Why Pastors Fall Into Sin

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Good afternoon everyone. It is Saturday, November the ninth, twenty twenty four. It is currently one forty eight pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. For two thousand years, Christians have fallen into sin over and over and over and over again. Sometimes they've fallen into sin and it remains a secret, it remains hidden, and no one knows anything about it. Sometimes they fall into sin and it becomes public knowledge. They are found out and it is scandalous and everyone starts talking about it, and it's shocking and it's devastating. And sometimes not just sometimes many times during that two thousand year period, even pastors who stand behind a pulpit, who hold the Word of God in their hands and they proclaim it and they preach it and they teach it, even they fall into sin. They commit some sin. Sometimes it's private, it's secret, and no one knows about it. And sometimes their sin is exposed and everyone finds out and it's scandalous and it's hurtful and everyone talks about it. But what's the one thing

1:36 that is a certainty is that over and over and over, sin occur, sin occur, sin occur, sinoccurs. But ladies and gentlemen, I don't know what you're doing right now, but stop doing what you're doing. If you're driving your car, pull over to the side of the road and stop. If your kids are making noise, ay, sh stop. If your spouse is bothering you, tell them to be quiet. If you're doing something, stop you're doing is sit down. Because ladies and gentlemen, after two thousand years, we have discovered the secret. The shocking secret has finally been revealed. We now know why pastors fall into sin. The I mean the answer obviously. I guess it was so simple that we should have seen it, but we've all missed it.

2:24 But we've now finally got the answer. If pastors would simply fix this one thing, they would not fall into sin anymore. I guess maybe they would just stop sinning completely. I guess possibly they would be perfect. I don't know, but all they have to do is fix one little thing. And I am going to share that secret with you. I'm not even going to charge it for you. I'm not gonna put this behind a paywall. I'm going to share this with you for free. And so then immediately as soon as you're done, you can get on the phone. You can call your pastor and you can say hey, hey, hey, I want to help you. I don't want you to ever fall into sin. Here's the only thing you need to do.

3:06 All you have to do. It's simple, and I got it for free on the internet. Are you ready? Are you ready to find out what the secret is? Now? I'm thinking if the secret will help, if a pastor will do this one thing, it will keep them from falling into sin. I'm assuming the principle is transferable, right, then this is the only thing you need to do to stop from sinning. If it stops a pastor from sinning, if it will stop a pastor from falling into sin, I'm assuming it will stop you and I from falling into sin. Right. I mean, maybe this has been the secret we've all need. We've been talking a lot about Christians and sin and that, well, we're perpetually in a state of sin. Right. If God's standard is be holy as He is holy, no one ever meets that standard.

3:51 So we're in a perpetual state of sin. So I don't even know what it means to fall into sin, because we're already into sin. I guess we mean falling into a specific sin. But you get the idea. So maybe if the secret is, hey, pastors, fix this, you won't fall into sin. Well, then I guess it's transferable. Hey, you sitting in the pew, Hey you listening to this podcast, do this one thing, and you too can be free from sinning ever again. Now, I think you can detect that I'm being very sarcastic. I think you can probably hear it in my voice. I'm trying to be a little over dramatic. I don't know he's over dramatic for me. It's just a normal day. But okay, you get the idea.

4:34 But we're going to talk about this now. I do have to say this, as many of you know, I think it was in the month of October. I think it was October. A big scandal broke very famous pastor, very much associated with Lordship Salvation MacArthur Liganaire Ministries. This person, very very very very very famous, was. Found to have been in sin, committed a great sin, removed from ministry, and all these things happened. Everyone was talking about it and talking about it and talking about it. There's been YouTube video after YouTube video made. Everyone's been discussing it. And you know what my policy was, I'm not mentioning the name, I'm not getting into it, but I'm going to take this truth about this pastor following of the sin, and that we will talk about sin in a much more deeper way. Right. So that has been my approach, instead of getting on the air and mentioning the pastor's name and talking about the scandal and going through all the little information that people are finding and just kind of turning into a tabloid, you know, a Christian podcast, which many Christian podcasts love when they're scandal because that's what it kind of becomes. I'm like, we're gonna look at this from a deeper from a philological perspective. And that led to our series on the Six Secrets of the Christian Life.

5:54 We talked about it. We've been talking about law, gospel, so called sanctification, all these issues within and christendom. And so I think our approach was I think it was better. I think it was avoided all the rumors and gossip and slander and not when a pastor falls into sin. I mean, I guess you can put them on full blast, but all you ultimately do is hurt everyone involved. So I just I made a clear decision and that's the way I handled it, and hopefully our discussion. Has been beneficial. But in the meantime, those people on YouTube, they haven't stopped mentioning the name of the guy because those videos are obviously getting them the more downloads and the more streams, so they keep talking and talking and talking and talking about it. Now, for the most part, I've kind of avoided most of the videos. I've clicked on a few, but then yesterday, yesterday I there was a video in title like the shocking truth has been revealed. The shocking truth has been revealed. We a major update on this controversy is shocking truth. And all the videos are like, hey, we now have the shocking truth of why this pastor fell into sin. We now know what was the cause.

