Live Free with Josh Howerton - Can You Be Pro-Life AND Support The Death Penalty? | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Are you tired of living in fear?! In this episode of Live Free, Pastors Josh Howerton and Paul Cunningham dive into Acts 23 to explore how faith thrives even in fear and confusion. From the Apostle Paul’s bold stand before the Sanhedrin to Pastor Josh’s personal journey through anxiety, this episode unpacks seven practical principles to overcome fear and start living with courage. The pastors also tackle pressing cultural issues, from abortion to immigration offering biblical clarity on justice, compassion, and the role of government. Whether you’re facing internal storms or cultural chaos, this conversation will challenge and equip you to live with full faith, truth and bold obedience.   👍 Like, Comment, & Subscribe for more life-changing podcasts! 🔔 Turn on notifications so you never miss an update!     📝 SHOW NOTES Subscribe now to receive the show notes directly in your inbox with each new episode. These notes are filled with key insights and scripture to help you reflect and grow deeper in your faith – https://lakepointe.church/shownotes    👇 DON’T MISS OUT! Ready to grow in your faith? It happens in community! Click the link to find a Group today: https://lakepointe.church/groups/   ⛪ ABOUT LAKEPOINTE CHURCH:We believe that Lakepointe is a movement for all people to Know God, Find Freedom, Discover their Calling, and Make a Difference. With 7 DFW locations and programs for all ages, there's something for everyone.  🤝 Support this ministry and help us reach more people with the Gospel: https://lakepointe.church/give    STAY CONNECTED:🌐 Website: https://lakepointe.church/👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lpconnect/📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lpconnect 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lakepointechurch   FOLLOW PASTOR JOSH:👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowertonJosh/📸 Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/josh_howerton/?hl=en 🎥 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@howertonjosh    🎧 LISTEN ON THE GO! ▶️ Live Free on Spotify / https://open.spotify.com/show/353ryGdZNlebaiqkCcy3Yc▶️ Live Free on Apple Podcasts / https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/live-free-with-josh-howerton/id1669321198

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton. We're so glad you're here. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And this weekly podcast is all about helping you do just that. Each episode is a deep dive into the Word of God tackling life, culture, and faith with truth and clarity so you can be equipped to live free in Christ.

Thanks for tuning in. And be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and follow us on all our social platforms to stay connected to everything happening with Live Free. Now, let's dive into today's episode. Well, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Paul Cunningham and coming from, as of now, an undisclosed location, celebrating fall break.

Hey, man, listen, we're going to call this the Gulf of America episode. So it's not longer an undisclosed location, so you are somewhere around the Gulf of America right now. I'm looking at the Gulf of America right now. And so I'm going to go ahead and give the pot listeners heads up. We're on family vacation, but I refuse to miss any time with my kids. So my kids right now are out with Mom Pop Pop, I'm doing some things. If the kids come back early, the pot ends early because I'm a dad before I'm a pastor. So we're going to get right at it, maybe a little shorter today.

But, you know, what I like to tell people is, man, there's parts of your job that they got to pay you to do. There's parts of your job you do for free. Teaching the Bible is the part I do for free. And so this is fun just to do on vacation anyway. Oh, that's awesome. Well, how's vacation been? You're celebrating a huge thing. Like 20 years of marriage.

Hey, man. That's huge, Pastor Josh. Congratulations. We did. We just, thank you, man. 20 years, we went out last night. And a little fun. In fact, we were actually married down here in the Gulf Shores area.

So it's fun to be back, man. Man, so good. Well, we've got a dangerous episode today, mainly because Carlos is not with us. and he is not here to rain us in and get us from chasing too many rabbits. And so you and I are going to do our best to really stay on track and to stay focused on the things we want to talk about. But we've got a fun time coming up. I was going to say, we got some, this is going to be fun one.

Now, we're probably going to move a little faster than usual. Yeah. But there's some really interesting stuff from Act 23, a mega theme in Paul's teaching that a lot of people miss. And then, so we're going to hit some that we're going to hit overcoming fear is a big part of this, big part of my testimony too. And then back half, we're going to talk, we're going to ask the question, is the Pope Catholic?

And then we're going to talk death penalty. Why can it should, so here's where we're going to go. How can Christians support the death penalty, but oppose abortion? And then also support, in the Pope's words, the enforcement of, of border laws and basically illegal immigration stuff. So really interesting comments from the Pope. We want to help people think through that stuff. It's going to be fun.

That's right. And hey, before we jump in, I just want to thank you for liking and subscribing. It is the easiest way to stay up to date on any new content that drops, including a special episode. We actually recorded earlier this week. But anytime we drop that, if you're subscribed, you'll get a heads up.

And listen, our YouTube channel has just under, as of this week, 400,000 subscribers. That's an increase of almost 30,000 people just since the last episode. I'm going to give a shout out. So first of all, and real quick, I want to talk about the top votes for your new nickname. I was trying to change the subject so you didn't have to. And in a second. Well, I'm going to do it.

I want to share an insider story of a recommended one for my family that didn't I get up there. But you go ahead. You go ahead. I can't wait to hear it. Okay. Dude, I saw this really, this is amazing, man. This podcast, man. Just teach people the Bible, teaching how to look at the world through the lens of the scriptures.

I won't say who or which platform because he did not give me permission. And I haven't told you guys this yet. The CEO of one of the largest, how would I say it? One of the largest digital media companies in America texted me two days ago because he and some of their people have started watching our pod. And he just wanted, he's like, man, I've never heard Christians talk about this stuff before. or Protestants talk about this stuff before. And so I want to have a conversation.

It's actually really interesting. So when people, I know this sounds silly, when people share this stuff, especially when you like it, rate it on iTunes. Apparently, this guy was telling me the rating on the iTunes is a big deal. If what you're hearing is helpful to you and you want the message to go out, that stuff actually really helps us. So, man, thank you all. It's working.

And just so you people know when we say that, we're not trying to build a platform for us, really. We know that people are filling their minds and their hearts with different things throughout the week on social media and on podcasts. And we just wanted to help people fill their hearts and minds with the truth of God's word and also how to think through cultural issues that were bombarded with all day. And so it's really just about trying to put truth in people's hearts

and help disciple them the best we can. We've also reached 5,000 subscribers to our show notes. Some of our newer reviewers might not know this. Oh, yeah, it's awesome. But like every episode, we can pile like key takeaways, main highlights, but then we also put some questions in there that you can discuss with your life group or maybe a group of friends or even with your family. We do this because we believe that discipleship best happens in the context of relationships and really the next step after

this podcast is to talk about it with other people. To get the show notes, all you have to do is text notes to 20411, and we'll send them straight to your phone or you can go to lakepoint. dot church slash show notes well before we actually jump in you know you mentioned the nicknames i was really trying to bypass it oh oh go ahead so i'm just looking at right now paul so here were the people were supposed to comment on the youtube video potential nicknames for paul kunningham well i'm looking at powerhouse paul i'm looking at primo paul yeah ah uh i'm looking at somebody said somebody said somebody said patient Paul because he waits patiently for Josh to stop talking oh no which is all great what do you got well so earlier this week I walked into our house and my whole family was actually

listening to the podcast was actually pretty cool I came in to listen to you praying and you were praying over my family it's actually a really cool moment and so one of their first things that they started talking was oh hey what's your nickname and so one of my family suggested polar bear Paul because I'm very pale and because I'm cuddly. But then another member of my family, who I shall not name, said, well, that won't work because he doesn't have enough hair. Oh, my gosh. And in that moment, the fleshly part of me was thinking about a story from the Bible where

someone was made fun of for their lack of hair, and then he called down bears on them, you know, connecting the bear thing. But then it was my own family, so I didn't do that. But yeah, I prefer not to be called polar bear paul if possible. But I'm really open to anything. I'm looking at. Okay. Another one that I thought was hilarious, because obviously we've been talking through a lot of the Apostle Paul's writings.

Somebody said we should call you the Epistle Missal. That's amazing. I like that one. That's not bad, dude. That might be winner, winner. I'll let you decide, or maybe we should wait for Carlos to come back and you two can vote. But I'll defer to you. I'll defer to you.

