Should Christians Vote for President Trump with Dr. Anthony Silvestro

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March 19, 2020

Dr. Anthony Silvestro will make an argument that Christians should vote for President Trump. If agree or disagree you can join the discussion and make your case. Resources: Political Activism: A Christian’s Role https://strivingforeternity.org/political-activism-a-christians-role/

00:11: Can you show me, because we're going to use some hermeneutics, can you show me anywhere in the Old Testament where that word perpetual is not perpetual?
00:20: Because again, I understand you're appealing, again, sure, no, no, no, hold on, hold on, hold on.
00:27: Wait a minute. I thought I was going to get to have a talk here. You asked a question. Hang on a second, sir. Be quiet. Okay. Well, there you go.
00:33: I will mute you because it's not your show. You asked a question. I'm going to give you the answer. Genesis 6 -4, the word olam is used referring to those who are of old.
00:46: Deuteronomy, I'll just rattle off all the ones where it's used not referring to perpetual. Genesis 6 -4,
00:52: Deuteronomy 32 -7, Joshua 24 -2, 1 Samuel 27 -8,
00:59: Job 22 -15, Psalm 24 -7, 24 -9, 25 -6, 41 -13, 77 -9, 90 -2, 103 -17, 106 -48, 119 -52, 143 -3,
01:19: Proverbs 8 -23, Proverbs 22 -28, Proverbs 23 -10, and Ecclesiastes 1 -10.
01:27: Should I go on for more? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is
01:35: Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rapoport.
01:51: All right. Well, welcome. We are Live Apologetics Live, Thursday nights to answer your apologetics questions, anything that you may have for us apologetically, challenges, questions.
02:03: Maybe someone gave you something that was difficult for you to answer. This is the place for you to ask that.
02:09: Now, tonight we're going to try to do something, but Dr. Silvestro is having trouble hearing me. And so he probably enjoys that fact.
02:17: But then again, if that's the case, we just want to add him in and then I get to enjoy that fact. Well, we'll see.
02:25: I'm guessing from him laughing, I see him in the lower screen. He's laughing. So I'm going to guess that he can hear me.
02:31: But we'll soon find out. So Apologetics Live is a ministry of Striving for Eternity.
02:38: I encourage you guys to go to strivingforeternity .org to check out all the resources that we have there.
02:43: It is also a podcast that you could hear on the Christian Podcast Community, which also is a ministry of Striving for Eternity.
02:50: So tonight's topic is going to be the topic of should
02:56: Christians vote for Trump? Now this should be lots of fireworks. So I'm going to let Anthony Silvestro take all the fireworks.
03:04: But he figured he would bring help in. So I guess he feels inadequate to the task.
03:11: And I don't know if I should refer to him as Dr. Luke or Sean, but I'll bring you both in.
03:21: Sean, you'd be new to folks here. So why don't you introduce yourself? And maybe you could explain why
03:27: I called you Dr. Luke. But go for it. Oh, wait, we're not hearing you at all.
03:35: Hold on. I got to unmute you. Because there we go. Now try. No, we're still not hearing you now.
03:46: Oh, this will be really good. Let's see. I know. Did you mute yourself too? Okay, Anthony, can you hear?
03:58: And I can't hear either one of you. All right. Folks that are watching, let me know if you can hear them.
04:07: As I double check my settings, we're able to hear them earlier.
04:17: So no one can hear. No one can hear. I just heard some noise.
04:28: I didn't hear voices. Now. Oh, now I hear. I hear Anthony now. All right.
04:35: Sean, let's get you working again. You know, with this soundboard, this is the first time
04:40: I've been on StreamYard, and it's different. The settings you have to pick are the internal microphone built in and headphones built in.
04:49: Even though I'm using the soundboard, it wasn't like that for the previous platform.
04:56: You can hear us? Nod your head up and down. Okay. So we can't hear you.
05:02: So let's try having, try leaving this, either check your settings, go to the cam.
05:08: This is the great part of doing live streams, right? Go to the little gear icon on the bottom.
05:14: Check that your mic and speaker are set up right. Yeah. Go to the audio and check out the, there's usually a couple of different things there.
05:27: Internal microphone is what works with my soundboard here. Yeah. Well, we got to get you set up right.
05:35: All right. So we're going to wait. I heard something that was from Sean.
05:43: No. So, Sean, if not, try, try leaving the studio and then coming back in.
05:56: So meanwhile, the intro that you guys heard, for those who are going to have to wait to see if Sean, he may have to come out and come in,
06:06: I'll add him back in. Okay. Sean, is that working now? No.
06:16: Sean, try closing the window down, that tab in your browser, and then go back in through the link.
06:30: So love to do technical stuff live. All right.
06:36: So if you heard that intro, that intro is from a last week's Apologetics Live. That was a great intro.
06:42: If you listened, if you did not listen to last week's Apologetics Live, you'd want to listen to that.
06:49: Jim there, also known as Mr. Batman, that's how he came in as, was going to use hermeneutics, as he liked to say.
06:57: But the one thing he failed to do was actually use any hermeneutics. And so Donnie's saying he's getting a echo, and it's probably from your computer,
07:09: Anthony, since your setup is not going through the mic, right?
07:15: So let's see if Sean comes in. There we go.
07:21: Now I hear you. Yeah. For some reason. Can you hear me? I can hear you.
07:27: Yeah. Yeah. For some reason, when I plugged my headphones in, it muted everything else.
07:34: Oh, nice. Okay. How about that? Oh, we can hear you now.
07:41: Anthony, can you hear me now? I can. Yeah. All right. Good. Finally, we can get started. Good. I had to go. I had to go out and come back in,
07:48: I guess. Okay. Yeah. All right. That's good. So it's good. You know, good. 10 minutes of the show.
07:56: That's a way to kill some time. Yeah. All right. Well, maybe we'll edit that out in the podcast portion.
08:03: So if you heard the intro there, and Sean might've been able to hear while Anthony was having his technical issues, but that was a great example.
08:11: If you listened last week to a guy who claims he was going to use hermeneutics and that's the very thing he didn't use and didn't like being shown how hermeneutics actually works.
08:25: But last week's episode will be a good one for those of you who want to see how to deal with a steamroller, someone who's just going to just go over, just try to ignore everything you say.
08:36: They're not there to learn. They're there to challenge and really to attack. So I encourage you to go to last week's episode and check that out.
08:46: That was on dealing with Hebrew Roots Movement and its ilk, the author of the book,
08:51: Torahism. So with that, this week, we're going to talk about should Christians vote for Trump?
08:58: This was Dr. Silvestro's brainchild, so we'll blame him. If this doesn't go well, it's all his fault.
09:04: If it does go well, it is all because he invited Sean here. That's how this is going to go.
09:12: So Sean, since you're new, so Dr. Silvestro is a speaker at Striving for Eternity. I think many of the regular listeners here are familiar with him.
09:21: But Sean, you're a new face. So how about you introduce yourself and what you do ministry -wise?
09:29: Sure, thanks. Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate your guys' work. You guys do some excellent work in the
09:35: Lord. I just want to commend you guys for that. Dr. Luke, that's just my radio handle.
09:40: I am the host of the Word for America program on Grace Life Radio. Those on this channel probably have no idea what that is, but you can check that out too.
09:49: It's Grace Life Radio. My name is Sean Wall. I'm actually a physician assistant. So I'm a
09:55: PA. So I'm not a medical doctor, but I'm a PA. And that we go with, obviously, most
10:00: Christians understand the handle of Dr. Luke as the physician. So there you go.
10:06: Quick roundabout. All right. So let's deal with this,
10:13: Anthony. I don't know if you have an opening, but I will put in the show notes later. I have an article that usually around this time of year gets me the most heat.
10:24: That's on Striving for Eternity's website on Christians and political activism.
10:30: Here's one thing I'll put as a caveat. And the one line in that paper that gets me in the most trouble.
10:38: And I don't think knowing the two gentlemen that we have on that they're going to disagree with it.
10:43: But what frustrates me is when professing believers seem to know the
10:49: Republican Party's message and very willing to share that. But they don't quite know the gospel message, and they're not willing to share that.
10:58: As Christians, we better be sharing the gospel message way more than the political message, in my opinion.
11:05: And I'm sure someone will come in and maybe disagree with me. But Anthony, I'm going to give you the floor to start us off.
11:13: I see we already got some folks coming in here. This started because of the first time
11:23: Trump ran, looking at four years ago now. I remember that there was a lot of Christians who would say that they couldn't vote for Trump, a guy like Trump, who was immoral and had sexual trists and all the different stuff that is in his background.
11:43: And so people kept saying, yeah, there's no way. No, actually, it was four years ago,
11:49: Andrew. I see your comment there. It had to be four years ago, because it was during the election cycle where people were saying that.
11:56: And we're in the election cycle right now. So four years ago, people were saying all these things about Trump, that they didn't want to vote for Trump because they had problems with his background.
12:09: And instead, they wanted to vote for a third party candidate who, you know, the guy named
12:16: Tom Hoefling seems like a nice guy. And a lot of people were getting behind him.
12:22: Now, granted, he couldn't win much of the vote. I don't know that name. Who is he? Tom Hoefling?
12:28: Oh, yeah. You've heard that, Sean, right? He almost won, right? Yes. Yeah. So yeah,
12:36: Tom Hoefling, H -O -E -F -L -I -N -G. So people got behind him because he and his wife are activists in the pro -life movement.
12:45: And Tom Hoefling is a professing Christian. What is really interesting as an aside in all this is that I started doing some digging in who he was, because you had a lot of Christians saying he would not vote for Trump.
13:00: Now, look, I'm going to start right off the bat saying, do I believe that Trump displays a good moral character?
13:09: Well, no, of course not. And he doesn't seem to be repentant, biblical repentant anyway, in terms of a lot of his past.
13:21: And the argument that I was making four years ago is that we aren't voting for a pastor.
13:26: We are voting for a politician. And in my belief, my central core is that I believe we are supposed to vote for the guy who is closest to the
13:36: Christian worldview, even if both candidates seem very far apart from the
13:42: Christian worldview. And in using that as kind of my starting point in all this, and there's good reasons for that.
13:49: And I think that will come out during the show today. I did research Tom Hoefling because one of the problems that I had is when people said they couldn't vote for Trump, I would say,
13:59: OK, well, who are you going to vote for? Tom Hoefling was one. Other people say, well, I don't know, or I'm just not going to vote. And I would ask, well, why?
14:07: And they said, well, I would only vote for somebody who's godly. And OK, that's fine.
14:14: Vote for somebody godly. Give me a definition for godly. And this is the struggle, right?
14:20: I mean, the same reason when we go out and we do witnessing and 99 % of people that we talk to, unbelievers that we talk to that say that we ask them, are you going to go to heaven when you die?
14:32: And they say, yes. What is the number one reason they say that they're going to go to heaven? It's because they do good things or good works or I'm a good person or something of that sort.
14:41: So they are invoking a standard of good and bad. The problem is it's their own standard.
14:48: It's not the standard of the Bible, right? So we have God's standard of good, which is himself, which is perfect. And then everything that falls short of that.
14:56: So the same Christians who look are wonderful people.
15:02: They are wonderful gospel proclaimers on the streets. A lot of them, a lot of them share the gospel faithfully.
15:08: They understand this context when it comes to God and his goodness. But yet when they look at political candidates and they come up with this idea of godly, what's the definition now?
15:24: Because if you're using a definition of godly in a biblical sense, the way that they use it in every other context of their life, then the only person you can ever vote for is
15:33: Jesus Christ. And if it's not Jesus, then you can't vote for anybody.
