Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 131. Freedom In the Church - Strong Men, Strippers, and Driscoll

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131. Freedom In the Church - Strong Men, Strippers, and Driscoll · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:04
Welcome to the For Freedom podcast.
0:10
I found my freedom of you. I found a.
0:16
Joy I can't lose. And thank God it's true.
0:21
You wrapped your arms around me and heaven broke through from
0:26
the moment she found me. I found my freedom in you.
0:32
This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for
0:36
everyday Christians with everyday issues.
0:40
Now here are your hosts, James Seyfried and Brett Martin.
0:48
Welcome back to the For Freedom podcast.
0:50
What a blessing it is to be back in the seat.
0:54
Man, these last couple of weeks talking through the End of
0:56
Church series has been fantastic.
0:59
I hope you were able to listen to our Don Lomb interview.
1:02
Had a lot of great response from that on social media.
1:04
And hopefully you will be implementing some of these items
1:08
of evangelism in your everyday life.
1:12
And Brett, it's been a great time.
1:15
This past weekend, me and my wife got on a plane Thursday
1:19
night and drove or flew, I suppose that drove, flew to
1:23
Texas and showed up there. And we were in my sister's house
1:28
on Friday when she came home from work and we got to surprise
1:32
her. She did not know we were going
1:33
to be there. She's 37 weeks pregnant and
1:36
they're having the baby next week.
1:38
And so we were able to be there with them.
1:41
And what an awesome time that was to to be able to be there
1:44
this past weekend. So I was out of church, out of
1:47
the pulpit. I still watch church and still
1:49
part of church there, but was able to take a week off and
1:54
spend the time just me and my wife.
1:56
It's been three years. We figured out three years since
1:58
we took a just a solo, me and her trip.
2:01
And so that was great to get away and spend time with family,
2:05
spend time with me and my wife just detaching from ministry for
2:09
a weekend. And man, it is.
2:11
It is something about getting away when we take a vacation,
2:14
especially as pastors. But yeah, it was a great weekend
2:18
for us. Brett, how are you doing and how
2:20
was your weekend? Brother, you know that when you
2:24
go out of town you got to find a bus ministry.
2:27
You. Really, if you really loved your
2:29
bus kids, you'd have found a bus ministry and and you'd have been
2:33
out there knocking doors. You'd have been swallowing
2:35
goldfish on your vacation. Eating Pickles and Pickles and
2:38
Twinkies, baby. Just keep that in mind for next
2:41
time, brother. Seriously, everything's going
2:44
good with us. And I want to say a word also
2:47
about the episode that we had last week with Don Lum.
2:52
Man, such a great response. I've had several pastors reach
2:56
out to me and ask me, man, where can I get these resources at?
3:02
I had a couple pastors ask me where, where can I get the
3:05
crosses at? I want to I want to pass out the
3:07
crosses. Oh, I thought they were asking
3:09
about in the Operation Go stuff. I know.
3:12
So this, you know, this was a really a really good, really
3:16
good response to the episode last week.
3:19
A lot of good ideas there. And the past couple weeks on
3:24
evangelism, we've had some really good ideas on the show
3:27
and, you know, we've done some really cool things and I'm
3:30
looking forward to what's going on this coming.
3:33
What I'm excited about in our church is this coming Friday
3:36
night, we've got a worship night in our church.
3:39
We've got a band that we've been working on, a contemporary
3:43
worship band and they've been working really hard.
3:46
We've promoted it in our county. We've got a lot of churches
3:49
coming. We've been running Facebook ads
3:52
and we're going to have a great time this coming Friday night at
3:55
our church. Couple hours.
3:57
We've got some food coming and I'm just looking forward to the
4:00
to a night of worship at Rocky Point Baptist Church.
4:05
But, you know, we're excited about what the Lord's doing,
4:08
excited about where we've been. Let me ask you, since you were
4:10
just in Texas, is it true what they say?
4:13
Are things really bigger in Texas?
4:17
Brett, I'll say it like this. I was driving down the road, I
4:22
think it was 380 was the Interstate.
4:24
And of course the roads are bigger.
4:27
Everything's like 5 to 7 high lanes wide.
4:30
Your normal like going through town roads are like 3 lanes wide
4:34
on each side. So massive.
4:35
They, they, they plan for the future in that sense.
4:38
But we come over a hill like there's a bridge and an exit.
4:41
And of course all your populated areas have stores and mass of my
4:46
store, I mean, chick-fil-A's like 3 minutes away from each
4:48
other. Just blow my mind.
4:49
Like literally 3 minutes down the road was a Chick-fil-A.
4:52
It was like a McDonald's almost like McDonald's are everywhere
4:55
and all of a sudden this is where chick-fil-A's are at.
4:58
But we came over across the hill and I looked to the left.
5:01
I was like, holy cow, look at that building.
5:03
It was massive. It looked like a Sam's Club
5:05
Costco on steroids. And it had the words Target on
5:08
the side of it. And it was the largest Target I
5:11
think I've ever seen in my life. It was the parking lot
5:14
surrounded it. It looked like an arena almost.
5:17
And it was just a regular Target store.
5:18
So yes, things are bigger in Texas, but the reason they're
5:21
bigger is because they're trying to hold so many people, so many
5:25
places are so densely populated. I mean, if you look at the map
5:27
of where we're at, I mean, there were, it seemed to be like
5:30
10,000 homes in just a matter of a couple of subdivisions.
