Civil Unrest is in the Air: Russia, Brazil, and California

Conversations That Matter

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Hey everyone, welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast travel edition, walk edition

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I guess. I'm taking another walk today. I'm in the valley, San Fernando Valley in California.

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I actually lived here for about a year in 2010 -2011 and I was actually born in Van Nuys, so not far from where I am right now in Panorama City.

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And my dad moved out when I was two years old, so growing up most of my life in upstate

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New York, I've spent four years, or a little more than that actually, I spent four and a half years in North Carolina and Virginia.

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And now I'm back though visiting, and there is a part of me that just does feel comfortable here that feels like I'm home, although things change over time.

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And when you visit somewhere and you don't see it for a while, you miss the progressive changes so you see the changes all at once.

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And certainly things have changed politically, socially, there's certainly a homeless problem, there's just a lot of things actually that have changed.

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But some of the things that haven't changed are the weather. Although we do have a drought, but I still smell the same kinds of flowers, the weather is just so nice, honestly, it's amazing.

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I understand why people live in California, because in the winter you can have a short sleeve shirt on and you're not sweating either, it's dry heat, it's awesome.

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But the weather and the plants don't seem to change.

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So anyway, I'm enjoying it, and I just wanted to talk today a little bit about geopolitics.

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John, why would we talk about geopolitics, I mean, you usually talk about evangelicalism and social justice, and sure, yeah,

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I do. But I think it's, I think this will give you a leg up, because we may have some real instability soon on the global stage.

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I actually happen to think we're already in a soft kind of World War III, a Cold War of sorts.

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But things could get hot, things could get really just unstable and dicey, and it could happen fast.

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And I think you're going to have a leg up in understanding it, if you know a little bit about what's going on.

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And I don't claim to be a geopolitical expert, but I do know a little bit. So I'm going to share with you the little bit

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I know, I've been reading this morning on the situation in Brazil, and then Russia and the

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West, and I'm going to inform you about what's happening in both these situations, and they're developing pretty quick.

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Before I do, though, I just need to let everyone know that, because people have emailed me about the men's retreat, and I need to let everyone know that it is still open.

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The cutoff date was October 1st, but I think I'm going to still have openings. So you're going to want to sign up as soon as you can, just to make sure that you can guarantee you have a spot.

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But this is the men's retreat, October 28th through 30th, with Dr. Russell Fuller. If you're a man and you can come, you definitely should.

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It's going to be fun. It's not going to be like a G3 or a Shepherds Conference. This will be an intimate gathering.

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No more than 100 people will be there, and you'll be able to speak to me, and Russell Fuller, and A .D. Robles. And I've actually,

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I talked to Russell Fuller, and he told me, he said, look, my goal is to make sure that I get as much

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FaceTime with the people who come. Which is just, that's his heart, and so I'm looking forward to that.

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I will be answering questions, though, next week, Lord willing, on travel arrangements, carpooling, whatever else.

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I know I have a number of emails to get to in that regard. I'll have a schedule, so just stay tuned.

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I've been waiting to get closer to the day before I start locking some things in there. You know, that being said,

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I think that's all I had. I just want to start talking about the geopolitical things,

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I guess, now, that I was looking at. So this morning, I checked out what was happening in Brazil, and there's not a lot of American media covering this, which

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I find fascinating, because it's super important, at least it is in Brazil, and this, you know,

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South American countries, they're not inconsequential, especially Brazil, and we had this understanding,

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I think, more during the Cold War, because of the domino effect, and,

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I mean, we used to kind of, the United States took somewhat of an ownership of countries in Central and South America, but that's, maybe that's changing,

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I don't know. It's just, it's odd to me that even on the Epoch Times website, they only had one recent article about this, but this is the situation that's happening there right now.

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And this could either be a victory or a defeat for the globalist agenda, and it's coming down to what feels like a replay of the 2020 presidential election in the

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United States, only it's in Brazil. You have Lula, who was

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Brazil's president from 2003 to 2011, notoriously corrupt, employed thousands of members of the

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Workers' Party in the administration, it's a communist party, I mean, they make no secret about their communist connections and identity, even using communist symbols.

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His foreign affairs director was Marco Garcia, who was a communist. He had served at the

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Forum de Sao Paulo's first chairman, which is a communist organization, and it was attended by delegates from terrorist organizations across the world.

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Colombia's FARC guerrillas, Peru's Tupac Amaru guerrillas, Chile's revolutionary left movement,

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Spain's separatist movement, the Irish Republic, all these movements kind of came together in that forum.

