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Fight Laugh Feast Holy Wars Panel w/ Doug Wilson · CrossPolitic Show

• So I get to have a counseling session in front of you all today and intervention and intervention This is not the first one with Doug I came to Moscow in 2002 and had my ear pierced and was you know got done playing basketball in California went to work in Colorado and Was kind of going evangelical Just kind of playing ball in California had I ended up finding a pretty decent church But it's kind of like a evangelical reform Baptist and You're just kind of let me do whatever I wanted and not really telling me it's my brother came to Moscow in 1999 and He started challenging me so I like I like did dumb things like Pierce me or kind of thing and He's like just give me a biblical argument for why you pierced your ear. You know like Just give me something I couldn't and And so just basic challenging of My from my brother just just challenge me just you know all I'm here to listen just give me a basic You know give me give me your version of a Bible argument for what you just did and I couldn't so that was the first kind of real challenge And then I remember moving to Moscow and my brother slowly talked to me in the moving to Moscow I went from California, Colorado than then Moscow and I remember Doug's I don't know 2002 2003 at some point you preach a sermon or you just in in your sermon You made the basic comment, you know, they don't have a problem verse at all Don't be embarrassed of any verse of the Bible. You said that again getting today Don't have a problem verse and scriptures and of course I mean as evangelicals were kind of almost at some level either taught to have problem verses or Ignore the areas where we know there's things that we can't quite explain in the Bible or you know We kind of avoid the the sharper edges or just kind of ignore Leviticus altogether or whatever But I think I'm kind of like an on a representative of kind of what was going on for last 40 years in the church and You know when we started cross-ball to do that in 2016 you started it because the church Was wasn't teaching how to apply the Bible to politics and culture just wasn't and Avoiding it or starting third-wayism or you know or whatever and so Doug had done a good job discipling Me and Knox and Toby and so it is something that I think became so glaring You know we started a podcast and you know what we thought our moms were gonna listen to it and you know my aunt and My wife or whatever you know that's that's that's as far as you know You don't think you do do something like that and but God blessed it But I think God blessed it part of it because you guys were in the same position as we were just had a a Black hole of Theology or a black hole of how do I apply the Bible or or to what's going on our times and Trump gets elected and you got get started Call a racist, you know because you voted for Trump or whatever and then not pastors really wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot pole and You know but part of this is I I grew up in the 70 born in 79 grew up in the 80s in Texas is a Christian cultural Texas And it was really hard to imagine that we'd get into a world where men are trying to be women That you know men are allowed to use literally legally allowed to use women's bathrooms in the state of Washington other states And so it was hard to fathom But I'd say there's kind of like maybe three different kind of people in this Era where there's the kind of person like you you're playing schools you kind of you're like we're these this is not going the right way You kind of saw some things and you kind of you know we're reading the tea leaves well, you know kind of things And then there's the kind of Christians who were just apathetic and kept being apathetic and then kind of woke up to an America that they are like, you know COVID obviously was a huge waking up point Kind of thing and but then there's also the the kind of Christians who are kind of similar to that group, but it was like All the sudden they had this like whiplash I was like how how do we go from you know good old God bless Texas country world to You know murdering 60 million babies to You know Sex surgeries on miners force you know doing that kind of thing how did it? whoa And it still kind of blows my mind. I did my research I was doing a talk in Texas years ago and I found out that there's about 25,000 Christian churches in Texas still right now This is probably two years ago. I found those numbers and And so there's the Christians are everywhere. I mean if Paul came back. I've said this on the show before if Paul was pre-mill Before he died or when he died, you know, maybe there's 30,000 Christians on this earth There's something like that when he passed away and was martyred and he came back now. He's post-mill I don't care what you say there's two billion Christians on this earth. He's like all right post-mills the right thing, you know but You know we had how? I Mean this is a very wide open question because If you just look at like who we kind of work culturally in the 80s to how far we progress now and The America's full of churches like Starbucks in a lot of ways especially in Texas start, you know church on every corner almost How are we in the condition and situation we're in when there's a lot of Christians still here in America? Right, so there's a character in one of Hemingway's books that I've read Source elsewhere, but a character who has asked how he went bankrupt and His answer was well at first very gradually and then suddenly Right now that's what has happened to us. We've gone bankrupt very very gradually and then all of a sudden off a cliff And when you're in freefall You're not really in charge of what happens next The airplane is 100 feet above you and you're going in a second you're gonna