G'day, I'm Martyn Iles and this is 'The Truth
of It' with a little bit of a difference, today I'm coming to you from on the road in
Brisbane, in a slightly different environment and I've had a huge week in Townsville - I want
to say thank you to everybody in Townsville who welcomed me and we had a great
supporter event and various other things. I'm running low on gas but I have three things I
want to talk about, the first one is the Harry and Meghan scenario - yes I'm gonna go there -
the second one is that a Canadian pastor has been thrown in jail for breaching coronavirus
restrictions in the state of Alberta, I want to make some comments on that and finally, I want to
talk about the fact that they have started to ban books. This is the latest from cancel culture,
Amazon has banned Dr Ryan T. Anderson's book, ‘When Harry Became Sally'. But without
further ado, let's get into it. First up, Harry and Meghan, it's interesting
I think the observation I have straight out of the block on this one is not one I’ve heard a
whole lot from other commentators out there. The observation I want to make is this, it is about
the dishonouring of parents, first, and family, second. So, my point really is the fifth
commandment, honour your father and your mother. And straight away you can see
where this is going. That's something that's not widely talked about in this day and age it’s
not widely discussed but it matters a very great deal. It matters so much that you just got to
reflect on the fact that it is one of the ten in the ten commandments. I’ve also wondered
as well a long time, if you read the end of Romans one where the Apostle Paul lists a
whole bunch of these sins that people commit, they're all very, very serious but couched in the
middle of this great line of very serious sins is dishonouring of parents and you go ‘Ooh what's
that doing there?’ Well, clearly this is a very significant thing, it's a very significant sin.
Under Hebrew law in fact and for any trolls out there who might be watching, I’m not affirming
this, I’m just saying that under Hebrew law it was the penalty for dishonouring the
father and mother was in fact, death. Jesus says in Matthew 15 and 3, He says, ‘For God
commanded honour your father and your mother’, and He goes on to say whoever speaks evil of father
and mother will be put to death and that's quoting what the Hebrew law once said but here's the
point of all of that I say that just to say look, let's remind ourselves of something, let's remind
ourselves that dishonouring of family is a very immoral act. Why do I say that? Well here's the
reality, Prince Harry has made a global spectacle of dishonouring his family. He's not only spoken
evil of them himself including his father who he blames for inflicting great pain on Archie but
he's also sat back and probably it seems promoted, gone along with, encouraged his wife to do far,
far worse even while his 99-year-old grandfather is gravely unwell in hospital, even though the
family are not fully able to defend themselves by virtue of the customs of royalty, he and his
wife unleash a campaign to defame, discredit, attack and undermine them and here's the fact,
Harry’s conduct is immoral, regardless of whether or not he has legitimate grievances. That's the
point. You don't dishonour your family on the global stage, in this way and call it right. It is
not right, it is wrong. His family are in crisis thanks to efforts and events which are ultimately
his responsibility because that's what a man does, he takes responsibility. He's the guy, ultimately,
who takes responsibility for getting himself into this mess and finding himself throwing darts
at his family via Oprah and the global media. He abdicates his responsibility in allowing
innuendo, accusations, dirty laundry, conjecture, division and far worse to be slung onto the world
stage targeted against those who were once closest to him and he's acting therefore as one who
is morally weak and I say this, dishonouring your family is never right. Contrast the public
statement of the Queen. The Queen simply it's a very short public statement and it just does three
things. It affirms her love for Harry, Meghan and Archie, it admits the possibility of somehow
being in the wrong and it keeps the door open to restoration and forgiveness. One of these things
is a class act, one of these things is a Christian act. No prizes for guessing which. You don't have
to agree with your family, they don't have to be the nicest people but the non-negotiable, repeated
commandment in Scripture is that you must honour them. It is morally wrong to do otherwise and
that carries consequences before God, of course, because it's the commandment of God but the other
thing is it carries consequences for life as well. Proverbs which contains many a nugget of wisdom
gives us this, in Proverbs chapter 11 and verse 29 it says, ‘Whoever troubles his own household
will inherit the wind.’ And you know I think really the truth is and I think this is obvious
for all who can see clearly on this matter, what we're seeing is that Harry is inheriting
the wind and he will continue to do so because there is a great principle that the integrity of
