WEBVTT

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It is the 13th of February, 2026.

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I am Corey J.

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Mahler, and this is at any cost.

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Before we get into the questions for this evening, I would like

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to address something that's related to some previous questions, but also somewhat

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separate from them.

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I said that I would address the we'll call it an issue,

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it's not really an issue, but Ash Wednesday and how it is

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observed. And so I'm going to start there tonight.

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As soon as I pull up my actual notes here.

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So when it comes to Ash Wednesday, there are obviously going to

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be a number of issues for those who come from primarily the

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low church tradition, which the distinction between low church and high church,

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for those who don't know, is basically the degree of ceremony and

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liturgy and things like that that are present in the church service.

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And so Lutherans, with some exceptions, are high church.

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The Roman Catholics are high church.

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The Baptist Church down the street is low church.

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That's the distinction there.

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It's not necessarily implying that one is really good because it's high

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church and one is really bad because it's low church.

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It's sort of the equivalent of

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in languages a lot of times you'll have a high and a

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low version.

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And a lot of times it means geographically.

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So So for instance, Low German is called Low German because it's

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from an area that is closer to sea level.

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That's all it means.

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High German happened to become the standard largely because of Martin Luther,

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but that's a separate topic.

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And so the first thing that I would say about observing Ash

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Wednesday, and of course I'm getting into this because Ash Wednesday is

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coming up very soon here, but the first thing that I would

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say about it is that observing the church year itself is good.

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I'm not saying that you have to have one church year for

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the entirety of the world.

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I don't think you should.

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Because for instance, you are going to have different saints in different

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nations. And I think that's perfectly fine.

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You can have your own calendar of saints for your nation.

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There are going to be saints that were particularly relevant, particularly significant

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to your people, that maybe don't matter to someone on the other

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side of the world, at least not as much.

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And so the Germans will have different saints from the Americans, will

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have different saints from the French, will have different saints from if

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the churches revive their the There, the Japanese.

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So that's fine.

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But the basics of the church year are universal and should be

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universal. Because the basics of the church year, of course, and I

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will link to a church year calendar in the the notes here,

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I'll put a note for myself.

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Because I think it's very good to have that and it's nice

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to have a poster of it.

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I have some posters that I need to get framed, but there's

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some very nice posters for the church year now if that is

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the sort of thing you like to have in your home.

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But the basics are that you have the festival part of the

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church year and you have the time of the church part of

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the church year.

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Basically it's split in half.

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And so you have the lead up to Christmas, you have Christmas,

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you have the lead up to Easter, and you have Easter.

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That's sort of a very rough outline of it.

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Of course, there's other stuff in there as well.

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You have Epiphany and things like that.

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We're in epiphany right now for those who don't know.

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Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent.

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And I'm just going to go over how the Western Church practices

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these things because those of you who have decided to become very

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interested in the Eastern Church have probably already delved into this and

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you don't need me to tell you how your tradition practices it.

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And I'm a Western Christian, so I'm going over what the West

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does. In the Western tradition, Lent is the forty day period starting

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with Ash Wednesday, including Ash Wednesday, leading up to Easter Sunday.

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Now that does not include the Sundays in that period.

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And the reason for that, this is actually a distinction between the

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East and the West, but the reason for that is that Sundays

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are always feast days.

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The distinction there is that you are fasting in some way, typically,

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that's part of the observation of the Lenten period.

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You don't fast on Sunday.

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It doesn't mean you can't, because, you know, if you give up

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whatever it happens to be, right, you give up coffee and I

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went over that in a previous episode, so I'm not going to

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reiterate all of that here, but you know, you give up something,

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right? To remind you of Christ and his sacrifice to serve as

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just that little impetus to remind you and make you think about

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these things.

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That's the goal there.

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It's not because you're worshiping God and warranting your salvation.

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It's not works righteousness, and I'll get into that more, but

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you don't have to go back to having that on Sundays, but

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that is traditionally how Western Christians have observed it.

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Because Sunday again is a feast day.

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It is meant to be a celebration.

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Every Sunday church service is a celebration.

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And so that conflict there that you would have if you were

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fasting and celebrating at the same time, that was not a thing

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in the Western church because we simply don't fast in that way

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on Sundays.

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As I pointed out before, some forms of fasting completely fine on

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Sunday. I, for instance, hold to the ancient practice of fasting before

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you receive the sacrament on Sunday.

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Nothing Nothing wrong with that, completely fine.

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But then after that, celebrate that as a feast day.

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I think that is the correct practice.

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I'm not saying you have to.

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I think it is good practice.

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And so the 40 days are not including the Sundays in that

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period. 40, of course, being a number that is related to how

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God deals with men, and a period of some importance in in

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the life of a person, or the life of a nation, history,

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God's salvation, all these things.

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God likes the number forty when dealing with human beings.

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You see this all over in the scriptures, all over in the

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Old Testament.

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And the focus then of this Lenten period in total, not just

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Ash Wednesday itself, but Ash Wednesday in particular has these elements would

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be the nature and the reality of sin, the consequences of sin,

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which of course is death, death being the wages of sin, and

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then Christ's redemptive work.

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And the way that we have this, of course, on Ash Wednesday,

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is that it's hard not to remember that you know from dust

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you came into dust you shall return.

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It says earth in the the Septuagint, but taking a little bit

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of literary license there, you recognize it means the same thing.

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You are the man of dust, the man of the earth.

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That's how mankind was made, formed from the dust of the ground.

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And so you are reminding yourself and through that church service being

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reminded of the fact that you are of the earth, you are

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God's creation, but you are also fallen, and you will return to

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the dust because you will die, unless God happens to come back

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right now, in which case those of us who are currently alive

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don't die.

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We're transformed, it's a different thing.

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But everyone else dies.

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But you have that reminder of Christ's redemptive work as well because

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you have the imposition of ashes in the symbol of a cross.

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That's your reminder.

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Yes, I am dust, but my sins have been forgiven by Christ,

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and so I will be resurrected, I will see eternal life, I

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will not taste the second death.

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But I want to go over some passages in scripture as well,

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and I know there's one in particular that those who have

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will say some hesitance with regard to Ash Wednesday and the way

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it's practiced, I will go over that one last, but I'm going

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to go over some other ones as well.

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So I will pull up logos here.

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And thankfully it cooperated.

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Always good to see that.

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And the first one I want to pull up here is, of

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course, from Jonah and that's Jonah chapter three.

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Starting with verse five here.

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I will change the names to what you're used to because this

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version of

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the this translation of scripture is very literal to the Greek.

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And the men of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast and

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put on sackcloth from the great among them unto the small among

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them. And the news reached the king of Nineveh, and he rose

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from his throne, and removed his robe from himself, and covered himself

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with sack cloth and sat in ashes.

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And a proclamation was made, and it was spoken in Nineveh by

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the king and his nobles, saying, Let people and animals and cattle

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and sheep not taste anything, or feed or drink water.

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And the people and animals put on sackcloth, and they cried fervently

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to God, and they turned each from his evil way, and from

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the injustice in his hands saying, Who knows if God will repent

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and turn from the anger of his wrath, and we will not

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perish? And God saw their deeds, that they turned from their evil

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ways, and God repented at the calamity, which he said he would

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do to them, and he did not do it.

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Part of the reason to have a period, a season of penance,

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a season of fasting, is to recognize that we live in a

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sinful society and we desperately need God's forgiveness.

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And these days it is perhaps even more relevant for those of

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us living in the West, and for many of us living in

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America, because much of the audience is going to be American, not

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all, but much of the audience.

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Our government is incredibly wicked.

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We are living in a society that is incredibly evil, that is

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doing horrendously evil things even as we speak.

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Perhaps more of them because this is Friday night instead of Thursday

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night, but we live in evil times

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among evil people.

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That is unfortunate, and it would be great if we could have

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a king who would proclaim this sort of thing and we would

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have a national period of fasting and repentance calling on God to

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forgive us our sins

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and turn from our evil ways, but we as Christians, at the

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very least, we can personally do that and we can do that

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in a corporate sense as Christian congregations.

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That's part of what this is.

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You are repenting of your sins, and there's nothing wrong with doing

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something that demonstrates that in a concrete fashion.

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I'm not saying you have to put on sackcloth and go about

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gloomy and do all of those things.

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Part of that is going to be cultural.

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We're dealing with a different people here in the Old Testament.

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But the imposition of ashes and reminding ourselves and others, because it

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serves that purpose as well, of the fact that we are fallen

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and we are sinful and we need God's forgiveness is a good

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thing, and it is part of making our society Christian.

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Having these sorts of practices in society demonstrates that the very least

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we want to have a Christian society, even if we currently very

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much do not.

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Then another example from the Old Testament here in Daniel nine.

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And I gave my face to the Lord God to find prayer

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and compassion with fasting and with ashes and sack cloth, and I

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prayed to the Lord God, and acknowledged him and said.

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And I will let you read that if you are so inclined.

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And of course, I highly recommend you read through Daniel if you've

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never read it in the proper translation, which is from the Septuagint,

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of course, but again you see fasting, sackcloth, ashes, as part of

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repentance and part of calling on the Lord for deliverance in this

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case. And then the final example here, I'll pull from the New

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Testament, this is Luke

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ten

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starting with verse thirteen Woe to you Corusine, woe to you, Bethseda,

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for if the mighty works done in you had been done in

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Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sack

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cloth and ashes.

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But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and

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Sidon than for than for you, and you, Capernaum, will you be

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exalted to heaven, you shall be brought down to Hades.

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These are the words of Christ saying that that is how they

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would have responded, and it is a good thing that they would

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have done so.

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That is what we are doing when we observe Ash Wednesday in

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the traditional way the church has observed it for well over a

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thousand years, probably about fifteen or sixteen hundred years.

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This is a good tradition of the church, and I will get

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into more of that in just a second, but I know there's

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another passage that there are those who, again, don't like Ash Wednesday

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or have some reason they believe

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that they should object to it and they're going to want I

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believe it's Matthew six, let me pull that up.

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Yes, it was Matthew six, of course is the one they're going

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to think of.

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Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be

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seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your

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father who is in heaven.

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Thus when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you,

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as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that

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they may be praised by others.

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Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.

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But when you give to the needy, do not let your left

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hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving

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may be in secret, and your father who sees in secret will

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reward you.

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And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for

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they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the

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street corners, that they may be seen by others.

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Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.

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But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door,

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and pray to your father who is in secret, and your father

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who sees in secret will reward you.

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And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the

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heathen do, for they think that they will be heard for their

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many words.

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Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need

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before you ask him.

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And then skipping ahead to the verse of course which people have

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in mind here.

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And when you fast do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for

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they disfigure their faces, that their fasting may be Fasting may be

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seen by others.

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Truly I say to you they have received their reward.

00:14:57.360 --> 00:15:01.040
But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that

00:15:01.040 --> 00:15:04.320
your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your father

00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:07.760
who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will

00:15:07.760 --> 00:15:09.600
reward you.

00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:12.000
And so the objection that some people will bring up here is

00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:15.360
they'll try to say that Well you're disfiguring your face, right?

00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:18.400
It's not the same thing here that is meant by disfiguring, but

00:15:18.400 --> 00:15:21.200
they'll try to say you're doing it to be seen by others.

00:15:21.200 --> 00:15:24.800
You're doing this so you practice your righteousness before other men, and

00:15:24.800 --> 00:15:28.080
so you have your reward, it's not really for God.

00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:32.240
And the problem I have with that is that if you look

00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:36.880
at the fullness of the context here, the same exact argument could

00:15:36.880 --> 00:15:39.760
be leveled against public church services.

00:15:39.760 --> 00:15:42.640
Do you object to praying in a public church service?

00:15:42.640 --> 00:15:46.320
Do you object to singing hymns to God in a gathered congregation?

00:15:46.320 --> 00:15:48.320
You're doing it before others.

00:15:48.320 --> 00:15:52.160
The issue here is hypocrisy, as is often the case in Scripture,

00:15:52.160 --> 00:15:55.440
as is often the case when Christ is condemning the wicked Jews,

00:15:55.440 --> 00:15:57.280
which is part of what he's doing here.

00:15:57.520 --> 00:16:02.000
The issue is not that you are necessarily doing something in public.

00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:06.560
Most of the Old Testament worship of God was conducted very publicly.

00:16:06.560 --> 00:16:08.400
Think of the temple service.

00:16:08.400 --> 00:16:11.360
Was that necessarily hypocritical because it was done in public?

00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:13.360
The answer is no.

00:16:13.360 --> 00:16:17.120
The problem here is if you do these things hypocritically, there is

00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:21.360
nothing wrong with having part of the practice of your Christianity be

00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:24.160
public. In fact, if you live in a Christian society, and we

00:16:24.160 --> 00:16:28.160
should all want to do so, part of the practice, part of

00:16:28.160 --> 00:16:32.480
the praxis of Christianity is necessarily going to be public.

00:16:32.480 --> 00:16:34.160
That's a good thing.

00:16:34.160 --> 00:16:35.840
So what is being condemned here is

00:16:36.720 --> 00:16:38.480
not Ash Wednesday.

00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:40.240
It's not the imposition of ashes.

00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:42.160
It's not praying in public.

00:16:42.160 --> 00:16:44.000
It's not singing hymns in public.

00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:45.600
It's being a hypocrite.

00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:48.240
It's doing it to be seen by others instead of doing it

00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:51.840
for the sake of God and that's a matter between the individual

00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:55.040
and God And I'm not sure if you are having the ashes

00:16:55.040 --> 00:16:58.400
imposed on your forehead so that you can go out and have

00:16:58.400 --> 00:17:01.120
other people see and say, Look at what a righteous person I

00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:04.800
am, and I could certainly think of There are some instances where

00:17:04.800 --> 00:17:07.760
the ashes have been used in a way that is inappropriate.

00:17:07.760 --> 00:17:10.000
You can think of some people who've gone on TV and said

00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:13.440
some things while wearing ashes on their forehead that they should have

00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:16.240
been ashamed to say regardless.

00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:18.720
But the issue's hypocrisy.

00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:20.400
So don't be a hypocrite.

00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:22.880
But that almost goes without saying.

00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:26.000
And then the final point that I want to make about Ash

00:17:26.080 --> 00:17:27.840
Wednesday is

00:17:30.800 --> 00:17:36.320
Really, a matter of observing traditions and when it is good to

00:17:36.320 --> 00:17:37.360
do so.

00:17:37.360 --> 00:17:43.280
And the fundamental rule is very simple, very straightforward.

00:17:43.280 --> 00:17:48.080
As long as the tradition is not contrary to Scripture, and as

00:17:48.080 --> 00:17:50.400
long as you are not using it in a way that is

00:17:50.400 --> 00:17:55.760
impermissible, which usually means believing that you are justified by your works,

00:17:55.760 --> 00:17:57.760
you're permitted to do it.

