Transcript: AAC — 17 Apr 2026 (Q&A)

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It is the 17th of April, 2026.

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I am Corey J.

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Mahler, and this is At Any Cost.

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This is episode 25.

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I am seeing some artifacting in my video.

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So someone in the chat could let me know if the video or audio has any problems.

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That would be great.

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OBS is using 20 gigs of memory, which is suboptimal.

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So hopefully, it's not having an issue on your end, although I somewhat doubt that.

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Can anyone in the chat confirm whether or not the video and audio are fine?

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Looks fine on, great.

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Okay, so apparently it's just OBS being weird on my end, which we'll see how it goes.

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It's using 20 gigs of memory, which is fine on my system, as long as it does not continue to leak, which is what I assume it is doing.

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Anyway, this is episode 25.

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It is a Q&A episode, and I do not really have any housekeeping, so I will jump right into the questions.

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And I guess, pray that OBS does not crash on us, because it is still increasing in memory consumption, although somewhat slowly.

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So hopefully we're good.

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Question one is about the use of First Samuel.

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When I advocate for monarchy as the most coherent and God-honoring form of government, I frequently encounter resistance from Christians on the American right, who cite First Samuel 8 as a definitive refutation.

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They tend to view the establishment of the monarchy as an inherent rejection of divine authority, rather than a development within the historic order.

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What is the most effective way to engage these individuals and challenge this interpretation of the text?

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So, this is one of those that comes up all the time from people who are not particularly familiar with scripture.

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And, assuming OBS will actually let me switch windows here.

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Okay, here we go.

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We will pull up 1 Samuel 8.

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Take a look at it.

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This is, of course, where Israel chooses to have a king, or rather demands to have a king.

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And the men of Israel gathered together and came to Har Mathaim, to Samuel, and said to him, You are old, and your sons do not go in your way, and now appoint over us a king to judge us like the rest of the nations.

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And the message was evil in the eyes of Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us.

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And Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, Listen to the voice of the people in whatever they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

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According to all the deeds that they did to me from the day I brought them up out of Egypt this day, and they forsook me, and were subject to other gods.

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So also, they are doing to you.

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So, the first thing to notice here, of course, is that God clearly says that they forsook him not just by demanding a king here, but this was their course of action from Egypt going forward.

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This is something they did all along the way.

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And demanding a king is not per se forsaking God.

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That is not what's being said here.

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What is being said is that the Jews are persisting in their rejection of God.

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This is simply another step down that path.

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And one of the ways that we can know this, of course, is that if you're familiar with the Old Testament, another section that will come to mind is, of course, Deuteronomy 17.

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Now if you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you and take possession of it and live in it and you say, I will set a ruler over me like the rest of the nations that are around me, by appointing you shall appoint over you a ruler, him whom the Lord your God may choose, one of your own brothers you shall appoint as ruler over you.

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You shall not have power to appoint a strange person over you, which is to say a foreigner, because he is not your brother.

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For he shall not multiply cavalry for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to multiply cavalry for himself.

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But the Lord has said to you, you shall never add to return that way.

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And he shall not multiply wives for himself, neither shall he turn his heart away.

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Also silver and gold he shall not multiply exceedingly for himself.

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And it shall be, when he is sat upon the seat of his rule, that he shall write for himself this second law in a book from the priest, the Levites.

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And so on and so forth.

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If God is giving requirements for a king, and saying, when you desire, you appoint a ruler over yourselves, it's pretty clear that God is saying that's permissible.

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It is in fact, as we've argued elsewhere in Stone Quire, and as I've argued a number of times, the most natural system to have a monarchy.

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And so these are the requirements that God sets out.

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God setting out requirements means that it's permissible.

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God doesn't set out requirements for something that is sinful.

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And so, those who try to appeal to the section in First Samuel or First Kingdoms, as it's called in the Septuagint names of the books, doesn't matter what you call the book, that much for most of the books.

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The people who appeal to that are just cherry-picking verses going through the Old Testament and hoping that there's a condemnation of a king somewhere.

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Realistically, they probably heard it from someone else.

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They did not come up with this themselves.

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If they did, they happened to be reading through First Samuel for some reason, latched on to this and then decided to run with it.

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If they were actually familiar with scripture and knew what scripture says on monarchy and kings across all of scripture, they'd recognize that what's being condemned in First Samuel is not having a king.

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It is rejecting God and desiring to be like every other nation, because God had set them apart to achieve a certain task, and they were rejecting him.

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And that's why God says they rejected him all the way from Egypt up to now.

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And of course, they continue to do so as well.

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So again, the condemnation is not of monarchy, it's rather of the wicked Jews.

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So that's the response to that one.

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And we bring up the verse, the passage, that directly refutes what the person is trying to argue.

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Question two is about when one ceases to be a new convert, okay?

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Given that new converts are explicitly warned not to teach, when does one know that he is no longer new?

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And then the second part to the question, considering the fact that rebukeing the sins of others is a core part of the Christian life, which, correct me if I am wrong, is a form of teaching, no, it's correct, it is teaching to some degree, what should a new convert do when confronted with the sins of others, especially in view of the dire times in which we currently live?

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So, when you are no longer a new convert is going to depend on a number of factors.

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And it's not just a matter of how long in terms of, you know, days, years, whatever, you've been a convert.

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It's a matter of maturity.

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It's a matter of maturing in the faith, of being confident in your faith, knowledgeable in your faith, and having what you need in order to, in this case, teach the faith, but in order to defend the faith and do those things.

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There are some men who will never really do those things because they do not have the things that God has given as talents to other men that are necessary to do these things, to teach the faith, to defend the faith.

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And as I've mentioned many times and as the men who do it also themselves recognize, being an apologist is not the same as being a theologian and things like that.

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There are different talents God gives out to different men.

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Now, for being a new convert, I would say at the very least you're looking at you should be a convert for some number of years before you even consider taking up the mantle of an actual teacher, because certainly if you've only been a Christian for two years, you're a new convert.

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Even if you are someone who is knowledgeable, you had a background in this stuff, etc., etc.

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You should not be standing up to teach because you have not matured enough in the faith in that little time.

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Are there exceptions?

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Maybe, but I think that they are such outliers, they aren't even really worth considering, and those men are certainly going to know.

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Now, the second part of the question, which is perhaps the more interesting because it's more applicable to us today, what do you do with regard to rebukeing those who are in sin, right?

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Because we have a duty to rebuke our brother, right?

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If you see your brother falling into sin, you have a duty to tell him, what you're doing is sinful, you need to stop.

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This is going to...

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This is bad for you, this is bad for your soul.

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This endangers you in some way, whatever it happens to be, however grievous the sin is.

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And so, part of the answer here is going to be, how obvious is the sin, right?

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If your brother is doing something that is open and obvious in, all Christians recognize it's sin, it's plain in scripture, then certainly rebuke him, even if you're a new convert.

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Because that is something that is so obvious, there's no real wisdom call there, there's not any demand for the sorts of abilities that a teacher has in order to assess the scenario.

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So, you can think of the obvious examples, right?

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A man who's actively committing adultery, you're probably pretty safe telling him he needs to stop doing that.

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Now, a Christian prince should certainly punish him, but you as a Christian should rebuke him for that, particularly if he is holding himself out as a Christian while engaging in this particular evil.

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So, it really is going to come down to how obvious is the sin, how clear is the matter.

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If it is clear, absolutely, it is your duty to rebuke your brother, because you are trying to get him not to engage in that sinful behavior in order to save him, in order to do good to him and for him.

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And that is your duty as a Christian.

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And that is certainly going to be something that is a live issue today with a number of men who are coming back to the Christian faith or turning to the Christian faith for the first time.

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And so we have a lot of new converts around.

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We have men who are figuring out for the first time really what it means to live a Christian life.

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And you need to have your brothers along with you to do that, because if you don't, you're going to find it much more difficult.

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So don't stand yourself up as a teacher if you're a new convert, but that doesn't mean that you can't rebuke others or tell them, this is sinful, you need to stop doing this.

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That's perfectly reasonable.

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So there's a sort of a mixed answer there, because is it teaching to some degree to say, this is a sin?

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Sure, but it's not really the kind of teaching that's in view when you're looking at the passages that are saying the stricter judgment, not many of you should be teachers, and so on and so forth.

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There are levels to this, right?

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If you are a man who stands up as a bishop, and is teaching tens of thousands or millions, you're inviting a different sort of judgment from someone who privately tells his brother, hey, you shouldn't be doing this, this is sinful, particularly when it is something that is an open and shut case, again, like adultery or drug use, something like that.

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And obviously, I'm not saying all drug use, I'm saying bad kind, you know, if your brother is doing meth, you need to tell him to stop.

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Question three, and yes, I know that I've swapped two and three around in the show notes, but I will fix that after the show.

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What is a Christian man to do in the meantime if his past sins would have merited death under a righteous government?

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And then, as an example, what is the repentant abortionist supposed to do?

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Just by way of example.

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This is one of those questions that is, again, going to depend on the particular sin.

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And so the example given is sort of the extreme example, right?

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I could give one that is, I gave one already, that is close to that but not quite that level.

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Adultery is a capital crime in scripture.

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And so under a Christian government, it should be a capital crime.

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It should be something that is death penalty eligible, at least, not necessarily automatic, but eligible.

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Because a lot of times, these punishments in scripture are sort of a maximum or a recommendation, depending on what it is.

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It's not, this is required.

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With regard to murder, the death penalty is required because Genesis 9, 6 is very clear.

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So for instance, we'll just take the abortion one.

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If a Christian government were to come to power, it would be morally obligated to find and execute abortionists.

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That would be a moral requirement because that is a violation of the moral law, and it is a violation of Genesis 9, 6, and Genesis 9, 6 is abundantly clear.

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He who sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed, for man was made in the image of God.

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Doesn't allow exceptions.

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Abortion is murder.

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Murder requires, according to God's law, the death penalty.

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And so for abortionists, they have to be punished by a Christian government.

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The Christian government does not get to say, that's in the past.

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The moral law doesn't change.

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Ex post facto doesn't apply.

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Not a concern here.

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With regard to other things, right, there are a number of things that should be punished and are currently not.

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Fornication should be punished in some way.

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Now, generally speaking, the solution is a shotgun marriage, right?

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That's usually how you fix that problem.

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You sternly reprimand them, keep them apart till they're married, and tell them, you're getting married now.

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That solves the problem.

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But with regard to, say, a serial fornicator, who has now caused problems across a number of individuals in society, that person should be punished.

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Is there any practical way for a Christian government to come to power and then punish all of those men and women?

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The answer is simply no.

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Some of this is going to come down to practicality.

