Russell Moore Gets Pwned on Theocracy

AD Robles

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Hi, my name is Adam Robles and today I have a little bit of a different video I was fully intending this morning to upload a video about the race issue again

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But I actually saw an article By Russell Moore about theocracies that I had to respond to you.

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I completely disagree with Russell Moore on this issue And I think this article is an especially helpful

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Instructive way to show why and so I don't want to throw any shade Russell Moore's way.

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I think he's a probably a great guy. I don't know him, obviously But you know him and I would agree on probably a lot of things

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So I don't want you to see this disagreement as me sort of warning you against, you know His ministry or whatever because it's nothing like that.

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This is a important point, but I not the only thing that matters and so You know, please don't see this as an attack on Russell Moore because it's not intended that way but he's really wrong about this

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Really really wrong and you know It's it's it's possible for a real smart guy to be really wrong about something

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And so I wanted to talk about this and it's about Theocracies and the article is titled why theocracy is terrible and so When he kind of advertised this article the quote he chose to pull out of the article said that theocracies are awful not only because they oppress human beings, but also because they blaspheme

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God which You know, I it interested me. It was a is an effective quote to sort of pull out to get me interested

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But you're gonna see as we go through this that he Commits a big fallacy that I have

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I I would identify as the Mott and Bailey fallacy Or you can kind of call it like the bait -and -switch or it's kind of a fallacy of equivocation

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Basically, what he does is he he has two Positions that he's trying to defend right one of them is really easy to defend and the other one is not

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But he keeps going back and forth So what he's pretending to defend is a super easy thing that almost everybody agrees with but what he's actually

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Saying and and also trying to defend But you know kind of going back and forth between the two is actually not that easy to defend

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So by defending the one but not the other he makes it seem like he has a really good case

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But he actually doesn't have a very good case. And so you're gonna see that in just a minute So let's let's switch to the article here.

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So here it is Russellmore .com why theocracy is terrible and you see this picture here of Some unrest in the

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Middle East and so that's kind of how he starts off, right? He says Christians You know, they see the unrest in the

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Middle East and they recognize that an Islamic state an Islamic theocracy is wrong because They're you know

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They they're not just and and and the reason a Christian might say is because Islamic law is not just it's got the wrong

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God, and so obviously if you have the wrong God, you're not gonna set up a just society And so that's really easy to defend hardly anyone who's not a

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Muslim would disagree with that And so, you know, that's a super easy thing to defend but He he goes on to say that theocracies in general are awful.

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He says, you know, even if it's Even if it's you know, so -called a

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Christian theocracy Because theocracy just means ruled by God. So why wouldn't we want to be ruled by God?

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He says even if that's the case Theocracies are always awful and abusive

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Not only because they oppress human beings, but because they also blaspheme God and you and he further drives the point home

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He talks about this this New York Times columnist that calls Iran a klepto theocracy that basically the whole point is that they set up this theocracy, but really they just want to steal money from people and He says well, that's true of Iran, but it's also true of every theocracy right, and so that's the main point he's saying that every theocracy is is is evil essentially and blasphemes

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God and Sort of the easy sort of snarky response to this. I saw this on the

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Facebook post that he made is very easy It's well, didn't God set up a theocracy in Israel?

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Yeah, he did. So it's a very easy way to refute that theocracies Aren't always this way because God set up a theocracy and so God's obviously not

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Blaspheming himself and so and he set this theocracy up after the fall. So, you know

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Presumably sinful men were were kind of running things for him in this theocracy that he himself set up So it can't be the the fact that theocracies are inherently evil.

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It just can't be that way. It's too easy to refute that But let's let's go on a little bit further. Let's not just choose the the snarky response, right?

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And so in this article, you know, and I'm not gonna read the whole thing right this it's not that long

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You see it only goes to here. So you get I'll link to it You can read it. But in this article, he kind of gives a few reasons as to why theocracies are are are bad and so I identified eight things that he kind of defines a theocracy as right the first one he says is that Theocracies financially fleece people out of money and property.

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So he mentioned that in the New York Times article guy And the question is does every theocracy do that?

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Well No, that's obviously not the case. God's theocracy didn't do that You know when

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God set up the theocracy in Israel the point was not to fleece people out of money and property So the answer to that is clearly a no

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He also says that a theocracy is a legitimate illegitimate claim to rule the whole cosmos, right?

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It's almost like a claim to be God And the question is does God's does every theocracy do that?

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Well, no God's doesn't God's theocracy that he set up was had nothing to do with people claiming to be

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God It had God as the ruler of the cosmos. God was setting up the law and people were applying that law

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So no that that's not true of every theocracy Number three a theocracy means that people come into the kingdom be only because they're cowering before an earthly power

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Again, God's theocracy didn't do that. Okay. Yeah. He also says that a theocracy is a claim to messianic authority

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Was God's? No, so you see I could go I'm gonna give four more points

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But the but the whole point is there's no nuance here, right? So so every time he talks about a theocracy all he says is theocracy without nuance and Really?

