civil law, right?
We could divide the law into three basic groups ceremonial, civil, and moral law, the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments.
But we would say that the ceremonial law is moral for Israel.
They either obey or they don't.
There's morality that's intrinsically involved in that.
But we would say ultimately the ceremonial law has been fulfilled in Christ.
But when it comes to the civil law, even though that was unique to Israel, Would you guys agree that we would say that it's not civil law and moral law, we divorce them and make them so separate, but really we could look at the moral law, the Decalogue, as the bedrock or the blueprints, and out of it, out of these laws, like thou shalt not murder, which we would dig even deeper and say that it's to esteem human life made in the image of God, to protect it, not to do harm to our neighbor, all those kinds of things.
And from that, you get a border on the roof of houses so that people don't fall off.
You get all these different civil laws.
Stemming from the moral law of God, the Decalogue.
And so with Israel, we would look at all these civil laws, and we're not saying that, you know, for America or Brazil or China, that it's a one to one ratio.
I think what we're saying is that with the civil law, we do instead of one step, we do two.
We go from the civil law back to the moral law, and then the moral law applied with wisdom to our time and place.
Is that a good way to express it?
Well, I mean, the Westminster Confession says that the particular civil laws.
Have expired with the nation of Israel, except for the general equity thereof.
And the 1689.
Yeah, too.
And 1689.
So, yeah.
Okay.
So, basically, I would say, I think that's exactly what you said.
I think I agree with.
Frequently, people take general equity and then they mean something kind of mystical by it.
Right.
They say, oh, yeah, general equity.
And then just sort of like something up.
They wave their hands.
Wave their hands and be like, yeah.
And then just, I don't know where they're going to get it from.
But general equity, best I can tell, is actually something like a technical term that.
That was coming out of the Western law tradition, which meant the moral principles behind the civil law.
So I don't, and again, look at the men who wrote the Westminster Confession or the London Baptist Confession or the men who established our country.
I mean, they were the ones that wrote the words, you know, expired except for the general equity thereof.
And then what laws did they put on the books?
Well, they had like Sabbath breaking laws.
I mean, they took the Old Testament law and they sought to apply it with wisdom.
To their situation.
And it doesn't mean they always got it right.
But yeah, I think something like what you're talking about is what is meant by general equity.
The moral principles embedded in the civil law are still binding on the nations of the earth.
Paul quotes the Old Testament law when he talks about paying pastors do not muzzle an ox.
Right.
So that goes to kind of Toby's general equity comments here that the authors of the New Testament had no problem anchoring their principles and their book of church order.
In Old Testament principles and Old Testament law.
And that's what Paul was doing there.
So, I think those categories are helpful.
But when you read through the Old Testament, oftentimes they'll kind of go from a ceremonial text to a civil text to a moral text.
So, it really does require knowing your Bible to be able to sort through this.
I would also just add I think, for example, to add to Gabe's point, is I think the Sabbath law, for example, the fourth commandment actually has all three.
Categories at work.
Yeah.
So I think there is a moral component because it goes all the way back to the foundation of the world, the way God made the world.
There were particular civil penalties that were put in place for the nation of Israel.
And there were ceremonial elements to it as well.
And so when you get to the New Testament, for example, why does Paul feel free in Galatians and other places, for example, to say, you know, why are you going back to the Sabbaths?
Why are you going back to the holy days and so on?
Well, that's the ceremonial law that's fulfilled in Jesus.
And the Judaizers were saying, if you don't fulfill the ceremonial law, You're not fully justified in Jesus.
So I think we stand with Paul dead on and say, yeah, don't go back to a ceremonial Sabbath.
The ceremonial Sabbath died in Jesus.
Partially, that's why we celebrate the New Testament Sabbath on Sunday, on the first day of the week.
It died and it rose again.
But there is still a moral Sabbath.
Hebrews 4 says that a Sabbath remains for the people of God.
It's part of the Ten Commandments, it goes back to the creation of the world.
And because of that, I think that nations are free to apply that moral load, moral law, judiciously.
In civil law to this day, I disagree with the blue laws that our ancestors tried to say you couldn't buy wine and beer on Sunday.
But if there was one thing that you should be able to buy on Sunday, I just don't understand that, brothers and sisters.
But nevertheless, I would say it's actually written into our Constitution that the president has Sundays off from considering legislation that's brought to him.
And so I think wise civil magistrates ought to have ways in which they honor the Lord's Day.
Yeah, I agree.
With that, though, I know you were saying it in jest, you know, just quickly in passing in terms of buying wine and beer and stuff like that.
But just to quickly put you guys on the spot, because I really am curious your answer.
So it's not a loaded question, it's a genuine question.
Sure.
This is Nehemiah, Nehemiah chapter 13.
I really want to hear you guys' response, especially you, Toby, on this one.
So, Nehemiah chapter 13, starting in verse 15.
This is one of the texts that both the Westminster authors and the 1689 authors cite in terms of the Sabbath day.
Verse 15, in those days I saw Judah.
I saw in Judah people treading winepress on the Sabbath and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys and also wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of loads which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.
And I warned them on the day when they sold food.
