SRR 126 Presidential Politics & the Christian Vote

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00:02

I do a podcast. I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone.

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When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the air and combating the air.

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We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so the next few statements that I'm going to make,

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I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

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We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style. I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing.

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It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible. Jesus said,

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Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

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It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. All right.

01:29

Welcome to Simple Riff from on the radio where the Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety is applied to all of faith and life.

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My name is Tim and I'm joined with Carlos Montijo and Hiram Diaz. Well, if you've been watching the news lately, you might be scratching your head wondering what is happening to our country.

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It seems that our country hasn't been this divided since the Civil War. In fact, there's even talk of possibly another actual civil war in the near future.

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Now, hopefully that doesn't happen and we aren't here to tell you the future. So we can't really say one way or the other, but any discerning

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Christian can see what's really going on. We are not just in a political battle, but a spiritual battle.

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And the inability for people to discern truth from error is a mark of God's judgment.

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As Christians, we should all be concerned, not fearful, but concerned.

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So tonight we want to talk about the issue of voting and politics. We don't believe that this issue is outside of our

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Christian thought. So where does this take us? How should we think through this?

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Should we be like the Amish and just give up on everything? Or is it okay to vote?

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And if so, how should we vote? Tonight we want to look at these issues and just consider them from a

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Christian perspective. The two overarching questions that we want to tackle tonight is, is it okay for a

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Christian to vote for Trump? Should we vote for Trump? Or is it okay for a

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Christian to vote for Biden? So Hiram, let me give you the opportunity to go first.

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When we were talking through this issue this past week, you took a bit of a stronger position than I think

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Carlos did. I want to ask the first question, is it okay for us to vote for Trump? Should we vote for Trump?

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And earlier you had told me that you don't think it's just okay, but that it's actually necessary.

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So thanks for joining me tonight. And I just want to give you the opportunity to jump in here.

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Well, yeah, my position is that it's necessary. And the reason why is simply because there are only two real candidates that are going to make it to the finals, if you want to put it that way, and that's

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Trump and Biden. And if Trump doesn't get elected, then Biden's going to be elected. If Biden gets elected, then it's all downhill from there.

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Biden is opposed to Christianity. It's not only the religious aspect that we're looking at, the spiritual aspect, but it's also the fact that he's sold out to China.

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And he is against American freedom in a number of different ways. He's corrupt.

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He comes from a corrupt administration. So it's not good. The objections that I've seen to Trump, voting for Trump, are based on evaluations of his character.

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They say, well, he has a bad character and I can't support someone that has a sinful character, like that bad character.

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But that's not really the issue. Somebody put it this way on my Facebook friends. They said, what's more important when you vote, policies or personality?

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And there are people that are actually saying personality. It's not about personality. It's about what is good.

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It's about policy, essentially, what's going to benefit all of us, what's going to benefit our children in the long run.

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It's not about the personality. Biden's platform, as well as Biden's character, are both thoroughly corrupt.

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We can say that Trump is not a believer. We can say that he's corrupt as well. But the things that he is fighting for, nationalism as opposed to globalism, bringing industry back to America, making the country stronger than it was under Obama and under previous presidents, those are all things that are very good.

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And that's something that the platform or the party itself, the Republican Party, is supportive of.

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So, yeah, Trump's not the best guy in the world. But Biden isn't the best guy in the world either.

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And the platform that he is speaking on or the party that he's speaking from is worse.

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That's really the long and the short of it. It's necessary because he's the only other option that's there, that's going to uphold values that we uphold as Christians.

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And we've seen that he does that. He's done it numerous times and he's still doing it now. Yeah, I think that you're right.

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I don't know if Trump is a Christian. I hope that he is.

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I saw recently that he proclaimed that Jesus was more important than he was or more famous or something like that.

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We'll put that clip in the show notes so everybody can watch it. So I really hope – he seems genuine.

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But a lot of people are like that and they don't understand the gospel. But I think that you're absolutely right.

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And one of the things that we can look at is the hostility of the

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Democrat Party to Christian values is on full display with Amy Coney Barrett being elected to the

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Supreme Court justices. And Amy Coney Barrett is a Roman Catholic. We don't believe that Roman Catholics understand the gospel correctly and the gospel is what you need to be saved.

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So we wouldn't just automatically say that she's a Christian. We would refrain from that because, again, she is

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Roman Catholic. And Roman Catholicism does not have a saving gospel. But I think that it would be okay to say that she – even

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Roman Catholics can hold on to Christian values. But I think that it's become very clear in watching the

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Democrats oppose her specifically because of her Christian values. It's just obvious that they do not – they're hostile towards Christianity.

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And I think that that's something that we have to consider. I don't think that Trump – I don't know if Trump is a

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Christian. But it's obvious that he is more on board with Christian values.

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What about you, Carlos? Where are you at in this whole debate? Have you voted yet or are you going to vote for Trump?

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What do you think? No, I haven't voted yet. I do plan to. And I think there's – so there's obviously a lot at stake on this election.

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And I've wrestled with the question of is it appropriate to vote for – there's really no question about pretty much anybody on the

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Democratic Party. That's just out of the question. Christians have no place whatsoever voting for anybody on the left because – and it's not like it's a tricky issue.

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It's not like it's a complicated issue. It's black and white. Yeah, I think that's an easy –

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I want to get into that. But first I want to know if you think that it's acceptable, first of all, for a Christian to vote for Trump.

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So let's talk about that one first because you're getting into a lot of the other issues that I do want to talk about.

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But I want to know, is it okay for a Christian to vote for Trump? Well, yeah,

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I was trying to chip away at the low -hanging fruit first. The issue of Trump does require some,

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I think, careful homework and investigation. I didn't vote for him the first time because I didn't like what he said about LGBTs.

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He said some things that just sounded like he was way too much in favor of that. And for that was one of the primary reasons why

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I did not vote for him the first time around. But now seeing him come to his four years,

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I think it's appropriate and it's important to also give credit where credit is due.

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And in many respects, Trump has done a very good job as president of the

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United States. And I've seen a lot of – he's done a lot of things that have benefited our country and have benefited – enabled us to better live quiet and peaceable lives like the

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Bible says. Well, let me jump in here because I really appreciate what you're saying.

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And it sounds like you're on the same page as me because I – I don't know if you remember this,

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Carlos. We actually did an episode where we talked about voting last election.

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And Hiram wasn't with us at that time. But one of the things that we talked about was the old idea that, oh, you're just voting for the lesser of two evils.

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And then we pointed out, like, what is voting for the lesser of two evils? Well, that's voting for evil, right?

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But I've changed my position, and I'm willing to say that I look at it differently now.

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And I voted for Trump, and I don't believe that I'm voting for the lesser of two evils.

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I believe that Trump has actually done some good, and he actually has policies that are good.

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And so I'm not voting for the lesser of two evils. I honestly believe that I'm voting for some of the good that he's done.

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And it sounds like that's what you're saying. Am I right? Yeah, basically. I think –

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I would still take the view that we shouldn't vote for the lesser of two evils.

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That's not – that's never appropriate, I don't think. I don't think you can justify that biblically. Well, do you think that that's – do you think

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I'm saying that you can vote for the lesser of two evils? I'm saying that Trump is not the lesser of two evils, because that implies that he's evil.

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I'm saying that I actually think that he's done some good. I know, yeah. And therefore – I know. Okay, because I'm not saying that we can vote for the lesser of two evils either.

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If it's Stalin and Hitler, we'll just run away. Yeah, so I'm not saying that.

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And I think this also actually gets into some theology, because there's the issue of common grace as well.

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And I tend to shy away from the doctrine of common grace, and it depends on how you define it.

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But some people take the view that God enables some believers to do good things or to do things that can be a benefit to society or to us.

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And I would say that Trump has done things that are extremely beneficial. And he has rolled back a lot of the damage that the

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Obama administration has established. And I think those are beneficial things.

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Those are good things. They're not good in the sense that they're good in the eyes of God or that merits him any favor with God.

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But they are beneficial for us and that they enable us to live quiet and peaceable lives, like the

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Bible says. So I think that's something that I think we can get behind to support on.

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And it's recognizing – the Bible does say this, to give honor and credit where it is due.

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And I think Trump has done some very good, some very honorable things to his credit as a president.

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And there was something – I was looking at some of the issues where he stood on certain issues.

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And for those of you who – I highly recommend the resource on the

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Internet called iVoterGuide .com. It gives you a pretty good take on a lot of the candidates, especially in your area, the ones that correspond to you.

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And I was looking at Trump's position on abortion and I was actually – it's not something that we would probably agree with.

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He said that he takes Reagan's position on abortion, namely that he allows for three exceptions, for rape, incest, and the life of the mother being at stake.

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And to be honest, I don't think you can justify rape or incest. That's not – you can't just throw away somebody's life or end it just because the circumstances in which it came about were undesirable.

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And the issue of the life of the mother, I think maybe that's a little bit more acceptable.

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Because if you had to choose between one life or another, then it would be appropriate, I think, to choose for the mother's life.

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But, you know, I don't like his position. Here's the thing, and here's what I've seen Trump do.

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I don't like his position on abortion. Now, what has he done policy -wise?

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Policy -wise, he has basically been the most pro -life president we've ever had. And he's enacted a ton of pro -life policies.

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So I can get behind that, and I can appreciate that, and we can commend him for it, for doing those things that are in accordance with biblical moral law, the biblical morality.

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And these are important issues that we need to – because it may be that – and the other big issue is the

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LGBT, what his position is on LGBT. That's what prevented me from voting for him primarily last time.

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And so I don't know if you want to get into that now, Tim, but that's obviously something that we're going to have to talk about as well.

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Yeah, I don't yet go for it, man. Yeah, so one of the things that I was also looking at – and you showed us a clip about some gay conservative saying that Trump is the most pro -life –

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I mean pro -LGBT president we've ever had. And he's done all these things, and he's trying to condemn homosexuality worldwide.

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I mean he's trying to condemn the criminalization of homosexuality worldwide. And it's like – and you see him with the

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LGBT flag saying, hey, vote for me, I'm pro -LGBT, and this and that. And that's not something that a

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Christian should be okay with or comfortable with. I'm not comfortable with that. But here's the problem that I'm – here's what

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I'm seeing Trump do. I think in some ways it's dishonest. It's sort of like false advertising because he's trying to, in a way, pander.

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He's trying to sweet -talk certain people into getting them to their support and say, hey, you know,

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I support LGBT. I support – you know, I don't completely condemn abortion. I support it in these cases or whatever.

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And that is a problem for me. I do have a problem with that. But when you see his policies, you tend to see a different story because he's the one who actually took transgenders out of the military.

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And he's also received – there's been articles complaining about the fact that he actually rolled back something like over 30 of the policies that Obama put in place to try to advance the

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LGBT cause and things like that in different areas of our society. So he pushed back and rolled back a lot of the stuff that Obama put in place.

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And it's like, well, is that a good thing? Well, yeah, it's a good thing. He's trying to roll back on a lot of this stuff and push back on it even though he still tries to promote his campaign by saying, yeah,

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I'm pro -LGBT. And so that's a problem. That is a problem.

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And I think it's something that it should be addressed. It's something that we need to be careful with.

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But when you look at his track record – and that's what you really need to look at. There's debates and a lot of the times the debates can get out of hand.

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They're not always that helpful. But look at what he's done. And if you look at what he's done, he's done a lot of good things,

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I think, that Christians can get behind and support. Yeah.

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As you're talking, this thought comes to mind is that we're not

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Trump apologists. And we shouldn't be. We shouldn't put ourselves in that position where we just defend the guy can do no wrong.

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We believe that he's a sinner in need of a savior just like us. And it sounds like you're making the argument that we should look more towards the policies and,

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Hiram, you said this as well, and not the personality. Because that really is what's going to affect the way that the country goes.

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And I don't think that we should have a too high of a position of who he is.

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I mean he's not perfect. He makes mistakes. There's policy issues that we would disagree with him on.

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But, Hiram, what do you think about what Carlos is saying about the LGBT stuff?

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And do you think that that's a disqualifier for a Christian to vote for him or would you still vote for him?

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Yeah, I'm still going to vote for him. Honestly, I'm very cynical when it comes to politics.

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And if that's one area where he's,

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I don't know, pulling a Machiavellian tactic or engaging in doublespeak, it's just one area as opposed to what you're going to get with other politicians.

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The entirety of their campaign, the entirety of their residency in office is going to be just lies.

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Doublespeak, Machiavellian tactics, things that are hidden from you. So, I'm not going to say, the phrase the lesser of two evils,

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I think, shouldn't be taken so literally as to mean that these people are absolutely, thoroughly evil in one sense.

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And, you know, the other one just outdoes the other one by a degree or two, you know.

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I think the issue is, I mean, the phrase is essentially just communicating that no matter who you pick, there's going to be some part of what they're doing or their personality or their policies or whatever that's not going to be beneficial, as you view it, or objectively, it's not going to be good.

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But, you know what I mean, I can't take that idiom too literally.

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Well, you know, I think that it's good that we as Christians are wrestling with this, but I have to point out that there's a lot of Christians out there who are pro -LGBT, or they claim to be

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Christian and they're pro -LGBT. And so, we have to acknowledge that at this time, we're probably in the minority on this issue.

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A lot of professing Christians are now, and I've seen them on my

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Facebook, people that I used to go to church with, I know that they still attend church, and they are pro -LGBT.

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They believe in gay marriage. They basically have adopted this as a civil rights issue, which it's not.

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So, we need to be, I think, sober -minded about this and just recognize that a lot of professing

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Christians are going to disagree with us on this issue. And think, you know, that this shouldn't even be an issue for us.

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So, do you guys have any thoughts on that? No, I just, like I said,

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I'm cynical when it comes to politics and I really don't know. I can't view any politician as being 100 % who they say they are.

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Because to me, that's just the nature of politics. You're one person looking to appease millions of people in this instance.

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And, you know, for big cities, the same thing. And for smaller cities, thousands of people. And so, you're going to say things that are either false or misleading or ambiguous enough so that nobody throws tomatoes at you while you're on stage.

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And that's just the nature of politics. That's one of the reasons why I don't like it. But yeah, it's hard to answer the question or to think about it in a way that...

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It's hard to think about what you're asking in a way that has one good guy on one side, basically a believer on one side and an unbeliever on the other side.

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Because, you know, I have a hard time believing that there are, other than maybe Mike Pence, that there are actual

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Christians in government. I mean, that's how cynical I am about it. Well, and,

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I mean, if anything ever happened to Trump, I mean, Pence would be president and I do think that he's a

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Christian. And I do really appreciate some of the stuff that he's done and just living out his

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Christian values. So, you know, it sounds like, you know, there are issues to wrestle with when it comes to Trump.

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And one of the things that I want to point out is there's a lot of Christians out there right now that are writing against the idea that Christians should be in support of Trump.

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You have writers in the Gospel Coalition, you have other people writing articles that, you know, because of Trump's character and because of Trump's, you know, he's a liar or he's dishonest or whatever, that our

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Christian testimony demands that we not vote for Trump. And to some extent,

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I can sort of understand that position, but the problem that I have is that there is one guy,

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I think his name's Alan Noble, and he wrote an article that said our Christian testimony demands that we reject

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Trump. And this article has been shared like hundreds of times and I asked him repeatedly,

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I asked him twice, like, are you going to vote for Biden? He won't answer. And so if you're not going to vote for Trump because he's a liar, then you definitely shouldn't be voting for Biden or Harris because they are absolute liars.

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And so that's really what I see as sort of this level of hypocrisy within the

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Christian movement that wants to vilify Trump and then at the same time vote for Biden and Harris over some of the same issues.

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You know, and let me just look again. You can you can take issue with Trump.

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I do. I think that, you know, some of his economic policies I take issue with.

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I don't I don't like them. I don't think that they're good. But, you know, this is a hard truth, but it needs to be said, if you're a never

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Trumper, then it's highly likely that either your ideological or your political framework is depraved or you've been manipulated by the media.

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And a lot of these people that are never Trumpers and they want to vilify him for being dishonest or his character flaws or whatever, you know, he's he's not a principled man.

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Then they're turning around and voting for Biden and Harris. And I just want to point out a couple of the

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I think the points that are hypocritical. So if you guys will allow me, they they say that, you know,

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Trump is a liar, right? Well, Biden and Harris have repeatedly lied about Trump in order in order to destroy him.

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And so that that's a little bit more than just dishonest. That's Orwellian where they lie about you and they don't just lie about you.

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They say they accuse you of doing exactly what they're doing. You know, they they say that he's a racist, for example.

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Well, the one who said racist things is Biden. He most recently said, you know, if you don't vote for me, you ain't black.

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If you look at his long history, he's he's said some like really racist things. And and so then they turn around and they say

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Trump's a racist. And in the last debate, Biden touted the what's now known as the

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Charlottesville lie, where apparently Trump said in Charlottesville, he said there was very fine people, you know, and referring to very to Nazis, that there was very fine people.

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That's not at all what happened. Trump immediately said, I'm not talking about the Nazis and the white supremacists.

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They should be condemned totally. And unfortunately, everybody ignored that.

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The news outlets, they ignored that. They clipped it. And then they ran with the story that Trump said that referring to neo -Nazis, that there's very fine people on both sides, which on its face is is flat out stupid.

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It's it's obviously stupid because then that means that Trump thinks that the Antifa is also full of very fine people, because he said very fine people on both sides.

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He was talking about the peaceful protesters on different sides of the political issue.

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He wasn't talking about the Antifa group or the neo -Nazis. And so they are still both

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Kamala Harris and Biden repeated that lie in the debate. Biden called him a racist in the debate, you know, and and then the question was asked, you know, if he would condemn white supremacy.

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And I got so fed up with this. I actually wrote a little Facebook post on it.

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Let me let me just like go over this real fast. So that way we can we can just settle this matter and we can get this out.

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During the debate, Trump was asked to condemn white supremacy by Chris Wallace.

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He specifically white supremacists and militia groups. And as the question was being asked,

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I don't know if you guys caught this. He said, sure, well, that's that's a condemnation. He said, sure.

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And then he said, sure, I'm willing to do that. But then he tried to draw attention to the fact that the violence, that the violence in the cities that we're seeing is primarily coming from the radical left.

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He said, what do you want me to call them? Give me a name. And if you notice, Chris Wallace said, you know, stand down.

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And if you if you listen to when Trump said, like, stand back, stand down, he he fumbled his words.

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So he was trying to repeat what what Chris Wallace had said, stand, stand, stand down.

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And he misspoke. But that's exactly what he was doing. And unfortunately, Trump was trying to engage honestly with the moderator and his opponent while they were playing gotcha.

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He got a little sidetracked because of the dishonesty of the question. The question carried the assumption that he hasn't already repeatedly condemned white supremacy, neo -Nazis and the

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KKK. And the question also carried with it the assumption that the violence is being perpetrated by the alt right or white supremacists, which is what

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Trump took issue with. So here's what an honest moderator would have said. He would have said,

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Mr. Biden, we've heard Trump repeatedly condemn white supremacists, neo -Nazis and the

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KKK. Trump has gone so far as to even designate the KKK as a terrorist organization.

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Yet you have falsely accused him of not condemning these groups while also pushing the

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Charlottesville lie, which you did tonight. And you have repeatedly not been willing to condemn

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Antifa and the radical left. Are you therefore willing to stop lying about your opponent?

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And are you willing to condemn Antifa? And just for good measure, I want to play for our listeners a little montage of Trump condemning white supremacists.

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He's done this for years. What they're doing is is dishonest and it's wrong.

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So if you'll indulge me, let me play this real quick. We are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms.

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Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the

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KKK, neo -Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.

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I'm not talking about the neo -Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.

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In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy.

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There must be no tolerance for anti -Semitism in America or for any form of religious or racial hatred or prejudice.

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Love for America requires love for all of its people.

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When we open our hearts to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice, no place for bigotry and no tolerance for hate.

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So all of that was prior to the to the debate. The question was not honest.

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And the next day, everybody ran with the story that Trump didn't condemn white supremacists or white supremacy.

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Savannah Guthrie, I think that's how you say her last name, Savannah Guthrie or Guthrie, whatever her name is, also asked about it.

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And he said, yeah, I condemn I condemn white supremacy or he, you know, again for the hundredth time.

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And so one of those clips that you just heard in that little montage was from the from the

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Charlottesville incident. Yet Biden doesn't seem to care. And Biden is lying about him in order to destroy him.

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They've also lied about him by claiming that he said that covid -19 was a hoax.

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That's not true. He did not say that covid -19 was a hoax. We'll put in the information in the show notes to debunk that.

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And what you'll see is that the Biden campaign actually very deceptively edited a clip from Trump's rally in which

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Trump was saying that they're blaming him for covid -19 is a hoax, that it's not his fault, that that's what the hoax is.

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Not that the covid -19 is is itself a hoax. So this is this is what

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I take issue with. And I'd love for you guys to give me your thoughts on this. A lot of people vilify

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Trump in ways that like they they, you know, again, they'll say, well,

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I would never vote for a president who said grab him by the you know what, when referring to women.

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Right. And as Christians, we can say, yeah, that's wrong. That was sinful. He should repent again.

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He needs a savior. But at the same time, yet, you know, you're going to vote for a guy who probably actually did that with Tara Reid, you know, and so there's just this level of hypocrisy.

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It's like you want to say you want to disqualify Trump and say, oh, he's a liar. Yet you have

33:57

Biden and Harris that are repeatedly lying about him. In order to destroy him.

34:03

And I mean, that's that's wicked. So I'd love to hear what your guys's thoughts are on that.

34:10

Yeah. You know, so what this is where we have to be careful not to gag at gnats and swallowing camels, because and just to clarify the issue,

34:21

I think I think we all saw the debates in the town halls. I did get a chance to see all of them.

34:27

And with Chris Wallace in the first presidential debate, what happened, I think, was

34:33

Chris, when he asked who he said, sure, he said, sure, like you said, meaning he was going to condemn it.

34:44

He basically condemned it by saying in the affirmative. Sure. And then he said, what do you want me to call them?

34:50

And the reason he asked that was because he's he he continually gets harassed with this question.

34:57

And and then and then what happened was Chris Wallace, I think, said the

35:02

KKK and white supremacists. But then Biden spoke over him and said the Proud Boys. And so but he was he was paying attention to Biden.

35:12

And so he that's why he said stand back and stand down. He didn't know who they were. And I didn't even at the time,

35:19

I was like, I don't even know those guys were. But then I realized, no, I didn't know who they were. There's some they're like these

35:24

Latino. It's ironic because they're Latino to Trump supporters.

35:30

And some people don't like that. I don't even know if they're actually racist, to be honest. I mean, they come out.

35:35

They're not racist and they're not white supremacist because they're not white or Latino. Yeah. And and they sometimes they may be they have it's like a club or something.

35:45

They smoke. They like to talk about they're conservative and sometimes they get I don't know if they get a little aggressive or whatever.

35:51

But it's like, I don't know. They don't they probably not even as as bad as they say they are or whatever.

35:58

But the so that that happened then.

36:04

And now if you look at the this is where you really see the media, where they stand. I mean, if you didn't see it, you are blind as a bat when you with the town halls, you look at the

36:17

Trump town hall with Savannah Guthrie. She was acting like a rabid hyena, her like just attacking and swarming

36:26

Trump with with just blasting him with question. And Trump did a fantastic job.

