Friend and Enemy

0:37 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. I am Corey J. Mahler. And I'm still Wo. On today's Stone Choir, we're going to be discussing friend and enemy. These are terms that get used all the time, and we're gonna be talking about the different contexts in our lives where we should be looking for them. I want to say at the outset that this is supposed to be an episode where we're giving tools for how to think, not tools for what to do. We're not going to say, okay, here's your friend, so treat them one way, here's your enemy, treat them another. going to talk a lot about scripture today as well as politics. We're going to begin mostly in some mundane secular things before we move into the scripture.

1:24 The reason that it is important to think about this is not to make people paranoid, not to make you suddenly start looking for enemies everywhere, but specifically because Christians are incredibly bad at understanding and believing what God has told us, which is that we do have enemies. We have enemies in our churches. We have enemies in our families. And that is what God has prophesied would occur. And has always been the case. It's not some huge spiritual thing that no one can understand we see it all the time. And the fact that we see it and the fact that it's real means it's something that we have to deal with as men and as Christians, we have to deal with it as Christian men. We don't get to deal with it as the world would deal

2:08 with those things. So as we lay these things out, I don't want people to get paranoid or to start hunting for enemies. The point is simply to acknowledge that this stuff actually happens and it matters because when you have real friends and you have real enemies and they're operating in your life, there are significant consequences to that. So I want you to imagine a continuum where they're going to be five points. In the center, you have neutrality. On one end, you have a strong friend. A strong friend is contrasted with a weak friend, which is between the strong friend and neutrality. And when I say weak here, I don't mean in the pejorative sense. Thinking like in the terms of, you know, nuclear strong force

2:54 and weak force. Weak is in contrast to strong, but it doesn't mean crappy, terrible friend. It's just there are different types of friends and there are two grades that we're going to focus on. And then the same is true for enemies. You have neutral people who just don't take aside their lukewarm. And then you have weak enemies and you have strong enemies. It's important for every man to understand that each of these exist and to be able to accurately identify them in his own life because if you don't, you're just not equipped to be a good man. You're not equipped to be a strong friend to those to whom it's owed or to whom you choose, and you're not equipped to understand that your strong enemies are prowling and are trying to

3:34 hurt you. So we're defining today a strong friend in terms, as I said, the mundane example would be two countries form a an alliance, mutual defense treaty. So for example, Article V of NATO says that an armed attack on any member of NATO is treated as an armed attack on every member of NATO. So as I mean it means that if someone bombs Germany, the United States is in a de facto state of war with whoever bombed Germany, just as if they had bombed us. There's no legal difference in terms of that treaty being triggered. So there's a de facto state of war regardless of how you respond. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about a strong friend. A strong friend is someone where there's identity.

4:23 I posted recently that anytime you hear somebody talking about identity, it's a weasel word and they're trying to scam you. The distinction is that when the world talks about, oh, I, you know, my identity is LGBT or whatever, that's basically etymologically hypocrisy. That's a mask to say I identify as something isn't saying that you actually are the thing, it's saying that you're adopting an identity. You know, we think of identity as being adopted where you sort of put something on like it's a suit. We talk about skin suits a lot. Identity is usually how that's used by leftists. The way I'm using it here is in the original etymological sense. Edem is Latin for same, the same. It's abbreviated id, period, in writing.

5:08 So when you see ID, it's short for Edem, means the same. The same as a thing previously referenced. So when the United States and Germany identify as NATO partners, it means that it's the same thing. That sameness carries over. An attack on Germany is an attack on the United States because per the treaty, it's the same thing. Friendship, real strong friendship, functions in the same way. And the reason it's important to understand strong friends versus weak friends and strong versus weak enemies is that unlike some ontological categories that are absolutely fixed, these are opt-in. You choose to be someone's strong friend. You don't have to. Maybe you're they're a weak friend and that's fine.

5:51 And I'll talk about that in a second, but you deliberately choose, I want to be a strong friend of this man. Not necessarily consciously, but when you identify with a man and say an attack on this man is an attack on me, if you come after him, you have to get through me. That is he de that's the sameness. That's identity. You're saying he is me for the purposes of anyone else messing with either one of us. So that's a very particular bond that's stronger, even than some family bonds. I think we've all experienced that. You have family you're very close to and family you're more distant from. The same is true of friends. The difference between family and friends is that friends are entirely opt-in.

6:30 Nobody has to be your friend. And there's no character flaw in them. They're not betraying anything if they don't want to be your friend. That's distinct from a family, which is ontological. Family is family because how God made you. You don't get to opt out of that. No, without sinning. But you can opt out of being someone's friend. You don't have to be my friend or Corey's friend or anybody's. That's fine. You have no prior obligation to cut either way. You can be neutral. When, however, you decide to strongly identify to be a strong friend to someone, at that point, it does I don't want to abuse the term ontological, but it becomes a real thing just as a treaty is a real thing with another country.

7:11 To violate that treaty or to violate that strong friendship once it's established is in fact a betrayal. It's a betrayal of oneself. That's why recently I've gotten a lot of mileage out of using the Dostoevsky quote: your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. When you do something that is a betrayal of another and you were a strong friend of them, you're an ally to them, you're betraying yourself because there is a sense of identity between you and them. So when you cross them, when you cut them out of your life or whatever, in a very fundamental sense, you are betraying yourself. And I don't think we take that nearly seriously enough. You don't have to be someone's strong friend.

7:53 You don't have to consider someone an ally. But once you make that sort of commitment, it sticks. It is a permanent state. You can't walk that back, just like you can't break a treaty without being seen as a traitor. Weak friends, on the other hand, as I said, you know, weak it's not pejorative, it's just someone who's gonna be friendly with you, but he's not gonna help you move. He's not the guy who is going to go the extra mile when you're in trouble. You know, he might send you a card or something, but he's not gonna show up. He's not the guy who's gonna be at your bedside after you are hospitalized for days. That's a real friend, that's a strong bond. And there's nothing wrong with weak friends in this sense.

8:32 You need friends who are just you know, you get along with them, that's fine. Most of the people you work with, you know, probably hopefully if you have a good workplace, you have some, you know, weak friends there. You have people you get along with, you enjoy lunch with, and after you leave, you probably won't much keep in contact. Doesn't mean anyone's betrayed anyone else. It's just it's not that strong of a connection. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have weak enemies and strong enemies. And the reason that the friend-enemy distinction is so crucial is at the extremes. The people are just kind of wishy washy and they're nice to you, but whatever. If they stop being nice to you, they don't particularly like you,

9:10 if you know they don't think your politics are great, and so they just I don't like that guy. That's fine. That's not what we're talking about when we talk about enemy. When we talk about a strong enemy, we're talking about the opposite of that treaty situation. So the reason that your strong friendship with someone is so important is when he gets into trouble, you show up and that trouble, that jeopardy is what proves the friendship, the strong friendship. And it's what proves the strong enemy. Because a strong enemy is the one who's creating that jeopardy. He's the vector sending terrible vibes into your life with your friend. He's hurting you somehow. I'm not talking about vibes here, actual enemies doing actual harm to

9:54 you, destroying reputation, you know, whatever. You can pick any sort of beyond slight, any sort of actual evil malicious act, strong enemies are the ones who actually doing that. They get up in the morning and they want to hurt people. If it's your strong enemy, they want to hurt you. And so at these opposite ends of the spectrum, you have jeopardy. The enemy, the strong enemy, creates the jeopardy. The strong friend says, I share your jeopardy. If you're in trouble, I'm in trouble. If you hurt, I hurt. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter the context, it can be political, it can be personal. When someone says that I identify with you. We are the same. That is the sort of brotherhood that is necessary to sustain men.

10:40 It's almost impossible to get through life without anyone like that. In periods of time, you maybe don't have it, but if you're blessed, you're gonna have a couple people like that at various points because you need it, because sometimes one guy just isn't enough. It's not a question of you know having a weakness of faith, it's just you can pray to God and you can trust in God, but you need someone who can talk back, someone who can yell at you, who can support you, can comfort you, whatever you need. You know, a friend is going to do what you need, not necessarily what you want them to do. An enemy is always going to do things that are going to hurt you. And so the purpose of us talking about this today, particularly to

11:15 a Christian audience, is that we as Christians in the church don't really believe that we can have enemies. That's something that a lot of pastors actually say now. So your only enemy is Satan. You don't have any earthly enemies. There's no man who is your enemy. The emphatic point that we're trying to make here today is that you do have enemies and they're trying to hurt you. And pastors who are telling you, oh, that doesn't exist are also trying to hurt you. Whether they're strong or weak enemies by falsely preaching, it is doing harm. Because to the extent that as a Christian, you behave as a Christian and you forgive them and you don't seek vengeance, which we'll talk about later, doesn't make them stop being your enemy.

