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Ask a Pastor with JOBY MARTIN | December 2024 (Ep. 684)

December 3, 2024 37m 03s Full transcript available
Ask a Pastor with JOBY MARTIN | December 2024 (Ep. 684)
0:00 / 37m 03s
In this episode, Kyle Thompson and Joby Martin dive deep into the importance of spiritual leadership in the home, the complexities of biblical interpretation regarding creation, and the challenges men face in today's culture. They tackle tough questions about faith, morality, and the role of parents in shaping their children's understanding of God.
Transcript
419 segments
0:00 This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
0:24 I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
0:27 Joe B. Martin welcome back to the show. I'm going to set you up here right from the beginning
0:31 because last year when I went to encounter, which is kind of church 11, 22, like hunting
0:36 thing, every night, while we're at the campfire, not only are we smoking delicious undaunted
0:41 life cigars and we might have some bourbon and scotch flowing here and there, everyone's
0:45 got to tell a story if they got an animal on the ground that day and the story has to
0:49 start with. So there I was. You set them up and then you give them the story, but you
0:54 recently went on a pretty epic hunt in the highlands of Scotland, but it wasn't just,
1:00 you know, a hunt so that you can get an animal, get some meat in the freezer and head on
1:05 the wall or something like that. So how about you start us with your story? So there I was.
1:10 So there I was in the highlands of Scotland in the same area that William Wallace was
1:16 born and bred right next to Balmoral, which is the king's hunting land. And I was stag
1:23 hunting with a bunch of friends and three years ago on that same hill, that is the place where
1:29 my best friend Brad Bowen went to be with the Lord. We were on a stag hunt three years
1:33 ago and he had a heart attack up on their on the hill. So a couple of days after the
1:38 anniversary, three year anniversary of him going to be with the Lord, I hiked up there.
1:42 It's very, very hard. It's all spot installed. They're super skittish. We crawled our way
1:47 into this stag bedded down. And then right before he stood up and it was about to go,
1:54 my guide, who was also the guy that guided Bradley and did CPR for about an hour and
1:58 a half. This is like the last guy I'd ever touched him alive. And he goes, you want to
2:03 take two? And I said one for me and one for Bradley. He said, let's go. So that first
2:07 one jumped up. I dropped him with one shot and bigger one spun around. It was kind of
2:13 confused. We were hunting suppressed, which helps. And then I put two in him and watched
2:17 him give it up. Then I hiked through the valley, get up there, put my hands on him. My guide
2:24 is not a believer. So I was trying to always pray at the end, you know, like when God allows
2:28 me to take the life of an animal. And thank God for letting me have a friend like Brad
2:33 Bowen and cried like a seventh grade girl that just watched the notebook for a few minutes
2:38 on the mountain. And then poured out a little Scotch in his honor. And it was quite the hunt,
2:44 probably my probably the greatest hunt I've ever been on because of all of that. Yeah,
2:48 I got to say, I don't know of a hunt store. I've heard of harder hunt stories, but perhaps
2:51 not more important and meaningful hunt stories. And what's interesting about that is I didn't
2:56 even know you were in Scotland. And then I just get a picture from you of these two,
3:01 two red stags. And I literally text you without you saying anything. I was like, man, that's
3:05 awesome. One for you and one for him. And that was, you know, the same thing that you said.
3:09 I mean, that that's a crazy story, man. That was epic, man. It was epic. Well, very good.
3:14 Well, we're going to get into our questions for today. And again, guys, if you want your
3:17 question added to the bank of questions for ask a pastor, you've either got to be me,
3:22 you've got to be in my foxhole, or you've got to be a monthly donor. So guys, you can
3:26 send those to me via email DM, whatever, if you are one of those people. So first question
3:30 is from me. So as you are fond of saying, and as I've told you, it's very, very annoying
3:35 every time you say, you say the Bible just says what it says. And you always say that
3:39 when you just want to win an argument with me. So I get it. I get why you would just kind
3:43 of, you know, employ that bumper sticker. But and this, this is way too big of a subject
3:48 and I'm not meaning to kind of like put you on the spot because there's so many schools
3:51 of thought and I've been just kind of steeped in it because of the forging table and different
3:55 things. If the Bible just says what it says, then for you personally, are you young earth
4:02 or old earth?