the family, matters and it matters on a range of levels. It matters to society - we know that - so
many of society's ills would be solved or largely solved or mitigated through family strength and
through family integrity. But it doesn't just matter for society, it matters to God. That's why
He has said it, that's why He designed family, but it also matters to your life. And it's a
great principle of wisdom, you dishonour your family at your peril, and you honour your family
for your blessing. That's why God made these rules and that is why Proverbs says what it says. So
that's my first thought about the Harry and Meghan scenario. My second thought is something
about victim mentality. My second thought is, you know, I was in a conversation actually just
the other day and four unlikely names came up together and I'm going to pair them together,
put them in two pairs and you'll see my point. Prince Harry - Nick Vujicic, Meghan Markle -
Joni Eareckson Tada. Those are name pairings that could not represent more profound
differences of circumstance and outlook. Nick and Joni were dealt the most difficult hands
possible in any life. Most of you I think will know them, those of you who don't, Joni Eareckson
Tada is a woman, I think she's now about 70 and she became a quadriplegic as a teenager
from the neck down completely paralysed and has been all through her life after a diving
accident. Nick Vujicic, he was born in Australia, he's a Christian evangelist and motivational
speaker that travels the world he has no arms and no legs. He's the guy who has, he's got
like, I think, a foot, I think, that's about it and he gets around with no arms and no legs
and sort of shuffles around as a little torso and it's amazing to see, actually. These two
people are massively deprived in the sense of being born with profound or suffering with
profound physical disabilities. Contrast that, Harry is dealt one of the most privileged hands
possible in any life. He's a literal prince and Meghan has risen to a similar
level, they are abundantly blessed. Now, no life is free of trouble but let's just be real
about this, there's an abundance of blessing here despite whatever trouble may be there as
well and the attitudes of these people, the four of them, Harry and Meghan on the one
side, Nick and Joni on the other, their attitudes are as different as their circumstances but not
in the way that you might have expected if you'd been at the beginning of life trying to look and
see how it would all turn out. I’ll never forget watching Joni tell her testimony at a conference,
you know, she couldn't speak for more than five, ten minutes before she would just burst into
song, she smiled widely from the start to finish, she filled the room with joy, it was amazing and
at the beginning of this conference, of her talk she told of her days some 50 years ago shortly
after her accident immobilised, bedridden, dreaming that she was at the pool of Siloam
which is described in the New Testament as a place of healing. She was so broken, she was so
desperate and she cried out to God to be healed. At the end of her talk, she told of a recent
trip to Israel where she discovered the actual site of the pool of Siloam, quite by chance
and she said it brought back all these memories and she sat there in her wheelchair looking
at the empty pool and she prayed again and you won't believe what she prayed. She
prayed, ‘Lord, thank you for not healing me', and I actually let out a noise as I was listening
to this, it was the beginning of the word like “No” like I just couldn't, I couldn't compute in
my brain what it would take for somebody to pray that prayer and mean it and you could tell she
meant it. You know, she said that she had learned so much, done so much and most importantly had
discovered so much of God and of Christ because of and through her condition that that was priceless
to her and she thanked God for it. And both she and Nick, Nick is the better known of the two,
I believe, they've spent their lives ministering to millions out of their hardship and they don't
breathe a word about it. Contrast that with the blame, the misery, the self-righteousness, the
divisions, the innuendo, the dishonour of the two most privileged, two of the most privileged
people in the world. I mean this is a dishonouring as I was just saying in the last bit of a family
on a global stage without any shame, even whilst Harry’s grandfather languishes in hospital at
99 and his grandmother releases a statement that practically offers restoration and forgiveness
and confirms her love for him and his family. In this, I just think these names which came up in
this conversation, it hit me like a freight train, I thought to myself you know what, this is what a
cancer victim mentality really is, this is cancer and you can see it here in these people. These
walking, talking examples, the inward-looking posture of victimhood is the worst kind of slavery
anyone can subject themselves to or be subjected to because victims look inside themselves and then
they justify themselves and they'll continue on in a wrong pathway but they'll be justified and
they'll be right because they are blaming others and others are wrong and they collapse in misery.