Since you're the ones going to have to be calling me this, I'll defer to you to pick whichever one you want to. Do you want to wait a week or do you want to do it now? Let's keep moving. I'm going to go down at the beach with my kids here in a few minutes. That's good. That's good. Well, hey, let's go maybe a little bit deeper into Acts 23 in terms of maybe what didn't make into the sermon, but a lot of great nuggets and details from these texts. Anything that stuck out to you or just things you wanted to highlight for people? Well, stuff I want to say is we are so stinking blessed at Lake Point to have Mike Bro in our teaching rotation. One thing, so things that didn't make any of the sermon, but also things that people don't know about the preacher. So Mike Bro, I'm just going to say, I didn't plan on talking about this. People don't know Mike Bro.

Mike Bro was the senior pastor of one of the largest church in America. Church absolutely exploded in the 90s and 2000s. Church like 10,000 people in Lexington, Kentucky. I actually grew up. When I was learning to preach, I started like getting Mike Bro's sermons and listening to him in high school and college to learn to teach. Then he went to a church called Mike was a teaching pastor at what I think at the time was the largest church in America.

And he's just one of those dudes that when he retired, he just loves Jesus and loves his family more than he cares about being famous. So we're just retired real quietly, moved so he could be around his grandkids. The guy mows widows lawns in his free time meets with a bunch of, he probably won't even like me saying this. But, you know, I'm allowed to share his good works even if he's not. That's right. Because I want to honor the man. He meets with a group of recovering addicts as Starbucks at least once a week, does a Bible study with him. He's just a good man.

So I just want to say it before we go on. Like, we are insanely blessed to have that guy teaching like that. So godly. So humble, what I love is any time he preaches for us, if you walk out before or after the services, he's just walking around, just shaking hands, talking to people. You would never know. In fact, that's actually one of the things I love to do is sometimes if people are new or they don't know them. and he's just out there hanging with people and then he gets up there like oh that's the guy was just talking to just because he's just so humble that's right such a good man he's the best man

yeah okay paul so i actually do have this there's some really interesting stuff hidden in this passage and then we're going to get into it and then we'll talk pope death penalty all that stuff but let's get into the word first paul can you summarize real quick before i kind of click on some things just like give the 60 second sketch of what happens in acts 23 yeah well in x 22 paul had been ceased and so he had been put on trial, big riot potentially happens. And then what happens in Acts 23 is he is brought before a Jewish court called the Sanhedron. This is kind of like if you took the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the Vatican, and kind of wrapped it into one thing. And he's really brought before them to the defense. Wait, say that one more time. That's a good analogy. Oh, basically, if you took like the Supreme

Court, the Senate and the Vatican and kind of wrapped it into one thing, that's the Sanhedron. So Sanhedron would have been seven. That's fantastic. Oh, thank you. It would have been 71 people, which is really modeled after Moses and the 70 elders from number, I believe 11 that were there to kind of rule Israel at that time and lead Israel. And so these were just basically a council who is going to decide, not his fate, because they actually technically weren't allowed to sentence anyone to death, but they were basically going to be on. So basically he is on trial again before a new group and he's having to give a defense of why he's there.

Okay. So let me say a few things that are really interesting about this. So first of all, you could not have set that up better. Oh, thanks. A couple things are really interesting. if you go back to chapter 23 verse 1. This is very interesting. Bible commentators, I love studying these passages, man. Bible commentators point out that historically what people would do when they address the Sanhedron

is he would stand up and they would say rulers and elders of the people. In fact, I think elsewhere in the New Testament, that is how the Sanhedron is addressed. It's very interesting. When Paul stands up, he says men and brothers. In other words, he addresses them as equals. The reason he does that, as you well know, epistle-missal, Paul, as you well know, the reason he does that is because Paul himself had been a Pharisee of Pharisees. So, you know, again, we hit this last week.

It's like, you got the Navy, and then you got to Navy SEALs. You got to Army, you got the Army Rangers. Paul, when he said last week, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees, the Pharisees were part of the people who comprised the Sanhedron. And Paul was gone, dude, I was like the elite of who you are. So it's just very interesting. He addresses them as equals in a historically unique way. So you mentioned this. The Sanhedron was comprised of two groups, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

It's very interesting. The Pharisees were honestly, well, that's a bad analogy, so I won't make it. The Pharisees were the Bible literalists. They were the one who were like, dude, we take the Bible real seriously. We believe every word of it. And as we talked about last week, you can be very religious and very not redeemed. And that's who these guys were. So they were like, we believe the Bible, we're all in on all the things, and they were just super legalistic, and their hearts were far from the love of the father.

On the other hand, you had the Sadducees, and what Paul does here, it's actually a really cool little Jedi mind trick, is Paul, because he had been part of this little Sanhedron group, Paul knew that the rift between the Pharisees and the Sadducees was that the Pharisees believed all the Bible, including the supernatural parts. the Sadducees were more like first century progressive Christians. If you were, this is, you had to be a Bible nerd in the early 2000s to the late 90s to know who this was. Paul, do you remember the Jesus seminar? Oh, yeah, big time. John Dominic Spong, all these guys who like, they, in the late 90s, early 2000s, this was like, they were in like Time magazine all the time. And these guys were on the search for, quote, the historical Jesus. And so they would try to like, all the supernatural stuff, the Bible is definitely not true.

So let's just, how do we scrape through all that and get to who the historical Jesus was? Well, honestly, dude, the San Hitt or the Sadducees, that's who they were, is they didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't believe in angels. They didn't believe in demons. They believed in, you know, obviously because they didn't believe in a resurrection of the dead, they didn't believe in a future judgment, all the things. And real quick, just if I. And obviously. Can I just put it in real fast?

Well. Keep going on. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your fill. Keep going. No, no. Well, I was going to say, I'll say one thing and then you fill it in. The little preacher joke is obviously, which is why they were so sad you see. You know, that's it. Now, what were you going to say? I killed your joke. I apologize for that. Yeah, you were, you're, you were setting it up and I killed the moment. No, if people were, well, how could they have read the Old Testament and not believed in it? It's all throughout. Well, it's because the Sadducees would have only accepted the Torah, the first five books through the Bible, Genesis. sexes, Leviticus numbers, Deuteronomy. And so they would say, hey, there's not clear indications of these things there, so we're not going to accept it. They would have not have accepted the rest

of the Old Testament as authoritative. So if you're like wondering, how'd they get there, that's how. But to your point where you were going earlier, actually, Paul does something brilliant here. It's actually Jesus at one point said, hey, I'm sending you out into the world. And he says, be innocent as doves, but be shrewd as serpents. And he does something very shrewd. And so basically he leans in, leans into this riff. And he's like, hey, I'm just here because I believe in the resurrection of the dead. And all the Pharisees who believe in the resurrection of the dead, like, well, we don't see why this guy should be guilty. We like this guy. We're on his side. So it's actually a really brilliant move because it divides the council and basically it gets

to a point where they can't pass judgment on them. So really actually shrewd, brilliant move of leaning into that. Which, by the way, super interesting. When he does this, so if you're not tracking what Paul does in the passage, what Paul does in the passage is he's in front of the Sanhedron and he goes, I'm on trial because of my belief in the resurrection of the dead, and he knows I'm stepping right on the fault line between those dudes and those dudes. They're going to get so busy fighting each other, they're not going to come against me. So this is this little Jedi mind trick he does right here in Acts 23. Now, what's really interesting is personal opinion, this is a little Bible conspiracy theory,

this is Josh, we don't know this for sure. I think what Paul does here is a fulfillment of what Jesus says will happen in Luke 12. So I'm going to read this. So years before, Jesus warned before his crucifix and resurrection, he tells his followers, when you are brought before and listen to what he says, synagogues, rulers, and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say. So if you're wondering, like, do you watch a passage like this?

you're like, man, that was supernaturally brilliant of Paul to do. And I would say you're exactly right. Because Jesus told Paul, the disciples, years earlier, the Holy Spirit will give you supernatural genius when you stand in front of, and he says synagogues and rulers, which is what we're dealing with here. So I just, I find that very interesting. That's good. Well, connected to that.

Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. I got a few more little things. What do you got here? You got something on that? I'll let you go first, then I can fill in any color. That's good. That's great. I don't have a ton, so then we can keep moving.