4:05 Personally, I think God made old things or when he made new things, he made them old.
4:16 Like Adam was not a baby. And so if you would have pulled, I don't know if you can like
4:21 carbon date Adam, but however you check to see how old a person is, if you were to whatever,
4:28 give him a blood test, it would show him as a grown man, even when he was two days old.
4:33 So if he can do that with people, I think he can do that. I believe that he can do that
4:38 with stuff. My, the real reason I believe in an actual little literal creation, I do think
4:48 it's hard to get timing because there's a big, the Bible doesn't say how long the gap
4:53 was between the first verse and the second verse, you know, correct. So there's something
4:57 there. That's called the gap theory. There's something there. Also, the ways in which we
5:02 measure time were not originated until the fourth day, because first day of the slide,
5:09 but it's not until the right, right. However, the, the thing that theologically you've got
5:15 to solve for is original sin. So if God doesn't make it all in a very condensed time period
5:21 with two people that have kids yet and they didn't come from some other thing, but they
5:26 were fashioned into existence by God in a special place, which I believe all of that
5:30 is critical to the reality that our first parents, there was no sin and then they sinned
5:37 and then sinned enter the world. I don't see how that can gradually happen. And so if
5:43 you get out of the Old Testament and you get to places like Romans five, the fact that
5:47 a guy named Adam and a girl named Eve actually sinned and Adam is our federal head. And that's
5:54 how we inherit a sin nature. That's why it matters so much. Now, whether it got there
6:02 old or young isn't as important as the events of Genesis three, really two and three have
6:09 to be in that short contained period where there was no sin and then sin entered our
6:15 experience.
6:16 I like the way you say isn't as important because I think it's important how you view
6:20 everything. But as I've said many times and I'm gone on record because people have begged
6:24 me to have a young earth, older debate on the show, like a full on debate. And I'm like,
6:27 absolutely not. It's because I don't think it's knowable this side of glory. I don't
6:32 think we could possibly know because there's a couple of books that man, they get into
6:35 the weeds and I don't feel, you know, really smart enough to read them. There's Genesis
6:39 in the Big Bang, which is a very scientific book, which kind of breaks down how time or
6:44 out how light travels across the universe and how depending upon where you're looking at
6:49 time it could be literal 24 hour days or it could be larger parts of time. But then also
6:54 John Linux, who's been on the show and we talked about this just very briefly, he has
6:58 a book seven days that will divide the world and he talks about what you just said. There's
7:02 a different verb tense and there's a different meaning between verses one and two of Genesis
7:05 and then verse three. And so we don't really know if verse one is included in day one or
7:10 if it's prior to day one. And so I guess I'll ask you this and then we'll just move on
7:15 because we had other stuff that we want to go. Do you actually think that it is knowable
7:21 because there are certain things that will just be mysterious and we can't know, but
7:25 do you think if we really did enough research and if we really understood enough Hebrew and
7:30 Greek and ancient, you know, Galilean Aramaic that that we could know, know like really,
7:35 really know? I think what is more helpful is I haven't read the rewrite, but Mark Driscoll's
7:44 book, what was it called? Orthodox. It was just a, it was a, it was just a doctrine, but
7:49 no, that's what it was called. It's called doctrine, right? Okay. And in the on the chapter
7:56 on creation, I think this is what's most helpful. Driscoll kind of says, here's what I think
8:01 and here's why. And then he says, here are the historically Orthodox Bible believing positions
8:09 that a believer can take based on the scriptures and people may fight about them, but these
8:17 two or three fall under the category of Orthodox. The Bible is my authority and Jesus is the
8:23 only way belief. And then here are the unorthodox. These things are outside of scripture and
8:29 it cannot be like Christian shouldn't believe those things. I think that kind of delineation
8:34 is more helpful than saying this is absolutely how it was because you've got very, very smart
8:41 Bible believing authority of the word of God, standing people that differ on the exact
8:49 days of the earth. Okay, very good. So guys, the next time you want to get into a big long
8:54 debate, just remember, we can't actually really know there's a lot of different schools of
8:59 thought and there's way more than two. Some people think it's just young earth and old
9:01 earth it is way more complicated than that. So let's get into our first donor question.
