NXR Podcast - BONUS - NBC, Doug Wilson, & Christian Nationalism
Aired: 2022-09-23
Duration: 01:07:54


=== Strategic Evangelism in Love City (10:59) ===

[00:00:00]  Big news, really big news.
[00:00:03]  Our next Right Response Conference is in the works.
[00:00:06]  We've got a number of things already lined up and organized.
[00:00:10]  This is what we've got so far.
[00:00:11]  The whole conference, three days long on post millennialism and theonomy.
[00:00:17]  And the speakers Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Gary DeMar, and of course, yours truly, Pastor Joel Webbin.
[00:00:25]  We've got a great lineup, we've got great topics.
[00:00:29]  If you want to find out dates, And location and registration and anything else, go and visit our website, rightresponseconference.com.
[00:00:39]  Rightresponseconference.com.
[00:00:41]  All right, welcome back to another live broadcasting from Right Response Ministries.
[00:00:46]  I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webbin.
[00:00:49]  And we typically do our live QA.
[00:00:52]  Sometimes I take questions, and sometimes you guys have probably realized by this point that I have something that I want to talk about.
[00:00:58]  But for the most part, I try to always take at least one or two questions, sometimes four or five.
[00:01:03]  Today is a little bit different because we typically do our live broadcast on Mondays at 12 p.m. Central Time.
[00:01:08]  Mondays, 12 p.m. Central Time.
[00:01:10]  Feel free to join us at that hour.
[00:01:13]  I typically don't go live any other day of the week.
[00:01:16]  We have our Theology Applied flagship show that airs on Tuesdays.
[00:01:22]  But usually, Monday is the only live segment each week that we do here with Right Response Ministries.
[00:01:27]  But I'm going live today on a Friday to talk about just my thoughts on the Meet the Press segment with NBC News on.
[00:01:37]  The subject of Christian nationalism.
[00:01:39]  They had talked about Christian nationalism being on the rise.
[00:01:42]  And as their case study, what they did was they sent a reporter to Moscow, Idaho, not Moscow, the capital of Russia, but Moscow, Idaho.
[00:01:52]  Any of you guys who are fans or at least knowledgeable, you know of Doug Wilson, Pastor Doug Wilson in Christchurch, then you're familiar with Moscow.
[00:02:02]  For everybody else, you're probably not familiar because it's a small town of only about 25,000.
[00:02:08]  People that actually are residents in the town.
[00:02:11]  It's in Idaho and it's up in the smokestack of Idaho and right on really close to the border of the state line between Idaho and Washington state.
[00:02:21]  And so Jim Wilson, who is Doug's dad, who passed away actually recently, just a couple months ago, made the decision for the Wilson family to plant the roots there.
[00:02:33]  And he did this kind of utilizing the Great Commission as a Christian man.
[00:02:38]  But also utilizing a hybrid between the Great Commission and some of the principles of war that he had learned as a military man over the years of serving in the military.
[00:02:50]  And so you can find some of these things in a little book that he wrote, which I believe is called Principles of War.
[00:02:56]  So talking about evangelism and the Great Commission, but from a strategic standpoint.
[00:03:00]  And one of the main concepts that Jim Wilson discussed in that book was the decisive point or the strategic point.
[00:03:08]  Point.
[00:03:09]  And so basically, he argued the concept like this.
[00:03:11]  He said Christians should think strategically about where they live and where they're ministering.
[00:03:19]  And it should be a decisive point, meaning it should be a place that is both winnable as much as possible and significant, meaning that it actually can be won for Christ, that geographic location, but it also would have some weight of influence, some significance if it could be won.
[00:03:39]  It wouldn't be an impossible place to win.
[00:03:43]  But it also wouldn't be a meaningless place if you want, right?
[00:03:47]  So, the proverbial Timbuktu would be winnable, a place that has a population of 174 people, more cattle and more dogs than human souls.
[00:03:59]  We could go in there with a Christian team and win it for Christ in a fortnight, but it wouldn't necessarily be significant.
[00:04:09]  On the other end of the spectrum would be Manhattan, that would be certainly significant if it could be won, but doesn't seem, at least at this time, to be particularly significant.
[00:04:21]  Winnable, right?
[00:04:21]  There are a lot of churches that have ministered in places like New York City.
[00:04:27]  And sadly, what we have seen over the years and especially the decades is that many of these churches that are in and for the city in a deep blue, massive metropolis, whether it be something like San Francisco or whether it be Manhattan, a lot of these churches, not all, I'm sure there are exceptions, but a lot of these churches have actually been discipled by the pagan culture in these places more than they have actually discipled.
[00:04:54]  The pagans.
[00:04:55]  These churches seek to often compromise and become more of a win friends and influence people church than a Christ centered church.
[00:05:05]  One of the things that I've always said to the people that I'm leading with and the people in my church, we're trying to be faithful and we're on this mission together planting Covenant Bible Church in central Texas outside of Austin.
[00:05:20]  We're not in the city, right?
[00:05:21]  We want to be winnable.
[00:05:22]  So we're in Georgetown.
[00:05:24]  County.
[00:05:24]  It's outside of Austin, but its vicinity to Austin gives it a sense of significance.
[00:05:30]  And so we're taking that same model.
[00:05:31]  And one of the things that I always say is we don't want to be a church that's merely in and for the city.
[00:05:36]  We love our city.
[00:05:38]  We do want to seek the welfare of the city.
[00:05:40]  But what I've noticed is that churches kind of they're either globalist or they are tribal, local at the city level.
[00:05:49]  But for whatever reason, it's bad to be a nationalist.
[00:05:53]  It's bad to have a national mission and a national.
[00:05:56]  Heart and compassion, right?
[00:05:58]  So we're in and for the world, or we're in and for our city.
[00:06:01]  But if a church ever said, We're in and for our country, we're in and for America, then they would be demonized.
[00:06:09]  You can't be in and for America.
[00:06:11]  God doesn't, there's no such thing as a Christian nation.
[00:06:13]  Okay, well, why can you be in and for a city?
[00:06:16]  Why can a church planter, an Acts 29 church planter, have things outside of his home, like a flag that represents the city of Portland that he's in and is meant to Visibly communicate that pastor and his churches identifying with the city that we love the city, we're part of the city, we are the city.
[00:06:37]  Why is all of that appropriate, but you can't be a pastor who celebrates the 4th of July, right?
[00:06:45]  Why is it cool to hate the nation but love the city, right?
[00:06:50]  We love the world and we love the city, but in between the country, at least if you're in America, it's not cool to love that.
[00:06:59]  I think there's something to be said for being at every level that we are a church that's in and for our city.
[00:07:04]  We're a church that's in and for the country.
[00:07:06]  But what I want to say, in addition to that, what I tell people who are ministering with me is that predominantly, first and foremost, we are a church that is in and for Christ.
[00:07:14]  Meaning, we are a church whose primary identity, spiritual identity, our deepest identity is in Christ, right?
[00:07:22]  Our citizenship is ultimately in heaven.
[00:07:26]  And so, our primary identity above, there are secondary identities.
[00:07:30]  So, it's not as though it's just in Christ.
[00:07:33]  Or in Adam.
[00:07:34]  Those are the only two options of identity at the top tier, but there are secondary and tertiary identities as well.
[00:07:40]  Being a man or woman.
[00:07:42]  That is a part of our identity.
[00:07:44]  And the scripture speaks to you differently based upon your identity in terms of gender, whether or not you are male or female.
[00:07:52]  The Bible has a certain set of principles and commandments to men that if women follow these, it is inappropriate.
[00:07:59]  It is actually sinful for a woman to obey commandments in the scripture given to men, and vice versa.
[00:08:06]  It is sinful for a man to obey certain specific commandments in the scripture given to women.
[00:08:12]  So that is.
[00:08:13]  An identity that matters, but it's not top tier, it's not primary.
[00:08:16]  So, primary is in Christ or in Adam, and then below that, I would say that male female is a massive distinction, important identity.
[00:08:23]  I think that trumps far and above that trumps ethnicity.
[00:08:27]  Black versus white pales in comparison to male versus female.
[00:08:34]  And then from that male female identity come sub identities of, you know, if you're married as husband, if you have children, as father, all those kinds of things being a son versus being a daughter, being a brother, being a sister.
[00:08:47]  But I do believe that there is also something to be said for a national identity.
[00:08:51]  And so, again, ethnicity, I think, is way down the list if it makes the list at all.
[00:08:56]  But I do think that there's something to be said for being an American, right?
[00:09:01]  Or, you know, being Brazilian.
[00:09:04]  You know, there's something to be said for national identity.
[00:09:07]  And so I don't think it trumps male female, and it certainly doesn't trump in or outside of Christ.
[00:09:13]  But all that being said, when it comes to our mission, If our primary identity as Christians is being in Christ, then that sets the tone for our primary mission.
[00:09:24]  We are in and for Christ.
[00:09:26]  Yeah, we're in and for our city.
[00:09:28]  And yes, we are also in and for our state and our county and our country.
[00:09:33]  All those things are true, and they're equally true.
[00:09:36]  But first and foremost, we're in and for Christ, which means we find our security, our safety, our assurance, our identity in Christ, not with the city and its.
[00:09:47]  In its ethos, but ultimately in Christ, who He is and who He says we are in light of our union with Him through faith.
[00:09:56]  And so we're first and foremost in Christ and we are for Christ, meaning we take our cues for Christ.
[00:10:02]  We're doing what Christ would find lovely.
[00:10:05]  We are doing what Christ would find faithful.
[00:10:08]  We are a church that is for Christ, for His name, for His glory, for His honor.
[00:10:15]  We're for Christ.
[00:10:16]  So we're in Christ and we are for Christ.
[00:10:18]  I think that's predominant.
[00:10:20]  That's the way that.
[00:10:21]  Churches should think.
[00:10:22]  So, all those things being said, in terms of a strategic point, you know, Jim Wilson settled on Moscow, Idaho, because it was a small town.
[00:10:30]  That's the sense in which he felt like it made it winnable, right?
[00:10:33]  It's winnable because it's not a bumbling metropolis of 10 million people, it's a small town of 25,000.
[00:10:41]  What made it significant, if it could be won, was its proximity to two major universities, one in Washington State and then one in Idaho, both just a few miles distance away from the town.
[00:10:52]  And so the town is actually, you know, in a deep red state, being Idaho, but uniquely blue for being in a red state.

