NXR Podcast - BONUS - 5 Lessons Every Christian Should Have Learned Over The Past 2 Years
Aired: 2022-03-24
Duration: 01:04:37


=== Lucy's Magical World Lie (05:43) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
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[00:00:18]  So I've been praying, Lord, what could I do?
[00:00:20]  What could I give to your people?
[00:00:22]  And this is one of the things that's been on my heart so, so, so much is, Lord, please let us learn the lessons that you providentially supplied over the last two years and not forget them.
[00:00:35]  People are so quick to forget our nation as a whole.
[00:00:38]  Sadly, even conservatives, and very sadly, even Christians.
[00:00:43]  It's like, did we not just learn that lesson?
[00:00:45]  Did that not just happen, you know?
[00:00:48]  And then we fall for it again.
[00:00:49]  We fall for it again.
[00:00:50]  It's like Charlie Brown, you know, and Lucy in the football.
[00:00:52]  It's like, come on, Charlie Brown.
[00:00:54]  Good grief, Charlie Brown, right?
[00:00:56]  Like, right?
[00:00:57]  That's, yeah.
[00:00:59]  Nancy Pelosi, right?
[00:01:02]  That's Lucy, you know, she's moving the football.
[00:01:04]  So, well, one of the things that I thought about was just, um, Speaking of Lucy, I thought about the Chronicles of Narnia and I thought about C.S. Lewis and his apologetic argument.
[00:01:13]  I would be presuppositional in terms of apologetics, but Lewis has some good things to say.
[00:01:18]  And one of his arguments was the liar, lunatic lord.
[00:01:21]  You remember that argument?
[00:01:22]  That Jesus, people want to say, well, he's a good teacher or he was a nice guy or he showed us the triumph of the human spirit and compassion and love and mercy.
[00:01:31]  You can believe all these things without believing his lord.
[00:01:33]  And the reality is you can't.
[00:01:34]  And the reason why you can't is because nice guys don't lie to your face, right?
[00:01:38]  And so we.
[00:01:39]  Can't just look at the life of Jesus and the actions of Jesus.
[00:01:41]  We have to look at the words of Jesus.
[00:01:43]  And in his words, he claimed to be God.
[00:01:45]  And if he lied about that, then he's not a nice guy, right?
[00:01:49]  He's malicious.
[00:01:49]  He's a liar.
[00:01:50]  He's deceitful.
[00:01:51]  He's wicked.
[00:01:53]  Or, in the best case, right?
[00:01:54]  This worst case scenario is he's malicious.
[00:01:56]  Best case scenario, he's a crazy man, right?
[00:01:59]  So, liar, lunatic.
[00:02:00]  Or, the third option is that he's Lord and everything he said is true.
[00:02:06]  And so, C.S. Lewis, you know, that's what he argues when he writes on apologetics, you know, mere Christianity, books like that.
[00:02:12]  But in his fantasy, In his fiction, most notably The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he paints this scene.
[00:02:18]  And in the scene, we have the four siblings.
[00:02:21]  You've got Peter, you've got Susan, you've got Edmund, you've got Lucy.
[00:02:23]  And Lucy, as many of you know, if you haven't read The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, as R.C. Sproul would say, what's wrong with you people?
[00:02:30]  So go read that.
[00:02:32]  I'm not going to say spoiler alert.
[00:02:33]  It's been out long enough.
[00:02:34]  If you don't, you deserve to have it spoiled.
[00:02:38]  But Lucy, she goes to the wardrobe and she goes to a magical land named Narnia.
[00:02:41]  She comes back, she's the youngest, she tells her older siblings, In this magical wardrobe, there's a whole other world, right?
[00:02:48]  And I met Mr. Tumnus, the fawn, and all these different things, and had a lovely time.
[00:02:52]  And they're all, you know, they don't believe her.
[00:02:54]  But Edmund, it's not just, Edmund doesn't just disbelieve.
[00:02:57]  Edmund is cruel.
[00:02:58]  He's mean, right?
[00:02:59]  He's picking on her and poking fun, and just, he's just a bully.
[00:03:03]  But then he's following her a couple days later, following her, and to pick on her some more with nothing but the worst intentions.
[00:03:12]  And she goes back into the wardrobe, and it takes her, transports her once again to Narnia, and And he's following her to make fun of her, and he ends up in Narnia also.
[00:03:21]  And then they come back, and he's now been to Narnia.
[00:03:25]  He's seen, he's touched, he's heard, he's a witness that this is real.
[00:03:33]  And he comes back, and Lucy's so excited with Peter and Susan because she's like, now Edmund can validate my testimony.
[00:03:41]  We have two or three witnesses, right?
[00:03:43]  The testimony can be established in the presence of two witnesses.
[00:03:46]  It's not just me, there's a second witness that can validate my argument.
[00:03:50]  We went to Narnia.
[00:03:51]  Tell him, Edmund.
[00:03:52]  And he responds by saying, Little girls, they just love to pretend.
[00:03:56]  And she just melts into a puddle, just completely destroyed, distraught, not just because she's being made fun of, not just because it's demeaning and insulting to her intelligence, but because it's betrayal.
[00:04:08]  It's a profound, deep, intimate betrayal.
[00:04:12]  And she is heartbroken by her brother, that her brother would stab her in the back.
[00:04:19]  And so Peter and Susan, the older siblings, still don't know what to believe because Edmund's saying, she's just pretending.
[00:04:25]  And so Peter and Susan are talking within the next day.
[00:04:28]  They're speaking with.
[00:04:30]  Diggory Kirk, he's the professor that the four siblings are staying with.
[00:04:34]  And he's like, What's wrong with the little girl?
[00:04:36]  The weeping girl is what the professor calls her.
[00:04:39]  And well, she's, you know, she thinks she went to a magical world, and Edmund's been picking on her.
[00:04:43]  And he's like, Yeah, hence the weeping.
[00:04:45]  You know, but why?
[00:04:46]  Why is she weeping?
[00:04:47]  What's really going on?
[00:04:48]  And well, she, you know, she thinks she found this magical world.
[00:04:52]  And he's like, Okay.
[00:04:55]  But did she?
[00:04:56]  Where?
[00:04:57]  Oh, in the wardrobe?
[00:04:57]  I've said, like, he's very interested.
[00:04:59]  Instead of just saying, Oh, yeah, that's a silly little girl pretending about a magical world, his eyes perk up, and he's like, What magical world?
[00:05:06]  Where was it?
[00:05:07]  Where did you find it?
[00:05:07]  You know, he's like, I'd like to go too.
[00:05:09]  And like, that's his, he immediately, and that's of course because he's been before.
[00:05:13]  There's another spoiler.
[00:05:15]  But all that being said, he's like, well, where?
[00:05:17]  And they're like, well, we didn't ask where because it's fantasy.
[00:05:21]  Of course, this didn't happen.
[00:05:22]  It's not real.
[00:05:23]  So we're not asking specific questions about the geographic, you know, location of Narnia because it's not real.
[00:05:29]  It's not logical.
[00:05:30]  That's the word they use.
[00:05:31]  It's illogical.
[00:05:33]  Diggory Kirk says, what do they teach children in schools these days?
[00:05:37]  He said, logic.
[00:05:39]  So, Edmund, the one who says she's pretending, he's usually the truthful one, isn't he?

=== Testing the Lord's Patience (03:50) ===

[00:05:43]  Like, no, this would be the first.
[00:05:45]  He always lies.
[00:05:48]  And Lucy, Lucy, she's not truthful?
[00:05:52]  No, she's always credible.
[00:05:55]  Well, then logically, you should assume that Lucy is telling the truth.
[00:06:01]  Our legacy media, our political administration, they're Edmund.
[00:06:06]  All they do is lie.
[00:06:09]  And the reason I'm concerned is because we all agree.
[00:06:12]  For two years, they've done nothing but lie.
[00:06:14]  You can literally ascertain within 95 percentile of the truth by believing the opposite of what you see on CNN.
[00:06:21]  And the difference between a conspiracy and a news story is three to six months.
[00:06:28]  And then Russia and Ukraine comes out.
[00:06:32]  And conservatives immediately side with Ukraine.
[00:06:36]  I'm just going to go there for a second.
[00:06:38]  Now, I don't think Putin's a nice guy.
[00:06:39]  I appreciate him curing COVID.
[00:06:41]  Right?
[00:06:41]  COVID, did you notice?
[00:06:43]  COVID disappeared.
[00:06:44]  So I appreciate that's a contribution to the whole world.
[00:06:47]  Right?
[00:06:47]  So China brought COVID on the stage and Russia cured it.
[00:06:49]  So we have to thank him for that.
[00:06:51]  But my point is, I'm not a fan of Putin, but I don't think Ukraine is the most innocent nation in the world either.
[00:06:59]  And my point is, if Edmund has always been lying for two years straight, right, then why should we go ahead?
[00:07:09]  That's right, more than that.
[00:07:10]  But very clearly, for the last two years, then why should we immediately So, all I'm saying is, I'm not saying, and therefore this is true and that is false, or this is true and that.
[00:07:19]  What I'm saying is, slow down.
[00:07:21]  I think of the book of James, right?
[00:07:22]  Be quick to listen, slow to speak.
[00:07:25]  And one of the reasons we want to be slow to speak is those who are quick to speak often provoke the wrath of man.
[00:07:33]  And there is a difference between the wrath of God, which is holy and good, and the wrath of man.
[00:07:39]  And what James says, particularly about the wrath of man, is that it does not bring about the holiness of God.
[00:07:45]  The wrath of God stems from the holiness of God, but the wrath of man has nothing to do with the holiness of God.
[00:07:52]  It's a carnal wrath.
[00:07:53]  It's a fleshly wrath.
[00:07:55]  It's a fickle wrath.
[00:07:57]  Right?
[00:07:57]  Our God, what makes God so holy is not that He is a God that is absent of anger, but what makes God's anger so magnificent and in a frightening and terrifying way beautiful is that our God who is angry, jealous is His name.
[00:08:15]  Our God who is anger, our God who is jealousy, our God who is a consuming fire and burns with a holy, righteous indignation and wrath.
[00:08:26]  He does so always for the right things at the right time and the right measure.
[00:08:32]  God has never been angry about something more than he should be.
[00:08:35]  He has never been angry about the wrong thing and not angry about the thing he should actually be angry about.
[00:08:41]  His anger has always been in proportion, it's been the right measure.
[00:08:44]  It's always been timely, and one of his key traits is that he's long suffering and therefore slow to anger.
[00:08:50]  So he is long suffering, he is patient, he is kind.
[00:08:52]  So his anger comes exactly at the right moment when the fullness of the measure of his wrath has been filled up.
[00:08:59]  So, it's always at the right time, it's always in the right measure, and it's always for the right things.
[00:09:05]  It's always in the right things.
[00:09:06]  And so, we too, if we don't want to look foolish, if we don't want to have egg on our face, if we don't want to be embarrassed, then I think we should be a little bit slow.
[00:09:18]  A little bit slow, a holy suspicion.
[00:09:21]  And really, this stems from a Vantillian, Calvinistic, Reformed, presuppositional worldview.
[00:09:29]  Right?
[00:09:29]  Nothing is neutral.
[00:09:31]  Nothing is neutral.
[00:09:32]  And I want us to see that here in a moment.

=== Holy Suspicion in Eschatology (15:37) ===

[00:09:34]  So here are five lessons that Christians better have learned over the last two years and that Christians better not forget.
[00:09:42]  We should not have to be taught these lessons more than once.
[00:09:46]  The Lord is patient, He is kind, but we should not put the Lord to the test.
[00:09:52]  How many times must He teach us?
[00:09:55]  Once should be enough.
[00:09:57]  Praise God, He's gracious and willing to do it, usually more than once.
[00:10:01]  But we should do our best to take away the lessons he's given us.
[00:10:03]  So here's five lessons.
[00:10:04]  Number one, they all start with a P.
[00:10:06]  I try to do some alliteration.
[00:10:07]  Make it easy on you, make it easy on me.
[00:10:08]  All right, the first one, post millennialism.
[00:10:12]  All right, now, amen, right?
[00:10:16]  Half of you, amen.
[00:10:17]  Now, but here's the beauty.
[00:10:19]  Here's the beauty.
[00:10:20]  All of you, what you're going to love about, if you're not post millennial, this is the beauty.
[00:10:23]  You're not here.
[00:10:25]  You're not here unless you want to make a difference.
[00:10:27]  So none of you are the pre mill that's just putting their head in the sand.
[00:10:30]  So I don't want to make a straw man for pre mill, you know, just.
[00:10:33]  And just gets a high five with the post mail guys over there behind the cookies later on.
[00:10:38]  So I'm not going to pick on the pre mail people, right?
[00:10:39]  John's pre mail, praise God, right?
[00:10:41]  And so you're not, you're all here to make a difference.
[00:10:44]  So you're all living as though you're post mail, right?
[00:10:48]  So I'm encouraging all of you, right?
[00:10:50]  So here we go.
[00:10:50]  So the first lesson is post mail.
[00:10:52]  The second, patriarchy.
[00:10:53]  There's another P for you.
[00:10:55]  The next one, third lesson, third lesson is presuppositionalism.
[00:11:01]  And I'll get into some of the things that I kind of introde with.
[00:11:04]  So presuppositionalism.
[00:11:05]  And the fourth one, Proper ecclesiology.
[00:11:08]  I had to put an adjective there to get the P. Proper ecclesiology.
[00:11:11]  And then the last one is going to be, after proper ecclesiology, Protestant resistant theory.
[00:11:17]  And I'm going to read.
[00:11:18]  I never manuscript, but I'm going to read so that I am concise and efficient.
[00:11:22]  So here we go.
[00:11:23]  Post millennialism, a.k.a. play the long game.
[00:11:26]  Play the long game.
[00:11:27]  So regardless of where you're at with your eschatology, pre-mill, post-mill, all-mill, either way, in terms of our practice, play the long game.
[00:11:34]  For those of you who are unfamiliar with my background, I planted and pastored a church in San Diego, California for several years before moving to Williamson County, Texas.
[00:11:42]  In December of 2020, to plant the church that I now pastor, which is Covenant Bible Church located in Georgetown, Texas.
[00:11:49]  Now, by God's grace, I had the privilege of baptizing over 100 people during my pastoral service in California.
[00:11:54]  But over the years, I have come to desire more than merely planting churches and baptizing converts.
[00:12:00]  Do not misunderstand me.
[00:12:02]  I never want anything less than this.
[00:12:04]  I simply have grown to desire something more.
[00:12:07]  When I moved to California in 2009, I bit off way more than I could chew.
[00:12:12]  My only aspiration was to plant a church and to see people come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:12:18]  In part, this was due to my specificity.
[00:12:20]  Specific theological convictions, which at the time I was not even aware that I held to such doctrines.
[00:12:26]  But these doctrines were present, all the same, influencing every decision I made.
[00:12:31]  For instance, I assumed that Jesus, who likely came back at any moment, had decreed that everything in this world would continually spiral out of control until he returned.
[00:12:41]  I also assumed that the only thing of any real eternal value was preaching the gospel and saving lost souls.
[00:12:49]  So aspirations for founding schools, Starting businesses or running for local political office all seemed like worldly and carnal endeavors to me.
[00:13:00]  Sure, these things may have provided some cover, some fire cover for a little bit.
[00:13:07]  These things would have maybe provided some benefit to Christians and society at large.
[00:13:12]  Still, I assumed that the value would be short lived.
[00:13:15]  After all, I had been taught that even such atrocities as abortion would never actually end by legislation, but only by heart transformation.
[00:13:24]  And for anyone who doubts, That statement, let me remind you that it rhymes, so it must be true.
[00:13:29]  I never stopped, right?
[00:13:31]  But I never stopped to wonder, just for a moment, why there are approximately one million abortions in America each year, but only 16,000 homicides.
[00:13:40]  Apparently, legislation does matter.
[00:13:43]  Apparently, as it turns out, people tend to gravitate towards whatever form of murder happens to be legal.
[00:13:50]  Yes, we want to see hearts genuinely changed by the power of the gospel.
[00:13:54]  But throughout human history, deterring wickedness, even in the hearts of unbelievers, Through the second use of God's law, theonomy, if I had a P word for that, I'd get in.
[00:14:05]  By God's law, legislating it, imposing morality, because nothing is neutral, that has also proven to be quite effective.
[00:14:14]  Now, suppose we all, all we're called to do is plant churches and preach the gospel.
[00:14:18]  Well, then why not commit to exclusively doing this in the most challenging places in the world, where the gospel appears to be most needed?
[00:14:24]  That was my mindset when I was 23 and single, and that's what moved me to California, right?
[00:14:30]  If that's all we're doing, is planting churches.
[00:14:33]  And saving souls, preaching the gospel, converting, baptizing, making converts, and making disciples, and teaching them, you know, complimentary relationships in their marriage and their home and those things.
[00:14:41]  If that's all we're doing, if that's the whole enchilada, then why not do it in the most difficult places you could possibly go?
[00:14:47]  Which is why I went to California.
[00:14:49]  But it's also why I was a hypocrite.
[00:14:50]  Because if I really believed that, that's what I would have said.
[00:14:53]  But if I really believed, then I shouldn't have planned in California.
[00:14:55]  Go to North Korea.
[00:14:57]  Let's all go to Ukraine.
[00:14:59]  What's wrong with you?
[00:14:59]  Do you really care?
[00:15:00]  Do you really care?
[00:15:02]  Why aren't you in Canada?
[00:15:03]  Why aren't you in New Zealand?
[00:15:03]  Why aren't you in Australia?
[00:15:05]  Let's not stop with California.
[00:15:07]  Let's go where it's really hard.
[00:15:09]  Go to China.
[00:15:10]  Get in the game.
[00:15:12]  Right?
[00:15:12]  If that's all it is, if it's just planting churches and snatching souls from the fire, then go where the fire is the hottest.
[00:15:18]  That was my mindset.
[00:15:20]  Why not commit to exclusively doing this in the most challenging places in the world where the gospel appears to be most needed?
[00:15:26]  Heck, why stop with California if we're serious about following Jesus?
[00:15:29]  We'd move to Russia or Ukraine.
[00:15:31]  On the other hand, if it's possible, just possible, just throwing it out there, guys, I'm not saying this is true, just possible.
[00:15:38]  That Jesus might tarry for a while, say a few thousand years or more, and he intends to actually restore the world instead of making it dissolve like snow and annihilating it, and he's going to redeem all things, and not just the church, but all things, the cosmos, to himself, then there may actually be some merit in playing the long game and planting deep roots in a place that actually can produce crops.
[00:16:02]  In California, I felt like I was a farmer in the middle of the Sahara.
[00:16:07]  And one of the things that changed my mind was my theology, for sure.
[00:16:11]  Another thing that changed my mind was the three little girls sitting in the back of the room.
[00:16:15]  You know, that got me dangerously close to becoming a Presbyterian, right?
[00:16:20]  And you know how men become Presbyterians?
[00:16:22]  Their wives.
[00:16:23]  And you know how the wives become Presbyterians?
[00:16:24]  They say, which one of these says that my babies are good?
[00:16:27]  Oh, yeah, yeah, we baptize our babies in this house.
[00:16:30]  You know, and so I came right up to the line.
[00:16:33]  I'm right there, as close as you can get to being Presbyterian while still being Reformed Baptist.
[00:16:37]  But the deal is what moved me, what changed my mindset about ministry, about church planting, about everything.
[00:16:43]  That got me out of California, all these different things in Texas, is I started thinking maybe a momentary tactical retreat might be a good idea if we're not just trying to win the present battle, but the war, and if the war is going to go on for a long time.
[00:16:58]  Part of the reason why we lose is because we think that everything's going to be finished in the next 15 minutes.
[00:17:04]  And so we don't play with a long time.
[00:17:06]  You know how, notice, here's one thing, I hope you took this away from John's lecture.
[00:17:10]  Did you notice that one of the things that John did was he tracked through multiple people?
[00:17:14]  Multiple efforts and multiple, not just decades, centuries, how everything today came about.
[00:17:21]  The left, they play the long game.