5:35
And so it was, it was massive. Food was fantastic.
5:38
We stopped at a place called Part 8, which is a BBQ
5:41
restaurant there and I had some fantastic BBQ, great
5:45
conversations with my family, me and my brother-in-law.
5:48
We were able just to sit outside, hang out and we had a a
5:52
great theological conversation that we've never had before.
5:56
And so that was a really cool interaction that we got to have
5:59
and a great time with my sister, a great time with the nieces and
6:02
nephews. And my my nephew is an up and
6:05
coming football player. He's QB one right now for the
6:09
McKinney school district and lot sent a lot of players to college
6:12
and pro out there. And so he he's getting some some
6:16
notice there. So I may have a an up and coming
6:18
star in the family. So just be on the lookout for
6:21
Nathan Vincent and be ready for that.
6:24
But Brett, what I'm really excited about is at the time of
6:27
this recording, it'll come out on Thursday, but I will be
6:31
finishing up a conference in Asheboro.
6:34
John is meeting me. He's coming to Asheboro.
6:37
I had a conference planned with Steve Lawson and the preaching
6:42
conference. And I had a guy that's in my
6:44
church was going to go with me. His wife's having surgery and he
6:48
had to back out. And so I was there with John.
6:50
I said, hey, I know it's not far, but everything's paid for.
6:53
All you got to do is show up. I couldn't get a refund on
6:55
anything because it was too late of a notice to cancel.
6:58
That's everything's paid for. All you got to do is show up and
7:00
he's like, let me see what's going to happen, see if I can
7:02
figure it out. So he's leaving Wednesday
7:05
morning like 3:00 AM his time and driving to Asheville to be
7:09
at the conference and then he'll leave back out Thursday.
7:11
It's just a one night deal. But, you know, just always
7:14
looking for opportunities to enhance our preaching, which is
7:18
what we're going to be talking about in a couple of weeks and
7:21
be able to work on what we do. We, we love preaching, We love
7:25
studying the word. And so how that looks in an
7:28
everyday life from, from some of these guys that have done it for
7:30
so long. Well.
7:32
That's really cool. That's awesome.
7:34
I'm excited about next weekend. Next weekend I'll be going down
7:38
to Jacksonville, FL and graduating from Trinity Baptist
7:43
College with my second bachelor, but my first accredited
7:47
bachelor. And so, you know, Jacksonville
7:51
is a, you know, pretty big city and we're looking forward to
7:54
going down there. And we've got some family down
7:57
there. And so, you know, we'll probably
7:59
hang out with them, hang out on the beach, show off my beach
8:03
bod, make people jealous. Brett, we are looking forward to
8:07
some things coming up really quickly before we get into our
8:10
episode today. We've got our trip to Israel
8:15
coming up. Let's talk briefly about that.
8:17
Brett. We've had some some things
8:19
happen since our last recording. Israel had some attacks from the
8:26
from Iran or Iran. I ran so far.
8:32
Anyway, oh, you're good. And so a lot of people were
8:35
what's going on here? 99% of the bombs and and drones
8:39
that came in were were deflected by the Iron Dome and only one
8:43
person was hurt. One child was was injured at All
8:46
in all those attacks. I haven't even talked to you
8:50
about what your thoughts are on that.
8:51
And I don't know if you have any thoughts on it.
8:54
If you've looked at it in the World News of events, you know,
8:58
for me, I don't see that this is even something, I think this was
9:02
a telegraphed attack. Everyone knew in the entire
9:06
world this was going to happen. Iran was retaliating from an
9:12
attack that Israel had done on a consulate and had killed about
9:16
five or six top generals that were in Iran.
9:19
And so I think it was more of an attack of, hey, this is going to
9:23
happen, get ready so you can deflect everything so we can
9:26
save face with our country. That's exactly what it was.
9:29
And the Iranians there touting it as a victory, but the rest of
9:34
the world sees it as a massive, massive failure on their part.
9:40
And now Israel's saying that they're going to retaliate,
9:43
which I don't know if they have at this point, there's I would
9:46
see there's no need to because it's just a massive failure on
9:50
the part of Iran. So, you know, I think like you
9:53
said, this was just a show. It was, you know, just a save
9:57
face. I mean, they said they said
10:00
that. Don't want none of this.
10:01
Yeah, they said that the, the, some of the drones were
10:04
literally coming in at walking speed, like that's how fast they
10:08
were coming in. Like there, there was no way
10:11
they were trying to. They were literally telegraphing
10:14
this attack and just saying, hey, we're coming.
10:17
Get ready for one of the few times I, I agree with Joe Biden.
10:21
He said, you know, he called Benjamin Netanyahu and he said
10:25
don't, don't retaliate like you've, you've won this victory.
10:28
This is the great victory. Like you took out their top
10:30
generals. You stop their missiles, they're
10:34
able to say we did something. Iran has no, no, they have no
10:38
desire to be in a, in a direct war with, with Israel.
10:41
They, they're going to use their proxies of Hamas and, and Saudi
10:45
Arabia that that's where they're going to use to, to attack
10:47
Israel if they're going to attack.
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So I'm not worried much about our trip.
10:51
And, and it's still on. I think it's great.
10:53
We've got people over there and people going here soon.
