WEBVTT 00:00:00.340 --> 00:00:03.000 It is the 7th of August, 2026. 00:00:03.160 --> 00:00:04.300 I am Corey J. 00:00:04.300 --> 00:00:06.740 Mahler, and this is At Any Cost. 00:00:06.740 --> 00:00:10.580 This is episode 37, a Q&A episode. 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:15.640 I will just check quickly to make sure my levels are good on a couple platforms here. 00:00:17.380 --> 00:00:20.840 I'm sure someone will let me know in the chat if my levels are not, of course. 00:00:24.920 --> 00:00:31.400 I updated OBS right before starting, so hopefully that will make things a little smoother. 00:00:31.400 --> 00:00:53.140 But I don't really have any housekeeping tonight, except to say that I have been away from my desk for just about a week, so I did not have time to get into any of the more, we'll say, complex questions on the pending list, so I will probably focus more on the chat tonight, in addition to a few quick questions from the forum. 00:00:53.880 --> 00:01:02.440 Before I get into the questions, I did want to note that I did see the question about someone who previously practiced witchcraft, and some things related to that. 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:07.800 I will get into that one next week, because I want to dedicate a little bit more time to that one before I answer it. 00:01:08.360 --> 00:01:15.920 But getting into the questions, question one, do the devil and his minions mimic proper worship? 00:01:17.180 --> 00:01:28.040 As the devil and his minions only corrupt and not create, correct, do they mimic rightful worship and introduce corruptions and perversions, rather than actually creating new worship methods? 00:01:28.520 --> 00:01:33.680 Should we be worried this may have happened in Rome in the East, or that it could be happening in our churches today? 00:01:34.160 --> 00:01:37.120 Are there any forms of worship he cannot corrupt? 00:01:38.860 --> 00:01:49.200 So, of course, it is correct to stay off the bat that yes, Satan cannot create, and this actually goes to some issues that came up recently. 00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:57.200 But this is tangentially related to the issue of original sin, because original sin is not man's nature. 00:01:57.600 --> 00:01:58.760 This was... 00:01:59.420 --> 00:02:02.660 The names of the heresies don't matter that much when they're ones like these. 00:02:02.660 --> 00:02:08.740 You know, everyone knows the big ones, Arianism, things like that, but you can ignore the name, so I won't even bother to mention it. 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:18.700 But there have been men who have contended, heretics who have contended, that after the fall, the nature of man is original sin. 00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:30.060 And the problem with that is it would be to say that Satan is our creator, because it would be to say that Satan is the creator of man's nature. 00:02:30.420 --> 00:02:32.280 And so, that's obviously false. 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:35.000 He's not the creator of man's nature. 00:02:36.860 --> 00:02:42.740 Rather, what he has done is he has infused, as it were, a corruption into man's nature. 00:02:42.740 --> 00:02:48.000 There are many ways you can speak about original sin, and that is just a corruption. 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:53.900 It's a perversion, it's not a substance, it's not an actual thing, as it were. 00:02:54.060 --> 00:03:01.520 Because every thing is created by God, every substance, every essence, and so those are good. 00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:04.300 And so, mankind's nature, even after the fall, is good. 00:03:04.300 --> 00:03:11.200 But to get into the question itself, which is, again, tangentially related, worship is good. 00:03:12.100 --> 00:03:18.940 All of the forms of worship of God that God has created, and he has created these forms of worship, they are good things. 00:03:19.460 --> 00:03:24.900 Now, we can't really create a form of worship of God, because it wouldn't be worship of God, right? 00:03:25.160 --> 00:03:28.060 The ways you worship God are things he has told you to do. 00:03:28.060 --> 00:03:30.680 You worship God by obeying his law. 00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:32.840 You worship God by helping your neighbor. 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:34.960 You worship God with prayer. 00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:37.200 These are things God has instituted. 00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:42.560 And Satan can corrupt those, he can misdirect them, he can mislead you. 00:03:43.080 --> 00:03:47.840 He cannot actually create any form of worship. 00:03:48.760 --> 00:03:57.020 So, it's absolutely correct to say that, yes, the forms of worship he has created are perversions of the ones that God created. 00:03:57.300 --> 00:04:03.340 So, a good example here, and it is brought up, there's some additional text after this question for the reasoning. 00:04:03.340 --> 00:04:04.980 If you would like to read that, it's on the forum. 00:04:04.980 --> 00:04:10.420 But, yes, the Asherah and things like that are all corruptions of worship. 00:04:10.420 --> 00:04:16.440 In particular, Satan likes to corrupt sort of echoes of worship from all the way back in the garden. 00:04:17.400 --> 00:04:27.740 One of the things that is often overlooked in the Garden of Eden narrative, everyone tends to think that it was just one tree in the center of the garden. 00:04:28.320 --> 00:04:33.520 The thing is, the word there can be taken to mean tree or type of tree. 00:04:33.760 --> 00:04:35.320 So, it may have been a sacred grove. 00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:37.720 It probably was a sacred grove. 