11:55 The enemy always gets a vote. The word itself is kind of ugly. I've probably said enemy 30 times at this point. It's a nasty thing that creates kind of a visceral response. And we don't want this to be an ugly episode, but we need it to be something that reminds people these things are real, they're consequential, both at the macro level, at the international scale, and in your interpersonal scale, within your family, within your church, within your neighborhood, you have friends and enemies. Now, hopefully you have a lot more friends than enemies. Having an enemy is not natural in the sense that it just sort of happens. Someone has to decide to do it. But for whatever reason, when someone is possessed to act in a

12:35 way that brings jeopardy into your life or into the life of one of your friends, one of your real friends, you then have to deal with that. And as Christians today, we have been almost completely stripped of the ability to believe that these categories are real. You know, real friends maybe, although we're so wishy-washy, I don't think even the real friendship thing is alien to most Christians. But certainly the real enemy thing is lost entirely. When we talk about having enemies, people think that's that's pagan talk. That's these people are you know, they're nuts or something. No, it's how Jesus talks. It's how Jesus warned us things would be, which is why we have permission to agree with what our own lying eyes are telling

13:16 us. These things actually happen, and as honest men, we have to evaluate them honestly, whatever it is. You want friends, lots of friends, real friends. You don't want any enemies. But if someone chooses to be your enemy, you are only harming both yourself and anyone to whom you have a duty if you refuse to acknowledge this guy has chosen to be my enemy and I need to act accordingly. As I said, we're not going to be talking about how you act towards them. We've talked in a number of other episodes on violence, on perfect hatred, various aspects of what to do in certain situations. None of this today really has anything to do with now you found an enemy, here's what you're gonna do. You need to be a Christian about it.

13:55 Part of being a Christian about acknowledging an enemy is believing it's real. You have to believe that you have real enemies and that that can matter. If everything were working, that wouldn't. You know, this is all the product of a fallen sinful world. But Christians living in a sinful world acknowledge that the sin around us creates death, sickness, and enemies. These are the fruits of evil, they're the fruits of Satan's work in the world, and we as Christians have to deal with them. That begins and ends with not lying about it. Because when you remove the ability to identify these things, you're completely crippled. You can't behave as a Christian if you deny that it exists. So again, just as the outset, I don't want anyone to

14:37 take away from this. I gotta be paranoid. I gotta I gotta suddenly start identifying enemies. I gotta find them all around me because they're hiding. I don't want people to feel that way, but you do need to believe that they're real. And if you see examples of well, yeah, I didn't understand that before, but actually that's enemy action. Maybe it's weak, maybe it's strong, but it's something that's harmful. You need to know that. And then what you do has to be informed as a Christian. But the failure to acknowledge that it is occurring and that someone is acting as an enemy is itself sinful foolishness. We don't get to be more loving than God and say I don't have any enemies. God says you do.

15:12 So we're gonna deal with what that looks like. Doubtedly some of you will have heard Echoes of Carl Schmidt when we talk about friends and enemies and the friend enemy distinction. And to some degree there is a similarity there in Schmidt and related writers with what we are saying here, but they are not exactly identical. He is dealing with the concept of the political. We are dealing with perhaps in the neutral and grand sense the political, but we're dealing with something more specific, more limited in scope than what you would find in Carl Schmidt. So if you've read those works, there's a useful comparison to be made, but what we're saying and what he is saying are not identical because we are addressing different things.

16:04 And on a more specifically Christian note, many of you when you hear that we have enemies, that an enemy is a real thing, you are going to instinctively recoil because you have had the very idea that you can have an enemy trained out of you by by modern eisegesis, false interpretations of scripture. And so you may think of verses bless those who persecute you, or forgive your enemies, there are various places that say almost exactly that. And then you will think How can I comply with this command from God and His Word and yet still have enemies? Well there are other parts of scripture that say that your enemies will be members of your own household. And so Scripture tells you that you will have enemies.

16:56 You have to square these two things. You can't just focus on one and ignore the other. And so do you have a duty to forgive your enemies? Absolutely. But do you still have enemies? Of course. If you forgive an enemy, does he thereby cease to be an enemy? No he does not. As Wo said, the enemy gets a vote. If you forgive your enemy, that does not stop him from continuing to be an enemy. It does not mean that you stop treating him as an enemy. It is a different thing to forgive someone and to treat him as if the slate were wiped clean. Forgiveness in this sense does not mean that the slate is wiped clean. I'll give you a more concrete example to make this clearer. With regard to the punishment of crime, the godly prince, the sovereign,

17:53 the authority, whatever you want to call him, has a duty to punish crime. And so if a man commits murder, yes that man can be forgiven, and in fact he must be forgiven by Christians, but he must also in the sense of God has promised forgiveness if he repents, he must be forgiven as well in that sense. And so a man may very well go to the hangman, having repented, having been forgiven for his sins, having been forgiven by the Christians he harmed, and yet he still has to go to the hangman. Because the crime must be punished. It's not the exact same thing about which we are talking today, but it is very similar. The analogy is very close. And so just because you have forgiven your enemy does not mean

18:47 that he ceases to be your enemy. Now if he ceases to be your enemy, which is on him not on you, because you can't do that for him. Again, this is the enemy getting a vote. He gets to decide if he is your enemy or not. And so if he ceases to be your enemy, and you forgive him, well then he may very well become your friend. And perhaps with some weak enemies that is on the table with strong enemies it very seldom is, because more likely your strong enemy is going to continue to double down and seek your harm. You are not a better Christian if you attempt to forgive here in quotes your strong enemy by treating him as a friend. In fact, you are doing something that you are commanded not to do, because as Woe said, you are being foolish, you are being

19:39 derelict in your duties with regard to others, because you are failing to treat as an enemy someone who has declared himself to be an enemy, whether that's in his words or his actions. If you treat friends and enemies identically, that's not just insane but immoral, because you have duties to your friends and you have duties Duties to your own, And if you treat an enemy as a friend, you are going to harm those around you. In the churches, many Christians have been misled to believe that you destroy here in quotes your enemies by forgiving them, in the sense of them ceasing to be an enemy because they have been forgiven. That's not how this works. We would never, for instance, believe this on the international scale.

20:33 If your country goes to war with another country, and then you say, I forgive you, I forgive this other country for going to war with us. That doesn't end the war. That doesn't make the other nation, the other country, no longer an enemy. That's not how it works. Incidentally, this is another aspect of this that I'll mention here. There is a difference between a personal enemy and a public enemy. It's not exactly the point that we're making today, but it is a point that needs to be needs to be made because it is a related matter and it's something that's important for Christians to understand. This is something that is somewhat masked in English and related languages, including German, because we use the same word, the same noun,

21:26 for personal enemy and public enemy. But you can see I already distinguished the two. We do it by adding an adjective. German does the exact same. We don't do what Latin and Greek do, because there there is a different term for the personal enemy and for the public enemy. In the case of the Latin, you have animicus, which is the personal enemy, and you have the hostus, which is the public enemy. And then Greek, of course, is Ectros and Polemios. These are the terms, in, of course, the Greek case that we find in Scripture, there is a difference between the personal enemy and the public enemy. In that case, you actually cannot forgive all public enemies, because it's not your place to do so. You forgive your personal enemies.

22:17 So the man who keeps your lawnmower for too long, if he's done it a whole bunch of times, that rises to the level of him being your personal enemy. It's a little silly, but that sort of case, you forgive him for that. That is a matter of personal enmity, in the sort of minor sense of enmity, not in the sense of him seeking to do you harm. He's probably not seeking to do you harm by keeping your lawnmower for too long. But you forgive your personal enemy. You cannot forgive the public enemy. Because the public enemy, whether it is a matter of politics or religion, because you can have both kinds, sometimes it is both in a single case in a single enemy, but just because you are to forgive your personal enemy does not mean you are to forgive

23:05 all those who are your enemies. So for instance, a more concrete example, you cannot forgive the heretic. You cannot forgive the adherent to a false religion. Because that man, that enemy, is God's enemy. You do not get to forgive God's enemies. You are not more moral than God. If you seek to be more moral than God, you are in fact sinning. These are categories that are important to bear in mind as a Christian. Most modern pastors, most modern teachers, conflate all of these things together and then simply tell you, forgive your enemies. They gloss over the fact that there are different kinds of enemies. They gloss over the fact that an enemy does not cease to be an enemy simply because you forgave him.

24:00 And so what winds up happening is that you have Christians behaving in ways that are suicidal, both on the personal scale and on the civilizational scale. That's not Christianity. That is something fundamentally alien to the Christian faith. God is not a God of disorder and destruction and degeneration. But those things are the result of the modern teaching with regard to enemies and forgiveness. And so obviously that modern teaching cannot be true. A tree is known by its fruit. What is the fruit of that modern teaching? Again, it's destruction. We see our civilization collapsing. We see it falling apart, and we see individual men as well being destroyed by the fruits of that poisonous tree.

24:48 And so that tree is wicked. It is not the Christian faith, it is not the truth of this matter. As a Christian, you have to distinguish personal enemies and public enemies, and you have to distinguish how you treat enemies from how you would treat friends. That's one of those things that with no other group would we ever have to say what I just said. I would never have to tell neopagans you do not treat your friends and your enemies in the same way. Because it is an absolutely absurd and insane thing, a wicked thing, to believe that you would treat enemies and friends in the same way. I'm not saying you don't forgive your personal enemies, because of course Scripture is very clear you must do so.

25:38 But that does not mean that you treat them as friends As friends. Because when you treat them as friends, what is the outcome? What are the consequences of that? And not only what are the consequences, but what are you doing with scripture? You're butchering Scripture by ignoring certain parts of it. Scripture does not say forgive your enemies, because then they are your friends. Now it does say that if you go to your brother who is in error, error, and perhaps your brother is in deep enough error that he has become your enemy, if he turns from that wickedness, then you have gained a brother. But that's saying if he ceases to be your enemy, because then he is no longer an enemy because he has made that decision.

