When words don't match what they symbolize, that's called a lie!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMTmxHPvfu0

00:00.589 --> 00:16.494 [TB]: Friends, I'm going to tell you why I left KFUO, and we're going to talk about symbols, creeds, confessions, the scriptures, names, and identities, as well as Dylan Mulvaney, Google's Gemini AI, a female pastor who kicked the Bible to entertain goats, and yeah, a cop thief.

00:17.054 --> 00:18.054 [TB]: Well, so much more.

00:18.074 --> 00:19.334 [TB]: We've got so much more on today's show.

00:19.375 --> 00:24.376 [TB]: It's all coming up right here, right now on this tacky episode of Truth at All Costs.

00:35.063 --> 00:50.270 [TB]: You guys are curious why I left KFUO, and it doesn't seem to me, at least at this point, that KFUO is going to acknowledge my departure, which I think should happen since it's a radio station with a public-facing presence.

00:51.311 --> 00:52.752 [TB]: Many of you have asked me to explain.

00:53.712 --> 00:54.753 [TB]: I've received emails.

00:55.413 --> 00:57.454 [TB]: I've received comments, questions.

00:58.735 --> 01:00.896 [TB]: There's lots of speculation flying around.

01:01.789 --> 01:03.530 [TB]: And we don't want to encourage speculation.

01:03.550 --> 01:04.951 [TB]: We don't want to encourage gossip.

01:05.271 --> 01:07.432 [TB]: We don't want to encourage the breaking of the eighth commandment.

01:08.232 --> 01:13.295 [TB]: So I'm going to tell you exactly why I left at the end of the episode.

01:14.659 --> 01:15.660 [TB]: So stick around for that.

01:15.700 --> 01:19.003 [TB]: Before we get to all of that, welcome to the truth at all costs.

01:19.843 --> 01:28.510 [TB]: Or what Ron Funk, one of our podcast producers over on the YouTube channel is calling TAC, T-A-C, TAC, which I'm totally down with Ron.

01:28.570 --> 01:29.231 [TB]: I think it's great.

01:29.731 --> 01:40.300 [TB]: I mean, scoffers already think I'm rude, crude, and socially unacceptable, a racist, homophobic bigot that is just not very nice or what you might call tacky.

01:40.760 --> 01:48.164 [TB]: So yeah, TAC is fitting in this upside down world of ours where good is called evil and evil is called good.

01:49.225 --> 01:51.966 [TB]: Hey guys, I'm your host, Reverend Tyrell Bramwell.

01:51.986 --> 01:52.906 [TB]: I'm the pastor of St.

01:52.947 --> 02:08.555 [TB]: Mark Lutheran Church out here in Ferndale, California, where get this, we rejoice over the opportunity to be of service to our neighbors, both locally and all across the world through the likes of this podcast and Cross Defense before it.

02:09.383 --> 02:15.467 [TB]: And on this show, you get straight talk about the culture from the Christian perspective.

02:16.007 --> 02:21.470 [TB]: No pandering, no placating, no politically correct lies that aid in the devil's murderous ways.

02:21.590 --> 02:22.771 [TB]: No, we're Christians.

02:23.251 --> 02:35.419 [TB]: Our aim at truth at all costs is to be faithful to the whole counsel of God's word, understanding the spirit of our day and therefore what battlefield we're marching across.

02:36.633 --> 02:39.054 [TB]: And I truly appreciate hearing from you.

02:39.214 --> 02:45.578 [TB]: So leave a comment on the video you're watching right now here on YouTube or on Spotify or Rumble.

02:45.678 --> 02:52.221 [TB]: Yes, I'm uploading the show over there too, for all the censorship reasons that we know are bound to come our way.

02:52.641 --> 02:57.284 [TB]: You can also send me a voice message on the Spotify version of this podcast.

02:57.324 --> 02:59.705 [TB]: Go over there and use that voice message option.

02:59.725 --> 03:00.726 [TB]: That'd be great to hear from you.

03:00.906 --> 03:02.787 [TB]: And you can connect with me on Instagram or X.

03:03.527 --> 03:05.289 [TB]: at Tyrell Bramwell is my handle.

03:05.709 --> 03:10.833 [TB]: You can also send me an email at tyrellbramwell.com forward slash contact.

03:11.614 --> 03:19.440 [TB]: I know you have bits of biblical brilliance bouncing around that brain bucket of yours, and I'd love to hear it.

03:19.900 --> 03:21.021 [TB]: So send them my way, would you?

03:21.882 --> 03:22.703 [TB]: As we kick off the show.

03:23.775 --> 03:27.777 [TB]: I want to thank all of you who have already joined the YouTube channel.

03:28.117 --> 03:34.280 [TB]: Your support will enable us to make this podcast a success and so much more than just the podcast.

03:34.320 --> 03:35.080 [TB]: I have plans.

03:35.620 --> 03:36.641 [TB]: I have plans to.

03:37.714 --> 03:41.317 [TB]: To do things in the future, I want to share them with you, but they're just not quite ready to make public.

03:41.737 --> 03:43.298 [TB]: We didn't even know we were going to be doing this.

03:43.338 --> 03:59.531 [TB]: We're retooling and we're, we're regrouping and we got some ideas and some plans and we've got ways where you can help here locally in Ferndale and Humboldt County, but also reach people across the globe to continue to reach faithful Christians, the remnants, wherever they may be found.

04:00.609 --> 04:09.113 [TB]: This podcast is just the beginning, I hope, I pray, of what we'd like to do in partnership with you, faithful Christians, wherever you are in the world.

04:10.274 --> 04:15.796 [TB]: And I especially want to mention the members who've already signed up as podcast producers at that level of membership.

04:16.276 --> 04:17.957 [TB]: The worker is worth his wages.

04:18.598 --> 04:25.841 [TB]: And one of the wages of that top level of membership is a verbal thank you on air, which I'm overjoyed to do.

04:26.401 --> 04:29.643 [TB]: So thank you, RL, and thank you, Ronald Funk.

04:30.717 --> 04:43.252 [TB]: And for everyone watching the show, all of you who are watching the show, make sure you keep your eyes trained on the screen throughout the show because our unashamed underwriter level, well, they're thanked with an on-screen thank you.

04:43.833 --> 04:46.116 [TB]: So I'm excited to be able to pop up a lower third.

04:47.017 --> 04:49.618 [TB]: with a thank you to our first underwriter.

04:50.238 --> 04:51.018 [TB]: You know who you are.

04:51.038 --> 04:57.160 [TB]: I won't say your name right now, because then that would kind of take away the benefit of being a podcast producer.

04:57.220 --> 04:59.201 [TB]: Anyway, I will be thanking you on screen.

04:59.221 --> 05:00.401 [TB]: So everyone watch for that.

05:00.481 --> 05:02.462 [TB]: And I really appreciate that support as well.

05:02.662 --> 05:16.788 [TB]: If you want to know how you can support the show like these fine folks are, well, I put the link to the membership page in the show description below, along with all the other ways that you can help our independent efforts exceed the distribution ability of our institutional counterparts.

05:17.288 --> 05:21.350 [TB]: So yeah, you take a look at that and then let's now get into the show.

05:21.690 --> 05:22.290 [TB]: All right, here we go.

05:22.890 --> 05:26.392 [TB]: In the early church, my friends, Christians conveyed

05:27.677 --> 05:31.521 [TB]: that they were in fact Christians by way of a summary statement.

05:31.661 --> 05:36.886 [TB]: What you know as a creed, credo, from the Latin, I believe, right?

05:37.246 --> 05:43.172 [TB]: The Greek word is actually symbolon, meaning a seal or summary of the faith.

05:44.052 --> 05:44.152 [TB]: Now,

05:45.051 --> 06:05.488 [TB]: The typical usage of symbolon in the ancient Greek world, it meant something like an object, a coin or a piece of parchment or something that when employed as a symbol would be split in two so that when it was reunited by the two parties that had the halves, it would confirm their rightful relationship.

06:05.828 --> 06:14.054 [TB]: And now in this way, our wedding rings, or even to a lesser degree, like friendship bracelets or something, they work as symbolon.

06:15.078 --> 06:17.114 [TB]: Now, some of you

06:18.038 --> 06:25.120 [TB]: no doubt already are recalling the history of the fish symbol that Christians put on the back of cars.

06:25.320 --> 06:31.442 [TB]: You know, maybe back in the 90s, back when the WWJD bracelets were all the rage, you would see these fish symbols everywhere.

06:31.462 --> 06:32.423 [TB]: I don't know if you still see them.

06:32.783 --> 06:39.305 [TB]: Sometimes you come across a fish symbol that's being eaten by a Darwinian fish or something like this.

06:39.605 --> 06:44.707 [TB]: Anyway, I don't see them as often as I used to, but the fish symbol, the ichthys in the Greek,

06:45.447 --> 06:50.291 [TB]: is an acrostic for Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior.

06:50.892 --> 06:59.499 [TB]: The word ichthys is fish, and then the letters of the word ichthys, they spell out Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior.

07:00.240 --> 07:02.442 [TB]: It was an ancient symbolon of the faith.