7:06 And I'm like, WHOA do I listen to this? So I started playing one and within like sixty seconds, it felt like sixty seconds, It may have been a little bit longer. I didn't time it. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. So we're getting ready to listen to the audio of a video that I found on YouTube where they are going to argue that they now understand they have the secret of why pastors fall into sin, and if pastors will just fix this one thing, they'll stop falling into sin. And of course, logically, my argument will be, well, if this will keep pastors from falling into sin, then this should be transferable and this should keep us all from sin. All right, So already there's some like a major theological problems with all of that.

7:50 Let me state it again. I'm going to be a repetitive. God's standard is be holy as He is holy. No one is ever going to do that. In this life. So you were in a perpetual state of sin, that's one command. You never obey that command. You're in a perpetual state of sin. Love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul. You're never going to do that. You're in a perpetual state of sin. Love your neighbor as yourself. You're never gonna do that. You're in a perpetual state of sin. Love your enemy. You're never gonna do that. You're in a perpetual state of sin. We are all in a perpetual state of sin. Now you can say, but I didn't fall into that sin, or I didn't fall into that sin. Now you're just drawing distinction. I guess you can create a list of you know, mortal sin versus venial sin. I guess you could do that, right, I mean, if you want to, if you want to be a good.

8:32 Catholic, I guess you could do that. Many Protestants have their own list of mortal and venial sins. But the reality is we're in a perpetual state of sin. Everyone is. And Christians sell it like, oh no, when you become a Christian, of course we've heard it a million times, you become a new creature. Old things to perhaps way all things have become new, And we teach that is if that's a practical truth, which we know it is not, because if everything is changed and the old is gone and everything is new, then that means I would should be able to be sinless, because where is sin coming from? Because that would mean my nature is completely transformed. But we know this, people keep sinning, so we know that that is speaking of our perpetual, our positional standing, not our practical reality. So we've talked about this stuff over and over and over. So I was shocked to find out that I guess for two thousand years and we've missed the secret. We're about to find out why pastors fall into sin and making it transferable, why you sin?

9:29 And when we say fall into sin, I don't know exactly what we were already in sin. But okay, okay, here we go. Are you ready to hear this? We're going to take it apart. Oh boy, oh boy, this m this is about to be a trip. Are you ready? Here we go? I found this on YouTube. It was random. Look, you may agree with him, that's okay. That's one of the beauties of this podcast. I always try to present both sides. I try to let you hear their hypotheses. I'm going to give you my hypothesis. I'm already obviously reviewing mine. You already know mine, and you can determine which one you want. All right, But here we. Go.

10:11 During the month of October, I didn't make any videos. I took some time off. I had to catch up on a lot of things, that I had I needed to do, and so I kind of let YouTube take a break from me for a little while, and it was a blessing. But during that time, this old Steve loss and scandal flared up, and I just let it go because I just, you know, I just needed a break and I had to resist the temptation to speak on this. Now that's the first time the name has ever been mentioned here on I think this broadcast. I've avoided the name. I've stayed away from all the scandalous you know, gossiply gossip kind of slander type thing that's going around. But he mentioned the name, and I'm not have any desire to get into all of that. I think the issue is about something deeper, right, It's not about him. It's about something deeper. It's about how Christian theology, for the most part, doesn't really know how to deal within We say we do, but we don't because our basic theology is when you become a Christian, you basically stop sinning, and if you sin, it's like, oh, how did that happen?

11:14 I don't know. Maybe because our entire theology on the subject is so broken and confused, and we live in a state of perpetual pretend because we pretend to be that which we aren't. So he mentioned the name, all. Right, but that let me make it very clear. This episode is not about the individual who fail. This episode is not about that scandal. This episode is not about that. See, if you mention the name, everyone will become fixated with that, and and then everybody else start arguing it's not about that. It's about a deeper issue because in this video, this individual is going to explain why pastors fall. And I am baffled by the theology that would lead you to come to this conclusion. I think it's a theology that is absolutely abhorrent and disconnected to historical biblical Christianity. But let's hear it. So I'm going to back that up so you get it all in context. Here we go.

12:14 During the month of October, I didn't make any videos. I took some time off. I had to catch up on a lot of things that had I needed to do, and so I kind of let YouTube take a break from me for a little while, and it was a blessing. But during that time, this old Steve lost and scandal flared up, and I just let it go because I just you know, I just needed a break and I had to resist the temptation to speak on this. My position has always been, and it's been it's been proven again and again that if a man has bad morals, then it's because he had bad doctrine. Somewhere did you hear that if a man has bad morals, it's because he has bad doctrine. If your morality is bad, it's because your doctrine is bad. Then Therefore, the logical conclusion would be, if you get your doctrine right, then ladies and gentlemen, your morality will be right. So good morality flows from good doctrine, and bad morality flows from bad doctrine. So the quality of your doctrine determines the level of morality in which one lives. Now, there are so many problems with this, but the obvious question was, well, who's doctrine is the right one? Right, because he's gonna say it's this doctrine or this doctrine, but someone else will say, but it's this doctrine and this doctrine two thousand years. Christians don't agree on anything doctrinally, We don't agree on anything.