26:24 You cannot make it for him. Just as you can't decide for another person to be your friend. He is your friend or not because of his own decision, not because of your decision. The same with forgiveness. Forgiveness does not magically transmute an enemy into a friend. That is a completely absurd belief. That is only something that we find in the modern churches to abuse the term churches. Because it is a new gospel, it is a novel teaching, it is something that is at odds with Scripture because it does not come from God, it does not come from his Word. It is Satan teaching these things to undermine the churches, to undermine Christendom, to destroy Christianity from within Christian men have to make the right choices pursuant to wisdom in

27:18 these matters, because if we don't, everything around us will be destroyed, and we will also be personally destroyed. We see that happening all the time. There are men who have left the church because this sort of wickedness is preached from so many pulpits. There's no truth there, and they recognize there's no truth there. Because these sorts of things are written on the human heart by God. We all know that you do not treat your friends and your enemies in the same way. And yet, when you hear someone say that from the pulpit, that no, you have to treat your enemies as if they're friends, every man knows that's false. Why would he stay in that sort of church? So pastors and teachers who say those sorts of things are working

28:08 for Satan. They are mouths of Satan. They are driving men out of the churches. They are destroying the churches by teaching that which is false, that which is at odds with God's word. Because God again does not tell you treat your enemy as a friend. He commands that you forgive your enemy, but he says, forgive your enemy. If you are forgiving your enemy, it means that enemies exist. And what does Scripture say about living with others? It says, if possible, so far So far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Notice that twice in that short verse recognizes the existence of enemies, because it says if possible, that's recognizing it is not in fact possible to live at peace with all, because some will be enemies

29:01 regardless of what you do, regardless of how you behave. And then it says again, emphasizing so far as it depends on you. Well as scripture says so far as it depends on you, that means that not in all cases will it depend on you. There are enemies, there are those who are inveterate enemies. They will be your enemy to the grave, and there is nothing you can do about that. You do not treat them as friends, because if you do that, you are neglecting your duties with regard to others Others and you will destroy yourself and everything around you in the process. To emphasize what it means to be a good friend is equally important because frankly, I don't think we have many good examples of that anymore.

29:47 fiction and whatnot, but in personal lives, it's kind of rare to see the sort of friendship that rises to the level of you know mutual protection pact. That's absurd. of all the places you would think the the churches would be the greatest examples where everyone is showing the greatest degree of friendship, yet that's rarely the case. There's a reason that we have the term fairweather friend and that's what I would call a weak friend. Fairweather friends are friends. As long as the weather's good, they're fine. They're great. You got barbecues with them. Everything's hunky-dory. A fairweather friend ceases to be a friend when the weather gets bad. When things turn south, as soon as there's trouble, if you're

30:31 in personal trouble, if you're suffering, if there's a cloud over you that maybe some people are suddenly criticizing you for something, they scatter. People like I uh I'm I got other things to do. I I'm your friend, but I'm gonna be your friend from over there. See you next year. And suddenly you realize you're all alone. And that doesn't mean that they were never your friends, but they were never your strong friends or your real friends. That's most people in most people's lives. I'm that way for people. I don't think it's a personality defect to not be the strongest possible friend to every person you meet. Frankly, that would be bizarre. You can't spread yourself that thin. You can't have a mutual defense pact.

31:13 You can't have an identity with every person you meet. You have to have preferences. So in no way is it a slight to say that they're degrees of friendship. But the emphasis on what a true friend looks like is precisely because when the real enemies show up, you don't want to be left alone. And that means having real friends. And you want to be that sort of friend to someone else that they count on. I'm going to give you a couple quotes from a couple of my favorite movies. The first is Master and Commander, The Far Side of the World, Bing have probably watched and loved that film. There's a scene where this English ship, which is on the far side of the world, is about to go into battle with a

31:53 French ship. And there's a famous speech by the captain where he says this England is under threat of invasion, and though we be on the far side of the world, this ship is our home. This ship is England. The premise there is that the sovereignty of England's soil is carried wherever that ship goes, anywhere in the world. And we see that both with ships on the high seas today under maritime law, and we also see it with embassies. An embassy on foreign soil is de facto the country's soil to which the embassy represents. So if there's a Russian embassy in Washington, DC, you can't go in there without permission from the Russian government because it's not US soil. Even though it's technically located someplace that we have jurisdiction, the

32:44 embassy has jurisdiction ceded to the country that is establishing the embassy. So it's it's a legal fiction, but it's a very real thing. If I were to break into the Russian embassy, I have not only committed, you know, breaking and entering or whatever, I have not only committed a civil violation, a criminal violation of property law, but I've also committed an international crime by invading Russia, by breaking into Russian soil. So it's a far worse thing because of the agreement of the Russian embassy is Russia, even though it's located somewhere else. That English ship on the far side of the ocean was still England. And so that rousing speech from the captain was this is our home. This ship is not only our practical home far away from where

33:31 we were born, but this is England. A friendship works the same way. A real friendship is the same thing. An attack on a real friend is an attack on you. It's the identity of sameness, which is how that term is used in mathematics. It's the same thing. It's not oh I feel like that's my guy. It's the same guy. Two men, different personalities, different mothers, different everything. But when they have a mutual real friendship, that is a bond that is as strong as anything in the world. And it's rare because it has to be. You can't have that spread thin. But when that's real, it is a profound blessing because it's a profound obligation. If someone is in the military, somebody's a marine deployed overseas and

34:19 they're drinking in a bar, just minding their own business. And there's somebody in the bar who really doesn't like America, does like American foreign policy, knows that this guy is a marine, and says, you know what? I'm gonna take a swipe at America. I don't like those guys. Say he sucker punches one marine, hits him in the back of the head, cold cocks him, he doesn't see it coming. What will ensue is a bar fight where they're gonna be more than just those two guys fighting, because when that guy cold cocked a marine, he did not just punch one man. It wasn't just a stand-up fight. He declared war on the entire United States Marine Corps. And guess what? Every Marine within shouting distance is gonna show up for that fight.

34:59 And they're going to put a hurting on anyone who looks like he thought that was a good idea for someone to attack a marine. That's what friendship looks like. When someone attacks whoever is yours, that's sort of the most striding for, we're not advocating the people go around fighting. The point is that that identity, that y if you attack one Marine, you've attacked all Marines. That's the way it's supposed to work. In poor crappy neighborhoods, gangs tend to work the same way. They're different gangs with different colors. Everyone's getting abused. Everyone's being victimized. If you join a gang, you get protection. That identity of I'm part of a collective and therefore And therefore others will stand up for we when no one ever has, it

35:41 fulfills a need that humans have that should have been met properly. It should have been met by the community, by your family, by your church. When those absences are felt, men are still going to try to find it somewhere and they're often going to find it in bad places. So it's important to understand that this is not advocating tribalism, the way that isms are thrown around. It's to say that you're going to have guys. You're going to have guys that you have a sameness with them. And that's a good identification because you need friends, you need backup, you need someone, whether it's, you know, a shoulder to cry on figuratively if you're a guy. You know, if it's a guy, you go complain to him and

36:24 he tells you you're an idiot, quit being a fool. That's what friends tend to do with each other. But they're gonna be there. That willingness to actually be present and show up when everyone else scatters, when everyone else like, there's trouble now, I don't wanna be part of this, is a fundamental difference between the way most relationships work To understand how friendship works is necessary to understand how enemies work. Because typically when you have a personal enemy, someone who's actually really trying to hurt you, most of the time, it's for some reason of principle. It's not just a personality conflict. Usually they're after something. Their target is not just one person. It's a cluster of things.

37:06 They hate you because you're Christian, or they hate you because you have more money than Emory. They have some reason in their head where you are actually a proxy for their greater target. But when the real enemy, the strong enemy identifies you and says, I'm gonna get this guy, I'm gonna hurt this guy. It is an attack on whatever sameness you have with others. So the guy in the bar who throws a punch at a marine, effectively, you know, for practical purposes, he hit every marine. And every marine within punching distance is going to try to hit back. An enemy is saying, I know that these are the stakes and I'm going to do it anyway. And it's part of the reason why things like slander and the

37:46 Helensky attacks of isolation are so vital when they're being used against good men because that isolation means suddenly you don't have any real friends anymore. Who's gonna show up to defend you when you have a bad reputation? When everyone doesn't like you for whatever reason. A lot of you been put in those situations where suddenly, out of nowhere, you thought you were friends with somebody and they decided one day they're going to be your enemy. You didn't see it coming, but their actions proved that they were a strong enemy. They weren't doing this casually. They were doing this on a ranked level. They're trying to hurt you for real. And what happens? The slander, the Alinsky tactics of separation, of isolation.

38:31 You know, pick a target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. When that plays out, the fairweather friends scatter, the weak friends are all gone. The strong friends are then put to the test. When Will Spencer had his night o' long lives with Stone Choir, he texted me afterwards and tried to split me and Corey. His final play was to say, you know, I think you're fine and I think you're reasonable. This Corey guy, he was saying this nasty stuff. I didn't know he was saying any of that. If you would distance yourself from Corey, maybe we could be friends. I'd be fine with you. You could be an upstanding member of this whole Christian thing, but you gotta get rid of him. Which was insulting.

39:12 It was stupid. I don't know what he was thinking. But that's the play. That's the final Alinsky I play. Separate whoever because if men can be picked off one by one and left with no real friends, no allies, no mutual defense, then it's very easy. Because one man alone will ultimately be crushed. You can only withstand so much, no matter how tough you are. Two is an exponential amplification of the resilience present. Because whenever one guy is giving up a little, someone else can come and pick up the slack. And just knowing that there's somebody there who can help is often enough help, even to talk about it. Just the fact that you know that you can count on someone delivers what you actually need.