00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:00.480
And if it is for the sake of good order in the

00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:04.400
church or in society, then in some cases you even should do

00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:06.640
it. I am willing to go that far and say you should

00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:07.200
do it.

00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:09.520
I have an article on my site on the topic, I'll put

00:18:09.520 --> 00:18:11.840
that in the show notes as well.

00:18:11.840 --> 00:18:12.160
But

00:18:13.120 --> 00:18:18.160
these are to use the technical term adiaphora, adiaphora, whichever way you

00:18:18.160 --> 00:18:19.200
want to pronounce that.

00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:23.360
It is Greek translator into English, so use it whatever way you

00:18:23.360 --> 00:18:28.560
want. It's not binding, but in many cases it is good.

00:18:28.560 --> 00:18:32.960
I would say the practice, the observance of these feasts and festivals

00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:36.160
in the church year, in the church calendar are are good and

00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:38.000
that we should retain them.

00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:41.040
We observed them for a thousand years, more than a thousand years

00:18:41.040 --> 00:18:42.160
in Christendom.

00:18:42.160 --> 00:18:46.080
They were part of what reminded people they're Christian, their society is

00:18:46.080 --> 00:18:49.120
Christian, and it means something to be a Christian, and I think

00:18:49.120 --> 00:18:50.400
that's good.

00:18:50.400 --> 00:18:54.800
So if you don't want to observe Ash Wednesday, it's not required

00:18:54.800 --> 00:18:55.520
of you.

00:18:55.520 --> 00:18:56.640
I think that you should.

00:18:56.640 --> 00:18:57.680
I think it's a good thing.

00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:02.000
I think it is part of the practice of Christianity, but it's

00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:05.920
not binding, it's not a sin not to observe it.

00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:10.560
And that's the same with many of these traditions.

00:19:10.560 --> 00:19:16.400
And I want to add a quote from Walter, the founder of

00:19:16.400 --> 00:19:18.160
the LCMS.

00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:22.720
And yes, it does condemn Roman Catholicism in this case, but and

00:19:22.720 --> 00:19:23.760
some other things as well.

00:19:23.760 --> 00:19:24.560
That's not the point.

00:19:24.560 --> 00:19:26.640
I want you to get the core point of what he is

00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:31.120
saying, about the practice about traditions observing these things.

00:19:31.120 --> 00:19:34.160
We refuse to be guided by those who are offended by our

00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:35.360
church customs.

00:19:35.360 --> 00:19:38.320
We adhere to them all the more firmly when someone wants to

00:19:38.320 --> 00:19:41.520
cause us to have a guilty conscience on account of them.

00:19:41.520 --> 00:19:44.800
It is truly distressing that many of our fellow Christians find the

00:19:44.800 --> 00:19:49.120
difference between Lutheranism and Papism in outward things.

00:19:49.120 --> 00:19:53.520
It is a pity and dreadful cowardice when one sacrifices the good

00:19:53.520 --> 00:19:58.720
ancient church customs to please the deluded American sects, lest they accuse

00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:00.640
us of being papistic.

00:20:02.320 --> 00:20:06.080
There are many good church customs that have been handed down to

00:20:06.080 --> 00:20:10.880
us over the centuries, in some case millennia plus, they do not

00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:16.080
become bad because they were practiced by men who held false beliefs.

00:20:16.080 --> 00:20:19.760
The custom itself can be perfectly good and serviceable, and there's a

00:20:19.760 --> 00:20:22.800
related question I know coming up later in this episode, and I'll

00:20:22.800 --> 00:20:27.040
tie it back then, but the traditions can be good, even if

00:20:27.040 --> 00:20:30.960
the men practicing at times had bad theology.

00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:33.120
The church year is one of those.

00:20:33.120 --> 00:20:35.520
Ash Wednesday is certainly one of those.

00:20:35.520 --> 00:20:39.920
And I think that suffices for addressing Ash Wednesday before it comes

00:20:39.920 --> 00:20:43.200
up this year, which it will shortly in the calendar here.

00:20:44.800 --> 00:20:50.400
The next question is a shorter one than the Ash Wednesday bit.

00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:53.440
What is the correct position on divorce?

00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:56.560
Can you explain in which cases divorce can be approved by the

00:20:56.560 --> 00:20:57.760
church, if ever?

00:20:58.080 --> 00:21:03.840
As I understand it, the conservative Roman Catholic position is never unless

00:21:03.840 --> 00:21:08.560
your spouse dies, which makes the most sense to this questioner.

00:21:08.560 --> 00:21:11.600
What is the correct or Lutheran position on this?

00:21:11.600 --> 00:21:14.480
And he does say correct Lutheran position.

00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:14.800
So

00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:19.440
the position on this, I'm just going to say that this is

00:21:19.440 --> 00:21:20.640
the correct position.

00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:22.560
I know there are men who would argue with me to some

00:21:22.560 --> 00:21:25.600
degree, but I think this is very clear from scripture.

00:21:25.600 --> 00:21:31.200
Obviously, the most straightforward clear thing you can get is that Christ

00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:35.520
says in cases of adultery, divorce is permitted.

00:21:35.520 --> 00:21:38.960
Period. That's straight from scripture.

00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:42.880
You cannot possibly argue with that and believe what scripture says, what

00:21:42.880 --> 00:21:43.920
Christ says.

00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:49.520
So if your spouse commits adultery.

00:21:49.520 --> 00:21:54.560
You are in fact already divorced by the act of adultery, but

00:21:54.560 --> 00:21:59.440
you are permitted to then legally recognize that divorce, make it official

00:21:59.520 --> 00:22:00.880
as it were.

00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:04.800
That is permitted in Scripture very clearly.

00:22:04.800 --> 00:22:08.000
I would say, and there are a number of theologians who've also

00:22:08.240 --> 00:22:14.160
said this, there are other things that are tantamount to infidelity, that

00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:20.080
are tantamount to adultery, and therefore they are also permissible grounds for

00:22:20.320 --> 00:22:25.280
divorce. I think basically the only one that is ever relevant is

00:22:25.280 --> 00:22:27.760
abandonment. Because Because

00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:34.480
there are requirements of spouses with regard to one another, and some

00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:38.880
of them cannot be fulfilled if you are physically absent.

00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:44.560
And so abandonment, I believe, rises to the level of infidelity.

00:22:44.560 --> 00:22:47.600
Because one of the things that you are supposed to do is

00:22:47.600 --> 00:22:50.400
make yourself available for your spouse.

00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:52.880
Not doing so is

00:22:54.320 --> 00:22:56.960
I want to say, and it is accurate to say that it's

00:22:56.960 --> 00:22:58.880
a mild form of adultery.

00:22:58.880 --> 00:23:01.200
I know there are people who object to that wording, but I

00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:04.960
could explain exactly why, but it is a form of infidelity.

00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:09.920
And so I would say that abandonment then rises to the level

00:23:10.240 --> 00:23:12.320
of adultery.

00:23:12.320 --> 00:23:15.360
So those are basically the two cases.

00:23:15.360 --> 00:23:18.560
I think maybe edge cases that could happen that rise to the

00:23:18.560 --> 00:23:20.800
level of infidelity, but those are the ones that are going to

00:23:20.800 --> 00:23:26.880
actually happen that aren't just a philosophical experiment, which very typically useless,

00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:30.080
often harmful in theological matters.

00:23:30.080 --> 00:23:35.040
So that's the shorthand for when is divorce permissible, adultery, and things

00:23:35.040 --> 00:23:37.520
that are equivalent to adultery.

00:23:37.520 --> 00:23:41.600
Which is in the case of the adultery, the explicit adultery, is

00:23:41.600 --> 00:23:42.480
just what Christ says.

00:23:42.480 --> 00:23:45.680
It's what scripture says, very clear, very plain.

00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:50.000
We are not allowed to change what Scripture says when it says

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:51.520
something very clearly like that.

00:23:51.520 --> 00:23:54.560
We are not always required to punish things in the same way

00:23:54.560 --> 00:23:58.720
as Scripture does because For instance, some of the civil law in

00:23:58.720 --> 00:24:01.520
the Old Testament is not binding on us as Christians, so it's

00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:02.800
a recommendation.

00:24:02.800 --> 00:24:07.040
But historically, the punishment in many times and many places for adultery

00:24:07.040 --> 00:24:09.200
has been the death penalty.

00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:09.520
And

00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:13.360
if the punishment for adultery is the death penalty, the issue of

00:24:13.360 --> 00:24:18.400
divorce kind of becomes irrelevant for rather obvious reasons.

00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:22.800
I think we should return to punishing adultery much more severely, possibly

00:24:22.800 --> 00:24:26.000
even including capital punishment.

00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:32.480
Which again makes the issue irrelevant for obvious reasons.

00:24:32.480 --> 00:24:35.120
The next question is related to marriage

00:24:36.080 --> 00:24:36.400
but

00:24:37.520 --> 00:24:40.560
not about marriage per se.

00:24:40.560 --> 00:24:43.840
In the past year I have become fully convinced the volume set

00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:47.680
on stone choir, my wife is equally persuaded.

00:24:47.680 --> 00:24:51.280
She now feels isolated from making or keeping friends because every time

00:24:51.280 --> 00:24:54.320
she brings up they are replacing us, which is true, or our

00:24:54.320 --> 00:24:58.560
people, she is called a racist by others in the mom group.

00:24:58.560 --> 00:25:01.360
I nearly banned her from ex so she wouldn't see any more

00:25:01.360 --> 00:25:04.960
awful news, but she says the people there are her only community.

00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:09.200
Please help me think about this well.

00:25:09.200 --> 00:25:13.680
This is a very real challenge.

00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:18.320
Because obviously if you know the truth about something, or

00:25:19.280 --> 00:25:19.600
you

00:25:20.880 --> 00:25:24.320
have learned some deeper aspect of the truth, and it is something

00:25:24.320 --> 00:25:29.440
other people do not know, or worse, reject, then That is going

00:25:29.440 --> 00:25:32.400
to estrange you from them to some degree, and that's kind of

00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:37.840
inevitable. I think there are maybe three things that I want to

00:25:37.840 --> 00:25:39.280
say about this.

00:25:39.280 --> 00:25:41.600
The first one, I would say

00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:46.480
We all recognize that we have different friend groups, right?

00:25:46.800 --> 00:25:51.120
I have friends I know from being an attorney.

00:25:51.120 --> 00:25:55.520
I have friends I know from being involved in animal conservation.

00:25:55.520 --> 00:25:56.960
I have friends I know from

00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:02.400
being a right wing white nationalist.

00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:05.920
The overlap for the just those three groups, I'll just use those

00:26:06.320 --> 00:26:07.680
three and no more.

00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:10.960
Not necessarily very high in some cases.

00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:15.920
So I'm probably not going to bring up what I've read about

00:26:16.080 --> 00:26:20.080
nationalist philosophy and an animal conservation event.

00:26:20.080 --> 00:26:22.480
I don't really go to those anymore since moving out of California,

00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:26.800
but for the sake of the hypothetical, we all recognize we have

00:26:26.800 --> 00:26:32.320
different groups of friends, and different groups of friends permit different topics.

00:26:32.320 --> 00:26:34.800
There's nothing necessarily wrong with that.

00:26:34.800 --> 00:26:37.280
There are cases in which it can rise to the level of

00:26:37.440 --> 00:26:41.920
you can't go along with evil, but you aren't necessarily always dealing

00:26:41.920 --> 00:26:44.560
with evil in these cases, so maybe just don't bring up certain

00:26:44.560 --> 00:26:46.640
topics with certain groups.

00:26:47.360 --> 00:26:50.800
Tell your wife to focus on some of the trivial stuff that's

00:26:50.800 --> 00:26:52.720
probably being discussed in those groups.

00:26:52.720 --> 00:26:57.280
If they start getting into things where you know they're evil, they

00:26:57.280 --> 00:26:57.760
could be.

00:26:57.760 --> 00:26:59.600
I don't know what this group is like.

00:26:59.600 --> 00:27:03.040
If it's a group of antifa moms, well it's a real problem.

00:27:03.040 --> 00:27:06.000
She needs to not associate with those people because they're evil.

00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:09.840
You can't associate with them without becoming party to their evil.

00:27:09.840 --> 00:27:13.760
But if they're just not involved in this stuff, or they don't

00:27:13.680 --> 00:27:17.600
know about it, you don't necessarily have to bring them along all

00:27:17.600 --> 00:27:18.640
at once.

00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:21.200
You can drop little hints and things like that and kind of

00:27:21.200 --> 00:27:25.200
nudge them in the right direction if you have the skills to

00:27:25.200 --> 00:27:26.720
do that, but

00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:31.760
don't take the shotgun approach and try to get someone to believe

00:27:31.760 --> 00:27:34.880
all of the things that you've learned all at once, because it

00:27:34.880 --> 00:27:37.040
took you time.

00:27:37.040 --> 00:27:40.000
Maybe in this case not as much time as some, but some

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:42.960
people take years, some people take longer.

00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:46.000
You're not necessarily going to bring them up to speed right away

00:27:46.080 --> 00:27:49.280
and if you try to, they're going to get shell shock.

00:27:49.280 --> 00:27:53.360
So I think that's the first point I would make is recognize

00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:56.880
you have different friend circles and you're going to have to treat

00:27:56.880 --> 00:28:01.840
the people in them differently because they are in fact different.

00:28:01.920 --> 00:28:02.240
So

00:28:03.760 --> 00:28:06.160
there's that aspect, that's really kind of the second point.

00:28:06.160 --> 00:28:09.200
The first point is just there are different kinds of truths, right?

00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:14.320
And maybe recognize that not everyone is ready for everything, which is

00:28:14.320 --> 00:28:17.360
related to that second point of the different friend circles, but

00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:22.080
the sort of final point that I would make is that things

00:28:22.080 --> 00:28:27.120
are progressing in our direction, and so in some ways, there will

00:28:27.120 --> 00:28:29.840
be doors that are open for things you can discuss that you

00:28:29.840 --> 00:28:32.800
couldn't discuss before.

00:28:32.800 --> 00:28:35.840
I think the most obvious example right now is I don't know

00:28:35.840 --> 00:28:37.760
if I even want to say the name because it probably gets

00:28:37.760 --> 00:28:41.760
you flagged in some way, but the gentleman who owned an island,

00:28:41.760 --> 00:28:45.600
I think that has opened up some doors for discussion of things

00:28:45.600 --> 00:28:48.880
that were previously unthinkable.

00:28:48.880 --> 00:28:50.160
You could not

00:28:51.040 --> 00:28:55.440
even consider broaching the topic of did you know there are people

00:28:55.760 --> 00:28:59.760
who kidnap children and drink their blood.