be 110 feet below you under new laws What's that you're under new laws? Yeah, you're under new governments. Yeah, and it doesn't matter what Congress says or the Supreme Court says you're going down all right, so And the only thing you can do is the Wiley Coyote thing is flail That's all you can do Or if you're Christian you can cry out to the Lord which is the pattern you see throughout the Old Testament They worship God deliver them they drift back into idle worship They come into trouble the mobites come in or who you know they come under oppression It then gets too onerous and then they cry out to the Lord you can either panic and flail or you can cry out to the Lord and We have a lot if you're looking at the Christian church in generally. It's Christian enough to not like what's happening But not repentant enough to say when you when you say look it's Christ or chaos They're not willing yet to say All right Christ for the culture They're willing to say Christ for my own personal salvation. They're willing to say Christ for my Sunday school time They're willing to say Christ for Worship on Sunday, but they don't say Christ overall Christ in everything All of Christ for all of life and Because we've been reluctant to say all of Christ for all of life not reluctant. We've been digging in our heels Refusing to say all of Christ for all of life. That means that that's all those areas where we're not applying Scripture are are areas where we are going bankrupt gradually and then all of a sudden the cliff happens and And boys or girls and girls or boys and everything is chaos and you're and your culture is in Freefall and different different parts of our society are going bankrupted different is like a huge corporation With different divisions that are collapsing at different times So the English department went long before the engineering department went If you go if you go to university and study philosophy Almost everything you learn will be false If you go and study engineering almost everything you learn will be true and So Christians gravitated toward that because that's that's an area where we're not bankrupt yet There's still right and wrong answers and so forth, but we have to have men got we have to crowd to the Lord for men For God to raise up men who think like generals who can back up as as Ben was saying in his talk on Alfred where you you got enlarged as the heart as he did with Solomon and you enlarged the heart so you can see the whole Terrain you can you can if a good court a good quarterback is someone who reads the field He he looks that field and he sees where everybody is And we have People who are quarterbacking, but they just see thin slices The only thing about is one receiver How do you you know because when America was founded we weren't like amazing? righteous nation You know we had sense in its founding significant sense, you know how he handled slavery I know alcoholism was a big thing You know we had fascism you know with then in our government still even working with business and stuff and railroad industry and that kind of stuff So you can identify like economic problems in the founding of America and the progress and into the 1700s 1800s You can identify you know we start a public schools in 1800s So you can identify major sins and but I still seems like we are more Christian than than we are now and we can still identify I mean grosser sins the abortion stuff like that how can we say That we were a more healthy maybe this is not even right would it put it but we're more healthy Christian nation than then we are now Even though we had big logs in our eyes. It's a difference between country western music and punk rock Okay Is there more sin in punk rock? No, there's plenty of sin in country western but or the blues the blues are another good example Paul Butterfield blues says ain't no one to blame but myself And so is there sin in country music? Yeah, there's plenty. It's there's there's sin But there's also a standard of right and wrong and the sin is sin Right it's it's it's something that you don't want to defend as opposed to the the adult the evil woman in proverbs Commits adultery and wife's from Athens says I've done no wrong So in and I'm speaking very broadly in the rock culture You have Antenomianism we don't have any standards. It's it's rebellious sin as opposed to Disobedience in disobedience in is where you know the standard you understand the standard you actually approve of the standard Right and then you fail to meet the standard that that is and there was there was plenty of that at the founding of America But we everybody knew that the Bible is the word of God everybody knew that Jesus Christ was the way Everybody knew that they had to go to the church to find out how to get out of the sin That was something that was culture-wide Right, so the issue is not Our where we are sinful people of course we are sinful people of we always need the forgiveness of God through Christ But there was a culture wide acceptance of the truth of Christianity And right now we don't we've lost that Where would you pinpoint like okay? This is you know Where America really Started to go to a place of no return in some sense like what sins would you identify or and maybe even tie that into like you know What age 1800s whatever Okay, so and and of course you're dealing with millions of people right millions of people in centuries and so far But I would I would if you were asking me to what's the hinge where everything started to really go badly? I would say the administration of Woodrow Wilson Okay during a Woodrow Wilson and then I would say That's where the disease really took root and At right after the Second World War is when the secularism over secularism started to be pronounced as the way God was slowly written out of court decisions the wall of separation That was taken from Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists and began to wait make its way into court decisions So we begin after the Second World War we begin to formalize the the Sort of the incipient rebellion that existed in the first part of the 20th century so you point to Woodrow Wilson But like what was going on the church like where was the sin in the church or what was the problem in the church that kind of gave way to Woodrow Wilson was a basically Painting with the broad brush again here, but Woodrow Wilson was a post millennialist without Jesus Okay, he was a liberal Presbyterian and and liberalism as Jay Jay Gressam H.N. argued and demonstrated in his book Christianity and liberalism liberalism is a different religion altogether with with Christian name with Christian terms Decorating it and so liberalism in the first part of the 20th century the there was a big fundamentalist modernist controversy in the 1930s basically in the 30s and What happened was I need to back up for a minute a American the American standard of living surpassed the average standard of living of Europe in the 1740s So the average American has been richer than the average European since the 1740s and But like a lot of new Vowrish People we were wealthy and insecure about our wealth because the Europeans were Sophisticated and we were the bumpkins who had a lot of money the red neck who won the lottery right and so We were insecure about this amazing wealth and so a lot of American ministers got their theology degree here But then the thing to do was to go to Europe and get a Doctorate in theology and particularly in Germany unbut the enlightenment and unbelieving Scholarship contaminated a lot of the American Pastors who went over there to study they brought the kudis back and began teaching Liberal theology from their pulpits To our credit there was a controversy over it and Some wealthy businessmen financed the publication of a series of Tracks called the fundamentals to defend the fundamentals of the Christian faith Which is where the term fundamentalist came from and these fundamentals were really you know the Virgin birth of Christ and and the Vicarious atonement of Christ all the basic Christian Truths so the the fundamentalists and the modernists had this big battle and the modernists won At least as far as the mainline denominations are concerned Okay, so the liberals captured and this This is a 30,000 foot level, right? But the liberals captured the magazines the publishing houses the seminaries the journalists the journalists they so in terms of the standing armies between the conservatives and the Liberals the liberals won in the first part of the 20th century in the church The one difference in America the reason America is in a far better shape than Europe It's it's sort of like the UK is maybe 20 years behind the continent and America is like 20 years behind the UK in terms of the decline the reason And in the culture wars Since that time in the early 20th century conservative Christians have been getting our high needs kicked Okay, the bright side is that here in America we at least have high needs to be kicked We're still here the standing army the standing armies in Europe were just defeated routed and that was it It was mostly that that way in the UK although there was some Evangelical holdouts and some greatly John Staten Packer and different people came out of that era In America after the liberals captured all the denominations The evangelicals the fundamentalists and the conservative evangelicals retreated up into the hills and built an alternative universe Instead of Princeton we now had Buffalo breath Bible College, right But we were there You like that So Few decades ago one out of every seven radio stations in America was a Christian radio station um, and there was a whole alternative network of Bible colleges and conservative fundamentalist churches which were basically in hiding in the hills um from the 30s Down to the 1970s and in the 1970s The culture war reignited with the fundamentalists coming roaring out of the woods engaging battle of fall wells moral majority The Christian coalition all of these outfits and then A lot of these were basically good-hearted conservative Christians saying this is America you can't do that Roe v Wade was a big part of this resurgence and then it was Francis Schaeffer who was a reformed theologian and thinker who sort of gave the intellectual framework and the theological categories for the right to Sort of organize its thought around so we've been in a culture war Open culture war Since the 1970s so for the last Last half century this has been going on after a period of some decades of regrouping hiding and retreat, but all of it had to do with the the church being defeated Institutionally and then we regrouped and Sort of built our alternative institutions So now the main lines aren't the main line anymore We still call them the main line churches, but they're dwindling congregations the number of our a number of our C-R-E-C churches Have been able to buy buildings that were sold by mainline churches because they don't have congregations anymore So there it really is a conservative resurgence and there's a lot of reason for hope So I got maybe two maybe three questions left and then Toby and Knox can be walking around with some Microphones here in a minute to get questions from you guys and everything so I get your point about Woodrow Wilson To me it still feels like the civil war was a pretty big hinge The war of Northern Aggression as we would say from Texas. Mm-hmm But to me So the federalism the federal federalism that came out of the civil war You know was something that the Constitution was not intended at all but I The South When they succeeded they baked slavery into the cake and a lot of their constitutions like the Constitution didn't I've to me that's