JOSH HOWERTON | How to Vote Like Jesus (Ep. 667)

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0:39 This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

0:54 Let's get into it.

1:24 Just a couple of weeks before we recorded this, he delivered one of the best sermons that I've

1:28 heard specifically on the topic of Christians and politics. He talked about how to vote like

1:36 Jesus. We do a little bit of introductory work there at the beginning, talk about a lot of fun

1:41 subjects, but then we actually dig in to the sermon. We dig into, "Okay, if Jesus were alive today,

1:47 would he be voting? What exactly does that look like? Why he even wanted to go here?"

1:52 Because a lot of pastors are just going to ignore the political side, but I think Josh

1:56 understands that. Look, there's over 30 million Christians that didn't vote in the last election

2:00 and about that amount of people that are going to not vote this time around. We're basically

2:05 abdicating our responsibility to have a part of the political process that literally men died so

2:10 that we would have the right to be able to do that. We get into a lot of different things like,

2:15 "Hey, look, if the church won't disciple people, the world will." There's a quote from his sermon,

2:20 "The church is not getting more political. Politics is getting more theological." We dig into that.

2:24 We dig into why he didn't straight up endorse a candidate, because if you see, if you read the

2:30 tea leaves as you go through his sermons, it's very obvious who he would be supporting in this

2:34 election and who he would encourage us to support, but he didn't use any names. Talked about some

2:39 different kinds of leaders, some righteous people who promote righteous things, unrighteous people

2:43 that promote unrighteous things, and then flawed people that are used for good and those types of

2:48 things and how that applies to the current election cycle. Then we get pretty specific on policy.

2:52 We talk about the ideas of life and border security and back on the life side. Talking about the

2:57 fact that neither candidate is saying that they are anti-abortion right now. Trump's not saying it,

3:04 and Kamal Harris certainly is not saying it. How are we to think about that as it pertains to

3:09 governance? Now, these people believe in their heart of hearts or in their honest moments,

3:13 but in terms of governance. And then we ended at the big at the end where it's like, look, politics

3:18 can't fix what politics did not break. And how does that apply to us? So I really enjoyed our

3:22 conversation. We went all over a bunch of different subject matter. So guys, without further ado,

3:25 let's get into it. Josh Howerton, welcome to end on to life of man's podcast.

3:30 Didn't my life dream? I figured it was. I mean, of all the things that you could

3:35 accomplish, it's like you married a ginger, you've got children, you're running a church,

3:39 and now you're on the show. That's like your Mount Rushmore, isn't it?

3:41 That's it. The trifecta, man. I'm ready.

3:43 But here's the disappointing thing. For whatever reason, I thought you're located in Tennessee.

3:47 And now I like two minutes before you get on, I recognize that you're just like two and a half

3:52 hours away from my house. Why are you not just here in my studio? What is what you didn't even

3:56 invite me? You didn't even invite me. I thought your own tennis in Tennessee,

4:00 which might as well be the other part of the globe. But I mean, I will say that, you know,

4:03 our mutual buddy Matt Chandler, he's come up here like three times to record. So what's the deal?

4:07 Hey, man, I got no invite. I mean, Chandler gets an invite. Howerton doesn't get

4:11 an invite. Here's the thing, open invitation because, and you could even bring your wife,

4:15 because I got sunscreen in every available crevice of this house. It's in the truck. It's,

4:20 no, but well, let's go. I don't want to know anything about crevices. Nothing at all.

4:24 Hey, we're trying not to get you on the news here. So let's get off talking about crevices,

4:27 but let's keep talking about ginger. Because that's apparently not racist. What is it?

4:31 What is it about you and my bride where y'all are just into people with recessive genes? What's

4:34 that all about? Dude, I just listen, I'm not into ginger. I'm into Jana. That's it. That's the

4:40 only thing I'm into. And she's my girl, man. Well, that's good. I mean,

4:45 what percentage if you had to put a percentage on it of y'all's annual budget is on sunscreen?

4:49 Because ours is like 15, 16%. So Jana is the rare tan redhead.

4:55 Jana is so growth. So here's, here's the trick. Here's the thing on Jana. Redhead,

5:00 blue eyes, also tan. I've said before, and I still maintain never trust a ginger with a tan.

5:10 So now don't bring your wife. I don't want to meet her, okay? Because there are issues there.

5:14 I mean, I got green eyes and translucent skin and red hair, but I don't know.

5:18 Maybe I could get used to it. But yeah, ginger with a tan. That's just an interesting, interesting

5:24 thing there. Hey, if she doesn't come, you're the one missing out, not her.

5:27 Okay. Well, we'll make sure that she gets up here. But the last thing we'll get into before

5:30 we dig into a recent sermon of yours is you seem to be surrounded by pastors that are doing a

5:37 little thing called a jujitsu. And so I have not seen you nor heard you talk about the sport of

5:44 jujitsu. And if you did, it's kind of like if you're a vegan or if you do CrossFit,

5:47 you just bring it up all the time if you end up doing jujitsu. So why are you such a big fan of

5:52 not being dangerous? Like, why aren't you, you know, why aren't you doing the whole jujitsu thing?

5:56 Man, someday I may go all in like Chandler. Right now I got three kids. I got nine,

6:01 I got 13 year old, nine year old, five year old. So I will have a hobby again in about 13 years.

6:08 Right now I get out there and fish in my bass pond whenever I can, but that's about it.

6:11 Well, I can tell you that my son who's four, I got a four year old and two year old,

6:16 he has started training. And so when he goes and trains, it's the kids class and then the adult

6:21 class. And so it could be something where you all learn to choke people with their own clothing

6:26 all at the same time. And so that could have worked out. But as a way of introduction,

6:29 because I guess I just assumed people have heard of you before, you are a professional Christian,

6:34 but I've also been reliably informed that you are a mega church pastor. And so if you wouldn't,

6:39 I know what is that even? What? How'd you become a professional at doing this whole Christian thing?

6:44 Where'd that come from? Yeah, man. You know, my little line, I think, I think I heard J.D.

6:48 Guru say this one time. He said, you know, hey, you know, they pay me to be a Christian. You

6:53 guys are, they pay me to be good. You guys are good for nothing. Yeah. And that's obviously the

6:56 exact opposite of being true. Yeah, man. So I'm a third generation pastor. My papal

7:03 started out living in a garage homeless Appalachian mountains. God called him to ministry and a dude

7:08 worked his worked his butt off, worked three jobs, growing up, put food on the food on the table.

7:14 And he was, dude, my papal. Oh my gosh, I'm missing my hero. So my papal,

7:19 Southern Baptist pastor, dad, Baptist pastor, my father is retiring, Kyle, from 50 years of

7:26 faithful ministry here pretty soon. And man, you know, some people call that nepotism. I call it

7:33 the tribe of Levi. And God just seemed to, you know, work generationally there. So dude, I mean,

7:40 honest, man, I was called a ministry in, in middle school. I watched my dad plant a church. And then

7:47 my dad, my dad lived his life. And this is what I want to do for my kids. My dad lived his life

7:55 so that his ceiling could be my floor. And, and that's kind of the theme of my life. And so man,

8:02 growing up ministry house, love the church and dad raised and disciples me into it and

8:07 turned into a thing. You know, it's interesting because I don't remember who said this or maybe

8:12 it just like popped into my head. But a lot of people live a life where they're like, I'm just

8:16 going to try to do and do and do for my kids and, you know, to do those types of things. But I had

8:20 this thought that maybe I'm not the point, maybe on Don life isn't the point, but maybe all this is

8:26 just a setup for James and Eli or James or Eli. And you know, whatever that means, because it's like,

8:32 you can only shoot your arrow into the future so far. And it's eventually got a land and someone's

8:36 got to shoot it again. And so it's interesting to kind of have that perspective. But for you,

8:40 I know we kind of talked about it, you know, jokingly and whatnot. If you are a pastor of a church that

8:45 is of considerable size, you're automatically put into the mega church category and the multi

8:51 site and all that type of stuff. And it's easy if you do that, that no matter what you say,

8:56 you're going to [inaudible] somebody off. So non-Christians. I don't know anything. I don't know anything

9:00 about that. I know you don't, but we can talk about other pastors that, you know,

9:03 ruffle feathers. Yeah, let's talk about them. But it's like, you know, non-Christians who think

9:06 everything that you say is stupid or overly fundamentalist Christians that think everything you say

9:11 and do is stupid. Like how I guess do y'all deal with that as, you know, not just you, but as a

9:17 pastor with an elderboard? Because again, I'm very critical of pastors that don't have elderboards,

9:21 pastors that just have like a board of advisors that can't, you know, do anything or vote them

9:25 out or anything like that. So how do y'all handle something like that? Do you try to respond to it?

9:30 Do you just batten down the hatchets and say, all right, let's just let, you know, two weeks go by

9:34 and then just, you know, it'll blow over and we'll get back to business. How do y'all handle that?

9:39 Oh gosh, man, that's a huge question. I mean, you know, number one, I think before anybody's

9:44 a pastor, they're a disciple before I'm a pastor, I'm a disciple. And so, you know, ultimately,

9:51 if there's not discipleship rhythms and a discipleship ecosystem built into my life,

9:55 then ultimately we're building on sand and the house crumbles. So for me, man, like I got to have

10:01 a life group. I got to have dudes in my life. I got to have people who are deputized to speak

10:05 truth to me. And I'll say this, man, this is like a whole different tangent. It's really interesting.

10:10 People tend to with with pastors, not just mega church pastors with pastors.

10:14 It's funny, man, people grab you in the lobby or in the city. And what they always say is,

10:19 hey, man, I'm praying for your humility. I'm praying for your humility. I'll be really honest.

10:24 I am so glad you're praying for my humility. My bigger struggle is staying confident.

10:28 And so, you know, it's like, you know, I'll just kind of get that out there. But dude, you know,

10:34 when it comes to, when it comes to criticism, there's so many, there's a lot of biblical principles

10:38 there. My biggest one is if we're going to have a tagline, it's going to be that criticism should

10:42 be weighed, not counted. Criticism should be weighed, not counted. So, hey, man, this is,

10:49 this is not a democracy. We're not, we're not counting the number of criticisms and the number of

10:55 applauses. Jesus would have failed that test. Yeah. So, what we're going to do is we're going to,

11:01 we're going to weigh it. Now, where does it come from? You know, what are the, what are the, the,

11:09 the character and the, the proximity of the people and then, you know, let's weigh it, not count it.

