WWUTT 2280 Q&A Can a Husband Tell His Wife How to Vote, Do We Have an Obligation to Vote, Praying for This Election

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Responding to comments from listeners about whether a husband should tell his wife how to vote, are Christians somehow obligated to vote, whom can we not vote for, and remember to pray for this election and preach the gospel of Christ. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

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Can a husband tell his wife who to vote for? How should we be thinking about this election in the
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United States coming up next week? And let's be reminded of who's really in charge and seated on his throne when we understand the text.
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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary that God's word may be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto our path.
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Be sure to tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com. And once again, it's
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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. You sound a little tired. Do I? Yeah. I'm trying to sound chipper.
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Sorry, guys. That wasn't a slam. That was a... I am trying. To make light of the fact we've been pretty busy.
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Yes. But I am thrilled to get you for at least half an hour. I'm excited to be here for half an hour.
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Of this broadcast today. Yeah. We're going to be talking election stuff. Oh. Now, she's not all that excited anymore.
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Never mind. Hey, I think I'm busy. I do have sleep
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I need to be getting right now. Hey, you know. Could be something like that. It's good. This is the last broadcast that we have before the election on Tuesday.
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Yeah. Something else to be praying about. Our house in Texas closes on Wednesday. Lord willing.
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Hopefully, the result of the election won't make our buyers change their mind. Oh my goodness. Let's hope not.
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I was like, can we move it up a couple of days? Monday. We can close Monday, right? Monday sounds great.
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That'll be all right. So be praying for us. Yeah, right. Be praying for us. After a year, that house has been on the market.
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Oh my goodness. It's been so long. We're coming up. Just in the next few days, we will have been here in Arizona for a year.
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Yeah. It has been wonderful being a part of Providence Reformed Baptist Church.
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It has. Here in Casa Grande. It's been a lovely church. It's been a terrific year, and we're now about to jump into the
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Book of Romans. Yeah. That's what we've got coming up here. Exciting. In November. This is
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November. It's November the 1st today. Yes. It's very exciting. Where did
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October go? Fast. It's a combination. It's kind of weird.
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It's a combination of fast, and at the same time, I'm thinking back on things that happened at the beginning of the month.
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It was like, good grief. That feels like two months ago. It does. It very much does. I think forever.
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And yet, all of a sudden, we're like, November. I think it's more of the fact that November is so much closer to the end of the year that November just feels like, wow, this whole year.
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That's when you start reminiscing about everything that you didn't do and all of your New Year's resolutions that you still didn't get very far on.
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I'm going to lose this 20 pounds. Right? I got two months. I'm going to lose this now 30 pounds because it's the end of the year instead of losing 20.
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I've lost 10 pounds in a month before. I can do this. You have. 20 pounds before the end of the year. I can do it.
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You have. No more snacks, though. I got to stop. I keep buying snacks, though, because the kids and you go through them so fast.
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I'm like, guys. No, the majority of what I eat is the food the kids leave out at night. Which is snacks.
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And it's not snacks. It's not. It's the leftover food we ate for supper. Oh, that's right, because they inhale the snacks.
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Oh, my goodness. And then I eat the leftover food. You should just knock out the snacks and make them eat their food.
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Whoa. What a revolutionary idea. Whoa. How about that? We've got a couple that I think get into that pantry and sneak some food.
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I know, right? Yeah. Occasionally, I will find candy wrappers inside the candy bag.
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And I'm like, hmm. Who was this? And now we got a bunch of Harvest Festival candy.
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Yes. So we had that question last week about, as Christians, do we participate in Halloween?
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What about Harvest Festivals or Reformation Day parties? Yeah, we totally did a Harvest Festival that a local church was doing.
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Kids loved it. Yes, they did. And it beat trick -or -treating times five.
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Oh, really? Oh, yeah. They had a blast. I wasn't able to go. I was with our older daughter. Yeah. Who then got injured.
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Who sprained her ankle. So I'm glad I was there. Yep. Well, babe, we got to get into our scripture.
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I tried to jump into the scripture first, but we're just chatting away. We are. Sorry. Because we haven't seen each other all week. I know. Hello. Yeah.
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So this is Proverbs 6, verses 6 through 11, as we pick up on our study in Proverbs.
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Go to the aunt, O sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise, without having any chief, officer, or ruler.
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She prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there,
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O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man.
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I don't think that's our problem right now because of how busy we are.
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I actually, this was one of the memory verses that I had the kids memorize. So at least the first portion,
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I didn't make them do the full thing. I remember them doing go to the aunt, O sluggard. Yeah. I remember that. It was to encourage them to be good workers.
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Yeah. So that was our theme of memory verses. Of having the want to, as my dad used to say.
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You got to have the want to. Yes. I love what's said here in verse 7. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in the summer.
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So nobody has to tell her to do it. Right. She is self -sufficient in the sense that I know that I've got work
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I need to get done. Yeah. And nobody has to be barking orders at me, although it can be helpful to have a trainer or somebody.
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Yeah, motivating you. Somebody that's there that's motivating you to get. Reminding you. Yeah. Sometimes we're doing that for each other.
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Yes. Babe, why are you on your phone? Yeah. You got this to do. Yes. You're right. And then also,
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I utilize my phone and I set alarms. I need to remember to do this. Yes. I need to remember to do this.
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Have that alarm go off at those times. And keep us moving. Keep us doing the things that we need to do.
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Yes. It is... What's the old adage? This isn't from the Bible, of course, but the idle hands are the devil's playthings.
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Oh, yes. Yeah. Doing nothing, well, the devil's accomplishing something.
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Yeah. Or it could be the sort of thing where you're not investing your hands into doing something constructive and so then you end up doing something destructive.
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Yeah. Could be the way that goes. I remember a friend of mine or a teacher friend of mine years ago in my youth say something like, what are the first two letters of God?
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Go. What are the first three letters of Satan? Sat. Yeah. Yeah.
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He was just doing that to try to get me motivated. Yeah. So go, go do it. Something to remember.
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That's right. It's not like there's necessarily a truth in that somewhere. Yeah. Anyway, it was enough to get me moving.
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It did the trick. That's right. All right. Well, today we've got questions from the listeners. You can send questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
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Remind me that I've got a poll question. You have a poll question. That I have to get to before the end of this segment as well.
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You're welcome. Now, we're mostly responding to comments that we got on a couple of different messages.
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We'll see how far we get in this first segment. And then if you're not able to stay with us through the full hour, know that this first segment is a half hour.
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This airs on some Christian radio stations that air this program for us. Yeah. And then if you're listening to the podcast, you get a full hour of the
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Q &A. That's right. So some of these comments will just continue on into that next half hour.
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Plus, I've got some video clips and things like that we're going to play. But first of all, this comes back to an ad that Kamala Harris was running.
