Confronting Evil: Olympics, Assassination, and more

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome in to think Deeper podcast. I'm Jack Wilke, joined by Will, Herb and Joe Wilkie. Yet again, we got a, we're going to really kind of get on to some of the hot topics of the day this week. And so really interested to get into this, I've been talking about this a lot on some of my other work, on my substack, on YouTube, on the Focus press channel. And the guys were like, hey, you're having all the fun. We want to talk about it too. And so some of the stuff with the Olympics and Elon Musk and just, I mean, it's been a really wild news cycle for christians lately. And so we're going to get in on here now, usually we've kind of told you about some product or something at the start of every episode. Might have noticed last week I'm starting to insert little 22nd ads a couple times in the episode. And so we're just going to spare you the ad up front and get right to it. Joe, you're leading this one, so why don't you jump us into it? [00:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah, Will and I were talking off air, uh, just about. It's been a little while since I think we've done a cultural engagement one and there's been so much in the culture, like, it's really difficult to ignore. Jack, you've done a fantastic job. Check out Jack's cultural breakdown if you have not. Uh, you've had some really good articles on this stuff, but the world is like, it's going crazy. So the first thing on everybody's mind, and at this point, by the time this drops next Monday, it's going to be old news, I suppose. But there's still going to be conversations circulating, I'm sure, and that is about the Olympics and the Lord's Supper or Dionysus as everybody wants to. I mean, come on, we're going to get into that a little bit. But, and the response to the blasphemy, it was just straight up blasphemy and the transgender and everything else, I mean, everybody got stuck on the Lord's supper. There were some horrific parts to the opening ceremonies, but that's not it, not be watching. Oh, yeah. And you had, I think I saw 26 million views on that, which think, thank God, literally that that was as little as 26 million, which that's still a lot. But you know what I mean, it was not one of the most watched of all time, I don't believe. And that is good. That is by the grace of God because of how horrific it was. But that's not the only thing that's been in the culture. Obviously, at the Trump assassination attempt, you have a certain presidential, presidential candidate going on a RuPaul's drag, drag show, drag race, whatever it is, with a bunch of drag queens and pushing campaign. Then you have Elon Musk, obviously the world's richest man, coming out and kind of decrying the transgender movement and taking his son from him. And I don't know. Yeah. So lots going on. [00:02:29] Speaker C: I don't know how y'all feel. Maybe this is recency bias, at least from the Trump assassination attempt to Biden dropping out to Olympic, stuff. Like, the last 30 days have been some of the most eventful cultural, political days, at least that I can remember. Any other than Covid, I suppose. But in a very long time. [00:02:47] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, probably since then. [00:02:49] Speaker C: Probably since COVID at least since COVID I would say. [00:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, with Biden dropping out and, you know, via tweet and, I mean, it's just like, you could just list 50 weird things that have gone on lately. [00:03:00] Speaker B: And so the whole point of this is, how are we as christians supposed to respond? That's really, as we were talking about it, like, guys, we got to engage. We got to do something on the cultural engagement side because this is, we actually had a different one planned on social media. We're going to come back around to that episode at some point, but it's just one of those, as you're looking around going, the world is in a really weird and strange and just dangerous and evil place right now with the things that are taking place. How are we as christians supposed to respond to evil? And I just preached twice, so this is going to be up on focus plus. Make sure to check out focus plus. And those sermons for our sermon cast will be going up on how we should engage. And we don't want to do a straight rip off of my sermons on how we engage evil. But one of the points that I made, and fellas, I'm going to let this kind of kick off the outline, let you guys take it from here. But one of the points that I made, we have to be willing to call evil evil and to call ourselves righteous. And I think a lot of christians kind of bristle at that. Like, whoa, we're all broken. We talk about brokenness, culture. We don't really want to say like that. It just seems like we're better than them and we don't want to come across as better than them. That's really not going to look good to the world, like. But in a way, we are acting in a better way. Yes, there's a more holy and a better way to do things and not parading transgender people right out in front of kids and mock, making a mockery of the Lord's supper. And, yeah, I know it's Da Vinci's Lord's supper and whatnot, but come on, they're making a mockery of Christianity on. On tv. I'm not doing those things. And as a matter of fact, I'm trying to raise my family unto the Lord. I think that's what David would call righteous. That's what Paul would. Why Paul would say, imitate me as I am of Christ. Like, we have to be willing to say that and call evil evil. And it seems that's where we're starting to lose a lot of christians, is we can't just come out and say, that's evil and that's not good. [00:04:37] Speaker C: I think there's a desire to, I would say a good natured desire to not be overly prideful, maybe to not come across as spiritually arrogant, so to speak. Obviously, the term Pharisee gets thrown around as a pejorative a lot. So a lot of people. I don't want to be a pharisee, that kind of thing. And so I would say that kind of thinking is at the base of a lot of this, of the. Mainly, I guess, the side of the refusal to call ourselves righteous. We want to tend to lean into blending ourselves with, you know, we all struggle, we all have, we all sin, you know, all these things that really try to blur the line between those who are righteous and those who are not? I mean, seriously, when is the last time you heard a Christian refer to themselves as righteous or refer to somebody as a man or a woman of God? Or these things that you see in the Bible descriptions, you know, Noah was perfect in his generations. You know, all these things that you see of people in the Bible, we don't call ourselves that. I think we shy away from that again, maybe as a result of a good natured desire to not be arrogant or spiritually prideful, haughty, or whatever it is. At the same time, Joe, what you're talking about, this ability that we have to have to call evil evil and call ourselves those who are trying to follow God, those who look to God's word as the ultimate standard for morality, to call ourselves righteous. The less and less that we do that, the less influence we're ever going to have over the world. And this is something that has obviously been at the heart of a lot of our think deeper episodes. It's been at the absolute heart of Jack's writings on his sub stack and all those things of the less different we are and the less we call ourselves righteous and point a finger at the world and say, no matter how you slice it, that is pure evil, that is wickedness that must be stopped. The less we do that, the less of a stark difference that the world is going to see. I guess we'll get to Elon Musk later, but that's why he's coming out and saying, yeah, you know, I'm a cultural Christian, but I don't really believe in Christianity as a religion from the sense of, like, they seem pretty, pretty spineless, like they're not going to stand for anything. They're just, you know, going to let. Let all this stuff happen. And so, yeah, those are my, I guess, my introductory thoughts. You know, no wonder why we're not seeing a lot of stark differences with this, because even among ourselves, we're not willing to call ourselves righteous and. And really declare things as evil. [00:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah, two thoughts on that. First, it is uncomfortable for ourselves, and it should be. I think that if you had, on the other hand, you see David saying, that's the bad guy. I'm the good guy, God, please avenge me. Take out the bad guys. Like, that's okay. And you should be able to get to that point. But a little bit of discomfort in saying I'm righteous before God or whatever is okay. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for your fellow christians. The little old lady at church who raised a christian family, the elder that you've got in your church, the missionary, the just the person who is walking with God every single day and serving God, or whatever the case may be, and you're like, well, I see no difference between them. And RuPaul, like, really like that. That's insulting. If you can't do it for yourself, at least do it for your man. [00:07:43] Speaker C: We all struggle. Like, those are not the same, right? [00:07:45] Speaker A: And I really think a lot of, especially preachers who have taken this and they preach this from the pulpit, we're all broken, we're all sinners. And basically, don't call yourself righteous kind of thing, and don't think of yourself as righteous. And they're just kind of telling the whole, the whole church, no matter how hard, how much you've grown, how much God has worked in your life and made you into somebody totally new, you're still not righteous. You're not any better or different or anything else. It's like, what a hopeless message. And so then you'll get to immediately someone's going, oh, so you're self righteous. That's the difference. Self righteous is saying I'm righteous because. [00:08:20] Speaker B: Of what I did. [00:08:20] Speaker A: You're saying God has made me righteous. And if you can't do that, know what you're saying? God lied. That when he made us the righteousness of God in Christ, two corinthians five, that he lied. Well, I don't want to call God a liar. And so if he says I'm righteous, I'm righteous not because I think I'm great, but because God's making me into what he wants me to be. And he's not making, you know, name your flamboyant person who's flaunting their sin in the culture out there. And there's a difference between, again, RuPaul