So Ananias right here is the chief priest. It's very interesting. From what I understand from study this week, when he, so Paul's, Paul, Paul tells him, so he, if he says something, and Ananias commands Paul to be struck on the mouth. Now, very interesting, if I'm understanding this correctly, that actually was a violation. of the rules of procedure for the Sanhedron. Josephus, I did not know this until this week, Josephus, Jewish historian, he records Ananias as being a very corrupt chief priest

and records him as having stolen, he was like stealing tithe dollars from getting to lower-ranking priests, abusive power, that kind of thing. So here's this really interesting. So when he orders Paul to get struck on the mouth, Paul fires right back. God will strike you, you whitewashed wall. And some people think that Paul's words there actually were prophetic. Because Josephus records what ends up happening to Ananias after the closing of the New Testament canon, he ends up getting hunted and killed by these Jewish nationalists because he had like this enmeshed

relationship with the Roman Empire. So some people would go, when Paul says God will strike you, that that actually was a prophetic word that ended up being true because he got assassinated. So I just, I think this is interesting. A couple other, I got two little other things, and then I want to hear what you got. This is a little fun little tidbit. I like this stuff. What Paul says here is after he says, God will strike you, you whitewashed tomb, whitewashed wall.

some people like how dare you insult the high priest and paul goes oh my bad i didn't i missed it i didn't know that was the high priest some people think that's because paul's eyesight was really bad um if you're newer to the bible you may not know this uh galatians 611 there's actually two passages that indicate paul had extremely bad eyesight galatian 611 mentions paul he's like paul goes hey you may notice in my letter i'm writing with really really big letters and he's gone because i can barely see So that may have been why. And then here's the last little Bible conspiracy theory that's fun to think about. So in Acts 23, you know, back half of this is, I think it's 40 guys, if I'm remembering, right?

They make this little pact. We're not going to eat until we kill the Apostle Paul. So if you saw the movie Sicario, like 15 years ago, 15, 20 years ago, that was the Benicio del Toro and Josh Berlin were in that movie. Sicario is named after these Jewish assassins. They were called Sakari. And some people think that's who these guys were. This was a little band of Jewish assassins. In fact, Simon the Zealot, a lot of people think was one of these Jewish Sakari.

Sakari was named, they were named after a little. It was called a Sica, which was a dagger. And they were these Jewish assassins. Some people think that's who these little 40 guys. guys that make this pact were going to kill Paul were this little group that the movie Sicario was named after. So fun little Bible fact. Now, that's what I got. What did I miss, Paul? Oh, you get some great stuff. I think just a few fun tidbits, even just this is a really small one, but the teenage nephew that's mentioned is the only mention of the Apostle Paul's family in the

entire New Testament, is you get it here. And he just happens to be in the right place at the right time. And the reason I said it kind of just happens to be is that in, in, in the, in I'd say this passage, you really see God's sovereignty and his protection on Paul throughout the passage. There's this little word that's used in this passage, but it's actually extremely prevalent throughout the book of Luke and Acts, which if people don't know, is really a two-part work by Luke. He wrote the gospel of Luke and then he wrote the book of Acts. And there's this little word called Day, D-E-I, Day. It's used 34 times in Luke and Acts. And often it carries the sense of divine necessity. Like, this must happen. And it's God's will that this is going to

happen. And so it is going to happen. And so even when Jesus appears to Paul in this past, say you must, that is the word day, you must, it is necessary for you to stand before Caesar. And then look what happens. These guys are kind of plotting this. And then it just happens that Paul's nephew is right there and hears it. And then the Roman commander sends 470 soldiers was what he basically sent with Paul. That would have been 200 soldiers, 200 spearmen, and 70 horsemen to protect him. So that's great that you have 40 guys. If you see that coming, you're going to avoid it. And so it's just an example of just God, when God wants something to happen, there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. And so God's got Paul's back. And really, this is leading up as we're going to be

going over the next couple of months. Like, God is going to get Paul to Rome so that he can testify before season before them in Rome. He's going to happen. And so that's just a kind of a cool little thing, good little reminder that God is with us and it's obviously in control of all things, including these seemingly insignificant details. Yeah, man, that's one of my favorite old Puritan quotes. The Providence, so I'm reading this book right now on vacation. By the way, dude, put this in a show notes because this is a daggum good book. I'm reading the, it's called The American Story.

It's by David Barton, David and Tim Barton. And it's just, I'm a World War II history guy. So I decided to go Revolutionary War on vacation. And this book, the book tracks, it talks a lot about the faith of the guys involved in the Revolutionary War that founded the nation, all this stuff. But it talks so much about the providence of God. And dude, even in stuff like this, like the Lord moving in the hearts of these leaders who were not aligned to Paul. They were not on Team Jesus yet.

But what you get is one of my little favorite Puritan quotes about the providence of God is behind a frowning Providence, there lies a smiling face. And it's just that thing of like, hey, man, no matter what's going on in my life, I know, I don't know why what's happening is happening, but I know who is in control of what's happening. That's right. And there's a, there's a, there's a peace and a settledness that deposits in the heart of a Christian. And you see that in this passage.

It's really cool, man. That's so cool. Part of what Pastor Mike got into in a sermon was the idea of fear. And I think that perfectly segues us into it. Because one of things that I even talk about sometimes off that is that, man, sometimes when you have storms in life, the natural reaction is to be afraid for sure. But even to your point to kind of tie out the sovereignty thing and maybe jump into, hey, what do people do to kind of move past fear? Is that I tell people, man, when you're in the middle of a storm, sometimes what you want are answers, but what you most need are anchors? Like if I'm in a storm out on a ship, like I'm not going to pull up my phone and say, oh, what is the meteorological explanation for the storm I'm in?

No, at that point, if I'm in a storm on a boat, I need anchors that can hold me. And there's a few anchors I always point people to that, man, if you're a believer in Jesus, that God loves you. That's shown first and foremost, ultimately for all time on the cross. But then also to be like, God is in control. And so even if you can't understand it in a moment, an analogy sometimes I'll use is basically when they're making a tapestry, this brilliant piece of woven fabric, if you're to zoom in either at the top or the bottom, depending on how they make it, you would see hundreds and thousands of little threads that are going in every direction. It seems like chaos. but in reality, if you zoom out, there's a master craftsman pulling together all those threads exactly how he wants them to make this masterpiece.

And so I tell people like, in these moments, like with Paul here and in our own lives, one reason that we can live without fear or press on even in the midst of fear is because we can know that God is in control of every little detail, whether it is having Paul's nephew there or the things that are in our lives. But with that being said, you know, you've mentioned maybe just what are some things in terms of encouraging people of how they can get past some of the fears in their lives that they experience? All right, well, this is super personal to me. You know, people have been around Lake Point for a minute.

They know that it was in 2019. I had this, you know, eight months of pre-severe anxiety attacks. And, you know, for people who are newer, I'll just, here's the short thing. Before then, honestly, man, when somebody said they had an anxiety attack or a panic attack, I'd think, oh, man, that's a cute Gen Z way of saying you had a bad day, you know. And then it happened to me, you know, where it's like, and, you know, there's a physical thing. You know, it's like, you know, fingers and toes start tingling,

loose sensation of your body, heart pounding, you think you're going to have a heart attack, throat close up, trigger your gag reflex, you know, all that stuff. And that happened to me for about eight months. And, you know, I popped in somewhere and diagnosed with, they called it agad, acute generalized anxiety disorder. And that lasted for about eight months. And the only thing that I can say,

It was the worst, not even close. It was the worst, a hell that I cannot describe for about eight months. You know, genuinely, without exaggeration, eight months without one moment of what I would call it, a normal human happiness. No ability to do anything for every waking second. except just think about the last time it happened and then be totally consumed with the next time it's going to happen. And, man, we don't, you know, someday that may be worth a bore extended time of the pod, you know, about, there's so much that went into what that experience was like.

Comes and goes in ways and all stuff. But here's what I would say, I'd say a few things, because fear is one of the overarching, it is a universal human experience from the enemy. in fact you'll just notice this is paul says in romans chapter 8 he says because we have not been given a spirit of fear by which we fall back again into slavery but we've been given a a spirit of sonship by which we cry abba father and really what what christians begin to understand is there's like there's a normal human experience of fear but then there's also a satanic supernatural experience of fear where fear becomes not just a feeling. Fear actually becomes a spirit. And what you don't want to do as a Christian

is, you know, there can be, kind of the language I'll use is, man, it's normal for a human to have fear on you. That's normal. But something's wrong when you let it in you. And it almost becomes a spirit on you versus in you as well as I'll say. So let me just say a few things here about fear, because nothing will stop you from fulfilling your calling and doing the things that God put you on his plan to do more than fear. It's Satan's, I think, is number one tactic, that and condemnation. One, I'll say a misconception, and Paul, I'd love, if you got extra thoughts on this, I think it'd be helpful.