Tyrians also, who lived in the city, brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the people of Judah in Jerusalem itself.
Then I confronted the nobles of Judah and said to them, What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?
Did not your fathers act in this way?
And did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city?
Now you are bringing more wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.
As soon as it began to grow dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath.
And I stationed some of my servants at the gates that no load might be brought in on the Sabbath day.
Then the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice, but I warned them and said to them, Why do you lodge outside the wall?
If you do so again, I will lay hands on you.
From that time on, they did not come on the Sabbath.
Then I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come and guard the gates to keep the Sabbath day holy.
Remember this also in my favor, oh my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love.
So, in my assessment, that's one of the texts that's cited by the 1689 and the Westminster.
And, you know, but at the same time, I've been Sabbatarian for what, like 15 minutes, you know, so I want to be humble and admit that, you know, my family and I have adopted Sabbatarian convictions for about two years now.
And so a little longer than 15 minutes, but not much.
And I look at guys who've been Sabbatarian for 30 years and they go out to eat after church on Sunday.
And I don't want to be so arrogant as to presume that I understand something that these faithful individuals do.
Do not.
And yet, I've also heard arguments on the other side saying that, you know, we want to release our servants on, you know, you or your servant, your male servant, your female servant.
And that by patroning certain places, the marketplace, we're forcing people to work.
And I know the period, like Thomas Watson, I just finished his book on the Ten Commandments, and Thomas Watson would have had a fit, you know, if we were going to the marketplace on Sunday.
So, what is, help me go out to eat on Sunday with a clear conscience.
Well, who's serving you, pagans?
But those were pagans outside the wall of Jerusalem.
That's kind of difficult.
So, my take is you actually have, again, I would go back to I think, I believe the Sabbath command has all three elements going on, all through the law, and there's different elements of it.
You've got moral, civil, and ceremonial going on.
And that, fine.
And so, and that ceremonial, you know, and it's all bound up again with them being able to be in the land.
And if they're not keeping the law completely, if they're not being faithful to the covenant that they kept, that they made with God, they're going to be kicked out of the land.
You've got them coming back into the land now under Nehemiah.
So there's multiple elements here, but let me just try to parse it really quickly.
Number one is I believe that the moral principle of not doing your normal daily labors.
So they're trying to bring a normal marketplace in on the Sabbath.
And I believe that Christian Sabbatarians should be against that.
So we should not have our normal marketplace going on, our normal daily business going on.
At the same time, I don't believe that we are under the same ceremonial law such that, as Paul says in Romans 14, people can esteem every day alike or one day differently, and that's not a divisive matter.
So I take that to mean that Sunday is not ceremonially different than any other day of the week.
I believe it is the Lord's day, the day that Jesus rose from the dead, and it is our Christian Sabbath.
But what we find in the Old Covenant is that Sabbath was one of the feast days.
But then, any number of feast days, if you had a feast day, it created a Sabbath day.
It wasn't ceremonially different, but nevertheless, it became a Sabbath day or it became a feast day.
Sabbath Rest and Feasting00:04:43
I believe that the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's Day, Sunday, is the Christian Sabbath, but it's not a ceremonial Sabbath.
It's sanctified by our worship and it's not the other way around like it was in the Old Covenant.
But that means that I don't think we're under the exact same ceremonial regulations as the Old Covenant people.
Now, the principle stands, the moral principle is take a day off.
And give everybody a day off.
So I think of this like, I think one of the best ways to think about it is like Christmas or Thanksgiving.
Nobody wants to go to work on Christmas or Thanksgiving.
Yeah.
Nope.
Everybody wants to shut down.
Everyone has a few hours as possible.
At the same time, we also know that the Sabbath principle is not meant to crush the poor.
It's not meant to crush the needy.
It's not meant to crush the travelers.
The travelers.
And it's meant to provide rest, maybe for someone who has to travel, maybe for emergencies.
So we already make exceptions in the confessions for works of necessity.
For example, so I want you to know the cops and the firemen or mercy and the and the hospitals and mom who's cooking the meal.
And I want to add to that, I think sometimes we can be a little bit cranky about it, but I want to say if somebody's traveling or their car broke down and they need a place to stay or they need to buy some lunch, Napa auto parts need to open.
Or if somebody came through town and whatever the plans fell through and you suddenly need to provide for them, in my ideal Sabbatarian society, again, I would think of it kind of like Christmas or Thanksgiving, where usually you have very limited hours.
Everybody's trying to go home, everybody's trying to give as much time off as possible.
But maybe in my ideal Sabbatarian community, You'd have a rotation of grocery stores that would have limited hours once a month or once every six weeks.
So, most of the time, most of them are off, but one of them's open in town because of emergencies.
And mom forgets something, and you got to run to the store because you have extra guests that land in town.
I think that's fully in keeping with keeping Sabbath.
And so, I would want to say amen to what Nehemiah did.
I think civil magistrates ought to have laws in place that would encourage Sabbath keeping.
But I also think that sometimes our Puritan forefathers, who are better than men than me, Nevertheless, had a few extra eggs in the omelet.
And I would want them to ease up a bit because I think that actually, to give rest, we need to have a little bit of room to maneuver.