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Kamala had an ad in which she was encouraging wives to be dishonest with their husbands.
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This is the way The Hill reported on this ad. A new Harris -Waltz campaign ad voiced by actress
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Julia Roberts encourages women to vote for Vice President Harris in the presidential election, even if their husbands are backing former
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President Trump. I thought that was Julia Roberts voice in that ad. Okay. It sounded like her.
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And this confirms it. The Roberts ad put out by this agency also alludes to abortion rights, which is seen as a pivotal issue in a race that has seen
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Trump with big polling leads among male voters and Harris with a large lead among female voters.
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In one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know,
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Roberts says in the ad, as a woman on screen meets up with her husband after casting her ballot for Harris.
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So just kind of cut to the chase here. If you haven't seen this ad, the husband asked the wife, so did you vote or something like that?
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And she goes, I sure did, honey. Or did you pick the right candidate? I think's what he says. She goes,
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I sure did. And she winks at another woman who they were both like conspiring with each other.
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Our husbands expect us to vote for Trump, but we're going to vote for Harris. So the ad actually encourages wives to lie.
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You don't have to tell your husband who you really voted for. So I kind of spoofed this ad on X and I said,
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Kamala to married women, you still have a right to choose. You can vote any way you want.
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He doesn't have to know. And then I put my wife to me. All right, babe, tell me who
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I'm voting for. That's true. So here's some of the comments that I got to that.
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Okay. Megan Basham actually responded. She said, when I was nine, I asked my mom who she was voting for without an ounce of irony or being cute.
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She said, whoever your father tells me to vote for. I laugh thinking about that now.
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Gene from Montana said the Mrs. To me. Why are we voting for slash against him slash her slash that right?
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Yeah. Jacob from California. This is exactly our voting scenario. My wife trusts me to do my homework and simply asks how she needs to fill out her ballot.
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We multiply our voting power, not cancel each other out. We are two votes, but we are one.
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That's a great way to put that. Yes. And honestly, if you're voting for different people, I think there's some strife in your marriage there.
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Yeah. I can't think of a scenario in which two people in a marriage would be voting for two different people, and there's actually not some sort of household conflict.
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Yeah. How do you get past that? Because you look at the conflict that exists. You can't even go and have
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Thanksgiving meals with your extended family and talk politics.
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You just can't. That's right. Can't do it anymore. That's the old joke. Don't talk religion or politics at the Thanksgiving table.
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Yeah. And then here's me pulling my RC Sproul blackboard out, and I'm drawing all over it. Yeah. Yeah. That's me at the
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Thanksgiving table. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of concerning when you're voting two different ways in a marriage.
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I love that we are of the same mind about it. You're asking me who we're voting for because that's where your heart would be anyway.
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Right. Yeah. And you know I'm keeping up on the issues. And you also explained to me some of the issues that the other person has or that this person has or whatever and what this proposition means and so on and so forth.
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So I'm like, well, yeah, of course we would do that. I mean, what's the other answer? This time four years ago, we had already voted.
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We had tried to do that this week. But yeah, like we said. Life happens. Busy. Yes. The way it's been.
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Lynn from California. I have always followed politics, and my husband trusts the way I vote and just copies my voter card.
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Ah. Now, I went to her page and looked, and she's a pretty conservative voter. So she has the interest in the politics.
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Her husband's probably watching sports. Maybe. Or whatever. Whatever he's doing. He could be really busy with his job.
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Yes. And so just ask her. So what's your research turned up? Trust her. Trust the person who does the best research.
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Yeah. I see that being all right. It's trust and marriage. That's exactly right. Lorene says, this is why it's important to be equally yoked.
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That's a great comment. Yes. Ben from Montana. So sad. So sad.
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That's it. Yeah. Oh, okay. I don't know which part is so sad, but okay.
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It's apparently sad that you asked me who we're voting for. Oh. Okay. I can't wait until two years from now, and then
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I get three votes in our house, because our oldest daughter will be old enough to vote. That's true. Yeah.
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Christina. I mean, if my hubby told me to vote for Kamala, I'd be questioning a lot of things, but he's not a liberal, so I'm good.
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Kathleen from Ohio. Especially the amendment stuff. I need my husband. I do know to always vote no to levies.
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Okay. So he's coached her well there. Yeah. It just gets confusing. It does.
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It really does. Like the wording. I'm like, just tell me what it means. Yes. Like, what are we voting for?
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So I walked out of the mall, like, I don't know, months ago, and there was a guy standing there with a petition, and he's like, so do you support women's votes, or women's rights, or something like that?
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Yeah. And I had no idea. I mean, we're still new here. Right. This was like that long ago, right?
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Yes. And I didn't realize that Arizona already had a law in place against abortion.
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Yes, it did. Right. At that time. And I asked him. That's changed since then. Yes, it has. But I asked the guy who was standing there asking for signatures, and I said, so this means that, you know, you're asking for someone to, like, vote for or against abortion?
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And he's like, well, yeah. And I was like, oh, well, of course. And I went and signed the petition, because I didn't know everything, which is why
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I have my husband do all the details, because it just makes sense to him. It does not make sense to me at all.
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It's interesting that I've had more people here in Arizona approach me about signing some sort of petition.
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Yeah. Politically. Right. It always has to do with something political.
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I've had that happen more in Arizona than anywhere else I've lived. Right. And this is my fifth state that I've lived in.
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I mean, I kind of remember them coming by when I was little to our house in Kansas, but it wasn't often like it is here.
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This is a lot. I've had that occasionally. Absolutely. But it's almost like I've been asked more this year than any of the other states in all the years that I've lived there.
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Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting how much petitions go around here. I don't know if that's changed since, you know, all the stuff that happened with Maricopa County four years ago.
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Oh, maybe. I don't know if that's the reason for it or not. Maybe. Molly says, if my husband is willing to give up his life for me, and he is,
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I can trust him to do what's best for me. And to that extension, the country. I'm happy to have him tell me how to vote.
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Amen. That is a great way to put it, Molly. Oh, I know something else I was going to mention to what you were saying before about like, how do you understand these amendments?
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Yeah. No. It's all Greek. A friend of mine made the joke earlier this week that sometimes the amendments wording is like, vote yes to vote no to vote yes.
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Yes. Thank you. And I'm like, wait, wait, how many? What? And I'm usually starving by then, you know, by the time you actually get in to vote.
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Yeah. And I'm like, I'm just ready to go home and tired. And so I'm not thinking straight anyway.
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Nah. Anyway. This gal, Ashley, who says she's a graduate from Notre Dame, she said, ew.
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Ew? That's it. That's an odd response. Because you asked me who to vote for.
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She said, ew. I looked at her profile page. That's still an odd response. Her profile has a picture of her and her husband and their baby from what it looks like.
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And I guess her husband doesn't tell her who to vote for. She's a Notre Dame grad.