00:04:38.020 --> 00:04:40.080 And so, you don't have to believe that, right? 00:04:40.080 --> 00:04:42.920 It doesn't change your faith if you believe it or not. 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:50.840 But we see echoes of that in the corruptions that took place in many places, where they planted so-called sacred groves. 00:04:51.220 --> 00:04:53.900 And then those were to worship false gods. 00:04:54.140 --> 00:05:03.600 So, they were doing something that they heard via telephone, basically, from their ancient ancestors, from what Adam and Eve were supposed to do in the garden. 00:05:03.940 --> 00:05:06.680 And Satan turned that to the worship of evil. 00:05:06.760 --> 00:05:08.660 Human sacrifice is the same way. 00:05:09.320 --> 00:05:12.580 There are a number of ways you can get to human sacrifice. 00:05:12.580 --> 00:05:21.880 Either you can corrupt the sacrifice of animals, which was part of Old Testament worship, or you can corrupt the narrative of Abraham, right? 00:05:22.540 --> 00:05:23.560 Abraham and Isaac. 00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:26.000 That's essentially what's happening there. 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:29.440 And so, the logic is almost sound, right? 00:05:29.440 --> 00:05:34.200 But it's sound in that sort of demonic way, where the thing you're doing is inherently evil. 00:05:34.520 --> 00:05:39.420 And so, even if it seems to have a veneer of rationality to it, it's ultimately wrong. 00:05:39.980 --> 00:05:46.480 And the reason that it has that veneer is, okay, if I sacrifice the first of my flocks, the first fruits, right? 00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:49.940 That's giving something expensive, costly, meaningful to God. 00:05:50.260 --> 00:05:54.180 Well, what could be more expensive, costly, and meaningful than my firstborn son? 00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:03.140 That's basically the logic of the pagan cults that practice particularly sacrifice of the firstborn son for human sacrifices. 00:06:03.340 --> 00:06:09.100 And of course, that's extremely disgenic among other things, and it's part of the reason those populations look the way they do today. 00:06:09.860 --> 00:06:12.480 But yes, Satan is definitely corrupting worship. 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:21.400 And the way that you avoid it is, you know the kinds of worship that God approves, and you stay within those bounds, right? 00:06:21.400 --> 00:06:24.560 God has music in the scriptures. 00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:31.720 Now, I do argue, and I believe, that there should be some level of decorum with regard to music, and there's an article on my website about that. 00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:34.120 But music is part of God's worship. 00:06:35.020 --> 00:06:37.000 Liturgy is part of God's worship. 00:06:37.160 --> 00:06:39.200 Look at all of his worship in the Old Testament. 00:06:39.580 --> 00:06:40.720 It's all structured. 00:06:40.900 --> 00:06:47.420 It doesn't mean all worship has to be structured, but the formal worship of God in church should be liturgical. 00:06:48.760 --> 00:06:52.840 You see the use of written prayers, memorized prayers. 00:06:52.840 --> 00:06:54.320 That's what the Psalter ultimately is. 00:06:54.320 --> 00:06:57.500 It's a combination of prayers and hymns, as we would call them. 00:06:58.240 --> 00:07:02.160 Christ teaches his apostles, his disciples, a prayer. 00:07:02.300 --> 00:07:03.120 We should use that one. 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:04.140 It's the Lord's Prayer. 00:07:04.420 --> 00:07:07.140 As a Christian, you should be praying that one multiple times a day. 00:07:07.440 --> 00:07:13.500 If God gives you a specific prayer and says, I want to hear this one, you're not going to create a better one. 00:07:13.740 --> 00:07:14.800 He gave you the best one. 00:07:14.800 --> 00:07:16.960 It doesn't mean you use exclusively that prayer. 00:07:17.260 --> 00:07:23.660 It doesn't mean you repeat it mindlessly, but you use it, because it's a gift from God we can use to worship him. 00:07:24.160 --> 00:07:30.060 So as long as you stay within these boundaries that God has set, and your worship is directed toward God, right? 00:07:30.060 --> 00:07:31.400 That's kind of a key here. 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:35.600 You don't need to be worried about going off the rails with regard to forms of worship. 00:07:35.900 --> 00:07:41.860 You worry about it when you start creating your own forms of worship, or you start worshiping something other than God. 00:07:42.500 --> 00:07:44.760 So that's what Satan wants you to do. 00:07:44.760 --> 00:08:01.120 He wants you to do something that seems good, and you go off the rails, or he wants you to outright worship another God, even if you're using something that looks kind of like worship of the one true God, or even would be proper worship, if it were directed at God instead of this other thing. 00:08:05.220 --> 00:08:07.960 That's the witchcraft question, which I will save for next week. 00:08:09.340 --> 00:08:10.740 Question two. 00:08:11.860 --> 00:08:20.160 This is actually sort of the inverse of a question that I answered in my chat, I think, just about a week ago, a little more than that. 00:08:20.780 --> 00:08:21.700 So question two. 00:08:21.800 --> 00:08:24.920 I am a Roman Catholic, and my boyfriend is Elsemeth Lutheran. 00:08:25.220 --> 00:08:38.400 We intend on getting married, and I am somewhat all right with becoming Lutheran because I feel as though I am submitting to my future husband, and after hearing your episode on the Lord's Supper and having my boyfriend explain Lutheranism, it makes more sense to me. 00:08:38.780 --> 00:08:46.860 I'm scared of becoming Lutheran, however, because when I converted to the Roman Catholic Church, I confessed that it was the one true church. 