Transcript: Episode 0082

“Power and Authority”

This transcript:
  1. Was machine generated.
  2. Has not been checked for errors.
  3. May not be entirely accurate.
WEBVTT00:00:37 – 00:00:39:Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast.00:00:39 – 00:00:40:I am Corey J.00:00:40 – 00:00:41:Mahler.00:00:41 – 00:00:43:And I'm still, whoa.00:00:45 – 00:00:50:On today's Stone Choir, we're going to be discussing power and authority.00:00:50 – 00:00:57:Before we get into the subject today, apologize to everyone who listens regularly that we didn't have an episode last week.00:00:57 – 00:01:02:I had some clam chowder the day before we recorded, and I paid the price for it for the next 24 hours.00:01:02 – 00:01:06:So the day we normally record, I was in no condition to do anything.00:01:06 – 00:01:11:Felt better the next day, so we had planned to push the episode back by one day.00:01:11 – 00:01:17:And then when we tried to record, we were almost ready to record the following day, and everything broke.00:01:17 – 00:01:21:My internet started dropping, we couldn't talk to each other anymore.00:01:21 – 00:01:25:And after fighting it for like 30, 45 minutes, we just gave up.00:01:25 – 00:01:32:And so we both updated to Sequoia, the new Mac OS X, hoping that it would fix the technology reason to talk to each other.00:01:32 – 00:01:34:And it did, so everything's working today.00:01:34 – 00:01:37:So, apologies that we didn't have an episode out for you.00:01:37 – 00:01:39:We really, we tried as best we could.00:01:39 – 00:01:41:It just was not happening.00:01:42 – 00:01:46:When that happens, a couple of people comment on X, and it's a good plan.00:01:46 – 00:01:49:If we don't put out something, go back and listen to an old episode of Your Jonesing.00:01:49 – 00:01:52:They're always worth re-listening to.00:01:52 – 00:02:01:Today, as we talk about power and authority, a couple key points up front just to kind of lay the framework for what we're doing today.00:02:01 – 00:02:05:This is not going to be a discussion of linguistics.00:02:05 – 00:02:14:We are not trying to set power against authority in most languages, and when everything is working correctly, they're basically synonyms.00:02:14 – 00:02:23:Power and authority, you can pretty much use interchangeably, and apart from a few variations and shades and connotation, you're probably going to be pretty much right, whichever one you pick.00:02:24 – 00:02:34:The reason for today's episode is that we are increasingly faced with situations where our institutions are not working correctly.00:02:34 – 00:02:38:They're not working towards the purpose for which they were instituted.00:02:38 – 00:02:52:And so as a result, what we have is men who are exercising power under color of law, under authority, and they may no longer actually have the authority to be exercising that power.00:02:53 – 00:02:59:So today, when we're talking about power and authority, we're going to give a number of biblical examples and some examples from the real world.00:02:59 – 00:03:01:Not that the Bible is not the real world, you know what I mean.00:03:01 – 00:03:04:Modern, just stuff in your face.00:03:04 – 00:03:12:Specifically because we have to be aware that if circumstances change, men have to react.00:03:13 – 00:03:18:We've talked in a past episode, a recent episode on target selection about the OODA loop.00:03:18 – 00:03:20:Observe, orient, decide and act.00:03:20 – 00:03:23:You have to observe if circumstances change.00:03:23 – 00:03:41:And if a man who had the authority to do something, he was doing everything right, he was a faithful preacher, he was a faithful judge, whatever he was doing before, if he stops being faithful in exercising the power that accords with that authority, he may well have abrogated the authority and no longer have it.00:03:41 – 00:03:45:Or he may need to be removed, he may need to be corrected.00:03:45 – 00:03:46:Something's going on.00:03:46 – 00:03:56:And we have to recognize situationally that the guy who was the guy yesterday, he was doing everything right, if he starts doing things incorrectly, circumstances have changed.00:03:56 – 00:04:07:And so we have to at least be aware that you cannot simply designate a man and say, okay, he has the absolute authority to do this and we're never going to question anything that happens.00:04:07 – 00:04:26:When you say it that way, it kind of makes sense, everyone's going to nod along, but when you look at the actual circumstances throughout the history and the Bible and elsewhere where men change their tune, where they were doing one thing well and they start doing something poorly, somebody's got to come along and say, hey, you're no longer acting under authority.00:04:26 – 00:04:29:This was the premise of the Reformation.00:04:29 – 00:04:39:When Luther began reading the Bible in earnest, he's like, wait a minute, I'm reading what God said and I'm seeing what's happening in the church and I don't see an overlap.00:04:39 – 00:04:41:I see things that shouldn't be done.00:04:41 – 00:04:44:I see things that are commanded, they're not being done.00:04:44 – 00:04:46:And we see that in this day as well.00:04:46 – 00:04:58:So our goal here is to equip you as a listener not to be a rebel against authority, not to look for a license to say, I don't have to listen to anything these guys saying.00:04:58 – 00:05:00:I'm just going to do whatever I want.00:05:00 – 00:05:01:That would be an evil outcome.00:05:01 – 00:05:02:We do not desire that.00:05:02 – 00:05:05:We don't exhort that of anyone.00:05:05 – 00:05:10:But you have to be aware that, well, something changed, I need to do something.00:05:10 – 00:05:15:Now, the do something is a matter of wisdom that's frankly beyond the scope of this episode.00:05:15 – 00:05:22:All we're going to try to do today is equip you with the cycle in your OODA loop of saying, well, okay, this guy changed.00:05:22 – 00:05:32:In recent episodes, we've given the example of Doug Wilson, who in years past, many of you loved and respected him, and made great contributions to your faith.00:05:32 – 00:05:32:And that's great.00:05:32 – 00:05:39:And for the sake of argument, can see that absolutely everything that he did was under godly authority, don't care.00:05:39 – 00:05:47:The question is, when such a man today is doing things that are no longer scriptural, does he still have the authority?00:05:47 – 00:05:50:And I'm not picking on him, that's true of anyone.00:05:50 – 00:05:53:There are also circumstances where there may be no authority whatsoever.00:05:53 – 00:06:04:In the very first episode of Stone Choir, where we were dealing with the fact that the LCMS has girls teaching theology, which is de facto wicked, period.00:06:04 – 00:06:08:There's no such thing as a girl teaching theology faithfully.00:06:08 – 00:06:11:Even if she gets everything right, what she is doing is wicked.00:06:11 – 00:06:15:It's functionally witchcraft for a girl to be teaching theology.00:06:15 – 00:06:26:And so the very first episode that we did in October of 2022 was addressing the fact that this was going on in the church, that a girl can never have the authority to do that.00:06:26 – 00:06:37:And at the end, we made the case for why we're called Stone Choir, why two guys who don't have any credentials, we don't have any call, any vocation, to be talking about this stuff, why are we doing it?00:06:37 – 00:06:41:Why is it illicit for us to, and for others not to do so?00:06:41 – 00:06:51:And we made the case there that when we speak, this is a one-to-many relationship where we don't speak with any authority of our own.00:06:51 – 00:06:55:We're saying what is in the Bible, we're saying what is true in the world.00:06:55 – 00:07:03:And if something has authority over your conscience, it's not because you're answering to us, it's because, well, that's true.00:07:03 – 00:07:07:This guy said that, it's a good argument, but he's absolutely right that this is the case.00:07:07 – 00:07:09:This is actually what scripture says.00:07:09 – 00:07:12:This is actually what I see with my own lying eyes.00:07:12 – 00:07:17:Therefore, my conscience is now bound to do whatever that I didn't think about before.00:07:17 – 00:07:20:That's not us exercising any authority whatsoever.00:07:20 – 00:07:28:That's us exercising the authority of a Christian man to speak as Christians, but it is not authority in terms of dominion over another.00:07:28 – 00:07:29:Nobody answers to us.00:07:30 – 00:07:32:We don't want anybody to answer to us.00:07:32 – 00:07:35:We want men to answer to God and to the truth.00:07:35 – 00:07:46:There are times and places where we find the men who are supposed to be doing more than that, who are supposed to be acting with direct authority over others.00:07:46 – 00:07:57:For example, fathers, pastors, political leaders, the men who do have the authority to exercise dominion over some place in a narrow scope that's authorized.00:07:57 – 00:08:02:If they fail to do that, they're exercising power in a way that's ungodly.00:08:02 – 00:08:06:But we have to deal with the question of, well, where did the authority go?00:08:06 – 00:08:14:As we work through these examples today, just keep in mind that we're not encouraging anyone to look for license to rebel.00:08:14 – 00:08:15:That's crucial.00:08:15 – 00:08:16:It's not a good thing.00:08:16 – 00:08:18:It's not a good thing that we have to do this episode at all.00:08:18 – 00:08:30:You know, this episode is a teaching tool, thinking tool episode, similar to when we talked about the genealogy of ideas, when we talked about what problem are you trying to solve, this is another one.00:08:30 – 00:08:35:Is the guy still acting with the authority to do the thing where he's exercising this power?00:08:35 – 00:08:45:Because although they are the same synonymously, when it's correctly done, when there's a divergence, the question is, has the authority gone away?00:08:45 – 00:08:48:Because if the authority has gone away, that doesn't mean that the duty has gone away.00:08:48 – 00:08:52:It means that that office is now vacant.00:08:52 – 00:08:56:It means that we have a man in a position of authority who should be doing something.00:08:56 – 00:08:58:He's failing to do it correctly.00:08:58 – 00:09:01:He's doing something incorrectly he shouldn't be doing.00:09:01 – 00:09:06:And all the things that he should be doing that aren't getting done, somebody else has to come along and do them.00:09:06 – 00:09:07:It doesn't mean you do it.00:09:07 – 00:09:08:It doesn't mean you overthrow.00:09:08 – 00:09:10:It's just you got to know.00:09:10 – 00:09:12:And then from there, it's the matter of wisdom.00:09:12 – 00:09:16:So we'll give some examples today from scripture and from the world.00:09:16 – 00:09:25:But the basic premise here is you should be aware when you're looking at any situation that what was true yesterday may situationally no longer be true today.00:09:26 – 00:09:34:Maybe Doug Wilson or James White or some other favorite teacher that you've had in the past, it was a very great benefit to you and your faith.00:09:34 – 00:09:39:You know, some political leader who did a good job for a while and then went off the rails.00:09:39 – 00:09:40:That's a human story.00:09:40 – 00:09:42:Guys do well and then they do poorly.00:09:42 – 00:09:44:I find that all over the place in scripture.00:09:44 – 00:09:49:When they start doing evil, they lose the authority to do the thing.00:09:49 – 00:09:53:And so by the end of this, probably not going to be a long episode.00:09:53 – 00:09:57:You can laugh when you're looking at the runtime, but we're not going to belabor the point here.00:09:57 – 00:10:12:We just want to make you aware that you need to pay attention because if we use ourselves frequently as an example, if we start saying something that's contrary to scripture, you need to walk away and you need to warn others to walk away.00:10:12 – 00:10:15:It's fine to say, well, that guy did some good stuff before.00:10:15 – 00:10:16:He's off the rails now.00:10:16 – 00:10:17:I want nothing more to do with it.00:10:17 – 00:10:19:That is a necessary thing.00:10:19 – 00:10:43:And the problem is that when you have an office, when you have a political leader or a religious leader, there's an inherent respect that's accorded to the office and a wolf or a saboteur