Alex Jones Is Certifiably Nuts, Empress Irene Put Her Son's Eyes Out

0:00that I think you might as well rent the other one out, somebody else I guess. No actually I'm going to be teaching early church history for GVTS starting in a couple weeks and I'll probably use that. I mean I could use this too but I can't run this one by myself and I can run the other one pretty much by myself. Oh you're going to take early church history. Well, we'll have you sign up with GVTS and you'll get to audit the class and you'll have to do some reading.

1:06But anyway, here we are and got a few things I need to talk about before we get to Empress Irene and the things I promised you and get into the text scripture on something too. So I'll try to be concise but it's a challenge for me. Actually, I'm quite good at it when I have a timer going. When I'm in a debate, I'll get what I need said in the time period that I supposed to say it. That's one thing I can definitely claim for myself. I'm good at that kind of stuff. Grub doing radio, you had to be. UPI world news started at the top of the hour so there you go. Oh, that's interesting. I just watched it change from one to the other and they're right above each other. It's interesting having all these cameras. Rich lows, all the due dads. It's their riches due dads. Anyway, let me start off with something I just saw because I think it's rather important.

2:13A fellow, I think I had seen him in some of the other threads posted on X, the following. He posted a clip from a sermon where a pastor is speaking from scripture about how God is working in our lives even through tragedy and difficulty. Now, this is a basic reality of the Christian faith. This is plainly not only what is illustrated in Job and throughout the Psalter, Joseph's life. I mean, Isaiah's life, it's just, it's basic Christianity 101. And certainly what Romans 8.28 tells us, God causes all things worked as good, them love God, them with the College of Aquarius purpose. So what's wrong with that? Well, this guy named an average Ohioan posted it. He said, this is one of the main reasons I cannot stand Calvinism and why I cannot play nice with them.

3:18Stuff like this is actively taught in the church and then called good. And people hear this, listen to it and this is supposed to give them comfort. Yeah. That even when you go through tragedy, even when you get the cancer diagnosis, even when the loved one dies, even when the car accident happens, that God is still God and God is accomplishing His purposes. Yeah, that's terrible. That doesn't comfort anybody. So what's supposed to comfort them? Well, Dinesh D'Souza retweeted it. The D'Souza has so utterly destroyed his credibility on anything theological that I think we all just need to go, okay, you have a nice time over there at Dinesh throwing your fit and going sand in the air and writing whatever. He's going to write the next what love is this. The next terrible, horrible, nasty, absolutely absurd book against Calvinism.

4:20And there have been many of them. We'll probably come from Dinesh D'Souza. And it'll probably happen within three months because I think he lives in front of a keyboard. Looking at his feed, I mean, wow. But mark my words. He's going to write on it. And it's going to be so filled with canards and straw men. And it will be the collection of all the worst anti-Calvinism reversing. But it will not show the lightest interest, integrity, consistency, and actually understanding reform technology. Just like what love is this? I mean, Dave Hunt, face planted with that book and the book that he and I co-authored, the debate book later demonstrate that. Very, very clearly. Anyway, Dinesh D'Souza retreated and said, imagine having some horrendous evil happened to your family or your children. And then having this irrepressibly cheerful guy tell you, guess what?

5:22God did it. It's all part of his plan for you. And I almost want to go, you don't like how the Apostle Paul wrote Romans 828? He should have been sad when he wrote it because that's what he's objecting to. And what's going to happen? We're watching this. And I'm going to talk about this when I look at Jeremiah chapter 19, here in a couple of moments. But when you lose your mind, denying God's freedom, denying God being God, you end up abandoning any type of orthodox doctrine of God. And right now, I'll be honest with you. I don't see any reason whatsoever why Dinesh D'Souza will not become an open-theist. He doesn't seem to be a part of a church. He won't tell you what his theology is. He's not confessionally bound anything. And I just get the feeling that from this guy's perspective,

6:26he's able to figure anything out pretty quick. And he is demonstrating such a detestation for any expression of the sovereignty of God that that's what open-theism thrives on. And so this strikes me particularly. Because of the fact that in 1990, I believe it was, we experienced what we called Black Tuesday. And in one day, 60% of the funding for the ministry, which was absolutely minimal at the time, anyways, disappeared. And I had to find another job. I had to find another way of supporting my family. And it just all happened in the Providence of God that I met with some more missionaries

7:29that this fellow's apartment. And I talked to the missionaries. They left. And then we were talking afterwards. And this guy tells me he has been a part-time chaplain at Thunderburns Samaritan Hospital for like a year and a half and like that. And he said, you really ought to apply. I had never done chaplaincy work, but I had a master's degree for fuller seminaries. So it's like, okay, this would be a challenge. But so I did. I applied. Got the job. And one of the things that you had to do was you had to run a grief support group, a law support group on Sunday afternoons at the hospital. This is not a Christian hospital, the secular hospital. And so I go to a Breach and Christian bookstore. That's how you did things back then. There was no Amazon. And there wasn't no internet. And I buy a few books on counseling and grief