00:28:59.760 --> 00:29:05.280
That would probably have got you some very strange looks, historically, and

00:29:05.280 --> 00:29:09.520
in fact it would, that you might not get today, because now

00:29:09.520 --> 00:29:14.560
people recognize that, oh wait, we actually have physical proof that this

00:29:14.560 --> 00:29:16.080
stuff was happening.

00:29:16.080 --> 00:29:20.000
So as things continue to progress and trend in that direction, it

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.480
opens up doors for that, which means you will find those like-minded

00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:27.200
people, or maybe bring some people along.

00:29:27.200 --> 00:29:31.600
And I guess a a fourth point sort of you can find

00:29:31.600 --> 00:29:33.200
like-minded people.

00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:34.960
It is difficult in some places.

00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:36.400
I don't know what part of the country you're in.

00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:40.320
Please don't tell me because you know, don't dox yourself.

00:29:40.320 --> 00:29:40.640
But

00:29:43.040 --> 00:29:46.400
if you can find like-minded people, great.

00:29:46.400 --> 00:29:50.000
So for instance, in your case, if you can find other men

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:55.200
who are like minded who have managed to bring their wives along,

00:29:55.200 --> 00:29:57.200
introduce your wives.

00:29:57.200 --> 00:30:01.120
Have them become friends and do whatever it is they're going to

00:30:01.120 --> 00:30:02.480
do with their time.

00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:05.280
That's a good thing and that will help her a lot, even

00:30:05.280 --> 00:30:08.080
if it's just one or two additional friends, because

00:30:09.120 --> 00:30:11.520
depending on the kind of person, if you're an introvert or an

00:30:11.520 --> 00:30:14.240
extrovert, it's going to depend on how big your circle is, right?

00:30:14.240 --> 00:30:18.640
But But just having a few like-minded friends you can be open

00:30:18.640 --> 00:30:21.680
and honest with is going to make a huge difference.

00:30:21.680 --> 00:30:23.760
You know that, and it's going to be the same way for

00:30:23.760 --> 00:30:28.080
her. So if you can find those married men who get along

00:30:28.080 --> 00:30:32.320
with you, and by all means, if they brought their wives along,

00:30:32.320 --> 00:30:33.600
introduce your wife to them.

00:30:33.600 --> 00:30:35.760
Those will be good friends for her.

00:30:35.760 --> 00:30:39.120
But no, it's a very serious topic, and yes, obviously there is

00:30:39.120 --> 00:30:44.080
going to be some isolation when you know a truth that other

00:30:44.080 --> 00:30:47.120
people do not know, and it's an important one that you can't

00:30:47.120 --> 00:30:48.240
really let go.

00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:52.560
Particularly when you start seeing all of the evil things happening in

00:30:52.560 --> 00:30:56.400
our society and you recognize them now because you're looking at it

00:30:56.400 --> 00:30:59.280
and going, I know why that's happening, I know who's behind it,

00:30:59.280 --> 00:31:02.560
I know why that's done, I know why those words and those

00:31:02.560 --> 00:31:04.960
image whatever it happens to be, we all know.

00:31:05.440 --> 00:31:08.240
It makes it more difficult not to say something, but sometimes you

00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:09.840
don't have a choice.

00:31:09.840 --> 00:31:15.920
You can't speak every truth at every instant in every situation.

00:31:15.920 --> 00:31:21.760
Some of these things call for wisdom and self-control.

00:31:21.760 --> 00:31:24.320
But again, yes, it's a difficult situation.

00:31:24.320 --> 00:31:26.960
So do the best that you can do to try to find

00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:27.600
her those friends.

00:31:27.600 --> 00:31:30.080
And yeah, I do think backing off on social media a little

00:31:30.080 --> 00:31:30.640
bit is probably

00:31:31.840 --> 00:31:36.000
extremely good for most people generally, but particularly for women.

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:41.680
Because women are very subject to those social pressures and the skinner

00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:43.920
box is not good for women, which is Which is just that's

00:31:43.920 --> 00:31:45.840
all social media really is.

00:31:48.800 --> 00:31:54.560
The next question is one that I will answer it directly, but

00:31:54.560 --> 00:31:59.200
also answer sort of a more important higher level question related to

00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:03.520
it. I heard that our worship practices were taken from the pagan

00:32:03.520 --> 00:32:05.920
Romans. What would you say about this?

00:32:05.920 --> 00:32:08.880
So this is a question that comes up all the time.

00:32:08.880 --> 00:32:14.880
It comes up with regard to Easter and Ishtar and Christmas and

00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:20.240
Mithras and Soul Invictus and a thousand different things.

00:32:20.240 --> 00:32:24.080
The first answer is it's complete nonsense.

00:32:24.080 --> 00:32:29.360
They're trying to connect things that in many cases aren't connected, or

00:32:29.360 --> 00:32:34.560
they're trying to claim things that are complete and utter insane nonsense.

00:32:34.560 --> 00:32:36.480
I can think of one in particular.

00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:39.840
There was a gentleman in, I believe it was the eighteen hundreds,

00:32:39.840 --> 00:32:45.520
I've forgotten his name now, but he proclaimed himself an Egyptologist, didn't

00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:49.200
know anything about the subject, and then started saying that basically Jesus

00:32:49.840 --> 00:32:54.240
Christ was just a narrative of Horus.

00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:58.400
The problem is he made a bunch of claims about Horus that

00:32:58.400 --> 00:33:01.520
have literally zero evidence anywhere.

00:33:01.840 --> 00:33:06.160
He just made them up, and now neopagans and some others will

00:33:06.160 --> 00:33:12.240
repeat them sometimes online, but they're just absurd abject nonsense, literally without

00:33:12.240 --> 00:33:14.560
a shred of evidence.

00:33:14.560 --> 00:33:16.160
Uh one in particular

00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:19.840
not in the case of Horus, but say Mithras, right?

00:33:19.840 --> 00:33:21.920
Someone trying to claim well Mithras was born of a virgin he

00:33:21.920 --> 00:33:23.280
was born of a rock.

00:33:23.280 --> 00:33:24.560
Read the story.

00:33:24.560 --> 00:33:26.720
Go read the actual thing.

00:33:26.720 --> 00:33:28.320
It's not what they claim.

00:33:28.320 --> 00:33:32.960
So in many cases just complete and utter nonsense and lies because

00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:36.080
they're trying to deceive you, trying to make you doubt.

00:33:36.080 --> 00:33:36.400
But

00:33:37.360 --> 00:33:44.000
the more important question here than that is is it wrong to

00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:47.280
take so this is the hypothetical case, right?

00:33:47.280 --> 00:33:52.320
Is it wrong to take pagan practices and Christianize them?

00:33:52.320 --> 00:33:53.920
The answer is no.

00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:54.720
Nothing wrong with that.

00:33:54.720 --> 00:33:56.080
We're right back to tradition, right?

00:33:56.080 --> 00:34:00.320
This is the question I mentioned ties into tr into traditions.

00:34:00.320 --> 00:34:00.640
So

00:34:01.760 --> 00:34:04.400
I would, you know, I would use the Christmas tree, it's one

00:34:04.400 --> 00:34:05.280
everyone's thinking, right?

00:34:05.280 --> 00:34:07.600
But Martin Luther actually invented that one.

00:34:07.600 --> 00:34:10.160
So the pagans don't even get that one.

00:34:10.160 --> 00:34:13.360
But let's say, for instance, and also it ties all the way

00:34:13.360 --> 00:34:16.240
back into the first worship of God which took place in a

00:34:16.240 --> 00:34:17.520
sacred grove.

00:34:17.520 --> 00:34:20.480
So the fact that we still have trees involved in worship is

00:34:20.480 --> 00:34:21.760
not bad.

00:34:21.760 --> 00:34:25.760
But let's say you have some pagan practice, right?

00:34:25.760 --> 00:34:27.040
Gift giving.

00:34:27.040 --> 00:34:33.280
Okay? Some Roman traditions, so directly answering the question perhaps, had some

00:34:33.280 --> 00:34:34.720
gift giving involved.

00:34:34.720 --> 00:34:38.000
Does that make it bad to give gifts?

00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:39.040
No, of course not.

00:34:39.200 --> 00:34:40.800
Be ridiculous to claim that.

00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:43.840
So you are permitted to give gifts, and you're even permitted to

00:34:43.840 --> 00:34:48.400
do it connected with something related to the Christian faith, so Christmas

00:34:49.520 --> 00:34:52.800
The sin or the problem would be if you do it in

00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:54.960
connection with a false god.

00:34:54.960 --> 00:34:58.640
There's nothing wrong with giving gifts and also having that as part

00:34:58.640 --> 00:35:02.720
of your celebration of the reminder of Christ's birth, the greatest gift

00:35:02.720 --> 00:35:04.480
ever given to humanity.

00:35:04.480 --> 00:35:05.920
Completely fine.

00:35:05.920 --> 00:35:11.520
It is morally permissible to Christianize pagan holidays.

00:35:11.520 --> 00:35:16.080
The issue is that you don't want to shade into syncretism, which

00:35:16.080 --> 00:35:19.200
happens, so I'll just give an extremely obvious case.

00:35:19.200 --> 00:35:23.520
You have the cult of the dead in the Mexican practice of

00:35:23.520 --> 00:35:25.120
Roman Catholicism.

00:35:25.120 --> 00:35:27.040
That's not permissible.

00:35:27.040 --> 00:35:30.000
That is actually worshiping a false god.

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:33.200
That is idolatry, that is polytheism.

00:35:33.200 --> 00:35:35.440
That is a problem.

00:35:35.440 --> 00:35:36.400
You can't do that.

00:35:36.720 --> 00:35:39.680
And so it's not a balancing act so much as just there's

00:35:39.680 --> 00:35:41.920
a line that you cannot cross.

00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:44.160
So you can't worship false gods.

00:35:44.160 --> 00:35:48.560
You can't do things that are inherently in their nature the worship

00:35:48.560 --> 00:35:49.760
of a false god.

00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:54.880
So no human sacrifice, you can't cleanse that of the pagan element,

00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:58.240
because it is itself pagan in the broad sense of pagan, not

00:35:58.240 --> 00:35:59.680
European pagan, because

00:36:00.560 --> 00:36:04.400
human sacrifice was not really a part of European paganism, except little

00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:08.480
pockets here and there and very rarely, typically not something that was

00:36:08.480 --> 00:36:14.240
part of European neopaganism, paganism, depending on the case.

00:36:14.240 --> 00:36:18.160
But that can't be Christianized, but other things can.

00:36:18.160 --> 00:36:23.600
And so there's nothing wrong with taking a practice and removing the

00:36:23.600 --> 00:36:27.360
objectionable elements and having it be something that's good.

00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:30.960
Think of it the same way that we deal with furniture or

00:36:30.960 --> 00:36:32.720
a house or anything like that.

00:36:32.720 --> 00:36:37.200
If you buy a house and it has some damage, let's say

00:36:37.280 --> 00:36:41.760
smoke damage to the walls, do you knock down the entire house?

00:36:41.760 --> 00:36:44.480
No, you just fix the parts that need fixed.

00:36:44.480 --> 00:36:49.360
The same thing can be done with traditions taking from our ancestors

00:36:49.360 --> 00:36:50.880
who were not Christian.

00:36:50.880 --> 00:36:54.320
Nothing wrong with that, perfectly morally permissible.

00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:54.640
But

00:36:55.520 --> 00:36:56.480
the surface level

00:36:57.360 --> 00:37:02.800
answer is that almost all the claims about relationships between Christian practice

00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:05.280
and pagan practices are nonsense.

00:37:05.280 --> 00:37:09.200
And the ones in which we do have a relationship there are

00:37:09.200 --> 00:37:13.120
usually so superficial that it doesn't matter.

00:37:13.120 --> 00:37:16.880
They'll be something like, Well you just have Christmas in December because

00:37:16.880 --> 00:37:19.760
it's related to Saturnalia.

00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:24.000
Okay. So we celebrate it at the same time.

00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:25.040
Doesn't matter.

00:37:25.040 --> 00:37:25.920
Means nothing.

00:37:25.920 --> 00:37:27.360
Doesn't mean we have a pagan practice.

00:37:27.360 --> 00:37:28.800
It means we happen to have an overlap.

00:37:28.800 --> 00:37:32.080
And Christ very well probably was born around that time.

00:37:32.080 --> 00:37:35.920
If you actually look at the evidence in scripture and elsewhere in

00:37:35.920 --> 00:37:39.920
history. So even that one may not be an actual connection.

00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:41.760
It may just be coincidence.

00:37:47.200 --> 00:37:51.840
The next question I am not yet married, but I would like

00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:54.320
to know how I as a man can keep my marriage and

00:37:54.320 --> 00:37:56.320
family focused on Christ.

00:37:56.320 --> 00:38:00.000
Besides just going to church and doing family devotions, I am afraid

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.240
of being spiritually blindsided.

00:38:04.240 --> 00:38:07.840
I don't necessarily want to get into this too deeply because this

00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:09.760
one could take up a lot of time, but

00:38:10.720 --> 00:38:15.280
the basic answer to that is that you need to actually

00:38:16.240 --> 00:38:21.280
invest the time in your wife and in your children.

00:38:21.280 --> 00:38:24.400
You need to know where they are in their faith, what they

00:38:24.400 --> 00:38:27.360
know about their faith, if they have any doubts or concerns or

00:38:27.360 --> 00:38:30.720
anything like that, and you need to be there to address them.

00:38:30.720 --> 00:38:33.600
And part of that is just investing the time.

00:38:33.600 --> 00:38:37.040
One of the major problems that we have in the last say

00:38:37.840 --> 00:38:41.520
It's probably fifty, sixty years at this point, is you have had

00:38:41.680 --> 00:38:46.000
maybe not quite that much, maybe forty, but you've had those who

00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:49.600
just pass their children off to the state for X hours per

00:38:49.600 --> 00:38:53.600
day for Y years out of their life, and then they send

00:38:53.600 --> 00:38:56.000
them off to university and they come back and they don't believe

00:38:56.000 --> 00:38:58.960
the Christian faith and they become a Marxist and all this thing.

00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:01.040
And then they wonder, well, how'd that happen?

00:39:01.040 --> 00:39:04.720
Well, probably because you invested 30 minutes per week in your child

00:39:05.600 --> 00:39:08.960
with regard to the Christian faith and you handed them over to

00:39:08.960 --> 00:39:13.600
atheists for I don't know, thirty five hours out of the week?

00:39:13.600 --> 00:39:16.720
What did you expect was going to happen?

00:39:16.720 --> 00:39:22.160
That is not even negligence, it's recklessness, or even something worse, almost

00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:26.080
wanton. So don't do that.

00:39:26.080 --> 00:39:30.800
You have to know what is going on with your children.

00:39:30.800 --> 00:39:31.440
What is going on

00:39:32.400 --> 00:39:33.680
with your wife.

