What is the role of a preacher when it comes to politics & current events?

So Elijah, what did he do? He rebuked the king, Ahab, and the reason why things were so bad, according to Elijah, which means it's according to God, it's the king's fault.

It's the king's fault. Now any time where I'm preaching through a passage or on Wednesday night teaching through whatever subject we're looking at, we always want to try to make application.

We see what's written, but what does that mean for us? In the

New Testament, again, John the Baptist did this same type of thing. He saw that the leader, the king, was utterly corrupt, and John, as a mouthpiece for God, he had something to say about it.

Now does that mean, and maybe this is a matter of opinion, maybe not, should preachers today, and you can just raise your hand and give your view on this, because of what

Elijah did and John and the prophets preaching against the kings, does that mean preachers today should be, number one, speaking about the issues that face the nation?

Should preachers today speak to the issues facing the nation? Yeah, and I think most people would say this.

Absolutely, preachers should be addressing the issues facing the nation, because if it faces the nation, it's going to face the church to some extent.

So I think most Christians would agree with that. The second question, because some of these men,

John the Baptist called out Herod by name, Jesus called out Herod by name, should preachers call out political leaders by name when they are clearly doing evil in the sight of God?

Not some little thing here, or should they do that? Okay, well let's back it up a little.

Can they do that? Is it permissible to do that? I think you'd have to say, yeah, you can do that.

Should you do it? Now, and again, I know there's a lot of people say, well, you know, that you don't have a direct message from God like they did, so you know, you're kind of getting out of your lane a little bit, and I think there is a danger when your ministry is just led about by everything that's on the news, and you start following along with everything on the world.

So that is a danger, but can a preacher do that? Should a preacher do that?

Maybe there'll be some disagreement. Just remember, if you do it, you better know what you're talking about.

It better clearly be evil and wrong, according to the Word of God, and just expect there's going to be some blowback, and I think that's why most preachers don't do it, because once you name the names and it gets into that whole realm, then it, you know, kind of creates a mess, but I think there were legitimate times when

Bill Clinton had his adulterous affair. There were preachers who dealt with that publicly, and I don't think they were wrong to do that, because again,

I think it's important to make some sort of application. One last thing on that.

John the Baptist, what happened to John the Baptist? He was beheaded. I remember somebody said, well, it's because John got into politics.

That's why, you know, he cut his ministry short. I don't know about that, but obviously there is some risk, because kings and world rulers, depending on the country, if you're living in a dictatorship, obviously if you preach against the dictator, yeah, your life is probably in danger.