9:05 This is from Levi. Levi, thank you so much for being a donor. And I think you'll enjoy
9:08 this. It applies to what we started this podcast with. I hunt and we raise animals for meat,
9:13 goats, rabbits, pigs, and all manner of foul. We even get told in our own comment section
9:19 on YouTube that we're going to hell because we murder the poor innocent animals. And we
9:23 were recently told that God and Christ commands us not to eat unclean food like pig, rodent,
9:30 rabbit, et cetera. This commentator misclassifying rabbits and having and not having read the
9:35 book of Acts aside, what would you say to a person that argues acts 10 was only a metaphor
9:41 to express to Peter that Gentiles are accepted into the kingdom along with the Jews and shouldn't
9:46 be taken as literally to ignore or disregard the Old Testament laws on clean or unclean
9:51 animals. Full disclosure, my wife and I both have used acts 10 to respond to negative comments
9:56 from people using quote unquote God to condemn us in the comments section.
10:01 Yeah, I mean, you can't spend your life talking to dumb people. There's too many of them and
10:05 they don't change their mind. That's what I would say quite honestly. I mean, anybody
10:09 that's that uninformed, what they're doing is they're coming to the Bible the exact opposite
10:13 way as you, you see, they have an agenda. And now they're looking for verses from the Bible
10:19 to support their agenda, literal podcasting. Yeah, totally. So if God was anti killing
10:25 animals, have you read about how many lambs will get slaughtered? And that's just that
10:29 one day. I mean, come on. So God has no problem with the spilling of blood. And by the way,
10:35 who told you animals were innocent? Apparently you not only do you not know the Bible, you
10:39 don't know animals. So absolutely, Acts 10, 13 was from that moment on the dietary restrictions
10:49 of God have been lifted because the substance is there. So you don't need to shadow anymore.
10:56 So no one there's no way we could eat the right things in order to make ourselves right before
11:00 God. But the lamb is slain at the cross and the blood of the land covers us all. Therefore,
11:05 we are now free to eat. And he used it as an illustration says just like there's no unclean
11:11 food. Now there are no unclean people. And so I would tell those people you should eat
11:17 a bacon rat fillet, cook medium rare, because that's gospel meat, pre cross from resurrection,
11:22 no bacon, no medium rare, post resurrection, it is called a new and better covenant. And
11:27 so the pig is on the table. And so is medium rare. So again, ultimately, fundamentally,
11:33 what these people have, they have a God that is not the God of the Bible, they have a God
11:37 of their own emotion towards furry little creatures, because they probably didn't say anything
11:40 about fish or bugs or, you know, killing the termites in their house. So they have an they
11:48 have a discombobulated theology of cuteness. That's what they have. And so I wouldn't waste
11:53 a lot of time. I would spend all that time figuring out how you could be the best farmer
11:58 and meat producer to the glory of God.
12:01 When I think in addition to that, you can pretty easily tell and pretty quickly tell
12:06 when you have a pearls before swine type of situation. I know that that is more of a gospel
12:10 context, but in something like this, like look at, go to my comment section where I don't
12:15 really spend a lot of time, but go to my Instagram or YouTube comment section. And the word hate
12:20 will be used all the time to describe any manner of opinion that I've expressed or some
12:24 that I've had on my show has expressed. And the thing is, is you can tell just by the use
12:29 of somebody's word of hate, that they don't understand exactly what's going on in this
12:33 situation, because you might have the perfect theological and philosophical arguments about
12:37 how your position is not hate. But it's the same thing that a lot of people have started
12:41 to say that when someone accuses you of something vile, if they accuse you of being a racist
12:46 or a sexist or a hater or something like that, your responses, no, no, no, wait, wait, I'm
12:51 not racist. I'm not sexist. I got black female friends or stuff like that. You're already
12:55 losing. If you're doing that, all you have to say is, why do you think I would care
12:59 about your opinion of me? Like do not take critique from people that you would not take
13:03 advice from. Now, I will say to Levi and his family, it's a very honorable thing that they're
13:08 doing, a very God glorifying thing that they're doing. Just make sure they're doing it in the
13:13 most God glorifying way they can because just because we have dominion over animals does
13:18 not mean that we mistreat them and neglect them. And I'm sure they don't. In fact, I'm
13:23 sure they're, you know, so there, there are certain meat manufacturing processes today
13:29 that I think need to be looked at and improved. And so you just make sure you're doing it
13:34 the most ethical, the most God honoring way that honors these animals. And you know, God
13:39 put these cows on the planet for to sustain his children, not to entertain them. Very good.
