How Local Church Trumps Twitter and Facebook
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | Pastor John, as you know, there's a trend in American culture of intolerance
00:00:09.000 | towards any worldview that refuses to affirm same-sex marriage.
00:00:13.000 | There's no surprise there. But there are indications here and there that we are
00:00:18.000 | maybe seeing this trend spread into the gatekeepers of online platforms,
00:00:23.000 | platforms that Christians use regularly. The question on the table is this.
00:00:28.000 | Should Christians be preparing for a time when the cultural gatekeepers are so opposed
00:00:33.000 | to this countercultural position of Christians that mediums such as Facebook,
00:00:39.000 | YouTube, Twitter will close the accounts of Christians or even app stores will
00:00:44.000 | discontinue ministry apps for those who affirm what Scripture teaches about the
00:00:49.000 | sin of homosexual practice? Do you see this trend coming and how should we who
00:00:54.000 | use the web regularly prepare for it? Well, whether I see that coming or not
00:01:02.000 | probably has no influence on whether it will come or not unless my inclinations
00:01:10.000 | keep me from praying and God says to me, "You have not because you has not,
00:01:16.000 | John Biber." So my opinion about this is not very important in itself,
00:01:23.000 | I don't think, but there are important considerations in thinking about such things.
00:01:29.000 | God is sovereign over all cultural shifts and he will do as he pleases in his
00:01:35.000 | infinite wisdom and goodness and justice. I don't know of any biblical or
00:01:42.000 | historical reason to think America will even exist in a hundred years,
00:01:47.000 | let alone tolerate Christians. It might. God could send a great spiritual
00:01:54.000 | awakening and this sin-saturated culture could be more gospel-saturated,
00:02:01.000 | more biblically shaped than it ever has been since the time of the Puritans.
00:02:06.000 | That could happen, but there's no authority that guarantees that,
00:02:12.000 | not that I can see. Historically, I think what we need to keep in mind is that
00:02:17.000 | unjust limitations on Christians and opposition and even persecution would be
00:02:23.000 | more or less normal for Christians to face. And I use the word "normal" carefully
00:02:28.000 | because Peter, in addressing the churches of Asia Minor, middle of the first century,
00:02:35.000 | 1 Peter 4 says, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that comes
00:02:41.000 | upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you."
00:02:46.000 | In other words, opposition and persecution and limitations on Christians are not
00:02:53.000 | strange. And the opposite of strange, well, strange is what? Unfamiliar, foreign,
00:02:58.000 | not at home. And the opposite would be persecution is our native air,
00:03:04.000 | our home, familiar. But the America of the last 400 years is strange.
00:03:11.000 | It's the exception, not the rule, over the last 2,000 years. The New Testament
00:03:16.000 | itself is filled with persecution. Isn't it amazing that our founding book,
00:03:21.000 | four of Paul's letters are written from prison? Almost all the books in the New Testament
00:03:28.000 | assume some kind of persecution. It was normal for 300 years until the Edict of
00:03:33.000 | Milan in 313. So persecution for Christians has been the story of our life,
00:03:40.000 | and the spread of missionary work among the among the unreached peoples of the world
00:03:45.000 | has always moved forward with death-defying risks to missionary life.
00:03:50.000 | They used to pack their goods in coffins, for goodness sake. So it's always been
00:03:54.000 | assumed that the spread of the gospel, the flourishing of the gospel, happens
00:03:59.000 | through resistance. The ease and the comfort and the affirmation that we've enjoyed
00:04:05.000 | culturally for these several hundred years is extraordinarily unusual and not the norm.
00:04:12.000 | So I think the Western Church desperately needs to be taught this biblical and
00:04:19.000 | historical perspective, because even though America is no longer the Christian-saturated
00:04:24.000 | place it was 50 years ago—I mean, when I was a kid, what a different world I lived in—
00:04:28.000 | even though that's true, and a lot of young people know it, we all tend to assume
00:04:35.000 | that in a morally regulated democracy, laws will protect me from discrimination.
00:04:43.000 | You can't do that to me. And there's the rub, isn't it? Because a democracy
00:04:49.000 | regulated by laws to protect rights that we want assumes that there has to be a
00:04:54.000 | cultural consensus that those rights should be protected. None of us believes
00:05:00.000 | that all of the rights people want should be protected, right? Sedition, racial
00:05:04.000 | hostilities, speeding with children everywhere, killing the unborn in the womb
00:05:10.000 | or the terminally ill, trashing your front lawn, inciting to riot. Most Bible-loving
00:05:15.000 | folks would be okay with those behaviors restricted by law, even though others
00:05:22.000 | might scream to high heaven, "I have a right to take my child's life, and I have a right
00:05:27.000 | to put my garbage in my front lawn." But so it all hangs on, does the bulk of society
00:05:35.000 | think that a behavior is acceptable and tolerable? 60 years ago, for example, in
00:05:42.000 | America, adultery would have ruined a man in office, and racism would not have.