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It's just a bootleg theocracy. He's talking about he's not talking about a Christian theocracy Because if a theocracy had claimed to have messianic power, then it would not be a

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Christian theocracy it wouldn't be a theocracy that that God would be a part of and so It's just kind of it's just weird again

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He he every point he makes about theocracy is really about a bootleg sort of false theocracy a fifth one

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He says a theocracy is a claim to rule on earth by divine appointment

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God's wasn't God's got you know, the people that were ruling in Israel there Weren't saying that they had a special sort of appointment by God that that what they said mattered more than everybody else

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No, they weren't saying that they were just implementing God's law. Right another point He says a theocracy claims to speak where God has not spoken

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Again, God's theocracy didn't do that because the people who ran Israel they were applying

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God's law So it was they were only speaking where God did speak right? Well, at least that's how it was set up You know, he talks about how theocrats would would would would basically be applying secret revelations again

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That's not the case a theocrat and a Christian theocracy would be applying God's law. It wouldn't be secret revelation

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It'll be the revelation that everybody has the scriptures, right? He finally makes the point at the end of the article that a theocracy in every situation in every situation

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So again, this is there's no nuance here every theocracy is motivated by financial gain political power or sexual pleasure and Again, I God's theocracy is not motivated by that So again, he's applying all of these things and he just applying it to theocracy in general

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And really it's all all he's refuting is a false theocracy these none of these apply to God's theocracies

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You know those you can't say that anyone and and and full disclosure. I would advocate for a

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Christian theocracy I think it's pretty clear in Scripture but you can't say that a person like me who would advocate for God's theocracy is

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Saying that we would make up all these laws where God has not spoken, right? We wouldn't do that So, you know, so Russell Moore is sort of doing this bait -and -switch where he says he's talking about theocracy

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But really he's talking about a false theocracy where everyone is Just using God for power instead of applying

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God's law the way he intends people to do And so it's it's it's this

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Mott and Bailey fallacy. He's he's sort of He has this very strong position where he can refute easily false theocracies and that's easy to defend

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But all the while he's pretending to defend the Bailey the more difficult the more difficult point that he's making

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What I found interesting about this was all of these points that he makes about, you know

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Messianic authority speaking where God has not spoken Being motivated by money and power and greed claiming to rule everything

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They don't apply to God's theocracy the Christian theocracy. They don't apply to this theocracy that God set up in the

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Old Testament But they do very easily apply to democratic power to democracies in other words

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Because here's the thing all governments all democracies even are all motivated by these things all of these things will claim to speak

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About morality where God has not spoken. So all of these criticisms equally apply to Democracies as they do to false theocracies.

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And so if it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander If this is a an argument these these pragmatic kind of points are an argument against theocracy

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Well, then it's equally an argument against democracy. And where are we? It's equally an argument against autocracy.

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So then where would we be? The point is that none of these things are actually good arguments against theocracy.

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They're just kind of pragmatic you know ills that basically identify the reality of sinful man, right and You know

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Again, it's it's a reality and it's a it's pragmatic and maybe they're true But it's not a good argument against democracy or theocracy or autocracy.

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This is this is a situation we have to deal with it You might you might say at this point to me, you know

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Hey Russell Moore might be might not have given a good argument against theocracy in this article But he's still right because if you have a theocracy based on God's Word, it would still be abused by sinful men and Because it would be abused it would end up blaspheming

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God because sinful men would Apply a theocracy in an inconsistent way or in an evil way

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Because you know people are imperfect people are sinners and so Russell Moore is still right

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And to those people I would say, okay. Well Let's just say that he was right for a second

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That's that's also true of democracy, right? Because sinful men are running a democracy. So what wouldn't you rather have a

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System where the goal was to apply justice real godly biblical justice

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Applied imperfectly by sinful men or would you rather have a system where the goal doesn't doesn't have anything to do with God's justice?

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it's just make it up as we go along kind of justice and And have that applied by sinful men

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I mean, it's it doesn't again It doesn't really seem even if he's right about that and and and that's what would corrupt theocracy

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It would definitely corrupt democracy even worse. And so I don't I still don't think he's right but to even more so The question that I have for Russell Moore and for anyone who would agree with this is how big is your gospel?

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Like seriously, how big is your gospel because I know Russell Moore preaches the real gospel, right?

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But I think it's deficient because he would have to agree and everyone I think that would read that would

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Read this article or watch this video would have to agree that the gospel Regenerates people it changes people in it and it changes how they deal with their personal lives like in their personal conduct, right?

