All right, welcome to the Patriot Pastors Podcast. I am Wade Lentz, pastor at Barrow Baptist Church in Bologna, Arkansas. I am joined with my friend and co-host Harold Smith. Harold, you've been the traveling preacher here the last few days. You just got back from a preaching tour, I guess you could say. You go on tour, you know, those big name preachers go on tour. You were in Texas, right? Yeah, my tour bus is my wife's Toyota RAV4. It's got a small little cramp, but it gets me there. Oh, wow. Yeah, I preach for Pastor Randall Easter in Azle, Texas, which is just outside of Fort Worth at By the Word Baptist Church. They do a conference every year, Easter week, and they'll have a preaching session. They'll have a meal and then a preacher and then a Q&A each night of Easter week. And I preach there Monday night and Tuesday night. And then he had Alan Nelson come in and preach Wednesday night and Thursday night. And then, um, I believe the man I didn't know Friday night's preacher, Jonathan Murdoch, but Alan and I were kind of joking, you know, it may take a Texan to straighten out four days of Arkansas preaching. Uh, you know, they're not used to that, but it was well received. I know pastor Randall and, uh, he's really become a dear friend of Derek Melton, the pastor of first of a grace life church and prior. He came down and spent a few days there with us as well. So there's really a lot of preacher fellowship, a lot of telling war stories. Um, it was just a lot of fun really. And, uh, the people received the word very well. So I preached at West park Baptist in Ozark, Arkansas, where I'm the interim pastor. And then I hopped in my truck and. Went to Fort worth and preached out there. And then I got back just in time to have a good old Baptist business meeting last night. So wow. Yeah. Been a busy week. No fights or quarrels or anything. Actually, I shouldn't share the church's business publicly, but I want to brag on these people. We cleaned up the church roll or began the process. We had all 232 names, one at a time. We said, are they active, inactive? Where are they? Of course, we found one had passed away and some had different last names and were on there twice. We removed a few that we had just knew were members of other churches. And when it was all said and done, I said, when we find the pastor of this church, he owes me a Christmas card for doing all this before he showed up. Uh, but it went well and everyone was understanding. Everyone agreed that this needed to be done. And so it was a real blessing because I've done this where people was like, I don't know why a little Johnny can't be a member here forever and live like the devil and never come here, you know? Right. It was a sign of the maturity of the church and being taught from the Bible why this needs to be done. I was very prayerful going into it that things wouldn't implode. It was very positive. Wow. Now the church that your interim pastor at, is that an SBC church? No, it is a BMA church, Baptist Missionary Association. Okay. actually a BMA church plant. The pastor started the church about 22 years ago. And it's, I didn't know much about the BMA. I grew up ABA. And then about the seventh grade, my parents got tired of us four and no more. So we went to the largest Baptist church in our town, which was the first Baptist church. And really looking back on it, that, That prepared me for the ministry. I saw the little, small, argumentative, you know, cliquish, small church that I grew up in. And then I went to the largest Southern Baptist church. I saw all the programs. I saw all the, you know, I'm going here because I'm running for mayor, you know, because my wife works at the school or whatever. I saw both sides of the coin and the BMA, I would say is in between the SBC and the ABA, the missionary Baptist and the Southern Baptist. They split off of the ABA in 1950 and they're big enough to do mission work effectively, but they're small enough that the churches know each other. The pastors know each other. I think there's somebody told me there was 1300 BMA churches in America. Wow. get 1300 churches that all agree on their doctrine, you can be very effective in mission and evangelism. And they are very serious about church planning and the kind of churches they plant. They're not woke. You know, Pastor, I'm just going to say this. If you're Southern Baptist and you're fed up with the bureaucracy, but you're not confident enough to be like you or I were and just become a not independent in IFB sense, but just a unaffiliated Baptist church, you don't want to go that route. You might give the BMA a look. They have a mixture of doctrines of grace, non-doctrines of grace, preachers and churches, but they're a whole lot more functional than the SBC. Speaking of being functional in the SBC, I think we've got a presidential race heating up, don't we? We do. June and here this coming up very soon here in June in Anaheim, California, Tom Askel, longtime conservative, really a voice of the conservative of the SBC is running for the first time. I mean, he has He's been very influential in his, uh, in the convention, trying to call the convention back to its roots. And, uh, he is running against Bart Barber, which is he, he is a pastor. Bart is in Farmersville, Texas. I don't know where that's at, but it sounds like the country, but, uh, Bart is, uh, uh, a long time pastor there. He is