00:39:33.680 --> 00:39:37.520
You are responsible for the things that happen under your roof.

00:39:37.520 --> 00:39:41.920
Part of it will be regulating what is permitted in your house.

00:39:41.920 --> 00:39:44.080
Don't allow evil media in your house.

00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:46.400
Don't allow evil books in your house.

00:39:46.400 --> 00:39:49.520
If someone brings in a Ouija board, burn it.

00:39:49.520 --> 00:39:52.320
Right? There are certain things you have to do as a father.

00:39:52.320 --> 00:39:53.920
That's going to be a big part of it.

00:39:53.920 --> 00:39:57.520
Just don't pass your children off to others to raise them and

00:39:57.520 --> 00:40:00.800
then be surprised at the outcome.

00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:03.920
It's one of those things where there are things in life that

00:40:03.920 --> 00:40:05.440
require a lot of hard work.

00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:07.280
They have great payoffs.

00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:11.280
They have eternal payoffs, but they require hard work.

00:40:11.280 --> 00:40:13.200
This is definitely one of them.

00:40:13.200 --> 00:40:14.800
So make sure you invest the time.

00:40:14.800 --> 00:40:16.560
Make sure you are available.

00:40:16.560 --> 00:40:20.000
Make sure that they know they can bring these questions to you.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:22.880
You don't want to be some figure that's off in the corner

00:40:22.880 --> 00:40:24.320
and they're scared to approach you, right?

00:40:24.320 --> 00:40:26.240
You need to be the father and act as the head of

00:40:26.240 --> 00:40:32.320
the household.

00:40:32.320 --> 00:40:36.880
Let's make sure that I have my correct numbering here, just for

00:40:36.880 --> 00:40:39.280
my sake.

00:40:39.280 --> 00:40:45.280
The next question encouraging RC or EO Christians with the current state

00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:49.360
of the Protestant churches, how do we encourage RC slash EO people?

00:40:49.520 --> 00:40:52.560
in the Trinitarian faith and higher orthodoxy?

00:40:52.560 --> 00:40:56.960
Especially given that some of them may not be genuinely saved.

00:40:57.360 --> 00:40:59.600
And of course that applies to Protestant churches as well.

00:40:59.600 --> 00:41:03.280
There's some who are not genuinely saved, so I'm not necessarily picking

00:41:03.280 --> 00:41:06.000
on the RC or the EO here.

00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:09.440
Because I do believe, even in the case of the Eastern Orthodox,

00:41:09.440 --> 00:41:13.520
that there are saved individuals in those churches, despite the things that

00:41:13.520 --> 00:41:16.480
I have said about the Eastern Orthodox on Stone Choir and my

00:41:16.880 --> 00:41:20.960
article on it and elsewhere debates, things like that, there are individuals

00:41:20.960 --> 00:41:24.640
who are saved in those churches, because I brought this up before,

00:41:24.640 --> 00:41:28.480
and it'll come up many times subsequent to this, but Lutherans have

00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:34.960
specifically a concept called felicitous inconsistency, which means that there are those

00:41:35.280 --> 00:41:41.280
who, despite the false things their churches officially teach, don't believe them.

00:41:41.680 --> 00:41:46.560
They are felicitously inconsistent because they don't believe those things, but they

00:41:46.560 --> 00:41:49.280
do believe that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior died on

00:41:49.280 --> 00:41:52.480
the cross, rose again, and that if they believe in him, they

00:41:52.480 --> 00:41:53.920
will have eternal life.

00:41:53.920 --> 00:41:55.440
And so they're Christian.

00:41:55.440 --> 00:41:59.440
And that is the case for a great many in the Roman

00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:03.760
Catholic Church, and a great many in the Eastern churches as well.

00:42:03.760 --> 00:42:06.720
And I say that for the Roman Catholic Church because if you

00:42:06.720 --> 00:42:11.680
believe absolutely everything taught by Rome these days, you are damned.

00:42:11.680 --> 00:42:17.680
Period. Rome teaches things that are simply, bluntly contrary to the Christian

00:42:17.680 --> 00:42:21.440
faith. They teach that Muslims and Jews are included in the plan

00:42:21.520 --> 00:42:23.360
of salvation as they call it.

00:42:23.360 --> 00:42:25.760
You cannot believe that as a Christian.

00:42:25.760 --> 00:42:28.560
Because they reject Christ.

00:42:28.560 --> 00:42:31.360
If you reject the Son, you don't have the Father.

00:42:31.680 --> 00:42:34.960
If you reject Christ, you cannot be saved.

00:42:34.960 --> 00:42:39.440
And so I don't believe that most Roman Catholics believe that.

00:42:39.440 --> 00:42:43.280
I think most of them don't even know their church teaches that.

00:42:43.280 --> 00:42:46.800
But to get to the question here, the heart of the question,

00:42:46.800 --> 00:42:50.960
how do we encourage these individuals and try to bring them along?

00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:54.240
Well, the challenge here is that we sort of need to clean

00:42:54.240 --> 00:42:56.320
our own house first.

00:42:56.320 --> 00:42:59.120
And I'm almost tempted to bring up, and I'm sure some of

00:42:59.120 --> 00:43:01.120
you have thought of it as well, but I'm almost tempted to

00:43:01.120 --> 00:43:02.960
bring up, right?

00:43:02.960 --> 00:43:05.760
If your brother has a speck in his eye, remove the log

00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:06.560
for your eye first.

00:43:06.560 --> 00:43:09.120
But in this case, it's not a log from our eye and

00:43:09.120 --> 00:43:09.840
a speck from his.

00:43:10.160 --> 00:43:12.560
we kind of both have a log in our eyes.

00:43:12.560 --> 00:43:14.400
And maybe theirs is worse in some cases.

00:43:14.480 --> 00:43:18.240
Maybe it's not, but we need to clean our own house first

00:43:18.400 --> 00:43:21.680
because we need to be coming to them in a position of

00:43:21.680 --> 00:43:23.040
strength and authority.

00:43:23.360 --> 00:43:27.200
Not in a position of you need to do X, Y, and

00:43:27.200 --> 00:43:29.840
Z because that's how you could be better.

00:43:29.840 --> 00:43:33.840
I'm not saying that you can't help people when your life isn't

00:43:33.760 --> 00:43:36.480
perfect because if that were the standard, no one would ever help

00:43:36.480 --> 00:43:37.520
anyone else, right?

00:43:37.520 --> 00:43:40.880
But But at the same time you don't want to be the

00:43:40.880 --> 00:43:46.720
guy who is a drug addict, an enormous mess, crying on camera,

00:43:46.720 --> 00:43:49.040
and looks like a disaster, and you all know of whom I

00:43:49.040 --> 00:43:51.760
am speaking right now in particular, the example I have in my

00:43:51.760 --> 00:43:55.200
mind, and then telling people you need to go clean your room.

00:43:55.520 --> 00:43:58.160
Kinda look ridiculous if you're that guy.

00:43:58.160 --> 00:44:01.120
So we don't want to be him.

00:44:01.120 --> 00:44:04.160
We need to get our own house in order.

00:44:04.160 --> 00:44:07.280
In our case, for Protestants, it's somewhat easier because we can start

00:44:07.280 --> 00:44:09.920
new churches.

00:44:09.920 --> 00:44:14.640
In the case of the congregation itself, the parish, not in the

00:44:14.640 --> 00:44:18.400
case of uppercase C church, that's the Church Universal of which all

00:44:18.400 --> 00:44:20.160
Christians are members.

00:44:20.160 --> 00:44:22.960
But we can start new church bodies.

00:44:22.960 --> 00:44:25.200
We're not prohibited from doing that.

00:44:25.200 --> 00:44:28.800
We don't have theological objections to it other than we should do

00:44:28.800 --> 00:44:30.880
it only when it is necessary.

00:44:30.880 --> 00:44:32.640
It's necessary these days.

00:44:32.640 --> 00:44:34.640
And so we already have some that have started up.

00:44:34.640 --> 00:44:38.880
There are good churches that have started up.

00:44:38.880 --> 00:44:44.480
And as those grow and the wicked churches continue to lose members

00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:45.520
as they are doing.

00:44:45.520 --> 00:44:48.720
I brought up before that one of the biggest line items in

00:44:48.720 --> 00:44:52.960
Elka's budget, for those who don't know, Elka is the branch in

00:44:52.960 --> 00:44:57.040
the United States that claims to be Lutheran but isn't even Christian.

00:44:57.040 --> 00:45:00.400
And so if you want to criticize Lutherans by all means, please

00:45:00.400 --> 00:45:03.280
use the LCMS and the Wells, both of which are kind of

00:45:03.280 --> 00:45:04.640
dumpster fires right now.

00:45:04.640 --> 00:45:05.760
Don't use Elka.

00:45:05.760 --> 00:45:07.040
Elkka's not Christian.

00:45:07.040 --> 00:45:09.120
That's hypocritical and unfair.

00:45:09.120 --> 00:45:10.000
Don't do that.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:11.600
Don't be that guy.

00:45:11.600 --> 00:45:15.440
But one of the biggest line items for Elka is selling their

00:45:15.440 --> 00:45:17.760
buildings because they're in free fall.

00:45:17.760 --> 00:45:18.880
They're just collapsing.

00:45:18.880 --> 00:45:23.840
So as those bodies die off and the faithful ones grow in

00:45:23.840 --> 00:45:27.600
numbers, then we will be in a position where we can start

00:45:27.600 --> 00:45:28.880
to address some of these things.

00:45:28.880 --> 00:45:31.360
It's mentioned in the book of Concord, even.

00:45:31.360 --> 00:45:34.320
One of the things that Luther points out, because at that time

00:45:34.320 --> 00:45:38.560
it was very much true is our churches are daily growing because

00:45:38.560 --> 00:45:41.520
we are preaching the word, we are teaching rightly and God is

00:45:41.520 --> 00:45:42.640
blessing us.

00:45:42.640 --> 00:45:47.440
And the Roman parishes were being deserted at that time.

00:45:47.440 --> 00:45:51.120
You could point that out in the early days of the LCMS.

00:45:51.120 --> 00:45:55.360
The LCMS was the fastest growing church body probably on the face

00:45:55.360 --> 00:45:59.600
of the planet for a period of time, certainly in the US.

00:45:59.600 --> 00:46:01.520
When they were faithful.

00:46:01.520 --> 00:46:05.360
When you are in that position, you can certainly then go to

00:46:05.360 --> 00:46:08.160
other Christians and have these discussions.

00:46:08.160 --> 00:46:12.720
It is difficult, at least more difficult to have them, when the

00:46:12.720 --> 00:46:16.960
room behind you is a disaster, which is what we have right

00:46:16.960 --> 00:46:20.720
now. I'm not saying we stop engaging with the Roman Catholics and

00:46:20.720 --> 00:46:26.000
even the Eastern Orthodox, but our efforts need to be focused on

00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:28.720
getting our own houses in order first.

00:46:28.720 --> 00:46:32.400
Because that's sort of the hierarchy of the duties there.

00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:36.880
So if you find yourself in a position where you can try

00:46:36.880 --> 00:46:40.960
to discuss these things with the Roman Catholics productively, then by all

00:46:40.960 --> 00:46:42.480
means do so.

00:46:42.480 --> 00:46:42.800
But

00:46:43.680 --> 00:46:47.040
we need to focus on our own mess first, as is almost

00:46:47.040 --> 00:46:48.400
always the case.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:47:01.360
See what my next question here is.

00:47:01.440 --> 00:47:03.600
I can answer a very short one.

00:47:03.600 --> 00:47:05.600
If not JD Vance, then who?

00:47:05.600 --> 00:47:06.640
I don't know.

00:47:06.640 --> 00:47:10.480
I don't think that we necessarily have anyone who's particularly good, and

00:47:10.480 --> 00:47:13.280
you are correct to say I don't particularly like JD Vance for

00:47:13.280 --> 00:47:15.040
some obvious reasons.

00:47:15.040 --> 00:47:17.680
Not least of all that he seems to have been stood up

00:47:17.680 --> 00:47:22.880
in a somewhat shady fashion, but I don't necessarily have a person.

00:47:22.880 --> 00:47:24.240
You don't always have to.

00:47:24.240 --> 00:47:27.760
You can say something that is bad without having an alternative ready,

00:47:27.760 --> 00:47:31.040
right? If you are about to drink a glass of poison, I

00:47:31.040 --> 00:47:32.400
can tell you don't drink that.

00:47:32.400 --> 00:47:35.120
And if you respond with, well, where's my drink?

00:47:35.120 --> 00:47:37.600
You know, asking me if I have something in the alternative for

00:47:37.600 --> 00:47:40.160
you to drink, I I don't have to have a replacement for

00:47:40.160 --> 00:47:42.400
the poison to tell you not to drink the poison.

00:47:42.400 --> 00:47:44.880
I can still tell you not to drink the poison because that

00:47:44.880 --> 00:47:45.920
would be bad.

00:47:45.920 --> 00:47:47.120
Two separate things.

00:47:47.120 --> 00:47:50.560
Related but distinct.

00:47:50.560 --> 00:47:54.320
Someone asked last week when I posted about

00:47:55.200 --> 00:47:57.440
going someone said Mike Pence.

00:47:57.440 --> 00:48:00.720
That would be somehow even worse than Vance.

00:48:00.720 --> 00:48:01.040
So

00:48:01.920 --> 00:48:03.600
i i Pence is a mess.

00:48:03.600 --> 00:48:06.960
But anyway, someone asked last week what happens if we go to

00:48:06.960 --> 00:48:10.880
war? Well, that kind of happens on with whom?

00:48:10.880 --> 00:48:15.360
I think he probably meant Iran, just given the context of things

00:48:15.360 --> 00:48:20.240
today. And if we were to go to war with Iran, if

00:48:20.240 --> 00:48:23.440
you can possibly do so, refuse to go.

00:48:23.440 --> 00:48:26.400
Don't fight the Jews wars for them.

00:48:26.400 --> 00:48:27.360
Don't do it.

00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:28.320
It's evil.

00:48:28.320 --> 00:48:29.440
Don't be part of it.

00:48:29.440 --> 00:48:32.240
That's the baseline answer for that.

00:48:32.240 --> 00:48:32.320
So

00:48:34.400 --> 00:48:36.080
as best you can refuse.

00:48:36.080 --> 00:48:39.520
If there's a draft, absolutely refuse.

00:48:39.520 --> 00:48:42.560
Do not be drafted into a war and go fight for the

00:48:42.560 --> 00:48:46.160
Jews. Don't do it.

00:48:46.160 --> 00:48:48.640
See the next question.

