Provoked: Should Christians Engage In Politics?

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Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity.

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I mean this is what's wrong with the Christian Church today. We don't know who God is and we don't know who we are.

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This is where we hold them. This is where we fight.

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Officer, you need to repent of your lawless conduct. You don't know the law and yet you pretend to represent it.

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That's not law enforcement, sir. That's being a thug. We will not stop fighting and bothering you all until this monstrous barbaric practice of legalized abortion ends and we are teaching our children to be the same.

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God's Word says that the shed blood of innocent humans cries out for justice and mark my words they will have their day in court.

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Nobody gets saved by being treated nicely. They get saved by hearing the gospel. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the

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Word of Christ. If we don't open our mouths and commend Christ, we're not loving them no matter what we're doing with our hands.

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Now therefore, O kings, be wise and be warned. O rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.

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Kiss the Son lest he be angry and you perish in the way. For his wrath is quickly kindled.

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Blessed are all who take refuge in him. That's Psalm chapter 2 verses 10 through 12. What is going on everybody?

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You just tuned in to the best podcast that's ever existed. It's true. In all of creation called

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Provoked. So I'm here. I'm Zach and this is my sister Desi. Hello. And this is actually my brother -in -law Don.

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How's it going brother? Good, good. And just so everyone knows I am by default like your number one fan.

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Thank you. And my beautiful wife here. You better be. She would just divorce you if you were.

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Hey, we're gonna get back to you in just a second. But if you never tuned in to Provoked, we named it

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Provoked because we want to provoke the church. It's a biblical term. It really means to stir the church up the best that you can to do what we ought to be doing.

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And that is really kind of definitional and kind of three points with us. It's preach the gospel, rescue babies, and defend the faith.

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And so we want to of course not ever replace the local church. We just want to supplement what the local church is doing.

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Coming coming alongside of our brothers and sisters and saying, hey let us help you know what the true gospel is.

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Let us help you know what true biblical evangelism is. And also let us help you get out there and rescue babies.

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So I guess the question people ask me, well I just ask it to you guys, is why do we focus on child murder?

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You know, there's so many other things that we could be doing. Why is that such a focal point to our ministry, especially at Apologia?

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Yeah, you want me to answer or do you want to? Sure, yeah. You both take a crack at it. I think you asked me that last time.

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So I'm gonna pass it over to my handsome husband. Oh yeah, it's the issue of our lifetime that we're dealing with right now.

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You know, with the number of babies that are being murdered every single day, you know, the church has got to be the central focal point of that, and going to bring the gospel and demanding that these image bearers of God are being rescued.

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I think we've seen that through history of the Christian church, you know, where God's people have always stepped out in that effort to care for their neighbor, to love for their neighbor, and to rescue those who are being brought to slaughter, as this word says.

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So that's our goal. I mean, this is the top issue right now in our nation.

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This is why our nation is headed in the direction it's heading, because of the bloodshed of the innocent babies upon this land.

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And if we don't, you know, what then? You know, where does this nation lead further into depravity than it's already going?

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So the church has got to be at the front line. That's good, man. That's exactly right.

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I mean, when innocent blood is spilled, the Bible says it affects the very land.

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You know, it stains, it ruins a nation when innocent blood... you could track that all throughout the scriptures.

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Rusty Thomas, of course, has his sermon Blood Guiltiness, which I know that you guys have listened to.

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If you have not listened to Blood Guiltiness, you have to look that up on YouTube. So we're on YouTube. You're looking at us right now. You just go up right there into the search box and put in Blood Guiltiness, Rusty Thomas, and listen to that.

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That is a life -changing sermon. Of course, everything within that is biblical, and it really focuses on what happens when we shed the blood of innocence.

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It wrecks and ruins everything. And of course, we're... I would say, and I would argue, that we're in the state that we are in the nation, number one, because of the neglect of the church.

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The church is being derelict in its duty to be salt and light. And because of that, because we're not being a salt and light, of course, then babies continue to die, and innocent blood is being shed.

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So I think you're exactly right. So what we would ask you to do, and we ask you to do it every single time, is go to ApologyofStudios .com

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and just sign up to be an All -Access member. It's so important to do that. You're going to learn so much rich and important information from so many different experts, and so many different fields, sermons, debates, you know, teaching you how to mow your lawn.

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No, I mean teaching you everything you need to know about life.

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So whatever question you have about any topic... My mind always goes somewhere inappropriate, sorry. Anyway, it's awesome.

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Go do that now. Yeah, but when you do that, you become an All -Access member. You're going to support the work here at Apology of Students, and we've got...

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we put a tremendous amount of money and effort into making this happen, so that we can be a blessing to the Church, and help you do...

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accomplish really what the Lord would have you to accomplish. So don't only be a taker. There's a very consumeristic mentality within the

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Christian Church. Sometimes we just go in and consume, and just go about our business, when we really need to only consume, and actually be a receiver of all that we have.

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And of course, it's the whole purpose of Apology of Studios. But give back in the form of your prayers, and your financial help.

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That will help us keep going. Yeah. Cool. So we've got a lot to talk about today.

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Yeah. Yeah. I don't... I guess that they're gonna see this in the future. Two weeks.

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Yeah, in the future. But yeah, I just got off the phone with a mom who is contemplating murdering her baby.

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Yeah, and her name is C. I think she might actually... I encouraged her to come do our stuff on YouTube, and she was really receptive.

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So you know, our people, Janiece and others, were at Camelback Family Planning today, or I think it may have been yesterday.

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Today's Wednesday. And Janiece was just pleading, and pouring her heart out. And thankfully, she gave Janiece her information, which is like a huge step to get to, in building a conversation, and trying to, you know, work through the process of helping a mom make the right decision not to kill her baby.

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So I'm so thankful for Janiece, and the other laborers out there, that they actually got to that point. So they got her message, or sorry, they got her information, texted her, and then

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I just talked to her about an hour ago for a large part of time, just, you know, pleading with her, and you know, revealing to her what they're not going to reveal to her at the clinic.

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Of course, they're not gonna tell her the truth. They're just gonna feed her with a bunch of lies, and misinformation, and bad science, and all that.

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So we just walked through the scripture, so you're super receptive, and she said, you know, you know, there was a point where I said, hey, we'll adopt your baby.