00:08:47.440 --> 00:08:51.560 I'm afraid that converting to Lutheranism would mean I am breaking a confession I made to God. 00:08:51.940 --> 00:08:56.320 It doesn't help that I am being told by Catholics in my church that I will go to hell if I convert. 00:08:56.800 --> 00:09:06.800 What reassurance do I have that I will not go to hell if I convert and that I am not wrong in leaving the one true church as they believe it to be, as she believed it to be? 00:09:08.500 --> 00:09:22.800 This came up, actually, like I said, in the inverse in my chat recently, because there was a woman asking if she would be wrong to follow her husband and attend the Roman Catholic Church, because he's Roman Catholic and wants her to attend that church. 00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:26.060 And I said, no, and I know there will be Lutherans that are angry at me for that. 00:09:26.640 --> 00:09:36.680 And I just admonished her, focus on Christ, Christ is your righteousness, Christ is the reason you are saved. 00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:48.700 So, you know, if you're going from whatever to Rome, don't go all in on the Mary stuff, don't go all in on the saint stuff, but there are plenty of very good Christians in Roman Catholic churches. 00:09:49.280 --> 00:09:52.060 As a Lutheran, I staunchly disagree with some things they do. 00:09:52.060 --> 00:09:57.580 I would go so far as to agree with the confession, of course, that some of the things they do are blasphemous. 00:09:58.160 --> 00:10:00.060 That doesn't mean that I think they're all damned. 00:10:00.540 --> 00:10:07.440 And with regard to going from Rome to Lutheranism, of course, I'm going to say that I don't have the same doctrinal problems, obviously. 00:10:07.460 --> 00:10:08.920 That's the reason that I'm a Lutheran. 00:10:10.400 --> 00:10:13.960 But I would start out by saying, what is the church, right? 00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:21.820 And so, as a Lutheran, when you become a Lutheran, you can, of course, appeal to the confession then, which has a very clear statement of that. 00:10:21.820 --> 00:10:28.360 We have the Small Called Articles, and that is Article 12 in Part 3. 00:10:28.540 --> 00:10:29.640 So, I'll just pull that up. 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:32.900 And actually, I will just pull this up. 00:10:34.880 --> 00:10:37.520 I may as well pull it up in a browser window here, because... 00:10:39.400 --> 00:10:42.800 so you can read along if you are watching this instead of listening. 00:10:43.560 --> 00:10:58.320 So, in the Small Called Articles, Article 12 of the Church, we do not concede to them, speaking, of course, about Rome, that they are the Church, and in truth, they are not the Church, nor will we listen to those things which under the name of Church, they enjoin or forbid. 00:10:58.600 --> 00:11:00.920 And here's the key part of this that I wanted to really read. 00:11:01.340 --> 00:11:09.120 For thank God today, a child seven years old knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their shepherd. 00:11:09.420 --> 00:11:13.960 For the children pray thus, I believe in one holy Christian Church. 00:11:14.740 --> 00:11:26.040 And holy and Catholic, I know there are some people who will complain about whether you say, the holy Christian or holy Catholic Church in the creed, both have been used for centuries. 00:11:26.440 --> 00:11:31.100 The Germans in the Reformation did not start doing Christian instead of Catholic. 00:11:31.460 --> 00:11:32.960 I learned it as Katholische Kirche. 00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:35.040 I learned it as Catholic Church in German. 00:11:35.240 --> 00:11:37.640 When I learned it in German, I learned it in English first. 00:11:38.760 --> 00:11:42.720 So don't let someone take you down that particular rabbit trail. 00:11:42.720 --> 00:11:44.240 There's no real difference there. 00:11:44.240 --> 00:11:46.580 But they mean the same thing. 00:11:47.660 --> 00:11:49.880 When it comes to the Church, the Church is all believers. 00:11:50.160 --> 00:11:56.000 I've said this many times before, but it bears repeating probably to the point where people get tired of hearing it, which is good. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:57.560 They should want to hear it that many times. 00:11:58.180 --> 00:12:00.500 Adam was a Christian, never a part of Rome. 00:12:01.040 --> 00:12:03.440 David's a Christian, never a part of Rome. 00:12:03.560 --> 00:12:03.840 Right? 00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:05.160 And I can keep listing these men. 00:12:05.160 --> 00:12:07.140 Abraham, Christian, never part of Rome. 00:12:07.140 --> 00:12:10.000 Japheth, when he walked off the ark, Christian, never part of Rome. 00:12:10.360 --> 00:12:13.460 His sons, undoubtedly Christians, never part of Rome. 00:12:14.280 --> 00:12:18.260 Rome didn't exist for thousands of years after these men were part of the Church. 00:12:18.480 --> 00:12:24.180 So, the Church cannot be limited to Rome, because the Church isn't Rome. 00:12:24.180 --> 00:12:30.560 The claims of Rome, with regard to being the Church, are the same as the claims of the Eastern Orthodox and so many others. 00:12:31.380 --> 00:12:32.720 They're just false on their face. 00:12:33.160 --> 00:12:34.340 Because who are the sheep? 00:12:34.740 --> 00:12:37.580 The sheep are those who hear the Master's voice. 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:39.600 Are all the sheep in Rome? 00:12:39.980 --> 00:12:43.480 No, because there are true Christians outside Rome. 00:12:43.560 --> 00:12:47.920 Even, incidentally, you can use this with Roman Catholics. 00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:54.400 Mileage may vary, but Rome no longer says that those outside Rome are necessarily damned. 