and the confused 14 year old who's caught up in this. Like, all of this is all a spectrum. But that's where David is. Like, there's wicked people and not all. Not all sinful, non believing people are wicked people. There are wicked people out there. And you have to be able to call it that, as you guys are. [00:09:07] Speaker B: Saying, mocking Christianity in front of the entire world. That's wicked. You know, putting. Putting a chick, dude with a beer. I don't know what it was. I still don't know what it was. Right in front of kids as they're dancing suggestively, you know, and this is all part of the opening ceremony. That's wicked. [00:09:22] Speaker C: And that kind of just on pride parades is happening all over the country, not just at the opening ceremony. It's literally everywhere all the time. [00:09:31] Speaker B: You look at some. Not that. Not that I wanted to, but as you scroll through Twitter and you see some of the people that I follow where they're posting an outrage about the Toronto Pride fest and such, like, it's horrible. It's absolutely horrible. That's wicked. Okay. You got six year olds dancing with withdeze, incredibly sexually suggestive and, like, naked men as they're parading. That's wicked. And I think we need to be able to call it. And that's really to my point, like the. Because the first place people are going to jump to is, well, what about the Pharisee and the tax collector? You know, woe is me, right? And the Pharisees, that's self righteous. The Pharisee thought he came to God because he was a better person for doing all these things. I am referring to, and Jack's referring to this. Romans 519, for as though or as for as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners. Even so, through the obedience of the one, that many will be made righteous. The law came in so the transgression would increase where sin increased grace about all the more so that as sin reigned in death, even so, grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. We've been made righteous. That's kind of the point of romans five there. That's what I'm talking about, is the righteousness. That's like, you know what? Christ has made a better way. He's made us better. We have been justified in Christ. Therefore, we ought to stand aloof from the world and say, that is wicked. And when we're down in the muck and mire going, well, you know, it's kind of. We're all broken. They need Christ too. Like, yes, they absolutely need Christ. I'm not saying that, but they also, I think, in precatory psalms at some point get into this. And so before we jump fully into the outline, I do want to bring that question because there's a lot of christians that struggle with, and I think we've talked about this before, but struggle with this. So I'm curious, your guys thoughts. Is it okay to read? We were just reading psalm five tonight at church. Is it okay to read and to pray in precatory psalms? Imprecatory prayers. And by impregnatory, I mean like calling God's judgment on the wicked. On the enemies of the cross. Right. On the enemies of God. David seems to have no problem with it. I read one of my sermon this last week that's like, whoa, man, David is going after them and has quite a bit of teeth to this, but a lot of people are going to look at it and say, hey, turn the other cheek. So they're looking at Jesus and David almost as a. Not almost. I mean, they do seem to be opposed. Guys, what are your thoughts? Yeah, scripture wars. Exactly. What are your guys's thoughts on that? And is it appropriate for us to look at the evil in the world and to begin praying in precatory prayers? I think you watch judgment on these people. [00:11:50] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think if you are of the opinion that a section of the Psalm section of the Old Testament scriptures doesn't really apply anymore and should not be read, should not be practiced, whatever, you're kind of getting dangerously close to Marciane, like any. If that's your take, that's not a really good place to be, is all I'll say. Like, as. As Joe referenced, psalm five was read tonight in our, uh, script. One of our scripture readings for our service tonight for church. I mean, just verse ten. Pronounce them guilty, o God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against you. Let these people see their downfall, is what he said. And notice, at least my reading of that would be physical, like, kind of a physical, earthly thing. He's also talking about eternity, in my opinion, there, when he's talking about casting them out in the multitude of their transgressions and pronounce them guilty. Like, he's. He's almost wishing for, you know, them, you know, an eternal punishment, you might say. And for anybody nowadays to say, like, you know, all these people that Joe mentioned, the transgender. The transgender doctors that are. That are out here doing this stuff, the drag queens, all these things for anybody to come out and say on Facebook, for instance, um, hey, you know, these people deserve the. The fires of hell and that, you know, stuff like that, man, Facebook would blow up. Like, you can't say that type of stuff these days. You see that a lot in the psalms. And so to. I think I've given my take on this before. Before I hand it to Jack, I do. I think it's perfectly within our right to do as David did, to pray these impregnatories to. To wish for the downfall of evil, both in a physical sense and maybe even in a spiritual sense of, like, these people there, because there's a different level. It's the last thing I'll say. Hannah, Jack, as y'all already said, there's a difference in somebody who's lost as opposed to somebody who is actively wicked. I think a lot of it has to do with, are you actively dragging other people to hell with you? Not just are you lost, but are you going out and looking for people and saying, I want to bring them with me. I want to pervert their mind. I want to do Matthew 18 about, you know, whoever caused one of these little ones to stumble. But just even in the sense of causing other people to stumble, that's what a lot of these. That's what a lot of this wickedness that you see, the evil you see nowadays is really all about. And for that, I have no problem wishing they're again physical or wishing for their physical or their spiritual downfall. Because of how many souls they are just, again, taking with them and doing it aggressively. [00:14:15] Speaker A: Yeah, two points I want to make on this, I guess. Two points again. I did two points last time. Jesus, his hymn book was the Psalms. Jesus grew up, spent his entire life on earth singing psalms, including pregatory psalms. And the early church, you know what their hymn book was? The psalms. They were singing in pregatory psalms. And it's okay. And that's not. I really do think it would do us so much good if we got back to singing the psalms because they're educational. And just as the New Testament said, speaking to one another in psalms, him spiritual songs, which is actually psalms, it's a whole other rabbit trail. There's a whole who let the dogma episode, who let the dogma out episode on psalm singing? Because it is that important and we need to get back to it because it'll teach us to think like God thinks. And this is what God thinks. And once again, when we talk about the wicked, we're not talking about your neighbor who doesn't go to church. We're talking about somebody who is, is actively harming other people, as will said, leading them astray or whatever. And so there's, there's the, we can imply, we can infer that Jesus and the apostles and all the early church said these things, believed these things. They were pro imprecatory psalm. But what we can know, number one, is Jesus did say, let a millstone be tied around their neck and cast them into the sea. That would be better for them than what he's going to do to them like that. That's a threat, number one. Number two, in the book of acts, he kills Ananias and Sapphira, he kills Herod. He does imprecatory psalm kind of things to them, especially Herod. I mean, just a gnarly death there in acts, chapter twelve. That's pretty imprecatory. And of course, revelation, whether you believe that's still yet to come, whether you believe that happened to Rome, I personally believe he was talking about Jerusalem and saying, you guys have been beating up and killing my bride, the church, for 40 years now, and you're going down. And he flattened Jerusalem. I mean, like a million people dead in some of the most. Again, horrific, gruesome ways you could imagine. This was Jesus. Jesus is the one overseeing this whole vengeance in the book of revelation. And so this idea, well, he said, turn the other cheek like he did, and that does matter. But it's, we don't do scripture wars we don't fight these things against each other. You can't say, well, no more impregnatory psalms because Jesus said, turn the other cheek. You've got to figure out how someone turned the other cheek. Could kill a million people like that. [00:16:31] Speaker C: I was going to say, is there also not a level of difference between the turn the other cheek of, like, if somebody personally, you know, offends you, wrongs you in a certain way, versus if somebody's doing this to thousands of other people in a wicked, malicious way? Like, I don't see those two things as parallels, in my opinion. [00:16:46] Speaker A: I think that one of the biggest things, misunderstandings about love your enemies, pray for those or bless those who curse you. And all that is about your personal enemies, the people that you quote, unquote, as the kids would say, have beef with, you know, like, not the enemies of God. [00:16:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:58] Speaker A: And not somebody who's going to try and harm your wife, your kids, or an abortionist or whatever else. And I'm not advocating violence against them, as we'll get to here in a bit. But it's okay to hope that they're stopped. Absolutely. [00:17:10] Speaker B: So, as you just referenced what we're going to get to, I want to use this to kind of usher in the. The main part of the outline is where I think, 18 minutes into this. Um, and that is the different responses to this as the preparatory psalms go. I just preached on this, just read 109, most of 109 in a sermon. I very much believe in that. So obviously, my take on that is the same as your guys's. But when we get into the different responses to evil, how are christians supposed to respond? I think there's several that we see, and we want to break these down. We're going to end on the one that we think