running against Tom Askel. And, uh, now just my. opinion, if Tom loses, I believe you're going to see an exodus of the conservatives leaving the SBC because here is the man that's been pushing the conservative movement for 30 plus years. And, uh, he's now running. And if he loses, I just see a mass exodus out. Well, we saw a pretty good exodus when Mike Stone didn't get elected in Nashville. That's been largely downplayed. People have acted like it didn't happen. But no more Southern Baptists than I know, personally, I've talked to many multiple pastors just in my small circle that have left the Southern Baptist Convention due to the way, not just because Mike didn't win. It wasn't like sour grapes. It was just the whole attitude of the convention as a whole, the way Mike was slandered and nobody took his side. And I mean, they were just fed up. They couldn't get a motion on the floor. And the guy carrying all these to the floor was none other than Tom Askell. And so, if you were still hanging into the convention, you know, hoping next time will be different. And I know several preachers that are. All right, here you go. Here, here's the guy that was carrying all these, that was ruled out of order that was told, do you know, to go sit down and be quiet and leave them alone? He's now agreed to take it. And I, you know, I think I speak for both of us. I love Tom Haskell. Right. Right. My only fault with Tom Haskell is he doesn't know the word quit. You know, he has no concept of ever leaving. Sure. Cause I I've quizzed him on Twitter and I would be like, Tom, do you ever see a point where. You say the Southern Baptist convention is too far gone. And he said, oh, I'm sure that point exists. I just don't know what it is yet. And I'm like, yeah. Okay. For you and I, it was several years ago. Sure. And it hasn't gotten better since we've left out of there years ago. Right. When I look at it, I just see Tom is almost faithful to a fault. You know, he cannot turn loose, but I put this on Twitter a couple of days ago. I said, someone needs to make a motion that the president, next president of the Southern Baptist convention be thoroughly furnished with chest waiters for the pile of crap. He's about to wait off into it. And I said, you know, win, lose or draw this ain't pretty. Right. It's not. And as much as I love Tom, part of me says, I hope he doesn't win it because he's going to take the beating of his life. If he does. Absolutely. It will be like Donald Trump. When Donald Trump won the election, everybody was shouting. And I was like, dude, the first bullets have just been fired. The war's just getting started. And he was in a constant battle every day. Right. Right. Wait, I just feel like I just hate to see Tom get it. I loved Mike Stone. Still love Mike Stone. Call him a good friend. But I, you know, I wanted him to win the presidency, but I almost wanted to say, man, I don't want to see my friends go through what you're going to go through if you win this. Mm hmm. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy how really vile the things that they put Mike Stone and his family through, uh, last June and leading up to that vote last year in Nashville. And in the same thing, as we get closer to, uh, June, uh, you're going to see more and more of this, uh, against Tom Askel. And, uh, that's, that's never pleasant to see. And, uh, you're right. It's going to be a uphill battle. Should he win? Um, from here on out, you know, so. And I hate to keep using politics as a reference to the Southern Baptist convention, but they're both bloated bureaucracies that were created with good documents that over time were corrupted by men and disinterest of the people. If you look at the American political system and the shape we're in, and you look at the Southern Baptist convention and the shape they're in, there's a whole lot of, of parallels. Yes. When I'm looking at that, you have to keep in mind the people that are going to be attacking Tom Askell, it's not going to be Bart Barber. He's a nice, decent guy. He's going to be politically nice. It is the people, it is the power brokers in the convention that control things. The reason they have so much at stake is there's billions of dollars circulating through this convention. And that money, all these people are getting cuts out of it. They're employees there. Sure. They have trustees that are loyal to them. If you don't realize there's billions of dollars at stake and people are going to pull out all strings and all stops to ensure that their cash flow continues, you're kidding yourself. Yeah, you're right. Trump ran for reelection against Joe Biden. I mean, there was no end right down to, I believe, cheating in the election, all sorts of shenanigans were pulled in order not to shake up the status quo and keep this political system in place. If you think the Southern Baptist Convention is above that, I pity your ignorance. I mean, I honestly do. If you think the Southern Baptist Convention is full of devout, God-fearing people, top to bottom, pull your head out of the sand and look at what's been going on for the last years. Yeah. Tom wins this and I hope he does. He knows what he's getting into, but it's not going to be pretty. It's just going to be the beginning of birth pains. Yeah. Very true. Well, I, again, I make the prediction here and you've heard it here. Uh, if, if he loses, I think there will be