11:15 If Jana says something to me, I'm going to listen no matter what she says. Right. If somebody on my

11:21 elder board says something to me, I'm going to listen no matter what they say. If at Maga Mike,

11:28 one, two, six, five, seven, three on X, didn't like that. I said that thing. I'm probably not,

11:33 I'm probably not paying much attention. If it's a, if it's a website, if it's a monetized website

11:38 that is designed to monetize scandals, and therefore they manufacture them, I'm probably not going to

11:44 listen very much to that. So, criticism should be weighed, not counted. And you can't, you can't be,

11:50 you can't be above some measure of accountability in your life or you're done already.

11:54 Well, yeah. And don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from. And so when people

11:59 like get into my inbox and they want to like quibble with the wording of a episode title or my tone

12:05 when describing a certain thing, it's like, I'm sorry, do we know each other? Because it's like,

12:09 there are six million shows, six million different shows that you can choose from. And if mine bothers

12:14 you this much, why do you keep exposing yourself to it? It's like finding a band whose music is

12:18 absolutely abhorrent to your ears and continually listening to it. It's like, what is wrong with

12:22 you? But kind of with, with all that in mind, you mentioned like having dudes in your life that

12:27 are deputized to be able to tell you the truth guys that, you know, can kind of grab you by your

12:30 shirt collar. Well, as you know, our mutual buddy, Joby Martin has said is like, you know,

12:34 what's coming for a lot of pastors, monies and honeys. And it's usually one of the two that takes

12:38 dudes out in just this year, Tony Evans taken out by what we seem to be was like, you know,

12:44 extramarital sex of some kind. We have Robert Morris, who is allegedly a pedophilic rapist.

12:49 And then we've got Steve Lawson here recently that was having a complete second life affair

12:54 with a woman that is half a century younger than he is. And all these guys, I just wonder,

12:59 is there no one in your life that's not that impressed with you? Is there no one in your life

13:02 that's willing to interrupt you while you're talking? Is there no one in your life that's willing to

13:05 not laugh at your dumb joke to where they can police sign be like, Hey, moron, what are you doing?

13:10 Like you're about to blow up not only your entire church, your entire ministry, your entire witness,

13:14 but also your entire family. What is wrong with you? So how do you like literally, how do you

13:20 prioritize something like that? Because it's one thing to say it. And it's one thing to walk it out.

13:23 Yeah, I actually would probably I probably look at that as smidge differently if I had to guess.

13:28 So like, I'll just be real honest, I don't know any of those guys very closely. I've spent time

13:33 with someone, but I don't know any of those guys very closely. If I had to guess from watching some

13:39 guys who have had some falls that I did know closely, I actually bet you're wrong. I bet they

13:44 did have guys in their life that could pull them aside. I bet they did have guys in life that could

13:49 grab them by the collar and be like, Hey bro, don't do that. But I bet they had some things, you know,

13:55 book a first John talks about if we walk in the light as he is in the light. Sin is like fungus,

14:00 it grows in the dark, it dies in the light. And I bet you they did have dudes in their life who

14:07 could do that, but they had successfully partitioned a part of their life in the darkness so that those

14:13 dudes never saw any signs or symptoms. So for me, man, like my life goal is to have the make no

14:20 opportunity for the flesh. That's our New Testament command. Give no opportunity to the flesh.

14:26 So my goal is to have no part of my life that is hidden. So like, you know, some are actually

14:33 sitting in here, like my social media accounts, bro, I don't like there are 37 people who have

14:39 the access to every social media account I got every like there is not a DM that happens

14:45 that a bajillion people do not see. My assistant has access to my phone and every email account I

14:52 got before we actually started recording or no, no, it was we started like that. You know,

14:57 we're talking about like literally, bro, I don't have I don't I am never alone, like ever. So for

15:04 me, it's more about I think they probably did have dudes in their life who could pull them aside.

15:08 I think there was just parts of their life that, you know, that happened to get they get

15:13 successfully partitioned. If I had to guess, yeah, that that certainly could be the case,

15:18 because with a lot of guys, you wonder what the accountability I mean, this even happens in high

15:22 finance and high finance where there's so much oversight. And yet there are people that can like

15:27 weasel their way through the system and get stuff done. It usually, you know, what's done in the

15:30 dark will be caught in the light. And I will say this to all the people that are there watching

15:34 this right now at some point during this interview, I want to make all them very uncomfortable. I

15:37 want them to be like Kamala Harris's team like no, no, no, no, don't answer that. Let's wrap it up

15:40 just for fun just for fun guys are only kidding. But let's talk about social media a little bit

15:45 because if you got social media folks there, because one thing about you, which does make you

15:49 lightning rod for criticism just because anytime someone does anything good, everyone's like,

15:52 Oh, look at that person. I hate him. I want to tear him down. But you seem to be one of the

15:56 pastors that is using social media effectively. So you're making social media content that looks

16:03 like, you know, content from a content creator of some kind. But it's also it's sticky. It gets

16:09 people to listen beyond just the first five seconds, which has become the hardest thing to do in all

16:13 social media because of this TikTok craze of constant constantly going to the next thing.

16:17 And so for you as a pastor, why even focus on that? I mean, I could take a wild guess, but I want

16:23 you to explain it. Why would you focus on that? Why is using something like Instagram from a

16:29 company like meta that doesn't exactly like the things that you and I talk about? Why, why do you

16:33 utilize that to reach out to people in the way that you do? Because my job is to make disciples.

16:37 Like seriously, you know, my job is to make disciples. And if my people are spending,

16:43 and this is data. So here's my big thing, man, like, you know, I'll talk about this with pastors.

16:47 I think this is honestly, I think this is a conversation pastors are having right now,

16:51 and they're recalibrating their thinking about this behind closed doors.

16:54 When I first started ministry, like I'm going to date myself when I first started ministry,

16:58 it was literally the year that Facebook became available for dudes that did not have college

17:04 email addresses. So the dawn, the social media was when I and when it first started, I think the

17:12 mentality was like, Hey, man, it was primarily a, I think you could call it charitably label it a

17:18 humility mindset. Hey, man, do nothing out of selfish ambition. Don't try to be seen,

17:23 keep a low profile. And I think that's a wonderful motivation that we should have. That's a biblical

17:29 command. I think so as, and as a result, I think there's a lot of conversations where guys are

17:34 going, Hey, man, our people are spending 18 hours a week is what data says on social media. And

17:39 people are pastors are having the conversation is that good or bad. That's a helpful conversation.

17:44 I'm so glad you're having that conversation. But here's reality. Is it good or bad? You know,

17:49 probably bad, but here's reality. It is. Yeah, it is. They are going to do it. They are going to do

17:56 it. So my big thing is like, I got guys on our team who talk about this. And then if there were a

18:02 nation in the world that consisted of whatever it is, 4 billion people that are on some form of

18:08 social media in the world, you know, data wise, three to three to four billion people. Would it not

18:13 be missional malpractice to send no gospel voice to that nation? The answer to that is yes. So that's

18:21 why podcast like undaunted. I'm not joking or blowing smoke. That's why this stuff matters.

18:25 Because whether people like it or not, this is where our people are. So for me, I'm going, okay,

18:33 here's some here's some anchor realities for me is number one, I'm going to go where my people are.

18:38 18 hours a week. That's where they are. Number two, this is a big anchor for me. This realization

18:44 changed my ministry. If the church won't disciple people, the world will. For sure. If the church

18:49 won't disciple people, the world will. So what I started realizing, and if you look back, you can

18:54 kind of see a shift in the moment in my ministry where I had that realization and made that decision.

18:59 What I started realizing is, dude, everybody sits around and I did this in my own sermon. So it's

19:04 not just other guys. It was me is we spent like six years complaining about how all these Christians,

19:09 they're just discipled by the right wing media or they're just discipled by the left wing media.

19:14 And you can say that all you want, but it's a little unfair to say that

19:18 when you won't go there and speak into those things that they're looking for somebody to speak

19:23 into. So it's like it's unfair for me to complain that these people are being discipled by these

19:29 voices and then me not be willing to stick my neck out and get a bloody nose every now and then,

19:34 and then actually speak to those issues. So the reason that I do it to go back to your thing is

19:40 because I want to make disciples and my people are inundating their brains with that 18 hours

19:44 a week. So here's my operating principle for this is that social media now is the digital

19:49 areaopagus. That is the place in our culture where people quote spend their time telling and

19:55 hearing new ideas. So my job as a pastor is to quote content for the faith once and for all

20:01 delivered to saints. Where in our culture is the primary place that ideologies are debated,

20:07 social media. So my job is to go there and contend for the faith in that regard. That's my math.

20:14 Well, it brought up something I'm gonna butcher it. I don't know if it was CS Lewis or somebody,

20:17 but they're like, I like the way that I share the gospel better than the way that you don't,

20:21 like it was something like that ish. And so that's the thing when people were critical of how okay,

20:27 deal with you. Thank you. People are very critical of how I approach men's ministry,

20:33 because I realize back in the day that most men's ministry is just women's ministry repackaged

20:37 for men, right? So it's the same content, but they force it down men's throats. Hey, you guys

20:41 that don't know each other that have never accomplished anything together, y'all sit in the circle

20:44 and pour your hearts out. And then we'll just pretend like we're doing men's ministry so that

20:47 we can count it on our annual report. And so the way that I approach it is much different.

20:51 I have a much different tone that I approach with and people are very critical of it. And it's like,

20:54 well, what are you doing exactly? Oh, nothing at all. So it's like, yeah, sorry, if I don't take

20:59 your critique seriously. Now, I'm like it. Hey, can I ask you who are your primary detractors,

21:04 not not not people, but like demographics, demographically, it is all over the place.

21:11 The funny thing about it is I, you know, a group I almost never get a complaint from, women never.

