Transcript: Episode 0075
This transcript:
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- Has not been checked for errors.
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WEBVTT 00:00:37.291 --> 00:00:39.471Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.771 --> 00:00:40.771 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.791 --> 00:00:41.191 Mahler. 00:00:41.791 --> 00:00:43.011 And I'm still Woe. 00:00:45.551 --> 00:00:54.171 On today's Stone Choir, we're going to be doing another sort of meta episode where we talk about how it is that we select the topics for Stone Choir. 00:00:54.711 --> 00:00:59.531 And more generally, how is it that we choose to pick some of the fights that we pick? 00:00:59.831 --> 00:01:01.111 Why are we picking fights? 00:01:01.531 --> 00:01:03.351 Why do we want to fight at all? 00:01:03.711 --> 00:01:04.951 It's a turn off to some people. 00:01:05.371 --> 00:01:09.831 Why do a couple of guys want to argue about stuff that frankly most people aren't arguing about? 00:01:10.351 --> 00:01:18.211 And in the world, when you look at some of the people talking about the things that we've done entire episodes and series on, some of the people are pretty awful. 00:01:18.531 --> 00:01:20.551 They're from the opposite side politically. 00:01:20.851 --> 00:01:24.671 They're trying to make an issue of something that most Christians have never thought about. 00:01:24.991 --> 00:01:29.591 And today we're going to talk about sort of at a meta level, why are we looking at this stuff? 00:01:29.831 --> 00:01:31.151 Why do we want you to care? 00:01:31.311 --> 00:01:39.251 Why would we spend all this time saying, hey, look over here, this thing that's annoying that you don't want to deal with at all is actually really crucial. 00:01:39.751 --> 00:01:43.171 We're going to talk about the thought process behind how that happens. 00:01:43.651 --> 00:01:51.651 And although we're going to use a bunch of stuff about Stone Choir as an example, this is fundamentally about trying to teach our audience how to think, how to think generally. 00:01:51.891 --> 00:02:02.991 Because as you're looking out in the world, you're seeing the same thing we're seeing, you're seeing things we don't see maybe, the general applicability of the thought process is going to serve you in the future. 00:02:03.491 --> 00:02:15.571 And so we're going to explain why we do what we do, because it's a context that we share to help understand where men are doing things well, and where some of us are doing things really poorly as we're engaging with the world. 00:02:16.451 --> 00:02:20.971 Just very brief housekeeping, the Stone Choir Challenge coins finally arrived. 00:02:21.251 --> 00:02:22.791 Corey has begun shipping them out. 00:02:23.051 --> 00:02:24.691 A few of you have already received them. 00:02:25.031 --> 00:02:28.191 It's going to take a few weeks to get them all out, because we had a whole bunch of pre-orders. 00:02:28.531 --> 00:02:35.391 Unfortunately, I can't help ship them, so he's got to do everything, and he's writing handwritten notes to everybody, so it's going to take a little while. 00:02:35.771 --> 00:02:37.411 Thank you for your continued patience. 00:02:37.411 --> 00:02:42.871 Thank you for your low time preference on this, and especially thank you for your support for what we do here. 00:02:43.291 --> 00:02:47.831 Your support helps make it possible for us to actually spend all the time that we do this. 00:02:49.331 --> 00:02:59.471 As we look at target selection and how we deal with stuff in the world, I want to begin by giving you an example from computers that most of you are not familiar with. 00:02:59.791 --> 00:03:01.291 I'm not trying to teach you about computers. 00:03:01.311 --> 00:03:07.891 I'm trying to give you an example that most of you know nothing about, just because the fact that you don't know anything about it means you don't have any baggage. 00:03:08.111 --> 00:03:18.971 Because when I compare it to things you are familiar with, you're going to see that the things you do know have baggage, and so I'm giving you a new word for something that is going to be neutral as we apply it throughout this episode. 