I think a lot of Christians mistakenly think, and, dude, this becomes crippling. Christians mistakenly think that fear and faith cannot coexist. They think that fear and faith are the opposite. And you'll even see this, man. There's actually worship songs that I've asked our worship team many years ago. I was like, hey, don't sing that.

Or if you're going to sing that, let's change that lyric. Because it'll imply that fear and faith can't coexist. And here's the problem is if you believe that fear and faith can't coexist, then every time you feel fear, you also start to feel shame, conviction, guilt, condemnation, because then you mistakenly think, oh, because I feel fear, I must not have faith. So then on top of your fear, you layer this condemnation experience

of, man, I don't have faith also. But actually, it's actually the exact opposite. That actually, in the Bible, I don't even need faith if I don't have fear. If I don't have fear, what do I need faith for? And if you go back to Joshua chapter one, when I was coming to Lake Point, this is a passage that God threw some,

people just it was a prophetic word of encouragement they gave me if you go back joshua chapter one josh josh Joshua is taken over for moses's legendary leader there there and he's scared he's like dude i'm i'm not don't know if i'm be able to fill his shoes and three times three times god tells joshua be strong and courageous strong and courageous strong and courageous why because joshua felt weak and afraid weak and afraid we can afraid yeah and here's the big idea is that fear faith, it does not eliminate fear. It overrides it. Faith is not the ability to not have any fear. Faith is the ability to trust God in the midst of your fear and do it anyway.

And the reason that every Christian, I think, needs to understand that, again, is if you don't, then whenever you have fear, you're falsely going to feel that condemnation of, well, man, I must not have faith. And so number, I think honestly, number one, first step in overcoming fear is understanding what it is and is not, and it is not an absence of faith. Now, before I go on, epistle, missile, Paul, anything you would add, subtract or multiply it there? Just a hearty amen. I mean, just really just some color is fear is the necessary prerequisite for faith and courage

to exist. It's even, my mind went to as you're talking, the passage where Jesus literally says, don't be afraid. to his disciples, says, don't fear, I'm sending you out of sheep amongst wolves. Which is when you would want to be afraid. In other words, like, and I was thinking, you know, usually think about like even like with our kids or really with anybody, usually when we tell people, don't be afraid, it's because we're about to be in a situation where that will be a natural feeling for them to feel. And so, like, with that being said, if you look throughout scripture, the places where

God tells people not to be afraid. It's precisely because he knows there's going to be a situation where they're going to feel that feeling. And he doesn't want them to be crippled by it. So if anything, I would just say like, no, fear and just coming against things that make us doubt are just a part of the ballgame for the Christian? The question to what you said is, is are we going to be crippled by it and let it go into us or are we going to push past it and let our faith conquer it?

So no, just right on. Man, that's, yeah, I mean, you just nail it, man. that that's it well let me okay so let me just say for the person and you know if even if you're not there right now you need to tuck this stuff away because again whenever god begins to move you whenever the spirit of god begins to move you towards an action a spirit of fear will try to keep you from that action so so ever i think every christian you've got to have down deep in your spirit what do i do when fear becomes the blocker what do i do so let me just say a few things from my experience and then from from the word about this.

And here's what I'm going to say is, man, if you have friends that they struggle with, you know, anxiety, that's a word we'll use or panic. That's another word we'll use, that kind of thing. What I'm going to say right here is what got me out of it. And so I'll just say this, and this is not everybody's experience. I had those eight months of acute, very acute anxiety. I have never had it since.

I'm more free when I'm teaching now than I was before then. In fact, that's a whole different podcast. That little season broke some things off of me that I needed broken. And so I can say with complete integrity, and I'm not saying this, well, I happen for everybody, but genuinely, like I got freedom from that and it's not a thing for me anymore. So let me just say a few things. I'm going to say seven fast things. And then I wrote a blog post way back then

because so many people reach out to me that experience that same thing. We're going to put that blog post in the show notes. And I wouldn't, if you got friends that are going through that, send them that or send them this podcast as maybe a helper. So I'd say a few quick things. Number one, when I was going through that season, honestly, dude, the number one thing that helped me was encouragement.

This should not be a show. It's one of those things like we, for some reason, we just, encouragement sounds kind of like boring and lame. It's actually like a superpower in the Christian life. And just think about the word, encouragement. It literally means in courage. You're putting courage into somebody. So, dude, I had these friends, and I'm going to name them.

I had these friends. J.R. Lee, Ryan Bisconti was one of those guys. I had a pastor in Kentucky, Daniel, another pastor named Josh over there, that they would text me. and check on me constantly. Hey man, how you doing? And then, dude, they would say things like this. They would say things like, hey, Josh, it won't be this way forever.

And they would send me little verses like from the Psalms where David pray, surely I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And they would just, because if you didn't know this, you've never been through a season like that. What anxiety does, the number one lie is it convinces you things like you'll never be happy again. It's always going to be like this. people hate you and they don't want to have anything to do with you and you know things like that it's just the enemy does lies and so when you got to surround yourself with other with a band of brothers or abanda sisters who are going to encourage you from the word so that's number one let me do the others

quicker number two this is a misconception some christians are really bad at this it's it's the mistake of job's friends it a lot of people think when somebody's going through fear anxiety. Christians, especially ones who have the spiritual gift of teaching, they think, oh, man, what this person needs most is to get a new truth into their mind. And so they'll just start talking. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And honestly, what I found is a lot of people going through anxiety, this was me, they don't need to get new information into their head. They need to get something that's in their heart out through confession. That's great. So they might not need to get something in. They actually might need to get something out. So honestly, and I won't go into this.

in this podcast, there were some things I had going on to my heart that I didn't even realize that were there. I had some unprocessed grief. I had some, very frankly, I had some unconfessed sin that I didn't even know was there that just started bubbling up. I had these doubts that just were just like lurking in these dark recesses. And Jana is the best listener God ever made. And she just sat there and I said the darkest things in my heart out loud to her. And she just looked at me and she loved me. And she, prayed the love of the father over me. Praise God.

And number two, I'd say, is if you get in a deep spot of fear or anxiety, like, figure out what's going on and say the darkest things in your heart out loud to another Christian who will listen to you and love you in the truth. Number three, I did do counseling for a little season there, and we've talked before about, hey, man, when you're getting counseling, you've got to make sure you're getting wise counsel. There's foolish counsel, evil counsel, and wise counsel. So I did get wise counseling from really Jesus-y-Dood. So that was number three.

Number four, this was a big one. Here's the language I'll use. You got to replace rumination with meditation. So when you get people, if you've never been through a season of acute anxiety or even just worry, honestly, man, just like normal home depot grade worry. then, you know, it's rumination. What rumination is, is it's just, it's thinking on replay about the bad things that might happen. Well, what the Bible tells us to do is it says, I will meditate on his wondrous works.

And where rumination is filling your mind with lies and rehearsing in your mind things that haven't happened that you're afraid will happen, meditation is filling your mind with truth and reminding yourself of the wonderful things that God has done and that have happened. That's good. So the little thing, and it was this season of my life, you may have heard me say this in my teaching, it was this season of my life where that little phrase, forgetfulness is the greatest enemy of faith because when we forget what God did, we stop believing what he'll do.

It was that season of my life where like all I could think about, 24, it was like a mind splinter. was just, I was just thinking about the next time I get on stage, how I might have a panic attack in front of 10,000 people and lose my job and my family's not going to have a way to, I'm not going to have a way to support my family, you know, all that stuff. And what I had to do was it was like fighting an aggressive fight for my brain. No, instead of thinking about that, I'm going to remember what God has done. Yes.

I'm going to remember his promises to me, and I'm going to memorize them and replace those things, the rumination with the meditation. Last three, let me do them real quick. I would just give an encouragement to people who go through a little season like that is I would say, man, one thing my counselor told me is, hey, Josh, the way out is through. And I'm not saying this is universal for everybody. But what he told me, and I think he was right for me, is he was like, hey, man, every time you feel fear about stepping on stage to preach, he was like,

every time you avoid it. So every time you tap out of preaching, he was like, you're feeding the beast of the fear, and it's going to get bigger. But then he said, every time you do your fear, you're starving the fear and it's going to get smaller. And so, dude, this was honestly the hardest part of everything. What he said was he said, the way out is through.