13:45 All right, let's move on. This is from Jake Winkler of the forging table fame. What do
13:49 you think is the biggest hurdle for men becoming the spiritual leaders in their homes? I think
13:55 the first thing that you've got, you got to, who's, why do we always call it the spiritual
13:59 leader? So I think that was that term spiritual leader was created by a bunch of like Beth
14:05 Moore Bible study listening people who knew more Bible than their husband and they were
14:08 frustrated. Okay. The Bible just says that head. And so you are responsible for everything
14:14 that happens in your house, including things like discipleship and catechism that doesn't
14:20 necessarily mean that you're the best person at it. You may have a job where you work seven
14:25 days, six days a week, you state one off, and you work 80 hours a week and your wife
14:29 is a stay at home wife and mom, which is one of the hardest jobs on the planet. And yet
14:34 her schedule allows her to be in about six different Bible studies. And she might know
14:38 more Bible verses than you. That does not mean that you are not being the leader. You
14:43 are to be the prophet, priest, servant, king, provider, and protector. Now, part of what
14:48 it means to be the priest is you are taking care of souls in regards to their relationships
14:53 with the Lord. This means that you're going to set the tone and prioritizing church and
14:58 family devotion Bible study, those kind of thing. Even if you don't know the most, you
15:03 might have to delegate some of the knowledge to somebody else that knows more, but you
15:07 are taking responsibility. So once I think you have the idea that your job is to be the
15:12 responsible. Okay. So that's part of it. Secondly, but you cannot abdicate your own personal
15:17 discipleship, Bible study, et cetera. And the number one way I think you can begin to lead
15:23 at home. There's really three things. One, how about be the lead repenter? How about
15:28 be the lead apologizer and lead your family in prayer, pray over your kids out loud. If
15:35 you've got girls, I would highly suggest Psalm 139 14 to your boys and girls, but especially
15:41 boys, I'd pray Psalm one and then commit to pray out loud with your wife. And if you're
15:47 like, well, I don't know how to do that. Didn't just do this. Say, honey, how can I pray for
15:50 you? She's going to say words. Listen, hold her hand, say, dear God, and just repeat those
15:56 words back to her. If you just did that, you would be an incredible leader in your home.
16:05 But even if you're praying over your family and you're leading them and worship every
16:08 Tuesday and Thursday night at home and you memorize the apostles creed, if you are not
16:14 providing and protecting, then the Bible says you are worse than an unbeliever. Even if
16:19 you're like the spiritual leader, no, no, you got to be the head of all the things,
16:24 profit. That means you tell them the truth. Priest, you care for their heart, servant
16:29 king. That means you take, they got to have food to eat and a house to live in provider
16:34 and protector. That's what it means to be the head. Hey guys, real quick. I know a lot
16:38 of you guys are really doing everything you can to have a consistent workout routine.
16:42 But the problem is, is you work out at a global gym. And so there's 17 guys on the bench that
16:46 you need and there's people doing bicep curls on the squat rack. And the biggest problem
16:50 is not your schedule. It's actually where you're trying to get your work in. How about you
16:55 guys stop making excuses and build yourself a home gym? And when you do, make sure you
17:00 use Sorenex. So Sorenex is a family owned and operated business that build some of the
17:05 most impressive workout facilities in the entire world. They built gyms for teams in
17:09 the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and even the UFC. They've also built gyms for some of the biggest
17:17 and most successful collegiate and high school athletic programs in the country. But in addition
17:21 to that, they make the highest quality home gym products that I've ever seen on the market.