15:39: And of course, that's silly. They don't actually believe that. They just, they believe that it has to be somebody of some moral character to which
15:45: I say, okay, what is that moral character? Give me some type of criteria that gives us a good moral character, something that's good enough to vote for.
15:57: And that's something that everybody had failed to do. What I found interesting is when I started doing some digging in Tom Hoefling, I want to know who he was, that it didn't take very long for me to look past him, but look at his wife's
16:12: Facebook and some of her social media stuff. And his wife is not a Christian. His wife is a
16:18: Mormon. And I, and a few other guys I told this to, we all saw the page.
16:25: We all saw it on Facebook, saw it on the internet. And each one of us reached out to Tom and asked him if this is true.
16:33: Is your wife a Mormon? Because you're proclaiming that you and your wife are Christians and are trying to garner a
16:39: Christian vote. And what happened after that? He didn't respond to any of us.
16:46: And then his wife's Facebook got completely wiped. So if you go on his, and I just did this a few days ago, actually, if you go on his wife's
16:55: Facebook page, you will find that it starts somewhere in 2017.
17:02: So it was actually wiped when I brought it up. And then even stuff a little bit after that got wiped or she just didn't go back on Facebook again for a little while.
17:11: So there's only a couple of years of history there now where there was a lot much longer history. So, and look,
17:18: Tom may be a Christian himself, but his wife is certainly not. And so I brought this up to guys and said, guys, you're voting for somebody who's actually married to a
17:28: Mormon. Would you call that oddly? And, and, and it was, it was with that, that people didn't want to have the conversations anymore.
17:38: And you know, Andrew, we both talked about this during this time. And I know you felt the same way
17:45: I did. And there was a lot of other people that did too. They were afraid to say anything publicly because they would just get blasted on Facebook over this.
17:54: And then shortly after we had talked about this and I talked about this on a different podcast, we saw John MacArthur come out and say virtually the same thing.
18:02: We saw, I can't, I forgot the name now.
18:08: That is because John MacArthur follows you on social media. Well, I guess I, yeah. I mean, I said it first.
18:17: Forgive Anthony for his Joe Biden moment. Yeah, no kidding. I had a long day at work today.
18:26: We'll call him sleepy Anthony. Well, one thing you will not find is me with my face puckering up to anybody behind him other than my wife.
18:42: Wayne Grudem is the other name that I was thinking about. Wayne Grudem came out about the same time as John MacArthur did.
18:49: And then, you know, other guys were coming out and saying the exact same thing. So I'm going to leave that as kind of the starting point.
18:56: I've got a lot more things to say over the next hour and a half. But I don't know if you wanted to chime in,
19:01: Sean, on this. Because, so I invited you to come on because I see how politically you are.
19:07: And, you know, you are a guy that I, and maybe it's just because we probably think alike.
19:14: But you think, I think, very clearly. You are very logical.
19:19: And you have a funny sense of humor that I just love on Facebook. So I appreciate that.
19:27: I would like to say my wife believes all of those things too. But it's probably not the case.
19:34: But I would say you're right on point with the hoffling issue. And the whole, there is hypocrisy even amongst the evangelicals when we, you know, when we want to dump
19:46: Trump. Remember, that was the mantra that was being said and running rampant when
19:52: Trump was starting to gain some momentum. But if you just go back four years prior to that in 2012, who was our primary choice?
20:02: Mitt Romney, who was a Mormon. And those same evangelicals, and I don't want to paint with a broad brush, but many of them who wanted to dump
20:12: Trump, those same exact evangelicals had zero problem with casting that vote for Mitt Romney in 2012, didn't bat an eye.
20:20: And they were, and all of a sudden in 2016, were all over Donald Trump for his moral failings.
20:29: What they were doing is they were looking at the moral characteristics. And both of you guys know that professing evangelicals will put theology to the wayside when it comes to those types of issues.
20:43: And I'm not saying that we're going to vote for a pastor -in -chief because we're not. We're voting for someone who is to lead our country.
20:50: And if I were voting for Donald Trump as a pastor, I would not, I would not cast my vote. He has not the typical qualifications for an elder.
20:59: So I'll be the first one to say that as too. And Anthony, you said that in a different way, but it's the exact same thing.
21:07: So, and Andrew, when you came on the show, you had made the point about we have no trouble with basically proselytizing our political views, but we have trouble proselytizing and being evangelicals or being witnesses for the gospel.
21:29: And I will answer your question, and you guys know this as good as I do. People will shout from the mountaintops mostly what they know.
21:40: And if evangelicals are more interested in talking partisan politics rather than the gospel, it's because they know partisan politics better than they know the gospel.
21:57: And when I say partisan politics, that's what I mean, because all they know is the partisan talking points.
22:02: They don't know both sides. They can't make an argument for both sides. If you remember, and I don't know if you guys, in 2016, one of the libertarian candidates, and I've got a
22:12: Joe Biden moment because I can't remember his name because he was irrelevant, but nonetheless, he actually, they asked him about Aleppo and he had no clue where Aleppo was.
22:22: He had no, he was running for president of the United States and he didn't have any clue about geography in the
22:28: Middle East. So again, we have to understand and know the things that we're going to talk about before we can talk about them.
22:36: We have to know what we believe. We gotta know why we believe it. And if we don't know those things, we can't effectively communicate those things with others.
22:45: Yeah, and I think, I mean, one of the things is, okay, here's just a general question we can ask anyone today, right?
22:53: Today, right now, the things we're dealing with with this virus and stuff. Are we not very glad that Hillary Clinton lost?
23:02: I mean, could you picture what this would be like if we had Hillary Clinton in the White House right now?
23:09: That would be scary. Everybody would be mandated to wear pantsuits. Well, no, basically they would, if there was a
23:17: Democrat right now, they would be looking to take over the, completely take over the government, to have government control of everything.
23:27: Okay, you know, Sean, you kind of swerved in, son, that I always say is, I'm voting for president, not pastor.
23:34: There's a big difference between those two. You know, and everyone talks about the morality of, now let me take it from the left.
23:45: They always talk about the morality of Trump. They're the ones that bring this up. And then there are a bunch of Christians that go, oh yeah, can't vote for him because of his morality.
23:52: But yet, what about the morality of Bill Clinton? They defended that. And let's compare those two.
23:58: I mean, I'm sorry, but Trump is not a moral guy, granted. Multiple affairs, but he also gets the women to sign non -disclosure agreements.
24:10: We now know that. I mean, that is very different than Clinton, who it's like, oh, there's a woman in a skirt.
24:18: Let me go after her. And someone who goes, wait, first, I'm going to give you this legal document to sign. I mean, the characterization that they made of Trump, that he chases after everyone and sleeps with anyone, it's like, it doesn't seem to be the case.
24:33: He does sleep around. But I just noticed how with one party, it's like, oh, well, we're going to bring it out when
24:40: Trump does it. I mean, it's been a while since they had a president on the Republican side that they could say chases after women because they've usually been way too old or something.
24:51: But even Trump's too old. But the thing that you end up seeing is, you look at Biden in the
24:58: MeToo movement. I mean, like, Anthony, you're joking about it. But seriously, do we actually expect that Biden's morality and his inappropriate touching and the way he handles, is around with women, do we really going to say and expect that the media is just going to go, oh, yeah, that's fine.
25:19: We're going to talk about Trump's. So we have to understand,
25:26: I mean, one of the things that we have to understand with it is, there is a narrative that the left would like Christians to say.
25:34: They're the ones that bring up Trump's immorality so often. And I think it's purposeful.
25:41: They want to undermine the vote for him. And I think a lot of Christians look at this and go, oh, yeah, yeah, we shouldn't be supporting him.
25:51: And like you said, Anthony, they're going to go support someone because he's a Christian and then maybe find out he's not.
25:57: He just speaks like a Christian, like, you know, Glenn Beck would do, right?
26:04: And actually be Mormon. So the thing is, is I think there's different qualifications for pastor than there are for president.
26:15: President, you have someone that's a governing factor. You want someone who can govern well. And I think that Trump has done that.
26:24: I actually think many Christians who have told me, I didn't vote for Trump the first time, but I'm going to now based on his governing.
26:33: So, OK, so you're touching upon an interesting thing. So let me ask both of you guys this question.
26:40: Why vote? Why? Because I believe that a
26:45: Christian has a duty and a responsibility to vote. So why is that?
26:50: Why should we vote? Because if we have to vote, then we have to either vote for the lesser two evils or find a third party candidate.
26:58: Although that that's a whole different topic to talk about here because the issues that that brings up on the inability to win and whatnot.
27:08: But so let's just start there. Why vote? Well, I'll jump in here.
27:16: I'm probably going to go maybe a little bit deeper than the questions you're asking.
27:23: But where do we start from? The question would be, am
27:28: I a theonomist or am I not? Is that fair enough? I mean, listen, but that's going to be a starting point for some people.
27:39: Granted, very few people, but your starting point should be there. So let's take theonomy off the table and let's say, and then we'll ask the question, if you're not a theonomist, why should you vote?
27:51: And can I stop you for just a moment, Sean? Go ahead, yeah, sure. And I just want to say what is interesting is, now, granted, we all live in a small bubble, right?
28:01: Of reform guys, at least in soteriology, right? So this is certainly not indicative of Christianity in general.
28:08: However, you hit on a subject because most of the people that have made the claims that they can't vote for somebody that's moral or that's immoral in their minds are theonomists.
28:18: This is almost always the case. So I'm sorry. I will let you keep going now. No, no.
28:23: And that's what I said. That's kind of where your starting point would be. But nonetheless, Romans 13, right?
28:31: That's where we go. When we're talking about the Bible and we're talking about running these types of things through a
28:37: Christian worldview, Romans 13 tells us what? What is the role of government? It's to protect us, right?
28:42: And the government, God has instituted us and us three, we are blessed to have been sovereignly placed in the
28:51: United States of America where we have that right, where we have that ability to go and vote.
28:56: He could have sovereignly placed us in Iran. Fair enough? Fair enough.
29:04: And if we were sovereignly placed in Iran, could any of the three of us cast a vote in a democratic world?
29:14: No. No. So I go to, look,
29:20: God has placed all three of us here in the United States of America. He has placed us under the rule of a government because we are under that government, whether we like it or not.
29:30: Donald Trump's our president, right? You know, these silly shirts you see, not my president. That's the dumbest thing.
29:36: Barack Obama was my president. Hey, and I will say this too. Look, I'm a captain of the United States Army. What would they have said to you,
29:43: Sean, if you had a shirt that said, Barack Obama's not my president? What would they have said to you if you did that?
29:50: In the army? No. If you were walking around on the streets with a shirt that said,
29:58: Barack Obama's not my president. I wouldn't be here.
30:05: I wouldn't be here. I would, I would, you would have long had my, my eulogy would have been read.
30:13: But so, so back, you know, so back to my point, God has sovereignly placed us in, in a country where we have a democracy, where the government, the constitution has given us the right, you know, given us the right to vote.
30:25: Therefore we, I believe we are obligated to vote because God has placed us under that governance to vote.
30:34: And who we vote for, you've got every right to vote for anybody you wish. You can do it. You can write in Mickey Mouse.
30:40: You can do anything you want. But at the bottom line, and we always, this always comes down to the issues every four years.
30:46: And then the, you know, with the primaries, that this obviously is an uncontested election for the conservatives.
30:53: But we essentially have a two party system, whether you like it or not, that, that is the way that it is.
31:00: That is the way that the power in politics has, has shaped this country. And you are going to get one of two people elected president.