00:48:48.640 --> 00:48:49.280
Wanna get the

00:48:50.480 --> 00:48:54.560
wording from this one if I copied it, which I believe I

00:48:54.560 --> 00:49:01.600
did. You subscribe to the concept of biological determinism in

00:49:01.600 --> 00:49:07.200
reference to temperament and behavioral proclivities people are born with.

00:49:07.200 --> 00:49:10.000
How do you reconcile this with free will?

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:12.720
For me, anywhere I try to point to free will, it seems

00:49:12.720 --> 00:49:13.440
to vanish.

00:49:13.440 --> 00:49:17.360
Could an African have done otherwise as an example, obviously there.

00:49:17.360 --> 00:49:21.920
I don't necessarily Necessarily subscribed to determinism.

00:49:21.920 --> 00:49:24.560
I don't think that I would use that term because it's sort

00:49:24.560 --> 00:49:27.840
of a fraught theological term, but

00:49:29.360 --> 00:49:33.280
I do affirm free will, of course, because I think free will

00:49:33.280 --> 00:49:35.200
is the way that we deal with the problem of evil.

00:49:35.200 --> 00:49:37.360
I don't think there's any other way to deal with it.

00:49:37.360 --> 00:49:42.000
If you negate free will, then you necessarily make God the cause

00:49:42.240 --> 00:49:46.320
of evil, and that's morally impermissible so you have to affirm free

00:49:46.320 --> 00:49:49.760
will. But I don't think that you

00:49:50.720 --> 00:49:53.040
necessarily have a conflict here.

00:49:53.040 --> 00:49:59.600
I think that biology bounds free will in some ways.

00:49:59.600 --> 00:50:04.880
So I think a good analogy would be looking at, for instance

00:50:05.680 --> 00:50:13.120
Intelligence. Intelligence is set genetically as a range.

00:50:13.120 --> 00:50:20.640
Your environment, so nature, but your nurture determines where you fall within

00:50:20.640 --> 00:50:22.240
the range.

00:50:22.240 --> 00:50:26.960
You can't fall outside of it, other than obviously severe brain damage,

00:50:26.960 --> 00:50:27.440
things like that.

00:50:27.440 --> 00:50:29.600
You can drop lower, you can always do that.

00:50:29.600 --> 00:50:31.600
You can't go higher.

00:50:31.600 --> 00:50:35.520
We don't have the technology for that, even if it's theoretically possible.

00:50:35.520 --> 00:50:40.240
So biology sets that range, and then other things set where you

00:50:40.240 --> 00:50:41.760
fall within the range.

00:50:41.760 --> 00:50:45.600
I think that there's a relationship there of how free will operates

00:50:45.600 --> 00:50:48.400
with regard to biology and things like that.

00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:48.720
So

00:50:49.840 --> 00:50:53.040
one of the examples I've used before, and I think it's a

00:50:53.040 --> 00:50:57.120
good one for people to bear in mind, is that certain men

00:50:57.440 --> 00:51:01.120
have proclivities toward certain sins.

00:51:01.120 --> 00:51:06.320
And there are differences in sin with regard to sex.

00:51:06.320 --> 00:51:10.320
So for instance, and I mean biological sex in this case, men

00:51:10.320 --> 00:51:15.600
are prone to different sins from those to which women are prone.

00:51:15.600 --> 00:51:19.360
Women are more prone to gossip than men.

00:51:19.360 --> 00:51:24.320
Men are more prone to certain kinds of lust than women.

00:51:24.320 --> 00:51:28.560
So So, does that mean that men and women don't have free

00:51:28.560 --> 00:51:30.800
will because they have different proclivities?

00:51:30.800 --> 00:51:32.720
I don't think that it does.

00:51:32.720 --> 00:51:36.960
I think that it influences your free will, it makes it harder

00:51:36.960 --> 00:51:40.400
to do things, but just because something is harder to do doesn't

00:51:40.320 --> 00:51:41.920
mean you don't have a choice.

00:51:41.920 --> 00:51:44.720
And I think free will kind of obviously does exist, you know,

00:51:44.720 --> 00:51:47.040
I have collection of pens sitting here next to me, I could

00:51:47.040 --> 00:51:48.800
pick up anyone I want right now and write with it.

00:51:49.120 --> 00:51:52.000
I can pick whatever color ink I want to use and write

00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:52.720
with that.

00:51:52.720 --> 00:51:54.960
That's a free choice that I have.

00:51:54.960 --> 00:51:57.840
I have the choice to do this QA right now.

00:51:57.840 --> 00:52:00.560
I could hit stop, I could hit the power button my computer

00:52:00.560 --> 00:52:01.600
and walk away.

00:52:01.600 --> 00:52:03.760
I could take a sip of tea right now or not do

00:52:03.760 --> 00:52:07.120
that. I think the claims of those who try to go with

00:52:07.120 --> 00:52:11.760
sort of the hard version of determinism are just patently absurd on

00:52:11.760 --> 00:52:13.280
their face.

00:52:13.280 --> 00:52:16.320
I for many reasons, and I could formalize that argument more, but

00:52:16.320 --> 00:52:19.280
I think they're absurd to the point where there's no reason to

00:52:19.280 --> 00:52:21.040
take them seriously.

00:52:21.040 --> 00:52:27.600
Do I think there's relationship between biology and various things like that

00:52:27.680 --> 00:52:30.720
and our free will, of course, but I think it's one of

00:52:30.720 --> 00:52:34.720
influence and bounding, not one of control.

00:52:34.720 --> 00:52:39.600
So to get to the example then, could an African have done

00:52:39.600 --> 00:52:43.600
otherwise, which we could think of Think of, for instance, you know,

00:52:43.600 --> 00:52:47.840
impulsivity and the inclination toward violence, so called warrior gene, which is

00:52:47.840 --> 00:52:49.360
very misnamed, but

00:52:50.400 --> 00:52:52.480
and of course IQ.

00:52:52.480 --> 00:52:52.800
So

00:52:53.680 --> 00:52:55.360
yes, his free will

00:52:56.240 --> 00:53:01.680
is more severely bounded than yours, most likely, in many ways.

00:53:01.680 --> 00:53:04.560
His influences are heavier in a way.

00:53:04.560 --> 00:53:07.840
They are going to be greater in the scale with regard to

00:53:07.840 --> 00:53:09.200
what he can and cannot do.

00:53:09.200 --> 00:53:10.880
And there will be things he can't do.

00:53:10.880 --> 00:53:14.160
Because a person with an IQ of seventy-five cannot do the th

00:53:14.400 --> 00:53:16.480
same things as a person with an IQ of a hundred and

00:53:16.560 --> 00:53:18.720
fifty plus.

00:53:18.720 --> 00:53:24.320
But he still has free will with in those bounds.

00:53:24.320 --> 00:53:26.800
Now another part of this, of course, and this is the part

00:53:26.800 --> 00:53:30.480
that most modern Christians forget because it makes them uncomfortable in some

00:53:30.480 --> 00:53:32.400
cases, most cases

00:53:33.680 --> 00:53:37.840
Part of the decisions that were free that have led to the

00:53:37.840 --> 00:53:43.760
decisions that you can now make were made by your ancestors.

00:53:43.760 --> 00:53:46.160
And we just have to accept that as Christians.

00:53:46.160 --> 00:53:49.440
One of the reasons we have to accept it is called original

00:53:49.440 --> 00:53:54.480
sin. You do not have the choice not to be a sinner,

00:53:54.480 --> 00:53:58.640
because Adam sinned and all men fell in Adam.

00:53:59.280 --> 00:54:02.640
And so you are a sinner, and I've gone into this before

00:54:02.720 --> 00:54:05.360
where you sin because you're a sinner, it's not you're a sinner

00:54:05.360 --> 00:54:10.320
because you sin, that distinction's important, because that's the teaching of original

00:54:10.320 --> 00:54:14.720
sin, distilled down to sort of an axiom.

00:54:14.720 --> 00:54:21.840
Adam sinned and bounded your free will with regard to his decision.

00:54:21.840 --> 00:54:23.840
His decision was completely free.

00:54:23.840 --> 00:54:26.560
He had the choice to sin or not to sin.

00:54:26.560 --> 00:54:29.920
He had the ability to sin or not to sin.

00:54:29.920 --> 00:54:33.760
You do not have that same ability because you are a sinner

00:54:33.840 --> 00:54:35.040
because of Adam.

00:54:35.040 --> 00:54:36.560
And so, yes, what our ancestors

00:54:37.520 --> 00:54:41.920
have done or failed to do has bounded our own free will

00:54:41.920 --> 00:54:45.760
down through the generations of man that preceded us.

00:54:45.760 --> 00:54:50.560
And so we do not have the same scope of free will

00:54:50.560 --> 00:54:52.720
that they had in some cases.

00:54:52.720 --> 00:54:57.200
We are more degenerated in some ways than they were.

00:54:57.200 --> 00:55:00.160
The best example, of course, is Adam being free to sin or

00:55:00.160 --> 00:55:01.040
not sin.

00:55:01.040 --> 00:55:03.200
We certainly don't have that choice.

00:55:03.200 --> 00:55:08.560
And so free will is not an absolute thing, because the only

00:55:08.560 --> 00:55:12.400
will that is absolutely free in that sense is God.

00:55:12.400 --> 00:55:15.600
And of course, even God, there are things God can't do.

00:55:15.600 --> 00:55:19.360
Not in the sense of potential or possibility, but in the sense

00:55:19.360 --> 00:55:20.800
of incoherence, right?

00:55:20.800 --> 00:55:22.800
That's the way I've usually explained it.

00:55:22.800 --> 00:55:25.760
God can't sin.

00:55:25.760 --> 00:55:28.880
So as I sort of got into the with that debate with

00:55:28.880 --> 00:55:31.600
James White, right, I was getting at that point.

00:55:31.600 --> 00:55:31.920
But

00:55:33.280 --> 00:55:36.960
God has the highest free will.

00:55:36.960 --> 00:55:41.840
God has the absolutely free will in the proper sense of free.

00:55:41.840 --> 00:55:44.960
We don't have that, but it doesn't mean we don't have free

00:55:44.960 --> 00:55:49.680
will. It just means ours is bounded and influenced by, for instance,

00:55:49.680 --> 00:55:51.200
our biology.

00:55:55.680 --> 00:55:59.520
A light hearted, easy question for this one.

00:55:59.520 --> 00:56:02.240
What is the best Germanic dog breed and why is it the

00:56:02.240 --> 00:56:05.680
dochhund? And the person says hi to Gizmo.

00:56:05.680 --> 00:56:08.240
The answer to that is that it depends, just to answer the

00:56:08.240 --> 00:56:10.480
question a m a little more seriously than it was asked, I'm

00:56:10.480 --> 00:56:13.440
sure. The Dachshund is a great dog.

00:56:13.440 --> 00:56:16.240
Probably not if you want to go on a twenty mile hike.

00:56:16.240 --> 00:56:18.640
I don't think he's going to carry his own water or his

00:56:18.640 --> 00:56:21.120
own food or in fact his own self.

00:56:21.120 --> 00:56:23.920
I think you're going to have to carry him in your pack.

00:56:23.920 --> 00:56:25.360
So it depends, right?

00:56:25.360 --> 00:56:26.560
You want a guard dog?

00:56:26.560 --> 00:56:28.720
Probably not the doxund.

00:56:28.720 --> 00:56:32.160
Gizmo actually makes a great guard dog, but obviously his job is

00:56:32.160 --> 00:56:33.600
to go get the bigger dogs.

00:56:33.600 --> 00:56:36.880
He's not going to do much on his own weighing what he

00:56:36.880 --> 00:56:45.920
does. Incidentally, he also goes in the pack after about mile five.

00:56:45.920 --> 00:56:49.040
And straight from that one to a much more serious one, what

00:56:49.040 --> 00:56:53.280
is the protocol for handling a parent practicing witchcraft in the house

00:56:53.280 --> 00:56:54.560
you live in?

00:56:55.360 --> 00:56:59.120
Well, that's a serious question, and also quite the problem.

00:56:59.120 --> 00:56:59.440
I think

00:57:00.720 --> 00:57:03.920
the most obvious answer is get out of that house if you

00:57:03.920 --> 00:57:10.320
can. If this person is seriously practicing witchcraft in your home, which

00:57:10.320 --> 00:57:12.320
obviously in the case of a parent makes it more of a

00:57:12.320 --> 00:57:14.240
problem that the depends on the age, I have no idea how

00:57:14.240 --> 00:57:15.760
old this person is.

00:57:15.760 --> 00:57:16.080
So

00:57:17.600 --> 00:57:23.920
if this is say your mother is collecting crystals, it's not as

00:57:23.920 --> 00:57:28.560
serious just to be blunt, you know.

00:57:28.560 --> 00:57:31.280
Is it something that Christians shouldn't do?

00:57:31.280 --> 00:57:33.440
Absolutely. Is it foolish?

00:57:33.440 --> 00:57:36.560
Yes. Does it open the door in some minor way?

00:57:36.560 --> 00:57:41.040
Yes. Is it as bad as the person who is sacrificing chickens

00:57:41.040 --> 00:57:44.480
and spraying blood all over and drawing pentagrams and, you know, really

00:57:44.480 --> 00:57:47.040
going whole hog with the Satanism thing?

00:57:47.040 --> 00:57:50.560
No. So it's going to depend on what sort of thing this

00:57:50.560 --> 00:57:52.160
person is doing.

00:57:52.800 --> 00:57:56.560
If you can talk to the parent and say it makes you

00:57:56.560 --> 00:58:01.920
deeply uncomfortable, maybe the parent will listen and maybe that's the resolution

00:58:01.920 --> 00:58:03.200
in this case.

00:58:03.200 --> 00:58:06.000
But if it can't be resolved in that way, I think your

00:58:06.000 --> 00:58:10.400
best bet, assuming that you are of a reasonable age, which this

00:58:10.400 --> 00:58:15.680
person at least had access to Twitter X now, get out of

00:58:15.680 --> 00:58:17.600
the house to get away from it if it is a serious

00:58:18.160 --> 00:58:22.800
thing that is a real spiritual threat.

00:58:22.800 --> 00:58:23.840
And pray.

00:58:23.840 --> 00:58:25.440
Of course, always pray.

00:58:25.440 --> 00:58:27.120
So I'll I'll pray for you as well.

00:58:27.120 --> 00:58:31.120
I hope that that resolves itself in a positive fashion.

00:58:31.120 --> 00:58:33.040
I hope this person stops doing that.

00:58:33.040 --> 00:58:35.840
But I think those are really the sort of two levels to

00:58:35.840 --> 00:58:39.120
it. Talk to the person, see if he or she will stop,

00:58:39.120 --> 00:58:42.560
and then get away if you possibly can.

00:58:42.560 --> 00:58:43.680
It's real.

00:58:43.680 --> 00:58:48.800
Witchcraft, Satanism, those things, they are to a degree real.