10:56
And so hopefully you'll still join us.
10:58
I've, I've got several people that have talked to me recently
11:00
and said they're excited and, and ready to go and are going to
11:03
be signing up soon. And so if you haven't signed up,
11:06
it's live on our website. And so you can go to
11:08
forfreedompodcast.com and sign up there.
11:12
There's a link there to the, the Yahoo website and you're able to
11:15
go and sign up there. Brett, we've got our Catoosa
11:21
meet up coming up in the the 4th Sake of the Gospel in November
11:26
and man, really pumped about that, excited about being around
11:28
the family and hanging out. And then our next one that's
11:31
coming up, Brett, man, we're two months away.
11:33
What do we got going on there? Two months away, we've got
11:37
Indianapolis, which I'm looking forward to.
11:40
We've got the Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis and
11:44
we're looking forward to that. We've had several pastors who
11:47
listen to the podcast want to meet up with us over there.
11:51
And if you're going to be in Indianapolis during the
11:54
conference, during the convention, let us know.
11:57
Send us a message, drop us a line.
12:00
We want to get together with you.
12:01
We want to meet our audience and talk with you.
12:05
So me and James will be there. We've got Airbnb that we've
12:09
rented and that we're going to enjoy some, you know, the
12:12
pastors conference and the convention and just a good time.
12:16
And we're just with all these things coming up in the future,
12:19
looking forward to, like I said, once again, looking forward to
12:24
Israel. And James, I don't think I don't
12:26
think people need to worry about Israel because listen, man,
12:28
things are still kicking up me and you go over there a week
12:31
before we'll go to Iran, drop a few Rkos, a few tombstone pile
12:36
drivers and make the way clear for our Israel trip.
12:39
So I think I think we're going to be good.
12:40
People don't need to worry. We've got it under control.
12:43
Absolutely. And Brett, Speaking of pastors
12:47
and pastors conference, why don't you segue into what we've
12:50
got coming up today with our conversation, what we're going
12:53
to be talking about. And again, we feel like we
12:56
should do this because it's in the church.
12:57
It's something that's been talked about in the church.
13:01
There has been some ripples go through the Christian community
13:06
over the past few days. And the center of the
13:10
controversy is a pastor that, well, he's not known for
13:15
controversy. He he never makes up waves.
13:19
He never, you know, it's not like there's a whole whole
13:23
podcast dedicated to one of his old churches.
13:27
But Mark Driscoll is in the news again because Martin Driscoll
13:32
has and most people know, was invited to speak at the Stronger
13:37
Men's Conference. And something I didn't know that
13:40
you actually told me was that he had spoken.
13:43
He's been speaking to this conference for the last seven
13:45
years. And that's something that I
13:48
didn't know. But there was an issue here with
13:50
an act that took place at the conference.
13:55
It was an acrobatic act. And we're going to get into more
13:59
details in just a minute. But Mark called out this act in
14:05
the middle, middle of his sermon.
14:07
He was kicked off stage by the pastor.
14:11
Pastor John Lindale was citing scripture as to the reason why
14:17
he kicked Mark off stage. There's been back and forth
14:22
since then. It's been a really, really big
14:25
deal. And just like you said, this
14:27
happened in the church. And so it's just something we
14:32
want to talk about. So what I'm going to do is I'm
14:35
going to lay out the details. I'm going to start into this and
14:38
James, when you when you want to jump in, just let me know.
14:42
But here are the details. So the church is in Springfield,
14:47
MO and the name of the church is James River Church.
14:52
At this church, the pastor by the name of John Lindell was
14:57
having a conference called the Stronger Men Conference.
15:02
OK. He's apparently had this
15:04
conference for several years. Mark is preached at it for for
15:09
many years during this performance.
15:13
During this conference, there was a performance where a man
15:20
performed a sword swallowing act in which he climbed up a pole
15:26
that was, you know, down below the stage.
15:29
It was like a a feat of strength.
15:31
I mean, they, they have all sorts of they have monster
15:34
trucks at this, at this conference.
15:37
It's all about, you know, being a man's man doing manly things.
15:41
OK, Well, Mark took issue with this act that happened.
15:48
He he did not like it. And so he took it upon himself
15:52
the next day when he got up to preach to say something about
15:56
it. And before we get any further
15:58
into this issue, I think we should play that clip but.
16:01
Let me do this. I've been up since 1:00 in the
16:07
morning. The reason I'm hoarse is I have
16:10
been praying for you and my heart is very burdened for you.
16:19
And I want to be very careful with this.
16:22
And it's not what I want to say, but the Jezebel spirit has
16:26
already been here. The Jezebel spirit opened our
16:32
event. This is a rebuke and a
16:34
correction of no one. This is an observation.
16:37
Before the Word of God was open, there was a platform.
16:41
It was a high place. On it was a pole, a national,
16:51
the same thing that's used in the strip club for women who
16:55
have the Jezebel spirit to seduce men in front of that was
17:00
a man who ripped his shirt off like a woman does in front of a
17:06
pole at a strip club. That man then ascended.
17:14
See, our God is not arrogant. He doesn't ascend.
17:17
Our God is humble. He descends.
17:21
And then he swallowed a sword and Jesus Christ.
17:26
OK, Pastor John, I'll receive that.
17:30
Thank you. Let me just say this.
18:08
If Mark wanted to say that, he should have said it to me first.