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How many families are on standby? Literally, not only an apology, it's extended out to all of our networks, and the people that we know, and all the messages that we have coming in, saying hey,

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I'll adopt your baby. Literally, probably 50 families would adopt her baby right now. And would be like, fighting like, who would get the baby?

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Yeah, fist fighting each other to get this baby. You know, passionately wanting this baby.

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That would happen immediately. And she said this, she said, it's so weird, you know, she said, I would rather, I would rather, that's my baby.

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How could I ever give it over to another family? It's just amazing the confusion, because she's just not looking at it as her baby.

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And so I just kept on saying, hey, you're not gonna have a baby. You have a baby. You have a baby at this very moment.

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Because she thinks she'll have a baby at the moment of birth. Right. She's a mother of a baby right now. So she, she understood.

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She didn't really buck back as far as like defending herself. And, you know, she, I think she was super receptive.

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So, you know, we got a whole bunch of people, hundreds and hundreds of people are praying for her right now. So I'm just praying she makes that, that right decision.

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Yeah, we'll be praying for her. And then we got another question from, yeah, from one of our listeners. Exactly. He is, his name is

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Dennis. And he wrote us this, or he sent us this question. He says, what is a practical way to trust in the

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Lord? Can't we have self -confidence if we trust, fully trust in him? I struggle with this a little bit.

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So I'm really grateful if this question is getting answered. God bless you guys. So thanks so much for that question, bro.

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And we will do our best to answer it. So do you guys have any thoughts right off the bat? Um, well, first I just wanted to say thank you to everybody that even listens to our show, right?

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Like there's millions of podcasts and people spend time with us. So thank you guys.

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And thank you for questions like this. I'll let you go ahead and cool. Yeah. I think this is, you know,

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I think at the heart of this question is, can I be self -confident as a

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Christian? You know, because you, you know, you look it out, you look out in the world and, um, you know, you look at an athlete who just like, you know, knocks a guy out and he wins a great big prize.

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And so he's, what does he say? I believed in myself, you know? And so people equate success with self -confidence.

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If only you believed in yourself, if only you were self -confident, so hopefully if only you had a high sense of self -esteem.

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So I think what we're trying to do is merge that into a biblical understanding of confidence. Now, trusting and faith are pretty much synonymous terms, you know, when

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I, so he's asking, what is a practical way to trust in the Lord? It's almost as if he's saying, what is a practical way to put my faith in the

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Lord? And so what we would say off the bat is that faith is a gift. Ephesians chapter two says faith is a gift.

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It's something granted to us. So God by his grace and his mercy selects those he's going to be saved.

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And here comes the comments. He does do that. I think that's a biblical understanding of soteriology, the way that God saves people.

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He says, you're mine and here's a new heart and here's new spiritual life. And this heart now that was programmed to disobedience in sin, that was at intimacy with God.

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Now this new heart is the antithesis of that stony heart. It's a new heart. Now it has faith and it trusts

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God and it wants to obey the law of God, wants to obey the word of God, loves God, loves his people. So I think that faith and that trust really flows out of this heart that God has given you.

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But the Bible also says in Romans 10 17, so faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

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So we're to have confidence, which faith and confidence are synonymous terms too. If we're to have trust and faith and confidence, it flows out of really the fueling of ourselves with the word of God on a daily basis.

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Or you're not going to be a confident Christian and you're not going to put your trust in God through whatever situation you're going through.

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You're not going to put faith in him apart from your constant ingestion of the word of God into your life.

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It's not going to happen. I think too, just you know, are we seeking our own will or are we seeking his will, right?

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Are we looking to ourselves to walk out our lives? Are we truly looking to see what's

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God's will and are we joining him there in that, right? And that we're having confidence in his will for our life, not looking at ourselves going, you know,

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I'm going to guide myself in this direction, but we're not seeking God's word. We're not praying. We're not, you know, making sure that we're in line with what he's doing.

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You know, confidence in self is, you know, I think that can get really kind of muddy there, you know, and really we find our confidence in Christ and him alone.

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And are we seeking that, you know, in his word and through prayer.

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That's good. And I think that's the big, and I was going to kind of circle back to that, is can we be self -confident?

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Yeah. Did you see that that debate with Pastor Jeff and Psy with the atheists and like that that pivotal moment where Psy tends to indicate, says, you have confidence.

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Confidence, con means with, fide, with faith, right? Yeah, and it's like the thug life part where it was just like the most awesome part of the whole debate.

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Do you remember that? Yeah, and as we were talking about this, I was thinking about that. Yeah, yeah. And I was just gonna add this, like,

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I feel like we could have the ultimate confidence because we have Christ, right?

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We can have the supreme confidence in that, like Ephesians 2, he's created us for good works, you know, that he prepared before the foundations of the earth.

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So yeah, I feel like we can have the ultimate confidence as long as it's placed in the right place.

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You know, it's in the right place. It's in Christ. Yeah, because we can, we can have a lasting confidence and ultimate confidence because of our surety and what we know to be true about who

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God is. Yeah. And so, you know, you think about these guys who say, well, I, you know, I accomplished this great feat, you know,

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I, because of my self -confidence. And the source of their confidence is in their own abilities. Well, here's the thing, what happens, and we see it all the time, when they get older and those gifts that they once had that got them to a place of stardom or accomplished some great success story for them, what happens when that goes away?

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Their confidence goes away, right? And they are broken and lost. So ultimately, for,

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I don't think self -confidence is synonymous or is somehow compatible with the

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Christian life. No, we are not confident in self, right? The Bible says don't even trust your own heart, right?

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I mean, don't even trust self. Self is the problem most of the time. It's not something that we look to to build our confidence.

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So we could be confident. There's a lot of guys, I'm around a lot of heavy hitters all the time, Pastor Jeff and Pastor James, and these incredibly confident men, like capable men who are gifted and accomplishing so much.

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But I believe a huge part of that, and I know this to be true about Pastor Jeff, is his trust in the

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Lord, right? You know, he is confident in who God is in him, right?

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So I believe that we will be, our confidence is really in proportion to how much we know

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God and are trusting in who he is and what he says about himself and everything else. That's where ultimate supreme confidence comes out of.

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Right. Yeah. That was a good question. Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, that is something that I think a lot of Christians struggle with.

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Can I be self -confident? Man, I want to be successful. And what does that mean to be a Christian? Yeah, balancing that with humility and, like you said, not putting it in our own efforts or strength, but in Christ alone.