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You know when you're when you're when you're saved by Christ and you're regenerated in your spirit You it changes how you treat your wife.

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It shrink changes how you raise your kids It changes how you deal with your neighbors All of these things are completely changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ And so you're conforming to the image of Christ And so you start to do things that you start to treat people the way

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Christ would treat people and you won't do it perfectly But that's what starts to happen And so as you grow you're gonna be growing in grace and in sanctification and you're gonna be more and more like Christ every single day

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Well, why can't that apply to politics? Right? Why is it only in your personal conduct? So if a if a if a

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Christian gets regenerated, why aren't his politics also sanctified? Why why wouldn't his the way he would rule?

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Let's say a Christian was a mayor or a senator or you know, God willing even the president, right?

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Why wouldn't a Christian a real regenerated by the Spirit of God Christian? Wouldn't want why wouldn't he want to rule the way

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Christ would rule? Why wouldn't he want to set up a system of government the way Christ would set up a system of government?

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Because if he's being conformed to the image of God if he's being conformed to the image of Christ, right?

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Why wouldn't he? Start ruling and setting up a system of government that acknowledges

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Christ in all these areas Basically a theocracy where he's his his ideas of what the right laws are and his ideas of what justice is are put aside

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But God's idea of justice and God's idea of what the right laws are are emphasized and are elevated That sounds an awful lot like a theocracy to me

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And so I would ask Russell Moore and anyone who would think that that imperfect sinners will always corrupt a theocracy

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How big is your gospel man? How big is your gospel the gospel can change politics and gospel can change government and I think it will

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I? Wanted to read the last Paragraph of this article

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Because I think it's pretty interesting, right? So here we go. It says God has told us how to come into his rule by following the self -sacrificial way of the crucified

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Christ That entails a call to carry the gospel to the nations not to subdue them for our own gain

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That entails a call to consciousness To hear and to receive the gospel not to run over consciences with the threat of death or loss of money

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Theocracies are terrible because the God behind them is the root of all the horrors of the present age a depraved humanity pretending to be divine

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So I guess back to the mop then, huh? So here's the thing he he sets up this dichotomy.

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He says it's all about self -sacrificial service to Christ carrying the gospel to the nations not conquering the nations and Look let's just be flat -out honest if a theocracy was conquering nations violently and saying you must

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Convert to Christ or will kill you that's not a godly theocracy. That's not a Christian theocracy

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So again, what are you refuting here, right? You know, this article would be really good if it was actually just about bootleg theocracies

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It was just about a fake false theocracy and all these systems of government that pretend to be theocracies

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But aren't it would be a really good article because it does refute that But that's not what he says. It's about he says it's about all theocracies

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And the last sentence is amazing. I think because he actually kind of This is my whole point

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He says theocracies are terrible because the God behind them is the root of all the horrors of the present age

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And here's what he says. The God is a depraved humanity pretending to be divine that Describes democracy that describes autocracy because in in democracy and an autocracy the

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God of those systems the Lawgiver the person who decides what is moral? What is not? What is justice?

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What is injustice is? humanity Not God that doesn't describe that sentence doesn't describe theocracy or at least a

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Christian theocracy a Christian theocracy Seeks to remove man from the equation as much as possible

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It seeks to apply God's justice and God is perfectly just and he sets up systems that are perfectly just and So Russell Moore, I don't know why you wrote this article.

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I don't know. I don't know I honestly don't get you sometimes but but the point is that last sentence gives the whole debate here

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You're actually not talking about Christian theocracies You're not responding to anyone who would like myself would seek to set up a

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Christian theocracy and promote it What you're talking about is fake false theocracies. You're talking about bootleg theocracies

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And so I would stand with you against that But let's not pretend that you're refuting all theocracies with this article because that's not what you're doing

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And so with love and with respect I just have to say that this kind of article it just muddies the water so much that it's it's just completely unhelpful

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Let's focus on setting up Christian theocracies where we can apply

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God's law as best we can we'll never do it perfectly because we are sinners But God's law applied imperfectly by people is much better than man's law

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Applied imperfectly by people and I think God would honor that effort as well. I think he would give us

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Insight into the scriptures more than we've ever had before if we as a as a group as a nation decided

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We want to honor God with our laws We want to look into the scriptures and see how should we apply the law that he gave

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Israel I mean, it's not going to be a one -to -one application a lot of the time, obviously But I think

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God would honor that and I think the gospel is capable of producing that you know,

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I This is really a gospel issue. It really is to me The gospel absolutely saves souls for eternity, but it also saves us now as we are now politically

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Personally as a family the whole kit and caboodle So god bless you.

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I thank you for watching this video and obviously comment Below feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions