Transcript of Should Christians OPPOSE the Death Penalty?! (What Bible Says…) ft. David Nasser | Live Free with Josh Howerton New

It's not good marketing, but it is the Christian life. The Christian life is not come clean up your life, it's come give up your life.

The Bible forbids murder but sometimes commands killing.

Why?

Because the distinction is innocent life versus life that is now forfeit because of guilt that it is committed.

But everything that's permissible isn't wise. If you execute a Muslim on livestream, is it gonna yield the results that he wants? Does it actually bring deterrence?

Well, hey, Live Free Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Pointe Church in Dallas, Texas, but the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform. And it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, Church Online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Pointe. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now enjoy the podcast. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Orozco, and today I'm here with Pastor Paul Cunningham.

And we are excited because we have a very special, special guest friend of the house. And of the pod, David Nasser.

He's back, man. It's so good to be back.

He's back, man.

Hey, I missed you guys.

Thanks for being here.

I missed you.

Yeah, man, I always feel so good whenever David's here, Paul. I feel so good because it's really nice to have my fellow international brother over here, uh, from Iraq, right? Is that where you're from?

Iran.

Iran. Next door.

That's it.

That's it. I, I know where you're from.

I know you're messing around.

What I love about that right there is that, you know, he's trying to make fun of me and it backfired on him. That's— yes. If I believed in karma, that would be an example. I don't.

That's really good.

Last time he asked me if I was Cuban.

That's right.

So, but he was messing with me. And so today—

You gotta be like an avid, you know, listener to Live Free to understand the joke.

That's right.

It's a deep dive. Yeah.

It's been, I think, uh, 5 months since you came. A lot has changed, uh, David.

Yeah.

So now, uh, Pastor Josh is more internet famous.

Yes.

That's one thing. Um, the internet is talking about him every day. Uh, Paul here, did you know this? I don't think you know this. Paul went to Israel.

What?

You can— I was waiting. I thought you were going to use the joke on me. Is that great news? I finally went.

Really?

Yeah. Made it over there. Actually, with this guy, we went together.

He sat— we did. It was great.

You've gone in the last 5 months.

Yeah. Like, what was it, a month ago now?

This is a good time to go. There are no lines.

Bro, we were like the only, literally the only people in the Garden of Gethsemane, the only people at Mount of Olives. Everywhere.

Yeah.

We didn't know this was the thing. Like when you go, obviously there's like a bunch of buses, bro. We showed up and like nobody's there.

That's right.

And we're just walking into like, you know, we're like at the Mount of Olives and, uh, just literally like nobody there, which was amazing.

I guess I should just say you're welcome because it's empty because of the Iranians.

So, well, you're welcome. I don't feel like I can say anything. For me, it'd be insensitive. You can say it. I can't.

He can say a lot of things. You definitely can. I'm kind of okay.

How was it, guys? It was amazing.

Yeah, it was amazing.

Dude, it was incredible.

Was there one moment that you just look back and I know you're still processing, still thinking that—

was there one moment? I shared a little thing, but you can go ahead.

Oh yeah, a couple of things. Some of this we shared on the pause.

Other than some of the hiccups, obviously. It might be.

One moment that you really just—

Just one?

Just one, yeah.

Man, actually, in terms of the emotional way, obviously the Garden Tomb's amazing. It's hard to beat that, but I feel like you almost be like, okay, besides that, it was Caiaphas' house because that's where you had the idea of where Peter betrayed him and denied him 3 times. But then you get to go in down into the cell where they would've lowered Jesus down and where he was there. 'Cause a lot of the places you're there and like, oh, this is where it happened, but maybe like 10 feet beneath this 'cause it's been raised. But there it's like, no, this was his actual house. This was the actual cell.

That's right.

And it's just this little place where if you just pace it a few times, you're like, I am standing where Jesus stood, and it's dark down there, but they had a Bible open to Psalm 88, which is the darkest chapter in the whole Bible, and you just realize that Jesus entered the depths of darkness for us. And it just made it come real. And so don't get me wrong, Golgotha and the empty tomb were amazing, but something about being there in that small confined space and then reading that Psalm made it come alive in a way it never had before.

There are supposed sites, like we don't know where the Garden Tomb actually— we have good reason to believe, but we don't show. There are other places where we go, we believe this is where the Valley of Elah, and this is where like David slew Goliath. And then there are like actual sites where we're like, we know that's where Jesus, you know, like performed this incredible miracle. And it's so good to be able to be there. And you've read the Bible, like no one knows the Bible like the two of you. And for you to just go and be in the location where those things happened. And yeah. It made me cry. I bet he stirred a lot in your heart.

Oh, he did. Yeah, he did. Also, a lot stirred in my stomach this week. That week that was there. That's another thing.

So I knew you were going there. That's what happens when you have those kosher breakfasts, bro. Those buffets. That fish in the morning.

He's like having raw meat first thing. He's like, give me that sushi over there, whatever Israeli—

Hummus for lunch, hummus for breakfast, hummus for dinner.

Yeah. He learned his lesson.

Yes, I did.

Was there one part that—

A lot. For sure. I mean, we talk a lot, uh, for sure the Sea of Galilee. It's just something about being in that same sea that Jesus called the disciples. He called them to die, David, which is, uh, interesting because you actually are here to talk about that same calling.

Nice transition.

Hey man, we do what we can.

He's a pro.

He's such a pro.

Uh, hey, before we're gonna, we're gonna get into this right now, but, uh, first of all, we're gonna take a moment. I wanna honor you, David, because, um, uh, whenever I talk to people outside of the church, literally anybody, about you, they speak so highly of you.

Wow, so kind.

Genuinely. And I know Pastor Josh, by the way, Pastor Josh will be here in, I don't know, 30, 45 minutes, who knows?

Yeah.

But he'll be here.

He's coming in hot from vacation. He's coming in hot. He's coming right in.

Which, by the way, we're gonna talk about when Pastor Josh comes here. First, we're gonna talk about the Bible. When he gets here, we're gonna talk about the death penalty.

Yes.

Because he wants to talk about that. And because the ex is also having this conversation right now. But Pastor Josh also has mentioned to us before how he read your devotional, A Call to Die, when he was in college and how much of a blessing that was to him. So him and from everybody else, man, so thank you. Really glad you're here. Thank you for blessing our church this weekend.

Man, what an honor to get to be at one of my favorite churches and one that continues to pay dividends into my own life. I don't think there's a week that goes by where I haven't either peeked into the message where I'm not trying to like, it's not curiosity, it's like my own personal growth. Like Pastor Josh is one of my pastors in my life that I listen to that encourages me encourages me to live more like Jesus. And, and, uh, or I'm not listening to the podcast and, you know, you guys aren't in my earphones, you know, uh, early morning as I'm kind of getting the day going or something like that. And so I'm so thankful for you and to get to be a part of it is such a humbling honor. So thank you, man.

There's a reason you, uh, this is the 3rd time you're here and won't be the last one. Hey, today we're gonna talk about multiple things. One, we're gonna talk about what does it mean to take up your cross and die to self? Uh, we're gonna be addressing, uh, there's all these church words that are thrown sometimes, justification and sanctification. We're gonna be addressing what's the difference between those 2 things. Uh, we're gonna get really practical. I wanna make sure that we get like, you know, this is not, uh, uh, think free, this is live free. So we wanna help people apply whatever it is that we received in the sermon, uh, practical ways on how to live a life that is the, the life of a crucified self that the scripture talks about and things that God uses to sanctify.

Yeah.

us as Christians as well. And then when Pastor Josh, uh, gets here, as of the recording of this video today, it's October 10th. It is World Day Against the Death Penalty, which is timely because the Pope, uh, tweeted something that people are discussing right now regarding that same topic. And, uh, we're gonna be reacting to that Pope's tweet as well because he said it was inadmissible, David. So we're gonna be going there. Um, Paul, we're gonna, we're gonna have an event here in, uh, several weeks.

Yes, we are.

Called Encounter.

It's gonna be amazing.

You know what that is?

I do know what it is.

You wanna tell us about it?

We gather together for a night to encounter the Lord.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like we chose that name on purpose, but no, seriously, like it's gonna be an incredible night. We gather our church and everybody that can fit into our campuses, not gonna be livestreamed. And so, man, we really would love if you're in the area to come play and be a part of that night. Basically, we just get together, we worship, and we spend time in extended prayer. We have times in our services where we also ask if people need prayer, they can come forward and we respond. But it is really like the Lord is with us in every part of our lives every day. Uh, but there is a special thing that happens as all of us people gather in one place and saying, God, we wanna have a special encounter with you. Would you come down? And so a lot of it is about God encountering us that night, but a lot of these nights also it's about praying towards the future of where God is taking us and saying, God, not only would you encounter us now, but would you also lead us into the future of where you want us to go?

So powerful night, man. It's gonna be amazing.

Great invite. Hey, every week we do a giveaway. So if you want, uh, this hat over here and some other Live Free hats, you can go to YouTube or Spotify and comment the word hat, and we'd love to select the winner. Or you can go to livefree.shop or text the word hat to 20411, and we'd We can, uh, that's, that's where you can actually purchase that. Um, to download the Lake Point app also, uh, where you can get the daily Bible reading plan plus the weekly sermon plus an early release of the Live Free podcast, text the word app to 20411. Uh, you can, uh, get it right there. So it's gonna be great, man.

That's awesome, man. We wanna dive into the sermon here in a second, but first, Carlos, like, I wanna know, like, you been reading anything good in the Bible lately, man? Like so much of how we grow, obviously as Christians, when we gather together, we hear from someone from the word, but also it's as we're reading God's word daily, man. You've been reading anything good lately?

I've, I've read some things, not as, uh, probably highly academic books as you have, but I've read a couple things. Let me, let me share this with you though. Uh, so I've read this story in the Bible my whole life, and I'm pretty sure I've been reading it wrong until like recently. So, uh, this is the story of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah. And by the way, this ties into, to this, David, so it's gonna be interesting. There's this one detail in this story that a lot of Christians miss when they read it, that once you get it, it literally like changes the whole thing. Um, so here's how I remember being taught this particular story. So Jacob falls in love with Rachel, and at some point the Bible says Rachel was a beautiful woman. So Jacob goes to Laban, who is Rachel's father, and says, man, what do I need to do to marry your daughter? And Laban is a sneaky guy. And so he says, hey, you need to work for me 7 years. And after you do that, I'm gonna give you my daughter. So that's— this is what Jacob does. But what Jacob did not know is that Laban plays him dirty.

Laban gives him Leah, who is Rachel's older sister. And unfortunately, the Bible says that Leah was just not as pretty. And so here's how— here's how I understood the story. what I understood and what I always thought that happened was that Jacob worked 7 years and then he got Leah, and then he had to work another 7 years and then he got Rachel. That's not what the Bible says. If you read closely in Genesis 29:26, this is what it says. So Laban's talking to Jacob explaining what's going to happen, and he says, hey, it is not our custom here to marry off a younger daughter ahead of the firstborn, but wait until the bridal week is over, and then I'll give you Rachel too, provided you promise to work another 7 years for me. So Jacob actually only had to wait 7 days, 1 week, to get Rachel, which means that now with Rachel, he would receive her first, and then he would work for another 7 years. Now, there's a lot that we could say about this, but here's my main point. Think about this with me. Initially, Jacob works 7 years expecting to receive Rachel.

So he's working, he's laboring, he's tired all the time. He's trying, trying, trying, and he's still wakes up being married to Leah. Leah in the Bible means weary or exhausted or tired. Leah is a representation of something the Bible teaches about the Old Covenant, which is basically God gives Israel his law, and because of our sinful nature, it really doesn't matter how much you try, how much you labor, how much work you put into it, you will not be able to be made right with God in your own capacity.

Mm-hmm.

This is exactly what Paul writes in Romans chapter 3 when he says, for no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. Now, again, somebody's listening to this And you can try, you can have your own religion, you can try really, really hard. But the Bible says, if you do that, if you try, you will always end up falling short. You will always end up with a Leah. You will always end up being exhausted and just tired. So that's Leah. Then you have Rachel. With Rachel, Jacob did not have to work another 7 years. Instead, the Bible says he received Rachel first, and then he was able to work another 7 years as a result of that relationship, not to necessarily earn that relationship. So in one sense, Leah represents being under the law. Rachel represents being under grace. And check this out, do you know what the word Rachel means?

No.

It means sheep or little lamb. After Rachel, 1,800 years later, came one man that when John the Baptist saw him, he said, behold the Lamb of God that removes the sins of the world.

So good.

Yeah. And it is because of that shed, uh, that man shed his blood Today, you and I are not under the law. We are under a covenant of grace, which means that we do not have to work to receive his love. But just like Jacob received Rachel first, we get his love first in Christ. Which means, if you think about the story, Laban was a deceitful father-in-law. Today, you and I have a trustworthy Father in heaven, which means the gospel ultimately is not about trying. The gospel ultimately is about trusting.

Yes.

So the bottom line is under the law, our works could not make us right with God. But under grace, Jesus, the Lamb of God, is the one who makes us right with God. And now our works, they become a response, not a requirement for salvation. Dude, that's what I learned.

Just pack up and go home. That's all we needed.

It's been good hanging with you.

That was really good.

I don't know that we can really sleep on that, man.

Such a good word, man.

So speaking of law and grace, uh, you just gave us a sermon, David, on A Call to Die. And I want to ask you, we're going to get into what it means and what you address there, but, uh, uh, this particular, devotional, uh, actually the sermon comes with a particular book that you are re-releasing. Would you tell us about it?

Yeah, uh, this is the, uh, 25th anniversary, uh, of this book called A Call to Die. And, um, I, um, for, uh, 25 years have just seen the Lord just put his hand of blessing on it. And it's just humbling to think that, um, when a book's been around a long time like this, that there are people like Josh and, um, our friend Joby Martin. And Rich Wilkerson told me the other day, he was, he came into his dorm as a freshman in, at Lee University as a college student. And when he walked in his dorm, he said his roommate had dropped off some stuff, but was not in the room. He didn't know his roommate yet. And he said, sitting on top was this book called A Call to Die. And he said, he'd never heard of me. He didn't even know. He said, yeah, I picked it up and started flipping through it. Then he said, then I got my own copy and went through it. And so, you know, 25 years later, it's just humbling to think how God has used this 40-day devotional to call people towards him and towards Christlikeness and to daily die of self.