36:32

He did an excellent job addressing most of her questions. He may have said some things that weren't all the way true or whatever.

36:39

I heard some some somebody fact check him that he didn't get it. You know, he said some misleading things or what.

36:45

I'm not I'm not I haven't fact checked everything myself, but he did an excellent job keeping trying to pull the rabid snout from from Savannah Guthrie and trying to bring some some clarity to to the issues here, because she just it was so ridiculous.

37:07

And you could see how how and you see the contrast, right? You see the contrast with the Biden town hall crickets, right?

37:14

Crickets. And it was like, well, who was a George Stephanopoulos? Stephanopoulos. He was questioning

37:21

Biden like they were in a Girl Scout camp. I mean, it was just like not even lobbying the softball, just just rolling it at him.

37:32

And but don't you think the only thing I saw him press him on was don't you think the people have a right to know, you know, whether or not you're going to pack the

37:41

Supreme Court? And he's like, oh, I just don't want that to be the issue. And dude, you're dishonest.

37:49

Like, answer the question. The people you the people have a right to know who they're voting for and what they stand for.

37:57

And you use it was a polar con. I mean, I hope that works because that is waking some people up.

38:04

And this is where we get into the issue of gagging at gnats and swallowing camels.

38:10

You look at the big picture. Look at the big picture. You see how rabid the press and these liberals are against Trump because he's doing something they don't like.

38:22

And it's because in a lot of cases, it's the right thing. He's doing the right thing.

38:28

And he's calling a lot of people out. He's calling the media out, calling news out, fake news and and just showing just how corrupt the media has become.

38:38

The left has become. And it's fantastic. The guy is reforming. He's doing a lot of, you know, and it's funny because we think about this and Luther and I just talked about this in one of my one of the studies in our church.

38:53

Luther was not a perfect guy. Okay, he was he was far from perfect. In fact, Luther had a nasty temper, nasty.

39:02

And it got so bad that he started to vitriolically condemn the

39:08

Jews, not because he was a racist that a lot of people twist that he was not a racist. He ended up despising them because of their theology and because he attempted to evangelize them and they never came to Christ.

39:21

And he became very bitter by that. And he got so bad in the end that God basically just took him out.

39:27

Like, dude, your temper is so bad. God just had to take him out. And confessional

39:33

Lutherans will even acknowledge that. That he just got too out of hand. He had a temper problem.

39:40

Now, does that mean that we can completely trash the entire legacy and body of work that he left behind in peeling back the layers and the layers, centuries of corruption, of moral corruption, of doctrinal corruption from the

39:57

Roman church? No, it was he did. He was a reformer. And Trump, in many ways, is like that.

40:05

He has, you know, yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say, you know, the funny thing about that is the same sort of people who can who try to condemn who try to be holier than thou and condemn

40:18

Trump for, you know, speaking a certain way, not being polished enough or for saying things that are harsh.

40:25

The same people that are that way are the same kind of people that condemn Luther. Because there are people that condemn

40:31

Luther who say, well, we shouldn't, we can't listen to him because, you know, look at the way he talked about the Jews. Look at how many times he talks about farting at the devil.

40:38

You know, like he he says all these crass things and people are offended by it. And it's like, okay, yeah, that's that's not good.

40:45

Okay, granted. However, like you're talking about what's more important, him having cleaner language or him defending the doctrine of justification by faith alone, while souls are pouring into hell.

40:56

Right there. There's a balance here. You know, I mean, there's a hierarchy of values and the same. The same thing applies when it comes to, you know, what's happening in politics.

41:05

That's why I said what I said earlier, like, when Christ comes back, he's going to be the king with no flaws.

41:12

He's going to be the king who does everything righteously, perfectly, because he's God and he can. But until then, there is such a thing as a relative righteousness, right?

41:22

We see this in scripture. And I don't mean that in the absolute, not to speak contradictorily.

41:29

But you know what I mean? I'm not a relativist. But what I am saying in scripture, you see things like you see people saying you are more righteous than I am, right?

41:36

And what do they mean? They mean, you did something that I wouldn't have done. And therefore, that puts you, if you want to value our behavior, that puts you a couple of steps ahead of me, right?

41:47

That means that you have a stronger moral character than I do. And we can say the same thing with respect to Luther and the

41:54

Papists. And we can say the same thing with Trump and Biden, right? We can compare them to one another and say, well, relatively speaking, as we compare them to one another, who's the better person?

42:07

Who's the person who's been more forthright? Who's the person that's actually doing what they say they want, what they are going to do?

42:13

Who's the person that's trying to get rid of corruption? You see what I'm saying? And we can look at it that way. Yeah, and I think you guys are hitting on some really good points.

42:23

And Carlos, you're talking about double standards between the town hall debates or town hall discussions or whatever it was, because it wasn't actually a debate.

42:34

And if you'll notice, a lot of people will… Well, just real quick, it wasn't supposed to be a debate, but boy,

42:42

Savannah Guthrie must not have gotten the memo. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

42:48

And that's really what I want to talk about as well, because another thing that they've been hounding Trump on is his tax returns.

42:55

And I mean, honestly, I don't know who published the article or how this got leaked out that he only paid $750 in taxes.

43:08

What I say to that is, he didn't break any laws. So if he really did do that, good for him.

43:14

I want him to teach me how to do that. I want to do that too. But I don't think that he just paid $750.

43:24

I think that was probably the tax filing fee or something like that. But if you'll notice…

43:30

Hold on, Carlos. If you'll notice, everybody made a big to -do about this and they're hounding him on release your tax returns, right?

43:38

Because some article came out or somebody… I don't know if it was the Washington Post or whatever.

43:45

But then the Washington Post publishes a couple of articles on the corruption with Joe Biden and Hunter Biden in Ukraine.

43:54

Was that the New York? I'm sorry, Tim. I think that was the New York Post. Okay. Yeah.

44:01

Sorry. I said Washington Post. Yeah, you're right. Either way, this warrants some hard questions.

44:11

And like you were saying, Carlos, the conversation that Biden had with Stephanopoulos was like two

44:20

Girl Scouts at a retreat just being friendly. And they didn't ask him anything about that.

44:28

And I think that a lot of people tuned in to see whether or not he was going to be asked about that.

44:35

And then I watched some news article with…

44:40

Not news article, but some news clip with Anderson Cooper. And Anderson Cooper was basically interviewing

44:51

Rudy Giuliani's daughter because Rudy Giuliani's daughter is a huge Biden supporter and wrote an article about why you should not vote for Trump and basically said that her dad is

45:04

Trump's bulldog. And basically the substance of her argument was Trump is toxic and a divider and Kamala Harris and Biden can bring us together.

45:15

That was the substance of it. But in the interview, Anderson Cooper asked her repeatedly about her dad,

45:25

Rudy Giuliani, because her dad is behind releasing a lot of this information that's coming out about Hunter Biden.

45:32

And he repeatedly referred to it as, well, your dad's involved with this Russian disinformation campaign.

45:39

And it's like, are you kidding me? You're really going to say that this is a Russian disinformation campaign?

45:46

They have Biden's actual hard drive and Biden's lawyer tried to contact them to get the hard drive back, thereby confirming that this is

45:58

Hunter Biden's laptop.

46:11

And it's got some incredible stuff. I mean, it's a smoking gun.

46:17

Anybody with half a brain cell can figure this out. It's not complicated. Biden's a criminal, but he's not a mastermind masterminded criminal.

46:27

He was basically laundering money through foreign aid to his family members.

46:32

That's what it was. We'll give you millions of dollars. Give me a cutback and it's going to go to my son and he's going to give me 50 percent of it.

46:40

And the emails are there that prove it. And so I'm pretty disgusted with, and I think that a lot of people are too, with Facebook censorship, with Twitter censorship, big tech censorship.

