NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - Another Hero Has Fallen | What Is God Doing?
Aired: 2025-09-26
Duration: 01:42:54


=== Why We Ask for Reviews (15:22) ===

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[00:00:16]  You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries aren't.
[00:00:21]  We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.
[00:00:33]  Another hero has fallen.
[00:00:34]  Voddy Bockham has just passed away yesterday due largely to heart troubles.
[00:00:41]  That's part of why he returned with his wife and children from Zambia to the States, where he was born and raised, to finish out his life here.
[00:00:50]  Many had hoped that that life would have been longer.
[00:00:54]  I know that Founders Ministries, especially, is mourning his loss.
[00:00:57]  They had plans and vision with Tom Askell to do things in the future.
[00:01:01]  Voddy Bockham was a Reformed Baptist pastor, he was a husband.
[00:01:07]  And a father, and most importantly, he was a follower of Jesus Christ.
[00:01:11]  He was faithful, he was courageous, he was early when it came to pushing back against wokeness and DEI as early as 2012, one of the first guys to speak against these kinds of things, and he will be missed dearly.
[00:01:28]  In this last couple of years, we have had many heroes fall suddenly, suddenly, not just, you know, people always die.
[00:01:38]  But we've had many heroes in the faith dying all around the near time in very recent days, weeks, months, and just a few short years.
[00:01:51]  We've seen MacArthur, John MacArthur, pass away.
[00:01:54]  We saw Charlie Kirk just a couple weeks ago assassinated.
[00:01:57]  Now, Vodie Bockham has passed away.
[00:02:00]  We've seen other ministers disqualify themselves, such as Steve Lawson.
[00:02:04]  And it seems as though God is doing something.
[00:02:07]  And so, in this episode, we're going to talk a little bit about.
[00:02:10]  Honoring Vodi Bakum and the life that he lived, but we're also going to talk about what God may be up to and what God may be doing in the future and how it's appropriate and right that we grieve, but that we should also grieve and hope.
[00:02:24]  We are not despairing.
[00:02:26]  We believe that God is up to something and it's something significant.
[00:02:30]  But we want to begin this episode by you hearing the words of Vodi Bakum from one of his sermons that he spoke himself.
[00:02:37]  Here they are.
[00:02:38]  Number seven, you are going to hear a rumor one day.
[00:02:43]  That Vodie Wakem is no more.
[00:02:45]  Don't you believe it?
[00:02:51]  Because though I die, I will rise with Christ.
[00:02:55]  It will not be the end of me because Christ is raised and I too will be raised with Christ.
[00:03:05]  That is why he is called the firstborn from the dead.
[00:03:09]  Folks, you don't talk about a firstborn unless there's others who are born after him.
[00:03:16]  Don't you pity me.
[00:03:19]  You pity the one who wants to hold on to Jesus without holding on to the resurrection.
[00:03:24]  You pity the one who has absolutely no hope because they have no resurrected Christ.
[00:03:32]  Don't you dare pity the one who believes in the death, burial, and resurrection of the only begotten Son of God.
[00:03:45]  Because they are indeed the only people who have hope.
[00:03:51]  That is hope.
[00:04:01]  All right, we're back.
[00:04:03]  Bodhi Bakum has passed away and he is now in glory with the Lord Jesus Christ forevermore.
[00:04:07]  He lives forevermore.
[00:04:09]  No longer, as founders put out yesterday when they announced the news, no longer in the land of the dying, but in the land of the living.
[00:04:16]  And he was very faithful.
[00:04:18]  He died relatively young.
[00:04:19]  He was 56 years old, which is tragic for his wife, tragic for his children.
[00:04:24]  We wanted to talk a little bit about his life.
[00:04:26]  And then we also want to address what we think God is up to.
[00:04:29]  We also want to address other evangelicals.
[00:04:32]  That we absolutely despise, who we feel like are saying, Oh, I so appreciate Vodi Bakum.
[00:04:39]  Where just a few short years ago, two years ago, three years ago, they hated Vodi Bakum because they're a bunch of Marxist woke people.
[00:04:49]  And Vodi Bakum stood against that.
[00:04:52]  So that's some of what we're going to be talking about in this episode.
[00:04:55]  I think it's easy to kind of not think of voting these last couple of years because he's really been in Zambia.
[00:04:59]  So between COVID and he spoke a little bit on Black Lives Matter.
[00:05:03]  But what was really incredible was it was 2016, 2017, 2018.
[00:05:07]  And it's funny enough, it was actually with Sovereign Nations.
[00:05:09]  So, Michael O'Fallon and James Lindsay.
[00:05:12]  But he was one of the very few early on in a battle that, in many ways, has already been won that was sounding the alarm.
[00:05:17]  He said, Hey, all these different tools that are being used, you think of critical race theory, these are kind of rebranded in many ways, type of social Marxism.
[00:05:26]  And I mean, as far as people that you could look to that were saying, This is poisonous and this is demonic and this shouldn't be in the church, I think it was 2018, you were sounding the alarm.
[00:05:35]  Joel, but practically, I mean, Vodi was one of the few, and he was a huge voice in that.
[00:05:40]  And it's always the first ones that kind of bear the brunt of it.
[00:05:43]  It's the first ones that come out and say something that they lose the book deals and they lose the speaking opportunities and they lose the job offers because they're first, right?
[00:05:52]  The prophets were not killed for being right, they were killed for being the first ones to say it.
[00:05:57]  And so, Vodi being gone in Zambia, which we can talk about in a minute for the last kind of five years or so, has made a lot of us not think to.
[00:06:03]  There was a time, I mean, 2018, there was a huge group of evangelicals.
[00:06:08]  John Piper was there, Russell Moore.
[00:06:10]  Was there, they were celebrating Martin Luther King in 2018.
[00:06:14]  They were celebrating Martin Luther King's life and his legacy and everything he did for the civil rights movement.
[00:06:20]  That's how bad it was.
[00:06:20]  And it's easy to forget things were that bad in evangelical land, but they were.
[00:06:25]  And there were very, very, very few men early on.
[00:06:29]  Now it's easy, but there's very few men early on that stood up.
[00:06:32]  And Vody, I mean, the guy honestly could have had the world handed to him.
[00:06:35]  Yeah, a black reformed minister, he should have been president of the SBC, he could have been president of the SBC, at least one of their seminaries.
[00:06:44]  Yep.
[00:06:44]  President of a seminary, professor.
[00:06:46]  And honestly, he might have lived longer.
[00:06:48]  He would have been under less stress.
[00:06:49]  Let's be honest Zambia, living conditions.
[00:06:51]  Not great.
[00:06:52]  Probably not as great as down here in Texas.
[00:06:54]  Although, to be honest, probably equally as hot.
[00:06:56]  Because he was from Houston, wasn't he?
[00:06:57]  Yeah, he was from Houston.
[00:06:58]  I was just there.
[00:06:59]  And that, no offense to anyone who lives in Houston.
[00:07:01]  That place is hot and that place is terrible.
[00:07:03]  So, practically, he forewent and said, Yeah, I could live in the States.
[00:07:07]  I could be a professor of a reformed institution, probably.
[00:07:10]  I could have an easy gig, write some books, teach on homeschooling, give some lectures.
[00:07:15]  Make $250,000.
[00:07:17]  But he said no to it for one, because he didn't want to grift off being black.
[00:07:20]  But what's cool about him, too, he had a love for his own people.
[00:07:24]  Yes.
[00:07:25]  You know a little bit more about kind of the kids he adopted, I think, than I do.
[00:07:28]  So I'll pass it to you.
[00:07:29]  Yeah.
[00:07:29]  So, Vodi Bakum, like all of us, nobody comes out of the womb with perfect theology.
[00:07:34]  People will always try to accuse and slander and present opposition.
[00:07:39]  And they'll be like, well, he changed.
[00:07:41]  And it's like, yeah, that's what following Jesus does for a person.
[00:07:44]  It changes them.
[00:07:45]  That's what sanctification is.
[00:07:47]  It's changing.
[00:07:48]  And so, Vodi Bakum, by his own admission, Had the perfect family, is the way that he and his wife would have described it.
[00:07:53]  They had two natural born children, biological, one boy, one girl, right?
[00:07:58]  And so it's this perfect, you know, black family where the father actually stays, you know, married to the wife and raising the children.
[00:08:07]  And he's a pastor and he's conservative and he's a good man with, you know, behaved children and a loving wife.
[00:08:15]  And most people would comment, you know, in the churches that they were a part of, most of those churches were predominantly white churches, not because Vody didn't have natural affections or care for black people in America.
[00:08:26]  He cared very deeply, but he could not be a part of the black.
[00:08:30]  Church in America, because the black church in America is probably without any hyperbole about 97 98 percent heretical, right?
[00:08:39]  The black church in America is terrible, and I'm not just saying, oh, they you know they're just off on a few doctrines that are secondary or tertiary.
[00:08:47]  I mean, no, like it's terrible.
[00:08:50]  Al Sharpton is a black minister, right?
[00:08:52]  TD Jakes, you think the black church in America is tracking down death threats that you've gotten with FBI and everything, and I'm looking at small group leaders in black churches in Houston.
[00:09:02]  Writing death threats to a father of five because they disagreed with his views on race.
[00:09:05]  That's right.
[00:09:06]  Yeah, no, the people coming after me, it's not just, you know, raging leftists, you know, and transgenders and LGBT, LMNOP mafia.
[00:09:14]  It's professing Christians and a decent amount of them being black who attend black churches with terrible theology that are like, yeah, I'm going to threaten this white pastor who's a husband and a father of five.
[00:09:27]  So, yeah, Vody probably would have gone to a predominantly, you know, majority black church if there had been one.
[00:09:35]  If there had been one, I mean, people are quick to cite H.B. Charles.
[00:09:39]  Do you know why they're quick to cite H.B. Charles?
[00:09:42]  Because it might be the only majority black church in America that doesn't have some tangible, gaping, obvious heresy on the face of it.
[00:09:54]  That's how, I mean, you think of the white church in America, you've got Joyce Myers, my goodness.
[00:09:58]  You've got, you know, Joel Osteen.
[00:09:59]  Kenneth Copeland.
[00:10:00]  Kenneth Copeland.
[00:10:01]  You've got Stephen Furtick.
[00:10:02]  So I'm not saying that the white church doesn't have problems, of course it does.
[00:10:05]  I would say that within the white churches, majority white churches in America, I would say probably 80, 90% of them are heretical.
[00:10:15]  The black church, I would say probably 97, 98% heretical.
[00:10:19]  I think that's fair.
[00:10:20]  I think Virgil Walker and Daryl Harrison would agree with me.
[00:10:23]  I think Vodi would have agreed with me.
[00:10:25]  So, no, he did not go to a predominantly black church.
[00:10:28]  Here's my point back to talking about his life and who he was.
[00:10:32]  He was predominantly, because he rejected the heresy of the black church, he was predominantly, him and his family, in white.
[00:10:38]  Spaces, white churches, white seminaries, white denominations, white conferences.
[00:10:45]  And not because he was even making a choice about black or white.
[00:10:48]  He was making a choice based off of truth and falsities.
[00:10:52]  He was choosing true, sound doctrine.
[00:10:54]  But I remember reading Fault Lines.
[00:10:56]  And in Fault Lines, he talks about how early on, as he was kind of rising in prominence within evangelicalism, there was a lot of different black influential individuals within the church at large.
[00:11:09]  Who is saying, Don't you go that direction.
[00:11:12]  Don't take that route.
[00:11:13]  You belong to us.
[00:11:14]  You should be over here.
[00:11:15]  You're one of us.
[00:11:17]  And he rejected that because not because he didn't love black people and not because he didn't even have an understanding of these are my people.
[00:11:24]  All Americans, there's a sense in which, hey, America is my people.
[00:11:28]  There's a higher sense of Christians are my people.
[00:11:30]  Americans are my people.
[00:11:31]  But then also black people are my people.
[00:11:33]  That is true, right?
[00:11:35]  He's black.
[00:11:36]  Black people are his people.
[00:11:37]  And if you think, oh, Joel, don't make it about that.
[00:11:40]  Um, voty Bakum.
[00:11:41]  So, to answer Wes's question that kind of you know started me on this trail, uh, he he adopted right, they had two natural born children, and in all these white churches, it's like, look at this wonderful Christian black family with one boy and one girl.
[00:11:54]  And he changed over time in his convictions and his theology and started to realize, man, we should have had more kids.
[00:12:00]  What are we doing?
[00:12:01]  And so, what they did was later on in life, they adopted.
[00:12:04]  They did not adopt seven Asian boys or seven white boys or seven Hispanic boys.
[00:12:09]  Vodi Bakum adopted seven black boys, and he did it intentionally.
[00:12:15]  And I think he did it because he knew that black young boys are predominantly fatherless and need help tremendously.
[00:12:23]  But I think he also did it because he himself was black.
[00:12:26]  And he was saying, look, this is one of the ways that I can give back.
[00:12:29]  One of the stories I remember Vodi sharing when he first visited Zambia.
[00:12:34]  So, this is when he's scoping things out.
[00:12:35]  It's before he actually makes the move to join Conrad Mbewe, who was native to the area and still there.
[00:12:42]  But he was going to go over and join Conrad in this endeavor to start an African seminary because the black church in America is bad in its theology.
[00:12:52]  And then, you know, actual.
[00:12:54]  Churches in Africa are arguably even worse.
[00:12:57]  The church there is terrible, terrible theology.
[00:13:00]  And so they wanted to actually do something about it, actually do something about it.
[00:13:05]  And you can't do anything about any problem unless you first acknowledge there is a problem.
[00:13:09]  So Vodi was perfectly comfortable saying, yeah, African churches and theology for Africans predominantly is absolutely unbiblical and atrocious.
[00:13:21]  And so I'm going to try to make a difference.
[00:13:23]  And so he went, he was scoping it out, and he told this story about how he's visiting.
[00:13:28]  Africa for the first time.
[00:13:29]  And there was an old, you know, black man, African man, who, you know, spoke to him.
[00:13:37]  Maybe it was translated.
[00:13:38]  I can't remember the story exactly.
[00:13:39]  It was either translated, you know, or he spoke broken English, but communicated to Vodi upon his introduction and said, Is this your first time to Africa?
[00:13:50]  And Vodi said, Yes.
[00:13:52]  And then the black man gave him a huge hug and said, Welcome home, son.
[00:13:58]  And Vodi, this is not me.
[00:14:00]  I'm not trying to find something in this, right?
[00:14:02]  We want to honor Vodi and what he thought, like his story as he told it.
[00:14:07]  He said that in that moment when that older black African man hugged him and said, Welcome home, that he just started weeping.
[00:14:16]  And he almost couldn't even explain why.
[00:14:18]  It was just this natural impulse.
[00:14:21]  He just started weeping.
[00:14:24]  And I think we all know why.
[00:14:26]  And I think Vodi would have said it.
[00:14:27]  He would have said, Because this is where I'm from.
[00:14:31]  This is where I'm from.
[00:14:32]  Not him personally.
[00:14:32]  He wasn't born in Africa, but in terms of his ancestry, right?
[00:14:37]  It's the sense of I'm being reunited with my people.
[00:14:41]  And there is something to be said for my people.
[00:14:42]  If you're a Christian, then yes, in the spiritual, eternal sense, your people are Christians.
[00:14:47]  But we also live in this temporal world that God made.
[00:14:51]  I think of the book of Ephesians that we have citizenship in heaven.
[00:14:56]  Philippians says that.
[00:14:57]  But Ephesians says, I write to the saints at Ephesus.
[00:15:01]  Right, they are people who have an identity and a belonging and a citizenship in Ephesus, but also in their Christian status are citizens of heaven.
[00:15:11]  The Apostle Paul doesn't say, Well, you know what, my citizenship is in heaven.
[00:15:15]  No, when it suits him, when it benefits him, he says, Whoa, wait a second, I'm a Roman citizen, you can't do this.

=== Honoring Prophets and People (07:42) ===

[00:15:22]  And he appeals to his natural, temporal, earthly citizenship.
[00:15:26]  Now, I have a people, right?
[00:15:27]  And he also does that as a Hebrew, right?
[00:15:30]  I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised on the eighth day, you know, that you know, a son of a Pharisee.
[00:15:35]  And he's listing off his credentials.
[00:15:37]  And so, all throughout the scripture, we have natural affections, we have natural identities.
[00:15:43]  And Vody recognized that.
[00:15:45]  So, when it came to, you know, he's preaching in all these white churches and pastoring, you know, a majority white church because, not because he doesn't want black people to come, but because he's preaching sound doctrine in America.
[00:15:56]  And sound doctrine in America repels, I would say, again, about 80 to 90% of white professing Christians and about 97 to 98% of black professing Christians.
[00:16:07]  So, go figure, you got a reformed preacher and his church ends up being white because most reformed Christians tend to be white.
[00:16:15]  And so he's ministering in predominantly white denominations, conferences, churches, those kinds of things with his perfect, you know, picture perfect black conservative Christian family the husband, the wife, and the two kids, the boy and the girl.
[00:16:27]  And later in life realizes, no, we have to do more.
[00:16:30]  And when he decides that we should do more, he doesn't just say, we should do more for anyone and everyone red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.
[00:16:36]  Yes, Jesus loves all the little children of the world.
[00:16:39]  I believe that.
[00:16:40]  But in terms of Vodi Bakum as a finite man who can only effectively love so many, he has to choose.
[00:16:45]  He has to be selective.
[00:16:46]  And who does he choose?
[00:16:47]  And it's not coincidence.
[00:16:49]  He chooses seven black boys.
[00:16:50]  And then what does he choose later on in life?
[00:16:52]  He says, I'm going to move to Zambia.
[00:16:54]  I'm going to uproot my family and I'm going to take seven black boys that I adopted with my wife.
[00:16:59]  I'm going to be a father to them.
[00:17:00]  I'm going to catechize them.
[00:17:01]  I'm going to train them in the Christian faith.
[00:17:03]  And while I'm training them in the home as a father, in my public ministry, I'm going to minister to Africans in Zambia and plant and start a seminary so that there would be more native African pastors who are actually sound in their doctrine and able to preach the word.
[00:17:20]  Faithfully, and this is what he does and what he gives his life to.
[00:17:23]  And I think you can make the argument without being too far fetched or speculative.
[00:17:28]  I think it's perfectly fair to say that he had heart troubles and he probably would have had that no matter what.
[00:17:33]  But I think his life probably would have been extended if he had stayed in the States with better health care, with better doctors, with all these things.
[00:17:42]  You probably remember for those of you who followed Vodi Bakum and were blessed by his ministry as I was, I think it was about a year ago or so, maybe a year and a half, that they did this big fundraising campaign because.
[00:17:54]  He had a huge emergency with his heart failing when he was still in Zambia.
[00:17:58]  And they had to raise a ton of money to get him back to the States and for the medical bills to go and get surgery and see a doctor.
[00:18:08]  If you're not familiar with that story, maybe this will trigger your memory.
[00:18:12]  It's the story that Josh Beiss, underneath one of his anonymous accounts, said, Where did all the money that they raised go?
[00:18:17]  It only cost this much for the procedure, but they raised this much, right?
[00:18:20]  Attacking Vodie Bakum and calling him a thief from an anonymous account, Josh Beiss, who was the head of G3.
[00:18:27]  And now, Vodi Bakum's dead.
[00:18:28]  I wonder how he feels.
[00:18:30]  Probably not great.
[00:18:30]  Hopefully, there's true repentance and not just crocodile tears on behalf of Josh Beiss.
[00:18:36]  But all that stuff went down.
[00:18:38]  And so, my point is, that's why they came back, as far as anybody knows, as far as what's been told yes, to help Tom, yes, to be home, but also for his health.
[00:18:46]  That was a big part of why they came back, was in this final stage of life.
[00:18:51]  And he was going to help do the seminary with Founders Ministries, with Tom Askell in Florida.
[00:18:57]  And they made a big announcement.
[00:18:58]  Everybody was.
[00:18:59]  Super excited about that.
[00:19:01]  You know, I talked to Joel Askell, Tom's son, you know, and have some relationship with him.
[00:19:04]  And there's so much excitement.
[00:19:05]  And now, just I can't imagine just the level of disappointment and frustration.
[00:19:11]  Everyone ultimately, like Job, right?
[00:19:13]  Not shouting and accusing God, handling it well as Christians and trusting the Lord that he's sovereign over all things, but both grieving and wrestling with disappointment at the same time.
[00:19:24]  So tragic that, you know, that Vodi died suddenly.
[00:19:31]  And that he died early, relatively speaking, 56.
[00:19:35]  But again, I just want to reiterate what he gave the latter portion of his life to.
[00:19:42]  And in part, you could argue, at least partially, not what killed him in general, but maybe caused him to die sooner than he maybe otherwise would have, was not just ministry in the abstract or in a general sense, but ministry through the avenue, through the channel of an understanding of natural affections.
[00:20:05]  I'm going to, I mean, the end of his life, he probably could have taken more naps.
[00:20:09]  He probably could have had more time to exercise.
[00:20:12]  But later in life, when you're already older, let's adopt.
[00:20:15]  Seven boys, seven boys.
[00:20:18]  And let's move to Zambia.
[00:20:20]  Yeah.
[00:20:20]  Right?
[00:20:21]  Seven boys, black boys.
[00:20:24]  Let's move to another place, a black third world country.
[00:20:28]  A third world country, an African black country.
[00:20:31]  And why?
[00:20:32]  Because black boys need fathers.
[00:20:36]  Black countries in Africa need sound doctrine, but also because Votibakan was black.
[00:20:42]  And he felt like, I want to help the body of Christ ultimately, but I also want to help my people.
[00:20:49]  Not just my people spiritually, eternally, which would include all Christians, but my people temporarily and naturally.
[00:20:56]  I want to help black people.
[00:20:59]  And he did.
[00:21:00]  He did immensely.
[00:21:01]  And he's worthy of incredible honor.
[00:21:04]  That's a profound legacy to leave.
[00:21:05]  I think of John Knox, like, give me Scotland or I die.
[00:21:08]  Like men that have devoted themselves to the preaching of the gospel.
[00:21:11]  They said at the end of the day, like you said, I just can't reach everyone.
[00:21:15]  And so the people that God has put me in, I've been born this way.
[00:21:18]  I've been born to this family.
[00:21:19]  I've been born among this nation.
[00:21:21]  These are the people that I'm going to help.
[00:21:23]  I think that's an incredible legacy to leave.
[00:21:25]  It is.
[00:21:25]  Praise God for them.
[00:21:26]  Praise God for them.
[00:21:28]  So let's do this.
[00:21:29]  We'll come back after the commercial and talk about what we think the Lord might be doing.
[00:21:33]  But before we go to the commercial, we wanted to first talk about who Vodi was, what he did, honor his legacy.
[00:21:39]  But then we also wanted to talk about others who are pretending to honor his legacy now, but hated him while he was still alive.
[00:21:45]  And I want to frame it by just, I think of Jesus and what he says about the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the lawyers, the religious Jewish rulers at the time who were opposing him.
[00:21:55]  He said, You build the tombs of the prophets, but your fathers are the ones who killed them.
[00:22:01]  And essentially, what he's saying, he's like, Can a prophet die anywhere else, be put to death anywhere else but Jerusalem?
[00:22:07]  This is the city that kills the prophets.
[00:22:10]  And what Jesus is saying is, Here I am, the capital P prophet, the living prophet, and I'm standing in front of your face and you're trying to kill me.
[00:22:19]  Meanwhile, you honor the tombs and the sepulchers of the prophets who are already dead, but you're really just like your fathers.
[00:22:27]  Your fathers hated Jeremiah, they hated Isaiah, they hated Every prophet the Lord sent them when the prophet was still alive.
[00:22:33]  And it's only the later generations of your fathers that honor those prophets once they've been safely buried under six feet of dirt.
[00:22:40]  And I know that you're like your fathers because although you claim, oh, we wouldn't have done to Jeremiah what our fathers did, and we wouldn't have done to Isaiah what our fathers did, I know for a fact that you would have because I am the full fulfillment and culmination of Jeremiah and of Isaiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are seeking to do to me the very thing that your fathers did to them.