is probably the most. Um, yeah, what we think is best, what we think christians ought to be doing. But we're going to start with the first, which is a lot of christians like to bury their head in the sand and just not, you know what, guys? I don't even watch the news. I. I didn't know that happened. I didn't even know the Trump was that. That wasn't even an attempt on his life. I didn't even know. And they're kind of proud of that. A lot of christians are a little bit proud of it. [00:18:00] Speaker C: Like, I'm not myself with this kind of stuff. [00:18:02] Speaker B: Right where it's putting out of this world and my sauce only posted. [00:18:06] Speaker A: I think it's second Timothy. Oh, I should looked it up. Second Timothy two of telling Timothy that the soldier doesn't involve himself in the affairs of everyday life. And so that was basically his. He posted that while everybody else was posting about the Olympic things. Be like, yeah, no. Like, I'm not. I'm not even going to pay attention to that. [00:18:25] Speaker B: That gets us. You can use that for two different ones on this outline because one is kind of standing above it. This one is, and I see this with older christians, that they kind of bury their head in the sand. Look, they've been burying their head in the sand for a long time because as transgenderism has flooded the schools, as there's a lot of christians, not even older christians, as transgenderism and the LGBTQ and critical theory and all of these things are flooding the school, guess where their head is in the sand. They just don't, they don't want to know. And when you do start bringing this up, sometimes they get upset. Sometimes it's like almost the. Put their hands over their. Their ears. They don't want to hear these things because they're happy in their ignorance stuff, as the saying goes. And so this is the first one we wanted to tackle, fellas. Is this a right or wrong approach? Obviously, we don't believe this is right. So I'm going to. Hey, cat's out the bag. Why, though? Do you feel this is wrong? Yeah, exactly. Is this a right or wrong approach? It's wrong. Okay, let's move on. No, but why is this so wrong? I think those that are listening that may think that it's better to just say, you know, to kind of bury their head in the sand and to be ignorant of it all because it can weigh you down if all you're doing is watching and scrolling Twitter all day. [00:19:30] Speaker C: I was going to start with a. With a slight defense of that position in the sense of I don't think it's healthy, nor is it all that beneficial to, you know, every hour you're checking for updates on, on X or, you know, you're checking, you're reading the latest headline and you're. Did you see what happened here? And every little news story. I think that's. I do think that's pretty unhealthy. And I think that puts people in a. In a spot where maybe they are a little bit too focused on, you know, the dangers of this world or whatever it is. Again, in kind of a negative way. It's overwhelming at the same time. It is. It is. And it's daunting at the same time. Overall, I think the reason why this is such a, a poor way to do it and poor way to react to things is because, number one, a lot of these issues, Joe, the ones you just referenced of critical theory and transgenders and all these things, these are affecting our young people at, you know, astronomical levels in schools and colleges, at day to day life, social media. And so for us to say, well, I'm just going to ignore that and not really worry about it. Well, congratulations. You just told a generations of young people, I can't talk to you about these things because I don't really want to. That's not a very good strategy for, number one, keeping them faithful. But then number two, having any kind of relationship with them because of your refusal to, you know, just have any kind of level of knowledge of it. Again, maybe if it, maybe you, you just don't want to get, you know, your hopes down all these things at the same time for you to say, I'm not going to worry about that. Young people do. They are, they read this stuff, they see this stuff. It affects them more. And so that would be the first reason. And then number two is simply because I think it does limit your ability to just have any kind of engagement, not just with young people, but I mean, people are, this stuff is on people's minds. This stuff affects people. Want to know as we're going to get to later, should I boycott the Olympics? You know, how big a deal is this? And it just, man, it disconnects you and unplugs you so much from these conversations, these spiritual discussions where the culture is heavily tied to it and connecting to it for you to just say, nah, not really for me. Again, once again, congratulations. You just told everybody who is thinking about this. Well, im not going to talk to you about that. So those are my thoughts. [00:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I think thats all really good. And I think Jesus himself referenced, I think its in Luke 13 about the tower that fell or when essentially some people were murdered or there was a skirmish and some people died. And I should have looked it up while you were thinking about that but referencing things in the news that people were familiar with. And his response was to take that and say, unless you repent, you shall likewise perish, which I think again is foreshadowing what happens in revelation. But again, he knew what was going on. Or you see Paul showing up in Athens and writing to Titus on Crete and he's quoting their plays and their poets and I, and like he knew he was in with the call, he writes to Corinth and they've got this isthmian Games. They're kind of like a mini Olympics. And he's writing about boxing and racing and wreath the crown that you're going to receive and things like that. Like, yeah, he knew Paul was a man of the culture, a man who understood those things and related it to his Christianity. Because again, to Will's point, people get those references because they're, they don't have their heads buried in the sand. Unless you have like a sealed community like the Amish where you're not that impacted like those things. Like, apparently the Amish just basically didn't close for Covid in the way that most of the rest of the country did in some places and things like that. Everybody else was affected by that stuff. And so if you're just kind of like, I don't. I don't pay attention. Like, unless you have that kind of community, which again, how much outreach are you doing? If you do, you're going to meet people who are there. You need to know. You need to be connected. And again, if you think it's holy or not, to ask why Jesus and Paul knew about the things that were going on around him. Hey, folks, I know a lot of you are looking for more christian content for your daily walk. Of course, we often tell you about focus plus and the Daily Devos and other content that goes up there. Of course we have this podcast. Think deeper. We have the Jim podcast, godly young man by Joe and Will. But I want to also tell you about the church Reset podcast feed. Every article I put out on my website, Jackwilkey, Co. Goes up on the church Reset podcast feed along with audio from all of the videos I post to the Focus Press YouTube, like cultural breakdown, masculinity Monday and Thursdays through the text. And so if you're looking for something to listen to while you're doing chores around the house or on the go check out the church Reset podcast feed. Subscribe to get all the latest content as it comes out four or five days a week. [00:24:00] Speaker B: Get really into Francis Schaeffer. Man, what a guy. I mean, his stuff is just fantastic. And the phrase that goes along with him is a phrase that's used in one chronicles 1232 about the sons of Issachar. They understand the times. He understood the times. I think christians need to be men and women who understand the times of where we are living. Bearing your head in the sand is this is why people don't feel Christianity is relevant? They don't know where Christianity aligns with the, the news of the day, because it just, hey, you know. Oh, that happened. Like, yeah, we as Christians, I do think, need to have an understanding of the times. That doesn't mean as well said. That doesn't mean that we're refreshing. I love how he calls it x. He's such a, such a gen z er. I'm sorry. [00:24:47] Speaker A: He's the only person I know who doesn't call a Twitter stick. [00:24:49] Speaker C: Hasn't been for two years. Guys. [00:24:52] Speaker B: It's, it's Twitter to me, man. It's, I don't know if I type in Twitter, which is what I do, it does change to x, but it gets me there so it all works out. [00:24:59] Speaker A: It's actually literally x Twitter. [00:25:02] Speaker B: Is it really x Twitter? [00:25:03] Speaker C: No. [00:25:04] Speaker A: Do you get it? [00:25:05] Speaker B: Oh, my word. Oh, that took me. Oh, my word. [00:25:10] Speaker A: Stupid people aren't in touch with the news. [00:25:12] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Wonderful. No, I mean, I think you can spend your entire day on the reddits, on the twitters, on the, you know, just getting constant scrolling news and news and news and the people that read every single political article known to man. And I don't, I don't think that's healthy. But, yeah. To just kind of, and I'm going to call an audible on our outline because this goes perfectly with the next one, in my opinion, which is the minding your own business, being above it all. That's number two on this. So the first one is just bearing your head in the sand. Like, I don't, hey, I don't pay attention to the news. I think we have a duty to understand the times and to understand what exactly the game that's being run on this culture by the higher ups and those who are in power and all the evil things taking place. [00:25:55] Speaker A: Before you jump into the next one, you brought up Francis Schaeffer. And one of the great things he does is he was very well educated, or very well educated on the philosophical and who the philosophers were and kind of the chess pieces on the board of what people were thinking and how that's going to manifest. And that's why he was able to predict so well what was coming down the pike today. When you read his stuff that he wrote in the eighties, because he knew the philosophers, he knew what they were teaching in the universities, he knew what people were adopting and where that was going to lead. And so he was able to say, this is what it is. And so where christians don't want