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That's a pretty traditional school, isn't it? I don't know. I don't keep up with Notre Dame except when they get completely overrated in the football polls.
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That's the only time I ever really care about what's going on with Notre Dame. Jack from Orlando.
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I run the household. I provide income and protection. I'm a Christian husband and father. Of course, my wife and the kids who live under my roof vote like I do.
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Exactly like I do. Not because they are forced, but because they know I'd die for them.
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They honor me. Amen. That's kind of like the other side of Molly's comment from earlier. Wow, that's nothing to brag about.
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I don't know. Was I bragging about it? I don't think so. I just thought it was funny. It didn't sound like a brag to me.
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This anonymous troll said, remember this fictional story. Apparently saying this exchange has never happened between us.
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Oh, right. Because I'm going to be one of those Kamala people. Yeah, exactly. Remember this fictional story when she divorces you in two years.
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Oh, my goodness. Yep. And there's another one that's like that, too. Almost the exact same wording. Steven from Montana.
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Also Gabriel in two years. I can't believe she left me. What's with two years? Who knows?
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Were people collaborating on that? Gabe's going to be alone in two years.
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Maybe that's the average of marriage. How long marriage lasts anymore. Oh, no. We're well beyond average at this point.
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Oh, I know we are. I'm saying the two years. Maybe that's the average. The average after I tell you who to vote for is that you stay for two years.
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I said. Oh, my goodness. The average length of marriage. Is it two years now?
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Oh, I think it's five. Is it five? Yeah, I think five is the average. Okay, so maybe they figure that we're married for three years already.
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Who knows? We go through one election cycle. Right. And then once you've had to vote like I tell you to.
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Yeah, right. Christy from Clearwater, Florida. Hi, Gabe. Her vote is not your business and tell her so.
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If you love her, tell her you trust her. Tell her. Oh, my goodness. They don't know me.
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That her vote is her private activity. That's your wife. Respect her. You remember whenever I asked you not to put it on Facebook that we were engaged?
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Yes, I remember that. I didn't want all the girls like hounding me about it and stuff and like being rude.
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You're a very bad guy. You got all the heat for them saying, that's so unfair to your fiance.
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You should tell the world. Yes, I did. Oh, yes. Do you remember that? I remember that now. This is like cycling around again.
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So we did not put anything on Facebook that we were dating or that we were engaged.
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And this was in a time when it was like everybody's - Facebook was the thing. Exactly. It was like your relationship status is official when it's on Facebook.
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Yes. That was kind of the common - Joke. Yeah.
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But not a joke. It was a real thing. And then I didn't put it on there. And so many people were like,
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I can't believe you would do that to her. She has no security. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
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That was it. I remember them saying that. You're not committed. You could leave her.
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Yes. Oh, my goodness. Are you kidding me? I was like, wow. Because Facebook. I was just not expecting that kind of pushback.
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That was really bizarre. So then as a joke in our wedding - Yes. As soon as we said our
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I do's, there were - We pretended to update our Facebook accounts. There were a couple of ushers who came up with laptops and we updated our marriage status on Facebook.
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The people who knew the controversy that was going on got a real kick out of that. It was funny. Did we ever actually -
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No. I think we did later. We did later. Yeah. Because it was like they weren't connected to the internet or something.
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Oh, that's right. I think we did. We were going to do it for real. We were. But the internet was buggy that day, so we just mimed that we were doing it.
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Yeah. Now that I remember. Last comment here. Avery from Louisiana. Real question.
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What if the husband is voting for Harris? Should a Christian woman vote as her husband then?
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I think you know the answer to that. Yeah. No. And maybe talk to him as to why he's voting for Harris.
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Yeah, right. And what things he supports or he thinks that he's supporting because maybe he's convinced that he's on your side.
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Yeah. And then you guys can have that heart to heart and explain why it's really not on your side.
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There are people that are voting for the Democrat ticket that I'm sure they think that they are making the right decision.
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For sure. I think just about anybody that votes Democrat. They're not voting Democrat to burn the world down. Right. There's probably some that think that.
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Well, yeah. Some. Some. I would agree with that. So their intentions are good.
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Yes. But it's, yeah, you can't hold to Christian principles and vote for the Democrat ticket.
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Right. We addressed that last week. You can go to last week's episode and hear some of that.
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That was in the second half, wasn't it? Second half of the episode last week. So a couple of poll questions that I did.
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Yes. On X. I still want to call it Twitter. Every time I have to like, it hits a roadblock in my brain.
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It's Twitter. No, it's X. Anyway, it sounds weird to say I'm on X. These were polls on X now.
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Like, instead of posted. I X'd. Or tweeted. You X'd. No, officially they've said whenever you post something on X, it's a post.
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You posted, it's a post. Honestly, I think it's better than tweet.
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That's silly. You've always hated that word. The whole thing with Twitter sounded so cartoony. I'm on Twitter.
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And I tweeted. Well, you're a twit. That's just what that comes down to.
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Oh, dear. Okay, so your poll questions. Here's the poll questions. So I did two at the same time.
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They were both posted. In fact, the polls are still going on. But I don't think the numbers are going to adjust that much before we get to the end of this.
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So the first question was, can a vote for Trump be loving to your neighbor and honoring to the
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Lord? Okay. And the second question is, can a vote for Kamala be loving to your neighbor and honoring of the
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Lord? Okay. Now, a vast majority of the followers that we have on X, of course, are going to be
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Christians. There's going to be some that will chime in that are not. But the majority of these responses are coming from the
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Christian followers of the What account on X. So first of all, with the
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Trump question, because this actually had the least amount of response. Okay. The Trump question did not have as much interaction as the
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Kamala question. Can a vote for Trump be loving to your neighbor and honoring to the Lord? Here are the four options.
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Yes, absolutely. No, there's no way. Neutral, it's just a vote.
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And then I don't know. And then some people could leave some comments as well. So 76 .6
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% came out saying yes, absolutely. Oh, interesting. By the way, as the poll stands right now, there's 342 votes, twice as many votes on the other poll.
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Okay. But this one with over 300 votes, yes, absolutely. A Christian can vote for Trump in a way that is loving to their neighbor and is honoring of the
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Lord. 8 .5 % said no, there's no way. Okay. It's not possible for a
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Christian to vote for Trump and be loving of neighbor and honoring of God. 7 .9
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% said neutral. It's just a vote. No, a vote is not neutral. I was going to say.
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A vote is binary in this case. You're either voting for one or the other. Yeah. And then last of all,
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I don't know. That was 7 % of the response. Now, I did get a couple of comments to this one. Ben said,
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I responded, yes, absolutely. But if Ron DeSantis was on the ticket, I would have voted more confidently.
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Ah, fair enough. Ben, I'm with you on that. He was by far the better candidate, but Trump just has the popularity.