=== Change Creates Conflict and Hate (15:27) ===

[00:11:00]  And it's blue because the town, its proximity, it's a college town.
[00:11:04]  It has a lot of students, and it's because it has this close proximity to two major universities.
[00:11:09]  So it's a town that is challenging, right?
[00:11:12]  They didn't just pick, you know, Timbuktu, where a lot of people already identified as being Christians, a majority of the town, and it could be won rather easily.
[00:11:21]  They picked a town that is.
[00:11:23]  But also at the same time, not so challenging that it's not winnable.
[00:11:26]  So it's both winnable and significant.
[00:11:29]  And that was actually not Doug Wilson, but his father, Jim Wilson.
[00:11:32]  And Doug has been there for over 40 years now, pastoring Christ Church through lots of different theological changes over the years.
[00:11:42]  Doug did not start off as a Pado Baptist, much less a Pado Communionist.
[00:11:46]  He didn't start off post mill.
[00:11:47]  He didn't start off even reformed in his soteriology.
[00:11:50]  Doug did not start as a Calvinist.
[00:11:52]  And so the church has gone through major changes over the years.
[00:11:55]  Elders have left.
[00:11:56]  There's been difficulties.
[00:11:59]  Change creates conflict, I guess is what I'm saying.
[00:12:02]  Creates conflict.
[00:12:03]  One thing that I've noticed is this the men in church history who are remembered and esteemed and honored are men who are virtuous.
[00:12:11]  Okay, so that's step one.
[00:12:12]  Men who are esteemed and honored are virtuous, but virtuous men are not born, they're made.
[00:12:18]  And so, what I mean by that is that people don't come out of the womb with virtue.
[00:12:22]  That would deny the doctrine of total depravity.
[00:12:25]  Virtue is taught, virtue is forged, it's shaped.
[00:12:30]  So, men who are remembered are virtuous, but men who are virtuous are not born virtuous.
[00:12:35]  Which constitutes change.
[00:12:37]  They become virtuous.
[00:12:39]  And it's possible that a man could come into all of these virtuous characteristics in terms of his character and in terms of his competency, his doctrine, have virtuous doctrine, have virtuous character all before beginning pastoral ministry.
[00:12:55]  But that's often not the case.
[00:12:57]  And that doesn't mean that he wasn't qualified from the get go to be a pastor.
[00:13:02]  It just means that although he was meeting the basic minimum qualifications for eldership as a pastor, Laid out in Titus chapter 1 and 1 Timothy chapter 3, there was still a lot of room for improvement.
[00:13:14]  And so, what happens when you have a man who is coming into virtue, because no man is born virtuous, a man who is coming into virtue, and not just in his life, but in his pastoral ministry, meaning he entered into pastoral ministry in a local church context and has been becoming more virtuous post becoming a pastor, after becoming a pastor, what does that constitute?
[00:13:39]  If nothing else, in a word, it constitutes change.
[00:13:42]  Okay, the last step is that change creates conflict.
[00:13:45]  When a pastor is reforming and seeking to patiently and lovingly, even if he does it in the best way possible, seeking to not just reform privately, but for that inward reformation to have a place publicly in his church, so he's not just reforming his person, but he's reforming his church, people, some people are going to love that and they're going to follow along, they're going to hop on board, and some people are going to despise that.
[00:14:12]  Those who despise it in their defense, a lot of times, you know, it's as simple as the reality that they're just saying, hey, this is not the church that I initially joined.
[00:14:23]  The church has changed.
[00:14:25]  I joined a Baptist church, now it's Presbyterian, right?
[00:14:28]  I joined an Arminian church, and now it's Calvinist.
[00:14:30]  I joined a soft complementarian, you know, functionally egalitarian church, and now it's patriarchal.
[00:14:37]  I joined a dispensational pre mill church, and now it's covenantal and post millennial.
[00:14:41]  I joined, you know, whatever.
[00:14:42]  I joined a radical two kingdom church, you know, filled with pietists, you know, and we just have our quiet time between us and the Lord, and that's really the extent of our Christian life, and we don't seek to be involved in the public sphere, you know, in the public square, and politics and culture, and those kinds of things, and now it's Kyperion, you know.
[00:14:58]  So all these different things constitute reformation, they constitute change, and they become, you know, opportunities for those changes, become opportunities for conflict.
[00:15:08]  And Doug Wilson has experienced immense conflict over the last 40 years.
[00:15:14]  Because of those changes.
[00:15:15]  And so he has a lot of conflict on the national and international stage.
[00:15:19]  People who are not a part of Christ Church and have never been a part of Christ Church, who have never lived in Moscow, Idaho, who have never been directly underneath his pastoral ministry.
[00:15:28]  They just hate the things that he writes.
[00:15:30]  They hate the way that he writes.
[00:15:34]  They just don't like his doctrine.
[00:15:35]  They don't like his philosophy of ministry.
[00:15:37]  They don't like his tone, his pastoral style, all those kinds of things.
[00:15:42]  So there's always that conflict.
[00:15:43]  Doug has that.
[00:15:44]  I have that at a lower scale because I'm certainly not as prolific, I'm not as well known.
[00:15:50]  But it's the same principle.
[00:15:51]  There are always people out there somewhere that you've never even met, but that secretly are praying that you get hit by a truck and die.
[00:15:59]  So Doug has thousands of those people who earnestly pray that he gets hit by a truck and dies.
[00:16:04]  And I have maybe hundreds of those people.
[00:16:07]  But Doug, uniquely, when you've been pastoring as a local pastor in the same area for over 40 years, he has a lot of people who dislike him in the city of Moscow.
[00:16:16]  And some of those people are people who actually at one point belong to his church.
[00:16:20]  And so that's one of the things that came up in this interview.
[00:16:23]  Meet the Press interview on NBC News.
[00:16:26]  The topic, the subject was Christian nationalism on the rise.
[00:16:30]  And as a case study, they went and visited Moscow, Idaho, and interviewed Doug Wilson.
[00:16:35]  And fortunately, Doug Wilson has been lied about and slandered and taken out of context, you know, a few hundred, if not thousands of times over the last 40 something years.
[00:16:46]  And so he's, you know, learned by experience to be shrewd.
[00:16:51]  And so one of the things that they did is they had two of their own cameras, the church, running.
[00:16:56]  So, that if things were taken out of context by NBC News, they could show the larger context.
[00:17:02]  And so, they've been putting out a lot of that stuff.
[00:17:04]  I encourage you guys to watch the initial interview because I think it's very telling about just the way that the secular world, those who are unbelievers, view Christians today.
[00:17:14]  Because it's not unique to Doug.
[00:17:15]  And that's my main point that I'm going to make here in a moment.
[00:17:18]  It's just not.
[00:17:18]  It's not unique to, it's not like, hey, this is what pagans think about radical Christians like Doug Wilson, who is really.
[00:17:27]  Not that radical.
[00:17:29]  But that's not what you see in this interview.
[00:17:31]  What you see is this is what pagans think about Christianity, period.
[00:17:36]  This is just what they think about Christians.
[00:17:39]  And so that's very telling.
[00:17:40]  And then so you can watch the initial interview, and then I encourage you to check out Canon Plus or whatever platform.
[00:17:48]  You can go to Blog and May Blog and get some of this information, or Jared Longshore on YouTube and see some of the.
[00:17:58]  The things that Christchurch has been putting out post the interview, you know, their side of the story.
[00:18:04]  And it's not just their side of the story, meaning they have their own, you know, biased narrative, but no, them actually releasing more footage that they recorded that shows the larger context of the conversation that NBC conveniently, you know, took out of the picture.
[00:18:19]  So, all those being said, that gives you kind of the lay of the land, who Doug Wilson is a little bit, and a little bit about Christchurch and why they're in Moscow and what they've been doing and the mindset and the strategy behind it.