They go nowhere, it's enslavery. The grateful, on the other hand, and that really is the opposite,
it is those who are grateful and gratitude is a virtue because it looks outward, it looks out
of the self, its desire is to serve others, it sees the goodness of God and it rejoices in
the goodness of God because God is always good and the grateful see that. Those who live their
lives looking inwards, trapped in themselves are one kind of person and then there are those
who live their lives looking outwards to God and to be honest I think that ultimately it is only
God that fully saves us from ourselves because if we don't have Him, we've really got nowhere else
to look except in here and I want to say this, this is a little case study to make this point
and I can talk about it academically and all the rest of it but I’m talking about real people now
because those who say that they know God and yet they peddle victimology, in any of its forms, in
any of its ideologies and we have many an ideology today which is victim, victim, victim-based it
is blame-based it is, it is this whole oppression narrative is all about this the woke thing is
all about this. Those who peddle that stuff or who themselves spend their time wallowing
in narcissism about themselves and draining other people into this black hole of narcissism
because they're looking in as victims and they're justifying themselves and blaming others, I’ll
just say this, that is the devil's work. It really is. It's the most sinister of things. Let me give
one sage advice which comes from Scripture. There are two examples in the Bible which I think are
tremendous warnings on the whole victimhood thing. One is Jonah the other is Cain. I just want to
make a comment about Cain. Cain is a guy who blamed others for something for which he should
take responsibility, which was his sacrifice wasn't pleasing to God but he blamed Abel because
Abel was favoured and he made himself a victim, he made himself the guy who was suffering for unjust
cause and it's really interesting, God comes to Cain and warns him in that moment before Cain goes
and does a bad thing which is kill his brother, God says to Cain, 'Why are you downcast? Why
are you miserable?' And isn't it interesting, this victim mindset will always immiserate and
some people love to be miserable because they're victims. They just for some reason go through
life this way and it will always immiserate, it will always bring people down, it will always
make them just balls of sadness and God comes along and confronts that and He says, you know,
He said, you've got an option at this point, either you can do that which is right, you can
stand up for righteousness and He says if you do that, He says your face will be lifted up, He
says, otherwise just be warned in your current condition, sin is crouching at your door and its
desire is to have you. In other words, if you continue thinking this way, you're going to go on
and do evil because you are justifying yourself, you are blaming others and you are going to do
immoral acts in the name of your victimhood and that will really be the end. And that is such a
sage warning because Cain made the wrong choice. Sin was crouching at his door and
he became the world's first murderer and I tell you that's what victimology
does to people - it makes them do wrong and it makes them miserable and it traps
them in sin. That is why this really matters. But God comes along with this great principle of
wisdom for all of life and says if you do well, will not your accountants be lifted up? And I
just want to leave us with that thought. Take responsibility, do that which is... and to do
that which is righteous and all of a sudden, you will find yourself putting this victim
mindset aside and as God says, you'll be happy, your countenance will be lifted up. So it's a
bit of wisdom from the story of Cain in response to the Harry and Meghan business that we've all
been suffering through over the last few weeks. All right, next up, Pastor James Coates
of GraceLife Church in Edmonton, Canada is in jail and he's in jail for opening his church
whilst COVID-19 restrictions are in place. He was arrested, he's been denied bail, he's in prison,
he awaits trial. Okay, what's the story here? That's what I wanted to know and I think there's
other people out there who have heard bits and pieces of this story who might want to know the
same thing. So I’m going to explain it and I’m going to give a reflection on it. Since the 26th
of June 2020, the province of Alberta has mandated the following restrictions on religious services
- and Edmonton is in Alberta, this is where GraceLife Church is. Number one, gatherings must
be no more than 15% of the building's capacity. Number two, all attendees must wear masks. Number
three, all attendees must practice physical distancing. Now 15% capacity at GraceLife church
in Edmonton, Canada would be 90 people. The church actually has 400 members and nearly that many
seem to attend every week. But like most churches, GraceLife adhered to the government's restrictions
during the early months of the pandemic but on the 21st of June 2021, Pastor Coates says that
they recognised that COVID-19 was far less severe than initially projected and so now since
about that time, for about 30 weeks, the church at GraceLife have met in person, as a full church,
in defiance of COVID-19 regulations in Alberta. Now they've taken some steps - they did a 14-day
shutdown when two church members tested positive for COVID-19 to ensure that there was no