21:18 Now the majority of my audience, the overwhelming majority of my audience is male, but women that

21:23 listen to the show, not only do they think they're doing something naughty, because they'll tell me,

21:27 like, I know I'm not supposed to be listening to your show. But and I'm like, no, no, you can

21:31 listen. Just remember, I don't have you in mind when I'm creating the content. Like, I'm not thinking

21:35 about you. I'm thinking about your husband, but all of these women want their husbands and their

21:40 sons and their uncles and their fathers, all the men in their life to be like the type of man that

21:45 I'm describing and trying to model after, right? Because I don't look at Jesus as this wispy-haired

21:50 Danish guy that just constantly went around kissing people on the tips of their noses and

21:53 saying how cute they looked in their tunics. Like, this was a rough dude. This was a rough

21:57 Middle Eastern Jewish construction worker that was both lion and lamb 100%. Both he was both

22:02 grace and truth, not 55 and 45, depending on the moment. He was that in both ways. And so I'm trying

22:07 to model that. But yeah, the detractions come all over their place. The fact that we have metal music

22:12 as our bumper music on the show, people don't like that. Metal music satanic. They can't explain

22:16 why, but they're definitely convinced that it is people that don't like the tone. They don't like

22:20 some of the stuff that we shed light on. I was like, well, I'm here to equipment to push back

22:24 darkness, Josh. That's why undaunted life is here. That's why I was put on this planet. And if I can't

22:29 see the darkness, because I've got my eyes covered, then how am I going to be able to push it back?

22:33 And once I see it, I need to call it out so that I can get other guys into failings with me so we

22:38 can all push it back together. So again, you're criticizing me for what I'm doing. And I'm looking

22:45 at you who's doing nothing and wondering when are you going to get in the game? Because this is how

22:49 it is here. I am going preaching like it's my podcast or something. But a lot of conservatives,

22:52 Josh, a lot of Christians, they've never seen a hill that was worth dying on. And so one day,

22:58 the war will be over. They will never seen a battle worth fighting. They never picked up their sword.

23:03 They never put on their helmet. They never put on their breastplate. And then they're going to look

23:06 around and wonder what happened. It's like, you know what happened? You happen, you don't. One more

23:10 question before we dig into your sermon. Okay, let's let's bring it down a little bit. The only reason

23:14 you and I know each other is because of Joby Martin. So very, very thankful. And part of the

23:18 reason why we're talking to you, because I know you listened to the show, I know you heard him say

23:21 this, but on a question on ask a pastor, I asked him, Hey, who are the up and coming pastors that,

23:26 you know, we need to know about that we need to make sure we're following that we did make sure

23:30 that we're supporting and to need to make sure that we're keeping an eye on so that they don't like

23:34 go to go to crazy towns. And you were the name. You're the only name that he brought up. And so

23:40 when you hear someone like Joby, who's been as successful as he's been with Church of 11 22

23:45 down in Florida and is continuing to succeed. And I was just there for saturated. And it was like

23:49 completely mind blowing. I don't listen to every single, I listen to every single session in my

23:54 home gym, every single one. Yo, and you just preached there like a couple weeks before. And I could

23:59 tell like you were even a little bit more fired up because the energy in that room,

24:02 especially at the main campus is ridiculous. So when you hear someone like Joby say that about you,

24:06 does that help give you the confidence that you were talking about? You don't really get,

24:11 you know, earlier, does it does it make you feel the weight of that? How's that feel?

24:14 Oh, dude, it felt awesome. I'm not, you know, I'm not going to pretend because you know,

24:20 Joby is and by the way, and I love that he estimated I was in my mid to young 30s. That just made me

24:25 feel even better, man. Well, set the record straight. How old are you, man? Even even back,

24:29 we just turned 41 a couple months ago. Oh, God, you're like, you need a hip replacement already.

24:34 Good grief. Yeah, dude, it felt awesome. You know, so Joby, Joby's a big deal to me.

24:40 I came to a conclusion going back to discipleship rhythms. I came to a conclusion probably about

24:45 four or five years ago. Every preacher needs a preacher like the Lord designed

24:52 the disciples spirit to need the preaching of the Word of God. And so I just decided,

24:57 you know, four or five years ago, every preacher needs a preacher. I'm going to pick a preacher.

25:01 I settled on two guys to this day. Every Monday, I make my coffee. I'll listen to Joby Martin in

25:06 the morning, and I'll listen to John Tyson in the evening. And so I've been listening to Joby

25:11 forever. And so, you know, man, he is, Joby's got 10 years on me. That's a spiritual big brother.

25:16 I tell my church all the time, 10% of everything you hear comes from Joby Martin. And that's got

25:21 me in trouble before. And yeah, I just, yeah, I just, I love the man. He's a, he is a, I think he's

25:28 one of the, probably like, and I don't have names in mind. So don't ask me for him. I think he's

25:32 like probably one of like the three or four best preachers in America. And so, you know, if you're

25:37 living, listen to this podcast, you know who Joby is. If you don't, you need to be listening to Joby.

25:41 Don't listen to me. Go listen to Joby. Well, and tell your friends, because here's the thing,

25:45 is there are pastors with larger followings and profiles and churches and all that? And they're

25:51 leading their congregation straight to hell. I'll name names if you want me to, but I don't want

25:54 you getting in trouble. But the thing with Joby that I'd say is you, you can't really say that

25:59 somebody is the best blank if they perform on a, on a weekly basis, because you know, you might

26:05 melt in one week and then the next week you hit a grand slam. But what I, what I try to describe

26:09 to people, I was like, on any given Sunday, Joby Martin is the best preacher in America. And I don't

26:13 like, dude, I'm not a smoke blower either. Like, I feel no need to give compliments to people

26:18 when I don't mean it. It's, I don't know that it's ever happened. And so I say it because I

26:23 actually mean it. So I, I agree with everything that you said in those sentiments, but, but, but,

26:27 we're going to do something unique that I've never really done before in the sermon because

26:30 normally I get a book from a publisher and I do actually read the entire book before the person

26:35 comes on. We dig into the book, but I don't think in the history of this show, we're 660

26:40 somewhat episodes in now that I've done an entire interview for the most part about a particular

26:45 sermon. But on October the 6th of this year, you delivered a one week kind of one off sermon called,

26:51 you know, how to vote like Jesus. Now with a title like that, you had to know that that was

26:55 going to be a lightning rod for, for criticism. But really, I feel like a lot of Christians

27:02 have been lulled to sleep because they have been convinced by nefarious forces, mind you,

27:08 to not be political. Hey, just be about the gospel as if that doesn't mean that that applies to the

27:14 political world. I always wonder with these people that are like, Oh, we're not going to vote. We're

27:17 going to be about the gospel. And then I'm like, Oh, so you only want atheists running the government.

27:21 Is that what you're telling me? Well, no, that's not what I said. I was like, actually, that is what

27:24 you said. And I mean, you start out at the beginning of the sermon, Josh, by saying if the church

27:28 won't disciple people, the world will you talked about that earlier in this interview.

27:31 So let's just start from the beginning. Why do a one off about this? I know the timing is obvious

27:37 because, you know, we're, you know, the elections right around the corner. But why even go there as it were?

27:44 Oh, let me go back to something we already said because our job is to make disciples.

27:47 We're pastors. So we make disciples. I'd say a few things on this. Why go there? Number one,

27:53 again, I'll go back to what I said at the beginning, because if the church won't disciple people,

27:57 the world will it is I do not understand. I cannot comprehend in my head the logic that results in

28:06 the outcome of everyone in America is going to be telling Christians how to vote except pastors.

28:12 Right. I'm seriously, I just, I, I, I, the logic doesn't make sense to me. Now, I know that there's

28:19 something now, you know, we can get into specifics of how to do that, how not to do that. Where do we

28:23 make applicants? You know, we want to avoid making applications, the Bible doesn't make,

28:27 etc, etc, etc. But it would be, it feels to me like it would be to leave the sheep to the wolves

28:33 to go, okay, everybody else is going to be trying to influence how you think about political,

28:38 you know, and voting, you know, things except the shepherds. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

28:43 There's a couple of other things I'd say on this is one, you may have wanted to get to this later.

28:48 I also think it is to misunderstand the role of the church as God has designed it. Obviously,

28:54 God has designed this is Abraham Kuiper Kuiper's fear sovereignty. God has designed three institutions,

29:01 the family, the church and the state, Dr. Tony Evans, who, you know, I've listened unapologetically,

29:07 I've unapologetically benefited greatly for some of the teaching of Dr. Tony Evans. Tony Evans uses

29:12 the analogy that when the New Testament says that the church is called to be the quote pillar and

29:16 buttress of the truth. And then when Jesus says the church called to be the quote salt of the earth,

29:22 that what that means is that the church is supposed to function like the immune system of a society.

29:28 And in the same way, this is a great analogy. And I didn't use this in the sermon at a half time.

29:32 In the same way that no one has ever died of AIDS or HIV. What AIDS or HIV does is they take out

29:40 the immune system. And once the immune system is down, the body can die of anything that the

29:44 church is the immune system of the culture. So whenever the church gets neutralized and refuses

29:50 to speak into an arena, that what just happened is the society has AIDS now because the immune

29:56 system of the society is now down. When that happens, society can die of anything. Any ideology

30:02 can destroy a society if the quote pillar and buttress of the truth refuses to hold up the truth.

30:09 So one, I just think that that absolutely speaking into the political realm is it is it is listen in

30:16 both the Bible and church history. We have Bible church history and logic. We simply have these

30:23 things. I don't know how you can read the Bible and read about Daniel, Nehemiah, Esther, John the

30:30 Baptist, et cetera, and go, really, man, we ought to avoid politics and speak in politicians. I don't

30:35 know how you can do it. I don't know how you can do it. And then church history, like listen, man,

30:40 this I didn't get have time to get this into the sermon. I have a two volume. I listened to,

30:44 I mentioned I cited him in the sermon. I listened to Gary Hamrick's sermon in preparation for my

30:51 sermon. I cited him in my message. He pulled out this two volume set that I bought because I wanted

30:58 to read some examples. It's the political sermons of the pastors during the Revolutionary War.