=== Repentance in Modern Evangelicalism (13:38) ===

[00:23:04]  And I think that that principle from Jesus, in regards to the bad guys, the Pharisees, just to make it clear, if you don't know already, they're the bad guys in the gospel narratives and those accounts.
[00:23:17]  And I think that the Pharisees are still alive and well.
[00:23:19]  The Judaizers are still alive and well.
[00:23:22]  We have them today, and evangelicalism is filled with them.
[00:23:26]  And so we wanted to show a couple examples.
[00:23:28]  I would just say, too, Cosmic Treason brought it up.
[00:23:30]  He was, lest his natural affections overshadow some of his other great qualities.
[00:23:35]  He was great on patriarchy.
[00:23:36]  He was 2008.
[00:23:37]  He was.
[00:23:37]  And he was saying Sarah Palin for vice president is not right.
[00:23:41]  She is a woman.
[00:23:41]  She shouldn't be in that.
[00:23:42]  In 2008, think about that.
[00:23:43]  And he said it on the news, on live televised news.
[00:23:48]  He's being interviewed and he doesn't disparage her.
[00:23:51]  He's like, yeah, she's conservative.
[00:23:52]  There's a lot of great things about her.
[00:23:53]  But no, she should not hold civil office because she's a woman and she should be a mother at home.
[00:24:00]  In 2008, he said that.
[00:24:01]  Some of us were like still a decade later, like, I don't know.
[00:24:05]  Right.
[00:24:05]  Does the Bible really teach that?
[00:24:07]  Right.
[00:24:08]  So, yeah.
[00:24:08]  So, Votibakam was, he was, yeah, natural affections and standing up against, you know, he, he, uh, What did he call it?
[00:24:15]  Gnostic epistemology?
[00:24:16]  Epistemological Gnosticism.
[00:24:19]  Yep.
[00:24:19]  I think that's what he called it.
[00:24:20]  So, standing up against wokeness and all those kinds of things, DEI and BLM, before it even culminated in 2020, all the way back in 2012.
[00:24:29]  But that's not the only thing he did.
[00:24:32]  You're right.
[00:24:32]  He wrote books on parenting, on fatherhood, on marriage.
[00:24:37]  Big on homeschooling as well.
[00:24:38]  He was huge on homeschooling.
[00:24:39]  So, he was great on education and homeschooling.
[00:24:41]  He was great on the family.
[00:24:43]  He was great on marriage.
[00:24:45]  He was great on social issues and pushing back against all the minority, whites are racist, crap.
[00:24:53]  He pushed back on that and he did so.
[00:24:54]  And with all these things, he did it early.
[00:24:56]  Patriarchy, 2008.
[00:24:58]  Pushing back on BLM, 2012.
[00:25:02]  He was early to the fight and he fought well on multiple fronts.
[00:25:06]  And then beyond all of that, the thing that he should be remembered for the most, besides just patriarchy in the family and fighting against BLM and those kinds of things, is.
[00:25:19]  He was a faithful expositional preacher of the Word of God.
[00:25:22]  He taught through books of the Bible week in and week out for decades in the local church, feeding the flock of God.
[00:25:30]  And very, very faithful.
[00:25:32]  So let's talk about some of these Judaizers, Pharisees, you know, chip off the old block of the Pharisees, evangelical pastors that we have today who are coming out and saying, Oh, Vodi, we'll miss you.
[00:25:44]  But just three years ago, despised them.
[00:25:47]  Do we want to do a commercial break first or after?
[00:25:49]  Let's do this.
[00:25:50]  And then when we come back after, let's talk about what we think the Lord might be up to.
[00:25:53]  To in terms of because it's uncanny.
[00:25:55]  And I think we do need to take note, right?
[00:25:58]  God has not abandoned us.
[00:26:00]  We're not without hope.
[00:26:01]  God is sovereign over all things, including every sparrow that falls to the ground and every saint who passes away.
[00:26:09]  So none of it's an accident.
[00:26:11]  And God is working all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes.
[00:26:15]  But one thing that we know is happening providentially right now is that heroes of the faith for the previous battles that we've had are dropping like flies.
[00:26:26]  I think from 2017 with Sproul.
[00:26:28]  To now, Vodie Bockham, you have a plethora.
[00:26:31]  You have John MacArthur, you have Charlie Kirk, you have all these guys who have passed away.
[00:26:37]  Tim Keller wasn't super faithful towards the end, but he was another giant at a time who passed away.
[00:26:43]  And then you have other guys who have disqualified themselves.
[00:26:46]  I already mentioned Josh Bice, you have Steve Lawson.
[00:26:49]  That whole thing that when I was in my 20s and I'm learning Reformed theology, there's this group of men that are part of Gospel Coalition or TGC together.
[00:27:01]  Together for the gospel, T4G.
[00:27:03]  And about half of that crew is gone now.
[00:27:06]  Half of that crew, either death or disqualification.
[00:27:09]  And I don't think it's a coincidence, and I think it's worth talking about.
[00:27:12]  So let's talk about that after the commercial break, but let's give some examples of the Pharisees that kill the prophets now.
[00:27:17]  All right.
[00:27:17]  Here's the big one.
[00:27:18]  And this is going to be Pastor J.D. Greer of Summit Church in North Carolina.
[00:27:22]  J.D. Greer, he said this yesterday when we found out that Vodi Bakum passed away.
[00:27:27]  He said, brokenhearted to hear about Vodi Bakum going home to be with the Lord.
[00:27:31]  Praying for his wife, kids, and grandkids.
[00:27:33]  He preached here several years ago and did an incredible job.
[00:27:36]  He really blessed our people.
[00:27:37]  I always enjoyed the times we were together.
[00:27:39]  Psalm 116, 15, indeed.
[00:27:42]  Now, I said all that at the beginning about Vody being first.
[00:27:44]  I talked about, for example, Martin Luther King 50.
[00:27:46]  This was 2018, the celebration of Martin Luther King's life put on by the Gospel Coalition.
[00:27:52]  And one of the big pastors peddling a very kind of soft version of this ethnic Gnosticism that Vody referenced was J.D. Greer.
[00:28:00]  You had guys that would be full blown progressive.
[00:28:02]  This would be Jamar Tisby in The Color of Compromise, Eric Mason, very much so leading into.
[00:28:08]  Just all in, put the chips in.
[00:28:10]  And then you could kind of liken that to.
[00:28:11]  Leonce Crump, Brandon Washington, Dwayne Bond, long list.
[00:28:15]  Long list.
[00:28:16]  A lot of those names sound very familiar.
[00:28:18]  And you could kind of liken that, I think, to the egalitarian position when it comes to gender roles.
[00:28:21]  You have egalitarian, you have patriarchy on the other side, but then there's a soft middle.
[00:28:25]  And the soft middle, it catches a lot of people.
[00:28:28]  It feels like it doesn't have the excesses of either side.
[00:28:31]  And very soft spoken men can do a great job selling it.
[00:28:34]  And J.D. Greer is a prime example of this.
[00:28:38]  So J.D. Greer is, you know, he maintains the.
[00:28:40]  Soft woke, but at some points not so soft.
[00:28:43]  But at some point, not so soft.
[00:28:44]  Yep.
[00:28:46]  Very much so acceptable, right?
[00:28:48]  He has orthodox positions on gender issues, orthodox positions on homosexuality, orthodox positions.
[00:28:54]  He's just, he's not the heretical black church in town.
[00:28:57]  But then, in many ways, that made him even more dangerous.
[00:29:00]  Let's go ahead and play this clip.
[00:29:01]  This is from his church.
[00:29:03]  What I want you to kind of think in the back of your mind is that Vodi Bakum, as he spoke out against critical race theory, 2015, 2015.
[00:29:10]  Dr. James Dobson also just passed away recently.
[00:29:13]  I forgot about that.
[00:29:13]  I remember you were listing different names, and Dobson was up there.
[00:29:16]  But J.D. Greer and Vodie Bakum.
[00:29:19]  Think about Vodie Bakum as we play this clip of J.D. Greer from his church.
[00:29:23]  This whole thing is not about getting a bunch of different color people in a room for a photo op.
[00:29:28]  And I want you to actually lock arms here.
[00:29:31]  Right here.
[00:29:32]  We're going to get a few other worship leaders.
[00:29:33]  So this is not a photo op that people put up.
[00:29:36]  And here's what we're going to do, Stomach.
[00:29:44]  Just go across the aisles.
[00:29:45]  Go across the aisles.
[00:29:48]  This is join.
[00:29:49]  As much as we can make it like one body here.
[00:29:52]  Here's what we're going to do.
[00:29:54]  Here's what we're going to do.
[00:30:04]  So, if you're just listening to that, what you saw J.D. Greer doing, this was again kind of the height of social justice, the woke movement.
[00:30:11]  He was getting all these different members of the summit staff on stage and linking arms with them together as a display of unity.
[00:30:17]  Elsewhere, you heard him talk about, we didn't play it here, but he said they went through like every position in their church.
[00:30:23]  So, administrative, director, this, that, or the other.
[00:30:26]  And they said, could a woman do this role biblically?
[00:30:28]  Could a woman do this role biblically?
[00:30:29]  Could a woman do this role?
[00:30:31]  Which 99% of the time, the answer is probably no.
[00:30:33]  But they went through and like, where can we hire women?
[00:30:36]  Where can we hire minorities?
[00:30:38]  He was everything that Vodie Bockham lived against.
[00:30:42]  That type of division, that type of partiality, that type of pushing people forward.
[00:30:46]  And what they're trying to do, and don't miss this, guys like this are kind of trying to forget those last seven years.
[00:30:50]  Here's another big name.
[00:30:51]  I don't know what he said about Vodie, but Josh Howarton.
[00:30:54]  This is the guy who's kind of realizing, like, hey, the sun is setting on Democrats.
[00:30:57]  It's not popular to be woke.
[00:30:59]  It's not hip.
[00:30:59]  It's not cool.
[00:31:01]  And I just had Beth Moore preach in my church like four years ago.
[00:31:04]  I've never acknowledged it, I've never apologized for it.
[00:31:07]  But I'm going to kind of take it.
[00:31:08]  You're talking about Josh Howarton?
[00:31:09]  Josh Howarton.
[00:31:10]  Yep.
[00:31:10]  Mega church.
[00:31:11]  All these guys have just pivoted.
[00:31:13]  And I'm sure some of them are great guys.
[00:31:14]  Here's the deal you're allowed to change.
[00:31:16]  Like I said about Vodi, he changed, right?
[00:31:17]  They had two kids and they thought, that's great.
[00:31:20]  And then we won't have any more.
[00:31:22]  And then he changed.
[00:31:23]  God convicted him.
[00:31:23]  He realized, okay, we want to have more children.
[00:31:25]  And he adopted seven boys.
[00:31:26]  You're allowed to change.
[00:31:27]  But here's the thing you're supposed to acknowledge it.
[00:31:31]  Repentance is in word and deed, not just deed without word, where you try to make the changes in your actions in the middle of the night and hope that nobody notices, not just where you memory hole certain things.
[00:31:43]  You have to actually acknowledge repentance is changing in deed, but also in word.
[00:31:49]  You actually acknowledge it in word.
[00:31:51]  And like Josh Howerton and some of these guys, they have changed.
[00:31:55]  You know, like Josh Howerton was having Beth Moore preach at the church not many years ago.
[00:32:00]  And I don't think he would do that now.
[00:32:02]  I think he realizes that that was wrong.
[00:32:04]  There's no public record of him ever saying, though, that he, hey, you might, and I think also it's a way of not insulting people.
[00:32:11]  Like it's really, it's arrogant and really demeaning and condescending and insulting to say, Hey, so I'm doing everything the opposite of what I did just four years ago, but you're all idiots and you won't notice.
[00:32:25]  And so I'm not going to say a word about it.
[00:32:27]  That's Josh Howerton's play.
[00:32:29]  Now, apparently, you know, a sizable majority of his 20,000 person church turns out they are idiots.
[00:32:37]  Turns out.
[00:32:37]  Turns out.
[00:32:38]  So he actually doesn't have to repent in word.
[00:32:41]  He does, as far as his soul is concerned with the Lord.
[00:32:43]  But in terms of keeping his job and keeping his church, he doesn't because they actually are choosing.
[00:32:48]  To prop up their pastors' impenitence by being idiots.
[00:32:53]  He's doing the exact opposite of what he did 15 minutes ago.
[00:32:57]  It's quite obvious for anybody with eyes to see, and yet they're just going to let him do it.
[00:33:03]  Yep.
[00:33:04]  Or let them go back and celebrate the guys who fought against the very type of wokeness that you are bringing into the church less than four years ago.
[00:33:11]  Like the J.D. Greer example.
[00:33:12]  Exactly.
[00:33:12]  So, so brokenhearted, you know, so sad to see Vodi go.
[00:33:16]  And it's like, you.
[00:33:19]  You and your cronies behind the scenes were trying to run him out of the SBC.
[00:33:23]  Yep.
[00:33:24]  All right.
[00:33:25]  Speaking of repentance, here's another example.
[00:33:27]  So, this is Chris K. Dubb, an infamous name from kind of the Reform Circle.
[00:33:32]  And it was in May.
[00:33:33]  So, at this point, three to four months ago, his church came out and they put out in a statement.
[00:33:38]  They weren't thrilled to do it, but they said, Do people need to know this?
[00:33:41]  He is divorcing his wife for a woman that he's met online.
[00:33:44]  He's unrepentant.
[00:33:45]  We've had to go through and do church discipline on him.
[00:33:47]  Well, and Chris is, in case you're listening, we've got a picture of him up right here.
[00:33:51]  Chris is another black man.
[00:33:52]  And he posts this eulogy, this memorial to Vodi.
[00:33:55]  He said, I've had the pleasure of meeting Vodi a few times.
[00:33:57]  He's always been very kind.
[00:33:58]  I've learned so much from him.
[00:34:00]  Rest in peace, brother.
[00:34:02]  Now, this is a man that, by all accounts, from an account a couple months ago, from members of his current church today, that are telling him this man is a black man walking out on his family to be with another woman.
[00:34:13]  To be with another woman that he met on the road.
[00:34:15]  Vodi Bakum would punch him in the face.
[00:34:17]  Yeah, if you have your tweet.
[00:34:19]  I have it right here.
[00:34:19]  Yeah, show.
[00:34:20]  So you did a great job.
[00:34:21]  This is from Sensible Moderate on ex Wesley Todd.
[00:34:24]  I was blocked.
[00:34:25]  It had to be within under 90 seconds by Chris for pointing this out.
[00:34:28]  The comment hidden.
[00:34:29]  This is a copy of the letter right below.
[00:34:31]  And I said this.
[00:34:32]  Vodi would punch you in the face for what you did to your family.
[00:34:35]  You are the embodiment of black culture that Vodi spent his life trying to eradicate.
[00:34:41]  Yep.
[00:34:41]  Vodi was out there.
[00:34:41]  He's like, black men, you need to be good fathers.
[00:34:44]  You need to be good husbands.
[00:34:45]  You need to be churchmen.
[00:34:47]  And Chris is literally the opposite of all of those things.
[00:34:49]  Right.
[00:34:50]  I'm not going to be a father to my adopted children.
[00:34:52]  What are black men known for?
[00:34:55]  Getting women pregnant, abandoning them, and not raising their kids.
[00:34:59]  I'm not saying that's the only thing they're known for, but that's up there.
[00:35:01]  That's on the list.
[00:35:02]  Here's the thing about Vodi he wouldn't say, oh, that's racist.
[00:35:04]  I can't believe you said that, Joe.
[00:35:05]  He would say, Yeah, they are known for that.
[00:35:07]  And it's terrible.
[00:35:08]  And I'm not going to be known for that.
[00:35:10]  And I'm going to do everything I can with my life and my ministry to help other black people, other black men, not to be known for that to change this.
[00:35:19]  And here's K Dub, Chris, who has been a thorn in our side for two and a half years calling me a heretic.
[00:35:25]  And then three months ago, his church puts out a letter saying he's under church discipline for abandoning his wife and son.
[00:35:31]  But then Vodie dies and he's like, oh, I so appreciate Vodie.
[00:35:34]  Vodie would slap him in the face.
[00:35:37]  Voting stood for every against everything he is.
[00:35:40]  Yeah, voting was like black men need to get it together and stop abandoning their families.
[00:35:44]  Here's K Dub, a black man who claims to be a Christian with a YouTube Christian uh channel who literally abandoned his family's banner on X is all things theology.
[00:35:54]  He's a Christian, he's there, he's talking theology.
[00:35:57]  And you know, I walked away from my wife.
[00:35:58]  I mean, let he use without sin cast the first stone.
[00:36:01]  But I really appreciate this.
[00:36:03]  No, voting, you may appreciate voting, but he would not appreciate you.
[00:36:07]  Yeah.
[00:36:08]  So that's what some of what's trying to do.
[00:36:09]  And the point is, don't let these people off the hook.
[00:36:11]  Don't let them eulogize the people that stood against them, what they stood for in their life.
[00:36:16]  Don't let them walk it back.
[00:36:17]  Yeah, I know I did that, but really, who remembers and the people that remember, do they really have influence?
[00:36:23]  I think I can get away with this one.
[00:36:25]  One of the best marks, like Vodi, that you said.
[00:36:27]  Someone even brought up, like Ali Beth Stuckey, that you went on her show a number of years ago.
[00:36:31]  You've come out publicly and said, hey, I was wrong.
[00:36:33]  Those are the marks of men like Vodi that you want to look up to.
[00:36:37]  Hey, he's changed, he's grown, he's more mature.
[00:36:40]  But other men, That are trying to whitewash over the past.