39:55 So the purpose of being able to identify the difference between real friends, strong friends, and weak friends is not for you to suddenly be disillusioned with people who are fair weather friends. That's going to be most of the people in your life. I'm not going to say that's okay or that's the way it should be, but you can only have so many deeply devoted strong friends. It's natural. There's like you can only have a family that's so large before it ceases to have any meaning. What is important is to recognize that when you have those people, you need to make sure that you're taking care of them as best you can. And the really tough thing for Christians is that you may well find that your couple real friends

40:38 are not people at church. They're not Christian at all, maybe. Maybe your very best friend in the world would fail all the tests that your pastor would give for who is going to theoretically be a good friend. But the one guy who will show up and defend you no matter what is someone that the Pharisees would say that's a tax collector and a sinner. I don't go anywhere near that guy. I would never be seen. I never be caught dead talking to him. That may be someone who's your best friend. Now, the thing about close friendship is that you can't let a friend who's like that make you less moral. You have to do your best to set a proper Christian moral example for him. And there'll often be cases where someone like that is going to

41:18 put you to the test, put your faith to the test to see, is this guy serious about his principles? Does this Jesus stuff really matter to him? I'm going to nudge him just to see where the line is. Not that he wants to tear you down, but there's a tendency that everyone has to put others to the test. And particularly when someone's not a Christian, you know, they just think it's a gimmick. And so when you're tested in that way and your resolve as a Christian withstands those small chides from a friend, you prove what real Christianity looks like. It's important in those situations if your very closest friend is not a Christian, that you uplift him and that he doesn't drag you down. But having said that, it's likely that that's going to be

41:59 one of your best guys, one of your strongest friends. You may not have anybody in your church family, if you can even call it that anymore, who would be like that. Most of those people are probably fair weather friends. And the reason for saying this is not to sow suspicion or doubt, it's to make you understand that this is simply the reality because when the weather turns south, when suddenly the accusations come for you and it turns out that you did actually have a real enemy that you had no idea about, and when those fair weather friends that you thought were good friends, when they scatter, you can't let it break you. This is in a way an extension of the normalcy bias episode. Everything's hunky-dory and everyone's fine, and there are no problems, it's easy

42:46 to have strong faith. What looks like strong faith. When things get tough and all your friends scatter and there are only a couple guys left, then it's a lot harder. And the reason for talking about this stuff that doesn't sound happy, and frankly, most of it isn't, is that when those times come for you, I don't want you to be put in a position where suddenly like, well, this Christianity stuff is crap. All my friends at church betrayed me, so I don't believe in Jesus anymore. That's it's dumb. It's an easy way out, but the reality is that when we look at the scripture in a minute where God's promises, these attacks when they come to Christians will come from your family and from your church.

43:27 God says that that's going to happen. So don't let it break your faith when it happens. Be confident and joyfully God called that one too. I didn't see who was gonna do it, but when it happened, okay, I'm sad, I forgive them, I mourn, but I now know that someone I thought was a friend is actually an enemy. Whether it's a weak enemy or a strong enemy, someone could have done the good thing for me and instead they chose to do the bad thing. As Christians, we can't let that break us. When the going gets tough, whatever it is, you don't just quit. You don't give up because it didn't go your way. Maybe things get bad and it never goes your way the rest of your life. Maybe every day stinks and you lose all but one friend.

44:11 Maybe your only friend is Jesus. I hope not, but like in the very worst circumstances, is that an excuse to give up, to quit believing, and to quit trying and to quit doing the right thing? Absolutely not. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna be lonely maybe if it comes to that, and it shouldn't. But you know what prevents that from happening is when you're a good Christian friend to others, when you're a real friend, when you look for people who are being beset by wickedness in the world, and you say, you know what? I'm on this guy's side. I didn't even know who he was five minutes ago, but when I see the evil people arrayed against him, I'm not gonna line up with them, and I'm not gonna keep silent.

44:47 I'm gonna say you know what? If you wicked monstrous people hate this man, then he's my friend. I don't know anything about him. I know one thing. I know that the absolute scum of the earth are trying to hurt him. I'm gonna be a real friend to him. I'm gonna stand beside him and you're gonna have to deal with both of us. If that would happen just a few more times, the isolation tactics wouldn't work at all. So it's both an encouragement that we should behave better as Christians. We should make sure that we are not being weak friends to those to whom we have a greater duty. And when our own weak friends betray us and just scatter, they just they're nowhere to be frowned when things get bad.

45:27 Know that that's how it is. It's sad. You can't hate them for it. There's a sense of betrayal, but you can't think, okay, Jesus is canceled, Christianity is crap, I'm out of here. If this is what the church is like, I don't want any part of it. That's not what the true church is like, because the true church is all believers. The churches are filled with people who are not believers. We began a year ago's series of Stone Choir, five episodes we did on apostasy in the church, on false teachings in the church. Most of the people that you deal with are fair weather Christians. And when the going gets tough, as soon as they're put under pressure, they're probably gonna fold. I hope that's not the case.

46:09 I hope that this wild overgeneralization doesn't apply to your church family, but I can tell you I talk to dozens of people every quarter, probably every month, who've gone through this situation, the one that I'm describing in hypothetical terms. I'm not speaking hypothetically. I don't need to give any details because they don't matter. The pattern is very real. And the encouragement that I offer to these men when they're subjected to the same things that Corey and I were subjected to is you can't lose your faith. You have to forgive those who are wicked. You have to identify who your real friends are. Again, maybe it's someone who's not at church at all. If it turns out you don't have a single friend at church,

46:48 okay, that's the truth. If you have a single friend anywhere, turn to him, rely on him, and show him through your perseverance. Cause you know, when these things happen, especially if things get ugly inside a church, someone who's not a Christian, we see this all the time right now online and sure everywhere. When church members turn on each other and do wicked things, everyone who's outside the church says, see, it's garbage. This Christianity stuff was all crap to begin with. This is why I was never a Christian in the first place. That's what the world wants to believe. You will establish the truth of their claim if you cave. If you don't think about these things before that time comes, you're

47:28 probably going to break because it's incredibly difficult pressure to be put under without having real friends, with real enemies. The world is gonna mock and scoff and say your faith was in vain, your actions are foolish, you loser. What a piece of crap that all these people who are supposed to be your closest friends don't like you. You have to be ready for that possibility. I pray it never comes for anyone, but again, it's coming all the time to people that I know, people who come and tell me about. I'm sure more will reach out after this because you're gonna say, yeah, that happened to me. I thought I was the only one. Part of the purpose of talking about some of these things that are ugly and seem hypothetical is I don't want you to lose

48:08 faith when it happens to you. Because you know what God says that it will? In Matthew ten, Jesus preaches Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword, for I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter in law against her mother in law, and a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Jesus Jesus says himself, a person's enemies will be those of his

48:51 own household. Are you gonna have enemies? Yes. God says so. So this isn't a curse or a wish, certainly of my own, but it's a promise from God that it will be the case. And when it is the case, what is a Christian response? Not to give up. If you are the subject, if you are the target of one of these attacks from real enemies in your family, in your church, you need to be resolute as a Christian. You can't let that be an excuse to waver. The important thing to keep in mind is that we live Christian lives every day. We don't just live 'em on Sunday, as we've said many times. And so you as a man are living in a circumstance where everyone else gets a vote. They can choose to be a close friend, they can choose to

49:38 be a fair weather friend, they can choose to be neutral and just never talk to you and okay, that's fine. They can choose to be a weak enemy who will spread the slander and the gossip about you, but they didn't start it. They just think it's funny that somebody caught you out with something bad. And so gonna amplify that because you know what? It's safe to be part of the crowd. And as long as they're talking about you, nobody's talking about them. That's a safe place for a weekend me. That's someone who's not necessarily committed to it. They didn't get up in the morning and say, I'm going to hurt this person. But your strong enemy did. Your strong enemy is the one who, for whatever reason, picked you

50:14 out of the crowd and said, This person I'm going to hurt, and I'm going to spread whatever filth, I'm gonna do whatever harm, and I'm gonna entail others who are gonna want to participate because of their sinful nature. And the neutral people are gonna stay neutral, and your fair weather friends are gonna scatter, and you're left, God willing, with one or two real friends who say, No, everything that you're saying and doing to this man, you have to do to me too, because we are the same. You cannot hurt him without hurting me. And where there's one, there's two, where there's two, there can be three or four. And suddenly it's a whole lot harder for evil men to do evil. The positive message of this episode is that all the vote

50:53 that you get is a to obey God and forgive those who harm you, and B, to try to be a real friend, especially to those who are actually in need. Because you want it to be there for you. You want somebody to show up in your defense. It doesn't usually happen. It often doesn't happen. Many of you who've been subjected to this treatment didn't see it happen. No one stood up for you in your defense. You can't let it break you. But you should know that if a single man had stood up for you, or if you saw it happen to someone and said nothing, you should bear the guilt that you remained silent, that you were the Pharisee who crossed to the other side of the road while a man was lying there bloodied and beaten.

51:33 And sure the Samaritan came along and took care of him and bandaged him up. And so you think that means you're off the hook. You did nothing while someone was under attack, and you need to repent for that because I was evil. It's easy to do that. It's easy to be neutral. It's easy to scatter. No one's even gonna notice cause everybody's doing it. It's the easiest thing in the world to betray someone to whom you didn't have an open duty, but the betrayal is to the general duty to neighbor. See, neighbor is not a moral category. Neighbor's just whoever's nearby. You have a duty to defend and protect whoever is nearby. And that certainly means that if someone is an actual friend, you show up and help them.