31:03 And that sent me on just a little. I'm interested and I started a little study on bro. This is like

31:07 for all of church history, pastors have been speaking directly into these things, particularly the

31:12 Protestant Reformers, which in some ways through the Scottish Presbyterians led to the founding of

31:19 our nation. So anyway, that's a very long answer. The Bible, church history, and logic just lead to

31:26 the conclusion that it's part of the role of the church and pastors. Well, every person that has

31:31 claimed every Christian that's claiming, Hey, the church can shouldn't get political and even

31:34 colloquially in culture, we understand Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It's like, what was that,

31:38 if not civil disobedience? It wasn't just that, but it certainly was that. But I mean, early on,

31:43 you have a quote in that sermon, the church is not getting more political politics is getting more

31:47 theological. And so let's, let's elucidate that. Let's kind of tease that out. And again, guys,

31:52 that the, you know, the sermons in the show notes, you should go listen to the whole thing,

31:55 maybe pause this, go listen to that, and then come back here. So we'll give you the behind the

31:58 scenes of it and everything. But that, that is the truth of the matter, that politics is trying to

32:04 give us what a secularism can't bring secularism can't bring heaven down. But it's trying to,

32:12 it's trying to, you know, why is social justice a thing? Because these people don't believe in

32:16 cosmic justice. They don't believe that there will be a day where it's as if no tier has ever

32:19 been shed and that there will be a new heavens and a new earth and that every wrong will be

32:23 righted. They don't believe in that. So they believe we're highly evolved chimps that talk to

32:27 each other and occasionally commit war and genocide against one another. And so if that's the case,

32:31 we got to get everything done on this side of, you know, not glory, but the side of death. So

32:36 how is politics getting more theological and what's impacted that having?

32:40 Yeah. So here's to ever, if you get a chance, another guy you should go listen to is he got

32:43 in pastor Josh McPherson. He passed his great city church up in Wenatchee, Washington.

32:47 I actually got that concept from he's a very good friend of mine. He gave that to me in a

32:50 conversation and I again, excited about the message. But the, the quote that he gave is,

32:56 actually, let me back up. Okay. So if we just do a little theology of institutions, we already

33:01 mentioned Abraham Kuiper's spheres. He's got this whole deal of sphere sovereignty. That's,

33:04 we don't need to get into that. But if you go ahead, man, there's these three institutions

33:08 got us established, the family, the church and the state. Imagine there's a three lane highway,

33:12 what you really have is the family is this tiny little thing. It's in a little key of soul,

33:15 whatever it is, tiny, tiny little thing. Then you've got the church, it's more like a party bus,

33:19 a little bigger, a little bigger. And then you got the state, that's the third institution,

33:22 Romans 13 says that quote, God has established. So God established all three of these institutions.

33:28 The government, the state would be like a massive, you know, you know, massive 18-wheeler.

33:35 So here's what happens. When each of those institutions stays in its lane and does its God-given role,

33:43 families flourish, churches flourish, societies flourish, everything goes awesome.

33:47 But what's happening right now, it really bothers me. I started notice it, I particularly started

33:52 to notice it in 2019 is people started accusing pastors of getting political. And so here,

33:59 let's go back to the analogy. That's not what's happening. The church isn't getting more political,

34:05 politics are getting more theological. When the government move past things like building roads,

34:09 issuing driver's licenses and teaching math to things like redefining marriage, erasing gender,

34:15 reframing infant murder, as reproductive rights, and then using the government school system to

34:20 indoctrinate everybody's kids into believing those things. Hey guys, the church didn't move,

34:24 politics did. So what's happening now is that whenever the 18-wheeler won't stay in its lane,

34:29 the 18-wheeler of the state, who the, by the way, and this is, you know, whenever what a secular

34:35 society does, John Tyson, bro, this, this is fire right here. John Tyson says that what secularism

34:41 attempts is a reverse exorcism. Secularism tries to go through society and anywhere it finds God,

34:48 it says come out in humanity's name. So here's what happens. Whenever you remove God,

34:57 government wants to become God. And now we need to be omniscient. We need to be omnipotent.

35:03 We need to decide right and wrong. So as we attempt this secularism project, which is, you know,

35:09 it's a, it's, it's trying to build with no foundation, trying to build a building with no

35:12 foundation. As the government try, you remove God, government tries to become God. Now what happens

35:18 is the government starts veering into the, into the church lane. We, we're going to decide what

35:24 marriage is. We're going to decide morals about when life does and does not begin or does and does

35:30 not matter. In some instances, I talk about this in my sermon, the, the state is literally not just

35:37 redefining what a family is, but it's actually starting to insert itself in between parents and

35:44 children. Right. So whenever that happens, bro, you know, if you're getting in my lane on the highway,

35:50 my job is I might need to dust your bumper or I may need to put you in the ditch. And what's

35:55 happening right now is as the government is trying to, again, church can get more political,

36:00 politics is get more theological as the government veers over into lanes that are not theirs.

36:04 What needs to happen is pulpits, pulpits, dusting up some bumpers and going, Hey, bro, get back in

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37:44 to get 10% off your order. And a lot of people think that that's not the church's role. Because

37:49 again, they've been lulled to sleep. But there was a recent article New York Times put out that

37:53 was looking at some data saying for like the first time in modern American history, the younger men

37:59 are more religious than the younger women are. And so Gen Z men and boys are flocking back to

38:05 churches and voting conservatively. And Gen Z women are leaving the churches and voting more

38:10 liberally. And it's kind of what you said when there's a vacuum left by something,

38:15 usually something nefarious will try to fill the vacuum. And so now for a lot of these ladies

38:19 that are aging and they they bought the Third Way feminist lie, which is like, hey, you can do

38:24 anything that a man can do like all the way across the board. And let's establish that corner office

38:29 before we even think about settling down with a man and a family and all the while devaluing the

38:33 man. But then it's like the government is daddy at that point. And so government is daddy or sugar

38:40 daddy. And then at some point the rug is pulled out from underneath them. It might be too late

38:44 for them to have biological children. It might be too late for them to find, you know, a mate

38:50 suitable for them. I'll just leave it at that because it could get more offensive the more I

38:53 elucidate that. But ultimately you have a lot of people that have bought the lie because again,

38:58 first way feminism was suffrage. Second way feminism was sexual revolution. Third way feminism

39:03 was women are actually better than men in fourth way feminism. We can't exactly figure it out,

39:08 but you just have to ask one question. What is a woman and then everything the fireworks start

39:12 going off? And so that's what happens, especially when the church advocates their position within

39:17 culture or accepts their position as being downstream from culture. Now there was one part of the

39:22 sermon Josh that I do have to quibble with because I'm not here just to give compliments. I'm ready.

39:27 You left a name out. Okay, you said from the beginning that you weren't going to endorse a candidate.

39:34 But then if you listen with even a partially functioning brain to the arguments that you're

39:40 making hush, let me let me set it up. But you elucidate your positions. It becomes clear to

39:48 everybody with a functioning prefrontal cortex. Who you say that people should be voting for as

39:54 opposed to voting for someone else. But there was a name that wasn't in there. And it was just the

39:59 name Trump. So say it with me one, two, three Trump. Okay, so we did it. I the name wasn't the

40:08 sermon. It was just later in the sermon. I know. But it was just like at the beginning,

40:11 you're like, I'm not going to endorse anyone. So I say all that somewhat tongue in cheek.

40:15 I understand the difference because Joby actually helped me learn this. He goes, Kyle,

40:20 I'm a shepherd. You're a prophet, right? Not like I can tell the future. But he's like, look,

40:24 I have to shepherd a flock of people in my local area. And I'm going to have to give an account,

40:29 you know, according to Hebrews, I'm going to have to give an account someday for how I've

40:32 shepherded this flock. You don't. So you can pull the pin on as many grenades as you want and throw

40:38 those grenades into culture or into government, not literally guys, not literally. We're not talking

40:42 about firebombing the actual government. But it's like figuratively speaking, you get to throw

40:46 these truth bombs and these truth grenades into culture and to stir things up. Like that's your

40:51 role. But I do wonder why pastors are so gun shy about saying, Hey, by the way, if you vote for

40:58 Kamala Harris in this administration, you're voting for the murder of image bearers of Christ,

41:03 and you can't do that. And if I might even call it sin, so you seem like you went there, but you

41:08 didn't go all the way there. So what say you? I'll say a few things on that. So one, I think there

41:13 is a difference between me giving you biblical principles that lead to a conclusion and me just

41:18 cutting straight to the conclusion. Fair. Honestly, I with full integrity, I feel like what I did in

41:25 that message is I gave biblical principles. If those lead you to a conclusion and you don't like

41:29 the conclusion, that's your problem, not mine. That's what I would say to that to. I think here's

41:35 here's personal opinion. I think it is I personally think it is unwise right now in our current

41:42 socio economic setting. I currently think it's unwise for pastors to by name unequivocally endorse

41:50 a candidate. The reason I say that is because if you do that, and I'm not talking about the Johnson

41:54 Amendment, I'm not talking about the realities. I'm not talking about that. Johnson, by the way,

41:58 I think the Johnson Amendment will get overturned soon. That'd be nice. Yeah, it needs to happen.

42:04 I think it will happen because it doesn't matter what you say. What people hear if you endorse

42:11 a candidate is you condoning everything that person has done is doing or will do.