to engage on those frontline culture war things, they think we're above that. It's like, and they'll even quote that are the weapons of our warfare not carnal and things like that. Our war is not against flesh and blood. And it's like, yeah, it's against these philosophies, but how do these philosophies come out? How can you. I mean, you can read Schaeffer, and the average person can be like, oh, he's reading about Kant and Kierkegaard and all these philosophers and theologians and stuff like that might be over your head, but when you say, hey, it looks like this with regard to abortion, when you talk about Rousseau's individualism, and that's what leads to people not wanting to have kids, you don't have to know who Rousseau is to know that we didn't mention him in our episode on childbearing, but it was all saturated in his bad ideology that got us here. And so when you're engaging with these things, we might not have to talk about Rousseau with everybody, but you can talk about where that leads. And so when you're. You're. When you're above it all and you're going, oh, I'm not going to talk about childbearing. That's. It's kind of icky. That's culture war kind of stuff, it's like these are philosophies that are going to the Bible and looking at God and saying, no, no, no, no, that's wrong. I know better. And the philosopher teaches that to enough people and enough generations pass by. And here you are. [00:27:37] Speaker B: Jack just wants us to think he's really, really smart with the. With all the. Quoting everybody else. No, it's such a good point. And that is. That is the number two point of this outline of being above it all. And what you see or where you see this the most, I would say, is kind of the ivory tower. We've gone so real quick. [00:27:52] Speaker C: I would just say the difference is these people aren't, like, actively choosing to not know about it. They're just choosing to say, you know what? I'm just not gonna worry about. I'm just gonna. My right. Business. [00:28:00] Speaker A: Really not right. [00:28:03] Speaker B: I'm above it. Right. And that's. This is the holier than thou position. This is the ivory tower. You know, guys. Hey, you know what? I'm not. We're not supposed to be this world. And, yeah, the warfare is not flesh and blood. And so they can use all of these really spiritual sounding things, but ultimately, it provides nothing for the average person who's dealing with these things. I think of Elon Musk and he's sitting there with Jordan Peterson. You could just tell like, there is a lot of pain wrapped around his son turning transgender, turning into a female or whatever the thinks he is. Like, there is a pain there. And this is where Elon is coming. Going, man, unless Christianity gets some more teeth do, it's going to perish. No, it's not going to perish, Jack. He had a great article on that. It's not going to perish. But the point that he makes is relevant in the fact that there's a lot of, like, above it all christians. The holy are now christians of, you know what? We're just going to. We're going to pray for him and, you know, that's all we can do. It's not really our job to get involved in this stuff. And he's looking at it like, my son has walked away from his gender. That is a big deal. And a lot of christians have no answers for this because we want to remain above it all. We really don't want to engage in the culture, we don't want to engage in the evil. And so it's easy for us to look at something like the Olympics, look at something like the Trump thing, Trump assassination attempt, and again, stay above it all and go, hey, guys, you know, this world's just, it's passing away and I'm just waiting for Jesus. Like, yeah, that's great. But you have a lot of people where this is on their mind and they're genuinely wondering, what are christians supposed to do about this? And all of these nice little, like, pad answers and platitudes and whatnot, are tangibly giving them nothing. That's where we as Christians have to, yes, understand the times. Not very head in the same, but we have to come prepared with more answers than just, hey, let's just stay above it all and stay in the ivory towers. [00:29:46] Speaker C: Well, I think about the Israelites in the Old Testament and how their eventual turning their back on God was in many instances, you look at judges over the course of generations or, you know, even after the, the period of the kings, wherever it was just kind of slow, gradual decline of worship to God, of acknowledging God. The high places were left up in the instance of the kings and marrying pagan women, all these things. And could you just imagine one of the faithful Israelites going, you know what? This stuff, I'm not going to mind. I'm going to mind my own business about it. I'm not really going to worry about the fact that all these things are going on in our culture of course not. And what happened, what was a result from that was once again the Israelites repeatedly rebelled against God, the, you know, the kings, the period, the judges and all these things. For anybody to take this approach, which in my opinion is a little bit worse than the first one we looked at, once again ignores the fact that these things do affect the day to day lives of your arbitration because they're inundated with this stuff. It affects the young people. As I brought up earlier, a big one I saw with the Olympics here, this Olympic controversy was one corinthians 512 that was quoted where Paul is in context talking about somebody who claims to be a Christian who is choosing to live any such way they want. And he's basically saying, hey, don't even eat with this person. But he says, who are we to judge the world, judging those who are outside? And they took that to apply it to the Olympics and basically was like, hey, why are we commenting on this? That's the world. We should expect them to do that kind of stuff. And what I wanted to scream into the Facebook void, I stay out of that stuff normally is like the reason why we're commenting on this and the reason why we're pointing it out is because Christians are still gobbling this stuff up. First of all, in the sense of like, they know about the story, they're reading about the story, and so we need to call it out. But then secondly, they're watching the Olympics just like everybody else is like, this is something that is in their daily lives. This is something that they are still going to, especially the application I think of is with schools, of, man, this stuff is all in schools. And so for us to say, ah, you know, who are we to judge the world? That's the world. Yeah, well, your kids are in the world school. Your kids are on social media in the world. Your kids, and I hate to keep just referring, reverting back to the kids thing, but to me, that's what this mind your own business. Let's be above it all. Who are we to judge the world? That's what that ignores the most is like, yeah, the world that your kids are going to grow up in is being negatively affected because you are too busy saying, well, I'm just going to mind my own business. Who are we to judge the world? We need to comment on it. We need to call it out, and we need to come up with just solutions, I guess, to figure out how are we going to turn this thing around because my kids and grandkids are going to grow up in this world that we're refusing to comment on all the debauchery that we see. [00:32:36] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:32:37] Speaker C: Does that point make sense? [00:32:38] Speaker A: It does. Well, because the other thing about that is we think evangelism just happens in a vacuum, that basically everybody has the equal opportunity. Everybody starts at scratch at the same place. And I've made this point before. I make it because I think it makes, like, it's very hard to refute. My grandmother walked into the Church of Christ at the end of her road as a little girl and kept going there and got baptized. And now Joe and I are here on a podcast 70 years, 80 years later. My dad's a Christian, my mom's a Christian. My, like, just the whole family is all Christians because of that. Nobody in North Korea or Russia has the same story that I do. Yeah, well, we just evangelize. Like, that doesn't work that way. All of this stuff creates the culture in which that you can do that. You can have these conversations. Now you've got kids used to have to decide, well, you know, like, am I going to date this girl or am I going to date that girl? Am I going to be a mechanic or am I going to be a carpenter? [00:33:34] Speaker C: What pronouns am I going to use? [00:33:35] Speaker A: Am I even a boy? Okay, like, questions nobody else had to ever answer before. And it's like you've got that much more of, you know, like, there's in and out where you go, and it's cheeseburger and fries and a shake, and there's the cheesecake factory where it's the size of the phone book. These kids spiritually have the cheesecake factory menu to look at. And it's like, maybe it's better if we get them back to the in and out menu that says, you're going to be a Christian or not. And so that's, you know, to will's point to the first corinthians five thing about not judging outsiders, it's such bad bible study. We just did a whole episode on that because you look at the context. The context he said in verse nine, I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people. I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world or with the covetous and swindlers or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. He's saying, disfellowship wayward christians who won't repent. But when he says, you know, what business do we have judging the world? He means disfellowshipping from them because, look, he just called them swindlers. Covetous. Covetous church disadvantage. Right? When he points to the world, he's calling them all kinds of sinful names. He's not supposed to say, hey, don't say, it's bad to be a swindler. I mean, hey, that's not our job. Are you kidding me? That's your argument? And so when people are looking at this, well, of course the world's going to be the world, they're going to make fun of Jesus. Like, yeah, and if you loved them, you would say, hey, making fun of Jesus puts your soul in a very, very dangerous place. Not, hey, hey, hey, Christian, shut up and stop bothering them. Like, come on, you just. You're begging like a dog for cultural approval. Please stop. It's embarrassing. [00:35:08] Speaker B: And this is where a lot of christians will then kind of shift to, how would Jesus respond? And, Jack, you and I have gone back and forth on this point, this point a lot. And this has been on my mind quite a bit of, as we create culture, excuse me, as we create culture, and as we're really kind of. We're trying to change things, we're coming from a completely different background in America than they were in Rome at the time. They're coming from a pagan nation. And this is where people get real squirrely about it because, like, are you saying the first century doesn't apply, the first century church? It does, absolutely. The Bible does apply to us, but we also have to be understanding of where we're coming from. They're coming from as the underdogs in a completely pagan nation, you know, of Rome surrounding them. How are they to act in that situation? Versus we are coming from it from a 21st century America standpoint where we were founded on biblical principles. And you can say, well, we weren't actually christians. You know, they weren't baptized. [00:36:05] Speaker A: Okay? [00:36:05] Speaker B: But look, fundamentally, they're coming from a christian nation. This is the first time in history that this has happened where a nation started as Christian and is turning apostate rather than taking a pagan nation, turning a Christian. This is different in how we are to approach things that, again, that doesn't mean the Bible doesn't apply. Not in the least. The Bible absolutely applies. But there are ways that I think people look at it and they go, well, Paul didn't talk too much about politics. You know, like, Paul was more concerned about getting the church on the right track. The church had zero influence, politically speaking. But what happens in 325? What happens? And, you know, as you get into. [00:36:40] Speaker A: Constantine, even among Paul, he was very excited to report that the gospel had made it to Caesar's household there in Philippians. He didn't say, hey, the gospel got the Bob's household. It was Caesar because at the center of power that that was important to him. [00:36:54] Speaker B: Yeah, like Felix Festus. I mean, he's going to be people. [00:36:58] Speaker A: And it goes back to what Jesus said. You're going to stand before kings. Why did Jesus say that if it doesn't matter? [00:37:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that's such a good point. And you see Rome turning to a christian nation. Boy, there's a lot of people that pop out of the woodwork and like, that wasn't a good thing. Look, I think it was a positive thing that Christianity was no longer persecuted in that moment and that you had an emperor proclaiming Christ as Lord, Christ as king, whether he did it appropriately, whether he was Catholic, whatever you want to say, right. If everybody's going to kind of make that statement, this is a man who recognized Jesus Christ as. Yes, an actual human being who did die for our sins. That's a big deal when you're talking about the leader of the known world. So when we talk about the leader of the known world, yes, I think it's better to have a Christian in power of the United States of America. And whether it's somebody who proclaims Christ, who professes Christ as Lord. Christian, dumb, right? Christian broad sense. I don't want somebody coming on and go, well, these guys aren't actually Christians. Look, I'm talking somebody who is willing to say, Christ Jesus is Lord. He did come, he died for our sins, right? He's a real human being and God is in control. Like, I want somebody who can at least espouse those things for obvious reasons. And so, Jack, I really am curious your thoughts on this, because I know you and I have talked. Well, will, you may have a thought on this, but I know you and I have talked a lot back and forth on where we, or how we as christians are supposed to engage with some of these scriptures, because they will talk about it. And I just feel like we're in a completely different world. Not again. I'm not saying scripture doesn't apply, but I do believe it applies slightly differently than it did to them. Coming from a pagan nation where at one point in time 140 Christians or 120 Christians or whatever in an upper room, and that's it. Now we have 120 Christian. I can throw a rock and hit more churches that have more people than that. You know what I mean, like, what are your thoughts? [00:38:38] Speaker A: Will you have something like, you go ahead. Okay. So I had this discussion with somebody on Facebook the other day, and he was making the point, well, God doesn't change. No, he doesn't. And the basics of the gospel don't change. But what Paul preached at Mars Hill was different than what was preached by Peter at Pentecost, Peter himself. The message was different to Cornelius and just different places like that. And the audience dictated what needs to be said. And so when you're talking about the nations, there's. There's always that America is not Israel, like, the nation of America isn't Old Testament Israel. It's not a direct parallel. And when people say, you know, my people who are called by my name, repent, I will restore their land or whatever. [00:39:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:20] Speaker A: That's not a promise to America the way it was to Israel. Israel is God's people. America is not God's people. The church is God's people and all that. America is closer to Israel than you think because of what you said, the nature of. But more than anything, it's. And this is why your eschatology matters so much and why I've dropped the revelation thing a couple times. I believe Jesus expected to have success. I believe he expected the church to grow. I believe that people who disagree with this are denying 2000 years of church history. As you say, it's not 140 people anymore, it's 120 people, just people all over the place. And when somebody gets up in their air conditioned megachurch to say, oh, no, it's not supposed to go this way, like, come on, you're the benefit beneficiary, benefiting from 2000 years of this growth. And so to the point of that, I believe there are multiple promises in the scriptures that the church inherits the world. The promised land, the people of God, in the Old Testament was Israel. The promised land was Canaan. The people of God now is the church. The promised land is the world. And we're seeing that. We've seen that. And if you say, well, nope, nope, the world, the world's not our home, like, okay, then why did the church expand all throughout the world? Why did it have so much influence for so long? Why did it bless the world so much with safety and then prosperity and health and hospitals and education and all the good things that resulted of Christianity that you have to pretend didn't happen? Well, they did. And so, yeah, the church did grow. And so the, the parallels to Israel are that this was a. I would say the same about England. And France. It's not that America is special, it's that places where the gospel went and kind of took over a country, okay? That's Israel moving into the promised land. And as those places backslide, we are not on Mars Hill with Paul. It is a different situation. [00:41:08] Speaker B: And what I'm getting at is we're no longer the underdogs. And everybody wants to act like we're the underdogs. Like we have conquered so much as christians in the world. Like, we don't have child sacrificing anymore. Yeah, abortion, right. We talked about. But like, we're saying we're the team. [00:41:22] Speaker C: That has the 30 point lead and is blowing the lead. [00:41:24] Speaker B: Correct. Because we're trying to convince ourselves we're still from behind, guys. We're still from behind. And look at the New Testament. Like, yes, the New Testament is written where literally they had twelve guys at one point. Twelve guys in Jesus Christ. That was it. [00:41:35] Speaker A: Okay, so to illustrate it, and I always hate acknowledging that there were more, more Star wars movies, but episode six, they win, they blow up the death star, they, the emperor's dead and gone and all that. Darth Vader has come back over and now he's dead too, and all that. And hooray, we won. And like, literally a few years later, you start episode seven. Oh, we've got like five of us in the resistance. Like, no, you're not the one. You, like, you. You're in power now. And like, how does that happen? Right, right. And so with the church, you're losing that power. Like you say you're blowing the lead, but to act like, well, no, we're supposed to have the same tactics that they had then. No, it's a different situation. [00:42:14] Speaker B: Right. So that's exactly the point I'm making, is we're not the underdogs. That doesn't mean the New Testament doesn't apply, but it does mean we have to view things a little bit differently than maybe they did back then because they're going against a culture that knew nothing of Christ. We're going against a culture that knows everything of Christ. Like, well, we're starting to get to pagan where they don't, but like, we're coming primarily. Go for it. [00:42:36] Speaker C: Yeah, sorry, I was just going to go and move ascended. I was going to go and move us in. Number three was looking at the timer right now. So if you want to finish your point, Joe, and then I can. Okay. [00:42:45] Speaker A: Hey, guys, Jack Wilke here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like think deeper and godly young men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do. The best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate. That's focuspress.org donate. Thanks again for listening. [00:43:04] Speaker B: So go for it. [00:43:06] Speaker C: Really good discussion, though. I think that's a, obviously plays a huge role in this. So the third, just to clear everybody up, as far as the different responses to this, the first one we discussed was those who just bury their head in their sand. The second. The second one that we just spent the most time on was those who kind of take the above it all approach like, yeah, I'm aware, but, you know, we shouldn't really comment on them, should I? Mind my own business. The third one was an, is an interesting one as far as a response to this, and that is the tendency to make excuses for the evil that we see in the world. This obviously for the, for the, for the Olympic kind of disaster there, the Olympic controversy. This took the form of a lot of people getting up and saying, well, you know, that was not about the last supper. That was, you know, about, you know, Dionysius that was celebrating greek culture. That was Marie Antoinette. I saw a post about a good friend of mine just when this was all heating up, sent me a post about that, and I, um, I, the