18:13
He did. Matthew 18.
18:16
Matthew 18. If your brother offends you, go
18:21
to him privately. I talked to Mark for 1/2 hour.
18:27
There was not one word in that. He's out lying.
18:31
If you want to sing, you can say it to me.
18:36
You may not agree with me, you may not agree with him, but we
18:39
are brothers in Christ and there's a right way to handle
18:42
this. All right, James, so that was
18:43
the clip. Give me your thoughts.
18:46
Well, I've watched it a couple times.
18:49
I think that they were both in the wrong again.
18:53
The let's let's back up a little bit before this conference has
18:57
been going on for years. They've had power lifters,
19:00
they've had monster trucks, they've had bodybuilders,
19:04
they've had all these other things.
19:07
I love the idea of having a conference for men to grow in
19:12
their faith as men. When did growing in our faith as
19:17
men be turning to a who we're going to bring in to entertain
19:21
us? Why does there have to be
19:24
entertainment? Why can't there just be
19:26
teaching, preaching, worship something, Man, some of my, some
19:31
of the times when I've grown the most, is it like T4G, these
19:35
conferences, the convention where it's just brothers and
19:39
sisters getting together. And sometimes it's just brothers
19:41
getting together and worshipping, praising the Lord
19:46
and seeing what God has for us in scripture.
19:50
And all of a sudden we bring all these other outside things that
19:55
can be good. But how are they creating strong
19:59
men? Because we're entertaining them.
20:01
And so to start out with that and then, you know, to have this
20:06
former stripper be shirtless on stage, they've had other
20:10
shirtless men on stage with bodybuilders and power lifters
20:14
as they, they did some things. So this isn't the first time
20:16
this happened. And from what I understand, Mark
20:21
Driscoll just put out a book. Called new dangers, old demons
20:26
or something that specifically talks about this Jezebel spirit.
20:32
So I, I sort of think that he's coming out and beginning to talk
20:37
about what's on his mind because he just studied this and he's,
20:41
he, he's, he's just put a book out and he begins to rip this
20:46
church, this pastor, this, this conference, a new one.
20:52
If it's true that he talked to him for 1/2 an hour before stage
20:56
and he didn't bring it up, then yes, he was in the wrong for
20:59
getting up and saying this. He was in the wrong for causing
21:01
division. This should have been addressed
21:04
privately. If I go to John's church and he
21:06
asked me to come up and, and preach for him and it's got a
21:08
revival going on or you call me to come out and do that.
21:11
And the day before I was watching online and I saw that
21:15
you got up and you began to play Highway to Hell and that was
21:18
your opening song of worship for service.
21:21
I would have probably said, hey, Brett, I'm going to preach, but
21:25
I'm going to have to address that.
21:27
You guys got up and, and sang this song.
21:29
There was no glory in the God. There was no glorifying God in
21:32
that song. How, how, what's your
21:34
justification for it? I would give you a time to
21:36
rebuttal it. And then you would say, well, if
21:38
you're going to say that, then I can't have you get up and
21:40
preach. But I would address it with you
21:42
personally first because you're the pastor of that church.
21:45
You're the one hosting me. And so for him to have 1/2 hour
21:48
conversation, then yes, he was in the wrong.
21:52
And, and, and I'm sure that it had been advertised that this
21:56
sword swallowing guy, Alex would have been there.
21:58
Everyone would have known that he would have been coming.
22:00
And so it would have been no surprise for Mark Driscoll to
22:06
have seen this or to have known what was going to happen
22:10
beforehand. So that's a great viewpoint.
22:14
Let me back up a little bit too. So we've got Alex Mangula.
22:18
OK Alex Magdala was the was the performer.
22:22
Alex Magdala was a former stripper.
22:25
I've seen no evidence that he's still today a male stripper.
22:30
I think it's something he's done in his past, OK.
22:34
He is a professing Christian now.
22:37
John said that he was, you know, born again.
22:41
And then Alex came back and said, no, I'm an Orthodox
22:44
Christian. Either way, today he's a
22:48
professing Christian. OK.
22:51
And so let's say that the stripping is is in his past,
22:56
something he's not proud of, he's asked forgiveness for.
22:59
Let's just say that's the case. All right?
23:03
One of the issues was the pole. I heard many people say that he
23:08
was up there pole dancing. OK.
23:11
I think personally that to say it's pole dancing is, is
23:16
disingenuous because, you know, a striptease is different than
23:21
an acrobatic, you know, like what he was doing, you know,
23:25
that's an acrobatic pole. You know, they've, you know,
23:29
this, this profession, this thing about using a pole for
23:33
acrobatics, it's been done for thousands of years, OK.
23:36
This just and and Brett, you do it all the time.
23:39
I mean, I know. I mean I've got.
23:40
One in my. Office over here in the Amen.
23:42
Amen. Yeah.
23:43
So, you know, I'm a professional at it.
23:45
So. But you know, I think it's a,
23:47
call it a pole dancing act. I think it's disingenuous.
23:50
It's an acrobatic act. Now I think the big issue here
23:55
and the sword swallowing, no big deal, OK.
23:59
It's a, you know, it's a feat of strength.
24:00
It's something and you know, so I don't have problem with that
24:04
per SE. I think the issue here came when
24:07
he took his shirt off. OK, Although you made mention
24:13
that they've had boxers up here before at this conference.
