RLL Ep.40: Don't Be Deceived

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00:23

You're listening to radio looks lucid. I'm your host Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me for episode 40 the title of this episode is

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Don't be deceived well You know, I mentioned a few times last week.

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I know I was having some issues with some of my My equipment my podcast equipment I kept having this this thing where my one of my channels was dropping out on my recorder is very very frustrating

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And anyway, it turned out the problem was like this little five dollar part it was actually the there's a

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Line a mic in line that goes from my podcast recorder into my my mixing board and and the thing had a problem with it and it was

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You know, it's like I say, it's a little five dollar item It's it's a very small thing and I've got all this equipment here and the thing that fails is the thing that's probably about the cheapest thing that that That's all that's part of the system.

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So it's it's kind of an interesting lesson in how small things can actually turn out to be

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Be pretty important and well, I got that fixed at least temporarily here

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I got my old cable fixed and I got a new one coming in. So so anyway, hopefully today We'll get through the podcast without any any audio dropouts or static or or things like that.

01:37

So Thanks for putting up with some of that I know the last few weeks maybe the audio quality hasn't been the way it should and it turned out it was actually a

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Pretty simple thing. So so thanks so much for for bearing with me while I I get that fixed

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That's that's you know, things like that are just super frustrating You know when things don't work, right?

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I've always been amazed at people like like my dad is is a big do -it -yourselfer He's really good at that and he always has been

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I mean, I remember when I was a kid Yeah, I mean he'd fix all kinds of things and and he just he has patience for for that kind of thing

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I I have a very low frustration threshold with stuff that doesn't work, right and It I just want to plug it in and have it work

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Yeah, I don't I don't want to have to sit and spend a lot of time trying to fiddle around with it to try to Make things work.

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Well, anyway, so so that's what's going on with with me Boy something else too

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I know we're getting here close to the to Christmas and to the end of the year and all this night I thought that work would slow down but my goodness.

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I don't know this year Boy, that sure hasn't been that way. I've been just super busy. It seems like and Anyway At least today.

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I kind of slowed down a little bit. So hopefully I'll be I'll be working next week as well So so hopefully things will will be a little bit slower next week.

02:55

Maybe I can get extra podcasting or something I don't know or maybe an extra blog post who knows anyway

03:01

Enough of all that stuff. I wanted to talk to you today about Let's say the title of the episode is don't be deceived

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And of course, that's something that that Christ told the disciples in the New Testament, you know, he warned them don't be deceived you know, there are lots of warnings in Scripture not to be deceived and it's very easy for us to be deceived and The that can happen we can deceive ourselves just with with some of our own

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Sort of sinful and false ideas that we have that. I mean we we can deceive ourselves But of course,

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I think in today's world we face Some very powerful forces of deception that are out there and in maybe the most powerful or certainly one of the most powerful forces of deception is is the mainstream media and It's it's really remarkable.

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It's it's frightening actually the power that the mainstream media has and In the way that they use that to to deceive people now when

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I'm talking about the mainstream media I'm talking about, you know, sometimes some people call it the legacy media that type of thing

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But I'm talking here, of course about organizations such as you know Leading newspapers say like the the

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New York Times the Washington Post even the Wall Street Journal or you know other national major Newspaper publications think of like Time magazine is another example.

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You've got the major networks ABC NBC CBS. You've got CNN I think you'd have to throw

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Fox News in there as well I know that might upset a lot of conservatives, but I think there's a lot of deception that goes on in Fox News You know

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MSNBC Yeah, I mean there's there are certainly other ones that CNBC is one that's the business channel

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And it's amazing how much just fake nonsense there is in in the financial media.

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It's it's really an astounding thing And one of the things that prompted me to think about this a little bit was a story that I saw in in the

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Washington Post and I wanted to just go over this with you here briefly Here's the headline this the story itself was put out on December 16th, so I guess that was what a couple days ago on on Wednesday Here's the headline.

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It reads nearly 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty since the summer Nation's poverty rate has risen at the fastest pace ever this year after aid for the unemployed declined

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So let's read a little bit through the story and then we'll we'll comment on it The US poverty rate has surged over the past five months with 7 .8

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million Americans falling into poverty The latest indication of how deeply many are struggling after government aid dwindled

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The poverty rate jumped to eleven point seven percent in November up two point four percentage points since June according to new data released

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Wednesday by researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame While Overall poverty levels are low by historic stat historical standards.