first time I'd seen it, but like, basically, like, you know, this represented this, and this represented nothing to do with the Lord's supper, as I'm sure Jack can get to here in just a second, that, you know, the central figure came out and said, yeah, no, it was definitely about the last supper. So that's pretty well been debunked. But you know what? It reminded me of weird direction to take it here, but when Taylor Swift's newest album came out and, you know, a lot of the, the blasphemous lyrics and, you know, not great lyrics and stuff, I guess I'm friends with, on Facebook with a lot of people who were Taylor Swift fans, but, man, they came out of the woodworks to kind of defend her in a way, sharing posts from obviously denominational preachers that were saying, well, you know, Taylor Swift has probably been hurt by hypocritical christians, and so christians, this is really our fault for giving her this view of Christianity, that she would put all this stuff on her album. It's like, I'm sorry, what? [00:44:53] Speaker B: Like, right. [00:44:54] Speaker C: But once again, making the excuses for evil. Like, well, there's got to be another explanation. Or somehow, again, that, that's where my mind went for that but the. It's like there's. They're searching for a reason why it's really not as bad as it seems. Searching for a reason. You know, us christians just need to calm down about the Taylor Swift album, calm down about the. The Olympic controversy. Just making excuses for it. Guys, what thoughts would y'all have to add for this one? [00:45:20] Speaker A: We. We get some heat for being too negative on the church or things like that, and we do feel like we're calling the church to a higher standard, that, uh, we're trying to meet, that we don't think the church has set, that it's been a lowered bar and things like that. But notice when things like this, when it comes the world against the church or there's christians making accusations against the world or whatever, there are certain people where their instinct immediately is to turn and start shooting at their fellow christians, notice that that means that that's significant. That is a big deal. And on something like this, if you're the person who gets on. No, guys, guys, shut up. It's Dionysius. It's nothing. [00:45:52] Speaker C: You. [00:45:53] Speaker A: We're just. We got to stop being. [00:45:54] Speaker C: Calm down, everybody, basically. Yeah. [00:45:55] Speaker A: I'm just really embarrassed by you guys because the world thinks we're being stupid, and it's like, you got duped and you got duped with COVID and you got duped with all kinds of other stuff. You get duped over and over, and every time your posture is to turn and slam your fellow christians and talk about how they're. They're embarrassing you in front of the world. I mean, Andy Stanley does this all the time, and a lot of people love the stuff he says. Tim Keller did the same thing. A lot of these big name denominational guys whose ideas trickle into the church through certain outlets in the churches of Christ, and every single time, the first response is to turn and start. How can I team up with the world and start slamming my fellow christians? BLM, that is a problem. If that is your instinct, like, why? Why do you want to do that? Why? Whose approval are you here for? I think that is something that if you see someone doing the same thing, and we'll get to the part about being duped, because I think that's really important, too. But why on earth are you always teaming up with the world against your fellow christians? And what does that say was going to happen with you when, if and when actual persecution comes? [00:46:56] Speaker C: Well, there's such a real quick, real quick, Joe, just the picture of that, of, like, the double agent who, you know, he's side by side with you when you're going into war. But, man, as soon as the tide turns, it's like, all right, I'm going to switch sides and go attack you as a. Yeah. The way you lay that out is perfect. And it's a scary. [00:47:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly it. And I was saying about the Taylor swift thing, will, that you're bringing up, it's like, we can't let the world reject God without it being a Christian's fault. The only reason they would reject God is because it has to be us. We had to have done something. It was probably religious trauma. They throw out trauma word, right? And all of a sudden that makes. That makes max birth. Because they check your jack. You're muted. [00:47:31] Speaker A: I clicked my wrong mute button. There's always those lists of, like, well, we asked the unchurched or the formerly church why they left. They left because they don't. Like. They don't love God. [00:47:42] Speaker B: They rejected God. [00:47:43] Speaker A: Now they. I'm not saying they weren't. There are a lot of people that had bad church experiences, things like that. Sure. But if you love God, you stick with the church. I mean, that's. [00:47:51] Speaker B: You don't let people sway you from God. [00:47:53] Speaker A: Right. There is the issue of stumbling blocks. But come on. The. The base level, especially for most of them, is I wanted to keep sinning, and the church told me I'm not allowed to. [00:48:01] Speaker C: They gave me an excuse to. Or, like, the church. Like, the church, you know, trauma, the church, abuse, whatever. Kind of gave you an excuse to go live however you wanted to. That's the way I see a lot of that. [00:48:10] Speaker B: When Taylor Swift becomes your moral compass, that's a problem. Um, like, she's so far off. But we have a difficult time calling these things out. There's. You could go off into masculinity. You go off in a lot of different reasons as to why that might be. And we can't call that out. And that's why I started with being able to call evil evil. When we start making excuses for it, it really goes to we just want to be seen by the world as kind, gentle people. And I was listening to podcasts recently, and it was an atheist guy describing kind of his view of Christianity. And it was, you know, Christianity is just about loving people and not judging people and just accepting everybody as they are. These people weren't doing that. And you could just tell that they're not even christians. Like, okay, guy. And I didn't know he was an atheist initially, and then I was talking to Jack, but I was like, oh wow, that I didn't know that because I hadn't hit that point of the podcast yet, that he was an atheist. But the way he was talking about it's like, well, that's offensive. That doesn't seem right. That that's the only thing he knows about christians is we are not supposed to ever judge people and we're supposed to accept everybody as they are. And that's Christianity. And I think that's the view of a lot of christians is we can't really take a stand on this and we're very quick to defend the world and defend why that wasn't absolutely blasphemous. We're, we are the ones that are Charlie Brown in the football Jack shared this recently, his post about where Charlie Brown the football, you know, we, we continue to line up and this is the time where, you know, we're were going to get this one right and next thing you know, you know, we align with the world and they dupe us again, we align with the world. And Jack, you had talked about this in your cultural breakdown. They did come out and say, and you had some people that are like, well, no, that really wasnt what we were trying to do. The key woman at the very heart of it, I believe, came out and said, and the producers themselves came out and said thats absolutely what we were looking to do. You know, were sorry if we offended anybody. We didnt know it would offend, quote unquote. Like yeah, im sure you didnt have. They were really, yeah they were, they were trying to cover themselves as much as possible, to not lose sponsors and everything else because the outcry is so much, but there's so many people that bought that. It's like, see, you know they, and the one guy came out, that's what we were trying to do. Like you really, really, really wanted to believe that they weren't as bad as they were. Why do we have such an aversion to just believing there are truly evil people in the world? It's like we have a difficult time thinking we think of evil in an abstract way. Like it's out there. Like Satan's evil, but nobody really is. I mean, these are like trauma responses and you know, yeah, it's sin, but it's not really evil. [00:50:30] Speaker C: Everybody's mostly good. [00:50:32] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Like why can't we see that as straight up evil and go, that is horrible, that is wrong and it's against God, it's offensive to God. There's something in the person that is quick to defend these people that just has a fundamental issue with calling something bad. [00:50:47] Speaker A: There's a question of, like, what would it take for somebody to go, okay, I. That is what they're trying to do. They really do hate God that much, because I get, like, there. There's a sincerity in trying to give the benefit of the doubt as much as is humanly possible. But again, when you're on, like, your 15th thing of not what these. They go out of their way to mock Christ and Christianity and things like that. Like, they hate God. We know that, okay. The LGBT movement is evil at its core. It is just. I've written about how it's connected to the stuff with children and things like that. We look back on slavery and, oh, man, how did people not stand up against that? We look back on Molec and how did people give their kids to that? And we look back on how did people worship these idols that had them do these things? You're living in it right now, and if you don't get it, you're one of those people today who just wouldn't. That's what you would have been then, okay? If you can't stand up right now and be like, they're evil. This is what they do. They do hate God. This is like your. If you've paid attention at all at any time, and there's like a 50 50 coin flip of. They are. Are they blaspheming Jesus with this display? If you've paid attention, your brain goes. [00:52:02] Speaker C: Yeah, they probably are. [00:52:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You wait for the evidence to come out and all that stuff. But if you're somebody who's gotten those things wrong over and over and over and over again, why. [00:52:13] Speaker B: And I love how we were quick to go that sentences like, okay, so the transgender. All the transgender people standing around right in front of a. Dancing in front of a