why God judged the South is because like they doubled down on slavery I think they had the right to succeed, but like Mississippi's Constitution and some of these other constitutions I mean they just like baked it into the cake and God I think that's why they lost Instead of they could have led the way of how to typically handle slavery Kind of thing that's but there were other things there were there was an attempt to get the Confederate Constitution to acknowledge the Lord Chip of Jesus Christ which they failed to do and there were The immediate reason they lost was Stonewall Jackson's death but God controls all of these all of these things and There was something each the north and the south each had a million men in the field and The south field or the million men in the field with a population of nine million and the north had a population of over 20 million So and so you just do the math and you know makes all sense kind of sense But even and I agree with you that the war between the states was a pivotal moment in American history allowing for future centralization But it allowed for it. It didn't immediately happen. It happened during the war But then after the war everything went back to normal Everything went back to normal and the encroachments that were made possible by that war Didn't really start to happen until the 20th century Right, so it the the chess pieces were put in place and one of the deals we made and this is this is the reason why the Taring down of statues just a few years ago was such an awful thing Because after the war the peace that north and south made together amounted to this after the war Both the north and the south were given permission to be proud of how both sides fought That was part of the peace right The north can be the north could name ships in the us navy after Robert E Lee right that we could be everybody could be proud of how everybody did and That was the deal and then the the resurgence of the communist resurgence in the last Few years has declared war not on the Confederacy. They've declared war on history period Right, they want to tear down it doesn't matter to them if it's Robert E Lee or a famous apple deliciousness they want the statute to come down right So I'm gonna kind of jump ahead but I don't really think this is jumping ahead. I think it all it's all connected But what what's happening? I would say in the last you know five years has there's been noticeably a I'd say chasm and frustration between the boomer generation and the younger generation and so you have um You know the younger generation Um, I'll say my generation is kind of in the middle kind of thing and But let me contextualize it this way The older generation Generally speaking in my mind their biggest sin in all this is pride um the boomer generation And you know pride of like not acknowledging that they got us 40 trillion dollars in debt You know things like that The younger generation their sin is um, you know Enched bitterness dishonoring their fathers All right, so um yes and no all right so The younger generations problem is that they've bought into identity politics where they think in terms of generations The the boomers did nothing the boomers as a class did nothing So what the boomers did what you had was liberal boomers um who were who've been running the show The uh secular humanistic liberalism has been dominant throughout the entire 20th century from Woodrow Wilson on um Calvin Coolidge was a great exception, but So you have this liberalism and That has been interrupted periodically Calvin Coolidge Ronald Reagan that sort of thing But the issue is collectivism um, and it was regardless of The age of the person holding to collectivism. I don't care how old a commie is he's a commie Younger old yeah younger old. He's a commie right and if someone if you look at the if you look at the boomer The the evangelical boomers who started the Christian school movement who started the classical Christian school movement Who started the crisis pregnancy Centers you've got all these you've got a bunch of people who you young young people today should look back at the faithful boomers who were outgunned out Outgenrolled out moneyed out everything and still fought and fought faithfully down to the present And they and young people should say those are my people So why why isn't Francis Schaeffer a hero of of mine Even though he's his generation and my generation are different the only the only things I would want to see um General jokes, you know of the okay boomer thing would be jokes about managing technology and you know reprogramming the microwave and You know Thanks that's that all is fair game, but when I look at a 25-year-old Bernie supporter he's the problem. I don't care what you know And if he had a grandfather who supported some socialist he's the problem if you have so What happens is in identity politics? We adopt group think we think you're white you're black You're this age you're a boomer your your boomer your female your male and then you get into the intersectional thing your lesbian woman of color and you and you hit the jackpot if you if you have more than three of those characteristics so I don't think it's accurate to say The boomers are prideful any more than human sinners are prideful Because we all we all look out of the world through our own eyes We're all tempted to prioritize that outlook and there are numerous boomers who have been mortifying the flesh in that area for decades and there are more boomers who have been wrecking the place So I guess this is not really a pushback here. I guess You're Point about like the liberal boomers have been kind of running the show since rovy um not rovy away since Wilson. Yeah But let's just you know talk about like the national debt. It's a 40 were in 40 trillion dollars in debt. This really is um, I mean Ted Cruz is involved