31:09: It's either going to be someone from the democratic party or it's going to be somebody from the Republican party. You can vote libertarian all you like.
31:15: You can vote, you can vote any other party that you like. There's a whole host of them out there.
31:22: The fact of the matter is, is that one of the two major parties are going to be the president of the
31:28: United States. That's fact, that's real. That's facts. That's just the way that it is. Yeah, that's right.
31:35: You know, and it's funny when you say that, because guys that, uh, guys that aren't happy about that,
31:42: I tell them, Hey, you got a solution. You know, that solution is called grassroots campaign. Find a candidate that you, that you think is going to be that godly candidate that you want and, and do the grassroots campaign.
31:55: I mean, look, the models out there, right? AHA did a wonderful job of going around and, uh, you know, beating down churches and, you know, beating down churches.
32:05: They weren't ending abortion. They were right. They were doing everything. But, but, but, but the point is, is that those guys are not, not to get
32:14: AHA stuff involved now, but, but, you know, those guys have been really, um, they try to be very political.
32:21: And now you've got the theonomists, um, BAMH and, and those that have joined forces with AHA.
32:27: And that's, again, this is a whole different topic we could spend hours on. Um, they, they collectively say that they're, they don't want to vote for the lesser of two evils, that they can't bring themselves to that.
32:40: And yet they have no problem standing anywhere at a state Capitol trying to influence politicians and influence what their votes are going to be.
32:49: To me, it seems like, what's that? It's an odd dynamic.
32:54: Yeah. Isn't it? So I'm like, if you had this type of energy, why don't you raise that candidate you believe you have, take all the energy that you've used in, you know, going and beating down churches and everything else you're doing and get these guys known by Christians and get them elected.
33:13: They're not doing that kind of stuff. So yeah, I, I don't know. I find this whole thing really interesting.
33:19: Okay. So let's, and I know Donnie was in here. We'll bring him in a, in a moment, but here's, here's my first question for you.
33:26: You brought up this, this, and it's actually an ethic. Okay. The lesser of two evils.
33:32: So let's address that because there's some people who say it is wrong to vote for the lesser of two evils that we are to vote for a godly candidate.
33:44: So let me ask you guys both to address this issue. What is wrong or right with voting for the lesser of two evils?
33:52: What's, what's your positions? Sean, I'll let you go first. Well, can
33:58: I just quote Spurgeon? Absolutely. No, no. Christians are not allowed to quote
34:04: Spurgeon. You know, seriously. Actually, I'm going to quote
34:09: Spurgeon, but I disagree with Spurgeon because he says, he says when it comes down to choosing the lesser of two evils, he says, choose none.
34:18: That, that was, that's, that is what Spurgeon's take on that. But again, Spurgeon was where?
34:24: Spurgeon lived where? Well, he lived in England and, you know, he, they, right.
34:31: Well, this always comes up when a lot of Christians will quote this.
34:37: You guys may not have heard this, but in the, you know, when I talk about politics a lot, some Christians will quote that.
34:43: Spurgeon was not talking about politics when he said that. He was talking about sin when it comes to that.
34:48: He was talking about a comparison of sin and choosing neither of those. He was not talking about politics.
34:55: So that is, that is, that is not the, I think I kind of had already made my statement about choosing, you know, choosing not the lesser of two evils.
35:04: We have to really choose a party. And you've heard this, this is, this is over and over. You choose a, people will say they're, they're voting for the man, they're voting for the party or they're voting for the platform.
35:18: Which is essentially the party. And usually you're voting for the party and the platform because the men or the women in these, you know, in these last few elections, they're basically figure heads of the platforms.
35:32: Donald Trump was different. He was not the same. He was not, he was not a platform.
35:38: Nobody knew about Donald Trump. Nobody even knew. I mean, let's face it. When Donald Trump's, when he spoke at his rallies, even when he speaks today, except when he has the speech writers, he's very vague.
35:49: He uses the same terminology over a very simple first, second grade terminology. Tremendous.
35:55: Great. Bigly. Things like that. And he resonates with, with most of the
36:01: American people by saying nothing. And I mean, Barack Obama done the same thing.
36:08: He just done it more eloquently than Donald Trump. You go back and look at their primary speeches and I'm telling you, they would say,
36:17: Obama would say a lot to say nothing. Donald Trump would say little to say nothing. So it's really a platform and we know what the platform is.
36:26: The left, they're big issues. Gay marriage, pro -abortion.
36:32: And then you've got the antithesis of that on the other side. Socialism. They're moving more and more towards socialism on the other side.
36:38: And then everything opposite of that on the right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And so for me, you know, to answer the question,
36:44: I don't, I don't actually like the phrase lesser to evils because I don't believe that that's what we're doing.
36:50: And so the phrase I like to use when I used earlier, which is we are voting for the one that is closest to the
36:56: Christian worldview. And, and I think one of the keys. Hold on, let me, let me just tweak that a bit.
37:03: Cause, cause we'll hear your cause, cause they would end up saying that you should have voted for Tom then. But it's, it's the, you're voting for the best choice out of the choices that can win.
37:14: That can win. That's correct. That's really how we, you know, they, they want to turn it. And this is the thing that the challenge of the lesser evils already puts you on the negative.
37:24: It puts you on the defensive as if neither one are actually good. Well, that might be true, but you're going to vote out of the ones that can win.
37:33: Because like you said, I mean, you're, you're, you'll be able to say, well, I'm not throwing away a vote.
37:39: And this will be the next question. Because when people say, well, if I vote for the third party candidate, you're throwing away your vote.
37:46: Okay. That's a challenge others will make. So I'll, we'll put that after you answer this one. So go for it.
37:51: Well, I mean, yeah, well, I guess we'll answer that afterwards, but let's see. Okay. So I don't phrase as less to rephrase it.
37:59: You're right for the one that is most likely to win, but it's closest to the Christian worldview. But I want to explain that a little bit further as to why it's important.
38:09: We look at the last three years, three and a half years now of Trump's presidency. And by and large,
38:17: Christians have had freedom to do pretty much whatever we've wanted. We've had the freedom to assemble.
38:23: We've had the freedom to demonstrate. For the most part, we have the freedom to stand on street corners and preach the gospel.
38:29: We have the ability to stand on sidewalks and preach at abortion clinics. We have the ability to go to state capitals and try to influence politicians.
38:38: We have a lot of freedoms under him. The reality is the left wants to strip every one of those away.
38:48: And how is the climate going to be in eight years, 10 years, if after Trump is done with his presidency and we have a couple of Democrats or at least a couple of four -year terms of a
39:00: Democrat come in, who is an anti -Christian? Which, look, the reality is everybody that I know of on the left is anti -Christian.
39:11: And so they want nothing more than to stamp out everything that we believe in and that we stand for.
39:19: And so, you know, the guys that say they don't want to vote for less treaty goals or that they want to vote for the third party candidates, at the same time they're doing that, they are enjoying the freedoms that they have right now in a country that is given to them right now by Trump's freedoms.
39:37: And hopefully those are the freedoms that are going to continue in this country. Now, it doesn't mean that, look, if a
39:44: Democrat comes in and they start banning us from things, we as Christians still have to do what we as Christians do, which is share the gospel, even under the threat of persecution.
39:54: But it's a much nicer to operate without that persecution. It's much easier.
40:00: So, yeah. And I mean, look, I've been very vocal that I think whoever comes in after Trump is going to drive this country so far left at that Christianity is probably going to be outlawed.
40:12: So that, you know, let me I'm going to bring Andrew in because I know he said he's got to go.
40:18: So, Andrew, Andrew, I don't even know. Do you guys get to vote down in your country in Australia?
40:25: Do you have a process where you vote for for your officials? We have to vote, and we get fined if we don't.
40:34: Do you have coronavirus there? You know, we got to practice social distancing. No, well, I don't have it.
40:42: Just to just to be clear, I looked up as of the 19th, 709 cases, six deaths.
40:51: Yeah. So you guys got a few down over a few then. OK. Yeah, but but only six deaths.
40:59: Yeah, well, OK. So I'm trying to say because the United States has as of right now, 211 deaths.
41:07: You have seven. Yeah, something like that. Anyway, you used yesterday's numbers.
41:14: But yeah, I've only got yesterday's numbers. That's the only thing
41:19: I can find. And I was on another thing. I was on a Jeff Durbin was just to go to quick aside.
41:27: He was doing a special on it. And I got banned from that stream by the
41:34: Internet. But yeah, it deals with a lot of a lot of things. Anyway, my question would be, because in Australia, as I said, we have to vote or you get fined.
41:48: Hmm. It's very interesting. Under your own name, or is it like in America where the
41:55: Democrats have Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck voting and, you know, all the New York Yankees vote in Ohio?
42:01: You know, so do you just have to vote or you get to vote for other people? Well, you get to vote for whoever candidates are there.
42:09: So you we have basically we have a two party, which is a liberal, liberal and labor, which is really, you know, it's it's a there's a
42:22: Greens party that's supposedly the third, but the Greens like to throw the science card at you when you start talking religion.
42:30: Yeah, so basically, they're out at the moment. Actually, our prime minister does claim
42:37: Christianity. Yeah, Scott Morrison does. It would be interesting to see what would happen.
42:45: Yeah, it would. And we have a slight delay, sorry, but it'd be interesting to see what would happen in America if the people were required to vote else be fined.
42:55: I mean, the one problem I have with I guess that and that actually was that used to be the way Rome did it many, many centuries ago.
43:02: Everyone was required to vote. The the interesting thing that was against that, and I think still true today, is that you have people who are ignorant of the details and the facts that don't follow the politics that are voting.
43:16: And unfortunately, especially in today's, I think that would outweigh the the informed vote.
43:22: So I almost I almost wish that everyone would be required to vote after taking a test that they actually are knowledgeable on the way government works.
43:33: Then I will. It is. And if you have a disability, you can have a get out of clause voting that you don't have to vote because you're you can't make a decision as to whether you want to vote or not.
43:47: And basically, I think I was going to say is I vote because I want to say, as I said in the comments,
43:54: I want to say, well, I didn't vote for him. So I didn't vote for whoever won.
43:59: And I vote because I live with Asperger's syndrome and epilepsy and I live on a disability support pension, which comes directly from the government.
44:08: So all of the services that I use and need access to come from the taxes.
44:15: And I want to have a say in that. Yeah. So that's why I vote. Yeah. And I yeah,
44:24: I mean, I know a lot of Asperger's who once they find out that they don't have to vote, they take that route and then they don't vote.
44:32: See, I think as Christians, I think, Anthony, you got you know, had said something similar to this, but I think as Christians, if we're given a the right to vote, then
44:44: I think we have a responsibility to vote. We're given in our country the ability to have a say in our government.
44:53: And therefore, with that, I think that means is we need to be informed about our government. It doesn't mean we spend all day on Fox News.
45:00: It means that you should be somewhat informed the events of the days, what's happening, what the candidates positions are.
45:06: I mean, did I'll be honest with you. I never, ever expected in America that we would have a president that would especially
45:16: Trump show up at the March for Life to to be a president who is who is working very much to to outlaw the federal funding of abortions, basically going to put abortion.
45:29: I mean, if you remove the federal funding of Planned Parenthood, they would probably go out of business.
45:34: I mean, it's the irony that all these liberals won't support Planned Parenthood, but they want our tax dollars to do it right.
45:43: And Trump is working very hard to end that. You know, I look at this current situation with this virus and watching him do his his reports every day.
45:54: And what do you see? What you end up seeing is that every every day he is, you know, he's acting presidential.