8:35and stuff like that. And I start reading these books and I am just devastated. The theology of God in these books is God had nothing to do with what happened to you. Your your kid died. God was on vacation into heating. But he's got he's come back now and he's going to make everything as good as he can. But there was no purpose in that. The whole idea, and this is very common, the whole idea was purposeless evil is everywhere. And God can't do anything about it. And so you just need to make people feel as good as they can about God. Even though to be honest with you, he can't stop it from happening again. And he didn't have any purpose in it. And it's not actually to make you more like Christ. It's just purposeless evil. It's just, you know, just the way it is. That seemingly is what the National Susabilities at least that's what this tweet in the case.

9:37And I could not do that. And I did not do that. And when I did that law support group, when I learned much about grieving, which what eventuated in the writing of my book, that is my second most popular book. It's still in print, still being used. Many pastors have a box of those books grieving our path back to peace under their desk, just a handout to people. I did not capitulate on the biblical doctrine of God to do that. So this strikes me because one of the most beautiful realities of the Christian life is that everything that happens to us, including the bad things, does have a purpose. We are being conformed the image of Christ. When Paul wrote those words in Romans chapter 8, he wasn't messing around.

10:40Now, there's a theology behind that. It's the theology of God that the Neshtasus, it hates that the open theus, hate, they hate that God. They love their own freedom. They will not worship a God who has an eternal decree. They hate that kind of a God. So I don't know what to do with these verses. They twist them and deny that they have the application that they most obviously have. Whatever they do with it, the reality is that that's where they are and that's what we're seeing. So would he have said these things before the past couple of weeks and this wild swing into this, I hate reformed theology. All of Calvinism is wrong. This is disgusting. I won't study any of this. I won't be fair to any of this. I recognize I'm actually denying the background of my own religious faith, whatever that is. I mean, if you went to

11:43Calvary Chapel, it's the only thing I've been able to find. Is it for a while? You went to Calvary Chapel and then after the scandal at King's College in 2012, I think it was. It's like no one has a clue where he is. Is he in obedience to scripture? Is he under the care of elders? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Is he just doing his own thing out there in rebellion? It looks like it to me. I'll be honest with you. But this swing just demonstrates that there was no grounding in the first place. You don't always sit and adopt all this wild theology if you had a foundation to start with. And so just watch what happens. He's going to be debating, what was it? September 10th or 11th. And now, we approach things differently. The good doctor is not quite as

12:45aggressive as I am. I hope that works out in that type of context for him. Basically, much more of a philosopher. And he'll make things very clear. I think he'll do a fine job. But who knows what the Nash to Susa will even believe walking into that debate or walking out of that debate? He may change in the middle of the debate, which makes to doing a debate somewhat problematic. It would be nice if there was a greed upon thesis. But I have a feeling it's more of a general free for all. And that could be, like I said, problematic. So, so, sorry, Eli Ayalo was just texting. We may do something on his program about some of this stuff too. But Eli, I can't respond to you right now, but you're not listening anyway. So who cares?

13:46Um, so anyways, elsewhere in the Nash to Susa universe, I tried to find it, couldn't find it, because that man lives behind the keyboard. I mean, I don't know how many ex posts he posts per day, but it's a lot. Oh, by the way, for those interested, a fellow from outside the United States sent me a seven page post that, that, that Susa crudely referred to two days ago. And a couple people online and said, yeah, I'd like to hear what you, how do you respond to that? I mean, that was, that's, that's a, it's a lot of good argumentation there and stuff like that. And I'm like, all right, now I looked at it and I'm like, there's nothing here that I have not addressed, but this guy's outside the US doesn't seem to have any of my books. We're willing to send them to him. I told him to call you and we'll, we'll get him. I think he's in the Dominican Republic or something like that. I don't

14:47And so we're happy to send him, but again, it's stuff that we've addressed for years, but his final conclusion was sort of a version of latent flowers, provisionist. Um, people choose to follow the father and they worship the father and because of that, the father gives them to the sun. So that's the preexisting condition. And it's not mentioned in John chapter six, but they cobble it together from other contexts that aren't the same context. I'm not going to say that in chapter six, but it's part of the isogetical problem that provisionism suffers with from its birth, actually. But anyway, um, and so, you know, I'm sort of like, could somebody explain what, what the weird thing in the Trinity is to wear rebel sinners against God who are dead in their sin can choose to worship God the father, but they cannot choose to worship God the

15:50son. Because that's what this requires you to believe. That rebel sinners still dead in their sin, but of course, provisionists don't really believe that. They are full on plagians at that point. Um, but rebel sinners can choose to submit to follow, come to God the father, but there's something weird about Jesus to where they can't do that with the son. They can do it with the father, they can't do it with the son. It's trainitarianly weird, um, but provisionism, its entire origin is as an attempted American response to a very shallow view of Calvinism. So it won't last, it can't. Um, and its shallowness comes from its origin that source and it's the people who originated it. Um, so, you know, it's something we have to deal with now.