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The increase in poverty this year has been swift It's the biggest jump in a single year since the government began tracking poverty 60 years ago

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Is nearly double the next largest rise which occurred in 1979 to 1980 During the oil crisis according to James X Sullivan professor at Notre Dame and Bruce D Meyer professor at the

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University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy So Here this article is talking about a massive increase in the number of Americans who?

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fit the definition of poverty now You know,

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I mean, of course, it's hard to assess. I mean, is that is that eight million true? I don't know but You know it very well may be true or certainly

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I think very close to the truth I mean it only stands to reason right? I mean when you've seen the kind of economic destruction that has been wrought in the

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United States over since I guess over the past nine months since March since they started the the kovat lockdowns.

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It only stands to reason a lot of people would fall into poverty I mean you've had people thrown out of work You've had

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Business owners have their businesses shut down in some cases. They've permanently gone gone bankrupt.

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So I mean, yeah, there's been massive destruction in the economy So it stands to reason that more people would would fall into poverty,

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I think that's I think we can certainly You know agree that there's probably been a substantial increase in poverty

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I mean it's like I say it just it stands to Stands to reason, you know based on on everything that's been happening in the economy

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Now I titled this the title of this episode don't be deceived and this next paragraph is

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Is what I really want to focus on here So, let me read this this is continuing in the article the economists say the sharp rise in poverty is occurring for two reasons

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Millions of people cannot find jobs and government aid for unemployed has declined sharply since summer

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The average unemployment payment was more than $900 a week from late March to the end of July But it fell to about $300 a week in our

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August making it harder for the unemployed to pay their bills We've seen a continual rise in poverty every month since June said

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Sullivan Okay, so let's stop there. So the economists here these two economists one from Notre Dame one from What was that the

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University of Chicago, yeah the University of Chicago They say that there are two reasons they give for the the sharp rise in poverty since I guess what since since June number one

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They say millions of people cannot find jobs and number two The government aid for the unemployed has declined sharply since the summer now, let's talk about reason number one millions of Americans cannot find jobs

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Okay That's true. That's true millions of Americans cannot find jobs, but that's not really

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I That really doesn't get down to the root cause Of the increase in poverty, you know when

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I was in in business school a few years ago they brought in a couple of people from Toyota Motor Corporation and Of course

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Toyota as you may well know is is famous for its quality control. I mean, there's there's nobody that builds consistently higher quality vehicle

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Anywhere than Toyota and Toyota is famous not just within the auto industry but they really are a model in a lot of ways for how any company can

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Can build quality? Into its it just just kind of into its

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DNA if you almost into its into its workflow into its processes And in this is a really big deal

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With Toyota and it's why they've been such a successful car company for so long They have their their entire

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Focus is on quality and on finding what they call what they call the root cause of the problem

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This is one of the big big parts of the Toyota Manufacturing process is what they call root cause analysis or sometimes.

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It's also called the five wise And when I say five wise I don't mean five letter wise

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I mean five like the question word wh why five wise And one of the things

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I remember these Toyota representatives talked about they gave some examples About what the five wise are and and the idea is that you keep asking the question

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Why until you get back to the root cause of the problem? So maybe you're having a an issue with oh

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I don't know. I Think they used the example of a of a car seat.

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There were defective car seats that there was that they were getting Okay. Well, well, why are these car seats defective?

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Well, the reason is they're coming from this particular manufacturer. Okay. Well What's the problem with the particular manufacturer then they go back and they look at the manufacturers process and they keep asking why well

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Why is this happening? Why is this happening? Why is this happening and they got back? I it's been long enough I don't recall exactly what the root cause of the problem was

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But they got back to the root cause and it was actually something fairly fairly simple. And when they fix that it

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It it cleaned up the problem Now one of the things that we did that We've probably all been guilty of this

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I know that I have And it is the idea that you know If you have a problem, you kind of just want to slap a band -aid on it and keep going now.

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I Don't want to say there's there's never a time or a purpose for band -aids. I think that there is

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Now sometimes just slapping a band -aid on something is is the the thing the right thing to do to just get it fixed and move

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On but ultimately if you're having a consistent problem, whether it's in quality control and manufacturing or maybe in some other area

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You you really need to get back and find the root cause of the problem because otherwise you're not going to fix it

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It's just going to keep it's going to continue in it and who knows it may even get worse I mean, that's one of the things I find is if I don't address a problem

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It tends to get worse, you know, it's like with your car, you know If you get something that goes, you know You can tell your your car is kind of developing a problem and you say oh,

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I don't want to spend the money right now I don't want to be bothered going to the mechanic etc well what happens if you if you keep allowing that to go on sooner or later that problem gets bigger and then maybe either your car breaks down in a really bad place or you know, you end up having to spend a lot more than you otherwise might have if you'd address the problem sooner, so You know the the the band -aid approach to things although it's it's the easy way out

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It's not always, you know long -term necessarily the smartest thing to do And the reason

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I bring up the whole five wise thing or the root cause analysis is because I want to talk a little bit about this this first reason for People falling into poverty, you know again

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Let's go back and read that the economists say the sharp rise in poverty is occurring for two reasons And the first reason they give us millions of people cannot find jobs.