[00:17:23]  They're post millennial.
[00:17:26]  We should be too.
[00:17:27]  We should be too.
[00:17:28]  So, all that being said, perhaps Christians would be wise to momentarily fall back behind enemy lines to rebuild and regroup for a generation or two.
[00:17:36]  That's the first lesson play the long game.
[00:17:39]  Post millennial.
[00:17:40]  All right.
[00:17:41]  Number two, and you could do it as a non post millennial, but that's, think long term.
[00:17:47]  Wherever you're at, eschatology.
[00:17:49]  All right, patriarchy.
[00:17:50]  That's number two.
[00:17:51]  We were talking about this as we were recording, me and John in AD.
[00:17:54]  We thought, you know, one of the things that we said is it's good to have a word like shibboleth, right?
[00:18:01]  Now, if you're not familiar with that story in the Bible, you know, the Ephraimites, there was a certain thing, a certain Hebrew word that they could not pronounce without their accent betraying them, right?
[00:18:11]  Ousting them.
[00:18:12]  People would know, oh, you're not actually Hebrew, you're not actually the people of God.
[00:18:16]  Right?
[00:18:17]  And J.I. Packer actually, it was J.I. Packer who said this once upon a time, a few decades back, back with the battles, you know, with inerrancy and those kind of things.
[00:18:25]  And people were thinking, even the conservatives, the good guys, they were thinking, well, let's lower the bar a little bit and say something, right?
[00:18:30]  Let's use a different word that means exactly the same thing.
[00:18:33]  It means exactly the same thing.
[00:18:34]  And they're right.
[00:18:35]  Technically, it means the same thing, but a different word, right?
[00:18:38]  Infallibility or this or that, you know, but not inerrancy, because it just trips people up, that word.
[00:18:45]  And J.I. Packer said, sometimes it's good to have a word that trips people up.
[00:18:48]  Sometimes it's good to have a shibboleth word that the enemies of God reveal them, that gives them away, that they can't say.
[00:18:56]  Patriarchy is a good word.
[00:18:59]  Complimentarian is not good enough anymore.
[00:19:01]  Patriarchy is a great word.
[00:19:03]  I can find out a whole lot about where you're at doctrinally, what you think about the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:19:07]  I can find out real quick where you're at.
[00:19:09]  If I say, yeah, I'm patriarchal, and I have a wife and three daughters, right?
[00:19:13]  I mean, they're like, oh my gosh, we've got to rescue your wife and three daughters.
[00:19:16]  They must be oppressed.
[00:19:18]  And it's like, okay, yeah, so we're not on the same page.
[00:19:20]  Or they're like, God bless you.
[00:19:22]  Man, your wife and three daughters are probably blessed because God is a father.
[00:19:25]  You know why I'm patriarchal?
[00:19:26]  I'm patriarchal because God identifies himself as a father.
[00:19:30]  And so we have a heavenly father, and we live in the father's world.
[00:19:33]  And we live in the Father's world according to the Father's rules.
[00:19:35]  And God the Father, the Heavenly Father, who made His fatherly world with His fatherly rules, has determined to minister to all peoples and all creatures and all creation through fathers in three divinely instituted sovereign spheres the home, the church, and the state.
[00:19:50]  He works through familial fathers in the home, He works through civil fathers in the state, and He works through ecclesiastical fathers, which is why elders should be men in the church.
[00:20:01]  God the Father blesses all people through fathers.
[00:20:04]  And it is not a coincidence, therefore, that.
[00:20:07]  That the political left, the cultural left, those who are enemies of God, want to destroy fathers.
[00:20:13]  They hate fathers.
[00:20:15]  Now, all that being said, here's the irony.
[00:20:17]  They hate fathers because they serve their father.
[00:20:22]  They are children of the devil.
[00:20:24]  John chapter 8, the father of lies.
[00:20:27]  When he lies, he speaks his native tongue, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
[00:20:32]  And the reason why they always lie, the reason we can identify them as Edmund and get a pretty good idea of what's actually true by believing the opposite of what they say, is because they Lie.
[00:20:42]  And why do they lie?
[00:20:43]  Because they're a chip off the old block.
[00:20:45]  They lie because they're just like their daddy, the devil.
[00:20:50]  And they must be born again.
[00:20:52]  And unless they are born again, not of water, not of the flesh, but spiritually born again, supernaturally born again, with a new heart, with a new nature, then they will continue to do what their father does.
[00:21:06]  And their father, until there is rebirth, until there is regeneration by the grace of God, by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, unless that takes place, their father is not God.
[00:21:15]  God is not a universal father.
[00:21:18]  God is a universal creator.
[00:21:20]  Did you know that?
[00:21:20]  There's a difference.
[00:21:21]  He is the creator of all of creation.
[00:21:23]  So he's a universal creator.
[00:21:25]  He is not a universal father.
[00:21:26]  He is only the father of the Lord Jesus Christ and those who have union with him by the Spirit through faith.
[00:21:32]  Apart from that, God is not your father.
[00:21:34]  But that does not mean that you are fatherless.
[00:21:36]  You have a father, even if God is not your father.
[00:21:39]  Your father is the devil.
[00:21:41]  And children always bear a striking resemblance to their father.
[00:21:47]  If the devil is your daddy, you will do what the father, your father, does.
[00:21:51]  And he is the father of lies.
[00:21:53]  He's the father of lies.
[00:21:55]  That's why I'm patriarchal.
[00:21:56]  Everything is father.
[00:21:58]  Everything in society, everything in culture, and certainly everything in the Bible.
[00:22:02]  It's fatherly language.
[00:22:03]  We can't escape it.
[00:22:04]  It's a good word shibboleth.
[00:22:06]  Liberals can't say it.
[00:22:08]  We can immediately identify.
[00:22:09]  All right, so during my pastoral tenure in California, I regularly championed the cause of Christians being willing to sacrifice for the mission of Jesus.
[00:22:16]  I passionately preached against the evils of the prosperity gospel, which truly is evil.
[00:22:21]  Still, I foolishly conflated this health and wealth heresy with just a genuine, honest desire to make money, start a family, purchase a modest home, and leave up an inheritance for your children's children.
[00:22:33]  That's not the prosperity gospel, that's the Bible.
[00:22:36]  Now, that said, books like Radical, perhaps you've heard of it, books like Radical by David Platt served as my inspiration.
[00:22:44]  But I failed to recognize how truly radical it is for a Christian man to marry a woman in his youth.
[00:22:51]  To remain faithful to her throughout his entire life, to give to her the blessing of many children, and to work hard to provide for each of them.
[00:22:59]  See, in my assessment, the American church has too many men who are eager to go to third world countries as missionaries, including the up and coming third world country of California, but not nearly enough men who are willing to fight for this country by simply establishing godly households and demonstrating faithfulness to their wives and children.
[00:23:19]  I am now convinced that the vast majority of men in our churches don't need teaching about how to be pastors.
[00:23:24]  Instead, they need teaching about how to be men.
[00:23:28]  They need to be taught how to be husbands, how to be fathers, how to be sons, how to be brothers, how to be entrepreneurs, how to start businesses, how to start publishing companies, how to be authors and write books and artists and all the rest.
[00:23:39]  I wasted far too much time engaging with the men in my previous church about peripheral doctrines and the prospects of maybe one day the Lord will call you to be a pastor or a church planner.
[00:23:49]  And I invested far too little time talking about the fundamentals of what it means to be a Christian man.
[00:23:54]  And so, in this way, I failed these men, and in this way, I failed myself.
[00:24:00]  Most importantly, I failed the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:24:03]  Now, these days, I think young Christian men seem to have a lot in common with the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4, verse 16 through 20.
[00:24:10]  Here's the text Jesus said to her, Go and call your husband and come here.
[00:24:15]  And the woman answered him, I have no husband.
[00:24:20]  Jesus said to her, Oh, you're right in saying you have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.
[00:24:26]  What you have said is true.
[00:24:28]  The woman said, Ah, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
[00:24:31]  And immediately, Changes the subject.
[00:24:33]  Our Father is worshipped on this mountain, but you say Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.
[00:24:38]  Now, see, when a pastor confronts young men in the church today about family matters, about biblical masculinity, matters of marriage, matters of family and parenting, these men will often attempt to change the subject.
[00:24:51]  Sir, I perceive that you are a theologian.
[00:24:53]  Could you flesh out for me the specific details of superlapsarian as it pertains to the doctrine of limited atonement?
[00:24:59]  It's precisely at this point that a wise pastor will simply respond by saying no.
[00:25:05]  Instead, let's talk about your marriage.
[00:25:09]  Let's talk about your porn habit.

=== Fathers Protecting Families First (04:18) ===

[00:25:11]  Let's talk about your parenting.
[00:25:13]  Let's talk about how you lose your temper.
[00:25:15]  Let's talk about that.
[00:25:17]  It is true that God calls some men to stand up in the pulpit as pastors, but not before these men learn how to stand up for their own wives and their children as husbands and fathers.
[00:25:26]  Biblical manhood in this country has been dying a very slow and painful death for decades.
[00:25:31]  But when we emasculate Christ's church by championing every feminine characteristic as though it were a virtue, And demonizing every masculine trait as though it was a toxic vice, then what else should we expect?
[00:25:44]  Yes, we need more faithful pastors, but we won't get any until we have more faithful men.
[00:25:50]  For if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for the household of God?
[00:25:55]  And this is pervasive in evangelicalism and in the Reformed camp.
[00:25:59]  Men who have not managed their own household, their children aren't serving the Lord, their marriages are a wreck, they've been divorced, they've been remarried, all those kinds of things, there's a problem.
[00:26:08]  And guys aren't addressing it.
[00:26:10]  Let's continue to go.
[00:26:11]  So, what does the Bible have to say about true masculinity, biblical masculinity?
[00:26:15]  Perhaps the best place to start is by looking at some simple biblical commands.
[00:26:19]  As we investigate these commands, I will attempt to demonstrate from my own personal story how a plain reading of Scripture is ultimately all it took to convince me that I needed to move out of California.
[00:26:30]  Number one men as sons.
[00:26:33]  Exodus 20 12 says, Honor thy father and mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God has given you.
[00:26:40]  Although obedience to our parents is a temporary command issued to younger children while they remain at home, the command to honor our fathers and mothers is a lifelong command that continues even for adult children.
[00:26:50]  Now, for quite some time, my parents were doing everything they could to transition from Bay City, Texas, that's in Matagorda County, to San Diego, California when I was pastoring there.
[00:26:59]  They desperately wanted to be closer to their adult children, and let's be honest, mainly the grandchildren.
[00:27:04]  Although my parents were diligently trying their best to achieve this goal, it was doubtful that two individuals who had lived most of their adult lives In one of the poorest counties of Texas, would be able to successfully retire in one of the most expensive cities in the nation, which actually was just rated the worst city in the nation to live in, beat San Francisco even, in terms of the ratio between cost of living and jobs.
[00:27:26]  San Diego, horrible, horrible place economically to live.
[00:27:32]  Now, over time, I became convinced that I had an obligation to help provide for my aging parents by ensuring that they were able to fulfill their heart's desires.
[00:27:42]  1 Timothy 5, verse 4 says, But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and make some return to their parents.
[00:27:52]  For this is pleasing in the sight of God.
[00:27:54]  Now, although this biblical text specifically references elderly widows, I have come to believe that it is still pleasing in the sight of God when adult children earnestly seek to make some return to their parents, even when both father and mother are still living.
[00:28:08]  That's men as sons.
[00:28:09]  That made me leave California.
[00:28:11]  What about men as fathers?
[00:28:12]  Here's another biblical command Genesis 1 28.
[00:28:15]  Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.
[00:28:18]  As the scripture testifies, children are most assuredly a blessing from the Lord.
[00:28:22]  Psalm 127 3.
[00:28:24]  And while I will maintain that scripture allows for some measure of careful and ethical family planning, that is, contraceptives that do not impose abortive risk, the pill, I believe it is sin.
[00:28:34]  I am convinced, however, that in most circumstances, married couples will do well to have several children.
[00:28:41]  That's Psalm 127, verse 5.
[00:28:44]  However, procreation is just one small portion of the task that the Lord has assigned to parents.
[00:28:49]  In addition to producing offspring, the father must be willing and able to protect and provide for his children.
[00:28:57]  Now, at the risk of sounding overly simplistic, protect and provide, you might say that every man needs a job.
[00:29:03]  Provide and a gun protect two vital commodities that California politicians are working tirelessly to eradicate guns and jobs.
[00:29:12]  There will be no guns, there will be no jobs in California, says Gabin Newsom, and he's doing a bang up job.
[00:29:19]  If that's his goal, nailing it.
[00:29:21]  Now, a significant component of this provision fathers provide and protect this provision includes the children's education.