46:54

And the fact that they're treating Biden with kid gloves, but they want to hound

47:01

Trump. And another thing about Trump's tax returns, again, if that's all he paid, good for him.

47:07

But a lot of people don't know that Trump hasn't actually taken a paycheck while he's been in office.

47:12

He donates his paychecks to charitable causes, his entire paychecks. So the guy's been working for free.

47:20

His family has... Yeah, his presidential salary. And just to let me just clarify something about his tax returns, because he talked about that in the town hall.

47:30

He said the reason he hasn't published them yet is because he's being audited by the IRS. So he is currently being audited.

47:40

And he said he's more than happy to publish them once the audit is over.

47:45

Well, yeah, I don't know. Do you know if that's true? I mean, I don't know if that's true. Because I think he said the same thing in 2016.

47:56

Well, that's what he said with Savannah. That's what he told her. Either way,

48:02

I don't care about his tax returns. I mean, the guy gives up his paycheck. And you have to ask, how is

48:09

Biden so freaking rich? Nancy Pelosi, all these politicians, how are they so rich?

48:19

They don't get paid that much. Well, it's because they're on the take. It's obvious.

48:24

But Trump, his net worth has gone down since he's gone in office. So he's making personal sacrifices.

48:31

If he can manage to pay that much, again, good for him.

48:36

Because I think a lot of this taxation is theft. I might be taking a more libertarian position here, but what did you have to say,

48:47

Hiram? Well, I was going to say, and then what's interesting about the whole tax thing, I've heard many people talk about it, is that you definitely see where the left's values are in terms of government, the size of the government and how things should be run.

49:00

Because if that's one of their biggest complaints about him, is that Trump hasn't given more money in terms of taxes to the government, then it shows you exactly what's going to happen with the government.

49:14

It's going to be that kind of bloodhound sort of theft, basically.

49:21

You know what I mean? Finding any excuse possible to tax you, to take money from you. So it shows you where their heads are at.

49:28

I know it's not relevant at all, and it's just a smokescreen.

49:34

There's so much stuff that's out in the open regarding the left in general, and Biden in particular, that for them to even bring that up, it's disgusting to me.

49:48

It really is, because there's not only the stuff with Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, there's also the fact that they're the ones who've been pushing the

49:57

COVID -19 mass hysteria. They're the ones that have said, and you can find clips of them saying this, that one thing that would definitely get people to vote for someone else except for Trump or to not vote for Trump would be an economic collapse.

50:12

And there are Democrats, leftists that have been saying this for a while now, and they'll deny it now, but you can find clips of them saying it.

50:19

Like Bill Maher is one of them who said this, who said that he'd be willing to endure an economic collapse, and he's like, anything to get him out of office.

50:29

And so you don't expect me to make connections between that and the way that Democratic leaders in the big cities in our country are running things?

50:38

Yeah. And Biden doesn't want you to make the connection there, but there is a connection there. There's a connection there, there's a connection between Fauci and Bill Gates and the

50:48

Democrats and the leftists in general, the socialists, and the agenda that they want to push. If Biden gets into office, he's even said it, right, he's going to extend lockdown, he's going to mandate masks for everyone.

51:02

And with respect to lying, here's another aspect, another way that the left has been lying and Biden has been lying about Trump, the idea that he lied and people died.

51:15

Trump lied and people died, that's what they're saying about Trump. Trump lying about COVID -19 and people dying as a result of it, or saying that Trump didn't do things well, and therefore too many people in our country have suffered from COVID -19 as a result.

51:29

And that's not true. It's just not true. While he was taking steps to deal with COVID -19, people on the left,

51:40

Democrats, were saying it's not necessary. They were telling people to go out and shop, they were telling people that it's just like the flu, they were telling people all the stuff that they're saying that he's telling people now.

51:53

They're treating it as lightly, or even more lightly, than they claim Trump is treating the virus now.

51:59

Yeah. Well, not only that, not only that, this came up in the debate, I don't know if it was

52:05

Pence or Trump that said, when Trump initiated the travel ban, guess who called him a xenophobe?

52:15

Mr. Biden. They called him a xenophobe, they said he was paranoid, he's this and that, and he was actually the one taking measures as immediate, very quick measures to try to contain it.

52:26

And, of course, you see these guys are four -tongue hypocrites through and through.

52:31

I want to go back to the taxes a little bit, because here's another thing. I don't know how long an audit takes, but you can imagine how long it would take to do

52:43

Trump's taxes. He has a ton of properties, the guy is obviously very well off.

52:49

I have a feeling it probably takes a long time to audit that. And so I don't know how long it's been going or whatever, but that is what he said.

52:58

I don't think we have any reason to doubt him that that's what's going on. And he said he has no problem publishing them.

53:04

He has no problem publishing them once the audit is done. And the other thing about taxes, in the

53:12

Pence and Harris debate, Kamala Harris and Mike Pence, it was an excellent debate.

53:19

Mike just destroyed Kamala Harris. I mean, she had nothing.

53:25

And you can see the reaction in the media when you can tell how desperate they are.

53:32

They're so desperate, they're grasping at straws. Because they try to impeach the guy.

53:39

They try to incriminate the guy. And then when Pence wins the debate, they say, oh, he was mansplaining.

53:47

He was mean. He was rude. And the guy was calmer than a sloth.

53:57

The guy even commended and congratulated Kamala Harris. And that's the thing.

54:04

Because she flat out lost. She got destroyed by Mike Pence. And he did it in a respectful manner.

54:12

And the issue of taxes came up in that debate as well with Pence and Harris. So Kamala said, we're going to repeal all the

54:21

Trump tax cuts. We're going to take them all out. So Pence brilliantly responded by saying, okay, so you're going to raise taxes on everybody.

54:32

Because those tax cuts were designed to remove, to lower taxes on people. And give them tax breaks.

54:38

And you're going to remove them so you're going to actually raise taxes. And she was saying, oh, no, we're only going to raise them on people who make income over $400 ,000.

54:46

Okay, when you're removing them for people who make under $400 ,000 already.

54:54

And Pence just, he destroyed her. He completely mopped the floor with her.

54:59

Because it's showing just how clearly they make all these empty promises at you.

55:06

They just throw them at you. And they say, if it has Trump's name on it, they don't want it. Because it says Trump on it. Even if it's a good thing.

55:13

Even if these tax cuts benefited most people who do not make over $400 ,000. And it's just, it's so incredible how the left is full of, they're full of pandering, lying, deceitful.

55:30

You know, one thing, because now we're talking about the virus. And Kamala says, if Trump says to take a vaccine,

55:39

I will never take it. But if the doctors, if Fauci, if the doctors say to take the vaccine, then yes,

55:46

I'll take it. It's like, you child. That was such a childish remark.

55:54

What if both say the same thing? Why do you think Trump is going to say it?

56:00

Because his doctors are telling him the vaccine is ready, so go tell people. He's going to promote the vaccine that the doctors themselves are developing.

56:07

What a child. It's not like he's going to roll up in a van and be like, hey kid, come here,

56:13

I got a vaccine for you. It's ready now, here. Take my vaccine. Come here. It's like, don't trust him. Don't trust him, kid.

56:19

She's such a child, man. Yeah. Well, I was going to say, this is one of the things that people need to pay attention to, is a statement like that reveals a whole lot about her character that is more troubling than anything

56:33

I've ever heard Trump say. Because essentially what she's saying is, I hate this dude, and it doesn't matter what you say,

56:41

I'm going to continue an irrational behavior because I hate this guy. No matter how much good, even if it's good or beneficial, it doesn't matter.

56:51

It doesn't matter. Yeah. And if operating irrationally in order to achieve an end that is solely going to benefit you in your own mind in terms of placating your desire for blood and revenge, if that's the way that you roll, if that's how you do policy,

57:08

I want nothing to do with you. And nobody in their right mind wants anything to do with you either because, you know, it's dictatorial.