00:12:54.740 --> 00:12:57.720 They gave up on that argument a very long time ago. 00:12:59.340 --> 00:13:01.000 The extra ecclesiasticalis, right? 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:02.500 Outside the Church, there is no salvation. 00:13:02.500 --> 00:13:04.040 They gave up on that a long time ago. 00:13:04.380 --> 00:13:10.200 They specifically said that some Lutherans, they'll, you know, not say every Lutheran, because they don't even believe every Roman Catholic is saved, right? 00:13:10.200 --> 00:13:13.360 But they will say that some Lutherans are indeed saved. 00:13:13.560 --> 00:13:16.280 The same for some Anglicans, some Reformed brothers as well. 00:13:17.160 --> 00:13:22.760 So, that is even in Rome, their current doctrine does not say that you are damned if you are not part of Rome. 00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:28.940 So, you don't have to be part of any corporate body to be saved. 00:13:29.220 --> 00:13:31.040 You have to be part of Christ Church. 00:13:31.040 --> 00:13:35.140 And again, Christ Church is all those lambs who hear the Master's voice. 00:13:35.580 --> 00:13:39.160 So, yes, you can be a Christian and be in a Roman Catholic Church. 00:13:39.440 --> 00:13:43.220 You can be in a Lutheran Church, you can be in an Anglican Church, you can be in a Presbyterian Church. 00:13:43.860 --> 00:13:45.880 Some have better theology, some have worse. 00:13:46.180 --> 00:13:50.260 But one of the things, of course, that comes into it is felicitous inconsistency. 00:13:50.260 --> 00:13:56.560 So, if you don't believe the things these other churches teach that are false, they don't harm you. 00:13:57.320 --> 00:13:59.000 It's better if you're not exposed to them, right? 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:08.860 But if you don't believe them ultimately, you hold on to Christ and the faith that is the free gift from God, that's what justifies you, then you're a Christian. 00:14:10.080 --> 00:14:18.300 Just because you're attending a church that is heterodox, dogmatically, doctrinally, theologically, does not mean you're going to be damned. 00:14:18.860 --> 00:14:21.140 The standard is not perfection theologically. 00:14:21.140 --> 00:14:25.300 The standard is the free gift of faith and holding on to Christ. 00:14:25.300 --> 00:14:26.560 So, just cling to Christ. 00:14:27.780 --> 00:14:34.380 Perhaps you'll like the famous comment from Luther's wife, who will cling to Christ like a bird of cloth. 00:14:34.380 --> 00:14:36.000 So, just take comfort in that. 00:14:36.620 --> 00:14:41.080 You don't need to worry about going from Rome to a Lutheran church. 00:14:41.080 --> 00:14:42.860 You don't lose your salvation for that. 00:14:42.860 --> 00:14:43.840 You're not damned for it. 00:14:43.840 --> 00:14:45.880 You're still a baptized child of God. 00:14:46.200 --> 00:14:47.500 You still have your faith. 00:14:47.620 --> 00:14:49.500 You're just going to have different ceremonies. 00:14:49.960 --> 00:14:52.940 Yes, there are doctrinal and dogmatic differences and things like that. 00:14:52.940 --> 00:14:55.160 I believe the Lutheran stance is correct. 00:14:55.960 --> 00:15:00.100 But anyone telling you that you're going to be damned for doing that is completely out of line. 00:15:00.100 --> 00:15:01.060 That's inappropriate. 00:15:01.780 --> 00:15:10.400 And like I said, I just advised a woman that if she is going to obey her husband in attending a Roman Catholic Church with him, she's not damned for that either. 00:15:11.780 --> 00:15:20.760 Granted, I gave different admonishments in that case than I would going from Rome to Lutheranism, but I'm not going to say that she's damned for it because she's not. 00:15:21.500 --> 00:15:23.940 Because again, the sheep are those who hear the master's voice. 00:15:25.560 --> 00:15:27.420 Pull up the next question here. 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:40.320 Getting some strange chat messages on another platform, so I will just skip over those. 00:15:42.980 --> 00:15:43.540 Let's see. 00:15:51.760 --> 00:15:54.560 Thankfully, the chat, I believe anyway, is working tonight. 00:15:54.560 --> 00:15:59.740 That's why I restarted the stream, because the OBS chat was not working, but I do have it working now. 00:16:00.280 --> 00:16:03.020 At least I see messages coming in, so I assume it's working. 00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:06.060 I will pull out the first question here from the chat. 00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:20.320 My question is, how does one obtain, this is question four, I should say, how does one obtain power in a godly way and maintain it when maintenance means deception and dealing and managing parties and people that actively seek to destroy you? 00:16:22.800 --> 00:16:27.700 You almost have that contained there in, actually, this is question three, rather. 00:16:27.700 --> 00:16:30.260 I swapped two questions around on my notepad here. 00:16:32.260 --> 00:16:34.140 The AI transcript can deal with that. 00:16:34.140 --> 00:16:35.280 It's their problem, not mine. 00:16:35.280 --> 00:16:42.220 But when it comes to power, you sort of answer the question for yourself there, right? 00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:46.520 If you have these individuals surrounding you, well, that's the problem. 00:16:46.520 --> 00:16:48.200 The problem isn't maintaining power. 00:16:48.200 --> 00:16:49.760 The problem is how you maintain power. 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:53.200 It's removing these wicked parties from around you. 00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:55.780 And you should think of, perhaps, Proverbs 25. 00:16:56.360 --> 00:16:58.320 I'll pull up the verse here on my screen. 00:16:58.320 --> 00:17:00.060 I won't show it, since we're just reading one verse. 