And yeah, and so we're re-releasing it. And a part of this year and its 25th anniversary is I'm getting, this is so cool for me, like I'm getting to go and preach A Call to Die messages in the pulpit of pastors who read it when they were teenagers.

Wow. That's cool.

You know, and it's such a grace from the Lord. And it's, again, I think the word that keeps coming to my mind is just humility. You know, they're like, wow, Lord, who am I that you would be mindful of me, that you would allow me to take a small part in the life of helping these men and women grow in their faith journey? And they look back. Joby Martin said, he points to one of his tattoos, 'cause he's got a few, and he's like, this crown of thorns came from the COVID You know, he's like, I took it to the tattoo parlor and said, make me—

That's awesome.

And so it's just humbling to think through that God's put his hand on it.

That's right.

All these years, yeah.

When I heard you talking about this book, David, you talked about fasting.

Yeah.

And so I wanna ask you about that. Is this fasting in general of like, you know, something, or is this fasting about food? What do you mean by that?

Well, let me back up to explain.

No, please.

The origin of this book was I was at Hot Hearts Lubbock. Hot Hearts was a conference and it was in Lubbock, Texas. And I get finished with this one last session and this just general session that we had. I get finished preaching and we had an altar call at that moment. students are coming forward, Carlos, making decisions and everything. And they had a lot of students come down. And so this one guy is in my ear and he's like, hey, we need you to ask, since you have the microphone, for more counselors to come, more counselors to come. So they're pretty overwhelmed. So as soon as I get finished, I thought maybe I can go help. So I go back there to help counsel and I end up with this teenager and he sits down and I said, what's going on, buddy? Tell me about what God's saying to you right now.

Yeah.

You know, he's just walked the aisle and he's now in a counseling room. So we've gotten out of rows and now we're in a circle. You know, it's just he and I. I'm just kind of listening. And he said, you know, this is my 3rd Hot Heart. And he said, I went my freshman year, I went my junior, here's my senior year in high school now. He goes, and every year when I come here, I become a Christian. He says, you know, I gave my life to Christ. And he goes, this year though, it just felt even more. I've never cried. And this year is different 'cause I'm crying.

Hmm.

And I'm like, okay. And so I said, tell me more. And so he's telling me all this. And so we started having this discussion of like, man, Man, you didn't get saved by your work, so you can't get unsaved by your lack of works. And we start talking through these, but I realized this guy's not a 3-year-old Christian. He's a 1-year-old Christian who's been living 3 years redundantly.

Wow.

He's not grown in his faith. And when we talked, it dawned on me that there really wasn't a growth track for him. And it wasn't at the detriment of the youth pastor or anything like that. He just, so often And people come to those things and it's almost like they go to Disciple Now, Disciple Later, see you at the pole, see you at the sprinkler, whatever the events come like in generations that are hot for a minute and go. They go to camp and it's almost like they ask camp into their heart. They ask hot hearts into their heart. And once the emotion goes away and the lights go away and the t-shirt starts to fade that they gave you for free, you're just left with one more decision that didn't really pan out.

Hmm.

And most of those students don't need to make any new decisions for God. They would do well if they went home and actually lived out Yeah. The old decisions that they made at 3 years ago's camp. And it wasn't that this guy lacked authenticity or passion. He was emotional, but not devotional. So that conversation with that young man, you know, I'm talking to him, listening, and I thought, could I serve? Could I create a resource? So I thought of creating a resource that was like, the second you make a decision, what if you began your, you know, your faith journey with a 40-day journey of growing in Christ. And so that's where this thing started. It started with, all right, you've been crucified with Christ and you no longer live. That's the first part of Galatians 2:20, justification.

Yeah.

Like not by your works, but by the completed works of Jesus, you've been saved. Now the life, the rest of that verse, the life that you're gonna have to live in this body by faith, you get to live out. That's sanctification, becoming more in your practice, what you became in your identity. And so this whole book was written as a 40-day journey to help a new believer grow in their faith. And so I started writing the book and then I go to Passion '99. This is so Texas-centric.

That's funny. That's great.

And Passion '99, by the way, was in Arlington, Texas. Yeah. So I'm in downtown Arlington in this convention center. And this lady was speaking at a general session at Passion. And she said the words, a call to die. And I remember they dismissed the session and everybody else was getting up to go get in line, like 17,000 strong for Chick-fil-A, you know, or whatever. And I said, hang on, I feel like God's telling me to just be still for a minute. And I sat there and I opened up my journal. I still have it from Passion '99. And I just started writing about what does a crucified life look like? And so 2 things married into one, like this student that I was, that God brought in my path to kind of give me a heart to write a devotional. And then a call to die from this message where I started to really look at the crucified life. And so that's where the title came and that's where the book came.

Wow.

So I wrote this 40-day devotional. I used the guy who was the head of the primary Christian counseling organization in the kingdom. I hired him to say, hey, I want them without us telling them to go through a 40-day or we're like walking them progressively. I wanna be intentional in the 40-day journey. So he helped me craft it and everything. Amazing guy, Texas guy, by the way.

Yeah, okay.

And then we finished the book. Guys, we've got this manuscript, right? So here I am, an Iranian guy with a manuscript of a book called A Call to Die. And it's a 40-day devotional. And it's coming in at like 300 pages. And I am going to, Colorado Springs to Nashville, Tennessee. And I'm sitting with publishers and I'm like, God's given me a book. And they're like, we'd like to sign you for a 3-book book deal. But literally one of them said to me, hey son, I just need you to understand, like, I know you're just, you got, you're fresh at the game. Ain't nobody gonna buy 300. We can't get people to read a 1-page devotional, much less like 8 pages a day, plus journaling. Plus it's called A Call to Die. Like, this does not seem like your best life now.

No.

This does not seem like kicks and giggles. This just feels very like, and I said, man, I'm so sorry. Like, guys, I get it. It's not good marketing, but it is the Christian life. The Christian life is not come clean up your life. It's come give up your life. And I feel like the Holy Spirit has clearly given me this title. And so I couldn't get a book deal.

What year was this, David?

This was 25 years ago, 26 years ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.

And so then he said this to me, the president of, I'm not gonna tell you the name 'cause you could look it up, the president of the major, Christian publishing company at that moment said to me, he said, well, David, I love you. I'm just gonna give you some advice. If you're staunch on that, you're gonna have to self-publish. And he said, and I wouldn't order too many.

Hmm.

And I said, thank you. I said, man, good advice. Because the win for me, Paul, in this was not how many was it gonna sell, but God had given me a word to put on paper. And so the success on this wasn't like book sales, it was obedience to just write it. So I just figured, man, we'll probably just give it away for free. If somebody invites me to a crusade, I'll say, hey, I've got a 40-day devotional for those who are making a decision, whatever, whatever.

Yeah.

So man, we printed 1,000 copies. And I remember the day it showed up in the lobby of a student life conference, right? Like I was on tour with them.

Yeah.

It was like a 15-city tour. It didn't even get there till like tour number 3. And I remember walking in the lobby, I opened it up, it was my— you held, it's like, you know, writing a book is like giving birth. It takes 9 months. There's a lot of eating, water retention, and it's a bloody mess.

Yeah.

So you're like, then all of a sudden, like, there it is. For the first time. So I look and I'm just holding this book. And I remember thinking like, wow. And I looked at boxes and I was like, there's 1,000 here. And if this guy's right and this guy knows the market, like no one's gonna buy this book. But I thought, but I'll give it to my grandkids. It'll be a Christmas gift for like years to come. 1,000 is a lot to Norway. It sold out that night.

Dude.

Because I think we underestimate that people want more God in their walk with God.

Right. Imagine that.

And we haven't looked back since. And I was telling you, we were driving here from the airport together, Paul.

I was thinking about it.

That I've had book deals since where we've tried to market an idea and catch the wind, you know, like put our sails up, the wind's blowing here, what are the fish biting on us? And I have written 5 books and 4 have drastically flopped. And this one right here, self-published, The Call to Die, is hundreds of thousands of people that have gone through this 40-day journey. And most people that talk to me about the book, that tell me, this book changed my life, this book rearranged my entire marriage, this book shaped me forever, most people say, this book changed me, bro. And I go, tell me about it. And then they don't talk about the book.

Ah, wow.

They don't go, chapter 14. There's nothing about— they go, this book changed my life. I go, tell me how. And then they go, man, when I fasted from television for 40 days, I finally started tucking my kids in.

Wow, wow.

And I didn't know that I was exchanging bedtime with my kids for ESPN SportsCenter. When I finally stopped doing this, and so what I've realized through the years is like, we call people to a 40-day fast, to daily die to self, to daily walk into spiritual disciplines. And the secret to that is the posture and the positioning that someone has where they give up something in fasting so that they can open up the appetite in feasting. And then they go read the devotionals. And honestly, I'd be the first to say, as the guy who wrote the devotionals, like the devotionals aren't all that. People don't talk about how amazing they are. They talk about how this book has rearranged their life because it's the first time for most of them to ever have gone through a 40-day journey of like committed, I will begin my day where my quiet time becomes the loudest time of my day.

Yeah.

Me and God being still, Reading, meditating, the scripture memory assignments in this, hiding God's word in my heart, and then journaling. And so really the secret sauce to this was at the same time that this was happening, I was reading Foster's book, Celebration of Disciplines.

Great book.

And then Willard's book, you know, which is kind of like the chapter that Foster wishes he'd written, you know, on, you know, Dallas Willard's book. And so I just wanted to create a gauntlet where people could go through a 40-day celebration, where they were using spiritual disciplines to foster, pun intended, an environment to be with God. Their withness. Because I really believe that your witness is only as longevity powerful, only as weighty as your withness.

Yes.

And so for 40 years, I mean, I'm sorry, for 25 years, we've seen people go through this book and families have gone through it. 2 days ago, someone said to me, Hey man, I teach at my university. I have written 5 books on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and I teach on Bonhoeffer because when I was a teenager, your book, you open up page 1 and it says, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And I thought, who's this German guy? And I looked him up and he's telling me about it.

Yeah.

First Baptist Houston, their pastor search committee, when they were looking for Greg Mott and they were looking like, who's gonna take John Bassanio's mantle as this great leader? Their pastor's search committee, they went through this book as a pastor's search committee. So the other day somebody was telling me, hey, we went through it. And I'm just, it's just, it blows my mind how God has let this thing covertly get into the life of people and become an intersection. And again, it's not the book. Think about the, because books don't even change your life. Sentences typically do.

Yeah.

And think about the books that God used in your life. or in my life, in your life. And it just, it was the circumstances of your life and how God used a certain word or a sentence. And maybe it was like Brothers, We're Not Professionals by John Piper, or maybe it was, you know, Mere Christianity or something. But what happened is you were porous, you were hungry. And so anything tasted good.

Yeah, that's good.

And I think I've run into a lot of people who just were hungry and we've just put this in front of them. And God's used it.

Yeah, so people can go find it now, Amazon, all the places.

Yeah, we're actually, we're pre-releasing it at your church because— Come on, man. Because Josh texted me.

Come to Lake Point Church.

Come on, man. So Pastor Josh texted me, just, I was scheduled to preach, come back and preach, which I was so excited about. And then he texted me a picture and he's like, my daughter is reading, she found, she took his old book off the shelf. By the way, it's like the second edition, it's white, you know, it's not even this color. And he's like, man, I'm just, I'm just, it's just, he's like, brings me tears, you know, like to think my daughter's reading this book and she's finding, by the way, like his old journal entries in it and everything. And I said, man, it's gonna be about the 25th year. He was like, we're gonna go to churches and relaunch it. And he's like, come here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's coming out in December, but we have the digital copy and people can preorder and all that now. Or if you're coming this weekend, you can come here and actually we've got some here. But again, I say this as the author of the book, like really the pen God used, 'cause hopefully it's the Holy Spirit who's the author of this book.

It's not that great a book.

That's the best marketing, by the way. Whenever the author says, man, here's my book, it's not that great, but the Holy Spirit will use it.

Like if you're looking for weightiness, I'm always the shallow end of the pool. I've always been like, my whole brand as a communicator is you're never gonna be like, I learned something new. Paul is like the deep end.

Paul is definitely that guy.

Paul is robust.

We have a good balance over here.

He knows words that end with a T-I-O-N, justification. We gotta look it up. You know, he knows it. So he's the deep end, I'm the kiddie pool. But I think the reason God's anointed it is because it just, this book honestly just gets out of the way. Yeah.

That's great, man.

And people just get into it and they start fasting, they start praying. It's also, you cannot go through this 40-day fast in this book without a sign passages of scripture that we're asking you to learn and to hold serious. And you and I both know the word of God is living. It's active. It's sharper than any two-edged sword, cuts through bone and marrow and judges the attitudes of life. That's what the word says about the word in Hebrews. You cannot hide God's word. You cannot memorize scripture for 40 days and be the same.

Well, I love that. In your sermon, you talked about it is finished and it is forming. And then this idea of, we're gonna flesh this out here in just a second, second with, uh, ChatGPT. Did you know we call him ChatGPT?

Yes.

Okay.

That— because he is a— he's, he's who you go to for answers.

And by the way, after he went to Israel, I, I call him ChatGPT Reloaded because he's like 2.0.

Yeah. Uh, so I'm reinvented.

Yeah.

Uh, okay. We need to focus over here.

Okay.

So, um, so it is finished. It is forming.

Yeah.

Uh, ChatGPT is gonna share a little bit more of like, hey, what's the difference between the word justification and sanctification? But before we do, uh, I wanna ask you, David, did you say, uh, you have a story? Uh, Chris Tomlin is the person who wrote the foreword. Uh, yeah.