57:16

You know what I mean? It's tyrannical. The same thing that they're accusing him of, which I've never seen from Trump, is what they're into.

57:23

Tyranny and dictatorship. Demagoguery. Yeah, they're almost functioning like an oligarchy, the

57:32

Democrat Party. And I can give some examples of, I can give three examples of how they want to function that way.

57:44

But, you know what? Let's transition the conversation a little bit to the

57:49

Democrat Party because, Carlos, you were chopping away at the low -hanging fruit a little bit earlier and I really want to get into this.

57:57

But before we make that transition, I just want to give Christians out there some encouragement in how to think through some of these things.

58:06

You guys can add to this if you want, but one of the things that you need to be careful with is the fact that you are being lied to and manipulated by the fake media, the fake news.

58:19

And earlier I said, you know, if you are a never -Trumper and if you hate Trump, we don't really think that that's warranted or justified.

58:28

And we think that you've probably been, you're either ideologically, you're over there on the left or you've been manipulated.

58:37

And I want to give a couple of examples of that. So, during the debate, Chris Wallace, and I don't have time to play the clip, but if you go back and you listen to the debate,

58:48

Chris Wallace, while asking the question about critical race theory, he conflated racial sensitivity training with critical race theory.

59:01

And it made it sound like Trump is against racial sensitivity training. Those are two completely separate things.

59:08

And what Trump said was absolutely correct. Racial sensitivity training is fine, but critical race theory is racist.

59:17

And, you know, we've done some podcasts on that. Hiram is our local expert in that field.

59:23

He's written fantastic articles. But Hiram, very quickly, can you just tell us, critical race theory is actually racist.

59:34

Am I right in saying that? Oh yeah, big time. Yeah. I mean, essentially it's Marxist when you get down to it, even though you have, quote unquote, evangelical supporters of critical race theory.

59:48

But it's Marxism. It's warmed over Marxism just in a different coat, in different clothing.

59:54

And the way it works out is in promoting racism. Yeah. And one other example that I wanted to give is that the media is constantly, and look for this, watch out for this, the media is constantly conflating two separate issues.

01:00:10

One is mail -in voting, absentee mail -in voting, with universal unsolicited mail -in voting.

01:00:19

And so I was watching Don Lemon, who I think is a bozo and a half, and he was going through, you know, in 2016, you know,

01:00:29

Ivanka Trump mailed in her vote. Don Jr. mailed in his vote. And it's like, if it's good enough for them, how come it's not good enough for you?

01:00:39

And it's just such a stupid argument. It's such a deceptive argument because everyone is fine with absentee mail -in voting.

01:00:48

Obviously, military people, you know, when they're away and they're deployed, you know, absentee voting is a great thing.

01:00:56

We want them to vote. Unsolicited universal mail -in voting is really, like, very problematic.

01:01:06

And they'll say there's no evidence of fraud. There's no evidence of corruption.

01:01:14

And that is the stupidest thing you could say. Because there is tons of evidence where votes are thrown into the trash can.

01:01:27

There's even some places that are trying to make it so that the name doesn't have to match the signature.

01:01:34

I mean, this is wrought with fraud. And it's a big deal because,

01:01:41

I mean, one thing that you can do to basically destroy our democracy, and we have a constitutional republic, but destroy the

01:01:52

American way is to delegitimize the election. And that's essentially what's going to happen.

01:01:59

So, you know, you really have to be careful. Like, they're just flat out lying to us about some of these issues.

01:02:07

To try to make Trump look bad. To try to give the Democrats an edge.

01:02:14

And don't be taken in by a lot of, I mean, be diligent and be discerning.

01:02:23

Don't just put on the blinders and believe what they're saying. But I want to get into whether or not a

01:02:29

Christian can or should vote for a Democrat. And Carlos, you kind of already chopped away at this low -hanging fruit.

01:02:35

But earlier I said that the Democrat party is acting in a way that's really reflective. While they're claiming that Trump is a fascist dictator, they themselves are acting as an oligarchy.

01:02:49

And three things that I think that every person, every red -blooded American should be concerned about, which would limit the separation of government or which would limit the checks and balances that we have in place, are one, the

01:03:07

Democrats have talked about getting rid of the electoral college. That may sound like a good idea, but it's a terrible idea.

01:03:16

And what's fascinating is a lot of people don't realize that we're not really a democracy.

01:03:22

We have a constitutional republic. And if you get rid of the electoral college, you're basically going to have

01:03:29

New York and California voting for everybody else. And what that does is – it sounds good, like one person, one vote.

01:03:38

But what that does is it really removes any protection for minorities.

01:03:46

And what's fascinating is – this is so short -sighted because a lot of people think, oh, that's a good idea.

01:03:52

And the Democrats really posit themselves as the champions of the minorities.

01:03:58

But our founding fathers, I think it was Benjamin Franklin, they didn't really want a true democracy.

01:04:06

Because I think it was Benjamin Franklin said that a true democracy is basically two wolves and a lamb voting for what's for dinner, right?

01:04:14

Who's going to lose? The minority. So the fact that we have the electoral college puts in place the protection of the minority in the vote.

01:04:29

And we've got some good resources where we can provide in the show notes as to why.

01:04:34

I think there was a good discussion on PragerU as to why the electoral college is necessary. But Democrats will posit themselves as the champion of the little guy, the champion of the minority.

01:04:45

Well, that sort of democracy is always detrimental to the minority because they'll always be outvoted.

01:04:53

So the other thing is the removal of the filibuster. If they remove the filibuster, they will be able to push through any agenda that they want without any hindrance.

01:05:03

And the third thing that they're talking about doing is – well, they're lying to us. But at the same time they're talking about doing this is –

01:05:11

Carlos, you already talked about it – is packing the courts. And that is extremely dangerous.

01:05:18

And what I think that they want – and these freaking liars, they redefine terms.

01:05:25

And this is another thing that Christians need to be concerned about. They redefine terms and language right in front of you as though you're stupid.

01:05:33

And they'll say, oh, well, Trump's the one who's packing the courts. Because he's nominating a conservative, right?

01:05:40

Somebody from work was like, well, now there's five conservatives and four liberals or whatever.

01:05:49

And I said, OK, so what was it before? It was reversed in the other way. That's not packing the courts. That's just having a majority.

01:05:56

And for years it's been in the other direction where we've had mostly liberal judges. And now because of Ruth Bader Ginsburg dying, we have the opportunity to put somebody in there who's a conservative.

01:06:09

So that's not packing the courts. Packing the courts is adding justices to the Supreme Court. And basically what they want to do is they want to legislate from the bench.

01:06:17

Now, these are unelected officials. So they're going to write into law things that you won't even have the opportunity to vote on.

01:06:25

And a lot of Christians, they are so short -sighted they don't even understand how dangerous this is.

01:06:32

Because they could effectively make Roe v. Wade – they could advance it and make it legal for abortion up to the time of birth without restrictions and make that law.

01:06:46

They could make it so that – I mean if they really take this LGBT stuff to its logical conclusion that it's a civil rights issue, well, they could make it so that your pastor does not have the opportunity or the freedom to say,

01:07:02

I won't perform a same -sex marriage because it's a civil rights issue. So now if your pastor isn't willing to perform a same -sex marriage ceremony, well, kiss your church goodbye.

01:07:15

He could be fined. He could be arrested. I mean these are the things that will happen if you elect these people and they do what they're talking about.

01:07:25

So I think it's extremely short -sighted. I think it's extremely dangerous to our religious freedoms for these things to take place.

01:07:35

Carlos, I'm going to give it over to you because you were chopping away at this earlier. But can a

01:07:42

Christian vote for Biden and Harris this election?

01:07:50

And really what I also want to ask you while I'm asking you that is that a lot of people take this position that, well, you know, it's a private issue, right?