kid, the man who clearly has things hanging down from his pants, like, that's right. For the world to see. The seriously sexually immoral situation between three people. The. You go down the list of all of these things that took place on the horseless or the. The horse rider, which clearly is from revelation and death writing, the headless, Murray, Antoinette, whatever that was, and the. The themes of death and destruction and satanism and everything else, like, okay, we'll give you that one. Sure. It was dinosis, whatever it is. [00:52:51] Speaker A: What do you do? [00:52:52] Speaker C: What about all the other stuff? [00:52:53] Speaker B: What about the nine other things on there? Like, come on, guys, you can't make excuses for all of these things, this. [00:52:59] Speaker C: Duped by it, this would very much go perfectly into the question I really wanted to hit, which we may have to say for the deep end is like, okay, so should we boycott this stuff? Talk about getting people riled up, like, oh, what are you, what are you saying? We should, you know, that's, that's the world. We don't have to get into this right now. Joe, I'm going to let you make that call. I think it would make for a good deep end discussion. But you do have three other things you wanted to. [00:53:20] Speaker B: But these, these are going to go fast. These are going to go fast. So for the different responses, the next one is the prayer warrior. Uh, this is a level of standing above it. Like, well, let's just pray about it. Look, prayer works, okay? That's the first thing. And that's big thing. I preached. Like, that was the first point of my last sermon. We have to be deep in prayer. We have to be people who are righteous before God, right. That we're coming before him. We're lifting holy hands, right. Which really is just a heart, that we're holy people, but also we need to make sure that we're praying, but not letting that just be the thing that, okay, well, we'll just pray about it, right? I'm just praying that God will take control, and we have to remember that God is in control. Yeah, God was in control when Hitler was in power and 6 million people were murdered. God was in control when Stalin was in power and 12 million people murdered. God was in control of all of those situations, but he did allow it. And so the idea of, like, well, God's in control, it's all going to work out. It doesn't always work out. That is 18 million people that were murdered while God was in control. Sometimes things do happen that are horrific. If we can stop those things from happening, we ought to do something. We need to be people of action. And sometimes it's easy to go, well, we'll just pray about it and then don't do anything. And that would kind of leave it to God. And, well, God will do something. And I think of that classic illustration of, you know, the floods coming. The guy comes by in the car like, dude, floods coming, you got to go. And the guy comes by in the boat and the guy comes by in the helicopter. No, God will save me. God will save you. He gets to heaven. He's like, God, why didn't you save me? I sent you a car, a boat and a helicopter. Why don't you jump on? Right. I really do feel like that is some of the prayer warrior side of it, which is we're going to pray about it, but God puts things in their path to maybe actually make a difference in the world and they go, well, just waiting on God, he's going to do something like what if God is turning it around going, why don't you do something? I have, I clearly brought it to your attention. I've clearly put this on your back step to step out the door and do something about it. But it's easy to go, we'll just pray. And so that's it. I don't know, Feliz, if you got any other thoughts? [00:55:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll just briefly. Prayer guides your action. It's not the end of the action. [00:55:16] Speaker C: That's basically what I was going to say is if you take the approach I gave the example when we're talking like, you know, you lost your job. Well, you know, let's, I'm just going to pray about it. And then you never go out and try to get another job, apply for anything. Like that's not exactly the way that needs to be used. Similar to this. Of all this bad stuff going on, I'm literally just going to pray and that's it. There needs to be action behind it. But prayer absolutely should be the foundation, I would say so. I think. Joe, your point is like those who would just, well, the only thing we can do is pray. Not the case. Not necessarily the case, right? [00:55:44] Speaker B: I think he expects us to take action, which we're about to get to. Number five. I would just call like the militant guy and this is the guy that's like he's getting all his guns and he's ready to go type of thing. In reality, this is why Islam. And you look at Andrew Tate to go, well, christians are weak, like, because we're not going to jihad, man. We're not about to go blow up a place because they, uh, they blaspheme Christ. That's not how we operate. That's not what we're ever called to do. We're not called to take any physical violence against anybody else, clearly. I mean, this is what he's calling, uh, who, who was the zealot? Simon, right, was the zealot. And they would go stab roman soldiers and such like, hey, I'm calling you to different and a better life. And so we're not calling for violence, political violence, anything like that. And obviously we're decrying it, especially with the situation with Trump. But yeah, I do think that this is the straw man that they throw out, which is we don't want to radicalize people. Okay, let's just all stop and think about it for a second. Do we really know anybody that's like a conservative Christian who is radicalized to the point of going and shooting people? I personally don't. I know a lot of people. I know people that are up in arms about it. You know, they're frustrated, but taking up arms and, uh, and actually, like going to go do something, I don't see that. And so I think this is an easy one to trot out. And we don't want to radicalize people and we don't want to, we don't want to just get people, you know, going nuts and being so much for Trump or whatever it may be that they're going to go and do something crazy. To me, I think that's a tactic of, of the weak and of the liberals and other people like that to silence christians who are up in arms about something. We don't want to go that far. Like, nobody say we're going to go that far. Nobody said we're going to actually take political violence. Like, that's horrible. And obviously we're not going to do that. And so us saying taking action is not saying we're going to go do those things. It is. We can take action in other ways. We'll get to it in a second. Maybe the deep end, whatever. There's other ways to take action. But, guys, does that, does that make sense as I'm explaining that? Do you have any thoughts on that? I just want to briefly run through those two. [00:57:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I think there's a difference in obviously getting in a way, riled up and, you know, calling out the evil and saying, this is absolutely, you know, even with the lgbt stuff, like, I will not stand for this. And my kids are, you know, doing this to my kids or whatever to just make the straw man jump of, well, that means they're just going to go do whatever. I don't even want to, you know, spell out what that could be. I think that's pretty unrealistic most of the time. So, Joe, do you want to get us into the kind of the last, last response here? [00:58:11] Speaker B: Yes. This is the person who's actually willing to stand up. So when we talk about, I'm going to go down the list one more time when we talk about how to respond to evil, you know, what are christians supposed to do? There's these different sponsors. Bury your head in the sand, be above it all, kind of mind your own business, make excuses for evil. Be the prayer warrior who, again, that sounds bad to dunk on that one. It's great to pray, but the person who's just pray, but no action. The fifth is the militant, like, yeah, I'm going to take up arms. Right? Because it's, that's how we respond to evil. I don't see that very often, but I think that's, that's a fear out there. Number six is the guy who's willing to actually stand up. He understands the times. He's the stand up guy. There's got to be a better term, but that's what I came up with, so. And this is the person who is willing to actually take action. He sees it again. He understands the times. He is in prayer about it. He's connected to other christians. He's not some lone wolf mercenary out there doing something like, he is a God fearing, bible believing, um, christian man of God, who is looking at, or a woman of God who's looking at it, going, man, something has to be done. We got to take action. And who's willing to, quote, unquote, get their hands dirty, proverbially speaking, in terms of, like, getting out there and making a difference in their community. And so, like we said, we could relegate this to the, to the deep end because this is an interesting one, but this is kind of the point of the entire podcast. So, fellas, what do you, how much do you want to get into? Because we have four other points as to how you can take action. Um, what do you guys want to do? [00:59:36] Speaker A: Well, yeah, so it's not strictly political. I think that's one of the things of, like, we're arguing with so many people who are like, christians shouldn't be political, that it looks like we're arguing that politics is the only way forward. No, that is a big one, as one of these ways to stand up. But really, it's kind of who you are, where you are, what opportunities you have. I went to a meeting last night. It was just kind of a concerned citizens thing. And, uh, they were just talking about the schools and things that are happening and just crazy stuff the teachers are doing here locally and what they can do to oppose that. It's like, you know, this is really neat. These, these are just local people giving up time on a Tuesday night who are plugged in and doing things that some of them don't even have kids and grandkids in the schools. But, like, it will really bless the children of this community to do that. That's a good thing. And there is a post went viral on Facebook the other day as the false dichotomy of, well, evangelism is a better thing. Like, yes, do both of those things. And again, to my point about my grandmother, you're going to help more people be evangelized if you do these kinds of things, too. And so I think