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And this was something that Lula was facilitating. So he's presented as a moderate, just like Biden was, but he's really not.

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And then you have Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro was presented as a fascist. Even people in the

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United States who tout themselves as conservatives, like Glenn Beck, parrot this kind of thing about Bolsonaro.

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And I'm not an expert on the guy, so I've been reluctant to really weigh in on that. I'll just say this.

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I'm a little suspicious. I'm a little suspicious about those charges. And part of it is because it doesn't seem like, even reading an article on Breitbart, I could see a slant.

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The journalists in Brazil, if they're anything like the journalists in the United States, they're leftist.

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And the information that's initially being reported about what's happening there is going to have a slant on it because of that. And I don't see

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American journalists from conservative organizations, they're so few, going down there to get primary data.

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So that's one of the things that I think drives a suspicion on my part is I can't really find sources on that.

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All the sources that I find are coming from the left, and then I think it's conservative commentators who are using those sources.

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But I'm open to it. Either way, though, whatever the policies are and whatever the rhetoric is, because there's a lot of rhetoric that, just like Trump had, there's a lot of rhetoric that Bolsonaro has where he says things like he wants to punch reporters in the face.

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I mean, it's stuff that I think his audience, like Trump's, probably understands in a more humorous way.

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But the media, that's my suspicion at least, the media takes it very literally. And so stuff like that is factoring into,

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I think, the perception that even some conservatives in the United States have of Bolsonaro. But his motto, let me know if this sounds like another motto that you've heard of recently.

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His motto, his slogan, his tagline for his campaign is Brazil above everything, God above everyone.

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Brazil above everything, God above everyone. That's a translation. It sounds a little bit like Make America Great Again.

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It's, I mean, it sounds Christian nationalist, oh my goodness, right? He wants to reduce the size of an inefficient and corrupt state and dramatically reduce the tax burden in Brazil.

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That's what he's running on. But he's also tapping into widespread outrage. He went on a landslide in 2018.

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Voters who were fed up and what they call the Bible's Bullets and Beef Coalition, which is evangelical

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Christians, security hardliners, and agribusiness, that's the coalition that got him elected.

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Now one of the issues coming up in this election is that Bolsonaro downplayed the, well, see, even that's a slanted phrase,

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I got that from Breitbart. I don't want to say he downplayed because that's not even a neutral way to look at it.

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He did not take as seriously the claims about COVID -19 and that being, or I should, here's the best way to put it.

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He did not take the cures or solutions that were promoted for COVID -19 like masks, social distancing, and vaccines.

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He didn't take those things as seriously as others did, including Lula. So that's becoming a big issue because the health organizations have reported that there were more deaths in Brazil than any other country besides the

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United States. And some people are blaming him for this. Now, at events, see if this sounds familiar to you,

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Bolsonaro is getting thousands of people showing up and guess who's not getting people showing up?

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That's right, Lula. But guess who's ahead in the polls? Lula. How is it possible? How is it that Bolsonaro's attracting massive crowds and Lula's not?

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So there's so many parallels to the 2020 election and because they saw what was happening here, they're ready for it.

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And there's some thought that the military might even intervene on behalf of Bolsonaro. And if that happens, or if there's evidence that comes out, the suspicion is already there that fraud is taking place.

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We may very well see a lot of instability, perhaps, I don't want to say war because I'm just not down there to see the circumstances, but definitely instability.

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And what will the United States do in that kind of a situation? Brazil is a big country, is huge.

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Look on a map. It is the largest country in South America. And what happens in Brazil is going to be important for the entire continent.

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So anyway, that's what's going on right now in Brazil and the election is on Sunday.

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So this Sunday, as early as this Sunday, we could see some headlines starting to make their way to the top about that situation.

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Now while this is happening simultaneously, we also have what's happening in Europe.

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And Putin wants to, well, today, I should say, this is a new development,

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Ukraine wants to join NATO. They've submitted an application, supposedly, this is taking the

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Pentagon by surprise. I don't know if I buy that, but like really? And this is right, this comes on the heels of the

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Nord Stream 2 pipeline being blown up, which it's so funny to me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

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My biases are going to come out right now, but Russia destroyed it. That's one of the theories being tossed around out there, mostly by leftists, that Russia destroyed the

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Nord Stream 2 pipeline. All they have to do is cut it off. Why would they have to blow it up? All they have to do is cut it off if they don't want to supply

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Europe with, if they want to negotiate that way. Let's not supply Germany with fuel. But it makes no sense.