a, just a, it'd be letting a lot of air out of the balloon, you know, type type scenario. And, uh, I think a lot more conservatives will be leaving the SBC. A lot more Christians will be leaving. Yeah, the Christian exodus out of the SBC. Well, let's change our topic to what we really want to speak on a little bit more in detail. And it has to do with conservatism, and that is the dangers of being a conservative. but not a Christian. We're seeing more and more of this, where conservatives, or quote-unquote conservatives, are taking stands on things that are anti-Christian, that are anti-Bible. For instance, Fox News just recently hired Caitlyn Jenner to be a correspondent, uh, or, you know, Bruce Jenner. So here's Fox news, a conservative network hires a transgender to be the voice of conservatism. And then also, I guess it was a few weeks ago, David Rubin. of the Ruben report. Uh, see the guy that made the Ruben sandwich. That's I like that. Yeah. That's a different Ruben now. Okay. This Ruben here is a homosexual conservative who is married and is, they're going to have two kids through Sarah surrogacy. And, um, It's very telling of how many people congratulated this guy. People like Megan Kelly, conservative, Florida's governor's office spokesperson, congratulated. The Blaze, Prager U. Uh, puts out on his Twitter account, Facebook account. Congratulations. Uh, that's today's conservatism. And that is very concerning to me. Uh, we were seeing more and more of this kind of go ahead. I have a theory as to why this is happening and the theory, my theory is, and, and I, I haven't really formulized it much. It just was going through my mind while you were talking. Used to conservatives were seen as the Christian wing. You know, they had their God, their guns and their, you know, Bible or whatever, their God, their guns and their guts. You know, you have that whole God attachment. And I think what conservatives are doing is they're looking at the voting public and they're seeing such a promotion of the LBGT, whatever that those acronyms are. You know who I'm talking about? And they're seeing that as more and more mainstream. And so they're looking at that as a voter block that they have to have. And so I really think modern conservatism is more about winning elections than it is about convictions built upon conservative values. Sure, sure. And so rather than just going there and saying, here's my core values, this is what's important to me. They're looking at things and going, we can't win unless we include this segment of the population because we don't have a big enough voting block. Well, once you swallow that first set, whatever the next biggest voting block is, you're going to have to consume their ideas. So now this is not an ideology built on conviction. This is a formula for winning an election. And if you look at many people who are masquerading as conservatives today on election years, they say what we all want to hear is conservatives. Sure. When they get up there and there's not an election year, they do whatever they want that benefits them in their pocket book. Right. Right. No doubt that's the case here. But this, this kind of conservatism, I don't want any part of, and it seems as if the Republican party is leaning more this way more and more. And, uh, that's very alarming to me, but. I think the whole issue is, is that we as Christian families need to stop teaching so much of conservatism, you know, be it, be a Republican, be a conservative, teach them the Bible. And, uh, you know, pray that the Lord birthed them into his kingdom and they are saved. And then they have a biblical worldview, not a worldview of conservatism because conservatism alone, it changes with time. So a conservative today in 2022 would be a liberal in 1950. So, but the truths of God's word does not change in time. That's a great point. And I think it's, it's the church's fault. And I say churches, I think it plural churches. I don't believe in a big universal church, but you take a very influential Southern Baptist church, like first Baptist church, Dallas, Robert Jeffers or Jefferies or wherever you say his name. Yeah. He's got Donald Trump speaking in his pulpit. Right. If you really think what's going to fix America is promoting Donald Trump and you vacated scripture and a set time and day to proclaim God's word to his people, vacate that for a political speech of any kind. Yeah. This is our problem. You're more concerned with becoming a conservative than you are with being a Christian. And here's why this is important way. If you are a Christian, your politics will work themselves out. Right. If you truly understand God's word, you can't be okay with the mass execution of unborn children. Well, that's gonna whittle out one thing of the other side of the platform. Well, I disagree with them on this. If you truly are a Christian, you're gonna disagree with the ideologies of the LGBTQ forcing it on us. We all have to embrace this. Those things work themselves out. The issues work themselves out. So you and I don't get up and start preaching vote Republican. We get up and preach Christ. And when people become a Christian, they start molding and shaping their lives accordingly. And they're going to end up in some kind of a libertarian Tea Party conservative. That's just where the Bible will lead you. It doesn't mean that if you're a Democrat, you can't be a