about, like, Matt Walsh, the conservative columnist guy, not my favorite pundit. A lot of people like him, real popular guy, found out that Vanderbilt hospital was doing these transgender reassignment surgeries on teenager, like, young kids and young teenagers, I guess I should say, and had a problem with it and started making noise about it and testifying before Congress and went in and got the program shut down. And it's like a, if you're looking at that going, oh, that's not good. Christians in power don't mix. Like, man, get real. But number two, why did it take a catholic podcaster to do this when there are churches all around Vanderbilt, there are christians all through systems like that. The government here in the state should be on top of that kind of thing. And so for somebody to say, oh, we shouldn't take that kind of action. Are you kidding me? Do what you can where you have the opportunity, because it really. He's probably saved lives by doing that. [01:01:44] Speaker C: Yeah, that was, that was a really cool story. The only, the only thing I'll say, and then I guess save the rest of. I definitely want to get into the boycott discussion in the deep end. Um, I think you have to, from a congregational, I think you have to start from the inside and work your way out. And by that, I mean you as a husband, you as a father, you as a wife and a mother, whatever, you start within your family and you really shore up the foundational beliefs and principles amongst your family of calling this stuff out, acknowledging this is evil, calling yourselves righteous. A lot of the stuff that we started with really start there within your family, with your kids and whatnot. I think you then need to kind of branch out into your congregation and bring your elders, bring your preacher into it of kind of, hey, let's make sure we're on the same page about this stuff. Let's talk about these things. Let's, again, just really get united on this front. Whatever the issue is, the LGBTQ agenda, the BLM, critical race theory, whatever, because I think this is where a lot of it stops, is because, well, that's going to offend a lot of people. So we're just going to. It's divisive. We're not going to mess with it. I think you need to bring this stuff up, and I think we need to make sure that, again, you as a congregation, it's a lot difficult in a bigger congregation, as we've discussed before, but I think even our, you know, I think of, like, our congregation a lot smaller. It's gonna be very easily something. And you bring up and say, hey, I want to make sure we're all on the same page about this, this kind of stuff. And then I feel like once you have that shored up is really when you, as a congregation can then take the next, you know, attack the next layer, so to speak, and branch out into your community and do some of the stuff that Jack is talking about on the school board and just really kind of being creative, creatively brainstorming, I would say, of ways that you can affect your community, ways you can affect. Obviously, we're not public school believers, but, you know, ways that you can maybe affect the public school board or ways that you can get on the city council or whatever it is. But I think, I guess my contribution to this point would be then get a start with your own family, work your way out to your congregation, and then just kind of keep adding layers. If you try to skip a step, skip layers. I feel like you're kind of defeating your own agenda, if that makes sense. Joe, what thoughts do you have? [01:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah, you mentioned school boards. I was thinking. I mentioned this in the, uh, in my sermon that Woodland Park, Colorado, had a bunch of christians get on the school board and start vetoing and shutting down all the godless curriculum. And people went nuts, man. I mean, they went bananas like they couldn't believe. You can't do this. It's like you've been doing it for years. We did the exact same thing you did. It's like, watch it. Yeah, exactly. Well, hey, you elected us, so guess what? That's what we're going to do. Beautiful. Beautiful. I mean, I think that's fantastic. I think christians need to go on school boards and get all the transgender teachers out and all the groomers and everybody else. I think, you know, as christians, you look at it go, man. Getting people fired. That seems harsh. No, I think that's good, because it is. You are trying to keep people from grooming the young kids, and it's not even my kids. My kids aren't going to public school. Clearly. I still want to help the other kids in the area. Going to city council meetings and doing things like that. But the whole key to this is it cannot be performative. It cannot be to pat yourself on the back. It can't be anything other than for the glory of God. And you know what? The glory of God is not going to be diminished because somebody gets on opening ceremonies and does it. But where the glory of God will be slightly diminished. Like, he's, he's not going to be diminished, but the way that we respond to it will bring him down to a base level. And we are not going to do that to God. We're going to uphold his, his laws, and we're going to make him gleam to the community. And you know what? When you're shining light, darkness scatters. Darkness hates light. It can't have both. And so I would just say for christians, yes, shine your light. Evangelism is important. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do all of the christian things that we're supposed to do. And on top of that, fight back where possible. We're talking about as a congregation what we're going to do with a local gay pride parade that's going to go down Dixon, Tennessee. Hey, we're going to stand up. We're going to do something about it and see if we can stop that. Because, yes, I think it is our job to get involved in things like that because kids are involved and others are involved. And the libertarian idea that maybe we used to share, well, they're going to do what they're going to do. Not on our watch, not in Dixon, Tennessee. This has been one for Christ, and it's important for people to know that. And so, yeah, it is. I'd be fine if they had a christian parade to go. Well, what if they just had no parade? Okay, better than the gay pride parade. But I'd be fine if they had a christian parade. That'd be fantastic. This is us going out and trying to make a difference. I think there are ways. And so the boycott discussion, we've discussed it before. People know where we stand on Disney and such. Stick around for the, for the deep end, though, in terms of boycott in the Olympics. The problem is by the time the deep end drops, the Olympics can be like half done. So it's still interesting. Yeah. [01:06:27] Speaker A: It's an ongoing kind of concern, even. [01:06:29] Speaker C: If, like, how useful is it? I think my closing comments for this would just basically be. I think the really essential point of this episode is, like, pay attention and be very conscious of how you are responding to evil in the world, how you are reacting to evil because it, I mean, in my opinion, it can be very easy for a lot of these responses that we went through to be very, almost like not subconscious, but like, you don't really even think about the fact that that's how you're responding. You make, you're quick to make excuses or, you know, you're just trying to take the above it all approach. I think maybe a lot of Christians could just have those kind of, without really thinking about the fact that that's the way they're responding to it and that's the way they're reacting to it. And so I guess, again, my exhortation would be, be very conscious of how you are and to Jack and Joe's point that they've said so well, like, are you doing this to frame yourself in a better light for the world? Are you begging for the world's approval with these things? Like, what's your reasoning for reacting, responding to these things this way? Because I guarantee you, Trump assassination, the presidential candidate going on the, you know, drag queen show, the Olympic controversy, this will not be the last mega event where Christianity is mocked and evil is out there probably this year. We've talked about Disney before and their, their, their shows, their little shorts, their things that are just absolutely taking a baseball bat to Christianity. It happens all the time. And so this will not be the last instance. And so I think this is where you, again, be very conscious of next time this happens, how are we going to respond? [01:08:00] Speaker A: Yeah. The James 417 to him who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him, it is sin that comes to mind. You've got an opportunity to do good in these ways and so do it. The parallel and proverbs about do not withhold good from somebody when it was due, when it's in your power to give it to him. There's just so many things where you can help people. And it's not all just about politics. It's nothing. Because I think one of the other things about politics is people reduce it to the presidential election. Yeah, that obviously has pretty significant implications on your day to day life. But there's just so many things in your own neighborhood. And I think sometimes we think small and good things, but small things and we don't think long term, we don't think roots. We don't think, as I was saying earlier, the philosophers like putting those grassroots down in institutions 100 years ago and you're seeing it bear fruit today. We don't have that game plan. We just think, well, you know, if, if the right person gets invited. [01:08:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:55] Speaker A: I mean, do that. To do all of these things and think a little bit bigger than we have because I think we can make more of an impact than we realize that we can. [01:09:05] Speaker B: Good stuff, Alice. I don't have anything else further. Anything else you guys want to. I think that'll. I think it'll wrap us up. Thank you for listening. Let us know in the comments, obviously, um, your thoughts on it, agreement, disagreements, questions, anything for those that on the folks. Plus just make sure to have it in by Wednesday night for everybody else. We still do read the Facebook comments and sometimes those do get discussed in the deep end, but YouTube as well. So please get the comments in. But yeah. Thank you for listening. Thank you for always, always being here for this next week, first week in August. Just crazy. So we hope everybody has a great August and we will talk to you again next week. Thanks for listening.