46:03: I mean, you're seeing him really put things in a proper perspective. You know, they're asking him, well, does he think it's racist to call it the
46:10: Chinese virus? And he's like, it's from China. No one had a problem with the Spanish flu. You know,
46:17: Moli, which is named after a river like, you know, it's like he just gives common sense answers sometimes.
46:24: And but I'm looking at this stuff and I'm seeing that this was if this was
46:30: Bernie Sanders, he'd be saying, well, we'll help out the companies. We're just going to take them over.
46:36: Right. I mean, anyone else would end up be taking this. You know, they would be trying to bring in socialism.
46:42: We have a guy that's saying, you know what? We're going to the federal government is going to help private sector, which is going to help the economy when this thing's over.
46:51: That's because of his background as a businessman. He understands that. And, you know, something different that I wouldn't have expected when, you know, when he first came for a vote.
47:03: Anthony, your screen, please. You know, look at this. Look at some of the Marxism coming out right now where the bailout money that is that is being earmarked for businesses, right, that Trump and out of his administration is saying that that's they're going to encourage those businesses that receive money to bring jobs back to America.
47:22: Right. They're going to they're going to make something of it. How many guys on the left and females on the left have said that you need to give up a part of a percentage of your business to either the government or some of your employees in order to receive these funds?
47:38: I mean, that's right out of Karl Marx's playbook. 150 years ago, straight out of it.
47:44: And people are blinded to this fact. It's unbelievable that the type of fight that we have on our hands right now.
47:51: And you have people that just don't even get it. Here's a scary statistic. And I know,
47:56: Sean, you might. Yeah, go on. Well, I was I was just going to say that that that is you.
48:06: You guys know very well that in academia that is that is what's being propagated.
48:13: It was basically Marxism, socialism, socialism, light, whatever you want to call it. That's that's what we see.
48:19: And I was just going to I was going to bring up a point that I had a friend of mine. I was in an undergraduate school in the late 1990s, and he was a flaming liberal.
48:30: I mean, very liberal. And we we had pushbacks back and forth all the time. Interestingly enough, about eight years go by.
48:40: He graduates from college, starts his own business. And guess where his political views went? To the right.
48:48: Opposite. He says, you're not taking my money. You're not going to take when when when he's a starving college kid, he's all for taking other people's money.
48:59: But all of a sudden, when it's his own, he's got a problem with dealing with with, you know, giving it out.
49:04: Sorry to interrupt. He was going to give us a statistic there. And that's OK. You know, I was I was helping out my old friend.
49:11: I wasn't saved when I was in college. So you're saying, yeah. Yeah, but so I was in a fraternity for four years in college.
49:19: And after I graduated and and got saved, I actually went back and became one of their alumni board of directors.
49:26: And I spent years doing this. And so I would go back once a month to the fraternity and I would help them out in the kind of like their everyday lives and the running of the fraternity and really pouring into these guys who were going to be out in real life in just a few in just a few years.
49:44: And I got a chance to witness a lot to them, which was a lot of fun over the years. But one thing
49:49: I found was really interesting is what you just said is that these are kids who young college age kids who, for the most part, were all liberal.
49:58: And then what happens? They graduate and I keep in contact with these guys. And a few years, it only takes a few years before most of them become conservative.
50:07: Why? Because they're looking at their paychecks now and they're seeing what liberalism does to a paycheck. So, yeah, that's a pretty, pretty interesting thing.
50:18: Now, going back to statistics. Before you get off that, this is why I do think and by the way,
50:24: I put a comment up there from Mr. Mark Spence. He's saying that it looks like my books are practicing social distancing here.
50:33: That's funny. Thanks, Mark. Yeah. But hey,
50:42: Mark, we try to practice social distancing from Andrew anyway, let alone when the coronavirus comes around.
50:48: That's why we do this online. Yeah. So I don't know, Sean, you might know this statistic better than I do.
50:55: But as I recall, in both of Obama's wins as president, that when they broke down what the media called evangelical
51:05: Christians that voted. So, you know, they have a much more loose term than what we would have as Christians.
51:12: But what I remembered is that it was about 70 % of evangelical Christians voted for the
51:19: Republican and 30 % voted for Obama. And then you look at and then they had a separate category of Catholic, not
51:27: Christian, right? And that's one thing we would agree with the liberals on is that they're not Christian. But the
51:34: Catholics who look pro -life, they're the right to life is like they're a big issue, right?
51:39: Politically. And yet they're split 50 -50 in both of those elections. It was shocking to me to see this.
51:47: And so I look at I look at Christians and say, you guys want to influence politics and you want to influence and the pro -life movement and knockout
51:54: Planned Parenthood. And you want to do some of these things, especially you theonomists and you Post Mill guys. Well, why wouldn't you rally the troops and get voting?
52:02: Because if 100 % of Christians voted for the right candidate, you would have knocked all this stuff out already.
52:09: So it's unreal to me. It blows your mind. And in 2016, it was 81 % actually voted 81 % of evangelicals voted for Donald Trump.
52:23: So it increased a little bit for Donald then. Yeah. Even then. So that means 20 % of evangelicals voted for Hillary Clinton.
52:34: Sure. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but here's the thing, because I wanted to get to the point that you're making earlier as well as this.
52:45: I do think it's going to be interesting with this virus, because in about nine months, we're going to start getting more and more conservative people because all of a sudden they're going to have mouths to feed.
52:55: Right. And it's going to be very interesting how November is going to come around when people are concerned with jobs and there's pregnancies.
53:09: There's a simple reason why leftists that want socialism are against marriage, against families, because they know, as you were saying, that once people start having to pay their taxes and they start realizing what the taxes are, they're having a family, they're having to earn a living.
53:30: They suddenly become conservative. Why? Because they're aware of what they're paying.
53:35: This is the very reason why Democrats are so much against bills where people have to pay their own taxes.
53:42: They'd much rather have your job take it out. So when they raise the taxes, nobody notices.
53:49: And that's what they want. They don't want anybody to notice when they raise the taxes because it just comes into your salary.
53:54: Who do you blame? Oh, you blame the business for you not getting as much. You're not having a right to check.
54:02: And that's a big thing for it. Now, the reality with what you're bringing up now, though, is
54:08: I just don't think that people, when they're saying evangelical Christian, they're including
54:14: Jimmy Carter on this. So they're basically including anybody that goes to church.
54:24: And here's the funny thing I find about the statistics. When they want to talk about atheism and how we should be listening more to atheists politically, then the numbers of evangelical
54:37: Christians, the way they define that changes. Right? Because suddenly there's more atheists and all those people that don't believe in God but go to church are now atheists.
54:47: Well, because they're practicing atheists anyway. So the numbers, it's the thing when you apply just simple critical thinking to the news, it changes usually the whole way to interpret what they're actually saying.
55:03: But one thing I want to make sure that we have crystal clear here, we kind of mentioned the beginning and we're having a lot of fun talking about some politics here is
55:13: I know that you guys believe the same thing I do. Sean, you said this earlier is I don't believe politics changes the heart of an individual.
55:23: Right? It's not going to do that. It is the gospel message. It is us being out there and using the law, show people their sin, give them the gospel and watch
55:35: God change hearts in people that can affect a nation. So I want to be clear for all the listeners is that it is the gospel that changes.
55:44: There's no doubt about that. And I think our argument here, and again,
55:49: I want to be really clear, especially with my last little monologue, is that I don't believe that it's about us voting to change politics and change things.
55:58: It is really about the gospel. But we have a responsibility to create the climate as beneficial as possible for us to work in.
56:07: And if we can affect votes to be able to affect legislation on abortion or against abortion, why not do that?
56:18: You know, the AHA guys love to go around and say that we're doing everything we possibly can do. Right? Well, you're not doing everything you possibly can do if you're not out there getting third party candidates, if that's what you need to do, grassroots efforts, which or getting people that you want voted in that will help with the legislation.
56:35: You're not actually doing everything you want to do. So here's the thing, okay?
56:42: When we talk about this, and I am clearly not a theonomist, okay?
56:48: But this is where you're going to see the difference. I argue, people will ask, what are you doing to stop abortion?
56:55: What are you doing to... I was on the board at a crisis pregnancy center. It's one of the questions they always ask.
57:00: What have you done to try to put a stop to abortion? You know, with any of these things, my answer is really simple.
57:07: You share the gospel with people. Now, my purpose in doing that is not to affect the culture, but that's a byproduct.
57:15: You see, and this would be the difference with some theonomists because for them, that's the purpose. The purpose is to change culture so that you can bring
57:24: Christ back and bring in, you know, God's law being active. I'm not going out and sharing the gospel for the purpose of trying to change culture, but that is a byproduct.
57:36: Look at the founding of this country. You had guys like Benjamin Franklin, not a
57:41: Christian, Thomas Jefferson, not a Christian, but read their writings. Look at the language that they used.
57:47: They knew they had to at least pretend to be a Christian because it was a
57:53: Christian nation, whether the atheists want to admit it or not. It was a majority of Christians based on Christian principles.
57:59: And the proof is that the unbelievers acted like they're Christians to get votes.
58:05: And the reality is if we were about the business of sharing the gospel, people's hearts would change.
58:12: They would want to get, because they're right with God, they would want to vote that same way.
58:17: And what would end up happening is you'd end up seeing the fact that the politicians would pretend, even if they're not believers, they'd at least pretend because they want to get votes.
58:30: That's what would end up happening. We don't do it for that purpose. That would be a theonomist way of doing it.
58:36: But it is a byproduct. And I would say as Christians, we should be about spending our time sharing the gospel when we can so people get saved.
58:47: That's the more important thing. But a byproduct of it, the culture would be changed if that's happening enough.
58:53: But too many Christians are too busy on Facebook and not in God's book and too much into Fox News and not the good news.
59:04: And that is the problem. They know the Republican message, but not the gospel message.
59:09: They're not sharing it. That's exactly right. They don't know it. I mean, put it as simple as I can put it is our faith, our faith in the
59:20: Lord should not be derived by our politics, but our politics should be derived by our faith.
59:26: And we see a group of evangelicals out there that that's not the case. And I'll just point,
59:33: I'll just give you a classic easy one. A softball is our friend down at First Baptist Dallas, Mr.
59:43: Robert Jeffress. He is an always Trumper. And in his eyes,
59:50: I mean, Trump could do no wrong. And all three of us have already said that, look, I will call a spade a spade.
59:55: Donald Trump is not a Christian. I don't care what he says, because Jesus said, you will know them by their fruit.
01:00:02: And his fruit is obviously a spoiled fruit. Now, that being said, that is because there's no repentance there.
01:00:10: He has basically said that he does not need to ask for forgiveness. All of us had terrible fruit prior before we were saved as well.
01:00:18: But when you get a prominent pastor who in the past has been a very good theologian that will not call these things out on Donald Trump, it's easy for the left wing media to attack
01:00:33: Donald Trump on those points when he is being defended at all points.
01:00:40: We should, as Christians, look, Donald Trump by far, and it's going to, Joe Biden is going to be, you know, his head to head, who he's going to run against coming up in this in November.
01:00:53: Donald Trump is by far going to be the candidate, the incumbent, who's going to protect us as Christians.
01:01:01: That's just a fact. Anthony already made that point earlier. It's been easier on us since Trump has been a presidency.
01:01:08: And not just Christians, but Muslims as well. Hindus as well. You have not seen the religious issues that we had with Barack Obama.
01:01:16: In fact, ironically, if you guys go back to 9 -11, you remember 9 -11. Obviously, there was this whole issue with Islam and nobody knew anything about Islam, and they started learning about Islam.
01:01:28: And then there was this fight against Islam. And then all of a sudden there was this turn. Barack Obama becomes president.