24:17
I've never seen boxers box with their shirts on, you know.
24:21
So how come, and Mark has preached at this conference for
24:24
seven years, how come he didn't say anything about that?
24:27
And I will say it probably wasn't the wisest thing for him
24:30
to do it shirtless, but it is kind of a men's conference.
24:34
It's a Gray area. I would say that's probably
24:37
wouldn't be beneficial for him to do that.
24:39
Might have, would have, you know, might have, would have
24:42
told the guy, even if he's a new Christian, say, look, it's
24:45
probably not a good idea. He'd do this with no shirt on,
24:48
maybe put a tank top on or something like that.
24:50
So, you know, I do have, you know, that probably wasn't the
24:53
wisest thing. OK, now let me say something
24:59
about what you said about bringing in these acts.
25:03
I'm going to push back not not too much.
25:05
I'm more or less going to see the opposite side of it.
25:09
If you're bringing in these acts as just entertainment, IIA, 100
25:14
percent, 100% agree with you, no doubt whatsoever.
25:19
OK, We don't need to be entertained.
25:21
We need to be taught the word of God.
25:23
OK. If your goal, however, is to
25:27
bring in unchurched people that have never been to church
25:31
before, you might have an act like a like monster trucks.
25:34
They've had monster trucks at this thing before.
25:37
You might promote monster trucks to get unsaved men in and and
25:43
there were a lot of men saved, you know, made a profession of
25:47
Christ at at this year's conference.
25:49
I think John said it was in the 50s, maybe 52 from a video that
25:53
I saw today that he said 52 men had got saved at the conference.
25:57
So, you know, I think, you know, you look at it from that point,
26:01
if, if that's your goal to do these things to get people in,
26:04
get unsaved people in, to share the gospel with him, I can see
26:08
the point of that as well. So like I said, this is my
26:11
viewpoint on Alex and his, you know, probably wasn't the wisest
26:16
things or some things I would have, I would have, I personally
26:19
would have done different. But, but really the issue is the
26:23
main issue of this is how Mark handled this whole situation.
26:28
So we have the ACT one day and then the next day Mark gets up
26:34
and preaches. Now, in between that 24 hour
26:37
period, he had a 30 minute conversation with John Lindell.
26:43
In that 30 minute conversation, Mark said absolutely nothing
26:48
about this incident. He'd bring it up once he
26:51
apparently he had, he had stayed up all night praying about this.
26:55
He had lost his voice praying about this, but yet when he has
26:59
a 30 minute conversation with the pastor of the conference, he
27:03
decides to absolutely say nothing.
27:06
OK, He gets up at the conference and he he, he proclaims the
27:11
spirit of Jezebel. Now before we go any further,
27:16
OK, let's talk about the Spirit of Jezebel in the Bible chapter
27:22
verse. We're going to read that at this
27:25
time. Oh, wait a second.
27:27
We're not going to read it because it's not in there.
27:31
Can't find it. Can't find it.
27:33
Now there's spirit of Antichrist.
27:36
You know, that's in the New Testament.
27:38
The Spirit of the Lord. Spirit of the Lord.
27:41
But do we think Jezebel's spirit is floating around getting
27:46
people to do these immoral things?
27:49
I mean, I, I, I don't see that. It's very convenient that he has
27:53
a book coming out about this and at the same time, kind of an
27:58
opportunistic thing that I think of.
28:02
OK, so John says, OK, Mark, you're out of line.
28:06
Kicks him off stage. John gets gets up on stage.
28:09
Now here's where I want to ask your opinion about this.
28:12
He cites Matthew 18 as the reason for him kicking, kicking
28:19
Mark off stage because, you know, Matthew 18 says if your
28:22
brother offends you, you'll win privately.
28:25
If he doesn't accept it, go to witness.
28:27
Go with witnesses. If he doesn't accept that, take
28:30
it before the church. OK?
28:32
He's saying Mark didn't do any of that.
28:35
So in your opinion, let me ask you this, James, in your
28:38
opinion, does Matthew 18 apply to this situation?
28:45
The context of Matthew 18 no, does not apply to the situation.
28:49
Matthew 18 is a Matthew 18 is a, is a scripture that we have that
28:54
teaches US church discipline in the context of the church, in
28:59
the context of the local church setting.
29:01
If I've got a member that's struggling with sin, struggling
29:08
with maybe thieving, maybe what, whatever it may be, we go to
29:13
that person individually and we say, hey, you're, you're
29:16
struggling here. It's causing division.
29:19
It's causing sin in the church and we try to rebuke, we try to
29:25
restore them first privately. If they don't receive that, then
29:28
we bring an elder or a Deacon with us and we have a council of
29:33
witnesses and we talk again. And then if they still don't
29:37
receive it, then we go before the church and we say this
29:40
person is not in standard in line with Scripture and is
29:46
breaking biblical principles. And so therefore we're going to
29:49
have to disfellowship or ask them to remove themselves from
29:53
our church body because it's causing disunity in within our
29:57
church. OK, so this is in the context of
29:59
the church is when this is talking about can we use these
30:03
principles in our everyday conversations?
30:06
Absolutely we can use, but to cite this in the say, Matthew 18
30:11
tells us that he should have came to me privately because
30:14
that's biblical. It's a stretch, but I I do agree
30:17
that it should have been done in private first.