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Ben, by the way, is chiming in from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. So thank you for your comment, Ben. Oh, and now
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I close my poll. Oh, no. Hang on. Let me bring it back up. Okay. All right. The second question now.
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Can a vote for Kamala be loving to your neighbor and honoring of the Lord? 2 .5 % said yes, absolutely.
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I assume that your answers are all the same. Yeah, all the same as the previous question.
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Right. Okay. So 2 .5 % said yes, absolutely. Out of 690 votes, as it stands right now.
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92 .8 % said, nope, there's no way. How much was that?
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92 .8%, greater than 9 out of 10 people. Wow. Yep. That's...
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Said there's no way you can vote for Kamala and have that vote be loving to your neighbor and honoring of God.
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That's a lot of people. 2 .3 % said neutral and 2 .5 % said, I don't know.
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This fellow named Kyle said, yes, there's lots of policies. She's much better on than Trump.
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But, of course, Kyle doesn't mention any of those policies. And this is common among Kamala voters.
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I was watching a video earlier yesterday where a guy on the street who was a...
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He was wearing a Kamala Walls shirt. So he was a Kamala voter. And he's going around to different people and asking them, what do you like about Kamala?
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And he's asking them, like, what policies do you like? And they can't name anything. Or if they do name something, it was only, oh, because she's pro -abortion.
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That wasn't the term they used, of course. Of course. Well, she's for women's rights. Healthcare. Right, healthcare.
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Yeah. So that was all. And you could tell he was frustrated.
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Like, you don't know any of her policies. And he's a Kamala voter. Right. And he's talking to people who did not even know any of Kamala's policies.
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The best they could come up with was, well, she was pro -abortion. Well, I mean, think of the way that she answers the questions in most of those interviews that get picked clean.
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Yeah. Usually. She doesn't answer any questions, really. She gives the runaround, and then she changes the subject.
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Oh, she's terrible. Yeah. And horrible at answering questions. Well, in Daniel 2, we read that it is
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God who sets up kings and tears down kings. So regardless of what happens this coming
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Tuesday, like what's going on right now, I guess, since people are even voting early. Yes. God is sovereign.
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He is in control. And we continue to trust in Him. Christ reigns. Amen. We encourage you to get out and vote if you're an
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American citizen. Yes, we do. If you're not, there are states that will still let you vote anyway. Okay, that's not what you're supposed to say.
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That's a joke. I'm not telling you to come in and vote. I'm just saying there are states that will let you do that anyway.
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But be in prayer for America. Yes, please. Pray for us anyway. We need to be out there spreading the gospel, and we can't wait for an election result to do that.
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Amen. So continue to proclaim Christ and Him crucified, because it's only by the spread of the gospel that America will repent, that the hearts of Americans will change, and that God will bless this nation.
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Amen. Only if we are worshiping the King of kings and Lord of lords, who is coming soon to judge the living and the dead.
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Continue to trust in Him. This ends this first half hour. Don't forget you can catch the rest of the program on our website, www .utt
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.com. God bless. 1
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Timothy 2 begins. First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and...
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Hang on now. Prayers and thanksgivings for kings and all who are in high positions?
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So, presidents, prime ministers, dictators, governors, chiefs of state, cabinet members, congress, we're supposed to pray for them and thank
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God for them? Yes, well, that's what the Bible says. Not just because it's good for us, but especially because it pleases
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God. In Jeremiah 29, Israel had been exiled to the Babylonians because of their sin. But through the prophet
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Jeremiah, God assured them that He would not annihilate them. Rather, they needed to pray for the welfare of their captors, work the land and be successful, be fruitful and multiply their families, and watch out for false teachers in the meantime who would not be spared judgment.
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God would indeed deliver His people as He promised He would do. The apostle Paul, writing to his servant
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Timothy, says that same thing still applies. We are exiles in this world. Pray for those who are of this world, especially rulers, realizing that everyone needs to hear the saving message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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We too must watch out for false teachers who will not escape the wrath of God, nor will those who follow them.
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And just like He did in Israel, God will save all whom He means to save and lead them to a knowledge of the truth.
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Not one of His people will be lost when we understand the text. You are perhaps familiar with Deuteronomy chapter 30.
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The children of Israel are about to inherit the promised land, which was going to be given to the descendants of Abraham.
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And Moses is delivering to them what is essentially his farewell sermon. The book of Deuteronomy is a re -giving of the law, which is why it has that name.
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Deuteronomy means second law. So it's the summation of everything that had been given in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, said again to the children of Israel, but also saying to them that they need to keep these laws and these statutes.
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Don't be led astray by the false gods of the people of the land that you are going to inherit.
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You must drive them out. But Moses also makes a point to say to them, but you're not going to do it.
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You won't succeed in driving them out of the land, and you are going to fall away. You will turn from God to these false gods and worship them, and God will punish you and is listed there toward the end of Deuteronomy, the blessings and the curses.
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If you are faithful to God and you keep His statutes and you do all that He has commanded, here's the blessings that God is going to give to you.
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But if you are not faithful to God and you turn to these false gods, then here are the curses that will come upon you.
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Now, Moses was not going to inherit the Promised Land with them because he had sinned against God, and so he would see it, but then he would die, and God would put his body somewhere and take care of his burial.
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That was God who did that with Moses. Joshua was going to be Moses' successor and would lead
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Israel into the Promised Land. So the people of Israel, they know that this is Moses' last time to address them.
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And here's what we have at the end of Deuteronomy 30, beginning in verse 11. For this commandment that I command you today is not hard for you, neither is it far off.
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It is not in heaven that you should say, Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?
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Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?
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But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart so that you can do it.
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See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.
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If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your
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God, by walking in His ways, and by keeping His commandments and His statutes and His rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the
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Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them,
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I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the
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Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
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Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the
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Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to Him, for He is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the
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Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
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Now, we don't live in the promised land today, although people who live in Texas would beg to differ.
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They will claim that they do live in the promised land. America is not the promised land, though it is the land of the free and the home of the brave, as we like to call it, and it surely is a land that God is greatly blessed, and we enjoy many, many benefits for those of us who live in the
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United States. Yet, this world is not our home. We are not to get too comfortable here. The Apostle Paul had talked to the
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Philippians and had said to them not to be too comfortable being
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Roman citizens. He doesn't say it in exactly those words, but in Philippians 3 .20,
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he says, Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul would no doubt have been speaking to a proud people to have been
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Roman citizens. Paul himself was a Roman citizen, and he used that citizenship to take advantage of the rights afforded to Roman citizens that he may advance the gospel.
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But he reminded these Philippians, who enjoyed the benefits of being a Roman citizen, that our true citizenship is in heaven, and our
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Savior is Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
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Christ is over all things. He is seated over all things. He has given us his word.
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He has told us the way that we are to live. The statutes of God are given to us in the
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Bible. We don't live in the promised land, but nonetheless, if we were to keep God's statutes, he would surely bless us.