13:43 We don't agree on salvation. The Lord's Supper, baptism, repentance, You go on and on and on and on and on. So who gets to say, well, your morality is bad because your doctrine is bad. Well, see that works great. When someone from the other doctrinal camp falls into sin, then you'll like, well, obviously they're in sin because their doctrine is wrong. But what happens when people in your camp who holds to your doctrine falls into sin? What's the excuse? Then, Well, somewhere their doctrine is wrong is doctrine. The reason that people sin is doctrine. The reason your morality is determined by your doctrine.

14:24 Do you understand that this is like a philologically just this is insane? This, this is a complete I don't even understand how you can say that from a biblical worldview. So I'm gonna play this again, let him state it again, let it play out a little bit, and then I'm going to take this whole hypothesis apart. This I literally when I would and I know I'm over dramatic, but this, this is no hyperbole. I was sitting literally in this chair. The microphone was turned to the side, but I was sitting in this chair from the table I broadcast from watching that video. As soon as he said that, I literally just fell out of my chair.

15:06 Literally. I know it's over dramatic and you know, but I did. I just fell out of my chair. Was like, I give up. I give Christian ladies and gentlemen. Christianity is dead. Historical biblical Christianity no longer exists. Whatever this new thing is, I don't know what it is. But historical biblical Christianity would never say your morality flows from your doctrine. Your morality flows, I don't know, from something else. Right, Your doctrine informs you of your morality. Your doctrine informs you of your problem, and your doctrine should inform you of the only solution, which is an imputed righteousness, not an infused righteousness unless you're Catholic. Okay, let's see. Then that's a different doctrinal system. Are what we see? We can go all day on this, all right, Well, let's let's play this all again. Let's play this all again because I want to be fair.

15:57 I want to be fair. Here we go. During the month of October, I didn't make any videos. I took some time off. I had to catch up on a lot of things that I needed to do, and so I kind of let YouTube take a break from me for a little while, and it was a blessing. But during that time, this old Steve loss In scandal flared up, and I just let it go because I just, you know, I just needed a break, and I had to resist the temptation to speak on this. My position has always been, and it's been it's been proven again and again that if a man has bad morals, then it's because he had bad doctrine somewhere. That's what it is, and that's why the theme of this channel is Doctrine matters, because it does. What you believe about God affects everything about you. All of your philosophy is born out of your theology, always has been, always will be. And so I thought, well, there's got to be something in the life of Steve Lawson that was way off that nobody caught some belief that he held that was not I'd be like shockingly erroneous or maybe even heretical. And it has to be something other than his Calvinism. There's got to be something else there, and it has come out what that is. And in today's video. I'll tell you what it is. Don't go away. Well, hello friend this

17:30 year friend Spencer here, I'm going to talk about this for a little while, the Steve Lost situation. Go ahead, smite, not like but nor the Lezard people will get you. And the Lezard people did left a footnote on my last video. Isn't that wild? But whatever, that's what they did, all right. So he did all of his things. You know, you can follow his channel. Okay, great, So now he's going to get into the supposed massive doctrinal error in Steve loss life that I guess leads to the end morality. But the hypothesis is I want to before we get to the shocking doctrinal error and his life, all right, which is which is a problem. If it's true, it is a problem, but it's a problem more about Christianity in general. But let's get to this hypothesis. Let's let's get to the hypotheses first.

18:15 Then we'll get to the doctor the shocking revelation, and then you can determine what you think about it. I think I think the shocking revelation, if true, is problematic, but it's problematic for a different reason. It's not because well, because of this, this is why he's sinned. Because I'm gonna give you some shocking information about why pastor sin and you're gonna probably, you know, you're gonna possibly be shocked by it, but it should make sense. But all right, but let's look at this all right. When you say that doctrine is the thing that determines whether someone falls into sin or doesn't fall into sin, you are completely destroying the basic philological understanding of where sin comes from. See, sin arise is inside of us because we have a sinful nature. We are born sinners. Therefore our natural behavior is sinful, and even our good behavior is tainted by sin because we are sinners on the inside, and that sinful nature is not eradicated or removed in salvation. So even as a saved person, you are still a sinner.

19:28 Therefore you continue to sin. How do I know this? Well, because if your sinful nature is completely eradicated, then you can be perfect. But since we can't be perfect, what is keeping us from perfection? There's got to be something keeping me from perfection. What is it? It's the sin nature that still remains. Positionally, I'm a new creature, old has passed away, all things have become new. Practically, I'm just the exact same sinner I was before salvation, because imputed righteousness does not change me practically, it changes me positional. That's why we for two thousand years we see in the church. Sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin sin. Where does the sin come from? It comes from inside.