00:58:48.800 --> 00:58:52.400
And spiritual evil is real and it should be taken very seriously.

00:58:52.400 --> 00:58:54.320
It's not a joke, it should not be taken lightly.

00:58:54.320 --> 00:58:56.720
The Ouija board is not a toy.

00:58:56.720 --> 00:58:57.600
Do not buy one.

00:58:57.840 --> 00:58:59.920
Do not have one in your house.

00:58:59.920 --> 00:59:04.000
If there is one in your house, go burn it after you

00:59:04.000 --> 00:59:04.960
know, pause this.

00:59:04.960 --> 00:59:06.400
Go burn it right now.

00:59:06.400 --> 00:59:06.720
But

00:59:07.680 --> 00:59:09.040
those things are real.

00:59:09.040 --> 00:59:10.720
They should be taken very seriously.

00:59:10.720 --> 00:59:14.240
They should never be taken lightly.

00:59:14.560 --> 00:59:19.760
I think now I will look for questions in the chat.

00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:22.160
So the first question I see here in the chat is about

00:59:22.560 --> 00:59:25.520
Indians and from which son of Noah

00:59:26.400 --> 00:59:30.320
they descend.

00:59:30.320 --> 00:59:34.400
In the case of the Indians, it is mixed

00:59:35.280 --> 00:59:39.920
because they have been at least partially conquered a number of times,

00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:44.160
and subsequent to the conquest there has been admixture.

00:59:44.160 --> 00:59:44.800
And so

00:59:45.760 --> 00:59:48.800
primarily they are from Shem.

00:59:48.800 --> 00:59:51.600
And the question also asked how do we know that?

00:59:51.600 --> 00:59:58.160
The way that we know foundationally where the sons of Noah went

00:59:58.480 --> 00:59:58.800
is

00:59:59.680 --> 01:00:01.200
two, I will go backwards.

01:00:01.200 --> 01:00:05.440
Two, we have tradition and we have myth and things like that

01:00:05.840 --> 01:00:07.600
tracing these things all the way back.

01:00:07.600 --> 01:00:10.880
And then one we have scripture, because scripture basically tells us where

01:00:10.880 --> 01:00:12.480
the three sons went.

01:00:12.800 --> 01:00:16.240
Egypt is called the land of Ham, a number of times in

01:00:16.240 --> 01:00:18.560
scripture. Well that's pretty easy.

01:00:18.560 --> 01:00:20.080
Ham went south.

01:00:20.080 --> 01:00:21.760
And went into Africa.

01:00:21.760 --> 01:00:25.920
And then obviously we have descendants of Shem in the Near East,

01:00:25.920 --> 01:00:27.680
the Israelites and others.

01:00:27.680 --> 01:00:29.920
Well, Shem went east.

01:00:29.920 --> 01:00:31.120
What does that leave?

01:00:31.120 --> 01:00:36.320
Because the three great races of men would be Africans, the Asians

01:00:36.400 --> 01:00:39.360
in the broad sense, sort of the British sense of the term,

01:00:39.360 --> 01:00:41.120
and then Europeans.

01:00:41.120 --> 01:00:43.680
Well, that leaves only one place for Japheth.

01:00:43.680 --> 01:00:45.440
So we know from scripture.

01:00:45.440 --> 01:00:48.880
The Shemites then took the East.

01:00:48.880 --> 01:00:50.800
That includes India.

01:00:50.800 --> 01:00:53.360
But the other way we can do this is we can obviously

01:00:53.360 --> 01:00:57.440
run genetic analysis these days because we have those tools.

01:00:57.440 --> 01:00:58.880
There's nothing wrong with using those.

01:00:58.880 --> 01:01:01.760
We can run that sort of analysis and figure out these family

01:01:01.760 --> 01:01:05.120
lines and how they've moved over time and the admixture and things

01:01:05.120 --> 01:01:06.080
like that that.

01:01:06.080 --> 01:01:12.720
So for the Indians you have the South Asians would be sort

01:01:12.720 --> 01:01:15.120
of the predominant group there.

01:01:15.120 --> 01:01:22.080
Then you have the ancient farmer group from sort of Iran and

01:01:22.080 --> 01:01:25.200
that area, you have some admixture from them, and then you have

01:01:25.200 --> 01:01:30.320
the Eurian pastoralists, sort of the steppe people, which would have been

01:01:30.320 --> 01:01:33.040
largely from Japheth who conquered them.

01:01:33.040 --> 01:01:36.720
And you can see this in India today with their caste system.

01:01:36.720 --> 01:01:39.200
You have the Brahmin at the top, and you have the Dalit

01:01:39.360 --> 01:01:40.640
at the bottom, right?

01:01:40.640 --> 01:01:45.840
You have different groups based essentially on this admixture from the Eurasian

01:01:46.240 --> 01:01:49.120
populations that came in and conquered them.

01:01:49.120 --> 01:01:52.240
If you have more of that, you're higher up in their scale.

01:01:52.240 --> 01:01:57.760
And so largely Shem, but with admixture, is the short answer.

01:01:58.160 --> 01:02:04.160
And how we know is from scripture plus genetic research.

01:02:04.160 --> 01:02:07.200
Someone asked about my thoughts on George Rockwell.

01:02:07.200 --> 01:02:10.000
That's of course George Lincoln Rockwell.

01:02:10.000 --> 01:02:11.920
I think he was very good with some things.

01:02:11.920 --> 01:02:16.400
I think he was right that being out there and action and

01:02:17.120 --> 01:02:21.120
you know, having a face to a movement is very important.

01:02:21.120 --> 01:02:23.440
I wish he'd had better Christian friends.

01:02:23.600 --> 01:02:26.160
Because I think that was something that was very much missing.

01:02:26.160 --> 01:02:30.800
I don't think that nationalism works without the religious element.

01:02:30.800 --> 01:02:34.160
And I think the religious element has to be Christianity, because Christianity

01:02:34.160 --> 01:02:35.760
is true.

01:02:35.760 --> 01:02:39.760
And nationalism is also truth, and I've gone over this obviously at

01:02:39.760 --> 01:02:41.280
length many times.

01:02:41.280 --> 01:02:45.280
Christianity and nationalism complement each other.

01:02:45.280 --> 01:02:48.000
Christianity demands nationalism.

01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:50.720
Nationalism needs Christianity.

01:02:50.720 --> 01:02:54.240
And so I'm not just a nationalist.

01:02:54.240 --> 01:02:56.000
I'm not just a Christian.

01:02:56.000 --> 01:02:58.320
I am a Christian white nationalist.

01:02:58.320 --> 01:03:00.000
I am a white Christian nationalist.

01:03:00.000 --> 01:03:02.560
I've said before you can put those adjectives in whichever order you

01:03:02.560 --> 01:03:05.280
please. It remains true.

01:03:05.280 --> 01:03:07.040
I'm a white nationalist Christian.

01:03:07.040 --> 01:03:09.120
You can do it that way if you like.

01:03:09.120 --> 01:03:12.240
So I think he had some good ideas and I think he

01:03:12.240 --> 01:03:16.560
did some good things, but he definitely needed some better Christian friends.

01:03:16.560 --> 01:03:19.920
Which I could say that about a number of men historically.

01:03:19.920 --> 01:03:25.600
Nietzsche comes to mind.

01:03:25.600 --> 01:03:30.480
Lovecraft comes to mind.

01:03:30.480 --> 01:03:37.760
Just a name two, sort of at random.

01:03:37.840 --> 01:03:40.880
Did you know or get a chance to talk to Aaron D.

01:03:40.880 --> 01:03:42.320
Wolfe before he died?

01:03:42.320 --> 01:03:47.040
He was a Luther minister and editor of Chronicles I did not.

01:03:47.040 --> 01:03:47.360
So

01:03:49.360 --> 01:04:02.480
kind of a short answer, but no.

01:04:02.480 --> 01:04:05.200
Someone said I read that Jesus was probably born in September.

01:04:05.200 --> 01:04:08.080
Shepherds don't have flocks in the field in December.

01:04:08.000 --> 01:04:11.280
We're not actually certain on that point historically as to whether I

01:04:11.280 --> 01:04:13.200
know that points come up before I've read that.

01:04:13.200 --> 01:04:16.000
We're not a hundred percent certain what they did in the era

01:04:16.160 --> 01:04:18.240
with regard to their sheep in the dead of winter.

01:04:18.240 --> 01:04:20.640
They may have been in the field, they may not.

01:04:20.640 --> 01:04:23.600
So if they were December's fine.

01:04:23.600 --> 01:04:27.200
If they weren't September, it honestly doesn't matter what day of the

01:04:27.200 --> 01:04:29.120
year Christ was born.

01:04:29.120 --> 01:04:33.200
I know we would all like to know, but we don't.

01:04:33.200 --> 01:04:37.520
We'd like to know the day of creation, but we don't.

01:04:37.520 --> 01:04:41.120
If these things had been necessary for us, God would have told

01:04:41.120 --> 01:04:43.280
us. It would have been written down in Scripture in a way

01:04:43.280 --> 01:04:45.120
that we could actually interpret.

01:04:45.120 --> 01:04:48.480
And I've got into the the calendar issues before, so I won't

01:04:48.400 --> 01:04:52.560
get into those again, but God didn't record it because it's not

01:04:52.560 --> 01:04:54.160
necessary for us to know it.

01:04:54.160 --> 01:04:56.000
We can just pick a day, that's fine.

01:04:56.000 --> 01:04:57.920
We're celebrating his birth.

01:04:57.920 --> 01:05:01.040
We're not necessarily so much celebrating the day.

01:05:01.040 --> 01:05:05.760
We're just celebrating the fact that yes, indeed, Christ was physically born

01:05:05.760 --> 01:05:08.960
at some point specifically in history.

01:05:08.960 --> 01:05:11.760
So we've picked one on which we all agree.

01:05:11.760 --> 01:05:13.840
Same thing as we pick Sunday, right?

01:05:13.840 --> 01:05:16.320
We all worship on Sunday not because we have to worship on

01:05:16.320 --> 01:05:19.360
Sunday, but because we kind of need to know the day to

01:05:19.360 --> 01:05:22.000
meet. And for the sake of order it should be the same

01:05:22.000 --> 01:05:22.560
day.

01:05:27.360 --> 01:05:32.640
A question here have been listening so much to Stone Choir lately,

01:05:32.640 --> 01:05:34.240
amazing work, thank you.

01:05:34.240 --> 01:05:36.320
How do we organize and make changes?

01:05:36.320 --> 01:05:39.600
Much love from an Eastern Orthodox.

01:05:40.640 --> 01:05:44.880
I've got into this one before, but I'll I'll go over a

01:05:44.880 --> 01:05:46.400
little bit of it again because

01:05:48.320 --> 01:05:51.600
the most important thing in many cases, and part of this is

01:05:51.600 --> 01:05:54.400
going to be I see the there was a donation attached to

01:05:54.400 --> 01:05:56.560
this, it's in Euros, so obviously some of it is going to

01:05:56.560 --> 01:05:58.960
be a little different depending on where you're located, right?

01:05:58.960 --> 01:06:00.400
There are different considerations.

01:06:00.400 --> 01:06:04.560
There are things I am permitted to say right now, sitting in

01:06:04.560 --> 01:06:08.800
Tennessee, that if I had said them when I was living in

01:06:08.800 --> 01:06:12.800
Berlin and the police had found out, I would have been deported.

01:06:12.800 --> 01:06:16.720
And so there are different considerations based on where you are located

01:06:16.720 --> 01:06:18.960
and your laws and things like that.

01:06:19.040 --> 01:06:19.360
But

01:06:20.240 --> 01:06:22.880
so there's that aspect of wisdom, right?

01:06:23.520 --> 01:06:27.840
Local organization is absolutely vital.

01:06:27.840 --> 01:06:29.840
You have to know the people around you, you have to know

01:06:29.840 --> 01:06:33.040
your neighbors, you have to get to know them, you have to

01:06:33.040 --> 01:06:35.200
be able to rely on each other.

01:06:35.200 --> 01:06:37.520
That is very important for a number of reasons.

01:06:37.520 --> 01:06:40.880
Not least of all, morally you are required to do that.

01:06:40.880 --> 01:06:42.880
Part of what you should be doing is caring for your Caring

01:06:42.880 --> 01:06:43.920
for your neighbors.

01:06:43.920 --> 01:06:47.840
And if you don't even know their names, you can't really care

01:06:47.840 --> 01:06:50.400
for or about them very well then.

01:06:50.400 --> 01:06:50.720
And

01:06:51.920 --> 01:06:56.400
part of how nationalist groups have always done well in the past

01:06:56.560 --> 01:07:00.480
is that they have demonstrated in concrete ways that they have an

01:07:00.480 --> 01:07:04.720
actual care for their fellow man, that they actually care about their

01:07:04.720 --> 01:07:09.200
compatriots, they care about their coethnics, they care about the people of

01:07:09.200 --> 01:07:10.720
their nation.

01:07:10.720 --> 01:07:12.320
So do that.

01:07:12.320 --> 01:07:16.320
Do things that are constructive, that are locally focused.

01:07:16.320 --> 01:07:18.480
Help the elderly in your community if you can.

01:07:18.480 --> 01:07:21.920
There are probably elderly that need basic things fixed around the house.

01:07:21.920 --> 01:07:24.640
That's something that's fairly easy for a lot of men to do.

01:07:24.640 --> 01:07:27.840
You can do that on your day off or whatever it happens

01:07:27.840 --> 01:07:28.240
to be.

01:07:28.240 --> 01:07:31.200
It could be something as easy as changing light bulbs, but if

01:07:31.200 --> 01:07:34.720
you have a neighbor who's eighty-five, that may be something she can

01:07:34.720 --> 01:07:36.160
no longer do.

01:07:36.160 --> 01:07:38.240
There are cases like that.

01:07:38.240 --> 01:07:41.440
Or you get to know your neighbor and maybe one day he's

01:07:41.440 --> 01:07:42.880
unloading feed for his animals.

01:07:42.880 --> 01:07:46.160
I'm giving that example because I'm in semi-rural Tennessee, but it'll be

01:07:46.160 --> 01:07:47.680
different if you're in a city, right?

01:07:47.680 --> 01:07:50.160
Maybe he needs to move a heavy piece of furniture, whatever it

01:07:50.160 --> 01:07:52.960
is. Be there to help the people around you.

01:07:52.960 --> 01:07:56.160
Do things that are constructive, things that are concrete.

01:07:56.160 --> 01:07:59.920
That is important not just as a nationalist, not just as part

01:07:59.920 --> 01:08:03.200
of the nationalist movement, but it's important to do that as a

01:08:03.200 --> 01:08:04.880
Christian and as a neighbor.

01:08:04.880 --> 01:08:07.200
That is what we are called to do, it's what we're supposed

01:08:07.200 --> 01:08:08.400
to do with one another.