[00:18:31]  Identity and loving the city and loving the nation, but first and foremost being in and for Christ.
[00:18:37]  And then this interview that happened with NBC, they just, what they're trying to do is say, hey, this thing, Christian nationalism is on the rise.
[00:18:44]  One of the things that, you know, Jared Longshore has said, Doug Wilson has said, multiple of the Moscow guys have said about the interview is that they really needed to pick a lane.
[00:18:56]  The talking heads with NBC, you know, they were trying to say two things simultaneously.
[00:19:00]  But the problem is that these two, Things are, you know, directly contradicting one another.
[00:19:07]  The two things that they were saying is on the one hand, Christian nationalism is a joke and there's nothing to see here.
[00:19:13]  And on the other hand, it's very, very scary.
[00:19:15]  These people are terrifying.
[00:19:17]  They are scary.
[00:19:18]  These are mean people, domineering people, coercive people, tyrannical people.
[00:19:25]  These are draconian people that want to take over the nation, and it's terrifying.
[00:19:31]  And also, it's a joke.
[00:19:33]  And you kind of have to pick a lane there, right?
[00:19:36]  It's either not scary because there's not a snowflake's chance in hell that they'll ever be successful, or, you know, and therefore it's just a joke, or it is scary.
[00:19:49]  And if it's scary, You have to kind of concede the point that they actually are experiencing some measure of success and that there really is such a thing as Christian nationalism on the rise, and that Moscow represents just one example, one case study, but this is happening in other places and that they are experiencing some measure of success.
[00:20:11]  If you're going to say it's scary, you have to pick a lane.
[00:20:14]  It's either no way it's ever going to work and it's a joke, or it's scary because it is working and there's a chance that they might take over.
[00:20:21]  And then you would have to go a step further and say, and it's scary.
[00:20:24]  If they are successful, one, they actually could be successful.
[00:20:27]  Two, if they are successful, the reason why it's scary is because they're bad.
[00:20:32]  And then you have to make your case for why they're bad.
[00:20:35]  And that's a little bit of what NBC attempted to do in this interview.
[00:20:39]  And so I just want to address some of those things.
[00:20:41]  Okay.
[00:20:41]  So one of the reasons why Doug Wilson and Christ Church and Canon Plus and all the things that they're doing, New St. Andrews, their college, their K 12 classical Christian school that they have there, all these things, the members themselves that, Own land and own businesses.
[00:20:58]  One of the reasons why it's bad in the view, the perspective of NBC, is because Doug Wilson holds to federal vision.
[00:21:10]  Nope.
[00:21:11]  That's not in the interview.
[00:21:14]  Right?
[00:21:14]  See, this is what I want Christians to hear real quick.
[00:21:16]  Some of you may have watched this interview with NBC, and because you already have a presupposition against Doug Wilson, right?
[00:21:25]  Because you've been listening to too much R. Scott Clark or whatever it is.
[00:21:29]  You don't like Doug Wilson, and you've never actually personally delved into it, right?
[00:21:33]  You haven't read all of his defense papers.
[00:21:35]  You don't even know what federal vision is.
[00:21:37]  You can't articulate his position.
[00:21:39]  You don't know the ways that he's retracted and the things that he's backed off of and the clarifications he's offered, the repentance that there also is on this item and that item.
[00:21:48]  You don't know any of those things.
[00:21:49]  You just think Doug Wilson's bad.
[00:21:50]  And if you go in with that presupposition and you watch this interview, you might be thinking, well, yeah, NBC doesn't like Doug Wilson because of federal vision.
[00:22:01]  But that's not even close to being something that's actually in the interview.
[00:22:07]  What do they not like about Doug Wilson?
[00:22:09]  This is what I want to drive home for us.
[00:22:12]  They don't like that he believes that homosexuality is a sin.
[00:22:17]  Now, is that a Moscow thing?
[00:22:20]  Is that a Christchurch thing?
[00:22:21]  Is that a Canon Plus thing?
[00:22:22]  Is that a Doug Wilson thing?
[00:22:24]  Or is that just a 2,000 years of church history, basic Orthodox Christianity thing?
[00:22:32]  You see, you know, this is a bad comparison, but I'm going to make it.
[00:22:39]  You'll see my point.
[00:22:41]  But let me just give first a disclaimer.
[00:22:43]  I don't think that Doug Wilson is anything like Donald J. Trump.
[00:22:46]  Okay.
[00:22:47]  But one of the best things that Donald J. Trump said was, they don't hate me, they hate you, and I'm just standing in the way.
[00:22:56]  Right.
[00:22:56]  Because that's what the secular media, this media industry, The legacy media, that's what they would do every single day for four years straight, and really before Trump took office, so like five years, and they still can't move past Trump, right?
[00:23:13]  So it's been like seven years now, right?
[00:23:16]  The steel dossier, you know, and the Mueller report comes out and says, yeah, this is a big nothing burger.
[00:23:22]  And people still just won't, they just won't back down.
[00:23:25]  They won't believe it, right?
[00:23:26]  Like, well, we, you know, we can't stand Republicans, you know, because some of these extreme Republicans, MAGA Republicans, they're contesting.
[00:23:33]  They don't believe, you know, in the integrity of our election system.
[00:23:36]  They don't think that Joe Biden actually won the last election.
[00:23:39]  It's like, okay, but for the last five and a half years, you've been saying that Trump didn't win the election, that he colluded with Putin in Russia.
[00:23:49]  To somehow steal the election from Hillary.
[00:23:54]  So it's rules for thee and not for me.
[00:23:57]  It's the constant double standard.
[00:23:59]  The left would have no standards at all if they didn't have double standards.
[00:24:02]  And so the comparison that I'm making, Donald J. Trump, I think Doug Wilson is elder qualified and godly and all these kinds of things and has good character.
[00:24:11]  Donald J. Trump, I couldn't say all the same things for him.
[00:24:15]  Although if he ran against Joe Biden, he'd have my vote.
[00:24:20]  I think that in terms of policy, he did a good job.
[00:24:23]  But in terms of character, from the things that I've seen, I think that Doug Wilson is a godly Christian man.
[00:24:29]  And I cannot say that about Donald J. Trump, although in God's providence, I'm grateful for Trump and all the ways that God used him, especially when it comes to overruling Roe, which would not have happened if Trump had not been president.
[00:24:41]  He kept that promise.
[00:24:43]  And he will always have my gratitude for that.
[00:24:46]  So I want to honor where honor is due.
[00:24:50]  Trump said, they don't hate me, they hate you.
[00:24:53]  And the legacy media was always like, oh, no, no, no, we don't hate, you know, just, you know, average Americans.
[00:24:58]  We don't hate half the country.
[00:24:59]  We just hate Trump, right?
[00:25:01]  We hate him because of his rhetoric and his Twitter account.
[00:25:04]  And we hate him because of this and we hate him because of that.
[00:25:07]  But then finally, when Trump is out of office and now Joe Biden has taken the scene, we see that what Trump said is actually the truth.
[00:25:14]  They don't just hate Trump, they hate you.
[00:25:18]  Joe Biden believes that half of the country.
[00:25:23]  Is a threat to democracy.
[00:25:26]  Their actual belief is that moms showing up at school board meetings is a domestic terrorist threat worthy of the investigation of the FBI.
[00:25:41]  When we finally got down to it, when the left finally showed their hand, when Trump was out of office and the dust started to settle, and we got to see what they actually think, Trump was 100% right.
[00:25:52]  They don't hate Trump.
[00:25:54]  I mean, they hate him too, but they don't exclusively or especially hate Trump.
[00:25:59]  No, they hate you.
[00:26:01]  And Trump was just standing in the way.
[00:26:03]  And this is what I want you to see with Meet the Press.
[00:26:05]  This is not this Meet the Press segment with NBC on Christian nationalism rising.
[00:26:13]  They don't uniquely or exclusively or especially hate Doug Wilson.
[00:26:18]  They hate you, Christian, if you believe that homosexuality is a sin.
[00:26:24]  That's what they're losing their minds over.
[00:26:26]  They hate you.