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Right, because if we look internally and self is the source. Our heart's deceitful above all else.

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Oh, exactly. Self is the source of confidence. You're in trouble when self lets you down, which of course it will.

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And that's what the culture around us wants to promote, is just like, believe in yourself,

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Disney. You can be a Cricket. Yeah, you can be whatever you want. I was thinking of Jiminy Cricket.

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Yeah, you can be a Cricket if you want. If you wish upon a star. Yeah, uh -huh. Which is wrong.

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Yeah. You can be whatever you want. Can I be a goose? We were just talking about this in a ladies group on Monday, about like things that trigger reformed people.

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One of them is like, if we go, I remember, like if we go out to a store or something. And this always happens if we're out like at a mall or something.

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And like Liam, well one time he like bumped into somebody and he's like, oh excuse me.

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And somebody said, oh you're good, you're good little dude. And then he just slowly looked at me, he's like, no one's good.

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And I'm like, yeah, true. No one's good but God alone. Reformed trigger.

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We should go through those, one of the shows. I know, that'd be fun. Yeah, but well this is gonna be a good episode.

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I mean, we have my very favorite person in the whole world here, and the best -looking guest we've had. Sorry to all of our other guests, but he's the best.

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Oh, I'm like, hmm. He's a good looking guy. Yeah, he hates that.

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But no, I'm so thankful for him. And I'll probably have to bow out for a little bit of this because our kiddos are here in the back.

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And so we've got our niece watching them, but no baby. Yeah, you've heard of Family Integrated Church.

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We're a family integrated podcast. That's right. Maybe the first ever. I know, I don't know. Maybe not.

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Out of millions of podcasts, there's probably other people that have their babies on. Yeah, that's just the way that we roll. Yeah, but yeah,

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I think it's gonna be a really important topic. Something that I think a lot of Christians kind of shy away from, because just from kind of false ideas of where Christians should bring the gospel and where they shouldn't, that aren't rooted in biblical truth, but kind of come from other tradition.

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And, you know, people think that, well anyways, we'll get into that of like why Christians sometimes shy away from getting into the political realm.

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Yeah. So what we're going to talk about kind of the heart, and of course, we're going to bring Don in just a few moments here, is

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Christians in politics. You know, should Christians be involved in politics? Answer?

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Yes. Obviously, we want to get Christians in positions of power so that they can do their best to live according to God's word.

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And I'm going to let Don kind of explain that. But I mean, here we go with this common quote that says, you know, as goes the church, as goes the nation, and then you can back that up.

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A lot of people says as goes the family, as goes the church, as goes the nation. I think as the pulpits as goes the pulpits, so goes the family, so goes the church, so goes the nation.

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Right? And so what we need to do is we need to get Christians in a place of being salt and light, just something that we're commanded to be, cities on a hill, right?

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Not putting our light under a bushel, but effecting change in the marketplace and getting in places of power.

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Because if we don't get in places of power, we don't places of power as Christians than the ungodly will.

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And of course, they will enact, as we see, unrighteous decrees that do not bless a nation, but tear it down piece by piece.

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And so I know a lot of you Christians out there are thinking, well, what does that mean? How do I get involved? How can I affect change?

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And how can I aspire to a place of political power or a position of political services?

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Really, that's the best way to say it. Not political power, it's how can I become servant in the political realm, putting

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God's standards and will and word as my ultimate before everything else.

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And so that's what we're gonna do today. So we brought Don on, and we want him, you know, what

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I wanna hear from you, brother, is kinda your testimony, how God saved you, and what he's doing in your life now, and what you're gonna aspire to do, so.

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Yeah, sure, for sure. Thank you again for having me on. And yeah, testimony.

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You know, I grew up in a very, very difficult home life.

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My parents were divorced when I was five years old, so the household was, you know, just a difficult household to grow up in.

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You know, I didn't grow up in a Christian home at all. My parents were separated, divorced when

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I was five. And my mom soon thereafter remarried, and we were living in Southern California, LA area.

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And we ultimately moved up to the high desert, just north of LA, moved around quite a bit, and ultimately settled in the high desert up there.

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You know, fast forward through a very challenging, you know, family life, you know, was always full of anger and violence and hurt.

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And my siblings, they had gone through similar, you know, a lot of lack of the father figure in the home.

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And through all that, I was, you know, I started to get resentment and hurt and not understanding why my parents couldn't be together and why my dad wasn't there.

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And, you know, never really bonded with my mom's husband, my stepdad at the time, and just a very, very difficult childhood.

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And I kind of grew up like a lonely child because my brothers and sisters were a lot older than me.

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So by the time I was seven, eight years old, they were already out of the house, and either that or just rebelling, and they were never home.

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And about when I was 11 years old, my mom and my stepdad got separated.

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He left, actually left her, pretty much left us homeless.

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We lost everything. My mom was living out of her car, and instead of keeping me in the car, she went next door across the street to the neighbor who we really didn't know.

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I mean, we played with them a few times as kids, but we didn't know them well as a family.

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They were just neighbors. And she went out over to them in desperation and said, hey, you know, I'm in a very, very difficult spot.

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Can you take my son in? And, you know, they did.

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And, you know, come to find out they're a Christian family, you know, very strong Christian family. Started going to church with them and was introduced to the gospel at that point early in my life.

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Still struggling, right? I wasn't saved at that time, but, you know, obviously God was working through this family that was gracious enough to bring me into their home.

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Lived with them for about a year, and then tried to attempt to go down and live with my dad because it still wasn't settling for my mom.

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She was still in a really difficult, difficult spot. Can it take me in? Went down to see him and tried to, you know, talk them into taking me, which sounds so weird, right?

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You know, like, but it just was what it was. And ultimately they said, no, you can't stay here.

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And so back up to my hometown and another family within that same church that we were going to took me under their wing.

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And I stayed with them for almost two years for a good part of my first part of high school.

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And then ultimately got back with my mom. And crazy thing was she took her ex -husband back into the house after he left us and brought us through all of that.

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And so there was a ton of anger there for me. I couldn't understand why that had happened. And a lot of rebellion, a lot of lashing out on my part, just super hurt and then just angry, you know?

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And then you fast forward, you know, I graduate high school. I knew I didn't want to stay in the desert and told myself

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I'd never come back to the desert, but here I am. Here I am in the 110 degree heat here in Arizona.