42:18 Well, those people are also morons, Josh. And so why in the world are we like worried about

42:22 people drawing all those conclusions? Yep. Well, I am because I'm a shepherd. And I was,

42:27 and I think I have biblical warrant for this. There is a reason that Jesus said to his disciples

42:32 that people followed him. I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

42:37 So sometimes what a shepherd has to do is they have to go. They have to go man. What

42:43 are my people ready to hear? How can I package what they need to hear inside of what they're

42:50 ready to hear? And then also you get away that out with wisdom principles. I have no idea what

42:57 either of these candidates are going, if either of them gets an office, gets an office, I have no

43:03 idea what 90 degree right turns or 180. You see what I'm saying? They could go the exact opposite

43:10 direction of where I think they're going. So I personally think it's unwise to just outright

43:15 endorse a candidate for that reason. Okay, fair enough. Well, we do need to get into, so the title is

43:20 how to vote like Jesus, implicit in the titles that Jesus would vote, but you don't just assume

43:27 that that's the first major question that you ask in the sermon is would Jesus vote? And I got to be

43:31 honest, for somebody that just sits and marinates in thought experiments all the time like this,

43:36 and never even like occurred to me like good old Jesus, like bebop and up to a ballot box or

43:41 something like that. But I guess just generically, and I do want to get into some specifics that you

43:46 made underneath the, you know, that first question. So I guess we can say 30,000 feet with this, but

43:52 would Jesus vote? Yeah, I absolutely think the answer to this question is yes. I'm trying to pull

43:58 up a quote real quick here, but I don't know if I'm going to find it. I think the answer to this

44:02 question is yes. The reason I would say this is again, let's go back to I think with a Bible in

44:06 our hands, some logic in our heads, the spirit in our heart, we can we can get to the answer this.

44:10 All right. So Kyle, I'll ask you this question. There's three institutions that God has established,

44:15 family, church, and state. Kyle, if Jesus had was the husband of a family, would he lead his family?

44:21 Of course he would. If Jesus was the pastor of a local church, would he lead his church?

44:27 Of course. If Jesus was the leader of a nation, God had put him in that role, would he lead that

44:34 nation or would he abdicate his responsibility? He would lead it perfectly. Okay, in a constitutional

44:39 republic, the voters, we're doing a little civics lesson right here. For all of our listeners,

44:44 I hope you understand this. We are not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic.

44:48 Amen. Amen. That is very, very, very important. Okay. In a constitutional republic,

44:54 Kyle, I want you to finish this sentence for me. In a constitutional republic,

44:57 the elected officials are representative representatives of the people. In a constitutional

45:03 republic's org chart, the voters, the people are at the top of the org chart. So listen,

45:11 you may not like it, but if you're an American citizen with voting rights,

45:14 God has, according to Romans 13, established this government and he has put you, not only the

45:23 government, the Bible says that he's established the leaders of the governments is what the Bible

45:27 says. He's appointed them. So God has established this government and put you as a voter in a

45:34 leadership position at the top of the org chart of this constitutional republic. So in the same way,

45:40 that it would be wrong for a husband to abdicate leadership of his family and wrong for a pastor

45:47 to abdicate leadership of his church. I think I'm not saying didn't listen, I don't want to

45:52 bind a conscience, that kind of thing. But I would say in general, under normal, normal circumstances,

45:58 it is wrong for Christians to collectively not vote and abdicate the leadership position they

46:06 have been put in in a constitutional republic. I'll take it a layer deeper. When Jesus says,

46:11 you are the salt of the earth. The purpose of salt is to be a preservative that slows decay.

46:17 Honestly, bro, like think about this, this is mine. This literally mind blowing to me.

46:21 The stats are right now. Barna study came out like a week and a half ago. There's an estimated 32

46:27 million Christians that are planning on not voting in the upcoming presidential election.

46:31 The last presidential election was decided by a strategically placed 42,000 votes. So I'm going

46:40 to say that one more time so that our listeners can let that sink in. There are an estimated 32

46:47 million Christians who are planning on not voting in this presidential election. The last presidential

46:53 election was decided by a strategically placed 42,000 votes. I think that collectively, I'm not

47:01 saying every individual is guilty of sin before God for every individual instance when they didn't

47:06 but collectively, I think it is wrong. And I would even go so far as to say, I think I'd say it's a

47:12 sin. It's a sin for Christians collectively to withhold their ability to slow societal decay

47:21 and stem the rising tide of evil, evil and suffering. Yep, I think that's wrong.

47:29 And I don't apologize for thinking that's wrong one along with that. My buddy John Cooper would

47:35 say this and has said this before. It's like the Republicans are going to take us to hell too.

47:40 They're just going to get the hell a lot slower than the Democrats will. It's like the Democrats

47:45 are on the express a train head in that direction, whereas Republicans are still riding around in

47:50 a Model T. But there's a couple of questions underneath that point, Josh, that had I eight years

47:56 ago at this time, so this would have been before the 2016 like that whole thing, I would have voted

48:03 differently because back then I did not think that Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton met my basic

48:10 standards of human decency or conservatism. I didn't think that I obviously Hillary Clinton was not

48:14 going to govern conservatively, but I wasn't convinced that Donald Trump would either.

48:19 And I was wrong. He conservative. He was very conservative in a lot of areas, specifically the

48:23 area that's most important to me. And that's the area of life. And then you get Kavanaugh,

48:26 Gorsuch and Coney Barrett. And then we got Roe v. Wade being overturned, right? We still have

48:30 a mess there and they've made it an even worse mess in the lead up to this election.

48:35 But back then, I was just wanting to acknowledge that. Yes, they have.

48:38 Yeah, they haven't. Don't worry. We'll get there. We'll talk more about that for sure.

48:41 But at the time, I was like, I wish that Oklahoma had the right inability because I was going to

48:47 write in Senator Langford from the state of Oklahoma. I was going to write him in as my candidate,

48:51 right? But you would say, and you kind of did say in the sermon, that's the that the ballot box

48:57 is not a mailbox, right? There's no point in sending the message if no one is reading it. So

49:02 people that love Ron DeSantis, me included, if you write in a vote for Ron DeSantis,

49:06 you're not sending the message that you think you do because the ballot box is not a mailbox,

49:11 but also your vote is not a valentine, right? Just because you're voting for someone does not mean

49:17 that you support everything they've ever said and like everything that they do. So talk a little bit

49:21 about the ballot box not being a mailbox and a vote not being a valentine.

49:24 Yeah. So, you know, and, you know, these are little preacher phrases people have batted around

49:30 before. So vote, but it's not valentine. So Kyle, you know, like you're in middle school and you're

49:34 trying to figure out who you're going to give your valentine to. You're looking around the class,

49:37 you're like, Oh my goodness. She's so cool and cute and funny. And you didn't talk like that,

49:43 you know, but of course not. No, that's right. But then it's like, you know, eventually you're

49:47 like, Oh my goodness, you know, hard eyes emoji. And you're like, Oh, I just, you know, and you

49:51 love their personality. So you give me your valentine. A lot of, and dude, I'll just gently say this.

49:57 And I hope everybody hears my heart. I'm not trying to be a jerk. A lot of immature Christians vote

50:01 like that. They do. And so what I mean is, you know, we have a, we actually a specific verse for this

50:09 in the book of 1 Samuel, when God's choosing a political leader says, Hey, don't look at their

50:13 outward appearance. Don't do that. Like we literally have a command. Don't look at the outward appearance.

50:18 So what that means is, you know, we don't, we don't mature Christians don't choose who to vote for

50:23 based on vibes. How do they make me feel? Yeah, you know, he has the same skin color as me.

50:30 She'd be the first woman president. We don't do that because a vote is not a valentine, you know,

50:37 and then if you go, Hey, a ballot box is not what I would say. This is a little, little line is we

50:43 don't, we don't want to vote for who we like most. We want to vote for who would lead best,

50:47 like let's be mature people with settled hearts and convictions. A ballot box is not a mailbox

50:52 for you to send a message. So and dude, I get this. Let me just say this in 2016. That's what I did.

50:58 So, you know, I did a third party write in for the exact same reasons that you were inclined to do

51:05 that. I think a lot of mature Christians right now, they're looking at these candidates and like,

51:10 dude, I see deep flaws. Any Christian with their eyes open, right, ought to be looking at these

51:16 candidates and going, I see deep flaws in both candidates that I'm looking at right now. And

51:21 so there's a lot of Christians that are going, Hey, man, I'm just not going to vote. Or I'm

51:26 going to write in the third party because I'm going to send a message. And my point to that is,

51:29 Hey, man, there's no point in sending a message if nobody's going to read it. The only message

51:33 people read on election day is who won. That's it. That's the only point. That's the only message

51:40 people read on on election day. So, you know, when it gets to now, do you want me to get into,

51:45 into a selections, not a sacrament? You were kind of going there. That was my third thing.

51:50 Yeah, go ahead and hit that one. So the other thing that we talked about is, Hey, a selection is

51:54 not a sacrament. And this is the one that I actually like, I sympathize with Christians who feel this,

52:00 because obviously a sacrament, that's a big churchy word for religious ritual, like communion,

52:05 baptism or marriage, where it's really important not to allow any impurity. Don't let any impurity

52:12 into those things. Okay. And a lot of Christians, what they're doing is they're looking at these

52:16 candidates and like do deeply flawed candidates and like, Oh, but if I vote for them, then it's

52:21 almost like if I'm voting for a sinful candidate, they're genuine conscience. A lot of times these

52:26 are very conscientious people of high conviction, high moral, you know, values. And they're going,

52:32 Ah, I'm mixing my vote with impurity. And that would just be wrong. Okay. And what I would say is

52:37 that is to misunderstand what a vote is a selection is not a sacrament. Let's go back to what we said

52:43 earlier in the sermon of the Mount Jesus said that you are the salt of the earth. The purpose of salt

52:47 is to slow decay. So what that means is that when Christians are voting, they should not be asking.

52:54 This is important. They should not be asking which candidate is free from flaws. And what people

52:59 love to do right here is they love to throw out that Charles Spurgeon quote of the lesser of the

53:04 lesser of two evil of two evils choose neither. That is not at all what Charles Spurgeon was taught.

53:08 Go Google that quote. That's not at all what Charles Spurgeon was talking about. And I would

53:11 point this out. Guys, we have never voted for anybody but sinners. There has never been an

53:16 election ever that was not a choice between two evils of some kind. So what I would say here is

53:22 it's to misunderstand what a vote is. You're the salt of the earth. The purpose of salt is to slow

53:27 decay. So when a Christian's trying to figure out who to vote for, they're not asking who's free

53:33 from flaws. They should be asking whose policies are most likely to slow societal decay. That's

53:43 our question. So this is what we were driving at in that section segment of the sermon.