00:03:20.031 --> 00:03:23.951 And for those of you who are familiar, I apologize for the things I'm going to gloss over. 00:03:23.971 --> 00:03:25.771 This is not an autistic definition of the thing. 00:03:26.031 --> 00:03:28.591 It's simplified just for the sake of making the point today. 00:03:29.791 --> 00:03:32.211 In computers, there's something known as an interrupt. 00:03:32.911 --> 00:03:40.751 Basically at a very low level, in fact at the hardware level, there can be something called an interrupt that gets thrown when certain events occur. 00:03:41.231 --> 00:03:49.291 And when that happens, the software sitting above it will have policies about what do I do when a certain type of interrupt is thrown. 00:03:49.831 --> 00:03:55.611 And there's a special type of interrupt that's called a non-maskable interrupt that the policy can't ignore it. 00:03:55.991 --> 00:04:05.251 So whenever a non-maskable interrupt occurs, no matter what, the system basically has to stop whatever it's doing, which is why it's called an interrupt, and handle that event. 00:04:05.991 --> 00:04:16.911 And computers have gotten fast enough and sophisticated enough and software can do all sorts of things effectively simultaneously that it doesn't completely halt the system like it did 30, 40 years ago. 00:04:17.631 --> 00:04:28.971 But the useful thing about the concept of an interrupt is that although in the software there's a policy to say, if I see this sort of thing, I'm going to handle it in a certain way, the software doesn't know when it's coming. 00:04:29.351 --> 00:04:33.791 It's some external event that triggers the interrupt, and that's just got to deal with it. 00:04:34.291 --> 00:04:37.671 So your phone or your computer is just plugging along doing its stuff. 00:04:38.071 --> 00:04:44.311 And then say, for example, on a computer, one thing that might trigger a type of interrupt would be if you plug in a USB device. 00:04:44.711 --> 00:04:48.391 There's going to be an interrupt at the hardware level to say, hey, something new has happened. 00:04:48.411 --> 00:04:51.431 We need to handle this right away, even if you're doing other stuff. 00:04:51.931 --> 00:05:01.171 And of course, the software has to make sure that it doesn't cause glitches and hangs and anything that would disrupt the rest of work you're doing, but it has to immediately handle the fact that you plugged something in. 00:05:01.411 --> 00:05:03.651 It can't just wait five minutes and then later on notice. 00:05:04.451 --> 00:05:08.911 Before interrupts, they had what was called polling, where it would check periodically, but that's expensive. 00:05:09.211 --> 00:05:13.091 So if they interrupt, it can just say, hey, something just happened, let's deal with it. 00:05:14.571 --> 00:05:17.731 An example that you are familiar with would be something like a fire drill. 00:05:18.191 --> 00:05:21.511 And when I worked at Apple, we have fire drills annually. 00:05:22.051 --> 00:05:27.491 And the enunciators, the alarms for those fire drills were deafeningly loud. 00:05:27.811 --> 00:05:31.351 I would stick my fingers inside my ears and it was still deafening. 00:05:31.671 --> 00:05:35.311 They were so loud that even if you're completely deaf, you could still feel it in your chest. 00:05:35.711 --> 00:05:39.191 So, when there was a fire drill, you knew you had to leave. 00:05:39.691 --> 00:05:41.611 The entire building became inhospitable. 00:05:41.671 --> 00:05:43.051 You weren't getting anything else done. 00:05:43.551 --> 00:05:54.711 That's an example of an interrupt because when the fire drill or an actual fire occurs, whatever you're doing in your day, in your workplace, same thing, the fire alarm goes off, you're doing work. 00:05:54.951 --> 00:05:55.931 It doesn't matter what you're doing. 00:05:55.951 --> 00:05:58.731 It doesn't matter what your plans were for the next five minutes or hour. 00:05:59.091 --> 00:06:01.031 You have to get up and leave the building. 