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All those who follow Jesus Christ are blessed of God. Those who do not follow
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Jesus Christ are not blessed of God. Those who will do the rules of God will still fare better than those who will rebel against God's rules, even if they don't do those rules to the glory of God.
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Those who go against the commands will make life very hard on themselves and on others, but those who do what
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God requires, those who would even follow natural law, as God has established through basic common sense, if we would just do those things, then we would fare better than if we would be in constant rebellion against God.
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The United States of America is a nation in rebellion against God. This is a nation that loves abortion.
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If I may dare to make a speculation about the election on Tuesday, I'm not a betting man, but if I were,
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I would say that I have a pretty good feeling that Trump will win the election, but all of the different abortion measures,
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I think there's 15 states that have abortion on the ballot, which is unprecedented.
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There's never been that many states that have had an abortion measure on the ballot in the same election cycle.
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I believe that every single one of those will result in abortion being upheld in the
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United States, every one of them. So far, every time abortion has been on the ballot, it goes in the direction of upholding the right to abortion, and I don't think anything's going to be any different this coming
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Tuesday. Now, I would love to be proven wrong, so prove me wrong by getting to the polls.
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Know what's being voted on in your state and vote accordingly as a Christian should.
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Here in the state of Arizona, it's Proposition 139, and we are voting no on Proposition 139, which would make abortion legal all nine months of pregnancy.
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We want to vote no against that and then do what we need to do to try to continue to pass reforms that would cherish life, uphold life, protect life in the womb.
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The Democrats are fully devoted to the sacrifice of unborn children.
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At every stage of development, all nine months of pregnancy, they're not going to give an inch on this.
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We played a clip from Kamala Harris just last week in which she said she's not even interested in offering any exemptions on the basis of religion.
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So health insurance companies, those Christian health insurance companies, will not be allowed to not support abortion.
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She's going to make them do it. And any businesses that don't want to pay for employees to have abortion rights, they won't be allowed to do that.
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If you remember the Hobby Lobby case from several years ago, all of that will come back up again. So that's what the Democrats want to push.
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They are far more radical than the Republicans are. And even though Donald Trump is pro -abortion himself, he is not as radical as the
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Democrats. He will not be forcing this upon the nation. Though he thinks a woman should have a right to choose, but he's not going to be forcing this upon everybody.
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And you've heard him in some of his speeches say that it's absurd in the 7th, 8th, and 9th months of pregnancy that a woman can kill her child.
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He does seem to hold the opinion that if a child is viable outside the womb, then it would be murder to kill that child.
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A true pro -life position would hold that life is valuable from conception, and Donald Trump is not there.
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He would say it's valuable halfway into the pregnancy, after 20 weeks or something to that effect.
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But he's also not going to force all of these different things upon all Americans or force tax dollars to cover it the way that the
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Democrats will, the way that Kamala Harris will. But there are a lot of Christians that are hesitant to vote for Trump because he's not only pro -abortion, but he's also pro -LGBTQ.
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Again, not as radical as the Democrats. So I presented this question. The first time that I presented it was back in July.
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And at that time, there had not yet been a debate between Trump and Biden. Biden was still on the ticket.
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Trump had not yet nearly been assassinated at that time yet either when I had asked this question.
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So I said, do you think a Christian can still vote for Donald Trump and be consistently pro -life? I had asked that question when it was at the time between Trump and Biden.
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Things have since changed. There was the attack on Trump's life, not just once, but even twice, two assassination attempts.
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There has been the selection of his running mate, J .D. Vance. Kamala Harris has picked her running mate,
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Tim Walz. And that's the other thing. That's the other development is that at the time in July, Kamala Harris was not on the ticket.
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Well, she was in the sense that she was the vice president, the running mate with Joe Biden, but now she is running for president.
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So that's changed. And she's even more radical than Biden. We knew that when Biden was running for president back in 2020, that Kamala was far more left than Biden was.
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There was that one website, it was called GovTrack, that had said that she voted the furthest left on everything that came to the
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Senate. And so therefore was the most leftist, the most liberal senator at the time that she was in the
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Senate when Biden had chosen her as a running mate. So she's even more liberal than Joe Biden.
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And now Biden's out and Kamala's in. So given that, given that the political landscape has changed so much since July, I ask the question again.
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I put it forward to the voters on X once again and said, do you think a
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Christian can still vote for Trump and be consistently pro -life? Has your opinion about this changed in recent weeks because of everything that was going on?
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This next time that I asked the question was in August. So the first time, very beginning of July, this next time was in August.
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Here are some of the responses that I received to that question. Woke preacher clip said, quote, pro -life
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Christians voting for Trump are voting in their self -interest. Under a
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Trump presidency, the pro -life movement will be able to organize and demonstrate at abortion clinics without persecution from the
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Department of Justice, unquote. And that's very true. So if Kamala wins, she is going to prosecute people who oppose abortion.
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She's done it before. She did it when she was the attorney general of California. So we know that she is going to weaponize the
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Department of Justice against the pro -life or abolitionist cause. Gene in Montana said, quote, political goals defeat the
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Marxists in November, then start working hard, advancing true conservatism in the
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GOP, return the GOP to a pro -life agenda, unquote. You know, I would love to see it.
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And I agree with you, Gene. I think that's a reasonable and honorable mission to want to do that with the grand old party, with the
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Republican Party. But I just don't think that it's going to happen. Everything has been digressing.
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I was going to say progressing, but I guess digressing would be the more apt word. Everything has been moving in the direction of becoming more and more liberal.
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As I heard a friend of mine say, the Republican Party is like the Democrats, but they're driving the speed limit.
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The Democrats are going further left a lot faster than the Republicans are. But everything is trending leftward.
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It's what we refer to as the Overton window. Everything's just kind of shifting in that direction.
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So I don't think it's going to come back conservative. I'm being pessimistic, of course, but I think that this is
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God turning the nation over to be consumed by its own passions. America is a wicked nation.
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The United States of America, all the perversity that it embraces. I mean, we are so wicked in the stuff that happens here in America, the sexual immorality and abortion, the child sacrifice that is the result of sexual immorality.
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This is getting exported into other nations, and they hate it. They don't want the stuff that comes out of America.
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We are way more liberal and way more depraved than some of the sins that are going on in some of these other nations.
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And so I would love to see that be the case, that we have this opportunity to kind of pull things back to be a little bit more conservative.
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I think J .D. Vance is more conservative than Donald Trump. So if Vance is going to be the follow -up to Trump, then yeah, sure, maybe it can trend back a little bit more conservative.
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But again, I just don't think that that's the digression that we're currently seeing.
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A friend who goes by the name Savagely Average, he said, pro -life isn't even on the ballot at all.
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At this point, we are only voting for fewer abortions and against Marxism and communism.