Did you have a crazy Can you tell me the story behind that? Yeah, it's a funny story. Chris and I have been best friends for a long time. And he's such a gift to me. Like when I think about our children growing up together and us doing life together and just think about like the gift that his family, his daughters, his wife Lauren, and Chris has been to me. He's— I'm so much better because the day that God brought him into my life. But the day that God brought him into my life is why he's written the foreword are called to die. So years ago, we were in Memphis, Tennessee, and Chris was leading worship at a weekly young adults gathering. And the guy that was the speaker for the event was unable to make this one random Wednesday night. And so they kind of like booked me to come and be a guest speaker. So I go and I'm the guest speaker. And after we're done, we're meeting for the first time. Chris and I are meeting for the first time and we have a couple of common friends. And so we're kind of hitting it off.

Like, you know, we're just like, dude, da, da, da, da. We find out. And so Chris goes, hey, where do they have you staying?

Yeah.

tonight? Because I was out of town, you know, none of us lived in Memphis. Chris lived in Texas at that time. He lived in Austin at that time. I lived in Birmingham. So I said, man, they've got me at some Holiday Inn by the airport. So he goes, me too. He goes, but they picked me up and I don't have a car. He goes, are you hungry? I said, yeah. He goes, do you have a rental car? I said, yeah, I picked up a rental car. He said, you want to go get something to eat and then you can just take me to the hotel because we're staying at the same hotel. So we go grab a bite. We get done. We get to the hotel, right? And so it's late at night. I pull up in front of this Holiday Inn. It's the Holiday Inn by the airport in Memphis. Still there. So I pull up, car's— rental car's still on. I get out of the car. Chris gets out of the car. I go to the trunk 'cause his guitar case is in the back of the car. There's a third guy with us, by the way, B-Wack, who's David Crowder's drummer now.

All right? But he was back then, like, pinch-hitting with Chris and some other— so B-Wack's with us. So open up the trunk to get this drum kit out and let Chris get his guitar case. case out. So the car's still on, okay? I've left the door open, the driver's seat door open, because I've gotten out to like help them get their stuff out.

Yeah.

And then as soon as they unload, I was gonna go pull down further and go park the car and come in. While I'm at the trunk, this guy outta nowhere just walks up to us and he is like, hey man, do you guys know where whatever, whatever is at the street? And I'm like, no bro, we're not from here. But he's not answer— he's not listening to the answer. He's just And then all of a sudden he starts walking around me as he's asking that question. And I'm like, we're not from here. And I notice he's going to sit in the driver's seat of the car. Like the door is open, car is on.

Yeah.

He's about to steal the car. So he goes and he gets in the car. And so I just go after him. Like there's no time to think. Like he's in the car. And the next thing I remember, half of my body, Carlos, is over his body. and I have locked my arms like this. The guy's trying to put the car in drive. He's slamming the gas, but he can't put it in drive. He can't get the car to move because my body is over his. He is sitting in the car. I'm over him. And I've locked my hand on the gear. I'm like, get out of the car! And he's yelling in my ear, okay? And he's saying things that I can't repeat. All right, so he's like— and I'm like, get out of the car! And so we're like, we're in this moment. And in the back of my mind, I thought any second now, if he puts it in drive somehow, I'm half out of the car. I'm gonna get dragged and killed. So I thought, I need to stick my head out. And so as soon as I stick my head out, I'm gonna try to yank him out and put my foot up his rib and go, Jesus loves you, but you're not taking my rope.

Anyway, so I stick my head out. And as soon as I stick my head out, Chris yells. I remember Chris yells, he's got a gun!

Oh.

And I look and there's a second guy standing on the other side and he's going like this. like, I will kill you. And so I realized there's several of them and he's pointing the gun like, hey, you need to stop. So, you know, I'm backing up and I'm like, okay, bro, you win. You win. Chris is backing up. BWAC's like behind this pillar, you know? Anyway, so we're backing up. So then a third guy comes out of the bushes. They jump in the car, they drive off.

Huh.

So we get carjacked.

Wow.

At gunpoint. By the way, serious guys, like serious guys. Like they held up 2 other, 2 places that night, shot a guy in the chest. And they got caught when they were, the cops were chasing them and they totaled the car at an intersection running a red light. But that's the night we met. So the night we met, we were bonded by trauma. When he tells the story, he talks about it as the night he saved my life. When I tell the story, I talk about it as the night I saved Christian music. Because if he had died, we'd have no songs to sing.

That's good.

So for years we've been like around friends telling that story, or we've even been on tour and I've told that story like to introduce him. And then he comes back and goes, I saved his life. And then we laugh about it. So he was like, it's funny you wrote a book called A Call to Die. Since the night we met, we almost died. So I should tell that. So Chris tells that story in the intro and then he talks about the crucified life. And so many of his songs are about, he bids me come and die and everything.

Oh, wow.

And so, yeah. So it's a, it's a fun story of how, um, sometimes you're forged by fire.

Yes, that's right.

To make a friend.

I love it, man.

Well, here in just a second, we're gonna get really practical. Hey, what does that even mean? Like, you know, just practically speaking, uh, Paul, would you, uh, explain to us the difference between justification and sanctification?

Yeah, I would love to. A couple, actually a couple things I've been sitting here holding. You got amazing stories, by the way. I'm just sitting here and throwing my mouth open and I'm like, oh my gosh, like, where is this going? Kind of a thing. 'Cause I'd never, I'd never heard that story. But I just actually wanna double-click on a couple things and then I'll get into that real fast that you've said, just to highlight. I remember when you told me in the car that you're like, yeah, like you're like, called to die, what a message. Like it's really gonna market well. But I think there's a reason why it's done well. And that's because it's literally the message of Jesus that changed the world.

That's right.

Is that literally he would tell people, anyone who wants to come and follow me must take up his cross and die.

Yeah.

And he talks about how you have to be willing to leave everything behind to follow me. So Jesus didn't water it down. He called people up. up to a higher standard. And if that was the message that changed the world, so I don't think there's a coincidence there that you literally are just simply repeating the message of Jesus, which—

That's right.

It doesn't sound appealing, but then when you actually do it, you realize that life, that true life is actually found on the other side of dying daily.

That's right.

Which we'll talk about that when we get some of the practical things of how to do that. Number 2, what I love about your book, because I know you've been self-deprecating, it's not really that great of a book, but actually I think it is because as part of it, you're calling people to do something. And that's why it's, it's, it's interesting cuz people know me as ChatGPT, whatever they'll— people are like, hey, like, what's the best book you've read this year? Hey, gimme a book to read. And there's some people that if I know them well, I'm like, hey, you actually don't need to read another book. And like, what do you mean? I'm like, you just need to go apply the last book you read.

Yeah.

And so I tell people, the best book you've read this year is the best book you applied this year.

There you go.

And so what I love about your book and encouraging people, whether, whether or not they pick up your book with anything they're doing, man, life transformation happens not simply as you're reading, you take in information, it's actually as you leads—

as it leads you to application.

And then that leads to transformation. That's why I love the book is it calls you to fast, to pray. So we'll get back in a little bit and say, hey, what are some practical ways we can die daily and experience this life? I'll go ahead and give you a little hint. It's actually doing the things that Jesus has called us to do.

That's right.

Um, so yeah, so justification and sanctification. Let's maybe back it up, even explain and connect of— in your sermon, you talked about it is finished and it is forming. So there's the idea of there's the finished work of Jesus and what he accomplished for us on the cross. But then, hey, even when we respond to that in faith, we're not done yet. On the one hand, one thing was done. On the other hand, hey, I still have a life that I need to grow into and a life he's called me into that I haven't experienced fully yet. And the fancy way this is often talked about in terms of salvation is the idea of justification, sanctification. I'm going to add a third thing for you, Carlos. I'm going to throw you a curveball right now. I'm going to add a third thing, glorification.

That's right.

Those are 3 aspects of salvation, because what salvation is, it is the idea of it's everything that Jesus saves us from in terms terms of sin and its consequences, is that he rescues us from sin and all of its consequences. So we have to ask, well, what are the consequences of sin? Sin has a penalty, sin has power, and sin has presence. And so salvation is Jesus rescuing us from each of these things, but they look different. That's why we actually have a chart.

Cool.

I think it's easiest to walk people through. If you're listening to us on Spotify, or maybe you're just listening to this in the car later, I encourage you to go back and actually look through it, because it really encapsulates translate the idea of these different aspects of salvation. So justification is really more about the idea of when I place my faith, a genuine faith in Jesus, it's about what happens to me in the past, the moment that I place my faith in Jesus. Justification is the idea of I have been saved from the penalty of sin. Sin has a penalty. And in a bit, we're going to talk about the penalties of some crimes that we have in society. Well, sin has a penalty. That penalty is death, and it is judgment before the God we've sinned against. And there's nothing that we can do to save ourselves because God's standard is not good and bad. God's standard is you are perfect or you are not perfect. Anyone not perfect deserves to be judged by God and spend eternity apart from God. And the beautiful thing of the gospel is that God doesn't want us to have to deal with that penalty and receive it.

And that's why he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, who lived the perfect life we can't live.

That's right.

So as you and I, all 3 of us, we're not perfect, Jesus Christ lived a perfect life. And then he went to the cross and there he took on the penalty for sin. sin on the cross. And what that means is, is the second that I place my faith in Jesus, the penalty for my sin that's in my future, when I've sinned before God after my death, it actually goes to the past and it goes on Christ on the cross. So there's justification of the idea of I have been saved. So if I'm a believer in Jesus, I can say I am saved and I have been saved from the penalty of sin. But that's not all that Jesus wanted to do in salvation, because it's not just simply about the penalty of sin. There's the power of sin. And hey, I don't know about you guys, maybe Carlos, he's a really good guy. Maybe the second, like, you place your faith in Jesus, immediately your life is completely transformed and you never sin again. But for the rest of us ordinary mortals, that's not the case. It doesn't happen. That, man, even when we place our faith in Jesus and we've been saved from the penalty of sin, man, that power is still there.

And he didn't just die to save us from the penalty of sin. He died to deliver us for something and to something as well. And that's a different life. He wants to free me from the ongoing power of sin in my life. And that's the fancy word that we use called sanctification. Simple way to say it is, is us becoming increasingly more like Jesus. So to kind of go back to the graph, I have been saved from the penalty of my sin, but sanctification is where I am being saved from the power of sin. And that's in the present. And that's every day. We'll get into this in some of the specifics of dying daily, of saying no to sin and saying yes to Jesus. And I actually wanna clarify something right here before we go to glorification. And it's this, a few weeks ago, I think people, when we, we, we talked about the heresy of works-based salvation, people are like, well, works matter too. And I just wanna clarify, like, Yes, they do.

We agree.

Yeah.

We totally agree. But here's the issue is some people think I have to do enough good stuff to be justified. Justification is where God literally says, not guilty. And people think, oh, I have to do enough good stuff so that God will look at me and say, not guilty. You're now finally good enough for me to save you. No, the idea is like, think of the thief on the cross, is he never could clean his life up. And yet Jesus said to him that day, today you will be with me in paradise. There's nothing he could do to save himself. It was only Jesus. And yet here's what I like to tell people sometimes, imagine that Imagine if that thief on the cross had come down from the cross. Imagine he had survived. You know what would've happened? His life would've been transformed.

Yeah.

He would've become a different man. That sanctification, I love how the Apostle Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15. He says, I was the worst of all sinners because I persecuted the church, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. And yet that grace was not in vain because, and then he says, I worked harder than anyone, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. So God is not opposed to effort. Opposed to earning. The whole— and this is a key part— is where people really get mixed up is they reverse these. They think, I've got to be a good enough person first, and then God will justify me, he'll save me. It's like, no, no, because God has saved me, now he's saved me from the penalty of sin. He wants to save me from the power of sin in my life. Is this making sense so far, guys? Anything y'all want to comment on?

Makes a lot of sense, actually. I just had that conversation literally a couple hours ago, uh, because, uh, a gentleman who was from the Jehovah's Witness Colt came to my door and, uh, that's exactly what we were talking about, which by the way, uh, I pray for this. Like I always pray those guys come to my house. They never come. And so today was a good day.

Yep.

Today's a good day.

And here's why this matters. Put it like on the street level for people is I know people who struggle with this idea of, am I good enough? Does God actually love me? Have I done enough for him? And you just, I just want to look at these people with such compassion and say, you're never going to do enough for him. That's why he came to the cross and did everything for you. But then the beautiful thing is he simply didn't want to say, you from the penalty of sin. He actually wanted to transform your life because the life he has for you is better than the life that you were living. You've just gotten out of reverse ease. I'll cover this last one briefly. There is this idea of glorification, is that I will be saved. And this idea of I have been saved from the penalty of sin. Increasingly, as I look more like Jesus, I'm being saved from the power of sin. But guess what? We still live in the presence of sin. We live in a broken world and all the effects that sin ravages our world. But one day that's going to be no more.

That's right.

One day Jesus is going to return And sin has an expiration date, and that includes its presence. And so I will be saved from the presence of sin in the future, and then that salvation will be complete. So again, Jesus saves us from the penalty of sin— that's justification— from the power of sin— that's sanctification— and then from the presence of sin, and that's future glorification.

Uh, David, let's, uh, let's talk about some examples of what does that mean, crucified life. Man, we could talk about this all day. Um, what are some clear, easy, practical things that people can be like, okay, I need to do that in my life, and it's just like an easy thing that I— like a next step or like little tweaks in my life that I need to figure out. How do I align my life so that I can be a Christian obeying what Jesus said about taking my cross every single day, denying myself and following him?

Sure. I think if we're gonna break it down to justification, sanctification, and glorification, let's back up and first and foremost say that those are progressive, meaning it's not, you have to have the first one down in order to be able to benefit from the second one. And then that takes you to the journey of the third one, right? And so justification is our position in Christ. Sanctification is becoming in practice what we became in our position in Christ, growing in our position in Christ. And then glorification is like the day we're finally done.

Yeah.

Like that's the day when sin will no longer have any power over us. And until that day, we're not fully made complete, right? But that said, let's back up to the first. The first one is, I think there's a lot of it is not done Christianity going on in the church, where It's, yeah, it's— I gotta— Jesus did most of it, but I gotta do a little bit. What's my part in this? What's my— you know, so it is done in that Jesus did his part, tetelestai, on the cross. Now I gotta do my part. And Jesus is not saying it is done as in I did it, I did my part. He's saying I did it all.