00:17:01.220 --> 00:17:04.560 Proverbs 25, verse 5. 00:17:05.320 --> 00:17:10.360 Cut off the impious from the presence of the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness. 00:17:10.360 --> 00:17:15.360 Well, there's the recommendation of how you maintain power properly in a government. 00:17:15.660 --> 00:17:16.960 You remove the wicked. 00:17:17.180 --> 00:17:19.980 You don't let them stick around. 00:17:19.980 --> 00:17:22.840 You don't let them cause you these problems. 00:17:23.280 --> 00:17:31.340 So, if you have a righteous government, and you have righteous advisors, there's nothing wrong with power. 00:17:31.340 --> 00:17:33.200 Power does not corrupt. 00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:34.520 That statement is dumb. 00:17:35.020 --> 00:17:40.600 And it's mostly used by those who want to undermine rightful authority and hierarchy and cause chaos. 00:17:41.020 --> 00:17:41.960 So, discord. 00:17:43.560 --> 00:17:48.420 And nor does absolute power corrupt absolutely, because that's perhaps even a dumber statement. 00:17:49.460 --> 00:17:54.440 Power may attract the corruptible and the corrupt, but it does not corrupt. 00:17:54.760 --> 00:18:05.280 It may give you the ability to give in to corruption that is already present in you, your own predilections, your own perhaps besetting sins, whatever it happens to be. 00:18:05.840 --> 00:18:07.620 Money does the same thing, right? 00:18:08.760 --> 00:18:14.840 There are certain vices you can't really indulge if you don't have the money to indulge them. 00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:18.560 So, the same thing is true with regard to power. 00:18:18.900 --> 00:18:32.400 But the fact that power does not corrupt means that you don't have to have this system of elaborate safeguards that you think are going to keep people from causing problems with regard to power, because that's not how it works. 00:18:32.400 --> 00:18:37.380 And also, the safeguards don't work for other reasons that perhaps get into another time. 00:18:39.400 --> 00:18:47.020 But on the other hand, a king is going to deal with the kind of men who are corrupt and attracted to power, and he has to deal with them. 00:18:47.520 --> 00:18:51.040 But Scripture is pretty clear about how you deal with wicked men. 00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:53.160 If you're the king, you destroy them. 00:18:53.160 --> 00:19:02.720 So you don't just let them hang around and give you bad advice and cause you problems and torment your people and generally be a nuisance. 00:19:03.500 --> 00:19:08.800 You get rid of them, and you make sure that you have righteous men in government doing what is right. 00:19:09.160 --> 00:19:09.900 That's possible. 00:19:09.900 --> 00:19:11.580 There have been good governments historically. 00:19:11.580 --> 00:19:22.060 There have even been good governments that weren't Christian governments, because being a Christian is not a requirement to be good in the earthly sense of good, right? 00:19:22.060 --> 00:19:25.420 You can obey the moral law without being a Christian. 00:19:25.420 --> 00:19:28.280 You don't get credit for it, because you're not in Christ, you're still a sinner. 00:19:29.360 --> 00:19:31.300 I've gotten to that before, I won't go to it right now. 00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:38.640 But you can be a good person, you can have a good government, you can run your state well without being a Christian. 00:19:39.080 --> 00:19:45.720 Being a Christian doesn't mean that you can't do that, doesn't change how you go about doing it, at least not very much. 00:19:46.120 --> 00:19:56.580 Because you're dealing in earthly reality, you're dealing in fleshly reality, you're dealing in concrete problems with regard to the kingdom of the left hand, not the kingdom of the right hand. 00:19:56.580 --> 00:20:07.260 So, the only people who really think that power is a problem and claim to be Christians are like the Anabaptists who say you can't, without sin, hold public office and things like that. 00:20:07.260 --> 00:20:13.500 And that's explicitly condemned in the Lutheran confessions and elsewhere, I believe some of the Reformed confessions condemn that as well. 00:20:13.500 --> 00:20:18.140 So, it's just, power and Christianity aren't incompatible. 00:20:19.100 --> 00:20:23.460 There are those who've tried to argue they are, but those are bad actors. 00:20:24.100 --> 00:20:28.540 They want Christians not to be in power, because they want evil men to be in power. 00:20:28.920 --> 00:20:36.080 So, cut off the impious from the presence of the king is the answer from Scripture, and completely sufficient. 00:20:38.440 --> 00:20:40.940 So, let me pull up some more questions here. 00:20:40.940 --> 00:20:50.280 If more questions come in the chat, I'll probably mostly focus on the chat tonight, like I said, but I also have quite a list of questions from which I can draw at this point. 00:20:55.260 --> 00:20:57.980 What is the Christian case for physiognomy? 00:20:58.640 --> 00:20:59.560 There's a question. 00:21:01.200 --> 00:21:25.320 This is one of those questions where I could certainly go into it at some length and in some depth, but to some degree, we really went over that and sort of covered it, not sort of extensively, or certainly not comprehensively, but we covered it in the series on race for stone choir, because obviously that is going to come up in the racial context, generally speaking. 00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:40.400 But the reason that physiognomy, and for those who don't know, it's basically looking at the physical characteristics of a person and being able to divine or discern things from the physical characteristics back to, say, personality disposition, things like that. 00:21:42.260 --> 00:21:47.020 The reason that you can do that is because the human being is a gestalt, right? 