17:27 In my personal home gym, I have the Sorenex Outfitter rack, the heavy version in military
17:32 green. Also, I have some of their center mass bells. I've got their Nordic glute ham developer
17:37 and their patented landmine attached to my rack. So guys, stop fighting the riffraff at
17:42 your local gym or bench or squat rack or whatever. And if you're going to build out
17:47 a home gym, you may as well get one that will last you and one that you could even pass down
17:52 to your kids. Begin your build out by going to Sorenex.com. That is Sorenex.com. S-O-R-I-N-E-X
17:59 .com. Take control of where and when you work out Sorenex .com. Yeah, I think that's a very
18:06 all inclusive answer. The way I would answer this, if Jake were to ask me is it's the biggest
18:13 hurdle for men becoming a spiritual leader in their home. It's just one of two options.
18:17 It's either them or their wife. Those are the main hurdles. Yes, there's spiritual forces.
18:22 There are dark forces are going to try to get in that. But you have maybe nagging, controlling,
18:26 dominant personality women, and then you have passive beta male tendencies that kind of
18:31 lead to this application of responsibility within the household. And it's going to hit
18:35 many of those other areas that you just elucidated as well. All right, let's get into the next
18:38 one here. And this is actually for me as well because you said something recently, I can't
18:41 remember if it was in a sermon or on deep in. I think it may have been on deep in. You said
18:46 that you would never tell your children and you would suggest to people to never tell
18:50 that their children that they are disappointed in them. And that's kind of a meme in our culture
18:55 to where it's like, Oh, you know, I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. And we all kind of
18:58 understand that that's, that's worse. And for me personally, I don't know that I really
19:02 understood your point fully. So that's when I, I wanted to you up to talk about it again,
19:06 because clearly there are times with our children. And again, I got a four and two year old there.
19:09 They're basically chimp still, but they're getting to that place where they're doing
19:13 the bad things on purpose. I personally think that it is okay to express disappointment to
19:19 your children that you are disappointed as long as that doesn't lead to full condemnation
19:25 and so I just, I want to understand your point. So right as I go, my point is, is that it's
19:30 just not gospel. I'm not saying it's not true. You actually are disappointed in your kids.
19:34 You're disappointed when you expected one thing and you experienced something else. The problem
19:38 is, is nobody is going to paint a clearer picture of God's love for us than the parents
19:45 love for the children. So what I never want my kids to associate is their bad behavior
19:52 and God being disappointed with them because if Jesus is the propitiation for our sin,
19:56 then he is not disappointed. He knew past, present and future all of the sins that he
20:01 was going to pay for. So he was never surprised. The reason that you get disappointed in your
20:06 kids is you thought they were going to do better. What I'm trying to communicate is even though
20:12 internally, I wish they would have made this different decisions, even though I'm actually
20:16 disappointed. I thought you would do better. I understand that my interaction with my kids
20:21 is going to paint a picture of their understanding of God's interaction with them. Now, this doesn't
20:25 mean you don't discipline. I just don't want to use the word disappointed. I want you to
20:29 say what you did was wrong. And here's how you were going to be disciplined. All these
20:35 things are true. And no matter what, I love you. No matter what, I love you. That's different
20:42 than I thought you would do better. This is you did wrong. These are the rules. These
20:49 are the expectations. What you did was either a sin against God or a sin against mom or
20:53 me or you just didn't do what you were told to do. Period. End up. Not associate that
20:58 with, well, when I do good, that is for me, but when I do bad, that is disappointed or
21:04 not for me. Okay. And that's, you know, I know that's a deep dive into that word. Gretchen
21:09 and I just wanted to take that word out because pastoring for as long as I have, most people
21:14 think God is disappointed in them. And that is not in line with the fact that Jesus paid
21:20 it all at the cross. So that's, that's the, that's the thing that I'm trying to bifurcate
21:24 there.
21:25 Okay. Well, I normally, when I ask you questions that are fairly deep, I normally either get
21:31 more confused or it brings up more questions, but I feel like you knocked, knocked it out
21:35 of the park with that one. You answered exactly my question. I was very confused beforehand.