Yeah.

You are saved by works, but by my works. at your Jehovah's Witness friend and he's going, how's works working out for you?

Yeah.

It's not. Yeah. You know, so every other religion in the world is somehow built around duty when ours is built around delight. It's built around trying when ours is trusting, like you were saying.

That's right.

It's work versus worship. It's earning versus yearning. It's all of these things that we always kind of use as Christian lingo. But first and foremost, the question to a listener that I'm— who's in the car or listening to this right now while they're ironing a shirt, you know, or whatever, or watching this on YouTube is, Like, has there ever been a moment in your life when you came to the end of yourself?

Hmm.

You know, if any man wishes to come after me, he must deny himself. Like, I'm giving up the selfie life is what we called it in the sermon, right? Like, I'm getting the focus off of me when it comes to completely, like you push that little flip button off of me. I got nothing to bring to the table but sin. Even if I'm really righteous without him, it's self-righteousness, which is another form of sin. And so first and foremost, I would say, have you ever come to the very end of yourself when you go, I have nothing to bring to the table? This is the single worst exchange rate in the history of the world. Like, I'm coming in with nothing. You're coming in with everything. Yeah.

You did it.

I didn't do it. I have nothing to this but to receive it. I accept. So first and foremost, has that ever happened? ever happened? Or was it 99%, 5%, or whatever? Our Catholic friends, you know, and by the way, I have Matt Marr who wrote Your Grace Is Enough, is a devout Catholic with a rosary in his pocket. I didn't know that. And he wrote Your Grace Is Enough, the sufficiency of grace, right? So it's not like all Catholics, or I know a lot of workaholics that are Southern Baptists. So it's not denominational, but it's like our Catholic friends, many of them would say, It's grace plus faith plus works.

Yes.

Right? And that's just like, you know, this— so first and foremost, I would say, man, have you looked at what Jesus did? And if Jesus— if you need to do 1% to earn salvation, then God doesn't get 100% of the glory for your salvation.

Say that one more time.

If Jesus did 99% of the work so that you could do the 1% of like, I did my 1%, of like doing this to get it, then Jesus only gets— God only gets 99% credit and you get 1% glory. And God is obsessed. He's stubbornly committed to his glory.

Yeah, that's right.

Because it's only appropriate for him. And so the ultimate aim of justification, sanctification, and glorification is glorification.

Yeah.

That's the end game.

Yeah.

The ultimate aim of salvation is not salvation. The ultimate aim of salvation is glorification.

Yes.

God saves you and I, not so that we would be saved. That's a great byproduct.

Yeah.

We get saved. Praise God. I was going to hell. I'm going to heaven. I had no peace. I have peace.

I was blind.

Now I see. I was Saul. Now I'm Paul. Come on, y'all. Are you kidding me? I get the benefit, but God's greatest intent in saving me was not saving me. His ultimate intent in saving me was that unlovable me would be loved. Undeserving me, that's grace, unmerited, would be given grace undeservingly so that God would get glory.

Yeah.

So the ultimate aim of salvation is that. And so when you look at like, what's the why behind salvation? All of a sudden it makes sense. God does it all. It is finished. He does all the work so that he gets all the credit.

I get it. Yep.

Yep. Then all of a sudden, like, the balloon pops. You're like, that makes sense. So first and foremost, have you truly come to the end of you, brought yourself before God and say, I have nothing to bring? When I was 18 years old, I got saved out of a lot of unrighteousness. My wife was about the same age. She got saved out of a lot of church righteousness.

Church righteousness.

Yeah. She was moral. She was good. She was Bible drill champion. She was this, she was that, but she'd never truly been saved. So we both come, she's bringing herself righteousness, to the foot of the cross. We're both at the even ground, by the way. I'm bringing my unrighteousness. By the way, it's actually easier for the listener who's coming in here with unrighteousness because they're like, I know I'm lost. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't have churchianity.

Yeah.

And so first and foremost, have you ever come to that realization that if you want Christ, you want all of him to do all the work of saving you? And I bring nothing to the table but myself, all the brokenness. Now I have to, I gotta bring all myself, but it's all the brokenness, all the religion, all the mess, all the excuses, all the inconsistencies, and I bring it to him. So first and foremost, have you ever done that?

Yeah.

When Christ comes to you, he's like, burn your ships. That's why when he comes to the rich young ruler, the rich young ruler initiates the conversation with him and comes and says, this doesn't make it in the sermon, but like, Think about, 'cause we didn't have time for the rich young ruler, but like we know he was rich, he was young, and he had like influence and affluence, ruler, you know, and all. He had all the stuff that everybody wants.

Yeah.

But he initiates the conversation because he's still not full, he's still not complete. So he runs to Jesus, bows down to him, calls Jesus good teacher and says, tell me what to do. And Jesus says like, there is one thing you can do, but then he gives him 3 things. He's like, go sell everything that you have. Deny yourself.

Okay.

Give it to the poor. Burn your ships. You ever give money to the poor and go the next day to try to get it back? It's gone.

Yeah.

He's like, don't have a backup plan.

Yeah.

Go give everything. Sell everything you have. Give it to the poor. And he wasn't calling him to poverty. He was calling him to surrender.

Yeah.

To complete surrender. Go sell everything and then follow me. And at that moment he was like, can I just get one thing to do? And he was like, it's done.

Yeah.

The one thing to do is to trust that I've done it. So first and foremost, have you ever truly come to the end of yourself? It's weird that God has sent me from Iran as a missionary to the American church to ask them.

Yeah, man.

If the work of Christ was tetelestai, enough. So first and foremost, is what he did enough? Second, now you're saved, in position, you've been adopted into the family family of God. You bear his name. Now all you got to do every day is wake up and become more in practice what you became in identity. Yeah, you don't have to earn your spot on the team. You're already on the team.

Become more in practice what you have received as an identity.

That's right. Yeah, so you become something in position. Justification is just as if I've never sinned. Like, in the position that I have, I go from sinner to saint. Yes. Now that I'm All I need to do every day is wake up and act like the saint. I don't have to do saintly things to become a saint. I get to do saintly things because I am a saint.

Yeah.

I'm no longer in position a sinner, right? Because I've been redeemed. But now in practice, I'm still sinning. So how do I then daily die? That's why Luke 9:23 is not, you know, pick up your cross and follow me. It's pick up your cross daily and follow me. Because now in practice, I become daily what I became at the foot of the cross in my position. That's right.

That's good.

So by the way, that's not like the work of the Spirit was justification and now you have a role to play. Sanctification is also a complete work of the Spirit. The power of the God of this universe that comes into your life and saves you is the same power that sustains you, that continues to— is sustaining grace. That's sanctification. It's how you grow in like Christlikeness. And so Dying Daily, which is this whole book, trust God, take God at his word, take 40 days and spiritually bring your life before God every day and see what God'll do.

Man, that's really good.

Oh, he's here.

Can I hop in?

Yeah, please hop in.

I was gonna say, that's hilarious. Here, we'll switch around.

So for people listening to this right now, Pastor Josh just came in and he interrupted the whole thing. And so—

I think I saw, I think I saw David jump.

Am I hopping in? Are we going straight to the penalty?

I mean, we just talked about a call to die, so I guess there is kind of an awkward segue.

You scared a couple people here. That's your job.

Let's take a 2-minute break and then I'll get a chair and then we'll come back.

Let's do that.

Stay tuned.

Hey, Live Free Nation, let's have fun with this and swing some elections. In all seriousness, midterm elections are obviously coming up in November. Um, in the state of Texas, there's an estimated 16 million Christians, and the midterm elections coming up in November will be decided by a predicted, actually, about 300,000 votes. Um, so what this means is if Christians do their job as salt and light in the world, good things really easily happen. So what we've done at Live Free Nation is we actually built a website to help mobilize Christians, uh, to do our job as salt and light, um, in society. So, uh, you can simply text the word vote to the number 20411. Text the word vote to 20411, and we have built a website all at our own expense to help Christians remember to vote leading up into the midterms, because the number one reason that Christians don't vote, especially in midterm elections, is they just forgot. So with one text, vote to 20411, you will get one text which is a link to the website where you can put in your address. We do not keep We don't keep any of the information, and it will tell you where the polling location is for voting in your area, when to come, and what in your area you need to bring.

Again, we keep absolutely none of the data, and we will send you that text and then only one other reminder text right before midterms. So let's have some fun with this. Text VOTE to 20411, and we'll see what Live Free Nation can do. Hey, it's good to be here.

Come on.

Startling you.

Man, startling is a gentle word about what actually happened.

Yeah, yeah.

So I, I mean, I literally— we were at golf scores the, uh, for the week with the family. Yeah, we were supposed to come back today, but then Hurricane— how do you pronounce that hurricane? Does anybody know?

Isaías, bro.

Do it again.

Isaías.

Is that a Hispanic name?

Yes.

Is it a woman's name or a man's name?

It's Isaiah in Spanish.

I thought they only named the Hurricanes. And I'm not trying— I'm not being weird. I thought they were all female.

I thought the same thing.

Yeah, but why do you hate the name though? That's a joke.

That's a joke.

That's a good point though. I don't know why. It is, uh, it is a very different name than what we're used to.

Well, whatever it was. Yeah, I'm not shading.

No, yeah, I was just giving you a hard time.

I'm just saying it's what pushed us home. That's why I'm here right now. Bro, it's good to see you.

Good to see you, buddy.

Dude, this is really good. So I, uh, we don't— we have a rule, and I want to say this for the, uh, for both podcasts listeners and the people who email and ask to be on the podcast very frequently, we don't hawk books on Live. That's like a thing. You can't come on our thing and we don't make it about hawking books. The only time that we mention a book is when I've actually read it and it was actually awesome and I actually want my people to read it. That's one of them right there. So the reason that I wanted to say this, so here's what this is, dude. I just want to honor you. This is my daughter's devotional.

Wow.

Eliana's going through this right now. And dude, I just want to say this, bro. So I went through this when I was in college.

Yeah.

You're in college.

I was in college.

Okay.

Yeah. And I think I was in college, may have been right after. There's nothing better than walking up into your 15-year-old's room, opening her devotional and seeing her highlights on the page of day 3, Ruined for Christ. Bro, thank you.

God is so good, man.

Thank you, dude.

Praise the Lord.

Thank you.

Yeah. And by the way, Like, my family's benefited from your obedience and ministry, all 3 of you.

So that's the same book, by the way, for people wondering, of the, the one that David showed at the beginning. That's the same book. It's a different cover because the one that David showed at the beginning is an updated cover.

So for people to know, is that the 25th anniversary guy?

It is, it's the 25th.

And that's that we were just, uh, you were coming in because now you're nearing death. Is that—

Yes, he made a face when you said you read it in college. I could see that. Am I really that old face? You made a face.

What year was it published originally again?

25 years ago, man. Bro, this thing, this book's been around, bro. And, uh, you missed it.

So I was, I was in college.

Yeah, but, uh, it's— but just so cool that you're— humbling too, like, that your daughter would be right now going through it.

Well, you know how it is, like, when you're a dad, like, when somebody blesses you, that's one thing.

Yeah.

When they bless your kids, I'll love that person forever.

Yeah.

You're blessing my kids. Thank you.

Do you remember when you were a college student and you went So you went through it. Obviously, you're called in the beginning to fast from something before. Do you remember what you fasted from?

I did it with a roommate.

Yeah.

And we both did, like, we were trying to do 40 days, no internet.

Yeah.

We were like, that's what we're going to pick it.

Yeah. Back then we had to log on with AOL anyway.

That's right.

So it's like, okay.

It was awesome, man.

That's cool.

Well, dude, thank you.

Man, praise the Lord.

So let me say one thing and then we want to talk live streaming death penalties.

Since the book is called The Call to Die. Yeah.

It feels macabre to make the joke.

We're going to find this.

Yeah. So did you tell them up top of episode we're going to talk livestreaming death and burial?

Yeah, we will. We did.

I did. All right. So let me just— you were talking a relationship between justification and sanctification.

Yeah.

Dude, can I give one of my favorite stories? This is one of my favorite preaching stories ever. So relationship between justification and sanctification. So you said— I was standing over there before I ruined everything and startled you, but the whole deal of justification is about your position and sanctification is about your practice. practice. Justification happens in a moment. Sanctification is a process. So dude, and forgive me if you guys have heard this, I used this like 5 years ago when Jana and I first started ministry. I think my take-home pay that year, I was a youth pastor in rural Kentucky and my take-home pay was $27,000.

Yeah.

So Jana was teaching speech therapy out of our house just to make ends meet. We had a student, she had a student, I'm going to call him Edward. That's what I'll call him. And when Jana first had this student, he was like an— I would maybe kind of say a little irregular. And so he would come to student ministry events, and whenever we had pizza, he would grab pizza slices and stick them in his backpack and take literally barehand pizza slices, take them home.

Yeah.

And he had this peculiar— he would never look you in the eye. If you tried to hug him, He would like kind of like— and then he had this peculiar thing where if he really liked you, every now and then he would literally grab your hand and he would lick a student.

And so we had to go, hey dude, you can't do it.

And we were like, what's wrong? Dude, we eventually came to find out that this kid had been a foster child in an abusive home where, bro, literally both of the parents had gone out and gotten full-time jobs so they could get the government to issue them a check. And they had put him for, I think it was like 2 years, in dog crates with their dogs during the day.

Wow. Wow.

So, bro, this kid Edward, he learned like, why was he putting pizza slices in his backpack? He learned like, hey dude, when they put food in there, you better get it or the dog's gonna get it first. It's hard to tell the story, man. And he learned like, never look an adult in the eye because they're probably there to hurt you. That's why he flinch when people would try to hug him. And guess where he got the idea to show affection, you lick people, from being in a dog crate with a dog. Well, then this amazing thing happened, and this is one of the things that inspired me and Jana to decide to adopt, is there was a godly family, 2 senior saints in our church, that they heard his story and they decided to adopt Edward.

Wow.

So they stand before a judge that kind of thing. And when they first adopted him, he immediately becomes their son, but he had months where he was still doing all that.

Gets a new name.

Gets a new name.

Yeah.