So, what I would say in terms of your binding your conscience about going to lunch on Sundays, I would say for myself, I ordinarily don't go out to lunch on Sunday.
However, I don't think it's a sin if on occasion you decide to give your family rest by taking them out to a meal.
I would want, again, a sort of similar kind of rotation for restaurants on Sunday or hotels, hotels, and that kind of thing, where occasionally, As need, you know, maybe you just had a baby last night and it's like, who's going to cook dinner and whatever, or you have guests in.
I want the opportunity to take them out to a restaurant to give rest.
But I would, in my ideal world, that restaurant would only be open, you know, once every eight weeks or something.
And there'd be a rotation of them so we could help serve more of them.
There's a Sabbath rest still taking place amongst the restaurants.
Exactly.
So it's culturally, we're all resting.
And again, like Christmas or Thanksgiving, everything's pretty much shut down.
But if you need something, you could still go find it.
So, Joel, we won't stone you if you happen to.
You know, go to Salt Lake barbecue on Sunday.
I also, you know, are the Egyptians serving?
Because I don't mind plundering the Egyptians on Sunday a little bit.
You know, Gabe, you were going to say something?
I just said it.
That was my joke.
That was my joke.
I get it.
Well, the beauty for in my case is that we do a Sabbath dinner every Saturday evening for all the members in our church, and they come over because we're, you know, we're church planning.
We're small at this point.
So people come over, and I'm, You know, I'm smoking meat, you know, all day long.
Sometimes start Friday night if I've got a brisket or something like that.
And there are, you know, our doctrine enforces us to feast.
And so we always make more than enough food and we don't ration it out.
And so there's always baskets left over, if you will, which means Sunday afternoon after church, because it's at my house, I get to keep most of the leftovers.
So when my family comes home, you know, all it takes for us is, You know, mom gets lunch off.
She doesn't have to make anything.
I just go over to the microwave and we get brisket and ribs and things like that.
So, lots of us do that exact same thing here in Moscow.
Yep.
Cool.
All right.
Well, let's go back to the heart motivation for a lot of Christians.
I don't want to unnecessarily pick on Jonathan Lehman, although I'm perfectly comfortable picking on him a little bit.
Motives Behind Christian Ignorance00:10:12
But he represents, you know, it's not unique to him.
That's what I mean.
It's not like he's the only one.
He represents a large group of Christians.
And so, you know, at the end of the day, God alone sees the heart.
We look at the outward appearance.
But there is a sense, and I always want to remind Christians of this.
You know, it's like, well, you can't judge my inner motives.
Well, but Jesus does talk about judging a tree by its fruit.
And the Bible does say that out of the abundance of the heart, you know, the mouth speaks.
And so we can't judge definitively, you know, infallibly the internal motives of the heart.
And often it's best for us to leave those things to God and just strictly judge the fruit itself and the actions and the words, the deeds of an individual.
But there is, when there's a pattern, I guess is my point, when a pattern begins to emerge in word andor deed with an individual, I think we can begin to suspect certain things in the person's.
Heart.
And we want to be careful about levying accusations, but I do think we can exercise humble Christian discernment and say that this does seem to be a motive.
So I'm not making a definitive statement, but I am saying it does seem as though Jonathan Lehman, and again, him representing a much larger group of many Christians, him being just one example, because he was on your show, he's a good one to use, but it seems as though there may be some kind of heart motive, some kind of incentive, something that they're guarding, that they're protecting by.
By not wanting to just say, you know what, this is maybe a lot simpler than we're making it.
Maybe it's not so mystical.
God wrote a book and the book actually applies.
What do you guys think that, what is it that people are trying to protect?
What is the motive there?
And we don't even have to say it's his motive.
I just think he made that way too complicated.
That question?
All right, go ahead.
Because I really do think it's just pure ignorance.
I think that these people are ignorant of God's word.
And if there's a motivation behind it, it's to cover up that ignorance.
They don't know what to do, man.
The social justice movement came in here and ransacked the Christian evangelicals because they don't know what to do, they don't have any understanding of God's word to be able to apply it to the situation.
Well, but they've been taught to unhitch the old testament from the new testament, yes.
And so now they're running around like, Where are our clothes at?
They were in that thing that you unhitched, that's why you run around here naked, you know.
And so, well, and so I think what they realized is like, Wait, we don't have on any clothes, what do we do?
And so, they're and the social justice were like, Here, how about these?
How about these?
And what do they do?
They put them on, they're like, Oh, that seems like Wisdom from above.
Right.
And so I think, I don't think, you know, their intentions and all this, I, again, I don't, I'm not even going to make that assumption of what's going on there.
I just think that they're ignorant.
And the last thing that people want to do in a situation like this is repent.
And that's what God has shown.
When you realize you come to a situation and you need help and you need wisdom, repent.
Lord, I should have, you know, that's one thing I really got to say about Tom Maskell.
When we started making the film, by what standard in 2019, and all this stuff started coming up, And he, I remember the first time we went to his house at the conference and I interviewed him, and he was like, Man, I didn't see this coming.
I didn't see what was going on.
And at the end of the film, he sits up here and says, Brothers, we need to repent because we had been played.