will wear that as a skin suit and they will use that respect accorded to the office as cover for things that they have no authority to do whatsoever.00:10:43 – 00:10:51:And so to be able to discern that and realize what's going on is vital for protecting your life and protecting your soul and those of everyone under your care.00:10:53 – 00:10:59:So as Wo mentioned, we're not drawing a hardline distinction between power and authority.00:10:59 – 00:11:01:There's a lot of overlap here.00:11:01 – 00:11:03:These are intertwined concepts.00:11:03 – 00:11:13:However, just to start out, to give a basic definition of each, to give you an idea of how we're approaching this subject, how we're dealing with these matters.00:11:14 – 00:11:21:When we speak of power in this context, essentially what we mean is the ability or the capacity to do a thing.00:11:22 – 00:11:24:And that is removed from other considerations.00:11:24 – 00:11:34:So you're not bringing moral considerations or ethical considerations or anything else into the formula when dealing with power qua power.00:11:34 – 00:11:38:Power is simply that ability to do the thing.00:11:38 – 00:11:44:And so to give perhaps a ridiculous example, sitting here right now, I have a pocket knife in my pocket.00:11:44 – 00:11:46:I could take it and stab myself.00:11:46 – 00:11:48:I have the power to do that.00:11:48 – 00:11:49:It would be incredibly unwise.00:11:49 – 00:11:51:It would be stupid.00:11:51 – 00:11:53:But I have the power to do it.00:11:53 – 00:11:58:So power is not in this context a moral consideration or anything like that.00:11:58 – 00:12:04:It is simply, can you do the thing in the sense of, do you have the ability to do the thing?00:12:04 – 00:12:09:Authority, on the other hand, is the right to do a thing.00:12:09 – 00:12:13:So do you have the right to do it?00:12:13 – 00:12:15:Are you authorized to do it?00:12:15 – 00:12:17:Because you can speak of authority as an authorization.00:12:18 – 00:12:30:Even in the case of, say, an absolute monarch, because his authorization, of course, is coming from God, insofar as he is executing his duties faithfully.00:12:30 – 00:12:31:So that's the distinction here.00:12:31 – 00:12:33:Power is simply the ability and authority.00:12:33 – 00:12:38:You can think of it as the right to do the thing.00:12:38 – 00:12:45:And the problem that we are addressing fundamentally is when the authority is no longer there.00:12:45 – 00:12:47:The power may very well still be there in many cases.00:12:47 – 00:12:51:Because in some cases, power isn't as much in play.00:12:51 – 00:12:59:So for instance, when you are speaking of a theologian, the theologian has the authority to speak on these subjects.00:12:59 – 00:13:02:He doesn't really have any power, per se.00:13:02 – 00:13:08:Because the theologian isn't going to come to your house and choke you until you adhere to what he says about God.00:13:08 – 00:13:10:At least he shouldn't be doing that.00:13:10 – 00:13:12:And so it's not a matter of power, it's a matter of authority.00:13:14 – 00:13:20:But in the realm of the political, you're going to have both in play.00:13:20 – 00:13:30:Because it may very well be the case that the one who had both power and authority no longer has authority, but still very much has the power.00:13:30 – 00:13:36:We see that many times in scripture, or we see places where power is exercised without authority.00:13:36 – 00:13:39:So there was never authority, necessarily.00:13:39 – 00:13:40:There was just the power.00:13:40 – 00:13:45:And it's a wrongful use, because it is used in the absence of authority.00:13:45 – 00:13:57:And this is seen, as we'll mention, throughout scripture and also in our everyday life, because, as I mentioned, the political, we see this all the time in the political realm.00:13:57 – 00:14:00:This is the abuse of power.00:14:00 – 00:14:04:It is the wrongful presentation of authority.00:14:04 – 00:14:11:It is seeming to have authority, when really it is just that raw use of power without the attendant authority.00:14:11 – 00:14:16:And it is that authority that makes the use of power rightful.00:14:16 – 00:14:26:Just because you have the power to do something does not mean that you have the authorization, does not mean that it would be rightful for you to do that thing.00:14:26 – 00:14:30:And we could start with Genesis 3, with Adam and Eve.00:14:31 – 00:14:36:In the fall, Adam and Eve had the power to do what they did.00:14:37 – 00:14:39:It was not rightful.00:14:39 – 00:14:47:They did not have the authority to do what they did, because God had specifically told them not to do that thing.00:14:47 – 00:14:56:In addition to that, you see with Adam that he had an authority to exercise headship over his wife, and he failed to do that.00:14:56 – 00:14:58:So he had the power to do it.00:14:58 – 00:14:59:He could have spoken up.00:14:59 – 00:15:02:He could have told the snake to be silent.00:15:02 – 00:15:03:He could have told Eve to walk away.00:15:04 – 00:15:07:He had power to do something.00:15:07 – 00:15:15:He had an authority as well, because as the head, as the husband, he had authority to exercise over his wife.00:15:15 – 00:15:17:He failed to do that.00:15:17 – 00:15:20:And so you can have authority and fail to exercise it.00:15:20 – 00:15:23:Of course, we see that as well all the time in many places.00:15:23 – 00:15:24:We see it in the church.00:15:24 – 00:15:26:We see it in the state.00:15:26 – 00:15:28:This is a common problem to humanity.00:15:28 – 00:15:30:We see it here right at the beginning in the garden.00:15:31 – 00:15:39:And so it's that power, the wrongful exercise of that power that is really the core of what we're discussing.00:15:40 – 00:15:52:Now, in most cases, it's going to be because there's an appearance of authority, and that authority is only an appearance, because it's no longer there, because the power is being used wrongfully.00:15:52 – 00:15:57:Here in the case of the fall, it's really more a failure to exercise the authority.00:15:57 – 00:16:01:And so there's a distinction there, but these are all related to each other.00:16:01 – 00:16:07:There are different facets of how these things can be abused, how they can be used incorrectly.00:16:09 – 00:16:18:So in human lives, in civilization, whatever state of civilization we're in, there are going to be institutions.00:16:18 – 00:16:26:We've talked in the past how institutions are instituted for purposes, and by their nature, institutions are preserved over time.00:16:27 – 00:16:29:They're preserved across generations.00:16:29 – 00:16:32:You don't call something an institution that's been there for five years.00:16:32 – 00:16:35:You call something an institution that's been there for generations.00:16:35 – 00:16:44:When four generations of students at a particular college have been going and eating or drinking at the same place, that's an institution.00:16:44 – 00:16:45:It's there for a purpose.00:16:45 – 00:16:47:It's something that's time-honored.00:16:47 – 00:16:59:And one of the facets of the distinction, when there is one, between power and authority, is that part of what we're talking about here is tradition.00:16:59 – 00:17:10:And one of the most common aphorisms when tradition comes up is Chesterton's fence, which the premise is basically that somebody finds a fence somewhere in the middle of nowhere.00:17:10 – 00:17:12:They don't know what it's for.00:17:12 – 00:17:14:And they think, well, this fence is useless.00:17:14 – 00:17:15:I'm going to tear it out.00:17:15 – 00:17:21:When it turns out, a previous generation knew that there was something that that fence was necessary to prevent.00:17:21 – 00:17:23:They put the fence there.00:17:23 – 00:17:30:You come along, you tear out the fence, and then you have the problem that a previous generation solved with the thing that you're looking in, it doesn't make any sense.00:17:32 – 00:17:41:I think most people misunderstand what Chesterton's fence is about, because it is not appealing to the inherent authority of the fence.00:17:41 – 00:17:52:What it is doing is warning men who don't know any better, when you see something, don't just assume that you can tear it out because you don't understand it.00:17:52 – 00:17:57:If it doesn't make sense to you, that is not a sufficient warrant for you to demolish it.00:17:57 – 00:18:01:Because at some point in the past, there's a genealogy for that fence.00:18:01 – 00:18:02:It was put there for a reason.00:18:02 – 00:18:04:It was there to solve a particular problem.00:18:04 – 00:18:06:Somebody's like, I have a problem to solve.00:18:06 – 00:18:08:This fence is going to solve it.00:18:08 – 00:18:10:And then maybe those reasons are forgotten.00:18:10 – 00:18:15:When the man who doesn't know any better comes along, he's like, oh, this fence is worthless.00:18:15 – 00:18:16:I'm going to tear it out.00:18:16 – 00:18:22:The warning is that tradition serves a purpose when men don't know any better.00:18:23 – 00:18:26:It doesn't mean that tradition is immutable.00:18:26 – 00:18:40:And so what we see with power and authority is that offices and vocations where men have authority when they're acting under authority, those are basically always going to be some form of institution.00:18:40 – 00:18:43:Even if it's all the way down to the father level.00:18:44 – 00:18:46:That's not simply a tradition.00:18:46 – 00:18:50:It's there because in the case of many of these things, God instituted them.00:18:51 – 00:18:58:And so this is frankly one of the problems that we have today with really a lot of extremely high IQ guys.00:18:58 – 00:19:10:It is very common for some of the smartest guys around to be the stupidest when it comes to looking at traditions and things that have served man in the past because they think that they know better.00:19:10 – 00:19:15:And the problem is that on one hand they do, but on the other hand they don't know God.00:19:15 – 00:19:25:So what I mean by this is that it's very common for guys who are very intelligent to get into weird things relationship-wise where monogamy is not sufficient.00:19:25 – 00:19:30:They want some other bizarre ungodly permutation because they know better.00:19:30 – 00:19:31:Because that sounds like fun.00:19:31 – 00:19:33:And they're unbelievers.00:19:33 – 00:19:36:They don't care about God's law.00:19:36 – 00:19:40:And they don't care about what worked in the past because they look in and think, oh, well, I know better than this.00:19:40 – 00:19:43:The problem with that is that they don't know God.00:19:43 – 00:19:48:But the questioning of the tradition itself is not inherently bad.00:19:48 – 00:19:51:The trick is that for most men, you should just leave it alone.00:19:51 – 00:20:01:Most men need to obey Chesterton's fence, which is actually Chesterton putting a fence in place for guys who don't understand what the purpose of a thing is.00:20:01 – 00:20:03:The point is not the fence at all.00:20:03 – 00:20:10:The point is that if you don't understand why something is here, you shouldn't be changing it.00:20:10 – 00:20:16:One of the blessings and curses of genius is that the status quo doesn't have any inherent value.00:20:16 – 00:20:17:That's not to say that it should be torn out.00:20:18 – 00:20:23:But it's just, you look at something, it's like, well, was there a good reason or was there a bad reason?00:20:23 – 00:20:27:And if there's a bad reason for something, then you need to do something better.00:20:27 – 00:20:37:But Chesterton applies to most men because they can't reverse engineer from the presence of a fence what hypothetical threat existed centuries ago, generations ago.00:20:38 – 00:20:49:The problem with just treating tradition as existing for its own sake is that, I apologize for picking on you guys, but this was the problem in the Reformation.00:20:50 – 00:20:54:Roman Catholicism was the Western Christian Church.00:20:54 – 00:20:57:It was the only Christianity in town.00:20:57 – 00:21:08:But there were traditions that accreted that were self-referential that were no longer in service to God, and were no longer in accord with scripture.00:21:08 – 00:21:25:And so when the reformers came along, it wasn't they were rebels that they wanted to burn everything down, it's that they looked at the state of the church, and they looked at scripture, and they found that the authority for