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Can it be done, right?

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Abortionists can certainly be punished by a future government, because they're all MDs.

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We know all their names.

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They're all in a database.

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So the government can just go, did you perform abortion procedures or look at the history and say, you charged insurance for X number of abortion procedures, get in the cage.

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That's something that can be done.

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There are things that cannot be punished practically because you cannot identify them.

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And also, as a purely practical matter, you would, not even really purely practical, there's a moral aspect as well, you would cause greater chaos and destruction in society, trying to seek out and punish each of these crimes, instead of granting a sort of amnesty and saying, going forward, things are going to change.

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Wicked men used to rule, they were in charge, they did not do things in line with God's law and God's desires, we are going to change that.

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We are going to fix these problems going forward.

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I think that has to be what we would do, simply because of the fact that you can't just have complete chaos and destruction of society, even if you think what you're trying to do is strictly follow the moral law.

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There are things where you cannot grant leeway, right?

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Murder must be punished with the death penalty.

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But there are things where you can grant some sort of clemency, and I think that will have to be done.

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So if the question is, what should the abortionist do?

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He should demand that the government punish him, because that's the Christian response.

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Repentance is not simply, I'm sorry for what I did, right?

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It's also a recognition that you have certain obligations.

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So for instance, an obligation to try to amend harms you've caused, and you know, don't want to sound too much like AA, but they get some things right.

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For the abortionist, there is no sort of amnesty or mercy or wiping away of that, because it is a moral requirement from God, without exception, that the murderer must be punished with death.

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So a Christian convert, who was an abortionist, should tell the government, you have to execute me.

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That's required by God.

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He can't say, oh, I repented, I'm no longer that man, I'm...

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No, that's not how it works.

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Your sins are forgiven, you will be with God in paradise, but you still have to be punished by earthly authorities.

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You know, the best example would really be the thief on the cross, which I know people love that one for other reasons, but...

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Christ did not take him off the cross when he repented.

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He didn't say, oh, you repented, that's great, you're no longer being punishment, you're no longer being punished.

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Rather, he said, today you will be with me in paradise, which means you're still going to die.

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That's how it works.

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People mix this up all the time, and part of it's mercenary, but just because you convert to Christianity, just because you become a Christian, even if you actually amend your life and do so in an earnest way, it doesn't mean that all of those temporal consequences are erased.

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And sometimes the temporal consequences are severe, in the case of murder certainly.

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Question four is about the numbering of the commandments, and I've had this one on my list of topics to address for some time, not on the public-facing list, as it were, but on my own personal one.

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This is not an issue that is unique to the Septuagint or unique to the Masoretic text or anything like that.

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This is a general issue with which Christians have had to apple for as long as there have been Christians, as long as we've had the scriptures.

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But I'll read the question first, second at this point, I guess.

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As Lutherans, how do we deal with the difference between the Septuagint and the Small Catechism with regard to the Ninth and Tenth Commandments?

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So that's sort of a microcosm of the overall issue.

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And I'm not going to get into this too deeply because I want to address it more fully in the future, so I'm going to note that for myself here.

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And then I'll go back and add it to the show notes when I get around to doing that.

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There are some differences in the numbering.

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First of all, the Tenth Commandments are listed twice in the Old Testament, right?

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And there are some minor differences with regard to the order in which they appear.

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It's not really accurate to say numbering because they're not numbered, right?

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They are just a list of prohibitions.

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Do not do X, do not do Y, do not do Z.

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And then, of course, you also have the times where Christ or one of the authors of the New Testament lists them and says, you have heard it was said, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, or thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill.

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That order gets switched, including in the listing in the Septuagint in the Old Testament, and in Luke.

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So, I don't think that it's necessarily like a huge problem for Christians, right?

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This is a list of things God has told us not to do.

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Are they roughly in order of importance?

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I think that is true.

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I've said it in the past.

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I still firmly believe that.

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And you can see that clearly with regard to the fact that the first few commandments are about our duties to God.

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And then you get our duty to our parents, and then you get our duties to our fellow man.

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And so basic hierarchy there.

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That basic hierarchy does not change regardless of the order of the fifth and sixth commandment, which is to say murder and adultery in the Lutheran numbering.

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If you're reformed, you can go ahead and just add plus one there.

00:22:25.190 --> 00:22:31.230
So I don't think that it changes anything sort of fundamental for Christians.

00:22:31.530 --> 00:22:42.730
I do think that it's important, and I think that it is a matter that will certainly be relevant for those who are creating the new translation of the Septuagint when that happens.

00:22:43.530 --> 00:22:50.710
Like I said, I will get into that more deeply at some point in the future, and partly it's going to be left to those men who do that translation work.

00:22:50.710 --> 00:23:06.210
But I don't think that it causes any real problem for us, because this was already something that we recognize, because there are some minor differences between the two lists in the way things are ordered, and not that there are different commandments, but the way that they are ordered is slightly different.

00:23:06.690 --> 00:23:09.230
So we already had to choose an order, right?

00:23:09.510 --> 00:23:12.670
You had to choose what's the 9th, what is the 10th.

00:23:13.050 --> 00:23:19.070
So I think that organizing them in the way the small catechism does is perfectly fine.

00:23:19.070 --> 00:23:20.130
It makes perfect sense.

00:23:20.130 --> 00:23:24.330
You have the content of the commandments there, which is the important part.

00:23:24.690 --> 00:23:27.470
And again, they aren't actually numbered in scripture.

00:23:27.810 --> 00:23:31.230
It's just a list of things that you shall not do.

00:23:31.730 --> 00:23:35.710
And then it's said it's the 10 words of the 10 commandments.

00:23:35.710 --> 00:23:40.550
So you already have to do a little bit of work to figure out what the numbering is there.

00:23:41.510 --> 00:23:44.210
I have no problem using the numbering in the small catechism.

00:23:44.210 --> 00:23:49.490
I think it is perhaps an open question as to whether murder or adultery is listed first.

00:23:50.030 --> 00:23:53.150
It seems that there's a compelling argument for adultery being first.

00:23:54.050 --> 00:23:57.310
You could also make the argument perhaps that they are just equally important, right?

00:23:57.310 --> 00:23:59.930
Because adultery really is a form of murder.

00:23:59.930 --> 00:24:06.870
And like I said previously in the answer to a previous question tonight, it used to be punished with the death penalty.

00:24:07.210 --> 00:24:08.990
That's what God says in Scripture.

00:24:09.730 --> 00:24:13.370
But like I said, I will get into this question more deeply in the future.

00:24:13.370 --> 00:24:16.050
I think I want to actually write something on it.

00:24:18.630 --> 00:24:21.250
Question five.

00:24:23.550 --> 00:24:37.670
Whereas the Church is the Bride of Christ, and the Holy Spirit, through Paul to Timothy, demands women's silence in the Church and matters of theology, does it therefore follow that the Church cannot speak or teach except as taught to us by Christ our head?

00:24:37.910 --> 00:24:45.390
This seems like it undercuts the premise of papal infallibility and teaching from tradition, but I would appreciate your opinion on it.

00:24:48.150 --> 00:24:53.490
I think that that is essentially a correct argument.

00:24:53.490 --> 00:24:55.950
I would formulate that a little bit differently.

00:24:55.950 --> 00:25:01.870
I guess I can close out of this Logos window here, assuming that OBS will cooperate with me.

00:25:04.450 --> 00:25:11.950
I do not believe that the Church, so-called in Roman theology, can promulgate new doctrine.

00:25:12.410 --> 00:25:15.090
I do not believe that the Church has that authority.

00:25:16.050 --> 00:25:26.770
But at the same time, I don't want that to be taken to the extent of saying that everything is contained in scripture.

00:25:27.010 --> 00:25:30.190
Right, as I've argued many times, God has two books.

00:25:30.190 --> 00:25:33.490
This is something that has been argued down through the centuries by many Christians.

00:25:34.830 --> 00:25:36.510
Creation has truth in it.

00:25:36.770 --> 00:25:38.230
Scripture has truth in it.

00:25:38.570 --> 00:25:40.770
You can derive truth from both.

00:25:41.190 --> 00:25:53.650
And so, at the same time, that is still consonant with this, insofar as you recognize God is the author of both of those books, to call creation a book along with scripture, right?

00:25:54.870 --> 00:26:00.990
So, there is no truth outside of God, because God is truth itself.

00:26:01.990 --> 00:26:05.810
God's books are His revealed truth to us.

00:26:06.250 --> 00:26:09.770
There's truth revealed in creation, there's truth revealed in scripture.

00:26:10.270 --> 00:26:17.430
And so, outside of those, no, we can't speak on anything, because nothing else is knowable to us.

00:26:19.490 --> 00:26:23.030
So, yes, I think the argument is sound.

00:26:23.030 --> 00:26:33.770
I would reformulate it a little bit, but I do obviously object to the claims of Rome that the Pope can promulgate new doctrine, new dogma.

00:26:34.350 --> 00:26:46.370
I don't believe that that is something that is permissible, because God has not given that authority to any man, except, of course, Christ, if you are focusing on the man part there.

00:26:46.370 --> 00:26:54.430
But he's not promulgating new doctrine or new dogma, either, because truth is eternal, truth is for all time.

00:26:56.230 --> 00:27:07.030
So, for instance, when Rome decided to promulgate the dogma of the assumption of Mary, I don't think that they have the authority to do that.

00:27:07.070 --> 00:27:08.750
I do not believe that is permissible.

00:27:09.530 --> 00:27:13.370
Most of the Marian dogmas have been created by Rome.

00:27:13.570 --> 00:27:23.790
They have been promulgated according to so-called papal authority instead of scripture, because it's nowhere in scripture, unless you start looking at Gnostic texts, which are not scripture.

00:27:24.710 --> 00:27:27.910
So, yes, I think that the argument fundamentally is sound.

00:27:27.910 --> 00:27:35.730
I would reformulate it a little bit, but no, the church does not have the authority to make new doctrine, to make new dogma.

00:27:35.730 --> 00:27:38.030
That is something that is...

00:27:38.350 --> 00:27:39.870
God alone has that authority.

00:27:42.230 --> 00:27:46.470
And to be clear, that doesn't mean that we can't have traditions that were created by men.

00:27:46.470 --> 00:27:49.210
We just can't say that they are salvific, right?

00:27:49.490 --> 00:27:53.150
So, having a Christmas tree created by men, completely fine.

00:27:53.410 --> 00:27:56.630
Exchanging gifts on certain holidays, completely fine.

00:27:57.290 --> 00:27:58.690
Doesn't forgive your sins.

00:27:59.710 --> 00:28:01.090
Doesn't get you into heaven.

00:28:01.130 --> 00:28:05.210
Doesn't get you, you know, good points for good works or whatever.

00:28:06.370 --> 00:28:12.130
It could be a good work, just incidentally, because serving your neighbor is a good work, and it may happen to overlap there.

00:28:12.130 --> 00:28:17.010
But it does not get to be a good work, because it's a tradition made by men.

00:28:21.230 --> 00:28:23.110
Let's see, the next one.

00:28:24.570 --> 00:28:34.590
Question six has three premises and then a conclusion, so I will just read through those in order.

00:28:34.590 --> 00:28:39.350
Premise one, nations have a trajectory of sin that can reach a fulfillment.

00:28:40.730 --> 00:28:48.510
Genesis 15-16, speaking, of course, of the Amorites, the iniquity of the Amorites being complete and coming back in the fourth generation.

00:28:49.210 --> 00:28:51.830
Premise two, there is a hierarchy of sin.

00:28:52.290 --> 00:28:58.170
John 19-11, of course, Jesus speaking to Pilate, he who handed me over to you as the greater sin.

00:28:59.010 --> 00:29:06.470
And premise three, woes exegesis on the condition of Christ's birth, to be born a Judean is to be born of the lowest race.

00:29:06.950 --> 00:29:10.610
Jesus was born a Hebrew for the same reason he was born in a feed trough.

00:29:12.550 --> 00:29:28.430
Okay, and given those three premises, the conclusion of the question, is it fair to say that God permits the Jews to live, albeit as a landless nation, because they will have, because they have not yet completed their national sin?

00:29:28.950 --> 00:29:33.570
Does this suggest they have an even worse sin than killing Christ in their future?

00:29:34.970 --> 00:29:52.650
Well, they're currently committing quite a few interesting sins, not the least of all being impermissible genocide and persecuting the church and all of the various things they push through the entire world that are deeply and incredibly wicked.

00:29:53.010 --> 00:30:11.890
But to answer the core question here, I don't necessarily think that God has a formulaic way of dealing with nations insofar as you have some sort of sin or cap on the amount of sin you get to commit, and then God smites you.

00:30:13.010 --> 00:30:16.590
I don't think that that's how God operates.

00:30:17.550 --> 00:30:28.870
And I think that that pans out in history, too, if you look at history, because God lets some nations commit a great deal of evil before he destroys them, and some he destroys before they've committed that much evil.

00:30:29.050 --> 00:30:34.290
You could argue it's a mercy to be destroyed sooner because then you don't have that many sins on your ledger.

00:30:35.310 --> 00:30:40.350
So I think that it is just a matter of God's will and God's plan.

00:30:40.910 --> 00:30:53.550
I don't think, again, I don't think it's a mathematical formula where if you commit X number of sins, given the different way to the different sins, then God will automatically smite you, right?

00:30:53.550 --> 00:30:57.290
I don't think that God is an algorithm, essentially.

00:30:58.790 --> 00:31:03.530
So this is up to God's wisdom, God's timing, and God's plan.

00:31:04.350 --> 00:31:21.490
He works all things together for the good, and part of that is using wicked men to achieve good, even if we don't necessarily understand how that is working out in time, because we don't have the perspective God does.

00:31:21.910 --> 00:31:24.490
We are trapped in time, God is outside of time.

00:31:24.490 --> 00:31:26.990
He can see the beginning and the end simultaneously.

00:31:27.250 --> 00:31:29.050
He knows exactly what is going to happen.

00:31:29.050 --> 00:31:33.430
He knows the fullness of the consequences of any given action at any given time.

00:31:33.730 --> 00:31:35.230
We don't do that, we can't do that.

00:31:35.270 --> 00:31:39.950
We're limited, these things are infinite, only the infinite can understand them.

00:31:41.710 --> 00:31:47.390
With regard to the Jews, I think God is just permitting them to fill their cup of wrath.

00:31:47.750 --> 00:31:49.290
That is not good news for them.

00:31:49.290 --> 00:31:55.850
It would be much better news for them if God would just snap his fingers and they were all gone, because then they couldn't continue collecting sins.

00:31:56.690 --> 00:32:05.390
The worst thing you can do is spend a long life collecting sins and then die impenitent.

00:32:06.090 --> 00:32:10.930
And I know some people have sort of a visceral reaction to that.

00:32:10.930 --> 00:32:12.070
They want to reject it.

00:32:12.370 --> 00:32:16.330
Christ says of Judas, it would have been better for that one had he not been born.

00:32:16.330 --> 00:32:18.630
There's no way around the conclusion.

00:32:18.990 --> 00:32:27.230
If you are going to die impenitent, the best thing you can do is die younger, so that you do not collect all those sins in the interim.

00:32:28.090 --> 00:32:31.970
Incidentally, a pretty strong argument against the deathbed confession.

00:32:32.350 --> 00:32:34.610
You may not make it to your deathbed.

00:32:34.830 --> 00:32:36.750
You may die on the bus, right?

00:32:37.550 --> 00:32:38.950
Don't wait to the end to repent.

00:32:38.950 --> 00:32:45.610
Don't say, I'm going to do as much evil, wickedness, all this stuff as I can, and then repent at the very end.

00:32:45.910 --> 00:32:47.190
That's a terrible plan.

00:32:47.190 --> 00:32:48.750
It will probably backfire.

00:32:48.810 --> 00:32:49.650
Don't do it.

00:32:51.090 --> 00:32:56.550
So confess, repent, and then live a Christian life, and collect good works.

00:32:56.570 --> 00:32:58.570
Much better thing to collect than sins.

00:32:58.870 --> 00:33:04.610
But I think God is, again, just letting the Jews fill full their cup of wrath, which is bad news for them.

00:33:06.230 --> 00:33:09.890
Bad news for the rest of us as well in some way, but worse news for them.

00:33:13.090 --> 00:33:14.830
Question seven.

00:33:15.910 --> 00:33:19.150
How do we deal with family members who have sinned publicly?

00:33:19.710 --> 00:33:24.210
I have a cousin who was at one time living in sin with his girlfriend prior to marriage.

00:33:24.610 --> 00:33:30.570
I confronted about it several years ago, and in response to me confronting him, he basically laughed at me for foolishly being religious.

00:33:31.310 --> 00:33:34.090
At least to my knowledge, he is yet to repent of his sin.

00:33:34.330 --> 00:33:37.050
Do you have any advice for dealing with such family members?

00:33:37.470 --> 00:33:41.830
Up until now, I have simply ignored him, but he recently invited me to his daughter's birthday party.

00:33:42.290 --> 00:33:46.950
I will not be able to attend the party, but I am obligated to at least respond gratitude as invitation.

00:33:48.090 --> 00:33:54.730
How do I not fall off the horse when it comes to associating with the ungodly versus a lack of forgiveness for I was treated?

00:33:55.230 --> 00:33:57.810
Is this a scenario where I need to shake the dust from my feet?

00:33:58.030 --> 00:34:06.290
So, the first part of this is going to be, you have different duties to different people, right?

00:34:06.290 --> 00:34:13.710
That's going to be a very different approach with a stranger versus a family member.

00:34:14.030 --> 00:34:16.910
Family members, for better or worse, get more leeway.

00:34:17.350 --> 00:34:19.830
They get more grace, they get more forgiveness.

00:34:20.490 --> 00:34:26.210
You give them not necessarily more rope, but you give them more time.

00:34:26.310 --> 00:34:30.170
You let them act a little worse than you would others.

00:34:30.370 --> 00:34:33.470
We all recognize this, just dealing with family members day to day, right?

00:34:34.330 --> 00:34:40.750
So, with regard to a family member, you just continue being a good person in his life.

00:34:41.190 --> 00:34:59.950
You do what you can to demonstrate being a Christian, and you hope that eventually you get an opportunity where he's willing to listen, where he's receptive to listen to answers to important questions about life and meaning and religion and things like that.

00:35:00.890 --> 00:35:04.650
So, no, you don't shake the dust off your feet in this case.

00:35:04.650 --> 00:35:10.050
If this were just some random stranger at work, then sure, maybe you don't bring the issue up with him again.

00:35:10.530 --> 00:35:19.370
But you don't really get to do that with a close family member, a sibling, a cousin, an aunt, an uncle, something like that.

00:35:20.450 --> 00:35:28.470
So, sure, was it sinful for him to say you were being foolishly religious by telling him not to live in sin with his girlfriend?

00:35:29.590 --> 00:35:31.630
Absolutely, that was a sin on his part.

00:35:32.250 --> 00:35:42.990
But at the same time, at least he did the right thing and married her, which is kind of all you can do in that situation.

00:35:43.510 --> 00:35:52.570
And for that at least, he should be not necessarily congratulated, but he should be told that he did the right thing, because he did.

00:35:53.030 --> 00:35:56.750
That is what any man who is currently living in sin with his girlfriend should do.

00:35:56.750 --> 00:36:01.430
You should marry her, make her an honest woman, as we used to say, do the right thing.

00:36:01.990 --> 00:36:10.070
And I think it's also worth highlighting here, I have a post, something I've said a number of times.

00:36:10.890 --> 00:36:13.650
I won't bother with the Latin, because I doubt anyone cares.

00:36:13.650 --> 00:36:15.310
If you want to go look up the Latin, feel free.

00:36:15.310 --> 00:36:22.070
But a sin that is against nature is a greater evil than a sin that is according to nature.

00:36:22.390 --> 00:36:27.930
And you could also say contrary to nature versus in agreement with nature, right?

00:36:28.770 --> 00:36:32.370
And the best example of that is basically this.

00:36:33.210 --> 00:36:38.530
Fornicating with your girlfriend is a sin that is in agreement with nature.

00:36:38.690 --> 00:36:40.430
It is natural.

00:36:41.530 --> 00:36:46.090
If you instead were male and had a boyfriend, that would be against nature.

00:36:46.330 --> 00:36:47.530
That is a worse sin.

00:36:47.750 --> 00:36:50.110
And there's no way to fix that one.

00:36:50.110 --> 00:36:52.290
You can't marry that person and fix it.

00:36:52.670 --> 00:36:56.710
You have to stop that sin, and then technically the state should also punish you.

00:36:57.170 --> 00:37:05.150
But it is not as bad of a sin to fornicate with your girlfriend, because that is according to nature.

00:37:05.590 --> 00:37:08.070
It is not something that you should be doing.

00:37:08.070 --> 00:37:08.930
It is still sin.

00:37:08.930 --> 00:37:10.370
I want to be very clear about that.

00:37:10.730 --> 00:37:18.770
But there are significantly worse sins, and at least, in this case and in any similar case, if you marry the girl, that's certainly better.