=== Don't Let Them Off the Hook (13:48) ===

[00:36:43]  Don't look like nothing could be here.
[00:36:45]  COVID is an example.
[00:36:46]  Every now and then it'll circulate on the internet, people find a picture of me wearing a mask.
[00:36:53]  And for the first five weeks, as soon as they shut down churches, number one, I was not in Texas.
[00:36:58]  That's part of the reason why we moved here.
[00:37:00]  But we were in California, where there were some of the strictest lockdown measures, draconian measures in our country at the time in 2020.
[00:37:09]  It took us five weeks, in part because we were renting an elementary school and they wouldn't let us use the building.
[00:37:15]  So, we had to find a church that would let us meet.
[00:37:17]  The church allowed us to meet outside in their outdoor area.
[00:37:21]  And because of some of my elders, that was a big one, and many of the members, I wore masks for the first few weeks.
[00:37:30]  So, we missed four weeks, fifth week, started meeting, wore masks for the first few weeks.
[00:37:35]  So, within two months, we were rolling and going as though COVID was not even a thing.
[00:37:43]  Meanwhile, a ton of other churches were shut down, not meeting at all.
[00:37:47]  For nine months, 10 months, 12 months.
[00:37:49]  I think it was still later in the summer that even MacArthur's church opened.
[00:37:52]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:37:52]  We beat MacArthur's church by eight weeks.
[00:37:54]  Yep.
[00:37:55]  And, you know, but when MacArthur, God bless him, you know, God rest his soul, when MacArthur made a change on that, they literally made a documentary about his courage.
[00:38:03]  Yeah.
[00:38:04]  When I made a change eight weeks before MacArthur on that, you know, people still mock me to this day.
[00:38:09]  But here's the deal it's to go to your point because it's absolutely vital.
[00:38:14]  So how do you respond?
[00:38:16]  Well, the way that I responded is when our church met on that fifth week after being closed for four, the first third of my sermon, about 15 minutes straight, was publicly repenting to the church.
[00:38:27]  I'm sorry, guys.
[00:38:28]  I got this wrong.
[00:38:30]  And then, you know, and then it was kind of a series of repentance and changing my theology and admitting.
[00:38:35]  And it's been five years now where I'm doing it again right now.
[00:38:37]  But hey, you know what?
[00:38:39]  I was wrong.
[00:38:40]  In the big scheme of things, compared to the average church, including the ones who documentaries are made lauding them for their courage, I actually was quicker than all of them in getting it right.
[00:38:50]  But I still initially got it wrong.
[00:38:52]  And that's part of the story.
[00:38:53]  And here's the thing God doesn't get all the glory if we don't tell the full story.
[00:38:58]  Because the full story includes our mistakes, it includes our sin, it includes our failures, it includes all the ways that we botched it.
[00:39:05]  And it's the inclusion of man's sin that magnifies God's grace to where the story glorifies him instead of us, which is another thing I've learned from guys like Vodi.
[00:39:16]  And so, yeah, so when you mess up, admitting that you got it wrong with the Ali Beth thing, I think that was also in 2020.
[00:39:22]  And people still to this day, they'll say, well, you paid Ali Beth to go on her show.
[00:39:26]  No, we paid her, I believe it was $750 to do a commercial.
[00:39:31]  On her show, and then after she agreed to the commercial, the commercial was for a book that I wrote on the assurance of sin or assurance of salvation and forgiveness of sin.
[00:39:41]  And so they agreed, like, okay, yeah, we'll run the commercial for your book.
[00:39:44]  And so we paid for the commercial, and then I followed up in an email and said, hey, could I do a short segment on the show talking about you know churches and how they should respond to covet?
[00:39:52]  This was a few months after I had course corrected and those kinds of things, and so she let me come on the show.
[00:39:57]  And so there's you know somewhere in the interweb, there's a recording of me, you know, for 10 15 minutes at the very end.
[00:40:04]  Of Ali Best Show, you know, five years ago in 2020.
[00:40:08]  Here's the thing, though, it's funny because people say, well, Joel's, you know, patriarchal and he doesn't, you know, think that a bunch of women should be podcasting, blah, blah, blah.
[00:40:16]  Here's the thing with that, though.
[00:40:20]  If Fox News reached out and said, Joel, we want you to come on, and the news anchor for that segment happened to be a female, I would go on.
[00:40:28]  Right.
[00:40:28]  There's a different calculus to who you have on your platform versus whose show you would be willing to go on.
[00:40:33]  I would be willing to go on an atheist show.
[00:40:35]  To talk about the things of God, I would be willing to go on a woman's show to talk about the things of God.
[00:40:42]  And so I actually didn't really change too much on that one.
[00:40:46]  I would still be willing to go on, if Candace Owens, who is a woman, if she would have me on the show, I would go.
[00:40:51]  Even after the last two weeks?
[00:40:53]  The last two weeks have been a little strange, but yes, but the principle still stands.
[00:40:57]  Your willingness to go on somebody else's platform is different than who you want to promote, who you want to promote on your platform.
[00:41:05]  So, yes, I would go on Candace Owens' show.
[00:41:07]  And for the record, I think she said plenty of things that I appreciate.
[00:41:10]  And then she said things that I vastly disagree with.
[00:41:13]  But yes, I would absolutely go on her show.
[00:41:15]  But what I won't do is I'm not going to have a 10 part series where she's on my show.
[00:41:19]  All right.
[00:41:19]  So, but my point is people will bring that up all the time.
[00:41:23]  And so, as I've responded to the Alibet thing, I've said, yeah, you know what?
[00:41:28]  My theology has changed.
[00:41:30]  I was softer on patriarchy than I used to be.
[00:41:33]  Even though, technically, like I just articulated, in the case of the Alibet thing, you're allowed to pay money for a commercial to promote a book.
[00:41:43]  People do it all the time.
[00:41:45]  There's no law of God against that.
[00:41:47]  And you are actually allowed to go on somebody else's platform, even if you disagree with them having that platform themselves.
[00:41:53]  That's a different standard than hosting them on your own platform.
[00:41:56]  So I can articulate that, and all that is true.
[00:42:00]  And yet, as it's come up by opponents of mine who just want to try to find any kind of gotcha that they possibly can to smear and to slander, what I've done is just try to give less of the details like I just did now.
[00:42:13]  And at least initially, when that was making the rounds, that whatever scandal, the first thing I did was just own it and say, yep, I had certain views, I was more complimentarian.
[00:42:25]  At a point, and then I became more patriarchal.
[00:42:28]  Blessed be the name of the Lord.
[00:42:29]  He changes hearts, He changes minds, and I'm becoming more biblical the older I get.
[00:42:36]  Right?
[00:42:36]  So you just have to say those things.
[00:42:37]  But what you can't do is have Beth Moore not going on her platform, but having her preach in your church from the pulpit on the Lord's day to men and women.
[00:42:46]  And then, and that being just a few years ago, and then never acknowledging it, pretending like it never happened, and then come out as like, I'm a base Christian person.
[00:42:55]  If I remember correctly, he commented after she.
[00:42:57]  Preach that he's he compared it to George Whitefield, how people would get done hearing her preaching and just walk around.
[00:43:02]  Now, that I mean, the sin was having her preach.
[00:43:04]  That's just cringe.
[00:43:05]  But both of those, you've got to repudiate.
[00:43:08]  You've got to, yeah.
[00:43:09]  So true repentance is in word and deed.
[00:43:11]  So whether it's getting it wrong initially on COVID and saying, I got it wrong.
[00:43:15]  Would you please forgive me?
[00:43:16]  Here's what the Bible actually says.
[00:43:18]  I had to learn this.
[00:43:19]  I was ignorant.
[00:43:19]  I was wrong.
[00:43:20]  Please forgive me.
[00:43:21]  Here's what's right.
[00:43:22]  Or whether it's being, you know, more soft, complimentary, you know, instead of strong, patriarchal, or whatever it is, where Vodie Bacham.
[00:43:29]  We have two kids, and that's you know, and we're going to control the birth process.
[00:43:34]  And we don't want our quiver to be full because we have this picture perfect little family, and it's convenient and it's comfortable.
[00:43:40]  And him later on coming out and saying, Nope, that was idolatry, that was sin.
[00:43:43]  We're going to adopt seven black boys.
[00:43:45]  It's both, though.
[00:43:46]  Vody didn't just adopt seven black boys, but he also acknowledged in word, right?
[00:43:51]  And so that's what leaders are supposed to do.
[00:43:53]  Leaders are supposed to, when they, leaders should repent.
[00:43:56]  Leaders, no leader is perfect but Jesus Christ alone.
[00:43:59]  So leaders do fail, and when they fail, They should repent.
[00:44:03]  And repentance is always deed.
[00:44:05]  Change your actions and word.
[00:44:07]  Acknowledge that you got it wrong.
[00:44:09]  And there's a lot of guys, whether it be J.D. Greer, secretly conspiring against Vodie Bacham and everything that he stood for.
[00:44:16]  But at his death, oh, we're sure going to miss him.
[00:44:19]  Or whether it's a Josh Howerton, or whether it's this person or that person, or whether it's K. Dubb, man, really appreciate Vodie Bacham and everything he stood for.
[00:44:26]  Well, one of the things he stood for is black men not abandoning their wife and child, which K. Dubb is currently doing as a black man.
[00:44:34]  Right.
[00:44:34]  That's the hypocrisy.
[00:44:36]  And I just feel like with everybody, and similar with Charlie Kirk, right?
[00:44:39]  Yeah.
[00:44:40]  Charlie Kirk, there, you know, there were mostly, you know, there was a lot of reaction to people being like, like gleeful, you know, and like, this is great.
[00:44:46]  I'm so glad he's dead because they're just, they're just terrible, demonic people.
[00:44:50]  But then there were also some squishy conservatives like really going to miss Charlie Kirk, you know, or really sad who, who, you know, 15 minutes ago before he was assassinated despised him and everybody knew it.
[00:45:03]  And people pull up the records and say, here you are talking about all his styles.
[00:45:07]  Too aggressive and he's too mean, and we should be more winsome.
[00:45:10]  We have the receipts.
[00:45:11]  You know what?
[00:45:11]  I just thought of an example.
[00:45:15]  It is what it is.
[00:45:16]  I'm not trying to make it about Nick Funtas.
[00:45:20]  He actually had a good, this is a good example.
[00:45:23]  He waited a day when Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
[00:45:26]  Then the next day, he did a Remembering Charlie Kirk episode.
[00:45:29]  And in it, he expressed condolences, deep condolences for his death and for his family, his wife and his children, and all those things, and honored him.
[00:45:41]  But Nick Fuentes hated Charlie Kirk.
[00:45:43]  Yeah.
[00:45:44]  But here's my point.
[00:45:45]  He acknowledged it.
[00:45:46]  He didn't just pretend that that's so, so the very thing that, uh, that, uh, evangelical pastors like J.D. Greer and Josh Howerton refuse to do, Nick freaking Fuentes will do.
[00:45:59]  And people are like, why, why, why, what's up with Joel and his willingness, you know, to talk to Nick Fuentes?
[00:46:03]  I don't know.
[00:46:04]  Maybe because he has more character than, uh, evangelical pastors.
[00:46:07]  I don't, I don't know.
[00:46:08]  Because he hated Charlie Kirk and he had his reasons for it.
[00:46:11]  But there were times that he went too far.
[00:46:13]  Like there are things that Nick Fuentes said about Charlie Kirk that I'm like, oh.
[00:46:18]  Dude, I would never say that.
[00:46:20]  But when Charlie died, he honored him, but he didn't just honor him.
[00:46:23]  He honored him and acknowledged at multiple points during that episode.
[00:46:27]  He said, Yeah, and I'm not going to treat my audience like they're stupid.
[00:46:31]  You guys are perfectly aware of what I've said about Charlie Kirk.
[00:46:34]  I despised him.
[00:46:35]  He was one of my arch nemesis, one of my chief political opponents.
[00:46:39]  It's no secret.
[00:46:40]  A number of times, he said some kind of one off line like that.
[00:46:43]  It's no secret that I did not like Charlie Kirk.
[00:46:45]  And I said some really mean things about Charlie Kirk.
[00:46:48]  And I think he even at one point said, And I went too far at times in things I said about Charlie Kirk.
[00:46:52]  But here's the deal the same people that hate Charlie Kirk hate me.
[00:46:56]  And he was an honorable man in this way and that way.
[00:46:58]  So, my point is, you can change.
[00:47:02]  I mean, that's what the gospel does.
[00:47:04]  The gospel changes people.
[00:47:05]  So, we're not going to fault people for changing.
[00:47:07]  I shouldn't be faulted for.
[00:47:09]  Because what's the alternative?
[00:47:11]  You get something wrong, and so now you just need to stay wrong for the rest of your life.
[00:47:15]  So, that's what the gospel does it actually changes people.
[00:47:17]  But when you change, admit the change.
[00:47:21]  So that God might be glorified.
[00:47:23]  Admit, hey, I'm doing this, but you should be aware, I'm doing this now.
[00:47:28]  I didn't always do this.
[00:47:29]  In fact, I said or did precisely the opposite of this once upon a time.
[00:47:35]  And the reason why was because I was wrong and I was a sinner, but Christ is good and Christ has grace and He changed me by the power of His Holy Spirit so that I was one way here, but I'm another way now.
[00:47:47]  All glory, all praise be to Christ Jesus.
[00:47:51]  That's what I've tried to do by God's grace.
[00:47:54]  I'm sure I haven't done it perfectly, but I've tried to truly repent, word and deed.
[00:47:58]  That's what Nick did with Charlie Kirk.
[00:48:00]  That's not what J.D. Greer is doing.
[00:48:03]  That's not what Josh Howerton is doing and many other Pharisees who build tombs to the Votie Bachams once they're safely buried under six feet of dirt.
[00:48:15]  But before they were buried, when they were alive and well, they despised them and conspired against them.
[00:48:20]  And everybody knows, everybody knows.
[00:48:24]  What JD Greer did with wokeness.
[00:48:26]  Everybody except for Neil Shenfee.
[00:48:29]  There's one man who writes books against wokeness while still attending as a member of JD Greer's church and has never, he's pointed the gun at every single woke character there is except for his pastor and continues to provide cover for him.
[00:48:44]  And I think the one thing we maybe close this segment with this the children thing aside, well, we actually repented of just kind of limiting the number of children.
[00:48:51]  What's actually cool about Vodie is that by being courageous and being wise, You can actually be right early.
[00:48:57]  So it's actually possible in 2008 to know biblical patriarchy, to stand on those principles and be able to make that stand for truth.
[00:49:05]  Like it's actually not impossible that we'll always be repenting publicly, making public errors again and again.
[00:49:10]  No, here's a guy in his long ministry career, some missteps where he came back, publicly acknowledged, and said, I'm going to do better.
[00:49:18]  But actually, a lot of, no, he was right on that.
[00:49:21]  And he was right 10 years early.
[00:49:22]  And he was right here five years before these people.
[00:49:25]  He was right here.
[00:49:26]  I can speak for myself.
[00:49:27]  Years before I even was.
[00:49:28]  And that's actually cool because that means then by study, by wisdom, application of yourself to the word of God, courage, that's the thing he most certainly had in spades above everything.
[00:49:38]  You can be right.
[00:49:39]  And then at your passing, men will vindicate you and say, And do you know who stood on this?
[00:49:44]  Who stood firm?
[00:49:46]  He did.
[00:49:47]  For 15 years, he stood against the tie.
[00:49:48]  For 10 years, he taught against this.
[00:49:50]  That actually is possible.
[00:49:52]  And when we fail, you repent and acknowledge it to the glory of God.
[00:49:56]  But actually, the ideal is standing for it and not having made the mistakes publicly, but by study and application, being right.
[00:50:04]  Yep.
[00:50:05]  One more thing we'd be remiss if we did not include in terms of the life.
[00:50:09]  And the legacy of Vodi Bakum, right?
[00:50:11]  He's a Christian, husband, father, pastor, seminary, professor, all these different things.
[00:50:17]  But also, I'm pretty sure Nathan wasn't he a world champion with jujitsu or Muay Thai or something?
[00:50:25]  He was an incredible jujitsu practitioner, yeah.
[00:50:27]  Jujitsu.
[00:50:29]  He won some major tournament.

