Bonus: A Christian Response to the Cultural Fight at the Capitol

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A Christian Perspective on the Capitol Riot and Political Activism

All right, folks. Welcome to just a little feedback I want to give with some of the things we see going on in our culture and try to give just a perspective, a Christian perspective on the issues that we've been seeing.

It's no news to many that on December 6th, there were a bunch of people that were out at a rally. During that rally, we ended up seeing that some, and when I say some, the rally, from what I could tell, had people upwards of anywhere I've heard between 100 ,000 to 300 ,000 people.

And out of that, it seems that less than 100 had decided that they would enter into the Capitol building. Now, I want to give a Christian perspective on this, on this whole view and see how should Christians be responding.

Because I think this is important for us as Christians to think through these issues, to have a biblical mindset at these times. And so first, let's just deal with some events. Let's get facts straight and evaluate things because I think things are probably going to get worse, unfortunately, before they get better.

So, you know, January 6th, you have 100 ,000 to 300 ,000 people at a rally. They believe that the election had been, that there was things that were not done properly in the election, that the field was stolen, and so they were out there to rally.

President Trump encouraged people to go and march down to the Capitol to let their voice be heard. Now, marching like that and letting your voice be heard is not out of context, unfortunately, with what we've been seeing for the last seven months.

And for seven months now, we have seen people on the streets and they have been protesting. We have seen a large amount of violence, rioting, lootings, burning of cities, and we've been told to accept this, that this is how people need to get their voices heard.

So let's put this in context. Context because as we look at this and we look at the context of the last seven months, we have had the more socialist part of America, those who have been saying that what they've been doing with the BLM and Antifa riots, they've called it war.

They have taken over an entire city and said that it's its own country. They said the police were to be out. They weren't to be involved. And all of these things that we end up seeing have been out there for months.

You have had even our next vice president, Kamala Harris, who not only had said that we should allow and understand these people that are voicing these things, but she actually paid. She funded the people that were breaking the law when they would riot and loot and burn things.

She actually paid for them to be out of jail. She paid their bail. So when we think about these things, we have to put it in the context that for months now we have been hearing that this is appropriate behavior.

This is what we should be seeing. So now I want you to be really careful. I'm not justifying in any way what happened at the Capitol building. I'll get to that in a moment, but I want to put it in its context because what you're going to see from some people like myself, I will condemn both acts of violence and rioting and misbehavior.

But the thing that's frustrating for many is you only see it on one side. And so what we have is a feigned outrage of the left to the point where, for those who may not know, that today Trump became the first president in U .S. history to be impeached twice.

And it seems that there were many Republicans that chose to side with him. And the argument being made for that is that he had to be impeached because of the fact that the words he said incited people.

Now, what were the words? He asked them to go down to the Capitol building and peacefully make their voice heard. See, the peaceful part is not so much known. They cut that out. In fact, Twitter censored the very thing when Trump was asking everybody to please go home peacefully.

And, you know, when you look at that, then you end up realizing that they don't want that part of the message out. Now, something that someone is saying here, and I don't know, Norwin, but he said, Jesus personally wants Trump impeached.

Well, in a sense, I would agree with him for this reason, because Trump got impeached, okay? And nothing happens outside of God's will. So in that sense, yeah, that would be. So as we look at these different things, we have to look at the context of when this is happening.

We've been hearing seven months of saying, this is how you get your voice heard. And so we have some people that wanted their voice heard. Now, there does seem to be some evidence that there were at least a few Black Lives Matter or Antifa people involved.

They've given different reasons that they were just there to document it, to film it. Some were saying that they were, you know, egging it on. We end up seeing, as we see the videos, that there were Trump supporters that were calling people out as being part of Antifa, and because of that, they were trying to take the little bats away from them.

We see some that were chasing them out so that they would stop doing damage. But that doesn't excuse those others who were not Antifa, not Black Lives Matter protesters, that were, whether they were egged on by Trump or by Antifa or whoever, they still did wrong in going into the Capitol.

Now, we have all this talk of the impeachment being that, well, look, they did all kinds of... I mean, they hurt police officers. The Black Lives Matter protests killed police officers. They were setting cars on fire, setting police vehicles.

Those are city property. They were tearing down monuments. And let's also remember that even though the media has been saying this is the first time anybody has ever broken in to the Capitol building and done something like this, well, maybe we have a short-term memory, because when Brett Kavanaugh hearings were going on, we ended up seeing that in the Kavanaugh hearings that you ended up having, back then you had people that went in, women that broke into the building, got into the rotunda, so that they could protest the Senate having their vote.

So it wasn't the first time. It was at least the second time in recent history. That's what's so amazing is that it's only been a couple years since the last time. There was no outrage from the media and the Democrats back then.

There was some outrage from the conservatives. We see that there were conservatives who were against the Black Lives Matter protests, the way they were being done, the way the police were being told to back off and let them continue to destroy property, billions of dollars worth.

Romans 13, Government, and the Christian Response

So I want to start by having that context. Now that we have that context, how does the Christian respond? The Christian is not to fight government. Romans 13 makes this clear. So if there are any who are Christians that are looking to say that yes, for many on the conservative side, half of the country is clearly against Biden and half is for him.

Half is for Trump and half is against. But what we end up seeing is that Christians are held to a different standard. So I understand that there's conservatives who think that this is the last straw that we have before the socialists take over.

I understand that. However, Romans 13 for the Christian gives us a response. We are not to fight against our government unless our government tells us to do something that is clearly against Scripture.

And unfortunately, socialism is not clearly against Scripture. Do we disagree with it? Do we think it's not in line with Scripture? Yes. However, we don't see this as something that even if America decides that it is going to go socialist, if they push this and that's where they go, guess what Christians?

We submit to that and look to share the gospel even under tyranny. That sounds wrong. A lot of people don't like that. They don't want to hear that. I understand that. I understand that this is something that for many it is not what we want to hear.

We want to hear that everything's going to be good and peaceful. Guess what, Christian? We in America, we have been an anomaly. We've been an anomaly in history. In history, you've always seen Christians being persecuted.

But in America, we have had many years, more than we've ever had in history. There's been no other time in history that we have had this opportunity. And so we look at this and say, this is what we should do.

We should just keep the peace and keep things the way we want them to be. But is that what the Bible says? We as Christians respond with, what does God say? That's what we do. And so we have to look to the scriptures.

And what we have to first realize is we as Christians do not fight against our government. We do not take up arms against the government even if it is going in a way that is opposite to what the scriptures say.

I know I'm not going to win many friends here. I know that many are going to be upset because I think, unfortunately, the big problem that we have is that many Christians have become more focused on government than they have on the Christian message.

They're more focused on trying to keep the conservative message than the biblical message. In fact, I'll drop a link to an article that I've written dealing with Christian and political activism. And so I'll have that link at least on the YouTube channel and should be in some of the Facebook groups that we just dropped.

But if you go to strivingforeternity .org and search for political activism, you will find a blog article that I wrote many years ago on political activism and a Christian's role. How does a Christian respond to political activism?

Well, one thing that we don't, and Chris Honhold says, my puppy wants to speak. Yes, that's actually not my puppy, and he's not a puppy. That's my son's dog, and he's packing up to move out, so the dog is very excited right now trying to figure out why he's locked in a room.

Trust God Over Government and Keep the Gospel Central

So the thing that we have to look at is as we look at these things, we have to see that the Christian has a responsibility to obey God's word. That is our responsibility. That's a higher authority than trying to keep capitalism.

It is a higher authority than trying to keep peace. We can sit and look at countless numbers of things and say, well, look, here you have all these liberals and progressives and socialists who are saying, let's have unity as long as you shut your mouth.

I mean, that's how they define unity. We recognize their intolerance. We recognize their hypocrisy. But it doesn't mean that we as Christians fight that violently, especially. Now, we could compare the violence between Black Lives Matter protests and what happened at the Capitol and say, yes, there was far less.

Understand. And so as we look at that, we end up seeing that we need, as Christians, guess what? President Trump did everything legally that he could, that we know of. I mean, maybe he had other legal options that we don't know that he didn't try.

Whether the courts didn't want to hear him or they looked at the evidence and said it's not enough, it's not compelling enough, it isn't enough to change the doctrine, whatever it is, we as Christians accept God's will.

God's will. We must recognize this. God's will, as far as we could tell today, is that on January 20th, Joe Biden will be president of the United States. And we as Christians must recognize him as president.

Christians should not be saying, not my president. He is our president, however he got there, because God put him there if he's there. We trust in God and not government. And this is the problem that many have.

Too many are focused on trusting government over God. They think government is going to provide the solutions. The government will not solve these problems. The government is the ones creating the problems.

How are they going to be the solution to it? No, the only solution that you and I have as Christians is God, God Almighty. We have to turn to God and trust what God is going to do. How do we do that in this world?

It's called the gospel. That is the Christian response to what we see in the moving toward socialism. It's not, you want to peacefully protest. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not against Black Lives Matter when they peacefully protest.