01:08:00

You go into the voting booth. There's a curtain. Nobody's supposed to know, right? I understand that to some degree because, you know, if you vote for Trump and you don't want to tell your coworkers because they're going to bash you and you live in California and, you know, it's like they're going to treat you poorly.

01:08:18

I get that. But when we're like talking about Christian brothers and sisters in the same church, right?

01:08:25

I think that we should be open and accountable to one another and say, look, here's what

01:08:31

I'm thinking. Here's where I'm leaning. Here's my vote. Kind of like what we're doing right now. So if you're in a church and you see people that are leaning left and it's like, hey, man, are you really going to vote for Biden?

01:08:43

I think that's an appropriate question. And I think that we should be willing to have accountability in our lives from our

01:08:51

Christian brothers and sisters over this issue. So, Carlos, chop away, man, at this low hanging fruit.

01:08:59

Can a Christian vote for Biden and Harris this election? Yeah, so this is again like we've like we've been talking about.

01:09:12

This is not a controversial matter. This is not a controversial issue. It doesn't take a philosophy class, a political philosophy survey or course.

01:09:25

You don't have to study a zillion hours to try to figure out whether it's appropriate or not to vote for pretty much any

01:09:33

Democrat. Their party is very clear, unequivocally clear about where they stand on issues like abortion and LGBT agenda.

01:09:44

And you look at you look at something like abortion. Right. And if you have because there's this there's actually a movement.

01:09:54

And I heard James White talking about this on his on his show. Some some some seminary professors started a petition to support for Christians who support

01:10:09

Biden, but are pro -life. And it's like, OK, that is satanic.

01:10:17

You you are you are a total sellout. These people are total sellouts. And and honestly, for you to say,

01:10:26

OK, I don't like Trump. I'm going to vote for Biden. It's just like, why would you why you everything they stand for is diametrically opposed to fundamental scriptural issues.

01:10:43

The Bible is clear. Murder is sin. Murder is condemned. Now, what is that?

01:10:49

What are the Democrats want? Yeah. Carlos, let me let me jump in here real quick, because I'm totally agreeing with you.

01:10:56

I want I want to support what you said, because you made a claim that that's totally satanic. Right. And then you said that murder is sin.

01:11:03

OK, so this is this is a scriptural proof to support what you're saying.

01:11:09

And so speaking of the Pharisees, Jesus tells them, you are of your father, the devil.

01:11:16

Your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

01:11:26

So Jesus tells them that your desire is to do your father's. He basically says, you're not the children of God, you're the children of Satan.

01:11:37

And because you you desire to do your father's will, he was a murderer from the beginning.

01:11:42

So the Democrat Party is hell bent on murdering children in the womb.

01:11:49

And even even to the point of of up to birth. So I think that you're absolutely correct in what you're saying about like this is this is satanic.

01:11:59

This is this is a level of depravity. And going back to what you were saying earlier, not to strain a gnat and swallow a camel.

01:12:06

And I think that that's exactly what a lot of Christians are doing when they want to vilify Trump and say like, oh, he's not a principled man or he's toxic, you know.

01:12:16

But then it's like, OK, you're going to vote for people who are going to murder children in the third trimester.

01:12:22

I mean, that is that is absolutely disgusting. And you have no justification for that.

01:12:31

And so really, you have to ask, whose will are you doing? Are you doing the Lord's work or I mean, this is straight from Satan.

01:12:39

So I just wanted to back you up with that verse. And please continue. Yeah, this is not a controversial issue.

01:12:46

What is the sixth commandment? You shall not murder. OK, is the is the is the is the thing growing inside of the womb?

01:12:57

Is it a human being or is it not? OK, this is this is not a controversial matter in the

01:13:04

Scriptures. The Bible makes it absolutely clear that when you are pregnant, when you are the moment you become pregnant, you have a person growing inside of you.

01:13:16

You have a human being. And for people to you, honestly, it seriously calls into question your

01:13:23

Christianity. I don't see how you can call yourself a Christian and vote for somebody with an agenda that is so blatantly

01:13:31

Antichrist and just about every single policy that they stand on. And again, you don't have to look hard to find it.

01:13:39

OK, the issue of abortion is clear. It is not this is not a controversial matter.

01:13:45

The issue of LGBT, again, these are issues that are so plainly Antichrist and against what the

01:13:52

Bible teaches. And and and it's really this is something that is is not controversial.

01:14:01

It's not controversial in the sense that the Bible is clear as to how it speaks to these issues.

01:14:07

Yeah. Let me back you up on on this again, because Christians need to understand this.

01:14:13

I mean, this is beyond the measure of acceptability in what we would call biblical

01:14:21

Christianity. Proverbs 6 17 says, referring to certain things that God hates, it says hands that shed innocent blood.

01:14:35

There's there's no there's nothing more innocent than a human life inside the womb.

01:14:42

And all of the arguments I was arguing with a family member over this. I just want to be super clear here.

01:14:50

All of the arguments for pro choice are absolutely stupid. They're absolutely stupid.

01:14:57

I had a family member tell me, you know, a woman has the right to choose what to do with her body.

01:15:04

Well, I asked, I said, does she does does the woman have four arms and four legs and two heads?

01:15:14

No, because it's not her body. I mean, there these arguments are so stupid that really you have to be sort of there.

01:15:25

This is what I struggle with. There seems to be a sort of spiritual darkness over over people who are arguing this way, because you can't come to terms with this in Scripture.

01:15:39

This is what we mean by straining a gnat and swallowing a camel. This is the camel that you're the the obviously major moral issue.

01:15:49

You're not standing on the moral high ground when you condemn Trump and then you vote for Biden who wants to, you know, legalize abortion or advance the abortion agenda.

01:16:00

And they haven't really been talking about this a lot in the campaign, because I think that most

01:16:06

Americans are not actually on board with the abortion agenda up to the time of birth.

01:16:14

But Kamala Harris basically said that she wanted abortion without restrictions.

01:16:20

And so that's that's abortion up to birth. And that's that's a baby that can dream.

01:16:27

That's a baby that can think that's a baby that can feel everything. I mean, go go to a

01:16:34

NICU. Look at a baby that is, you know, a premature baby.

01:16:41

And just look at the baby lying there. You know, that's that's maybe 36 weeks or 32 weeks.

01:16:48

And it was it was born premature. And imagine cutting that baby up and murdering it.

01:16:54

That's essentially what you're doing. All you're doing is you're just changing the location of the baby. I mean, that that is absolutely disgusting.

01:17:05

I'm to the point where I'm willing to say if you're voting for these candidates that are wanting to advance this stuff,

01:17:15

I'm willing to say that that you should be put under church discipline. And, you know,

01:17:22

I know that there's there's family members that are you can't ignore this.

01:17:29

You just can't. History will look back on you as one of the ones who turned a blind eye to the

01:17:37

Nazis rounding up the Jews to be executed. That's how history is going to remember this. And by the way,

01:17:43

I know that because Christ is the judge of history. And Christ in his word says that this is disgusting, that this is murder.

01:17:53

So I don't think that there's any room, any room to vote for Biden or Harris because and here's here's the other thing.

01:18:02

A lot of people will, you know, hit back at me and they'll say, well, the Republican Party has been like really bad on this issue, too.

01:18:11

Yeah, they have been like Bush. He said he is pro -life, did nothing for the pro -life movement. Yeah.

01:18:16

A lot of politicians, Republican politicians absolutely suck on this issue. So I get that.

01:18:22

But here's here's the difference. If Bush, I mean, not Bush, but if Trump and Pence say we're pro -life, we want to defund

01:18:31

Planned Parenthood. And by the way, Planned Parenthood shouldn't be just defunded. It should be out. Basically, abortion should be illegal.

01:18:39

OK, so if they say that to me and I say, OK, I'm going to vote for you because I agree with that.

01:18:46

And then they get into office and it's like, ha ha. We got them like stupid Christians, whatever. We suckered them and and they don't do anything.