00:06:01.611 --> 00:06:06.751 Ideally, go to wherever your prearranged evacuation zone was and get your head count and everything. 00:06:07.751 --> 00:06:10.251 You can't do what you're doing because the alarm went off. 00:06:10.811 --> 00:06:18.851 Now, the reason for introducing the concept of an interrupt is that the fire drill or an actual fire is what we consider to be an emergency. 00:06:19.531 --> 00:06:21.891 And emergencies are sort of emotionally fraught. 00:06:22.031 --> 00:06:26.591 It's like when the fire alarm goes off, it's a visceral assault on the senses. 00:06:27.011 --> 00:06:33.491 If there's an actual fire or if you don't know there's a fire, there's the additional potential anxiety of, you know, am I in danger? 00:06:33.511 --> 00:06:35.011 You know, I mean, you're smelling for smoke. 00:06:35.451 --> 00:06:39.431 If there's an actual fire, you're potentially going to be panicky. 00:06:39.611 --> 00:06:40.591 You might be scared. 00:06:40.851 --> 00:06:48.811 And that's part of the reason for the rehearsal of the fire drill, so that you're used to going through the emergency process of something you don't normally do. 00:06:49.111 --> 00:06:51.511 But when the event comes up, you have to be ready for it. 00:06:52.431 --> 00:06:55.571 What we face in the world today is a type of this. 00:06:56.871 --> 00:07:05.351 We see in politics and in the church and just in general discourse that periodically there are these things that pop up that cause a stink. 00:07:05.791 --> 00:07:07.491 You know, race is an example. 00:07:07.511 --> 00:07:10.251 A long time ago, nobody talked about race. 00:07:10.271 --> 00:07:12.491 Like it really wasn't much of a discussion. 00:07:13.111 --> 00:07:16.471 And today when we look back, we think, oh, well, there was no races back then. 00:07:17.211 --> 00:07:23.931 Realistically, when you look at why no one was really talking much about race, it's like all the races were effectively kept separate. 00:07:24.411 --> 00:07:27.191 God separated the races and they pretty much stayed separate. 00:07:27.571 --> 00:07:39.731 The exceptions to that would be in coastal cities or in major cities where there's some commerce, there would be some interchange of different races coming to one place where you would have coexistence of cultures. 00:07:41.171 --> 00:07:45.491 It's always happened historically, but apart from that, races were always separate. 00:07:45.631 --> 00:07:49.491 So there wasn't a lot of talk about it, because why would you talk about something that wasn't an issue? 00:07:50.211 --> 00:07:58.811 As more and more in the last century and a half, races have been mashed together in the West, where all of our canon comes from, suddenly people start talking about it. 00:07:59.291 --> 00:08:08.111 And so if you look back at kind of the history of discussion, you would think, well, there was no race, and then somebody invented race, and now everybody's fighting about it. 00:08:08.771 --> 00:08:20.791 And so the natural tendency of most people, most of you in the audience probably, because you're normal people, like our audience is not some weird wild-eyed racist audience. 00:08:21.071 --> 00:08:23.551 You're just normal people, most of you are church-going. 00:08:23.751 --> 00:08:25.411 For those of you who aren't, I hope you'll start. 00:08:25.431 --> 00:08:31.951 It's certainly part of why we're here, to tell people you can be Christian and not be stupid about this stuff. 00:08:33.791 --> 00:08:36.071 You don't want to have fights about stuff like race. 00:08:36.231 --> 00:08:41.131 You don't want to hear about it, because like I said earlier, most of the people talking about it are annoying. 00:08:41.351 --> 00:08:44.011 Some of them are actively evil, terrible people. 00:08:44.551 --> 00:08:48.551 And so as soon as the subject comes up, it's kind of like a fire alarm going off. 00:08:49.151 --> 00:08:54.231 It's maybe somebody else's emergency, but your natural response is, this isn't my emergency. 00:08:54.371 --> 00:08:55.251 This isn't my fight. 