I'm not against Antifa when they peacefully protest. But I am against all three of those groups when they don't peacefully protest, when they start vandalizing, damaging people's property, hurting people.

That is no longer a peaceful protest. And that is wrong. I'm saying it's all wrong. I understand. The progressives aren't saying it's all wrong. They're only saying one side is wrong. And they are going overboard.

And that's showing their hypocrisy. Yes, I get it. I see all that. I agree with you. And so, you know, Chris Honhold says this so well. He says everything so well. Just go to Voice of Reason Radio and you'll get way more of his brilliance.

But he says the scariest words in the English language is, I am with the government and I'm here to help. That is true. But what you end up seeing here is that on this day, when so many conservatives, so many Christians who put so much faith and hope in Trump.

Trump is not Messiah. Trump is not Christ. He needs Christ. Clearly, if you listen to him. But we as Christians need to stand up with the gospel message. That is the solution that God has provided. That's the solution that God has for you and I who are Christians.

And if God so desires to create a revival so that many come to know him. Amen. Good. But the thing that we have to recognize is for you and I, we do not try to change the society through government. We do it through the gospel message.

And if there's any who don't know that gospel message, you don't know what I'm saying, let me let you know what it is I'm talking about. It's very simple. It's the fact that every single one of us, you and I, you who's watching or hearing me right now, you and me, both of us are criminals in God's sight.

We lie, we've stolen, we've done things that are against God's nature. And because of that, we're seen as sinners, as criminals, as rightly deserving punishment. Because God is infinitely holy, when we sin against him, it has an infinite consequence.

In other words, all liars will have their place in a lake of fire which burns with brimstone forever. That sounds extreme. But guess what? When you end up looking at things, you end up seeing that if you threaten my life, the police are just not going to do very much.

You threaten the president's life, and you're going to have a more severe consequence because of the position that he has. Well, God has a greater position than any president that ever lived. He's infinitely holy.

So you and I rightly would deserve punishment. We would be what's called guilty. And the difference between divine religion and man religion is one thing that makes this separation. There's only two religions in the entire world.

And when you look at all man-made religions, all man-made religions say that man can work their way to God, to do something to earn righteousness with God. And what divine religion says is, no, God did it all.

And it happened at the cross 2 ,000 years ago. When God became a man, being fully God, truly God, he can pay an eternal fine because he is an eternal being. But becoming a human being and never sinning, he now lives a perfect life so that he can be a sacrifice in our place.

This is where you have a God that is both just and merciful. See, the justice was served at the cross that he suffered the full weight of my sin at that cross. The eternal consequence of it, he suffered that.

And because of that, now he can offer mercy. It's what makes Christianity unique from every other religion in the world. Every other religion, because it's a man-made system, is based on morality, doing good.

But it's only Christianity that's a religion that's done. It was done 2 ,000 years ago at the cross. That's when it was done. And it's a religion that is based on Christ. You can remove Buddha from Buddhism and still have those teachings.

You can remove the teachings of Joseph Smith and still have Mormonism. But you cannot remove Christ from Christianity and still have Christianity because it is based on the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ because that is the very thing that is what Christianity is about because that is the forgiveness.

That is where we can have the forgiveness of sin. This is the gospel message, that we recognize that we're guilty in God's sight and we deserve eternal consequence in hell, in a lake of fire. But God himself offers forgiveness through a trust in what he did on that cross.

Turn from trusting yourself as a good person. You're not. Turn from trusting your good works because they're going to be vile in God's sight. God says that sin is so severe that he came to earth and died a horrible death on a cross.

That's the consequence of sin. And we go, Oh, but look, I walked an old lady across the street. Are you kidding me? There's no comparison. Your good works are the very thing that you're going to be judged by.

Maybe you're like me, growing up Jewish and thinking that being Jewish, I was going to heaven. No. No, my Judaism, my genealogy will not save me either. We have to turn from trusting ourself as a good person, trusting our good works, trusting our genealogy and trust Christ.

So we turn in our thinking from trusting self to trusting Christ. Our pride wants to say it's us. And yet we have to humble ourselves before a holy, infinitely holy God and trust what he did at the cross.

That's the gospel message. That's the message we need to proclaim. Now, I wanted to get on shortly and just give a short thing here. But I want you to recognize that tonight, those who are watching this live, tonight on the same channels, on Facebook Live and on YouTube, Striving Fraternity YouTube, you can find that we're going to have, Dr. Sefestro is going to be live tonight dealing with the issues of morality, rights and the proper role of government.