01:08:08.400 --> 01:08:11.280
We are supposed to be there to help the people God has

01:08:11.280 --> 01:08:14.640
put in our lives, and part of that is getting to know

01:08:14.640 --> 01:08:19.760
them. So doing those concrete and local things is vitally important.

01:08:19.760 --> 01:08:22.720
And then from there obviously it scales up.

01:08:22.720 --> 01:08:26.240
It's going to depend on your country because if you're in a

01:08:26.240 --> 01:08:30.000
country of five million people, that's a lot easier to organize and

01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:34.400
get something done than a country of however many millions the US

01:08:34.400 --> 01:08:36.720
is now, three hundred and thirty, three hundred and forty, whatever it

01:08:36.720 --> 01:08:39.200
is. That's a lot harder.

01:08:39.200 --> 01:08:44.480
So part of it is just logistics, but things scale up.

01:08:44.480 --> 01:08:48.080
You have the local group, which could be even something as small

01:08:48.080 --> 01:08:50.480
as your neighborhood, and then you have your town and your city

01:08:50.560 --> 01:08:55.120
and your county, region, however things are labeled and scaled in your

01:08:55.120 --> 01:08:59.360
area, you need to build out those networks.

01:08:59.360 --> 01:09:02.560
And part of it is identifying the sort of men who can

01:09:02.560 --> 01:09:06.640
lead at each level in an organization and then getting them into

01:09:06.640 --> 01:09:08.880
those positions and supporting them.

01:09:08.880 --> 01:09:12.400
This is one of those ongoing problems on the American right and

01:09:12.400 --> 01:09:14.320
other places as well.

01:09:14.320 --> 01:09:18.080
We haven't necessarily been particularly great at supporting our guys and we

01:09:18.080 --> 01:09:20.800
need to do more of that and I spoke about that in

01:09:20.800 --> 01:09:23.840
a previous episode with regard to artwork and things like that.

01:09:24.000 --> 01:09:25.920
That's also vital to a movement.

01:09:25.840 --> 01:09:30.320
You need to have the cultural aspect or else you movement doesn't

01:09:30.240 --> 01:09:31.200
have a soul, right?

01:09:31.200 --> 01:09:32.400
Effectively, is what you've done.

01:09:32.400 --> 01:09:35.760
You've deprived it of that spirit, of that essence that you need

01:09:35.760 --> 01:09:38.240
to have to actually accomplish something.

01:09:38.240 --> 01:09:41.520
But part of it is of course supporting our guys.

01:09:41.520 --> 01:09:44.160
And that is going to be a matter of if God has

01:09:44.560 --> 01:09:47.600
given you the means, because I spoke about this in Stone Choir,

01:09:47.600 --> 01:09:49.040
of course, and elsewhere.

01:09:49.040 --> 01:09:52.000
You have greater duties to those closer to you.

01:09:52.000 --> 01:09:58.160
So never go ahead and give money to some natural national level,

01:09:58.160 --> 01:10:04.720
right? Nationalist cause, or leader, individual, wherever it happens to be, if

01:10:05.040 --> 01:10:09.200
doing that would deprive those closest to you of something they need.

01:10:09.200 --> 01:10:09.920
Don't do that.

01:10:09.920 --> 01:10:14.000
Focus on your family, your close friends, your neighbors, those who are

01:10:14.000 --> 01:10:14.960
around you first.

01:10:14.960 --> 01:10:16.560
You owe them a higher duty.

01:10:16.560 --> 01:10:20.480
But if God has given you the means, then by all means

01:10:20.720 --> 01:10:24.800
support those who are doing things at the regional level, at in

01:10:24.800 --> 01:10:28.000
the US case, the state level or the county level, who are

01:10:28.000 --> 01:10:31.600
doing things that need to be done and need the resources to

01:10:31.600 --> 01:10:32.480
do them.

01:10:32.480 --> 01:10:37.280
It's the basic rule use the things that God has entrusted to

01:10:37.280 --> 01:10:39.760
your care to do your duty.

01:10:39.760 --> 01:10:43.040
If it's money, then use your money to fund things.

01:10:43.040 --> 01:10:47.120
If it's the ability to write well, then use that talent to

01:10:47.120 --> 01:10:48.080
serve others.

01:10:48.080 --> 01:10:50.720
It is always a matter of using the things that God has

01:10:50.720 --> 01:10:55.040
given you to do good for those to whom God has entrusted,

01:10:55.040 --> 01:10:58.160
right? Those who are entrusted to your care.

01:10:58.160 --> 01:10:59.840
That's the basics of it.

01:10:59.840 --> 01:11:02.640
It is a matter of scaling up from that local level to

01:11:02.640 --> 01:11:06.160
the national level and however many levels are in between depending on

01:11:06.160 --> 01:11:08.000
the size of your country.

01:11:08.000 --> 01:11:08.320
So

01:11:09.600 --> 01:11:11.920
the best thing you can do is just do those concrete things

01:11:12.000 --> 01:11:14.400
and it will help you as well because you will feel like

01:11:14.400 --> 01:11:17.200
you are actually getting something done and accomplishing something.

01:11:17.600 --> 01:11:19.360
And I've spoken of that before.

01:11:19.360 --> 01:11:23.440
It is important for men in particular to do something concrete.

01:11:23.440 --> 01:11:26.160
Men don't feel like they've accomplished something

01:11:27.120 --> 01:11:30.400
if they've just done something virtual.

01:11:30.400 --> 01:11:33.760
That makes it there are certain men who can get by because

01:11:33.760 --> 01:11:36.560
they can understand that and but most men want to be able

01:11:36.560 --> 01:11:39.440
to look at it and go, I made that thing.

01:11:39.440 --> 01:11:40.960
I did that thing.

01:11:40.960 --> 01:11:43.360
I put a new door on my barn today.

01:11:43.360 --> 01:11:45.120
I put up chicken wire.

01:11:45.120 --> 01:11:47.840
You want to be able to look at something concrete.

01:11:47.840 --> 01:11:49.280
God built us to do that.

01:11:49.280 --> 01:11:51.360
That's part of how God formed us.

01:11:51.360 --> 01:11:54.720
And so there are some men who can, you know You know,

01:11:54.720 --> 01:11:58.800
go ahead and write something and feel like they truly accomplish something

01:11:58.800 --> 01:12:01.280
in writing that, but for most men they want something perhaps a

01:12:01.280 --> 01:12:02.800
little more concrete than that.

01:12:02.800 --> 01:12:05.120
So going out and helping your neighbor is going to help you

01:12:05.120 --> 01:12:05.920
as well.

01:12:05.920 --> 01:12:08.160
Because you're able to look at it and say, I did that

01:12:08.160 --> 01:12:09.520
concrete thing for that person.

01:12:09.520 --> 01:12:12.960
I built that section of fence or whatever it happens to be.

01:12:12.960 --> 01:12:16.400
So do things locally and build up from there is the the

01:12:16.400 --> 01:12:19.200
short version of the answer.

01:12:24.880 --> 01:12:26.160
Let's see.

01:12:41.040 --> 01:12:46.160
Is the Platonic or Aristotelian conception of the good more consonant with

01:12:46.160 --> 01:12:47.920
scripture, which is say truth?

01:12:47.920 --> 01:12:50.960
I will leave that one for next time I think because I

01:12:50.960 --> 01:12:52.960
think that may get a a little more involved.

01:12:53.040 --> 01:12:56.400
I wanna think about exactly how I want to answer that one,

01:12:56.400 --> 01:12:57.360
but I will write that down.

01:12:57.360 --> 01:12:59.600
I will note it.

01:13:04.240 --> 01:13:07.600
I do have quite a backlog of questions, but I want to

01:13:07.680 --> 01:13:10.880
try to get to the chat just for the sake of getting

01:13:10.880 --> 01:13:13.280
through those.

01:13:13.280 --> 01:13:17.600
I see we have quite the discussion of dogs going in the

01:13:17.600 --> 01:13:21.360
chat. Obviously, I'm going to be partial to golden retrievers because I've

01:13:21.360 --> 01:13:23.440
always had golden retrievers my entire life.

01:13:23.440 --> 01:13:26.560
Other than Gizmo, I now have a Pomeranian, so.

01:13:28.320 --> 01:13:30.000
Someone asked about Arabs.

01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:34.640
Arabs are actually dressed in scripture because we are told that they

01:13:34.640 --> 01:13:37.840
come from Abraham and his

01:13:39.040 --> 01:13:41.600
Hamite concubine.

01:13:41.600 --> 01:13:42.880
So they're half.

01:13:42.880 --> 01:13:45.680
But obviously, they have been additionally mixed.

01:13:45.680 --> 01:13:47.920
They're in that part of the world where it's a confluence of

01:13:47.920 --> 01:13:52.240
peoples. And so it's going to depend on which particular group within

01:13:52.240 --> 01:13:54.560
that large umbrella you mean.

01:13:54.560 --> 01:13:59.840
They They've had different mixtures over many centuries, so but they are

01:13:59.840 --> 01:14:03.200
from both Shem and Ham, originally at least.

01:14:03.200 --> 01:14:07.200
As we pointed out before in Stone Choir and elsewhere, if say

01:14:07.280 --> 01:14:11.280
you had an ancestor, let's say you are a descendant of Shem,

01:14:11.280 --> 01:14:16.400
right? And you had one ancestor who was a descendant of Japheth,

01:14:16.400 --> 01:14:19.280
but he's thirty generations back.

01:14:19.280 --> 01:14:22.000
You effectively are a hundred percent Shemite.

01:14:22.000 --> 01:14:23.200
That's just math.

01:14:23.200 --> 01:14:27.040
You know, divide a hundred by two thirty times and see how

01:14:27.040 --> 01:14:28.160
big the number is.

01:14:28.160 --> 01:14:30.960
I I don't have that number in my head, but obviously

01:14:31.840 --> 01:14:40.240
mathematics plays a role here.

01:14:40.240 --> 01:14:42.800
I think that's pretty much most of the

01:14:44.480 --> 01:14:46.720
questions from the chat there.

01:14:46.720 --> 01:14:49.840
I had someone ask about the Delamo Mall and I don't know

01:14:49.840 --> 01:14:51.520
if he was asked someone else in the chat or me.

01:14:51.520 --> 01:14:54.320
I have not been to the Delamo Mall in a long time.

01:14:54.320 --> 01:14:59.760
That's just a mall in Southern California for those who don't know.

01:14:59.760 --> 01:15:06.080
But no, I have not been there in quite some time.

01:15:06.080 --> 01:15:10.320
Let me pull up my other list of questions here

01:15:11.440 --> 01:15:16.880
or let me see if OBS will not freeze on me.

01:15:16.880 --> 01:15:19.840
Come on now.

01:15:24.320 --> 01:15:30.000
Well, Firefox has decided you know, technology is great sometimes when it

01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:34.000
works. Firefox has now decided to freeze on me, so I can't

01:15:34.000 --> 01:15:36.160
pull up my other list of questions.

01:15:36.160 --> 01:15:37.920
I think I'm kind of getting near to the end here.

01:15:38.160 --> 01:15:40.800
We've run for about an hour, which is sort of the goal.

01:15:40.800 --> 01:15:44.880
I may run a little longer next week to answer a few

01:15:45.200 --> 01:15:46.480
more questions.

01:15:46.480 --> 01:15:50.000
I think I will try to do that to get through more

01:15:52.560 --> 01:15:54.160
Hopefully on Thursday.

01:15:54.320 --> 01:15:58.880
But I will answer I think this one last question here.

01:15:58.880 --> 01:16:01.200
I've answered it before, but I'll go over it again.

01:16:01.200 --> 01:16:04.000
So what is your stance on Christian identity?

01:16:03.920 --> 01:16:07.360
My stance on Christian identity is that I would put Christian single

01:16:07.360 --> 01:16:10.480
quotation marks because it's not.

01:16:10.480 --> 01:16:10.960
Because

01:16:11.920 --> 01:16:18.400
Scripture is abundantly clear that Israel is descended, ethnic Israel, I mean,

01:16:18.400 --> 01:16:23.920
and I mean the man Israel Jacob, is descended from Shem.

01:16:23.920 --> 01:16:27.600
Europeans are descended from Japheth.

01:16:27.600 --> 01:16:31.360
And so we are not ethnic Israel.

01:16:31.360 --> 01:16:36.000
And as I pointed out before, why would you want to be

01:16:36.000 --> 01:16:38.400
descended from ethnic Israel?

01:16:38.640 --> 01:16:40.800
Read the Old Testament.

01:16:40.800 --> 01:16:43.280
Read how those people behaved.

01:16:43.280 --> 01:16:48.320
This is also a point for proving that we're not Old Testament

01:16:48.320 --> 01:16:52.160
Israel. Look at how Europeans behave.

01:16:52.160 --> 01:16:55.280
Look at how modern Jews behave.

01:16:55.280 --> 01:16:59.760
Which people match the group of people who decided to have an

01:16:59.760 --> 01:17:04.320
orgy in the desert and worship a golden calf while the physical

01:17:04.320 --> 01:17:10.240
manifestation of God was on an adjacent mountain.

01:17:10.240 --> 01:17:13.200
I'm going to go ahead and say that my ancestors would not

01:17:13.200 --> 01:17:14.640
have done that.

01:17:14.640 --> 01:17:17.040
I've pointed this out before.

01:17:17.040 --> 01:17:22.960
I I firmly believe that if Jesus Christ had appeared to most

01:17:22.960 --> 01:17:27.520
other peoples in the world, they would have recognized he was at

01:17:27.520 --> 01:17:30.720
least a God, maybe they wouldn't have understood son of God and

01:17:30.720 --> 01:17:34.480
all that stuff, but they would have said he is a God

01:17:34.960 --> 01:17:37.600
and worshipped him.

01:17:37.600 --> 01:17:39.360
Even the Africans would have done that.

01:17:39.360 --> 01:17:41.520
Some tiny percentage of them would have tried to eat him to

01:17:41.520 --> 01:17:45.360
get his magical power, but anyone else in the world would have

01:17:45.360 --> 01:17:48.320
worshipped him and not murdered him.

01:17:48.320 --> 01:17:52.160
I don't want to be related to the Old Testament Jews.

01:17:52.160 --> 01:17:55.920
I look at their behavior, I do not see my people, and

01:17:55.920 --> 01:18:00.480
I look at what Scripture says about which group went where and

01:18:00.480 --> 01:18:02.000
it doesn't make any sense.

01:18:02.000 --> 01:18:07.920
Christian identity is just a rehashed and repainted version of British Israelism,

01:18:07.920 --> 01:18:11.760
and it is as nutty to believe that we are descended from

01:18:11.760 --> 01:18:16.160
those people as to say that there are supposedly lost tribes that

01:18:16.160 --> 01:18:20.160
went north and became Britain.