00:08:55.511 --> 00:08:57.331 I don't want anything to do with it. 00:08:58.271 --> 00:09:17.091 And so the reason I want to introduce the concept of the interrupt is that if instead of treating it as an emergency is something that you've got to have some strongly held opinion about, it's just an example of us all going along with our lives, and then there's some new information in the world that's got to be dealt with. 00:09:17.471 --> 00:09:20.971 And maybe you don't personally have to deal with it, but that doesn't mean that nobody does. 00:09:21.431 --> 00:09:33.151 And so one of the things we're going to talk about today, probably near the end, is that there's some men who are equipped to actually fight these fights, to notice these things, and to deal with these interrupts and these emergencies. 00:09:33.631 --> 00:09:40.751 There are other people who aren't, particularly women pretty much excluded from fighting in emergencies and like all that crap. 00:09:40.951 --> 00:09:47.371 Not that girls are not capable, not that they're not intelligent enough, but it's not their duty, it's not their problem. 00:09:47.931 --> 00:10:06.151 And so when we have women involved in politics and things, it's natural they're going to be interested because a girl can die by the sword just as easily as a man, and girls are going to fare in some ways worse in conditions of warfare because they're usually not just going to be killed, other things are going to be done to them, they're in some ways worse. 00:10:06.611 --> 00:10:13.031 So everyone has invested interest in when there are real world fights and wars, which is part of this. 00:10:13.311 --> 00:10:17.951 We're going to use a lot of examples from different aspects of warfare. 00:10:18.831 --> 00:10:21.171 And it's not tough talk. 00:10:21.571 --> 00:10:25.091 Some of them are analogues, it's analogous to things in warfare. 00:10:25.651 --> 00:10:31.591 But I think whether or not you've ever been in war, whether or not you've actually killed someone, I haven't done either. 00:10:31.951 --> 00:10:33.231 I hope I never will have to. 00:10:33.811 --> 00:10:43.371 But someone who has gone to war, someone who's been a war fighter, before they actually went and did the thing, they were trained to do it. 00:10:43.651 --> 00:10:55.251 So their introduction to warfare, as a professional soldier, was training, was thinking about what they're going to do, and then going and doing it, to learn the concepts, the techniques, the strategies. 00:10:55.651 --> 00:11:02.291 Whatever specifics were necessary for doing their job as a soldier, first began with thought. 00:11:03.011 --> 00:11:08.931 And so today, as we're talking, we're just thinking about things, and not specifically physical warfare. 00:11:09.291 --> 00:11:24.111 But that's another one of the points to be made today, is that when we talk about fights and battles and wars, sometimes it's actual literal warfare, like Genghis Khan killing a lot of people in warfare, actually happened. 00:11:24.551 --> 00:11:29.311 But conceptually, similar things happen in other aspects of life. 00:11:30.291 --> 00:11:35.431 My dad played college football, and so from a young age, he taught me to really love football. 00:11:35.471 --> 00:11:36.511 I used to really like it. 00:11:36.831 --> 00:11:38.331 I understood football really well. 00:11:38.391 --> 00:11:43.651 I could watch a play evolve, know what was going to happen if a flag was thrown before the ref said anything. 00:11:43.931 --> 00:11:45.031 I knew what the call was going to be. 00:11:46.091 --> 00:11:50.451 Football is fundamentally modeled after maneuver warfare. 00:11:50.851 --> 00:11:52.051 It's kind of a microcosm. 00:11:52.071 --> 00:11:56.011 Every play is kind of a set piece of a different aspect of maneuver warfare. 00:11:56.611 --> 00:12:05.751 And so it gets fun for its own sake, but there are clear correlations between the strategy in a football game and a strategy in an actual war. 00:12:05.771 --> 00:12:08.631 That's not a direct correlation, but it's typological. 