We hadn't seen the things that were going on.
And so I think that there is so much pride and arrogance, if there's anything, because of the ignorance.
The last thing they want to do is say, We were wrong.
We should have been operating and practicing God's word all the way up until now so that when this hit, We knew exactly how to operate.
And that's what I think it is.
It's pride and arrogance and not wanting to repent that they haven't been in God's word the way that they should have and applying to the situation.
I would.
So you would chalk this one up real quick to Chesterton, right?
Never attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity or ignorance.
And so you're saying that the motive, that there is a motive, but the motive is to protect the reputation.
The motive is to not have to walk it back, not wanting to acknowledge, hey, we missed this one.
Well, no one and nobody wants to admit that they just don't know.
They don't have answers.
They just don't want to admit that they're ignorant.
And men in particular.
I mean, men don't like to say, I don't know.
But don't you think there's also like a certain amount of embarrassment?
That's what I'm saying.
That's exactly right.
But where, you know, I don't want to defend the text where it talks about slavery.
I don't want to defend the text where now, now homosexuality.
I don't even want to defend those.
If you're going to go there, then I'm going to say like this Doug Wilson can't be right.
Like, if there's anything, he can't be right.
30, 40 years of planning educational institutions, seeing what was coming, talking about that all this was going to hinge.
The play on Christianity was going to hinge on how we understood and afraid to talk about biblical slavery.
Doug Wilson can't be right.
Right.
Right.
So we got to make sure that can't.
Yeah, that's just narrowing in on the point.
Right.
It's one thing to admit that God was right.
Right.
It's another thing to admit that Doug Wilson is right.
That's gummy.
Kick you in the mouth.
No.
I think the other thing, though, Joel, is I think we have churches full of unbelievers.
So, I think we have a nation full of people who don't know Jesus.
I think we have, I saw somebody sharing this over the weekend with Reformation Day.
Maybe I'm dating this recording, but somebody saying that the modern American evangelical church is in a worse state than the Roman Catholic church was when the Reformation started.
And I think there's a strong argument for that.
I think we are full of just as much mysticism and superstition and corruption.
In the modern evangelical church, I'm thinking the whole thing, not just the whole born again Christianity, whatever.
In a worse place?
In a worse place than Roman Catholicism.
But I think the reason why America is in the shape that it's in is because we have lost our saltiness, we've lost our light.
Jesus said, You are the light of the world.
Why is it so dark?
Because despite the fact that we have millions of professing Christians, they have no light.
It's darkness.
They have no light.
And so I think we have leaders who, on the one hand, really ought to know better in certain ways.
But I think even they've been ignorant in certain ways.
They were trained in certain seminaries that gave them certain kinds of blinders that told them not to ask certain kinds of questions and not to look in certain dark corners.
And so they've got these blinders and they teach what they know and they do their best.
And they're teaching hundreds and thousands of people who don't know Jesus.
So, of course, they don't know their Bibles.
I mean, they, you know, they think that knowing Jesus is going to a church, a service.
I'm not even going to dignify it with the name church, where, you know, there's a rock band and strobe lights and smoke machines, and they get into this mystical fervor.
They have an emotional, spiritual orgasm, and then they go home for another week.
And they think that's Christianity.
And no wonder it translates into absolutely nothing during the week.
No wonder it doesn't change their lives at all.
That's, I mean, talk about ignorance.
It's not just the ignorance.
It's not like, Christian ignorance.
There's some of that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I think part of the problem is they don't even know God because no wonder they don't know the word.
You know, it's funny.
I was just talking, just to jump on that, when you talked about they go to seminary and then they get this, what, four or six years seminary for the most part?
Three.
Okay.
Three.
But before that, they had 12 years of government education.
That's true.
12 years of government education that has given them particular lenses to even view their theological training in.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
And they have to go through rehab first.
None of seminaries go take them, you know, they need a detox.
And then maybe they can do something.
And so I was just talking to somebody else about this.
One of the things that institutions do is they make men soft so that they operate easily inside of these institutions, they remove the sharp edges.
And so you have 12 years of a certain type of education that has made you effeminate.
What do you think is going to happen now that you get to seminary?
You're going to get all that back?
What does a seminary education start to do?
It starts to help encourage that in one way or another so that your education doesn't give you sharp edges anymore to be effective.
And we saw how effective these men were when 2020 came along.
So we became effeminized and institutionalized because of this type of education, which again, go back 40 years ago, someone saw this.
And if you want to finish the whole circle back to Joel asking about motivations, why not theonomy?
Well, again, that would take balls.
And they've been cut off.
I mean, that would take courage.
That would take a backbone.
That would mean.
Real quick on the balls comment, just to pick up on that.
In light of theonomy and the general equity of civil laws, but also there is a sense of ceremonial laws maybe pointing to something deeper.
And the ball comment that you made is there something to the fact that a man cannot enter the tabernacle?
If his testicles have been crushed, Toby?
Is there a general equity there that maybe should be applied today?
Sure, leave it to a Baptist.
You're going to tell me how that works out and come back with some information.
I want to know your exegetical work on that one.