01:01:34: And then it was like the Christians were the bad guys. I mean, it was just this odd, weird, weird turn of dynamics with politics.
01:01:43: And that was not regained until 2016. So Donald Trump not being a
01:01:49: Christian, look, he has still protected us, regardless of what people want to say about him, or not vote for him or vote for some other third party.
01:02:00: Because if Joe Biden becomes president, which
01:02:06: I think is highly unlikely, you're going to have, you know, remember, they have cabinets and they're going to choose people for their cabinets.
01:02:13: And if you remember the whack job down in Texas by the name of Beto O 'Rourke, he is going to be on that cabinet.
01:02:22: And he has been very outspoken against Christianity and wanted to take the 501c3s away against the
01:02:30: Constitution. That is what we're up against. So really, when it comes down to it, and don't forget the
01:02:36: Supreme Court. So that's something you got to think about as well. Let's face it.
01:02:42: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is on death's door. She's 87 years old. She's not going to make it.
01:02:48: Very unlikely she's going to make it through another presidency. So another, and we talk about abortion and being pro -life, another very solid pro -life candidate on that Supreme Court would be, it's imperative for us as believers.
01:03:04: Well, you know, there's a couple of things. You mentioned the courts. Just look at the Ninth Court, what Trump has done there and changed the
01:03:10: Ninth Court. Crazy. You mentioned Obama and, you know, there's something that most people were not paying attention well enough to know what happened with Obama was something.
01:03:21: And that is on the second day of his office, he did it in an executive order. He did an executive order to allow federal funding of stem cell research.
01:03:32: And he made it sound as if Bush wouldn't allow that. Well, it had never been allowed before. It wasn't that Bush denied it, but he was saying, you know, he's, but what was the headline?
01:03:42: The headline that day was that Obama says, we're not going to allow faith to get in the way of science.
01:03:49: That was the big headline. The very next day, Barack Obama did a second executive order to ban federal funding of stem cell research.
01:04:00: Now you go, wait, the next day, then why did he do an executive order allowing it?
01:04:05: The headline, he wanted to start his administration off with the fact that he was going to attack religion, specifically
01:04:13: Christianity. But here's the thing that I see, the real danger that I see with politics, and you gave the perfect example.
01:04:21: You gave Jeffers. We could look at Billy Graham had suffered the same thing. You look at Jeffers who gets into the political realm.
01:04:31: You know, maybe he was a good theologian before, but now that he's into politics, he's now claiming that, you know, he's now side by side with Paula White claiming she's a
01:04:43: Christian. Okay, she's a heretic. And he's going to sit side with her and give her credibility.
01:04:54: It's why? Because the same reason Billy Graham did what he did. They've their focus became trying to influence politicians rather than people.
01:05:03: And grow a huge platform. I mean, well, David Jeremiah is showing up in those in those early meetings too, right?
01:05:10: So that's another one that was just a shock to all of us. And it's a shame because I really enjoyed listening to Robert Jeffers a lot.
01:05:18: And now I'm just it's hard to take him seriously. He completely turns you off because he uses the first Baptist Dallas platform every
01:05:33: Sunday as a political stage now. And yes, yes, he is advocating for Donald Trump.
01:05:41: But again, his duty, his first and primary duty is to feed that flock and to feed those sheep and to proclaim the gospel.
01:05:50: And if he were doing that, he wouldn't have to do any political activism. This is the thing that in the paper and, you know,
01:05:59: I'll have it in the show notes, but I'm showing it right there is at strivingfortraining .org. It's called political activism, a
01:06:05: Christian role. The reality is that what I challenge people is the fact that there is a big problem when you have people taking money.
01:06:15: They're Christian ministries. I'm very much against this. Christian ministries that are being politically active or like you're saying with Jeffers, his role is as pastor enough.
01:06:25: He wants to resign as pastor and go into the political realm and start some political campaign.
01:06:32: Fine, go do that. Raise money for that. But do not take money that is given for God's work.
01:06:40: And you're going to use that for political ends. And this is the thing I have real issue with. I've separated from ministries because I saw them just always talking politics.
01:06:50: Look, I don't have a problem with it if they're a political organization. I do have a problem with it when you say you're a
01:06:56: Christian organization and all you're doing is trying to affect politics. Because that's not the
01:07:02: Christian mission. The mission of the church is to make disciples, not a moral
01:07:10: America. Big difference there. Yeah, so I'm going to read a little bit here for everybody.
01:07:17: But I have one comment first. Has anyone actually seen Ruth Bader Ginsburg speak in the last eight months?
01:07:24: Because I got to be honest with you, this is crazy. But I keep thinking
01:07:31: Weekend at Bernie's. You know, they kept propping him up, trying to make him look alive. I can only imagine they would do this for the last six months to try to keep her alive long enough for the next election.
01:07:45: Yeah, I'm going to be surprised. But okay, so I want to do some reading here, because I think this might help some people listening in on this.
01:07:55: This is, I'm going to read Romans 13, verses one through seven, right? This is the passage that Sean, you quoted from earlier, or at least referenced.
01:08:05: So, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
01:08:15: Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
01:08:23: For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?
01:08:29: Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is a servant of God, an avenger who carries out
01:08:40: God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience.
01:08:47: For because of this, you also pay taxes for the authorities or ministers of God attending to this very thing.
01:08:54: Pay to all what is owed to them, taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
01:09:04: Now, I read this because this, I believe, is the backdrop to what was written in the
01:09:12: Declaration of Independence. And so I'm going to read now the first two chapters here of the,
01:09:19: I'm sorry, first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. So it says,
01:09:24: When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's
01:09:38: God entitle them. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
01:09:50: We hold these truths to be self -evident that all men are created equal. That they were endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
01:09:59: That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
01:10:10: That whenever any form of government becomes destructive at these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new governments, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.
01:10:26: And I'm actually going to stop there. I encourage people to read on in this. But here's the key to this, is presuppositionally, where do rights come from?
01:10:38: There's a wonderful book by a friend of mine, Jay Lucas, who wrote the book, and Pastor Jay Lucas of Grace Community Church in a small town in Ohio, and it's a
01:10:49: Washington courthouse. This escaped my mind for another Joe Biden moment. But he wrote the book called
01:10:55: The Rights Fight. And it presuppositionally says, where do rights come from? And they nailed it here in the
01:11:03: Declaration of Independence. Rights do not come from society. They do not come from our personal belief systems.
01:11:10: They don't come from the majority. And they certainly don't come from governments. Our rights come to us by our creator.
01:11:19: The sovereign God who made everything in this universe, made everything on this planet, created us in his image, the crowning glory of his creation, the last thing he made on day six of creation before he rested.
01:11:35: He is the one who has the right to give us rights. And he is the one who has the sole authority over the ability to give out rights.
01:11:47: Government is merely a construction to protect us in a number of ways, one of which
01:11:53: I believe first and foremost, is to protect us in the rights that are God given.
01:12:00: And I think when we read through the passage in Romans 13, as well as an understanding that as the backdrop, and then reading here in the
01:12:10: Declaration of Independence, we have a responsibility to protect our rights.
01:12:15: And Sean, you said it earlier, us three and pretty much everybody listening tonight, and that will listen to this, have the blessing of being able to be born in the
01:12:25: United States of America. And the blessing to be born in a country that still has a lot of freedoms, although a lot have been stripped away over the years, but still has some semblance of the country that was created 200 some years ago.
01:12:42: And had as its founding fathers, mostly Christian men. Yeah, some deists and whatnot in there.
01:12:50: But I hope this serves as at least a little bit of an understanding of where some of us might be coming from with rights and our need for protecting them.
01:13:02: Sean, you wanna add anything to that? No, I mean, that's exactly, I mean, when I had referenced
01:13:08: Romans 13 earlier and stating that, I mean, that's just perfectly on point. Yeah, I do think,
01:13:16: I put up a comment earlier, Humble Clay had something funny to say, he just said, Democrats won't be voting for Biden, they're gonna be voting for a
01:13:22: VP pick. That's true. So, you know, it's kind of interesting scenario that I have heard is that, you know, he's announced he's gonna have a woman vice president pick.
01:13:35: Um, there's talk that he's gonna pick Michelle Obama, which would be really interesting.
01:13:43: Huh? I mean, that's, I mean, yeah, I mean, that's talk about, I think that's highly unlikely.
01:13:49: I mean, if you really look back at the history, very recent history, the second four years of the
01:13:56: Obama term, where was Joe Biden? Yeah, but Joe Biden wants to get elected.
01:14:04: What he does, here's my point. My point was Obama had Joe Biden in, he had him shut up.
01:14:11: He had him not speaking. No, no, there's no possible way on this
01:14:16: God's green earth that they are going to allow Michelle Obama to come in as an underling to Joe Biden.
01:14:24: I just don't see it happening. As soon as he gets in office, then the Democrats will announce that Joe Biden is not qualified for office because he can't remember his first name.
01:14:34: And then they're gonna, they're gonna exit him out the door and she gets in without having to even run.
01:14:40: She'll be entitled to it. I am just offended that he isolated every other man of every ethnicity across the
01:14:49: United States by saying he was going to pick a woman. It is the hypocrisy that knows no bounds.
01:14:54: I mean, it is unbelievable. Here's the party. I mean, this is the irony. You look at that part, that whole, this, the whole primary.
01:15:01: Okay. That whole primary with everyone talking about intersectionality, everyone promoting, I'm a woman,
01:15:07: I'm this, I'm that. Everyone's got their, you know, I'm a homosexual. Everyone's got their thing. They're promoting why you got to vote for them for their victim status based on intersectionality.
01:15:16: And what have you ended up with? Two old white guys, right? Oh, it's, it's classic.
01:15:21: It makes you just want to laugh. Yeah. And they're like, well, we're going to have a female. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Two very old, rich white guys.
01:15:30: Yeah. Because I think the best comment was when, uh, in the, it was hilarious when someone was like, you know, saying to Bernie, I think it was
01:15:39: Michael Bloomberg. You were against millionaires until you became one. And then you went, you were against billionaires.
01:15:48: The hypocrisy is, it's, it is nauseating to no end. Oh, so, all right.
01:15:57: So, uh, we, we have one person in here. He doesn't, he wants to talk about something different than, uh, politics.
01:16:03: So I want to see if we have anything else, Anthony, that you wanted to, to address with the, the way
01:16:08: Christians vote and things like that, or, or Sean, because we could probably talk politics, you know, knowing the three of us, we could, we could talk for a while, but yeah, we can talk about it for,
01:16:19: I'm, I'm, I'm good with what I've wanted to kind of get off my chest tonight. So, uh, um,
01:16:25: I, I'm good with that. I will say this, that us three may have to have another show because I have a suspicion that you're going to see a podcast come out in the next week or two that is going to do their absolute best to directly refute everything we said today.
01:16:40: So, uh, so we might have, we might have to reconvene and set the record straight. Cause I, I look,
01:16:47: I don't believe that. I don't believe that this is an argument that can, you can, I don't think you can argue any other way than the way we've argued.
01:16:55: It's really simple. If you, if you voted for a third party candidate, you didn't want to vote for Donald Trump.
01:17:02: Um, then you really were helping Hillary Clinton to win.
01:17:07: Okay. If she had won right now, would we be, yeah. Would we be where we are?
01:17:14: I mean, just look at, look at everything going on. Look at where our economy was. I think the reason that we'll be able to rebound after this virus thing is because of where the, the economy was because of things that were done.