=== Financial Planning and Legacy (04:45) ===

[00:50:31]  I remember that, like, or it was like way up there.
[00:50:35]  Yeah, so he also kicked people's butts.
[00:50:37]  God bless him.
[00:50:37]  All right, let's go to our first commercial break.
[00:50:39]  We'll come back and we're going to talk.
[00:50:42]  Some of this will be speculation, but we're going to give it our best.
[00:50:44]  We're not going to say it as though it's prophecy.
[00:50:46]  We're not prophets of the son of prophets, but just looking down the corridor and recognizing that so many heroes have either disqualified themselves or passed away and all very recently, and knowing that the Lord is sovereign over all of that, we're going to begin to try to predict a little bit what the Lord might be up to when we come back from this commercial break.
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=== The Fight for Inerrancy (15:18) ===

[00:55:17]  in as in Nancy, M as in Ministries. com.
[00:55:21]  All right, we're back.
[00:55:26]  So, you wanted to lead in.
[00:55:28]  We titled this episode, What is God Doing?
[00:55:30]  Yep.
[00:55:31]  We named Sproul already, Dr. James Dobson, John MacArthur.
[00:55:35]  God rest his soul.
[00:55:36]  Many, many decades of faithful ministry between those.
[00:55:39]  Vody Bockham, obviously.
[00:55:40]  There's other men that have taken themselves off the table, they've been disqualified.
[00:55:43]  There's a picture from G3.
[00:55:45]  It has Vody, Josh Beiss, Steve Lawson, John MacArthur, and Paul Washer.
[00:55:50]  Two of those are with the Lord, two of them have been disqualified, and the only one left being Paul Washer.
[00:55:55]  And who knows how long he'll be with us.
[00:55:57]  And Paul Washer has had health issues too.
[00:55:59]  He has.
[00:56:00]  He had serious heart surgery.
[00:56:02]  It was a couple of years ago.
[00:56:03]  That's right.
[00:56:03]  But the point is, and you said it earlier, all of us that kind of came up as reformed, not all of our listeners will be reformed, but there was a big movement.
[00:56:11]  Time magazine called the Reformed Resurgence in the 2010s.
[00:56:14]  They called it one of the biggest movements sweeping the nation.
[00:56:17]  It started with really, honestly, Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill, but grew out.
[00:56:20]  And a lot of people today, if they're Protestant, and especially if they're historic Protestant, that's how they first got into Reformed theology, was the Reformed Resurgence.
[00:56:28]  And these were the men.
[00:56:29]  There were so many men, even in our church, they said, Vodi taught me biblical, being a biblical husband and about marriage and about patriarchy and about all of that.
[00:56:37]  Yeah, a lot of men, just yesterday on our men's chat from the male members in our church, a lot of them were grieving or really sad.
[00:56:43]  We did a psalm sing last night at Nathan's house, and we had probably about 40 people from the church there.
[00:56:50]  And before we started doing the psalm sing and learning our four parts and all those kinds of things with our worship director, I took a moment just to honor Vodi Bakum and we prayed for the Bakum family.
[00:57:02]  And a lot of people were, you know, little teary eyed and sad.
[00:57:07]  So, like, even for us at a local level, many, many people in our local church and within the reform movement at large have been massively impacted by voting.
[00:57:18]  So many young men, especially John MacArthur, who just passed away.
[00:57:21]  I mean, that's how they became a Christian.
[00:57:22]  Those were the sermons they cut their teeth on.
[00:57:24]  Right.
[00:57:25]  Oh, it's John MacArthur.
[00:57:26]  John MacArthur's books, his sermons, his teaching, all of that.
[00:57:29]  So, in many ways, the Lord is wiping the slate.
[00:57:31]  You're getting some ideas as to why.
[00:57:34]  I think one of them where that would be is there's a new generation and a new fight coming.
[00:57:40]  That we've had victories and we've had progress.
[00:57:43]  And I think of the children of Israel.
[00:57:46]  But those were for that generation and for those leaders and for those men.
[00:57:50]  Then God says, here's the young men, the Joshuas and the Calebs in your midst.
[00:57:54]  And they're the ones that are going to go on and they're going to face the giants for the next generation.
[00:57:58]  Right.
[00:57:58]  Right.
[00:57:59]  What do you think about that?
[00:58:01]  No, I agree.
[00:58:01]  I think God seems to be clearing the board, right?
[00:58:05]  He's clearing the board of all the giants, of all the positive sense of giants in the faith, clearing the board of all the last generation, the previous battles.
[00:58:18]  Generals.
[00:58:19]  That seems to be just undeniable.
[00:58:22]  And, you know, so there's really only two ways you can process that.
[00:58:25]  You can either say this is terrible, like it is sad, it's tragic, but you can say it's terrible, you know, God has somehow lost control and Satan has taken the reins and, you know, and it's so over.
[00:58:41]  Or you can say, no, God's sovereign, He's always sovereign.
[00:58:44]  Everything He does is for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.
[00:58:48]  And for whatever reason, within the perfectly wise, omniscient mind of God, He has determined that the last generation's leaders are not needed for the next generation's battles.
[00:59:03]  And I don't think there's any way to square it other than that.
[00:59:06]  And that doesn't mean that I'm not saying any of that to disparage anyone.
[00:59:12]  But I think that God has seen fit that we need a new batch.
[00:59:18]  Of leaders and a new batch of warriors and a new generation of Christians to fight new fights.
[00:59:25]  And the reality is that the fights that we're not now facing, they are new.
[00:59:31]  It's not the same.
[00:59:31]  Like you think of like Sproul and MacArthur, a lot of what they were fighting back in the day in the trenches together, you know, Presbyterian and Baptist fighting, you know, arms linked, hand in hand, they were fighting the inerrancy wars, you know, of the 1980s, you know, and 90s, fighting for, you know, the inerrancy of scripture, infallibility of scripture.
[00:59:51]  A lot of the seminaries were.
[00:59:53]  We were becoming more liberal and progressive and abandoning the narrancy.
[00:59:57]  And Karl Barth was beginning to be praised in all the seminary halls and these kinds of things.
[01:00:02]  And I remember, even in SBC seminaries, which are supposed to be conservative, there was a time where in those seminaries you had professors throwing the Bible in the trash on the first day of seminary in front of their students and saying that the resurrection was a metaphor and that Christ wasn't bodily raised from the dead.
[01:00:25]  And that he was the bastard son of a whore, and that the virgin birth was not literal, and that the Bible was not inerrant.
[01:00:32]  You had that in Southern Baptist seminaries.
[01:00:35]  And so there was a time where it's like, these were the fights.
[01:00:40]  And then another big fight was against atheism.
[01:00:43]  Yeah.
[01:00:43]  Like, by God's grace, I mean, we have to take the wins where we have them and celebrate the goodness of God.
[01:00:49]  There are still atheists today, but here's the deal there's less.
[01:00:52]  There are not, like, atheism is not cool.
[01:00:57]  Like it was in the 90s.
[01:00:58]  In the 90s, the new atheists, and back in the day, Christopher Hitchens and these kinds of, you had smart atheists.
[01:01:05]  They were smart, right?
[01:01:07]  And so you had to have Titan Christian apologists who were able to deal with their arguments, and some would do it from a presuppositional element, some evidential, some the classical methods, probing of the classical apologist framework.
[01:01:23]  And they had to put in hours and study and then just racking up debate after debate after debate.
[01:01:29]  And it was a battle.
[01:01:30]  It was a legitimate battle for the Christian, a battle for inerrancy of scripture, a battle for the existence of God, a battle against atheism.
[01:01:39]  And now, today, like there's like seven atheists and they're all retarded.
[01:01:42]  You know what I mean?
[01:01:43]  Like, seriously, people have seen real evil.
[01:01:45]  Dude, people don't even consider atheism anymore.
[01:01:47]  God and Satan exist.
[01:01:48]  Yeah, they don't even consider atheism anymore.
[01:01:51]  If somebody still despises Christianity, like when I was growing up as an older millennial, I'm almost 40 now.
[01:01:58]  When I was growing up, if you didn't like Christianity, you were just an atheist.
[01:02:02]  Now, if you don't like Christianity, you pick another religion.
[01:02:07]  And if you're white, You know, and you're like, well, I can't do the Muslim thing, um, or I can't do the Hindu thing, or whatever.
[01:02:13]  Um, then you're literally you pick paganism.
[01:02:17]  I never thought I would see that.
[01:02:18]  There is legitimately a resurgence of Thor worshipers, there are more Thor worshipers in these United States than there are atheists.
[01:02:27]  And here's the deal, though, right?
[01:02:28]  Credit where credit is due, honor where honor is due.
[01:02:31]  It's because uh, these titans in the faith and the Christian faith of yesteryear, who most of them are now gone, they so wiped the floor with the atheist.
[01:02:42]  That now people are embarrassed to be an atheist.
[01:02:45]  Even James Lindsay, I think, now calls himself an agnostic.
[01:02:48]  And he was a part of the new atheist.
[01:02:49]  I mean, he devoted his early years to trying to destroy the Christian faith.
[01:02:54]  And then even he is perfectly okay with publicly being retarded.
[01:02:59]  And even for him, he's like, I don't even want to admit that I'm an atheist because this is such a stupid position.
[01:03:04]  It is so stupid.
[01:03:06]  And it is because of men like Sproul and men like MacArthur and these giants in the Christian faith.
[01:03:11]  They made atheism.
[01:03:13]  Embarrassing.
[01:03:15]  They made it embarrassing to be an atheist.
[01:03:17]  So, my whole point is to say you've got all these generals in the last war being cleaned off the field in the providence and sovereignty of God.
[01:03:28]  And I'm not saying anything to disparage anyone.
[01:03:31]  The last war was a real war.
[01:03:34]  And those last generals fought valiantly and, in large part, in many ways, with those particular battles, not every battle, that's why we have some battles today, but with those particular battles that were significant, that did matter, those generals, they fought valiantly.
[01:03:48]  And I would argue in large part, they won.
[01:03:50]  They actually won.
[01:03:52]  Praise God for R.C. Sproul.
[01:03:53]  Praise God for John MacArthur.
[01:03:55]  Praise God for Vodie Bockham.
[01:03:57]  Praise God for these men.
[01:03:59]  They fought, they won.
[01:04:00]  But those are not the battles we're facing right now.
[01:04:02]  The battles we're facing right now, I would argue that they're far more political than they are theological.
[01:04:10]  Like here's another big theological one it was inerrancy of scripture, it was atheism.
[01:04:14]  Another one was open theism.
[01:04:15]  You remember when that was a thing?
[01:04:17]  Early 2000s, kind of, right?
[01:04:19]  Again, retarded, but yes, early 2000s.
[01:04:20]  I remember.
[01:04:22]  Oh, even within the vineyard movement, there was like they had this conference, this annual conference, or maybe it was once a year or once every two years.
[01:04:31]  And it was like it was smaller from the main vineyard conference.
[01:04:34]  And it was like vineyard theologians or something like that.
[01:04:37]  And the main thing that everyone was talking about, not just in the sessions, but at lunchtime and all during the breaks, that they were all the buzz was open theism.
[01:04:46]  Oh, so and so is an open theist.
[01:04:48]  So, like, tell me about open theism.
[01:04:50]  And it's like open theism is a heresy.
[01:04:54]  Yeah.
[01:04:55]  And it was being entertained as though it was not only plausible, but as though it was respectable, as though it was credible.
[01:05:02]  That was, I was an adult.
[01:05:05]  I was young, but a young adult at a time.
[01:05:07]  It wasn't that long ago.
[01:05:08]  This is 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
[01:05:11]  And so there were all these battles.
[01:05:12]  The church growth movement largely didn't last either.
[01:05:15]  And a lot of churches were not.
[01:05:17]  The emergent church.
[01:05:18]  They'll still be attractional, but they're not to the degree that that early 2000s church growth, emerging church movement was because.
[01:05:25]  The reformer surgeon said, no, no, no, at the core level, like church has to be different than the world.
[01:05:30]  That's right.
[01:05:31]  Yep.
[01:05:31]  So you had your Rob Belts.
[01:05:33]  Yep.
[01:05:34]  Like those were big battles.
[01:05:35]  A ton of people were following those guys to hell and embracing heresies.
[01:05:41]  Moving forward, though, I don't think those are the primary.
[01:05:46]  It's not to say doctrine doesn't matter.
[01:05:47]  Doctrine always matters, always.
[01:05:50]  But a lot of those fights we're not fighting, at least not to the same degree now as these previous leaders were fighting then, because they fought well and because they actually racked up some W's.
[01:06:02]  They actually won.
[01:06:03]  And so a lot of what we're fighting now is we're not fighting against open theism.
[01:06:08]  Like we were 10, 15 years ago.
[01:06:10]  We're not fighting against people denying the inerrancy of scripture like we were 20, 30 years ago.
[01:06:15]  We're not fighting against the emergent church movement and all these different heresies because a lot of those fights were fought and fought well.
[01:06:26]  And a lot of what we're fighting now, I think, is more political.
[01:06:29]  And I think some of these guys who fought those battles well, God has seen fit to retire and to bring home.
[01:06:36]  And it's not to disparage them.
[01:06:38]  They fought well.
[01:06:39]  It's their time.
[01:06:40]  God numbers the hairs on our head.
[01:06:42]  He numbers our days.
[01:06:43]  He brought them home.
[01:06:44]  But I do think that we are going to require a new batch of leaders for some of these new battles.
[01:06:50]  I think there's something to be said, too, for a whole generation, and we'll take them as the exception to the rule.
[01:06:55]  But this generation is very much so marked by unbelief.
[01:06:58]  I think of the elephant room.
[01:06:59]  Who are the leaders, the young leaders, who are going to kind of inherit the future?
[01:07:04]  David Platt, James McDonald, TD Jakes, Matt Chandler, tons of names.
[01:07:10]  Joshua Harris.
[01:07:11]  Who apostatized, he didn't just disqualify himself.
[01:07:14]  James McDonald is.
[01:07:15]  And abandoned his wife.
[01:07:16]  Abandoned the faith, abandoned his wife.
[01:07:18]  So if you take this generation as a whole, some exceptions, the great men, the MacArthurs, the Bachams, the others, but those, they're the minority report to, in many ways, 20 years of a lot of unbelief, of a lot of sin.
[01:07:31]  And so there's something to be said, too.
[01:07:32]  You won the battles that you were there to fight, you helped foster and disciple those that are going to fight the next battles.
[01:07:38]  But all in all, this generation, I'm going to wrap it up.
[01:07:41]  I'm going to shut down the ministries of the David Platts, the Matt Chandler's of the world.
[01:07:46]  We're not going to see them go far.
[01:07:47]  And again, for you, the faithful, God bless you.
[01:07:50]  Thank you for your work.
[01:07:51]  I helped you to win these battles.
[01:07:52]  But also, there's a different fight ahead.
[01:07:55]  And that's just a fight that I'm not going to bring you to.
[01:07:57]  Yeah, it's like Moses, right?
[01:07:59]  Like Joshua didn't just get to go into the promised land to have a picnic.
[01:08:04]  He was going to cross the Jordan River, go into the promised land to embark on war, conquest.
[01:08:10]  It's a conquest of Canaan.
[01:08:12]  So it's not like Moses did all the work and then he fought all the battles and then Joshua, the battles are done.
[01:08:17]  No, it's a new set of battles for a new generation of the people of God with new leaders, Joshua and Caleb.
[01:08:25]  And God saw fit that Moses would be done.
[01:08:28]  And if anything, harder battles were ahead.
[01:08:30]  More difficult.
[01:08:31]  Yep.
[01:08:32]  40 years with the Israelites in the wilderness was pretty rough.
[01:08:34]  Got to give Moses credit there.
[01:08:35]  But to be fair, that was also a brutal battle.
[01:08:38]  I mean, Moses literally had to spend 40 years with the most unbelieving, stiff necked, rebellious, complaining, and grumbling people on the planet.
[01:08:46]  So quite a battle.
[01:08:47]  Yeah.
[01:08:48]  It's like, that sounds anti Semitic.
[01:08:50]  That's literally scripture.
[01:08:52]  I mean, God literally, like, he's like, this is, these are such stiff necked people.
[01:08:57]  I mean, at one point, he's like, I'm just going to kill him.
[01:08:59]  Moses, let's just start over.
[01:09:00]  Me and you, you know, you're my boy.
[01:09:02]  Like, and Moses is like having to remind God of his covenant, you know, like, God, don't do it, you know, because then the Egyptians and all these different peoples will say, you just brought us out into the wilderness to kill us, you know.
[01:09:13]  And so for your name's sake, not for their sake, because I know there's literally no appeal on the basis of the character of Israel whatsoever.
[01:09:22]  Like, Moses was smart.
[01:09:24]  He was like, all right, there's the Jewish people.
[01:09:28]  And they're about to be wiped out by God Himself.
[01:09:31]  And I got to try to argue with God not to do it.
[01:09:34]  And I will appeal to the character of the Jewish people, not at all, because God will literally kill them if I remind him any more of their character.
[01:09:41]  But I'll appeal to God's character as being slow to anger, being merciful, being compassionate, and maybe he'll let them live.
[01:09:47]  And he did.
[01:09:48]  So, yeah, so Moses had some battles.
[01:09:50]  He had to put up with Israel.
[01:09:51]  My goodness.
[01:09:53]  I feel like we have to put up with Israel a little bit too, you know, and my goodness.
[01:09:56]  I think I can speak for the entire world, the entire UN that just walked out of a Netanyahu speech.
[01:10:00]  Like, Moses, we get it.
[01:10:02]  We know putting up with Israel, that's pretty tough.
[01:10:06]  But the point is, yes, that was a tough battle, but you're right.
[01:10:09]  Joshua didn't just have to put up with grumblers and complainers.
[01:10:12]  He had to deal with man eating giants, getting a little weird here, but I actually think that's a good example.
[01:10:17]  Laying siege to cities.
[01:10:18]  Laying siege to cities that were trying to absolutely destroy, actually kill in warfare the Israelites.
[01:10:26]  And so Joshua had to, Moses had to wander, lead the people in wandering.
[01:10:30]  Joshua had to fight.
[01:10:33]  And I think we have some huge fights right now.