00:37:19.530 --> 00:37:20.710
You still did it wrong.

00:37:20.750 --> 00:37:22.290
You should have done it in the other order.

00:37:23.770 --> 00:37:25.690
But it's better than many alternatives.

00:37:25.690 --> 00:37:28.690
So, there's a hierarchy of sins.

00:37:28.690 --> 00:37:30.090
Some sins are worse than others.

00:37:30.250 --> 00:37:31.630
That one is...

00:37:32.570 --> 00:37:37.430
It's not a good one, because it has so many consequences that come along with it, but it is a natural one.

00:37:37.690 --> 00:37:42.450
And so, it's not something that is against nature, and therefore a worse sin, right?

00:37:42.830 --> 00:37:47.290
And it's, again, going to be one that pretty much everyone's going to struggle with that, particularly men.

00:37:49.950 --> 00:37:58.770
But yes, forgive your family member, and hope that God presents an opportunity where you can share the Christian faith with him, and he'll actually listen to you.

00:37:59.390 --> 00:38:02.570
So...

00:38:02.570 --> 00:38:04.230
I have an eyelash in my eye.

00:38:07.790 --> 00:38:09.330
Question 8.

00:38:10.390 --> 00:38:20.790
Can you please give some historical book recommendations, particularly non-Jewified books on World War II and Hitler, but also history broadly?

00:38:23.010 --> 00:38:34.410
I think I am going to add some to the show notes for this, and this is one of those where it really depends on what part of history you want, right?

00:38:34.870 --> 00:38:40.910
Because, for instance, there's a very good, just as an example, series on the Crusades.

00:38:40.910 --> 00:38:42.450
I think it's a dozen volumes now.

00:38:42.450 --> 00:38:45.190
I don't know, it takes up an entire shelf on one of my bookshelves.

00:38:45.550 --> 00:38:51.630
It's quite a few books, but it's an excellent series, but it's specifically on the Crusades.

00:38:51.630 --> 00:38:54.270
So if that interests you, that's a good example.

00:38:55.090 --> 00:39:03.310
With regard to World War II, you have a great wealth of books, particularly recently many have been published.

00:39:03.730 --> 00:39:05.910
I will link to some of those in the show notes.

00:39:05.910 --> 00:39:09.890
It's just easier to find those as opposed to my saying it, and then people have to go find it.

00:39:10.730 --> 00:39:27.730
But if you want to know anything about World War II and have a reading recommendation about something specific, I would say ask Carl Rodle on X, because he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the books that have been written on the topic.

00:39:28.150 --> 00:39:30.390
He is going to be the best one to give that recommendation.

00:39:30.390 --> 00:39:33.490
Again, I'll put some in the show notes to get people started.

00:39:34.190 --> 00:39:42.390
Antelope Hill is a publishing house that has a number of good ones, including some packages where you can get the World War II package, something similar like that.

00:39:43.350 --> 00:39:51.770
But Carl Rodle is going to be the one where you want to ask him if you have a specific interest with regard to that era.

00:39:52.170 --> 00:39:55.710
That is Carl with a K, Rodle, R-A-D-L.

00:39:56.730 --> 00:40:00.670
I'll link to him as well on in the show notes.

00:40:05.170 --> 00:40:07.670
Just make a note for myself to remember to do that.

00:40:10.970 --> 00:40:18.050
And then a sort of related question from the same person, question nine, do you have a favorite fiction book?

00:40:18.090 --> 00:40:23.090
Another difficult one, I get asked for reading recommendations and favorite books and things like that a lot.

00:40:23.510 --> 00:40:31.450
And I don't necessarily have a favorite book in any given category, other than obviously I have to answer the Bible, right?

00:40:32.050 --> 00:40:37.670
But that's a sort of specific one, and it almost doesn't even count as a favorite in that sense.

00:40:38.750 --> 00:40:49.710
Dune is definitely high up the list for me with regard to fiction books, but it's hard not to list things like, say, Gertes Faust.

00:40:50.530 --> 00:40:54.370
That's obviously one of the best German language novels ever written.

00:40:54.370 --> 00:40:57.410
It has very good translations as well, so certainly you can read that in English.

00:40:58.170 --> 00:41:01.050
I read a decent amount of poetry.

00:41:01.050 --> 00:41:04.750
I've read a lot in the past, so that would certainly count as fiction.

00:41:04.750 --> 00:41:07.610
The Lays of Ancient Rome, an excellent collection.

00:41:07.610 --> 00:41:09.250
I've cited that a few times.

00:41:09.250 --> 00:41:10.430
I've quoted from that one.

00:41:12.310 --> 00:41:22.550
Many, many recommendations I could give for fiction, but I don't know that I have necessarily a particular fiction book that I'd say, yes, this one is my favorite one.

00:41:22.850 --> 00:41:29.390
I think that I have read so many and liked a lot of them that I don't necessarily have just one I would choose.

00:41:32.810 --> 00:41:36.470
Very tempted to answer, insert a question from the...

00:41:36.470 --> 00:41:41.510
I will actually just go ahead and insert a question from the chat here, which makes me have to renumber some things, but that's fine.

00:41:42.470 --> 00:41:43.810
Someone asked for an easy one.

00:41:43.810 --> 00:41:44.970
What is my favorite pie?

00:41:46.310 --> 00:41:50.410
I don't know if that's easy either, but pumpkin pie is probably pretty high up the list.

00:41:50.410 --> 00:41:52.330
It's hard not to like pumpkin pie.

00:41:52.850 --> 00:41:54.330
But I do also like cheesecake, so...

00:41:55.490 --> 00:41:59.570
But my mother makes a very good cheesecake, so I'm somewhat biased for that one.

00:41:59.710 --> 00:42:06.150
And every Thanksgiving, there's a pumpkin pie slash cheesecake sort of combo thing, which I like quite a lot.

00:42:07.770 --> 00:42:09.170
So I guess that's the answer there.

00:42:09.170 --> 00:42:15.370
But I definitely got the German sweet tooth, and I usually just eat chocolate, but...

00:42:16.810 --> 00:42:20.310
I have chocolate sitting on my desk here, to the surprise of probably no one.

00:42:22.330 --> 00:42:23.550
Question 11.

00:42:24.570 --> 00:42:31.870
Someone asked in the chat earlier, I am a bit bothered by two things that seem to be at best insufficiently reprimanded in scripture.

00:42:32.310 --> 00:42:32.630
A.

00:42:32.810 --> 00:42:35.830
Lot's daughters doing the unspeakable with their father.

00:42:36.250 --> 00:42:36.810
And B.

00:42:37.410 --> 00:42:40.490
Jacob stealing Esau's blessing.

00:42:42.530 --> 00:42:48.910
There are really two points to be made with regard to this question.

00:42:49.630 --> 00:42:52.350
And similar questions, because there are many similar questions to this one.

00:42:53.730 --> 00:42:56.730
The first is that not everything in scripture is a recommendation.

00:42:57.770 --> 00:43:06.810
There are a lot of things in scripture that are simply recounting history, and that is particularly true in the historical books, to probably no one's surprise.

00:43:08.310 --> 00:43:13.570
There is, for instance, if you want to go for the atrocious ones, it's not even necessarily Lot and his daughters.

00:43:13.730 --> 00:43:27.690
That's not a great one, certainly, and certainly the story that immediately preceded that, Sodom and Gomorrah is also not a great one, but you have the instance of the Levite with his concubine, where something similar happens.

00:43:28.270 --> 00:43:39.370
She is killed, and then he chops her up and ships her body all around Israel in order to call out men to deal with this atrocity.

00:43:41.430 --> 00:43:44.110
That's not really a particularly great story.

00:43:44.950 --> 00:43:55.590
Granted, he at least avenges her, he's the one who fed her to the lions, but not everything in scripture is God saying, you should do this.

00:43:55.830 --> 00:43:59.450
Many things in scripture are God saying, you should not do this.

00:44:00.770 --> 00:44:08.070
That does not mean that every time these things come up, God explicitly says, this is bad, right?

00:44:09.010 --> 00:44:12.750
But God says that incest is morally impermissible.

00:44:13.010 --> 00:44:24.550
So, what Lot's daughters did is condemned in scripture, you just have to know all of scripture, not all of scripture, but you have to know the portion of scripture that has the rules that condemn those sexual sins, right?

00:44:24.770 --> 00:44:30.450
And it's a pretty long list because apparently the Jews needed a lot of repetition to get the point.

00:44:31.970 --> 00:44:38.010
So, that is condemned in scripture, it's just not condemned in that particular narrative because that's just history.

00:44:38.410 --> 00:44:43.990
It's not saying, this is bad because that's said elsewhere.

00:44:44.290 --> 00:44:46.730
So, that's the first part of this.

00:44:48.350 --> 00:44:54.930
The second part of this is that a lot of the people in scripture are not good people.

00:44:56.010 --> 00:45:06.790
A lot of the people in scripture are bad men and bad women, and the point isn't that they are individuals after whom you should model your life.

00:45:06.790 --> 00:45:08.170
That's not what scripture is.

00:45:08.750 --> 00:45:12.050
There's one man in scripture after whom you should model your life, right?

00:45:12.970 --> 00:45:14.470
There are some good options as well.

00:45:14.470 --> 00:45:16.810
Noah is a pretty good option.

00:45:16.810 --> 00:45:36.090
Don't get drunk around your questionable son, but there are individuals in scripture who serve as role models, and there are some men in scripture who are just historical figures, who are part of the line of the Messiah, so they are part of God's plan in that way.

00:45:36.530 --> 00:45:45.590
But really, God is preserving the line of the Messiah miraculously, despite how wicked and detestable many of these men in that line are, right?

00:45:45.990 --> 00:45:47.510
Jacob is not a great man.

00:45:48.370 --> 00:45:53.310
Jacob is scheming, thieving, obnoxious, weasely.

00:45:54.210 --> 00:45:58.090
He's not a man anyone would really like, or you'd want to spend time around him.

00:45:58.090 --> 00:45:59.690
He turns into a better man.

00:45:59.690 --> 00:46:03.070
He does mature, so there's character development, as it were.

00:46:03.410 --> 00:46:07.370
But he's not a good man, certainly not starting off.

00:46:08.030 --> 00:46:13.370
The point is not that God is picking the best men in the world to achieve something.

00:46:13.510 --> 00:46:17.030
In fact, God is often picking the worst men around to prove a point.

00:46:17.450 --> 00:46:20.850
God can do great things even with terrible human beings.

00:46:22.150 --> 00:46:34.570
For instance, a point that I've made before, and others have made it as well, how impressive would it have been if God had simply picked the mightiest nation on earth and used them to conquer another country?