01:17:26: Do we really think that, you know, we have a liberal press that is doing everything to, to give cover to China right now and to excuse, you know, the fact that they didn't tell us that this, this whole worldwide pandemic could be very different if China would have been more forthright and they don't want to address that.
01:17:45: They didn't want to deal with that. Right. So if Hillary was president, would we be seeing so many abortion clinics closed?
01:17:54: No. Would we be, would we be seeing the, the, the, the private sector being active the way we are in this pandemic?
01:18:04: No. Would we see America leading the charge in any of that? No. We would be in a very different state if, if she was, you know, yeah.
01:18:14: Humble Clay nails it. You know, ISIS would be thriving. I mean, that's, that's what would be, we'd be seeing, you know, and, and so, you know, here we got
01:18:25: Matt Slick, who should just join in here as saying, China can't be trusted. Matt, what are you doing?
01:18:30: Watching? Get in here. He told me right before the show started, he was going to join in. So where are you now?
01:18:37: You want to talk about someone political views? He jumped in now. We're never getting to Donny's question. And when we get to Donny's question,
01:18:43: Matt's going to really go off. Well, let's, let's get Donny's question. But, but Sean, why don't you, do you have anything else you wanted to say before we bring the other?
01:18:52: I was just going to say that, you know, if you've got, even for the never Trumpers that are evangelicals, you know, if, if religious conservatives have to choose between what they see as a dueling dumpster fire between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, hands down, because of everything that, that Andrew had just stated, that they're going to choose
01:19:14: Donald Trump from an evangelical standpoint. There's no other option other than to do that.
01:19:22: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I agree. And so, yeah, so if, if people want to respond, it would be interesting to see what the response is going to be to try the argument.
01:19:31: So let's just deal with the arguments that will be made because they're predictable, right? That, you know, voting for a lesser of two evils, we, you know, we have to vote for the candidate who is the, really what they're going to say is the most biblical
01:19:45: Christian. Okay. So let me ask you guys a question. You know, in your life, have you hired people to do work that are
01:19:56: Christians? And yet once you hire them, you realize they do bad work and you don't want to hire them again.
01:20:04: Well, I mean, look, as a dental practice owner for 14 years, I went to practice, you know, before we sold it a year ago, over a year ago,
01:20:13: I can, I will say my, the last staff I had before we sold the practice, they were, they were almost all
01:20:21: Christian. It was the best staff we had in all these years. But prior, and they're, they're all
01:20:28: Christian, except for one. Um, prior to that, I felt we got taken advantage of more by Christians than we did non -Christians, not all of them, but it happened a lot.
01:20:41: And it was really shocking to me. Just because someone's a Christian does not mean they're going to do a good job as an elected official.
01:20:50: Okay. And so you might have someone who's a Christian that would not make a good president.
01:20:56: I mean, if you, if you stuck me in that office, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do a good job. I just don't have the skillset for it.
01:21:03: I may be a Christian. If you stuck Matt in that, we would be in even worse. But the whole point is it's, it's not about being
01:21:12: Christian that makes that someone able to do that job best. The question is who can do that job as president best.
01:21:21: So Matt, welcome. Wait, I thought you were bringing Donnie on. So you bring this big ugly guy out.
01:21:27: Where's Donnie at? I'm here. I'm a big ugly guy is already there. I'm just kidding.
01:21:33: You guys, he's just over there. And he's, he's old.
01:21:40: He's in that dangerous, you know, Matt's in that dangerous zone, you know, where it's deadly for him. He's old.
01:21:48: Yes, I'm 63. That is true. Thank you very much.
01:21:53: But my wife is what I'm concerned about because of her health issues. She's 61. She has compromised issues.
01:22:00: So Sean, Matt, Matt, Sean, and you guys met before. Hey Sean, how you doing buddy? First time.
01:22:06: Good. Good. Hey, we have no business talking about these. We're four old white evangelical men.
01:22:12: We are discredited. We are the bottom of the totem pole in intersectionality. That's for sure.
01:22:17: But we could, we could run for, we could run for the democratic presidency.
01:22:29: Yeah, we could. So Matt, let's give you a shot with you.
01:22:35: You've been, you've been watching, listening. So give us your thoughts. Well, I did a walk around the neighborhood.
01:22:43: My wife followed me in the car and we talked and, and I had to get some stuff and do a few things.
01:22:48: I only got to hear about 20 minutes. What's that? She was stalking you. She was stalking me. That's right. She needs to get out and, and she can't do too much.
01:22:56: So, you know, but, so we had a good time and then I came back and thought I'd come back in. I'm gonna work on an article.
01:23:02: People are asking me on the radio show if, if isolation is, is biblical. So I'm doing the research on quarantine procedures in the old
01:23:10: Testament and write an article. Yes, it is. Things like that, that, you know, so I'm working on it and thought
01:23:15: I'd listen to you guys and waste more time. Okay. So you, if I remember correctly, you did not vote for Trump.
01:23:24: No. Do you think you're going to vote for him this time? And if so, why? I don't know. I, in principle,
01:23:31: I'm a constitutionalist and I believe in the constitution. In fact, when Anthony was reading the preamble,
01:23:36: I was like, oh man, that thing is, it's so good to hear. It's so well -written. And I believe that people need to uphold the constitution.
01:23:44: I think the constitution is a brilliant document and I mean brilliant. One of the best documents ever written in history outside scripture.
01:23:51: And if we were to follow it, we would do very well. And what bothers me a great deal is you'll see these hypocrites, these whitewashed sepulchres get up and put their hand in the
01:24:02: Bible and then swear that they will, before God, swear that they will uphold the constitution and then they do everything against the constitution.
01:24:09: So I'm against that. Trump has made his, he's done a lot of good.
01:24:15: I certainly like his obstreperous style, but I don't know if I'm going to vote for him because I'm just in principle,
01:24:22: I may want to just vote constitutionally and then build a say. I never voted for Trump or whoever the other candidate might be.
01:24:29: And that way I can maybe retain some objectivity in the eyes of others when I talk about politics and stuff.
01:24:35: So you want Biden to win? Okay. Biden. So Matt, you are part of the problem.
01:24:43: Yeah, I guess so. Well, I have some pretty strong views. I have some pretty strong views about what needs to be done.
01:24:52: And before the fall of the countries that throughout history, homosexuality, women's rights were prominent, believe it or not.
01:25:02: And also the politicians voted themselves power and exclusions to the laws they would cause others to be under.
01:25:10: And that becomes an oligarch, an oligarch, an oligarch, an oligarch goal system.
01:25:17: I was going to say, but it's an oligarchy, but yeah. And so then the people write it and things like that.
01:25:23: And we're having the same kind of problems here in this country. And the leftist, wacko,
01:25:30: Marxist media is not helping at all. And our schools aren't helping.
01:25:36: And so my views are a little bit more theonomic in some areas. So even though I'm not a theonomist,
01:25:43: I believe in standing up for righteousness and moving forward, not just saying, let's just offer a vote because here's something.
01:26:00: I knew a guy who ran for Congress in Missouri and we sat in the car and we were talking about what happened and he was winning in Missouri.
01:26:12: And right before, it was a week before the elections, all of the, not all of, but a great deal of the voting machines in certain districts that were favorable to him stopped working.
01:26:27: And then they got new voting machines in, but they were voting machines brought in by the opposite party.
01:26:34: And I never forgot what he said. He said, and he quickly lost. And my deal is, how do you know that the votes that were counting are counting?
01:26:43: I don't know. I mean, you'd think that Donald Trump's election would prove my theory wrong, but I just,
01:26:50: I'm pretty skeptical. I'm not very happy about what's going on. All right.
01:26:56: Well, we're going to get Matt triggered because we'll bring Donnie in.
01:27:02: And I don't know who the Facebook user is because they didn't allow for it.
01:27:08: For Facebook users, go to apologitalive .com. There's a link for, so we could get your name. The Facebook user says, thanks for the explanation.
01:27:15: We do need to vote as Christians. Good night. So I'm going to bring Donnie in. He's got a question that'll trigger
01:27:20: Matt. Donnie was actually saying earlier, though, in the comments that Anthony needs to do something with his hair to look more like Donnie there.
01:27:30: So he was saying that he was saying that Anthony should shave his head like Donnie does. But Donnie, time will take care of that.
01:27:37: Do not worry. I keep telling my wife a little bit more goes and it's all gone.
01:27:43: Shaving it all. Dude, you've been saying that for a while and there's a lot gone. Yeah. Well, who's got the best hairline in here then?
01:27:51: I don't know. Yeah, I do if you just count the side of my head. Yeah. So Donnie.
01:27:58: So what's your question? Well, Donnie's got to learn how to.
01:28:05: All these sound problems today. Yeah. Donnie's got to learn how to connect his phone. Well, we can't hear you.
01:28:12: I think he's on his computer. We see his camera going in and out. Check your mic.
01:28:17: Make sure it's on. Then check your settings.
01:28:23: Maybe go out or in. He's using a phone. So yeah, we could see your mouth really close, but that doesn't actually help.
01:28:31: I cannot do dental work through the screen. How hard I try. When he got close like that.
01:28:39: Okay, so while he's figuring this out. So Matt, so I have to ask this question then because. Yeah, I know.
01:28:46: So if you don't vote for Trump. Don't you feel that you are right now?
01:28:53: You benefit. We all benefit from living in a country and in rights that we have in this country and rights that are protected much better by Trump than they would have been by Hillary.
01:29:06: Don't you feel that you have a duty to vote for Trump? Even if you don't feel he is, he's great.
01:29:13: I think he's protected the constitution better than what we've seen in a number of presidents in recent years.
01:29:19: Actually, more than any president in my lifetime. Maybe, yeah, maybe more than any. Even more than Reagan.
01:29:27: Yeah. So it seems to me that you should work with the Democrats at times and and caved on things that he said he wouldn't cave on.
01:29:36: Yeah, it just seems to me, Matt, that you should be voting for Trump. So I'm kind of curious why.
01:29:42: It's a good argument and I've thought that because personally,
01:29:47: I don't think my vote will make any difference. But, you know, that's not a good argument still. But yeah, he's done a lot of good.
01:29:55: He really has. And what I like about him is not well, I like a lot of things about him, actually.
01:30:00: But I like how he handles the press and he accuses them correctly and he doesn't pull punches.
01:30:06: I love that. And I wish it would happen more. Did you listen to today's? Oh, dude, they asked him a question.
01:30:14: They're trying to what they're trying to do is they want to label him a racist. We're calling it
01:30:20: China and a virus. They have they have they have labeled. Yeah, they have.
01:30:26: And so the media is a bunch of morons getting together, patting each other on the back, practicing, talking like the kindergartners.
01:30:32: Well, here here was the thing that was so interesting, because, you know, any other president, they're worried about, you know, what the press is going to say the next day and whatnot.
01:30:42: They asked him a question about why, you know, he wasn't doing enough with this whole virus and whatnot.
01:30:51: And, you know, people could trust his leadership when he's not doing enough. And he just basically turned and said,
01:30:58: I was the first one to close the border to China. And what did you guys do? Y 'all called me a racist and said that I shouldn't have done it, that I was overreacting.
01:31:08: You know, so he called them out. That's the thing that I think for a lot of people who have been seeing the media just controlling the narrative over and over and over again, it's it's been refreshing to see a guy who who isn't playing politics.
01:31:25: He's calling it what it is. He's he's calling the media out on what they do when they sit here and, you know, they're they completely ignore.
01:31:34: It was funny because the one press conference I watched him and they asked him, it's almost as if they have their articles written.
01:31:42: They just need him to say something so that they could make it sound like he had it. And they're like, they're like, you know, do you take responsibility for the lack in in testing and everything else that occurred?