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And the longer this goes on, the more and more it looks bad for the

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United States, like the United States was the one that actually blew this thing up. And Russia, at the same time that this is going on with Ukraine, Russia is annexing regions that were formerly part of Ukraine that have now voted to not be part of Ukraine and they want to be part of Russia.

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The Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia regions.

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And of course, the legitimacy of those referendums are all being called into question as well.

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And so it's like, there's just not a lot of neutral ground or common ground by which to negotiate between the

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West and Russia at this point on this particular issue. Putin is actually doing though, what he did is very similar to what he did in Georgia.

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He invades the country and then he pulls back to what he wants, the regions that he wanted. He's done the same thing in Ukraine, now twice.

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And what does the United States do? The United States supplies Ukraine with millions of dollars, weapons.

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We possibly, at least the accusation is, blow up their

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Nord Stream 2. And we just keep threatening more and more sanctions on them.

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Well, Putin recently made a speech and I don't speak

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Russian, so I'm relying on translations, which is always dangerous. Hopefully these are accurate translations, but they seem to be accurate as far as they're consistent with other things

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Putin has said. Putin said that he's going to remember those who died for the right in their native tongue to preserve their cultures, traditions, and their faith for their right to live.

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That's how he views this annexation. And he called on Ukraine to cease military action, which has been,

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Putin from the beginning has tried to get Ukraine to the negotiating table and it just hasn't really happened.

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At least that's his rhetoric, at least, okay? You don't have to trust him at all with that, but that's what he keeps saying is he wants to negotiate.

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Well, he gives a speech and he says, and I'm not going to read the whole thing, but here's some excerpts or at least some takeaways from it.

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He is, I don't think the West is really listening to what he's saying. His view of the

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West is actually fairly similar. There's some commonalities with social justice warriors, but it's actually fairly similar to what conservative evangelical

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Christians are saying about the West. It's actually fascinating to me. So, just recently, he said that the

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West is greedy and seeks to enslave and colonize other nations and well, how are they doing that?

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The West destabilizes countries, creates terrorist enclaves, and most of all, seeks to deprive other countries of sovereignty, according to Putin.

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He goes after the globalist agenda. He goes after what he calls rigged rules and that the

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West has no moral authority to challenge the referendums that just took place because it has violated the borders of other countries.

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Western elites, he says, are totalitarian, despotic, and apartheidistic. That's a direct quote.

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He says they're racist against Russia and other countries. He says Russia phobia is racism. They discriminate by calling themselves the civilized world, but yet they're the same.

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This is where he kind of lines up with social justice thinkers. They colonized, started the global slave trade, genocided

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Native Americans, pillaged India and Africa, forced China to buy opium through war. He says we, on the other hand, are proud that we led the anti -colonial movement that helped countries develop to reduce poverty and inequality.

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Now, here's the interesting thing to me. You can see a bit of that Soviet era stuff coming out here.

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The Soviets weren't. Maybe they said that, but when they went into other countries to destabilize them and to take them over, you don't call that colonization.

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You don't call what China's doing right now to the entire world colonization, please, right? So that's the part of Putin's speech that it's kind of like, you know, it's the

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West really bad and Russia really good. But he starts to have some points that are like, oh man, when you read them, this sounds a lot like what conservatives in the

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United States think about what's the direction that the United States is going. He says the

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West claims to bring freedom, right? So I just said that the Soviet Union claimed to bring equality, but they didn't.

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That's the thing. And Putin gives them kind of a pass. But the West claims, he says, to bring freedom and democracy to other countries.

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But it's the exact opposite of the truth. The unipolar world is anti -democratic by its very nature.

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It is a lie. They use nuclear weapons, creating a precedent. They flattened German cities without any military need to do so.

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There was no need for this except to scare us and the rest of the world, Korea, Vietnam. To this day, they occupy

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Japan, South Korea and Germany and other countries while cynically calling them allies. The West has surveillance over the leaders of these nations who swallow these insults like the slaves they are.

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Then he talks about bioweapon research and human experiments in Ukraine. I talked about this.

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I told you about this. As soon as Putin went into Ukraine, I said that we had these bioweapon labs in Ukraine.

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Why do we have them there? What's the purpose of that? This is right after the COVID thing. He says the

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U .S. rules the world by the power of the fist. Any country which seeks to challenge them becomes an enemy.

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Their neocolonialism is cloaked in the lies like containment of Russia, China and Iran. The concept of truth has been destroyed with fakes and extreme propaganda.

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And he even gets into the whole gender anarchy. I mean,

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I'm going to skip a bunch here, but he talks about that the

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U .S. and the Western world are getting rid of concepts like gender and saying men can be women and women can be men.