00:46:35.570 --> 00:46:42.430
Okay, sure, there's still something impressive about the martial conquest, right?

00:46:42.870 --> 00:46:48.530
But it's not as impressive as God using the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites.

00:46:49.370 --> 00:46:51.490
Because that could only be divine intervention.

00:46:52.010 --> 00:47:04.590
The Israelites weren't particularly good at war, were whinging awful people, ran away, were cowards, and yet God used them to conquer all of these wicked people in Canaan.

00:47:04.710 --> 00:47:05.630
That's a miracle.

00:47:06.190 --> 00:47:15.910
So the two parts again are basically, there are things in scripture that are just history, and just because someone is in scripture does not mean he's someone you should emulate.

00:47:16.150 --> 00:47:18.330
There are plenty of terrible human beings in scripture.

00:47:18.650 --> 00:47:20.950
There are plenty of terrible human beings today.

00:47:21.570 --> 00:47:23.310
That's part of it.

00:47:23.710 --> 00:47:30.810
Scripture is recording real history, and it's recording real people, and a lot of real people are not particularly good people.

00:47:32.670 --> 00:47:34.830
But yes, those things are both condemned, right?

00:47:35.070 --> 00:47:41.190
God, look at proverbs and ecclesiastes and other places, God clearly condemns being a little thieving weasel.

00:47:41.610 --> 00:47:47.790
So, Jacob is condemned, and obviously, what Lot's daughters did is condemned a number of times.

00:47:49.810 --> 00:47:50.670
Question 11.

00:47:51.310 --> 00:47:54.210
Do you hold to historicist eschatology?

00:47:54.210 --> 00:47:55.350
Why or why not?

00:47:55.950 --> 00:47:59.510
Didn't Luther hold to something similar, or at least that the Pope is the Antichrist?

00:47:59.510 --> 00:48:01.170
I think I'll answer this in reverse order.

00:48:03.370 --> 00:48:18.770
Luther held at least that the office of the papacy was essentially the office of Antichrist, or that the office was the Antichrist, which is to say that the man holding that office is Antichrist because the office is.

00:48:20.030 --> 00:48:22.830
And do remember that look at what the word Antichrist is.

00:48:22.830 --> 00:48:24.290
It's anti-Christ.

00:48:24.290 --> 00:48:28.630
So there are many anti-Christ, as Scripture very clearly says.

00:48:28.910 --> 00:48:34.170
Anyone who is a false teacher is an Antichrist in a minor way, right?

00:48:34.990 --> 00:48:48.170
The Pope, according to the understanding of, basically all Protestants, certainly Lutherans, is Antichrist because he teaches things that are contrary to Christ, right?

00:48:48.470 --> 00:48:50.230
We could talk about the Marian dogmas.

00:48:50.230 --> 00:48:53.430
We could talk about indulgences.

00:48:53.430 --> 00:49:07.910
We could talk about any number of things taught by the Roman Pontiffs that are contrary to Scripture, particularly the core doctrine of Scripture, as Protestants rightly understand it, which is faith alone.

00:49:08.590 --> 00:49:10.030
Grace alone, right?

00:49:10.050 --> 00:49:11.190
The word alone.

00:49:11.190 --> 00:49:14.510
So the Scripture, I could give the Latin, but again, there's no real point.

00:49:16.290 --> 00:49:21.730
And so the Pope in that sense is indeed Antichrist, and that is what Luther held, and I agree with Luther on that.

00:49:22.150 --> 00:49:32.350
Luther was more of an historicist with regard to certainly Daniel initially and then later in life more fully with Revelation.

00:49:32.390 --> 00:49:34.370
But I am not as much...

00:49:36.150 --> 00:49:48.670
I'm not as inclined toward historicism as Luther was, but that doesn't mean that I think that Luther was necessarily wrong with regard to these things.

00:49:49.070 --> 00:49:58.210
And to be clear here, with historicism, we're not talking about everything having been fulfilled in the past, right?

00:49:58.210 --> 00:50:01.030
That's preterism or full preterism, really.

00:50:01.250 --> 00:50:02.310
That's a different thing.

00:50:02.530 --> 00:50:14.450
Historicism is talking more about historical connections and historical figures being symbolically connected to things in Daniel and Revelation mostly, the prophetic books.

00:50:16.110 --> 00:50:22.990
It does also overlap a little bit with preterism in saying that some of these things have happened in the past, and I think it's fine.

00:50:23.690 --> 00:50:32.810
I've talked about cyclical fulfillment and typology before, and there was a question about typology, and I'll get to that, I believe, tonight, so that'll tie back in.

00:50:34.210 --> 00:50:38.410
But I do not believe that, for instance, everything's been fulfilled.

00:50:38.410 --> 00:50:42.250
I went into that in the previous episode, so I won't necessarily retread that ground here.

00:50:42.950 --> 00:50:54.210
But I don't think that all of the prophetic parts of the book are about past historical figures or tied to these historical figures.

00:50:54.470 --> 00:51:00.970
I do think that some of it is still to come, and I think that some of it is symbolic or typological in that it has many fulfillments.

00:51:01.910 --> 00:51:05.850
So I agree with Luther largely but not entirely.

00:51:05.850 --> 00:51:13.530
I think that he was perhaps a little too staunch in trying to tie that to specifically the Pope.

00:51:13.530 --> 00:51:14.750
I understand why he did it.

00:51:15.230 --> 00:51:16.850
It made perfect sense at the time.

00:51:17.170 --> 00:51:21.450
But at the same time, perhaps it will turn out that Luther was absolutely correct.

00:51:22.190 --> 00:51:23.750
Look at what the Pope is doing today.

00:51:24.230 --> 00:51:27.990
He is getting very friendly with Muslims.

00:51:27.990 --> 00:51:29.370
He's buddying up with them.

00:51:29.370 --> 00:51:38.110
He's doubling down on what the Roman Church has long said, that the plan of salvation includes the Muslims and the Jews.

00:51:39.490 --> 00:51:40.150
Who knows?

00:51:40.530 --> 00:51:48.390
Maybe there will be a final Antichrist, upper case A, I guess, and perhaps it will indeed be the Pope.

00:51:48.690 --> 00:51:49.630
That could happen.

00:51:50.010 --> 00:51:51.670
I'm not saying I believe that.

00:51:51.730 --> 00:51:53.590
I'm not saying I believe either way on that.

00:51:53.590 --> 00:51:54.850
I don't really have an opinion on it.

00:51:55.550 --> 00:51:56.570
We'll see what happens.

00:51:57.370 --> 00:52:11.610
This is one of those where I've mentioned many times before, Christians can get very deeply invested in this and get off the rails and focus on the things that truly matter about the Christian life instead of trying to speculate and figure out when God is going to return.

00:52:11.770 --> 00:52:13.990
He said, no man knows the hour of the day.

00:52:14.390 --> 00:52:15.550
That includes all of us.

00:52:19.190 --> 00:52:27.290
Question 12, I am new to proper Christianity, I am struggling to understand the concept of typology.

00:52:28.110 --> 00:52:34.970
How can real life events be treated and be symbolic with regard to being literature basically?

00:52:34.970 --> 00:52:43.070
So, typology is relatively simple to understand.

00:52:43.530 --> 00:52:49.370
I will go ahead and use the example that makes Baptists mad, but it is what it is.

00:52:50.750 --> 00:52:56.050
When you have Peter speaking about baptism, right?

00:52:56.050 --> 00:53:01.890
He speaks about baptism and the flood as being typologically linked.

00:53:01.930 --> 00:53:06.130
You have the words for typology there, antituppos and tuppos in the Greek.

00:53:06.850 --> 00:53:13.690
And so the antitype is just the fullness of the type or types that precede it.

00:53:14.490 --> 00:53:20.790
So you can have many types that are prefiguring or pointing to an antitype, or you could just have one.

00:53:21.030 --> 00:53:22.150
Usually it's multiple.

00:53:22.550 --> 00:53:23.690
God likes typology.

00:53:23.690 --> 00:53:25.890
This is one of the ways that he likes to organize his word.

00:53:25.890 --> 00:53:28.690
It's one of the ways that he likes to point toward things in the future.

00:53:29.270 --> 00:53:35.010
And so you have a number of instances that are typological of baptism.

00:53:36.410 --> 00:53:39.090
One of those, of course, is the crossing through the Red Sea, right?

00:53:39.090 --> 00:53:44.610
And it explicitly speaks about that in language related to baptism.

00:53:45.410 --> 00:53:56.870
And so when you think of the type, think of a minor version, a lesser version, or an incomplete version of the antitype, which is the fullness.

00:53:57.630 --> 00:54:11.450
So, again, to use the baptism example, Christian baptism is the antitype, because Christian baptism bestows faith, works forgiveness of sins, brings you into the Christian church.

00:54:12.190 --> 00:54:14.970
That's the ordinary course of things if you're baptized as a child.

00:54:14.970 --> 00:54:32.110
You can, of course, come to faith through the word, read, heard, whatever it happens to be, and then get baptized later, in which case it is going to strengthen your faith instead of stowing faith, because you already have it according to one of the other means of grace, because there's not one, there are multiple means of grace.

00:54:33.610 --> 00:54:38.490
But the types of baptism, and the one that Peter, of course, uses, is the flood.

00:54:38.910 --> 00:54:45.790
Well, from what was Noah saved by explicitly the ark, but figuratively the flood?

00:54:46.210 --> 00:54:55.150
He was saved from temporal death and the wicked earthly realm, from the wicked men, the antediluvians.

00:54:56.230 --> 00:54:58.630
From what does baptism save you then?

00:54:58.630 --> 00:55:03.770
Well, it can't just save you from those things, because it has to be greater being the antitype.

00:55:04.290 --> 00:55:12.110
Baptism saves you from eternal death, by giving you the free gift of faith, and washing away your sins.

00:55:13.310 --> 00:55:14.850
That's how typology works.

00:55:15.270 --> 00:55:16.710
So, very simple.

00:55:17.410 --> 00:55:30.730
The type is the imperfect, incomplete, or minor version, or thing pointing to the antitype, which is the completeness, the fullness, the real thing, the full thing.

00:55:31.550 --> 00:55:37.130
So just to give one more sort of set of examples to drive home the point, as it were.

00:55:38.610 --> 00:55:40.050
Christ is the Messiah.

00:55:40.430 --> 00:55:41.730
He's the antitype.

00:55:41.990 --> 00:55:45.990
But there are many types of Christ in the Old Testament.

00:55:46.330 --> 00:55:51.130
So you have Joshua, whose actual name is Jesus.