20:10 I can have all the right doctrine, according to whoever's judging what the right doctrine is, because that's a whole different problem. But I can have all the right doctrine. All my teas are crossed, all my eyes are dotted. I've got the comma in the right place, the period, all the punctuation is right, grammatically is right, subject verb, agreement, everything is perfect. It's the greatest doctrinal statement ever put on paper and the history of human kind. And I can have that doctrinal statement memorized. I could defend it and a debate. I could prove it, I could articulate it, I could preach it, I could teach it, and I can still be in a perpetual state of sin, because guess what I am. No matter how good your doctrine is, and if you think doctrine stops you from sinning. You don't understand sin. The idea that a pastor falls into sin purely because of doctrinal error as an oversimplification and in many ways a flawed perspective on the.

21:11 Nature of sin itself. In fact, what you guess what? This is kind of funny to make a statement like that means your doctrine of sin is in an error. That's the Isn't that ironic? He's saying Steve Lawson fell because his doctrine was wrong, and that the reason people fall into sin is because of wrong doctrine. That's a wrong doctrine on sin. So he's perpetuating a wrong doctrine on sin while condemning someone else for falling into sin because their doctrine was wrong. Don't you find that the most ironic, ridiculous thing you've ever seen in your life? This viewpoint assumes that all sinful actions directly stem from incorrect beliefs. Rather than recognizing the complex and deeply ingrained nature of sin inside human beings sin, we need to see sin as a human condition. The Christian understanding of sin as articulated throughout scripture suggests that sin is not merely the product of doctrinal misunderstanding, but as it is a fundamental part of human nature, well correct doctrine is essential.

22:23 Human beings, regardless. Of their theological accuracy, struggle with sin because of an inherent sinful nature. This perspective acknowledges that everyone is. Successible, successible to sin, not just due to knowledge gaps, but due to in innate inclination towards disobedience. We're all susceptible to sin. Every single one of us is susceptible. There is not a sin you, as a Christian cannot commit. Let me state that again. There is not a sin that you cannot commit. Now we can get into blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. We can get into what that is or is it? Can that even be committed today? So let's set that argument aside, because that's five hour discussion. Other let's just set that one aside. There is no sin you cannot commit as a Christian. There's none you could You could. You could fall into any sin, no matter how horrible, no matter how I mean. Look at David. Now, I know people said, well the Old Testament Saints, I know you. We can make all these arguments. The point is, there is not a sin you cannot commit. I don't care how right your doctrine is, because the sin is a part of your condition. It's who you are by nature. You're transformed positionally, but practically you're just a sinner, so you're subcept succeptible to it. If I can for some reason state that word correctly, you are. You have an innate inclination towards it, You're pulled to it. It is who you are. You sin because you are a sinner, and you will be a sinner until glorification. As your doctrine will not change

24:01 that to say right doctrine. Hey, that person fall into sin because their doctrine is wrong. So all we have to do is get all Christians the right doctrine and they all stop sinning. Well, how come no one has figured that out in two thousand years? Which church has the right doctrine so everyone can stop sinning? Does this guy on YouTube? I guess he's assuming that because he has right doctrine, he's never going to fall into sin. Well, then is he not changing the definition of what sin is? Because you know what that person right there on YouTube talking, He's a sinner perpetually by any right definition of sin. So the Christian understanding is that sin is a part of the human condition. It's not a result of doctrinal belief.

24:46 It's not going to change that. It's a fundamental part of our human nature. Correct doctrine may be essential, but human beings, regardless of their theological accuracy, will struggle with sin because of an inherent sinful nature. This perspective acknowledges that everyone is susceptible to sin, not just due to knowledge gaps, but due to an innate inclination towards disobedience. Number two. So, first of all, we have to understand sin as a human condition. Next, we have to see the complexity of temptation and sin. The argument that basically wrong doctrine leads to wrong morals reduces the cause of sin to an intellectual understanding, where scripture and experience show that temptation and sin often arise from a mix of emotional, psychological, situational factors. Even individuals with sound doctrine can fall prey to these influences, and reducing the cause to doctrinal error ignores the complexity and multifaceted struggles people face sin and why you're drawn to sin.

25:48 Not only does it come from your human nature. It comes from lots of psychological things. And okay, are you ready for this? This is going to be shocking. Are you ready for this? The Steve Lowson thing, it deals with an inappropriate relationship, whether of sexual nature or just an online nature, of a sexual kind, romantic, whatever, however you want to classify it. I know. Okay, are you ready for this? This is going to be shocking. You ready, Okay? Pastors they desire sex. Pastors can look at people and be attracted to them and desire them and want them and lust and have fantasies. Pastors they can desire romantic relationship.