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But anyways, so went into the Marine Corps right out of high school. I had a little bit of time in junior college, but then just jumped right into the

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Marine Corps and moved down to San Diego to go to bootcamp there. Spent just over seven years in the

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Marine Corps and got out, loved San Diego, didn't want to go back to the desert.

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And so I took my GI Bill and started going to college, making plans to pursue my college career.

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But everything from the point, you know, from the point when I left the care of those families to my adulthood, there was no fruit of regeneration at all.

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I wasn't saved. I would have called myself a Christian, but it just, there wasn't. I was living in darkness, loving my sin, you know, just loving the world and everything in it.

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And so I wasn't saved, but ultimately went to college, was working multiple jobs to take myself through school and started working at Nordstrom as one of my jobs.

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And that's where I met Des. And we started dating at the time and ultimately getting married, you know, not too long thereafter, but went through a lot.

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And during that time period, got married to her. And our first, you know, first few years of our marriage was a rough, rough time.

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We weren't saved. We were both living in sin. And ultimately my brother here started a church and had asked us if we can, you know, go to church and attend and to help out, he invited us.

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Obviously he's, you know, talking to us about this all through our marriage, but ultimately started this church and invited us to go.

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And we did. I know reluctantly, we moved forward in that effort and started going, but it was -

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Yeah, because we were like, we're Christian, sure. Yeah. Like, but - But at the same time, we're like, we don't want to give up our

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Sunday morning. Like why, you know, I mean, right? Yeah, because we were out Saturday nights. Yeah, exactly.

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So, but by God's grace, you know, we started going and we were attending every

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Sunday and, you know, through the faithful preaching of the gospel, God just ultimately showed me exactly who

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I was before him and his holiness and that I'm just a sinner in need of a savior and broke me in about 2009 is when

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I would say the Lord rescued me from my plight of destruction. And for me, it was a pretty drastic change,

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I would say, right away. It seemed like almost overnight that my life was completely changing, you know, and it began to affect our marriage in a massively positive way, right?

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And I think Des would say that she, you know, came to the Lord shortly thereafter.

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Yeah. But things have never looked the same. You know, God rescued us and we were faithful in serving that city on a hill there.

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And though the church was only open for, you know, five years or so, maybe a little bit more than that, it was really just, again, the faithful preaching of the gospel from the pulpit.

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It was the leadership from the pulpit that really got us into the abortion fight, got us into going out and evangelizing, you know, things that, you know, as a young Christian, I remember when

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Pastor Zach first brought up going out and sharing the faith, you know, and I just remember thinking to myself,

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I can never do that. How can I get out and do that? There's just no way. Like, you want me to go out into the public to talk to people about Jesus?

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But, and then through one of his sermons, I remember him just saying, you know, if we truly believe, if we're truly saved, if we're truly rescued and believe the gospel and that Jesus is, you know, the only hope for mankind, how could we not do that?

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We'd be hating those people to the utmost if we didn't share the glorious gospel with them.

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And that just floored me. It convicted me so bad to say, wow, I mean, that's right.

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I mean, I can't not do this, you know? And slowly but surely we started going out and the

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Lord really started, you know, blessing us through that and giving us the courage to go out and the more we did, the more we learned.

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And again, just trusting on the Lord and just being faithful and bringing the gospel to the lost. And it just grew and grew and grew.

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And we just - Do you guys remember doing Way of the Master at your house? Yeah, Way of the Master. We went through Way of the Master series.

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That was pivotal and all of that. And one time I, just a short interruption.

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In 2006, he had, you know, Ray Comfort had come out with Way of the Master. That's when it was really gaining popularity.

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And I remember I brought it to my church and I swore, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna teach you guys how to do this. And I had just, you know, been studying how to do it.

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And so I'm like, okay guys, let's go. And people came in, it was like 105 people that wanted to go through it.

29:31

Yeah, as you go through the course, the final part is you gotta actually go. And there was four people. And this was at like a big church you were going to?

29:38

Yeah, you know, a pretty good sized church. But it just goes to show you that, you know, people struggle with the same thing you're struggling with.

29:44

Just the ability to get out there and really put feet to your faith and do it.

29:50

Yeah, and like to answer, you know, to go along with the question that was asked earlier at the start of the show, you know, that we're not putting our trust in ourself to do that.

29:58

We can't, right? We don't, there's nothing in our own power that's gonna save somebody. It's the gospel that saves.

30:04

And we just gotta, again, we gotta be faithful to stepping out and sharing the gospel with others and letting

30:10

God do the work, you know, and resting in that and having the peace in that and just being faithful in that calling.

30:19

Right. So ultimately, right, you know, during that time at City on a

30:25

Hill, that's when a time you had gone to the Shepherds Conference and where Rusty had spoken and that's a, or another

30:32

Shepherd Conference, Harold Society. And I remember you coming back from that. And it was, I mean, that was one of the first things you said, we gotta get into this fight, you know, and we gotta start going out to the abortion mill.

30:47

And through that, through your leadership, we followed and got out there and started to go and really just started to see the realities of abortion, right, because it wasn't,

31:00

I mean, it was something we talked about, we knew about, but right, how do you put feet, again, we're talking about how do you put feet to that calling?

31:08

What does that mean for Christians to go? And I remember the first time going out, it was like, you know, again, it was, you know, you're just kind of stunned.

31:17

Like, you asked me to go out to the front of the abortion mill to hold signs and to tell others not to kill their child and, you know, you're just like, okay, here we go,

31:24

Lord, just help us. We're gonna be faithful in stepping out. And we did and, you know, we've been in that fight ever since, you know, but really it comes from exactly what you said.

31:37

I think for me, it really just started at the pulpit, the leadership of our church, you know, that the sheep are gonna follow the shepherd.

31:47

And so it begun in that effort and ultimately, you know,

31:52

God in his sovereignty brought us out here to Apologia and, you know, we moved out here about three and a half years ago.

32:02

And in the back of my mind, thinking about what does it mean? You know, how do we, we're out here fighting this fight on the front line at the abortion mill, but, and then we started to understand that there's other aspects to this spiritual warfare, right?

32:16

There's other battle fronts that need to be fought as well as the front line at the abortion mill, like politics.

32:23

How do we change law to, you know, abolish abortion? How does all that work?