The way out is to do your fear anyway. And every time you do the fear, the fear will get smaller. And you're replacing a spirit of fear with a spirit of sonship that cries Abba Fathers that goes, wow, God was a good dad. And he got me through it one more time. And the fear gets smaller. So faith is a muscle, the more you work, the bigger it gets. To connect that for some people that'll let you finish up the other two.

It's just, you know how you get over having a fear of roller coasters? You ride them. I mean, it's really that simple. Now, I know at the moment that could be tough, but even when I go to a theme park, when I go over to Six Flags, every time I go, I hate going up the roller coaster.

I love once it goes down. But without fail, every time I feel this nervousness, but you know what? It goes away when I actually do it. So just connect out with people. I think we all know this, but I think, again, we get to that fear.

Like you said, you just got to push through and do it, and then over time that fear dwindle. So keep going. I'll let you finish out the other two. Yeah, last two, man, is, you know, this is one of those things that can sound like a Christian cliche, but it's actually true. It's prayer.

It's man, it's cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. That's right. It's that when we pray, there's a peace that surpasses understanding. And I just want to point out to a person that's going through fear or grief. It talks about a piece that surpasses understanding. And what that means is that in order to have the peace that God wants to give, have to give up your right to understand. And that's honestly one of the hardest things.

And I just want to say that one more time, a peace that surpasses understanding. So if I want that piece, I have to give up my right to understand. And when you're walking through a severe pain and honestly, anxiety is a form of pain, there is, there's like this indignation in you of like, why? Like I was going like, God, you called me here. You moved, I moved my family here. And now I'm having this a why. And honestly, man, it's like the why question is so unhelpful.

Yes. Because in order for me to get the peace, I got to give up my right to understand and just instead of why, I got to replace the why with a what. And the question you have to begin to ask is what, God, like, I really trust you because you're a good dad. And you give good gifts to your kids. And you give me a spirit of sonship. So, hey, what are you trying to do in me? like you know what's the what is the the part of my character that you're wanting to form what's the thing about your character that you're wanting to teach me and honestly man you can really only learn those

things through prayer and and so i would just say like learning to pray very very honest prayers the collateral damage of true prayer is peace like it's like how do i know how do i know how do i know when heart and spirit have really engaged in genuine prayer with the father peace okay and then the last thing I'll say and then and then we can take an extremely hard emotional gear shift and talk about the death penalty the last thing I'll say is is you got to you got to the cross like you know we'll the little theology phrase nerd thing that we'll talk about sometimes on this pot is being cross-centered or gospel-centered people. And sometimes that phrase gets misused, but it's still a dang good phrase.

And so the reason I say that, yeah, look at the cross is, so in that last thing I said, is you can't start asking why, but why questions are real unhelpful, but here's what you can do. This is all, this is like me riffing on old Tim Keller, is when you look to the cross, man, if I get emotional, this is a spot. When you look to the cross in the middle of your pain, you are never going to know all the reasons for why God allowed your pain. But when you look to the cross and you see the Son of God being crucified for you, you know what the reason can't be.

It can't be because he doesn't love me. I can't think that anymore. It's the Romans verse of, if he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all will he not also with him graciously give us all things and then he goes on to say what can separate us from the love of god what like nothing can't you know you're in that spot you just got to look to the cross and go man I don't understand the whole reason for why all this is happening to me. But I'm looking at that bleeding guy on the cross crying out, Father, forgive Josh Howardton,

for he knows not what he does. And I know that the reason can't be that God doesn't love me. So good. So good. So good. You got anything? No, those are incredible. I think for time's sake, because I know your kids may be about to burst in and join us

on the podcast here at a few minutes potentially. We may need. If the kids come back early, the pod ends early, man. I'm a dad before I'm a pastor. That's right. So listen, if we don't get to some stuff this week, we can always pick it up next week and maybe give a little bit more color and detail.

But as you mentioned, we probably are going to take one of the hardest right or left turns maybe in the history of this podcast now. Go from that to the Pope and to the death penalty and to abortion and all that kind of stuff. So Pastor Josh, how would you like to go about this? Do you want to maybe set up and show them the clip of the Pope or do we want to dive in and maybe give them some preparatory stuff?

How do you want to go about it? All right, let me say a few things on this. So first of all, One of the reasons that we've become aware of the podcast has grown so fast is in part because of what we're doing. Like, hey, man, let's take current events, cultural events. Unless he helped. You know, it's like we're not supposed to just look into the Bible. Look into the Bible.

We're supposed to actually look through the Bible, like a lens through which we view the world. So let me explain a little bit of the strategy behind this. And then I want to watch this clip that went like mega viral on the Pope. So what I'm trying to do as a pastor is I think of discipleship through the categories of air war and ground war. Ground war is when discipleship ground war is applying the gospel to people and families. It's making disciples on the ground, applying it to people and to families. That's ground war. That's the main thing the church does.

But then there's ground war, but then there's also air war. Air war is when we take the gospel and the scriptures and we apply them not just to people and families down here, but to the culture out there. And let me explain just for people that are wondering like, man, why do they like every week talk about these cultural issues? Well, here's why. Because just like I said, I read a lot of military history. It's just a little side gig. Just like in an actual war, if a military force has ground supremacy and they win all the ground battles. but they have no air force, like literally no air force presence, so they can't wage air war.

Then every time they win battles on the ground war and take ground, it actually doesn't matter because then the enemy's air force just swipes back in, wins the air war, bombs them, and undoes all the wins that they just did. Well, what happens to a lot of Christians is churches and pastors, they'll do a great job at the ground war, applying the gospel to people and families. but then because we're not doing a good job of air war applying the gospel to culture and all the things out there, then our people walk out of the church and then they're listening to news feeds every week and reels and podcasts and, you know, higher education and all those things. And if the church won't disciple people, the world will.

So the world is doing air war. And what will happen is if we don't do that, then our people will walk out the door and they will get reversed. disciples out of the things that we just disciple them into. So the reason that we're doing this, what we're about to do on the podcast, is we want to be a church that does a good job of both air war and ground war, applying the gospel to people and families in here and to culture or politics, all the things out there. So that's hard doing this.

Now, let me set this up. Hey, Pod listeners, coming to you from my bedroom because I forgot to stick it in the podcast. I want to invite you to the sermon series we're starting this weekend that I'm really excited about that is answering the question, what is going to happen to you, 60 seconds after you die and how do you receive eternal rewards in the kingdom to come? Answering a lot of end times questions. Judgment of Christ, return of Christ questions.

It's going to be a lot of fun. Title of the series is Run to Win, starting at all time, services and locations at Laypoint this weekend. See you there. All right. So this went like mega viral. And listen,

quick caveat, we love our Catholic brothers and sisters. But, But in contradiction to some beliefs of the historic Catholic Church, the Pope is not infallible. And the Pope did, the Pope had a fallibility moment. He says something that was not quite a win this week. So let's check this out. This went like mega viral.

And then let's talk about this real quick, Paul. So here we got. This is Pope last week. Someone who says I'm against abortion, but says I'm in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life. So someone who says that I'm against abortion, but I'm in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants or in the United States, I don't know if that's pro-life. So they're very complex issues. I don't know if anyone has all the truth on them, but I would ask first and foremost that there be greater respect for one another and that we search together both as human beings, in that case as American citizens or citizens of the state of Illinois. as well as Catholics to say we need to really look closely at all of these ethical issues and to find the way forward as church. The church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear.

All right. All right. So are those all pro-life issues? All right, let's talk about this real quick. Because the reason I'll bring this up is a lot of Christians get will get this thrown at them. Yes. The Christians, Christians that are that are, And by the way, all Christians should be pro-life. Yes. Full stop. 100%. Let me just say all Christians everywhere.