16:53And so we should, but I doubt that my grandchildren will be dealing with it. Um, dealing with synergies, I'm sure, but it'll just be able to go into another name at that particular point in time. So anyway, one of the reasons I say this, Dineshtra Susa, I tried to find the tweet, but like I said, I was scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, couldn't find it. Um, quoted, it may have been quoting somebody else, but he basically made the statement that this destroys Calvinism, you know, everything destroys Calvinism. When you haven't read and do not have the background to even understand Calvin or Turitan or, or, or Masteryctor, whoever, um, Hodge, Machen, Warfield, you know, the big names, you know, Dineshtra hasn't read any of them. Not a one and could not even begin to interact with their presentations.

17:55But when you think you're all that plus a bag of chips, um, you can quote versus that have been dealt with for hundreds of years and not even think about. I wonder what they say about this. I don't care. It's still reviewed some. There you go. It's, it's an easy way to go. And that's what he does. So he quotes from Jeremiah chapter 19. So I thought we'd take up just a couple of moments. Um, yeah, it's the Old Testament. I need to, I need to change my Old Testament color scheme. I really do. Um, because, um, see the New Testament looks really good on a screen like that. See, uh, the Old Testament's got to bright a background. Um, so remind me after the programs over and I'll get it done. I, I just never get reminded. So I just keep bringing accordance up and it's just defaults back where it was. Um, but I mean, if you bring the text up, it will look better on the screen, won't it? If we're not using the,

18:56um, not using the camera. Yeah, see that looks fine. That's, that's nice and clear. So, yeah, we're, we're good with that. Even though for some reason it's a little bit off on this screen. I hope it's not on the actual thing because it's actually cutting off some of the letters on the left, left hand side, uh, which it's not up here. Anyway, um, so I mean, let me see if this is. Okay, no. Well, I guess I, I, I would like to be able to scroll it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. I'm not going to do that. I'll use the computer. Um, during my, chapter 19 is a judgment text. Uh, God is explaining the judgment that has come upon Judah for its idolatry and everything else. Um, and so here, the word of Yahweh,

20:01O Kings of Judah and Habitatins of Jerusalem, thus as Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, be a whole not about to bring a calamity upon this place at which the ears of everyone that hears of it will tingle. Why? Why is God going to do this? Because they have forsaken me and have made this a foreign place and have burned incense in it to other gods that neither they nor their fathers or the kings of Judah have ever known. And because they have filled this place, the blood of the innocent and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons and the fire as burned offerings to Baal, a thing which I never command or spoke of, nor did ever come upon my heart. Therefore, I'll behold the days are coming to clear as Yahweh when this place will no longer be called tofeth or the valley of Ben-Hinam, but rather the valley of slaughter. And then he goes on to describe the destruction that is coming. Now, Jeremiah 19.5 is one of the favorite open theist texts.

21:08Now, for those who aren't familiar with this terminology, open theism is the concept that God has certain knowledge of future events. God knows what he's can do in the future, not necessarily what he's going to do, but what he can do in the future. But what he does not know is he does not know what free creatures will do in the future. So he does not have exhaustive divine foreknowledge. Now, there are non-reformed theologies that affirm that God has exhaustive knowledge of future events. There is the simple foreknowledge view. The reform view connects God's

22:11sovereign decree, his purpose, his intention, his will. God works all things according to the council of his will. That's Bible. That's divine revelation. And hence God's knowledge of future events is not because he's looking down the corridors of time and sees them. It's because he's the maker of time itself and all the events in time. So the decree, his activity in time, which is Providence, this is all connected together in a consistent whole. Most of our Minion and Evangelical Theologies don't even try for consistency to be appropriate on this one. One of the great problems we have, I think, in Evangelicalism as a whole, is the fact that... Well, I call it

23:20Chicken Coop Theology. You've got those chicken coops where one up here, one here, one here. And it's almost like those old mailboxes we used to have in places of work, where you'd have years up here and stuff those meant for you being there. And you could put what? Nah, there weren't cubbies or bigger than that. You'd come in and like your paycheck, be stuck up there and announcements and stuff like that. And they're just this specific. What most people do is you've got your doctrine of God, you've got your doctrine of Jesus, doctrine of the Bible, and doctrine of the church, doctrine of salvation. And then you got the big one in the middle, eschatology. That's the important one. But they're never brought close enough to each other. For anyone to ever go, I wonder if my doctrine of God is consistent with my doctrine of the church. Is my doctrine of the Atonement consistent with my doctrine of man?