32:29

And I mean, it was always in the back of our minds as we've been going through that and getting to know people that have been into the fight, but we really couldn't put, again, legs on it.

32:38

How does that, what does that mean for the average Christian? What does that mean for us? How is God calling us in that effort, you know?

32:44

And so it wasn't until we got here to the church, and I think we have been so blessed by the elders here and their faithfulness to God's word and digging into what it means for the gospel of the kingdom.

32:59

You know, and I remember Jeff, Pastor Jeff, preaching a sermon at one time where he talked about the truncated gospel, right?

33:06

That the gospel isn't just about salvation, right? As, you know,

33:13

God's kingdom is going forth, right? His people are doing what they're called to do.

33:18

They're going out into the world and sharing the gospel. You should ultimately see change in every aspect of society because the gospel is being brought forth and light's being, you know, shined on darkness.

33:34

And you would start to see that effect every sphere of influence. And so, you know, going through that, hearing that in the preaching, hearing that in the sermon

33:46

Sunday after Sunday, studying God's word and totally getting the grasp of that really began to change our view, you know?

33:54

And through this church, you know, as our elders started to lead more in that effort, yourself and others in the church started going out and speaking out to the magistrates and starting to see that progression, right?

34:11

We're moving from, you know, or I shouldn't say moving from, but, you know, at the same time, moving in different aspects of that, still going to the abortion mill, but taking the next steps in those efforts.

34:23

And then we started getting involved in, you know, the faculty classes with Brother Zach and, you know, understanding

34:32

Christian's involvement in the political front and what does that look like? And what does politics mean to a

34:40

Christian? And should we just sit back and vote Republican and vote pro -life and that's all our duty is?

34:47

And for the longest time, I truly thought that that's all we can do, you know? And it seemed powerless, right?

34:53

You know, you're kind of, you're going through all the candidates, you're looking at who they are, you're researching them, you're trying to understand who's the pro -life, who's the more, you know, in line with our values, with the word of God.

35:06

And, you know, you're making a, kind of a best guess judgment call there. This person is going to do that.

35:12

But then, you know, as you get further in that process and we can't expect, you know, unbelieving, not that every politician's, you know, you know, not saved or not a

35:25

Christian, but you can't expect those who are dead in their sin to uphold God's law in that realm, right?

35:32

You can't expect them to do that. How can we expect God honoring legislation to go forth when, you know, a lot of politicians are

35:42

God -hating people, right? And what does that look like? And so, just tremendously blessed through that.

35:50

And God began to really lay upon my heart through all of this, through his word, through the leadership, through these classes we've been to, that we have to get involved.

36:01

We have to get involved. And even, you know, the most recent events here in our own state, as we put forth that bill of abolition this year, as that bill of abolition got put forth in the state, and just seeing that process carry out, oh man, it just had such an effect on me, you know?

36:20

That here we are putting the bill of abolition forward, but it didn't go anywhere at all, zero.

36:25

Didn't even, had no momentum at all. And that was the pro -life

36:31

Republicans that ultimately killed the bill. You know, and you look at that and you're just, you know, it really just, it's like how can we, you know, influence this more as Christians?

36:46

So you're going through all that process of God really just bringing light to darkness and really enlightening you to the political realm and how we can be involved.

36:56

So what do you think was the catalyst for what you're doing now? I know we went to man camp and that was pretty huge.

37:02

Yeah, again, yeah, that was huge. That was probably the biggest turning point because I had been already processing this for a really long time, you know?

37:11

And especially once we started getting more involved in the classes and understanding and educating ourselves and reading

37:17

God's word more in this aspect and understanding what it means for a

37:23

Christian to be involved, I was convicted to do that.

37:28

Like I need to step out more to, you know, in this realm, but I was counting the cost of doing it, but being sinful in that I didn't want to give up comfort, really what it boiled down to, you know, that I knew that this was gonna be a major sacrifice to do this.

37:45

Yeah, well, maybe we should just tell them now like what it is that you are going to do.

37:51

Yeah, so I am running for state house representative in my legislative district.

37:57

And so we've started that process. We're, you know, got pretty much everything done that we could up to this point.

38:05

From now until the end of the year, it's really just campaign fundraising. And then things start picking up and getting really busy the first of the year, because that's when signatures are required to get onto the ballot.

38:18

A lot more paperwork and filings need to be done at the state level. And then we go right into campaigning because we've got the primary elections in August and then followed by the general election.

38:31

Okay, cool. And so I wanted to go backwards a little bit to where you were. I just wanted everybody to know that he's running for state representative, house representative, to be a state legislator to affect political change and get bills in to, you know, say maybe.

38:46

So anyway, but I think people are really curious about the kind of the process of like what you were talking about. You know,

38:51

God wanted you to get to a place of political position, political leadership, and just kind of, you know, go into what you were thinking and how that kind of process played out, like the things that you were thinking about and warring against and how you came to the firm conclusion and kind of just, you know, pulled the trigger on everything.

39:10

Yeah, I mean, again, all this leading up to this point, this year was that tipping point of all of that, going up to the man camp and again, hearing our brother

39:21

Zach Lautenschlager speak up there was just phenomenal, a message that he gave.

39:30

And I just remember walking out of that and everybody was hopping in the car to go back to the cabins, but I was like,

39:37

I gotta just walk this out. And I hopped on the phone and immediately called Tez and I go, we gotta talk when

39:44

I get home. I can't remember exactly what I said, but something of that nature. And I go, you know, I think, I really feel that this, this is something that we need to do, you know?

39:52

And so, and we did, we came home and it was a process still, you know,

39:58

I had, we prayed, we sought counsel from our elders, you know, we went through a pretty in -depth just kind of assessment, right, of counting that cost of what does this look like to our family?

40:11

What, how is this gonna change our family dynamic and understanding that it will, understanding that, you know, we are gonna face a lot of attack.

40:21

Our lives are gonna be completely changed in a lot of ways and obviously gonna affect my family and kids too, right?

40:30

And should Lord willing, we make it through that process and we're actually, you know, in office, then, you know, it's gonna look tremendously different than what our life does now.

40:42

And that was really kind of where I was wrestling, you know, I didn't, I was afraid to take that step, right?

40:50

It's counting that cost and to me, I was just struggling with that, like, and I'm being sinful, right?