00:21:47.020 --> 00:21:49.660 You are something that is greater than the sum of the parts. 00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:52.340 You are not just your body, your flesh. 00:21:52.340 --> 00:21:53.640 You're not just your spirit. 00:21:53.640 --> 00:21:54.580 You're not just your mind. 00:21:54.580 --> 00:22:01.960 You're all of those together and more for being the sum of those things greater than the sum of those things. 00:22:03.100 --> 00:22:11.700 So, there is part of the underlying, the spiritual or the mental reality, that is going to show through in the flesh. 00:22:11.700 --> 00:22:13.640 And it's not just a one-way street. 00:22:13.980 --> 00:22:21.660 It's a feedback loop, because as the flesh becomes degenerate and corrupt, it influences the soul and the mind as well. 00:22:21.660 --> 00:22:28.300 We don't know exactly how that works, because God didn't tell us, and we don't have instruments to test the soul. 00:22:28.700 --> 00:22:34.800 But we know that it happens, because we can look at populations, we can look at history, we can look at individuals to some degree. 00:22:34.800 --> 00:22:42.800 Yes, they're outliers with regard to individuals, but when you're speaking about these things, you're talking about more like population level statistics, things like that. 00:22:43.480 --> 00:22:52.020 We can look at those realities and see that, yes, you can actually tell, to some degree, things like criminality and intelligence from how a man looks. 00:22:53.020 --> 00:23:09.600 And that's perfectly in line with how God designed the world, because insofar as you deviate from what God wanted you to be, now, the deviation is not due to you personally, exclusively, because much of it is due to the wicked actions of your ancestors, right? 00:23:09.600 --> 00:23:14.200 And the fact we live in a fallen world and accumulating corruption, degeneration, things like that. 00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:23.160 But the way that you look and the degree to which that deviates from what God, again, wanted you to be is the result of sin. 00:23:23.820 --> 00:23:26.440 And that sin does not affect just the flesh. 00:23:26.440 --> 00:23:28.980 Again, it affects also the mind and the spirit. 00:23:29.720 --> 00:23:31.300 Soul, whichever term you want to use. 00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:35.760 And so those go hand in hand, down through history. 00:23:35.760 --> 00:23:43.520 And so you can look at it physically in a person's features, how far he is from that thing, and extrapolate it to the mind and the soul. 00:23:43.900 --> 00:23:45.800 And generally speaking, the connection holds. 00:23:46.080 --> 00:23:47.680 Like I said, there are outliers. 00:23:47.680 --> 00:24:00.780 We're talking more about population level truth here than individual, because an individual could have, you know, a mutation during the very early stages of pregnancy, right? 00:24:01.020 --> 00:24:06.560 You can have some very unfortunate mutation that can lead to something that that individual severely disfigured. 00:24:07.280 --> 00:24:19.100 That's less an issue of physiognomy, which should be applied more to that population level truth, as it is just bad luck, essentially, in the Christian sense of luck, which I won't get into right now. 00:24:19.140 --> 00:24:27.420 But yes, absolutely, physiognomy makes perfect sense for Christians, aligns with what we know about God's creation, and is a valid tool. 00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:36.140 It's not the absolute source of all truth, but that's never the case with any of this stuff, but it is a source of truth. 00:24:39.720 --> 00:24:47.760 Just copying some things into my notes here, so that I will have those in the show notes. 00:24:50.040 --> 00:24:51.880 Well, I have to make someone else do it. 00:25:06.440 --> 00:25:13.120 And someone jokingly asked me, so I will not number this question, but is studying German grammar a good way to exacerbate hair loss? 00:25:13.120 --> 00:25:23.740 I think probably there are worse languages for that, but I guess it depends on if you enjoy German or not, because stress will actually cause you to lose more hair, so. 00:25:25.640 --> 00:25:27.780 Jokingly, I guess perhaps the answer is yes. 00:25:30.140 --> 00:25:33.200 Pull up my backlog of questions here. 00:25:46.900 --> 00:25:49.020 To decide if I want to answer this question right now. 00:25:51.300 --> 00:25:53.020 I'll give a preliminary answer to this one. 00:25:53.020 --> 00:26:01.780 I may not answer it fully, because this is one of those complex ones that I may address at a greater length in the future, but I... 00:26:02.060 --> 00:26:03.420 Question five. 00:26:03.420 --> 00:26:12.260 I had a friend argue that the Lord's words from the cross speaking of Christ, why have you forsaken me, mean that he is not all-knowing. 00:26:12.260 --> 00:26:14.440 I did not know how to respond to that. 00:26:15.460 --> 00:26:20.580 So, let me just drop that into the show notes here. 00:26:23.380 --> 00:26:30.060 That was not Christ saying that he didn't understand what was going on. 00:26:30.080 --> 00:26:35.020 That was Christ doing really one thing, but in two senses. 00:26:35.200 --> 00:26:53.660 It's fulfilling prophecy, because this was prophesied of the Christ, that he would be forsaken, he would be cursed, he would become a curse for us, and he would suffer the punishment that was rightly ours, which is what he was doing during his entire earthly ministry, which we call the state of humiliation, but certainly in intensity with his sacrifice on the cross. 00:26:54.540 --> 00:26:59.480 This came up in a recent debate, perhaps, and one side was very wrong about it. 00:27:00.280 --> 00:27:09.840 So we do not know the exact specifics of how this works, right? 