24:25And one of the reasons that a lot of Christians just, they don't even think about this stuff, is because they're in churches where the pastors recognize, I can't bring this stuff up in a sermon because it will make people uncomfortable. And I don't want to make people uncomfortable because we're going to be passing the plate at some point. And so I'm going to, I'm not going to do what Paul said to do in Acts chapter 20. Remember, we said to the Ephesian elders, I am innocent of the blood of all men because I did not hesitate to proclaim to you the whole council of God. And so as a result, people are rarely challenged to think about how consistent they are. The reformed doctrine of God is consistent, consistent with the Trinity, consistent with Atonement, Soteriology, Eschatology, the Holmijn Yard, reformed theologians seek consistency

25:31because we believe God is glorified when we seek to believe all of his truth. That's what consistency is. And this ministry has been based on that consistency. That's how you define truth. So as a result, when people look at a statement like this, the open theists come along and they say, look, it says it right there. They are burning their sons and the fire as burnt offerings to Baal. Now, I've only been to Israel once, but we did visit a sort of recreate, not recreated, but fixed up so you can sort of see what it looked like. A place of worship to Baal, one of the high places. It was big. And you could almost still feel it felt

26:31really creepy to be there. But you had worship of Moloch, the offering of children, happens as well to Baal. Baal just simply means Lord by the way. It can even mean husband. So you have to read it within its context. But notice what it says. They burned their sons and the fire as burnt offerings to Baal. A thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever come upon my heart. Therefore, it would be whole days are coming to close. Yahweh, when this place no longer be so that the judgments come. They say, see? God never even thought about it. Never even thought about it. So what they're literally saying is the first day, the first time some pagan high priest in ancient history said, we can appease the gods and you can get a better

27:37crop next year. If we take that baby from your arms and offer it as a burnt sacrifice on an altar, God was in heaven going, you've got to be kidding me. I never dreamed that they could get this evil. I'm stunned. That's what they want you to believe. And they believe that. The open theus believes that the first time that happened, God was like, wow, I am in utter shock. I do not, I'm going to go on vacation for a while. Then come back and I'll feel better. Okay. Is that what this is saying? Well, not if you sort of allow it speak for itself. A thing which I never commanded.

28:38I never spoke up. Okay, let's let those start. What's Yahweh saying? And remember, if you understand ancient problems in Israel, you understand something called synchretism. And that is, especially right here, Baal, the worship of Baal came to be joined with the worship of Yahweh. The prophets condemn this constantly. The best kings are the kings that separate these things out. And get rid of the worship of Baal. But the constant temptation was, yeah, keep worshiping Yahweh. But

29:41let's cover our bases. Let's cover our bases. Let's worship Yahweh and Baal. And maybe if you are the gods, we'll read it. And that way, we'll get favor from each one of them, even though Yahweh is sort of exclusiveistic about this stuff. And so what God is saying is, these priests of Baal may tell you that this is a command from a god. They may even synchretistically tell you, and Yahweh would be okay with it too. But what Jeremiah is saying, what God is saying through Jeremiah, is that offering their sons and a fire is burnt off forings to Baal? I never commanded that. I never spoke that. Nor did it ever come upon my heart. It was never something I desired. And immediately, the

30:42Nesha Susa goes, but it's part of his decree. See? That's how it works. If it's part of the decree, then it must be something that God desired. So the fundamental starting point of open theus and what he himself is saying, which is why I say I don't see how I can just imagine certain open theus that I know of who are banging down his door right now. They would love to have him become an open theus. I mean, that would be, wow, there's a feather in my cap, right? What they start with is that there can never be a decree of God that includes the existence of evil without God being the one who is evil in and of himself. So God could never have a plan of salvation. He could never have a fall. He could never have redemption. He could never work in such a

31:45way that through the gospel, through the incarnations, through the death, bear, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, through the building of the church, that all of his attributes, all of his glory, both his wrath and his holiness and his justice, as well as his mercy and his grace and his love can be demonstrated fully. And they don't believe. Romans, chapter 9, what if willing to put up with these? He wanted to demonstrate his justice, demonstrate his wrath, demonstrate his power. These folks just don't believe that stuff. That's not that's not a priority for them. It doesn't matter if it's right there on the page of scripture. That's not relevant. We just put that off to the side. And so when it says, nor did it ever come upon my heart, they literally want to say God was stunned the first time it happened. That's not what he's