=== Fighting Unbelief Like Joshua (05:59) ===

[01:10:35]  That honestly might be a good analogy 1980 to 2020.
[01:10:38]  Kind of a.
[01:10:39]  In between.
[01:10:40]  Wandering.
[01:10:41]  Holding up the truth.
[01:10:42]  Because of unbelief.
[01:10:43]  Yeah.
[01:10:44]  Right?
[01:10:45]  That's why the Israelites didn't get to get there sooner.
[01:10:47]  Right?
[01:10:48]  So it's like the Israelites, it's like you could have actually kicked out all of the pagans and all of the foreign peoples who worship foreign gods sooner.
[01:10:58]  But you had to embark on that part of the work 40 years later than you otherwise would have because of your unbelief.
[01:11:07]  And I feel that's a great point, Wes.
[01:11:09]  Like, I feel like 19.
[01:11:11]  80 to 2020, we actually could have maybe been fighting some of the church, actually speaking to some of these issues of like, hey, maybe we don't do mass immigration.
[01:11:20]  Maybe we don't, in fact.
[01:11:21]  We've had Hartzeller for 15 years.
[01:11:23]  It's not going great.
[01:11:24]  Civil Rights Act, not going great.
[01:11:26]  Maybe we don't do an MLK 50 conference honoring a guy who was a serial adulterer and a heretic.
[01:11:33]  Maybe we don't do that.
[01:11:35]  But because it was this season of unbelief, like, what did I say?
[01:11:38]  Like, man, we're cooking right now.
[01:11:40]  What did I say?
[01:11:41]  What was one of the premier things that the few had to fight against the many?
[01:11:45]  Atheism.
[01:11:45]  I mean, what embodies unbelief more than the disbelief in there even being a God, the mere existence of God?
[01:11:53]  So you're fighting against unbelief for 40 years.
[01:11:57]  And so, because you're fighting at a theological faith level, because the people, Christians themselves, are giving in left and right to unbelief and apostatizing, like Joshua Harris and all the rest, because you can't get faith right, you don't get to get politics and the country right.
[01:12:13]  And so then all these battles get pushed off.
[01:12:15]  But those faithful men, your Sprouls, your MacArthurs, your Bachams, those faithful men, they were the minority report.
[01:12:22]  They were the remnant.
[01:12:23]  They fought.
[01:12:24]  They fought.
[01:12:25]  And by God's grace through them, not that the whole country returned to faith in Jesus, but many did.
[01:12:33]  And they equipped guys like me and you.
[01:12:37]  We were reading Voday Bacham.
[01:12:38]  We were reading John MacArthur.
[01:12:39]  We were reading R.C. Sproul.
[01:12:40]  And then they turned us on to even better guys, the dead guys.
[01:12:44]  So then we're reading Voss.
[01:12:45]  And then we're reading this and we're reading that and learning.
[01:12:48]  And so now we're talking, like we care very much and talk on this show very much about political issues.
[01:12:54]  But we're not talking about political issues as Christless conservatives.
[01:12:58]  We didn't just come on the scene where the only thing that we've ever lived and eaten and breathed was politics.
[01:13:06]  No, you and I both had a 10, 20 year season of Reformed theology.
[01:13:12]  Yep.
[01:13:13]  Reading, writing, highlighting.
[01:13:15]  Putting like John Piper studies in your veins on Thursday.
[01:13:17]  John MacArthur's in your veins, Sproul's in your veins.
[01:13:19]  You're listening to the Bonson debates and all that.
[01:13:23]  And I praise God for that because I would be a liability if I did not have that foundation.
[01:13:28]  So it was 40 years in the wilderness, and most of the people are unbelieving.
[01:13:33]  But a few of the people are a remnant, and then the next generation, your Joshua's and Caleb's, are listening to the remnant and not to the masses.
[01:13:40]  And they get the foundation, the faith foundation, the theological foundation in their bones.
[01:13:45]  And then when it comes their time to lead, they're ready for the political fight, right?
[01:13:49]  Because the theological formation is already there.
[01:13:51]  And I think that's what's happening.
[01:13:53]  And the fight galvanizes people.
[01:13:55]  Like, honestly, like Israel was complaining a lot less when they're toppling down walls, they're laying siege, they're going to war.
[01:14:02]  They still had sin in the camp to deal with.
[01:14:04]  You think about Achan, but practically, the battle was the time now for everybody to show up.
[01:14:09]  But you had to get to that stage.
[01:14:10]  You had to go through the wilderness.
[01:14:11]  You had to learn the lessons there.
[01:14:13]  So once you arrived at the fight, everyone said, This is what we're here for.
[01:14:17]  We need to run them down.
[01:14:19]  That's a big thing God's emphasizing.
[01:14:20]  I'm going to bring you into the land.
[01:14:21]  It has a lot of promises.
[01:14:23]  Be careful, though, because you will be tempted to pity, to not run them down, to just go back.
[01:14:28]  You need to understand what's at stake here.
[01:14:31]  And isn't that exactly where we're at right now?
[01:14:33]  You say run them down.
[01:14:34]  Like I remember that was the phrase, because I taught through Joshua.
[01:14:37]  Not that long ago.
[01:14:39]  We spent like, it was a while.
[01:14:41]  We spent probably the better part of a year.
[01:14:45]  I think it was like seven, eight months in the book of Joshua.
[01:14:48]  And I kept using that phrase, run them down.
[01:14:51]  What you see again and again throughout the book of Joshua is that God would grant courage, right?
[01:14:57]  That's the first thing that when he calls Joshua, be strong and courageous.
[01:15:03]  Three times it says, be strong and courageous.
[01:15:05]  Only, I will do this for you and that for you.
[01:15:08]  The only condition is, Only that you be strong and courageous.
[01:15:12]  But then when he calls Joshua to lead the armies of Israel, the armies of the living God, into battle against formidable opponents, and I believe some of them literally like biologically giants.
[01:15:24]  And when he leads them to fight against people that could have been twice their size in a literal sense, they would get victory.
[01:15:35]  But then one of the emphases that reoccurs throughout the book of Joshua is okay, you got victory, but that's not enough.
[01:15:43]  You need to, they're on the retreat.
[01:15:45]  All right, we won.
[01:15:46]  Nope, run them down.
[01:15:48]  Finish the victory.
[01:15:50]  Don't like the whole emphasis of, and they don't always do it perfectly because, again, it's Israel that we're talking about.
[01:15:57]  But one of the big things, reoccurring themes, is you're not just going and conquering Canaan.
[01:16:05]  You're actually called to drive them all out, all of them.
[01:16:10]  So it's not just we're going to conquer Jericho.
[01:16:14]  And they'll still be natural, you know, Jericho citizens living and will allow them to keep their city and keep their walls and keep their resources.
[01:16:21]  But you're under, you know, Israel's jurisdiction now.
[01:16:24]  No, no, you have to actually destroy all of them.
[01:16:28]  So there were some cases where some Canaanites drive them out of Canaan, other cases where it was eradicate them.