I'm just saying, if we're talking about the general equity of God's law and we're talking about balls, then it just makes me think maybe God was up to something when there's a ceremonial reason, but maybe there's a metaphor there.
Well, I mean, this is the thing.
Like, I mean, nobody wants to preach.
Through Leviticus, nobody wants to preach these passages because then you end up talking about things like this, and somebody thinks that's in your Bible that the pastors are just being crass when no, like it's in the Bible, like it's in God's word.
I mean, you, if you don't have to touch on these issues, then you're not preaching God's word, that's right.
Christ Wins the Church Wins00:03:47
And I mean, there we are, yep.
All right, well, let's go ahead and shift gears now.
Oh, you know, the last thing I was going to say, I think you guys will amen this, but as far as giving our servants a rest on the Lord's day.
If there's any application for that, wouldn't it be our fellow Christian church members giving them a rest from their service that prohibits them, that takes them into another room of the church building where they're effectively barred from the Lord's table because they're in children's ministry?
Isn't that maybe the first place that we should start by giving all of our servants a rest?
But with family integrated worship, I just, I don't know, I thought about that.
Well, Joel, you're going to get in trouble with that question, Joel.
Well, I.
I feel like it's a good start just to at least invite the children to worship.
I like where you're going with this, John.
I like where you just keep going.
Go ahead, finish.
I enjoyed this.
You're almost there.
Run home, run home.
How much rest do you want to give them?
That's beautiful.
All right.
Okay, so let's shift gears now.
So, all that I think has been a really great, helpful framework and backdrop.
All that being said, America, you know, I think Doug has said, and I think you guys would agree that, you know, people say, is America a Christian nation?
He said, well, it was, but it's a nation that currently is in the process of apostatizing.
And so, if that's true, and I believe that that's true, but with that being said, we believe the church is going to win, right?
Everybody believes, every Christian believes Christ is going to win.
I've, you know, as I have conversations with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ with different positions on eschatology, you know, one of the ways that I've tried to define it simply for people is, Do we believe that Christ is going to win despite the church or that Christ is going to win through his church?
That the church is the battering ram of Christ, who is its head, that is ultimately ramming up against the gates of hell and that they're not going to prevail.
And it's this offensive weapon.
Hell is on the ropes.
And it's not just that Jesus is going to win in the bottom of the ninth after the church is battered and bruised, and Jesus wins despite his failing bride, but that he's going to win through his bride.
And so, all that being said, my point is I know you guys are post mill.
And so, we believe not only that Christ is going to win, but we believe in a victorious church, triumphant and militant.
But what about America?
Well, you know, so Christ wins, the church wins.
Does America win or does America lose?
You know, like I told you guys before we started recording, I've been reading this book.
It's called The Fate of Empires.
It's just a collection of a couple essays, and he tries to glean wisdom by doing, instead of just focusing history on one particular culture or nation, he does a global world history and he tracks it back for, I think, all the way to like 3500 BC and talks about empires the Ottoman Empire, the Persians, the Medes, the Assyrian Empire.
And says that each of these empires on average lasted about 250 years.
Like it's actually shocking how close to that 250 year mark all of them got.
And he stages, you know, he outlines stages, and the last stage is a stage of decadence.
And some of the characteristics of decadence that's right before their ultimate demise is materialism, is one of them.
But one of them also is an influx of foreigners and the welfare state becoming an obsession, you know.
And so he's mapping also just, At that point, the nation has the most defense, the most affluence and prosperity and militia and all these things that they've ever had.
But what he says is that the will of the people is no longer there to fight.
Empires Shaken by God's Kingdom00:15:30
Whereas the founders, even though they had nothing, what they did have is they had guts and a desire for glory and for all these kinds of things.
And so, anyways, America, the math is pretty easy to figure out.
We're right around that 250 year mark.
What do you guys think?
When the whole pandemic started in 2020, I remember we had Doug on our show and we were interviewing him about the pandemic and everything.
And Doug quoted Hebrews chapter 12, verses 27 to me.
And it was kind of like hearing that verse all over again when he quoted it to me in that context.
And it says, This phrase, yet once more, indicates that the removal of things that are shaken, that is, the things that have been made, in order that the things, let me make sure I read that correctly with the comments and everything.
Let me reread that.
This phrase, Yet once more indicates the removal of things that are shaken.
That is the things that have been made in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.
Therefore, let us be graceful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
And thus let us offer God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
So when God acts and when God works, He shakes things and He shakes things that need to be shaken and that will go away.
And it says in Hebrews, it says, so that we can receive.
God's kingdom.
And so I think that God is shaking our world in ways that He hasn't done it for decades.
And I think that God, you brought up the point earlier that God is, does He save through the church or around the church?
And God saves through the church.
He saves through His bride.
And as the church disciples the world, God is saving through the church.
He's not getting rid of His church.
He's building the church.
He's building the kingdom here on earth.
And so, America.
Could go away or could not.
God can do whatever He wants there.
But one thing that's not going to be shaken is His kingdom.
Now, I do think we are apostatizing here in America.
And I think the church is largely apostatizing America for reasons that we've discussed here on the show already.
And so, but what I don't want to do is preach, you know, some sort of Christian nationalism, you know, some sort of patriotic nationalism to our country, saying we never want America to go away.