30:21
OK, OK, see, I'm, I'm, I'm a little unsure about it
30:25
personally. I mean, I see where he's saying
30:28
it, but then again, it, it was a public thing that happened
30:31
publicly. And I've heard, I've heard
30:33
people say that in this situation, I've heard people
30:35
say, oh, because it was public, we should have addressed it
30:38
public. And you know, a lot of people
30:41
that are like, I like how you said it.
30:44
You said it, it wasn't necessarily in the church.
30:47
We can apply it to things in other in other areas of our
30:53
life. You know, a lot of people are
30:56
dogging are dogging John because he used, you know, he used
30:59
Matthew 8. He cited Matthew 18, but don't
31:02
have another scripture to take its place of what of how he
31:07
should have handled it. But I like the way I like the
31:10
way you put it. Well, and and we use this
31:12
principle for us personally, me and my wife, I mean, we use this
31:15
when we was our kids, right? If a kid gets in trouble, we
31:19
pull Brody aside and we say, Brody, what's going on?
31:23
Well, Jade, Jade did this and then that's why I retaliated.
31:27
OK, so we'll privately go to Jade.
31:30
Jade, what happened out there? Oh, we were jumping on the
31:32
trampoline and and I accidentally hit Brody and and
31:35
he started punching me. OK, so now we're getting.
31:38
More of the story. So we then we bring them
31:41
together with mom and dad and the kids there and we'll say,
31:44
OK, what happened? Well, now they're face to face
31:46
and we've already heard individual stories.
31:49
And then Brody begins to change his story or Jade changes her
31:52
story. And now we can begin to catch
31:54
what's going on. But it's private 1st and before
31:57
we go public with the whole family council basically.
32:01
And so it's a great principle to use, but specifically the site
32:05
Matthew 18 here. I believe he's citing it out of
32:07
context. OK, all right, so here's what
32:12
happens after that, after that, after that whole thing.
32:16
What a lot of people don't know is that John left and found Mark
32:21
in the parking lot. Mark was heading to the airport.
32:24
OK, he was gone. Mark.
32:27
John tracked Mark down in the airport and said look, we need
32:29
to talk about this. They had 1/2 hour conversation
32:33
and then a lot of people don't know that John and Mark come
32:38
back on stage that same day and have another conversation in
32:44
front of everybody and Mark tells everybody that he was in
32:48
the wrong. Now that's a clip we're going to
32:51
play for you right now. I believe what I should have
32:54
done since I had another session.
32:56
I was thinking about it. It wasn't in my notes.
32:58
I didn't intend to go there. I was up late praying for the
33:00
men. I just kept seeing it.
33:02
And I should have between sessions talk to you rather than
33:06
just verbal processing on the stage.
33:09
And as the Father and the head of the house, you could have
33:12
given me a thumbs up or down. And I need to honor that as as
33:15
spiritual authority. And I honor your spiritual
33:17
authority. What was that and?
33:22
So I. Apologize to you for not going
33:25
that route, which would have led us from the most awkward moment
33:28
in the history of any men's event.
33:34
So, yeah. And I don't.
33:36
I mean, if I were you, I wouldn't let me speak again.
33:39
That's something you should worry about.
33:43
So as we can see here, you know, Mark comes back on stage after
33:49
that whole debacle. He apologizes to John.
33:52
He tells John in the whole conference that he's in the
33:56
wrong, OK. But then Mark goes back and he
34:02
double S back on what he said. He he gets back to his church,
34:07
he gets back to Arizona and he begins preaching that he was in
34:11
the right, OK. And so he double backs again,
34:15
and he's texting John and John's son, telling them that he loves
34:21
him, He'll do anything for them. He just felt he had to say
34:24
something. And he keeps doubling back, like
34:27
he'll say he'll tell John one thing and then he'll post
34:30
something on social media. That's the complete opposite.
34:34
OK, So Mark keeps bringing this up and keeps doing doublespeak.
34:39
And then when, you know, Mark posts a picture of him and John
34:42
together after this mess, Well, when John texts Mark and says,
34:48
Mark, you're doing all this double speak.
34:50
You're still talking about this thing behind your back.
34:53
You're still saying that you're not in the wrong on your social
34:55
media. Mark takes the picture of him
34:58
and John down. And then Mark begins to double
35:01
down on the fact that he was right after all.
35:04
So then John Wendell gets a man named Jimmy Evans.
35:07
I don't know who Jimmy Evans is because Mark, John is still
35:10
going after this. We need to follow Matthew 18 on
35:13
this. So he sends Jimmy Evans to talk
35:16
to because that's the other witness.
35:19
Mark still doesn't repent, John says.
35:22
So then John goes before his church, I think this past
35:25
Sunday, and publicly rebukes Mark before his church and says
35:31
Mark needs to repent of all this.
35:33
He needs to repent of what he did at the conference, of the
35:36
text messages he's been sending my son, of what he's been, you
35:40
know, pushing on social media of using this as an opportunity to
35:45
sell his book. Mark needs to to, you know,
35:48
repent of all this stuff. And it is is calling him out on
35:53
this issue. And so this thing is just really
35:55
snowballed into a big, big ordeal.
36:00
So I'm going to give you my last thoughts on what should have
36:04
happened and then we can discuss it a little more.