21:39 I'm no longer confused. Joby, you did it. I'm going to send you a medal and a gold sticker
21:43 in the mail. We need to move on. We got to get to Dustin's question, Dustin, thank you
21:47 so much for being a monthly donor. I actually already answered this question for him. And
21:52 so, but it wasn't on the show. So we'll see how close your answer is to the answer that
21:55 I gave him. My son is in pre K at a local school. I just found out that his teacher is a lesbian.
22:01 I haven't heard my son saying anything that would make me believe she is pushing that
22:04 lifestyle on the students, but her son is in the class as well. So he is definitely hearing
22:10 from her son about the two mom situation. Just wondering how Joby would handle this situation
22:16 and you for that matter. I respect your opinion on these things. My knee jerk reaction is
22:20 to pull him and send him somewhere else. So let's say you pull him and send him to a
22:26 vetted Christian school period or homeschool because more, listen, man, when you're little,
22:33 almost everything is caught, not talked. It doesn't matter. She can be saying whatever
22:39 she says and what you're allowing in your kid is you are allowing the normalization,
22:46 not of just regular sin, but Romans one says this is a sin against nature. Right. And the
22:54 more you make that just to air your kid breeze and that's just normal and some people have
22:59 two moms, then it's going to you're doing the opposite of what you're trying to do when
23:05 you catechize your kids because you can't make your kids believe in Jesus. So your job
23:10 is to get all the kindling around their little hearts. So in the spirit of God likes that
23:14 thing on fire, it can catch on fire. What you're doing is you're pulling away the kindling
23:19 around their heart and trying to normalize what the enemy wants to be normalized. Because
23:25 what God wants to be normalized is a loving dad with a loving mom who loved Jesus and
23:29 loved a kid and build a family that way. And so there's no way in the world. Well, in my
23:37 sense, look, man, I'm in Jacksonville, Florida. We got good schools and stuff. There's no
23:41 chance I sent my kid to public school. I don't care what it takes. If I had to pick up a second
23:45 job, if I had to sell a kidney or I don't know whatever it takes, man, because my children
23:50 are that important to me that there's no way I would let the state raise my kid. You know,
23:56 I mean, Vody says it all the time, we let Caesar raise our children. And then we wonder
24:00 why they all act like Romans are so no chance. Yeah. And that's the thing I will, I will say,
24:07 that's what I said. That's what I told him. I said the toothpaste is going to be out of
24:11 the tube at some point, if it's not already. And again, there are a lot of people that
24:15 really do not like my stance about the only options being, you know, vetted private Christian
24:19 school or homeschool. And I guess you could add some charter schools and things like that,
24:23 depending upon how they're set up. But some people will try to, they'll try to equate it
24:28 with something that I'm not saying. They're like, Oh, so you won't let your kid have a
24:31 lesbian teacher, but you'll let him have a non Christian teacher. It's like, well, no,
24:34 if I could prevent it, I would, I would like for neither of those options to be on the table,
24:39 because just because they're going to a vetted private Christian school, that doesn't guarantee
24:42 that all their teachers and all the counselors and coaches and administrators are all Christians.
24:46 I get that. But that is not the same thing as what we're saying here, because kids pick
24:50 up on things. And if the law is a teacher, we've heard that before, the law is a teacher.
24:54 So when something is illegal, people think that it's immoral and same in the in the inverse,
25:00 the same thing happens here that if it seems permissible and okay, and everyone seems happy,
25:04 then the child will come away thinking, okay, this is moral. Go ahead.
25:08 So there are still some vestiges, some particular cases of public schools that are pretty that
25:17 are still run by all Christians. You know what I mean? Of course. The problem is, I don't
25:22 know what they are. And it's only a matter of the time before those things go away. So
25:27 as a so could somebody on your side, you don't understand my school, you're right. You're
25:31 right. You all might still be doing FCA there and doing the Pledge of Allegiance and somebody
25:36 praise over the Friday night football games. Okay, but you're at a dinosaur is going to
25:40 die soon probably. But I would do whatever it takes to get about. And of course, I would
25:45 have a non Christian Lee be the teacher of my child before I would have somebody that
25:51 according to Paul, enrollments one has given their hearts to impurity to dishonoring their
25:58 bodies among themselves and exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship and serve the
26:03 creature rather than the creator. See, this is this is a sin against nature. Like it's
26:09 against the character nature of God that he created us male and female and that the male
26:14 and female come together to create image bearers. And so if somebody doesn't believe
26:20 in Jesus, they're they could still be living in order of the natural order of things that
26:25 God has created, which will be fundamental, especially the younger your children are for
26:30 them to understand. So it would be more dangerous for the person that's living outside the natural
26:35 order than the person that is just implicitly non Christian, you know, all right, very good.