00:12:08.791 --> 00:12:10.131 There are aspects that are similar. 00:12:10.511 --> 00:12:16.151 And so it's interesting because you can understand bits and pieces of one, and it will apply to the other. 00:12:16.711 --> 00:12:40.771 And so as we talk about these concepts, we're trying to give bits and pieces of ideas, not to suggest that anyone should go to war physically, hurting, fighting, killing, but to say that when we're dealing with fights, whether they're rhetorical fights or they're spiritual or cultural fights, there are aspects of warfare that apply just as much in the rhetorical sphere as they do in the physical sphere. 00:12:40.911 --> 00:12:42.511 Now, they manifest differently, obviously. 00:12:42.531 --> 00:12:52.151 The pen and the sword will harm in different ways or will solve problems in different ways, but some of the strategies with which they're employed are very similar. 00:12:52.671 --> 00:12:57.191 So we're not trying to talk tough or be jerks about talking about something we don't know about. 00:12:57.511 --> 00:13:05.491 We're trying to give examples that all of us are in a dangerous situation in current year, just because of the state of the world. 00:13:06.371 --> 00:13:08.351 That's kind of an evergreen tweet. 00:13:08.591 --> 00:13:10.651 There will always be wars and rumors of wars. 00:13:10.991 --> 00:13:13.991 And that's a reminder to us from God that the end is near. 00:13:14.291 --> 00:13:17.491 The end has always been near from the moment that Christ ascended into heaven. 00:13:17.931 --> 00:13:24.651 And so we should anticipate with hope and joy the resurrection of the dead and the return of God. 00:13:26.731 --> 00:13:34.651 Whether things are good or bad in a particular day, part of our task is dealing with what's in front of us, and part of it is also focusing on God. 00:13:34.891 --> 00:13:36.171 Never one or the other. 00:13:36.491 --> 00:13:38.971 If you're only focused on what's in front of you, you're basically a pagan. 00:13:39.391 --> 00:13:47.031 And if you're only ever focused on God, to the exclusion and at the expense of your actual duties right in front of you, you're not a Christian either. 00:13:47.751 --> 00:13:56.251 If you don't tend to the specific duties God has given you in this life for material aspects of our interaction, you're not a Christian. 00:13:56.471 --> 00:13:57.471 You're not obeying God. 00:13:57.871 --> 00:14:02.551 Because just looking heavenward and say, God, I'm ready, I love you, that's crying out, Lord, Lord. 00:14:02.751 --> 00:14:04.531 He's going to come down and say, I never knew you. 00:14:04.931 --> 00:14:10.451 Because the only way to truly cry out, Lord, Lord, is to tend to the things that God has given us to do. 00:14:10.991 --> 00:14:23.051 And so when these fights come in the world, when these emergencies emerge, when the world throws an interrupt, when suddenly something you never thought about, you didn't want to deal with, pops up, you suddenly have to deal with it. 00:14:23.731 --> 00:14:31.591 And another aspect of what we're going to talk about today is that some men are just dispositionally not equipped for that, certainly not anymore. 00:14:32.251 --> 00:14:40.571 In some aspects, men are racially better equipped for being disagreeable, and some races are less disagreeable. 00:14:40.591 --> 00:14:48.631 The approach of a German versus a Norwegian versus a Scotsman are going to be pretty different fundamentally. 00:14:49.371 --> 00:14:55.891 And so I'm not saying that every man needs to have the same attitudes that quarry or I have towards these things. 00:14:56.611 --> 00:15:13.851 But one of the conclusions we want to draw today is that when these fights are coming, if there are men who can say, hey, there's an interrupt that's been thrown, there's an emergency here, if you're not equipped to join the battle, you should be equipped with the foreknowledge that that guy is actually on my side. 00:15:14.091 --> 00:15:19.171 He's actually fighting a battle that maybe I don't feel like I can fight, but I'm not going to shoot him in the back. 00:15:19.451 --> 00:15:20.771 I'm not going to stab him in the back. 00:15:20.791 --> 00:15:21.771 I'm not going to betray him. 00:15:22.051 --> 00:15:24.211 I'm going to help him or at least leave him alone. 