=== Fighting Sin at the Level of Desire (06:10) ===

[00:26:27]  If you believe that a wife is called in scripture to submit to her husband, right?
[00:26:35]  This was not federal vision, or this was not a segment where they talk about the theological problems of pedo communionism.
[00:26:43]  No, this was not unique to Doug Wilson.
[00:26:47]  This was, I can't believe that somebody wouldn't support homosexual.
[00:26:51]  And here's the thing not just the activity, not just the sin, not just the desire.
[00:26:55]  The desire itself is a sin, by the way, and Revoice is wrong.
[00:26:58]  Concupiscence is an actual Christian Orthodox doctrine, right?
[00:27:02]  We fight sin at the level of desire.
[00:27:04]  But all that being said, it wasn't just that.
[00:27:06]  It was at the legal level.
[00:27:07]  So, not just the desire, not just homosexual actions.
[00:27:12]  So, not just at the level of desire or actions, but at the level of legal legislation.
[00:27:17]  Because that's the main thing, right?
[00:27:19]  They asked Doug, well, what do you think about homosexuality?
[00:27:22]  In your Christian town, right?
[00:27:24]  Hypothetically, if you took over the town, if you had a Christian town, if we were a Christian nation, what would happen to homosexuals?
[00:27:33]  And Doug clarified and said, Do you mean homosexual marriage?
[00:27:38]  Yeah, there wouldn't be homosexual marriage.
[00:27:40]  There would not be legal homosexual marriage.
[00:27:43]  Meaning what?
[00:27:44]  What is Doug saying?
[00:27:46]  He's saying this is some extreme version of theonomy.
[00:27:49]  We're going to round up all the homosexuals and put them to death.
[00:27:52]  No, that's not in the interview.
[00:27:54]  The interview is what Doug is saying is yeah, my position is not just the church's position for the last 2,000 years within Christian orthodoxy.
[00:28:02]  No, my position is Barack Obama's position all the way up until 2012.
[00:28:09]  My position is not a 2,000 year old position of Christians.
[00:28:13]  My position is a 10 year old position of radical Democrats.
[00:28:20]  And you still think that that's crazy and extreme and insane.
[00:28:27]  So, if you think that this was unique, that this is what secular people think of Doug Wilson, no, no, this is what secular people with institutional power in our nation today think about you.
[00:28:41]  If you profess to be a Christian and you believe that we should not have gay marriage, as Doug has coined the term, because it's not marriage, if you don't think that we should legally, as a nation, have gay marriage, which we have not had, For our entire history of a nation until just the last few years.
[00:28:58]  If that's your position, you're extreme.
[00:29:04]  You're crazy.
[00:29:05]  You are a danger.
[00:29:07]  If you believe that a woman should submit to her husband and that a husband should love his wife as Christ loved the church and be willing to give his life up for her, and that he's called to lead her and to love her and to sanctify her by washing her in the word, but that she is called to submit to his authority, that he is actually head of the household.
[00:29:29]  And head of his wife, as Christ is head of the church, and that he's called to display a Christ like headship, which is not merely just serving and giving her pedicures on the couch as a beta pushover male, but his service actually is courageous but also humble and loving leadership.
[00:29:48]  If you believe that, right, you're extreme.
[00:29:53]  These are the kinds of things that these were the big aha, got you moments of this interview with NBC.
[00:30:00]  It wasn't, oh, Doug holds the federal vision.
[00:30:02]  Oh, Doug's a pedo communionist.
[00:30:05]  Oh, no, it was Doug doesn't believe in homosexual marriage.
[00:30:10]  And he believes that nations should not have homosexual marriage.
[00:30:15]  Doug believes that women should, a wife should submit to her husband.
[00:30:20]  The biggest aha got you moment in the whole interview was saying that, you know, and it wasn't Doug saying this, it was interviewing another couple that used to be members at Doug's church.
[00:30:31]  And just for the record, the couple.
[00:30:33]  The woman, the wife, I assume that they're married.
[00:30:37]  The wife has like this purpley, jet black, dyed, short hair, hair that's like as short as my hair or shorter, and looks like gothic, kind of, you know, it's this.
[00:30:56]  She looks like a leftist, it's my point.
[00:31:00]  And she talks about the reason why they left the church is because, you know, crazy statements that the church made, like women can't wear pants.
[00:31:07]  And the very next scene in the interview is a bunch of women at the psalm sing that they did back during the lockdowns, and all the women from Christ Church are wearing pants.
[00:31:18]  It's just, it's that's, and that was their closest, that was their closest to this is something original, right?
[00:31:26]  Like, you know, everything else was just basic Christian orthodoxy.
[00:31:31]  No gay marriage.
[00:31:33]  A wife submits to her husband.
[00:31:36]  The only thing that would be even borderline unique was that women should wear dresses or skirts instead of pants.
[00:31:45]  But the problem is that that was said by not Doug Wilson, but an opponent of Doug Wilson.
[00:31:50]  And then there's immediate video footage to the contrary, which is just a bad editing job on their part.
[00:31:59]  So my point is I think that this interview was really, really.
[00:32:03]  And I think every Christian should watch it because I think it's important for people to recognize that the enemies of God in our culture today are not going to give you any quarter.
[00:32:16]  And see, that's been the big problem.
[00:32:18]  I'll land the plane here, but the big problem, I think, with guys like Francis Collins, David French, Tim Keller, the biggest problem is that these guys continue to operate with this foolish assumption that they.