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He says they are crazy. I want to speak to all the Russian citizens. Do we want to replace mom and dad with parents one and two?

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They invented genders and claim you can transition. Do we want this for our country? We have a different vision.

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They have abandoned religion and embrace Satanism. That's a direct quote. Now, look, when you start saying that another country has abandoned religion and embrace

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Satanism, you are going that. I don't know. Where does it go from there?

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How can you find stronger rhetoric that is about as strong as it gets? And this is also the week that Putin, he now blanking on the guy's name.

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He gave citizenship to, man, this is on the tip of my tongue.

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Edward Snowden. I finally remembered. It was Snowden, yeah. So Snowden is now a member or a citizen of Russia.

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So he couches this whole conflict as not, this isn't just a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia.

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Putin sees this as God and Satan. He sees this as it is Russia versus the

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United States. I mean, talking about the American Indians and stuff, he's not talking about the entire West. He is going to the heart of who he thinks the power is controlling the

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West, and that's the United States. Guys, this is the kind of stuff you say when you're at war with an enemy.

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This isn't the kind of stuff you say when you want to ally. Putin said very critical things about the

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United States, especially on that whole gender front while Trump was president. I don't remember anything like this.

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I didn't read all the speeches, but, you know, I tried to keep myself fairly informed and I think that the rhetoric is getting amped up.

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So now, while that's happening internationally, and I mean, it's

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California dry season and the matches are lit, you have in California itself,

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Governor Newsom, we have our own domestic disputes, passing a bunch of measures, signing a bunch of measures that have been passed to increase abortion access and funding.

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And I mean, I have a whole list of them. I'm not going to go through all of them. It is insane, though, to what extent

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Newsom is going to make California the most abortion friendly state in the entire country. And it's a business.

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It really is. He has an aggressive campaign to get people to come to California to have their abortion.

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And the adults in the room, who I'm very grateful for, especially this last week,

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I've seen some immature behavior, unfortunately, among some evangelicals.

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And MacArthur is still an adult, and I just so appreciate that about him. He decided to zero in on a true threat that we should all be united against.

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And that's not just Governor Newsom, but it's the kind of thinking that Governor Newsom embodies. And he wrote an open letter, and I'll read part of it here.

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He says, sir, he doesn't even say, he says, sir, to Governor Newsom, Almighty God says in his word, righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

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Scripture also teaches that it is a chief duty of any civic leader to reward those who do well and to punish evil doers.

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You have not only failed in that responsibility, you routinely turn it on its head, rewarding evildoers and punishing the righteous.

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The word of God pronounces judgment on those who call evil good and good evil. And yet many of your policies reflect this unholy upside down view of honor and morality.

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The diabolical effects of your worldview are evident in the statistics of California's epidemics of crime, homelessness, sexual perversions, and other malignant expressions of human misery that stem directly from corrupt public policy.

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I don't need to itemize or elaborate on the many immoral decisions you have perpetuated against God and the people of our state, which have exacerbated these problems.

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Nevertheless, my goal in writing is not to contend with your politics, but rather to plead with you to hear and heed what the word of God says to men in your position.

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Let all kings bow down before him. All the nations serve him. Let he who rules over men righteously, who rules in the fear of God, is as the light of the morning when the sun rises, is an abomination for kings to commit wicked acts for a throne to be established in unrighteousness.

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What God said to Cyrus is a truth you should have taken to heart. I am the Lord. There is no other beside me.

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There is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known me, that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun.

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There is no one besides me. I'm the Lord and there is no other. And he keeps quoting scripture. It's just so much scripture. And then after he's done quoting more scripture, he says, it would be hard to imagine a greater sacrilege.

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You chose the words from the lips of Jesus. This is true. Governor Newsom did this, that you shall love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and strength to advertise abortion. He did that.

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That's true. You cannot love God as he commands while aiding in the murder of his image bearers, though MacArthur says.

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He gives more scripture. It's mostly just scripture strung together. You will stand in the presence of the holy

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God, MacArthur says, who created you, who is your judge. And he will demand that you give an account for how you have flouted his authority in your governing and how you have twisted his own holy words to rationalize it.

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As you look over the precipice of eternity, what will your answer be? Will you look ahead of you and see that nothing awaits you but eternal misery, the just punishment for your sins?

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What will all the clever rationalizations and political talking points avail you then? And by then it will be too late for any remedy of redemption.

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And I mean, he just goes on. He proclaims judgment. He says our church and countless Christians nationwide are praying for your full repentance.