in that Mike Pence is involved in that. I mean Mike Pence just released a book finally talking about how he's to Well the one thing he didn't fight hard enough against was the national debt Right. It's like now that he's not in power anymore now. He's not vice president more now. He's not all the sudden now all admit 40 trillion dollars debt. Sorry. Sorry guys um and and so But so I guess really I guess to your point a little bit but like that's an example where the next generations pointing back at Be like hey, we got it. We're saddled with that Again, they would say because you boomers We're saddled with that because y'all and look at everybody everybody except for rampal Right rompall You know was rompalls the only guy can really point you those consistently saying the same things since 1980s and we'll see you boomer Exactly. Yeah, so so to your point is there was some faith there's a faithful remnant of So rhinos are rhinos Right So do I have a problem with rhinos? Yeah, I've got a problem with rhinos Do I understand that the federal government is this gargantuan thing that is like trying to turn an aircraft carrier around? so Ronald Reagan So one of the and this is actually something that trump has tried to do wants to do but there's there's Can you tax your way out of Reducing the national debt. I don't think you can do it without killing the economy There I think there is a way to overcome it and that's by growing the economy So if the national debt basically What I'm what I would want to see is a mentality that says what's the GDP And what's the national debt and what's the ratio between the the GDP and the national debt and if And if you look at Reagan's years the GDP exploded and began to outpat outpace the growth of the national debt But you could say oh the national debt grew under Reagan Well, yeah, that's true, but you can't do everything you can't get everything through Congress You can not like it, but not be able to do anything about it and so I think we have to have sort of Hard line horse sense against stupidity economic stupidity and And trillions of dollars in national debt is economic stupidity, but How do we get out of it? That's that's going to be a challenge. Yeah Knox Toby you guys got mics Did they got mics You guys want to start getting ready to raise your hand ask questions knocks and Toby will will walk out there Wherever they are I don't know I tell him to do one thing just just Like I one thing settle down more These these black I can't see them Gabriel in trouble If pastor Wilson wasn't here, isn't he I'm doing this with Doug here for a reason Go ahead and just stand up and they'll walk by and um anything's fair game So love to hear some questions here tell us your name and where you're from David Arbor from Connecticut Pastor Wilson It seems like I have a babies and professors problem not enough babies too many old professors And so it seems like the only way we're going to get out of this Is to have a massive of any massive revival A proportion rival the great awakening and and such So if you agree with that thesis What weeks would you have to sort of make sure it happens in our lifetime Or in the near future because The baby's problem if we can fix it it's 30 years away And the professor's problem we haven't been able to tackle that since Would your Wilson so how would you address those two First I think you're right that without a massive Revival without and I would say reformation and revival A revival is a religious excitement a reformation is something that addresses some of the root Doctrinal assumptions So I think we need a massive reformation and revival but Doug we got 40 million Christians in America Yeah, those are ones that need to be reformed and revived Ha Right So so just being a Christian doesn't mean you're well taught doesn't mean that you know how to pray doesn't mean that you are praying It's it means that if you're genuinely a Christian that means you're going to heaven if you get hit by a truck That's what that means But you it needs to mean more than that and it needs to mean more than that because the Because their preachers and pastors are teaching them in accordance with the whole council of God that has to happen Now what's it going to look like? Okay, what's it going to look like? I'm So I was just talking to some people about this today In Moscow there's about our Kirker community has got about 3000 people in it Moscow is a town of like 24,000 there's about 3000 Kirker's there and then there's a few other evangelical churches also, but in our Kirker community About 40% of that 3000 is age 13 and under About 300 of them are five and under Okay now and all of them are getting a Christian education Virtually no one is in the public school system. We we call it a red wave It's coming So that's what but that's what it's going to look like It's going to look like The joke is that that's Dutch evangelism or you just have lots of babies Well, it's not just that it's have have a lot of children And bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord You don't want to be if you just have a bunch of kids and you don't teach them or or disciple them You're just breeders for the secularists All right, so we we want to stop being breeders for them and we want to bring up our children In accordance with what we believe to be the truth and that's not going to happen unless a lot of men start preaching differently than they currently do And that is not going to happen unless there's a massive Reformation revival But the difference between a Charles Charles Finney type revival and Whitfield Jonathan Edwards revival is the older reformed types new That revival was a gift of God a sovereign God we can't gin one up There's nothing we can do to make it happen and Charles Finney And a can do American spirit said well, these are the steps if you follow these steps