=== Why You Must Look Like Jesus (02:28) ===

[00:32:37]  That they could somehow cozy up and somehow win over the favor of people who hate God.
[00:32:48]  And that's just foolishness.
[00:32:52]  They think the Gospel Coalition or fill in the blank, you know the guys that I'm talking about, they still think that it's somehow possible to be faithful to Christ without compromise and be liked by the world.
[00:33:08]  And the problem with this is not just that this interview proves the exact contrary.
[00:33:15]  The problem with this is that the words of Jesus Christ in Scripture prove the exact contrary.
[00:33:21]  Jesus already told it.
[00:33:23]  This should be a settled debate.
[00:33:27]  We know the right answer to this question Can we be faithful to Jesus without compromise and still somehow merit the favor of those who are faithful?
[00:33:39]  Non Christians?
[00:33:41]  The answer is a resounding no.
[00:33:42]  Jesus said, A student is not above the teacher, nor is a servant above his master.
[00:33:47]  If they hated me, they'll hate you.
[00:33:52]  They hate us on account of Christ.
[00:33:54]  The only way ultimately to avoid persecution in this life is to be a Christian who looks nothing like Jesus, which many Christians are incredibly, incredibly gifted at pulling off.
[00:34:11]  Tim Keller would be an example.
[00:34:13]  Yes, Tim Keller is an example of a Christian who is able somehow to compromise just enough to look not like Jesus, to where he can somehow accumulate the favor of people who hate Jesus but won't hate him.
[00:34:31]  Why would someone hate Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible, but not hate you?
[00:34:37]  There's only one answer it's because you don't look like Jesus, because there's a distinction between Christ and you.
[00:34:43]  You are not a faithful representation.
[00:34:46]  Of Jesus, you are not a faithful ambassador of Jesus.
[00:34:49]  The only reason why you would hate one person, but not hate his representative, not hate his ambassador, not hate his follower, not hate his servant, not hate his student, is if that student, if that servant, if that ambassador is a traitor.

=== The Widening Gulf Between Believers (02:41) ===

[00:35:06]  The only reason why the enemy of a king would have affection and love and unity with the subjects of that king is if those subjects have committed treason against the king, if they're a double agent.
[00:35:23]  If they are deserters, if they have compromised, if they have betrayed their allegiance to the king and sworn allegiance to the enemy, that's the only way it works.
[00:35:35]  That's the only way it works.
[00:35:36]  And the only reason why, in the past, in our nation uniquely, there appeared to be some sense of affection from unbelievers towards Christians, and even some Christians who were not compromising but being faithful, is because our nation was still operating off of the fumes of its founding.
[00:35:57]  Of its Christian foundation.
[00:35:59]  But as that foundation continues to be eroded, then the line just gets sharper and sharper.
[00:36:08]  The dividing line between unbelievers and believers in our nation is becoming a clearer and clearer line.
[00:36:17]  The gulf between us is this chasm continually widening, right?
[00:36:22]  It's the whole idea of, you know, Vodi Bakum's book about fault lines.
[00:36:26]  Those fault lines, these tremors, these lines underneath tectonic.
[00:36:31]  Plates underneath the earth's surface that we couldn't see.
[00:36:34]  They were always there, just kind of waiting to be set off, waiting for the tremors, waiting for the earthquake, the big one to boom.
[00:36:41]  And all of a sudden, the earth opens up and plates and portions of the earth begin to separate from each other and move apart.
[00:36:48]  And that's what's been happening over the past few years.
[00:36:50]  It's been happening subtly and slowly for decades, but it's really ramped up and become blatantly visible for anybody with eyes to see over the last, you know, Two to seven years.
[00:37:05]  That's what we're seeing.
[00:37:06]  And so we can no longer simply reap the benefits of a culture of unregenerate people who, in their heart of hearts, are not Christians, but still culturally share many of our virtues and values because they're living in this nation with a Christian foundation.
[00:37:31]  We've been operating off of the fumes of a At least at some level, a mere Christendom of the past.
[00:37:40]  And that is evaporating, that is eroding, and the lines are being drawn and the gulf is widening.