00:55:51.730 --> 00:55:53.550
Probably helps with the typology, doesn't it?

00:55:54.530 --> 00:56:00.510
He is a type of Christ, because he brings the people into the promised land, he delivers them from their enemies.

00:56:00.890 --> 00:56:01.850
Type of Christ.

00:56:02.490 --> 00:56:03.950
Noah is a type of Christ.

00:56:04.250 --> 00:56:15.390
He brings his family through the evil, destructive world, the destruction of that world, and he is, of course, prophet, priest, and king.

00:56:16.250 --> 00:56:17.230
Type of Christ.

00:56:17.670 --> 00:56:19.590
Solomon is a type of Christ.

00:56:19.670 --> 00:56:21.130
Moses is a type of Christ.

00:56:21.130 --> 00:56:28.990
These are figures pointing to Christ, and who have aspects of Christ, but in a minor way.

00:56:29.250 --> 00:56:30.830
Christ being the fullness of it.

00:56:31.190 --> 00:56:33.790
So that's basically how typology works.

00:56:34.250 --> 00:56:42.930
It's not necessarily that the real life figure is a symbol and not a real person, but rather he's sort of both, right?

00:56:43.330 --> 00:56:48.010
A person can simultaneously be a real person and a symbol of something.

00:56:48.370 --> 00:56:51.890
And so you could think of a king being a symbol of authority, right?

00:56:52.890 --> 00:56:55.690
Simultaneously, he is the king, but he's also a symbol.

00:56:56.410 --> 00:56:57.910
He's a national symbol as well.

00:56:58.590 --> 00:57:00.470
So that's essentially how typology works.

00:57:00.470 --> 00:57:01.690
It's fairly straightforward.

00:57:01.690 --> 00:57:08.750
It can get complicated when you're trying to draw out nuance and things like that, but the concept itself is fairly simple.

00:57:11.730 --> 00:57:24.750
Question 13, shifting gears here, as it were, to more politics history, is the famous photograph of the Congolese father with the amputated daughter's limbs real?

00:57:25.070 --> 00:57:28.030
If so, where should we stand on the Congo colony?

00:57:29.650 --> 00:57:32.050
This is another example of atrocity propaganda.

00:57:32.510 --> 00:57:40.110
And the supposed atrocities committed by Europeans in the Congo were not committed by Europeans.

00:57:40.510 --> 00:57:47.950
They were committed by other Africans who were punishing those who did not meet their quotas.

00:57:48.470 --> 00:57:55.710
And in fact, when the Belgians learned of this, they were horrified by it and put a stop to the practice.

00:57:56.130 --> 00:57:59.550
Because it was not ordered by Europeans, it's completely ridiculous.

00:58:00.250 --> 00:58:06.830
Why on earth would anyone think that removing the hands from a slave would increase his productivity?

00:58:06.830 --> 00:58:07.730
It's stupid.

00:58:08.110 --> 00:58:11.110
It's obviously something that did not occur to a European mind.

00:58:11.450 --> 00:58:13.290
So just that makes it pretty obvious.

00:58:13.290 --> 00:58:22.890
But no, it's atrocity propaganda against colonization because Satan hates colonization, because colonization spread Christianity to the rest of the world.

00:58:23.890 --> 00:58:24.650
Very simple.

00:58:25.790 --> 00:58:31.330
And question 14 from the same person, a follow-up question as it were, or related question.

00:58:31.950 --> 00:58:35.010
What is the truth about Nanking in Unit 731?

00:58:35.550 --> 00:58:39.630
Are we to condemn the Japanese on those or are they fabricated?

00:58:39.630 --> 00:58:43.950
I think that they are the same sort of largely fabricated atrocity propaganda.

00:58:44.290 --> 00:59:00.330
I don't know that we have really sufficient records with regard to that to make this sort of analysis and the sort of draw the sort of conclusion we would with regard to the European theater, because the Germans kept meticulous records.

00:59:00.590 --> 00:59:05.830
And if you actually look at those records, many intercepted by the British, because of course, they cracked the Enigma machine.

00:59:07.010 --> 00:59:12.990
You can see that the Germans document what they were doing, and you can figure out that the narrative, the standard narrative just doesn't work.

00:59:13.770 --> 00:59:18.250
You don't have records that are quite as good with regard to the Asian theater.

00:59:18.850 --> 00:59:22.850
So, I think it's pretty clear, though.

00:59:23.470 --> 00:59:26.890
Atrocity propaganda follows sort of a formula.

00:59:26.890 --> 00:59:38.070
There are a few different formulas it follows, but many of these fit the formula of atrocity propaganda, and so I'm simply not going to believe them without very compelling evidence.

00:59:38.430 --> 00:59:47.630
So, unless someone is able to present hard compelling evidence of it, I am just going to consider it war propaganda and ignore it.

00:59:48.690 --> 00:59:54.290
And I'm not going to condemn the Japanese for it, because, again, show me compelling evidence.

00:59:56.030 --> 00:59:56.870
Question 15.

00:59:58.650 --> 01:00:06.910
As a European, I am not familiar with this, but out of interest, is it true that American blacks were doing much better in the mid-1900s?

01:00:07.390 --> 01:00:09.230
If yes, what changed?

01:00:10.490 --> 01:00:13.090
So the answer to that is yes.

01:00:13.270 --> 01:00:15.790
They were doing better in many ways.

01:00:16.750 --> 01:00:22.050
Granted, the violent crime problem still existed, it was still the same sort of disparity.

01:00:22.570 --> 01:00:31.410
But in some ways, that problem was regulated, tamped down, kept under control by segregation, and Jim Crow laws and things like that.

01:00:31.690 --> 01:00:46.790
And how you wind up getting that torn down is a combination of communist agitation through MLK and others, and the so-called civil rights movement.

01:00:46.830 --> 01:00:53.310
Then you get the Civil Rights Acts, and the Supreme Court involvement, primarily with regard to Brown v.

01:00:53.310 --> 01:00:57.370
Board of Education, and the Atlanta Motel case.

01:00:57.370 --> 01:00:59.230
I can't remember the full name of that now.

01:00:59.230 --> 01:01:01.510
It's something Atlanta Motel.

01:01:01.690 --> 01:01:04.590
At any rate, that's what happened.

01:01:04.590 --> 01:01:22.770
And integration, so-called, and the destruction of all of these legal systems we built up to deal with the reality of race and the problems caused by multiculturalism, as it were, by having a multi-ethnic society, that whole structure was torn down.

01:01:23.290 --> 01:01:27.170
And that is what led to the sort of chaos that we see today in many of those problems.

01:01:27.170 --> 01:01:34.050
And of course, the demographics have changed as well due to the importation of many millions of hostile foreigners.

01:01:34.570 --> 01:01:44.810
But yes, by and large, both the white American population and the black population living in the United States were both doing better.

01:01:45.110 --> 01:01:59.890
Because the blacks had a structured society that suppressed some of the worst elements of their demographic group and kept things structured and orderly for them, so they were doing better.

01:01:59.890 --> 01:02:11.270
You had much higher rates of marriage and staying married, lower divorce rates, lower rates of fatherlessness and all these other problems.

01:02:11.870 --> 01:02:13.510
They were much better off as well.

01:02:14.290 --> 01:02:23.850
So you can make the argument, should they be permitted to stay, I would obviously say no, because they are not part of the nation, and so they should be sent home.

01:02:23.970 --> 01:02:29.430
But they were certainly doing better when those legal protections and those systems were in place.

01:02:29.810 --> 01:02:35.450
And those were systematically torn down largely at the behest of Jewish communists.

01:02:36.690 --> 01:02:48.030
Because the civil rights action, the civil rights movement, as it were, was almost entirely funded by Jewish communists, many of them with connections to the Soviet Union.

01:02:49.750 --> 01:02:51.090
It was partly an act of war.

01:02:53.350 --> 01:02:54.070
Question 16.

01:02:54.910 --> 01:03:01.070
What assurance can we have that baby boomer parents who proclaim faith are actually saved?

01:03:01.770 --> 01:03:08.870
Very immature faith with wayward children, how can one be saved with 50 plus years next to no sanctification?

01:03:10.870 --> 01:03:24.010
That is a legitimate question, and that is fair, because someone who has been a Christian for some length of time, you should see sanctification, you should see some change in that person's life, you should see something concrete.

01:03:25.150 --> 01:03:29.250
And with many from that generation, you do not see that.

01:03:30.190 --> 01:03:34.690
That is deeply unfortunate, but it is the reality.

01:03:35.870 --> 01:03:41.310
Does that mean that we despair with regard to their eternal destination?

01:03:41.650 --> 01:03:42.490
I don't think so.

01:03:43.310 --> 01:03:45.290
There are different levels of reward.

01:03:45.410 --> 01:03:47.390
There are different crowns, right?

01:03:47.670 --> 01:03:57.850
So someone who is Christian with almost no works, still saved, does not have the same rewards as someone who is Christian with a lifetime of works, right?

01:03:58.190 --> 01:04:00.190
There is a judgment according to works.

01:04:00.950 --> 01:04:04.190
The judgment according to works does not determine if you are saved or not.

01:04:04.190 --> 01:04:07.070
That is grace and faith alone, right?

01:04:07.690 --> 01:04:12.670
That is a free gift of God that is entirely without merit on your part.

01:04:12.670 --> 01:04:15.550
It is 100% due to Christ's finished work.

01:04:16.210 --> 01:04:23.030
But there is a judgment according to your works, and God will reward you according to those works.

01:04:23.310 --> 01:04:26.730
If you don't really have any good works, then you don't get the reward.

01:04:27.610 --> 01:04:33.050
So some of them, hopefully many of them, are very well saved, right?

01:04:33.130 --> 01:04:38.590
But that doesn't mean that they have done what they should have done as a Christian.

01:04:39.170 --> 01:04:40.330
They should have done better.

01:04:40.330 --> 01:04:41.590
They should have tried harder.

01:04:42.610 --> 01:04:43.490
But they didn't.

01:04:44.250 --> 01:04:49.910
And you can also think here, obviously, the Lutheran response is going to be felicitous inconsistency, right?

01:04:50.150 --> 01:04:57.590
We hope that they are Christianed despite the nonsense they have held and said in their life.

01:04:57.590 --> 01:05:07.670
We hope that ultimately they rely on Christ alone and entrust everything to his finished work, God's grace, and the free gift of faith.

01:05:08.930 --> 01:05:15.350
So, we hope that they are ultimately Christian.

01:05:15.350 --> 01:05:16.950
We hope they are ultimately saved.

01:05:16.950 --> 01:05:18.330
Pray for them, certainly.