00:15:24.911 --> 00:15:34.011 Because a lot of what happens today is that when these fights get picked, not by us, when the fights get picked by the world, when the interrupt is thrown by Satan, we have to respond. 00:15:34.531 --> 00:15:38.351 And when those responses occur, different men are equipped in different ways to deal with them. 00:15:39.171 --> 00:15:55.011 And we want to help illustrate, just kind of, again, at a meta level, as this stuff is going on, just realize that there are going to be men who see things that you don't see, who have a better understanding of things that maybe you haven't thought about before, and just try to get your bearings. 00:15:55.531 --> 00:15:59.191 If you've never had a fire drill before, you're going to have to follow the crowd. 00:15:59.331 --> 00:16:01.251 You're not going to know where to go or what to do. 00:16:01.451 --> 00:16:02.951 Maybe you haven't been trained or whatever. 00:16:03.511 --> 00:16:07.631 If you follow the crowd, you're going to get to the right place, because somebody's going to know where they're going. 00:16:08.151 --> 00:16:12.431 And so we as groups don't need everyone to understand everything. 00:16:12.691 --> 00:16:16.991 We just need to know that somebody has a plan, and as that plan plays out, you follow it. 00:16:17.211 --> 00:16:17.951 You don't fight. 00:16:18.791 --> 00:16:24.891 Like if the fire alarm goes off at work, and you're in a meeting, you don't start yelling at everybody and say, hey, where are you going? 00:16:24.911 --> 00:16:25.691 We're in the middle of a meeting. 00:16:26.171 --> 00:16:27.411 The interrupt has been thrown. 00:16:27.431 --> 00:16:28.391 The alarm is going off. 00:16:28.651 --> 00:16:29.351 Everybody leaves. 00:16:29.651 --> 00:16:30.691 You have to leave too. 00:16:31.011 --> 00:16:33.131 And the plans that you had before don't matter. 00:16:34.571 --> 00:16:42.591 As we were preparing for this episode, a lot of my prior reading of authors like Klauswitz and Sun Tzu came to mind. 00:16:42.731 --> 00:16:56.731 Some of the quotes are very relevant because as Wo mentioned, warfare and what we are discussing today are distinct and yet very similar because this is spiritual warfare. 00:16:57.451 --> 00:17:03.011 And I think that is something that as modern Christians, we have forgotten over the last century or so. 00:17:04.251 --> 00:17:19.411 We need to go back to thinking of ourselves as the church militant in several senses of the word militant, including military, because man's life on this earth is war, to paraphrase Job. 00:17:20.791 --> 00:17:43.351 Not in the sense that everything, everywhere, at all times must necessarily be physical conflict, but in the sense that even if you are at physical peace, if you are not at war with your neighbors, you're not being invaded, you don't have the enemy already within your gates, even without those problems, if those are absent, we still have our struggle against the world, the flesh and the devil. 00:17:43.771 --> 00:17:46.871 That will always be part of life in this fallen world. 00:17:46.891 --> 00:17:52.171 Those things do not go away until the next life, until we die. 00:17:52.691 --> 00:17:54.511 And so we have to bear that in mind. 00:17:54.611 --> 00:17:57.591 We will always be at war with those things. 00:17:57.971 --> 00:18:11.491 And so many of those quotes from men who were writing about physical warfare are applicable to what we are dealing with here, because the same sort of mechanisms, the same ideas are in play. 00:18:12.171 --> 00:18:21.551 And one in particular, of course, that comes to mind is that all warfare is based on deception, which is something we should recognize with regard to Satan. 00:18:22.491 --> 00:18:26.651 Everything he is doing at any given time is meant to deceive. 