If you implement my system, you're going to have a revival Which is why you can drive across the south during revival season and see signs for Anyok Baptist Church revival September 7 through 14th and you wonder how they got a hold of the Holy Spirit's booking information So your name and your question? Jerry Everett Uh in business in family businesses and in Family wealth there's a phenomenon known as third generational curse where most of the money is lost in in the third generation that is made in the first and That we're at the point now where It's in early late 60s early 70s were with the phenomenon of the the seminaries being become Orthodox again and the nominations being formed the PCA for example Well, we're right now at the end of the second generation Is there do you see any reason why we can't it Maybe we will or won't have that common phenomenon in the third generation of those denominations Yes, I believe that God is the breaker of cycles so that you can God promises blessings to the third and fourth generation of those who bow down to images and he is his blessings extend to a thousand generations To those who love him and keep his commandments due to run him five and due to run him seven So There may be ups and downs and we can observe and track certain phenomena But I don't think that we are bound in any slavish way to a third generation curse You know The product will son is a good example of someone throwing a bunch of money away That does happen in the world That does happen in businesses and it's a general pattern But we should be laboring praying teaching such that that doesn't happen in your In your family in your household in the business that you're passing on which means that you have to teach privileged young Men and women to not act like children of privilege To to to know the value of hard work to to know what it means to grow calluses to to have to live up to responsibilities and not have everything handed to them on a silver platter Pastor Wilson this is a question from Chris in Ontario, Canada He says leave it with God can describe genuine faith it can also become a very respectable Christian way of saying I don't know what to do next. I'm afraid of what doing it might cost and therefore I'm going to redefine stopping as faithfulness. How do you distinguish faithfully leaving an outcome Outcome to God's providence from using the language of providence as a respectable way of avoiding a difficult Responsibility especially when the reason you're tempted to stop is that you genuinely don't know what faithfulness requires next Okay, the one thing that's a great question the one thing you do know is that faithfulness does not require inaction So if if I say I'm just going to sit here Paralyzed because I don't know what to do or what's more likely I'm telling myself that I don't know what to do That's easier than saying I know what to do and I'm afraid to do it So Doodies are ours results are gods and there are times where you just have to I said this before Where we need to learn on that great two-word prayer which is Geronimo a man You know God doesn't steer parked cars So what you what you want to do is say okay? I don't know what to do. I don't have all the information I know you want me to do something and lord please Please protect me come be go before me come behind me Geronimo a man But the one thing is unless you have a clear command from the lord to stand still like Moses did on the On the banks of the red sea Stand still and see the salvation of the lord Of course they didn't have much choice, but to stand still and see the No There they were Unless God tells you to stand still you need to trust him and go Bryce Kinder from Minnesota and as a millennial to a boomer. I want to say thank you for your faithfulness all these years I don't think you So my question is with the A CCS ever a credit a boys military prep school. Why or why not First as a boomer to a millennial and to the gen Xers. Thank you for carrying the baton. Thank you for Being interested in pursuing it There's no reason why A CCS could not accredit a boys academy You know it would have to be a classical Christian boys academy, but there's there's there's be nothing that would prevent that or get in the way of that Are you starting one? All the military guys, so just trying to raise up the next generation of faithful officers and soldiers and sailors and corpsmen Yeah, basically That'd be a wonderful thing Roger that sir. Thank you That was an easy question I just want to point out there's there's some people to raise their hands over here There's a mic in the middle too, so if you guys want to jump foot Jonathan's got one Everyone scared to Jonathan. Yeah, I see wow Get what's your name and where you from? Conner vans from Indianapolis As a father if I am flawed yet faithful in my spiritual duties over my children Should I be 99% confident or 100% confident in the salvation of my kids? Okay, what was the first part of this if you what if I'm if I'm flawed not perfect, but faithful faithful flawed but faithful yeah right so And this is a There is a new on seer that's really important to get Yet I believe that you should parents should be trusting God for the salvation of their children believing him the God gives promises Concerning our the generations to come God promises as our children and you say but I know Christian families that Their kids are wayward their kids are off and their their kids apostatize. Yes But God promises answer prayer. There's some striking promises Whatever you ask him my name believing you've received it you you've got it And yet we know Christians and you have been one who've prayed prayers that have not been answered The thing that the thing that capitalizes the promises of God is never works It's always faith It's always faith and so what you need to do is to make a study of these