intra-church transmission and there wasn't so, they've also made masks available, hand sanitiser
available, they discourage physical contact and various other things like that. But in November
2020, health inspectors from the Alberta Health Service showed up with police officers and
continued to show up pretty much every week from thereafter, documenting what was going on. And on
the 17th of December 2020, so about a month later, a bit more than a month, inspectors issued an
order that GraceLife church immediately rectified their breaches of COVID-19 rules. On the 20th
of December 2020, Pastor James Coates was fined $1200, by the police, for sustained breaches of
the restrictions and this happened but nothing changed. GraceLife continued to meet every week
just as they had done. So on the 21st of January 2021, this is about a month later, the Alberta
Health Service filed a court application to have their order enforced and the application was
granted. Nonetheless, a week later the church met once more on the 29th of January 2021 and again
on the 7th of February 2021 and on that occasion the police arrested Pastor Coates following the
service and he was released with a court date. They showed up during the service but they waited
until it was over before they arrested him, they said, "out of respect" for the proceedings. A week
later, Pastor Coates ran another service and this time, it seems, it was the last straw. I mean he
had been arrested and released with a court date and he was in breach of a court order and all the
rest of it and so on the 16th of February 2021, the police asked Pastor Coates to hand himself in,
which he did. The court was minded to release him on bail - I read the transcript - because he had
not committed a jailable offence but the term of his bail included the following - and you'll see
immediately what's wrong - it said, 'You will not attend or conduct services at GraceLife Church at
515 29a Range Road, 262 Parkland County, Alberta, unless you have complied with any existing
orders of the Chief Medical Officer of Health, health services, police, court'... blah blah...
obviously he declined, so he was not released. An appeal was lodged but it was denied on the
8th of March 2021 and Pastor Coates will remain in jail until the 3rd of May when his trial
is scheduled. So he's in jail, right now, for conducting church services during COVID-19
restrictions - full church services that is. And meanwhile, he's in jail at the moment but
GraceLife itself continues to hold full capacity, weekly services as they have been doing since
July last year so there's an associate pastor, I think, which is running the place
at the moment. Pastor Coates has said the following in a recent sermon. He said, 'We
must call government to its God-ordained duty. Any attempt to dictate to us the terms of worship
is not the government's jurisdiction and I refuse to give the government what isn't theirs. Caesar
has no jurisdiction here. Governments exist as instruments of God and there should
be unfettered freedom of worship.' Now, I agree there should be unfettered freedom of
worship. The fact that Caesar has no jurisdiction, I’m not sure I agree with, but that's Pastor
Coates’s point. In an affidavit, he says the following, and let me read you this just to give
you his clear view on the subject. 'We believe that a local church is to gather physically
for corporate worship on Sunday,' and he quotes Acts 2, Acts 27... Acts 20 verse 7, First
Corinthians 16:2 and Revelation 1:10. He says, 'We also believe that this physical gathering is
distinct from and preeminent among every other gathering of the life of the church. In addition,
we believe this physical gathering should consist of the full body of Christ belonging to the local
assembly.' And he quotes Romans 15 and 6 and 1st Timothy 5 and 20. Therefore compliance with the
Chief Medical Officer of Health's orders make it impossible for GraceLife to fulfil the mandate
outlined above. The health orders directly contravene the authority of the local church
and the supreme authority of the Lord Jesus. The occupancy limit alone restricts us from
meeting as a full body of Christ, in a single gathering. As such, every element of the corporate
assembly is restricted since each one is to take place within the context of a single gathering.
In addition, the restrictions compelling social distancing and mask-wearing interfere, as well.'
His wife, Erin Coates, said this in an affidavit, 'I’m informed by James and do believe that James
has sincerely held religious belief' - that's just legal speak, obviously, she doesn't talk like that
all the time - but she said, 'that only the Lord Jesus Christ has the authority to prescribe
the terms of worship at GraceLife, not any other authority and that to comply with the above
restrictions would be contrary to Scripture and be an act of disobedience to Christ. It would amount
to fearing man instead of fearing God or choosing to disobey God by complying with the command of
an earthly authority that is in opposition to the commandments of God.' Okay, I don't want to dwell
too much on whether I agree with Pastor Coates or not but I will make a comment on that. I just
would rather focus on the principles at play, for a second, because COVID-19 has brought these
principles to the surface. Some recent legal changes especially in the state of Victoria in
speeches that I've done have brought these sorts of things to the surface, at what point does the
government end, at what point does, do we disobey, is civil disobedience a Christian thing, all that.