=== Biblical Masculinity and Provision (14:01) ===

[00:29:29]  Here's another verse Ephesians 6 4.
[00:29:32]  Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction.
[00:29:37]  Fear and admonition of the Lord.
[00:29:39]  In light of biblical texts such as this, it appears evident that a Christian man cannot merely abdicate his fatherly duty by handing his children over to the secular state to be educated.
[00:29:50]  This is especially true in a state like California.
[00:29:52]  But let me be clear I believe it's just as true in Williamson County.
[00:29:58]  Now, this means that a husband and wife will be required to homeschool their children or pay a significant amount to place each of their kids in a private Christian school, not Christians in education.
[00:30:10]  You know there's a difference, right?
[00:30:11]  Right?
[00:30:12]  Well, our kids have Christian teachers in their public school.
[00:30:15]  They identify as Christians.
[00:30:17]  There's a difference in Christians in education and a distinctly Christian education.
[00:30:21]  A Christian education doesn't just mean a Christian is teaching it, it means the education, the content, the curriculum itself comes from a Christian worldview.
[00:30:29]  And that doesn't just mean a 45 minute Bible class and then we go into pagan doctrine.
[00:30:33]  No, it means math through a Christian worldview.
[00:30:37]  It means engineering, right?
[00:30:38]  I want a Christian engineer, right?
[00:30:41]  It's just like what Martin Luther said.
[00:30:42]  Martin Luther said, the first.
[00:30:44]  The first implication of the gospel on the cobbler is not that he makes Christian shoes, but he makes good shoes.
[00:30:50]  So if you start a restaurant and you have John 3 16 on the bottom of the inside of the cup, that doesn't necessarily make it a Christian restaurant.
[00:30:57]  You know what makes it a Christian restaurant?
[00:30:59]  When the owners of the restaurant submit to the law of God and they love the Lord Jesus Christ and they make good food.
[00:31:06]  They make good food.
[00:31:08]  So a Christian engineer is somebody who builds a plane that doesn't fall apart in midair and who recognizes the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's the basis for them building that plane.
[00:31:18]  The atheist can't account for the way that he lives.
[00:31:22]  His worldview doesn't validate his life.
[00:31:26]  He believes everything is chaos, everything is random.
[00:31:29]  The whole scientific method and all of it, observation completely falls apart if you don't believe that the world was designed by a creator, by an architect, and therefore we can expect to detect reoccurring consistent patterns.
[00:31:43]  The atheist doesn't, they have no basis for patterns in the cosmos, and therefore they have no basis for laws of physics and laws of gravity and all these.
[00:31:53]  No basis whatsoever.
[00:31:54]  So, I don't want a committed atheist building the plane that I'm going to get my wife and children on.
[00:31:59]  Now, you know what?
[00:32:00]  In God's common grace, not special grace, regeneration, but in His common grace, atheists don't actually believe what they claim to believe.
[00:32:07]  And that's why atheists make good planes.
[00:32:10]  Because they believe like atheists, but they build planes like Christians.
[00:32:15]  Because only Christians can build good planes.
[00:32:17]  Period.
[00:32:18]  So, all that being said, you need your kids not just to have Christians in education, but to get a Christian education.
[00:32:24]  And there's only really two ways to go about that.
[00:32:26]  It means that your wife can't supplement your income, husbands, because she's got to do homeschool.
[00:32:32]  Or it means that all of your expenses that you already have, go ahead and add about a grand monthly to send your kids to a Christian school.
[00:32:44]  And I would advocate for that being a classical Christian school.
[00:32:50]  My point is this part of biblical masculinity is money.
[00:32:56]  And that doesn't mean that you have to be rich to follow Jesus.
[00:32:59]  But what I'm saying is there is a cost to discipleship.
[00:33:02]  There is a relational cost.
[00:33:04]  Mother and father.
[00:33:05]  If you're not willing to lose mother and father and this and that for my sake, you're not worthy of me.
[00:33:11]  There's a relational cost.
[00:33:12]  When Jesus calls someone to be his disciple, you beg and you plead for all of your relationships to follow Jesus with you.
[00:33:19]  Jesus has called me, he's called me, and I am following him.
[00:33:23]  And I hope, I pray that you would heed his call and come with me.
[00:33:28]  Come.
[00:33:29]  We found the Messiah.
[00:33:31]  We found him.
[00:33:31]  Come and see.
[00:33:33]  But sometimes they don't come.
[00:33:35]  And therefore, you must leave some of the closest and dearest relationships in your life.
[00:33:39]  Leave father and mother.
[00:33:40]  So there's a relational cost, right?
[00:33:43]  But there's not just a relational cost, there is a financial cost to following Jesus.
[00:33:48]  There is.
[00:33:50]  Here's one of the financial costs, right?
[00:33:51]  And this will prove that John and A.D. are not pastors, and I'm the pastor in the group.
[00:33:55]  Part of the cost is 10% of your income.
[00:33:59]  By the way, that's law giving.
[00:34:00]  That's Old Testament.
[00:34:01]  You know, all right, I'm down for gospel giving.
[00:34:03]  All right, this New Testament, well, it's not, you know, the tithe is not in the New Testament.
[00:34:07]  It's just gospel giving.
[00:34:08]  My question, though, is how come gospel giving always in real dollars and cents equates to less cash in the offering plate than law giving?
[00:34:18]  And if we're going to be theonomists, which I am, you don't have to be, but I am, then what we hold when it comes to the civil law of God is the general equity.
[00:34:27]  And that's not just theonomists.
[00:34:28]  I mean, that's Westminster.
[00:34:30]  If you're confessionally reformed, That's 1689, that's Westminster, that's the doctrine of the law of God.
[00:34:34]  The moral law of God, the Ten Commandments, endures forever.
[00:34:37]  And the civil law, we take the general equity, right?
[00:34:40]  So don't muzzle the ox while he treads the grain.
[00:34:42]  And it's not just because God is concerned about oxen, although our compassionate God is.
[00:34:46]  He has compassion on all he has made, says the Psalms.
[00:34:49]  But he's also using the general equity, Paul does in the New Testament, to make an argument for paying pastors from the ox thing.
[00:34:56]  In the same way, we take the general equity of building a border, a fence line around the perimeter of your roof.
[00:35:02]  Because when it was hot in the summer months, people would sleep on top of the roof with no AC to get a cool breeze.
[00:35:07]  And if there wasn't a border, you might roll off, you might get seriously injured or die.
[00:35:11]  And we take the general equity of that, and we don't go around and police, say, if you don't have a border on the top of your roof, then you're getting a fine.
[00:35:18]  But what we do is we take the general equity, thou must esteem and defend and cherish the sanctity of human life.
[00:35:24]  And what we do is we take the general equity of that civil code, case law given to Israel, and we apply that with something like speed limits.
[00:35:32]  And our nation has done this.
[00:35:34]  This is why our nation has such just laws.
[00:35:38]  And you can link the justice of our law system directly to the monetary wealth.
[00:35:44]  Our nation has prospered because our nation has been just.
[00:35:50]  And our nation has been just because our nation has been Christian.
[00:35:54]  Well, wait a second.
[00:35:54]  I don't think America is a Christian nation.
[00:35:56]  Now, here's the deal about America.
[00:35:58]  I believe that America is currently an apostate nation because I believe that America made a covenant with God.
[00:36:06]  That doesn't mean it's on par with the covenant that Israel made with God.
[00:36:08]  That's unique.
[00:36:10]  That's unique.
[00:36:11]  And it doesn't mean America is the equivalent of Israel.
[00:36:13]  And it certainly doesn't mean America is the equivalent of the church.
[00:36:17]  No.
[00:36:17]  But I do believe that individual nations, Ethnic nations, they ultimately are underneath the lordship of Jesus Christ.
[00:36:25]  He is Lord.
[00:36:26]  And you either love him or hate him, bless him or curse him, but every individual has a relationship with Jesus.
[00:36:32]  It's a good one or a bad one.
[00:36:33]  And likewise, every single nation has a relationship with Jesus.
[00:36:36]  And the reason why is because the nations, not just does God give them, not only does God give them the permission to exist, but God ensures not only that it's right for them to exist today, but that they will indefinitely exist until Jesus comes back because the nations are his inheritance.
[00:36:54]  They are his inheritance.
[00:36:55]  And so America made a deal with God.
[00:36:57]  And that's why we've been so blessed.
[00:36:59]  We modeled our laws and all these things off of biblical law.
[00:37:02]  Biblical law.
[00:37:04]  Extracting the general equity from the civil law, taking the moral law, the Ten Commandments, and putting it in.
[00:37:10]  Two or three witnesses.
[00:37:11]  And as we've turned our back on biblical justice and all these different things, we're all of a sudden, it's not a coincidence that we turn from justice and we're also experiencing inflation.
[00:37:22]  Right?
[00:37:23]  There is a blessing with obedience.
[00:37:25]  There's a blessing with obedience.
[00:37:27]  That's not prosperity gospel.
[00:37:28]  Prosperity gospel is this.
[00:37:30]  If I teach my daughters that every single week on Fridays, on their way home from school, if they stop, and let's say it's legally able for them to do this, they stop and they buy a lotto ticket.
[00:37:40]  If you faithfully buy a lotto ticket once a week, you eventually will win the lottery.
[00:37:44]  That's prosperity gospel.
[00:37:46]  But if I tell my daughters, and our son now on the way, if I tell my son, I'll use him as an example, if I tell him, if you keep your vows to your wife, You love your children, you fear the Lord, and you work hard with integrity, then eventually you'll do pretty well.
[00:38:06]  You'll do pretty well.
[00:38:08]  And you might say, that's the prosperity gospel.
[00:38:10]  No, that's not the prosperity gospel.
[00:38:12]  That's work, that's sowing and reaping.
[00:38:14]  God will not be mocked.
[00:38:16]  That's the basic principles of Scripture.
[00:38:19]  You might say, well, but there are times where that doesn't happen, right?
[00:38:21]  You work hard, you have integrity, you fear the Lord, and you get cancer.
[00:38:24]  Yeah, that's true.
[00:38:26]  But that's the minority.
[00:38:27]  And when you get cancer, Bless the Lord.
[00:38:29]  He gives and takes away.
[00:38:30]  He's still sovereign, and everything He does is for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.
[00:38:35]  But for us to say, well, there are exceptions to the rule.
[00:38:39]  People suffer.
[00:38:40]  And then to make the exception the norm, that's the very thing that the left does, right?
[00:38:44]  It's always taking everyone down.
[00:38:46]  How do you get equality?
[00:38:48]  You suppress everyone down to the common denominator, the lowest wrong.
[00:38:52]  And we do that in our theology.
[00:38:54]  Because somebody is suffering, has cancer, and lost their job, we say, well, I guess we shouldn't really teach people that if they're faithful, God will bless them.
[00:39:01]  Because sometimes it doesn't happen.
[00:39:03]  But Paul makes no caveats.
[00:39:04]  He makes no disclaimers.
[00:39:06]  And this is the New Testament.
[00:39:07]  He quotes the fifth commandment children, honor your father and mother.
[00:39:12]  And then, without any equivocation, he gives the same blessing, the same promise.
[00:39:16]  For this is the first commandment with a promise that it'll go well with you and your days will be long in the earth.
[00:39:21]  But what about children that are obedient and die and drown in a pool at five years old?
[00:39:25]  God forbid.
[00:39:27]  I don't know.
[00:39:27]  Ask the Apostle Paul.
[00:39:29]  He doesn't include that.
[00:39:30]  No parenthetical statement, no disclaimer.
[00:39:34]  Obedience, blessing.
[00:39:36]  Obedience, blessing.
[00:39:38]  Not faith in lottery ticket blessing.
[00:39:42]  That's prosperity.
[00:39:43]  But also, we don't want to be prosperity, but we also don't want to be poverty.
[00:39:47]  What we want to believe is biblical theology.
[00:39:50]  Work, sowing, you will reap.
[00:39:53]  God is faithful, he will not be mocked.
[00:39:55]  And I think that us kind of buying into a poverty gospel, some of these teachings coming from John Piper.
[00:40:01]  And I think us buying some of these things, along with things like too keen of theology, along with things, I think, in the eschatology realm, but all these things together in a mixed bag basically said Jesus is coming back any second, so you really don't need to put down deep roots.
[00:40:16]  And if you do put down deep roots, Well, God is like Russian roulette.
[00:40:21]  There's no rhyme and reason to God.
[00:40:23]  God is just a loose cannon.
[00:40:24]  He does whatever he wants.
[00:40:25]  He's random.
[00:40:26]  And God is sovereign, but sovereign and random are not the same thing.
[00:40:30]  But that's how we taught.
[00:40:31]  And so we said, Yeah, you can obey, but that really doesn't guarantee blessing, even though the Bible explicitly says it does.
[00:40:36]  Explicitly.
[00:40:38]  And we did all these things because we were afraid that to say anything other than that, all of a sudden you would be like Kenneth Copeland.
[00:40:44]  And I just want to say, brothers and sisters, this is a sliding scale.
[00:40:47]  There's a massive difference.
[00:40:50]  A massive distance between Kenneth Copeland and believing that if we obey, the Lord blesses us.
[00:40:58]  Right?
[00:40:59]  It can't just be like, if you obey, God is sovereign, you'll probably die.
[00:41:01]  You know, anyways, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
[00:41:04]  You know, like that's the outcome for everybody.
[00:41:05]  Okay, yeah, them, but there's also Abraham, right?
[00:41:08]  They're not the only biblical example.
[00:41:09]  Some were thrown to the lion, some were drawn in quarter, sawed in two, right?
[00:41:14]  And the Bible commends them in the Hall of Fame.
[00:41:17]  But others were rich and blessed.
[00:41:21]  And so, for us to say, well, don't work hard and don't do this and don't play the long game and all these kind of things because who knows what's going to happen?
[00:41:27]  That's why we lose.
[00:41:30]  Now, if you're pre mill because it's your actual conviction, praise God, good on you.
[00:41:34]  But if you're a self fulfilling prophet, shame on you.
[00:41:39]  If you're trying to make your pre mill doctrine correct by acting in such a way to ensure that we lose, shame on you.
[00:41:48]  Dig deep, plant deep.
[00:41:52]  Put down foundations.
[00:41:54]  Play the long game.
[00:41:56]  Think generational.
[00:41:58]  A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children.
[00:42:02]  That's a spiritual inheritance.
[00:42:03]  Yes and amen.
[00:42:04]  Cannot be less than a spiritual inheritance.
[00:42:07]  But could it be more?
[00:42:10]  Could it also be a financial inheritance?
[00:42:11]  Is it not a shame?
[00:42:13]  Think about this.
[00:42:14]  Is it not a shame that the boomer generation is proud to drive cars with a bumper sticker that says, I'm spending my grandchildren's inheritance?
[00:42:25]  What would God say about that?
[00:42:27]  It's a shame.
[00:42:30]  It's a shame.
[00:42:30]  It's an indictment of an entire generation.
[00:42:35]  They're not thinking biblically.
[00:42:38]  I want to build wealth because I need a $58 million jet plane.
[00:42:43]  No.
[00:42:45]  No, because I want to be faithful to the Lord.
[00:42:48]  And I don't want to have a Disney fairy princess view of economics.
[00:42:53]  I want to read the Bible and Thomas Sowell.
[00:42:56]  I want to be wise because I want to win.
[00:43:00]  I want to do a lot for the kingdom.
[00:43:02]  I want to plant churches.
[00:43:02]  I want to make disciples and I want to baptize them.
[00:43:05]  And I never want to do less.
[00:43:07]  But as I get older and I have children and I start thinking down the line, decades, centuries, I want to do more.
[00:43:15]  Never want to do less, but I want to do a lot more.
[00:43:19]  Patriarchy.
[00:43:20]  So be post male, or at least play the long game.
[00:43:24]  Be inconsistently pre male.
[00:43:28]  And then also be patriarchal.
[00:43:30]  Be patriarchal.