the power that the church was wielding was not found in scripture.00:21:25 – 00:21:27:So we did the episode on the reformation.00:21:27 – 00:21:28:I don't want to pick on you guys.00:21:28 – 00:21:37:Anyone who's a Roman Catholic who's listening, you've got to be a Christian or you wouldn't be able to put up with us, because we come from some very different places.00:21:37 – 00:21:39:By the other hand, we're on the same page about almost everything else.00:21:40 – 00:21:45:So Corey and I disagree in private on the best way to approach those situations with you guys.00:21:45 – 00:21:57:But unfortunately, when we're talking about authority and tradition, the reformation is the stinking pile on the middle of the living room floor of Western Christianity.00:21:57 – 00:22:04:There's no getting around the fact that there was a point in the history of the church where tradition had become its own thing.00:22:04 – 00:22:10:It's literally the argument that Rome has, that tradition supersedes because there are reasons.00:22:10 – 00:22:19:And the reformers rejected that and said, well, if scripture says one thing, we're going to go with what God says and that there wasn't progressive revelation.00:22:19 – 00:22:31:So when we're looking at things as matters of tradition, and anytime you find authority, you're generally going to find long-standing tradition, sometimes going back many, many thousands of years.00:22:31 – 00:22:37:The very dangerous thing that everyone is facing in those circumstances is that there's a circularity of that reason.00:22:37 – 00:22:52:If someone says, I am acting in the stead of whatever, going back generations and generations, that's great if it's true, but the question becomes, is it actually true that they're acting in the stead and by the command of God?00:22:52 – 00:22:54:Are they doing something in accordance to scripture?00:22:54 – 00:22:56:Are they saying what God says?00:22:56 – 00:23:02:Are they living godly lives according to the office that they're exercising the power of?00:23:03 – 00:23:06:And if not, everybody has a problem.00:23:06 – 00:23:10:So, again, we're not encouraging rebellion at all.00:23:10 – 00:23:14:We're not saying that most men need to wake up every morning and question everything.00:23:14 – 00:23:15:That would make you insane.00:23:15 – 00:23:18:You would lose your mind, and it would be unhealthy.00:23:18 – 00:23:20:You're not going to come to good conclusions.00:23:20 – 00:23:31:But when you're looking at traditions, when you're looking at the guy who says, I'm the guy, I'm doing the thing, you do have to test if the authority is actually bounded by whatever instituted it.00:23:32 – 00:23:34:In the case of governments, there's one sort of argument.00:23:34 – 00:23:41:Inside the church, there are some different arguments, but there's always an upstream authority for any of this.00:23:41 – 00:23:52:And so the distinction between authority and tradition is that tradition will self-perpetuate even if it's not authorized.00:23:52 – 00:24:00:And as post-Reformation Protestants, we obviously disagree with the tradition that it accreted at the time of the Reformation.00:24:00 – 00:24:04:At some point, the Roman Catholic Church had just been the Christian Church.00:24:04 – 00:24:07:No one should disagree with that.00:24:07 – 00:24:11:That is the genesis of the transmission of our faith.00:24:11 – 00:24:17:It came through generation after generation of Roman Western Christianity.00:24:18 – 00:24:25:The question is, did the accretion of things that were traditions depart from what was scriptural?00:24:25 – 00:24:31:So the Reformation came about because it turned out that traditions were not acting under the authority of God.00:24:31 – 00:24:33:So it's a huge historical example.00:24:33 – 00:24:36:It's one that divides some of us, at least on some issues.00:24:36 – 00:24:40:I'm very thankful that it doesn't divide us on others because God is God.00:24:40 – 00:24:42:God is our God.00:24:42 – 00:24:43:Scripture is His word.00:24:43 – 00:24:47:And so when we are in agreement on that, at least we have some substantive agreement.00:24:48 – 00:24:52:Even when we disagree about the authority of men like the Pope.00:24:52 – 00:24:54:But that's kind of what we're talking about here.00:24:54 – 00:25:00:It may well be the case that something that was legitimate at one point, like as we said in the Reformation episode, there were good popes.00:25:00 – 00:25:04:Any honest Protestant should be able to say that there were good popes.00:25:04 – 00:25:08:If they know anything about history, if they actually look at some of the men, yes, say yeah.00:25:08 – 00:25:11:Now, I think they were all in the first millennium.00:25:11 – 00:25:13:I think it petered out pretty quickly.00:25:13 – 00:25:31:I think when you look at the state of the church 1,000 years ago, when Peter Damian was writing, he saw from inside the church, he's one of the doctors of the church, one of the most highly esteemed men in Roman Catholicism, was saying things that were far more critical than some of the things that Luther said.00:25:31 – 00:25:40:In his day, when he was seeing like, this is bad, the stuff that's going on with the power of Rome doesn't have the authority of scripture, it's evil.00:25:40 – 00:25:45:And so a lot of this is about being able to discern, is this actually coming from God?00:25:45 – 00:25:51:Whenever we have these discussions in many of the episodes where we talk about doctrine, it's like, where did you get that?00:25:51 – 00:25:54:Where did you get this thin of racism or whatever?00:25:54 – 00:25:57:You didn't get it from the Bible, you didn't get it from God.00:25:57 – 00:26:00:You got it from a century ago or two centuries ago.00:26:00 – 00:26:02:That's not the basis for the Christian faith.00:26:02 – 00:26:15:And so when the power inherent in those attacks that we see today, those moral dicta that come down to us, if they don't have the authority of scripture, then we're dealing with something that is extra-Christian.00:26:15 – 00:26:16:That's the trick here.00:26:16 – 00:26:34:It's that circumstances change, and when men are acting under color of authority, they may well do things that previous generations, when they were doing things in a similar vein, they were legitimate, because they were rooted in the authority of scripture, or they were rooted in the authority of their secular office.00:26:34 – 00:26:39:And then later on, men come in and corrupt those things.00:26:39 – 00:26:46:That is when all of us have to be equipped to recognize, well, the authority is now abrogated.00:26:46 – 00:26:50:The authority is no longer present, even though the power is still being used.00:26:50 – 00:26:57:And an appeal to tradition is not sufficient warrant to obey whatever is going on.00:26:57 – 00:27:00:The truth is that the authority has to be upstream.00:27:00 – 00:27:05:As Corey said, maybe you have the supreme potent day, you have the king who answers only to God.00:27:05 – 00:27:13:Maybe you have some church authority, where scripture is what provides the power in the church.00:27:13 – 00:27:19:Absent that, there is no authority whatsoever, because it's all flowing downstream.00:27:19 – 00:27:21:There's always a hierarchy here.00:27:21 – 00:27:22:There's always a hierarchy.00:27:22 – 00:27:33:And our place in the hierarchy is going to tend to be near the bottom, but at the same time, we have a duty to recognize, well, the guy who's above me isn't actually being faithful to the authority he's been given.00:27:33 – 00:27:40:And that's when collectively whatever group you're in under that institution has a very real problem.00:27:40 – 00:27:53:There's an important distinction here and just generally with regard to power and authority between the kingdom of the right hand and the kingdom of the left hand.00:27:53 – 00:27:57:We'll start with the political, the kingdom of the left hand, the state.00:27:57 – 00:28:20:When it comes to the power of those and the authority of those, in the state, so the prince, the magistrate, whatever term you want to use, that power is not based simply on scripture, for instance, which is a distinction between the left hand and the right hand.00:28:20 – 00:28:25:That power partly is a function of the office, of the place in the hierarchy.00:28:26 – 00:28:31:And so, the authority rests on exercising that power rightfully.00:28:31 – 00:28:35:Of course, all authority ultimately flows from God.00:28:35 – 00:28:43:But the power of the prince or of the magistrate does not disappear when he errs.00:28:43 – 00:28:44:He can make a mistake.00:28:44 – 00:28:50:He can do something that is wrongful, and yet he can still command obedience.00:28:50 – 00:28:56:Now there is a certain point where if he crosses certain lines, he can no longer command that.00:28:56 – 00:28:59:Of course, that will be for a future episode.00:29:01 – 00:29:16:But just because, say, if you're in the military, your commanding officer does something that is wrongful, or he makes just a bad decision, he makes a bad call, his authority is not destroyed by that.00:29:16 – 00:29:20:He still holds his power rightfully.00:29:20 – 00:29:26:He should correct his error, but it does not destroy the authority that he has.00:29:26 – 00:29:31:This is distinct from the right-hand kingdom.00:29:31 – 00:29:46:And the way in which it is distinct is that, as well already mentioned in this episode, and as we've said a number of times before, I can bind your conscience because I am speaking the words of God after him.00:29:46 – 00:29:53:But I can bind your conscience only insofar as I am speaking the words of God after him.00:29:53 – 00:30:01:The authority of a theologian rests entirely on whether or not he is correct.00:30:01 – 00:30:06:And so his authority evaporates the second he says something wrong.00:30:06 – 00:30:15:It's not that the things he said previously that were right cease to be right, because, of course, that which is true is true regardless.00:30:15 – 00:30:23:It is that in that moment, and with regard to the thing on which he has spoken falsely, he cannot bind your conscience.00:30:23 – 00:30:25:He has no authority.00:30:25 – 00:30:33:This is the fundamental difference between Protestants and Rome, or Eastern Orthodox, whoever else.00:30:35 – 00:30:55:We do not believe, as Lutherans, as Protestants, that any man anywhere in the hierarchy of the church has authority outside of Scripture, outside of the Word of God, because that is the absolute ground, the sole ground on which his authority rests.00:30:55 – 00:31:01:Now, yes, there's also truth to be found in nature, and so you can speak on that as a theologian.00:31:01 – 00:31:05:But again, that is only insofar as what you are saying is true.00:31:05 – 00:31:09:So your authority rests purely on that.00:31:09 – 00:31:10:It's not because of your office.00:31:11 – 00:31:14:It's not because of your place in the hierarchy.00:31:14 – 00:31:19:It is only because what you are saying is in accord with God's truth.00:31:19 – 00:31:32:This is a fundamental difference between those who hold offices and hold authority and wield power in the left-hand kingdom, in the state, in the political, versus those who do so in the right-hand kingdom, in the church.00:31:33 – 00:31:35:This distinction is key.00:31:35 – 00:31:52:It is absolutely necessary that you understand this distinction, because when it comes to the political, there are going to be other considerations as to what should be done in response to a wicked ruler, partly depending on how wicked he is.00:31:52 – 00:32:01:With regard to those who are higher up in the hierarchy, insofar as it exists in your church, there are different considerations.00:32:01 – 00:32:03:You don't have to yield to the office.00:32:03 – 00:32:09:In fact, you have to do precisely the opposite, because it is God's truth that is on the line.00:32:09 – 00:32:12:With regard to the political, you can bear with error.00:32:12 – 00:32:14:You can let things slide.00:32:14 – 00:32:19:You can ignore the fact that your king is a bit of a nitwit every so often.00:32:19 – 00:32:20:These things happen.00:32:20 – 00:32:23:That is the reality of living in a fallen world.00:32:23 – 00:32:27:And with regard to the left-hand kingdom, some of that can be tolerated.00:32:28 – 00:32:38:None of it can be tolerated in