26:42 We got a couple of questions left in a little bit of time. So this is from Eric Browning
26:46 of the forging table fame. Does America have a special covenant with God requiring strict
26:51 adherence to biblical morality in order to avoid divine retribution?
26:57 I don't know. I do think that a part of the blessing on America was the the number of
27:05 Christian and God fearing and kind of Bible trusting men and women that started it, because
27:15 it for sure, it was basically like the men and women that started America actually use
27:22 the Bible as the owner's manual. And when you use the owner's manual, the product goes
27:28 better for longer. That being said, I am very hesitant to somehow have this replacement
27:36 theory like America is God's hope and America is the new Israel. I don't think that's the
27:42 case at all. I think very generally speaking, any group of people as a people that live
27:49 by the book, life tends to go better when you do it the way the author of life says you
27:54 ought to do it. I was going to say, look at the time we're in now, the further we get
28:01 away from our founding, the worse things get the more bloated the federal bureaucracy gets,
28:06 which is inherently non-biblically based non-Christian with no regard for the gospel or any of that
28:11 type of thing, even human flourishing in general. We're getting so much further away from that
28:15 because we were living in a minutiae now where a lot of people believe that the founders
28:19 weren't actually Christian. They heard that one or two of them were deus and then they
28:23 just apply that to the rest of the group. A lot of these men had, you know, Bible university
28:29 degrees, they had theology degrees in a lot of their writings to each other. They are
28:32 constantly quoting the Septuagint. They're constantly quoting directly from the first
28:41 five books of the Bible. They're constantly looking at all these things like they're referring
28:45 to the Torah, they're referring to Christianity, they're referring to Jesus. There were statements
28:49 of faith that were required for most of these states as they were being incorporated and
28:53 founded here in the United States. And so that's the problem that I think a lot of people get
28:58 to is this post 1970 kind of left-wing things that's happened in K through 12 schools and
29:04 also in universities has tried to convince us that no, in fact, it's the ultimate gas
29:08 lighting that we weren't founded on Christian principles. But when you look around, there
29:11 is no other country that has been founded on the same principles that we have. It is
29:16 a very unique thing and it goes into our Bill of Rights and a lot of other things as well.
29:21 Yeah. I think the, I think probably the greatest difference between the way our country was
29:26 founded and today is regardless of what the founder's personal relationship with Jesus
29:31 Christ was. I think you would have an impossible time finding a founding father, including the
29:38 deist but didn't even believe in Jesus, that did not believe that our rights came from
29:44 God and they were recognized by the government. Well, when you take God out of the equation,
29:49 like we have today, people believe that our rights are given or taken by the government
29:55 and not God. That's the fundamental difference. And so when the term Christian nationalism
30:01 got thrown around in, you know, in a derogatory way, which I get it, I totally get it, I don't
30:07 think that like Donald Trump is not my savior, man, Jesus is my savior. You know, I can do,
30:13 I can preach all the things about that. However, I'm watching a news broadcast one time and
30:18 that CNN reporter said, these Christian nationalists actually believe their rights come from God
30:24 and not the government. And I was like, well, that's what it takes to be a Christian nationalist
30:29 then signed me and all the writers of our founding documents up because that was the fundamental
30:35 belief is that our rights come from God. And so I think that is the major difference.
30:42 I think, you know, in a sense, God's like, Oh, you want me to take your hand off your
30:45 country? Go ahead, see how that goes. And we are like in the days of judges and people
30:50 just do what right do do. They're doing what's right in their own eyes. And it will always
30:55 lead to destruction. Yeah, it's not leading to a great place. We got time for one more.