32:49talking about. What he's saying is no syncretism. I never commanded it. I never spoke it. I am too pure for that to even be something that would be a desire in my heart. But you all did it because you followed the ball. So he quoted this and said, this is the death of Calvinism. You think maybe some mother reformed theologians have said the same things. I just said maybe four, five hundred years ago even think maybe that's been in print for a long, long time. Yeah. In fact, we could go back before that and we could find people in church history that dealt with these things. Because a belief in God's exhaustive divine foreknowledge is not specifically reformed. Many people believed that. Now they had different ways of dealing with

33:51man's will as a result. But they did believe God has exhaustive knowledge of future events. Did God know that this would happen when he created? If you say no, you're an open thief. You're no longer a classical Christian of any kind. You are on your road to fundamental denials of very basic Christian truth. If you say God didn't know, then God is surprised by things and you do not have the slightest promise of tomorrow. Okay. You really don't. God might get surprised tomorrow. Might have changed everything he's promised you. Who knows? If you say yes and everyone just automatically started defaults to wanting to say yes. If you say yes, then you have to explain how God came across this knowledge. Is it something that was passively given to him?

34:58So he creates time and then time sort of does its own thing because of free will and everything. And he creates and he looks and goes, hey, I wouldn't the end. Worship me. Is that how it works? I say to you, God had a purpose for this. God had a purpose for all the evil that has taken place in history. And we may not know what it is right now, but we have the promise that his throne is built upon justice. And we have the promise of an empty tomb that he has defeated evil. And that someday we will know. We will see because God is going to be justified. Remember the Odyssey we talked about a few programs ago. We have those promises. Men who detest the sovereign God will twist scripture to do anything to get rid of this testimony. Because if that's who God is, then they have to be completely submitted to him.

36:00Clean my Mac would like to access data from other apps. Would you go away? I just love stuff like that. You know, it's like, go away. Yeah, you're not actually using me for anything right now. So there's Jeremiah chapter 19, wanted to lead with that in light of the silliness that Jesus posted yesterday. And that's taken us through most of the program anyways. But it's good to cover these things and to give folks the stuff. All right, let us, where did it go? I don't want that one. I don't want that one. This one. There we go. New is there somewhere. All right, I told you. Oh, don't go to this yet. I will walk wherever I want. If I want to walk behind you, I will walk behind you.

37:04I don't that is you. I will drive you insane. Yes, so one other thing that I've got to mention at the beginning. And we may go a little long today. I'm going to I need to get through Empress Irene. But yesterday, a fellow on Twitter, I do not know who he is. I know that he is a critic of Joel Webin and NXR and that whole movement. Posted a clip from Alex Jones. He was on a webcast. I recognize the host, but I don't remember these people's names. It's not religious, not Christian. I've seen other people on it. I do recall that all the other people on the webcast were stunned. By the way, Alex Jones is behaving. He seemed to be on drugs to me. He really did. He was completely out of the world. He was insane, certifiably insane. Not just acting weird. He was certifiably insane.

38:12Nudder than the proverbial fruitcake. He was dropping F-bombs right left in the center. Other terms, he was talking about Joe Rogan's bodily parts, but describing to him female bodily parts. It was unbelievable. Vile, disgusting, pure-ile. And this is the lead speaker at the Christ is King Conference in November. That should be enough. That should be it. For any rational Christian, that should have closed the door. You don't invite people like this to stand under a banner that says Christ is King. You want to get them involved politically, then get Jesus out of it.

39:16Don't drag his name through that cesspool. That's all there is to it. And so he posts this and I just, I repost it and go, here's the lead speaker. Here's the lead guy. He's this the guy that's getting the clicks and getting the ticket sales. Alex Jones, he's insane. And he is an absolute raving reprobate. That should be enough. Every person on that entire list of speakers should watch that and go, sorry, I can't. Not as long as you've got Christ's King over there. Because obviously that man doesn't believe that and is not going to speak in accordance with that. Joshua Haymes is no longer on the list. I hope, Joshua, honestly, I hope you woke up enough and bailed on your own. I hope

40:20they didn't just remove you. I was so disappointed when I saw you were on that in the first place. Really, really was. I hope you just woke up and went, whoa, whoa, whoa, can't go here. I really hope that's what happened. I don't know if I'm going to find out. But that's what I really hope took place. Anyway, one thing that I want to mention, there was some fellow last week when this first broke, when we were talking about that Harrison Smith guy and his love of the F-Mom too. Even connecting it with Jesus' name. I posted that and he wrote back, I just don't know why you're so upset. All of these men affirmed the nice-heen creed. And I wrote back, thank you for illustrating fully Christless nationalism and for the deadness of sacralism. We've already had over a thousand years of this in the past.