=== Celebrating Faith When Times Are Hard (12:38) ===

[00:37:47]  And the only way to ultimately win over the favor of unbelievers is to compromise in your allegiance to Christ.
[00:37:58]  That's it.
[00:38:00]  That's the only way.
[00:38:02]  Right?
[00:38:02]  Row gets turned down.
[00:38:04]  What do faithful Christians do?
[00:38:06]  I'll tell you what they do.
[00:38:07]  They publicly celebrate.
[00:38:11]  They celebrate.
[00:38:13]  Faithful Christians, when Roe gets overturned, faithful Christians do not get on their Instagram and mourn with murderous women who are mourning the loss of their right, legal right, to murder their own children in the womb.
[00:38:30]  That's not what Christians do.
[00:38:33]  These are just black and white Christianity 101 things.
[00:38:37]  So, what do you do?
[00:38:38]  You don't mourn.
[00:38:40]  You don't sympathize.
[00:38:42]  No, you celebrate the goodness of God and that in his providence, although our nation certainly does not deserve it, in his providence and because of the faithfulness of a few, although there are still many problems, still much work to be done in abolishing abortion, there's been a victory.
[00:39:04]  At some level, to some degree, a victory.
[00:39:06]  Faithful Christians don't mourn that, they celebrate that.
[00:39:11]  And what happens when you celebrate that?
[00:39:14]  Well, you find out that you have a bunch of enemies.
[00:39:18]  And again, these are basic things.
[00:39:21]  If you go to a church and Roe was overturned and your pastor said nothing, then yeah, I think that it's not like, well, but, you know, da da da.
[00:39:32]  No, no, no, no.
[00:39:34]  That's wrong.
[00:39:37]  You can't make such a definitive statement.
[00:39:38]  Yeah, no, it's wrong.
[00:39:41]  Oh, so you think pastors have to address every single political occurrence that happened?
[00:39:44]  No, no, because that's slavery.
[00:39:48]  And I get that.
[00:39:49]  On the flip side of the coin, I understand when people are overly critical because they expect a religious leader to take to the Twitter sphere within a matter of 25 minutes after every single current event drops and either affirm it or decry it.
[00:40:12]  Yeah, that's slavery.
[00:40:13]  That's not reasonable.
[00:40:15]  But we're not talking about some random story.
[00:40:21]  And I'm not even saying pastors have to respond to every major national news.
[00:40:28]  We're talking about Roe being overturned.
[00:40:30]  We're talking about American pastors in our nation.
[00:40:33]  And here's the thing these guys were preaching that abortion was sin for 49 years.
[00:40:41]  That's what I'm talking about.
[00:40:42]  I'm talking about guys, I'm not talking about some fringe issue and that a pastor just, there's simply not enough time in the day in his pastoral work.
[00:40:51]  To publicly address every single thing that's going on in politics and in culture around the world.
[00:40:56]  No, no, we're not talking about everything that's going on.
[00:40:59]  We're talking about one thing.
[00:41:00]  We're talking about, and the one thing that we're talking about is the thing that your pastor preached against for five decades.
[00:41:11]  That's what I'm talking about.
[00:41:12]  I'm talking about guys who have preached about the atrocity of abortion as murder for 50 years.
[00:41:24]  And then when Roe gets overturned, it's crickets.
[00:41:27]  I'm talking about those guys.
[00:41:30]  And what I'm saying is that that represents an attempt to cozy up to the pagan, to cozy up to the hater of God.
[00:41:39]  That's what the Bible teaches.
[00:41:40]  There's no neutrality, there's no indifference.
[00:41:43]  Romans chapter 8 the mind of the sinful man is hostile towards God.
[00:41:46]  It's not indifferent, it's not neutral, it's hostile towards God, at enmity with God.
[00:41:50]  It does not submit to God's law, nor can he.
[00:41:53]  He can't.
[00:41:54]  So it's not just a lack of desire, but it's also a lack of ability.
[00:41:58]  He is unable to submit to the things of God.
[00:42:01]  That is the description of an unbeliever, the mind of a sinful man.
[00:42:06]  And those who are cozying up to sinful men, saying, hey, please like me, please like me, please let me sit at the cool table, and I'll say this thing that is perverse.
[00:42:25]  That a Christian should not say, and I'll be quiet and neglect to say this thing that a Christian should say.
[00:42:33]  To all so that I can continue to build my cultural capital, because I'm planning on cashing in that cultural capital.
[00:42:38]  Not now.
[00:42:39]  A lot of people think maybe I should use that cultural capital now.
[00:42:43]  No, I'm planning to use that cultural capital in the gulags 20 years from now so that I can, you know, get a pack of cigarettes every week and pass them out to my friends.
[00:42:53]  Like, what's the point?
[00:42:55]  These guys are like, oh, well, yeah, we do see a problem.
[00:42:58]  And yeah, we do see this.
[00:42:59]  And yeah, we do see that.
[00:43:00]  But now's not the time to fight.
[00:43:01]  Okay, when?
[00:43:03]  When?
[00:43:04]  Because I'm afraid that the answer is, right?
[00:43:06]  They'll never verbally say it, but I'm afraid that the answer is we start fighting once it's impossible to win.
[00:43:13]  We start fighting the moment that the fight is actually already over.
[00:43:18]  Then we'll start fighting.
[00:43:20]  And really, I think the answer is these guys, they just don't believe that we ever fight.
[00:43:26]  They just don't think that that's Christianly to fight back.
[00:43:30]  They think that Christians should not be involved in the culture.
[00:43:33]  They would call a Christian a cultural warrior as a pejorative, as a derogatory term, like that's a bad thing.
[00:43:40]  They would say that Christians who are involved in politics is a bad thing.
[00:43:46]  These are guys who are progressive in their heart of hearts.
[00:43:48]  They're progressive ideologues like Tim Keller, like Russell Moore, or at best, and this is an improvement, but still horribly wrong maybe they're not progressive.
[00:44:00]  Maybe they are conservative in their theology on paper, but they're pietist in terms of their practice, meaning that they just don't think that Christians should be involved.
[00:44:11]  They bought into a radical two kingdom paradigm where the church just kind of does its thing.
[00:44:17]  And there are good times in church history where there's less persecution, and bad times in church history where there's more persecution, never connecting the dots of why are there good times and why are there bad times.
[00:44:30]  Does it have anything to do with those good times where there's less persecution being a Christian in a particular time and place and culture?
[00:44:37]  Does that have anything to do with the fact that Christians, the Christians who came before you, the prior generation of Christians, discipled that culture?
[00:44:44]  They built that culture?
[00:44:45]  They influenced that culture?
[00:44:47]  The reason why you're less persecuted is because even though there's a bunch of pagans, those Pagans are swimming in Christian thought and Christian virtues and Christian culture because Christians weren't pietists.
[00:44:58]  Your Christian fathers weren't pietists.
[00:45:00]  They actually believe that a nation should be like a city on a hill.
[00:45:05]  They actually believe that the scripture spoke to all of life.
[00:45:09]  They actually believe that not one square inch of all this world is neutral and that it all belongs to Jesus Christ, that he cares about not just the church, but he cares about culture and politics and arts and medicine and media.
[00:45:26]  It's just foolish.
[00:45:28]  It's silly.
[00:45:29]  And it's so foolish and so silly that I don't want to impute motives, but I speculate, and it is speculation.
[00:45:35]  I speculate that some of these guys, these pastors, these theologians, these Christian leaders, it's so foolish that I just have a hard time believing that anyone could be so foolish.
[00:45:45]  Instead, it seems much more probable that it wouldn't be a matter of foolishness, but a matter of mere deception.
[00:45:54]  That these guys aren't idiots, they're simply liars.
[00:46:00]  I think that these guys, some of these guys, they know why there are good times for the church and bad times for the church.
[00:46:07]  They know.
[00:46:09]  They know that the reason why the church has good times throughout church history is when the church, it has good times because the church actually had cultural capital and used it.
[00:46:22]  The church actually had influence in institutions and built institutions.
[00:46:28]  The church was actually involved in.
[00:46:30]  In the culture and building culture.
[00:46:33]  The church was involved in the political arena and leading the way.
[00:46:37]  That's why the church wasn't being persecuted.
[00:46:40]  The church wasn't being persecuted by the culture because it was the church's culture that the pagan was living in.
[00:46:45]  Rather than the church existing in the pagan's world, the church was so influential, not through coercion, but through persuasion, preaching the gospel and applying the law of God in every realm of life, winning hearts.
[00:47:04]  The church did that so faithfully and so successfully that it wasn't the small little church living in the pagan's world.
[00:47:10]  It was the The pagans living in Christ's world.
[00:47:15]  And that was tangible and palpable.
[00:47:18]  And that's why the church was thriving.
[00:47:21]  And yes, it's true that the blood of the martyrs is the seedbed for the church, meaning that God uses in his sovereign will persecution to grow his church.
[00:47:30]  Amen.
[00:47:32]  But God has at his disposal more than just one singular tool.
[00:47:37]  Many Christians who have rejected the prosperity gospel, and good, it is a heresy.
[00:47:44]  They have overcompensated to the point where they have now embraced a poverty and suffering gospel.
[00:47:51]  Meaning they think that God, in his providence, only has one tool for positively shaping his people, and that one tool is suffering.
[00:48:03]  They think that the church would only grow.
[00:48:05]  Does the church grow in the midst of persecution?
[00:48:07]  Yes.
[00:48:08]  But many Christians, whether consciously or subconsciously, they believe that the church only grows.
[00:48:14]  Throughout persecution.
[00:48:16]  Likewise, apply that at the individual sanctification level.
[00:48:20]  Many Christians have rejected the mindset that would say, God must approve of me because I'm rich and wealthy and healthy.
[00:48:29]  They rightly have rejected that.
[00:48:31]  Amen.
[00:48:33]  But what they've adopted and said is they actually are on the flip side, the opposite end of the spectrum, where they're like, man, I don't have cancer and my kids are well fed and nobody, Nobody is starving.
[00:48:46]  My wife hasn't had a miscarriage, you know, and gosh, I must be doing something wrong.
[00:48:52]  God must not be pleased with me.
[00:48:54]  Right?
[00:48:54]  So they've gone from God shows his approval, his badge of approval on an individual's life is prosperity.
[00:49:01]  They've gone from that to where if I'm not experiencing suffering, then God may not be pleased with me because his badge of approval is poverty and suffering.
[00:49:12]  And the reality is that it's neither.
[00:49:14]  It's neither.
[00:49:16]  God has more than one tool at his disposal.
[00:49:19]  God shapes his people individually in sanctification and corporately and nationally with nations and cultures.
[00:49:26]  He does this with churches.
[00:49:27]  He does this with individual people.
[00:49:29]  He does this with cultures and nations.
[00:49:31]  God shapes us with the scalpel of suffering, but also he shapes us with the balm, the healing ointment of blessing.
[00:49:43]  Blessing.
[00:49:45]  God shapes his children with both discipline, which is not pleasant for the time.
[00:49:51]  No one enjoys discipline for the time, but that is God giving his approval that you are a legitimate son.
[00:49:57]  That's Hebrews 12.
[00:49:58]  God does this through discipline, but God also does this through blessing.
[00:50:02]  And it is guaranteed blessing in the spiritual realm in the life to come.
[00:50:06]  But ordinarily, everyone would affirm that, but ordinarily, when someone is walking in faith, In Christ and His gospel, but also in obedience, in outward obedience to Christ and His commandments, ordinarily things will go well with Him.