01:05:18.870 --> 01:05:23.590
If there's an opportunity to discuss things with them, do so within the bounds of wisdom.

01:05:23.590 --> 01:05:25.570
I know I've said, and I still agree.

01:05:25.950 --> 01:05:27.450
I reiterate it here, in fact.

01:05:27.910 --> 01:05:30.690
There's only so much you can do with Baby Boomer parents, right?

01:05:31.510 --> 01:05:32.950
Every millennial knows that at this point.

01:05:32.950 --> 01:05:34.170
You probably learned it the hard way.

01:05:34.690 --> 01:05:36.370
You're just not going to get anywhere.

01:05:37.250 --> 01:05:41.930
If you argue with them, you are probably just going to sour your relationship with that person.

01:05:41.930 --> 01:05:45.070
And if that doesn't achieve anything, it's not worth doing.

01:05:45.510 --> 01:05:55.230
If you have that strife, but the person amends his life, amends her life, turns back to the church, then it's worth it.

01:05:55.530 --> 01:05:59.730
And hopefully, the person will also recognize then that you were doing something good and amend...

01:06:00.650 --> 01:06:02.370
fix that relationship as well, right?

01:06:03.170 --> 01:06:20.630
But yes, the Baby Boomer generation has a very shallow and very corrupted Christianity, but ultimately, you can still be saved because it is Christ's work and not our correct dogma, anything like that.

01:06:22.490 --> 01:06:30.650
And the greater condemnation will fall on the many false teachers who created the Boomer Christianity that has been such a blight.

01:06:32.030 --> 01:06:40.430
The average believer suffers for it as well, but the teacher gets the stricter judgment, so I would not want to be a Baby Boomer pastor.

01:06:41.650 --> 01:06:44.710
I shudder to think what they are going to hear on Judgment Day.

01:06:46.370 --> 01:06:47.190
Question 17.

01:06:48.530 --> 01:06:55.650
With the way things are going for them, do you think the Jews have unintentionally delayed their plans for the coming Messiah?

01:06:56.170 --> 01:06:58.750
Or is this all just a carefully planned Messiah?

01:06:58.750 --> 01:07:07.690
Well, the Jewish Messiah would be the Antichrist, if they actually achieve that, and if God permits a final Antichrist, so that's part of his plan.

01:07:08.090 --> 01:07:19.910
You can read Revelation as that being sort of symbolic of the opposition to Christ and a number of other things, or you can read it as being an actual final person.

01:07:20.470 --> 01:07:24.230
I don't really tie myself to either interpretation of that.

01:07:24.630 --> 01:07:28.930
Again, I don't think that it's the core of the Christian faith, so I don't focus on it.

01:07:29.790 --> 01:07:48.670
But I think that the Jews have a very real disadvantage with regard to how they pursue these things, and that would be that their psychology almost doesn't permit them to be rational with regard to a lot of this stuff.

01:07:49.570 --> 01:08:00.290
So if they were just patient and kept pursuing a plan of incrementalism for say another hundred years, they could probably get a lot done with very little pushback.

01:08:00.710 --> 01:08:03.110
But they are wildly impatient.

01:08:03.990 --> 01:08:06.250
And so that handicaps them.

01:08:07.870 --> 01:08:14.630
And also, taking a step back, this is something that is a problem with regard to the right wing, and it has been for a long time.

01:08:15.410 --> 01:08:22.030
Don't look at the Jews as some sort of, you know, arch-nemesis, evil genius kind of group.

01:08:22.650 --> 01:08:25.290
By and large, they're not that bright.

01:08:25.890 --> 01:08:38.070
They are simply viciously preference toward their in-group, biased against out-groups, and they are mercenary in their approach to basically everything.

01:08:38.270 --> 01:08:39.850
That gives them certain advantages.

01:08:41.090 --> 01:08:52.970
But what really puts them in the position that they have today isn't their own efforts, because by their own efforts, usually they get expelled from countries and lands and other places.

01:08:54.670 --> 01:09:03.090
It's their father below, because they are of their father the devil, and he has been a murderer and a liar from the beginning, and they wish to do his will.

01:09:04.790 --> 01:09:06.850
He doesn't sleep.

01:09:07.830 --> 01:09:08.690
He doesn't die.

01:09:09.370 --> 01:09:12.830
He's been around working on this stuff for thousands of years.

01:09:13.190 --> 01:09:20.350
That is why that side looks like it is organized in achieving things, because it has an animating intelligence behind it.

01:09:21.750 --> 01:09:25.070
It is not the Jews ultimately doing it.

01:09:25.450 --> 01:09:27.750
They are not the ones running the show.

01:09:28.230 --> 01:09:30.410
They would not do a good job if they were.

01:09:31.390 --> 01:09:35.030
So don't think of them as evil geniuses, because they're not.

01:09:36.070 --> 01:09:43.590
They have an animating spirit and an animating intelligence behind them, and he is the one calling the shots ultimately.

01:09:43.990 --> 01:09:52.470
So that is the ultimate struggle for Christianity, for Christendom, for Western Christians.

01:09:52.830 --> 01:09:54.510
It's against Satan and his kingdom.

01:09:54.690 --> 01:09:57.130
The Jews just happen to be his high priests.

01:09:59.250 --> 01:10:05.830
But I don't think that they have really changed their plans for their Messiah at all, because it's entirely out of their control.

01:10:05.990 --> 01:10:06.350
So...

01:10:09.190 --> 01:10:18.930
I think that they do constantly hobble themselves by making crazy mistakes, but again, animating intelligence behind them, keeping them sort of on track to some degree.

01:10:23.730 --> 01:10:27.870
There's someone asking about women-led Bible studies.

01:10:27.870 --> 01:10:30.830
I think I will save that for next week.

01:10:41.610 --> 01:10:45.610
Just going through the chat to try and find any questions I missed.

01:10:49.890 --> 01:10:56.310
I see a question that has a one out of two, and then I do not see the second one.

01:10:58.990 --> 01:11:01.190
So I will just answer the first part.

01:11:04.770 --> 01:11:08.350
And I'm not sure which number I'm on now, but I will number them in the transcript.

01:11:08.570 --> 01:11:18.030
Could the declining birth rate in the West be some sort of a blessing in disguise as most people that don't have children are lefty loons?

01:11:20.470 --> 01:11:34.050
To some degree, yes, but at the same time, I think we would all rather that those individuals were simply reformed and no longer held those insane positions, because many of them have just been indoctrinated.

01:11:34.050 --> 01:11:38.730
They just believe what they have been indoctrinated to believe.

01:11:38.730 --> 01:11:42.390
And I've mentioned this many times, and it bears repeating.

01:11:43.550 --> 01:11:49.250
Many men are only going to be as good as the society of which they are part.

01:11:49.730 --> 01:11:52.170
And you can think of that number of different ways.

01:11:52.530 --> 01:11:54.710
Men are as good as the leaders they follow.

01:11:54.710 --> 01:11:59.410
They're as good as the organizations in which they are members, so on and so forth.

01:12:00.050 --> 01:12:07.150
Many of those on the left would have been perfectly functional members of a proper society.

01:12:08.090 --> 01:12:21.470
If they had been born into Christendom in Medieval Europe, they would have been perfectly fine functional peasants, and they would not have been engaged in the evil and the insanity in which they are engaged today.

01:12:21.730 --> 01:12:29.270
They do that because they live in an evil time under an evil government, and they are a reflection of that evil.

01:12:29.810 --> 01:12:40.710
So, what I would want for them is to have better shepherds, but that doesn't excuse them from their evil.

01:12:40.710 --> 01:12:42.110
It does not give them a free pass.

01:12:42.110 --> 01:12:43.690
They still have to be punished for being evil.

01:12:43.690 --> 01:12:46.350
They still have to be opposed as enemies.

01:12:46.530 --> 01:12:50.550
And I do know that there was a question about leftists and some comments I made about them.

01:12:50.550 --> 01:12:52.490
I'm going to punt that one until next time.

01:12:53.770 --> 01:13:05.530
But with regard to the left, yes, to some degree, it's a blessing that they are the ones having the fewest children, because in large part, the future belongs to the men who show up.

01:13:05.810 --> 01:13:08.290
And the men who show up are the men who have children, right?

01:13:08.570 --> 01:13:20.750
So if nation A stops having children, and nation B has six children per woman, the future belongs to nation B, because nation A stopped having children.

01:13:21.190 --> 01:13:22.650
That's just the reality of it.

01:13:23.090 --> 01:13:31.750
But again, I would very much prefer that they lived under a better society and were better people instead of being evil and being destroyed.

01:13:32.110 --> 01:13:36.410
The same thing is I would prefer that everyone convert to Christianity instead of being destroyed.

01:13:36.710 --> 01:13:42.270
It is in some ways a tragedy that anyone refuses to convert.

01:13:42.270 --> 01:13:44.010
It would be better if they converted.

01:13:44.010 --> 01:13:46.110
That includes the Jews, everyone.

01:13:46.330 --> 01:13:47.750
It would be better if they converted.

01:13:48.530 --> 01:13:54.350
It doesn't mean I believe everyone will, and we have to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it were.

01:13:54.870 --> 01:13:59.650
So we just have to deal with reality.

01:14:06.945 --> 01:14:07.525
Let's see.

01:14:12.585 --> 01:14:20.305
Someone asked about how questions are submitted, and it's, I comment on this at the end of every episode, but it's always the same.

01:14:20.305 --> 01:14:30.805
I try to take questions from the chat, I collect them from other places as well, Telegram, X, et cetera, and the forum is the preferred way to submit them, because it's just easiest for me to organize things.

01:14:31.265 --> 01:14:33.645
But I do indeed take questions from the chat.

01:14:33.645 --> 01:14:35.965
That's why I'm scrolling through the chat right now to try to find them.

01:14:39.785 --> 01:14:46.825
Someone asked about AI, I'm going to add that to my list for next week, because that one is a little bit longer and more involved.

01:14:47.945 --> 01:14:53.865
But yes, I do largely see AI as a negative thing, not exclusively negative.

01:14:53.865 --> 01:14:57.345
Obviously, few things are exclusively negative, right?

01:14:57.505 --> 01:14:59.245
It's the same as sin.

01:14:59.245 --> 01:15:03.305
If sin were only negative, no one would do it, right?

01:15:03.425 --> 01:15:07.425
And you could think back to the example given, with regard to an earlier question, right?

01:15:07.425 --> 01:15:08.265
Fornication.

01:15:08.625 --> 01:15:11.365
If it were only negative, no one would do it.

01:15:11.925 --> 01:15:13.085
It has to have an appeal.