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Okay, so let's let's kind of apply that Toyota Manufacturing Approach the

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Toyota quality control approach and you know, let's try maybe the five wise they don't always necessarily have to ask five wise

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You may not have that many but the idea is that you keep asking why until you find the root cause of the process

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So we have a short rise in poverty. Okay, why well, one of the reasons is millions of people cannot find jobs

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Okay, well, why is that? Oh, well, it's it's the the kovat if they can't find jobs.

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Well, you know, what is it about the Kovat? It means people can't find jobs over the government shut down the economy. Oh Oh So, you know what what happens is when you you keep asking yourself why you realize, you know

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The virus does not cause people to be unemployed You know, the the virus does not cause businesses to shut down the virus does not cause people to lose jobs

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What causes people to lose jobs? What causes businesses to shut down? What causes economic problems are the actions of the government?

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And when you read through this whole article You just read through it and in the in sometimes it's out on the surface.

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Sometimes it's it's implied But there's this idea that the problems the the economic problems that Americans are having is

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Is because of the virus, you know In fact the both these economists say it says Sullivan and Meyer created a kovat 19 income and poverty dashboard

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To track how many Americans are falling below the poverty line in this deep recession? Well, you know again it's not kovat 19 that's causing people to fall into poverty it's the government overreaction

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To the kovat 19 virus that's causing people to fall into poverty But one of the things when you read this

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Washington Post article, it's very easy to kind of read through it quickly Just kind of look at it at the surface and never ask questions of it.

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So when I say, you know, don't be deceived well, one of the ways that you you don't be just wait ways that we're not deceived by the mainstream press is

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It's probably a pretty good assumption. Anytime you come to an article in the mainstream press to Assume that the mainstream press is trying to misinform you

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You know a lot of us have this idea somehow that the mainstream press is out there to to teach us to help us to learn the truth to help us to To make good decisions.

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That's not the case in fact I think very clearly one of the main jobs and maybe the main job of the mainstream press is to act as a propaganda organ to push

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To push whatever ideas it is that the the establishment wants to have pushed it's a propaganda machine

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Is really what it is and in fact, there's a book that was was published a few years ago

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It's by Harvard University Press called the mighty Wurlitzer and it talked about some people in the intelligence agency

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I can't remember the the guy's name, but but you know, he talked about the the mainstream press. This is mighty

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Wurlitzer Yeah, that's a reference to a theater organ. I don't know if you've ever seen one of these, you know back in the day

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This is when they had the the silent movies. They would have these very elaborate Theater pipe organs and and not only were they they pipe organs, but they had all these sound effects and things on them

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They're really quite quite amazing instruments and and the theater organist could Could use all of these sound effects to to sort of add

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You know an extra dimension to the silent film so you didn't just sit there in a silent theater But they they would have a live musical accompaniment that would would go along with with these movies and I've actually had the opportunity to see a silent film that way with a

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Theater work in a company. I mean it was actually pretty interesting In fact, it was the old the old

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Phantom of the Opera. I'm talking about the old one There was one that was made back in the the 20s I don't know who

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I want to see was that launch I don't know if that was Lon Chaney that starred in that or whatever But it was it was made back in the 1920s and they they did this with with theater organ.

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It was a very interesting Movie going experience, but that was a mighty Wurlitzer Wurlitzer was the company that that made

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I don't know if they were the only company to produce theater organs but they they were the most famous of the theater organ manufacturers and this this fellow called the mainstream press is sort of his

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His mighty Wurlitzer and he could play tunes on he could get people to you know Be happy or be sad or be fearful or be angry or or or you know

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Direct people's attention one way and or direct it away from something else The CIA has a long history of being involved with With the media.