52:16 Christians need to understand that if we don't operate this way, there's no Christianity in the world. There just isn't. You can talk about the so-called gospel all you want and Jesus love all you want. And if you never exemplify it by going to bat for someone, there is no love. There's no love at all if you will not stand for someone when he's being attacked. It's cowardice. And it's normal. It's normal and it's easy and we're all guilty of it. I am. I've stood aside in the past and not gotten involved when I should have. The notion of friend and enemy is a real thing. It's writ large in politics and at the national level and at the local level, but we're talking about the personal level. It's these aren't hypotheticals.

53:01 This is your family, your friends, your church will be guilty of some of these things. Now or in the future. The and then of the Christian life begins right in that moment. It's really easy to be Christian when everything's hunky dory. Suddenly when you're faced with those circumstances, how you deal with it deal with it. Part of the reason for doing episodes like this is to help prepare men to think in these categories, realize, yeah, this guy's my real friend. There may be only one guy in my life right now that I can count on. And maybe he's not even a Christian. Maybe everybody at church scattered. Maybe all my Christian friends believe the slander and they don't want to help me. The one guy, that's your real friend.

53:41 And the people who line up to be your enemies, you need to take that seriously. It's a real thing. Even as you forgive them, you need to know that they remain enemies. As Corey was saying, a man does not stop being your enemy because you forgive him. You forgive him because you say, For my sake, Lord, take this off his plate. I don't want him to be held guilty for what he's doing to me, because I don't want to be held guilty for the things I've done to others. That's what the Lord's Prayer is about. It talks about debts and debtors. And all the parables about the same. Don't hold this man guilty for my sake, 'cause my bill is much bigger than that. At the same time, the man who has declared himself by his

54:20 actions and his words to be your personal enemy, whether it's public or private, he's gonna keep on doing that until he repents. And in most cases, if it's a real enemy, if it's a strong enemy, that's never gonna happen. The hardness of heart that animates someone to do the most wicked things beyond imagining, certainly in a church context, those men are not gonna relent. And so we must forgive them and we must continue to treat them as enemies publicly. Because the harm that they do to you is ultimately directed at God. The purpose of attacking in the church, of spreading this dissent in families and churches, is specifically to shatter them so that there's no place for Christians to gather.

55:01 And there's no place for the scoffers outside of the church to point to and even say, look how crappy this is. There's no example of them to be envious. Christian community should be the envy of the world. They should see God's love manifest in our lives. And when we fail to do that, we betray Christ. We fail to show the very thing that God has extended us to those who are closest. No one's gonna believe us when we come talking about the gospel. No one's gonna take you seriously. This is a gospel matter. You know, when people talk about gospel issues, this is it right here. If you can't exemplify true friendship in the face of assaults, no one's gonna believe you when you start talking about the other

55:42 stuff. Because they don't know about Jesus and sin and forgiveness, but they know what real loyalty looks like. They know what real friendship looks like. And if a Christian can't manage to do that for anyone, what reason is there to believe he's a Christian at all? In Scripture when Christ starts his ministry, one of the first things that he says is the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand hand, repent and believe in the gospel. I've mentioned elsewhere that these days often the words, those very words repent and believe the gospel, are spoken by those who are very much not Christians, because they are usually calling you to repent and believe in a false gospel, to repent specifically of that which is

56:31 not sin, which of course is sin. To repent of that which is not sin, is itself a sin. To believe in a false gospel is sin. But we gloss over this word repent Because we think we know what it means, but we don't pay attention to what it actually means. We don't pay attention to the fullness of it. Because if one is actually to repent, it means to turn from your former wickedness. It literally means a changing of one's mind. The word there in the Greek is metanoia. Well, metanaeo here because it is the verb, but it's the same word. It means to change your mind, again it means to turn from your wicked ways. And so when we see those in the churches who claim to be Christian, Christian, who go through all the motions,

57:28 who attend the divine service, the liturgy, whatever you happen to call it, who pray, do all these things that Christians supposedly do. But then every time they are presented with the opportunity to behave as a Christian, they do not do so. Then all of those things that they did that were supposedly Christian were not in were not in fact good works. They do not in fact count. Each and every one of them was in fact sin. Because good works are not counted to those who do not have a living faith, and a living faith produces good works. And so if it turns out that when you are actually challenged, when you are presented with the opportunity to conduct yourself as would a Christian, you do not do so.

58:24 Then all of those other things that you did are counted against you instead of for you. That should terrify those who would claim to be Christian. It is far worse to claim to be a Christian and actually in fact be a hypocrite instead of a Christian than simply to be a wicked pagan. Better to be a pagan than a false Christian. This is all over the Old Testament. We should probably pay closer attention when we read these things. For instance, we could turn to Isaiah. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and the fat

59:13 of well fed beast. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings incense is an abomination to me, new moon and sabbath and the calling of convocations I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feast my soul hates. They have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen, your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes, see Cease to do evil, learn to do good,

1:00:04 seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. What we see there in those verses is a call to actual repentance. We see a call to behave as Christians would behave, to seek justice, to correct oppression, to put To plead for those who are in a vulnerable position, to defend those who are defenseless. And yet, what do we see in the churches today? We see the very same sort of hypocrisy for which God is condemning the Old Testament Israelites here. We see those who solemnly gather together, and worship God, so they think, and then turn around and stab their brother in the back. We know of many cases where men have been driven out of the churches for simply saying the things that are found in Scripture,

1:01:00 and they have been attacked by supposed Christians, and no one stood up to defend them. Every Christian man certainly, who is standing there, and remains silent, is living in sin until he repents of that wickedness. There is no promise, there is no guarantee of salvation for a man who is living in that sin. And yet this doesn't seem to terrify those who have engaged in that behavior. Well it's probably because they have a dead faith. If they had a living faith, they would hear the word of God, and they would be terrified, and they would turn from their wickedness. But they do not do so. Because the churches are full of those who are not Christian. The church is full of those who are wicked, who are hypocrites,

1:01:50 who believe themselves to be holy, because they are the Pharisee who stands there and says thankfully, I am not like other men. That's true. The Pharisee isn't like the man who actually comes and repents, who actually has that changing of his mind, the man who actually turns from his wicked ways. God does not want you to come into his courts and sing his praises while you betray his sheep, while you attack your brother, the man who should be your brother at least, but you've chosen to be his enemy. This is something that is vitally important to note. This scale that Wo laid out with regard to the strong enemy, the weak enemy, the neutral, I want to focus on the neutral, because there are many who are going to be effectively neutral.

1:02:43 There's a certain percentage I won't give an actual range because it varies from one matter to the next, and from one group to the next. But But those who are neutral are not excused by their neutrality. If you remain neutral in a matter, and the crowd happens to be going in the right direction. Well good news for you, you were carried along by the tide, and it happened to be going the direction you should be going. But it could just as easily go the other direction. You could just as easily be carried along by the crowd, by the tide, by the river, by the currents, into wickedness, into evil, into apostasy. Being neutral should not be an option for Christian men. You should never view that as being an option.

1:03:28 If there is good, you should pursue it, if there is wickedness, you should oppose it. And so effectively how this winds up playing out in reality is that on any given issue, you have an alliance, starting with neutral and going to one end of this spectrum. And so if the crowd is doing that which is wicked and you are neutral, you are part of the enemies. You are part of the evil group. It doesn't really count for you. It's not really so much to your benefit if the crowd happens to do that which is good, because you were just carried along. You were along for the ride. You should not aspire to things so low as a Christian. You should aspire to greater things. And so you are going to be given the option, if you

1:04:19 are that weak friend, when someone is attacked, to either fall back into neutrality and therefore into wickedness, or become the strong friend, at least in this instance, become the one who actually stands up and defends the man who is being wrongfully attacked. There's only one Christian choice there. As it turns out, and as many have now seen first hand, Most of those in the churches are going to pick the broad path. They are going to pick wickedness because ultimately they're hypocrites. They have a dead faith. They're going to go along with the crowd as long as it's easy if the crowd is going in the right direction. But they are still going to follow the crowd when the crowd is doing that which is wicked, because it's still easy.

1:05:11 Maybe they won't be the one who throws the stone. Maybe they won't be the one who plunges in the dagger. They'll just be standing there holding the stone or holding the dagger. You don't get excused because you were a passive participant in wickedness. Certainly it's not as evil as being an active participant. Throwing the stone is worse. But you could have defended that man, and so you are complicit in the wickedness, you are guilty of the sin of those who threw the stones. That is not Christian. That is hypocrisy, that is wickedness, that is something that is condemned throughout the pages of Scripture, in many places. We can find similar language to what I read in Isaiah in Amos. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord.

1:06:04 Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light, as if a man fled from a lion and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him? Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? I hate, I despise your feast, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs, to the melody of your harps I will not listen, but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

1:06:51 The things that God actually desires from his people are clear in the pages of scripture. In the Old Testament, there's the contrast between the sacrifices which yes God did command. Just as He commands worship today, we do go into His house and worship him in thanksgiving for receiving his gifts. But what is the actual worship of God? The actual worship of God is that repentance and then living the Christian life. When you are faced with choosing between good and evil, it is choosing the good. It is not just being passively carried along by the crowd and hoping the crowd goes in the right direction. In fact, any given thing, whether it's metal or a man, proves its character, proves its worth only when it is tested.

1:07:49 That which is untested is unproven, and so in so far as your faith has been untested, it remains unproven. Perhaps thankfully, in these days your faith is not going to remain untested, and so you will have the opportunity to prove whether your faith is true or false, whether you are the one who is simply being carried along, or if you are the one who is willing to stand up and do what is right, even if it means standing against the crowd who will hate you for it, because they will turn on you the same as they turned on that other man. But it's still your duty to do the right thing. It is still your duty to defend that man. Why do you think Scripture speaks of the widow and the fatherless and the poor?