01:31:55: And this was after the doctor and all had explained that this is this was back from before that this was, you know, when
01:32:02: HIV was around, they had this stuff, but it was never planned for anything like this. So it's the first time doing it.
01:32:09: And he's like, no, I'm not responsible for the fact that the previous administration didn't do anything either.
01:32:15: Like, this is not something that we expected. So the headline, you know, he takes no responsibility.
01:32:23: The second headline. So is Obama, because, you know, they were asking him why the, you know, these things hadn't been done.
01:32:32: You know, it's like, well, Obama didn't do it when when he had the swine flu. You know, swine flu actually
01:32:38: Obama didn't start acting until several thousand people already died in America.
01:32:43: And the media doesn't say anything about that. And Trump, it doesn't matter what Trump does. The media is so leftist that they're just going to attack him at everything and spin everything they can with a left wing.
01:32:54: I want to get back to it. I don't want to avoid what Anthony said, because it's a good question.
01:33:02: In principle, when I gave up being Republican, I was a Democrat. I mean, I was never a Democrat, but I was a
01:33:08: Republican. If anything, I gave up that because I didn't trust the Republican Party either. I moved over to constitutionalist ideology, which
01:33:15: I believe is really where we should be. And we all should stick to that. So it's a principle I have.
01:33:20: And that's why I didn't vote for Trump in the last election. And I don't know if I will or will not in this one.
01:33:27: If it gets close, I think it might be close. Yeah, I'm probably going to throw my vote his way because there's nobody else I could see voting for except for a constitutionalist candidate.
01:33:35: But then they're not going to do anything. No one's going to vote for him. In 2016,
01:33:44: I'm in Florida. Well, and actually, he became the presidential candidate.
01:33:52: But the Constitution Party, one of the other parties, it's a third party.
01:33:57: But it's a laundry list of third parties. Actually done quite well and took, and obviously, if the
01:34:04: Constitution Party takes votes, they're essentially pulling them from the right. They're not pulling them from the left.
01:34:11: That's a disadvantage of that because if you vote that way, you can split the party out and then you weaken and then the wackos get in.
01:34:17: So there's a lot of strategy that you've got to think about. Hey, look, that's how Bill Clinton got elected the first time.
01:34:25: I mean, Ross Perot did it. But Ross Perot did that. Here's the thing, though, and this no one in the media would point out, even though they knew it.
01:34:34: Ross Perot, 20 years prior, had been asked, would he run for president? And he said he wouldn't want to be a
01:34:40: Republican or Democrat. He laid out a plan 20 years prior. He said the only way to be a third party is that you needed to get someone, you run against a strong president running against a weak president and you split the strong vote enough that you get out of it and you lose.
01:35:00: But when you put a weak person in there, you can come back and beat him. So I'm thinking
01:35:06: Clinton was easily beatable. He gave us Bill Clinton because of that. But I want to I want to share this.
01:35:11: This is Chuck. If you guys can see this, this is Chuck Schumer. OK, and just look at the dates on this with what we're talking about here.
01:35:22: You have you have Schumer on February 24th saying we've seen no sign that President Trump has any plan or urgency to deal with the spread of the coronavirus.
01:35:37: We need real leadership and we need it fast. That was February 24th. He forgot what he posted on February 5th after Trump closed down the travel to to China, where he said the premature travel ban to and from China by the current administration is just an excuse to further his ongoing war against immigrants.
01:35:58: There must be a check and balance of these restrictions. No, he didn't.
01:36:04: He didn't forget. Yeah, he just didn't. He didn't forget. Chuck Schumer so desperately wants to wants to be the
01:36:12: Senate majority leader that he does. There's nothing else on his brain. So he will say anything and he will do anything to do that.
01:36:20: He didn't forget. He doesn't care. Yeah. What's wrong with these people?
01:36:26: There's something mentally wrong with them. They're either demonically oppressed or they're mentally something's wrong.
01:36:33: Well, they say the stupidest things. I think what it is, and I've shared this in different ways, but there are people who want power so badly that they're willing to destroy their own country to get power.
01:36:47: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And that's what they're doing. Donnie's trying on another computer or a device.
01:36:54: Let's see if instead of just going out and in, he just decided to try something else. Is your mic working now?
01:37:00: I don't know. Yes, it is. Is your mic going to work? Alright, so Donnie, you're finally here.
01:37:08: What's your question? Well, I think we need to start all over with English lessons so people can learn how to read the
01:37:24: Bible. That was your question? He's really trying to trigger
01:37:30: Matt, I think. Okay, you see the debate on women preachers and you tell them read 1
01:37:41: Timothy. Yeah. Well, either you can't get your question out or your internet's bad.
01:37:50: Yeah. Okay, and you ask them to read it and they're having a hard time. Timothy 2?
01:37:59: Huh? You're saying people are having a hard time just reading 1 Timothy 2? John 3, 16, 1
01:38:09: Timothy 2. And I thought we could have a
01:38:14: Striving for Eternity English lesson. Oh, you mean on why is it that people can't just believe the
01:38:20: Bible for what it says and understand what it says? Right, right, right. Why did you lose your English skills, reading skills?
01:38:28: Well, hey, think about this. The word episodic really is apropos here. Something that's episodic is very quick episodes, very quick, very quick.
01:38:36: So what are we taught to do in society? But to think episodically. If you,
01:38:42: I tell people to do this every now and then go to the TV and watch any show, except for new shows, they're structured differently.
01:38:49: But entertainment shows, you watch and just count in seconds how long before the frame angle changes.
01:38:57: Do it in commercials and a whole bit. You'll see that it's one, two seconds, one second, three seconds, two seconds, one second.
01:39:03: It's very, very quick. When you're on social media, you can switch back and forth. Short messages, very quick, very quick.
01:39:10: Deep thought, critical thought, long thinking and deep thinking is not taught. If anything, our technology and other areas are working against that kind of idea.
01:39:22: So as you guys know, I have Asperger's. And so one of the advantages of it is I'll get in and start thinking and I'll start working very deeply.
01:39:29: And I can do that for a long period of time. Well, not many people have that disadvantage or advantage, however we want to call it.
01:39:35: So when I see people that I'm dealing with, they can't focus. They can't think things through very clearly.
01:39:43: And so we have this kind of problem. I think this is one of the underlying factors of why people can't read properly, understand things properly, think critically, etc.
01:39:52: And they pay attention to news media. They pay attention to sitcoms. They pay attention to liberal ideas in all areas.
01:40:02: They're not taught to be critical thinkers. So they can't do that when it comes to reading as well. I say the same thing about people who won't vote for Trump but call themselves
01:40:10: Christians. No, it's something
01:40:21: I've been worried about. I remember I graduated from high school in 1975. And I remember very, very clearly. I was a good student.
01:40:27: I took physics, trigonometry, Spanish for all this stuff I wanted to learn. And I remember in my English class,
01:40:33: I didn't learn crap. I remember that. I didn't learn anything. I don't think Anthony was even born in 1975.
01:40:40: Yeah, he wasn't. Bernie Sanders was 102 in 1975.
01:40:50: Hey guys, I remember the Kennedy assassination. I remember the moon landing. Wow. I remember when the
01:40:59: Beatles first came out. Yeah, I remember that stuff. Oh yeah, Vietnam War. I almost got drafted.
01:41:05: You know, I remember stuff. But at any rate, yeah, I'm old and starting to show it. But yeah, that's what
01:41:11: I think. Hey, Matt, real quick before, it would be good. You know, there's been a lot of people who have been praying for me, for your wife.
01:41:18: Um, could you, could you give a, an update on how she's doing? You want to share?
01:41:27: She doesn't want me to say too much, but how about if I generically say that, um, she's had some setbacks.
01:41:33: Three weeks ago, she's in the hospital. I had to cut a conference attendant short and, um, she had bile duct problems and she's had various surgeries.
01:41:44: She's got two more cracked ribs, a cracked vertebra. Um, so when I walked around the block,
01:41:50: I, you know, we have a scooter that someone donated to us so that she could get around the block. And, um, she wouldn't even take that because, uh, the vibration might, uh, injure her bones.
01:42:02: So she just sat in the car and, and we just walked and that's how she's doing. And, uh, plus she's, we found a new problem.
01:42:11: She's got, it's, it's pretty bad. It's called a stupidest husband. This. I know she's had that for a long time.
01:42:18: Yeah. Well, it's been discovered. Apparently large amounts of alcohol really helps with that one.
01:42:23: Yes. No, no. I know that large amount of alcohol is supposed to make someone look better looking.
01:42:31: That's what I hope. But I'm sorry. Helping your case.
01:42:38: It will not help. She's too smart for that. Hey, honey, you want to take it? This is a couple of times.
01:42:46: Uh, he says, can some of you name a number of things you don't like that Trump's done politically?
01:42:52: Now here's, here's the thing that I, you know, we've already mentioned things we don't like about Trump.
01:42:58: Here's the thing that I find so interesting. Have you guys ever remembering any liberal being asked, can you name something that you don't like that Obama did politically?
01:43:13: You see that question never gets asked on left. Does it? No, I think it's a good question though. But Nathan could tell you what he doesn't like.
01:43:20: The point, the point I'm saying is the expectation is, and this is, this is what the media generates is that if you're on the right, you're supposed to be critical even of your own candidate.
01:43:32: But if you're on the left, you're not supposed to say anything if you disagree.
01:43:38: And the question itself shows that, you know, there are people who are conditioned with what the media is trying to push, which is anti -Christian.
01:43:48: I mean, their agenda is a very anti -Christian agenda. It's, they're, they're not journalists anymore.
01:43:54: They're activists and they're just using their journalism for their activism.
01:44:00: Yep. You got, you got that right. That's the only smart thing you ever said. Now, you know,
01:44:07: I will answer, I'll answer the question. There's one thing, I mean, there's several things I don't like politically.
01:44:12: Now we have to keep in mind something. It's not like the president passes laws, right?
01:44:19: I mean, you have to have Congress that passes laws. So some of my criticisms would be when they have the
01:44:27: House and the Senate and the presidency in the first two years, there are some things that I expected to get done.
01:44:35: I expected a, I expected a national concealed carry act that the concealed gun, concealed carry was going to happen.
01:44:43: If you had any license in any state, it'd be good in every state or just a constitutional carry everywhere.
01:44:48: I expected that to happen because that was talked about the year before.
01:44:54: I expected, what else? Oh, I expected suppressors to not have to have a special stamp for them.
01:45:02: So a lot of minor gun things, but I expected those things to come through. I expected Planned Parenthood to be defunded really fast.
01:45:11: And look, let's face it, as much as Trump has, I think, tried to do, it's still, to me, a black mark.
01:45:20: Not enough got done, especially in those first two years when we had the opportunities. Take the biggest thing he's known for, the wall.
01:45:27: He waited until the Republicans were out of office to start pushing that. You know, why did he -
01:45:33: Yeah, well - Now, the argument - And you make - Go ahead, Sean.
01:45:39: You make a good point, Anthony, because you're bringing up the different branches of government, which most
01:45:45: Americans are clueless about. This small group of bots that have chased
01:45:54: Bernie Sanders around the country because he screams, free, free, free, free, free, free, free.
01:46:00: Don't understand that even if God allowed Bernie Sanders to be elected, absolutely nothing would ever get done because his free, that he likes to claim, would not be popular with either party.
01:46:17: They would not be popular with the Democrats and or the Republicans. And here we would sit for four years under nothingness.
01:46:28: Yeah. Yeah, you're right, because most of the Democrat party is not willing to accept the
01:46:33: Marxism that he touts. They're not, they're not. I mean, look, it is interesting.