01:18:20.160 --> 01:18:27.200
Also, worth pointing out, the Assyrians destroyed the northern

01:18:27.200 --> 01:18:32.800
kingdom. They did not exile them, they did not disperse them, they

01:18:33.040 --> 01:18:35.440
destroyed them through miscegenation.

01:18:35.760 --> 01:18:41.200
The ten northern tribes are gone, which is important for understanding eschatology

01:18:41.200 --> 01:18:42.560
and things like that, right?

01:18:42.800 --> 01:18:47.200
Those who try to say the 144,000 revelation are literal don't know

01:18:47.200 --> 01:18:48.320
the Old Testament.

01:18:48.320 --> 01:18:53.600
Because the Old Testament says the Assyrian exile was the Assyrians taking

01:18:53.920 --> 01:18:56.800
people out of the Northern Kingdom and moving them to other parts

01:18:56.800 --> 01:19:00.000
of the Assyrian Empire, incidentally not north into Europe.

01:19:00.000 --> 01:19:02.880
That's not where their empire was, and then taking people from other

01:19:02.880 --> 01:19:07.280
parts of their empire and putting them into the northern kingdom, and

01:19:07.280 --> 01:19:09.280
then encouraging intermarriage.

01:19:09.280 --> 01:19:13.840
That's how the Assyrians destroyed conquered peoples through miscegenation.

01:19:13.840 --> 01:19:16.560
And so what happened to the Northern Kingdom?

01:19:16.560 --> 01:19:19.600
They became the Samaritans.

01:19:19.600 --> 01:19:24.560
They're no longer Israelites in the ethnic sense.

01:19:24.560 --> 01:19:28.240
And so those who think that, you know, dispensationalists and other things

01:19:28.240 --> 01:19:31.600
like that, oh there's some future for ethnic is there isn't because

01:19:31.600 --> 01:19:32.640
they're gone.

01:19:32.640 --> 01:19:35.520
They were destroyed as a judgment from God.

01:19:35.520 --> 01:19:39.600
So we're not descended from them because they're gone and they're also

01:19:39.600 --> 01:19:42.000
from a different son of Noah.

01:19:42.000 --> 01:19:46.480
So no, I I don't think that Christian identity makes any sense

01:19:46.480 --> 01:19:47.920
whatsoever or is Christian.

01:19:47.920 --> 01:19:50.320
I think it is a very weird LARP, and I don't know

01:19:50.320 --> 01:19:53.840
why anyone would want to be related to those people.

01:19:54.720 --> 01:19:57.280
I mean, they could theoretically convert.

01:19:57.280 --> 01:19:59.280
I don't think any of them will.

01:19:59.280 --> 01:20:01.200
I certainly don't want to be related to them.

01:20:01.200 --> 01:20:06.080
I am very much glad that I am descended from

01:20:07.120 --> 01:20:10.560
Japheth, from the Germanic line of Japheth.

01:20:10.560 --> 01:20:14.080
And the greater promises, this is also another aspect of it that

01:20:14.080 --> 01:20:15.280
I think is ridiculous.

01:20:15.280 --> 01:20:17.280
These people just don't know the Old Testament.

01:20:17.280 --> 01:20:21.680
But another ridiculous part of it is that they want to have

01:20:21.680 --> 01:20:26.480
some sort of ethnic promise they think is still outstanding for Old

01:20:26.480 --> 01:20:27.760
Testament Israel.

01:20:27.760 --> 01:20:29.760
One, there's no such promise.

01:20:29.760 --> 01:20:34.240
And then two, the greatest promise in Scripture is After the gospel

01:20:34.240 --> 01:20:38.240
itself is the promise to Japheth, that he would dwell in the

01:20:38.240 --> 01:20:42.880
tents of Shem, which is that Japheth would become Christendom.

01:20:42.880 --> 01:20:45.760
Why would you want to be descended from Shem when Japheth has

01:20:45.760 --> 01:20:47.200
the greater promise?

01:20:48.240 --> 01:20:50.960
I'm not saying you can't be saved as a Shemite, because of

01:20:50.960 --> 01:20:54.080
course you can, but Japheth has the greater promise.

01:20:54.080 --> 01:20:56.160
Japheth is the firstborn.

01:20:56.160 --> 01:20:58.160
Europeans are Japheth.

01:20:58.160 --> 01:21:00.000
I'm happy to be what I am.

01:21:00.000 --> 01:21:03.120
I don't need a LARP as an old testament Jew.

01:21:03.120 --> 01:21:04.000
That's ridiculous.

01:21:04.000 --> 01:21:05.840
I'm not gonna wear a tiny hat.

01:21:05.840 --> 01:21:07.840
Even though it might you know cover the bald spot.

01:21:07.840 --> 01:21:09.120
I'm not gonna wear the tiny hat.

01:21:09.120 --> 01:21:10.000
That's silly.

01:21:10.000 --> 01:21:12.880
I don't want to be that, it's not Christian, I want nothing

01:21:12.880 --> 01:21:13.600
to do with it.

01:21:13.600 --> 01:21:15.680
I wish they would just be Christians.

01:21:15.680 --> 01:21:18.320
I recognize the impulse they have.

01:21:18.320 --> 01:21:22.960
They want to reject the phylosemitism of the modern so called church,

01:21:22.960 --> 01:21:24.080
but it's not the church.

01:21:24.080 --> 01:21:26.320
It's a bunch of heretics.

01:21:26.320 --> 01:21:29.920
Read the actual scripture, look at what it actually says about the

01:21:29.920 --> 01:21:33.280
sons of Noah, and accept the fact that you have been blessed

01:21:33.280 --> 01:21:35.680
to be a son of Japheth.

01:21:35.680 --> 01:21:38.080
You should be proud of your people and their history.

01:21:38.080 --> 01:21:41.840
You shouldn't want to pretend to be descended from some other line

01:21:42.160 --> 01:21:47.520
that is not as blessed and in many cases as cursed.

01:21:53.840 --> 01:21:59.200
Someone brought up the Israelites being white.

01:21:59.280 --> 01:22:03.280
I don't think that's wrong because you lowercase the W.

01:22:03.280 --> 01:22:04.800
Because when scripture speaks

01:22:05.680 --> 01:22:10.720
about individuals who are part of Old Testament ethnic Israel, it does

01:22:10.720 --> 01:22:14.160
speak of them in terms that relate to light skin.

01:22:14.160 --> 01:22:18.160
But as I pointed out many times before, and this is unfortunately

01:22:18.160 --> 01:22:21.680
something people have very hard time grasping, because they don't know history

01:22:21.760 --> 01:22:27.360
in this case, many people of in the Levant are even today

01:22:27.600 --> 01:22:29.200
fair skinned.

01:22:29.200 --> 01:22:33.200
Fair skin is not exclusive to the sons of Japheth.

01:22:33.200 --> 01:22:36.080
That is not something that only we have.

01:22:36.080 --> 01:22:40.480
There are fair skinned Koreans, there are fair skinned Japanese, there are

01:22:40.480 --> 01:22:42.400
fair skin fair fair skinned

01:22:43.360 --> 01:22:45.600
people in Syria, right?

01:22:45.600 --> 01:22:47.120
These people exist.

01:22:47.120 --> 01:22:50.080
And so Christ, probably fair skinned.

01:22:50.080 --> 01:22:51.680
I would say I would go so far as to say he

01:22:51.680 --> 01:22:52.880
was fair skinned.

01:22:52.880 --> 01:22:56.640
Probably had light brown hair, fair skin, but we would consider tanned,

01:22:56.640 --> 01:23:01.040
so you know, southern Italian kind of look.

01:23:01.040 --> 01:23:05.760
People don't understand how populations have migrated and things have changed in

01:23:05.760 --> 01:23:08.320
the intervening two thousand years.

01:23:08.320 --> 01:23:13.200
Because do remember the Arab conquest swept through that part of the

01:23:13.200 --> 01:23:16.080
world and changed many of those populations.

01:23:16.080 --> 01:23:20.560
So when these people are described as fair skinned or being able

01:23:20.560 --> 01:23:23.760
to blush or having red hair, things like that, it doesn't mean

01:23:23.760 --> 01:23:25.360
they're European.

01:23:25.360 --> 01:23:28.960
It means that they are people from the Levant prior to the

01:23:28.960 --> 01:23:30.320
Arab conquest.

01:23:30.320 --> 01:23:33.200
Which of course they were because we're talking about thousands of years

01:23:33.200 --> 01:23:36.480
prior, or at least a thousand years depending on the people.

01:23:36.720 --> 01:23:38.640
So that's part of it.

01:23:38.640 --> 01:23:43.600
There's a difference between white in the sense of fair skinned and

01:23:43.600 --> 01:23:49.120
white, uppercase W in the case and the sense of descendant of

01:23:49.120 --> 01:23:51.440
Japheth, which is to say European.

01:23:51.440 --> 01:23:53.200
Different things.

01:23:53.200 --> 01:23:56.480
So it's one of those cases where people just aren't very careful

01:23:56.480 --> 01:23:57.520
with their terms.

01:23:57.520 --> 01:24:00.240
There's nothing wrong with saying that Jesus is white in the case

01:24:00.240 --> 01:24:02.640
of fair skin because I think that he was.

01:24:02.640 --> 01:24:07.120
I think that our understanding of population genetics and the words of

01:24:07.120 --> 01:24:09.520
scripture do support that.

01:24:09.520 --> 01:24:13.360
But he was not white in the case of European, in the

01:24:13.360 --> 01:24:16.720
sense of European, because he wasn't descended from Japheth.

01:24:16.720 --> 01:24:24.960
He was descended from Shem.

01:24:25.280 --> 01:24:28.560
My camera Is slightly blocking the comment, but I think I have

01:24:28.560 --> 01:24:31.920
an Italian here saying that he's southern Italian descent and has back

01:24:32.080 --> 01:24:36.480
hair, which understandable, that part of the world.

01:24:36.480 --> 01:24:38.240
But I think that

01:24:39.760 --> 01:24:40.880
I will call it here

01:24:41.760 --> 01:24:43.200
for this episode.

01:24:43.200 --> 01:24:44.960
Someone asked me my thought on Bob Matthews.

01:24:44.960 --> 01:24:46.480
I don't know who that is.

01:24:46.480 --> 01:24:50.640
So I have no thoughts on him.

01:24:50.640 --> 01:24:51.520
So So

01:24:52.480 --> 01:24:54.960
I think I will call it here for this week.

01:24:54.960 --> 01:24:57.760
I may run a little longer next week to try to get

01:24:57.760 --> 01:25:00.480
through a bit of the backlog I have.

01:25:00.480 --> 01:25:02.960
I would like to prepare a couple more of those questions.

01:25:02.960 --> 01:25:05.040
I know that I have some outstanding questions, but some of you

01:25:05.040 --> 01:25:08.000
have asked ones that are going to take a while to answer

01:25:08.160 --> 01:25:09.920
properly, which I do want to do.

01:25:09.920 --> 01:25:13.280
I don't want to just give a cursory answer.

01:25:13.280 --> 01:25:17.680
So I will push those to a future episode so that I

01:25:17.680 --> 01:25:21.600
can answer them more extensively, more completely.

01:25:21.600 --> 01:25:24.800
But again, I think I will call it here for this evening.

01:25:24.800 --> 01:25:27.200
Thank you for those of you who contributed questions.

01:25:27.200 --> 01:25:30.800
Thank you for those who participated in the chat.

01:25:30.800 --> 01:25:33.120
And I guess I will add one quick one.

01:25:33.120 --> 01:25:35.200
People ask about the Americas.

01:25:35.200 --> 01:25:36.800
Largely sons of Shem.

01:25:36.800 --> 01:25:40.560
Go ahead, run the genetic analysis, you can see the related Asians.

01:25:40.560 --> 01:25:41.680
That's the answer for that one.

01:25:41.680 --> 01:25:44.640
I'll just answer that real quick really quickly here as I'm closing

01:25:44.640 --> 01:25:48.320
out. But But thank you for participating in the chat for submitting

01:25:48.400 --> 01:25:52.880
questions. If you would like to submit questions, omniphora.com should be a

01:25:52.880 --> 01:25:55.360
link in the description, other places, it'll be in the show notes

01:25:55.360 --> 01:25:56.080
as well.

01:25:56.080 --> 01:25:59.440
For those who don't know, if you don't necessarily care about the

01:25:59.440 --> 01:26:01.680
video, if you just don't want to stare at me for an

01:26:01.680 --> 01:26:05.600
hour, by all means, there is audio only that I make available

01:26:05.760 --> 01:26:09.040
usually two or three days after the show is streamed.

01:26:09.040 --> 01:26:11.200
And so if you want that, you can have that.

01:26:11.200 --> 01:26:15.280
It is generally a little higher quality when I remember to hit

01:26:15.280 --> 01:26:17.120
record on that.

01:26:17.200 --> 01:26:20.720
So think that pretty much closes it out.

01:26:20.720 --> 01:26:25.120
If you want to submit questions elsewhere, I do try to collect

01:26:25.120 --> 01:26:26.640
them and answer them.

01:26:26.640 --> 01:26:29.440
But if you submit them on the forum, that is particularly helpful

01:26:29.440 --> 01:26:33.440
for me because then I can keep them organized and point people

01:26:33.440 --> 01:26:37.520
to the answers more easily in the future future.

01:26:37.520 --> 01:26:42.400
So that is it for this week, and I guess Lent is

01:26:42.400 --> 01:26:45.200
coming up, and so we went over that, and so you can

01:26:45.200 --> 01:26:46.800
be prepared to

01:26:47.760 --> 01:26:51.120
observe Lent in whatever way it is that you have chosen for

01:26:51.120 --> 01:26:55.840
your own personal observation of that, along with the historic practices of

01:26:55.840 --> 01:26:56.960
the church.

01:26:56.960 --> 01:27:00.800
And I wish you all a great weekend, since it is Friday

01:27:00.800 --> 01:27:03.760
now instead of Thursday, which is sort of my original goal, but

01:27:04.000 --> 01:27:07.280
I hope you have a great rest of your weekend and may

01:27:07.280 --> 01:27:10.720
God bless you all until I see you next week.

01:27:10.720 --> 01:27:15.200
I will of course continue to torment our enemies on X in

01:27:15.200 --> 01:27:16.080
the interim.

01:27:16.080 --> 01:27:19.600
They are very angry with the current thread I have going that

01:27:19.600 --> 01:27:22.560
I have no intent of stopping any time soon.

01:27:22.560 --> 01:27:22.880
So

01:27:23.760 --> 01:27:26.880
again, thank you for your time and have a great evening and

01:27:26.880 --> 01:27:28.000
weekend. God bless

01:27:32.080 --> 01:27:32.720
you.