the right-hand kingdom insofar as it goes against God's truth, because no false doctrine can be tolerated.00:32:38 – 00:32:46:It's not to say that you go to war over absolutely every misstatement or every minor error.00:32:46 – 00:32:48:They should all be corrected.00:32:48 – 00:32:51:Absolutely every error should be corrected.00:32:51 – 00:32:53:But you correct them in different ways.00:32:53 – 00:32:58:Again, we're going back to sort of fighting over the colors of the pyramids.00:32:58 – 00:33:02:That is a different matter from getting justification wrong.00:33:02 – 00:33:08:For justification, you're willing to go to war, because that is the core of the Christian faith.00:33:08 – 00:33:11:If we get that wrong, nothing else matters.00:33:11 – 00:33:14:This is why the Reformation was so important.00:33:14 – 00:33:37:But if it is something minor, because there are doctrines that are lesser, there are doctrines that are greater, justification, there are doctrines that are lesser, if you get something lesser wrong, yes, you should attempt to correct your brother who is an error, but you don't have to do it in the same way that you would go about correcting a major error, because the major error endangers souls.00:33:37 – 00:33:43:If you get something that is a core doctrine wrong, you may very well go to hell.00:33:43 – 00:33:44:So that matters.00:33:44 – 00:33:47:That's something over which you have to be willing to fight.00:33:47 – 00:33:51:But the minor doctrines, you can approach them differently.00:33:51 – 00:34:03:However, you don't tolerate error with regard to the right-hand kingdom, with regard to the left-hand kingdom, it is necessary for the sake of peace and tranquility to tolerate some errors.00:34:03 – 00:34:06:This is a fundamental difference.00:34:06 – 00:34:08:That's why I'm repeating myself.00:34:09 – 00:34:24:With regard to the left-hand kingdom, a man who wields power may very well retain his authority despite being in error, despite acting even wickedly up to a certain point.00:34:25 – 00:34:32:That is not the case for those in the right-hand kingdom, because their authority rests on something entirely different.00:34:32 – 00:34:34:It does not rest on their station.00:34:34 – 00:34:37:It does not rest on their place in the hierarchy.00:34:37 – 00:34:41:It rests on whether or not what they are saying is God's truth.00:34:41 – 00:34:51:If they are repeating God's words after him, whether it is truth found in creation or truth found in God's word, they have authority because it is not their authority they are exercising.00:34:51 – 00:34:52:It is God's authority.00:34:54 – 00:35:03:That is different from the prince who has his own authority again from God, but by virtue of his office, he holds that authority.00:35:03 – 00:35:07:And so he can retain it despite being an error.00:35:07 – 00:35:14:The pastor, the priest, the theologian does not retain his authority when he is an error.00:35:14 – 00:35:23:Perhaps the best example in scripture of the left-hand kingdom, the political, as Corey was describing, is Pontius Pilate.00:35:23 – 00:35:28:In John 19, it is written, So Pilate said to Jesus, You will not speak to me.00:35:28 – 00:35:32:Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?00:35:32 – 00:35:37:Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all, unless it had been given to you from above.00:35:37 – 00:35:42:Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.00:35:42 – 00:35:45:So this is exactly the situation that Corey was describing.00:35:45 – 00:35:47:What Pilate did was evil.00:35:48 – 00:35:49:He killed Christ.00:35:49 – 00:35:50:He killed God.00:35:50 – 00:35:54:That's the worst sin that's ever been committed.00:35:54 – 00:36:01:And yet, Jesus acknowledged in the moment that he had the authority to do so.00:36:01 – 00:36:14:Not that he had the authority to sin, not that he had the authority over God, but that Christ in his humiliation and his state of his human nature was subject to the law of Rome.00:36:15 – 00:36:21:And therefore, to be executed as a common criminal was according to the law.00:36:21 – 00:36:28:Even though it was injustice under that system, Pontius Pilate could say yes, he could say no.00:36:28 – 00:36:29:And he erred.00:36:29 – 00:36:31:He chose falsely.00:36:31 – 00:36:37:This is an example where it wasn't that he couldn't do that, and he was on a frolic, he could do it.00:36:37 – 00:36:42:Jesus literally said, you have the authority to do this, but only because it was given to you.00:36:42 – 00:36:44:And Pontius Pilate wasn't a Christian at the time.00:36:45 – 00:36:48:It wasn't that God had put a Christian ruler in this place to do this.00:36:48 – 00:36:50:Rome was evil.00:36:50 – 00:36:51:Pontius Pilate was a pagan.00:36:51 – 00:36:54:He believed and did bad things.00:36:54 – 00:37:05:Even when he was trying to do good, the fact that he was a pagan, that he was an unbeliever, meant that his actions were inherently not good by virtue of not being to God's glory.00:37:05 – 00:37:09:And nevertheless, Jesus said, you have the authority to do this.00:37:09 – 00:37:17:So the power that was exercised in the crucifixion was in accord with the authority that he had temporarily.00:37:17 – 00:37:26:And this was continued at the cross itself, where he said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, of the two centurions who were crucifying him.00:37:26 – 00:37:31:The men who actually drove the nails through Jesus' hands and feet.00:37:31 – 00:37:33:Jesus said, Father, forgive them.00:37:33 – 00:37:36:That was intercessory prayer, and it was efficacious.00:37:36 – 00:37:39:Those men were forgiven for that sin, for Christ's sake.00:37:40 – 00:37:43:Because they were following orders.00:37:43 – 00:37:44:They did not know.00:37:44 – 00:37:47:They didn't get up that morning and say, I want to crucify God.00:37:47 – 00:37:53:They got up that morning and said, I'm a centurion, I answer up the chain.00:37:53 – 00:37:55:I follow orders, I do what I'm told.00:37:55 – 00:37:57:And on that day, they were on crucifixion duty.00:37:57 – 00:38:00:They were told, put this guy up on a cross until he's dead.00:38:00 – 00:38:02:And so that's what they did.00:38:02 – 00:38:03:Was it evil?00:38:03 – 00:38:03:Yes.00:38:03 – 00:38:07:Was it as evil as the braying crowd that had called for his murder?00:38:07 – 00:38:11:No, not even remotely in the same category.00:38:11 – 00:38:19:We did an entire episode specifically highlighting Doug Wilson, who is contradicting scripture when he disagrees with this very thing.00:38:19 – 00:38:21:This is about power and authority.00:38:21 – 00:38:34:The power and authority of Rome to execute Christ was the very reason that the Jews had to turn to them, because the Jews did not have the authority to execute anyone.00:38:34 – 00:38:36:They had the power to murder him, but not the authority.00:38:37 – 00:38:41:And so, they did a switcheroo where they said, we'll get these other guys to assassinate for us.00:38:41 – 00:38:48:And through the coercion and the threats and the fact that they were just such a pain, Rome conceded.00:38:48 – 00:38:50:Like, okay, whatever.00:38:50 – 00:38:53:Another rabble rouser, one of many.00:38:53 – 00:39:00:This is a case where the authority was legitimate, even though Rome itself was not a godly government.00:39:00 – 00:39:05:And this is a situation we'll get into in a future episode where we face something very similar today.00:39:05 – 00:39:08:We have an evil, pagan government.00:39:08 – 00:39:11:Nevertheless, it still does not bear the sword for nothing.00:39:11 – 00:39:19:And there are times and places where God uses evil rulers against his own people for his purposes.00:39:19 – 00:39:20:That's chastisement.00:39:20 – 00:39:23:That is an ugly place to be.00:39:23 – 00:39:27:It means that a people have lost their way, that they are no longer following God.00:39:27 – 00:39:37:When a nation is subjected like that to an evil ruler, but the ruler himself is still there acting by the authority of God.00:39:37 – 00:39:43:And so to give two more examples from scripture that are related examples, so we'll treat them together.00:39:43 – 00:39:55:There is Korah's Rebellion, which is number 16, and then there is the succession of Rehoboam, which is followed by rebellion, and that is 1 Kings 12.00:39:57 – 00:40:25:With regard to the first, the rebellion of Korah, a number of men rose up against Moses, and I recommend you go and read this, but a number of men rose up against Moses and basically said that he shouldn't be in charge, they should be in charge, authority should be devolved more to more men in the congregation instead of residing simply in Moses and Aaron.00:40:26 – 00:40:37:This is not strictly the left hand kingdom or strictly the right hand kingdom, because of course, Moses at the time exercised authority in both.00:40:37 – 00:41:00:He was both the king of Israel when it was wandering through the desert, insofar as anyone could be called the king, he was the godly prince, he was the political ruler, but he was also the spiritual ruler, he was also the leader of the congregation, he is the one that taught them the word of God, he is the one who spoke face to face with God.00:41:00 – 00:41:09:And so this rebellion is not just with regard to the left hand or with regard to the right hand, this rebellion is in both.00:41:09 – 00:41:37:They are rejecting the leader that God has placed over them with regard to both kingdoms, because they want to usurp the authority of Moses in the left hand kingdom, and they want to displace him, and in essence what they are saying, and this is one of the reasons they are punished so severely, they are saying that God is wrong, because they are rejecting what God has done in the right hand kingdom with Moses, using Moses to speak to the people.00:41:37 – 00:41:39:So they are rejecting God.00:41:39 – 00:41:40:Ultimately, that's what they are doing.00:41:40 – 00:41:52:This is the same problem we see many times in Scripture in the Old Testament, it seems like the Israelites may be rejecting a man in a particular instance, but they are not, they are rejecting God.00:41:52 – 00:41:54:That's what they are ultimately doing.00:41:54 – 00:42:01:And so this is rebellion against God and rebellion against the rightful civil authority.00:42:03 – 00:42:23:There is a slight difference in the case of Rehoboam, or perhaps a big difference, when Rehoboam takes over from his father, of course, that's Solomon, he takes counsel from both Solomon's advisors and from his own advisors, his own advisors being younger.00:42:23 – 00:42:26:And the older advisors, of course, give good counsel.00:42:26 – 00:42:44:They say, you should be less strict with the people, you should be less burdensome on the people than your father Solomon, in order to keep the kingdom together, in order to not drive anyone out of the kingdom or to rebellion, which, of course, is what ultimately happens.00:42:44 – 00:42:54:The young advisors basically tell him, exercise your power, prove to these people that you do what you want to, because you're the king.00:42:54 – 00:43:05:Now, with regard to power and authority, Rehoboam somewhat had the power, because he ultimately did not have the power to keep the kingdom together, of course.00:43:05 – 00:43:09:This is where Israel splits into the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom.00:43:10 – 00:43:15:But he did have some power, because he was king, and he had the authority.00:43:15 – 00:43:27:He in fact had the authority to do what he goes and does, listen to his younger foolish advisors, and say that he is going to place greater burdens on the people than did his father.00:43:27 – 00:43:30:He absolutely had the authority to do that.00:43:30 – 00:43:32:He didn't have the power to follow through.00:43:33 – 00:43:35:The people, of course, rebel against him.00:43:36 – 00:43:50:And so here we see sort of a third aspect of this, which we've mentioned in reference a number of times, but wisdom is involved, particularly with regard to matters in the left-hand kingdom.00:43:50 – 00:43:54:Because again, remember, in the left-hand kingdom, you have to bear with error.00:43:54 – 00:44:13:There are times where you are going to have serious problems with regard to leadership or specific leaders in the left-hand kingdom, and