00:18:27.691 --> 00:18:29.271 That is his main line of attack. 00:18:29.511 --> 00:18:31.571 He is always attempting to deceive. 00:18:32.491 --> 00:18:38.891 And so if we are strong in one place, he will attack somewhere else, or he'll faint and then attack somewhere else. 00:18:39.151 --> 00:18:48.271 His goal is to deceive you, to get you to drop your guard or to engage in behavior that, oh, well, this isn't that detrimental, or maybe it's not detrimental. 00:18:49.431 --> 00:18:59.531 But five, six, seven steps down the line, or maybe a century in the future, he has laid a trap, and he wants maybe not you, but maybe your descendants to walk into it. 00:19:00.211 --> 00:19:06.991 And so that's one of the reasons that we select some of the topics we select, because Satan has already laid a trap. 00:19:07.151 --> 00:19:12.691 Perhaps he's already sprung the trap in many cases when we talk about, for instance, biological sex. 00:19:13.351 --> 00:19:38.231 That's something that's currently being debated in our society, because we are a society of insane people, also evil and wicked, but insane, because we have men and women who can't define what it means to be a man or a woman, even biologically, let alone what it means to be beyond that, psychologically, dispositionally, all of these other things that will be relevant for this episode, as Woe mentioned already, the difference, say, between Scots and Norwegians. 00:19:38.731 --> 00:19:41.731 Being part Scottish and German, I recognize the difference there. 00:19:42.811 --> 00:19:58.791 And we had a little bit of that fight, even in Lutheranism, historically, because we had some squabbles over election in American Lutheranism, and it was largely a division between the Scandinavians on one side and the Germans on the other, and disposition played into that. 00:20:00.491 --> 00:20:05.671 But when it comes to conflicts and fights, there are really two different kinds. 00:20:05.991 --> 00:20:07.211 We can have two categories. 00:20:07.231 --> 00:20:10.071 There is the foreseeable and the unforeseeable. 00:20:10.531 --> 00:20:20.511 Now, for the foreseeable, of course, we can plan for those, and you can have sort of a subcategory here, because there are fights that are foreseeable that have not yet come to pass. 00:20:21.091 --> 00:20:32.311 And so some of the episodes, some of the topics that we choose are things that Satan has not quite yet subverted, and so we're defending against an attack that we see coming. 00:20:32.771 --> 00:20:40.131 We see what he is planning because it's foreseeable, and so we plan for that attack ahead of time. 00:20:40.911 --> 00:20:41.651 Same thing in warfare. 00:20:41.991 --> 00:20:46.851 Sometimes you know that your enemy is going to attack a certain point, and so you fortify it. 00:20:47.091 --> 00:20:51.431 You are preparing for that incoming attack because you see it ahead of time. 00:20:53.271 --> 00:21:00.591 But other times it is unforeseeable, and you can't really prepare for the unforeseeable attack except to be generally ready. 00:21:00.931 --> 00:21:12.811 And so that is partly what we're doing when you just study scripture generally, when you read through scripture, when you are engaged in prayer, when you are doing the things that constitute that part of the Christian life. 00:21:13.351 --> 00:21:15.651 You are preparing for the attacks of Satan. 00:21:16.431 --> 00:21:23.771 Because for instance, if you are attacked by Satan with certain doubts, if you have spent time in scripture, that will come to mind. 00:21:24.291 --> 00:21:29.211 God will bring that to mind so you can defend yourself against those arrows in that moment. 00:21:29.951 --> 00:21:36.331 And so you're preparing for those unforeseeable, those unforeseen attacks at some point in the future, should they come. 00:21:36.351 --> 00:21:37.831 Perhaps they won't, perhaps they will. 00:21:38.311 --> 00:21:39.131 You don't know. 00:21:41.051 --> 00:21:51.031 But the other kind, and what we are most often addressing in our episodes, are things that, whether they were foreseeable or not, they are already here. 00:21:51.051 --> 00:21:53.071 Satan is actively attacking them. 00:21:53.851 --> 00:21:57.631 And this is in line with what has been done historically by the Church. 