It's the uniform testimony of church history. Literally, I'm just, this is a whole little rant. Literally, the early church formulated a pro-life anti-abortion position literally before the doctrine of the Trinity was formalized. Like all the way back to the did a cane. So let me just say that. So, but Christians who oppose abortion. you'll get this thrown at you oh man you you know you Christians you oppose abortion but you're pro death penalty and or they'll look at stuff like he just

did that it sounded like by the way that post from Chicago that was a very Chicago thing to say I'll just say that as a very very Chicago progressive Christian thing to say so they'll do that they'll go oh man you up you oppose abortion but you're pro death penalty you're not really pro-life for you only care about people when they're in their womb, but then when they're out of the womb, you could care less, that kind of stuff. Yeah. You're not pro-life. You're just pro-birth. That's what I say. So let's talk about this real quick. All right. So first of all, here's the question. Why is it that a lot of Christians right now are

for the death penalty, heads up we should be, against abortion, heads up, we should be, and a lot of Christians right now are for the enforcement of border laws and immigration laws. And heads up, I'm going to say, we should be. I'll talk about this here in a second. So they may go, well, you know, those things seem inconsistent. So let me riff on this really quick. And then I'll say it's not inconsistent at all. Actually, it's extremely consistent. So what a lot of people will do is the mistake they'll make is they'll think,

hey, the Bible is against death or the Bible is against killing. And they'll point to one of the Ten Commandments that says, you shall not, and they'll quote it like this, you shall not kill. Now here's the big idea. The Ten Commandments do not say you shall not kill. it says you shall not murder. There were two different Hebrew words, very distinct Hebrew words, one for killing, which is any taking of human life, and one for murder, which is the taking of innocent human life.

What the Bible forbids is murder, the taking of innocent human life, okay? So think about this. Killing is the taking of life, and oh, by the way, sometimes the Bible commands killing. And I'm going to talk about there in a second. So the Bible sometimes commands killing, but murder is the taking of innocent life, and the Bible always forbids murder. So the big point is the death penalty rightly administered is killing, but it is not murder. Which is the Bible, the Bible actually prescribes the death penalty, commands the death penalty in some instances. Do you want me to give one right now to save it?

Bids, murder. Please, actually give them. Genesis 9 6, I was actually going to refer this, because I have a chart ready to maybe help people walk through the distinctions between these issues. But in Genesis 96, it says, whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. And so, in other words, basically, this person that was killed, was murdered, a better way to say it, was made in God's image. And then basis of that, that's the basis for which then it says, hey, that person should then also be put to death. because as we'll get to in a few minutes, sometimes we'll say, well, hey, the person who is putting, being executed by the government, they were made in God of damage. And they are made in God's image.

And by the way, they are due certain things, which we'll get to here in a few minutes. But the problem with that line of thought is this is actually the image of God, which Genesis 9 uses as the basis for capital punishment, not to do capital punishment. So, yeah. That's exactly right. And let's just play this out. Okay. So what's really interesting is here's where Christians will sometimes struggle is they'll a, and a, um, a, um, a, um, um, a. especially Protestant Christians, will struggle between the distinction of the role of the individual and the role of the state in the Bible.

So, for instance, and especially people who are progressive Christians in particular, they really struggle with this. One thing, this is a whole different podcast. One thing that progressive Christians do is they'll take all of the commands that are given to individuals in the Bible, and they want to apply all those commands to the role of the state. So they'll take things like, hey man, Jesus said not to live by the sword. so governments shouldn't execute the death penalty because we're not supposed to live by the sword. Or Jesus said, the Bible commands us to welcome the immigrant stranger and the sojourner. So that means that government should have open borders and welcome all immigrants.

Or Jesus said to feed the poor. And so that means the government should have redistribution of wealth and unlimited welfare programs. And what we have to understand is we need to think Christianly about these things. the Bible very clearly it distinguishes between the role of the individual and the role of the state. This is why, for example, Jesus forbids and discourages individuals from, quote, living by the sword, but the Bible commands in Romans 13 governments to bear the sword. Now, if you're a thinking Christian, you're going, okay, huh? Well, why would Jesus discourage living by the sword, but then Romans 13 command governments

to bear the sword because the Bible distinguishes between the role of the individual and the role of the state. You can actually do that with immigration. We can do this here in a second. The Bible, let me just say this. I want to continually affirm this. Christians can have disagreements over immigration policy. What no Christian anywhere can disagree on is that we are commanded to as individual Christians show kindness and mercy to immigrants. Yes. So immigrant, this is hilarious. Can you hear that? you hear that banging? Bro, I'm going to show you this. So, dude, you guys literally clean in the window on this, on my, can you wave? Hey, that's awesome. Congratulations. Your face. That's amazing, dude. We're cleaning the windows of this thing. We're on the 23rd floor of this sucker. I would not do

that job. No. You can actually do this with immigration too. So you may go, you may go, like thinking Christians will go, well, the Bible says, really funny, thinking Christians will go, man, why does the Bible command us to love the sojourner and care for the immigrant? But then the same God that commanded that commands the people of God and encourages and provides for in the book of Nehemiah

them building a border wall to protect their borders. And I think it's in Leviticus 28 is I think where it was. Like God is literally warning the purpose. people of Israel, if you are indiscriminate in the immigration that you allow, then eventually, he says, your nation will be overrun by, in that case, I think it uses the word foreigners. And he says, eventually, you will become the tail and they will become the head. So you may be going, well, man, how in the world could it say to love the immigrants and sojourners over here, but then God blesses the nation of Israel building a wall over here, again, because the Bible

distinguishes between the role of the individual and the role of the state. We're with you, Pastor Josh. Don't be worried about that guy. We're with you. Bro, this is hilarious. This is absolutely amazing. This is a first. This is definitely a first in the Live Free podcast history right here.

That's exactly right. If you don't keep going. Well, I just want to get it. So then, so this is why, again, governments are actually commanded in contradiction to what the Pope said there. governments are actually commanded to execute the death penalty in just circumstances that are outlined by God, limited circumstances, for a very specific reason we'll get into here in just a second. So I just want to say it is both it is biblically inaccurate, logically insane, and out of step with the tradition of the Catholic Church itself to oppose the death penalty.

So one question I want to ask is, is the Pope Catholic? Well, this is actually what I was going to bring up was a quote from a guy named Thomas Aquinas, which if people don't know him, he is the giant theologian in Catholic history and Christian history. And he says this, if we consider a man in himself, it is unlawful to kill any man. But notice what he says here. A man in himself, it's really what you just said. If we're talking about individual people, it's unlawful to kill any men. And here he's talking about murder, not self-defense and stuff like that.

But then he goes on, nevertheless, the slaying of a sinner becomes lawful in relation to the common good, which is corrupted by sin. So in other words, he's saying, hey, if we're talking about individuals, no, that is sinful. But when we're talking about in the greater context here, as he's talking about nations and stuff like that, is we're talking about when it's for the common good in certain instances, it is actually lawful. And even Calvin, so we're going now Protestants, he's talking about, he uses the word magistrates, which has become very, very, popular on X lately for certain Christian pastors to say that. To use the word magistrates, I'm just going to say to you if you're listening, it's normal for Calvin to say that, and he sounds awesome. When you say it, you kind of sound Amish.

And so just not the most common word. But yeah, so anyways, magistrates ought to do their utmost to prevent the liberty of which they have been appointed from being in Paris. In other words, to protect people's rights. If in this, they are sluggish, they are perfidious traders to their office and their country. Oh, there's a word. There's a word. Untrustworthy or deceitful is what perfidious means.

So like, those are just two, there's so many more I could highlight that throughout most of Christian history, I say most because you have some early Christians who were more pacifist, but we have to remember for those early Christians, that was before they had any kind of responsibility or ability to actually exert influence in the empire. And then all of a sudden, when Christians found themselves responsible for administering justice, you had people like Augustine who had to say, well, wait a second, and we still live in a fallen, broken world with crime and with evil. We have to administer justice, and we have to do it in a different way.

So that's just the thing. For most of Christian history, people have seen the role of the state is to curtail injustice, and sometimes, sometimes that requires the death penalty. One thing I'd think it'd be helpful here, though, to help people think through this. I made a little bit of a chart just to kind of walk through these things quickly. Well, wait, before you do this, hang on, before you do this. So first of all, by the way, this book, again, sticking in the show notes, book, The American Story by the Bardens. It's amazing. So first of all, very interesting.

The pastors in the colonies, I did not know this until this week. Bro, these guys, these guys were some dudes. But one of the things they did, the pastors in the colonies around the founding era of the United States, they were summoned to preach sermons at the public executions. when the government administered the death penalty. And let me just say that because they were affirming this is a good, it's sad, is it sad? Yep, it is sad. Sin makes things sad.