You know, we think that, you know, if America goes away, the world is doomed.
That's not how God works.
It's what every empire thought.
It's what every empire thought.
And so I want God to save the world.
I want God to save.
My friends here, and I want God to save Idaho.
I want God to save, you know, Washington, D.C.
But if we think that America is the shining light to the world, I want nothing to do with that religion.
So I would say that, yeah, we're post mill.
We believe that, you know, I think I might have told you this before, Joel.
But if Apostle Paul, you know, when Apostle Paul, when Jesus died, there's what, about 500 Christians here on this earth.
And then when Apostle Paul died, you know, Maybe 20,000.
I don't know.
It would be kind of an interesting number to try to figure out 20,000, 50,000, whatever it is.
If Apostle Paul came back now and walked around here in the United States and saw all these church buildings everywhere, regardless if he was post mill back then, he would be post mill now.
It's like there's churches everywhere.
There's Christians.
And Paul, I mean, he was like ministering to churches in Corinth.
I mean, he knew they're messed up.
Yeah.
I was gonna say, he might beat a few of them out of the church.
It's like, we're gonna reintroduce some people to this building.
But the point is, God is working.
And sometimes we get pretty discouraged because we see all these physical challenges before us tyrants, petty laws, taxation, whatever.
But God is really working in this world.
And we just gotta, you know, trust in His word and the scriptures and kind of take a step back and look at what God has done from the resurrection of Christ until now.
That's pretty encouraging.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
I'm just going to be straight up.
America's going to die.
It is.
It's going to die.
When?
It's dying now.
And so it's happening.
It's like this cancerous.
And you know, here's the deal the reason that scares people is because they don't believe in resurrection.
Yeah.
God is using and will continue to use empires to be fertilizer for the kingdom.
That's what he's doing.
And so why are you afraid of it when you see it?
Yeah.
Don't be afraid of that.
This is God.
Listen, God, if.
If you don't know the story and you don't know one who's telling it, then you're going to be afraid.
This is God's story, He's telling it.
And if you're reading your Bible, you know the trajectory of this story.
So when you see these things happen, you realize we were just talking about that when Israel was in Egypt and God was judging Egypt, the judgments were going across Egypt, but Israel still had light when there was no light there.
There was light in Goshen.
So when we see what's going on in the world and we see God's judgment coming down, let's Christians need to be faithful.
They need to honor God and what they're doing.
They need to stay close to their worship, raise their children, do the things that they know to do because God is going to use that to launch them out or launch the next thing as for the benefit of the kingdom.
They left Egypt and Egypt was bankrupt and broke, but that money didn't just dissolve.
It went somewhere to create and build the kingdom that they were moving to.
And so, whatever.
To create and build an idol, a golden calf.
Yeah, well, I'm sorry.
And unfortunately, that golden calf came from somewhere, and in fact, in the tabernacle.
Come on, you're right, yeah, come on.
That calf didn't last that long, it was, and those people didn't last that long either, you know what I'm saying?
So, there's a purification process again.
But that's right.
Some things are shaken.
I don't, I think what happens is that people have made America the kingdom.
And so, when they see America take hits, they're like, oh, no, the kingdom of God is under assault.
It's like, no, no, America as an idol is being torn down.
And that worldview that is not honoring God is becoming consistent with itself and is eating itself to death.
And those things that cannot be shaken will remain.
And I don't, we shouldn't lose heart in that.
It's disappointing to see a lot of things that we work for follow.
But if those things aren't honoring God, then take it all, Jesus.
Take it all.
Clean out all the cancer.
And that's what he's doing.
So I'm grateful for America.
I want America to be one of those things that helps support the kingdom of God.
But if America is going to turn its back on God, then thus to all dragons.
Yeah, so be it.
You know, and so I'm on this.
I know where the story is going to end.
I know the story that God is telling.
And I know my responsibility in this story is to be a faithful father.
A faithful husband, a faithful man who fears God and honors God and everything he does.
And that's the trajectory I'm on.
And I believe that through that, God will keep his people as the whole thing is being turned into fertilizer for the kingdom.
I really like that image of fertilizer.
I really do.
I like that.
And I also, it works really well because I think what happens is if you go back through history, I've never read the book that Joel's talking about here, but I think each of the empires, each of the kingdoms and nations that God raised up, in many respects, they did go down in.
And become fertilizer for the next nation.
And they took the, you know, like people talk about the Roman Empire is this amalgamation.
Like, what is Rome and what is the Roman Empire?
Well, it's like this, it's partially sort of Greek culture, but it's combined with this new thing that's Roman.
But even the Greeks were drawing off of Persian and Babylonian culture.
And then you've got this, you know, this Jewish Hebraic culture that's also sort of under the surface in various ways.
And so you have even early Christians speculating that.
That maybe Plato learned from Moses and these kinds of things because they're drawing off of things that are actually quite biblical in certain ways.
But then you have, you know, Rome falls, it goes into Europe.
And what is, you know, what is the British Empire?
But sort of Rome kind of dissolved into the Western European tribes and then resurrected.