53:48 Yeah. And we'll get to you brought up five specific policy positions that we'll get to in just a

53:52 second. But before you did that in the sermon, excuse me, you talked about three kinds of leaders,

53:58 which I think Crescendo is with a particular point that I want you to elucidate. But you

54:01 talked about Josiah leaders. So those are righteous people who promote righteous things,

54:06 kind of easy to think that through. Then you have Ahab and Jezebel leaders. So these are unrighteous

54:11 people who promote and celebrate wicked things. So Ahab was a beta male and Jezebel was like,

54:16 you know, had honey dripping from her lips. And so they were just unrighteous people that were

54:20 celebrating wicked and unrighteous things. And then you have J who leaders, which are flawed

54:24 people that are used for good things. But then you also said, I'm assuming I'm going slow enough

54:29 for everyone to pick up on this. If not, go rewind rewind and then listen to it again. And now that

54:33 we're back, don't treat a J who like a just Josiah. Okay, don't treat a flawed person that's used

54:39 for good things. Like they are a righteous person who promotes righteous things. All of this Crescendo

54:44 is on the person of Donald Trump, because people have said, Hey, God can draw a straight line with

54:50 a crooked stick. And they originally were talking about Moses. And then now they apply that same

54:54 quote to someone like Donald Trump, because of the things that he did in the four years that he

54:57 was in law in office from 2017 until 2020. But there is a Trump worship right now, Josh,

55:05 that is happening in some segments of Christian churches, certainly some segments of conservatism,

55:11 the maga movement, those types of things. I remember after he was shot in the ear on a couple of hours

55:18 later, I saw a picture of a depiction of Jesus, you know, this white guy looking Jesus with a bandage

55:24 on his ear with an American flag in the background. And I posted and I was like, no, no, no, no, no,

55:30 we're not doing this. And dumb dums that didn't read my caption thought that I was pro that it's

55:36 like morons read what I said. I literally said this is stupid without plastering. This is stupid on

55:42 top of the image, which would have distracted away from the image, which was the point. But the thing

55:46 that I have that's a problem is there are a lot of people that think Trump is our savior. They know

55:51 Jesus is our savior as it pertains to the propitiation of our sin debt. But they think Trump is going to

55:57 be the one that basically brings heaven down. Help these people. Well, let me say a couple things.

56:03 So I saw you post that. And I'm kind of like a I can sometimes in my spare time, I can be an

56:09 internet nerd. Did you did anybody ever tell you that that image that you posted was an AI generated

56:16 image that it was actually a progressive account created it to try to generate the narrative that

56:23 Christians worship Trump? I didn't know that. But that is not the least bit surprising.

56:28 It was a progressive account from what I understand. It was a progressive account that generated that

56:33 image to try to to try to create the narrative online. See all these Christians think Trump is

56:40 Jesus. And it wasn't actually a dude that thinks Trump is Jesus. I just thought that was interesting.

56:46 That's a little internet side note. All right, there you go. There you go. Yeah, man. I mean,

56:50 obviously, listen, listen, if you're a listener and you love, you know, Donald Trump, I understand,

56:57 you know, I'll just be very, you know, I'll just be very straightforward. Yep.

57:01 We're talking about a J who type leader. If I look back at his first, his first term,

57:06 I'd go, yeah, man, that's kind of what happened. Like, dude, flawed dude. I was, I'll just be honest.

57:12 I didn't trust that guy as far as I could throw him when he walked in the first time. What I

57:17 honestly do, what I thought he was going to do is he would, he would make all these promises,

57:22 walk in office and then do literally the exact opposite. I was like, no way. He's not going to do

57:27 any of that stuff. And, and then that guy walked in appointed three pro life Supreme Court justices.

57:34 And I just want to do it. I'm just going to point this out. That will not just affect my life.

57:38 That will affect my children's lives, right? And potentially as long as they live, my children's

57:44 children's lives. So like, I'm kind of like, thank you, man. Like, thank you. And, you know,

57:52 but anybody with their eyes open is looking at and going, okay, man, we're on a, I think third wife,

57:56 we are an open, an open past adulterer, just some of the comments like, not awesome, dude.

58:05 Like, not, not awesome. So yeah, what, what I said in my church is him and do not treat a J

58:11 who like a Josiah do not ignore imperfections. I almost said, do not idolize imperfections.

58:19 Maybe, I'm sure there are some people that do that. So yeah, man, we just, we can't do that.

58:25 Whoever you idolize, you're eventually going demonize. And it just doesn't work, man. We got

58:29 one, we got one Jesus. Well, and I tell people all the time, man, I'm like, please don't put

58:34 your faith in dudes. Don't put your faith in me. Don't put your faith in your favorite pastor,

58:38 your favorite celebrity, your favorite politician, your favorite anybody, because again, monies and

58:43 honeys is coming for a lot of those guys. And so think about the people that got saved at an RZIM

58:48 event. And then posthumously, we find out that allegedly Robbie Zacharias was a sexual deviant.

58:54 And now you're questioning your faith because you accepted Christ after being convinced of

58:59 something by Robbie Zacharias, which again, you know, it's the Holy Spirit that saves people,

59:03 not individual apologists. But just think about the people that now have that internal

59:06 consternation. You want to hop back in? I just want to. So, um, and I do, I would love to not

59:12 go into into names. Uh, that that would be my request. Well, you're not saying I'm I am.

59:16 Yeah, that's great. Um, it was, I used to have a folder on my desktop titled Fallen Pastors.

59:25 And I started it when I was like, I don't know. I was, I was probably like 25.

59:32 And, um, I did it after my time in the ward one morning was on that verse that says, um,

59:38 if an elder who persists in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all so that the rest may stand

59:43 in fear. And I put that folder on my desktop. And every time there was a, um, a confirmed,

59:51 and I want to emphasize that word, a confirmed, um, moral failure that resulted in somebody's,

59:59 you know, removal for ministry. Um, I would save an article about it. I would put it in that folder.

1:00:05 And then I had a little iPhone reminder to like, I think it was once every three months just to go

1:00:11 look at the folder. And honestly, I did it because I was like, man, Lord, I want to finish well. Like,

1:00:17 I really want to finish well. And I, because of that verse, I was going, I want to stand in a

1:00:23 Holy fear that that could be me tomorrow, but for the grace of grace come. And honestly, dude,

1:00:31 the folder got large enough that eventually I had a counselor just telling me like, Hey, Josh,

1:00:38 like, um, don't do that. Like, like, man, like, that's not doing good things to you. You're not,

1:00:46 you know, it was, I can't go into this. It was a guy that knew a lot of those guys and was very

1:00:50 personally connected to a lot of those guys. And he was like, man, you're, you're not like that.

1:00:53 And that that's not to say that I'm above the ability to veer off into carnality.

1:00:59 But his point was, yeah, that's actually like not doing something great for you.

1:01:03 And then this guy said this and I'll never forget it. It kind of marked me. He said, Josh,

1:01:08 over the course of your life, what you're going to learn is that everyone, but Jesus will fail you.

1:01:14 And honestly, man, like I needed to hear that. There, there's a, what I've kind of learned, man,

1:01:20 is it like there's a Christian maturation point when that sinks down into your soul and you embrace

1:01:28 it. And there's almost like, dude, for me, there's almost like a little grieving process

1:01:32 that I had to go through to like accept that truth. Like, oh, like, I will probably live long

1:01:39 enough to see every one of my heroes sin and fall. But then there's also, dude, you know this,

1:01:46 because you're a disciple too. There's a hope in it because hey, everyone, but Jesus will fail you.

1:01:53 And man, just to everybody that's listening, like there is a rising tide. I don't care what

1:02:00 anybody says, cancel me all you want. There is a rising tide of evil in our nation that you have

1:02:09 to have a willful blindness, not to be aware of. That is a fact. God may use a very flawed dude

1:02:18 to stem that tide or to break the spine of some of it. But don't you dare think that that guy

1:02:25 is free from flaws or some kind of like walk in savior, because listen to me, everyone you

1:02:32 idolize, you will eventually demonize because everyone will fail you, but Jesus. And so not,

1:02:39 hey, when I would say this as well, this is where pessimism and becomes a superpower. I know my

1:02:45 pessimism causes some issues. But here's the thing, Josh, I assume that people are not going to do

1:02:51 what they say they're going to do. I assume that people are not going to live up to the standards

1:02:55 they've set for themselves. So when it's group project time in college, and they're all supposed

1:03:00 to have, you know, their portion of the writing into me by five o'clock on Friday, I'm assuming

1:03:04 all these dingbats are not going to get it to me by five o'clock on Friday. So if they don't,

1:03:09 I get to be right. And if they do, I get to be pleasantly surprised. And so that's how I view

1:03:13 people as well, even the people that I love and the people that I really, really trust.

1:03:17 It's like, Hey, man, at some point, I'm assuming you're just going to be a jack wagon and do the

1:03:21 wrong thing. And so it's just, it kind of helps me to where that blow doesn't land like a knockout

1:03:27 blow to my chin. So, but towards the end, we're running a little bit short on time. So we're not

1:03:31 going to be able to get to all five of them. But you did discuss very quickly different policy

1:03:35 things. So you went into border security, religious liberty, biological sex, family,

1:03:41 and the subject of life. So I want to talk about the subject of life first, and then

1:03:45 we'll probably bounce back to border security. But you basically said the thing that is blatantly

1:03:49 obvious, which is no pro life candidate is currently running for president.

1:03:53 We don't have because this is what I told people. I don't care what someone believes in their heart.

1:03:58 I care how they govern. So I think that Donald Trump has always been pro abortion, has always

1:04:03 been pro choice, but he didn't legislate that way. So I could give a crap what you believe in your

1:04:08 off time. I care what you do when you're on the job and you've got the most powerful pin on the

1:04:12 planet. But then you've got full abolitionists, right, which I am, I technically agree with them.

1:04:19 I think everybody involved in an abortion should be charged and prosecuted for murder. I believe that

1:04:24 I believe that there should be equal protection under the law for babies in the womb and for human

1:04:31 beings that are not currently residing in the womb. I believe that however, full abolitionists

1:04:36 where they go wrong is they will not vote for a single candidate that doesn't believe precisely

1:04:41 the way they do on the issue without equivocation. And they will not vote for any legislation that

1:04:47 is anything short of full criminalization of the entire process and complete protection under the

1:04:52 law. And what you're doing is you're missing out on the point, which is saving image bearers of Christ.