you bear with them for the sake of peace and tranquility and avoiding the bloodshed that would follow from rebellion, quite frankly.00:44:13 – 00:44:24:Here, the people decide on a course of rebellion, and of course, it leads to disaster overall for Israel, to quite a toll in lives, bloodshed, treasure.00:44:26 – 00:44:28:It's terrible all around.00:44:28 – 00:44:30:But are the people entirely unwarranted what they do?00:44:31 – 00:44:38:The answer is no, because Rehoboam goes overboard.00:44:38 – 00:44:53:He takes the power that he has, and attempts to pretend he has greater power than he does, but he takes the authority that he has on top of that, and takes it to an extreme, and abuses it, because he is being a tyrant here.00:44:53 – 00:45:02:The leader is not entitled to be a tyrant, and so depending on how far he goes there, there's different levels of warrant for the people and how they respond.00:45:02 – 00:45:07:And so the people here, again, are not entirely unwarranted in their response.00:45:07 – 00:45:08:Was what they did rightful?00:45:08 – 00:45:10:Probably not.00:45:10 – 00:45:15:They should have borne with the fact that you have a young king who is acting foolishly.00:45:15 – 00:45:23:Hopefully he will mature, and some of the foolishness will essentially fade away as he matures.00:45:23 – 00:45:31:Perhaps he will listen to the older advisors over time, because that would have avoided bloodshed and destruction.00:45:31 – 00:45:50:What the people did was unwise, and that lack of wisdom was added to the lack of wisdom that Rehoboam displayed in his pursuit, in his course of action, and the outcome was worse because of the actions of both Rehoboam and of the people.00:45:50 – 00:45:53:If either party had acted wisely, the outcome would have been better.00:45:54 – 00:46:13:So just because a certain man has the authority to do something, even if Rehoboam had the power as well, just because you have the authority, and even the power does not mean that you necessarily should, there is a wisdom call, both with regard to the left-hand kingdom and the right-hand kingdom.00:46:13 – 00:46:20:Of course, as mentioned earlier, there's a difference there between how much leeway, as it were, with regard to matters of the right-hand kingdom.00:46:21 – 00:46:25:Because, for instance, worst-case scenario happens.00:46:25 – 00:46:30:You are somewhere, some men with a gun run in and ask if you're a Christian.00:46:31 – 00:46:34:Are you allowed to deny Christ?00:46:34 – 00:46:36:The answer is no.00:46:36 – 00:46:44:And so, with regard to matters of the right-hand kingdom, sometimes you have to act in a way that would be considered foolish.00:46:44 – 00:46:55:That is not the case with regard to matters of the left-hand kingdom, with regard to matters of the left-hand kingdom, wisdom plays a greater role.00:46:57 – 00:47:05:Another example of the Israelites rebelling against God was when they demanded that Samuel tell God to give them a king.00:47:05 – 00:47:12:They were fundamentally rejecting God's headship when God was their direct king through the prophet.00:47:12 – 00:47:15:They're like, no, we want to have a king like all the other people around us.00:47:15 – 00:47:19:And God told Samuel to warn them, you're not going to like it.00:47:19 – 00:47:20:Here's what he's going to do.00:47:20 – 00:47:21:Like, no, no, we want a king.00:47:21 – 00:47:21:We want a king.00:47:21 – 00:47:23:So God gave them a king.00:47:23 – 00:47:27:It was rebellion, but they got what they asked for.00:47:27 – 00:47:29:They got King Saul.00:47:30 – 00:47:48:An important part of recognizing that rebellion is always lurking in the shadows with these questions is also reflected in the church, both in the Reformation as in the days of Paul and as in the days we face today.00:47:48 – 00:47:54:It was absolutely a legitimate question when Luther nailed the 95 theses.00:47:54 – 00:47:57:Is this man rebelling against God?00:47:57 – 00:48:02:Is what he's doing by nailing these theses open rebellion?00:48:02 – 00:48:09:And we've discussed in the Reformation episode that he was entirely legitimate in taking that act because he was a theologian.00:48:10 – 00:48:14:He was there to debate and discuss these open questions.00:48:14 – 00:48:17:One of the other questions that came up later was canon.00:48:17 – 00:48:22:The canon of scripture was not closed for Rome until Trent.00:48:22 – 00:48:30:So when Luther had opinions about which books were in the Bible, it was the same debate that had been going on for 1500 years.00:48:30 – 00:48:37:And it was legitimate for him to be asking those questions, even if it might not be legitimate for another man.00:48:38 – 00:48:44:So it is valid to question, is this man rebelling by asking these questions?00:48:44 – 00:48:45:Some guys just are.00:48:45 – 00:48:52:Some guys, either temperamentally or intellectually or spiritually, they're just looking for trouble.00:48:52 – 00:49:01:And the problem is that if you don't know enough and if you're not faithful, you may not be able to tell the difference.00:49:01 – 00:49:13:If somebody like Luther stands up and says, well, I think this is a croc, how can most men discern whether he's just being an upstart or he's being a theologian asking the correct questions?00:49:13 – 00:49:15:It's hard.00:49:15 – 00:49:17:It's impossible for some men.00:49:17 – 00:49:27:But the crucial thing that you should at least keep in mind is that it is not necessarily inherently evil for a man to ask those questions.00:49:27 – 00:49:29:There's a time and a place where those questions have to be asked.00:49:30 – 00:49:49:And in the particular case where institutions that are claiming to be acting with the authority of God and that are certainly acting with power over men, if in the church example, that authority is being exercised contrary to scripture, well, it's no authority at all.00:49:49 – 00:49:52:And therefore the question of rebellion is moot.00:49:52 – 00:49:56:A man cannot rebel against God by obeying God.00:49:57 – 00:50:00:This is something that Corey and I have dealt with for years now.00:50:00 – 00:50:08:In direct response to Stone Choir, the Missouri Synod put out press release, signed by every pastor in the Synod, that damned scripture.00:50:08 – 00:50:15:Said that these things that are scriptural are evil, and they condemned them in the name of Christ.00:50:15 – 00:50:19:That was acting with authority by their own claims.00:50:19 – 00:50:21:It was certainly acting with power.00:50:21 – 00:50:24:But the question is, is acting with godly authority?00:50:25 – 00:50:26:Absolutely not.00:50:26 – 00:50:32:What is being done by any man who condemns scripture is facially satanic.00:50:32 – 00:50:34:It can only possibly be satanic.00:50:34 – 00:50:37:A house cannot be divided against itself.00:50:37 – 00:50:39:God doesn't disagree with God.00:50:39 – 00:50:47:And Reddit atheists love to have all the gotchas in scripture, like, well, it says this here, and it says that there, so it doesn't make any sense.00:50:47 – 00:50:51:No, it makes perfect sense if you have faith and you're not being a jerk.00:50:52 – 00:50:55:But these are sometimes hard questions.00:50:55 – 00:50:56:It's okay for there to be hard questions.00:50:56 – 00:50:57:You know what?00:50:57 – 00:50:59:God left us with some hard questions.00:50:59 – 00:51:01:There's stuff that's not obvious.00:51:01 – 00:51:05:We did the recent episode on The End Times.00:51:05 – 00:51:08:There's stuff that God just leaves completely up in the air.00:51:08 – 00:51:12:He gives us signs and then doesn't explain them, and just leaves us hanging.00:51:12 – 00:51:13:Like, look out.00:51:15 – 00:51:17:That's how God does things sometimes.00:51:17 – 00:51:33:So when we are placed in a position where we have to say, well, what's going on, it can either be coming from a spirit of rebellion and despising authority, godly authority, or it can be an attempt to obey God.00:51:33 – 00:51:39:Even if it's misguided, the impulse should still not be quashed.00:51:39 – 00:51:52:And I think that a lot of these older guys in the church who have had power and authority in past generations are seeing a lot of young men coming into the church looking for answers.00:51:52 – 00:51:55:And maybe they're looking for answers to the wrong questions.00:51:55 – 00:51:56:That happens.00:51:56 – 00:51:58:Paul dealt with that.00:51:58 – 00:51:59:Everyone deals with that.00:51:59 – 00:52:05:You talk to a guy and you realize that the thing that he's worried about isn't actually the thing he should be worried about.00:52:05 – 00:52:17:You know, if you're coaching somebody about fitness or diet or anything, the thing that you think is the most important thing when you're not an expert, when you don't know much, may not be the thing you should be worried about at all.00:52:17 – 00:52:24:And so, part of being a good teacher, a faithful teacher is saying, look, I understand why you're asking that question.00:52:24 – 00:52:32:Let me refocus you over here because there's actually another set of related questions that are much more important than the one that you're worried about.00:52:32 – 00:52:39:Now, the problem that these old guys have in the church is that a lot of the questions that the young guys are asking aren't misplaced.00:52:39 – 00:52:42:They're not completely wrong.00:52:42 – 00:53:02:Even if bits and pieces of them should be phrased differently or whatever, but the fundamental questions of how do I live a godly life, including how do I get a wife, how do I have a home, all these things that every civilization needs generationally, young men are asking those questions, and these old guys are saying, well, that's not the gospel.00:53:02 – 00:53:03:Shut up.00:53:03 – 00:53:05:Why are you worried about this worldly stuff?00:53:05 – 00:53:07:You should be worried about heavenly things.00:53:07 – 00:53:18:When you're talking to a 20-year-old guy who's trying to be abstinent, who's trying to be faithful to God, who's trying to do all the things that he should do, and these old guys are like, oh, just worry about Jesus.00:53:18 – 00:53:19:Don't worry about the rest.00:53:19 – 00:53:21:That's satanic.00:53:21 – 00:53:22:That's not what God says.00:53:22 – 00:53:26:God says that these are things that are blessings from God.00:53:26 – 00:53:35:And just looking at history, we would not be here if every one of our parents in the past had not given birth to us generation after generation.00:53:35 – 00:53:41:So, for the current generation to be told, don't worry about reproducing, it's satanic.00:53:42 – 00:53:44:I was going to call it deranged, but it's not.00:53:44 – 00:53:45:It's not woke.00:53:45 – 00:53:46:It's not crazy.00:53:46 – 00:53:47:It's not libtarded.00:53:47 – 00:53:48:It's actively evil.00:53:48 – 00:53:54:Because if you have one generation that doesn't occur, that's the end of humanity.00:53:54 – 00:53:56:This is propagation.00:53:56 – 00:53:59:Every species propagates from one generation to the next.00:53:59 – 00:54:05:And young men who are concerned about that are not despising God.00:54:05 – 00:54:07:And so these old guys are like, well, that's not the gospel.00:54:07 – 00:54:09:They're actively attacking God's things.00:54:10 – 00:54:12:And that's when this stuff comes up.00:54:12 – 00:54:19:That's when the question of authority and power and questions has to be confronted.00:54:19 – 00:54:33:And for young guys who are listening, and for young guys who are lost and confused, the best thing that we can try to encourage is that there are faithful teachers, and in some cases, we're going to have to raise some of them up ourselves.00:54:33 – 00:54:44:But the fact that some guy who used to be the guy that's now getting stuff wrong shouldn't be a cause for you to be demoralized.00:54:44 – 00:54:54:If you go to a man in the church and he doesn't have the answers you're looking for, as I said, there may be cases where they're the wrong questions, but these are not the wrong questions.00:54:54 – 00:54:56:These are vital questions.00:54:56 – 00:54:59:And it's not that any guy is saying, well, if I don't have a wife, I can't be saved.00:54:59 – 00:55:01:Nobody thinks that way.00:55:01 – 00:55:03:But if you don't have a wife, you're alone.00:55:03 – 00:55:06:That's a hardship for many men, for almost every man.00:55:07 – 