26:36 I know this is shocking news, Ladies and gentlemen, I know this is shocking. But they're human beings with biological needs, psychological needs. And sinful desires. Pastors sin because they're human, like everyone else, has a sinful nature. I am not excusing anyone sin, but it's ridiculous to say, well, the reason Steve lost and follow in discin is because his doctrine was wrong. If you'd have had right doctrine, he would never have these desires. These desires are a part of who we are as human beings. We're born sinners, So our natural desire is sinful. That's the natural desire. Any desire that's not sinful is other than our nature.

27:17 Our nature. I hate to quote Lady Gaga, but we were born this way. We're born sinners. That's who we are, that's what we do. That's why two thousand years of church history is sins and sinse and sins. And since that's why in your life you're twenty four every twenty four hours, it's twenty four hours of sin of failure. Because God's standard is perfection internally and externally, and you're perpetually not in a state of perfection. So you're perpetually in a state of sin. And you know why you sin, because you have a sinful nature. You have sinful lust, sinful desires. Pastors do as well. Pastors can hate people. They can be bitter, they can be angry, they can be deceitful, they can be narcissists, they can be prideful, they can be anger, they can be better, they can be lustful, they can be you name it, they can be anything anybody else can be. Because they are sinners, not excusing anything.

28:20 All the doctrine in the world will not fix that. So when you say that doctrine wrong doctrine leads to bad morals and good doctrine leads to good morals, it's just an oversimplification, not only of human nature, but of the complexity of temptation and sin. Not only that, does it not misunderstand spiritual warfare. The New Testament repeatedly emphasizes the spiritual battle believer's face and playing that sin can also be a result of spiritual forces and not merely intellectual failings. Reducing a pastor's fall to doctrinal error misses the reality of this struggle, which often involves a combination of internal weakness and external pressure and spiritual opposition. Do we are we in a spiritual war or not? Do we not war against the lust of the flesh, the eyes, and the pride of life? Do we not believe Satan is a roaring line Roman about seeking whom he may devour?

29:12 Don't we believe that the sinful nature is still present? And somehow I get right doctrine and that all fixes it. The lust of the flesh goes away, the lust of the eyes goes away, the pride of life goes away. That is just that is doctrinal error about sin. The claim that pastoral sin stems solely from doctrinal error fails to recognize the complexity of sin and oversimplifies, oversimplifies human behavior, and does not account for the broader theological understanding of human nature, temptation, and the need for spiritual vigilance. Even with perfect doctrine, pastors and all believers remain bound by their human nature. The apostle Paul expresses this struggle in Roman seven, where he laments his inability to do good in his desire because to do good he desires because of the sin dwelling in him. This reality underscores that sin is not merely an intellectual or doctrinal issue, but a pervasive condition impacting every area of life. Doctrine can certainly guide, convict or informed, but it cannot transform the fundamental nature of humanity. This transformation does not occur through right doctrine.

30:27 Right doctrine doesn't fix anything. Other than this. When s okay, let me state that again. Right doctrine does not fix anything related to your nature. It doesn't transform your nature or change your nature. What right doctrine does is tell you, hey, that's a sin and you're like, oh, wow, I didn't know that's a sin. I want to do that. I love that, I desire that, I may even engage in that. But doctrinally I understand that it's wrong. See, Doctrine will inform you that what you're doing is wrong. Doctrine will inform you that you should feel guilty. Doctrine will show you you're wrong. Doc will say you should believe this, and you should believe this. But it does not change your nature, So it doesn't do anything to your nature. It does hopefully change your mind about things, or you may struggle, you may have guilt, you may have shame, you may fight against it, but you will at least, if you're going to be true to your doctrine, will at least acknowledge.

31:17 Like I'm not justifying it as sin. But ladies and gentlemen, it's ridiculous to say that the reason Steve Lawson fell because it was a wrong doctrine. He fail because he's a man, just like I am. I can't speak for anybody else listening, whatever, if you're male or female, whatever you may be. I'm not here to get into it. I just know for me, I can understand because he's a man, and guess what he has needs, bi biological needs, desires. Not seeing anything that he did was right, not justifying it, not excusing it. But I can understand because it can happen to anyone. It can happen to male, it can happen to female, pastor non pastor, seminary professor, non seminary professor, It can happen to anyone and anywhere, because we are human beings with biological needs, psychological needs, those are desires, and they will seek, and we will seek in many cases to satisfy said desire in a way which God has prohibited. In fact, if you think about all sin is typically seeking to satisfy some desire, some need, and a way which God has prohibited. I mean, that's typically what it is when we are selfish, when we are prideful.

32:25 God condemns pride, but we almost have a psychological desire and need to feel pride, to feel to make it feel, to exalt ourselves. We don't want to exalt, We don't want to put others before ourselves. We want to put ourselves before God himself. I was just baffled that his entire solution is, hey, get your doctrine right, and ladies and gentlemen, your sin goes away. It's just not true. So now that we've at least explored that looked at it, now we have to ask this very important question. Well, then, what was the doctrinal error that caused Steve Lawson to fall in to such horrible sin? What do you think his great doctrinal error was? What do you think a doctrinal error so big that it caused Steve Losson to fall into such great sin? And if he would just fix this one doctrinal error, then it would be it would be fixed.