But they were affirming this is a good, righteous, and just thing. And they were summoned to preach so that the effect of the administration of the death penalty. One, they would call the person who was being executed to repentance because they wanted their soul to be saved. but two, they would preach so that the people would rightly stand in fear of committing the crime that led to the person's death. Oh, I'm here on my kids, so we're going to wrap this up real quick. We'll wrap that up real quick. So I'm going to do this, and I want you to do your chart real quick here. But let me say this.

So I just, I looked up some Catholic. So the question is, is the Pope Catholic? I got two other, I got two other quotes. So like this is a liturated, this is a catechism of the council of, this is from the council of Trent. Okay. So this is Pope, Pope St. Pius, the fifth. Another, this is the pope, okay. Another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities.

He's referencing Romans 13, which says that governments bear the sword. When it says bear the sword, it's specifically referencing both the use of military force to, this is how church historians have typically interpreted it. Both the use of military force to ensure peace and protect their body. orders, and two, the administration of death penalty for righteous biblically defined means. So another kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities. To whom is entrusted power of life and death by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent.

The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this commandment, which prohibits murder. The end of the commandment is the preservation, this is really important, is the reservation and security of human life. So this is what Christians need to get in their head is they can look at things like the death penalty, not only, but especially people who are more wired towards empathy and compassion. Like a man, it feels mean. You know, actually what's mean is allowing people who murder other people to continue in their behavior

or to not administer a severe enough consequence that it puts literally the fear of God in the rest of the populace to discourage the tyrannical behavior. So this is what he's saying. He's saying, no, no, no, this, it prohibits murder, and the commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, this is really important, which is the legitimate avenger of crime naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence, hence these words of David, in the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.

That's Pope Pius V. So the question again becomes is the Pope Catholic. Now, do you want your, I'd love to see, you got a chart? Yeah, I've got a chart. We can put it up there for everybody. I'm really, I created this just to help people think through this. Bivocally irrationally. And so here's what I would say is that when we've already said this, but kind of even sum it up,

that these three issues that the Pope mentioned, abortion, capital punishment, immigration, they're not all pro-life issues, but they are all Imago Day issues. Amago Day is a fancy way of saying image of God, coming from Genesis 1 about how every human is created in the image of God. And because every human is creating the image of God in these issues that we've laid out here, people do have certain rights and things that are due to them. In the case of abortion, that unborn baby has the right to love. live. Period. Full stop. That baby has the right to live. In capital punishment, the one who has

been murdered or been wronged has the right to justice, and the one that's been accused of wrong, has the right to a fair trial, to due process, to all those kinds of things. Because that person was in the image of God. We want to make sure they get a fair trial due process, because that is a weighty thing. If we are saying they are worthy of having their life taken, that's a weighty thing, so we want to make sure that we do that right. With immigration, we would want to say that, and you mentioned this earlier, Pastor Josh, every single single. immigrant is created in the image of God and therefore is worthy of humane treatment and is also worthy of due process. But then this is where we got to be

careful because I think what the Pope did is he then blurred all the lines of distinction between these categories and they're different. So I'll just walk through these briefly and if you're listening and not watching you can go watch this later but then also basically if you can kind of imagine three distinct columns that are separated from each other and what the Pope has tried to do is blur them so all the same thing and they're not because if I'll just kind of walk across these for each of these, abortion involves the taking of innocent life. Capital punishment involves the taking of guilty life, whereas immigration

does not involve taking life at all. So these are very different things. Historically, abortion has been opposed by Christian tradition universally up until recently in just the past 50 to 100 years. As Pastor Josh said earlier, this was established very early on, whereas capital punishment has historically been affirmed by the church as a role of the state. Immigration has historically been seen as a balance of compassion and law and order. It's really saying how do we both be compassionate for people who need to come into our country, but also maintain law and order. Abortion is not open for debate. We did an episode on this about a couple months ago, and some people want to make this an open-headed issue. We can agree to disagree. We really can't. Abortion is a close-handed

issue. It's not open for debate. Capital punishment, it is, though, open for debate about application and whether Christians should be involved and in what matter. Like, we can debate those issues. and we can disagree in those issues. Immigration is open for debate at what is most prudent for the nation and for those wishing to enter it. So that's where when Pastor Josh was talking about, hey, we can disagree on some of the policy issues.

I just, I wanted to show people this to help people understand, hey, these are all Amago Day issues, and we want to treat people as though they are though they are creating the image of God because they are, but they are all so very different from each other. And I think when we collapse and we blur the lines of distinction, it's not helpful whatsoever,

because we're beginning treating these things in a way that scripture and church history does not treat them as well. So I hope that's helpful to you. Yeah. Okay, to verbally highlight what you're doing right here with this chart, Paul, I'm going to read this passage from Romans 13, because if you're a Christian that is politically inclined and you're trying to figure out, okay, man, well, what is the role of the government?

Like, this is a whole different thing. Someday we need to do a podcast on Kipurian spheres. And, okay, role of individual, family, church, and state. They all have, you know, the Bible gives them each unique jurisdictions, unique responsibilities. And what tends to happen is when one of those entities tries to do the role of the other entities, things start getting really jacked up. Things start getting really, really jazz. So, for instance, this is a whole, this is a whole different thing. One of the amazing things that I'm reading this book, The American Story, that the founders of our country instinctively understood is they understood

that because of the jurisdictions, they understood that wherever there is, I'll just put it like this, wherever there's a, wherever more God is always going to result in the need for less government. And more government will always result in a quote-unquote need for less God.

And that's rough language. So for instance, whenever you have a populace that's not full of the spirit that is not trying to walk in obedience to the Lord that is not obeying his principles, that becomes a lawless people. And so less God requires more government. You need more police. Husbands and daddies are not working hard like the Bible commands them to. So you need, quote unquote, need more welfare. So less God is always going to equal more government. Whenever the government gets really, really big, well, what ends up

happening is the government starts trying to do the church's job and infringes on the role of the church. and you end up with big government small church. Well, what we want. This is a whole different thing. Anyway, let me get to this. This is Romans 13. So we're talking about jurisdiction of the government. Here's the passage we're talking about.

And I'm going to read like six verses. So like just track with me here. Let every person be subject to governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those that have been instituted by God. So pause. There are three institutions that God created in the Bible for human flourishing. the family, the church, and the state.

So this is acknowledging the fact that the idea of human governments came from God. That's the Institute of God. Verse two, therefore, whoever resists the authorities resist what God has appointed. That's why Christians, we are law-abiding people. Always have been. For rulers, this is really important. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but too bad. Now, pause.

What that verse just said is one of the roles of a right- government is to be a quote terror to bad conduct bro this is really interesting so I was watching Christians react at the you know Charlie Kirk Memorial a couple weeks ago and Stephen Miller got up and Stephen Miller to my knowledge is not a Christian but Steve Miller got up and he was a he was a he was like fiery and he was speaking to the type of people that assassinated Charlie Kirk and he was like it was essentially like a we will hunt you down we will give you no right rest. Essentially, it was an intentionally terrifying and intimidating speech. And I saw some well-meaning but naive Christians saying, man, the rest of this thing felt very Christian. But when he's giving

this intimidating speech, it wasn't very Christian. I actually, even though Stephen Miller is not a Christian, the principles he was articulating, they're actually very Christian. That actually a righteous government exists to be a terror to those who do wrong. So verse three, would you have no fear of the one who is in authority, then do what's good, and you'll receive his approval. Okay. Now, verse four, this is where we get to the death penalty application. For he is God's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, this is a biblical command.