40:55

You know, as James 4 says, you know, that those who know the right thing to do but fail to do it, that for them, for him it is sin.

41:06

Yeah. And that's where it's just like, if I am not stepping out, right? God is confirming this all the way through this process in multiple ways, through his word, through the preaching of the word, through, you know, discussions with godly men and understanding through the conviction of the

41:23

Holy Spirit of where I feel he's leading me and our family, if I weren't to do this,

41:28

I'd be in sin. And so, and finally, it just, you know, after praying, I woke up one morning and I just was at complete peace with it.

41:36

You know, there's still unknowns, right? I've never done this before. This is brand new. This was not on my radar and never, ever thought

41:42

I would be involved in the political realm at all. But God, right?

41:47

God had different plan for me. So here we are and we're moving forward in that process.

41:53

And we just gotta be - So your questions. Sure. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, just that we gotta be faithful and trusting him, you know, and stepping out in faith.

42:02

And even though we can't see that end line, right? Whatever that may be, because I've thought too, when we get into this process, we go through all of this.

42:10

And what if I don't get voted in? Right. There's a possibility of that, right?

42:16

Should that be a reason why I don't step out in faith? No, God is sovereign.

42:22

Because what I'm trying to do in that process is I'm trying to connect the dots. I'm trying to, you know, connect the dots when

42:29

God is the sovereign one, not me. He's calling me to be faithful, to step out. He's gonna take care of everything.

42:36

I don't have to, because I'm a, you know, as my own personality, I'm a planner. I plan, you know, like my current job,

42:44

I'm traveling and planning. And when I'm traveling, it's like, I've got literally an hour by hour itinerary.

42:51

Like, this is where I'm gonna go. I've got three days in this state. I need to visit this many locations. I'm just boom, boom, boom, boom.

42:56

Like, I don't like surprises. I don't like unknown, right? And so, but where it's sinful for me is when

43:05

I've made that an idol of comfort and when God's calling us to be faithful, to step out.

43:11

And we don't know, he's not given us all step A, B, C, D, E. You know, he's sovereign and all that.

43:18

He's got his plan laid out. And then just, you know, not doing that is sin.

43:26

Right, exactly. Braveheart illustration. You wanna hear it? Remember the beginning of Braveheart?

43:33

So, Henry the Longshanks was the king of England at that time. And he was like inviting the

43:39

Scotland, sorry, the Scottish nobles and peasants. He would like bring him. He'd say, come on, let's go ahead and come into, you know, a place where they would meet and kind of discuss truce and what he wanted to do.

43:50

But he ended up just killing them all. So he would bring all these people in like a home and hang them all and stuff. And so the

43:56

Scottish people were like, look at this is outrageous. I mean, he was enacting laws to where his high ranking

44:03

English soldiers could have sex with a bride on the day of her wedding, a

44:09

Scottish bride before her husband. Can you imagine the wickedness of that?

44:15

So a lot of the, of course, Scotland at the time and, you know, William Wallace's dad was a huge part of the resistance against that.

44:22

And I remember if you guys remember at the beginning of that movie, you know, he's meeting with all of his buddies and one of the men rise up and say, this is an impossible task.

44:32

He's saying, look, we don't, how could, you know, they've got chariots and unarmed horseback.

44:37

This is like impossible task. I like, you know, William Wallace's dad in that scene says, we don't have to beat them.

44:44

We just have to fight them. So going, coinciding with what you're saying is we don't know the outcome, but we have to fight.

44:51

We have to fight regardless of what God's gonna do and his sovereignty. If he's gonna hand this nation over to continue depravity and, you know, we don't know when this bloodshed is gonna be put to rest and put under the feet of Jesus, but we have to fight on all battlefronts all the time until our dying day.

45:07

Cause one thing I wanna, and another Braveheart illustration, remember when, remember,

45:14

I always say remember, remember when, you know, just, I can't remember who it is, but it's

45:19

William Wallace's, you know, he's got like his gang of like ultra elite warriors and there's the old guy and he gets shot, you know, at the battle of Dunkirk or something like that.

45:29

I think it was, and an arrow goes into him and he's dying and his son is right next to him. And he's saying, leave me alone, boy,

45:36

I'm gonna die. And his son says, no, you're not gonna die. You're gonna live. And he says, I've lived to be a happy man.

45:42

I've lived to see you become the man that you are. I die a happy man. And he's dead and he's happy, like laying on this field where they got defeated because he's in the fight and he's dying fighting.

45:55

He's happy and full of joy because he went down and do and know that which he knows is right.

46:00

And that's gotta be our spirit. We can't be results oriented. We can't be, if only if we can get to this or if only can we see, we can see this much fruit in this fight, then we'll continue.

46:09

It's like, no, put that all aside. The right thing to do is fight against the evil. Or see exactly how it's all gonna play out.

46:15

Like as you were talking, I was thinking about Psalm 119 5, you know, your word is a light, a lamp to my feet and a light into my path.

46:22

And I've heard this illustration before. Like if you're walking in the dark and you've got like a lamp, like a lantern to light up your path, right?

46:31

You're gonna just see like your feet. You're not gonna see all the way down. You're gonna see the next step in front of you, right?

46:39

And so in faith, God calls his people always to walk in faith.

46:45

You know, there's so many times in our life where we think we know what's gonna happen too. And it's completely different.

46:50

Yeah, absolutely. Because if God illuminated the whole path and not just right before you, we'd be like, nope, we're not gonna do it.

46:56

Because he leads us in directions. You know, if you knew the path ahead of you in the realm that you're about to be involved with,

47:03

Lord willing, you know, hopefully you win the primaries and go all the way through. I don't think you'd do it.

47:08

But it's saying, hey, you just take it a step at a time, a day at a time and trust in me. And I'm gonna lead you into difficulty, but it's gonna all be worth it in the end.

47:15

But so let's get into... One more thing, I just liked, you know, he had said something to me in the beginning of, you know, if I don't make it, and that would be for God's glory too, because what

47:27

I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take all this time to learn all this information and perhaps

47:32

I'll pour it into another man that will do it, you know? That is gonna be the greatest fruit of all this.

47:38

So it's a win -win, you know, if he gets voted into office, win. If he doesn't, win. Because he's gained this knowledge that he could bless somebody else with or multiple people.