=== Rejecting Prosperity Gospel Lies Today (08:20) ===

[00:50:26]  That's the entire book of Proverbs.
[00:50:29]  I think one of the reasons we're in the mess that we're currently in, as the state of evangelicalism in the nation of America today, is because by and large, pretty much every Christian in America has cut the book of Proverbs out of their Bibles and burned it.
[00:50:46]  We just don't believe it.
[00:50:48]  Like, seriously, if somebody didn't know this is, I'm quoting a Bible verse from the book of Proverbs, if you reworded it just a little bit and said it as though it was your own quote, And it's something, it's a principle that's clear from the book of Proverbs.
[00:51:03]  I think a lot of Reformed Christians would respond by saying that it's heresy.
[00:51:10]  You can't say that, uh uh, I reject that.
[00:51:12]  That's heretical.
[00:51:13]  That's a prosperity gospel.
[00:51:14]  And then you'd be able to respond by saying, no, I just quoted a verse from Proverbs.
[00:51:22]  Seek wisdom, seek knowledge, wrap it around your neck like a garland.
[00:51:29]  It will go well for you.
[00:51:31]  Cast your bread upon the water seven times, right?
[00:51:34]  Don't be a fool.
[00:51:35]  Don't be a gambler.
[00:51:36]  Don't look to cheap gain, but work hard and work long and diversify in your investments.
[00:51:42]  And ordinarily, that is a principle that plays out positively.
[00:51:49]  It will ordinarily benefit the person who applies that principle.
[00:51:53]  This is not prosperity gospel.
[00:51:55]  This is Bible.
[00:51:58]  It's just Bible, right?
[00:52:00]  The equivalent of the prosperity gospel would be if I train my children and teach them, Hey, when you turn 18 every single week on Friday on the way home, you should take the dates of your birthday and play the lotto at the convenience store on your way home every Friday.
[00:52:17]  And if you do this, eventually and probably sooner rather than later, you're going to win the lottery and be rich.
[00:52:24]  That would be the equivalent of the prosperity gospel because it's a lie.
[00:52:30]  It's not just because it speaks to ill motives in the heart and greed and the love of money and those kinds of things, those are all problems in themselves.
[00:52:39]  But what makes the prosperity gospel so bad is not just that it is conducive to greed and idolatry, but part of what makes the prosperity gospel so bad is because it's just a downright lie.
[00:52:49]  It's just not true.
[00:52:51]  So it's not just that the prosperity gospel lends towards greed, but it also lies to people about where health and wealth come from and how they are accumulated.
[00:53:06]  So if I tell my children, you should buy lotto tickets.
[00:53:09]  And that's the way to prosperity.
[00:53:12]  That would be the equivalent of the prosperity gospel.
[00:53:14]  But if I tell my children instead, you should marry young and marry a spouse who fears the Lord.
[00:53:25]  And if you are my son, you should work and you should work hard.
[00:53:31]  You should work with integrity as much as you can.
[00:53:35]  You should try to own the fruits of your labor, you should try to work for yourself.
[00:53:40]  You should think very intentionally and strategically, and I will help you in trying to start a business and own your own labor.
[00:53:47]  You should have integrity practices in your labor.
[00:53:50]  You should never divorce your wife.
[00:53:53]  How much poverty comes from divorce?
[00:53:55]  Did you know financially, statistically, that's where a ton of poverty comes from divorce?
[00:54:00]  So you should keep your marriage vows to your wife and love her faithfully always.
[00:54:06]  And if you do these things over the course of your life and you honor the Lord and you put Him first and you tithe, To the local church.
[00:54:15]  You do all these things and you do them honorably and faithfully, then ordinarily, barring any unique disaster, you could get cancer and die.
[00:54:25]  You could get hit by a truck.
[00:54:26]  Those things could happen.
[00:54:27]  But ordinarily, there are exceptions.
[00:54:29]  But as a principle, ordinarily, if you do these things, you may not be a billionaire, but you will be rich.
[00:54:38]  And you will be richer than your peers.
[00:54:40]  Not just rich in the sense that every American is rich.
[00:54:43]  No, I mean, you'll be rich even by American standards.
[00:54:46]  You will be, things will go well.
[00:54:47]  With you.
[00:54:48]  That's not the equivalent of the prosperity gospel.
[00:54:51]  That's literally just a biblical view of work and prosperity and money.
[00:54:59]  Do you understand?
[00:55:00]  So, my, finishing with this, my problem is that I think so many Christians are either progressive because they want to be loved by the world or they're pietists.
[00:55:10]  And that in this radical two kingdom, overcompensation to the prosperity gospel, these kinds of things, They've taken some of the clearest principles in scripture, whether it be about parenting our children, or whether it be about work ethic, or whether it be about investing, and they just say the Bible doesn't apply to these things.
[00:55:30]  It's just your spiritual quiet time with Jesus.
[00:55:32]  Or if the Bible does apply to these things, there's no sense of assurance, no sense of certainty.
[00:55:41]  Not only are these things not promises, but principles.
[00:55:46]  They're not even principles, they're really just carrots being held out in front of you that rarely ever.
[00:55:53]  Ever come to pass.
[00:55:55]  Yes, you know, hard work and integrity and business practices is a good thing, but they treat the exception as though it were the norm.
[00:56:02]  Ordinarily, you do all those things and it'll still suck, right?
[00:56:06]  Like, we, the book of Job, do we recognize that that's an exception?
[00:56:13]  Think about that for a second.
[00:56:14]  Like, there are a lot of Christians who it's subconscious, they wouldn't verbalize this, but they legitimately think that the devil is coming before God in heaven.
[00:56:24]  On, like, an hourly basis, and that God is making the same kind of wager he made with the devil about Job with 90% of Christians throughout all of Christian history.
[00:56:38]  No, no, no.
[00:56:39]  The whole thing about the book of Job is that it's unique.
[00:56:43]  This is not like, this is a descriptive book of the Bible with many wonderful principles that are true for all of us, but it's a descriptive scenario.
[00:56:52]  This is not ordinarily how God deals with his people.
[00:56:56]  God is not, or this was unique to Job.
[00:56:59]  This was a one time thing.
[00:57:01]  God is not on a regular basis cutting deals with the devil, giving him permission to come and give you boils and take your kids for the vast majority of God's people, of Christians.
[00:57:16]  But that's how we act.
[00:57:16]  We act like the book of Job is prescriptive rather than descriptive and that it's the norm.
[00:57:25]  That it's the norm.
[00:57:27]  That's crazy.
[00:57:28]  Does God work through suffering?
[00:57:31]  Yes.
[00:57:32]  Is God most glorified when man is most satisfied in God, even in bad times like suffering?
[00:57:38]  Yes.
[00:57:39]  All those things are true.
[00:57:42]  And is the average Christian life indicative of the book of Job?
[00:57:46]  No.
[00:57:50]  Do Christians suffer?
[00:57:51]  Yes.
[00:57:51]  To varying degrees in this life?
[00:57:53]  Yes.
[00:57:55]  But no, the book of Job is not meant to be a prescriptive book of the Bible to say, and this is the normal Christian life.
[00:58:04]  We have too many Christians who are progressive, too many that are pietists, and on the pietist side of the fence, we have been de incentivized.
[00:58:14]  We've been de incentivized from following any of the clear principles of Scripture, like the book of Proverbs, because we have been taught in an overreaction to the prosperity gospel that nine times out of ten, no matter what you do, you're going, it's just not going to work.
[00:58:33]  Things are going to go bad.
[00:58:35]  And that's good because that's how God shows his love.
[00:58:38]  God only has one tool in his toolbox for loving and affirming and shaping his children, and that is suffering.