=== Rejecting Political Neutrity Myths (08:14) ===

[00:43:31]  Okay?
[00:43:32]  After that, the next one is be presuppositional.
[00:43:35]  This is what I started with Edmund, Lucy, the whole Chronicles, and Narnia.
[00:43:38]  I'll go quick.
[00:43:39]  The myth of neutrality.
[00:43:41]  That's what I mean.
[00:43:41]  You've got to learn this lesson over the last two years.
[00:43:44]  We learned this lesson.
[00:43:46]  Don't forget it.
[00:43:47]  We should not have to be taught this a second time because we were already taught it like 10 times in the last 22 months.
[00:43:54]  We should not have to be taught again.
[00:43:56]  Presuppositionalism.
[00:43:57]  Everyone has an allegiance.
[00:43:59]  Neutrality is a myth.
[00:44:01]  Everything is moral and it's either for Christ or against Him.
[00:44:05]  It's of the utmost importance that we remind ourselves that although we should resist the temptation of politicizing everything, everything is still being politicized for us by someone else.
[00:44:16]  Christians must.
[00:44:17]  Exercise, therefore, careful discernment as we swim through the sea of information provided by secular sources.
[00:44:24]  Now, do Christians hold to the doctrine of common grace?
[00:44:27]  Yes.
[00:44:29]  By borrowing from the Christian worldview, can an atheist make certain discoveries that are actually true?
[00:44:34]  Yes.
[00:44:35]  However, as Christians, we must recognize that every man has an allegiance.
[00:44:40]  Matthew 12, 30.
[00:44:46]  In other words, Christians must better familiarize.
[00:44:48]  Familiarize themselves with the myth of neutrality.
[00:44:52]  Now, a few years ago, I was profoundly challenged by a small book that presented a concise rebuttal to the Two Kingdom theology, particularly R2K, a radical Two Kingdom theology that comes out of Escondido, Westminster.
[00:45:05]  In this book, the author pushed back on one Two Kingdom advocate his assertion that there's nothing moral or theological about making stir fry.
[00:45:13]  Now, the author did this by providing examples of a certain cannibalistic tribe that would fry their victims' flesh with vegetables in a pan.
[00:45:21]  Apparently, even stir fry cooks are influenced by their theology.
[00:45:26]  Even stir fry can be moral.
[00:45:29]  It's not neutral.
[00:45:31]  Now, it's been said never let a good crisis go to waste.
[00:45:34]  Ever heard that?
[00:45:35]  Crisis is key for the political left in our nation because individual liberty always seems to get in the way of progressive political agendas.
[00:45:43]  So, how does the political left find its way around these pesky provisions outlined in a little thing called the Constitution?
[00:45:51]  What they do is they incessantly search for ways to convince the masses, the public, To trade in their liberties for something else.
[00:45:58]  It's a classic bait and switch maneuver, and almost nothing historically has served as more enticing bait than public safety.
[00:46:07]  Personal liberty for public safety.
[00:46:10]  A terrible trade, to be sure, but a decision that our nation has been willing to make time and time again.
[00:46:17]  In the 70s, it was global cooling.
[00:46:20]  You might have forgotten that one.
[00:46:21]  In the 80s, it was global warming.
[00:46:23]  Later, this evolved into climate change, and then, as if right on schedule, our politicians have informed us.
[00:46:29]  That we're entering into a climate crisis.
[00:46:31]  Now, due to this claim, the Democrats attempted to slip elements of the Green New Deal into the relief package for COVID 19.
[00:46:38]  What do they have to do with one another?
[00:46:40]  But there it is, right there.
[00:46:42]  Again, crisis is key for any political leader that yearns for more power.
[00:46:46]  However, for this crisis strategy to work, the ruling elites must somehow convince the general public that the crisis actually exists.
[00:46:54]  This task requires at least two primary institutions academia and the media.
[00:47:00]  The myth of neutrality encompasses everything.
[00:47:03]  Even the collection and presentation of data.
[00:47:07]  When we read studies which promote themselves as politically neutral and strictly following the science, we should do so with a certain degree of what I like to call holy suspicion.
[00:47:18]  If any two spheres have been completely monopolized by progressives in our nation, they are undoubtedly the spheres of academia and the media.
[00:47:28]  The left owns our nation's universities, think Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and they rule them with an iron fist.
[00:47:35]  Therefore, if we genuinely believe that neutrality is a myth, And that our theology and morality influence every area of our lives, we must commit to exercising careful discernment as we read any academic report.
[00:47:49]  Again, the political left dominates not only universities, but also the legacy media.
[00:47:54]  Universities do the research, and the media presents their findings.
[00:47:58]  Godless Yale and the godless New York Times working in perfect concert.
[00:48:03]  Once more, can unbelievers contribute in helpful ways due to God's common grace?
[00:48:07]  Absolutely, yes and amen.
[00:48:10]  So, as Christians, there are many times when we should be willing to read these academic reports.
[00:48:16]  I am merely advocating that when we read them, we read them as Christians.
[00:48:22]  Slow to speak, quick to listen, examining against the unchanging standard of the Word of God.
[00:48:31]  Being slow, being wise, exercising discernment.
[00:48:36]  There appear to be at least two common pitfalls for Christians during these trying times.
[00:48:41]  First, there are Christians who can ignore Any negative possible outcomes without credible reasoning simply because we can't stomach the results.
[00:48:51]  This is called denial.
[00:48:53]  Now, denial, while possessing the veneer of courage, is actually a subtle form of fear.
[00:49:00]  Denial is not courage.
[00:49:02]  Denial is actually fear cloaked in courage, if it's baseless denial.
[00:49:09]  If you've got a reason, an objective reason from the Word of God to deny something, then deny.
[00:49:15]  Now, second, we can believe everything, and this is where most of our nation would fall.
[00:49:19]  We can believe everything the moment we hear it without any ounce of suspicion, without any scrutiny.
[00:49:25]  Our secular universities and left political media have overplayed virtually every crisis there has ever been, often pulling crises out of thin air.
[00:49:36]  It behooves us, therefore, to remember that these are the same people who assured us that everyone would be dead by now if we did not begin using solar panels and driving electric cars.
[00:49:46]  Therefore, Christians need courage so that we do not give into the temptation of baseless denial.
[00:49:51]  And yet, Christians also require courage so that we stop immediately forfeiting all of our God given rights every time we hear a negative report, simply because it flies under the banner of science.
[00:50:04]  Numbers 13, 30 through 32.
[00:50:06]  But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and occupy the land, for we are well able to overcome it.
[00:50:16]  Then the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.
[00:50:23]  So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report.
[00:50:28]  A bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, The land through which we have gone to spy out is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.
[00:50:41]  Let's be like Caleb.
[00:50:42]  Let's be like Joshua.
[00:50:43]  Let's not, when we get a bad report, not base us to denial.
[00:50:48]  There's a fine line between faith and insanity.
[00:50:52]  We don't want to be insane.
[00:50:55]  I've said it like this in the past.
[00:50:57]  Sometimes wisdom is a euphemism for fear.
[00:51:00]  Have you noticed that?
[00:51:01]  Sometimes wisdom is a euphemism.
[00:51:02]  I'm just being wise.
[00:51:03]  No, you're being cowardly.
[00:51:04]  You're being cowardly.
[00:51:05]  But then also, sometimes faith is a euphemism for foolishness.
[00:51:09]  So there's a very thin line, a razor's edge between faith and foolishness.
[00:51:13]  We want faith, but not insanity, not baseless denial.
[00:51:16]  And likewise, there's a very razor edge, thin line between wisdom and fear.
[00:51:20]  We want to be wise, but not cowards.
[00:51:23]  Not labeling it as wisdom when really it's just cowardice.
[00:51:27]  Right?
[00:51:27]  So let's be filled with faith, filled with wisdom.
[00:51:30]  Not fearful, not foolish.
[00:51:32]  Let's be presuppositional.
[00:51:34]  Let's recognize the myth of neutrality.
[00:51:36]  Let's have holy suspicion.
[00:51:38]  Let's exercise discernment.
[00:51:41]  Let's work our way, navigate through all of the lies.

=== Christ Present Among Us (06:32) ===

[00:51:46]  Christians should be able to do this.
[00:51:47]  We should.
[00:51:48]  We should not take the bait.
[00:51:50]  We should not be so easily deceived.
[00:51:52]  Proper ecclesiology.
[00:51:53]  How much time do I have?
[00:51:54]  Zero, huh?
[00:51:54]  4 30.
[00:51:55]  What time did we start, Nate?
[00:52:00]  53 minutes.
[00:52:01]  I'm going to go for seven more minutes.
[00:52:02]  Here we go.
[00:52:02]  Allow me to be abundantly clear.
[00:52:04]  I firmly believe with every fiber of my being that the church, not merely individual believers themselves, But the gathered assembly of these believers on the Lord's day is absolutely essential.
[00:52:13]  The church is essential, and I'm talking about the church when it churches, the church when it assembles, the church when it gathers on the Lord's day for the rightly preached word, the rightly administered sacraments, church discipline, the whole nine yards.
[00:52:28]  That is essential.
[00:52:29]  However, what I noticed over the last two years is this even among Christians who are convinced that the church is essential, many remain suspicious of its genuine necessity.
[00:52:38]  This suspicion is likely because many Christians.
[00:52:41]  They understand, they affirm that the church is essential, but they don't see how the church is unique.
[00:52:47]  They think it's essential, but they don't think it's unique.
[00:52:50]  In our day, there appears to be an alarming amount of Christians who are simply unaware of what actually occurs in the gathered assembly of the saints on the Lord's day.
[00:52:58]  They fail to see how what takes place at church is categorically distinct from what individual Christians do all week long in their private practices of piety prayer, scripture reading, fasting.
[00:53:08]  Therefore, pastors must labor to teach their congregations that when we come together on the Lord's day, We do not merely experience the heightened benefits of individual Christian practices due to the reality of being surrounded by other brothers and sisters in Christ.
[00:53:22]  Instead, what takes place in the gathered assembly is a spiritual reality that occurs in no other earthly context.
[00:53:29]  According to Scripture, when true churches, that is, Orthodox churches, which faithfully proclaim both law and gospel, when true churches gather together on the Lord's day and rightly administer the ordinary means of grace, which is to publicly preach the word, publicly pray the word, publicly sing the word, The word, psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, and publicly see, S E E, see the word in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and baptism.
[00:53:55]  When churches, true churches, gather together for this purpose, the Bible tells us that Christ Himself begins to walk among the lampstands.
[00:54:04]  The lampstands are the churches themselves, and Christ holds the angels of these churches in His right hand.
[00:54:11]  The angels are the gospel ministers who have been tasked with the faithful proclamation of God's word.
[00:54:16]  And as these angels begin to preach, A double edged sword does not merely proceed from their mouth, but from the mouth of Christ Himself, and it begins to pierce the hearts of men.
[00:54:29]  All that is according to Revelation 1, verse 10 through 16.
[00:54:32]  Now, since some of you do not appreciate my exegesis of Revelation, allow me to present a biblical case from Matthew 18, verse 17 through 20.
[00:54:42]  If, and this is my exegesis baked in, if the impenitent church member currently under formal church discipline refuses to listen to the two or three witnesses who have confronted him, then tell it to not the elders of the church, not the presbytery, but the gathered assembly on the Lord's day.
[00:55:00]  And if he refuses to listen even to the church, the gathered assembly of church members, elders, deacons, and members on the Lord's day, if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector, aka as an outsider no longer considered to be a brother or a brother.
[00:55:16]  Or sister in Christ.
[00:55:18]  Truly, Jesus goes on, truly I say to you, whatever you, the gathered assembly of the church, bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
[00:55:32]  Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.
[00:55:40]  For where two or three are gathered in my name, that is, wherever a true church exists and is assembled, there I am among them.
[00:55:51]  So, according to Jesus, the minimal requirement for constituting a biblical true church is the presence of two or three baptized believers who have made a public and credible profession of their faith and who have covenanted with one another in a local context to follow all of Christ's commands while teaching others to do likewise.
[00:56:13]  And when true churches, that's Jesus' definition of a church, and when true churches that meet this definition, Gather in Jesus' name on the Lord's day for the ordinary means of grace.
[00:56:23]  Preaching the word, praying the word, singing the word, seeing the word.
[00:56:27]  When this takes place, Jesus promises to be present among them.
[00:56:32]  In other words, Jesus, who is always present with all believers at all times by virtue of the indwelling ministry of the Spirit, this Jesus, who is always present, promises to be uniquely present at church.
[00:56:47]  And the reason why pastors and churches were completely fine to do church online, and some of them are still doing it, It's because although they claim church is essential, you can't actually logically believe in the essential nature of church unless you believe this thing you're calling essential also happens to be unique.
[00:57:08]  And for most of us, we did not have proper ecclesiology going into March 2020.
[00:57:13]  We thought there's no real difference between church and our private practices of piety.
[00:57:19]  Really, the only difference is relationally, the community.
[00:57:23]  And I can go and see people on a Tuesday night, my small group still meets.
[00:57:27]  I still have the relationships.
[00:57:29]  And I'm leading worship in our home, and we live stream the sermon.
[00:57:32]  And we were completely comfortable giving up gathering together on the Lord's Day, Hebrews 10 25, because although we would say church is essential, we did not see that church is unique.
[00:57:43]  And what makes church unique, among many things, is that Christ promises to be uniquely present.
[00:57:48]  Christ is present on the Lord's Day.
[00:57:50]  When you're a biblical church, if you belong to a biblical church, when you show up on the Lord's Day for church, Christ is there.
[00:57:58]  In a special way, in a way that he's not in your home, in your living room with your family worship.
[00:58:03]  Christ is not, and I'm the pastor, but Christ is still, he is not present in my living room when I do family worship with my family.
[00:58:09]  He's not present in the same way that he is on the Lord's Day when we meet at a barbecue restaurant, because that's church.
[00:58:16]  Church is special.