00:55:09:It's not the way we were made to be.00:55:09 – 00:55:13:And so for a young man to be concerned about that is godly.00:55:13 – 00:55:18:Even if he doesn't know God, he's still oriented towards the way God has created us.00:55:18 – 00:55:23:And a faithful teacher recognizes that and doesn't try to crush it.00:55:23 – 00:55:30:We see many men who are pretenders in the church who call themselves pastors.00:55:30 – 00:55:35:The reason I started calling these guys clerics is that it doesn't beg the question.00:55:35 – 00:55:39:If you call somebody a pastor, there's an inherent assumption that, well, that guy has the authority.00:55:39 – 00:55:43:He's acting in the stead and by the command of Jesus Christ.00:55:43 – 00:55:44:Should be the case.00:55:44 – 00:55:48:Just like power and authority should be lockstep together.00:55:48 – 00:55:52:The man who is the cleric should always be the pastor.00:55:52 – 00:55:54:But it's not the case anymore.00:55:54 – 00:55:59:There are many men who are in pulpits who are not Christian at all, who are actively wicked.00:55:59 – 00:56:08:And there are many more who may be Christian, but they're so foolish that if they had any idea the harm they were doing to souls by being there, they would step down immediately.00:56:08 – 00:56:10:They would say, I am not a pastor.00:56:10 – 00:56:12:I am not fit for this office.00:56:12 – 00:56:13:Because you know what?00:56:13 – 00:56:15:The fitness for the office is defined in scripture.00:56:15 – 00:56:19:There are multiple epistles talking about what pastors can and must do.00:56:19 – 00:56:21:That's the definition of a pastor.00:56:21 – 00:56:30:The man who doesn't meet that definition isn't a pastor, even if he's in the pulpit, even if he wears the outfit, even if he uses the title.00:56:30 – 00:56:35:So I call them clerics now to distinguish, because it's just a neutral term.00:56:35 – 00:56:37:It's kind of an archaic term, but it's accurate.00:56:37 – 00:56:40:It just doesn't beg the question of this guy is legitimate.00:56:40 – 00:56:52:Because when you have guys like Hans Feeney actively attacking young guys, mocking them for wanting a wife and not understanding how to get from here to there, it's wicked.00:56:52 – 00:56:54:It drives men from the church.00:56:54 – 00:57:00:And so one of the things that Corey and I try to do is to encourage young guys especially, because much of this is about the next generation.00:57:01 – 00:57:07:And we're going to fade away at some point, and you guys are going to be stuck with whatever mess there is.00:57:07 – 00:57:12:And you're going to have to work through these things, in some cases, without any support.00:57:12 – 00:57:16:So a lot of these discussions are around, how do I navigate this?00:57:16 – 00:57:30:And as we talked about in the Generations episode, particularly when we were discussing boomers, the boomers have abdicated their authority as the senior generation, as those who should have the wisdom and the leadership.00:57:31 – 00:57:37:They fundamentally, as a group said, we got ours, you know, no inheritance for you, no whatever, you're on your own.00:57:37 – 00:57:41:You know, obey Jesus and have fun.00:57:41 – 00:57:43:That's not helping anybody.00:57:43 – 00:57:56:And so, when we look to people in those positions and realize that they're not acting in accordance with what the office holds, we have to conclude that they're not acting with authority.00:57:56 – 00:57:59:And therefore, someone else has to act with that authority.00:58:00 – 00:58:06:And in some cases, whether politically or in the church, those people have to be raised up by Christians themselves.00:58:06 – 00:58:12:And so, the only way to get from here to there is by realizing that you can have usurpers in the house.00:58:12 – 00:58:18:And the usurper may be somebody who is legitimate ten years ago, or five years ago, or six months ago.00:58:18 – 00:58:23:Maybe they did really good work, and then one day they just flip, and they start doing damage.00:58:23 – 00:58:31:And as Corey said, if someone is a theologian, if someone is speaking for God, they can only ever say what God says or they're illegitimate.00:58:32 – 00:58:49:Later on, of course, we see another example of this wrongful exercise of authority, which is to say an exercise of authority that does not exist, with the same two individuals that Woe just mentioned, Saul and Samuel.00:58:49 – 00:58:57:Of course, in this case, we see Saul wrongly pretending to the authority of Samuel, because Saul goes and sacrifices.00:58:57 – 00:59:01:He waited for a period of time for Samuel to appear.00:59:01 – 00:59:05:Samuel did not, and so he worried the people would desert him.00:59:05 – 00:59:11:These are the excuses, of course, that Saul gives, and so he forced himself, as he said, and made the sacrifice.00:59:12 – 00:59:14:This was not for him to do.00:59:14 – 00:59:18:The sacrifices were for the prophet, for the priest.00:59:18 – 00:59:19:They were restricted to them.00:59:20 – 00:59:25:And so Saul, being the king, of course, has the power to do this.00:59:25 – 00:59:32:The people are not going to stop him, and he also has the appearance of authority as the king.00:59:32 – 00:59:47:But he did not have the authority, and so this wrongful exercise of authority, this pretending to an authority that was not his, would ultimately result in him losing the kingship.00:59:48 – 00:59:51:He loses the monarchy of Israel.00:59:51 – 00:59:57:His line is destroyed because he exercises authority wrongfully.00:59:58 – 01:00:11:This of course involves both kingdoms, because in ancient Israel, you kind of have an overlap between the two, in the way that we do not have today, and in a way that would not be desirable.01:00:11 – 01:00:20:This is one of the problems that Protestants have with Rome, in fact, because Rome blends the two kingdoms together in a way that is destructive.01:00:20 – 01:00:28:The church should not be seeking to usurp the authority of the prince, of the magistrate of the king.01:00:28 – 01:00:33:And the king also should not be seeking to usurp the authority of the church.01:00:33 – 01:00:40:However, it is worth mentioning that the king does have some authority over the church.01:00:40 – 01:00:57:And at least any of the confessional Protestants are going to agree with this, because the magistrate, the godly prince, is responsible to God to see that within his lands, the faith is taught rightly.01:00:57 – 01:01:04:He will answer to God for that, because he has been given a position of authority, a position of headship over these people.01:01:04 – 01:01:11:He is, in a sense of the term, a pastor for his people, because pastor, of course, just means shepherd.01:01:11 – 01:01:13:That's all the word means.01:01:13 – 01:01:16:So he will answer to God for what he does or does not do.01:01:16 – 01:01:24:He will answer to God for whether or not he has right teaching or permits false teaching in his lands.01:01:24 – 01:01:31:And so there is a certain degree of authority that the godly prince may exercise over the church.01:01:31 – 01:01:35:The church does not exercise any authority over the godly prince.01:01:35 – 01:01:39:Yes, the church does not have authority over the state.01:01:39 – 01:01:43:Now, pastors and theologians can of course offer advice.01:01:43 – 01:01:50:They can serve as advisors to the state, but they do not wield authority over the state.01:01:50 – 01:02:09:These are separate spheres, not in the sense of a wall of separation that is so commonly abused in the American, particularly the American context, but in the sense that these are the left and the right hands of Christ, and they have separate tasks, they have separate duties.01:02:09 – 01:02:14:There is not a total control of the one by the other.01:02:14 – 01:02:17:And so I'm not saying the state has total control over the church.01:02:17 – 01:02:31:I'm saying because of the office given to the prince by God, because of the authority that has been vested in that man, he has certain duties with regard to those who have been entrusted to his care.01:02:32 – 01:02:35:And one of those is ensuring they are taught the faith rightly.01:02:35 – 01:02:41:We used to think about this in a more useful fashion in centuries past.01:02:41 – 01:02:47:One of the titles for a godly prince was the father of the nation.01:02:47 – 01:02:55:The reason for that is because he holds the position with regard to the nation that a father holds with regard to his household.01:02:55 – 01:03:03:And many of the same duties attend that just on a much grander scale, at least if you're king of, say, a large nation.01:03:03 – 01:03:15:And so it is incumbent on the father, on the father of the house, to see that those under him, his wife, his children, his servants, are rightly instructed in the faith.01:03:15 – 01:03:26:Likewise, it is incumbent on the father of the nation to see that all of the people under him, which is the entirety of the nation, to see they are instructed rightly in the faith.01:03:27 – 01:03:34:And so there is again some authority that the godly prince has that he wields over the church.01:03:34 – 01:03:42:It does not go the other way, because the pastor has no duty with regard to the nation writ large.01:03:42 – 01:03:52:The pastor has been given authority, has been given a position with regard to his congregation, with regard to his parish and his parishioners.01:03:52 – 01:03:56:So he doesn't have that grander duty to the whole nation.01:03:56 – 01:03:58:The prince does.01:03:58 – 01:04:00:The same thing is true of the theologian.01:04:00 – 01:04:08:The theologian has been given certain duties because God has given him certain abilities, and he is to exercise those, to execute those faithfully.01:04:08 – 01:04:14:But they are not the same as what the godly prince has with regard to the entire nation.01:04:14 – 01:04:20:That is why you see that interaction where the left-hand kingdom has some authority over the right.01:04:20 – 01:04:23:The right does not have authority over the left-hand kingdom.01:04:24 – 01:04:32:Except, of course, at the highest level, but then it's not authority of one kingdom over the other, because again, these are both the hands of Christ.01:04:32 – 01:04:37:It is the kingdom of the right-hand of Christ and the kingdom of the left-hand of Christ.01:04:38 – 01:04:48:Here, we see in the instance of Saul and Samuel, Saul wrongly exercising that authority, because he exceeds what he is permitted to do.01:04:49 – 01:04:54:He's not seeing that the faith is taught rightly in his lands.01:04:54 – 01:05:02:He is usurping for himself the authority that God has given to Samuel, that God has given to prophets and priests.01:05:02 – 01:05:06:He is taking that unto himself and exercising it wrongfully.01:05:06 – 01:05:10:It is possible for a king to do that.01:05:10 – 01:05:26:If a king declared himself the head of the church and said that he alone had the absolute right to declare doctrine, to say this is right and that is wrong, we believe this, we don't believe that, to start creating new confessions or removing things from the confessions.01:05:26 – 01:05:35:And if he does this contrary to the word of God, he has usurped authority that is not his with regard to the right hand kingdom.01:05:35 – 01:05:39:It is possible for a prince to do that.01:05:39 – 01:05:43:That doesn't happen very often these days, but it has happened in the past.01:05:44 – 01:05:55:Generally speaking, and we're not intending to beat up on Rome, but it just happens to be the example that is most applicable here, and still modernly, of course, because Rome still exists.01:05:56 – 01:06:03:We usually see the opposite happen with regard to large church organizations.01:06:03 – 01:06:04:So, for instance, Rome.01:06:04 – 01:06:19:The Pope will say that he has, or more often in the past, he doesn't have as much power today, but in the past he has claimed that he has authority over princes, that he can install or remove kings.01:06:19 – 01:06:21:That is a usurpation.01:06:21 – 01:06:28:The right-hand kingdom is not permitted to seize that authority from the left-hand kingdom and exercise it.01:06:28 – 01:06:32:That's one of the objections we have to what has been done in Rome.01:06:32 – 01:06:46:So, with regard to the right-hand kingdom and the left-hand kingdom, this is not, again, there