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A handle that goes by the name Truth Uncovered said, yes, regardless of his comments,
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Trump is the candidate that restrains the most evil in many ways. I think that's a good way of putting it.
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Trump is being hired by America, essentially. So we're hiring this man to do a job.
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We're hiring either this man or this woman to do this work. And the most number of Americans that vote for them, well, in a manner of speaking, it's not a
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Democratic vote. It is through the electoral college. But nonetheless, whoever wins the most electoral votes and gets selected by America to do this job has a certain role to play.
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And right now, that job is going to be to stop the things that the
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Democrats have been doing for most of the last 16 years. There's only been one
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Republican president in the last 16 years, and that was Donald Trump for one four -year term. The rest of that time, it's been controlled by Democrats.
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So you have Kamala and Tim Walz and others who are standing up saying, we're going to turn the page, we're going to go to something else.
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No, you guys have done all this. This is remaining the same. This is maintaining the status quo or this trend into worse and worse depravity and further and further into liberalism and Marxism.
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That's what's going to continue if a Democrat is in the White House. And so America wants to hire somebody to stop that and kind of restore
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America's fortunes, reduce the debt, which Trump doesn't do that very well either, put a plug in the leak, the flood of illegal immigrants that are coming across the border, try to maintain some civility in the conflicts that are going on with various different nations.
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Let's try to calm things down a little bit. Who can be a cooler in those particular situations?
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And who's going to give us the best opportunity for human flourishing? And as it stands, it looks like Trump is a better candidate than Kamala, than a
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Democrat. That just should be a given. For the Christian, this really should be a no -brainer.
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We continue with this comment from Tara in Oklahoma. Vote for the woman who will take our freedom to end abortion while unlimiting it in all states, or vote for the guy who will protect our freedom to end abortions while limiting some now.
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There is no other choice. If we care about the unborn, we should support Trump. Steve from Minnesota.
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Quote, I am 100 % pro -life. I believe abortion should always be illegal. Note, I'm not talking about ectopic pregnancies, which are never viable.
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I will be voting for Trump. By appointing strict constructionist justices to SCOTUS, Trump did more to curtail abortion in this country than any other president in my lifetime.
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Jeff from Georgia. Quote, Yes, my conscience is clear. As much as I'm extremely disappointed that Trump will not be fighting to end abortion,
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I don't think he has said he would be fighting for abortion. In my opinion, that's pretty much all you can expect from a non -Christian.
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And I could be mistaken, but I don't think he would sign a bill that would make access to abortion a federal law.
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But on the last point, we will have to remain vigilant. But not casting a vote for Trump will essentially be casting a vote for unfettered abortion access and communist rule, which will destroy all the constitutional protections we live under.
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My personal choice for Republican nominee was Ron DeSantis, unquote. Yeah, and I agree with you,
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Jeff. He was the better candidate. But Trump is on a revenge tour, and he has the most rabid fan base.
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He had the most number of people that were backing him. It wasn't the majority of America by any stretch of the imagination, but among Republicans, the most number of Republicans were backing
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Trump. So he's who we got. And who will probably be the successor to Trump might be
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J .D. Vance, although it would be nice to see Ron DeSantis take a stab at running for president again without somebody calling him a meatball.
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That's what Trump did. Cartoonist Jeff Larson said, quote, Yes, this war against abortion may be won incrementally.
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I don't like it, but our nation is not pro -life, in my opinion. And Harris is worse.
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Incrementalism is how slavery was eventually overturned. Before 1865, it was illegal in some states praying for wisdom and a change in the
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American voter, unquote. Jacob said he took the negative view. Jacob said, no,
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I believe Christians are morally culpable for the man they vote for. No, Trump has been pretty open about exceptions and protecting women's rights.
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Christians should not be surprised by the last few weeks. And of course, this was something that I had posted back in August.
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Trump has continually made some statements that just seem to sabotage his campaign, saying that he's going to protect women's rights.
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His wife, Melania, came out with a book in which she presented herself as being pro -abortion.
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Trump celebrated those comments in the book that Melania came out with. And so the very fact that he's talking about these kinds of things, that he's saying these comments that sound very pro -choice, very safe, legal, and rare, very much like a
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Democrat would say these things back in the 90s. He is alienating a certain segment of his voter base to not vote for him.
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Potential voters, Christians, will not vote for him because of these statements that he makes that are very pro -abortion, that are not for upholding all of life from conception to protecting children in the womb.
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And so I know many Christians that are not going to vote for either candidate. They're going to do a write -in and not vote for Trump or Kamala because of these comments that Trump has made.
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It is absolutely foolish that he has made some of the comments that he has said. And frankly, if he doesn't win, he has only himself to blame.
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He did not have to take the position at all. He simply could have not talked about it.
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And that would have been enough to maintain a large number of Christians to vote for Trump.
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But because he's made a platform out of saying that he's essentially pro -choice, that has driven more and more
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Christians away from voting for him. Now, I don't think it's wise.
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I don't think it's wise to say, I'm going to do a write -in vote. That's not going to win the election. It's not even going to make a statement,
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I don't think. Because this could very well be the last time we have a chance to vote.
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If the Democrats win, we're closer to becoming what California is now and it's a one -party state.
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And remember, Kamala came from California. She was Attorney General. She was a Senator there in the state of California.
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She represents California politics and wants to implement that kind of political system all over the
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United States. And so if the Democrats win out this election, then that's it. We're going to become a one -party state.
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It will not send a statement to the Republicans. In fact, if anything, the Republicans are probably going to be thinking, oh, we should have been even more pro -abortion than we really were.
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It's not that they're going to think, oh, we alienated our Christian base and therefore we lost the
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Christian vote. We need to be more hardline about abortion next time. That's not going to be it. That's not where this is going to go.
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Because the majority of Americans are already in support of abortion. The best we can do is vote for the candidate that is not going to drive us in a direction that is completely irreversible.
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But as I've said before, as I mentioned to you last week, if in your conscience you just can't do it, there's no way that I can vote for a candidate that is as pro -abortion as Trump has verbally said that he is, then
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I can't fault you for that. I understand that. I know how you've come to your reasoning and that you can't vote for that.
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I was there at one point. I was even questioning these things earlier this year and thinking to myself, how can
53:44
I possibly vote for him? He's even worse than he was eight years ago and I did not vote for him in 2016.
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I did vote for him in 2020. I didn't vote for him in 2016. I thought the whole thing was really a gag.
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Like, I don't believe a word he says. He's been a Democrat his entire life. He's been chummy with the
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Clintons for as long as the Clintons have had political power.
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And suddenly I'm supposed to believe that he's the opposite of Hillary Clinton? I just didn't buy it.
54:16
So I didn't vote for him at all in 2016. And then he did some things in his four years as president that I thought were pretty good, especially with his
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Supreme Court justice appointments. Remember, it was during the Biden administration that Roe v.