41:32And if you're literally sitting here looking, look at that clip that was posted from Alex Jones. Now, I don't believe for a second that he affirms a nice-heen creed. I don't believe that for a second. But it would be actually worse for him if he said that he did. It'd be much better for him to go, I don't care about that stuff. I'm not a firm in nothing like that. It'd be much worse if we go, oh yeah, sure, sure. And then go on and describe the nice-heen creed by throwing F-Moms into it. Because that's what he would do. The man has absolutely no limits. No boundary. Nudder than the proverbial fruitcake. And so, their sacralism, all the things that were done under the Christ as King Banner, the Inquisition, and the Wars, and the profaning of Christ's name.

42:37Sacredism, Chrysler's nationalism, that's what this stuff is. And people are, oh, I just don't know why you're so upset. If anything is, every single one of these people promoting it now would have been on my side six years ago. They didn't believe this stuff. They've fallen into it. So yeah, we're gonna point it out. We're gonna expose it. It needs to be exposed. That's what sacralism is. So there you go. All right, switching gears to doing something that I promised you would do before. Let me remind you of where we are. So, the debate coming up in a month and a half on the Second Nicing Council and the veneration of icons. As I've pointed out to you, the reason to do this is because this debate topic

43:46brings us to the central authority claims of both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. They apply them differently, but they both accept the Second Nicing Council as infallible, as ecumenical, as binding. So you demonstrate that the Second Nicing Council was an error that it used fault sources, that its argumentation is bogus, and that its conclusions are completely a historical. And you have fundamentally destroyed the authority claims of both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox in one shot. You rarely get opportunities to cover that much ground, but that's why it's important. Last week, we talked to you about St. Tyrosios, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople who was a politician, elevated to that position

44:46from being a politician, not even a priest or anything else. He wasn't even a cleric. In one week, by Empress Irene. The Second Nicing Council in 787 is Irene's. She wants it, she calls it, she funds it, she runs it, she makes sure it gives the right answers to the things she wants, she's an iconophile, she loves venerating icons. Her daddy didn't, but she did. And so what is she remembered for in history? Only this, well pretty much only this, I mean we'll talk about a few other things, but those are more bad things and good things. She wanted to undo what had been done in the preceding decades in the banishing of icons and she succeeded.

45:49The reason that anyone venerates icons today in Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, especially in Eastern Orthodoxy is this woman, that's why you venerate icons. No other reason, not the apostles, don't blame the apostles, don't blame Basil on the Holy Spirit. It's Empress Irene of Athens. Regent Coemperus and Soul Ruler of Byzantium 780-802, architect, and I see a two, first woman to rule Rome in her own right. All right, let's find out about her. Born around 752, to an obscure but noble Athenian family, brought to Constantinople and married in 769 to Leo IV, son of the reigning emperor Constantine V. Bore the future Constantine VI in 771, when Leo IV died of fever in 780, the nine-year-old boy

46:55inherited the throne with Irene as Regent. So she has a son, Constantine VI in 771, nine years later, Leo IV dies of fever, and so he becomes emperor, but she is the Regent because he is too young to make mature decisions on his own. So it's not the first time this had happened. Unlike her late husband and father-in-law, Irene privately favored the veneration of icons, a conviction that would shape her entire Regency. So she has a particular theological commitment to the veneration of icons, and she is going to use her position to establish this in the empire. So how I Regent reversed 50 years from period policy,

48:00because icons have been banished for about 50 years. In 784, Irene eases out the aging iconoclast leaning Paul IV, and elevates her own secretary, Teraceus, still a layman to the Patriarchate. So this is what we covered last time. In one week, Paul IV wouldn't work with her. So she comes up with a new ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. This is all politics. This would never have been accepted in the primitive church. If this had happened before the first NIC in council, and the emperor had raised somebody up and made them a bishop of a church, the whole church would have said, you've got to be kidding me. But things have changed. It's been hundreds of years since NIC a one. And so now the sacralism of the day is fully established.

49:07And the role of emperors in deciding theological issues has now been established as well. So they try, remember I told you, Teraceus, he puts on this whole show, I'm not worthy. And I will only accept this great honor if you call an ecumenical council. That's what we've got to do. He's doing this at Irene's bidding. He is her puppet. And so they call a council to meet in 786. But a council convene in Constantinople is stormed by iconic class soldiers loyal to the old guard and force will be dispersed before it can act. So they try in 786, they start actually a year later. Now they were not still during that time. They didn't take a nice vacay. The reason that NIC a two went as fast as it did

50:09and as easily as it did is that between 786 and 787, Teraceus and Irene and their compatriots are aligning out the council. That's why NIC a two can start in the first session with the enathematizing of one of the two sides. The first session enathematized is one of two sides. There was never any debate. There was never any real discussion of iconic class and versus non-iconic class and iconophilia. No, you kicked all the one side out in the first session. Now how do you do that? Because you've been working on it for a year. The council hasn't been called but it's going to be and when it is, everything's all set up. All the bishops have been told what to do. It is a rubber stamp party from day one. So they don't do it in Constantinople. They do it in NIC. So you're not in the capital city. So that's what they do