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In fact, there is a program It started back in the 1950s apparently It's called

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Operation Mockingbird also where CIA The CIA would recruit journalists to to work for them and and a lot of times stories were put out under the the name of particular journalists that were

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They were written by the CIA more recently there was a

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German fellow by name of Udo of Cotty and He was a German journalist and in a very prominent fellow that he was

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I think at one time the chief editor of a newspaper in Germany called the

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Frankfurter Allgemeine and The Frankfurter Allgemeine is one of the biggest most important papers in Germany It's kind of it's a newspaper of record if you will

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It's like the the New York Times or the Washington Post in the United States, you know, it's a major German newspaper, so I mean it was a very prominent publication and he was a very prominent fellow at that publication

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He was a I believe he had a PhD as well And he wrote a book called bot journalists gekaufte

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Journalisten in in German and It was actually recently published as a translation in English.

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I think it was called Prestitutes was the name of the book. And one of the things that he alleged in this book is

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That he said every major Journalist in Europe was on the CIA payroll and he even talked himself about how there were stories that were written

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By the CIA but were put out under his name and specifically he talked about I guess some of this was in the run -up to the 2011 takedown of Muammar Gaddafi and and these stories were put out and and they were

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They they advocated for the the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and they were put out under this fellow

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Udo Ulf Kadi's name even though he didn't write and there was written by by the CIA Now, of course, you know if if Udo Ulf Kadi was right and again, he was a very serious

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I mean, he was a major mainstream serious fellow So he wasn't some he wasn't some fringe person like I don't know some crazy person who does you know

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Like podcasts from his study or something like that Well, well one of the one of the wasn't one of those sort of whackjob tinfoil hat guys

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No, he was actually a very highly placed journalist and this guy's saying this stuff

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And And so let's let's just for argument's sake. Let's say What if he's right and I think he is

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I think he was telling the truth about this But let's just assume for a moment that he was right about that If all of the journalists in Europe are on the

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CIA's payroll major journalists with the major publications What about the United States?

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Is it not possible that maybe some of that goes on in the United States as well? Yeah, well

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I I think it does it's kind of interesting Udo Ulf Kadi he died The the very week that Donald Trump was inaugurated president back in January of 2017 and he was a young man, too

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He was in his mid 50s and he was so he wasn't a wasn't an old fellow and I Don't know that it's ever really been explained why he died.

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It seems to be somewhat somewhat Under mysterious circumstances

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I'll just just leave it at that But the bottom line is that the press

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I think there's massive amounts of evidence And you can point to some some comments that he made or even just in in I think in your own day -to -day experience when you read

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Compare what you read in the mainstream press to what you you actually see going on in the truth that you know

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Say from reading the scriptures You know, the mainstream press is is

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I In my own opinion, it's designed to deceive you. You know, that's that's one of its main purposes

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It's to give you a particular point of view It's to focus your attention on one thing that the that the the powers -that -be wants you to focus on and ignore all the things that are over here to to the other side that they don't want you to Pay attention to think about there's that great scene in in the

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Wizard of Oz Probably most of us seen the Wizard of Oz and it's at the end, you know and and and Dorothy and the

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Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion and they're all there and that that big chamber where the Wizard of Oz is and and you know, you've got all this thunder and smoke and thundering voices and things like this and then you know was that Toto runs over and he pulls the curtain back and you know in in the

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Wizard of Oz is this kind of like Nerdy little scientist over there punching buttons and turning levers and dials and things and he's paying no attention to the man behind the curtain

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That that's what he says. Well, you know, that's I think That is really

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Essentially what the mainstream press does, you know, the mainstream press wants us always to focus on the wrong thing and take our eyes off the truth

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You know in one of the ways they do it is by misdirection and there's some very subtle misdirection in this article

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You know again, they talk about they say well millions of people can't find jobs Well, that's true millions of people can't find jobs

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But nowhere in this article that they ever mentioned the main the reason the root cause They don't ever ask why?

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Why they can't find jobs. Apparently that's just you know that just for some mystical magical reason people can't find jobs

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But or you or if there is a reason it's COVID well again, you know COVID doesn't put anybody out of work

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COVID doesn't shut down businesses, but governments do governors do Anthony Fauci does

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Bill Gates helps do that even if not directly You know the reason millions of people cannot find jobs is because of the actions undertaken by Government officials in not just in the

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United States, but in Europe and Australia elsewhere This is something that has been imposed from the top down It's not

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COVID's fault. It's the governor's fault. That's why people can't find jobs But again reading through this

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Washington Post article you're never get that idea Now they give a second reason here

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Government aid for the unemployed has declined sharply since the summer. Okay? Well again, we could ask we could apply the five wise principle to this.

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Okay. Well, okay. So government aid has declined sharply Okay. So why do we need government aid in the first place?