=== Winning Towns Through Basic Christianity (09:08) ===

[00:58:46]  And God never uses blessing in positive ways.
[00:58:49]  And that's kind of where we're at.
[00:58:51]  And so people just, yeah, the culture has changed because we surrendered it.
[00:58:56]  We surrendered the public square.
[00:58:58]  We surrendered politics.
[00:58:59]  We surrendered culture.
[00:59:00]  And we're now living, like Aaron said, in this negative world, right?
[00:59:04]  Not a neutral world, but a negative world where Doug Wilson is hated?
[00:59:08]  No.
[00:59:10]  Any basic Orthodox Christian is hated.
[00:59:14]  And the only way you can avoid that hatred is to look nothing like Jesus.
[00:59:20]  To either compromise with progressive Christianity, deconstructing your faith, or to compromise with a pietistic Christianity that holds to true biblical values but signs this invisible contract with the unbelieving world that essentially promises,
[00:59:41]  although I believe these conservative biblical true things, I promise to never allow my faith to have any public impact.
[00:59:50]  I promise that my Christianity. Is an impotent Christianity and poses no threat.
[00:59:56]  The one thing that makes Doug unique shouldn't it is still just basic Christianity, but sadly, because of the state of Christianity being so poor right now in our nation, the one thing that makes Doug stand out, the reason why they picked Doug and picked Moscow, is his views on homosexuality?
[01:00:12]  Unique?
[01:00:12]  No.
[01:00:14]  His views about a wife submitting to her husband?
[01:00:16]  Unique?
[01:00:16]  No.
[01:00:17]  The one thing that is unique and the reason why they went to Moscow is because he's saying, I want to win the town.
[01:00:25]  That, just for the record, in the same way that homosexual marriage being wrong is not unique to Christian orthodoxy, in the same way that a wife submitting to her husband should not be viewed as unique to Christian orthodoxy, I want to argue this.
[01:00:46]  A Christian and a pastor, a church's desire to win their town to Christ, should not be unique to Christian orthodoxy.
[01:00:55]  But that's the one thing that actually is unique about Doug and what they're doing in Moscow, and the reason why they came into the spotlight for this brief interview.
[01:01:07]  Why them?
[01:01:08]  And why not other people who believe that homosexual marriage is wrong and should not be legal?
[01:01:13]  Because a lot of people believe that.
[01:01:15]  Barack Obama believed it 10 years ago, but a lot of people believe that still today.
[01:01:21]  And a lot of people believe that a woman should submit to her husband.
[01:01:24]  A lot of Christians still believe that, but they didn't get interviewed on Meet the Press.
[01:01:29]  Doug did.
[01:01:30]  Why?
[01:01:30]  Because of the third piece.
[01:01:33]  Homosexual marriage is bad.
[01:01:34]  Women should submit to their husbands, it's good.
[01:01:37]  The third piece, yeah, and we want more people to think like us.
[01:01:42]  And it's our mission to see that happen.
[01:01:44]  Not through coercion, not through tyranny, but we want to win the hearts of people in our town.
[01:01:50]  We want to win the town.
[01:01:52]  That's what put Doug on the map.
[01:01:53]  That's what made him stand head and shoulders above the rest within Christianity today.
[01:01:59]  That's what made him unique.
[01:02:00]  That's why they picked Moscow.
[01:02:01]  That's why they picked Doug.
[01:02:03]  And my argument is simply to say it's sad that that's unique.
[01:02:08]  That's not theonomic.
[01:02:09]  That's not post millennialism.
[01:02:11]  That's not reformed.
[01:02:12]  That's just Christian.
[01:02:15]  I think post millennialism and reform theology and the general equity theonomy, I think all those things create a more conducive theological framework for lending towards that mission.
[01:02:26]  But the mission itself is just the Great Commission.
[01:02:29]  That's just Christianity.
[01:02:31]  It's not reformed Christianity.
[01:02:32]  It's not post millennial Christianity.
[01:02:35]  It's not Kyperian Christianity.
[01:02:38]  It's not any of those kinds of Christianity.
[01:02:42]  It's literally just Christian Christianity.
[01:02:46]  It's Christian Christianity.
[01:02:50]  And I think by God's grace, that is rising.
[01:02:54]  Call it Christian nationalism, call it whatever you want.
[01:02:58]  But really, I think we should just call it Christianity.
[01:03:02]  That's all it is.
[01:03:03]  Christian nationalism, whatever.
[01:03:05]  But it's really just basic Christianity.
[01:03:07]  And basic Christianity, I think, is on the rise.
[01:03:10]  I think NBC was absolutely right about that.
[01:03:12]  And although they tried to hold both of these two contradicting narratives simultaneously, right?
[01:03:17]  It's a danger, but also it's a joke.
[01:03:19]  I think in their heart of hearts, they only did the interview because they don't think it's a joke.
[01:03:22]  They actually do believe it's a danger.
[01:03:25]  They feel threatened.
[01:03:27]  And to that, I say, good.
[01:03:29]  Good.
[01:03:31]  We're not a physical danger to anyone.
[01:03:34]  But yeah, I think good old time Christianity is on the rise.
[01:03:39]  Because in God's providence, over the last few years, a bunch of Christians are fed up.
[01:03:43]  And they're not just fed up with the pagan culture.
[01:03:45]  And they're not just fed up with the Democrat Party or whatever, fed up also with all the neocons in the Republican Party.
[01:03:51]  No, they're fed up with our spineless, gutless, pseudo Christian leaders.
[01:03:57]  They're fed up with the Gospel Coalition, not just Joe Biden, the Gospel Coalition.
[01:04:01]  They're fed up with these kinds of things.
[01:04:03]  They're fed up with guys who profess to be followers of Christ.
[01:04:06]  They're fed up with Francis Collins.
[01:04:08]  They're fed up with David French.
[01:04:09]  They're fed up with Karen Swallow Pryor.
[01:04:12]  They're fed up with all these different things.
[01:04:14]  And they're saying, no, no, no, no.
[01:04:15]  Like, we want to be Christians.
[01:04:18]  And some of them are embracing theonomy and post millennials, and other of them aren't.
[01:04:23]  But they're just saying, no, but we're going to be Christians.
[01:04:25]  We're just, we're going to be Christians.
[01:04:27]  We're actually going to hold to what the Bible says, and we're going to have a public faith.
[01:04:32]  We're not going to be pietists.
[01:04:34]  We're not going to hide in our closets.
[01:04:35]  We're actually going to seek to influence the culture.
[01:04:37]  You can call us a culture warrior and mean it as a pejorative.
[01:04:40]  You can call us a Christian nationalist and mean it as a pejorative.
[01:04:43]  You can call us all these different names.
[01:04:45]  But at the end of the day, it may not be the name we would have picked for ourselves, but we'll wear it, and we'll wear it with pride because ultimately what you're calling us is people who are like Christ, little Christ.
[01:04:57]  Christians.
[01:04:58]  Christians.
[01:05:00]  And of that, we're proud.
[01:05:02]  And so I think there is a rise of that.
[01:05:06]  I think that those enemies of God have overplayed their hands.
[01:05:09]  I think that the old guard of Christian leaders that were bought and compromised are being replaced.
[01:05:16]  And I think good old fashioned biblical Christianity, in multiple expressions, some theonomic, some not, some post millennial, some premillennial, but faithful Christians that want to live it out, is on the rise.
[01:05:30]  And the pagans should be scared, not of a physical threat, but they should be scared that when Christians actually seek with courage to live out the gospel, yeah, then those who love sin, just like Jesus came to the world, John chapter 3, light, but men loved the darkness.
[01:05:51]  And just like when you turn on the light in an old, nasty, you know, unclean hotel room, all the cockroaches scatter under the bed, right?
[01:05:59]  Yeah.
[01:06:00]  As Christians rise by the grace of God and His power in our nation, those who love darkness will be threatened.
[01:06:12]  What they call virtue will be threatened.
[01:06:15]  Their idols will be threatened.
[01:06:18]  And I think that's why Meet the Press did this interview.
[01:06:20]  I don't think they did it as a comedy sketch.
[01:06:23]  I don't think in their heart of hearts they actually think what Doug is doing is a joke.
[01:06:27]  I think they recognize oh man, something's happening and it threatens our way of life.
[01:06:33]  Just like in Ephesus, when Paul was preaching, it actually had an economic impact.
[01:06:38]  Think about that.
[01:06:39]  The silversmiths, right?
[01:06:42]  The guys who were making idols of Artemis in Ephesus, they said, We're in danger of losing our trade.
[01:06:50]  Why?
[01:06:51]  Because Paul was coming in and making a law that said no idol worship?
[01:06:55]  No.
[01:06:56]  No, because Paul was coming in and preaching the gospel so persuasively, and God's sovereignty was there with Paul to produce converts.
[01:07:02]  So many people in the town were being won.
[01:07:04]  To Christ as not just a God, but the only God, the only one worthy of worship, that they were not going to buy idols anymore.
[01:07:14]  So the idol makers were threatened of losing their trade.
[01:07:20]  NBC is threatened.
[01:07:23]  CNN is threatened, right?
[01:07:25]  All those who have made a financial living, a trade, an industry off of sin, Hollywood is threatened.
[01:07:34]  The pornography industry is threatened as Christ begins to shine.
[01:07:38]  All the more clearly.
[01:07:39]  And Christians preach the gospel and win hearts.
[01:07:42]  Yes, sin is threatened when righteousness prevails.
[01:07:47]  That's not a theonomic thought, that's a Christian thought.
[01:07:50]  Welcome to Christianity 101.
[01:07:52]  All right, thanks for tuning in.