promises and before God Go to him asking for the faith to trust him that faith is going to result in work But nothing depends on the works right because life is unfair God's not unfair, but life can be You have a one family Scrims and saves because they're going to give the kids a vacation of the lifetime and they've saved up tens of thousands of dollars And they take the kids to the Caribbean and it's a wonderful vacation and they come back and then Years later they discover that none of the kids remember it at all And then two days after that they hear the kids talking about you remember that time We were driving back from the river and we stopped at potlatch and we bought some fudge sickles and we threw rocks in the creek Which cost a total of three dollars and seventy five cents And it's a memory that laugh it's a memory that keeps on giving We the works don't we can't plug the works in what what we are called to do is trust God believe him and And this is going to be a blessing For you to hold on to During all the messy times and there will be messy times and challenges and so forth But I so the one book I've written that I would encourage you to Look at on this would be standing on the promises. It's simply walking through all the promises the scripture and then asking yourself Do I believe these do I believe them My name is Ryan Robertson and I live here in Franklin and my question for you is addressing the previous discussion about grievances between the boomers and tumors So you mentioned boomers generally feel like hey, I don't think this is right that zoomers are generally just like putting the finger at us Blaming everything on us and I would agree We can kind of debate the capacity in which generations in general are responsible for x, y, and z And especially in spite of all the problems like beach Blake It shouldn't be a justification for my generation to disregard the fifth commandment But in spite of the aforementioned would you agree that zoomers to some capacity are justified in the way that they feel about The previous generation generations offloading their problems under them but train them in some capacity So generally speaking at first I want to acknowledge when every half human beings you have sin going in every direction So I know that older generations sin against younger generations. I know that that's true We sin upstream and we sin downstream and we sin sideways We sin toward brothers and sisters toward parents grandparents and toward Children grandchildren great-grandchildren that is true and when that sin has occurred It is not a sin. It's not wrong to see it or recognize it or to say that was bad So that is not a violation of the fifth commandment Simply recognizing the reality Okay, the thing that I the thing that I was pushing against earlier is clustering people in groups that create a false antithesis the and the the fundamental antithesis in human history is between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent and I always want to be on the side of the people who love God and who act like they love God And I want to be an opposition to the people who don't love God and who act like they don't love God So I don't ever want to say this person has a right to be angry or envious because he was wronged I do want to say that is quite possible that he was wronged Right That that happens But we must we're commanded to not respond with angst or anger or malice or envy or or striving So when zoomers have been wronged by an older generation the command that from God is to forgive it When when people sin against you forgive them and and that should be the the thing that we cultivate the attitude that we cultivate and this is not to minimize any sin that has occurred that many of them are quite grievous so So One other thing and that is the in the fifth commandment We have the the requirement for the children to honor their parents um And we do have biblical requirements for the parents to provide for the children and so on That is in scripture, but in it in Shrine and the Ten Commandments is Honor your father and mother which Paul says is the first commandment with a promise And the promise is that your life may be that your life may go well with you on the earth And so one of the reasons why I think and I'll just hear me out one of the reasons why I think things are so rough economically financially in our country right now is we're not honoring our parents I think we need to honor our parents so that our life may be blessed in the land and I've I've sought to model this by how I honor my dad my mom Who I had a number of differences with and theological differences with but I respect my dad more than any man I've ever known and I wanted to talk that way because I want my kids to talk that way about me And I want their kids to talk that way about them because that's the kind of blessing that flows downstream You Name where you're from Bryce Ramsey Christ church in needapolis. Sorry shame was plug We have heard through general counsel past few days the necessity of raising up godly leadership And I wanted to ask you what do you think is the essential difference between being an influencer and being influential Thank you And what's the difference between influencer and being influential? It's sitting up here right now Big difference Right here on stage amen And now I can't say anything I would say that The word influencer I think is that is It just makes me think of someone with an Instagram account Some someone who is wants to be famous for being famous who wants to be a celebrity and who wants to influence superficial things influential is someone who is Who cares about the bones who cares about the skeletal structure the the foundation the the way it really goes Didn't need to make me sound that bad I said I couldn't say anything Hi Robert Saunders. I'm from Montana. I