He is going to be speaking tonight. It will be live streamed. And so I want to encourage you to check it out. He's going to be talking to churches, dealing with the descriptions of things that are going on.

And I want to get you to think about maybe attending that. It will be live on YouTube, so you'll be able to see it there. Just go to strivingfraternity .org, find the YouTube channel, or actually you can just go to youtube .com slash C, C is the letter C for channel, slash strivingfraternity.

And it will get you there. And so the idea behind this is he wants to be able to provide Christians with a view of how to handle these things. And this is something we need to rightly get as Christians.

So my challenge to you, Christian, my encouragement to you, Christian, first, you must ask yourself, what do you trust? Do you trust God or do you trust government? If you're trusting government, then your life is going to be in a disarray right now with everything going on.

It's going to be a mess. But if you're trusting God, you can weather this storm because this storm only gets you desiring heaven all the more. This storm, according to 2 Corinthians 5, the more our bodies fail us, the more the world fails us, the more we turn to Christ and live.

That's my encouragement to you. Trust in Christ. Should we be politically active? Yes, within legal means, we can be politically active. But we don't have the means to be illegally active. I don't agree with civil disobedience when we're violating the law.

That's why I encourage you to go and read the article I wrote on the website, strivingforeturning .org, and search for political activism. That article will be one that hopefully would help you. It would be one that I think would be something to get your mind to realize that we are different as Christians.

We're to serve God. I think that my encouragement is that we as Christians trust in God first and foremost, trust that He knows what He's doing, that He knows better than us. Good, thanks. The website for that article is right down there.

There you go. So, strivingforeturning .org slash political-activism-a-Christians-role. So, political activism, a Christian's role, with dashes in between those words. So, go there, read that article.

But the thing is, we need to separate. I think that God is, maybe He's going to use us going to socialism, but He's going to use this to purify the church. He's going to use this, and we could sit there and say, but there were injustices.

There were things that weren't done right in the voting. Thus is God's will. This is not the first time in history that this has happened. It's not the first time in history that Christians have been persecuted either.

But we do not fight against our government. We submit to our government. So, I want to encourage you, please, if you name the name of Christ, trust in God and not the government. Know that God has this covered.

He can handle it. He knows what He's doing. He's omniscient. You can trust Him. He's faithful. Think about the character, the attributes of God, those perfections of God. Dwell on those. If you want, you say, well, I don't know what those attributes are.

Go to strivingforeturning .org. Go to our store, and we actually have a quick reference sheet, a one-page card that gives you all the attributes of God with Scripture references that you could look up.

Then you can meditate on those things. So, trust God over government. And then second, we as Christians need to let these things that are happening in the world not drive us into despair, but to drive us into the arms of Jesus Christ, that we would move to want to be with Christ, that as things fail in this world, we would want more and more to see Christ.

And then a third thing that I have for you, share the gospel. If you've never thought it, figured it out, there is a lost and dying world around us. They need the gospel now more than ever. Between COVID and the protests and the election, there are so many depressed people, so many people that have such anxiety and need the truth of the gospel.

The truth will set them free. Stop arguing over Trump. Stop arguing over the election. Argue over God's word with people that need to hear it. Share the gospel with people. That's my encouragement to us today.

I don't usually ask folks to share things, but I think this is a message that's so important. I ask you to share it with people, whether you're watching on Facebook Live or YouTube. I'm off of Twitter, so done.

I guess I'm off of Parlay, too, because they took that down. Well, Amazon, I guess, took it down. But the thing to recognize is this is important to set the perspective. Christians, we need to trust God.

We need to let the things in this world drive us to look to have an eternal mindset, that we'd strive for eternity, and then third, that we would share the gospel. That's God's solution to the dismays of this culture.

It's the gospel. So I hope that's encouraging to you. I hope that you'll tune in to Dr. Silvestro tonight, and I hope that you will share this with others. I thank you for taking the time to listen. Go check out some of the articles that we have at Striving for Eternity.

Check out the one on political activism, a Christian's response. Go check out the chart that I mentioned, the quick reference chart on the attributes of God. These are some resources we have available to you.

If you want more, you can tune in to my podcast, the Andrew Rapaport's Rap Report, or you can join me live any Thursday night at ApologeticsLive .com. I'm there to answer any of your difficult questions.

You want to give a challenge, I'm there. I can answer any question on the Bible. I can. Any question you have about God and the Bible, I can answer. You doubt it, bring your toughest question to ApologeticsLive .com.

Any Thursday night, just click the little duck to join us on StreamYard, and we'll love to have you there answering whatever questions you have. So until next time, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.

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