33:25 What do you think it is? But come on, right, you're right right, you write your suggestion down on paper. What was his doctrinal error that that caused all the problems? Are you ready? Here we go. So we're gonna show you the the smoking gun about Steve Lawson. And and before we do that, I want I'm gonna show you just a couple of live streams that we've done in the past on our channel here, and of course you haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe, We want you to please do that. Let me show you here, uh, the statement that I've made and I put some guys up on the screen a while back that I thought were very important. Bad morals and bad doctrine got Karl Lyntz, Robert Morris, Tony Evans, and Jack Scott. And anytime a preacher falls morally, he he's got some sort of wonky doctrinal view, some sort of crazy thing he believes about God.

34:19 And so what is it? And that so anytime a pastor falls, anytime, it's because of wonky doctrine. Anytime a pastor falls, their doctrine is wrong. So you get your doctrine right and you don't fall. I mean that is an utter like, that's wrong doctrine about the nature of sin. That's that's that's the wrong. That's the wrong doctrine about where sin even originates from. Like this whole thing, it's just hilarious. Well, he's he's listing all the pastors who've fallen into sin and their doctrine is wrong. Implication his doctrine right. And if we follow the doctrine of the skuy on YouTube, then we too can avoid sin. All we got to do is follow the guy on YouTube and then we'll all be great.

35:08 Oh man, I gotta get his doctrinal statement and I'm gonna memorize it tonight, and ladies and gentlemen, by next week, I will never sin again. And you can follow my process, my progress. You can follow it right, I'll do before and after. Here was me. Before, I was a man sinful, lust, desires, pride, selfish, self seeking, bitter, unforgiving, didn't love God, didn't love my neighbor. But I found a guy on YouTube and I got his doctrinal statement. And now look at me. I have no lust, I have no wrong desires, ladies and gentlemen. I now am perfect because I have right doctrine.

35:50 Now I know he would be like, well, I'm not saying you will be perfect. So now the minute he would retreat, if he takes any steps backwards, then he's contrad himself. Either my doctrine fixes my morality or it doesn't. Now let's see what's what's the wrong doctrine? Are you ready? Are you ready? What's the wrong doctrine? Here we go. That's been the million of our question on the Steve Lawson situation. What was the weird thing that Steve Lawson was thinking that caused him to mess up morally with a young lady? What was it? What was Steve Lawson thinking that caused him to mess up with a young lady? Let me see what we're thinking.

36:31 Maybe something like, wow, she's beautiful. Wow, she's hot, Wow, she's sexy. Wow, she makes me feel things that nobody else has made me feel. Wow, I've been missing this. Wow. Maybe things like that. I know that's all gross and disgusting and we don't like to hear that, but I wouldn't you think that's probably what he was thinking. Whitnesay, I'm missing something. I'm desiring something that I don't feel like I have, or I want something different. I want to say there was Well, I mean, and that comes from your sinful nature, right, I mean, like, is this like, oh my goodness, we've got the smoking gun. And it's not just that he's a man who desires. No, no, no, no no. It can't be that simple. Oh no, no, no no, because as pastors, we have none of these desires unless we have wrong doctrine, and then dun dun dundu, here comes the wrong desires. But the wrong desires were there before our doctrine ever showed up, and our wrong desires will be there long after our doctrines show up because our wrong desires are part of our human nature, because we are sinners by nature. Why is this so complicated and American Christianity in twenty twenty four, because whatever we're putting out is just pure trash and garbage and has no connection to not only reality, to the actual teaching of scripture.

37:45 That Hey, you know why the things I want to do I don't do, and the things I don't want to do I do because I'm a sinner and I'm going to continue to be a sinner until glorification. And by the way, if you don't know, Steve Lawson apparently had some sort of very inappropriate texting relationship with a young woman that could have been apparently for what I read, could have been his granddaughter e Ucky. But whatever, So what was the thing here? It is Steve Lawson was not a pastor, an elder, or even a member at Trinity Bible Church. Can you believe that Steve Lawson was not even a member of a local church.

38:36 Steve Lawson's wrong doctrine that led him to have an inappropriate relationship with a younger woman was because he wasn't a member of a local church. That's the smoking gun. Now this raises questions. Let me make it very close. This does raise questions, right, like why how he's not a member of the church, then how could the elders of the church then do anything to Like this raises all kinds of question. I don't even know if any of this is true. Wait a minute, So he was. He worked with Ligonaire Ministries, he worked at a master seminary with MacArthur's School. He taught I guess Sunday after Sunday at Trinity Bible Church. Yet he wasn't really a pastor.