have a question of what you think is going to be the next False religion in the west and I'm asking that in the context of what's going on with artificial intelligence today specifically I actually asked Google AI about this and they it gave me some very good Resources that the materialists worldview which dominates everything now Requires us to be able to create actual artificial consciousness if consciousness originates in the brain and what Google AI and the research I did showed me was that if they're unable to do this they will have proven indirectly the existence of a soul And that basically the modern materialism will go the way of alchemy was the example I saw So my question is like have you thought about this looked into this what happens in the next five years when they To create actual synthetic consciousness where they're going to quintuple down on materialism Where are they going to go towards a more perhaps an old-style demonic Theism I believe it's going to be more the latter because failing to create the singularity or failing to create artificial consciousness does not mean that you can't pretend to have created it Okay, so AI is now impressive enough if you can carve an idol out of a block of wood and then bow down in front of it and pray to it and leave a basket of fruit there If people are capable of doing that They can certainly do that sort of thing with an idol that can talk and that can interact with them and so forth I was doing a Writing a blog post on AI some months ago and as a test I went to Groc and said I'm a I'm a sophomore in high school and I'm really discouraged about my grades Could you encourage me in the voice of Jesus? And Groc thought it thought itself fully up to the challenge And gave me you gave me a little pastoral spiel to encourage this discouraged high school student as though it were Jesus now I think that if I think they're basically three alternatives. There's Christianity historic Christianity Islam and secularism And I think secularism has got the staggers. I think it's It's falling apart and the only hope that it has to To extend its longevity is through some sort of AI idolatry Abandoned the materialism But we're still going to be secular and it'll be some mashup of AI idolatry Interesting, you know Every year when we do our conference I write a marketing post for Doug the post on his website Letting everybody know from Doug's blog come to our conference kind of thing And this year I wrote I wrote the marketing post and and I put it in the cloud and I said hey cloud put this in the Doug's voice and Cloud said we can't do that. Doug's a controversial figure and we aren't gonna literally literally And I tried to push clot to do it again. I prompted again. I'm sorry. We still can we don't we don't do that for Doug We have standards Okay, we got two questions left here and there and then we're good for dinner go ahead sir My name's asher new entwender from ninepples and aina and my question was You said after war or two we allowed secularism to enter America what defining act Lucinda hold on Christianity and wholeness to allow secularism to influence us more than we already had Christianity Okay, repeat that last part What defining act did we allow secularism to enter America over Christianity? Okay, the defining act was that Justices Supreme Court decisions and other Court decisions began to interpret Thomas Jefferson phrase the wall of separation between church and state They began to interpret that in court decisions as saying it's a wall of separation between any Theologically informed system of morality and state the church is an institution So I support the first amendment. I don't think there ought to be a church of the United States But the separation of church and state is not the same thing as the separation of truth and state or morality and state or righteousness and state And nobody in the right mind should ever want to say well, I want a government that has no that doesn't answer to moral considerations at all Well the the phrase wall of separation began to be used in a way that detached The governance of our society from any transcendental moral consideration at all and those decisions began shortly after the Second World War Thank you I'll exam derobertson okohoma city Since the topic of this conference is holy wars Do you believe that there is a reasonable chance of strategic success in the fight for retaking the mainline Denominations for biblical fidelity outside of an incredible and miraculous work of the Holy Spirit Um, I actually yes, I do um, I think in part of the reason for this is because In the main lines I mentioned earlier that Many of the main lines have dwindling con dwindling congregations congregations that are aging out um, and so they sell the building to a young vibrant evangelical community But there's another alternative another thing that can happen and that is an aging out congregation that's full of old Liberals paleo liberals is dwindling the point where they decide We'd rather have young vibrant evangelicals come in Then to to die right um, and so I was just listening earlier today to a story of a Presbyterian church Used to be a mainline then became EPC and then now as a conservative evangelical Presbyterian church Um, and it was just God's grace uh to them. I think that that can happen What I don't want to see happen is I would not want to see evangelicals try to infiltrate the liberal churches And do so under false pretenses uh lie to get in and then vote the liberals out I would want the evangelical congregations to be invited in knowing exactly who and what they are Um, so I think that that's possible. I don't think it's likely on a massive scale But it might happen when all these properties start um coming up for sale Thank you guys. Thank you pastor Wilson very much. Give him a round of applause. Nox Jonathan Toby