If you do wrong, be afraid. Yeah. To use the, you know, to use the theology nerd, the civil magistrate, the governing authority, in part exists to create a society, a society. in which people are terrified of doing wrong things. Be afraid. Why? For he does not bear the sword in vain. In other words, the death penalty is a just biblically prescribed means of punishment for

some offenses, biblically defined. And listen, here's the big idea. It's not out of hatred for the one who did the wrong. It's out of love for the people who didn't. Yes. It's justice for the person who is robbed of a loved one, and it's to exist as a severe fear of God repellent to anyone practicing that behavior in the future. This is why, and I know this sounds like, that feels like a lot, the death penalty administered under the Old Testament, they were public executions. And that's, you know, reading this book, that's how the death penalty was originally administered in the,

the United States under a very predominantly Christian leadership. Why? So that it would instill, just like Romans 13 says, a terror in the hearts of people who would wish to do wrong, that they would see it and go, I don't want to do anything that would result in that happening to me. Now last thing that it says here, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. So there it is. I mean, you got it right there. biblical prescription for death penalty. And I think with that, what people should know, and you kind of hit on this, is that, man,

scripture says that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. That's right. And so we should never, as Christians, get to point where we take pleasure in things like the death penalty or any kind of law enforcement, for sure, in terms of when they have to exhibit things that seem mean to us.

But what we should in a sense take pleasure and is justice being upheld because God is also a God of justice. So he doesn't take personal pleasure in the wicked dying, but at the same time, he does want justice to be upheld and righteousness to be upheld. And so I think that's what we have to remember is that if God feels that way, we can feel that way too. That on the one hand, we would take no pleasure

when things like capital punishment after happen, but what we can say is good and right is when we live in a society that is just. And part of God's tool right now, while we still live in a broken world, to restrain evil, there are things like capital punishment and enforcement. And it's really just holding these two things in tension.

And I think where we go wrong to your point, is when we lose one of those, when we lose one of those tension points. So, well, Pastor Josh, your kids are home, and I know you need to go. Go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, well, I think they, I think we're headed out of the beach here,

so I'm going to duck out. But last thing I'm going to say is, you know, the other thing that, actually, real quick, we'll do it, and we'll wrap this thing up in 120 seconds. Play that clip. Do you guys got that clip with the thing the Seattle mayor said this week?

Now, don't play it yet. Don't play it yet. Let me set this up. I'm going to give you an example of what happens. So this is a perfect example of what happens when jurisdictions get confused. And governments start, you know, Romans 13 says the role of the government is justice. So just heads up, the role of the government is not mercy. The role of the government is not compassion.

The role of the government is justice. Now, the role of individual Christians, we are. We are to be people of extreme mercy, extreme compassion. But then you may go, well, man, okay, well, what happens when biblical jurisdictions get confused? And the state starts trying to embody the things that the individuals are supposed to embody. You're going to see an example of that in this clip. This is the mayor of Seattle. And, you know, we all know this.

That's a city right now that is overrun with extreme rampant lawlessness. I have pastor friends who were there. You know, it's the kind of thing where it's like you can't take. your kid to a children's park because it's used condoms and you know use needles everywhere and homeless people you know sleeping on all the all the slides okay well you go man well wonder how they got like that well this is how they got like that so toss up that that clip of the seattle mayor real quick the criminal system has had a disparate impact on black and brown communities let me lead with that so when this person's

committing six or seven crimes. I don't know his or her story. Can we pause that? Okay, let me just say that. First of all, listen, this is a whole different discussion. It doesn't matter. Like, if you go back to, and this came from the founders, if you go back to Lady Justice, Lady Justice, whenever you see her depicted in public forums, she always has a blindfold on. The reason for that is in biblical justice, biblical justice is blind. It's totally blind to the person that is being on trial. So what we can't do is it is actually unjust when we start caring about like ethnic quotas in how justice gets administered. It doesn't matter what color somebody's skin is. We don't care. What we care is that justice is administered. So that being said, move on. You're going to watch how this ends.

maybe they were abused as a child maybe they're hungry so my my remedy is to find their life story to see how we could help first I have no desire to put them in jail there it is yeah there it is see what you have right there is yeah I know what you have right there is you have the same again you have the governing authority old King James would use the word civil magistrate and he's gone man, he's gone empathy on criminals. So he's gone, man, what about their backstory? Maybe they were hungry and that's why they stole or maybe they needed counseling and that's why they did what they did.

And again, doesn't matter because the role of the governing authority is justice, Romans 13. Here's why that really matters. How do you get a city that is overrun with lawlessness? How do you get a city where you can't go to a children's park because there's used condoms and needles everywhere? how do you get a city where pastor friends of mine have Molotov cocktails thrown into their churches and Antifa members allegedly, like somebody literally shooting a church member in the back as he's walking into one of my friends' churches that is a pastor in Seattle.

How do you get that? Well, here's how you get it. This is really important. Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. That's what you have to understand. That's an old John Adams quote. is when the civil magistrate, when governing authorities begin doing what individuals ought to be doing, we should be people of mercy and compassion.

But when the government stops doing its job of justice and instead starts doing the individual's job of mercy, well, mercy to the guilty becomes cruelty to the innocent. Because then all the innocent people have to live under the fear and the tyranny of the guilty people who are still roaming free. other thoughts there, Paul? I think when I'll keep these short, because again, I want to get you down to the beach. But I think everybody knows this internally at a deep core level. And I actually thought about breaking this on, but again, I was trying to keep this tight. A few years ago, actually what I was living in Washington, not too far from Seattle,

about an hour and a half north, there is this period of time where you had a lot of extremely left progressive cities where the citizens were trying to vote out the district attorneys because they had become so progressive in their policies. that crime was overrunning the city. So I believe it was in San Francisco where they actually did vote the person out. And basically, you know, he kind of put in very far left policies.

And I had actually found a picture where there was a woman draped in a rainbow flag, but holding up a sign to say vote this person out because he's not helping us have law and order. So I'm saying this person was obviously not a conservative, but even people that were on the left got to the point where they realized I can't even walk in my city and feel safe.

I can't do basic things. And so I think deep down, everybody knows that if you had to live in a place where there is anarchy because of a lack of law and order or in a place where there is law and order, everyone wants to live in the place where there's law and order. So I think it's something that we know in our hearts. But sometimes people want to drag, but when we do, it has terrible consequences to what you're saying. So I think something at all up, I think as Christians, to your point, we want to have compassion. We want to long to see the salvation of every person who's committed of crime, of every person, period. And we also want to see that this is that we have a God of justice and righteousness in order who wants to help create that world. And part of the role that he is, part of the thing that he has done in our world is given the government that role.

So we should wholeheartedly support our government and establishing law and order in our nation. Bro. And that's, okay. I'm going to say one last thing. And then I'm just going to, I'm going to pray us out. So again, because your Christians are going to struggle with this, I think for the next few years on the immigration thing. because every Christian that has the Spirit of God inside of them, they will see anybody anywhere and go, man, I love that person,

and I want good things to that person. And so they'll struggle with the enforcement of immigration laws. But to what you just said, Paul, and to what we just read out of Romans 13, let me apply what we just said to immigration, which you have right there in the mayor of Seattle and in that mentality is you have, it's misdirected empathy. It's empathy without any limits. and when empathy runs amok, again, it becomes a mercy to the guilty as cruelty to the innocent.

So think about this. With the enforcement of immigration laws, we don't enforce immigration laws because we hate the people on the outside of our country. We enforce them because we love the people on the inside of it. Yes. So think about in the same way that a governing leader is over the populace in the same way that a dad is, over and responsible for his family. So in the same way that, hey man, if somebody comes to my door at 3 a.m. and they knock on the door, you better be darn sure. I'm going to vet that person before I let them come into my house and spend time with my wife and my kids. Why? It's not

because I hate the person on the outside. It's because I really love the people on the inside. The reason that we enforce immigration laws is the same reason that governing leaders, they have a responsibility to the population of a nation that they do not have to the rest of the world. And so what they have is they enforce immigration laws, not because they hate the people on the outside, but because they have a responsibility to and a love for the people on the inside. So it's the same application of those things. All right, I'm going to pray us out, and now I'm going to the beach, man. Jesus, thank you for our people.

Thank you for the Word of God. I pray for anybody that's struggling, especially with fear or anxiety. And Lord, I pray that you would just deposit it in their spirit right now, that that person, has not been given a spirit of fear, but you have placed within them a spirit of love and of power and of a sound mind by which they can cry, Abba, Father. They just mad they got God that loves them. So, Father, I pray that we walk by faith this week in the Son of God, and I pray that you would supernaturally set people free from what the enemy is trying to use to bind them from

obedience and freedom in Jesus. And I pray it in Christ's name. Amen. Thanks, Pastor Josh. Okay. Yeah, man. Peace. Thanks for tuning in to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We pray today's episode helped you take a step forward in life, culture, and faith as you live free in Christ.

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