00:05:51.000 | Today, it's exactly flipped. Shelby Steele pointed this out. Now, adultery won't ruin
00:05:58.000 | you, witnessed Bill Clinton, and racism will. You drop the N-word one time, your
00:06:02.000 | political career is over. That was not true 60 years ago. That's the way
00:06:08.000 | democracy works. Cultural shifts dictate tolerance shifts and legal shifts, and all
00:06:15.000 | laws legislate somebody's morality. So if I take the question now to get, you know,
00:06:21.000 | personal and practical and say, "So what should we do in the light of the
00:06:26.000 | likelihood that social media of various kinds are going to shut Christians out?"
00:06:33.000 | Twitter and Facebook and app stores and so on, they're just going to shut us out
00:06:39.000 | because they don't like our views. What should we do? Here's my closing
00:06:43.000 | counsel. Number one, faithfully, week in, week out, preach the whole counsel of God
00:06:48.000 | on every issue that affects our people. Number two, worship faithfully in a
00:06:54.000 | serious, reverent, God-centered way that stands against the alternative worship
00:07:01.000 | of cultural idols. Third, strengthen the church with solid teaching so that our
00:07:08.000 | people are unshakable in the face of the worst storms. Fourth, fill our city and
00:07:18.000 | town with the teachings of Jesus Christ in every way we can. That's what the
00:07:24.000 | Jewish leaders accused the Apostles of doing. I love that sentence in Ex 5. "You
00:07:29.000 | have filled this city with your teaching." I could just see them smiling, saying, "That's
00:07:34.000 | what we've been trying to do." That's what I want to think about Minneapolis. Just
00:07:38.000 | fill it. Just fill it with truth. Let the chips fall where they will. That's just
00:07:43.000 | not our job to make the chips work, but fill the city with truth. Number five,
00:07:48.000 | carry through the legal recourses and arguments for the tolerance of your
00:07:55.000 | views while that's still possible. In other words, yeah, go ahead. In a
00:07:59.000 | democratic setting, defend your rights to say what is true, but don't assume
00:08:06.000 | success in the courts and don't regard legal defeat as spiritual defeat. Instead,
00:08:13.000 | resolve to count it all joy and move forward with your witness and courage
00:08:18.000 | and without fear or vindictiveness. Six, create as many alternative outlets as
00:08:25.000 | possible for the dissemination of truth. If you get blocked in one area, create
00:08:31.000 | another one until you're totally put in prison, and then create some more. Number
00:08:37.000 | seven, pray earnestly for a great awakening, awakening for leaders,
00:08:44.000 | awakening for the church. 1 Timothy 2 says, "Pray for leaders that we may lead
00:08:49.000 | a life of peaceful and quietness and godliness, dignified in every way," because
00:08:55.000 | God wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. Evidently
00:08:59.000 | it's good for evangelism and good for missions to have leaders who create
00:09:05.000 | situations where Christians can pursue their truth-loving lives with dignity
00:09:11.000 | and peace. And then finally, I say with Paul, "Take your share of suffering," to
00:09:17.000 | Timothy. "Take your share of suffering," for the gospel, 2 Timothy 1.8. So, in
00:09:23.000 | answer to the question, do I see things like Facebook, Twitter, Apple Store, iTunes,
00:09:28.000 | etc. shutting out Christians for taking biblical stands on social issues? Yes, I
00:09:33.000 | do. But here's what's more important. I think my short-term pessimism should
00:09:40.000 | have the effect of putting me on my knees to pray for the spiritual awakening,
00:09:46.000 | the doctrinal reformation, the worship transformation, pervasive personal
00:09:52.000 | holiness, and cultural impact that would, perhaps, if God wills, turn back such
00:09:59.000 | developments. Amen. And whatever is to come, what a gloriously important role the
00:10:04.000 | local church plays. And what a great reminder of God's design for getting His
00:10:09.000 | message out. He has the mechanism in place called the local church. Thank you,
00:10:13.000 | Pastor John. Tomorrow, we will close out the week with a question from an
00:10:17.000 | African-American who wants to know, "Why are there so few African-American
00:10:22.000 | Calvinists?" I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you tomorrow.
00:10:26.000 | [END]
00:10:28.000 | .
00:10:29.000 | .
00:10:30.000 | .
00:10:31.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]