36:07
I think what you said earlier is exactly what should have
36:10
happened. Mark should have seen the thing,
36:14
seen the ACT, and if he had a problem with it, he had an
36:18
opportunity to speak to the pastor.
36:20
The event before he spoke, he should have went to the pastor
36:25
and he should have said, look, this wasn't right.
36:28
I don't think this was right. I think you need to go up and
36:32
you need to apologize for this. And then the pastor would have
36:35
done one or two things. He would have said, you're
36:36
right, Mark, I'm going to go up. I'm going to repent of this.
36:40
I'm going to apologize for it publicly.
36:43
And if the pastor didn't do that, then what Mark should have
36:47
done is said, well, since you are not going to publicly
36:51
apologize for this, I can't preach for you today.
36:55
And he should have left and not preached and then put out a
36:58
public statement as to the reason why.
37:01
That's how this should have happened.
37:03
Yeah, absolutely. And Brett one one year ago,
37:07
March 8th of 2023, Mark Driscoll preached a message called the
37:12
Jezebel spirit is in American Churches.
37:16
You can look up Mark Driscoll has that posted on his YouTube
37:19
page and he streamed it live on April 15th.
37:25
That was originally aired on March 8th.
37:27
And he re streamed this this sermon that he preached and it
37:34
was his subtitle was What is the Jezebel spirit and how is it
37:37
destroying the American church today?
37:39
We're going to pull the veil on demonic so we can see the mark.
37:44
April 15th was just this past Sunday, two Sundays ago, two
37:48
Mondays ago. And so right after all this
37:51
happens, he goes back and pulls A sermon that he preached that
37:55
is still leading this book. We, we start seeing the theme of
37:59
everything around and surrounding this is, is around a
38:02
book, one of the videos that went out that will share that
38:05
live video that we played the first one.
38:07
It got 10 million views in about couple hours after it got play
38:11
after it went live on Twitter. And so all of a sudden we begin
38:15
to see this publicity, this, this trying to figure out what's
38:21
going on and a lot of people talking back and forth.
38:25
But then for, for Mark to go and, and to have this apology
38:28
that we just played and to admit that he's wrong and then to go
38:31
back and, and double down that he was right just begins to just
38:35
show exactly the, the type of, of attitude that he has.
38:39
I want to read one thing by a friend of mine and he said this.
38:43
He said, as someone who is still in some ways recovering from
38:46
Martin Diskal's teaching I heard while in college, I am mystified
38:50
why anyone would still listen to him.
38:52
I don't think he's been truly reconciled and should not be in
38:55
leadership anywhere. He may be somewhat right to call
38:59
out this conference, although he doesn't actually call the issue
39:02
of trying to impress or entertain rather than point to
39:05
sin and salvation. Also, why is there part of the
39:09
conference that he's been at in 2017?
39:11
He's not a humble man. He's someone always looking for
39:14
a fight and doesn't play well with others.
39:17
John Bunyan would call him a wild head, always ready to fight
39:21
someone not really fighting sin inside himself.
39:25
We're, I'm doing a study right now through the book of First
39:27
Timothy with a young friend of my church.
39:30
And he's my age. He's not young.
39:33
And one of the things is in First Timothy, I think it's
39:36
chapter four or five, where it talks about how they don't have
39:40
a quarrelsome spirit. They don't have a spirit that's
39:43
always looking for a fight, but they have a, a humble spirit.
39:47
And this is the attitude ever since I've heard Mark Driscoll
39:51
and you listen to the rise and fall of of Mars Hill and, and
39:55
you listen to his teaching, it's always looking for a way to pick
39:58
a fight with someone. And I don't see that in
40:01
Scripture as someone who is is genuinely someone who is leading
40:05
the church in the right direction.
40:07
I think that I would have more respect for him, James, if he
40:12
would be the same person to John's pastor.
40:16
John's face that he was behind his back.
40:19
My issue is that like he will, when he's in front of John or
40:25
he's texting John, people are like, oh, I'm so sorry.
40:28
Yeah, I shouldn't have done that.
40:30
And then double down as soon as John turns his back or gets off
40:34
the phone call. So, you know, if you're going to
40:38
be this, you know, stand up person that made this decision
40:42
and standing up for what is right, well, then you keep that
40:47
same position in the, in that other pastor's face and not, you
40:51
know, be nice to him, but then dog him behind his back.
40:56
That that's my issue. My big one of my biggest issues
41:00
with Mark and his situation is how he's handling his
41:03
relationship with Pastor John. Whether or not Pastor John is in
41:07
the right or wrong, Mark is just wishy washy and, you know, too
41:12
afraid to stand stick by his guns.
41:15
Yeah, let me let me read for us First Timothy chapter 6, verse
41:19
three through 10 and let's just compare Scripture to what's
41:22
going on in this situation, says teaching, encourage these
41:25
things. Paul is telling Timothy as a
41:27
young pastor in the first first letter that he wrote him here.
41:31
If anyone teaches a false doctrine and does not agree with
41:34
sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and with teaching that
41:37
promotes godliness that this is he.
41:39
He says this is how you can know these things.