07:03.923 --> 07:04.364 [TB]: A Christian,

07:05.455 --> 07:15.939 [TB]: He would swipe his foot in an arch across the ground in front of him, as it said, and if the person he was speaking to, now remember, this is during the time of great persecution in the Roman empire.

07:16.340 --> 07:33.247 [TB]: If the person he was speaking to was a Christian, he would respond in kind, himself making an arched swoop with his foot, and the two halves would unite to create the Christian symbol that confessed faith in Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, the Savior.

07:34.144 --> 07:37.465 [TB]: and the two people knew they could speak freely.

07:38.565 --> 07:44.947 [TB]: All right, so let's say today you come up to me and you say, hey, I'm a Christian.

07:45.607 --> 07:46.527 [TB]: Cool, all right.

07:47.607 --> 07:49.728 [TB]: Then you know the symbol of the faith, yeah?

07:50.488 --> 07:51.788 [TB]: And you say, yeah, yeah, I do.

07:52.648 --> 07:59.510 [TB]: And then you show me this as your creed, your half of the seal, your half of the symbolon.

08:02.051 --> 08:19.798 [Clip]: Team Mingo!

08:19.838 --> 08:20.958 [Clip]: We'll just call it when it lands.

08:21.679 --> 08:22.319 [Clip]: Call it in the air!

08:26.166 --> 08:28.850 [Clip]: It, yeah, let's just go with tails.

08:29.211 --> 08:30.654 [Clip]: Would you like to kick or receive the Bible?

08:30.814 --> 08:31.535 [Clip]: I will receive.

08:32.317 --> 08:34.921 [Clip]: Tom wins the toss, chooses to receive the Bible.

08:35.723 --> 08:37.045 [Clip]: Patterson back with the kick.

08:41.849 --> 08:43.730 [Clip]: Oh my goodness!

08:44.071 --> 08:44.951 [Clip]: Is that a touchback?

08:45.271 --> 08:46.692 [Clip]: Can you even get a touchback?

08:46.712 --> 08:50.995 [Clip]: First time in 18 years there's a touchback for the kickoff.

08:51.075 --> 08:54.037 [TB]: What is the quote attributed to Charles Spurgeon?

08:54.077 --> 08:55.938 [TB]: I don't know if Spurgeon actually said it.

08:56.278 --> 08:57.799 [TB]: What's the quote Spurgeon is said to have said?

08:59.100 --> 09:05.925 [TB]: A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, yeah, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.

09:07.046 --> 09:09.047 [TB]: Yeah, that's what we have going on.

09:09.587 --> 09:10.248 [TB]: That time has come.

09:11.263 --> 09:15.965 [TB]: So how would I respond if that was your confession of faith?

09:16.005 --> 09:33.993 [TB]: When we came across each other and I ask you what your faith is, and that's how you respond, that your belief is okay with a woman being called a pastor, by the way, kicking God's sacred word off of a stage in front of a congregation of people who are apparently okay with it.

09:34.874 --> 09:36.915 [TB]: Well, I would know our symbols don't match.

09:38.192 --> 09:40.814 [TB]: I would not kick the Bible in like manner.

09:41.675 --> 09:43.997 [TB]: You did the wrong gesture with your foot.

09:44.557 --> 09:46.158 [TB]: We are not truly the same.

09:47.800 --> 09:57.908 [TB]: This, my friends, this is the value of summarizing the faith, holding to a creed, a symbol on a confession of faith.

09:59.089 --> 10:04.553 [TB]: This confession, it would then serve to confirm one's Christian identity.

10:06.459 --> 10:17.328 [TB]: But it would only be meaningful if the confession, what is said, what is declared, actually agreed with the belief, right?

10:18.128 --> 10:18.949 [TB]: Agreed with the heart.

10:20.210 --> 10:21.911 [TB]: Romans 10, eight to 10.

10:22.792 --> 10:25.314 [TB]: The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart.

10:25.935 --> 10:28.377 [TB]: That is the word of faith that we proclaim.

10:29.438 --> 10:35.883 [TB]: Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

10:36.758 --> 10:43.460 [TB]: With the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

10:43.620 --> 10:45.201 [TB]: This is what we're talking about today.

10:45.641 --> 10:54.164 [TB]: How truth is found where there is agreement between the thing itself and its summary, its symbol, the creed.

10:55.925 --> 10:59.586 [TB]: This past Sunday, Genesis 32, 22 to 32 was our Old Testament reading, right?

10:59.786 --> 11:04.148 [TB]: According to the one-year lectionary, the historic lectionary, Jesus wrestles with Jacob.

11:05.205 --> 11:08.747 [TB]: And I'll put a link to that sermon of mine in the description if you want to hear all about it.

11:09.327 --> 11:11.088 [TB]: Click the card if you're watching the YouTube video.

11:11.608 --> 11:20.253 [TB]: One of the things that I talked about was Jacob's renaming, being renamed to Israel and how with names come identities.

11:21.133 --> 11:24.995 [TB]: The symbol is the name and the identity is the thing itself.

11:25.895 --> 11:34.260 [TB]: Our symbol in this case, our name is language, a word that delineates us, the individual, from others.

11:35.214 --> 11:37.635 [TB]: It communicates our identity.

11:38.255 --> 11:40.695 [TB]: Change your name, change your identity.

11:41.856 --> 11:45.237 [TB]: Women, you understand this, or at least women traditionally understood this.

11:45.757 --> 11:55.099 [TB]: At birth, women receive their maiden name, the surname of their father, and it's retained as long as they remain unmarried.

11:55.939 --> 11:59.420 [TB]: It's part of the language that symbolizes who they are.

12:00.460 --> 12:02.741 [TB]: When a woman marries, what does she do?

12:03.629 --> 12:10.893 [TB]: I mean, historically speaking, before the feminists got involved and ruined everything, she would change family names.

12:11.173 --> 12:11.393 [TB]: Yeah.

12:12.133 --> 12:12.333 [TB]: Why?

12:12.914 --> 12:14.194 [TB]: Her identity changed.

12:15.015 --> 12:19.517 [TB]: So the symbol that conveys her identity changes as well.

12:20.197 --> 12:32.624 [TB]: This custom has been thrown out like it has no meaning because we've been taught to hate our own Western culture and to see it as evil, even though it was developed by Christian thought.

12:33.735 --> 12:33.915 [TB]: St.

12:33.935 --> 12:42.037 [TB]: Paul teaches in Ephesians 5 that the relationship between a husband and wife is profound and it refers to Christ and his church.

12:43.378 --> 12:46.198 [TB]: Jesus is the bridegroom and his church is the bride.

12:46.899 --> 12:51.040 [TB]: And so we take the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, don't we?

12:51.760 --> 12:52.220 [TB]: Christian.

12:53.433 --> 12:57.916 [TB]: In baptism, we're born of our Father in heaven, born again.

12:58.556 --> 13:09.563 [TB]: And we receive the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, both upon our foreheads and upon our hearts to symbolize who we are.

13:11.884 --> 13:18.288 [TB]: That language, that triune name, that word communicates your identity.

13:19.129 --> 13:20.870 [TB]: It's a symbol of reality.

13:21.751 --> 13:22.391 [TB]: And so it's true.

13:23.723 --> 13:38.175 [TB]: If we receive the name but continue to live as children of wrath in the darkness of this world, unrepentant of our sin, instead of children of the light, the correct symbol to convey our identity is what?

13:39.536 --> 13:42.618 [TB]: The correct word, name, symbol is hypocrite.

13:44.740 --> 13:53.327 [TB]: This language of Symbolon, it's actually the language, the word the Reformers used for creed.

13:54.531 --> 13:58.474 [TB]: The Greek word symbolon was used to describe creedal statements.

13:59.655 --> 14:04.580 [TB]: And this is how, exactly how our Augsburg confession is rightly understood.

14:04.660 --> 14:08.283 [TB]: It is another creed in keeping with the historic creeds.

14:08.703 --> 14:22.635 [TB]: It's another symbol, just like that of the apostles creed and the Nicene creed and the Athanasian creed, which reflect the same faith that those three ecumenical creeds, those three ecumenical symbols summarize.

14:23.780 --> 14:27.141 [TB]: The one true biblical Christian faith.

14:28.302 --> 14:35.605 [TB]: So everyone who holds to the unaltered Augsburg Confession has received a part of the same seal.

14:36.005 --> 14:38.987 [TB]: We call ourselves Lutheran today for that reason.

14:39.047 --> 14:41.668 [TB]: Confessional Lutherans, to be more precise.

14:42.908 --> 14:48.751 [TB]: Because this is the symbol that the gospel-centered reformers pinned

14:49.636 --> 15:01.603 [TB]: to summarize the historic Christian faith, to be in keeping with the historic Christian faith when they were persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church in Germany all those years ago.

15:04.945 --> 15:11.808 [TB]: But let's say people call themselves Lutheran and then don't hold to the Lutheran confessions.

15:12.489 --> 15:14.890 [TB]: Don't hold to the symbols, the creed of the Lutheran Church.

15:15.611 --> 15:16.111 [TB]: Well, then what?

15:17.694 --> 15:19.474 [TB]: Well, then you have a mess.