=== Removing Old Heroes (15:46) ===

[01:16:35]  And that was the call of God at that time.
[01:16:38]  And I look at where we're at now and it's like, that's precisely what we need.
[01:16:40]  We have like in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination and all these things going on.
[01:16:46]  We have more momentum on the right than I think there's ever been.
[01:16:50]  More political momentum on the right to save our country and to crush the left than I've ever witnessed in my lifetime.
[01:16:57]  And the Trump administration's response, Wes, what is it?
[01:17:01]  Are we running them down?
[01:17:02]  We have 400,000 coins with his name on them.
[01:17:06]  Excellent news.
[01:17:07]  We've won commemorative coins.
[01:17:09]  Great news.
[01:17:10]  We're making a new coin.
[01:17:11]  Yeah.
[01:17:12]  Oh, and anti Semitism loss.
[01:17:14]  And it's like, don't worry.
[01:17:16]  Could we make sure that the left? Stops killing Christians, best I can do is anti Semitism.
[01:17:21]  Earlier today, ICE protesters surrounded an ICE facility in Chicago.
[01:17:25]  They're shoving vehicles, tossing rocks at officers.
[01:17:29]  Like, we're in the middle of war.
[01:17:30]  You have a leftist terror network with different avenues of funding, different visible organizations.
[01:17:35]  It's like, could we please get that dismantled, assets frozen?
[01:17:39]  Champ, we saved TikTok by selling it to Israel.
[01:17:43]  This is what you voted for, right?
[01:17:44]  Isn't that crazy?
[01:17:45]  Think about that.
[01:17:46]  We got TikTok out of the hands of China and into the hands of Israel.
[01:17:52]  Here's when you know it's bad.
[01:17:53]  We know you thought it was impossible.
[01:17:55]  We did it for you.
[01:17:57]  You know it's bad when.
[01:17:59]  I'm tempted right now to get my phone out and tweet, Rare Bill Gates W.
[01:18:06]  Oh, yeah.
[01:18:06]  I don't think there's ever been a time in living memory where Bill Gates has done something positive.
[01:18:11]  And even Microsoft, Bill Gates' company, they just came out, I believe it was yesterday that it was at least announced and said, Yeah, so we discovered that Microsoft surveillance technology and things was being used by Israel with a mass surveillance policy.
[01:18:29]  They had partnerships with the IDF and they were using the data.
[01:18:32]  To surveil civilians.
[01:18:34]  Civilians.
[01:18:34]  So they ended their partnership.
[01:18:35]  And so Microsoft ended their part.
[01:18:37]  So, but here's my point.
[01:18:38]  When Microsoft, Bill Gates, is ending his relationship with Israel, but all of our politicians are overdoing a photo op in Israel.
[01:18:48]  Right.
[01:18:48]  And Trump is, we got to get TikTok away from China, but let's give it to Israel.
[01:18:54]  And there's more momentum on the right in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination for political action than ever before.
[01:19:01]  And we're not running them down.
[01:19:03]  That's the point.
[01:19:03]  We're not doing what Joshua did.
[01:19:05]  We're not doing like.
[01:19:07]  But I feel like that seems to be this current moment that we're in Moses is being removed.
[01:19:18]  And that doesn't mean Moses is removed.
[01:19:20]  Like, yes, Moses messed up.
[01:19:21]  We know the story.
[01:19:23]  And that's part of why he didn't get to enter into the land of Canaan.
[01:19:27]  But the headline is Moses was faithful, right?
[01:19:31]  Moses was faithful, but his time was done.
[01:19:34]  And so Moses is being removed.
[01:19:35]  And we're not saying that to say all these old leaders, there must have been something.
[01:19:38]  I bet you, you know, Vodi Bakham had some kind of secret sin.
[01:19:41]  And that's not saying that at all.
[01:19:43]  If anybody says that, shame on you.
[01:19:45]  Don't say that.
[01:19:47]  What we are saying is, like Moses, a lot of these men, John MacArthur's and R.C. Sproul's and Vodi Bakham's, were faithful men.
[01:19:55]  But every man, eventually, his leg of the race, he passes the baton, he's done.
[01:20:00]  And it feels like the next phase that we're going into is a Joshua phase, moving from unbelief to war.
[01:20:09]  From fighting our own personal unbelief to fighting actual enemies of God, nations that are conspired against the people of God.
[01:20:20]  It seems like that's where we're going with it.
[01:20:21]  And there'll be, it's a new generation, a new battle, and there'll be new leaders that the Lord appoints.
[01:20:27]  But the spirit of Joshua and Israel at that time that we need is a run them down spirit, not just a little victory.
[01:20:37]  You know, Antifa is now labeled a terrorist organization.
[01:20:39]  We did it.
[01:20:40]  Great.
[01:20:41]  And so what's come about, like, Have is anyone in jail?
[01:20:45]  Have you has has have there been any punishments for those who want to kill Christians and kill children?
[01:20:51]  Like, has anything happened?
[01:20:53]  No, no, but uh, we made a new coin.
[01:20:55]  Uh, we we're working on some anti Semitism laws.
[01:20:58]  We made sure that Israel can now be trusted with TikTok instead of China.
[01:21:03]  And um, yeah, I think we did it.
[01:21:06]  Yeah, so that like, and you know, I think that like we're talking about spiritual leaders within the reform movement, like like you know, Sproul and these guys.
[01:21:15]  But I think we need it politically too.
[01:21:17]  I'm just going to say it right now.
[01:21:19]  I'm not trusting the plan.
[01:21:21]  I'm out.
[01:21:22]  I'm not trusting the plan.
[01:21:23]  I hope Trump does some good.
[01:21:25]  I hope to have egg on my face.
[01:21:27]  And if he does some good, I'll praise him for it.
[01:21:28]  Chimp, praise, champ, praise.
[01:21:30]  We know the routine, rinse and repeat.
[01:21:33]  But I'm going to say, go on public record right now and say, I'm not holding my breath.
[01:21:38]  I am not trusting the plan.
[01:21:40]  And just like Moses, just like Sproul, just on the theological side, on the political side, we need the next guy.
[01:21:48]  Yep.
[01:21:48]  We need the next guy because Trump, at the end of the day, he's done some good and I praise God for it.
[01:21:54]  But at the end of the day, The facts are, he is a 1990s liberal Democrat.
[01:22:00]  That's all he ever was.
[01:22:01]  That's all he's ever going to be.
[01:22:04]  And things were just so bad in America that by comparison, that was way better.
[01:22:11]  Way better.
[01:22:12]  1990s liberal Democrat is basically a fascist compared to how progressive things are.
[01:22:17]  It's better than the black Indian woman that was running against him.
[01:22:20]  Right.
[01:22:20]  So, yeah, exactly.
[01:22:21]  So praise God.
[01:22:23]  But we just have to remember at the end of the day that Trump's not going to do it.
[01:22:28]  So it's time to cross the Jordan.
[01:22:30]  Right, it's time to cross the Rubicon, uh, cross the Jordan.
[01:22:34]  We need Joshua, not Moses, um, not just a wanderer who leads the people into the land, uh, into the promise, but someone who now is at the banks of the land, sees that it's inhabited by foreigners who worship foreign gods and who hate the people of God, and who's ready to fight and run them down.
[01:22:53]  That's where we're at.
[01:22:54]  I think we're there politically, we got to get some leaders out, new batch in, we're there, um, theologically within the church.
[01:23:01]  God has removed certain leaders who were faithful for a time and what God gave to them, but we need new leaders to rise up.
[01:23:07]  That's where we're at as the church, as a country.
[01:23:10]  And that's, I don't know, that's my assessment of when I try to think, God, what are you up to?
[01:23:15]  Why so many heroes?
[01:23:17]  And they really are heroes and they must be honored.
[01:23:19]  But why so many heroes being taken from us in a very short span of time, all at once, seemingly?
[01:23:27]  All right, let's do some super chats.
[01:23:28]  That'll preach.
[01:23:29]  And we can call it.
[01:23:30]  All right, Nick Bonner, great supporter.
[01:23:33]  Thanks so much, Nick.
[01:23:33]  Nick gave $20.
[01:23:35]  He said this, their theology may be horrendous, but I must admit that black churches school us in the music department.
[01:23:41]  That's a controversial take.
[01:23:43]  I disagree.
[01:23:43]  I have a response, but go ahead.
[01:23:45]  I was just going to say different peoples worship differently, even perfectly theologically perfect churches.
[01:23:50]  Germans, they're going to have the hands at their side and they're going to be the frozen chosen.
[01:23:55]  Ethiopia, even a church with great theology, all of that, they're going to be more exuberant.
[01:23:58]  So is their music more lively, upbeat, exuberant?
[01:24:02]  Yes.
[01:24:03]  Yes.
[01:24:03]  Is that fitted to the African people?
[01:24:05]  Yes.
[01:24:06]  It's not my personal flavor.
[01:24:07]  Yeah, it's not my personal flavor.
[01:24:08]  And I'm going to go a little stronger than that.
[01:24:10]  I get what he's saying too.
[01:24:11]  Nick Bonner is great.
[01:24:12]  He's a great supporter, regular supporter of the channel.
[01:24:14]  Thank you, Nick.
[01:24:15]  Thanks for tuning in.
[01:24:17]  But I will say this.
[01:24:18]  So there is a sense of, you know, different strokes for different folks.
[01:24:22]  You know, there's something to be said for that.
[01:24:24]  At the same time, though, I think there's a little bit of license, a little bit of wiggle room when it comes to being all things to all men.
[01:24:34]  But when we're talking about the Lord's day, I'm a regular principle of worship kind of guy.
[01:24:39]  And so I do think that Lord's Day corporate worship is regulated quite strictly by the Word of God.
[01:24:47]  And so I would say that, yeah, the Black church has more lively music than we do.
[01:24:54]  But I also would say I don't know if they're keeping with the regular principle of worship.
[01:24:58]  You're telling me symbols hidden in the layers of your garments coming out for the chorus?
[01:25:02]  I think part of the reason that the Black church has more lively music is for the very same reason that they also have more atrocious theology.
[01:25:13]  I don't think those two things are severed from one another.
[01:25:16]  So their preaching is enthusiastic, but its substance is heretical.
[01:25:21]  Their worship is very musical and lively.
[01:25:26]  But also, I think that much of it, not all, but much of it is not befitting the context and the regular principle.
[01:25:34]  And to be fair, a lot of what you could call white worship music, so your hill songs and others, those are also have bad theology.
[01:25:40]  And it does kind of track that.
[01:25:42]  And also, not fitting the regular principle.
[01:25:44]  Right.
[01:25:44]  But they have bridges that swell and they use music and different elements to elicit emotional responses.
[01:25:50]  Whereas the words themselves, you actually look at this and, like, you didn't want heaven without us?
[01:25:54]  Hmm, yeah, I'm not actually seeing that one.
[01:25:57]  Right.
[01:25:57]  Yeah, good point.
[01:25:57]  No, white people can do it too.
[01:25:59]  All right.
[01:26:01]  Starch Manning, he's got two.
[01:26:02]  They're each $5.
[01:26:04]  So $10 from Starch Manning.
[01:26:05]  Thank you.
[01:26:06]  We appreciate that.
[01:26:07]  Very kind.
[01:26:08]  I'll read the question.
[01:26:09]  I'll let you take a stab at it first, Wes, and then I'll give my thoughts.
[01:26:12]  Why are white evangelicals unable to reckon with the white supremacy in our church history or hear the dog whistles in phrases like the great replacement?
[01:26:23]  And then he continues, he says, or the cruelty.
[01:26:27]  In arguing that race is a social construct when it's been very much a reality in the history of this country.
[01:26:35]  What do you think, Wes?
[01:26:36]  It's worded a little weirdly.
[01:26:37]  I'm not sure what that middle part, the dog whistle and great replacement, but it seems like what he's kind of saying is why do white evangelicals struggle with the idea of race?
[01:26:45]  Why do they struggle with it?
[01:26:46]  It was Europeans that colonized and brought Christianity to the world.
[01:26:48]  Yes.
[01:26:49]  And why are you constantly apologizing for that and struggling with white guilt?
[01:26:53]  Like race is a real thing.
[01:26:54]  It's not just a social construct, it's in DNA.
[01:26:56]  Right.
[01:26:56]  Because even the conservative guys, when they pushed back against BLM and like, You know, we was Kangs, you know, and all this kind of like black people are great.
[01:27:05]  And the only things that's ever been bad about them is because they're victims and have been oppressed and blah, And so when BLM and wokeness and all that stuff was going on, there were conservatives who pushed back.
[01:27:17]  They were a little cowardly and a little late, but eventually they pushed back.
[01:27:20]  But even the ones who pushed back, they pushed back to say, black people aren't that great, but neither are white people, you know, and you're doing identity politics, you know, by saying that.
[01:27:32]  You know, I'm black and these are my people, but no one should be doing it.
[01:27:37]  Like the way that it was pushed back against, instead of saying, because what should have been said, and I'll probably get clipped for this, but what should have been said is hey, cut it out.
[01:27:48]  You need to grow up.
[01:27:49]  Stop throwing a fit.
[01:27:50]  You're throwing a tantrum.
[01:27:51]  Stop being a little boy.
[01:27:53]  You're whining and crying about something that's ultimately your fault.
[01:27:57]  Yeah.
[01:27:57]  Stop blaming it on other people.
[01:27:59]  It's your fault.
[01:28:01]  If, because here's the deal it's like, whoa, slavery.
[01:28:05]  The richest.
[01:28:06]  Black people on God's green earth are African Americans.
[01:28:12]  If slavery never happened, then you would be in a grass hut.
[01:28:16]  Yeah.
[01:28:17]  Right?
[01:28:17]  Well, we need reparations.
[01:28:18]  Your reparations are that you get to live in America.
[01:28:21]  You're welcome.
[01:28:23]  You're welcome.
[01:28:23]  You get to have the Christian religion.
[01:28:25]  That's right.
[01:28:25]  You live better than your ancestors.
[01:28:26]  The greatest moment in history for any brown or black country is the moment that the white man's ships arrive on your shore because he brings the gospel of Jesus Christ, he catechizes you and your children.
[01:28:39]  He brings exports, he brings hospitals, medicine, life expansion increases, GDP and resources increase, medicine increases, and most importantly, you get taught the gospel of Jesus Christ so that you can live longer on earth and then go to heaven instead of hell.
[01:28:58]  That's historically what has happened.
[01:29:00]  That doesn't mean white people haven't sinned, that doesn't mean that they did it all right, that there weren't abusive slave masters, that they weren't like that's not to absolve white people of sin, but I'm saying on the big picture.
[01:29:09]  To say, well, black people are victims, black people are oppressed, and white people owe us something, and it's all your fault.
[01:29:15]  That's insane.
[01:29:16]  That's absolutely insane.
[01:29:18]  And here's the deal.
[01:29:19]  I think getting to the question from Starsh Manning is a lot of the pushback that eventually conservatives finally mustered enough courage to say is, well, hey, hey, hey, look, can we just agree to a truce?
[01:29:32]  And let's just, you know, we just won't talk about race at all.
[01:29:35]  Right.
[01:29:36]  You know, there were mistakes on both sides.
[01:29:37]  There were mistakes on both sides.
[01:29:39]  Mistakes on both sides.
[01:29:41]  No, no, no.
[01:29:45]  That's not actually the solution.
[01:29:47]  White people are sinners who need Jesus.
[01:29:49]  Within white European history, there has been sin that has required the blood of Jesus.
[01:29:55]  But on the whole, for a thousand years, European people have been worshiping Jesus as sinners, but sinners saved by grace.
[01:30:05]  And on the whole, non European people, much of the rest of the world, has been worshiping demons.
[01:30:11]  European people have been building cathedrals.
[01:30:14]  Non European people have been building grass huts.
[01:30:17]  And for those who are of non European descent, but live in the Western world, You are exceedingly blessed.
[01:30:25]  And the response shouldn't be let's push back against wokeness and just say, nobody talk about race.
[01:30:30]  No, the response should be stop whining, stop throwing a fit, get it together.
[01:30:37]  God has blessed you, and He blessed you in large part through white people.
[01:30:41]  So stop doing it.
[01:30:42]  And also, as for you and your house, do your part to change the FBI crime statistics and stop killing people.
[01:30:51]  That should have been the response.
[01:30:53]  But instead, we're just race is a social construct.
[01:30:55]  The real solution is to say that race doesn't exist at all.
[01:30:58]  And I do think that that has been a mistake.
[01:31:00]  And I do think, I'm just going to say this, I'm going to say it very carefully, very shortly, briefly, and we'll move on.
[01:31:05]  And I won't reiterate it.
[01:31:07]  I do think that is one of the reasons why some of the old heroes who really are heroes, who we really do honor, God has removed from the board and is bringing in new guys.
[01:31:18]  Because race is a social construct, and there's sin on both sides, is actually.
[01:31:26]  It's actually not the solution, right?
[01:31:28]  Race is real and ancestry is real.
[01:31:33]  Heritage matters.
[01:31:35]  Our future matters.
[01:31:37]  Natural affections matter.
[01:31:40]  And history of what actually happened matters.
[01:31:43]  All these things actually matter.
[01:31:44]  And there is a race problem in these United States of America.
[01:31:48]  There is.
[01:31:49]  And that doesn't mean that it can't be changed, but it first has to at least be acknowledged.
[01:31:53]  And we can't just have a colorblind solution.
[01:31:57]  No, God made the peoples of the earth.
[01:31:59]  He made us distinct.
[01:32:01]  We should acknowledge those distinctions, live according to those distinctions, and we can do so without having animosity, without having hatred, without having arrogance, without having cruelty, and hopefully on the other side of the equation, without having envy, without having jealousy, without having bitterness, without throwing a fit, without burning half the country down when somebody overdoses on fentanyl.