47:48

So... Yeah, no, absolutely. It is a win -win. Yeah, regardless of how far you go. Yeah. Because we just need to be salt and light and that equates to in this realm, getting men and women in positions of political service.

48:00

Mm -hmm. Right. I hate saying positions of political power. Right. And positions of political leadership.

48:06

Right. In the Senate, in the House, at the state level, of course, I think that should be the primary focus and the fed, federal level.

48:12

Joseph was in a position of power, right? Oh, sure. Yeah. So was Nehemiah. You know, so it was all sorts of people.

48:19

So yeah. And that's, I guess, we can get into that too. You know, all these different reasons why

48:25

Christians should say, oh, I shouldn't be involved with politics. But before we get into that, so you're just going to be a career politician.

48:31

What's your motive in this? What do you want to accomplish? Yeah, no, I mean, if the

48:37

Lord, you know, if we move forward in that process and the

48:43

Lord calls me to continue in that, you know, if I'm to be elected and to move forward and we come up on re -election, if he's calling me to do that, of course,

48:51

I'll be faithful to step out in that. But I'm not stepping into this for a career change. Again, this was not on my radar.

48:58

This was, this is something that God just has called me to do. And I'm stepping out to do it in order to bring

49:08

God -honored legislation to this state. You know, we want to see, we need, I was encouraged by the conference, the

49:15

LSA conference that we've been watching. We were sick at home for most of that week, but we caught a lot of it online.

49:21

And just hearing those numbers, right? And then Pastor Jeff and yourself and Pastor Lucas shared that since EAN started.

49:28

And, you know, how many churches are involved in the fight. And, you know, I remember when that first kind of started,

49:34

I don't think we were here yet. We hadn't moved here yet. But, you know, just hearing that, how God is moving on that.

49:39

Again, it's not about numbers, but just it's encouraging to see God work in that all these churches have come aboard.

49:46

And now we've got, what's this, 700 total or something like that, where the Lord is used at.

49:52

And again, like this is on one front, right? We're at the battle line of the abortion mill.

49:59

We got to start seeing the other battlefront of legislation start to come up.

50:05

We need more. How cool would it be at the next conference, the next EAN conference, the next OSA conference that, hey, you know, we've got 800 churches on board now fighting at the mill, saving babies.

50:17

But we've got 50 God -fearing men who love the Lord and want babies to be rescued are running for state office.

50:26

Talk about taking dominion back in that realm, right? That number's got to go up.

50:33

We got to have men to stand up and to get into the fight. And even if you're not being called to be, you know, to a state seat or an office in politics, get in the fight somehow.

50:47

Know your legislators, like Brother Zach was saying, get to know your legislators. Who's the legislator in your district?

50:53

Are you confronting them? Are you getting more involved there? Don't just circle the Republican oval on the ballot and call it a day.

51:01

That's not gaining ground for Christ. We have to get into the fight.

51:08

And so ultimately to bring God -honoring legislation, right? And then abortion being the biggest issue facing this nation, this world right now.

51:18

But so many other things, right? So many other things are under attack all the time. Our freedom of speech, second amendment rights, you know, those are constantly being bombarded from the federal level and state level.

51:31

And, you know, we're seeing socialism work its way into our school systems and into the government.

51:38

Small businesses have been, you know, completely shattered last year for the overreach of government has just devastated small business.

51:46

I mean, so many areas we can be speaking into that we can be shining the light of Christ into, you know, including abortion.

51:55

And so we have to be faithful in doing that. One of my prayers is just,

52:02

Lord, bring more men. Yeah, I was just thinking that. To stand up and get into the fight. Yeah, as you were talking, I'm thinking like, you know, our culture just feminizes men to the point of where they're just useless.

52:14

And we just need more men to play the part of men, right? To step up, to protect, to lead.

52:21

We need Christian men to play the part of Christian men. That's what our society desperately needs, so.

52:27

Yeah, so maybe two questions. I know we're running kind of long. Two questions. What's the use?

52:33

You know, Jesus is going to come back tomorrow. Well, you know, why do it? Aren't we just rearranging, you know, the furniture on the

52:39

Titanic? You know, I think maybe, shouldn't we just stay within the four walls and preach the gospel and really worry about the church?

52:46

Or, I mean, what's really the use of all this? Yeah, no, absolutely not. I mean, that's not what the biblical example has been said by the apostles to go out.

52:55

You know, as we think upon, you know, the Great Commission for us to go out into all the world and, you know, we're not, again, we're not going to see change unless God -honoring men are bringing

53:06

God -honoring legislation forward. It's just not going to happen. Sinners aren't going to care about upholding

53:15

God's law in that realm. They're not. They're going to fight against it and do everything they can to put legislation that we can see is completely taking our nation into a down, has been for decades, taking our nation into a continued downward spiral.

53:33

You know, so we have no choice but to do it. And ultimately, right, God's victorious.

53:40

He's, you know, already declared victory in all of that. And, but we got to understand too, it's not just about the here and now.

53:48

It is a generational issue. Like, what are we setting up for our children?

53:54

You know, talk about influence in the family. And what are we doing as men to shape our children, to show them what this means, right?

54:03

We take them out to share the gospel. They come with us to the mill. They come with us to, you know, out into the public square to share the gospel.

54:10

But do they know what this means from a political standpoint? Do they understand

54:16

God's design for government as, you know, one of the books that we're reading through, you know, the doctrine of the lesser magistrate.

54:24

And understanding that God demands, you know, these government spheres to, he's given them the authority.

54:33

And that we have to call into, we have to speak into that and bring that back to light.

54:39

Because, you know, that's not the mindset of the people right now.

54:44

You know, it's a matter of statism where they just want to lay low, not do anything, you know, live in their comfort, let the state take care of them.

54:54

You know, they love, men love, the state becomes God and men love their comfort.

55:00

And their subjugation. And their subjugation. Expensive subjugation. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so the answer would be absolutely not.

55:07

We got to get out there. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and we do it ultimately. I think we get into that place as a political leadership because we want to honor

55:15

God and glorify him. And we hate to see his name being drug through the mud

55:20

I mean, ultimately through the slaughter of babies. We primarily want to see that ended so he can be honored and his name can't be, you know, shouldn't be besmirched.

55:31

We should do everything that we can to glorify him. But you think about it too, secondarily, we do it because we love our neighbors.

55:37

I was just going to say that. And most importantly, you know, I love my kids. We have a lot of invested inside of this nation and that future.