15:19.734 --> 15:21.035 [TB]: That's what, you have a mess.

15:21.335 --> 15:23.715 [TB]: You have exactly what we have today.

15:25.496 --> 15:32.257 [TB]: It's the same thing, whether you're talking about the church or anything really, it's the same thing when you're talking about rhinos, right?

15:33.038 --> 15:33.818 [TB]: What are rhinos?

15:33.878 --> 15:36.098 [TB]: Republicans in name only.

15:36.118 --> 15:36.678 [TB]: What does that mean?

15:37.139 --> 15:39.259 [TB]: Not in truth, not in substance.

15:39.919 --> 15:46.681 [TB]: A term like rhino is saying the symbols in place, the words in place, the names in play, but the substance is missing.

15:47.591 --> 15:51.314 [TB]: The identity isn't true to the summary of it.

15:53.075 --> 15:54.056 [TB]: The identity is false.

15:55.057 --> 16:01.462 [TB]: And so its name, the name Rhino is the same as calling a Republican, a name only, a hypocrite.

16:04.385 --> 16:08.148 [TB]: This friends, you know, you see is everywhere in our culture today.

16:08.748 --> 16:09.329 [TB]: It's everywhere.

16:10.049 --> 16:15.574 [TB]: The symbol, the name, the language, the word doesn't truthfully convey the identity behind it.

16:16.544 --> 16:23.567 [TB]: We've lost so much of our integrity where we hold to something on principle alone.

16:24.447 --> 16:39.854 [TB]: And I have a ton of examples to help you discern the severity of the current battlefield that the church militant today, our church militant is marching on and why it's of the utmost importance that we speak the truth at all costs.

16:41.289 --> 16:49.215 [TB]: And speaking of speaking the truth at all costs, if you're in need or just perhaps want a new shirt, might I suggest you pick up one of our Tacky Tees?

16:49.695 --> 16:50.375 [TB]: Yeah, I like it.

16:50.395 --> 16:51.076 [TB]: It has a ring to it.

16:51.096 --> 16:51.936 [TB]: We're going to stick with that.

16:52.137 --> 16:54.879 [TB]: The link to our Tacky Tees is in the show description below.

16:55.319 --> 17:00.422 [TB]: Your purchase supports this show and all of my online and in-person ministry work.

17:00.542 --> 17:00.903 [TB]: So thank you.

17:02.091 --> 17:08.356 [TB]: As we talk about Symbolon, this observation by Soren Kierkegaard comes to my mind.

17:08.496 --> 17:09.577 [TB]: I want to point this out to you.

17:10.038 --> 17:26.171 [TB]: He observes, Kierkegaard observes that Western Christianity today, yes, even in our day, as we're now farther along the line than Kierkegaard was, has within its ranks, both admirers of Christ and followers of Christ.

17:26.271 --> 17:28.053 [TB]: Admirers and followers.

17:29.295 --> 17:33.238 [TB]: Kierkegaard says, the admirer never makes any true sacrifices.

17:33.998 --> 17:35.940 [TB]: He always plays it safe.

17:36.880 --> 17:43.885 [TB]: Though in words, phrases, songs, he's inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ.

17:44.465 --> 17:53.892 [TB]: He renounces nothing, will not reconstruct his life, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires.

17:55.123 --> 17:56.544 [TB]: Not so for the follower.

17:56.744 --> 17:57.184 [TB]: No, no.

17:57.865 --> 18:02.207 [TB]: The follower aspires with all his strength to be what he admires.

18:03.308 --> 18:19.197 [TB]: And then remarkably enough, even though he's living amongst a Christian people, quote unquote, he incurs the same peril as he did when it was dangerous to openly confess Christ.

18:21.317 --> 18:32.840 [TB]: Rod Dreher sums this statement up in his book, Live Not by Lies, saying the follower recognizes the cost of discipleship and is willing to pay it.

18:34.056 --> 18:59.369 [TB]: This does not mean that he's obligated to put himself at maximum peril at all times or stand guilty of being an admirer, no, but it does mean that when the Gestapo or the KGB shows up in his village and demands that he bow to the swastika or the hammer and sickle, or perhaps the pride flag today, yeah, the follower will make the sign of the cross and walk with fear and trembling toward Golgotha.

19:00.319 --> 19:01.059 [TB]: Amen to that.

19:01.460 --> 19:05.722 [TB]: Guys, do you hear this show's namesake in that wisdom?

19:06.802 --> 19:10.024 [TB]: Peace if possible, truth at all costs.

19:10.965 --> 19:13.646 [TB]: It's this very principle that St.

19:13.706 --> 19:23.051 [TB]: Paul taught when he said in Romans 12, 18, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

19:23.931 --> 19:28.474 [TB]: And it's what Daniel held to, even when it meant the lion's den.

19:29.468 --> 19:34.171 [TB]: And it's what his three companions exemplified when it meant the fiery furnace.

19:34.251 --> 19:36.893 [TB]: It's what the apostles declare in Acts 4.19.

19:37.113 --> 19:42.517 [TB]: And then again in 5.29, Luther didn't grab this idea out of thin air.

19:43.458 --> 19:46.240 [TB]: It's always been the Christian way.

19:47.761 --> 19:51.003 [TB]: Peace if possible, truth at all costs.

19:53.171 --> 19:57.955 [TB]: And speaking of Dreher's book, which you can order from Butterfat Books to also support the channel.

19:58.455 --> 20:02.258 [TB]: Yeah, lots of shameless plugs going on here, but it helps our ministry effort.

20:03.239 --> 20:04.700 [TB]: There are lots of ways to help us, friends.

20:06.221 --> 20:13.927 [TB]: His book is named after Alexander Solzhenitsyn's essay to the Russian people who were living under communist oppression.

20:15.748 --> 20:16.509 [TB]: Solzhenitsyn wrote.

20:17.483 --> 20:24.445 [TB]: We're not called upon to step out onto the square and shout out the truth, to say out loud what we think.

20:24.725 --> 20:25.465 [TB]: This is scary.

20:26.305 --> 20:26.926 [TB]: We're not ready.

20:28.226 --> 20:31.327 [TB]: But let us at least refuse to say what we do not think.

20:31.987 --> 20:35.528 [TB]: That is, let us live not by lies.

20:36.988 --> 20:44.770 [TB]: Or in other words, as we've been discussing, let's insist that our words match what they symbolize.

20:45.951 --> 20:46.751 [TB]: That they are true.

20:48.217 --> 20:54.298 [TB]: After all, as we've already called to mind, the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart.

20:54.919 --> 20:57.099 [TB]: That is the word of faith that we proclaim.

20:58.059 --> 21:04.801 [TB]: Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

21:05.621 --> 21:11.243 [TB]: For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

21:11.283 --> 21:11.763 [TB]: Romans 10, 8 and 10.

21:11.803 --> 21:12.003 [TB]: Again.

21:14.912 --> 21:16.914 [TB]: It's what's going on with the second commandment, isn't it?

21:17.634 --> 21:19.776 [TB]: You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

21:19.876 --> 21:20.877 [TB]: What does this mean?

21:22.318 --> 21:33.668 [TB]: We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie, or deceive by his name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.

21:34.108 --> 21:39.293 [TB]: When, as a Christian, you live according to lies, you break the second commandment.

21:40.080 --> 21:46.487 [TB]: because you're bearing the name of God, saying you're a Christian, but then misrepresenting who God is.

21:47.548 --> 21:53.394 [TB]: The symbol, the word, the language, the name doesn't match the truth of who God said he is in his word.

21:53.655 --> 21:58.520 [TB]: Let's consider this with the recent example of what the man Dylan Mulvaney said.

21:59.770 --> 22:06.232 [DM]: Hi, I'm gonna preface this video by saying this video might seem a little out of left field for me because I don't often speak about my faith on here.

22:06.592 --> 22:11.354 [DM]: So if you are at all triggered by God or religion, you can totally keep on scrolling.

22:11.534 --> 22:11.934 [DM]: I love you.

22:11.954 --> 22:14.895 [DM]: And if you're still here, where my Jesus girlies at?

22:15.095 --> 22:15.255 [DM]: Hey.

22:16.395 --> 22:27.545 [DM]: I am in an okay place with God right now and I'm trying to find what my faith is after, you know, kind of growing up in the church and then being really burned by it.

22:28.205 --> 22:30.848 [DM]: And right now God and I are like dating again.

22:30.968 --> 22:35.632 [DM]: We're not exclusive and we're not living together, but we're in a good place.

22:36.603 --> 22:44.228 [DM]: And I read something today that really got me thinking because it was a journal entry from a few months ago when I was really going through a difficult situation.

22:44.728 --> 22:48.511 [DM]: And it said, if God was real, why would God let this happen to me?

22:49.671 --> 22:53.354 [DM]: And now I read it back and I thought back on that specific situation.

22:54.114 --> 22:56.096 [DM]: And I am so grateful that I went through it.

22:56.916 --> 22:59.338 [DM]: And I'm so much stronger because of it.

22:59.458 --> 23:02.900 [DM]: And I actually thought maybe God was like the most present

23:03.732 --> 23:13.612 [DM]: with me during that situation because I needed to come out a changed person, you know, someone that's stronger, someone that has learned something.