They've all come to the surface in a way that they haven't before, in recent times and I don't think
this is going anywhere, I think it's going to continue. So let me say, I completely sympathise,
I sympathise with Pastor Coates's position because I hate the way that COVID-19 has been handled.
I think it's set a dreadful precedent, I think that ideologically there are bad things happening
in the way government is operating and the way people are giving up their freedoms in exchange
for promises of wellness. So I sympathise with him and I think his punishment is severe. I think that
the convictions that he carries are also sincere, so I agree with all of that, but it doesn't
mean that I would do what he did, okay, let me explain. Foundation number one - there's
some background here - number one, government is God's idea and we are clearly commanded to
submit to it regardless of whether we like them, regardless of whether or not we agree with them.
Let me read you the actual words Romans 13:1-2, 'Every person is to be subject to the governing
authorities for there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.
Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God and they who have opposed
will receive condemnation upon themselves.' That condemnation in the immediate context is
the condemnation of punishment from the State. First Peter chapter 2:13 says something very
similar, 'Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether
to a king as the one in authority or to the governors as sent by him for the punishment of
evildoers and the praise of those who do right.' Now, this is said to Christians living
under Roman rule, they would have felt it, they disagreed greatly with Roman law,
they were oppressed by Roman occupation, some of them had revolutionary histories in their
culture which they had to leave behind them, this was a tall order it would have hit and it
would have been serious because the government was not good in these days and the things they
were requiring and asking were not all good. Now, that's the first foundation,
there's more than one, don't worry. Foundation number two, if you dishonour
yourself by breaking the law, make sure, make jolly sure, it's for the right reason.
Christian witness and testimony is very important, very important and breaking the law brings
great controversy and dishonour on a person therefore scripturally we're told to make sure
that when we break the law we do so for the very, very, very best of reasons, that's 1 Peter 4:15,
for example. He says, ‘Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer
or as a troublesome meddler but if anyone suffers as a Christian he is not to be ashamed but
is to glorify God.' Okay, so clearly there is a possibility that someone might suffer as a
Christian, clearly this submit to the governing authorities is not, is not a limitless thing
because we're going to find that out in a minute, there is another foundation which is foundation
number three, break the law when you absolutely must. And when must we? Well, the exception given
to the Apostles is in Acts chapter 5 verse 29, 'We must obey God rather than men.'
They faced a case where they could not, they could not obey God and men at the same
time, that was the point. It was impossible, they had to choose a side. They could not obey the
commandments of men, so to speak and honour God, they couldn't do it and they couldn't honour God
and obey the commandment of men, it was very, very clear. It had come to the point where they had
been directly commanded to stop doing something that Christ had directly commanded them to do. But
notice, it must come to that because the command to honour the government is not ambiguous,
it is not unclear and it is not, you know, in broken Greek, it's clear, so it must come to a
direct conflict and you must say I can't do both. I can't honour the State and I can't honour God,
at the same time, it's not possible. So, question, 'How does this line of thinking actually
make sense?' It makes sense for two reasons. The first one is that some functional government
even if it's wicked is very nearly always better than no government. Anarchy tends to be the worst
possible option. But really the point I want to make... that's sort of a practical observation
but probably that's why government is God's idea and that's really the point. The first thing that
we need to understand is government is God's idea for a fallen world, He instituted it, He believes
it's desirable, that's good enough for me. So the government's meant to be there, the government's
meant to function, the government's meant to be honoured, end of story, that's part of His design.
I think there's wisdom in it but even putting that aside, we've got to accept it's part of His
design. But here's the second thing, the second reason that this might make sense, the reason
that a Christian might not get to the point where they are just civilly disobedient because they
disagree, that's not a good enough reason. It's not a good enough reason to say I disagree
with where this is going, I disagree with what this... no, it's got to be a situation where the
government has commanded you to break God's law or commands you to not to do something that
God's law says you must do - you have to be in that direct conflict and that makes sense because
there's a very interesting thing that Jesus says in John 18:36, he says this, to Pilate,
he says, ‘My kingdom is not of this world, if My kingdom were of this world
My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews
but as it is My kingdom is not of this realm.' Therefore Pilate said to him, 'So you're a king?'