Christian. But if you're going to apply the biblical precepts of God's word, you're going to be a compassionate conservative, the word compassionate, because that's what the Democrats always say. Well, if you're a conservative, you don't care about the poor. You don't care about minorities. That's not the case. I care about them. I just don't think your programs are lifting them up out of their minority status or out of their poverty. I think your programs are keeping them there. Right, right. So just be, raise your children to be Christians. Yes. Otherwise you're handing them over to Ben Shapiro and they're learning from an Orthodox Jew for crying out loud. Right. And, and look, you can raise a conservative, uh, but conservatism alone saves no one. Uh, and matter of fact, conservatism alone will lead you straight to hell. It is Christ alone who saves. And truth be known, there probably are more conservatives in hell than there are liberals. But they have rejected Christ, they have rejected God's word. And so yeah, instill in them the Bible, instill in them the scriptures, and they will be a conservative. They will be more than just a conservative what the world sees them, they would be ultra conservative. Christians need less government because they self-govern because they're accountable to Christ. The Holy Spirit dwells within them. They are on a constant relationship of repentance and faith. They're under this ongoing evaluation of their own life. And the Bible instructs us to obey the laws of the land, unless they interfere with our ability to worship and serve our God, then we choose them first. But. what I'm seeing from the left is just a piling on of laws. I mean, they want to regulate whether we can use straws or not, you know, because a sea turtle might die. I mean, it's not that Christians hate sea turtles. It's that we're responsible enough not to throw our trash out on the side of the road. We'll put it in the trash and trust the system to work. And so, I just see a big emphasis on, we need to raise our kids to vote conservative, and you're missing the boat. We need to raise our kids to be Christians, and the voting stuff will take care of itself. Yes, exactly. getting close to November's, uh, the, the midterm elections. And, and there's a great push. I know here in Arkansas, uh, to, you know, there's a governor's race and Senate race and all those things, but every, every state office is up for grabs because we've redistrict the whole state. Yes. Every Senator, every state Senator and every state representative is running for reelection and there are new districts added. And so, This will be the biggest primary we've had in years at nearly everybody in the state will have a primary race just because of redistricting. Yeah. Yeah. And, but you know, what I'm, what I'm saying is, is what we're, are. topic is today, there's, there's going to be growing pressure put upon conservatives to conform to the LGBTQ X, Y, Z, you know, crowd because of some of the leading conservatives have endorsed this. Um, let me tell you something, a Christian should never congratulate, should never congratulate. a homosexual marriage or a homosexual, uh, adopting kids, uh, that is wrong. So don't ever do that. And if you see a conservative of congratulating a homosexual, uh, no, then please know that they are not conservative. They're not conservative. They, they may be, uh, physically conservative as far as their taxes and all those things, but, Uh, they're, they have no, they do not have a scriptural worldview at all. We saw that in Russell Moore, when he was the chairman of the, what was that ethics and religious liberties? Yeah. And they asked him, would he attend a gay wedding? And he said, no, probably not. But I would go to the reception afterwards. Yeah. Well, what did we find out about Russell more what we suspected all along he is who he thought we was, you know, I thought he was. Yeah. This ideology that we can embrace these people look, I know. I know that we ought to be kind to all people, but there ought to be some things that we just say hey look. I'm not okay with this and you're not going to force me to be okay with this. You know, I don't, I don't wish you ill will. I'm not trying to end what you're doing. I'm just not playing along. And what I see in the conservative side of things, they want so bad to keep up with the other side that I mentioned a man to you earlier, uh, when we were talking Milo Yiannopoulos. And I looked him up today. I didn't remember a bunch about him. I just remember about five years ago, he was the, like the greatest thing. He was going to be the next Ben Shapiro. He was this young guy. He was, he was really had an intelligent mind. He was, he looked like all the cool kids. He wasn't Ben Shapiro with his little yarmulke. He was this really cool hip guy and he was gay and he was a hardcore conservative and he was working for Breitbart news. Hmm. And I mean, he was just sailing up through the ranks, but he was gay. And I mean, he looked gay. He acted gay. Everything about him screamed, I'm gay. The conservative pack, what is it, CPAC or whatever, they had him slated to speak. Simon and Schuster was writing his biography. And he was young. And then he came out and said, you know, It's really beneficial to children over the age of 13 to be engaged with sexual acts with older people. It helps them understand things. And they