55:45

I mean, I've got seven kids. You've got three. We have, this is going to be the land where our kids live.

55:51

If they don't have to move, which Christians have done all throughout church history. They've had to bail just because it had become so dangerous and so volatile and tumultuous for them to live in.

56:01

And I mean, that's happened all throughout, you know, French history, Scottish history, all throughout church history.

56:07

It happens. Hopefully it doesn't happen to happen for our kids. But man, I want to put Christians in places of political leadership to affect political change.

56:14

Cause I, I care about my children. My posterity. I was thinking yesterday so heavily about this.

56:20

Like, you know, when my sons are adults and what kind of, what's the nation going to be like when they are having to live and fight and try to make money and try to provide for their homes.

56:31

So how could I not get involved in this for their sake and not only the sake of your family, but for everybody else.

56:37

How could we not do it? It's just, it's not conceptually hard to wrap your mind around those things. I think you have to have the spirit of God to give you this enlightened, but it's so easy.

56:45

I mean, we want to, we want righteousness to pervade the land. The Bible says when the wicked rule, the people groan, that you know, a nation is built upon righteousness.

56:56

That's got to be the foundations of a nation for it to be a blessed nation for our kids to have a blessed life. Right. Cause they won't, you know?

57:03

So that's ultimately why we need to do this. Okay. Just real quick. How can people help you?

57:08

What can we do? Again, we're, we're in, in campaign fundraising mode and our website is up.

57:15

It's maes, M -A -E -S, the number for az .com. Pray for us.

57:20

Pray, pray, pray. This is, again, it's a, it's a long process. We've got a long road ahead of us.

57:26

It's only going to get more intense as we move into the new year.

57:31

And, and just, just, and just, yeah. I mean, that, that'd be, that'd be good just to pray.

57:37

And, and, and, you know, if you're able to support and want to support the campaign, that that's great too.

57:43

But, you know, we, we definitely need your prayers. And share, maybe share the site. Share, share the site. If you know any, you know, like -minded brothers and sisters in Christ who'd be willing to, to support these efforts and, you know, maybe aren't able to step into the office themselves, but want to, want to support others who are doing so.

58:02

That, you know, we would, we would be honored to have, have that support. Right. So you need prayer and you do need money cause it costs money to do a campaign.

58:10

It does. So you go to maez4az .com. M -A -E -S -4, the number four, az .com.

58:19

Yeah. M -A -E -S, the number four, az .com. So you're going to go there and please financially give to this effort.

58:26

Lastly, so you're saying, okay, I want to get involved politically. I want to, I want to affect change.

58:31

What you can do, and, and Dawn, a future representative, Dawn, what you can do -

58:38

Poor guy, he's got to put up with me and then - What he alluded to and what he had referred to was a class called, or actually an organization called the

58:46

Foundation of Applied Conservative Leadership. We call it FACL for short. So you can go there and they're going to give you political classes that are second to none.

58:56

So you can educate yourself on what, what's politics. How does that whole system work? How can we go about it strategically and methodologically the best way we can to affect change?

59:06

Because we kind of think like you would, so appropriately alluded to, oh, we just vote

59:12

Republican. We just vote pro -life. And then I can say, well, I did my political service, which is crazy.

59:18

That's not the way you affect political change. So that class there is going to help you. You can also contact

59:23

Zach Lautenschlager and he is an incredible brother and he's been in politics for 26 years.

59:29

25, 26 years. His entire adult life and - Yeah, God has used him. Yeah, exactly. Still using him instrumentally to teach us and to equip us to be politically active.

59:38

So if you want to get contacted with him, message us and we can do that too. We need you on not only the battlefront like Dawn had spoken about, in front of the mill saving babies, but we have to be politically active.

59:50

We've got to do it. We got to get you Christian brothers and you Christian sisters in those places at the state level and at the federal level.

59:57

We got to start at the state level first. That's what we have to do. That's the priority. And then we move on from there.

01:00:03

So - And just being educated about everything, about politics and about government and teaching our kids, because I feel like it's something that a lot of Christians aren't educated in.

01:00:15

Yeah. Myself included. That's a whole other podcast, Two Kingdom Theology. Right.

01:00:22

That's the earthly and we're only supposed to be focused on the spiritual. I don't want to get too far into the weeds into that.

01:00:28

But yeah, we have to be able to - Be educated on - Put those theological systems and ideological systems that are handicapping us from doing what

01:00:35

God has called us to do. We have to be able to put those aside so that we can be the salt in the light.

01:00:41

Because guys, if we don't do it, you think it's worse now? This ain't nothing compared to what it can get to.

01:00:47

So let's get out there. Let's do it. We're praying for you. We're praying that God through this, like God used so many

01:00:55

Christian brothers as a catalyst for your involvement. We pray hopefully this would be a catalyst for your involvement.

01:01:00

So if you want help, give us a message. We can point you to the right people. Right. Thanks, man. Did a great job.

01:01:06

I love you. I'm proud of you. It'll be a wild ride. Hey, I got another corny political joke.

01:01:11

You want to hear it? Sure. Okay. Did you hear that McDonald's has a

01:01:17

Biden value meal? What is that? You pay or no. Dang it,

01:01:23

I missed it. Just do it again. You get whatever you want and the guy behind you pays for it.

01:01:29

Zinger. That's going to be my thing. I'm just going to do corny jokes every time.

01:01:34

Just do it. I enjoy it so much. So. All right, guys. Thank you, Don, for coming on. We love you. We're praying for you. Thank you guys so much for tuning into this family integrated podcast where we breastfeed and do corny jokes and spill our drinks.

01:01:47

Yeah, I don't breastfeed. That would be a problem. But hey, we love you. If this is somehow beneficial to you, glorifies

01:01:55

God and you think it'd be helpful, please support us. You can do that by? You can go to our podcast iTunes wherever you get your podcast.

01:02:05

Give us a like and review. We really need that. It seems like we're getting a little bit more.

01:02:11

But when you do that, you know, it just expands our reach. So thank you guys for that. I can't even talk.

01:02:17

Thank you for those of you have done that. But if you haven't, please do that. Go to our Instagram account. Go to our Facebook and share, share, share.

01:02:24

Yeah, go to YouTube to watch us and share those puppies. Yeah. All right, guys. God bless you. We'll see you next time.