01:15:13.085 --> 01:15:14.665
Sin has to have some sort of appeal.

01:15:14.885 --> 01:15:21.005
The same thing with regard to things that have negative externalities or negative consequences like AI, right?

01:15:21.685 --> 01:15:24.145
If there were no benefit, no one would pursue it.

01:15:34.671 --> 01:15:40.611
I think I pulled out most of the questions from the chat.

01:15:41.251 --> 01:15:45.151
If I missed a question, certainly please let me know.

01:15:46.911 --> 01:15:47.611
Let's see.

01:15:50.571 --> 01:16:01.711
Do you think, this may be the last question, do you think there are any antediluvians in heaven that aren't in Noah's line, but still from his time?

01:16:04.691 --> 01:16:06.751
That is an interesting question.

01:16:07.531 --> 01:16:09.651
I am not sure that I know.

01:16:10.271 --> 01:16:11.371
I mean, obviously, I don't know.

01:16:11.371 --> 01:16:12.511
Scripture doesn't tell us.

01:16:13.171 --> 01:16:22.731
Noah is said to be the only righteous man, but that depends on what is meant by righteous man, right?

01:16:22.731 --> 01:16:27.011
Because every Christian is righteous, for instance, in a certain sense.

01:16:27.471 --> 01:16:31.351
You're righteous because you're a Christian, because you're covered by Christ's righteousness.

01:16:31.631 --> 01:16:41.911
So those in the Old Testament, prior to Christ's earthly ministry, who believed in Christ, were covered by their faith in the Christ who was to come.

01:16:42.291 --> 01:16:45.011
We are covered by our faith in the Christ who has come.

01:16:46.171 --> 01:17:02.491
So if that is the sense in which Scripture is saying that Noah is a righteous man, which I think it's fair to interpret that way, then if he is the only one, then there were no other anti-diluvians living at that time who were saved.

01:17:02.491 --> 01:17:07.931
Because of course, there are anti-diluvians far back who would have been saved.

01:17:08.091 --> 01:17:13.691
But those living at the time, under that interpretation, none of them would be saved.

01:17:14.111 --> 01:17:42.231
But if what is meant by Noah being a righteous man is that Noah is a righteous man, as we would think of it in sort of the lay sense of the term, he was a very good man who was also a Christian, then that is perhaps different, because perhaps there is someone who believed but was sort of in the felicitous inconsistency sense, where ultimately, yes, he believed, but he really wasn't a particularly great person.

01:17:42.231 --> 01:17:50.051
He was sort of bad and not a good Christian, had all these false beliefs, did wicked things.

01:17:51.331 --> 01:17:54.091
But in the end, squeaked across the line, right?

01:17:54.971 --> 01:18:05.351
I think it's probably more reasonable to take the former interpretation, that Noah was the only believer in his era, which tells you how bad things can get, right?

01:18:06.271 --> 01:18:07.411
Things can get very bad.

01:18:07.411 --> 01:18:17.431
We know things that will get bad near the end, because we are told explicitly by Christ that those times will be cut short for the sake of the elect because of how bad it's going to get.

01:18:17.891 --> 01:18:28.851
So, I think I would certainly lean toward saying that Noah was the only righteous man, in the sense of being the only believer, and then at least two of his sons.

01:18:29.311 --> 01:18:30.951
There are some open questions about Ham.

01:18:41.513 --> 01:18:42.093
Let's see.

01:18:48.910 --> 01:18:54.650
Let's see, I have, I'll answer one more question because I happen to notice it here scrolling.

01:18:57.210 --> 01:19:07.430
Is the world, including the third world, speaking English as a major language and that positive and means something of the white man is preserved?

01:19:07.430 --> 01:19:11.170
China would be jealous the world does not speak Chinese.

01:19:12.870 --> 01:19:16.590
I picked one that has some complicated answers to it as my final question for this week.

01:19:19.490 --> 01:19:31.310
But, there are benefits to English being the Linguafranca, which is always ironic that we have Linguafranca in Latin talking about French, talking about English.

01:19:31.310 --> 01:19:34.450
But that's just a little mini history lesson all in one term.

01:19:35.510 --> 01:19:43.490
The reason that there's some benefit, obviously, is because you have sort of cultural dominance to some degree.

01:19:43.890 --> 01:19:51.330
There is some aspect of your culture that is spread over the whole world by virtue of the world using your language.

01:19:52.250 --> 01:19:55.130
It's not very much of it, but it's some of it.

01:19:55.330 --> 01:20:04.290
There's more of our culture that has been spread by the adoption of Western dress and contract law, things like that.

01:20:05.110 --> 01:20:24.550
But there's also the negative that by having those parts of the world, particularly the ones with, say, lower IQs and other problems like that, use your language is that it serves as a negative force pulling the level of your language down over time.

01:20:25.270 --> 01:20:31.750
So you get sort of pigeon forms of English that tend to feed back into English.

01:20:31.750 --> 01:20:33.990
And this works for any language that has had this happen.

01:20:34.310 --> 01:20:36.010
Greek experience the same thing.

01:20:36.650 --> 01:20:43.490
You have these pigeon forms that feed back into the language and denigrate the language, lower the level of the language.

01:20:43.490 --> 01:20:56.310
So it is a negative thing in that sense that English has been lowered as a language because of the fact that it is the universal language almost.

01:20:57.770 --> 01:21:01.050
The Roman Empire almost had a good solution for this.

01:21:01.550 --> 01:21:05.910
Greek was the common language, but Latin was the language of the empire.

01:21:06.170 --> 01:21:24.830
And so Latin was insulated from this downward pressure, from this sort of anchor effect of various groups speaking pigeon forms of the language, because they weren't doing it to the language of empire, which was Latin, because those in the hinterlands were not learning Latin.

01:21:25.010 --> 01:21:25.870
They were learning Greek.

01:21:25.870 --> 01:21:33.070
And so all of the negative went toward Greek into Koina instead of into Latin.

01:21:33.070 --> 01:21:35.090
And I think that's probably a better approach.

01:21:35.090 --> 01:21:36.530
That's certainly how I would do it.

01:21:36.830 --> 01:21:39.850
I would have at least two languages if I were setting up an empire.

01:21:40.330 --> 01:21:50.110
You have one that is reserved to the empire for imperial use and maintains a strict standard, has very clear rules.

01:21:50.890 --> 01:21:52.550
That's also a thing English doesn't have, right?

01:21:52.550 --> 01:21:55.230
There's no body that dictates rules for English.

01:21:55.230 --> 01:21:56.710
It's just sort of free for all.

01:21:56.970 --> 01:21:58.180
You don't have...

01:21:58.180 --> 01:22:00.270
the French have their academy.

01:22:00.850 --> 01:22:02.630
German has something similar.

01:22:03.250 --> 01:22:04.790
English doesn't have that, right?

01:22:04.790 --> 01:22:12.630
You can say there's the Oxford English Dictionary, which kind of does a little bit of it, but we don't really have a body dictating what English is, particularly American English.

01:22:13.450 --> 01:22:35.770
But if I were setting up the way that an empire functioned with regard to language, I would certainly have the official language and then maybe one or two more, because if you have this diverse set of peoples over which you're ruling, you need a simple language they can all use, but you don't want them to use a simplified version of your language because it does bad things to your language over time.

01:22:38.530 --> 01:22:45.830
So, no, I don't necessarily think that something of Europe is preserved by virtue of the fact that they're speaking our languages.

01:22:45.830 --> 01:22:49.590
I would much prefer that our people are preserved instead of just our language.

01:22:49.990 --> 01:22:53.610
Although, yes, certainly, if you lose the language, you lose something with it as well.

01:23:01.059 --> 01:23:08.559
I do see the question about tech firms and hiring practices and such.

01:23:08.559 --> 01:23:13.799
I will save that one for next time, because I'm just not going to get to it tonight.

01:23:13.799 --> 01:23:17.459
So I think that's going to be the last question for tonight.

01:23:17.859 --> 01:23:20.459
Like I've said before, I do try to keep these to an hour.

01:23:20.939 --> 01:23:22.479
I almost always run over by a little bit.

01:23:22.479 --> 01:23:23.599
That's completely fine.

01:23:23.599 --> 01:23:27.839
I don't have a hard end time for these.

01:23:27.839 --> 01:23:31.379
But I think that will be all for tonight.

01:23:31.379 --> 01:23:37.099
If I did not get to your question, then hopefully I noticed it in the chat, copied it.

01:23:37.319 --> 01:23:41.879
I have a future topic slash question list on the forum.

01:23:41.999 --> 01:23:43.099
You can find that.

01:23:43.439 --> 01:23:49.239
And if your question is not there, then please submit it on the forum or get it to me some other way.

01:23:49.759 --> 01:23:52.679
Because I do want to answer the question.

01:23:52.679 --> 01:23:55.219
I just missed it because sometimes it gets lost in the chat.

01:23:55.219 --> 01:23:58.939
Like I said, OBS has been somewhat uncooperative tonight.

01:23:58.939 --> 01:24:01.959
It's currently using 80 gigabytes of memory.

01:24:02.019 --> 01:24:11.719
So yeah, it's probably a good thing that I am calling it quits right now, because I think OBS is probably in the process of crashing.

01:24:12.119 --> 01:24:18.459
And I am quite frankly surprised that it is still working for all of you, because on my end, I am watching a slideshow.

01:24:19.199 --> 01:24:22.819
But at any rate, I try to do this on Thursdays.

01:24:22.839 --> 01:24:24.199
Usually it winds up being Fridays.

01:24:24.199 --> 01:24:26.159
Just sort of depends how my week goes.

01:24:26.959 --> 01:24:28.779
Again, you can submit the questions.

01:24:28.779 --> 01:24:33.539
TelegramX, the forum is preferred, simply because it is easier for me to organize that way.

01:24:33.879 --> 01:24:38.659
But if you submit it somewhere else, I try to collate all of those and answer them in the future.

01:24:39.179 --> 01:24:43.439
Thank you to those who submitted questions, and for those who participated in the chat.

01:24:44.319 --> 01:24:48.639
And I look forward to answering more of your questions next week.

01:24:48.639 --> 01:24:51.299
I hope all of you have a great weekend.

01:24:51.299 --> 01:24:57.759
Of course, Friday night, so go out and have a beer or something, have a great weekend, and go to church on Sunday.

01:24:58.099 --> 01:25:04.699
Until next week, God bless you all, and hopefully the next time OBS will be slightly more cooperative.

01:25:05.059 --> 01:25:08.119
Anyway, have a great evening and a great weekend.

01:25:08.219 --> 01:25:09.219
See you all next week.