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Wade was overturned. It was overturned by the judges that Trump had appointed to the
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Supreme Court. That never would have happened if Hillary had have won. And at the same time, one of those judges that voted against the
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Dobbs decision, so they would have essentially voted to uphold Roe v. Wade, was a justice that was appointed by George W.
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Bush. So even the Bush appointments were not faithful to uphold life in the womb.
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It was the Trump appointments that made the most difference in overturning Roe v.
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Wade. That's something we've got to consider. Even though this man will say the things that he says from his mouth that reveal him to be pro -abortion.
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We knew that the entire time. He's always been this way. It's not like this view of his has changed or has gotten more liberal over the past eight years.
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He's always been here. But he will say these things, yet he will do these things in the interest of the
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American people. And that's, I think, what we have to consider when it comes to who we're voting for on Tuesday.
55:35
Cheryl from Omaha says, Yes, too many Christians are making abortion into an idol and seems willing to not take into consideration the good of a
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Trump administration. We have to look at the big picture. We are one election away from a permanent
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Marxist nation and they want to make abortion the hill that they die on. I hate abortion, but I hate losing
55:57
America to more evil. Well, Cheryl, I understand your point. I don't know a single
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Christian, though. Not one, not one who has made abortion an idol, like the pro -life cause.
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I don't know any one of them that has made the pro -life cause an idol. And if a Christian thinks that they cannot vote for Trump because of his pro -abortion position, then they have not made the pro -life cause into an idol.
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They are coming at this with biblical convictions. And we are instructed in Scripture not to quarrel over opinions like this.
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Romans 14, 1. As for the one who is weak in the faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.
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So we need to find, we need to be charitable about this, really.
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I mean, there are some people that are listening to me right now and may find it appalling that I'm talking the way that I'm talking.
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We need to agree to disagree on this particular issue. I am not saying, and I have never said, over the course of 14 years as a pastor,
57:00
I have never told anybody who they must vote for. Now, I've said who you can't vote for. You absolutely cannot vote for the
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Democrat side of the ticket and remain consistent in your Christian convictions. You can't do it.
57:13
Because the Democrat party is a satanic party. They love and value and uphold and cherish and push and force everything that God hates.
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You can't vote for that party. So the question really is, can a Christian vote for this
57:30
Republican or that Republican with a clear conscience? It's almost like on a case -by -case basis. That's where the dilemma lies.
57:37
So I have never bound anyone's conscience in the sense that you must vote for this person or you are sinning.
57:44
I would not say that. And that's not where I'm coming at this from. But rather, you do need to vote your conscience.
57:51
You've heard that. I've heard that my entire life. You've heard that too, right? Vote your conscience. Our conscience needs to be informed first by the scriptures, by our love for Christ, by our love for his word, by our love for the gospel, and who among these candidates is going to be the best person to allow us to continue in preaching the gospel, in spreading the gospel, in living out the implications of the gospel.
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Which candidate is going to be the one who will allow that to happen the most?
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And I believe that that's Donald Trump. Do I think he's a Christian? No, I don't. I think he's an evil man.
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I think if he were to die today, if he would have died in either of those two assassination attempts, he would stand before God in judgment, and that judgment would not go well for him.
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So I do pray for this man's soul, and I pray he would repent and come to know the Lord. I pray the same for Biden and for Kamala as well.
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But as things stand at the present, the candidate who is going to give us the best opportunity to continue in our
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Christian way of life is going to be Donald Trump. We're going to face way more persecution if the
59:05
Democrats gain control and have way more freedom to not only exercise our faith, but preach the gospel and bring others into the faith.
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We will have more opportunity to do so under a Trump administration, I believe. And I'm also considering those people that Trump would platform and put in his administration around him.
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We have seen in the past that he would appoint godly people. He is going to appoint some ungodly people, no question about that.
59:32
He's done that too. But Kamala, there's not going to be anyone godly in her administration.
59:39
Not one. So we continue on with some of these comments. Kathy, a
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Christian living in California, if Kamala wins, we may not even have a chance to vote again.
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I'm voting against the communists. Brandon from North Carolina. Not only can a Christian vote for Trump and be consistently pro -life, but if Christians want any chance of being able to abolish abortion at the state level, at the state level, because remember,
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Trump is punting the decision back to the states, then we must vote for Trump. Trump isn't as strong as I'd like, but Kamala will mandate it nationally at taxpayer expense, and that is true.
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Lee, a former combat veteran, said, if a Christian does not vote for Trump, then that is a vote for Kamala.
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It's that simple. Albert Mueller, on a recent edition of the briefing, made the same point.
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That would be an uncontested vote for Kamala. So it's not that if you don't vote for Trump that your ballot is somehow going for Kamala.
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It just means that there's one more uncontested vote for Kamala, and that's a perfectly rational way of thinking through this.
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George from Tampa, Florida, says, Sure I am. Considering there were zero abolitionists in the
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GOP primary, how is this even a question? Even Ron DeSantis wouldn't have run as an abolitionist, so he's not entirely pro -life either.
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And then the exact same voting segment would be claiming how he's failed us.
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You might be right about that, George. Paul from here in the U .S., You're not voting for a lesser of two evils.
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You're voting to preserve the most good. It took us decades to get here. It's going to take time to get out.
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Your lack of patience could make things much more worse and allow for a psychopath to exponentially increase abortions.
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The one place that I would push back on that, Paul, is where you say you're not voting for the lesser of two evils. Yeah, I think you are.
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And we always have. Every time we have ever voted in an election, we've voted for the lesser of two evils.
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I've voted for Christian candidates before, men that I knew were Christians. I voted for them on the ballot.
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But that's not the majority of people I've voted for in the past. Most of the men that I have voted for in any election have not been
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Christians. They have simply been the lesser of two evils. God has put us in a nation with a system in which our governing authorities are chosen by the people, a government by the people and for the people.
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That's the way it's said of the Constitutional Republic in which we live.
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And so this political system really puts us in a place to partake, to participate.
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That is our political system. And so I think that there is something irresponsible about a
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Christian not voting at all, a Christian abstaining from voting. I'm not even going to go and vote.
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Well, God has said in Romans 13 that we are subject to the governing authorities and all of those governing authorities have been appointed by God.
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The government system in which we live gives power to the people to choose their elected representatives.
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In submission to God, in his instruction in Romans 13 to be submitting to governing authorities, then we as Christians should get out there and vote.
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Now, I want to be careful in the way that I say that. That's not a very well fleshed out argument, I understand. And I'm not trying to bind someone's conscience.
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You may have perfectly reasonable biblical justifications for why you cannot vote for this candidate or that candidate.
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I understand. And I've even been in the position before where I'm looking at two candidates and going,
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I don't know how I can vote for either one. I've been there before. But to say that we shouldn't vote at all, frankly,
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I don't think there is a justification for that. And I'm speaking as somebody who grew up in a
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Mennonite church and the opinions of the Anabaptists, the Mennonites, was very much on the side of we should not be involved in the political system at all.