01:46:39: You look at Bernie and he's being, you know, he's being just rushed out a second time.
01:46:47: You know, they stole the election from him in the, you know, nomination last time and they're doing it again. I mean, are you telling me that he was winning all these states and then as soon as everyone drops out, they drop out so that, you know, that Biden can get more of their, you know, so they're not splitting that vote anymore.
01:47:05: And then all of a sudden he just wins everything. I mean, even Warren dropped out and Warren would, her vote would have been splitting
01:47:13: Bernie's. So. So back to my point, back to my point earlier that I made about the fact is that we are a two -party system.
01:47:21: Yes, there's other parties, but they're meaningless. We are a two -party system. Bernie Sanders is not a
01:47:26: Democrat. Look, Bernie. He is not, he is not backed financially by the
01:47:32: Democratic party. He is an independent and they, he is, he was not going to, he wasn't going to win in 2016.
01:47:39: He's not going to, he's not going to win in 20, he's not even going to be the primary candidate. He is not, he is not a viable candidate for the
01:47:46: Democratic party. If you want proof that this is a two -party system, whether we like it or not, it's really simple.
01:47:51: Look at the three people we're talking about. We're talking Bernie. We're talking Biden. We're talking
01:47:57: Trump. Biden is the only one that's actually a party guy. Trump is, he was a
01:48:03: Democrat for years. Maybe at best we could say a libertarian at heart until he wanted to win the presidency and then ran as a
01:48:10: Republican. Bernie is a socialist, but will never get elected on a socialist party.
01:48:16: So he runs as a Democrat. They know they will never win other than the two -party system.
01:48:24: That's a fact. And you bring something up that's really interesting. You know, Trump had been, had been
01:48:31: Democrat most of his life, right? It was a big, I mean, how many times did he appear with Hillary Clinton and others, right?
01:48:37: Yeah. So you have that. But look at the last two Republican candidates that ran.
01:48:43: You have Mitt Romney, who, look, look at his track record as governor in Massachusetts.
01:48:49: He was a socialist. He was a socialist before people who were socialists were. And then you see his, his, his healthcare that was there.
01:48:57: I mean, he literally, they took Obamacare and modeled it after what happens in Massachusetts.
01:49:02: And so not only do you have that, but then you got John McCain, who some, some parts of him were way right.
01:49:09: But in the reality, he was a Democrat in almost everything. So like, this is, this is what's really scary for, for conservatives and people of conservative values is we actually have not put up a conservative value candidate ever since George W.
01:49:26: And even he wasn't great. Yeah, correct. So, all right.
01:49:31: We got, we got a couple minutes left. Anyone have any last, last things they want to wrap up with?
01:49:41: So Matt, you should go back and listen to the first hour, hour and 10 minutes of the show that you missed. I think, I think you'll find it good leading up to the part you listened to.
01:49:51: Usually you guys do good stuff. So you should listen and then repent for, yeah,
01:49:56: I understand the logic. I do. Matt's live tomorrow. We're going to be hearing
01:50:02: Matt going, I'm voting for Trump. What's more important,
01:50:08: Matt, voting for the, for the best candidate or just being able to say,
01:50:14: I want to, I want to be objective. I mean, they're not going to consider you objective anyway. It doesn't matter.
01:50:21: So just vote, vote your heart. Do the right thing. That's what I plan to do.
01:50:27: I never know. I mean, it just depends on what is there at that time.
01:50:33: Yeah. Sean, go ahead. I want, I want to make sure you get. So evangelicals, again, in 2016 overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump at 81%.
01:50:44: They're going, it's going to be higher this time. You've got, again, you've got never Trumpers.
01:50:49: You've got always Trumpers. And then you've got hesitant Trumpers. You've kind of got this third party that the hesitant
01:50:55: Trumpers are still going to vote for Trump regardless if they're evangelical or not.
01:51:01: Our duty as Christians is to vote. We're placed in America under a system that allows us to do so.
01:51:07: We should follow that rule of law as we are commanded to do and vote. And you and Matt, you have every right to vote whom you want to vote for.
01:51:16: I care not who you vote for. I think we all should vote. We should all go cast a vote because that is the
01:51:23: God -given right that we have been, that's been bestowed upon us. And I don't blame anyone if they want to vote for the
01:51:31: Democratic Party. I don't in any right mind see how they could do so and be a
01:51:36: Christian with the platform that's there. But nonetheless, we should do it. We have the God -given right to do so.
01:51:43: And that's what we should do. And the thing that I'll say that we started out with is
01:51:48: I think that yes, we should vote because we have a responsibility to vote as Christians.
01:51:53: But we need to be about the business that we as Christians should be doing, which is the gospel more than the message of politics.
01:52:04: I think that the big problem we have in this country is that people gave up the gospel message for the political message.
01:52:10: And now they're complaining people are not, you know, we don't see the political message.
01:52:17: We're seeing less morality. Well, it's because you went political instead of going biblical. And I think that's a problem that we see.
01:52:26: And so, you know, look, we have our individual views and our individual positions.
01:52:33: We'll see what ends up happening when election time comes. But I think this, I'll say this.
01:52:39: One thing that is refreshing is finally, we're having a President Trump that actually sounds like president, you know, these daily briefings.
01:52:51: If you listen to him, it's like he finally is he's talking about the country coming together.
01:52:57: He's talking about Democrats and Republicans working together. He's like, you actually see where he's trying not to insult the
01:53:06: Democrats. Even he's got the media that's constantly prodding him. It's like he's finally showing a little bit of restraint on his tongue, which
01:53:14: I think is the thing that everybody has wanted. Right. I mean, but not with his thumbs.
01:53:21: He's the issue is, is I think that, you know, as Christians, whether Barack Obama, Donald Trump, we as Christians pray for our president.
01:53:32: He is our president regardless because God has put him in that place.
01:53:38: It doesn't matter if we agree with him or not. We support him. We pray for him. And we want we always this is very true for Trump as well as Obama.
01:53:48: We want them to get saved. All right. They need to repent and believe in Jesus Christ and have eternal life.
01:53:55: That's the most important thing. That's more important than what he could do with handling of this virus thing.
01:54:00: That's going to sound crazy to many people, but the reality is eternity is a long time to be wrong.
01:54:07: And it is far more important for what we do with eternity. And that is the thing that the trials we might have in this life, the things that we have in this life, they're going to pale in comparison to what we end up seeing with eternity.
01:54:26: OK, this is from Romans chapter eight, Paul saying, for I consider that the suffering of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is revealed to us.
01:54:41: So that is the perspective of the Christian. We're struggling right now. We see the struggles with this virus.
01:54:47: And, you know, poor Nick is stuck at home with Matt all day and not able to get out and see normal people.
01:54:54: That's got to be hard. It's a large bus you're throwing me under.
01:55:05: But the reality is this, the suffering that Matt's wife is going through right now, the suffering that many people are going through with this virus, all of this suffering that Democrats are going to having to listen to a
01:55:19: Republican president, it all pales in comparison to those of us who know
01:55:24: Christ. It pales in comparison to the glory that we'll have one day being glorified in a future state, being made right with him.
01:55:34: That is far more important. And that is a far more important message than the message of the political system.
01:55:42: And so my challenge would be for the Christians is far more important to know gospel message than the
01:55:50: Republican message. It's far more important to be sharing the gospel message than the Republican message.
01:55:55: That would be my challenge. Now, next week, I don't know if we're going to do this.
01:56:02: For next week, we may have Emilio Ramos coming in to answer questions on covenant theology.
01:56:09: He's going to be recording with me tomorrow for the rap report. For folks who haven't been listening to a rap report, we've been doing a series this month on the church.
01:56:19: We got into dispensationalism versus covenant theology, which John MacArthur was very kind enough to properly put the context to covenant theology, answered it very well at Shepard's Conference upsetting many.
01:56:36: Many Catholic theology, right? Yeah. The history of that.
01:56:43: What we'll do at the end of this month is actually play the clip of him talking about that, and then
01:56:49: I played Emilio's response to that. I sent it to Emilio and said, would you want to have a longer response?
01:56:57: He was like, sure. I'm going to record with him tomorrow for the rap report. Just go check out
01:57:02: Andrew Rapport's rap report and podcast, and you can check that out. Then Emilio may come on to this show to do two hours.
01:57:11: Maybe Matt will come in so that we can get five different views. Emilio's view, my view, and all of Matt's different views.
01:57:27: It's like having 57 genders. All in one person.
01:57:33: That's Matt, yeah. What's the shirt you wanted? What was that thing that you had that explained all the views that you have?
01:57:41: You mean the statement I have on a t -shirt? Yeah. I forget what it was, but you're like,
01:57:47: I'm an all -millennial, this, that. Oh, yeah. I'm an all -millennial. Wait, I'm a five -point, all -millennial, non -cessationist, covenantal
01:57:55: Calvinist. What are you? That's what I was on a t -shirt I used to wear. There's all kinds of things that don't actually work with it.
01:58:05: They work. You don't fit into any system the way they're laid out. Come on.
01:58:10: No, I don't. I don't fit into anybody's thing. I believe the wicked are taken before the good at the end of the tribulation, which at the end of that is the completion of the new heavens or the new earth will be made at that point.
01:58:23: I'm a continuationist, five -pointer. You're an all -millennial who believes in a future for Israel. You're all messed up.
01:58:32: I'm all messed up. Maybe it would be 10 views, Amelia's, mine, and the rest of yours.
01:58:39: I just read scripture. I just read scripture to go, oh, hey, in a lot of areas, I don't have enough experience or knowledge to be able to make a really assertive statement.
01:58:48: But I'll go, hey, I'll hold that for now until something else comes along. Which way is the doctrinal wind blowing?
01:58:55: Hey, so as we close out, I'm just going to let folks know. I'm just going to ask.
01:59:02: I don't typically do things like this, but I'm going to ask for prayer. There's some things going on in the life with my family.
01:59:11: And some big decisions that we have in front of us to make. And so I will covet the prayers.
01:59:18: I don't want to get into the details just yet. They may be in the future.
01:59:24: We might be. But we do got a lot of things going on. So that will affect a lot of stuff.
01:59:31: But other than just moving with my empty shelves who, I guess, for Mark Spence's sake, my books and I are practicing social distancing.
01:59:42: They've distanced themselves to my garage. And they're packed away waiting for me to eventually at some point move.
01:59:49: And so, but I do what I do. Go visit them every now and then. Mine are in my garage, too.
01:59:56: Yeah, but yours aren't in boxes. Okay. Donnie Jacks just said it was Beth Moore that convinced Matt to not vote for Trump.
02:00:02: Is that true? No. I just wanted to vote for a constitutionalist.
02:00:12: That's all. Oh, so it was Beth Moore, huh? We should put that out. You should change your name to Beth Less.
02:00:23: All right. I kind of like Beth at home. So, all right.
02:00:30: Well, I appreciate you guys coming in. It was a lively discussion. We should be back next
02:00:36: Thursday night. And we'll see if Matt's going to be able to come back in. We never know.
02:00:42: Depends. It's a week by week thing with him. So, be praying for he and me. Pray more for Neek because not only is her health bad, but she's still stuck with this husband of hers.
02:00:52: So, you know. That's true. Don't know what to do about that. Yeah, in all seriousness, thank you,
02:00:58: Matt, for being on. Sean, a big thank you for coming in. It was fun having you to the show.
02:01:05: Appreciate you. Appreciate you guys. I'll have you guys on Word for America again someday. That'd be good.
02:01:11: It's been a while. So, until next week, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.