23:14.529 --> 23:23.896 [DM]: And I am just so sick of these people trying to use God and religion against the queer and trans community.

23:24.596 --> 23:27.419 [DM]: Like, we are not entitled to having any sort of faith.

23:28.039 --> 23:32.722 [DM]: And a lot of the times a comment will be like, I hope you find God or you need Jesus.

23:33.403 --> 23:35.785 [DM]: And I'm like, honey, I found God and we're in cahoots.

23:35.865 --> 23:37.006 [DM]: We're doing just fine.

23:37.366 --> 23:41.569 [TB]: In the cringiest way possible, Mulvaney's saying he's a Christian.

23:43.732 --> 23:54.399 [TB]: But the symbol he would use to identify himself, the word Christian, is not consistent with the identity of being a Christian.

23:55.099 --> 23:55.980 [TB]: What do I mean by that?

23:56.860 --> 24:00.803 [TB]: What I mean is, take a look at what Jesus says in Matthew 10.

24:01.623 --> 24:02.724 [TB]: Let's start with verse 38.

24:04.005 --> 24:07.847 [TB]: And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

24:08.467 --> 24:10.228 [TB]: Whoever finds his life will lose it.

24:10.569 --> 24:12.450 [TB]: And whoever loses his life for my sake,

24:13.422 --> 24:14.162 [TB]: We'll find it.

24:14.723 --> 24:19.886 [TB]: Mr. Mulvaney, not that you're actually going to hear these words, but what would you say you've done?

24:20.847 --> 24:26.611 [TB]: Have you lost your life or have you found your life in your transitional fame?

24:26.631 --> 24:30.353 [TB]: I mean, even without the fame, let's take the fame out of the question.

24:32.274 --> 24:40.480 [TB]: The Lord created you as a man in a man's body, but you wanted to live as a girl

24:41.417 --> 24:43.777 [TB]: in what is symbolic of a girl's body.

24:45.558 --> 24:57.000 [TB]: Do you see how your actions are denying the Lord in favor of owning and accepting yourself, being yourself?

24:58.380 --> 25:00.700 [TB]: You wanted to find your own life.

25:00.820 --> 25:06.221 [TB]: And so Jesus says you will lose your life, the life He gives you eternally.

25:08.042 --> 25:10.442 [TB]: But if you would submit yourself to Jesus,

25:11.411 --> 25:33.690 [TB]: If you would take your desires and surrender them to the Lord and live, not as you want, but as Christ has revealed He wants you to live, well then you would be losing your life in the here and now for the sake of Jesus, but gaining it for all of eternity.

25:35.131 --> 25:35.792 [TB]: Do you see this?

25:36.632 --> 25:39.715 [TB]: I pray you will see this before it's too late.

25:41.182 --> 25:45.667 [TB]: You said you grew up in the church, but you were burned by it.

25:45.707 --> 25:47.289 [TB]: That's what you said there in that post.

25:47.789 --> 25:48.030 [TB]: Why?

25:48.370 --> 25:49.692 [TB]: Because the church speaks the truth?

25:50.592 --> 25:51.814 [TB]: That there are two genders?

25:52.735 --> 25:57.059 [TB]: And that the Lord knit you together in your mother's womb as he intended you to be?

25:57.640 --> 25:58.861 [TB]: Not how you wanted to be?

25:58.941 --> 26:00.183 [TB]: Is this how the church burned you?

26:01.555 --> 26:03.896 [TB]: Maybe it's not, maybe that's not what you're talking about.

26:03.916 --> 26:05.476 [TB]: I mean, I don't know your whole life story.

26:06.256 --> 26:16.318 [TB]: We know that there are high statistical odds of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, which is what I understand Mulvaney, that you grew up in.

26:17.098 --> 26:26.280 [TB]: And then we also understand there's high statistics of sexually abused children growing up to suffer all kinds of sexual confusion, but that would be speculation.

26:26.300 --> 26:30.701 [TB]: So refusing to speculate, let's consider what we hear from this video.

26:31.988 --> 26:35.109 [TB]: You're rejecting church on personal grounds.

26:35.149 --> 26:35.869 [TB]: We know that much.

26:36.349 --> 26:41.490 [TB]: And you're reshaping God in a manner that does not match who God says he is.

26:42.710 --> 26:52.693 [TB]: Your symbolon and the thing itself, your terms and words and confession of faith, confession of who God is and who he says he is don't match.

26:54.213 --> 26:57.794 [TB]: The next verses in Matthew 10, they speak to this directly.

26:58.737 --> 27:00.337 [TB]: Jesus is talking to his disciples.

27:00.918 --> 27:05.118 [TB]: Whoever receives you receives me and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.

27:05.959 --> 27:11.480 [TB]: The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward.

27:11.740 --> 27:18.401 [TB]: And the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward.

27:20.042 --> 27:24.963 [TB]: If Dylan would receive Jesus, the righteous person.

27:25.816 --> 27:34.525 [TB]: the only righteous person, because he is the only righteous person, well then he would receive that righteous person's reward, everlasting life.

27:34.665 --> 27:40.190 [TB]: But Mr. Mulvaney is doing to Christ exactly what he's doing to the word girl.

27:40.691 --> 27:43.874 [TB]: He's assuming the symbol apart from the identity.

27:44.915 --> 27:46.817 [TB]: Or in other words, he's lying.

27:48.868 --> 27:51.850 [TB]: Here's another popular example from recent news last week.

27:52.190 --> 27:54.451 [TB]: Google's Gemini AI, I'm sure you saw this.

27:55.071 --> 27:59.834 [TB]: It was caught lying about white people every which way to Sunday, right?

28:00.414 --> 28:06.497 [TB]: It refused to produce images of historical white people like the Pope or America's founding fathers.

28:06.797 --> 28:07.138 [TB]: It even, uh,

28:08.666 --> 28:14.149 [TB]: were views to generate pictures of happy white families, but then would generate pictures of happy black families.

28:14.689 --> 28:21.333 [TB]: And at first it looked like Google has programmed Gemini to lie, but that's not the case.

28:22.414 --> 28:28.077 [TB]: The symbols and the identity aren't consistent from our user's perspective.

28:28.953 --> 28:41.706 [TB]: When asked to show a picture of a typical Nazi soldier, instead of a white male, which obviously would be the truthful representation of a Nazi soldier, it generated an Asian female in a Nazi uniform.

28:42.707 --> 28:45.050 [TB]: All of this is the DEI deception, right?

28:46.445 --> 28:57.190 [TB]: But check out this, check out here what Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab AI, said is happening behind the scenes of Google's Gemini.

28:57.910 --> 29:03.433 [TB]: The algorithm is actually producing true images according to its programming.

29:04.393 --> 29:06.694 [TB]: It's the programmers who are lying.

29:07.895 --> 29:08.535 [TB]: Here's what he tweeted.

29:10.106 --> 29:22.030 [TB]: When you submit an image prompt to Gemini, Google's taking your prompt and running it through their language model on the back end before it's submitted to the image model.

29:22.970 --> 29:36.174 [TB]: The language model has a set of rules where it's specifically told to edit the prompt you provide to include diversity and various other things that Google wants injected into your prompt.

29:37.281 --> 29:49.228 [TB]: The language model takes your prompt, runs it through these set of rules, and then sends the newly generated woke prompt, which you cannot access or see, to the image generator.

29:50.128 --> 29:56.952 [TB]: Left alone, without this process, the image model would generate expected outcomes for these prompts.

29:57.833 --> 30:03.396 [TB]: Google has to literally put words in your mouth by secretly changing your prompt

30:04.161 --> 30:06.083 [TB]: before it's submitted to the image generator.

30:07.784 --> 30:11.327 [TB]: So the symbol matches the identity.

30:12.207 --> 30:24.737 [TB]: It's just that the user was unaware that Gemini wasn't responding to his prompt, but to a manipulated prompt on the backend that then produced what is perceived to be a lie.

30:25.759 --> 30:30.923 [TB]: Because there was a discrepancy between the identity of the thing, the thing asked for, right?

30:31.644 --> 30:35.607 [TB]: And the symbol, the word, the language used to ask for it.

30:36.227 --> 30:36.428 [TB]: See?

30:37.468 --> 30:43.774 [TB]: When the word and the thing match, then you have truth, which is why Christians live lives of repentance, right?

30:43.854 --> 30:52.601 [TB]: As we read in 1 John 1, 5-10, this is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

30:53.558 --> 30:58.581 [TB]: If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

30:59.202 --> 31:04.305 [TB]: But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

31:04.845 --> 31:08.427 [TB]: In the blood of Jesus, His Son cleanses us from all sin.

31:09.328 --> 31:13.851 [TB]: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

31:14.771 --> 31:21.816 [TB]: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

31:22.875 --> 31:28.342 [TB]: If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

31:29.103 --> 31:29.403 [TB]: Okay.

31:29.423 --> 31:33.148 [TB]: So here's another recent example from the news.

31:33.989 --> 31:38.775 [TB]: Although this one, you might not have noticed because it didn't make quite the same splash that Jim and I did.

31:39.355 --> 31:40.397 [TB]: The New York Post reported.