00:27:10.580 --> 00:27:19.400 How is one person of the Trinity forsaken, and how does he become the propitiation for our sins on the cross? 00:27:21.400 --> 00:27:25.320 We can say some things about it, but we can't understand it fully. 00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:33.360 Because when you try to understand this fully, what you get into is the intimate details of the incarnation itself, right? 00:27:33.360 --> 00:27:38.620 This is something into which the angels long to look, and cannot because they can't understand it. 00:27:39.260 --> 00:27:42.480 That sort of truth is reserved for God. 00:27:42.740 --> 00:27:44.380 It's something we can't fully understand. 00:27:44.380 --> 00:27:52.900 We can see and we can believe God that Jesus Christ is fully man, fully God, one person, two natures. 00:27:53.420 --> 00:28:02.340 We can affirm the things that are said in the creeds and that are pulled directly from scripture, and then we have to accept their limitations to our reason. 00:28:03.220 --> 00:28:12.860 The reason that Christ had to be the payment for our sins on the cross, and the reason that it is ultimately penal substitutionary atonement, which I may get into. 00:28:13.220 --> 00:28:16.680 I know I have a pending question about that as well somewhere here. 00:28:17.740 --> 00:28:23.760 The reason that Christ had to do it is because the debt of sin that we owe to God is infinite. 00:28:24.920 --> 00:28:28.500 The only thing that can pay an infinite debt is an infinite sum. 00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:33.020 We, being finite, can never pay an infinite amount, right? 00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.740 Say you're working for $10 an hour, which isn't unusual in the US., unfortunately. 00:28:39.780 --> 00:28:40.760 Say you're doing that, right? 00:28:40.880 --> 00:28:43.080 How long would it take you to pay an infinite amount? 00:28:44.500 --> 00:28:46.740 Make it $1,000, make it $1,000,000 an hour. 00:28:47.060 --> 00:28:52.480 It will still take you eternity, because you are finite, and you're doing something that is finite. 00:28:52.860 --> 00:29:05.140 Christ, being fully God, was infinite, is infinite, and so his sacrifice fulfilled the law, the righteous demands of the law, in your place, and you are counted righteous when you're in Christ. 00:29:05.560 --> 00:29:21.500 So, he is forsaken in the sense that he is cut off and punished in our place and for us, and that's all we need to be able to say about his words, because that is what he was doing at the time. 00:29:21.500 --> 00:29:24.440 We don't have to understand exactly how it worked, because we can't. 00:29:24.460 --> 00:29:32.080 This is the infinite God doing something that is above and beyond us, and we thank him for it, because he did it for our sake. 00:29:33.180 --> 00:29:35.820 So, it's not saying that he's not omniscient. 00:29:36.460 --> 00:29:41.560 This is a fulfillment of prophecy, and a fulfillment of what was necessary for our salvation. 00:29:45.000 --> 00:30:00.380 But yes, this is one of those things that the Arians tried to bring up and argue that Christ was not truly God, which the problem, obviously, as I just explained, if he's not truly God, his sacrifice wouldn't be of infinite value, and like, then he'd just be another guy. 00:30:01.320 --> 00:30:05.800 If I die on a cross, it doesn't benefit you no matter what I say, right? 00:30:05.800 --> 00:30:07.020 Because I'm just a man. 00:30:07.620 --> 00:30:09.500 He has to be both man and God. 00:30:15.080 --> 00:30:16.560 Just make a note for myself here. 00:30:48.600 --> 00:30:50.720 Excuse me, someone asked me a question about Nietzsche. 00:30:50.720 --> 00:30:52.160 I think I will save that one. 00:30:54.040 --> 00:30:59.100 People trying to make me get into the polemical topics comparing John Calvin and Nietzsche. 00:31:05.660 --> 00:31:13.020 I already answered the question about speaking in tongues previously, so I'll just comment briefly on that one here. 00:31:14.120 --> 00:31:21.300 Speaking in tongues is a gift from God, and it is one of the sign gifts that accompanied the early part of the Church. 00:31:21.300 --> 00:31:23.220 This is question six, if I didn't say that. 00:31:23.940 --> 00:31:27.920 And it was made basically to give God's imprimatur, right? 00:31:27.920 --> 00:31:37.960 To give God's stamp of approval on the apostles he had chosen to spread his word and other men who were speaking his truth at the time amongst the early Christians in the early Church. 00:31:38.980 --> 00:31:43.800 The sign gifts are much rarer these days because they fulfilled their purpose in the early Church. 00:31:44.020 --> 00:31:46.520 God is just not doing that as much anymore. 00:31:46.520 --> 00:31:48.580 It's not to say that there are no miracles. 00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:50.320 Lutherans are not cessationists. 00:31:50.320 --> 00:31:51.460 There are cessationists. 00:31:51.460 --> 00:31:52.360 I think they're wrong. 00:31:52.360 --> 00:31:55.740 I think they're obviously wrong, but we aren't. 00:31:56.600 --> 00:32:06.300 So could God suddenly give you the ability to speak Romanian if you had the opportunity to talk to a Romanian group about Christ? 00:32:06.400 --> 00:32:07.600 Sure, he could do that. 00:32:08.500 --> 00:32:14.200 These days, I guess he doesn't really need to, since we have live translation, but it would certainly show something, right? 00:32:14.200 --> 00:32:15.700 The miracle would prove something. 00:32:15.700 --> 00:32:18.600 So that does, at least can still happen. 00:32:18.780 --> 00:32:21.280 God's not, you know, his arm isn't foreshortened. 00:32:21.560 --> 00:32:23.240 He isn't unable to do that. 00:32:23.700 --> 00:32:27.860 But the admonitions in scripture are important with regard to speaking in tongues. 