30:59 Yeah. All right. This is the last one. This will be for me. So if you knew for a fact,
31:05 again, we're doing parallel universe stuff, because that's my favorite thing to do. If
31:08 you knew for a fact and you were the only one that knew that precisely one year from today,
31:15 one year from day today, that the world would end, right? So Jesus comes back new heavens
31:20 to earth, kind of the whole thing exactly one year from today. What would that change
31:25 about the daily rhythm of your life? Because there's not going to be, you know, wedding
31:30 and for JP and grandkids, you know, the lovely raking Capri is not going to even get a driver's
31:35 license much less move out of the house. Like there's not that next campus ain't going to
31:39 be built and finished and all those all those different things. Right. What would the daily
31:43 rhythm of your life look like if you were the only one that knew and the only one that could
31:48 know that a year from now, it's all over. Um, I think I would I would still do some fun
31:57 stuff like workout and hunt and stuff a little bit. But I think the primary two things I would
32:02 do is just spend time with my family and evangelize and nothing else that I would still preach
32:12 every weekend, but every single weekend with just the message would change. Cause why, why
32:18 talk about, you know, how to do all these things and you know what I mean? I would just say,
32:25 all I would do is evangelize. I mean, I think about it. Sometimes I ask folks, if you were
32:29 sharing the gospel on nine, 10 in the twin towers, how would you share it? Cause you can't
32:35 talk about a better life. You just have to say, have you surrendered to Christ? And while
32:39 I do love my family and I do share the gospel with a lot of people, I would just ratchet
32:45 those things up. I'd cut everything else out. Like I may go travel to see a few friends,
32:51 but unless I was traveling to do an evangelism thing, um, I quit doing that and all I would
32:58 do is family and evangelism. I think a lot of people would give the exact same answer.
33:03 You got anything else for us? Hey man, nice new tattoo. Well done. It is a nice one. So
33:09 shout out to Dustin Yip in Oklahoma city. I'll just tell you right from the beginning here.
33:15 Oklahoma city's kind of Oklahoma is kind of a dearth of really good black and gray. That's
33:19 not really our style. Oklahoma doesn't really have a tattoo style. There's some good guys
33:22 that do some different things, but Dustin moved here from California, which might be
33:27 the mecca of black and gray. I don't know that I'm qualified to really make that delineation.
33:30 But yeah, for those of you that aren't following us on Instagram or whatever, you'll see a
33:34 month or two ago, I got a portrait of Roman the giant, my boy, a real big on my big right
33:39 leg because that's where he always was. That's was, that was where we trained him to be.
33:44 That was the heel side. And so when he was being healed or when he was being called to
33:48 come to, that's where he would go. And he would just put his head right there on my
33:51 thigh. And so I was like, I don't know a better way to do this than to get a roughly Roman
33:55 sized head, a portrait right here on my thigh. So it's pretty legit. I told him that was
34:01 his trial for my arms. And so I think he did a good enough job that I might let him tackle
34:05 the arms next.
34:06 Bro, it is, I mean, it's, it's really good. Like, it's very accurate. It's very 3D. You
34:12 know, like when you send me the video, kind of, it looks like the dogs, like, well, how
34:16 do you do that? Anyway, way to go, man. Way to go. Um, you know, tattoos with the meaning
34:20 are incredible. So good call. Well, I appreciate that. The only weird thing about tattoos is
34:26 when you get a good tattoo, everyone gives you the compliment. It's like, you didn't
34:30 do anything. You just sat there and let them like inject, you know, ink, you know, four
34:34 layers deep into your skin. So I will do all that I can to pass those compliments on to
34:39 the person that originated it. So shout out again to Dustin, yep. But anything else, Joby.
34:43 No, that's it, man. All right. See you next month. Thank you for listening to this podcast.
34:48 Whatever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
34:51 star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just
34:55 shoot me an email to info@undonton.life. That's i-n-f-o @undonton.life. Follow us on Instagram
35:01 and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate
35:04 to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undonton.life. And as
35:09 always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our
35:12 content. The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled
35:16 debut album on Face Down Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle
35:21 Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical
35:27 resilience, keep seeking the lion of Judah.
35:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Key quotes
2
Kyle Thompson
You can't spend your life talking to dumb people. There's too many of them and they don't change their mind.
Joby Martin
What I never want my kids to associate is their bad behavior and God being disappointed with them.
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