is no wall of separation between the two, but they are distinct and they are separate to a certain degree.01:06:46 – 01:06:50:Not in that they aren't related, because of course they are related.01:06:50 – 01:07:00:In an ideal situation, every single man, woman and child would be in church on Sunday, would be Christian.01:07:00 – 01:07:04:We would have a Christian nation, and the king himself would be a Christian.01:07:05 – 01:07:06:You wouldn't have any conflict there.01:07:06 – 01:07:12:You'd obviously have a great deal of overlap, because every single minister would be a Christian.01:07:12 – 01:07:23:And so on Sundays and the rest of the week, of course, he would be involved in the right-hand kingdom, but he would be ruling, he would have authority in the left-hand kingdom.01:07:23 – 01:07:25:That's the ideal situation.01:07:25 – 01:07:26:We of course don't have that today.01:07:26 – 01:07:29:That's why we are dealing with this issue.01:07:29 – 01:07:39:It's why wisdom comes up, because how far can a king go in his wickedness before something must be done about it by Christian men?01:07:39 – 01:07:40:There is a line.01:07:40 – 01:07:45:In fact, there are a number of different lines justifying different courses of action.01:07:45 – 01:07:50:We're not going to get into that today because it's not the point of this episode.01:07:50 – 01:08:00:But the point that I am making is that there are wisdom calls in this, and that each kingdom has been granted a certain kind of authority that has a certain scope.01:08:01 – 01:08:17:The men in whom that authority has been vested can exceed that scope, and when they do, just because they hold an office, just because they hold forth as if they had that authority, does not mean they necessarily do.01:08:17 – 01:08:26:The men who saw Saul take up and start sacrificing should have stopped him because what he was doing was wicked.01:08:26 – 01:08:30:What he was doing was contrary to God's word, contrary to God's commands.01:08:30 – 01:08:43:He had exceeded his authority because he as king did not have that authority with regard to the right hand kingdom to offer sacrifice, because God had not given it to him.01:08:43 – 01:08:47:Usurping authority is always wrongful.01:08:47 – 01:08:52:That is what we see in so many cases in these matters and related.01:08:52 – 01:08:55:We see women usurping the authority of men in many places.01:08:56 – 01:09:00:Woe mentioned that with regard to women pretending to be teachers in the church.01:09:00 – 01:09:01:That is a usurpation.01:09:01 – 01:09:03:That is wrongful.01:09:03 – 01:09:07:We see that with regard to women involving themselves in politics.01:09:07 – 01:09:11:That's something in which only a handful of men should ever be involved.01:09:11 – 01:09:13:Not even all men, but certainly no women.01:09:13 – 01:09:15:That's a usurpation.01:09:15 – 01:09:33:We see that with regard to certain pastors, certain clerics, saying that, well, the state must or you must, with regard to politics, you have to, are trying to limit the things that are permissible for the godly prince or for men involved in politics, and saying, well, that's not a gospel issue.01:09:33 – 01:09:36:They are usurping an office that is not theirs.01:09:36 – 01:09:38:They are usurping authority that is not theirs.01:09:38 – 01:09:40:They should not be listened to.01:09:40 – 01:09:42:What they are doing is wicked and sinful.01:09:42 – 01:09:44:They should be ignored at the very least.01:09:45 – 01:09:54:We see this everywhere in our society because we have essentially abandoned right hierarchy, which is what so much of this rests on and why it is so important.01:09:54 – 01:09:55:There has to be a hierarchy.01:09:55 – 01:09:58:That is the way God has designed things.01:09:58 – 01:10:06:When you do not have that hierarchy, all you have is usurpation everywhere in your nation, and you wind up with chaos.01:10:06 – 01:10:10:Every man doing what is right in his own eyes, as Scripture puts it.01:10:11 – 01:10:14:And that is what we want to avoid.01:10:15 – 01:10:24:However, there is the problem on the other side, because this is another one of those instances where you can fall off either side of the horse.01:10:24 – 01:10:36:You can fall off the left-hand side by saying, no gods, no masters, or you can fall off the right-hand side by saying, well, the man above me in the hierarchy said it, so it must be right.01:10:36 – 01:10:38:You have to exercise wisdom in these matters.01:10:39 – 01:10:45:Just because it is an order from your superior does not mean it is rightful.01:10:45 – 01:10:47:He may have exceeded his authority.01:10:47 – 01:10:55:This isn't to say that you have to be neurotic and analyze everything down to the fundaments at all times.01:10:57 – 01:11:00:But it does mean you have to keep your head on your shoulders.01:11:00 – 01:11:11:And as a Christian, you have to watch and be careful with regard particularly to teachers, because a teacher who has been faithful in the past can very well go off the rails.01:11:11 – 01:11:13:He can start to lie in God's name.01:11:13 – 01:11:14:He can deceive you.01:11:14 – 01:11:16:That is a possibility.01:11:16 – 01:11:17:We have seen it in the past.01:11:17 – 01:11:20:We see it happening today.01:11:20 – 01:11:27:As a Christian man, it is incumbent on you to watch for that, because you have others who are entrusted to your care.01:11:27 – 01:11:29:If you're a father, you have children.01:11:29 – 01:11:31:If you're a husband, you have a wife.01:11:31 – 01:11:42:If you have neither of those, you probably still have family members for whom you are to some degree responsible, particularly if you're the sort of man who listens to theology podcasts.01:11:43 – 01:11:59:So it is incumbent on you to make sure the teachers to whom you are listening are exercising rightful authority, which is to say that they are speaking the words of God after him, not spinning new thoughts out of their own minds that are contrary to what God has said.01:12:02 – 01:12:12:So having raised the issue of power and authority, we have begged the question that you have the authority to do what we're saying to do.01:12:12 – 01:12:15:So I'll give you a couple of examples from the world.01:12:15 – 01:12:18:Everyone listening has been on an elevator.01:12:18 – 01:12:21:On that elevator, there was an emergency stop button.01:12:21 – 01:12:22:Bright red button.01:12:22 – 01:12:24:It's legally required to be there.01:12:24 – 01:12:28:Anyone can press it at any time to stop the elevator in its tracks.01:12:30 – 01:12:34:You probably never pressed it because there's probably never been an emergency where you would need to.01:12:34 – 01:12:39:But you have the authority to press that button in the event of an emergency.01:12:39 – 01:12:43:You don't have the authority, incidentally, to press it just because you feel like it.01:12:43 – 01:12:44:You're going to break things.01:12:44 – 01:12:46:You're going to get in trouble if you do that.01:12:46 – 01:12:53:But if there's an emergency, that is there because you may be the only one who knows that an emergency is occurring.01:12:53 – 01:13:04:Whoever owns the building, whoever's on station, you know, maintaining things, isn't going to know inside the elevator where you know about an emergency emerging, whatever it is.01:13:04 – 01:13:07:So the button is there because you have the authority to hit it.01:13:07 – 01:13:10:Same is true if you've ever been on a subway.01:13:10 – 01:13:30:Those cars all have an emergency stop chain, and there are signs on it that says don't pull this, but there are situations where if someone's life is immediately in danger, if that train keeps moving where it is incumbent upon a rider to pull that into, it immediately yanks the emergency brakes.01:13:30 – 01:13:32:It doesn't light up anything for the conductor.01:13:32 – 01:13:39:It's hooked directly to these massive compressor brakes that stop the thing in its tracks.01:13:39 – 01:13:47:And everyone on the subway has the authority in the event of those circumstances to pull that chain, to pull that rope.01:13:48 – 01:13:51:That's what we're talking about here.01:13:51 – 01:13:55:You may not be equipped to do anything other than pull the alarm.01:13:55 – 01:13:57:You know, fire alarm is the same thing.01:13:57 – 01:14:00:Every building of a certain size is going to have fire alarm enunciators.01:14:00 – 01:14:02:You can have that handle.01:14:02 – 01:14:03:You pull it if there's a fire.01:14:03 – 01:14:05:And it's illegal to pull it.01:14:05 – 01:14:07:If there's not a fire, you'll get in trouble.01:14:07 – 01:14:09:So see, that's the authority distinction here.01:14:09 – 01:14:20:If there's actually a problem and you identify it, you have an obligation morally to do that because the alternative of not doing something is a worse outcome for somebody.01:14:20 – 01:14:22:Maybe you, maybe somebody else.01:14:22 – 01:14:42:So the fact in the civil society, every man has the authority to pull these levers or these alarms, to stop everything and to create an awareness of an emergency that already exists, is a demonstration that we are all expected to some point to just have these basic abilities.01:14:42 – 01:14:43:And maybe that's the end of it.01:14:43 – 01:14:47:Maybe all you can do is press the emergency stop and wait for help.01:14:47 – 01:14:48:That's fine.01:14:48 – 01:14:54:If that is the extent of your power, your authority has been appropriately fulfilled when you press the button.01:14:54 – 01:14:57:When you pull the lever, when you pull the rope.01:14:57 – 01:15:02:But you have an obligation as a man to do it when you see an emergency.01:15:02 – 01:15:04:That's what we're talking about here.01:15:04 – 01:15:05:There will be emergencies in government.01:15:05 – 01:15:09:There will be emergencies in organizations where you work.01:15:09 – 01:15:11:There will be emergencies in churches.01:15:11 – 01:15:12:They should be rare.01:15:12 – 01:15:15:Like an emergency shouldn't be a normal situation.01:15:15 – 01:15:22:And part of the reason for doing this episode fundamentally is that these emergencies are now becoming widespread.01:15:23 – 01:15:31:And so, we have to get men to understand you're going to face a circumstance where the thing that was true a year ago isn't true now.01:15:31 – 01:15:36:And so, your behavior that was appropriate a year ago may not be appropriate anymore.01:15:36 – 01:15:38:Maybe you have to take emergency measures.01:15:38 – 01:15:48:And maybe it's as simple as talking to another guy and saying, hey, our pastor said something last week, and right afterwards, we spoke the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed.01:15:48 – 01:15:51:And his sermon, I think, contradicted that.01:15:51 – 01:15:52:There might be a problem here.01:15:52 – 01:15:52:I'm not sure.01:15:52 – 01:15:54:I'm not the expert.01:15:54 – 01:15:55:Can we talk about this?01:15:55 – 01:15:58:Can we understand what's going on here?01:15:58 – 01:15:59:Maybe that's all you're doing.01:15:59 – 01:16:02:Maybe that's all you have the ability to, but you have the authority to do that.01:16:02 – 01:16:03:I heard something.01:16:03 – 01:16:05:I believe it's not correct.01:16:05 – 01:16:08:I believe that there was usurpation by whatever degree.01:16:08 – 01:16:09:Something needs to be done.01:16:09 – 01:16:13:Now, obviously, that's not going directly to, we have to throw this guy out.01:16:13 – 01:16:14:He's a wolf.01:16:14 – 01:16:15:That shouldn't be desirable.01:16:15 – 01:16:17:You shouldn't assume that.01:16:17 – 01:16:29:But if you hear your pastor contradict the creeds, if he denies the resurrection of the dead, if he denies his creator, that is an emergency, as a spiritual emergency for everyone listening.01:16:29 – 01:16:35:Because you may be the only one in the room that actually realizes what happened, and everyone else is just going to go along with it.01:16:35 – 01:16:35:Why?01:16:35 – 01:16:36:Because he's the guy.01:16:36 – 01:16:37:He's wearing the outfit.01:16:37 – 01:16:39:He has the title.01:16:39 – 01:16:40:He's been a great guy for years.01:16:40 – 01:16:42:Everybody loves him.01:16:42 – 01:16:44:Who's going to question that?01:16:44 – 01:16:55:The problem is that if the authority of scripture, if the authority of the office in the left-hand kingdom is not consistent with the