Gets a— hey, bro, this is awesome.

New position.

Gets a new name.

Yeah.

Gets a new inheritance.

Yeah.

Gets a new father.

That's right.

Gets a new future.

Hello? That's right.

But for a—

Orphan to heir.

All the stuff.

That's right.

So for a few months, he's still doing all the hide the pizza, flinch if they look you in the eye, lick people. But very slowly over Over time, watch, just the more time he spent with his new adopted father, all the old habits began to disappear. And slowly he became—

Started dying.

His old self died.

That's right.

Slowly he became a new young man and he began to live a new life and inherit a new future. So think about this. His new position happened in a moment with the declaration of a judge, but his new practice was a process that took time spending with his new family. Justification moment, sanctification process. In Jesus' name, amen.

Come on.

That's it, dude.

That's it. By the way, we both had the gift in our life of getting to adopt. When my son Rudy, we adopted older. So Rudy was, he wasn't an infant. He was older. We get him from Guatemala, we bring him in and he gets a new name. He's just, you know, he doesn't speak English. So he's learning English, he's learning life, he's learning everything. And I remember there were moments when he would do something in the beginning. He's just a kid, you know, he would do things that kids do. He'd misbehave or he'd do something and he would think, am I gonna get sent back? He would think, you know.

Oh man.

Because again, you have been given this new name, but you feel like it's gonna be taken away.

Yeah.

There was new muscle memory for him of emotional muscle memory of learning. There's nothing you can do.

That's right.

One time, I've never shared this story before, but as you were sharing, one time he was sitting there on this couch, he was watching TV and Dora the Explorer or whatever. And he was just a kid and he had a ballpoint pen in his hand, Josh, and he was just kind of squiggling and he wasn't paying attention. And on the leather chair, he was swiggling, you know, with a pen. So I walk up and I see him and he hasn't noticed, Carlos, that he's been swiggling with— he's leaving a mark on the— so I go and I just, I respond. I was like, mijo, like a son. And he looked up and I said, buddy, what are you doing? And he looked and this was the moment God used it to like, you have a new name. He goes, he had the accent, thick accent at that moment.

Mm-hmm.

he goes, um, I write on your couch. So I'm like, I wrote accident. I said, nobody, that's your couch. Oh, brother. I said, you're a Nazarene, this is a Nazarene thing. Wow. He goes, okay. I said, what did you do? He goes, I write on my couch. I said, listen, I said, I just don't want— I want you to take care of your couch.

Wow, bro.

And that's, you know what I mean? Like, you ain't going nowhere, bro.

New inheritance, new identity.

But this is not— this isn't— you don't have to take care my stuff. It's yours. This is your riches that have been given to you.

Amen, dude.

And yeah, man.

Come on, dude.

Come on.

Well, hard emotional gear shift. Let's talk about the death penalty. All right, we knew it. You got services to preach. Yeah. All right, Carlos, you want to set us up?

Can I, as a transition?

Yeah.

Can I just say this? If we're going to talk about the death penalty and we're going to talk about justification, sanctification, and glory purification. Before we go any further, I just want to make sure that we don't miss that in the courtroom of life, we are on death row.

Amen.

We're not cute little sinners that sometimes don't look at what we're supposed to on the internet. We are on death row, 100% guilty. And the judge, the good, righteous, holy judge says, how do you plead and we plead 100% guilty, but then when we plead 100% Christ, justified by him, it's not that the judge gives us mercy and says, I'll let you go. The judge then adopts us. We get out of death row and we go to his house and we become the judge's child.

Yes.

We get his last name. And so before we start talking about the death penalty, we're all on death row.

That's right.

Spiritually speaking, we're all on the— we're all—

That's right.

It is justified. We are all guilty.

That's right.

And then the good judge says, not only am I going to— I can't lower my standards. You're 100% guilty. Someone has to pay 100% of the penalty. And then Jesus steps in and says, they plead me. My blood is enough. And then God the Father, you know, that's the difference between mercy Mercy is forgiveness. Grace is adoption. That's right.

Come on, man. Come on.

Come on.

Bro, it's really interesting. So then I'm going to move us on here. But in that 1 John passage, people miss this because people think, oh, God just gives us grace, forgiveness, mercy, which is true. But that 1 John passage, it says, if we confess our sins, this is so interesting, this little detail, bro, that people miss. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sin. So then if you're reading with any reading comprehension, You're like, wait, how could it be just to forgive our sins? Well, because Jesus took the penalty for our sin on the cross, and it would be unjust to punish the same sin twice.

Exactly.

There's a little detail that is like, bro, that's fire right there. Just to forgive. All right, let's talk death penalty.

All right, man.

So, uh, Carlos, you want to set this up real quick?

Sure.

Okay.

Yeah, I'll start and then I'll let you follow up. Today's, uh, as of the recording of this video, is October 10th, which is, uh, World Day Against the Death Penalty. Uh, the Pope—

Is it really?

Today, yeah.

World Day Against the Death Penalty?

World Day Against the Death Penalty.

That's right.

There's a coalition of people saying, let's make this a thing and let's get rid of it in the world. So the Pope this morning at 6:30 AM, he tweeted a thing here.

Whoa, wait, let's start. Let me—

That's okay. That's okay.

That's okay. I got an order that I— so first of all, here's why this became a thing. And so here's what I think Christians are struggling with is it started right here. So there was an announcement. Go ahead and toss that thing from CBS up. There was an announcement right here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That this is the Fort Hood shooter. Carlos, I'm going to let you give a little post- message stamp of who that was here in a second. Fort Hood shooter's execution. Actually, I'll do it right now and you fill in any gaps.

I'm happy to.

Fort Hood shooter's execution, it said, will be livestreamed. So Pete Hegseth, who leads the Department of War, they made a decision to livestream the execution, the Pentagon said. Now, this obviously, I think for most Christians, they were like, bro, how the heck am I supposed to feel about that? Because on the one hand, I think a lot of people are like, bro, that It's barbaric. And there was a lot of takes about that. And then there was a lot of stuff about, hey man, how should Christians even feel about the death penalty in general? I think that was it. So you got this. Now, little postage stamp before we get into this, because I want to try to answer those questions as best we can. Here's who this dude was. This is actually, it's 17 years after the crime that he committed. So this guy, do you know his name?

I can't remember. Yeah, it's Nidal Malik Hasan.

This is 17 years after he opened fire at Fort Hood. Can you show the image of the victims? So these are 13 of the 14 victims that he killed. And I just want to keep this in our minds. These are 13 of the 14. That's innocent moms, dads, husbands, wives. You're only seeing 13. There was a 14th because one of the women, I think they're on the left side that was murdered, she was pregnant.

Yeah. He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting Allahu Akbar.

And so this is 17 years after this, and that's going to be important here in a second. I'm going to come to a Bible verse that talks about why that's important. There's a 17-year gap right there. So then the announcement— you can take that down. So then the announcement was, hey man, they've made a decision to livestream the execution death by fire firing squad. Okay. So then, and I kind of understand it, you had a lot of Christians. Number one, you have the question about the death penalty. What's the justice? Should we— how should Christians feel about death penalty? Number two, then there's a separate question that I think is getting conflated is how should Christians feel about the concept of a death by firing squad being livestreamed? So you saw a lot of responses like this. This was Lila Rose, who by the way, is awesome on pro-life issues. You see stuff like this. Our appetite—

and she's a—

is she Catholic?

Yes.

Yeah. She's Catholic. Okay. Our appetite for and habituation to violence will be our society's downfall. Public executions don't teach respect for human dignity and God's image. By the way, bookmark that. That's going to be a really important phrase when we come back to a theology of this here in a second. They make violence a spectacle for public entertainment and they corrupt the young and innocent. In modern America, there is no need for executions. They only breed vengeance, violence, and dehumanization. And then she finishes, she said, Satan loves this. So you have a bouquet of questions that are all interrelated. Number 1, how should Christians feel about the death penalty? Number 2, bro, how the heck should we feel about it being livestreamed? It feels like the— what's GTA stand for? That video game?

Grand Theft Auto?

Yeah. It feels like the Grand Theft Audification of the United States, I think, for some people. And then, do we have the Pope thing? Do we have that? Do you have the Pope's tweet, Trinity?

Yes.

Okay, so then, and then the Pope tweets this. By the way, remember, Lila Rose is Catholic. The Pope tweets this today: the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. Now bookmark that phrase, because we're going to come back to that. Both Lila Rose and the Pope are going, hey man, actually, we should oppose the death penalty because of the image of God in people. That's what they're saying. So an attack on the dignity of the person. The common good, and what he's doing right there when he says common good, he's actually— that's the language that's in the founding documents of the United States, Constitution or Declaration— can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment. So that's the question. I'm going to come— I'm trying to set all this up and then we come back to it and then we let this guy go preach. The question is, here's the question. Can the requirements of justice be met without recourse to capital punishment? I think that's a serious question that you got to ask. And you got to ask, what's the Bible say?

Not what does the Pope say? And not what do you feel? Okay. Effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption. By the way, we're going to finish. I want Nasser to tell a story that is fire about that whole deal about the possibility of redemption. So this is— he's got a stinking awesome story about ministering to people on death row. So we're— I want to finish there, but let me just do some things here. You guys can chime in at any point. I'll probably call on ChatGPT here in a second to talk Catholic stuff.

Yeah.

And then let me do my best right here. So first of all, let me just say a couple things, because what I want to say is the Bible says that my people perish for lack of knowledge. What we've got to do is we've got to be able to apply the whole word of God to the issues of the whole world. And when we don't do that, when godly people don't do that, godless people do. So this is our job. The New Testament calls the church the pillar and buttress of truth in society. And we've got to go, okay, what does God say about this? So let me give 2 warnings and then you guys can, let's riff on this for a second. I want to go. Number one, what a faithful Christian cannot do is give into the grand theft oughtification of the United States. And what I mean by that that is the whole vibe of like, I did see, I'll be really, I'm going to go ahead and give away my cards. If when I say this, you're like, bro, I can't believe you said that, you are morally required to listen to me make my case.

Okay? I actually don't think this is morally wrong, any of it. I don't think any of it's morally wrong. Now, if you're like, bro, how can you say that? Wait and let me walk you through why I say that. What is morally wrong is people, and I did see this, Christians online who honestly, it felt like they were filled with glee and bloodlust.

Man, that's not good.

And it's like, hey bro, we're not morally allowed to do that. I'll give one verse, Ezekiel 33:11. As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. And then you hear the Lord plead with compassion. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? one, we're not allowed to be this like, hey man, this is awesome. I can't wait to watch. And like I said, almost like a spectator sport. Side note, this is a fun little fact for you. When you go to the Colosseum in Rome, I bet you know this story. When you go to the Colosseum in Rome, one of the most famous— there's a cross, bro. This is amazing, dude. Not in my notes, but it is in my heart. There's a cross in the Colosseum now, huge metal cross where they killed Christians and gave Christians what was an unjust capital punishment in first century Rome. Don't tell the story if you know it. Does anybody know how the gladiatorial game stopped?

I have a—

okay, I have a— I have, for once, I have a story Paul doesn't have.

I have a theory, but I—

So bro, this is a true story. So first century Rome, they're killing Christians and just any— this is how they did death penalties, fed people to lions and they blood sport. Let's sell tickets. People celebrated. Bro, this is a fire story. In the 390s AD, shortly after Constantine makes Christianity legal, bro, in the middle of the gladiatorial games, a Christian monk named Telemachus is in the crowd, and he is so moved by the righteous compassion of God at seeing people, thousands of people cheering on people dying. True story. He gets out of the stands, leaps over the wall into the middle where the gladiators are killing each other and being eaten by lions, puts his body in between 2 gladiators, looks right at the emperor, and he says, stop in the name of Jesus Christ.

Oh.

He— the crowd was so furious at him that they killed him that day. The crowd actually stoned him. Interesting. They stone him, so he dies. His And his death so moves the Roman emperor that that Roman emperor is the one who outlaws the gladiator games because of the faithful witness of a Christian who says, stop in the name of Jesus Christ.

Oh, wow.

So let me just finish. As I live, declares the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the— we're not allowed to do that.

Okay?

I will give one other little warning and then this will go faster, I promise. I will give one other warning. You do see Christians, I think, I think, bro, that they get to the Bible's teaching on things like death penalty. And honestly, the vibe is a little bit like, oh man, if I was God, I really would— I really, I guess the Bible says this. I might have to go there, but I really wish it didn't say this. Can I just issue a gentle warning? Do not— I call it don't Absalom God.

Hmm.

And what I mean by that is Absalom was David's traitorous son in the Old Testament, that what he did is he turned the hearts of the kingdom against the heart of his father, David, King David, by standing outside of David's courtroom. And as people were coming up, he was doing this. He was going, man, I know David's about to issue justice, but if I was king, I'd be a lot more compassionate. If I was king, I'd be a lot more gracious. Sure wish I was king. It'd be better for you. And I just want to gently say, when Christians get to parts of the Bible that they're a little embarrassed of and they kind of do this thing like, I wish it didn't say this, but it does, you're actually impugning the character of God. And you're saying, man, if I was king, I'd be more gracious. Listen, you are not more gracious. You are not more righteous, and you are not more just than God. And we should not act like it.

Amen.

So whatever the Bible says, we need to go like, hey, his commands are not burdensome, that's a good thing. Does that make sense?

Yeah, makes a lot of sense.

Now, by the way, I just want to— because I have no idea what Nasser thinks about anything I'm about to say, so he is off the hook for literally anything I say in the next few minutes. I don't want anybody imputing that on him. You can be mad at me on the internet.

Well, first of all, Pete Hegseth, who is a brother in Christ, so I think he bends his knee ultimately every night to not but the ultimate power in his life, which is God. He's gotta lay his head on a pillow just like every one of us. And at the end of the day, when he lays his head on his pillow, he's gotta ask God, how'd it go today?

Exactly.

He has clarified that this is not about shaming or glorifying Biden, but about deterring terrorism. And this was an act of terrorism, Islamic terrorism. And he senses that this would be sending a clear message to others that like, this is what happens when you come into this nation and decide to end innocent lives. And so whether you agree or not, just know that it's more nuanced than someone just machismoing in the moment.