And then you have, you know, sort of this new form of feudalism in the British Empire.
As that's dying, you have that old feudalism, that old Roman Greek philosophy mixed with Christian covenantal thinking and British sensibilities.
And where does it come back to life?
In America.
Yeah, I mean, that's the American empire.
And so it's like, you know, God gives these good gifts, they're used and enjoyed, and they do good things for the people.
And the kingdom is advancing in every stage.
The kingdom's not being taken down.
But then you're right, the outward form gets shaken.
And it goes down into the dust.
It becomes the fertilizer for the next thing that God's doing.
And the last thing I'll just add to this is the book of Revelation is a helpful way, I think, to answer the question, too.
And it ties back into your point about how the church is used.
But the book of Revelation, in many respects, is the story of the effect of the church's worship on the history of the world, focused on the first century.
But at the end, it kind of, I think, is looking down the corridors of time.
In the first century, as the Christians worshipped, it's What's going on in heaven is then going down on earth.
So, as you begin, you got the exhortations of the seven churches, and then John begins to have this revelation, this vision of what's going on in heaven.
But it's all bookmarked by these punctuations of worship.
The elders, the angels, the people, they fall down in worship.
And then what happens?
Bowls are poured out, incense is offered, and it goes on the earth, and the judgments of God fall on the earth.
And so you have worship is the battering ram.
The church is the battering ram.
It is part of the leaven that builds up nations.
But then also over time, it's as the nation turns away from God or withers or whatever, God brings it down and raises up new nations.
But what's kind of cool and glorious is at the very end, despite all that, Revelation 21 23 says, And the city, this is the New Jerusalem, had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
Verse 24, and the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it.
And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there, and they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it.
And so, and I don't know, you know, how does that work exactly?
I'm not sure.
But at the very least, I would say as the nations rise, there are certain gifts that the nations give the world that are good gifts that last forever.
And there are gifts that America has given the world that will last forever.
That they're good gifts, they're solid gifts, they're solid things that can't be shaken in the providence of God.
And so, that America will last forever because it was true, real, solid gifts.
It was real justice, it was some vision of some kind of sensibility, some gift.
I think the same thing of England.
I'm thinking of Geneva.
I think the same thing of Geneva.
In Last Battle, Lewis talks about sort of Narnia, the new Narnia, as it's like England.
But it's like a glorified England.
So, in the new heavens and new earth, I think all of the good gifts of all of the nations.
He made Texas last forever, including Texas.
Deep in the heart of Texas.
No, that's good, Toby.
I really appreciate that.
And I think, you know, I know you guys will agree with this, but, you know, the coming of Christ, you know, this massive divide in terms of human history, you know, when you think of oppressive nations, empires, you know, that, That ruled the known globe at the time, but were a force of great wickedness and evil, Babylon, right?
When you think of that, it's like in the coming of Jesus, in the last 2,000 years, we've had atrocious things happen.
I mean, millions have died underneath communism, and you have your Stalins, you have your Hitlers, and things like that.
But the big thing that stands out to me is that they ultimately fail.
Hitler was atrocious, but the Third Reich can be measured in just a very, Short period of time, but there's nothing in the last 2,000 years really comparable to Babylon.
And so, in Christ coming, you know, he tells the parable, you know, you have to plunder the house, you need to go in and bind the strong man.
And so, in his life, death, and resurrection, being able to bind the strong man, take Satan and bind him, no longer able to deceive the nations.
And something spiritually, something in the heavens took place and poured out.
There's an effect here on earth.
And so, you don't, I don't think we're going to witness the long term, lasting lifespan of.
Hainous, wicked, evil nations because of what Christ has done.
No, not.
But I do think that it's possible.
Yeah, exactly.
Not anymore.
And so, but my point is, I do think it's possible if a nation would humble themselves and submit to God.
I think that God will exalt those people as long as they're willing to be obedient.
And so, I think what's my point is, I think what's unique about America, because I would give a hearty amen to everything that you said, Knox, and we don't need America.
And what God's going to do, everything's going to be for his glory and for the good of those people who love him and are called according to his name.
So, America's exaltation or demise will be to the benefit of the church.
Yeah, either way, um, and so we believe that.
Uh, but my point is, America is unique in the sense that, um, I feel like in many ways it may be one of the closest expressions that we've ever had.
And I think Doug Wilson even said, you know, like with Christendom, you know, whether it's Constantine, you know, stuff like that, it's the failure is not okay, well, these Spanish crusades or whatever, like that was a bad idea.
No, we need we need Christendom 2.0, and these were bugs rather than features, and let's work them out, and then we'll get 3.0.
And then, but eventually, like this leaven is going to.
Permeate the whole batch of dough.
This little mustard seed is going to be a tree that offers shade to the beasts of the field all over the earth, and the birds of the air are going to find refuge and rest in his branches.
And Christ is building the kingdom, and it is going to have his kingdom is going to have a material, physical, because we're not Gnostics, it's going to have an earthly expression, and it is going to be legislated through laws, just laws that glorify the king in heaven and demand obedience from his subjects here on earth.
And so, all of these things are going to occur, and the idea that That God might use a nation or nations for a prolonged period of time.