were like, are you advocating pedophilia? And he said, no, I just think it could be beneficial when you're 13, you're old enough to know Simon and Schuster dumped him. The conservative pack dumped him. Uh, Breitbart dumped him. Everybody dumped him. The point I'm making here with him, this all happened in 2017. What's the left discussing now? Is it not pedophilia? Is it not? They want to reduce and lower the age of consent to low teens. They want to educate kindergartners and sex and alternative lifestyles. All of that was creeping in on the right side and people were enamored and were willing to overlook this glaring flaw. Hmm. Yeah. Because he was young and cool and the kids liked him. And then they were embarrassed with egg on their face when he was a pedophile. Right. And so now he's he's been permanently banned from Twitter. He's just I don't even know what he's doing. I don't know where he's at. Yeah. They probably canceled him because of his name is so hard to pronounce. Well, he picked that name. He was originally born like, um, Wagner, Milo Wagner, but that's not catchy. So Yiannopoulos starts with a Y. I mean, it was, yeah, it was. Wow. Wow. But George Stephanopoulos. I can never say his name. That whole premise, though, was they wanted to win a segment of people over to conservative views. Sure, yeah. I think as Christians, we should be wanting to win people not to our political party, but we would want to win people to our faith. Because that's the only lasting thing. And if the heart is right, the hands and the head will be right. Absolutely, yes. And you're so correct, because conservatism is not It is not the answer to America's problems. Christ is the answer to America's problems. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only answer to America's ills. And it is not conservatism that we should be seeking. It is Christ alone that we should be seeking and instilling into our children. And once that is, uh, instilled in them, then they will have a scriptural worldview and see things, uh, through the mirror of God's word. And, uh, that in, in time will lead a nation to having conservative values. Right. And one of the things I want to point out, sometimes people will be critical of me. They'll say brother Harold. I don't know why it matters if Christ is all that matters, why do you care so much that we are conservative in our politics or liberal if you can be a Christian in both societies here's the honest to goodness truth. If we are no longer conservative in our politics, it will not be long until the Christianity that you and I profess will be illegal. Just as it's becoming illegal in Canada, just as conservative, and I'm using air quotes, conservative preachers in Canada went to jail. that's going to come to America. The reason I'm advocating conservatism in our politics is because that allows more freedom for the gospel to go forth, more freedom to preach our convictions, and we receive this freedom by God. Our forefathers recognized it because they understood Christianity provided for it. It was Baptist and Baptist alone that argued for religious freedom. The Presbyterians wanted to make America a Presbyterian nation. The Church of England wanted to make America the Church of America. The Anglican Church wanted to control it. Every church that has not understood the relationship of church and state have all wanted to mandate their religion through the state. But Baptist and Baptist alone have argued for liberty of conscience. We're not going to force anybody to be something they don't want to be. So if we teach this brand of Christianity, biblical Christianity, with Baptist values, what will happen is we'll be able to share the gospel. Those that believe the gospel will believe it. But if you give us our God-given freedoms and our right to assemble and be left alone, We'll do our thing. You do your thing. Quit forcing me to do what you're doing. I'm not forcing you to do what I'm doing. That kind of liberty is the way our country was established. We're losing that, and we're not losing it from the conservatives. We're losing it from the left. Right, right. So true. Well, I tell you, it's been a good topic. It's been something that's been on my heart for a while since I've seen these, uh, these, uh, two, uh, examples of David Rubin and Caitlyn Jenner and Fox news that, uh, the conservatives are, are starting to drift more and more to the left. And, uh, it's, uh, it's going to be a growing issue. It's going to be more and more pressure because if you get into the LGBTQ crowd, uh, they're going to want to take more. And, uh, so it's a, it's a concerning issue and we do, you know, want to, uh, encourage you to pray for our country, uh, pray for our president and, uh, the leaders in, in his, uh, in his administration and pray that God would raise up some men and women who would instill God's word into their children. And thus. become a stronger nation because of it. Well, Harold, it's always a joy to, uh, to sit down and visit with you through zoom. Yeah, same here. It's better when we can do it face to face, but it is, that's hard to do live in two hours apart. It is special with gas prices. So high, maybe one of my preaching tours, I'll be in your area sometime. I'll get you backstage passes. I like it. I like it. Well, thank you so much for joining us at the Patriot pastors podcast. We pray the Lord's blessings upon you.