31:41.483 --> 31:46.705 [TB]: On duty cop arrested for shoplifting $140 pair of shoes while in uniform.

31:47.305 --> 31:48.906 [TB]: Embarrassing for the department.

31:49.566 --> 31:53.207 [TB]: And this is an article by Melissa Koenig published February 23rd, 2024.

31:55.108 --> 32:07.592 [TB]: She writes a Mississippi cop was arrested by her colleagues for allegedly shoplifting sneakers while on duty and in uniform getting taken into custody in her own squad car.

32:09.971 --> 32:26.183 [TB]: Now fired, Columbus officer Robin Connor, 33, was busted Wednesday at a Dick's Sporting Goods when an employee stopped her walking out in a $140 pair of tennis shoes, her police chief, Joseph Daughtry, told the Columbus Dispatch.

32:27.219 --> 32:36.781 [TB]: We're putting her in jail," said the chief, who was among those who responded to arrest his own uniform-clad officer.

32:37.381 --> 32:41.702 [TB]: It's embarrassing for the department, but we're going to treat her like we would anybody else.

32:42.262 --> 32:43.942 [TB]: If you're a cop, you cannot be a thief.

32:44.843 --> 32:47.423 [TB]: If that's your identity, you're not a cop.

32:48.743 --> 32:50.004 [TB]: You may be a crooked cop.

32:50.824 --> 32:51.904 [TB]: You may be a bad cop.

32:52.981 --> 33:01.591 [TB]: but not a cop, according to what that symbol on that word language summary conveys.

33:01.931 --> 33:03.453 [TB]: And it happens in this case that Ms.

33:03.493 --> 33:05.515 [TB]: Connor was also a bad thief.

33:05.595 --> 33:07.257 [TB]: She wasn't even a good thief.

33:07.297 --> 33:09.739 [TB]: She couldn't even be summarized by the word thief either.

33:10.000 --> 33:10.761 [TB]: She got caught, right?

33:11.769 --> 33:16.891 [TB]: So she was a bad thief as well as a bad cop, but the police chief should be commended for this.

33:17.632 --> 33:22.814 [TB]: This kind of news should be highlighted because this is great news for our society.

33:23.355 --> 33:27.837 [TB]: He said, we have a job to do and we're held to a higher standard.

33:28.357 --> 33:32.959 [TB]: That's why we fulfilled our obligation, not only to the store, but to the community.

33:33.600 --> 33:34.540 [TB]: Amen.

33:35.300 --> 33:36.241 [TB]: All of this today.

33:37.236 --> 33:38.697 [TB]: is about the meaning of words, right?

33:39.177 --> 33:43.219 [TB]: Of integrity, of character, of truth at all costs.

33:43.919 --> 33:47.381 [TB]: This article should give us hope for our civic society.

33:48.641 --> 33:50.242 [TB]: It's great hope.

33:51.063 --> 33:52.783 [TB]: This is integrity, friends.

33:52.823 --> 33:55.225 [TB]: This is truthfulness on the part of the chief.

33:56.585 --> 33:59.667 [TB]: Likewise, you should have hope for the church too.

34:00.967 --> 34:01.808 [TB]: The Lord is truth.

34:02.468 --> 34:06.350 [TB]: His name and His identity always perfectly align.

34:07.756 --> 34:17.768 [TB]: His people may mess up, his officers may have to get arrested and put in jail, but the chief, he is always doing the thing that is right and good.

34:19.010 --> 34:20.452 [TB]: Capital C chief, God, right?

34:21.413 --> 34:25.358 [TB]: His word and will, language and logos are always in agreement.

34:26.291 --> 34:31.573 [TB]: He never lies, nor can he, as we learn from Titus 1-2 and Hebrews 6-18.

34:32.253 --> 34:40.997 [TB]: Or how about as we read in Numbers 23-19, God is not man that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind.

34:42.037 --> 34:44.018 [TB]: Has he said and he will not do it?

34:44.738 --> 34:47.819 [TB]: Or has he spoken and will he not fulfill it?

34:48.860 --> 34:51.861 [TB]: So we have no reason to despair, Christian.

34:52.681 --> 34:54.242 [TB]: Our Lord cannot.

34:55.489 --> 35:04.112 [TB]: Cannot lie, as the host of KFUO Radio's Cross Defense, I had the privilege of talking to Christians all over the world, you guys all over the world.

35:04.873 --> 35:24.100 [TB]: And many of you reached out to me with questions and comments and your bits of biblical brilliance, by the way, expressing scenarios, not unlike this cop thief article, but in the church where the name and the word, the symbol on and the thing that it identified where the summary and the thing

35:25.285 --> 35:29.310 [TB]: weren't matching, they were at odds with each other and this is distressing.

35:29.330 --> 35:31.652 [TB]: And so you would write in looking for clarity.

35:33.294 --> 35:42.485 [TB]: One example that pops into my mind, that's the ordination of women that's being pushed right now upon the faithful Lutherans in Australia.

35:44.224 --> 35:58.195 [TB]: While it breaks my heart to hear that the names Christian and Lutheran, these summary symbolon are being used nominally, hypocritically, not matching the actual identity of those words.

35:59.896 --> 36:12.706 [TB]: I also have to say, I find extreme hope to read your emails conveying this news, to read what you write in because those emails are like this New York Post article.

36:13.524 --> 36:17.967 [TB]: They're expressing something of value even in the midst of a horrible story.

36:19.588 --> 36:28.193 [TB]: In your emails, I read of the remnant of the confessional Lutheran Christians down under who refused to compromise with lies.

36:30.489 --> 36:31.529 [TB]: You guys have integrity.

36:31.989 --> 36:32.870 [TB]: That's just one example.

36:32.970 --> 36:34.450 [TB]: I get this from all over the place.

36:35.190 --> 36:35.810 [TB]: And I love it.

36:35.830 --> 36:37.151 [TB]: It's a privilege, an honor.

36:37.371 --> 36:40.071 [TB]: It's humbling to be able to be brought into your world that way.

36:40.892 --> 36:44.032 [TB]: And it builds me up in faithfulness to the Lord.

36:44.052 --> 36:46.653 [TB]: And I hope it builds up everyone who listens as well.

36:46.973 --> 36:48.333 [TB]: That's why I share these sorts of things.

36:49.754 --> 36:52.515 [TB]: And I guess this is what I've been driving at the entire episode.

36:53.435 --> 36:57.756 [TB]: We know that we live in the visible church.

36:58.962 --> 37:06.929 [TB]: alongside some who may, when everything is said and done, turn out to not be a part of the invisible, the hidden church, right?

37:07.170 --> 37:11.013 [TB]: To be admirers, as Kierkegaard says, and not followers of Christ.

37:11.994 --> 37:18.160 [TB]: We know this is the case, that the weeds and the wheat grow together until the day of harvest.

37:18.900 --> 37:19.661 [TB]: Matthew 13 30 talks about this.

37:21.496 --> 37:32.226 [TB]: Now, sometimes the pressure seems to fall on us, to push us, to pretend like there are no weeds among the church, among us.

37:32.706 --> 37:35.829 [TB]: We feel a pressure to pretend that everything is great within our institutions.

37:37.529 --> 37:40.411 [TB]: I know, honestly, I've felt this pressure before.

37:40.431 --> 37:41.671 [TB]: I mean, St.

37:41.712 --> 37:55.219 [TB]: Mark is essentially a replant with a vibrant new group of converted Christians, converted Lutherans, new to the confessional Lutheran faith, the true historic faith.

37:55.760 --> 38:02.564 [TB]: And because this is where you find Jesus Christ, this is why they're here because this is where they get Christ crucified for the forgiveness of their sins.

38:03.578 --> 38:07.341 [TB]: It has very little to do with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

38:07.361 --> 38:12.506 [TB]: It has everything to do with Christ on the cross for them.

38:12.906 --> 38:20.893 [TB]: And so naturally, I've sometimes felt a pressure as a pastor to protect them from seeing the weeds in God's garden.

38:21.133 --> 38:26.017 [TB]: And sometimes we even accidentally misappropriate the Eighth Commandment

38:26.820 --> 38:33.502 [TB]: And it's admonishment to put the best construction on everything, to say everything in the kindest way possible.

38:34.263 --> 38:42.586 [TB]: We take this as pressure to pretend like sin doesn't exist and to participate in sin with silence in the face of truth.

38:43.746 --> 38:48.988 [TB]: But that's not my job to paint daisies over the weeds on Christ's canvas.

38:49.028 --> 38:50.008 [TB]: That's not my job.

38:50.028 --> 38:52.329 [TB]: And that's not your role either, friends.

38:53.889 --> 38:54.990 [TB]: To do that is to lie.

38:55.862 --> 39:02.665 [TB]: It would be, it is when we do that, the equivalent of what Google's Gemini AI was caught doing.

39:03.985 --> 39:05.966 [TB]: It's inserting something into the prompt.

39:07.987 --> 39:08.947 [TB]: It's to add to scripture.

39:10.187 --> 39:11.868 [TB]: We have plenty of weeds in the church.

39:12.268 --> 39:13.109 [TB]: The Lord knows it.