Repentance and Hope for America00:06:02
I don't, my point is, I don't think the 250 year mold has to be the fate of every nation.
I agree.
And so I guess I just, I just want to say so we don't, we don't need America.
Our hope is not in America.
Um, but it is possible.
Uh, America, Christians in America, we don't have to just roll over and say this is our fate.
Now, we, we may say, I think I'm inclined to believe that this is going to be what happens.
But if it happens, it's not because God just destined it in the stars.
And we never had the option otherwise.
No, it's because we rolled over because of our wickedness, because of our abdication of Christian responsibility.
We set our own fate.
God did it sovereignly, but through the agency of the church and its failure.
And you know what I mean?
And so I just want to say that point and say that it doesn't have to be our fate.
And if we did repent, God is faithful and merciful.
And I believe Hezekiah, that's my prayer, right?
I do love America and I do want it to continue.
And the reason I want it to continue, I didn't feel this way five years ago, but something happened the last five years.
I had three little girls.
And so I'm thinking, you know, everything God does is for our eternal good.
But man, if I have any say in the matter, I'd like for my girls not to have to go through a civil war and not to have, you know, and not to have sons of their own that die, you know, and be exiles, you know, and have to flee with Elon Musk to Mars or whatever to set up the new Christian colony or whatever.
You know, like, I, I'd love for that not to be the case.
I know it'll be good if that's what God decides, but I want to fight.
And so I feel like Hezekiah, just praying and then crying out as a prophet, as a preacher to the nation, because I know God is not going to bless.
We can't ask for his blessing and for his mercy without repentance.
And if we repent, we're going to have to say his name.
So I want to, in my prophetic role as a pastor and as a Christian, cry out and say, Repent and call upon the name of Jesus and turn from your wickedness.
And then as a priest, as an intercessor, I want to cry out to Jesus and say, Would you give us 15 more years?
You know, and what would you say?
If you find 10 people.
Well, I mean, if Nineveh can repent, then we can repent.
And I agree with exactly what you said.
This is where God has placed us, and we are called upon to love our neighbors.
And our neighbors are these people, this nation.
We love them.
And no man had greater love than he laid his life down for his friend.
So this is our assignment.
We're called to love this nation, telling them the truth of the gospel, calling them to repentance, and amen.
Amen.
So that among a whole other host of things, you know, but that I would say is not the distinction, but that's one of the distinctions between us and a, you know, AOC is that Christians, if America falls, Christians' response will be that we'll weep, like that we love our neighbors and that it's set.
We're not rejoicing with the ashes, you know, and burn it all down.
We're saying, God, let God be true and every man a liar and let his will be done.
But we won't be.
And we trust in his wisdom.
But we won't weep like those who have no hope.
That's right.
That's right.
Amen.
We will weep.
I mean, there's a book of Lamentations that's all about weeping over Jerusalem fallen and every Jerusalem fallen, I would say, is the application.
Amen.
And I do agree with what you said that America, I think, is the high water mark to this point.
But no eye has seen, ear has heard the glorious things that God has prepared for us.
I mean, I just don't think this is anything yet.
No, you haven't seen nothing yet.
And God may be pleased to give America repentance and give us another 250 years.
God be pleased to give us that repentance and that glory.
And if not, bring it down so that you can bring up the next one.
And by the way, we do a whole show here for the very purpose, hoping that that sparks some sort of repentance in our brother.
That flag underneath that cross is our hope.
Because that's our hope.
Amen.
Amen.
Well, guys, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Chalk Knox, I'm going to do something dangerous.
I'm going to give you the last word.
You got one minute to try to convince me to baptize my three little girls.
Oh, bro.
One minute?
You can do it, man.
Yeah, one minute.
Just play your little video.
Get your little Presbyterian chuckle.
Yeah, play your little outro.
You guys laugh at the Baptist.
I'll just say, you know what, guys laugh at the Baptist.
We are laughing at what you're talking about.
If I was going to give a quick pitch to why you should baptize your kids, because when they were born, they had your last name.
When they were born, they were made Americans.
When your kids were born, they were born weapons.
They were born weapons, and they were born in the direction of their father to serve the God of their fathers.
And so your kids are not.
I always say this if a Muslim came in the house saying, hey, kill all the Christians in here, they wouldn't leave your kids.
Oops.
Amen.
I can affirm all that as a Reformed Baptist.
And we'll have to talk about how and why and why we disagree another time.
All right, guys, thank you so much for coming on the show.
God bless you.
God bless your ministry.
And I encourage all of our listeners, if you get an opportunity, check out Cross Politic.
If you're wanting to keep up with the headlines, they hit current events all the time and they hit it all through a Christian worldview.
And there's a lot of guys who do that through a Christian worldview, but they actually do that through a Christian worldview with courage.
So, all right.
Thanks, guys.
God bless you.
Thank you, Joel.
Bye, brother.
Thank you.
As a special thank you for your gift of any amount, we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store.
To access this offer, visit rightresponseministries.comslash offer.
We highly recommend Pastor Joel's book, Am I Truly Saved?
If you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God, this would be a great resource.
As a reminder, to get this offer, go to rightresponseministries.comslash offer.