Jesus answered, 'You say correctly that I’m a King for this purpose I came into the world and
for this, I was born, to testify of the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens
to my voice.' Now that's His kingdom, it is the people who are of the truth who
listen to His voice. He says that's My kingdom. What does this mean? The statement - I want to be
very clear, there's a tension here and I hope I don't just confuse people, I hope I make it clear
- the tension is that politics is not irrelevant to the Christian, Jesus Himself had just said, he
who handed me over to you is going to suffer the greater condemnation. You speak truth to power,
you be salt and light in the public spheres, you call as a, you know, to use a slightly contested
word but a prophetic voice you call the powers that be to standards of righteousness. All
of that is true and all of that must be done. But there is some other thing that's in tension
with that, which is very important to grasp. It is that Jesus actually says but My kingdom is
not in earthly power structures, fundamentally at the end of the day. Christianity is not a
political revolution in the sense that it's not an armed conflict, it's not an overthrow of the
state, it's not all about gaining political power and in that sense it is unlike every other idea
that's ever existed because all other political persuasions, all other ideas, they need the levers
of earthly power to succeed and to make their day. Jesus says My kingdom doesn't need that, He says
I’m not here for earthly power this time and He's not here for earthly power yet. He says actually
what I’m here for is to build My kingdom, which is very, very different and My kingdom spreads even
without the powers that be and so as Christians if we do all that we're called to do in relation
to the earthly powers and we lose them somehow, if I could put it that way, if they turn sour,
if they start to do evil, that doesn't mean that the Kingdom of God is limited. That doesn't
mean that Christ’s promise that, 'I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail
against it,' will fail. Of course, it won't fail, because fundamentally His Kingdom isn't travelling
in these earthly power structures, it's travelling in the hearts and minds of men and women. He says
those who listen to My voice, who are of the truth and God works in supernatural ways, He works
in natural ways, He works in all sorts of ways to make that happen - come what may - even as
the nation’s rise and the nations fall. So, let me be clear again, lest I'm misunderstood,
that does not mean that politics doesn't matter, it doesn't mean that governing authorities
don't have duties under God, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't speak the truth on that, we
shouldn't advocate for the truth on that, and it doesn't mean that when the governing authorities
honour God's laws that is not good it is very, very good and it is so good that it's something
we must fight for, in the legitimate sense. It's something that we must use the democratic
leaders of power to speak for and to advocate for, we must do that, we've got that freedom now, it's
incredible that we do, unique in history. However, political power is not the primary and necessary
vehicle by which the everlasting Kingdom, which shall not be destroyed, which is how
Jesus' Kingdom is described in the Bible, it's not the primary vehicle by which it is spread and
we're not told to mount the political revolution but we are told to honour authority until we are
literally unable to. And so what the Church really needs to do, I think, is to speak truth to power,
boldly unashamedly, without ever, ever, ever compromising. Needs to recognise that there are
ministers of God in the areas of earthly authority and it needs to help people and empower people
to be those ministers of God in that sphere, needs to do all of those things. But the end of
the day, Christianity is not the same as politics because this is an everlasting Kingdom, which is
a Kingdom of people who hear the voice of Jesus and do His will and that happens whether or not
the governing authorities are quote-unquote, "on our side". So I trust that clarifies,
rather than confuses so that we understand that we do honour the governing authorities
because God's plans are bigger than government and because God has designed government and means
it to exist. When the governing authority says to do something or not do something which
is impossible without dishonouring God, disobeying His direct word, then we draw
the line and we say, No, we obey God rather than men.' I trust that's been helpful about
Pastor James Coates who is in jail and pray for him, I really think so, and it could well be that
actually, he's the one who sees clearly and we're all wrong. I’m actually not totally settled