=== Romans 13 and True Authority (06:18) ===

[00:58:18]  It is.
[00:58:18]  The Bible tells me so.
[00:58:20]  So, proper ecclesiology.
[00:58:21]  I'm gonna skip the rest of that.
[00:58:22]  Here's the last one.
[00:58:23]  Number five.
[00:58:24]  Number five is, gotta remember, Protestant resistance theory, right?
[00:58:27]  That's a real quick topic.
[00:58:29]  But, Protestant resistance theory, I'm just gonna read a couple paragraphs of what I wrote.
[00:58:32]  When it comes to the Christian's duty to submit to the civil authorities, it is vital that we rightly interpret the whole of Scripture.
[00:58:39]  It's crucial that we recognize that Romans 13, that is the biblical text that is so often cited for why churches should comply with every government regulation, says nothing explicitly about Christians being required by God to submit to unrighteous rulings handed down by tyrannical overlords.
[00:58:55]  Instead, Romans 13 merely describes God's good and holy purposes for civil governments, and therefore the text assumes that Christians would do well to submit to these civil governments.
[00:59:06]  Now, all that being said, here's the text.
[00:59:08]  Therefore, Romans 13, my exegesis baked in.
[00:59:12]  Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
[00:59:18]  For rulers are not a terror to those with good conduct, but those with bad.
[00:59:22]  Would you have no fear of the one who has authority over you?
[00:59:25]  Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good.
[00:59:31]  But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is a servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath.
[00:59:38]  On the wrongdoer.
[00:59:40]  Therefore, one must be in subjection.
[00:59:42]  Now, notice this is what the text does not say.
[00:59:44]  It does not say, Would you have no fear of the one who's in authority?
[00:59:47]  Then do whatever he says.
[00:59:50]  No, it says, Then do what is good.
[00:59:52]  According to who?
[00:59:54]  Don't you think the assumption of the Apostle Paul is?
[00:59:56]  It's not, Would you have no fear of the one who rules over you?
[00:59:58]  Then do whatever he says is good, regardless of whether or not it measures up to God's unchanging standard.
[01:00:04]  No, Would you have no fear of the one who rules over you, the civil magistrate?
[01:00:07]  Then do what is good.
[01:00:09]  And what is good?
[01:00:10]  What is truly good, that which is in accordance with God's law.
[01:00:14]  That's what Paul's saying.
[01:00:15]  You don't want to be afraid of the one who rules over you, then do what is good and you will receive his approval.
[01:00:20]  So Paul's assuming that the civil magistrate is moral, that he's functioning as an avenger, God's avenger, as a servant, God's deacon.
[01:00:29]  That's what he's assuming.
[01:00:30]  You'll receive his approval, for he is, the text doesn't say this, an autonomous agent working on his own behalf for his own benefit.
[01:00:37]  No.
[01:00:37]  Instead, the text says, would you have no fear of the one who is in authority, then do what is good.
[01:00:42]  That is what is objectively good according to God's unchanging moral standard, and you will receive his approval for he is God's deacon.
[01:00:50]  He works for God, and he has to submit ultimately to God's design for government and function within God's perimeters for civil authorities.
[01:01:00]  That is for your good.
[01:01:01]  And for your good, what is your good?
[01:01:04]  That is your true and lasting good in accordance with what God commands in Scripture.
[01:01:09]  Sadly, Romans 13 was misused time and time and time again by.
[01:01:13]  Cowardly pastors seeking to biblically justify their sinful compliance and cowardice.
[01:01:19]  So, all that being said, five lessons that we better have learned over the last two years and we better not forget because we're going to be tested again and again and again on these same five points.
[01:01:29]  Number one, play the long game, dig deep, build to last.
[01:01:35]  Maybe Jesus comes back tomorrow, but I think we need to pretend as though, live as though he may tarry for a while.
[01:01:43]  Think generationally.
[01:01:44]  A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children.
[01:01:47]  So play the long game.
[01:01:49]  The next one patriarchy.
[01:01:51]  Patriarch, build families, build households, and build on the rock.
[01:01:56]  Build in faith.
[01:01:58]  Love your children.
[01:01:59]  Love your wives.
[01:02:01]  Start businesses.
[01:02:02]  Run for local office.
[01:02:03]  All these different things.
[01:02:04]  The next one presuppositional.
[01:02:07]  Neutrality is a myth.
[01:02:09]  Holy suspicion.
[01:02:10]  Be slow to speak, quick to listen.
[01:02:12]  Exercise discernment.
[01:02:15]  All these things.
[01:02:15]  The next one, proper ecclesiology.
[01:02:18]  Church is not the same.
[01:02:20]  It's not the same as your quiet time with the Lord or your family worship.
[01:02:24]  Jesus is always present with believers by virtue of the Holy Spirit, but he promises to be uniquely present on the Lord's Day when the church gathers together.
[01:02:34]  Prophet, ecclesiology.
[01:02:35]  Church is a big deal.
[01:02:36]  It's essential because it's unique.
[01:02:38]  And lastly, number five, the one that I just did Protestant resistant theory.
[01:02:43]  Understand Romans 13.
[01:02:45]  Understand that we don't just have to roll over every single time the state says something.
[01:02:50]  Great example of that would be the Gospel Coalition.
[01:02:53]  They would say, hey, if Caesar says, do this, Even though it directly contradicts God's law, you better do it.
[01:03:00]  But women, if your husband says you shouldn't dress that way, you don't have to submit to your husband.
[01:03:05]  He's being abusive.
[01:03:07]  And you don't have to submit to abusive authority.
[01:03:09]  So the Gospel Coalition, what they're giving away is they're saying authority in the home, not a big deal, but authority of the state.
[01:03:15]  Oh, authority of the state.
[01:03:16]  That's because they're statist.
[01:03:18]  Exactly what John was teaching.
[01:03:20]  They're statist.
[01:03:20]  That's where their hope is.
[01:03:21]  That's where their allegiance is.
[01:03:22]  Whereas we would say, no, these are sovereign spheres.
[01:03:24]  It's like a Venn diagram.
[01:03:25]  There's overlap.
[01:03:26]  It's not state, church, home.
[01:03:29]  It's not a hierarchy.
[01:03:30]  There are three different spheres that God has divinely instituted, and they are beside one another, not on top of one another.
[01:03:36]  The state is not over and against families, it is not superior to families.
[01:03:41]  And the church is not superior to families either.
[01:03:44]  And anytime anyone in a position of authority, civil authority, familial authority, or ecclesiastical authority, oversteps their God given jurisdiction according to the unchanging standard of Scripture, that's called tyranny.
[01:03:58]  And we don't submit to it.
[01:04:00]  Right?
[01:04:02]  Define tyrants.
[01:04:04]  Is obedience to God right?
[01:04:06]  That's John Knox, Scottish reformer.
[01:04:08]  All right, let me pray.
[01:04:10]  Father God, thank you for your word, thank you for the lessons you've taught us.
[01:04:13]  Please, please, please help us not to have such short term memories.
[01:04:17]  Help us to remember in Jesus' name, amen.
[01:04:21]  Thanks so much for listening.
[01:04:22]  But, real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment, and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show.
[01:04:29]  This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible.
[01:04:37]  Thanks so much.