39:13.469 --> 39:14.829 [TB]: His people can too.

39:16.870 --> 39:19.331 [TB]: This is called integrity, honesty, truth.

39:20.851 --> 39:22.172 [TB]: There is a visible church.

39:24.011 --> 39:26.093 [TB]: And there isn't an invisible, hidden church.

39:27.734 --> 39:29.856 [TB]: Does it mean that we have to tolerate the weeds?

39:30.337 --> 39:31.838 [TB]: No, no.

39:32.339 --> 39:39.665 [TB]: Does it mean we want to knowingly have the weeds roots grow up in our corner of the garden and strangle the Lord's wheat?

39:40.006 --> 39:41.267 [TB]: No, absolutely not.

39:42.025 --> 39:45.548 [TB]: And this is why we're theologians of the cross, not theologians of glory.

39:45.748 --> 39:47.029 [TB]: We call a thing what it is.

39:47.449 --> 39:55.194 [TB]: It's as Valerius Herberger rightly said, and I can't help but think of shopping when I think of Herberger because there used to be a store I'd go to as a kid called Herberger's.

39:55.214 --> 39:56.195 [TB]: But anyway, that's beside the point.

39:56.515 --> 40:03.660 [TB]: It's as Valerius Herberger rightly said when he was describing Polycarp's summary, his symbol, if you will, of the heretic Marcion.

40:05.021 --> 40:09.865 [TB]: And today some would say his words were tacky, offensive, unkind even.

40:10.896 --> 40:11.736 [TB]: What did Herberger say?

40:12.556 --> 40:21.658 [TB]: He said, Polycarp called Marcian a child of the devil without any fear as an example that no one should betray the truth with silence.

40:22.678 --> 40:27.039 [TB]: We friend call a spade a spade, and that is not breaking the eighth commandment.

40:28.120 --> 40:31.700 [TB]: Nothing is in name only among Christians.

40:32.521 --> 40:34.301 [TB]: For with the name comes the identity.

40:35.307 --> 40:36.087 [TB]: Or else it's a lie.

40:36.467 --> 40:40.028 [TB]: The summary has to summarize the thing it's summarizing.

40:40.589 --> 40:42.229 [TB]: I know it sounds complicated.

40:42.269 --> 40:43.209 [TB]: It's not, it's simple.

40:43.969 --> 40:46.130 [TB]: And the truth does not tolerate lies.

40:46.190 --> 40:48.711 [TB]: If it does tolerate lies, it stops being truth.

40:49.751 --> 40:52.392 [TB]: It forfeits its truthfulness and becomes a lie.

40:52.412 --> 41:03.435 [TB]: And this is why, for instance, it's good and right for you to refuse someone's preferred pronouns or to always and only use their dead name when you know it.

41:04.653 --> 41:09.195 [TB]: That would be the name that our forefathers used to call their Christian name, their given name.

41:09.716 --> 41:11.696 [TB]: Because words have meaning, friends.

41:12.597 --> 41:15.718 [TB]: The world says this sort of thing is unkind behavior.

41:15.999 --> 41:25.403 [TB]: And your aunt Karen might have you believe that it's breaking the eighth commandment not to use their preferred pronouns or their new name because it's not kind.

41:26.184 --> 41:28.025 [TB]: You're not saying it in the kindest way possible.

41:28.285 --> 41:28.645 [TB]: Not true.

41:29.747 --> 41:40.337 [TB]: In that usage, unkind, that symbol on, that word, that language, it doesn't rightly communicate the substance of what it means to be unkind or kind.

41:41.218 --> 41:49.446 [TB]: Speaking the truth is the kindest thing that we can do, which is why we pursue peace if possible, but truth at all costs.

41:51.027 --> 41:51.708 [TB]: Speaking of truth.

41:52.796 --> 42:01.343 [TB]: It is true that you can support this podcast by ordering your books through bookshop.org after selecting Butterfat Books as the local bookstore that you'd like to support.

42:01.863 --> 42:08.008 [TB]: When you do, it's just as if you purchased your book from my wife and our brick and mortar bookstore here in Ferndale.

42:08.869 --> 42:11.511 [TB]: The symbol of the thing and the thing are consistent.

42:11.671 --> 42:12.131 [TB]: It's true.

42:12.692 --> 42:18.936 [TB]: And it's also true that you can support this podcast and participate in the production of it by becoming a member of my YouTube channel.

42:19.256 --> 42:22.038 [TB]: The link to that, as I've said before, is in the description below.

42:22.699 --> 42:27.202 [TB]: There are three levels of membership that I'll tell you about when you click the join button.

42:27.762 --> 42:45.440 [TB]: And if you're not quite wanting to join, well, then the truth of the matter is that it's also a lot of help for you to simply subscribe to this YouTube channel and to click the notification bell so that, you know, when I post new videos or if you, uh, are tuning into this podcast on another podcast platform.

42:46.274 --> 42:55.542 [TB]: then posting a positive review and leaving a five-star rating, that would be a huge help, as well as sharing the show with your friends and your family members.

42:55.743 --> 43:04.451 [TB]: But only do so if you actually think it deserves a five-star rating, because then the summary of the thing and the thing itself will match, and you won't be lying.

43:05.543 --> 43:06.104 [TB]: Don't be a liar.

43:06.504 --> 43:06.725 [TB]: All right.

43:06.745 --> 43:16.498 [TB]: So all of you awesome confessional Lutherans out there, you might like to know while we're talking in terms of symbolics, that confessional Lutherans used to actually be called symbolists.

43:17.840 --> 43:18.281 [TB]: Did you know that?

43:19.502 --> 43:23.046 [TB]: And what do you think the missional types, as they're known today, would have been called?

43:23.707 --> 43:28.852 [TB]: You know, the Lutherans who want to be more like American evangelicals than actual Lutherans?

43:29.332 --> 43:34.878 [TB]: The non-denom types looking like every other nondescript contemporary cool guy church with their lukewarm Christianity?

43:35.219 --> 43:36.660 [TB]: What were they known as?

43:37.581 --> 43:38.601 [TB]: Anti-symbolists.

43:38.882 --> 43:39.342 [TB]: True story.

43:40.062 --> 43:43.103 [TB]: Who would want to be known as an anti-creedal Christian?

43:43.363 --> 43:44.003 [TB]: I don't get this.

43:44.404 --> 43:50.706 [TB]: And this was in the 19th century, before that stupid bumper stickerism, deeds not creeds, was all the rage.

43:51.606 --> 43:55.428 [TB]: There seems to have been always a debate about how to be the church.

43:55.948 --> 44:01.990 [TB]: Now on the one side, there are those of us who are like, well, how about we do church the way the Bible says to do church?

44:02.831 --> 44:03.651 [TB]: Sounds like a good idea.

44:04.778 --> 44:07.639 [TB]: And then there are those who are like, yeah, yeah, of course, sure.

44:08.719 --> 44:14.341 [TB]: But suppose we also, yeah, no, magisterial reason will get you every single time, friend.

44:14.881 --> 44:23.923 [TB]: Whether we're talking Aquinas or Calvin, Melanchthon, or that missional bro who taught everybody how to grow the church at your last district convention, magisterial reason will get you every time.

44:25.124 --> 44:25.604 [TB]: Check this out.

44:26.667 --> 44:32.031 [TB]: I found this article that talked about the different names given to the different sides of the Lutheran church in the 19th century.

44:32.071 --> 44:50.123 [TB]: And I think some of you will find it extremely interesting, but even if not, what's awesome about this is that it shows how faithful Lutheranism has held fast despite constant pressure, even just here on the American continent to conform to the world.

44:51.112 --> 44:54.557 [TB]: Man, I love being a strong confessional Lutheran.

44:54.977 --> 44:55.298 [TB]: Don't you?

44:55.838 --> 44:57.220 [TB]: Keep fighting the good fight of faith, friends.

44:57.300 --> 44:58.362 [TB]: Keep fighting the good fight.

44:58.682 --> 45:06.673 [TB]: This article is from the Springfielder, July 1975, volume 39, number three, by C. George Fry, if you're interested.

45:07.413 --> 45:08.355 [TB]: In a strange manner,

45:09.406 --> 45:14.407 [TB]: America and Germany, 19th and 16th centuries met and merged.

45:15.067 --> 45:16.068 [TB]: The issues were the same.

45:16.788 --> 45:18.248 [TB]: The adversaries were identical.

45:18.728 --> 45:26.070 [TB]: The German church had been polarized between the Ganesio-Lutheran or Orthodox party of the unaltered Augsburg Confession.

45:26.630 --> 45:29.951 [TB]: If you're unfamiliar with those terms, those would be the good guys.

45:30.271 --> 45:32.932 [TB]: Or the Philippists or Melanchtonians.

45:33.712 --> 45:47.172 [TB]: or heterodox party of the Augustana variata who rewrote the Augsburg Confession to suit circumstances and who consequently tended to modify Lutheran doctrine to the degree that some of them ended in Calvinism.

45:48.086 --> 45:51.387 [TB]: changing the symbol, change the identity, and for the worse.