51:15in 787. Learning the lesson Irene moves the council away from the volatile capital, garrisoned in Icyia, icon veneration is restored, iconoclasm is condemned. So as Constantine VI approaches maturity, Irene refuses to step back from her position of authority in Constantinople. Demanding that troops swear an oath naming her not him as senior ruler. The army of the Asian themes revolts proclaiming Constantine VI's sole ruler and banishing Irene from court her first fall from power. So 790. So this is two and a half, three years. After the end of the council, now there's political stuff going on and she has issues. In 792, so two years later, after she's been kicked out. In 792, Constantine VI, her son,

52:27foolishly forgives his mother and reinstates her as co-ruler a decision he will not survive. Failed campaigns against the Bulgers and brutal reprisals against his own uncles cost Constantine the loyalty of the army and the people. So he's young and he's got a taste of power and how many times we've seen through history, that's a recipe for disaster. In 795, he forces his wife Maria into a convent to marry his mistress Theodote, a public scandal that turns the pious firmly against him. Well, again, how many times have we seen that in history? And again, forces his wife Maria into a convent. So we've got convents, we've got nuns, we've got all the rest of that stuff and well, once she goes into a convent, then that opens up, no, it didn't open up an opportunity for him, but he does it anyways. So 797, August 15th, in the room where he was born, the purple chamber in Constantinople.

53:34Irene turns Constantine's own unpopularity into a conspiracy with sympathetic bishops, there's religion involved, I say, crullism, say it with me today, say, crullism, yes, this is, this is what people want and when you want it, this is what you get. See, okay. Irene turns Constantine's own unpopularity into a conspiracy with sympathetic bishops and courtiers against him, fleeing across the Bosphorus, he is captured and dragged back to Porphyria, the purple chamber where he was born, there on his mother's order, he has blinded, they put his eyes up. He dies of his wounds not long after leaving Irene without arrival. Yeah, that's that's history. This isn't disputed. There is no, no one goes, oh Irene never did that, oh Irene didn't know, no, everybody knows

54:41that 10 years after NICA 2 to keep soul control for herself. She had her son's eyes gouged out through him in prison and evidently infection, bleeding, something he died of his wound. Now, as we point out here, blinding was the empire's standard means of political disqualification without formal execution, a mutilated claimant was by custom unfit to reign. So the tradition was if you are mutilated, if you lost an eye or if you're blind or something like that, you're not fit to be the emperor. So the idea was, well see she was being nice to her son. She was keeping her position, yes, but she didn't want to just execute him, well she still executed him just slowly and painfully, but she put his eyes out and he died of it.

55:45And now she is without arrival. So she rules alone as autocrat, styling herself as the masculine imperial title, a deliberate claim to full sovereign authority, not merely consort set. So she takes Basaleus, King, in Greek, not Baselisa, the feminine form. She takes the masculine form. I am in charge, full authority, no no Regency, I'm in charge. Opens diplomatic contact with Charlemagne, Charlemagne is the great, by 802, a marriage between the two courts is reportedly discussed. We're not absolutely certain of that, but it's reportedly discussed. A union that never comes to pass, that would have been, that would have had some really serious ramifications, especially with the Muslim threat against Constantinople, which still, it's going to be 600 years, 550 plus years,

56:55before Constantinople falls, but it will. But that would have probably squeezed Rome sort of in between Gal and Constantinople. That would have had some interesting political ramifications. Anyways, she wins favor with tax remissions and released prisoners, but drains the treasury and leaves the empire financially and militarily exposed. They're in constant conflict and war, it takes money to fight wars, that takes taxes, as we should know, but don't seem to know. 802, the throne she sees is taken in turn. There's a palace conspiracy, petitions, and officials led by the finance minister, Nikeferus, move against her while marriage talks with Charlemagne are still unresolved, that probably would have helped Samantha position. On October 31st, 802, Irene is deposed

57:56without violence and Nikeferus, the first is proclaimed emperor in her place. She's sent first the island of Prinkipo, then to Lesbos. Yes, that's where Lesbian comes from, Lesbos, where she is left to support herself by spinning wool. I'm surprised there are not some pieces of wool, some place that are icons today. It was spun by Irene. She dies in exile on Lesbos on August 9th, 803, so I mean, that's not even a year later. Her five year soul reign over almost as quickly as it began. So, she's celebrated in church memory, chleafly for restoring icon veneration in ICA2, not celebrated by our aspect of church history, but anyway, a triumph later chronicles Tread is out weighing everything else. Her coins uniquely bore her own portrait on both sides, a small but telling side of how completely she claims sovereign authority for herself. In popular tradition,