00:32:27.960 --> 00:32:30.400 One, tongues are human languages. 00:32:30.400 --> 00:32:31.660 That's what tongue means. 00:32:31.860 --> 00:32:38.760 It even means that in English still, it's just an archaic sense that has fallen out of usage amongst most modern English speakers. 00:32:39.180 --> 00:32:41.960 But right now, I'm speaking the English tongue. 00:32:42.500 --> 00:32:45.200 Earlier, I said a couple of words in the German tongue. 00:32:45.620 --> 00:32:46.780 It just means language. 00:32:47.040 --> 00:32:53.020 So someone just gibbering incoherent nonsense is not speaking in tongues. 00:32:53.040 --> 00:32:54.860 He's gibbering incoherent nonsense. 00:32:54.860 --> 00:32:57.400 We have mental wards full of people who do that all the time. 00:32:57.900 --> 00:32:59.200 They're not speaking in tongues. 00:32:59.760 --> 00:33:04.240 Paul admonishes things to be done in order and not to do it unless there's an interpreter. 00:33:04.540 --> 00:33:07.840 Well, if there's an interpreter, you're interpreting a human language, right? 00:33:08.340 --> 00:33:18.840 So, that's really all speaking in tongues is the Pentecostal churches get it wrong because they want to have some sign of some kind that makes them feel special. 00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:24.440 And right, a wicked generation seeks for a sign, so don't fall into that trap. 00:33:54.440 --> 00:34:00.380 I don't remember if I answered this one previously or not. 00:34:02.220 --> 00:34:03.440 So, I will answer it. 00:34:03.440 --> 00:34:12.040 I know I've touched on many questions similar to this one, but I'll go ahead and answer it just in case I have not answered this specific one in the past. 00:34:12.040 --> 00:34:12.880 It's a quick one. 00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:17.920 Question seven, how should we respond to miscegenation within the church? 00:34:18.540 --> 00:34:30.040 So, the general answer to this is that it is not really the place of the church to deal with it, because this is something that is handled by the state. 00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:35.760 This is the left hand of Christ, not the right hand of Christ, first and foremost. 00:34:36.020 --> 00:34:40.380 And so, this should be the Christian prince handling this, which just means the rightful ruler. 00:34:41.080 --> 00:34:48.420 Preferably, it is a monarch instead of a president or a prime minister as we currently have, but you do the best you can with what you have. 00:34:49.660 --> 00:35:00.980 Within the church, I don't think that it is wrongful if a church restricts, and I think that actually a church should, restrict membership, actual membership. 00:35:00.980 --> 00:35:10.860 So, in the case of men, voting membership, if that's a thing in your church, which I think voting is fine for certain things, not for everything, but to restrict that to members of the nation. 00:35:11.160 --> 00:35:14.280 And that's one of the things that was done in National Socialist Germany. 00:35:14.660 --> 00:35:19.080 Only members of the nation could be members of, at least certain of the churches. 00:35:19.740 --> 00:35:24.980 You could attend if you were not a member of the nation because you weren't cut off from word and sacrament. 00:35:25.400 --> 00:35:29.360 A Christian who is a different race isn't a non-Christian. 00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:33.400 You can be a different race than a Christian, you're just a Christian of a different race. 00:35:33.820 --> 00:35:40.860 So, whether or not you're in the country is a question for the kingdom of the left hand of Christ, for the magistrate. 00:35:41.400 --> 00:35:52.040 But the magistrate should say that you can't be member of the church, an actual member of the church, which I hope everyone knows the difference between a member and just attending. 00:35:52.600 --> 00:35:55.040 So, you can't be a member of the church without being a member of the nation. 00:35:55.040 --> 00:35:56.280 That's perfectly fine. 00:35:56.280 --> 00:36:07.900 I have no problem with individual churches these days enforcing that, because granted, modulo, talk to your attorney on that one, but the state's not going to enforce it right now. 00:36:08.280 --> 00:36:24.400 So, this is something that you address by dealing with membership at the church level, because that's the only thing the church has in this area, is again, primarily a matter for the magistrate, not for the priest or the pastor, or the bishop for that matter. 00:36:28.040 --> 00:36:35.920 I see someone just joined the forum, so I will go ahead and approve that, just in case he wanted to ask a question that way. 00:36:37.280 --> 00:36:38.900 Then I'll pull up the next question here. 00:36:40.460 --> 00:36:44.700 The chat on my end has not refreshed for a little bit, so I don't know if it's working. 00:36:44.700 --> 00:36:53.280 I'm also going to pull up the chat in the web interface for Restream to make sure that it did not suddenly stop working again. 00:36:55.720 --> 00:37:00.340 Tech gremlins, they are unending. 00:37:05.020 --> 00:37:11.580 And the web interface shows one-tenth of the messages I've received so far. 00:37:11.580 --> 00:37:12.120 That's helpful. 00:37:13.200 --> 00:37:13.700 Great. 00:37:17.500 --> 00:37:21.400 I will just keep pulling from the backlog of questions in that case. 00:37:38.840 --> 00:37:45.040 I have quite the backlog of difficult questions at this point, some of which have to be worded carefully in how I answer them on a live stream. 00:37:48.740 --> 00:37:50.400 Someone asked about my favorite gun. 00:37:50.460 --> 00:37:54.800 I've answered that one before, but I do generally like either 9 mil or 10. 00:37:57.920 --> 00:37:58.940 Other ones are fine. 00:37:58.940 --> 00:38:02.980 I'm not going to be the crazy guy who's, you know, hiking with a desert eagle. 00:38:04.280 --> 00:38:07.680