45:51.868 --> 46:12.617 [TB]: The church in the United States split between two groups who have been variously named the German and American factions, the old and new Lutherans, the symbolists and the anti-symbolists, the confessionalists and the recensionists, the traditionalists and the new measures men, the Missourians and the Pennsylvanians.

46:13.217 --> 46:13.557 [TB]: the St.

46:13.617 --> 46:21.967 [TB]: Louis school and the Gettysburg school, the Waltherites and the Schmuckerites, and the Westerners and the Easterners.

46:22.627 --> 46:27.052 [TB]: Like most labels, Fry says, these epithets convey only part of the truth.

46:27.633 --> 46:32.098 [TB]: The crucial issue was their attitude toward the confessional literature of the Lutheran Church.

46:33.083 --> 46:50.392 [TB]: The American Lutherans, like their forebearers, the Philippists, were disposed to a revision of the Augsburg Confession in order to prepare the way for a fusion of the various Reformation or evangelical churches into some sort of pan-Protestant amalgamation.

46:51.093 --> 46:53.294 [TB]: This is what we see in the ELCA, friends.

46:53.354 --> 46:58.217 [TB]: Quite clearly, we see this, and it's what the missional guys in the LCMS seem to be seeking.

46:59.008 --> 47:05.029 [TB]: The confessional Lutherans, however, measured strength in terms of quality, not quantity.

47:05.950 --> 47:10.550 [TB]: The mission of the church is to proclaim the full counsel of the word of God.

47:11.011 --> 47:19.252 [TB]: And if that message is compromised, no matter how many members a denomination may count, it is no longer a part of Jesus Christ.

47:20.273 --> 47:26.314 [TB]: Dr. Edmund Jacob Wolfe, writing in 1889 at the moment of confessional triumph,

47:27.216 --> 47:33.180 [TB]: stated rather eloquently the perceptions of the symbolists, us, the confessional Lutheran guys.

47:33.261 --> 47:39.845 [TB]: He says, figures yield an unsatisfactory and inadequate exhibit of a church's strength.

47:40.386 --> 47:43.208 [TB]: Numbers are no proper expression of moral forces.

47:43.848 --> 47:45.970 [TB]: Mathematics do not apply to what is spiritual.

47:46.010 --> 47:50.694 [TB]: He's saying you can't count the butts in the pews to see if you have truth.

47:51.747 --> 47:55.348 [TB]: In that sphere, one and one may be more than two and two.

47:56.208 --> 48:02.170 [TB]: A Lutheran congregation may be equal to a Methodist one, or to a Presbyterian, or to an Episcopalian.

48:02.630 --> 48:09.833 [TB]: It may also, though numerically and externally weaker, represent more than either or many of these.

48:10.433 --> 48:15.735 [TB]: Primarily, the question is, how much Christian truth does it represent?

48:16.875 --> 48:19.796 [TB]: For what compass of the gospel does it stand?

48:20.757 --> 48:24.358 [TB]: What is the degree of its spiritual endowment?

48:25.458 --> 48:29.119 [TB]: To what extent is it the body of Christ?

48:30.239 --> 48:39.761 [TB]: Surely in this, the strength of the Lutheran church, the confessional Lutheran church is nowhere surpassed, is equaled by none.

48:40.541 --> 48:48.223 [TB]: She holds and preaches the truth as it is in Jesus with a fullness and emphasis heard nowhere else.

48:49.269 --> 48:51.771 [TB]: Salvation by faith alone.

48:52.131 --> 48:54.973 [TB]: Christ, the center of all her teaching.

48:55.293 --> 48:59.216 [TB]: Christ exalted in her pulpit, her festivals, and her liturgies.

48:59.596 --> 49:03.599 [TB]: Herein lies the essential strength of the Lutheran church.

49:05.280 --> 49:11.484 [TB]: If the Lutheran church does not compass the truth and salvation of God, they're not to be found on earth.

49:12.905 --> 49:15.607 [TB]: And what is of preeminent value

49:16.636 --> 49:32.229 [TB]: Her faith is clearly defined and fully set forth in her symbols, which are becoming more and more the study of her ministers and adhere to with a firmness that has no parallel in any other church.

49:32.530 --> 49:33.090 [TB]: Amen.

49:33.811 --> 49:34.972 [TB]: Amen and all right.

49:34.992 --> 49:38.655 [TB]: All right guys, so I've been going on for a while now.

49:38.695 --> 49:43.079 [TB]: It's going to be a long episode, I think, and I promised to tell you why I left KFUO.

49:44.147 --> 49:47.249 [TB]: So here's the final takeaway of today's show.

49:47.429 --> 49:53.513 [TB]: Words are true when they rightly correspond to what they represent, the summary and the substance match.

49:54.654 --> 49:59.557 [TB]: They are symbols of identity as the creeds and the confessions are symbols of the scriptures.

50:00.897 --> 50:08.702 [TB]: Only those that communicate scripture accurately are true and right and proper to hold onto.

50:09.423 --> 50:12.845 [TB]: All other confessions, all other creeds, all other symbolon,

50:13.868 --> 50:17.994 [TB]: Like with preferred pronouns or cops that steal are lies.

50:18.014 --> 50:20.477 [TB]: Okay, here we go.

50:21.058 --> 50:23.021 [TB]: What you've been waiting for in 2022.

50:24.998 --> 50:29.101 [TB]: I had conversations with KFUO about coming back as the host of Cross Defend.

50:29.121 --> 50:32.863 [TB]: You might remember that I was the host before I went to the seminary to be a recruiter.

50:33.304 --> 50:40.469 [TB]: And then when I came back to Ferndale, I focused on being the pastor in Ferndale and I stopped my time on the radio.

50:41.449 --> 50:50.936 [TB]: During those conversations about coming back, I was upfront about all the things that were going on in Ferndale regarding the woke mob's attempts to silence God's word.

50:51.917 --> 51:00.669 [TB]: I made this clear because I wanted the program director to know that, well, one, my hands were full with my ministry in Ferndale.

51:01.891 --> 51:09.141 [TB]: And two, that I saw the podcast as a great opportunity to serve my congregation first and foremost, which it did.

51:10.455 --> 51:19.658 [TB]: And I wanted to be able to speak freely about the controversial issues that assail the church today, because that's exactly what St.

51:19.798 --> 51:22.498 [TB]: Mark needed to be studying, learning about.

51:23.079 --> 51:27.780 [TB]: To be able to articulate and defend ourselves and to speak truth in love.

51:28.697 --> 51:29.897 [TB]: to all those who hated us.

51:30.678 --> 51:37.620 [TB]: And I still believe that that's what everyone in the church today needs to be studying and learning about, these controversial issues.

51:37.640 --> 51:41.741 [TB]: We need to know what it is that we're facing, what battlefield we're on.

51:42.621 --> 51:49.463 [TB]: Now, the Senate president gave the program director the thumbs up, and you heard for yourself my shows.

51:51.104 --> 51:52.884 [TB]: Nothing changed until the end of 2023.

51:52.924 --> 51:53.344 [TB]: I didn't know it.

51:56.155 --> 52:05.965 [TB]: But the decision makers at the station began having conversations about the reputation of KFUO in light of my content, Cross Defense.

52:07.046 --> 52:15.375 [TB]: And as it was expressed to me after the fact, they began making editorial changes to my titles without talking to me about them.

52:16.684 --> 52:26.133 [TB]: Because they wanted to be perceived by listeners, not as sensational, a radio station that was sensational, but one that was all about speaking the truth in love.

52:26.593 --> 52:27.234 [TB]: That's what was said.

52:28.319 --> 52:43.915 [TB]: So apparently somebody used the F-bomb on KFUO's Facebook page on my last show of 2023, which was about Christians not being dinks, dual income, no kids, which actually pertains to today's show, right?

52:44.516 --> 52:49.061 [TB]: Our names and our identities matching, the symbol on what you call yourself matching with what you really are.

52:50.353 --> 52:53.215 [TB]: Now, from my perspective, this was expected.

52:54.076 --> 52:57.279 [TB]: As far as I was concerned, it was a matter of time before something like that happened.

52:57.999 --> 53:05.645 [TB]: And I told the program director that my words were here in Ferndale had already prompted all kinds of ugliness.

53:06.706 --> 53:12.411 [TB]: And to make sure it was okay with all the people in charge, the program director

53:13.612 --> 53:22.960 [TB]: did his due diligence and he ran permission up the flagpole, up the chain of command until it made its way to the Synod President's desk, I guess.

53:22.980 --> 53:30.006 [TB]: And he got the green light from the Synod President, I was told, before I even came back on the air because of what was going on here in Ferndale.

53:30.726 --> 53:32.928 [TB]: So I thought we were on the same page.

53:34.109 --> 53:38.413 [TB]: I thought everybody understood each other and everybody understood what was going to be happening on cross-defense.

53:39.138 --> 53:49.462 [TB]: that we were all on the same battlefield and the apologetics content that I was dealing with was going to be dealing with current contemporary cultural issues.

53:50.602 --> 53:53.703 [TB]: So we would be equipped in the mind to be able to contend with them.

53:55.324 --> 54:01.266 [TB]: So anyway, I took issue theologically with one of the title edits in particular.