on the issue and so I would say pray for that situation that actually somehow through it all
the good would come. I don't know if I should scrunch that... I will just for tradition's
sake. But no disrespect to Pastor Coates. Final topic, they're banning books. This is
a very... look, this is very sad. Amazon, is what this is about first and foremost but it's
about cancel culture more generally and where it's headed. I think we've seen a lot of stories lately
about all sorts of stuff from Mr Potato Head to the redskins to the chicos to the withholding the
Dr Seuss books for publication, so on and so on. We're all seeing this, some of those erosion
examples, wherever you are in the world you're going to see similar ones. I want to focus for a
second on Amazon, the world's largest bookseller, they sell 53% of all books in the USA and over
80% of all eBooks and nearly all the audiobooks. They've become the latest corporate to really get
into the cancel culture thing and we saw that when they joined forces with Google and Apple to try
and cancel Parlor the social media app and they did so and kicked off their server. Parlor is
back, but it's not back to its former glory just yet because they suffered a massive setback with
all that cancelling from so many big companies and it's difficult for them to distribute their app
and all the rest of it these days. But now they're starting to ban books and you might say well is it
"Mein Kampf"? Is it the Communist manifesto? Or is it some other title that's just as bad? The answer
is of course not. It first of all was Abigail Shrier’s book, “Irreversible Damage” they banned
her from advertising it through their systems and that was a research book about the transgender
phenomenon especially in adolescent girls. As you can imagine, it challenged the gender-bending
narrative. But now they've come out and completely banned a book from all of their brands and
platforms, Ryan T. Anderson’s ‘When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment'.
Despite it being on sale for three years now, Amazon has suddenly said that it violates
their content policy and they won't say however exactly where, how, when or why. They just said
violates the policy, bye-bye's. Now Ryan’s book, it's important to note, was not a lightweight
volume. I’ve read Ryan’s book, it's brilliant, it was heavily research-based, it was compassionately
argued and it was endorsed by who's who of top medical experts and importantly the book sold
extremely well, same with Abigail Shrier’s. They're very popular books because they are giving
a decent contribution to a debate of the moment and it's worth noting, however, that it has been
banned and I just want to say this, book banning has never been a hallmark of the good guys at
any point in history. Let's just get that clear. It literally never is. Let's be clear about that and this whole cancel culture thing, Dr Seuss
is a book thing, but there's others as well... there is something in this which is a rabid
insecurity from those who are pushing the cancel culture line. It's an underlying insecurity that
woke culture has which compels them to censor, to ban and to cancel and really this is what
it's ultimately about, lies don't have to be censored. There's an alternative approach
to lies. They can be exposed by analysis. Lies will always be with us, always. Whether you
decide to go down the cancelling route or whether you decide to go down the analysis route or a bit
of column a, bit of column b, you're always going to have lies, but we can diminish and we can
reduce them and they can be shown up as lies. But here's the problem, right, if you go down the
analysis route, truth is also exposed by analysis and that is precisely why it must be cancelled
by those who hate it because there's no other way to stop it from spreading. If it is allowed
out, if it's analysed, it will be confirmed as truth and that is the worst possible scenario
for those who are trying to enforce lies. And that is really why cancel culture or book
banning which is the old-fashioned term for it, is never done in the pursuit of truth, never.
You'll find that insecurity is strongest where these lies are the most fragile
and if you're being asked to believe a particularly obvious lie you will find that the
enforcement of it is, rabid. I’ve said for a long time the quickest way, the easiest way, to get
deplatformed to get banned to be censored on any platform is to speak about the transgender
issue and this present case proves that. Whether or not you speak about it graciously
and carefully or not, this is the easiest way to get targeted by Big Tech and others.
Why? Because it is the most fragile of lies. Let's be real about this, there's nothing more
obvious in the world in which we live than the simple fact that it's occupied by men and women.