41:42
Verse four. He has conceited and understands
41:44
nothing, but has an unhealthy interest and disputes and
41:48
arguments over words. For these come envy,
41:52
quarrelling, slander, evil, suspiciousness, and constant
41:56
disagreements among people whose minds are depraved and depraved
41:59
of the truth, whose image of godliness is a way of material
42:03
gain. But godliness with content is
42:05
great gain, for we brought nothing into this world and
42:08
can't take nothing out. If we have food and clothing, we
42:11
will be content with these things, but those who want to be
42:14
rich fall into temptation in a trap and many foolish and
42:18
harmful desires which plunge people into ruin and
42:22
destruction. Brett, we see here in scripture
42:26
as Paul was talking to Timothy, there is a group of people that
42:31
seek unhealthy interests in disputes and arguments.
42:36
We've seen podcasts that we have associated with that are
42:41
constantly looking for a fight, constantly looking for a way to
42:45
put something out that's going to get a million views.
42:48
Because if we can dispute something or or worry about
42:52
something or, or cause division, that is this the spirit of this
42:58
thought of disunity. And Paul was specifically saying
43:01
to Timothy, watch out for these people.
43:04
And this is what we're seeing in this situation here.
43:06
This is Mark Driscoll, who is taking something that he sees
43:10
going viral and saying, you know what?
43:12
I'm jumping on this train because it's getting millions of
43:15
views. Now.
43:16
We're not recording today because we're expecting to get a
43:19
bunch of views. We're just simply talking
43:21
through an issue that's in the church because, quite frankly,
43:24
right now we're talking about what's things, what's going on
43:26
in the church and how can we can be aware of these things in the
43:30
church. And so, Brett, we begin to go
43:33
from there. Mark and John are going back and
43:37
forth. What now is is transpiring after
43:41
that. I think right now everybody has
43:44
dug into their ditches, they've dug into their positions.
43:47
John has laid the gauntlet down at his church.
43:51
He's called for everybody to rebuke Mark.
43:54
If Mark doesn't repent, he's calling for everybody to not
43:59
support his ministry, not watch him.
44:02
And then of course, of course, Mark is on the other side.
44:05
He's promoting his book and using this thing as an
44:08
opportunity to promote himself. And I don't see much of this
44:13
changing anytime soon. You know, Mark's not going to
44:17
repent or anything. And John is staying his course.
44:20
And I just think we should look at the situation and learn.
44:24
See it for what it is, learn from it.
44:28
You know, how can we, if we get in the situation in the future,
44:33
how can we handle it? We can learn from this.
44:36
We can learn from other people's mistakes.
44:40
This is this whole thing is very disunifying in the church.
44:44
Whether or not you agree that the ACT itself, the at the sword
44:51
swallowing, swallowing act, whether you agreed that it was
44:54
right or wrong, that it had a place or didn't have a place,
44:58
there was an issue here that needed to be handled better than
45:03
it did. Mark basically dropped the
45:07
grenade in that conference. People are yelling. 2 or 300
45:11
people got up and left after that whole thing.
45:14
That whole thing, the whole situation could have been
45:17
handled a lot better. And I think it was just very,
45:21
you know, disunifying the way he handled it.
45:24
And we're just going to have to learn from the mistakes here.
45:27
Absolutely. I think that's a big thing that
45:29
we've got to do. We've got to learn from what's
45:30
going on. We've got to observe and we've
45:33
got to see true and, and what's right and see where God is
45:38
blessing man. When you, when you hear that
45:40
clip, when you see that clip and you hear the the yelling and the
45:43
screaming, I mean, it felt like I was at like a political debate
45:49
where everybody's yelling and screaming one way or another.
45:51
Like how is this building stronger men?
45:54
How is this building the body of Christ up and ultimately
45:58
beginning to look at who we are listening to and who's poured
46:02
into our lives when we've got the wrong people and we've got
46:05
people that are seeking after money and the love of money?
46:10
Again, this is what Paul simply said to Timothy is hey, be
46:13
aware, watch out for these things.
46:16
Know what's around you and know the people that around you.
46:19
You're not going to always know their heart.
46:20
You're not going to always know what they're dealing with or
46:23
struggling with, but you can begin to see the fruit of their
46:28
labor. And you can begin to see, I like
46:30
how one person put it, the wave of destruction behind them or
46:34
the wave of grace behind them. What are they leaving behind
46:38
them? Is there carnage?
46:39
Is there wreckage? Or is there grace and love and
46:43
mercy and restoration of people behind them?
46:47
And so I think that that would be a better thing for us to look
46:50
at. So Brett, any final thoughts on
46:52
this or what were you thinking? You know, this episode is is not
46:56
only for, you know, everybody listening, curious about the
46:59
situation, seeing how they should have handled it.
47:01
But you know, it's for JC man, because he's going to have Mark
47:05
preach at the for the sake of the Gospel conference and he
47:08
needs to know how to handle Mark Driscoll.
47:11
But but anyway, but yeah, this is this is a sad situation.
47:16
All kidding aside. And just like we said earlier,
47:18
the only thing we can do is is learn from the stakes, move
47:21
forward, pray for the parties involved and, you know, figure
47:25
out better ways we can unify the church.
47:28
Absolutely. Well, and Speaking of that,
47:31
we'll close this down and until next time to God.
47:34
Not the pastor. Be the glory found.
47:38
My new name found that good grace, found that healing, and
47:44
the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning that has no
47:48
ending. Found that second chance, found
47:50
my best friend, found my forgiveness, found my happiness.
47:52
I've been singing ever since I found my freedom.
48:09
Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast.
48:12
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