54:02.306 --> 54:04.447 [TB]: On the show about fiducia supplicans.

54:05.936 --> 54:10.438 [TB]: My title said that the Antichrist was okay with same sex blessings.

54:12.319 --> 54:20.883 [TB]: The station changed the word Antichrist to Pope to be more palatable to potential listeners.

54:20.903 --> 54:25.965 [TB]: I was shocked when I learned about this change, which was well after the fact.

54:26.525 --> 54:32.888 [TB]: And I didn't, and I don't still to this day, understand why it's okay and even required

54:34.053 --> 54:48.057 [TB]: For LCMS pastors to own the words of the treatise on the power and the primacy of the Pope in the book of Concord, our confessions, to own them as part of our symbolon, part of our creed, our confession of faith, a summary of the Bible.

54:48.077 --> 54:55.299 [TB]: It's okay for that to stand before God and his church and say that I believe the Pope to be the Antichrist.

54:56.374 --> 55:10.758 [TB]: But I can't use that same language derived from my Symbolon, from my Creed in a show title on my Synod's radio station, because it might be perceived as sensational when in fact it is speaking truth and love.

55:13.198 --> 55:20.140 [TB]: To me, it seemed like the two halves of our seal didn't match.

55:21.861 --> 55:23.301 [TB]: When we further discuss this,

55:25.000 --> 55:32.125 [TB]: I was reminded that the station owned my content, that they had the right to do editorial changes all they wanted.

55:32.646 --> 55:33.486 [TB]: And they do, fair enough.

55:34.767 --> 55:38.510 [TB]: At that point, I was having problems with theological changes, not editorial changes.

55:39.110 --> 55:41.372 [TB]: Now here's the thing though, I want to make this clear.

55:42.393 --> 55:46.516 [TB]: I have no ill will toward KFUO or any of the people that work there.

55:47.036 --> 55:47.597 [TB]: I love them.

55:47.637 --> 55:48.497 [TB]: I think they're great.

55:49.658 --> 55:53.341 [TB]: I have had a great working relationship with them all the way up until the end.

55:54.679 --> 55:57.520 [TB]: I harbor no anger toward the program director.

55:58.401 --> 55:59.942 [TB]: I repeatedly told him this.

56:01.262 --> 56:03.403 [TB]: Do I have big emotions about the word of God?

56:03.463 --> 56:03.663 [TB]: Yeah.

56:03.683 --> 56:08.746 [TB]: I think everybody that's been listening to me for the last 10 years, you can listen to all my online teaching.

56:09.046 --> 56:10.046 [TB]: All my sermons are online.

56:10.066 --> 56:12.047 [TB]: Everything I do is transparent and out in the open.

56:12.428 --> 56:15.789 [TB]: I think everybody would say, yeah, Pastor Bramwell is kind of an excitable guy.

56:15.849 --> 56:17.150 [TB]: He kind of has big emotions.

56:18.590 --> 56:23.653 [TB]: Do I have big emotions about how we communicate God's word and how we communicate truth?

56:24.377 --> 56:26.740 [TB]: Yeah, you know, it not hiding.

56:27.961 --> 56:31.064 [TB]: I that's true, but it's not anger.

56:33.307 --> 56:40.555 [TB]: I don't know all the things that go on at the radio station that go into working at KFUO and running KFUO.

56:40.635 --> 56:44.760 [TB]: I don't, I don't have those problems that that's not part of what I've been called to do.

56:46.664 --> 56:54.831 [TB]: And I told them that, I'm okay going my own way and you guys going your own way because they're going to have to answer for what they do and I'm going to have to answer for what I do.

56:56.472 --> 56:57.013 [TB]: Part ways.

56:58.834 --> 57:08.783 [TB]: But it seemed to me that when I swiped the ground with my foot, the half of the seal that I was making was not corresponding with the half of the seal that they were making.

57:09.924 --> 57:10.124 [TB]: And so...

57:11.894 --> 57:14.995 [TB]: My vocational responsibility is to St.

57:15.055 --> 57:17.595 [TB]: Mark's, and I just was ready to just part ways.

57:18.936 --> 57:23.477 [TB]: If I no longer fit the reputation of the station, no hard feelings.

57:24.477 --> 57:29.458 [TB]: My conscience is bound to the word of God and it's neither right nor safe to go against it.

57:30.338 --> 57:31.498 [TB]: We believe these things, don't we?

57:32.699 --> 57:36.919 [TB]: My work continues for the souls that I've been called to serve.

57:37.520 --> 57:39.160 [TB]: And I need to worry about my duties.

57:40.322 --> 57:42.043 [TB]: And they need to worry about their duties.

57:42.844 --> 57:44.304 [TB]: We're all big kids around here.

57:44.344 --> 57:45.065 [TB]: That's how that works.

57:45.685 --> 57:46.846 [TB]: But we discuss things.

57:47.746 --> 57:50.528 [TB]: And so it seemed like I was going to stay on actually.

57:50.568 --> 57:52.829 [TB]: Things seemed like they were going to work themselves out.

57:54.470 --> 58:06.798 [TB]: And I had spent time that week, the week that all of this was happening, my study time for cross defense during that week was all on Ephesians four to see if I had indeed erred.

58:07.714 --> 58:10.155 [TB]: Was I not speaking the truth in love?

58:10.435 --> 58:11.136 [TB]: I hadn't erred.

58:11.996 --> 58:16.539 [TB]: I was speaking truth in love, but I believe that the station did.

58:17.639 --> 58:24.383 [TB]: And I believed it was the same error the church at large is always falling into because we don't know the battlefield we're on.

58:24.963 --> 58:25.844 [TB]: We don't understand it.

58:27.244 --> 58:35.729 [TB]: And so I recorded a show on Ephesians four, which was the focus of my study for my cross-defense time during that week, which turned out to be my last episode.

58:36.946 --> 58:41.328 [TB]: I didn't know it was going to be my last episode at the time, but that's what it turned out to be.

58:42.529 --> 58:54.734 [TB]: Because I received an email from the assistant to the Senate president who said he was responsible for KFUO and he was not going to permit what I uploaded to be aired.

58:55.655 --> 59:02.678 [TB]: But that if I wanted to try again with a change of language and a change of tone and message, then maybe I'd be okay.

59:03.852 --> 59:11.638 [TB]: at that point it was clear to me that the parameters of our arrangement had shifted from what they were in 2022 when I first came back on the air.

59:12.238 --> 59:21.425 [TB]: I no longer, as an ordained pastor in the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod, had the ability to speak freely, so I terminated my contract.

59:22.987 --> 59:25.589 [TB]: And here we are at the truth

59:26.621 --> 59:27.241 [TB]: at all costs.

59:27.682 --> 59:28.442 [TB]: So there it is, friends.

59:28.862 --> 59:29.863 [TB]: It's not that big of a deal.

59:29.903 --> 59:33.125 [TB]: I mean, as far as I'm concerned, it's not the scandalous thing.

59:33.145 --> 59:34.966 [TB]: And I wasn't canceled.

59:35.566 --> 59:39.849 [TB]: I terminated my contract by my own volition because of my conscience.

59:40.890 --> 59:41.350 [TB]: End of story.

59:42.751 --> 59:45.633 [TB]: And I actually kind of like the new direction that all of this has opened up for us.

59:46.314 --> 59:47.815 [TB]: We now get to do Truth at All Costs.

59:48.236 --> 59:48.396 [TB]: St.

59:48.436 --> 59:49.857 [TB]: Mark still wants to do a podcast.

59:49.917 --> 59:51.378 [TB]: Everybody can do podcasts these days.

59:51.438 --> 59:58.284 [TB]: And hey, I even think with your help, we can get a bigger distribution than what Crosstofins had at KFUO.

59:58.824 --> 01:00:00.766 [TB]: I think we can take this to different levels.

01:00:01.426 --> 01:00:10.074 [TB]: And as I'm looking forward to sharing with you in the future, we can do some great things by pooling the resources of God's church, the remnant all over the world.

01:00:10.814 --> 01:00:12.656 [TB]: and do some crazy cool stuff.

01:00:12.736 --> 01:00:14.578 [TB]: So, not sweating it.

01:00:15.238 --> 01:00:16.259 [TB]: The church is still the church.

01:00:16.299 --> 01:00:18.601 [TB]: The symbol on still matches the substance.

01:00:19.622 --> 01:00:20.863 [TB]: Now, get out of here.

01:00:21.544 --> 01:00:22.725 [TB]: You've heard me too long for today.

01:00:23.025 --> 01:00:24.807 [TB]: Go buy a tacky tee from the merch store.

01:00:25.467 --> 01:00:28.610 [TB]: Just don't buy one of those ugly ones with me as a drag queen on it.

01:00:29.551 --> 01:00:30.292 [TB]: You'll help my wife.

01:00:30.312 --> 01:00:31.072 [TB]: She hates that shirt.

01:00:31.493 --> 01:00:37.078 [TB]: But hey, when they malign you, you can have some fun with it because you rejoice in your suffering, yeah?

01:00:37.807 --> 01:00:39.376 [TB]: All right, Godspeed friends.

01:00:39.597 --> 01:00:40.925 [TB]: We'll talk to you next time.