1:08:38 It is speaking of those who are in a vulnerable position, those who need others to come to their defense. The same thing is true when a large crowd of the wicked turns against a single man. It may be that he's the sort of man who can stand up under that sort of assault, but most men aren't. Most men need friends. They need allies. Every man would certainly like to have friends and allies. If you are in a position to be that friend, to be that ally, it is incumbent on you, it is your Christian duty to do so, and it is sin to fail to do it. Neutrality When faced with the option, when faced with the choice between good and evil, is wickedness, you cannot remain neutral in the face of these matters.

1:09:31 If it has not come to your church yet, then it probably will in the not too distant future. Some group in your church, perhaps it's most of those in your church, will latch onto something that is wicked, and they'll probably pick a particular man to attack for it, and they'll seek to drive him out of the church or otherwise destroy him. It is your duty to stand with him. Be that you both get cast out. But God looks on that favorably, because you did the right thing. You stood up for your brother. You stood up for your friend. Or it may be that because you stood with that man, that others will find it in themselves to do the same, and you may stem that tide. You may be able to drive out that evil, you may be

1:10:23 able to rescue your congregation, to rescue the others around you, which is also a good work. Not every man has the same level of strength or fortitude, particularly when it comes to these sorts of matters. But in so far as God has given you any measure of fortitude, any measure of personal resilience, it is incumbent on you to exercise it in these matters. And you know what? God promises that He will give you what you need in the day of testing. So believe that He will. Stand up and say that what is being done is wrong and it is anti-Christian. It is wicked and it comes from the devil. If you stand with that man you are stronger together, God will look favorably on what you have done, but if you remain silent,

1:11:11 then you are among those hypocrites that are so strongly and staunchly and vehemently condemned, you are among those God mentions as saying, I hate, I despise your feast. That is not where you want to find yourself at any point. And it's certainly not where you want to find yourself on the day of judgment. These are not matters that are trivial. These are not matters that can be ignored by Christians. These are matters of the greatest weight and of the greatest importance, because these are matters where your faith is tested and proven, and whether it is proven to be true or false is what is on the line. Again that which has not been tested is in fact untested. And the nature of it, the reality of it, the truth of

1:12:03 it is shown in the testing. And so in the day of testing Of testing of your faith comes, and it will undoubtedly come in this life. Do the right thing, do the Christian thing, do your duty, and prove that your faith is true, because your faith is demonstrated by the works it produces, because a living faith will produce works. A dead faith will not. The dead faith is the one held by the man who stands there and does nothing when the crowd is wickedly persecuting a good man. Because the man with a living faith will stand up and defend that other man, because that is what God calls us to do. It is our Christian duty, and it is not optional. It's important to reiterate the distinction between the types of enemies that

1:12:58 God distinguishes in Scripture. In Romans five it says, For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life So in multiple places, Scripture makes very clear that every one of us is born an enemy of God. That's undeniably true. That's why Christ died on the cross, because we were the enemies of God until he reconciled us to himself by shedding his blood on the cross. That's one sense of the enemy. Enemies of God are anyone who is born under the curse of original sin. That's everybody. There's a second sense of the enemies of God, those who are not the elect, those who have not received the forgiveness shed for

1:13:47 all on the cross. We are talking about the latter. God speaks of the latter. Someone who is an enemy of God in spite of Christ reconciling on the cross is the type who is referenced in Psalm 110 one ten. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool. That's the other kind. We're not going to be a footstool of God. We are God's brothers adopted through his sacrifice on the cross. The footstool, the enemies that are going to be the footstool of God, those are the unbelievers, those are those who reject Christ's sacrifice, those are the damned, because they chose to continue to hate God in spite of his perfect sacrifice. This passage talking about God's enemies being made his footstool is referenced

1:14:42 in Matthew and Mark and Luke and Acts and twice in Hebrews. God made sure to put it there, and he made multiple points when he made that. When he says that these people are his enemies and he's going to make them his footstool, that's a promise of judgment day. That is not what we talk about as Christian love. When people say, oh gospel, oh love, Jesus is loving and things that are so played out that they cease to have had any meaning in our ears. And it's not that the words themselves were not true. When I say these things, it's very important that I make clear that those who despise what God is saying are the blasphemers. To point out that it's blasphemy is not, but it sometimes can sound like it's one be very careful, makes me uncomfortable even to

1:15:35 say that. But the way the gospel is now portrayed is itself blasphemous by most of these people. Because they run around saying, You have no enemies, God has no enemies. God loves everyone. God is going to kill all of his enemies and make them a footstool under his feet. God's very clear what he thinks about these enemies. Not us, not the elect whom he has given salvation, but those who have rejected it. And In Luke nineteen there's the parable of the Minas. Jesus says at the end of that parable, I tell you that to every one who has more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.

1:16:25 That's what God thinks about his enemies. That's what God thinks about the enemies that we're talking about today. Which is why when God says, Vengeance is mine, do not avenge, that's a warning to us. When you have an enemy who is God's enemy, you don't need to worry about it. The only way that we can be confident that our faith will be sustained in these moments when this wickedness is done among us, in front of us, and especially to us, is to is to believe that. To believe that no matter the degree of injustice and wickedness that we see or perhaps ourselves are subjected to, God will avenge. And that is what we as Christians are to desire. We are to desire God's enemies to be destroyed, because it's what

1:17:11 he says he wants. If he said he wanted something else, then we would say we wanted that instead. We are to pray praise and give thanks for the destruction he is going to bring on wicked men. Romans twelve has an admonition to all of us that circumscribes everything that we will ever say about enemies or hatred or anything else in the It's a tough teaching because it's hard not to violate it when you're dealing with these things. When you're seeing wickedness, when you're subjected to it, it's really difficult to live up to what God says here. So I'm going to read it out loud for all of us. I need to hear it too. Because it is the frame for this discussion. But I'm going to highlight a couple things that are often glossed

1:17:53 over. Let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord, rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as depends on you, live peaceably with all.

1:18:46 Beloved never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. We as Christians are not to come over the top of the evil of others with even more evil of our own. Even if it's justified. That's part of the reason for the necessity of this admonition. Is God is saying these people are evil. Don't repay their evil with your own evil. Why does he say that? Leave it to the wrath of God. He doesn't say God forgives them, that's fine.

1:19:33 They're gonna get off scot free, and then you're gonna sit there and wonder why they had more sins forgiven than you did. God promises that he will avenge. Vengeance is his. That's jealousy. When God says vengeance is mine, he is being jealous of vengeance. He's saying, I don't want you to seek vengeance because I'm going to do it to him. I'm going to do it to him for me, because you belong to me. And so when I do it to them for me, I'm doing it for you. But I'm doing it because they sinned against me with their wickedness. So this passage that absolutely says that we don't go around identifying your enemies and then hurting them as much as possible simultaneously promises God is going to destroy them, which is why we don't have

1:20:19 to worry about it. And even the admonition to if he's thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. That's quite the purpose, isn't it? Your admonition enemy is thirsty and so what do you do? You give him something to drink, so that his thirst will be slaked? No. So the heaping burning coals will be on his head. That stinks. What God is saying is that that's worse for you to do than if you were to revile him back. So it's a hard teaching, but it's kind of hard in both directions. On one hand, we don't get to satisfy our own bloodlust, to say I'm gonna avenge my own indignities. Someone wronged me, I'm gonna wrong them twice as hard. We don't get to do that.

1:21:03 But God also says, look how much I despise and hate these people. When it says abore what is evil, I don't really like that word because people don't know what it means anymore, it basically means hate with perfect hatred. It means revile as much as you possibly can, unlimited scorn and contempt for what is evil. And when it's talking about evil here, it's not talking about Satan. It's talking about men's actions. It's talking about those who are around you. And the other passages that specifically deal with these evil acts make clear that while Satan is the author of this evil, he's not the one committing it. John sixteen says I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.

1:21:47 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God, and they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. As we've pointed out in the past, what is Jesus saying is going to be the source of evil? It's going to be inside the church. When they throw you out of synagogues and kill you, they're gonna think they're serving me. That's not the pagan. That's not the state. That's not some wicked man who, by all accounts in the world, is just absolutely godless. That's not Harvey Weinstein killing you, it's someone in your own church

1:22:32 killing you, and they're gonna do it thinking they're serving God. And this is not euphemistic either. This encompasses all manner of hatred and murder, including murder itself. It's going to come from inside the church. So the evil that God says to hate, to abore with perfect hatred, is this evil that's going to occur by the hands of Christians, against you, against believers, in your sight. And as we say often, the reason we do these episodes is what Jesus says here. I have said these things to you to keep you from falling away Jesus told us these things so that we would remember when things get bad. That's why we do these episodes. It's a reminder that when things get bad, that's no excuse to

1:23:18 start being evil, to stop believing, to give up your faith, to just wander off in disgust, none of those are options for the Christian man. But you don't react in that moment if you don't remember the teaching. And if no one's ever told you these things, there's nothing to remember. Which is why the malice of weak and strong enemies and pulpits is unparalleled in its destructive force. Because when men have never heard the truth, what are they going to believe? Anything from the mouth of Satan and nothing from the mouth of God, because they haven't even heard it. Or the one time they heard one of these words, they were told it actually means the exact opposite. That's what Mot's preaching amounts to today.