00:21:57.651 --> 00:21:59.991 We've mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again here. 00:22:00.451 --> 00:22:05.971 If you look at the creeds, the creeds were created by the Church from scripture. 00:22:05.991 --> 00:22:09.311 We've linked that before, all the references to scripture in the creeds. 00:22:09.711 --> 00:22:17.571 But the creeds were created by Christendom in order to defend against something Satan was actively attacking at that time. 00:22:18.591 --> 00:22:23.551 We would not have the creeds if Satan were not attacking the things defended in the creeds. 00:22:24.291 --> 00:22:31.331 They were made to defend against what he was doing at that time against those people in that place. 00:22:33.231 --> 00:22:41.291 What Satan is doing today, what he is attacking today, is different, not just in degree, but in kind from what he has attacked in the past. 00:22:42.131 --> 00:23:08.931 Many of the things contained in the creed are directly addressed in Scripture, and that's why you can look at the creeds and you can point out that's from this verse, that's from this verse, that's from this verse, and you can practically cite each and every word of the creeds to somewhere in Scripture because they are just rearrangements of the words of Scripture in order to make something that is easily memorized and recited against the various heresies and attacks of Satan. 00:23:10.711 --> 00:23:12.951 That is not what Satan is attacking today. 00:23:12.971 --> 00:23:16.531 As we've mentioned before, today he is attacking creation itself. 00:23:16.551 --> 00:23:18.691 He is attacking God as creator. 00:23:19.271 --> 00:23:24.311 And so some of the issues that we address may not be explicitly addressed in Scripture. 00:23:24.531 --> 00:23:35.791 They are often tangentially addressed in Scripture, but you have to appeal to creation in order to address some of these issues because Satan is not attacking Scripture itself. 00:23:35.951 --> 00:23:44.531 Of course he still does that, and we still have disagreements and arguments and all of these other problems between and among various traditions, denominations. 00:23:45.191 --> 00:23:50.611 But by and large, what he is attacking most successfully today is creation itself. 00:23:51.071 --> 00:23:59.311 And that's what he is attacking when he attacks the idea of gender roles, which by the way, gender roles and the term gender are fine. 00:23:59.331 --> 00:24:00.171 They are a real thing. 00:24:01.371 --> 00:24:10.091 Satan seeks to subvert them and turn them into something perverse, because he seeks to unmoor them from biological sex, from God's created order. 00:24:10.811 --> 00:24:18.331 Because properly understood, a man, biologically male, is masculine in terms of gender. 00:24:19.711 --> 00:24:21.431 And of course, a woman is feminine. 00:24:22.371 --> 00:24:22.951 A female. 00:24:22.971 --> 00:24:30.271 These terms all apply to sort of a sphere of related concepts and ideas, something that is a totality, it's a Gestalt. 00:24:30.591 --> 00:24:32.311 It is greater than the sum of its parts. 00:24:32.711 --> 00:24:34.571 Satan is attacking and subverting that. 00:24:34.591 --> 00:24:37.271 He's doing the same thing with regard to race. 00:24:38.011 --> 00:24:42.951 It comes straight from the pit of hell when someone argues that all races are the same. 00:24:43.111 --> 00:24:46.331 There's one race, the human race, is the phrase they always love to use. 00:24:46.811 --> 00:24:53.371 Which of course is absolutely insane, and everyone knows it, because it's the same as saying there's one plant, the plant plant. 00:24:54.311 --> 00:24:55.271 Well, that's not true. 00:24:55.871 --> 00:24:58.151 Go ahead, try to eat lettuce and then eat hemlock. 00:24:58.211 --> 00:24:59.351 Don't do that, by the way. 00:24:59.371 --> 00:24:59.951 It's poisonous. 00:24:59.971 --> 00:25:00.611