That's exactly right.

And saying that we're gonna glorify it. I don't think you're gonna find anyone who's gonna, if they feel this way, they're not gonna vocalize. I'm gonna get my popcorn, sit there and watch this thing like it's something I enjoy. and joy. I think all of us have a broken spirit. Something happened that was tragic.

That's right.

You're not honoring those beautiful people's pictures that you put up.

That's right.

If you're finding joy in this, they won't be finding joy that day. They'll be watching it that day. They'll be watching it as a part of their healing, as a part of remembering, as a part of closure, as a part— So you're saying that you're stepping in with them, you're coming to a funeral.

That's exactly right.

What's happened is horrific. It's the result of sin. But I will say, and I'm not sticking up for Pete, I'm just saying our brother in Christ has clarified so that we don't have to wonder why.

That's right.

That this is not about like, hey, we've got an election cycle coming up and I'm just trying to like Hungry Hippo a demographic. He's saying this is about deterring.

That's right.

Yeah. This will cause safety, a safer Tennessee, a safer Texas, Which I'm going to come back to.

And good Christians can disagree on a lot of the nuances and stuff. But I wanted to highlight what you said there. We talked some off camera beforehand, and then this leads in good, I think, into you making your cases. On cases like these where good, faithful, Jesus-loving Christians can disagree on some of these nuances, it would go way better if we lead with curiosity rather than accusation.

And benefit of the doubt.

And benefit of the doubt, and actually asking questions of, hey, why are you saying this? To your point, allow someone to make their case, and you may still disagree, but allow them to make their case and lead with curiosity. Curiosity that says, oh, why do you think that? Where do you see that in scripture? Rather than immediately assuming the worst and accusing them of the worst possible motives. I just wanted to highlight that because I think in this conversation it would go way better, especially online, if we did a lot more of that.

Yep.

That's good. I will say, and I'll just, maybe I may sound like a jerk, faithful Christians can disagree, but somebody's wrong. So let me run through this and then I'm going to go through objections. I want you to fire some objections at me. The 3 primary objections, I'm just going to give away gone. 3 primary objections are, hey bro, how are you going to be pro-life and pro-death penalty? That's like the Pope's vibe. Number 2, what about Romans 12? You're going to throw that at me. And then, hey bro, what about women caught in adultery? Jesus literally under the new covenant, he stops what would have been a seemingly biblical capital punishment. So like, hey man, isn't this a new covenant, old covenant discontinuity thing? So let me kind of make the little case here.

Yeah, let's do it.

Okay, let me go at it. So first of all, let me just go right here.

Here's a biblical case.

Again, no pleasure in this. We just want to speak in a straightforward way as Bible-believing Christians. There are very few commands in the Old Testament that are more often repeated than not just descriptions, but prescriptions of the death penalty for specific things. By the way, before the giving of the law, in the giving of the law, and after the giving of the law. So this is not just an Old Old Covenant, uh, an Old Covenant civic code thing. It's before— it's Genesis 9. I'm gonna get to in a second. Before they give me the law, this is after the Noahic Covenant, in the Noahic Covenant, uh, before they give me the law, in the giving of the law, and then after. I'll give you a couple examples. This is Genesis 9:6: Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed. Now watch, I pointed this out earlier, both the Pope and Lila Rose like, hey, we can't do death penalty because we care about the image of God. What's very interesting, the Bible actually does the exact opposite. And I'll get to this in a second. The Bible says God commands the death penalty in certain cases because of the value of the image of God in people.

Here it is. Genesis 9:6, whoever sheds human blood, by human shall their blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made mankind. I'll do a couple more. It's actually over 20 times in the Old Testament. These are just a few. Exodus 21:12, anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put put to death. Numbers 15:35. Then the Lord said to Moses, the man must die. The whole— and bookmark some of these in your head if you're listening, because this is going to become important when we talk about the live streaming aspect of this. The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp. Deuteronomy 21:21. And this last one I'll do. Then all the men of his town. So this is describing how it's supposed to happen in the Old Covenant civic code. Now, for super theologians, nerds, what you're probably doing is you're going, hey man, yeah, but there's discontinuity between the Old Covenants and the New Covenants, and especially the Old Covenant civic code, the civic law, that's abrogated. That's not something that we generally— we don't take the Old Covenant civic laws with a crane and then drop 'em on nations now because of Old Covenant, New Covenant discontinuity.

Yeah.

Yes, but all throughout Christian history, what we've at least done, if you go read the Westminster Confession for you theology nerds and Presbyterians. I think this is also in the 1689 London Baptist Confession, which was the Baptist version of the Westminster Confession. Hmm. Hmm. Christians have historically always said, even with Old Covenant, New Covenant discontinuity, that Christians under the New Covenant can learn from the general equity of the Old Covenant civic code. In other words, let me put that in blue-collar Bible scholar speak. What that means is God's probably better at making than you are. So we can at least look at the way that he designed laws in his nation and go, there is wisdom to be found there. That's what general equity means. So there it is. Deuteronomy 21:21, then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. Side note that is theologically significant. We don't have time to do this. Very interesting. In, I think it's 1 Corinthians 5, when the Apostle Paul is describing describing New Testament excommunication, so church discipline, he actually quotes Deuteronomy 21, you must purge the evil from among you.

And he takes the capital punishment reasoning and applies it to church discipline under the New Covenant. I don't have time to do this, but it is very interesting that we talk often on here about Kuyperian sphere sovereignty.

Yeah.

The 3 institutions, family, church, and state. What most theologians have done is they've gone, man, there is a max penalty in each of the institutions God established for the highest form of rebellion, and they possess a symmetry with each other. So the max penalty for high rebellion in a nation is the death penalty. The max penalty for high rebellion in the church is excommunication, 1 Corinthians 5, church discipline. What some people have done, we did a whole episode on this earlier, what some theologians have done is the max penalty for high rebellion in the family is disinheritance.

Mm-hmm.

So it's just interesting, the Apostle Paul takes the, you shall purge the evil from among you, from the death penalty statement in Deuteronomy 21 and applies it in 1 Corinthians 5 to church discipline. Now, let me go a layer deeper. I'll just list them. We're doing a little Bible study here, and this is all going to go to this. these questions here in a second. I'm going to briefly list, these are the things in the Old Testament that God said were accompanied by a death penalty under Old Testament law: murder, man-stealing. By the way, Hmm. that is the prohibition that made the colonial slave trade not just morally wrong, not just biblically illegal, under God's covenant, man-stealing was worthy of a death penalty.

Hmm.

I just want to let that sit. That's a death penalty, man-stealing. Striking a parent, cursing a parent, persistent rebellion against parents, adultery, specific incest, homosexual sex, bestiality, rape, prostitution, sacrificing to other gods, child sacrifice to Molech, blasphemy of the name of of the Lord, false prophecy, witchcraft, sorcery, mediums, spiritists. By the way, we have a very interesting episode coming up next week with this.

Mm-hmm.

Sabbath desecration, defiant refusal to accept the decision of a court or a priest, false witness in a capital case. So in other words, if you accuse somebody of murdering somebody and you made it up, death penalty for you. That was Old Covenant. And then negligent ownership of, if you had an animal that had killed somebody before and you kept the animal and they killed somebody again, you're morally liable for that. So this is what it did. Now, the question, Carlos, is what people are doing, and some of the objections is, yeah, man, but that's Old Covenant. What about New Covenant? Now, what's interesting is the New Covenant pulls the same thread of capital punishment into the New Covenant's description of the role of the state. I'm going to give 2 examples. So this is Romans 13, and we're going to come back to this on one of the objections you toss at me. Okay. Romans 13, I'll just read it. Paul's just finished saying that human governments are established by God. And then he says, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?

Then do what's good and you'll receive his approval. For he is— listen real close— for he is God's servant for your good. That's the role of political leaders is what he's saying.

Hmm.

But if you do wrong, be afraid for— listen to this. this language, for he does not bear the sword. What was a sword used for in the first century in a government? The execution of capital punishment. For he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Now, bro, there is a very interesting— we're going to get to it in a second— a very interesting corollary between Romans 12 and Romans 13 and the role of the individual and the role of the state that most people, they just don't see it, but it's this, like, some really clear theological nuance right there. I'll give you one more. This is again, New Covenant, pulling on the thread of death penalty in the New Covenant. Acts— this is— people miss this one. In Acts 25, Paul is standing before a governing authority. He is being threatened to be put to death. Okay? And listen really close to the language Paul uses. We got— this is New Covenant. Paul uses this language, Acts 25:11. If then I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death.

But if there is nothing to their charges against me, no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar. Now, what people miss is the implication there is Paul's going, dude, if I did one of those things that Josh just— now he wouldn't say Josh.

Yeah.

If I did one of those things you just mentioned, I do deserve to die. And as a a man in submission to the law of God, I receive it. So Paul's tacitly implying a new covenant application of death penalty right there.

Okay.

Now I'll just one last thing and then Carlos, you can start. Oh, and then I need to talk about the live streaming aspect. One little, actually, let me go. I'll go ahead and do this. Now here's the other question. What about the live streaming aspect? Because honestly, if you're like me, I'll be really honest. When I heard about that, there's something in me that recoils at that thought.

Hmm.

It does. It's like, ah, I'll be honest. It's hard for me to find a biblical justification to say that that decision is wrong. Here's why I say this. The way that God prescribed the death penalty to happen in the Old Testament, in the Bible, it was public. And I know this is a very grave thing to say. I'm going to read these 2 passages where God describes how he wants people to take place. And then I'm going to tell you why he said this. Leviticus 24, bring out of the camp. And it doesn't say out of the camp to hide it from people. He's saying out of the camp because death was something that would make somebody ceremonially unclean, a corpse could. So bring out of the camp the one who's cursed and let all who heard him. Now just think about the emotional gravity of this. Let all who heard him lay their hands on his head. Then let— and there's 2 ways to translate this next phrase. Some Bibles say, let all the congregation stone him, and some of them say, before all the assembly. It's going, everybody in the city needs to see this.

I know that's morally grave. Everybody in the city needs to see this. Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the assembly shall stone him. Now, I want to point out 2 things there. One, he's going, man, everybody needs to see this. That's what God's saying. Now, the question is why? I'm going to come to that in this next verse. Second, I just want you to see the moral gravity of this. This is a protection against bearing false witness on somebody that results in their death. He's going, hey man, you want to accuse somebody of a capital crime? You stand there with your hand on their head while they're stoned to death. You better make sure before God that you are being honest in what you're saying. you're accusing.

Okay?

So there's a protection there.

Interesting.

Now, if somebody hears that and they're like, well, bro, why? Why would everybody need to see this? Because in the Bible, there's not just one goal in capital punishment. There's 2. One goal is justice. The second goal that the Bible specifically describes is public deterrence. God wanted people to See, there's a revulsion, this revulsive thing happened so that everyone, I'm going to use the Bible's language, shall see, hear, fear, and never do this wickedness among you again. I'll just read it. It says this, and all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you. So I'll be honest, I do not see a way to say that what they're doing is morally wrong when you're just looking at what the Bible says about this. Now, a lot of objections get tossed up here. Anything else to add here? Go ahead.

Can I ask a question?

Please, yes.

I'm genuinely asking.

It's fair.

So obviously I just said, I had Pete come be a guest for me a couple of times. I know him personally enough to know, I think his faith is genuine. And I was speaking up that for him, his heart is deterrence.

That's right.

However, and you just built, I think, scriptural case on why it's permissible.

Yeah.

But everything that's permissible isn't wise. And so I—

I agree.

I wanna ask this question.

Yeah, this is good.

Is it gonna yield the results that he wants? Does it actually bring deterrence? Has he asked an Iranian friend?

Yeah.

Hey, how's that working out for the Muslim? Like, if you execute a Muslim on livestream, you think Muslims are gonna that watch that that want to become terrorists and that's gonna deter them? Or do you think they'll be, their theology on their call to die is, oh, we got a martyr now. Now we got a martyr. And so how's that working out for you? Like, I don't think it's gonna yield the fruit. So like a lot of times, like, you know, I don't know if you've ever done this with a friend where you go to a friend and you're like, I don't think you're getting the results that you want.

I'm on your team.

I'm on your team. Hey dude, I'm for you. I'm for you. I'm team you. I just wanna ask you, like, you think you're getting the results? And so I do wanna just, I'm not pushing back.

Oh no, this is a fair question.

I'm asking a question like, what is the fruit that this will yield? Also, when you put something out there within a culture, forget the terrorism, forget everything, in a culture that is obsessed with violence, kids that push a little button and kill somebody on a video game over and over and over again to where they continue to rob the dignity of And again, this is not about—

That's right.

This is primarily, when it comes to that, the dignity of the human life that this man dropped as he walked into that army base and took innocent lives. However, in the middle of all that, like, will there be an overwhelming group of people watching it that are gonna watch it, that are watching it for sport, watching it for bloodlust, watching it really for shame or for the wrong kind of glory? glory, gory instead of glory. And if it's gonna yield that, that I don't think you're gonna get what you want out of it by parading a Muslim and executing him. If you think that's what you're getting, you have not studied the mindset of an Islamic terrorist.

Let me say 2 things. So one, David points out an important thing. There's a difference between the Bible permitting something and the Bible saying, this is what you must do. And this is a whole different thing when you get into Old Covenant, New Covenant discontinuity and how do you apply specific laws and all that kind of stuff. I will say it's interesting. There are 2 kings. I don't have the details or the time to do this. There are 2 kings in the Old Testament that God specifically says, hey man, the way that they led the nation was righteous. And there were some things that the Old Covenant law permitted capital punishment for, that those kings punished people who did those things, but they did not carry out capital punishment.

Yeah.

They didn't carry out death penalties on everyone who did those things. And yet God went, hey man, that king was righteous in the way they led. What some Bible scholars do is they go, hey man, what the Bible's doing— we didn't plan to get into this, this is a fun little side note. What some people do is they go, man, what's happening in the Old Testament there is God's going, hey, capital punishment is the maximum allowable penalty. It doesn't mean you always have to do it in every one of these cases. It's the maximum allowable. Does that make sense?