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I just didn't, I didn't understand that. And frankly, the people that I was around when
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I grew up in that church, they may have taught that among Mennonites, but they didn't practice that.
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They really were a pretty politically involved people. Some of them even held public offices, in fact.
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Consider what was instructed of the Israelites in Jeremiah chapter 29.
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This was before the famous Jeremiah 29 .11. But in Jeremiah 29 .7,
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the people are told, seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the
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Lord on its behalf. For in its welfare, you will find your welfare.
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And we have the chance to influence the direction, the course of this country, the opportunities for human flourishing.
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When we exercise our right to vote, it is the system of government in which
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God has placed us. So again, I don't really think there's a good argument for why we shouldn't vote.
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You know, thinking back to Proverbs 6, which we opened with. Go to the ant, oh slugger.
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Look at the way that the ant labors and works. Doesn't wait for somebody to tell them what to do.
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They know, they know how to rightly apply the instructions that God has given.
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Not the ant, but you know, the ant as our example. It doesn't need anybody to boss the ant around.
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And likewise with you, know the scriptures and know how to apply them. Don't just sit idly by and say, well, there's nobody for me to vote for.
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I'm telling you, there's other things on the ballot that you should be involved in, but especially we need to be diligent in the work.
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And sometimes that work involves voting, but please take the time to pray about it.
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Continue to pray, to seek God, to ask what you should do. Pray for this nation.
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Pray that things will turn out in a way that is honoring of God. Of course,
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God is going to be glorified in this, no matter what happens. He is glorified in saving a people for himself.
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And he is glorified in destroying a people who had rebelled against him. God will be glorified in either one, either the salvation of the righteous or the destruction of the wicked.
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And so pray that God would be glorified in the midst of these elections. Although we would certainly love to see
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God's saving hand come upon this people, that he would move through this land, that he would turn the hearts of this wicked nation back to him and revival would sweep the land.
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The gospel would be preached. And you see the gospel is not even preached in every church in America as things stand.
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And that's part of the reason why we are in the place that we are in. It's part of the reason why God's judgment will be out poured on America, because even most of American churches were not preaching the gospel when they should have.
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That's how we got to where we are. If there's ever going to be any kind of transformation that happens in America, it's only going to be through the power of the gospel.
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That's the only thing that saves. It's the only thing that turns hearts. Just as Moses had said to Israel, here's
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God's rules. They're right here in front of you. It's not hard for you to follow them.
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But he also said to Israel, yet you will not follow them. And when you fall away, here's what you need to do.
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Turn back to God, repent, come with mourning, come with sorrow, seek the
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Lord's face, and he will make his face to shine upon you. He will show his mercy to you.
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He will forgive you of your sin. The humble and contrite heart before God, he will not turn away.
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This is the one to whom I will look, the Lord says in Isaiah 66 too, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and who trembles at my word.
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And so we need to be out there with the gospel of Christ, that through the gospel, this people would be convicted of their sin, they would come back to God, and we would see transformation happen.
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But if it is God's will that he is turning this nation over to be consumed by its passions so that his judgment and wrath would pour out upon it, then we will praise
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God for that as well. His kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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Continue to pray, seek God, ask that his justice would be done in the land.
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Don't simply just throw up your hands and say, well, there's nothing that we can do at this point and just walk away from it. We did an introduction of the book of Jeremiah just yesterday, and remember,
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Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet. He was filled with sorrow because of what was happening to this people around them, that they were rebelling against God and then that God's judgment was going to be poured out upon them.
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Do you have that kind of heart for America? Does your heart break for this people? Are you just bitter about it and high and mighty and holier than thou?
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Or do you really have a broken heart over this? And you weep for this people because of the sin that they are in that you know will incur the wrath of God.
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I come back to Philippians 3 once again, which I had read at the beginning of this segment, where Paul says, brothers join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example that you have in us.
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For many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.
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Their end is destruction. Their God is their belly and they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things.
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And then we get to that verse that I read to you a little bit ago, but our citizenship is in heaven.
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Our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.
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So continue to fix your eyes upon Christ, hope in him, pray for this nation, but do your part to vote.
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Most of all, do your part to pray and share the gospel of Jesus Christ. The ordinary things that we do as Christians are life -changing, culture -altering.
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Do you love Jesus? Do you go to church? Do you read your
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Bible? Do you love your spouse? Do you have family devotions? Do you teach your kids the
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Bible? Do you sing and praise God together? Do you share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others?
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And if your answers to any of these questions are yes, then you delight
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God and you terrify the worldly. But just doing these ordinary things can bring about incredible cultural change through the
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Holy Spirit of God who is working through us, even in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation such as this.
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That's going to wrap things up for this week, and we thank you for listening. If you would like to submit a question to the program, the questions can be sent to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
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Don't forget you can also drop us a voicemail. Go to www .utt .com and there's the voicemail tab right there on the top right corner of the page.
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Take 30 seconds, record a voicemail either through your phone or your computer. We love to hear from you.
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The election will be over by the time we get to next week's Q &A. We'll return back to our questions.
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I'm surely going to have some comments about whatever happened in the election or if we even know a winner by then.
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I guess we will find out. In the meantime, remain steadfast in prayer, seeking the Lord's will in all things.
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Know His Word and have your heart and mind filled with the Scriptures so that you will be comforted in any and every situation.
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Heavenly Father, we thank You for what we have considered here today, what we've read from Your Word as we have taken what is written in Your Word and applied it to things that are happening within our culture.
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I pray that we would continue to be faithful to do this all the time. How can we take the
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Gospel that is our hope, how do we take the Scriptures that we have read and now applying them to our lives and our current situation, whether it's a personal matter, whether it's something huge culturally, something that's going on statewide or nationwide.
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Make us diligent in Your Word and in wisdom to know how to rightly apply it. God, I do pray for our nation's leaders and I pray that they would be
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God fearing men and women, that they would turn from their wickedness to the Lord Jesus Christ and live and be filled with Your Spirit and lead wisely.
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For those leaders who are going to continue to persist in sin and wickedness,
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You put godly counsel around them. Just like Mordecai was godly counsel to pagan
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King Xerxes or Daniel was counsel to either the king of the Babylonians or the kings of the
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Medes and the Persians. May there be godly men and women in those places that can help to direct public policy to something that would be honoring of God and certainly loving of neighbor that would help to encourage human flourishing.
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May we take those opportunities that are available to us to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to let people know that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and what we deserve is judgment.
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But Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, rose again from the dead, has ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of God, is coming back again to judge the living and the dead.
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Only those who believe in Him will be saved from the most fearsome judgment of all and that is the judgment of God.
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Lead us in paths of righteousness for Your name's sake. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.