actions, the authority is gone.01:16:55 – 01:17:01:And then that authority to do something devolves to us at the bottom, to cry out his stones.01:17:01 – 01:17:05:You have no other vocation except to say, hey, this isn't right.01:17:05 – 01:17:09:What's going on is not in accord with what we should be doing.01:17:09 – 01:17:11:What are we going to do about it collectively?01:17:11 – 01:17:14:Because this guy in the office is not doing what needs to be done.01:17:16 – 01:17:22:Some of you may have noticed that essentially what we have been discussing in this episode is sin.01:17:22 – 01:17:24:Because what is sin?01:17:24 – 01:17:32:Sin is the power to do something where you do not have the authority, and we're doing it as wrongful.01:17:32 – 01:17:36:Which essentially is what doing something with power and no authority is.01:17:38 – 01:17:41:Eve had the power to take the apple.01:17:41 – 01:17:42:She didn't have the authority.01:17:44 – 01:17:46:David had the power to take Bathsheba.01:17:46 – 01:17:50:He did not have the authority to do so.01:17:50 – 01:17:53:We encounter this everywhere in our lives.01:17:53 – 01:17:55:We encounter this constantly.01:17:55 – 01:18:06:The temptation to exercise authority over something or in some way, because we have the power to do it, but we don't have the rightful authority.01:18:08 – 01:18:12:This is part of the Christian life resisting this.01:18:12 – 01:18:14:This is temptation.01:18:14 – 01:18:22:You are going to have the power to do many things that you should not do, because you lack the authority to do them.01:18:22 – 01:18:28:David in Bathsheba is perhaps one of the best examples, most straightforward examples of this in scripture.01:18:28 – 01:18:29:So I recommend you go and read that.01:18:29 – 01:18:31:That's 2 Samuel 11.01:18:33 – 01:18:39:Just because you have the power to do does not mean you have the authority to do.01:18:42 – 01:18:44:This is again a matter of wisdom.01:18:44 – 01:19:01:You have to make the call in many cases, whether or not this exceeds the scope of your authority, whether or not you have a duty to take a particular action, whether or not you have a duty to refrain from taking a particular action.01:19:01 – 01:19:07:Of course, there are going to be some situations as well where you may very well have authority and you lack the power.01:19:07 – 01:19:11:That's not something for which one can fault you.01:19:11 – 01:19:25:So if you are someone who has the necessary wisdom, the skills, the attributes, to do something that needs to be done but you have no power, no way to go about doing it, we're not saying that you're sinning because you can't, if you physically can't do the thing.01:19:26 – 01:19:28:That's a different matter.01:19:28 – 01:19:38:But if you have the power to do something and you have the authority and you fail to do it despite the fact that it is your duty, that is sin.01:19:38 – 01:19:45:The inverse of that, which is what we've been mostly discussing in this episode, is where you have the power but you lack the authority.01:19:45 – 01:19:47:That is also sin.01:19:48 – 01:19:53:And again, at risk of ad nauseam, these are matters of wisdom.01:19:53 – 01:19:59:Christian men will need to know when and where to make the call and how to do it as well.01:19:59 – 01:20:09:As Woe just mentioned, with regard to matters in the right-hand kingdom, there's going to be a right way and a wrong way, a better way and a worse way to approach problems.01:20:09 – 01:20:12:With regard to the right-hand kingdom, they have to be approached.01:20:12 – 01:20:14:You don't get to ignore them.01:20:14 – 01:20:16:You don't get to let them slide.01:20:16 – 01:20:21:Because in the right-hand kingdom, we're dealing with matters that belong to God directly.01:20:24 – 01:20:29:With regard to the left-hand kingdom, of course, everything still belongs to God, but it's in an indirect fashion.01:20:29 – 01:20:29:It's different.01:20:29 – 01:20:36:We can bear with error in a way that we cannot in the right-hand kingdom.01:20:36 – 01:20:43:We do not get to ignore sin because it's convenient, because it's easy, because it avoids conflict.01:20:43 – 01:20:50:Sin has to be addressed, whether it is in our lives or the lives of our brothers, if we are in a position to correct a brother.01:20:51 – 01:21:03:You're supposed to do that in love, of course, but if you are in a position to correct a brother who is wrongfully exercising authority and you fail to do that, now you're sinning as well.01:21:03 – 01:21:07:Of course, it's not just the act that is sinful.01:21:07 – 01:21:09:It is important, and it's worth mentioning.01:21:09 – 01:21:15:The desire to exercise that power wrongfully is sin as well.01:21:15 – 01:21:16:That's concupiscence.01:21:16 – 01:21:20:The desire to sin is sin itself, but the act is sin, and the act is worse.01:21:21 – 01:21:24:Because, of course, it is bad to lust after a woman.01:21:24 – 01:21:27:It is worse to commit adultery.01:21:27 – 01:21:35:I'm not ignoring and I'm not revising the words of Christ when he says you've committed adultery, because he says you've committed adultery in your heart.01:21:35 – 01:21:42:He's pointing out that the intent, the concupiscence, that desire to sin is itself sinful.01:21:42 – 01:21:46:There's a difference between the external temptation and the internal temptation.01:21:47 – 01:21:52:Seeing the object with which you could commit a sin is external temptation.01:21:52 – 01:21:55:Desiring it is internal temptation.01:21:55 – 01:21:57:It is the desiring it.01:21:57 – 01:22:05:It is the desiring to sin to exercise that power in a way that is wrongful, that is itself sin.01:22:05 – 01:22:08:Seeing a temptation is not sinful.01:22:08 – 01:22:11:Being tempted externally is not sinful.01:22:12 – 01:22:16:Being tempted internally, desiring to sin is sin.01:22:17 – 01:22:20:And so as a Christian, we have to make this call.01:22:20 – 01:22:28:We have to recognize there is a difference between the ability to do the thing and the authority to do the thing.01:22:28 – 01:22:35:This is going to be very relevant in coming years with regard to both the right hand kingdom and the left hand kingdom.01:22:35 – 01:22:40:We will, of course, do an episode on the latter at some point in the hopefully not too distant future.01:22:42 – 01:22:44:These are very real and very live issues.01:22:44 – 01:22:52:Of course, with regard to sin, it will always be a live issue in this life, because we live in a fallen world and we ourselves are fallen.01:22:52 – 01:22:55:We will not be perfected until the next life.01:22:55 – 01:22:56:So sin will always be there.01:22:56 – 01:23:00:The temptations will always be there, including the internal ones.01:23:00 – 01:23:05:Yes, through the process of sanctification, some of that is tamped down.01:23:05 – 01:23:06:It is removed over time.01:23:07 – 01:23:10:But that work is not completed in this life.01:23:10 – 01:23:13:So we have to continue to contend with this.01:23:14 – 01:23:31:But with regard to matters of the left-hand kingdom, we as Christian men have to look at the wickedness of our state, of our leaders, of the current state of the world, and recognize there are red lines.01:23:31 – 01:23:33:There are levels of wickedness.01:23:34 – 01:23:59:There are kinds, types, degrees of evil in which the left-hand kingdom and the authorities that wield power, not necessarily authority, even if we call them authorities, which is again begging the question, but who wield power, who are doing so wrongfully, and perhaps to such a degree that it is incumbent on Christian men to do something about that.01:23:59 – 01:24:01:Again, it will be a matter of wisdom.01:24:01 – 01:24:05:These are not necessarily easy calls, and they are fraught.01:24:05 – 01:24:10:There are risks to inaction, and there are risks to action.01:24:10 – 01:24:21:But just because there is a risk does not mean that we are absolved of doing something, of making a decision that is part of what it means to be a man.01:24:21 – 01:24:37:Part of what it means to be a man is making the decision when and where necessary, not ignoring it because it's difficult, not avoiding it because it's unpleasant, but making the decision because it is necessary and someone has to do it.01:24:37 – 01:24:45:If you are the father of a household, it falls to you because you have had a wife and children entrusted to your care by God.01:24:45 – 01:25:04:If you have been placed into a position of authority in any organization, whether it is a company or it is a state, whatever it happens to be, you have been given power and authority by God, and you will be made to answer for what you have done with it or what you have failed to do with it.01:25:06 – 01:25:10:The Christian life is not necessarily an easy one.01:25:10 – 01:25:15:It would be much easier to go through life ignoring these things and just sailing along happily.01:25:15 – 01:25:19:It's not necessarily better, but it is easier.01:25:22 – 01:25:24:But the way is straight and narrow.01:25:25 – 01:25:28:It is not the broad, easy path that leads ever downward.01:25:28 – 01:25:31:That is not the Christian life.01:25:31 – 01:25:41:We have to be prepared for these questions with regard to both the right-hand kingdom and the left-hand kingdom, and there will be a great many of them in the coming years.01:25:41 – 01:25:49:Part of that is recognizing how to approach these issues, and part of it is reading Scripture, staying in God's Word.01:25:49 – 01:25:56:We made reference to many sections of Scripture in this episode because this problem is all over Scripture.01:25:56 – 01:26:05:It is throughout the Old Testament, and despite the fact we didn't use many examples from the New Testament, it is throughout the New Testament as well.01:26:06 – 01:26:12:This is part of life on this earth, on this fallen earth.01:26:12 – 01:26:20:You have to know what authority is when authority is rightly exercised, when it is wrongly exercised.01:26:21 – 01:26:37:And most importantly, the two-fold problem of when authority is exceeded and what to do, and when a man who once had authority no longer has that authority, even if he still has the appearance.01:26:37 – 01:26:43:With regard to the right-hand kingdom, that may very well be a matter of your eternal soul.01:26:43 – 01:26:52:With regard to the left-hand kingdom, it's not unimportant, but it's certainly not eternally important, in the same way as the right-hand kingdom.01:26:52 – 01:27:02:The destruction of a nation or the collapse of a country is certainly an immensely important problem, and it is something about which Christian men should concern themselves.01:27:02 – 01:27:09:And those clerics who think that that's not a gospel issue, and so we should ignore it, should learn to hold their sinful tongues.01:27:09 – 01:27:12:At the very least, they should learn to hold their sinful tongues.01:27:14 – 01:27:17:We, as Christian men, have to do our duty.01:27:17 – 01:27:22:That is the fundamental bedrock principle here.01:27:22 – 01:27:31:When it comes to power and authority, it's simply a matter of do you have the ability to execute the duty, and do you have the authority?01:27:31 – 01:27:40:If you have both of those, do your duty, because that is what you are called to do as a Christian man in this life.01:27:41 – 01:27:46:Not everything is a gospel issue, because the law is still God's law.01:27:46 – 01:27:48:God still makes demands of us.01:27:48 – 01:27:52:God has placed us in families, in tribes, in nations.01:27:52 – 01:27:54:God has given us abilities and attributes.01:27:54 – 01:27:59:He has placed us where we are, and He expects things from us.01:27:59 – 01:28:04:The Christian life is not just singing hymns on Sundays.01:28:04 – 01:28:05:That's an important part.01:28:05 – 01:28:07:Do not forsake the gathering together of the saints.01:28:08 – 01:28:18:But there is more to the Christian life than that, and it is lived out day by day, decision by decision, making these sorts of assessments.01:28:18 – 01:28:20:Do I have the power to do this?01:28:20 – 01:28:22:Do I have the authority to do this?01:28:22 – 01:28:24:Would it be wise to do this?01:28:26 – 01:28:33:There is no way to avoid these sorts of assessments, because it is the reality of the world in which we live.01:28:33 – 01:28:36:And Christian men will rise to the task.