1:23:58 Here's what the verse says and here's why it actually means the opposite of what it sounds like. God did not communicate to us in riddles. He did not give us an indecipherable Bible language. He gave us plain written words in the vernacular that were to be translated to every language for everyone to understand it plainly. There's some things that are tough to understand, but most of it's not. the wicked teachers go in and they grovel around and Try to turn things that are simple into things that are complicated. Why? So that this evil may abound. So that you are incapable of abhorring the evil when you see it in your own eyes. You should hate when these things happen. And then your hatred must be circumscribed by God's command.

1:24:43 God tells you in this passage, the very passage where he says don't seek vengeance, to live in peace, he says you need to hate evil. That's the predicate for that entire two paragraphs. Hate evil. It's a hard saying because we have not been taught as Christians how to hate. The entire episode on perfect hatred talks about that specifically. What does it mean? What does it mean to hate things as God hates them? And again, as we've said in that episode, and I'll reiterate here, none of this is about we need more hatred. We need more people seeking out enemies. These things happen. They exist already. The only thing for a Christian to do is to respond as a Christian. And that's often hard because it's sometimes unnatural.

1:25:26 The Christian response to this sort of evil, it's unnatural to say, yeah, I'm not going to pursue that. You wronged me. You did something wicked. I forgive you. For my part, it's over. On the other hand, God makes clear that that man's still an enemy. And in the churches, while these men continue to prowl as enemies, we must view and treat and name them as such. And that is the hardest part of all in this message to believe that you have enemies and then to recognize when you see it. Because if you don't believe initially that's even possible, of course you're never gonna see it when it happens. You're gonna find every excuse in the world not to believe that this guy at church is actually an enemy of God.

1:26:10 He's your enemy because he's God's enemy. And that's unthinkable because it's inside the church. But if you actually read the words of scripture, that's the normal place to find evil men. And I don't mean in the sense that we're all sinners and we need God. I mean people who are actively seeking to destroy God's things. Of course they're going to be in church. Why would Satan not send his people there? That's where he needs them. Satan's not going to leave us alone as Christians. He needs to have the wheat and the weeds mixed in together. Those parables about planting and sowing, the whole problem in those parables is that the weeds and the wheat are mixed in at the same time, and it's only the harvest at the end, at judgment

1:26:53 day, that makes it possible to reap everything. And then God will make a footstool of his enemies. He will burn the chaff, he will separate it. But until the harvest, we're intermingled. And therefore, because we are intermingled, good men with wicked men, both in the world, where we have Christians and unbelievers, that's an easy category to understand understand. Within the church we see the same thing replay. We have believers and unbelievers inside the church. The difference is they're all singing the same hymns. They're all taking the same communion. They're all reading the same Bible verses. And a lot of times the most wicked people are the ones in charge. They're the ones teaching. They're the ones pushing and leading and guiding.

1:27:33 They're the ones influencing because that's where Satan needs them to be. Not always. That's not universal either. They're good churches, they're good pastors, they're good congregations. Thank God. Thank God they still exist somewhere. But they're not universal. They're not even the norm anymore. And so when we're looking at the world and then we look inside our churches and we see these behaviors, we must know what it is to be a friend, how to act like a friend, how to not be a lukewarm, vile Spewable human being that God says he hates for their cowardice. We've got to pick a side, and we must do so strongly. That sort of resistance, godly resistance to evil, doesn't necessarily mean fighting

1:28:22 and war and hostility or anything. It simply means you're not gonna hurt this guy alone. If you try to hurt him, you're gonna hurt me too. Whatever evil you do, you have to do to all of us. That makes it harder for some people to do evil. Because Corey was saying earlier, so many people on the board here are just sheep, as God aptly describes us. They're going to follow whoever seems to have the numbers. So if suddenly it pivots and there are enough good men that that the resistance to evil is the majority opinion or seems to be going that way, guess what? The evil people are going to lose the sheep. All the people who are lukewarm, all the people who are weak enemies will become weak friends.

1:29:04 Not because they've had some great revelation of personal stalwartness, just they followed the crowd. They will accidentally do the right thing because they saw other people doing it. That will never happen. They will never be saved by the good example that you set if you don't set it. And all you can do is set the examples, Corey was saying they may not follow, they probably won't, but there's certainly no example for them to follow if none of us show up. That's what time it is. We have to know that evil men are going to act, that good men are going to be persecuted, that it's going to happen in the church, that it's going to be by people who call themselves Christians, and indeed Christian leaders.

1:29:42 And if one by one men are picked off and destroyed, everything will collapse. People will lose faith who would not have otherwise lost faith. This is ultimately a message about courage in the face of these things, about confidence in God's promises, both in the promise that this torment, that this persecution will come, that we must face that persecution as Christians, not as people who are weak and brittle, that we will show our faith by how we conduct ourselves, and that we will resist evil, that we will hate evil. And that necessarily includes calling evil evil, saying this man is evil, this act is evil, this sermon is evil, this conference is evil. You take your pick. When you find it, you need to be equipped to understand you're

1:30:29 not just looking at someone who's confused. When these people are acting as powerful enemies inside the church, it's not that they haven't listened to the right podcast episode. It's not that they haven't heard the right sermon. It's not that they haven't read the right book. They are permanently hardened of heart and disposed to doing Satan's will. And they're gonna look just like Christians. Unless you can tell the difference based on scripture. To spend time in scripture believing every word that two paragraphs from Romans twelve, go read it again. I read you know for a while there, go read it yourself. Their hard teachings is I said in both directions. Both wow, I really want to do this thing, but God says

1:31:10 I can't. And wow, God's really going to go to town on these people. That is what is in scripture. It's not just saying we're going to be helpless and we're going to be weak and we're going to be destroyed. We're going to be faithful and resolute and God will take care of the rest. Ultimately, that's the only thing we can have confidence in. God will take care of the rest. The choices that we have to make involve knowing our friends, being good friends, encouraging others to be good friends and setting examples for them. And knowing when someone's being a weak enemy and trying to persuade them or coerce them socially if you can. And knowing when someone's a strong enemy who's seeking to devour them,

1:31:48 seeking to divide and destroy, because they know that by setting that example, they can conquer the entire congregation. And one by one, we're seeing that happen. They will continue to prevail as long as good men stand alone. I don't want to see that happen. And I don't know how these things are going to play out in the end. It may be that all these churches are destroyed. I don't want that, but it seems to be the direction things are going. If God permits it, then we must know that God poured out his wrath against us in time for our faithlessness. And as individuals, we have to do better. We have to create institutions where these problems cannot be permitted to exist. Where evil men are called evil, good men are pointed out

1:32:30 to be good, and we know the difference. I of course agree with Woe when he says That God did not speak to us in riddles. But I want to point out something there that is of the most vital importance. The reference for that pronoun matters a great deal. Who is the us there? That means the elect. It means Christians. Because God does in fact speak in parables in the pages of scripture even, although he explains them, but to whom does he explain them? He explains them to the elect. God speaks in riddles, he speaks in parables, he speaks in an opaque fashion to those who do not have faith, because scripture is a closed book, of course to those who do not have faith. Christ says this himself in Matthew thirteen.

1:33:25 Then the disciples came and said to him, Why do you speak to them in parables? And he answered them. To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given, for to the one who has more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even when he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says, You will indeed hear, but never understand, and you will indeed see, but never perceive, for this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have

1:34:13 closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears for they hear. For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. So if you think about that for a minute, what does it mean, when a pastor or a teacher, or anyone else is telling you, that the words of Scripture are opaque, are difficult, not in just a few places, but overall you have to have this special knowledge to interpret it. What he's doing is teaching you as if you were not a Christian, as if you didn't

1:35:07 have faith, as if Scripture were a closed book to you, because Scripture is a closed book to those who are not among the elect. And so if you have a pastor or teacher who is teaching you as if you were one, for whom that is true, you need to flee that pastor, that teacher, because he is false. What he is saying to you is that he has some special knowledge, and he can tell you what it really means. That's not what Scripture says Scripture by and large is an open book, is very straightforward, is very easy to understand. It was written to us, for us, in an understandable, in a comprehensible language Language. God didn't hide these things away in some incomprehensible set of riddles that has to be disentangled where you will never be certain of

1:36:05 the meaning The meaning. That is the claim of many these days and down through history as well. But it's not true because it's not what God says of his word. God says that he explains his word to us in the pages of his word, because the next section of what I just read is an explanation of the parable. God explains these things to his sheep. And so false teachers are going to come in and tell you that you can't possibly understand these things. Here let me tell you what it actually means. There's a reason that when we explain something we tell you, go read it. Go compare what we have said to the words of Scripture. If we believe that the words of Scripture were incomprehensible, could not be understood by the By the average man, then we wouldn't tell

1:36:59 you to do that because that would be a wicked thing to do. But we believe, as God says in his word, as God has promised us, that his word is understandable, and that for the Christian the Spirit will lead you into truth. And so we are perfectly comfortable telling you Go read the Word of God. Compare what it says in his Word to the things that we have said on this podcast or elsewhere. If you find that the things that we have said are inconsistent with, do not align with the Word of God, then it is incumbent on you to believe God over us Because everything God says is true. Men may err. Men commit mistakes. We endeavor not to do that. We are very careful not to do that. On this podcast and elsewhere.

1:37:50 But even in our case, even in the case of men who endeavor to be accurate, who dedicate time to being accurate, who will correct themselves if they err, even those men must be subjected to the standard that is the Word of God, because it is the only perfect standard. And so again, be careful with regard to those who tell you that the Word of God cannot be understood. In fact, be more than careful. Flee those people, flee those men, because they are false teachers. The word of God, by and large, can be understood by an average man simply by reading it. That doesn't mean everything, there are parts in some of the prophetic books that are certainly opaque to us, some of them state bluntly they are opaque, but not all of them are.