1:04:57 But in this particular election cycle, the Trump administration has been abhorrent on this.

1:05:02 They've tried to moderate to grab the votes of non existent people. These are the people that are

1:05:08 independents that are on the fence that think if a lot of Trump writes a book, which is basically

1:05:13 fully pro abortion, or if Trump signals that he's going to moderate on abortion, that they're

1:05:17 suddenly going to switch their vote from Democrat to Republican or from third party to Republican,

1:05:22 those people don't exist. They don't they certainly don't exist in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin

1:05:27 enough to flip any any of those states. And so the subject of life is so important.

1:05:32 But a lot of Christians, Jossa, you're talking to you right now, are thinking about not voting

1:05:36 because they don't like what Donald Trump has said. And what they're not considering is that look,

1:05:40 Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are signaling that they're going to be super left on abortion,

1:05:44 and they're going to legislate even further left on abortion. Whereas Donald Trump very likely is

1:05:50 signaling moderation, but will operate more conservatively. What say you?

1:05:54 I got a lot of thoughts here. So I think what I'd say a few things like, hey, man,

1:06:00 again, let me go back to the biblical principle. The purpose of salt is to slow societal decay.

1:06:06 So you should be asking the question, which candidates policies gives us the best shot

1:06:11 at slowing the murder of unborn children? I think that I think that answer is pretty dang obvious.

1:06:19 You've got you've got Kamala Harris who right now refuses to articulate even a single,

1:06:24 even a single restriction on abortion at any point in gestation in the in the nine months,

1:06:34 whatsoever. You got Trump over here who right now he's going, you know, hey, rape, incest,

1:06:39 life of the mother, kind of the Reagan, he's he's going, he's kind of going the Reagan route.

1:06:43 But then he's also saying, Hey, man, I think what did he say? He said like, he's going like,

1:06:47 anything under 15 weeks is I can't remember the specific band that he's talking about,

1:06:52 which I said this honestly, dude, that didn't mean a ton because the CDC says 95% of abortions

1:06:57 happen in the first 15 weeks. So here's a little bit of my logic is may get me in trouble. I'll

1:07:02 just be really honest about a few things. There's one thing I may or may not say, well, I'll say

1:07:06 it at the end, figure out if I'm gonna say it. Say it. Yeah, that's great for you. It gets you

1:07:10 licks. It gets, it gets me on blogs. You're welcome. So let me, so I think I'd say a few things.

1:07:15 Number one, if you're a Christian who hates abortion, which should be all Christians,

1:07:21 then then if you like the quite a few, if you like the abortion restrictions or limitations

1:07:30 that you have in many states around the country, if you like those, or let me say it like this,

1:07:36 if you want to lose those, it sounds like just let Kamala get in office. It's like, yeah,

1:07:41 that's what they're saying. They're going, Hey, man, we're going to get in. We're potentially

1:07:45 willing to overturn the Senate filibuster, which has been in place for 180 years,

1:07:48 just so that they can reinstate something like Roe and strike down if I'm understanding this

1:07:54 correctly and strike down states abilities to restrict abortion. Correct. So number

1:08:00 one, if you love those restrictions, hey, that's a great way to lose them. If you love what we got.

1:08:05 Number two, what I would say is who do you want to fight with? Sounds like Christians with convictions

1:08:13 are going to have a fight about abortion with somebody. If Kamala gets in office, I think what

1:08:18 you're going to have is wall to wall secular progressives who not only don't want to restrict it,

1:08:25 but view it as dude, I can't get this. I can't even get my head around this who view it as a moral

1:08:32 good to be mockingly and jokingly celebrated with banners and hashtags. Shout your abortion.

1:08:40 We have verses for this. In the book of Proverbs, God says, "All who hate me love death."

1:08:46 Every time you see a hashtag cheering the murder of an unborn child, you remember that verse,

1:08:54 all who hate me love death. So here's a question. Who do you want to fight with?

1:09:00 You want to fight with somebody who's going to have wall to wall secular progressives who think

1:09:03 it's a moral good and a quote unquote human right, like nine month old pregnancy termination is a

1:09:09 human right. Do you want to fight with them or do you want to fight with if Trump gets in office,

1:09:14 his cabinet is going to be crawling with evangelicals? It just will. That's what he does.

1:09:21 I'm grateful for it. Sometimes I don't know why he does it because he's not one of us,

1:09:24 but his cabinet will be crawling with evangelicals who do have some convictions.

1:09:30 Who would you rather fight with? I know the answer is pretty obvious for me.

1:09:33 I think those are the things that I would say. Yeah, I think Christians just really need to get

1:09:40 real and they really just need to reach down in front of their pants. Remember they got a pair

1:09:44 and it's like, "Look, man, you're going to be fine. You're going to be okay. You can vote for

1:09:49 somebody." I remember talking to a guy that's like, "Dude, I just can't have a vote for Trump

1:09:52 on my record." I was like, "What does that mean? Do you have to turn your record in at the end of

1:09:56 this class period and you're going to get some plaudits or some coupons because you voted for

1:10:01 the right people?" The quote unquote right people. It's like, "What exactly are we talking about?"

1:10:04 Let me ask you a question, Kyle. Yeah. I'm going to ask you a question. All right.

1:10:08 So I'm in a group chat with some dudes. True or false? Okay. True or false?

1:10:16 I'm trying to slide if I should do this. I'm going to do it. Yeah. True or false? Republicans

1:10:24 should conservative. Let me say it this way. Conservatives should do with abortion what

1:10:29 progressives did with gay marriage. Here's what I mean. For decades leading up to the legalization

1:10:36 of gay marriage, progressives said in order to win elections, they said, "Oh, we believe marriage

1:10:44 between men and women." I mean, like literally Barack Obama runs on, "We believe marriage

1:10:47 to men and women." Are y'all crazy? Y'all are crazy. Y'all are crazy. You're insane thinking we

1:10:53 want to mess with this. We believe marriage between men and women. They said what they needed to say

1:10:58 to win elections and then as soon as they had the chance to do it, they were like, "Bam, they did it."

1:11:03 True or false? Conservatives should do with abortion what progressives did with gay marriage and say

1:11:08 whatever they got to say to win elections and then when they to get themselves in a position to be

1:11:14 able to do the just thing. I'm going to pull a Jesus and I'm going to answer your singular question

1:11:19 with two separate answers. True conservatives should, false Christians should because we cannot

1:11:25 sell our witness and be dishonest or manipulative because you're not going to solve that issue by

1:11:32 being sinful. But then there is also that part of me that's like, "Okay, but if I would..." I think I'm

1:11:39 going to say, "I was going to say the Hebrew midwives and what about the people that were hiding

1:11:44 Jews?" Because in that moment, I'm going to lie to the face of that SS officer. Of course not.

1:11:49 You have a biblical... You have to. Right. So I'm open to the argument. However,

1:11:55 if you're a Christian, you're probably a conservative. If you go to a church that's not a synagogue of

1:12:01 Satan and so at that point, I think that those two become hand-in-hand. And so part of me is like,

1:12:06 "Hey, anything short of sin, let's get it done." But then it's like, then you start getting into

1:12:11 just war theory and what about the Hebrew midwives and... What's the difference between righteous deception

1:12:15 and unrighteous deception? You get into all this area. Yeah, is this civil disobedience?

1:12:19 Is this telling the government to go pound sand or is this... No, you're just straight up violating

1:12:24 one of the Ten Commandments. So that's how I would knee jerk answer that question. But I do withhold

1:12:29 the right to think about it more later and change my answer. So to get back in, because I know we're

1:12:33 running short on time, I do want to talk about the border security point that you made, because this

1:12:38 is a bludgeoning point for a lot of progressives as it pertains to conservatives. They're like,

1:12:43 "Wait, aren't you supposed to be taking care of the sojourners and the wiggle their head because they

1:12:48 know a biblical word, which means the same thing as immigrant?" And yes, we are called to love

1:12:53 immigrants, as you said, but the leaders of the nation are called to uphold the law. And you are

1:12:58 called to protect your citizenry from potential dangers from within and from without of your own

1:13:05 country. And so talk to me a little bit about the biblical defense for borders, being a positive

1:13:12 thing for our leaders, being positive that they are trying to protect the populace. And the fact

1:13:18 that God really is pro boundaries and pro borders. All right. So this issue, if you're a listener,

1:13:26 lean in for a second, you need to internalize this. It's been like so Kyle, it's been like 200

1:13:34 or 250 years since North American pastors have had to develop a very sharp political theology.

1:13:43 We've kind of gotten we kind of gotten to coast off of the political theology of the of the pastors

1:13:48 that helped found the nation. So it's like we're having a wrestle with questions that we haven't

1:13:53 developed muscles for in a couple centuries as pastors. So here's what I would say is what

1:13:58 progressives tend to get wrong, particularly progressive Christians is they conflate the response of

1:14:06 the role of the individual and the role of the state. I'm going to say that one more time because

1:14:10 that's going to be a guiding principle for the next 30 seconds of what I say. Progressive Christians

1:14:15 get tend to get wrong as they conflate the role of the individual with the role of the state.

1:14:20 So for instance, careful readers of the Bible will notice that seemingly conflicting commands

1:14:25 are given to individuals and given to governments. So for instance, in Jesus for bids or he discourages

1:14:34 individual Christians from quote, living by the sword, but then in Romans 13, God commands

1:14:41 governments to quote bare the sword. For instance, Jesus consistently tells individual disciples

1:14:50 obviously to feed the hungry. But then when the New Testament addresses a church government,

1:14:56 I think it's the first Thessalonians, it says to operate by the principle, the person who will

1:15:00 not work shall not eat. It seems conflicting. Okay, and the same God that commands individual

1:15:06 Christians to quote love this or welcome the sojourner. I think that's what it is. Welcome the sojourner.

1:15:12 Also blessed those same people in building a wall to protect their border in the book of Nehemiah.

1:15:19 Now, a thoughtful reader of the Bible is going to go, huh, why are there conflicting commands?