Yes, it makes sense.

So somebody could do something below a death penalty, still be righteous in some cases, cases, but it would be— in other words, it wouldn't be wrong to carry out a death penalty. So that's number one. So that's what some theologians do. Number two, I think that's a fair question. Whether something is permissible and whether something is wise is a question. I'll be honest, I don't have the answer to that question.

Yeah.

I've got a buddy named Nick Friedus, who he was a guy that— he's an Army Ranger, and I think he fought a couple tours of duty. His point, and honestly, I don't have an answer to this. His point was, because he had heard that objection. And his point was, hey man, here's the deal. There are certain groups of people who do not respect anything except power, and they are going to use anything that you do as a recruiting tool. I just watched him talk about this this morning. I don't know how to think about it. I'm just telling you what Nick Frida said.

Yeah.

He was like, hey man, if you don't death penalty the guy, they'll use it as a recruiting tool. If you do privately, they'll use it as a recruiting tool. If you broadcast it publicly, they'll do it as a recruiting tool. And so his point was, hey man, I've been over there and unfortunately been in conflicts with these people. And hey dude, what I've seen is they really don't tend to— certain groups, they don't tend to respect anything until there's a rifle in their face. I hate to say it that way. That's what he said. So I don't know the answer to that question. I don't. But I think there's fair debate to be had about the wisdom aspect of the thing. I think that's a fair question.

And that's a key thing. The way I like to phrase it, and it's not just for this, it's for a lot of things in life, just personally, there's a difference between can I and should I. Those are good. That's 2 different questions. Basically saying the same thing you guys said. You've been making the case for the moral argument, meaning we could do this and we could do this publicly. There's a separate question of should we— and this again, Christians shout, not even talk past each other, they shout past each other because they think they're asking the same question. Whereas there's some people saying, hey, we can, and there's others saying, no, we cannot. And you have to really parse those out. So I'll put my cards on the table. Well, first, I changed my position on the death penalty in my 20s. At one point I was against it, but then honestly it was Genesis 9 that changed it. Because my argument had been, well, wait, I shouldn't put a person made in the image of God to death. And then I read Genesis 9 where that's literally—

That's literally the justification.

permission of God to do it. But then, like, I'm— where I'm at is I don't think— and I don't have to go into reasons why, because you got to make some more— you got to get those questions. I personally don't think we should livestream it for different reasons, or that it should be public. By the way, Christians have said this, some of the same. I've got some quotes, people like Tertullian, who said that people should be punished and that might involve the death penalty. And he also thinks Christians should not go there and see it. So the Christians have held this throughout history, but that's where I'm at. But the point is, is what you're saying, and even what you've said is we can disagree on that, of whether we should. But what we should say is, hey, the Bible says we can. Does that make sense? That's how to kind of bring it all together.

Let's help some people. Let's do this real quick because we got to get David. He's got to serve and preach. Briefly, Pastor Josh, so let's help people understand. So, hey, but you can't be pro-life and also be pro-death. What say you? Yeah.

Will you toss that the Pope deal back up? This is kind of like what you got right here is his language. Death penalty is inadmissible permissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. The common good can be safeguarded. The requirements of justice can be met without the recourse to capital punishment. Number one, I hate to say this, but, but that's an— the, the second sentence is an explicitly unbiblical statement because he says the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment. That is not what the Bible says. So I, I need to point this out. I also will point out, uh, the Pope isn't poping real good. Because that is in direct contradiction to— it's like the official doctrine of the Catholic Church historically. This is one quote. I think you've got another one too. This is the Catechism of the Council of Trent. It just says this, the just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this command, which prohibits murder, talking about the death penalty. So what you got right here is— here's what I would say.

The objection is you can't be pro-life and pro-death death penalty. When somebody says they're pro-life, what we're saying is we are pro-innocent life.

Hmm.

This is what we're saying. This is very important. In Hebrew, there are 2 different words for killing and murder. So when people point to the 10 Commandments and they talk about the command, you shall not, it doesn't say, you shall not kill. It says, you shall not murder. And those are different Hebrew words. Killing is the taking of any life. Murder is the taking of innocent life. So why is a Christian against abortion? Because it's murder. You're taking an innocent life.

Okay.

Why are we— why does the Bible— so the Bible forbids murder, but sometimes commands killing.

Why?

Because the distinction is innocent life versus life that is now forfeit because of guilt that it has committed. Does that make sense?

That makes a lot of sense.

What was that other quote from the other Pope? Yeah, I've got—

so I've got a response from a different Pope who thinks differently than our current one. I've got a tweet. He actually didn't tweet this because he's been dead for a long time, but in 1950, Important caveat. Important caveat. Just when people see this, this is not a legit tweet. Not an actual post. Pope Pius XII in 1952 said on the execution of a condemned person, it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime. So it's just right there saying like literally a pope 70 years ago disagreed with this same interpretation.

Objection number 2, Pastor Josh, but Romans 12:19 says, beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord.

Yeah. Go ahead. Do you have a screenshot of that objection? Yeah. You got this. This is US Conference of Catholics. And by the way, we're not trying to dunk on the Catholics. No, no. It's kind of like, we are team Protestant. It is October.

You know, we're going to—

Oh my God. Brother Mike's going to be very happy with you.

Father Mike.

Father Mike, man. Hey, it's, hey, it's, it's a Protestant cast Reformation week. We've been number one for 2 weeks.

I think we're still number one. By the grace of God.

But what people do is they point to Romans 12, which says, and I'll just quote it, it says, do not take vengeance. But I'll just read it right here. Romans 12:19. Now let's do a little Bible study really quick. David, do you need to scoot? You tell us when you need to scoot.

Okay.

So what you got right here, this is Romans 12:19. Beloved, this is what he's quoting. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord, to the On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head. Okay. Now, so what people do is they point to that like, hey bro, don't take vengeance. You're advocating the taking of vengeance. Okay. A theme on this podcast, anytime we're helping people view culture through the lens of the scriptures is, again, this is, we should just tattoo it on your forehead. The Bible distinguishes between the role of the individual and the role of the state. This is almost never more clear in the scriptures than when you get to Romans 12, and then right after you have Romans 13. So in Romans 12, Paul is discipling individuals and he's going, hey David, when someone sins against you, hey Josh, when someone sins against you, you must not be a vengeance taker.

Yeah.

You are not allowed not to forgive that person because you will never be asked to forgive them of something more than I have forgiven you in the death of my son, Jesus Christ. So let no bitterness rise up within you. You must totally release that and completely forgive them. Romans 12.

All right.

Now let's say you're somebody who your unborn child or your innocent husband when you were 36 years old was murdered by a terrorist. You read Romans 12, you decide to forgive them in your heart and not take vengeance personally. But then you're asking the question, bro, does that mean that this person just gets to walk around free? What if he murders somebody else?

What?

So here's the question you're left asking, if I'm not going to take vengeance, who will?

Hmm.

Romans 13 is answering that question. So remember, in the way the Bible was originally written, there are no chapter distinctions. There is no Romans 12 and Romans 13. You're just— what I'm about to read is just 6 verses later. It's just 6 sentences later. So remember, you just read Romans 12, I'm not going to take vengeance. You're going, where will vengeance happen? When will God's wrath and justice fall on this person for the evil thing they've done? Paul's answering that question in Romans 13. Watch what he says. He says this. He says, for there is no authority except from God and those that have been instituted by God. This is why he's saying be subject to governing authorities. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what?

Watch this.

God has appointed, for those who resist will incur judgment. Now watch verse 3. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you'll receive his approval. Now watch, verse 4 is going to answer that question. Where's my justice going to come from? How is God's wrath going to fall on this person who deserves it because he murdered my husband or my child? Verse 4, for the governing authority that's instituted by God is God's servant for your good. For he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger. Remember Romans 12, don't take vengeance. Well, who is supposed to take vengeance? The governing authorities instituted by God are an avenger. They take vengeance. This is Romans 13, who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. So what you're seeing right there is a distinction between the role of the individual and the role of the state. And there's 2 things that we cannot do. An individual cannot take the role of the government into their their own hands.

Vigilante justice is evil. Christians are not allowed to take up arms personally and mete out justice at the individual level. It's explicitly forbidden.

Sorry, John Wick.

Sorry, John Wick.

Yeah.

On the other hand, what we also must not do is governments can't take on the role of the individual and go, you know what? We're not going to punish wrongdoers. You know what? Just let them out of prison 17 times. Because why? Because mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. The goal is to restrain them from committing future evil and to give the person who deserves justice for their husband or their child being killed, for them to get that justice.

I would actually just say mercy triumphs over judgment to the individual.

That's it.

And I would not say mercy to the guilty. I would say accountability.

There you go.

There you go, David.

That's good.

Because this is ultimately about how can we make light of the things that God has not made light of, even in governance. So if God's heart is grieved over the taking of an innocent life, by the way, including suicide, the taking of your own life that doesn't ultimately belong to you, much less the taking of an innocent life. If God is ultimately saying, you don't belong to yourself, these people don't belong to you, that's not yours to take. stealing a life that doesn't belong to you in murder. You're ultimately stealing it. Then that is not mercy, that is accountability.

That's right.

And what's interesting is I don't know a lot of people who are anti-death penalty who believe that Osama bin Laden should have just walked Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia and walked the streets. And like, you just see him like doing a selfie in Dubai at a Yeah. You know?

Yeah.

And so—

That would be—

Take this day—

Mercy with no justice.

No accountability.

No accountability.

That someone would destroy the life of so many innocent people and that there'd be no standard for justice for that. Now, again, as the individual, vengeance is the Lord's. I don't get to steal that from— mercy has to triumph over justice.

That's right.

That's hard. By the way, the harder part for the listener right now in this is not mercy triumphs over justice as the death penalty. And for somebody listening right now, just, can mercy triumph over justice in the way you're treating your husband?

Amen.

Yeah.

Amen.

Yeah.

That's good.

Can you just forgive your son? Amen.

Yeah.

Can you just be nice to your boss? Can mercy triumph over justice over your boss? Like, you're right. What your boss did was he lied to you.

That's right.

He committed to you that you were not gonna lose your job, but then he let his son get the promotion while you got the demotion. And it's not justice.

That's right.

But can you as an individual look— sometimes the godliest thing you can do for someone you show mercy to is to call the cops on 'em.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

That's exactly right.

Yeah. Stop them from hurting themselves by hurting each other.

That's right.

But yeah, so I just don't love using that word mercy when it comes to governance.

That's right.

Because no part of that—

That's not the role of government. It's not the role of government.

It's accountability. It's cultural. It's in a society. How can it be held together without banks?

That's right.

A river can't be held together together without— and it's the banks of society. So to me, that's great, David. Both things can happen at the same time.

Amen.

Yeah. So Pastor Josh, for the woman caught in adultery though, you know, she deserved death. And then Jesus comes and he says, well, let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone. So yeah, what about that?

Yeah. And that's what people are like, what about that?

What about that?

What about that, Josh?

You forget that one?

Yeah. What about that? You want to answer it?

No, I got it. I got it. So there's a couple— there's way more going on in that story that First of all, it is— I always want to point this out— that passage, I do think that happened. I do think that account happened. If you read your Bible in John chapter 8, you're going to notice a little footnote there. That account is not in the earliest manuscripts. I think it appeared— do you remember how late it appeared?

A couple hundred years later.

A couple hundred years after the earliest manuscripts. What most people think about John chapter 8 is that it definitely did happen. It just feels very Jesus. It's like, I don't know if anybody's smart enough to come up with that story besides Jesus. But most people think it wasn't originally included in the scriptures. So that's neither here nor there. We're going to take it as if it did happen. That's what I do. First of all, that's a freaking awesome story.

Yeah.

So woman caught in adultery, Pharisees who were rigid law adherers drag her, interesting point to notice, and only her. Let me just say that, only her. They drag her out. She did, according to this Testament, it seemingly deserved a death penalty. And they were like, hey Jesus—

In accordance to that law.

In accordance to that law. Yes. Hey Jesus, what do you think? Should we stone this woman? That kind of thing. And then Jesus goes, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. So a couple things to point out. There's way more going on there than meets the eye. First of all, one of the things, there's 2 things. One of the 2 things Jesus is doing there is he's pointing out that the Pharisees who claimed to be rigid adherents of the law. He's pointing out, you're missing on 3 very important procedural aspects of how the Old Testament commanded a death penalty to take place. Number 1, there's supposed to be some kind of trial. Number 2, I'm going to read it to you. Where's the dude? Jesus is literally going, hey bro, where's the dude?

Yeah.

Leviticus 20:10, if a man commits adultery with another man's wife, the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.

Yeah.

So what some people have done is they've said, people call it the story of the woman caught in adultery. It's really the story of the Pharisees getting caught trying to throw stones. Let's rename it. So he's going, where's the dude? And then number 3, we just read it earlier. Hey, he's going, hey, if y'all want to invoke Leviticus 20, okay, let's go to Leviticus 20. You're saying that you were witnesses to this. Why don't you lay your hand on her head and you be the one that casts the first stone? Now, bro, this is mind-blowing. So this is where Jesus stoops down and he writes the—

That's right.

So let me just point this out. The finger of God stoops down and begins to write something in the dirt. We are never told what he's writing. Here's what we do know. There's only 2 other times in the entire entire Bible that the finger of God writes something. 10 Commandments written by the finger of God. And in the book of Daniel, when the finger of God appears on the wall and it writes many, many tekelparsin, it means, I think, weighed, weighed, numbered, and found wanting, something like that. And it's a judgment. Bro, what a lot of Bible scholars think Jesus is doing is one of two things. He's either writing these specific Old Testament commandments those Pharisees had broken that would result in them deserving a death penalty. The finger of God is appearing and writing justice again. Or some people think that Pharisees were privately visiting prostitutes themselves. Here's the vibe. How did these guys catch this woman sleeping with someone? How'd that— were they frequenting a house they weren't supposed to frequent? What some people think he's doing is he's writing the names of the women these dudes might've slept with. Like, just let me just write down, Susie, kind of staring at Sarah.