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Oh, it's because people can't find jobs Well, why can't people find jobs because the governor's to shut down the economy, you know the whole thing idea somehow that you can shut down the economy in print massive amount of money and That that somehow we can all just just get a get along with that is ridiculous

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That is a phenomenal incredible lie There's a principle in economics. It's called

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Say's law And it says that products are paid for with products in other words, you have to put if you want to consume something you first have to produce and You see that idea in the

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Apostle Paul talks about this, you know, he says if a man will not work neither should he eat You know, there's the expectation you have to produce something if you if you want to consume food or shelter or or maybe some

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Maybe some Luxury good or something this you first have to produce something. You can't lock everybody down Put them out of work and then just have the

25:27

Fed print money and Congress dole it out and and somehow that's an economy Yeah, that's not an economy.

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You know, that's ridiculous I Mean if that actually were the case and none of us would ever have to work another day, you know

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We could all just sit home We could let the Federal Reserve print trillions upon trains upon trains of dollars and everything would be awesome

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We don't have to produce anything, right? You know, it's it's ridiculous and in this this article is ridiculous and of course, it's saying, you know, these are two

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I Assume, you know, they're professors. I assume they're PhD economists from Notre Dame and from University of Chicago these guys aren't dummies, but the

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The statements that are made in this article are pretty dumb And they're misleading.

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I mean that that's more to the point They're misleading and and they want you to buy into this government line that the government can just shut everything down Print all kinds of money and everything's going to be fine.

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It's not going to be fine The government has destroyed our economy with these kovat lockdowns and this stuff needs to stop

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Don't be deceived Alright, I wanted to kind of shift gears here a little bit

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Here's another type of deception. I get a little coffee here

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A Another way in which the the mainstream media deceives people

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Here's a this is a short clip this is Pete Buttigieg, you might remember him he was one of the

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Democratic presidential contenders he dropped out of the race, I guess what back oh,

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I don't know in the spring or so and Fairly early on Stepped aside so Joe Biden could be the

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Democratic nominee, but as you may recall about Pete Buttigieg, he's I think he currently still is or maybe recently resigned from being the mayor of of Gary, Indiana and He's a young guy.

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But of course the thing that really makes him stand out is is he's he's openly homosexual and not only that but he's also same -sex married and Joe Biden just this past week announced that he's going to be his nominee as as Transportation Secretary So he's going to take over the

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Department of Transportation once You know once once Biden is inaugurated assuming the bind is inaugurated, which

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I think is almost inevitable at this point I'm gonna come back and talk about that in a minute, but just time that Pete Buttigieg I want and I want to play a short clip

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It's about a 30 second or so clip and and I want you to listen this and then we'll come back and we'll talk About it.

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I've also had a personal love of transportation ever since childhood More than once as a college student

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I would convince a friend to travel nearly a thousand miles back to Indiana with me on Amtrak Though I know that in this administration,

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I will at best aspire to be the second biggest train enthusiast around. I Spent a spring break in graduate school aboard a cargo ship studying there travel in my mind is

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Synonymous with growth with adventure even love so much so that I proposed to my husband

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Chaston in an airport terminal Don't let anybody tell you that O 'Hare isn't romantic

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I've also had a Okay, so that's Pete Buttigieg And did you catch that part at the end because that's really what

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I wanted to talk about and he was talking about how he proposed to his husband At O 'Hare

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Airport. So yeah, you you heard that, right? and So, I mean there's this fellow.

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There's this Pete Pete Buttigieg. I mean as I said, he is he's a very smart guy He's very well -spoken he's a

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Harvard grad and and he I mean he can can very he can present a very

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Very good image and he claims to be a Christian and Yet he is is openly, you know, he's he's same -sex married to his husband as he calls him this fellow named

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Chastain Now, you know as Christians when we look at something like this,

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I know this is going to sound really obvious on one hand But I think sometimes as Christians we need to state the obvious Pete Buttigieg is not a

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Christian if he were a Christian. He would not be doing these kinds of things It makes very clear in the

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New Testament in several places, you know that You know that the the homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God I Mean, he's an unrepentant open homosexual.

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He is not a Christian Don't be deceived You know in this of course is the way that the news media is going to report is going to present this fellow

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You know as a Christian, he's going to present him and it's going to present same -sex marriages. Oh, this is perfectly normal Well, it's not marriage.

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I mean there is no such thing as same -sex marriage That's not marriage Not as as God defines marriage, you know

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The the Westminster Confession, you know even defines marriage and it takes from script You know, it's it's the the union of one man and one woman.

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That's not an exact quote, but that that's what it says And of course the Bible is very clear on this in the

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Bible that that marriage is between a A man and a woman, you know, this isn't difficult stuff.

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This isn't isn't isn't really complex theology. You know, you don't have to be You know at the level of say a

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Martin Luther or a John Calvin or a Gordon Clark or somebody along those lines To understand this this is actually very very simple stuff and one of the things though that concerns me is that when you've got the mainstream media out there and this is

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This that clip that I played you is actually from CBS news Um, there was a press conference that Pete Buttigieg was given

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When you see this stuff in the mainstream and it's just presented out there and it's like oh Well, that's where I proposed to my husband

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Chastain and you know, hey, oh, here's a really romantic place. This is a great thing and It's presented very matter of fact and You know unless somebody comments on this

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It can be very easy for people to become inured to this to become Accustomed to hearing well, this is just perfectly normal.

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And and what are you some weirdo if you think there's a problem with that? Well, there is a problem with that don't be deceived don't allow the mainstream media to don't

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Don't take your morals. Don't take your ethics from the mainstream media. They will lead you astray

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Again, this is cbs news. So we had one we had one example from the washington post trying to deceive us in terms of The cause for the rise in poverty they try to blame it on covid

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When it's actually the government's the governors and various other government officials fault for doing what they've done for their overreaction

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Um for really for the tyrannical reaction to to covid, you know, here we have cbs news simply just presenting this as a matter of fact

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Oh, you know, here's a fellow he's you know, he he proposed to his husband and and what have you?

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Um, And and that's all perfectly normal Well, it's not normal and it's not okay and I want to just share with you a passage from scripture here now this is one and that You know, if you're a christian, i'm sure you you're probably quite well aware of the passage i'm going to read to you

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Um, and again, this is not a passage. It's hard to understand. This is from romans chapter one So let's let's go ahead and read through some verses here

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I'm starting this chapter 1 verse 18 for the wrath of god is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men

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Who suppress the truth and unrighteousness because what may be known of god is manifest in them for god has shown it to them

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For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made

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Even his eternal power and godhead so that they are without excuse Because although they knew god they did not glorify him as god nor were thankful but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts

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Were darkened professing to be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible god into an image made like corruptible man

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And birds and for four -footed animals and creeping things Therefore god also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves

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Who exchanged the truth of god for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

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Amen For this reason god gave them up to vile passions for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature

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Likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another men with men committing

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What is shameful and receiving themselves a penalty for their error, which was due And even as they did not like to retain god in their knowledge god

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They gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting Being filled with all unrighteousness sexual immorality wickedness covetousness maliciousness full of envy murder strife deceit evil mindedness

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They are whisperers backbiters haters of god violent proud boasters inventors of evil things disobedient to parents

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Undiscerning untrustworthy unloving unforgiving unmerciful Who knowing the righteous judgment of god that those who practice such things are deserving his death not only do the same

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But also approve of those who practice them Now this is a very devastating

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Uh condemnation Not just of homosexuality, but the principal focus here that paul talks about is uh is is on homosexuality

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This is not okay And and what do we think that god will do?

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with a nation That accepts this kind of thing. Well, we know from scripture that This type of practice the homosexual practice invites the wrath of god

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We know that Now, I I don't know exactly how he's going to deal with the united states

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But the fact that you know, someone such as pete buddha judge can get up in front Uh the whole nation, you know and give a press conference and have this stuff reported uncritically

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By all the mainstream news media that tells you where we are as a nation You know, we are in uh in deep serious sin

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We are greatly deceived In fact, I I sometimes wonder I think americans may be the most deceived people on the face of the earth

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And not all americans, of course, not not all americans are so deceived but a pretty good portion of them are

36:07

Uh, certainly the news media wants to deceive us because again they present this stuff either without comment

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Uh, or they they present it in a positive light Uh, there's never any criticism of this

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And you know, it's actually quite remarkable but since the supreme court ruled in favor of uh of gay marriage

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This was back in june of 2015. So just a little bit over five years ago That the the moral climate in this nation has declined very very rapidly um

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And and I think that the pete buddha judge is just one example of of really the

36:46

The flood of evil that not only has come in but I think is going to be coming in in in the fairly near future um, you know,

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I mentioned before about the the presidential inauguration, um I'm of the opinion that donald trump won that election and that election was stolen

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I think there is a massive amount of evidence to support that and i'm not going to go into all of that here uh,

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I had hoped that perhaps That something could be done legally. Maybe there was a legal remedy to that At this point that doesn't appear to be the case now, you know,

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I don't know, you know, I mean I pray for my country uh, I pray that Uh, there is a way to uh, uh to keep joe biden out of the white house

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That some way that donald trump could be returned as president In january, but I I have to admit right now.