1:38:40 The vast majority of scripture can simply be read and understood by a man of average intelligence and average abilities, because that is what God intended. God did not intend for Christianity to be some sort of mystery cult where you have these select men who understand things and then disseminate this knowledge as they see fit to everyone else. God wrote down his word in a book, in the vernacular, so that the average man could understand it. These days there are those who try to pretend that oh you can't possibly understand Scripture because it's originally in Greek and you have to know Greek and it's so impress it's not impressive to know Greek. In fact it's Koina Greek, it's a simplified version of Greek.

1:39:26 God didn't even use a high register of Greek, it's not attic or homeric or some form of Greek that requires more knowledge. He wrote it in the vernacular. If he did it today, it would be written in the English that we are speaking now. Because that is the closest thing we have to a universal language today. God wrote his scripture and transmitted it in such a way that the average man can gain access to it, read it, and understand it. Anyone who tells you anything else is trying to mislead you. Does that mean that you shouldn't seek out faithful teachers? Of course not. The same thing is true with regard to any subject under the sun. Just because you can understand it doesn't mean that you gain

1:40:10 nothing from listening to a faithful teacher. The faithful teacher may understand it better and be able to guide you. But it doesn't mean that you do not have access to it yourself, absent the presence of that teacher. And so as Christian men, be careful with regard to what you are being told and what you believe with regard to the Word of God. You have the ability to go and look at it for yourself, and in fact you have the duty to do so because that is part of what it means to be a Christian. And so if someone is treating you like you're some sort of alien to the Word of God, like you're not a sheep, like you don't have the Word of God accessible to you and comprehensible by you, then He is teaching you that you are something other

1:40:58 than a Christian, and He is treating you as if you were something other than a Christian. Do not listen to those sorts of men because they are trying to deceive you. Christ speaks to those who are not among the elect in riddles, and then he explains them, the riddles, to those who are among the elect are among the elect. That is what God does. He explains his word to his sheep, because he wants us to understand his word. With regard to those who hold these positions of authority, particularly teaching authority, but also ruling authority to give that sort of distinction in the churches, these days we often see them abusing this authority. This plays into the rest of what we've been saying in this episode, that difference

1:41:54 between a friend and an enemy. And so it may very well be the case that the man who is standing up, who appears, for all appearance's sake, to hold the authority in a congregation. Perhaps it appears that he holds it rightfully. He was called, he was ordained, he's been doing it for a period of years. It may be that he is actually the one who is going to lead the charge. In persecuting the truth. We have seen this happen in a number of churches. It is happening in basically every large church body, basically across the world. Certainly every large church body in the U.S. Just because a man supposedly has the authority does not mean that he actually has the authority. Now again, we have distinguished this previously with regard to the left

1:42:48 hand kingdom versus the right hand kingdom, we are speaking specifically of the churches right now. Those who hold authority in the right hand kingdom, in the churches, hold it only in so far as what they do and what they say is consonant with the Word of God, because that authority flows from God. It flows from the Word of God. It cannot act contrary to the word of God, because the church is God's bride, is God's slave, depending on how we want to speak about it. Both statements are true. The church cannot say anything that God does not say. The church cannot say anything that is inconsistent with what God says. Because that would be to go outside that circumscribed authority that has been given to the churches.

1:43:41 And so if a man stands up, even if he is the one wearing the collar or whatever it happens to be in your particular tradition or denomination, if he stands up and says something that is against Scripture, if he stands up and leads the charge against men who are saying, Wait a minute, the Word of God says this, and you have said the exact opposite, it is It is incumbent on you as a Christian man to oppose that man who supposedly holds the authority. He is your enemy. He has chosen to be your enemy. More than that, he has chosen to be an enemy of God. So not only is this an instance where you cannot forgive him insofar as he is an enemy of God, it is an instance where you must oppose him with everything you have, because he is

1:44:33 attempting to mislead the sheep. He is attempting to destroy God's flock, attempting to destroy God's church. You may be the man that God put in that position to stop that wickedness from happening. You may be the one man who if you stand up will be able to stem that tie because you stood with the man who was being persecuted, and now there are two of you, and that gives a third man the strength that he needed to stand up. You may be the difference. Never lose sight of that fact. Again you do not have the option as a Christian man to remain neutral in these matters. You have a duty to do what is right. I'm not going to say that every man has the exact same duty, because that would be ridiculous.

1:45:22 God has given out these abilities unequally. That is part of His wisdom, part of His design. If God has given you greater abilities, you have greater duties. However, again I would remind you that God promises to give you the words you will need in that hour, to give you the strength you will need to stand up under the trial. And so maybe you don't feel like you have the wisdom or the eloquence or whatever it happens to be, the personal strength and fortitude, maybe you don't feel like you have these things. God will give them to you as you need them. Do the right thing, and God will see you through. That doesn't mean it will be easy. No one thinks, at least no one reasonably would think, that Paul

1:46:11 wasn't terrified when he stood before governors and other powerful men. Do remember that under that form of government at that time, those men could have ordered him executed on the spot. And no one would have told them you were wrong, because they wouldn't wrong, they had that authority, they had that power. So he was most likely terrified in many of those instances, and yet he stood up and said what he needed to say and did what he needed to do because God promised him the same as God promises you because you are a believer as much as Paul. Because faith is a free gift from God. God gave it to Paul, God has given it to you. He stood up and said what needed to be said and did what needed to be done, even though he was undoubtedly terrified.

1:47:01 He may have been shaking when he said some of those words. Undoubtedly many Christian saints were when they stood before governors and kings and kings. You will probably not be called to stand before a governor or a king. But you may very well be called to stand up before a congregation of men who have turned hostile to the truth. One of the greatest fears in life for most men is public speaking, is being singled out and standing against the crowd, particularly when it is a hostile crowd, and you are speaking something they do not want to hear. In many surveys men would say they would rather die than have to do that. Just because it's terrifying, just because it is something you do not want to do does not mean you do not have a duty

1:47:54 to do it. Your duty is to stand up and say what needs to be said. If you're shaking when you say it, if your voice wavers, if you are terrified, so be it. Still do it, because it needs to be done. It is part of your Christian duty I want to end this episode by focusing not on the enemies of which there are many, not on the difference between strong enemies and weak enemies. I want to focus instead on what it means to be a friend. This is something that has sort of fallen away in modern society. We have a lot of weak friends. We no longer have a lot of good friends. Strong friends. As Wo said, and I certainly strongly agree, you cannot be a strong friend to every single person who is your friend.

1:48:50 That's impossible. We could bring up Dunbar's number or something similar, but we can just point out you do not have the energy or the time to be a strong friend for absolutely everyone in your life. You don't have the option to fly across the country and defend every man you know if he is attacked in some way. But there should certainly be some men in your life for whom you are willing to do that. You should have strong friends. And more than that, this is something specific that I want to emphasize. You will have strong friends, for whom come hell and high water. You will stand up and defend those men. But there will also be times where you find yourself in a position where you're a weak friend, or maybe you're even neutral.

1:49:45 But as it turns out, there is a man who needs a strong friend, and you are in a position to turn from neutrality or that weak friendship into into being the strong friend, into being the resolute wall that stands between the man who is being attacked and the angry crowd. In some ways and in some cases that is almost more important than simply being the abiding strong friend. Because perhaps that strong friendship that you happen to have that is developed over a number of years, however it came to be, maybe it's with those With whom you went into combat, whatever it happens to be, that sort of friendship may not be tested. You may never find yourself in a position where you need to defend that man because he may never be attacked.

1:50:40 But if you are in a position where someone is being attacked and you are neutral or a weak friend, that is God giving you the opportunity to do the right thing. That is God giving you the opportunity to defend the fatherless, to plead the widow's cause, to defend the poor, because that man is in need. That is the parable of the Good Samaritan. And you are given the option to be the Pharisee who walks by and looks the other way, or to be the Good Samaritan who runs to his aid and does what needs to be done. The Pharisee had a dead faith. The Pharisee did not do what needed to be done. The Pharisee did not do his duty, his faith did not produce good works, because again it was a dead faith. He had just come from Jerusalem.

1:51:33 He had undoubtedly been praising the Lord in the temple, participating in the sacrifices, doing all the things that a good Old Testament Israel believer did. And yet when he left Jerusalem, on his way home, God gave him the opportunity to demonstrate that his faith was a true faith, not just one for public consumption, not just one where he went into the courts and sang God's praises, and then went home and lived like a heathen. And he failed. He did not do the one thing that he needed to actually do as a Christian, as a true believer. But the Samaritan did. And so if God gives you that opportunity, whatever it happens to be, maybe it will be in your church. Maybe it will be some man who is attacked in your church

1:52:30 for pointing out that Scripture says something that your church is not teaching, or more likely something your church is teaching the exact opposite, where your church is teaching something that is diametrically opposed to the word of God. If that man is being attacked, that's God giving you an opportunity. He is giving you the choice between showing that you have a living faith that produces good works, that drives you to do that which is right, that which is your duty, or a dead faith that permits you to stand there idly by as furniture, watching as a man is persecuted for the truth and doing nothing and not coming to his aid, failing to demonstrate that you have a living faith that produces good works

1:53:23 I hope that every one of you makes the right choice. If you find yourself in that position. And in the coming years, I suspect that many of us will find ourselves in such a position. This is a time not only of great apostasy, but also of great trials, of a testing of every man's faith, and you will undoubtedly be given the opportunity to prove whether you were true or false. God will give you the strength. God will give you what you need to stand up under the trial. But you have to stand up.