39:23 He wasn't even a member. He was just kind of like I don't know, like just paid the paid speaker. Like I don't even know what all this means. Now, what this means is though, this just demonstrates the celebrity nature of Christianity. Right, if you get enough celebrity status, you can just get paid to go pre cheer and go pre cheer. You don't have to be a member of any church, you don't have to be even an actual pastor. You just go. And if he's not an actual pastor, then how do you hold him to the standards of a pastor? Laid out in one Timothy. Three, if he's not an actual pastor. This raises a million questions. Right by which standard are you going to now you can go after that what he did is sinful.

40:04 I'm not excusing it. I'm just saying this raises so many questions. But this is the celebrity culture within Christianity. And let me make it very clear. I am sick and tired of people on YouTube yelling and screaming about celebrity culture within Christianity, and then they turn around and promote either ministries where people have to pay in order to get the teaching, or promote pastors that go to conferences where people have to pay one hundred two hundred dollars to get in. The conference industrial complex is why you have celebrity pastors. When you pay money to get into a building to hear someone preach the word of God, you are claiming that you're paying not for the preaching of God's word, you're paying for the celebrity. Get rid of the conference culture and just have churches where people preach and people get to come in and stop with this conference nonsense where people pay money to hear their favorite celebrity, and then you can start undermining the celebrity culture of Christ. Stop wanting about celebrity culture if you're going to do everything you can to promote it and prop it up. All right, but that's a whole different subject.

41:07 All right, let him go a little bit further. But you see, So the reason Steve Lawson fails because he had the wrong doctrine about the local church. If you don't have the right doctrine about the But who's doctrine about. The church is right? Is the Presbyterian view of a presbytery and its structure is is a elder driven church? The right doctrine of the church as a congregational led church, the right doctrine as a pastor led which is the right is denominational? Right? Is an independent whose doctrine is right about the local church? Well, guess what if your doctrine is wrong about the church, you're gonna fall in this in and you're gonna have an inappropriate relationship with a younger woman. Unless you follow the doctrine of a guy on YouTube.

41:47 Then I guess then. I'll guess you. I don't even know what this is. Does that sound strange to you? Steve Lost going around preaching all these conferences, going across the world, across the country, filling some of the slots and the biggest conferences in America. And the man is not even a member of a stinking local church. To sum it all up for you nicely, this Trinity Bible Church, from what I'm reading here, hired him to speak at the church, but did not require he be a member and did not require that like that, That's what was like. He was not a member anywhere.

42:36 From what I'm reading. The man didn't go to church. He just preached professionally for a living, but was actually under no ecclesiastical authority of any kind. That's it. That's where he messed up, and that's why his his bad doctrinal views on the local church resulted in him having bad doctrine. Let's read this article here. This is from now. What he meant to say there is. His wrong doctrine about the local church is what led to his wrong morals. So if he would just said the right doctrine of the right church about church, then his morals would be good. You know, how many men have fallen into sin who have the right doctrine about the local church. I don't even know what you do.

43:22 What do you do with this, Ladies and gentlemen, what do you do with it? I'm just gonna leave it here because I don't know. I could play more, but I don't want. I just want to leave it here. I don't want to get into all of the other issues because I don't want to get into the issues about Steve Lawson. It's not about Steve Lawson. Steve Lawson not being a member of the church. And there's lots of videos out there about this, and it turns into, well, he's just a paid preacher. He's not a pastor. And if he's not a pastor, then why does everyone keep quoting scripture about what the requirements is for a pastor. He wasn't a pastor. To stop using that argument against him. He was a paid professional speaker and he spoke. Can condemn him as a Christian? But then see, then the argument is, well, then if Christians have right doctrine, well then they would have right morals. But then what then, well, one who gets to determine what the right doctrine is? And two, if you say right doctrine fixes morals, then ladies and gentlemen, your whole doctrine of sin is flawed. Therefore you're gonna have wrong morals because your doctrine of sin is flawed by that logic.

44:26 Is the This is the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. Now I can let me make it very clear, I do not know if that is true about Steve laws and not being a member, because it just seems weird, right, It would just seem it would be the Trinity Bible Church when they release their original statement, would be like, well, Steve Lawson is no longer going to be preaching. He wasn't a member here. We have no ecclesiastical authority over him, but we're no longer going to be retaining his services as a paid speaker because it's been found out that he was doing whatever. All right, but you would not be stating it like it's an ecclesiastical matter, like it's a like it's a church. It's not church discipline. He's not a member of the church. You can't church discipline someone who's not a member of the church, right, and if he's not a pastor, you can't run to well, here's the requirements of it.

45:11 He is not a pastor. He just a paid speaker. So then I just this leads to a million questions and how the story's even been covered and presented, right, it just you can go have all of those arguments. I'm I just don't know, Like what is this. I wanted to respond under the comment section under this, I'm like, this is a complete misunderstanding of the doctrine of sin, but I decided not to because this is one thing I've learned. Arguing with Christians is waste of time. It is useless, It is meaningless because everyone thinks they're right, everyone thinks their interpretation. It's useless. It would be more beneficial for me to be taken over a tank of sharks dropped into the water and ripped into shreds and eaten and die. That would be better, more official, and more useful than it would be an argument with Christians.