=== Confession and Private Sins (07:34) ===

[01:32:21]  That wouldn't happen.
[01:32:23]  You're like, I have it on good authority.
[01:32:25]  Right?
[01:32:25]  You assassinate a white Christian man.
[01:32:28]  And there's a 100,000 person church service.
[01:32:33]  With a million people watching.
[01:32:34]  With a million people watching.
[01:32:36]  A black man overdoses on fentanyl and they burn down half the country.
[01:32:43]  And kill 12 people.
[01:32:44]  A few of these things are different, right?
[01:32:45]  Do you notice a few distinctions, a few differences?
[01:32:48]  And so that has to be talked about.
[01:32:50]  And that's a difference politically, left and right.
[01:32:52]  That's also a difference racially.
[01:32:54]  It is.
[01:32:54]  And it has to be able to be said.
[01:32:56]  And I think some of our heroes were not able to say that.
[01:33:00]  Still, good men, worthy of being honored, and they fought the fight that was in front of them.
[01:33:05]  But there's another leg of the race.
[01:33:07]  Now it's time for Joshua to run them down.
[01:33:10]  We're not just content with that.
[01:33:11]  We're not just content with going back to the 90s.
[01:33:13]  No, we're going to go further.
[01:33:16]  So, yep.
[01:33:17]  Nope.
[01:33:17]  Good way of saying it.
[01:33:19]  So, the man behind the painting, this isn't a super chat, but it's a good question.
[01:33:23]  It sounds like this is someone who's just getting into Christianity.
[01:33:26]  So, he asks this.
[01:33:27]  He says, I'm just getting into Christianity.
[01:33:29]  Sorry if this question is stupid, but are all sin confessions supposed to be acknowledged publicly to be considered repentance, or is it between you and God?
[01:33:38]  We were talking earlier about, you know, hey, I was wrong here.
[01:33:42]  I was wrong here.
[01:33:43]  I'm going to acknowledge it in word and deed.
[01:33:44]  Just for a little bit of background, the two words, so confession and repentance, Confession is the idea of the same word, literally.
[01:33:50]  So, literally, to confess is to agree with God about the severity of your sin.
[01:33:54]  And then repentance is the process of turning from.
[01:33:57]  Changing.
[01:33:57]  So, you confess your sin.
[01:33:59]  You say to God, I sinned, and this was me.
[01:34:01]  It wasn't, well, I was in traffic and I was really stressed.
[01:34:03]  You know what I mean?
[01:34:04]  Not minimizing, not excusing, but acknowledging.
[01:34:07]  You turn to God and say, You've said this is sinful anger.
[01:34:10]  And this sinful anger reveals, for example, what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, wickedness and hatred in my heart.
[01:34:16]  And I am.
[01:34:18]  Hateful and angry.
[01:34:19]  But then it's not just enough to say, I'm guilty of it.
[01:34:22]  Then you go ahead and you turn from sin.
[01:34:24]  So, for example, if you stole from someone, you acknowledge to God, I stole, I robbed, and I'm going to repent, which is to turn the other direction.
[01:34:31]  So, I'm going to take this money.
[01:34:33]  I was going to go home and gamble.
[01:34:35]  I'm going to take this money and I'm going to give it back.
[01:34:37]  So, confession, repentance.
[01:34:40]  Confession is always to the Lord, confession is to the person that you've harmed.
[01:34:43]  I think you would agree the repentance and the confession, if they're privately, private sins, a sin against your spouse, a sin against a friend, That's the extent that it needs to go.
[01:34:52]  Right.
[01:34:52]  So, to answer the question, well said, Wes, to answer the question, I think the confession needs to be in the same context as the sin was committed.
[01:35:00]  You sinned against your wife, then you need to confess to your Lord and your wife.
[01:35:05]  Right.
[01:35:05]  So, it's always confession to the Lord.
[01:35:08]  Right.
[01:35:09]  But then also, in terms of your confession to men, right, the scripture says in the New Testament, I believe it's Ephesians, it says, confess your sins one to another that you might pray for one another, that you might be healed and restored.
[01:35:21]  And so we're confessing our sins one to another, but that doesn't mean every sin that I ever commit needs to be publicly broadcasted to the world.
[01:35:29]  You confess to every friend.
[01:35:31]  That's right.
[01:35:31]  You confess in the same context that you sinned.
[01:35:34]  Sin against your wife, confess your wife.
[01:35:36]  Sin against your kids, right?
[01:35:38]  You just lose your temper with your children that night, bedtime, during prayer time.
[01:35:45]  You need to, hey, guys, I love you so much.
[01:35:49]  And dad needs to say, I need to confess.
[01:35:53]  I sinned against you.
[01:35:54]  I sinned against God first and foremost, but I also sinned against you.
[01:35:58]  I raised my voice.
[01:35:59]  I lost my temper.
[01:36:01]  I got angry and was impatient.
[01:36:04]  You were misbehaving and being disobedient.
[01:36:06]  We've already talked about that.
[01:36:09]  But you sinned, but I sinned also.
[01:36:12]  You're commanded to obey me, to seek to obey me, honor your father and mother as you're seeking to obey the Lord.
[01:36:18]  But I, you're not the only one in this house who's called to obedience.
[01:36:22]  I am called to obedience.
[01:36:23]  I'm called to obey God and His word.
[01:36:25]  I didn't.
[01:36:26]  I sinned.
[01:36:26]  I messed up.
[01:36:29]  Please forgive me.
[01:36:30]  So, confession should be in the context you sin against your kids, confess to the Lord and your kids, your wife, to the Lord and your wife.
[01:36:37]  And if you mess up, you sin publicly as a pastor before your congregation, then you should confess to your congregation.
[01:36:44]  If it's something you say publicly on a podcast, then when the Lord brings conviction, you should confess on the next podcast.
[01:36:51]  Hey, I missed this one.
[01:36:52]  I'm sorry.
[01:36:53]  We've done that.
[01:36:53]  I got a church wrong and a date wrong.
[01:36:55]  And I came out in the next one and said, I was wrong.
[01:36:58]  It should have been this.
[01:36:59]  That's right.
[01:36:59]  Yeah, it's just correcting it.
[01:37:01]  It's acknowledging, it's owning.
[01:37:03]  And here's the beautiful thing the beautiful thing about the gospel is that confession is not for the purpose.
[01:37:10]  I mean, there are wicked people who don't believe the gospel.
[01:37:13]  They say they're Christians, but in function, they don't actually believe the gospel because they weaponize your confession and use it as leverage over you for the rest of your life.
[01:37:21]  God actually takes your confession and he casts your sin as far as the East is from the West and he forgives.
[01:37:27]  But sadly, there are many who even profess to be Christians who do not.
[01:37:31]  So you'll confess something and they'll actually take record of that, they'll clip it out, and they'll use it against you the rest of your life.
[01:37:38]  But here's the beauty of confession forget those guys, right?
[01:37:40]  Forget those anti Christ, right?
[01:37:42]  I mean, that's literally anti Christ.
[01:37:44]  Gospel, anti Christ, to take the past accounts of forgiven sin and hold it against the people of God.
[01:37:52]  That's literally the ministry of Satan, the accuser of the brethren.
[01:37:55]  I mean, it really is an anti Christ ministry.
[01:37:58]  So there will always be guys like that.
[01:38:00]  And sadly, many of them will call themselves Christians.
[01:38:03]  Some of them will be pastors.
[01:38:04]  There will always be guys like that.
[01:38:06]  But the beauty is that we're called to confess our sins one to another that we might pray for one another that we might be condemned, no, healed.
[01:38:15]  Or 1 John 1, verse 7, 8, and 9.
[01:38:17]  Walk in the light as he is in the light, and you will have fellowship with one another in the blood of Jesus Christ.
[01:38:23]  His Son cleanses us from all sin.
[01:38:26]  If we say we have no sin, if we don't confess, right, we deny that we've messed up.
[01:38:31]  If we say we have no sin, then the truth is not in us.
[01:38:34]  But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and not only forgive us, but to actually cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
[01:38:45]  That's the promise.
[01:38:46]  That's the beauty.
[01:38:47]  And so we confess our sin.
[01:38:49]  Our confession should be just as public or just as private as the committing of our sin.
[01:38:56]  And we do it because it's obedience to the Lord.
[01:38:58]  He demands it.
[01:38:59]  But also because our confession, when coupled with repentance confession, owning, acknowledging the sin, repentance, turning from the sin confession and repentance, when coupled together appropriately in the same context that we messed up, confessing and repenting in that same context when that's done right, not only is it obedience to what God commands, but it's also.
[01:39:19]  The secret sauce, the recipe for healing, for restoration, for change.
[01:39:28]  And so confession is good.
[01:39:30]  And there will always be people who will take your confessed sin and weaponize it against you.
[01:39:36]  But God takes your confessed sin and forgives you and cleanses you and restores you.
[01:39:42]  And the right people who are like you, who also love Jesus, you'll only garner more, not less, but more of their respect.
[01:39:51]  So, yep.
[01:39:52]  That's an episode, huh?
[01:39:53]  That's an episode.

=== Healing Through Biblical Confession (02:33) ===

[01:39:55]  All right.
[01:39:55]  We got two more super chats.
[01:39:56]  Let me read through them quick.
[01:39:57]  One of them just says is something we can tackle at some point.
[01:39:59]  Nick Boner again, he said $20.
[01:40:02]  I've never understood the regular lift principle.
[01:40:04]  It seems more like a staunch old reform tradition.
[01:40:07]  I did.
[01:40:07]  It's a staunch old reform tradition.
[01:40:08]  You're right on that.
[01:40:09]  That's how you know it's good.
[01:40:10]  Yeah.
[01:40:12]  Sometimes.
[01:40:13]  But appreciate you elaborating on its biblical backing sometime in the future.
[01:40:16]  Yeah.
[01:40:16]  That's a good note.
[01:40:17]  Maybe sometime we'll be able to touch on it.
[01:40:18]  And then Gabriel sent $5.
[01:40:20]  Thanks, Gabriel.
[01:40:20]  He said, thank you for the work you do.
[01:40:22]  A Gen Z man, many such cases.
[01:40:24]  God bless the Gen Z men, they love us, they're not gonna win without unbelief, to be honest.
[01:40:30]  Yeah, like they are the generation that says, There's some giants to kill, let's go get them.
[01:40:34]  They're the Joshuas, yeah, they're ready.
[01:40:36]  They're like, New atheist movement sounds like a bunch of gay retards.
[01:40:39]  No, we're gonna cringe, we're gonna go to war with the infidel.
[01:40:42]  Like Gen Z is uh incredibly based, about 40 of them are gay furries, but the other 60 is incredibly based, right?
[01:40:50]  And uh, and I'm bullish on Gen Z. All right, thanks for tuning in.
[01:40:53]  Uh, we love you guys, we appreciate you guys.
[01:40:55]  This is Friday.
[01:40:56]  Right now, we've got you on the live broadcast.
[01:40:58]  We've got you on the line.
[01:40:59]  I'm just going to throw it out there.
[01:41:01]  We need your help.
[01:41:02]  We've got big plans in the future.
[01:41:03]  And this ministry, yeah, we have a few advertisers, but not many.
[01:41:08]  And, you know, we do a conference, you know, once a year and things like that.
[01:41:11]  But for the most part, I've got a book that I wrote, you know, that's 100 pages long.
[01:41:15]  It's, I, you know, wrote it on the back of a napkin pretty much, you know, and sell it for 10 bucks online.
[01:41:20]  The thing that keeps the lights on, the thing to where I'm able to employ Wes and able to employ Nathan with our tech and to rent a studio and all these kinds of things and have good equipment so we can have good production so that we can get this kind of message and content out to as many people as possible.
[01:41:39]  The only way is that, like, I think it's about 70% of our revenue is your charitable giving.
[01:41:47]  So, this is a 501c3 nonprofit organization.
[01:41:50]  It's a Christian nonprofit organization.
[01:41:53]  All charitable gifts are tax deductible.
[01:41:56]  And the only way we continue to do what we do is from your generosity.
[01:42:00]  So, we thank you to those who have been generous.
[01:42:03]  And we humbly ask those of you who are considering that, that you would, in fact, prayerfully consider financially supporting this ministry.
[01:42:10]  If you feel inclined to do so, you can do that by going to writeresponseministries.com.
[01:42:15]  Dot com forward slash donate right response ministries dot com forward slash donate and give a tax deductible charitable gift today and from the bottom of our hearts if you choose to do so we thank you.

=== Supporting Our Ministry (00:24) ===

[01:42:29]  Thanks for tuning in.
[01:42:30]  We broadcast on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3 p.m. Central Time.
[01:42:34]  It's Friday now, so we will see you, Lord willing, on Monday and we broadcast simultaneously both on YouTube and on X. Follow us on X.
[01:42:42]  The handle is at right response M as in ministries at right response M and make sure to subscribe and click the bell on YouTube, and we'll see you, Lord willing, on Monday at 3 p.m. Central Time.
[01:42:54]  Thanks.