And then it says, one by one, the oldest to the youngest, they drop their stones and leave. What is essentially happening is a lot of Bible scholars think Jesus is going, if we're going to do this, you deserve death too. And then he looks at the woman and he goes, where are your accusers? And here, bro, here's the point. This is mind-blowing. Here's the point. He looks at her and And he goes, woman, everyone who would condemn you can't. And there's only one person here who is without sin that could have cast a stone, and it's me. And the only one that could condemn you won't. Now go and sin no more. And this is what he's doing to the woman. Now let me just do this real fast, and then you say what you're going to say and we'll do our thing. The other thing he's doing is he's pointing out the procedural errors So again, you've got all the stuff, the 3 things that they were supposed to do. There's supposed to be a ruling, where's the dude, and lay your hands on. So what he's doing is he's pointing out, hey man, you're not even obeying these things.

This would be an illegitimate death sentence. Here's a big point. He's not saying that that death sentence would've been unjust. He's pointing out, hey, you're doing it in an unjust way. Does that make sense?

Yes.

would you guys add? Anything you'd add there?

If we're going to spitball on what he was writing—

Yeah, I want to know. What do you think?

I would just like to remind everyone listening that in the culture that we exist in here, we give authority, we give pardon power to the governor. I wrote a letter to the governor last week, and we can get to that story in a minute, asking for a pardon. We give We give the president, whether it's autopilot pen or not, authority.

That's hilarious.

Maybe Jesus just wrote his name.

Bro!

And that was the ultimate trump card of like, I am giving— she is 100% guilty.

Wow.

I don't need the man even, but I am 100% with the authority.

Wow.

To bring this before you and say, like, but because I don't just have authority over triumph, mercy over triumph, mercy over justice when it comes to salvation, even in governance, I'm the King of Kings. Oh, how you like them apples?

Come on.

I'm just— so maybe if we're going to talk about what he wrote, maybe all he had to write was like, J-E-C.

Come on, man.

All right, I want to finish with this. So, A, Jesus came from the Father full of Grace and Truth. We spent the first part of this doing the truth part. Let's finish the pod with the grace part. I have no idea what you're going to say. Tell me the story of you ministering to guys on death row.

Yeah. So I don't know, typically it's like we're going to talk about the sermon and then the second half we're going to talk about whatever everyone's talking about in culture, kind of like the Karl Barth statement. You have a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in another. I feel like this podcast, by the way, does that really well. What I love about this The way I do my podcast, by the way, is like, there's always a primary hand. So like, sure, have a Bible in one hand, then a newspaper in the other, but make sure if you're right-handed, the Bible's in your right hand.

That's right.

And this podcast does really well. I think you don't bat 1,000, but pretty good of like having both.

Agree.

Agree. So, you know, I land like literally, and you guys are like, we're gonna talk about the death penalty. I'm like, oh, okay. And instantly when I heard that, when I saw a text that that was gonna be the second half for this podcast, I had an emotion that was very personal for me because a few months ago, Josh, I went to death row in Tennessee. A friend of mine who's a part of a small group of— it's an accountability group of— it's a Bible study I belong to. A friend of mine invited about half a dozen of us to go to visit a friend of his who's a pastor on death row.

Hmm.

And you don't just show up on death row. death row, there's background checks, there's a whole lot of procedure before you're even allowed. So we go and, by the way, we're all driving. We go to my buddy's house, we all hop in a couple of cars and everyone's looking at each other like, where are you on this? So people are like, are you master here? You're pro-death penalty? You're not against? So everybody's just kind of figuring out their footings on what it is before they even go. And if I named who was there, you would know some of these people. These are just trusted godly leaders who disagree.

Yeah.

Some of them on what they feel about that. So man, we go through, you know, you're putting all your stuff in a bag, you're going through this one, one, we finally get to the moment where we walk into a room and we are now facing people that when I got invited and I said yes, I just Googled like, who is on death row in Tennessee? There's 39 men, 1 woman, on death row. And so there are documentaries, bro, about some of these people.

Wow.

You can watch some of them on Netflix.

Wow.

Of the horrific things that they're on death row for. So Josh, I walk in and immediately I saw someone I'd seen in a documentary, like the taking of a life, the rape of a child. I have I have been around depravity, including looking in the mirror. That's right.

Amen.

But there's the tea and the tulip, like total difference. I've never seen that. Like I walked in the room, I was looking at depravity. And before we even had our Bible study, it's like, we got an hour before we start. And so do you wanna just go and meet some of these folks? I'm sitting with men whose stories I've read articles about, or I've seen like a little documentary about. And we're talking and we're just, you know, and then we sit down for the Bible study and the pastor of that cell block is actually on death row.

Wow.

Okay. He's an ordained pastor.

And he himself is awaiting a death sentence?

Yes.

Wow.

Okay.

And he begins to minister.

Wow.

And he asked me to share my story. So I start telling my testimony, same one I've told on your podcast, and God saved me from— he's weeping as I'm telling my story. As I'm telling my story, he looks at me, he goes, he's just crying, brother in Christ on death row. And he's like, isn't God's grace sufficient? I'm like, right back at you, buddy. Isn't it sufficient? We're weeping weeping about the immeasurable, unstoppable, relentless tsunami of grace upon grace upon grace upon grace of God. And as I'm looking at this man, I've never known anybody on death row. It's like you can have a position, but positions are easy to have until you know people.

That's right.

Stats become what they are until you know people. And all of a sudden I'm looking at this brother And I sensed both the depravity and the dignity of an individual.

Yeah.

And I didn't have to put one down to pick up the other. I saw both the horrific in him. And then I also saw the holiness in him. I saw the gospel. Honestly, I saw the gospel. I can't get over it. You know, I'm still processing it. I'm still going through it. If you're asking me what the takeaway from that was, I didn't change my position on what I believe is the role of governance and what is the role of an individual. I think I've shown enough of my cards here to think that, I think we kind of agree on one leaning on it. But I did meet a man there who new evidence has been presented recently. Yeah, it is. Possibly of his innocence.

Yeah.

like, man, I've sat on those sidelines and I've just had a— I've had the luxury of a theological position without ever praying for the salvation of these men.

Amen.

There's a pastor, a converted man who's the pastor there. I need to be praying that God is using him in the life of these people who need the gospel no less than me.

Amen.

They've done horrific things I haven't done.

Amen.

But I'm just as guilty of sin. And so I started praying and then we've begun to write write letters of advocacy to the governor on behalf of this person. Not because he's a brother in Christ, but because we believe it's not clear that he's— we cannot take that. Again, you said the taking of an innocent life, and he might be innocent. So we're advocating for further investigation.

That would be an injustice of the extreme measure.

That's right.

To a free government.

If somebody can be falsely— and by the way, you know who was falsely accused and put through the death penalty?

I know another one.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah.

And so a lot of guys there, when you— I sat with guys for an hour and a half talking to them. Some of them immediately, Carlos, were like, I'm not guilty. And I'm just like, okay. Like, I think you've been through the strongest justice system in the world, the American justice system. Like, I think you've been given a lawyer. I think whether it's right or not, this particular person I'm talking about that we're all writing letters for, The people that are writing, by the way, letters for him are people that are pro-death penalty under, as an act. That would be me. I'm pro-death penalty. And then there are people who are not, who would side maybe more with our sister, Lila Rose. Both are advocating for him because the evidence continues to pile up as new DNA technology has emerged and other things. That's a big deal, dude. Yeah. And so the biggest takeaway for me was that it's personal, but also that I can see someone, hold, you know, that's honor. Honor is actually seeing someone in their fullness.

That's right.

When Jesus sees the woman at the well, he sees her in her depravity and her dignity. When Jesus sees David Nasser, he sees him in his depravity and his— when he sees Josh, you know, Howard, both. Can I share one more quick story?

Yeah, and then we gotta get you out of here.

I go to Rwanda and man, Rwanda, talk about horrific genocide. Like, Talk about what happens when you let racism get a foothold, you know, tens and tens of thousands of people killing one another simply because Hutu versus Tutsi, right? So we go through, we go to Rwanda of all people with Jeff Foxworthy. Okay.

Who's awesome, dude. That guy's a disciple. Loves the Lord. He's a disciple. Yeah.

So Jeff, very passionate about restoration and revival. in the nation of— so we go with Compassion International. Jeff's our host. Day 1, he's like, Nasser, I'm taking you to the Rwandan Museum. Buddy, we walked through that museum and you can see all the atrocities, but you go to the end of it, you stand on a grassy knoll and they say, under here are the bones of 40,000 people that were mass buried.

Jeez, man.

You know what you don't do, by the way, at that moment? You don't sit there at that moment and go, they're bad. You're like, if there's an ounce of racism A joke I didn't speak up against, a little laughter, I need to root it out 'cause this is what happens when you give it a foothold. Anyway, so then we're there on this trip. A couple days later, we go to this village, bro. Okay? We're at this village and it's a Compassion International, meaning like kids are, we're visiting kids that, 'cause we're telling people like, if you sponsor a child with Compassion, we're telling Liberty students, Mm-hmm. you can come here and visit and meet these kids. meet your child that you're sponsoring, which is awesome. So we're there with some Liberty students, we're shooting some footage, and these kids, we don't speak their language, but they're kicking balls at my head, which they think is funny, which is internationally funny. And I'm trying to keep up, and then this pastor comes out, okay? And some of you can't get over the hurdle that I just said pastor because they call her pastor and she's a woman.

So your sweater just got snagged 'cause you're complementarian. So she comes down and they said, this is our pastor.

Okay.

And we're like, hello. And Carlos, she starts talking through an interpreter. She doesn't speak one word of English. And the whole time she's talking, and maybe we'll put this picture up in just a second, but I'll give it to you later. Maybe we can. There's a gash, Carlos, from here to here, like the length of her face. So it's not one of those things where you're telling yourself, don't stare, but you're staring.

Yeah.

So she's talking a few minutes and then about like their work there and what they're doing with education and Medicaid and all this stuff. and all these good things for the life of these children. And then she says to the interpreter, he's looking at my scar and he's like talking. And then she said, he needs to go ahead and ask me. So then the interpreter says, she's wondering why you're not asking her about the scar. I said, oh no, I didn't even, I didn't even notice. I was like, oh, was it? He was like, no, no, no, go ahead. And I said, okay, well, can you?

Yeah.

It's the biggest thing that I'm seeing. And then she said this, she said, you know, when the genocide happened, when the Rwandan genocide happened, she said, I was Tutsi and we lived in a village down the mountain. We're on top of a mountain here and there's a church building that she's the pastor of. She's standing there and she said, I lived down the bottom of the mountain and I remember when they said that they They were coming. They were coming to pillage the entire village.

Jeez.

She said, my family and I, she goes, I was a little girl then. She goes, my mom and my dad grabbed my hand, grabbed my sister's hand, and we ran up the mountain. But as we were running up to this mountain, we realized like they are the very kind of people, the tribe of people. But then we saw a church and we thought sanctuary. We run in this church. By the way, if you go into This church, the basement of this church is filled with bloody clothes of this massacre that she's talking about. She goes, we came in and they were waiting for us in this church building. And she said, and they murdered my father in front of me, murdered my mother in front of me, murdered my sibling in front of me. And they thought they'd killed me. They put that gash, and she said, and it cut my face open and I fell and I fainted. And they just moved on to the next person they killed.

Wow.

And the next person. Then as they were taking the bodies to put in a— they noticed she was alive and not dead. And somehow she lived. She's telling me this as a Tutsi.

Wow.

While she's the pastor of a bunch of kids that are Hutu.

Wow, bro. He has torn down the dividing wall.

Yeah.

And then as she's telling me this, I can feel like I got teed up. And then Jeff Foxworthy's like, you going to ask her? And I said, yes, yes, ma'am. I want to ask you, how do you every day wake up and love the very people who are accused of the same thing, people on death row, who murdered your father, murdered your mother, murdered your sister, and did Every day you look in the mirror and you're reminded of the atrocity that happened to you. And then she answered it. She answers it and she says, oh. And then the guy says to me, the translator says to me, I'm so sorry. It is lost in the translation, her answer. I don't know how to say it right. And she gave me the greatest definition of honor I've ever heard in my life.

Hmm.

She pointed to the kids that were running around. These are the same kids from the same little school. lineage, same people tribe as the people that had murdered her own family. She pointed to them and she said, if they are— he said, I'm so sorry. But it wasn't lost in translation. It was the great— she said, if they're expensive to God, they're expensive to me.

Wow. Wow.

They made cheap of me.

Whoa.

But that does not give me the right to make cheap of them. They treated me like I was inexpensive. Discarding, but they're expensive to God, so they're expensive to me. Come on, man. Wow. Wow.

Wow.

When she said that, I was like, okay, this is what mercy triumphs over justice. Look, this is what the grace of God can do. He can turn a woman like that. Talk about a beauty mark.

Yeah.

Beauty for ashes into someone. Now, that is what happens with the gospel in the life of an individual. But the very same people that murdered her father should go to prison.

That's right. Yeah, that's right.

And if their governance calls for a death penalty, that is the role of their governance. But her role as a believer is to be believable.

That's great, bro.

And you're only as believable in the sense that you've received ridiculous forgiveness so that you can be ridiculously forgiving.

Come on, man. I got to finish right there because we got to get this guy over to preach.

Pray for this man.

I'm going to do it right I love y'all. Father, thank you for my brother, my friend, and co-laborer in Christ, David Nasser. Lord, I pray that you would fill him with your Spirit in increasing measure. Father, I pray that when he preaches, that as he opens your word, you would attend with power the word preached, that it'd be like fire in his eyes, love in his heart, sword out of his mouth, and just the love of the Father would wash over our people. I thank you for who he is and what you've done, and I pray that you bless him in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Live free, brother.

Well, hey, thanks so much for listening. Lake Pointe Church is a movement for all people to know Christ, live free, and change the world for God's glory. If you're already a member of a local church, we want you giving there. But if you'd like to make a donation to help this message go further, faster, it genuinely helps us boost getting out to more people. If you'd like to make a donation, you can text the word give to the number 20411 and then just choose Church Online from that dropdown menu. To find out more about Lake Pointe, you can visit lakepointe.church.