46:03 Because Christians I'm right, I'm right, I'm right, I'm right. They all think they're right. So there's no point I think i'm right, you think you're right. My interpretation is right, you think your interpretation is right. It's useless. At least with the sharks, I would get to feed the sharks. So I don't know what you do with that. But that's the smoking gun that supposedly explains why he fell into sin. He fell into sin because his doctrine of the local church was wrong, not because he's a man who has a sinful nature, has biological needs, biological wants, has psychological needs, psychological wants, and found a way to fulfill whatever which needever he was feeling in a way that's contrary to God's word. But we can't just say that because I guess somehow Christians don't have sinful natures, don't have biological and psychological needs. I guess. I guess we're just very one dimensional creatures, and we go from a siner to now I'm not a sinner, and so therefore I no longer have these desires of thoughts, which is a complete misunderstanding not only of human of the makeup of human beings in general. It's a complete erratic.

47:14 It's a complete misunderstanding of sinful nature. Now, I guess if they're a Pelagian, maybe this pastor is a Pelagian. Forget Semipalagianism. Maybe he's full blown Pelagian. But even in the Pelagian system, is the Pelagian system simply that your doctrine will be the one that determines your morals. Now, now you've got em palagianism, complete free will. Well, then what would impact your will? Does your psychology, does your nature? Does your biology impact your will? So now we get into a whole discussion about libertarian free will and how free is the will? Is the will trapped somehow and influenced by its by its the psychology and the biology of the human being, and which that will is found.

47:59 Now we get into all has a very complicated issue. But I we Christians don't like complicated. We just like look at a pastor that we disagree with and like, well, ah, his theology is what led him to fall into sin. And I've seen that in a number of discussions about civila his Calvinism. That's what Calvinism does. Calvinism leads you to sin. If it wasn't a Calvinist, he would not sin. Oh right, because non Calvinists never sin, Charismatics never sin. Church of Christ never sin, Catholics never sin, Presbyterians never sin, Free will Baptist never sin. I mean, give me a break. We've seen scandal and sin in every denominational circle under the assign Look at all the children sexually abused in churches, there is an equal opportunity for it to occur, no matter the doctrinal statement of the church, whether Catholic, Presbyterian, independent, Baptists, it doesn't matter because sin is universally in all of us and we all do so. Am I saying right doctrine doesn't matter, Well, you've never listened to me if you think that doctrine matters immensely because it's about truth and determining what God's word says and being true to it.

49:14 But right doctrine doesn't fix. Your sinful nature. It exposes it. It helps you be able to understand it correctly condemned. It gives you information, It doesn't lead to transformation of the nature. All right, you can tell me what you think about all of that, and if you want to do more research to find out if it's true that Steve Lawson was or wasn't a member of the church. I have another video about this I haven't because this one gets his whole thesis is the if he just had his doctrine right, it would fix everything. There's another video that just goes into basically the whole problem with him not being a member of the church and not a pastor and not a member of the he's under no ecclesiastical authority. That means that I don't even know how you process that. Then, like, what, Well, he was a sinner, Okay, he's he was just a man who wasn't a pastor, who wasn't a member of a church, who got paid to speak, who committed sin.

50:17 Now I'm not justifying the sin. But then what how are you going to Well, he should be dis disqualified from what from being paid to speak? He's not a pastor? What look, what are you gonna do? Well, he was a minister. Okay, well, but he was a minister under no ecclesiastical authority. Like so, like, how do you? That raises a million questions? If true? Let me stress stress if true. I don't know if it's true. I don't really care to get into it. But it does raise the question, well, why was he being paid to go to this conference, in this conference, in this conference where people paid money to go in to hear not a pastor, but to hear a man who's paid to speak because of celebrity, And well that and guess what, guess what contributes to the celebrity culture.

51:00 The very thing that I keep condemning, and whenever I condemn the conference industrial complex, everyone gets mad at me. Don't get mad at me. You want to spend two hundred dollars to go support your you know, your favorite celebrity pastor, and you pay to get into a church to hear the word of God preach, then go ahead. But there's that's all of that's contrary to the Word of God. So maybe your entire doctrine is wrong. Oh wait, that's going to lead you to sin. See how that works? And again, am I right? Or it just it's I give up. But in the meantime, Colorado is playing Texas Tech, and I'm just going to be very honest with you as a pastor. I want to see that game. I desire to see that game. And you know what, I really at this very moment, I'm just going to be honest with you.

51:47 I want to see that game more than I want to read my Bible. I want to see that game more than I really want to listen to preaching right now. I want to see that game more than I want to pray. Right now, I'm just going to be very honest with you, because I'm a fleshly human being, just like everyone in your church is, including your pastor. I'm not excusing your sin or my sin. I'm saying that we have to somehow learn how to process a reality that Christians constantly want to pretend doesn't exist. Thanks for listening, Godless,