You know which one I am simply by looking at this screen. Every person you encounter, there's
a physiological reality, there's a biological reality, there's a psychological reality. We know
that mums and dads are different, men and women are different. We know that we encounter people
in that way etc. It's in your face, obvious. Take the latest frontier of gender politics,
the fact that men are playing, biological males are playing in women's sports. I saw a picture the
other day of a six foot eight biological male on a basketball team. You have MMA fighters fracturing
women's skulls, you've got records toppling left right and centre. Pretty much just about everyone,
really, joe average public, knows precisely what's going on. They can see what they see. They've got
eyes in their head and the only way to make sure that they don't act on what they see and what they
know or perchance that they don't swallow the lie whole, the only way to ensure that... the only way
to ensure that's avoided is to ruthlessly suppress the truth, ruthlessly suppress it. And this
is nasty for two reasons, the first reason is that this is totalitarian and it's getting into
various institutions which are capable, if not by themselves but capable collectively of exercising
totalitarian power. Big Tech, big corporate, media, politics, maybe academia, maybe not, but
at least the others. It's infested all of them and the book burners with totalitarian instincts as I
said, they are not the good guys, if you catch my drift, to master the art of understatement. But
here's the other reason, I want to be very clear to Christian folk that this is not a minor matter,
there's a lot of conservative voices out there, there's even people who are on sort of like
what you call the sensible left or whatever, there's people right across the spectrum who
say well this is political correctness gone mad. That is to demean how serious this is. That is to
simplify it far too much. That is to misunderstand its importance and its severity because this is
the reality, this the gender thing along with the target of so many other revolutionary woke
causes, these things target, they attack Creation. In the beginning God created the male and female
in His image, right. Genesis 1:27 says that very, very clearly. It's an attack on that reality. Or
you know marriage is oppressive and patriarchal and gender roles or this that and the other and
you know family and child bearing is a penalty and oppressive, they just attack and attack and attack
on all those things that are in Genesis 1, Genesis 2, God's good things, God's good order, God's
good design and an attack on Creation is an attack on the Creator, Romans 1 teaches us that. Why?
Because we're putting ourselves in His throne, in His seat and we're rewriting His rule book and
saying, you know what? We reckon we can do better, we reckon God's standards on all of this, that
are revealed in the very created world, we think we can rewrite the rules and get away with it.
Now Romans 1 tells us we don't get away with it. We don't. It says there that we bear ourselves
the due penalty for our error. In other words, we carry consequences from living this way and
the transgender thing is wreaking destruction on lives on a level that is so profound, time
fails me to tell you of how serious it is in the lives of children who go on to these puberty
blockers and that's pretty much a sentence to lifelong changes, many of them will regret
it. It's the same with the interruption of, you know, the destruction of family, the
destruction of marriage… the de-normalising of heterosexual relationships, all of these things
carry pretty serious consequences. We're wealthy enough these days... and we've got enough
technology to mask some of the consequences. Romans 1 says you won't get away with
it in your person, you just won't, there's guilt, there's all sorts of things that go
crazy, so this is the most personally destructive avenue a society can go down. But also it tells
us in Romans 1 something very important and sober, it is against this tendency, to rewrite the
Creation rules that God's wrath is revealed on a society and it says you know when people want
this and people double down on this what does He do? His wrath is revealed in this, He gives them
over to it. In other words He says, alright, have it, if that's what you want, have it. If you
want to rebel to that extent, if you want to say that I’m not real and the things I’ve revealed
in nature itself that are in front of your eyes are not real and you want to be gods then have it
and the consequences will flow. It's a very sober, it's a very serious moment for any culture to
reach and it's why very few cultures survive this kind of thing and well actually I don't think
any culture ever has, to be honest, but anyway that's probably a whole history thing in itself.
So let us not underestimate the severity of this issue and the importance is that we do not succumb
to cancel culture and the importance is that we don't allow it to be relegated to a fringe issue
the things that are being cancelled which tend to relate to sexuality, gender and so forth, but
that we continue to tell the truth on these things because the world needs it. I’ll never forget
having dinner with a group of ex-LGBT people and they sat around and they told me please don't
stop telling the truth on this because there's people like us out there who need to hear it and
they were once LGBT, they're converted to Christ, they're Christian folk, no longer identify as LGBT
whether they were trans or whether they were gay and they sat there and looked me in the eye
and said, ‘Don't stop teaching the truth, it matters, the consequences are too grave.’
So let that be an encouragement for us all not to stop but also to understand that the nature
of what's going on, it's not just madness, it's well, to use an old-fashioned word, it's evil.
I’m Martyn Iles and that was, ‘The Truth of It’. Hey, thank you so much for watching. If you
liked what you saw then make sure to hit the like button, if you want to never miss
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