59:00sometimes calls her a saint, but this rests on a single admiring letter from Theodore the Studeight, no Orthodox liturgical book actually lists her among the saints. So, here is Irene, and here is the reason that you've enter eight icons. That's all there is to it. There's just, there would not have been a ICA2, there would not have been an overthrowing of iconoclasm. If it was not for Empress Irene, all of this illustrates once again, what are we doing here? And actually, it's coming right up on the hour. I'm not going to have to go very late at all. What are we doing here? Can I connect this to what we were doing before? When we talk about sacralism and get mocked by Stephen Wolf and his people and by the new Christian

1:00:06right, do these people talk about stuff like this? Do they do presentations on the political intrigues involved in the Second Eicene Council that had such a massive dogmatic impact on the formation of Eastern Orthodoxy? Do they even know about this stuff? No. So, when we talk about sacralism, we actually can give you illustrations. I can go back and I can go, you know, I've taught about Martin Luther for decades now. And it's been so obvious to me that his trip in 1510 to Rome, where he walked to Rome and back from Germany, had such a huge impact on him and prepared his mind and his soul to come to understand justification by faith, to see Romans

1:01:07what Romans is actually saying. And one of the things that truly impacted him was he literally saw a man in armor on a horse in Rome and realized it was the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, clattering through the streets of Rome in armor, leading soldiers. And that's when he began to realize there is massive corruption. He saw it amongst the clergy, he saw it and what Rome was like, it was a brothel. He was deeply impacted and God used that. Anything is all these new Christian right, Christless, nationalist people who claimed to be reformed only a few years ago have probably told that story or at least were familiar with it. And now they want a Christian Hitler, a Christian Franco, maybe a Pope in armor.

1:02:16They just don't get it. It's like they're schizophrenic. It's like their brains have been removed. A different brain was shoved in there. So weird. But yeah, we can give you examples because we're not just making it up as we go along. We've been dealing with stuff like this forever. And they know that, but they don't care. So, sacredism has a cost, my friends, called the gospel. Sacredism has a cost. It actually allows you to make a man, a vile, insane, reprobate man like Alex Jones, stand under a banner that says Christ is king and go, isn't it wonderful we're saving the nation? Why are you not? You're doing absolutely nothing, but making a mockery out of the gospel. That's all you're doing.

1:03:19Ah, I wasn't thinking about any of that when I put the presentation together on Irene obviously. We're giving the background. So where do we go from here? We got to go back to the confession of Assythias. I want to get through all of that. It is dogmatically binding and authoritative for those in the Eastern Orthodox Church. And so we need to use original sources. The thing that the Nash D'Souza refuses to do, we've been doing for decades and are not going to stop doing it just to try to get the clicks that he's trying to get. So we'll go back to confession of Assythias. I need to remember when I get back to send Craig Trulia, my article, so that we can then also address that issue because we've looked, I've given you the presentation on suited Inazius. We've talked about what the nicotopolis Trulia theory is that there are references to

1:04:24D'Inazius that predate 500 and therefore it could have been the actual D'Inazius of Act 17. But we didn't get into what the real problems with that is. And we will. We'll present that. So yeah, does that mean we're not going to be talking about anything else? No. We talked about this stuff today. And we can still talk about the Pope and we can talk about Roman Catholicism, we can talk about King James' Onlyism. We throw a lot of stuff into each program. But yeah, this is where my mind is right now. And those of you who've been with us for a long time, of support us for a long time, you know that's how it works. We talked a lot about Barter Ehrman in the months before my debating Barter. We talked a lot about John Shelby Spong before I debated John Shelby Spong and all the rest of the folks. And that's just sort of how you have to do

1:05:26it because you know this debate that D'Isoos is going to do with Benoyne. What is that? Two, three weeks? You know, I simply say D'Isoos is not ready for a debate. He's not ready, he even opened his mouth to talk about it, the subject. But he will. And I feel sorry for Dr. Benoyne because he better bring three or four extra fire extinguishers to put out all the straw men that he's going to have to be dealing with. And that's going to severely limit the amount of time that he has to actually express his position. I really hope it's moderated well. I really hope it's not just a discussion because that will be a disaster. It needs to be opening statements, rebuttals, moderated interaction, closing statements. If it's just the pop-off discussion type

1:06:29thing that you have, you know, it'll be, it'll be worthless. I hope that's not what happens, but there you go. All right, thank you for joining us for the program today. You've gotten a whole lot of different stuff thrown at you at one time. Hopefully it's useful to you. Thanks for watching. Pray for us, pray for the upcoming debate. Support us if you will. We'll see you next time. God bless.