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It it doesn't look good I mean, it looks like we're going to get joe biden And so unless something unforeseen happens i'm operating under the assumption that we're going to get joe biden and This there is going to be in my opinion.

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I think you're going to see a flood Of evil loosed in this country the likes of which I don't think americans have have ever seen before I'm sure that I haven't seen it.

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I'm sure i'm going to be shocked and appalled at it And that's something that as christians,

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I mean we have to Uh to be ready for I mean, we know that that christians have faced difficulties in many other places and times in history, in fact,

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I think really um Persecution is is probably more a more common lot than than it isn't

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Um, and we have to expect that as as god's people. I mean, we're not going to be uh be popular with uh with the world

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And uh, and so we we know that there's going to be persecutions even under the best of circumstances There are always persecutions and temptations and things but I mean we're talking about getting some people in charge of the country under joe biden and under the democrats

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Uh, the very very wicked democrats and maybe that sounds like a really partisan comment But but the democrats that that is an evil party

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I don't think that a christian has any business Being associated with the democratic party now,

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I think there probably are some christians, you know, maybe, you know Ordinary voters regular americans who you know, maybe vote democrat who who are christians

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Um, they shouldn't be voting democrat, but but they do um i'm not going to necessarily say that those people aren't christians, but you know, the the democratic leadership is um, just Basically sold out to do evil

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Um, you know, they're they're wise to do evil how to do good they know not I think isn't that in uh,

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I think that's in jeremiah Um, that's maybe at least a paraphrase of of uh of a passage jeremiah.

39:39

They're they're wise to do evil I mean, they're very very wise to do that. I mean, they they're absolutely brilliant when it comes to thinking of of Evil schemes and of course one of those is gay marriage

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But there's going to be a lot of other stuff that's going to come as a result of that And as as christians we need to uh to be prepared spiritually to be able to to deal with a a new landscape because as american christians,

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I think this is going to be Be a very different experience for us I I I really do and I got to thinking about something when

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I was was thinking about you know, how is it that that we we prepare for for the uh, the likely biden administration

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And and one of the ways one thing that came to mind is it was a lesson I learned years and years and years ago Back a number of years ago.

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I I thought I might wanted to have a career in politics I've always been kind of interested in politics and I I remember

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I went to a seminar a weekend seminar. It was on um training in in how to be uh,

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Uh, it was called the leadership institute was the name of the the organization I went there and it was a weekend seminar. It was very interesting

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Uh, and one of the things I remember that they presented this goes back probably 25 years but one of the things that they presented in this this um, this seminar

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Was the the chinese word for for crisis? and and I remember this because it it uh

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The chinese word for crisis is comprised of two separate chinese characters. I I don't know chinese

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So I I trust that they're telling me the truth in this. I i'm pretty sure they were Um, but but the two of the two characters one of the characters means danger and the other character means means opportunity

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So there's both danger and opportunity together that that's a crisis in in chinese, you know, there's um

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I think that's a very insightful way of of presenting the idea of of a crisis as both danger and opportunity and I I know for my own self sometimes

41:36

I get a little bit maybe more concerned about the The the danger of the crisis rather than thinking so much about the opportunity i'm like, oh my goodness

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I'm gonna what what happens if I get persecuted? What happens if you know if I uh, I lose my job because of christian beliefs or I can't do this or can't do that because I you know, because I I I am a christian

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Well, it's it's very easy to to kind of get caught up and worried about persecution, of course I I mean,

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I I don't relish the thought of being persecuted. I don't relish the thought of having to Uh to deal with with some of those difficulties

42:11

You know, I I don't I think there would be something unhealthy. Maybe if we said yeah persecution. Let's let's have at it

42:17

You know, I mean, I don't think that's the attitude that as christians we should have Um, but we do have to realize that persecutions can come

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You know, I mean jesus said that they hated me, you know students not above his teacher, you know, they hated me You know, they're going to hate you too

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So, I mean, I think this is one thing that we can expect in in the biden administration is increasing pressure

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To conform to this world conform to these evil ideas such as in this case, uh, same -sex marriage

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But you know and sometimes I think a little bit about like I say it's so easy to get worried about The uh, the danger part of it sometimes we forget about the opportunity part of it

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And and as christians, I think we're going to have A a really amazing opportunity to witness for christ in the coming years because what the world is teaching and what we believe is as followers of jesus christ are very different things and I think that the the coming pressure from some of this, uh

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Uh this immorality that is going to be I think sweeping the country over the next few years

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Like I say it already has but I think it's going to get more intense Um, that's going to be an opportunity to be salt and light