1:15:25 There aren't. There's different commands to individuals and governments because God has

1:15:33 established different roles for the individual and the state. So this is why, for instance,

1:15:38 like, dude, at Lake Point, we have an over 2000 person Lake Point in Espeniol campus. Like, dude,

1:15:45 it is, dude, it's so if you ever come, you got to go. It's the best spiritual energy in the whole

1:15:50 church. They're the most fun. They have the best food, all the things. Okay. So all that.

1:15:56 We individually are commanded by God to love every as individuals, to love every immigrant

1:16:03 that God puts in our path. And then as responsible citizens understand the role of the government,

1:16:08 we can walk into a voting booth and vote against lawlessness. Those are not conflicting things,

1:16:15 but what progressive Christians try to do is take the role of the individual and demand

1:16:20 that the state carry out the role of the individual. When actually, like I said, you've got, you've got

1:16:26 God blessing that nation building a wall to protect its borders. You've got the verse about how God

1:16:31 has, quote, established the boundaries of the nations, all the things. So that's my little 30

1:16:38 second riff. All right, very good. Well, we are running short on time, but I'm going to be selfish

1:16:43 and ask one more question because at the end of your sermon, you kind of had three rapid fire quotes

1:16:48 that kind of do lead us to a conclusion here. You talked about how people will say things like

1:16:52 politics can't save us and how your response is actually will save us from what from what? And then

1:16:59 at the end, it was, okay, politics cannot fix what politics did not break. So explain that to us.

1:17:06 So number one, you know, that's, I've got Christians have been successfully gaslit

1:17:13 into disengaging from politics for like the last 40 years in particular. And I, you know, we don't

1:17:20 have time for that in this podcast. One of the main ways is you get to all this stuff and somebody

1:17:24 just kind of throw at you. Yeah, Kyle, but politics can't save anybody. That candidates can't save

1:17:30 America. And yeah, my response to that now is from what? From what? Because can they save us from

1:17:35 hell? No, there will be people in hell who are very passionate about their Judeo-Christian values.

1:17:40 Charles Spurgeon said your morality can keep you out of jail, but it will take the blood of Jesus

1:17:44 Christ to keep you out of hell. That's like one of my favorite quotes, literally, of all time. Okay.

1:17:48 But the book of James says that our everyday decisions can either pull hell up, this is from

1:17:54 Mark Driscoll, can pull hell up into our lives or can pull heaven down into our lives. So when you

1:18:00 look at urban cores in our nation that are led by godless people and you look at their full of

1:18:06 lawlessness, looting in broad daylight, open air drug markets where people are selling drugs

1:18:12 in front of children and the police aren't even allowed to do anything about it. Rioters burning

1:18:18 buildings and nobody's allowed to even doing about it. Businesses are fleeing because of rampant

1:18:24 lawlessness. People want to get out of the states and cities. Well, what happened? Decisions got made

1:18:29 that pulled hell up. Okay. So man, can politics save us from hell? No, but they can they can save us

1:18:36 from pulling hell up into our city, states and nations. Yep, they sure can. So this stuff matters,

1:18:42 man. It matters. Now, the other thing, do you want me to get to the other thing? Let's go.

1:18:47 The other thing is what Christians must avoid is we must avoid placing primary hopes in secondary

1:18:57 solutions. We must avoid that. That has been a temptation for the church throughout all of church

1:19:04 history. We have a bible command. Do not trust in princes. Do not trust in chariots. Caesar failed

1:19:12 you. And every president that will ever exist will fail you. And ultimately, what we have to

1:19:18 understand is that you already hinted at it is that politics cannot fix what politics did not break.

1:19:26 Listen, you can talk about fix the system, fix the system, fix the system, all you want. Listen,

1:19:30 perhaps it is not the system that is primarily broken. Perhaps it is we that are broken and we

1:19:38 broken people built the systems. So broken people build systems. All right. So politics can't fix.

1:19:45 Well, politics did not break. If you have a sin problem, you need a savior solution. So listen,

1:19:50 dude, here's what this week, you go into this all I want. When a person is filled with the Holy

1:19:56 Spirit, they don't need much government. Dude, I don't need I don't need cops to tell me not to steal.

1:20:02 The Holy Spirit tells me not to steal. I don't need cops telling me not to, you know, you know,

1:20:09 I don't know, whatever it is, abuse my wife. I don't need it because I love my wife and the

1:20:14 Holy Spirit would never let me do it. So the less spirit filled the people of a nation are,

1:20:20 the more and more government that nation requires. So all this drives to what we need more than

1:20:28 anything else is a savior solution to a sin problem. We need reformation and revival for

1:20:36 the resurgence of the church. That's what we need. And if that is not your primary hope in life,

1:20:42 death, and here on earth, you got no shot. That's right. Amen and amen. Well, Josh,

1:20:48 we have miraculously gone from gingers all the way to gaslighting and we're talking about a hole.

1:20:53 You didn't ask me about killing baby Hitler, man. I'll be listening. What the what the heck,

1:20:58 man? I feel left out. No, what I'm looking at is the timer. What's funny is as I was driving to

1:21:03 the studio, I was like, I think I'm going to ask him. So here you go, jerk, here's a scenario for

1:21:08 anyone that doesn't know what it is. This is a scenario and it's very precise. Everyone tries

1:21:12 to change the scenario into something that they more so believe in. Okay. But scenario,

1:21:18 you are able to go back in time to the crib where baby Hitler lays. And guess what? If you let him

1:21:27 live, history works out exactly as it did. The Holocaust happens, World War II happens literally,

1:21:34 you know, everything that happened in the 20th century, that is an offshoot of the evil of

1:21:39 Hitler and the rise of the Third Reich and the Nazi party happens. Do you have a moral obligation

1:21:46 to kill baby Hitler? And just so you know, for everybody scoring this at home,

1:21:50 Joby Martin can't bring himself to say that because he's like, well, no, and he likes to

1:21:54 change the scenario. But Joby Martin is pro Hitler, I guess is, you know, that's going to get clipped

1:21:59 later. Matt Chandler, I'm going to defend him. Joby Martin's not a pro hiller. But Matt Chandler

1:22:04 said immediately, yeah, I'm killing that baby. And I'm, I'm saying, yeah, I'm killing that baby.

1:22:09 I'm going to do it with a smile on my face. So currently it is two to one kill the baby.

1:22:14 Josh, where are you at? Or are we taking it to three to one? Are you even in the score here?

1:22:18 With no hesitation. With no head out of here for this. Listen, for the same reason, I'd go two

1:22:26 in the chest, one in the face on a dude that pull a pull the AR 15 on a concert crowd. If I saw that

1:22:32 happen, of course, of course. I hear the thing is the scenario highlighted out because even my own

1:22:40 guys internally are like, I wasn't really cool with that. I'm like, yeah, that's why I asked it.

1:22:44 Like this, this is one of those things to where it's like the utilitarian thing that they ask you

1:22:48 and you know, not I always almost said physics, but it's like sociology 101 or these different

1:22:53 things where it's like, okay, are you going to pull the train over to this track and kill one person

1:22:58 or are let everybody on the train tracks go this way and then everyone dies, right? Who do you get

1:23:03 to choose? And the utilitarian point of view is obviously like, yeah, kill the one person, save

1:23:07 everybody else. And then people were like, well, didn't Jesus, you know, leave the 99 to go for

1:23:12 the one? I'm like, this isn't the same thing, dad, gummit. Like, and again, it's, it's my scenario.

1:23:16 So you can't change my scenario. Given the parameters that, no, you can't disciple

1:23:21 Adolf Hitler, you can't take him away from his family of origin. You can't do all those things.

1:23:25 You get zip zapped back in time and you got a sledgehammer and then you're about to get zipped

1:23:29 zapped right back to where you are today and everything's different. Now, one guy did say

1:23:33 something. I don't agree with it at all, but I understood where he was going. He said, well, Kyle,

1:23:38 what if you kill baby Hitler and somebody worse comes up? And I'm like, okay, so this person's going

1:23:44 to kill 6.5 million Jews as opposed to 6 million Jews. This person's going to lead to a war that

1:23:51 led to the deaths of tens of millions of people in the 20th century. It's like, I think I'm going

1:23:56 to take my chances here that getting rid of baby Hitler is probably going to lead to some benefits

1:24:01 for society. What do you think? He gone. Yeah, he's out of here. The same thing like with that,

1:24:07 with the analogy of, oh, what if somebody rises up to kills even more people?

1:24:12 So again, the analogy is you're at a concert. You see some dude pull out his, you know,

1:24:17 his AR 15 and he's getting ready to unload on the crowd. You are morally obligated if you are a

1:24:23 firearm carrying man to put that dude down. It's the exact same thing. If somebody said, yeah, Josh,

1:24:29 but what if you kill him and somebody who would have killed even more people was in the crowd?

1:24:35 Right. No way. No way. Yeah. It's a thought experiment that once you go past the univariate side of it,

1:24:42 it kind of starts to fall apart. Well, I was trying to in the interview here, but here you are making

1:24:46 the ask you additional questions. So are there any other questions I was supposed to ask you?

1:24:51 Does your staff have anything else they'd like me to ask you? No, dude. No, we're good. I've

1:24:54 gotten enough trouble in the last hour. So there's nothing else you want to get off your chest?

1:24:59 I'm good, man. Okay, Josh. I appreciate you coming on. We'll talk again soon.

1:25:03 Thanks, dude. There you go. Guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Josh Howardton. But before

1:25:07 I let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at undaunted life or mission is equipping

1:25:10 men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual mental and physical resilience. So here

1:25:14 are links I got for you. I got a link to Josh's website. I've got a link to Lake Point Church's

1:25:18 website. And then a couple of ways you can watch that sermon that we spend all this time talking

1:25:21 about. So one is directly from the Lake Point website and the other is a YouTube link. So check

1:25:26 it out. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe,

1:25:30 rate and leave us a positive five star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event

1:25:34 or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@undonton.life. That's I N F O at undonton.life.

1:25:40 Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,

1:25:43 including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undonton.life.

1:25:48 And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our

1:25:52 content. The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled debut

1:25:57 album on Face Down Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.

1:26:02 Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.

1:26:08 Keep seeking the lion of Judah.

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