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Please respond to the gospel. Forsake the path of wickedness you pursued all your life. Turn to Christ. Ask for forgiveness and use your office to advance the cause of righteousness.

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He says that's his duty. And so I just want to say this. Russell Moore has talked an awful lot about being prophetic.

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And his idea of prophetic is writing a piece for the New York Times or the Washington Post. Tim Keller does the same thing.

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And then chiding the church. Chiding conservative Christians. Being prophetic against them by taking a stand the world approves of.

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Big whoop. There's no risk there. The people who have the levers of power aren't going to threaten you.

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In fact, they might think well of you when you do that. What MacArthur just did is actually prophetic. This is actually what the church should do.

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You know, there's nothing personal against post -millennialists here at all.

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But I have noticed some, some, not all. Some post -millennialists have made some critiques.

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Some of them, to be honest with you, you don't even have to be a post -millennialist to see, yeah, you know, separating the church from politics or making it too much of a distinction between biblical morality and politics creates a vacuum.

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And the secularists just take advantage of that. And we need to be more involved in the political sphere.

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I agree with that. But I have heard a few post -millennialists raise the charge lately.

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This is actually within like the last two weeks that it's the entire fault, the reason the church isn't invested at all in politics or being prophetic in these ways, the entire problem is because of pre -millennialism.

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And I just want to point out, I point out to other people that look, you know, you can have a beef with that.

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You can try to say that that thinking has maybe compromised. I don't have a huge problem.

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But you can't attribute the whole problem to that. When you got Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the whole religious right was people who would mainly be dispensational pre -millennialists.

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And here again, in this context, when a lot of evangelicalism is at each other's throats, what was evangelicalism,

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MacArthur, I think, just set the template for what it looks like to be prophetic.

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And yep, he's kind of a dispensational pre -millennialist guy. And the real issue at the heart of all this, though, is ethical more than anything else.

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It's not eschatological as much as it is ethical. And MacArthur still has a conscience.

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And I think the big thing that is missing from most of the people who call themselves pastors is a conscience.

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There is just a lot of wanting to be safe, avoid pain, climb the ladder if there's a ladder there to climb, make sure that you're not on the radar of enemies.

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And MacArthur just doesn't care. He just, he sees evil. He's going to say something. He's going to say it in the strongest possible terms.

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And I just remember what he said in 2020 that he'd started jail ministry. He's not trying to take over the government, but he recognizes clearly that the government is responsible, that Jesus is going to judge even the rulers.

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And that attitude can transcend eschatology. And it can do so quite well, as long as the person, the prophetic voice has a conscience and is willing to take risks for the sake of the

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Lord. And so I just have so much respect and gratitude, actually, to John MacArthur for doing this, setting the tone, setting an example.

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And I just hope others follow. There's definitely, it's not just John MacArthur, who's the only good pastor. I'm not saying that at all.

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And everyone else is compromised. But I definitely see a strength at the upper levels in John MacArthur that I do not see in other pastors at those same levels.

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There's a few, but those ranks are thin. And so anyway, it's good news.

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It's something to be grateful for. But hopefully you are now a little more updated. You're apprised about what's happening geopolitically.

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And hopefully you're ready for it. Please be praying about this stuff. I think it's often, at least for me, it's not something

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I think about regularly, what's happening in other places in the world. I think about what's happening in my country an awful lot.

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But there is a lot happening. And this could also be affecting us really soon, many of these things.

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So be prepared, be in prayer. The Lord knows, His timing's perfect.

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He sees exactly what's happening out there. He's planned it in the sense that it's part of His decree.

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And it's under His sovereignty. And He will judge those who go against His perfect will.

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So that's that. I don't really have much more to share. But hopefully you're enjoying these little walk podcasts.

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And I get two things done. I get to get a little exercise and share with you at the same time. And you get a little scenery in the background and get to see where I'm at.

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So if you want more of this stuff, let me know in the info section. I'm still looking forward to getting back to my desk and doing some more research type podcasts and giving you some good info.

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But I thought it'd be good to have a day where we're not focused on SBC stuff or evangelical stuff.

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And I know there's stuff I haven't talked about. Brent Leatherwood at the ERLC. You know, that's not a great thing.

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Adam Greenway, you know, basically fired, it seems like, from Southwestern. And yeah,

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I mean, I'm seeing that stuff. But I want to give you a big picture. There's stuff happening in the world way, way...

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that's going to change our lives in some ways way more than the inner workings of the SBC or TIFs people might have online in evangelicalism.