43:32

I mean, isn't that what jesus said? You know, you're the salt, you know the light of the world You know, we uh, you know, we are to be witnesses to the teaching of christ

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Uh, we are to be salt we are to be light in in a dying world in a dying culture And I think we're going to have some real opportunities to do that And and that's one of the things

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I think we ought to pray for as well You know is pray not only um that we can bear up under persecution, but not just bear up but to actually um take those opportunities that god gives us

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To witness and to speak out, you know, whether it's you know, writing a blog post whether it's doing a uh, a uh, a podcast or a video or maybe talking to your neighbor or your your parents or your children or Uh friends, maybe people, you know at work

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You know, who knows? I mean, we all we're all different. We're all in different situations um, but we all serve the same lord and you know, this is

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Uh, I think it's going to be a real opportunity for us to witness for the truth Not only of the law of god, uh, but also the gospel of jesus christ, so I think that's something we need to be praying about.

44:41

Um as well And you know one of the things too I sometimes think about you know, well, why does god allow?

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Uh evil men, you know like joe biden, for example to get into positions of power, you know, why does he allow?

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evil movements To to gain traction whether it's communism whether it's you know, black lives matter whether it's antifa whether it's critical race theory whether it's the homosexual movement whether it's

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Feminism or you know any number or roman catholicism or any number of other isms out there?

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That that have so much sway and power in our own time and I you know, there there are probably

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Several a lot of different reasons. I mean you can have there can be multiple reasons why god Works things in a particular way.

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I think one of the reasons at least to me that i've been thinking about recently is that Is is to show us the actual real power of evil

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And the lack of power that we have in ourselves You know, I wrote a blog piece last

45:44

Um last sunday it was titled, uh without me you can do nothing. And of course that's a quote, uh

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Something that jesus said to his disciples, you know, i'm divine you are the branches without me you can do nothing

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And I know for myself That sometimes it's easy to forget that that if i'm going to stand any strength that I have

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To to actually stand up to evil to speak out against it to face it to deal with it

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Um, it's not in me I'm, not strong enough on my own to be able to do anything You know, it's only through christ that strengthens me that I have any chance at all is standing up against the uh,

46:24

You know the world the flesh and the devil And when you see the the power of evil right now, and it's very strong.

46:31

I mean, it's overwhelming I mean, I I mean the in my opinion the election was very obviously stolen and we're about to install a uh, a roman catholic

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Uh president who whose policies are basically in line with with that of the vatican without of the pope without of pope francis

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Uh, that is to say antichrist and we're going to get um

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There are going to be some I think some very challenging times here for us As christians in the next few years and the thing is

47:00

I can't do anything to stop that I mean, I wish I could I wish I could could wave my hand and say stop and And put an end to all that and take all the the bad guys and send them packing but but I can't do that Uh, they're too powerful for me you know, and this is one of the themes in the bible though is is that you know apart from Apart from god apart from his strength, you know, god has to fight the battle and win

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We can't win the battle on our own You know, we can't even hardly even fight the battle on our own let alone win it

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You know, it's god who fights and it's god who wins the battle and defeats his people's enemies

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Our job is to have faith that is to believe what he tells us um,

47:45

I think is maybe i'm even actually thinking perhaps, uh, continuing, uh last week's post, uh, and and talking some about that because I I think one of the things as I said you see in scripture is this consistent theme

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That it's god who has to fight and win the battle Now he uses means he can use us to do that fighting

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But but it's it's it's only if we fight in his strength, uh that we have any chance of winning so anyway that uh

48:14

That kind of wraps things up for this week and that was really about all I wanted to say Thanks so much for for listening for those of you who are watching.

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Uh, the the live cast, uh, the live stream on twitter Thanks for watching. I really do appreciate that and I uh wish you a uh, a

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Great weekend and a blessed lord's day. I hope you enjoy this podcast If you did, um, i'm going to put post this out on my blog to say

48:39

I post this out on the blog um, I also post it to Uh thorn crown ministry's website.

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You can find a link to this Uh podcast will be out on twitter on my twitter account and the thorn count 20 thorn crown ministries

48:54

Uh twitter account, uh as well as I also have it out there on my facebook page So you can find it in a number of places.

49:01

This podcast is also available through apple podcast So if you like the podcast you can subscribe to it Also, too

49:06

If you do get something out of this podcast or some of the other work that I do, uh, please consider donating I'm going to have a uh donations link, uh available on this, uh on the website

49:15

So if you want to drop a few shekels, uh in my cup there if you've like I say if you've gotten something out of this podcast