01:18:54

OK, fine. I understand that that's that happens with politicians, but that blood is on their head, their hands and their head.

01:19:02

That's over them. That's not over me. But if a politician tells me then, well, you know what?

01:19:08

I actually want to legalize abortion up to the time of birth and I vote for them. Well, now that's on me.

01:19:14

That's on me. That's on you. Well, again, so I think something we can tell people to something listeners should think about is the moral character that's being revealed.

01:19:25

And I mean, if your real issue is the character of Trump. OK, well, then look at the character of an individual who says they're going to kill babies up until the time they come out of the womb.

01:19:34

Look at an individual like I think he's the governor of, I forget,

01:19:40

Virginia. I think it is Ralph Northam who said that they'll keep babies comfortable and then they'll, you know, basically kill them after the baby's born.

01:19:51

I mean, that's that's where they want to take it. That's where they want to go. You know, like Hillary Clinton lied during the presidential debate four years ago when she said that when

01:20:01

Trump mentioned that, yeah, they wanted to have full birth abortions or whatever it is, whatever the technical term for it is.

01:20:08

But that's where they want to go. And they couldn't care less. That's the thing. They have seared consciences. They couldn't care less.

01:20:14

And it's right along there with, again, I talk about covid a lot because I've studied a bunch about it and it's just it's tied together with the

01:20:24

Democrats. But that's something else that should come into view as well. It's like not only are they willing to kill children who have done nothing wrong, who are in the womb and children who are just fresh out of the womb, they're also willing to kill elderly people.

01:20:40

You know what I mean? Anyone who is getting in the way of whatever quote unquote progressive movement they have going on, they're willing to get rid of.

01:20:49

That's like straight up mafia style. You know what I mean? Like I look at New York, I look at Boston, California and how, especially in New York, they took they took people who were infected with covid -19 and they put them in elderly homes, knowing, knowing fully well that those elderly people were going to die as a result of that because their bodies just can't handle not just covid -19, but basically having any sort of flu that's severe.

01:21:15

Right. Or even just the flu. Yeah. But they were willing to put them in there because why?

01:21:21

Well, our best guess from the evidence that's available is because they they got money from it.

01:21:26

Right. They got money from all the covid -19 patients and people who died from covid -19. They got massive amounts of money.

01:21:33

And I think the same thing goes for abortion. Right. Why are they willing to support abortion? Well, it lines their pockets. Yeah. It's not just Planned Parenthood getting the money.

01:21:42

It's the fact that those fetuses are sold and they're sold to people who are doing scientific research on them.

01:21:49

So they're making profit off of the death of people. And that's the character that you see there. Yeah. You know what

01:21:54

I mean? And it's disgusting. And you know what? Kamala Harris, I don't know if you guys are aware of this, but Kamala Harris actually went after the whistleblower who did investigative work and showed that Planned Parenthood was selling bodies of babies.

01:22:11

She went after that individual. I think he's Catholic as well. But she went after him and tried to prosecute him and destroy him.

01:22:20

And so this is a woman who's evil. This is not a person who has the fruits of the spirit, as we would say.

01:22:31

This is a person who is wicked. And it's really disgusting, the level of depravity.

01:22:44

Carlos, did you want to add to any of that stuff? Most certainly.

01:22:51

So one thing we do need to, again, be clear about is if you have the nerve, the nerve to call yourself a

01:23:01

Christian and vote for Democrats. And here's the thing. What that really amounts to, because this whole

01:23:10

Tim Keller attitude of the Democrats and Republicans, we need to learn to get along. And I have both in my church.

01:23:17

This is not, that's not how it works. Okay. The issues are so black and white when it comes to these matters of what the

01:23:26

Democratic Party stands for. They stand for, they stand for, they want to steal, kill and destroy.

01:23:34

Literally. Literally. Whose agenda is that? According to Christ. I wonder.

01:23:41

I mean, that's the devil's agenda himself. And for you to, like, it's a very clear, and it's so clear that if you vote, if you vote for a

01:23:52

Democrat, you should be subjected to either church discipline or excommunication.

01:24:00

Because your thinking is so utterly, for you to not have a problem, for you to not have a problem with voting for somebody that is willing to expand abortion and promote and advance

01:24:19

LGBTQ's agendas and all of this stuff. The avalanche of Antichrist, unbiblical, you have no place.

01:24:28

You have no place in Christ's body. You have no place in the church. There's something seriously wrong with you.

01:24:36

And you need to repent immediately. If you think, if you have this mindset, or if you vote for Democrats.

01:24:47

Because the issues could not be clearer. And there's no excuse.

01:24:52

There's really just no excuse. It's inexcusable. And if you don't repent, you have no place.

01:25:01

You're putting yourself out. You're clearly putting yourself out because your thinking is so utterly unbiblical and contrary to Christ's kingdom that you're putting yourself out.

01:25:13

Can I add something to that? Go for it. The thing that I can't stand that I've heard people say is, well look at the

01:25:22

Republican party. They're immoral too. And the thing that's, speaking of conflation and confusion like the media does with these other issues.

01:25:32

This is one that people who claim to be Christian in media, like the Gospel Coalition and stuff. This is something that they'll do.

01:25:38

And I've heard people say this before. They'll say, well people who are Republicans are also immoral. There's a difference between, let's say, a

01:25:48

Nazi officer who's going out and doing what's wrong because that's part and parcel of his job to do it.

01:25:55

And a police officer who is supposed to be upholding the law and yet is acting like a

01:26:01

Nazi. You see what I'm saying? When you have people who are on the conservative side doing what's wrong, they are the hypocritical police officer in that analogy.

01:26:10

If you want to use it that way. But when you have people on the left doing what's wrong, that's just part and parcel of what they're supposed to do.

01:26:18

They're just following orders. You know what I mean? They're telling you. Yeah. They're telling you. They say this is what we value and this is what we're going to do.

01:26:27

And when you get to the Republicans or Libertarians or people who are conservative in general, they'll say, well this is what

01:26:33

I hold to. And then later on they'll do something and you'll go, well you obviously don't hold to that principle. But the party as a whole is not pushing this unified anti -crisis agenda.

01:26:46

You know what I mean? And that's a distinction that needs to be made because a lot of people aren't doing that. They're saying the criticism is not just that these people who are

01:26:52

Democrats are immoral. The criticism is that the whole party, everything about it is immoral.

01:26:58

All it stands for is immorality. They don't even give a pretense of being in support of anything righteous.

01:27:05

They're completely opposed to it. Yeah. That's a really good point, man. So, what do you guys think about pastors who want to relegate this to a matter of conscience, right?

01:27:21

Because I put up a Facebook post. I said, you know, vote your conscience unless your conscience is seared.

01:27:28

Then you should just stay home. Because you really have to have, I mean, this is like cognitive dissidence at its finest to say

01:27:38

I'm a Christian. I mean, was it John 10 times Jesus said that I've come that you may have life, right?

01:27:43

And it's like you're going to vote for a party that wants to destroy life at its inception.

01:27:50

So, it's just so anti -Christian. It's so anti -Christ. Like, here's the thing.

01:27:56

Jesus said, you know, if you cause one of these little ones who would believe in me to stumble, it would be better for you to tie a millstone around your neck and be cast into the ocean.

01:28:07

So, that gives you some idea of how Jesus thinks about this, right?

01:28:13

Yet, what we find is that a lot of pastors are silent. They're not going to say anything political.

01:28:20

Because it's like, oh, I know that we have Democrats in our congregation, and we need to come together, and we need to be unified.

01:28:31

Do you guys think that that's acceptable? Do you think that pastors should be speaking out about this, decrying the

01:28:39

Democrats' position of death? And what would you say about those pastors?

01:28:47

They're not going to say anything about this election. And we know that there's people in their churches that are voting on this, right?

01:28:56

So, do you think that the pastor has a responsibility to speak to this? Or would you say, well, you know, as long as they're preaching the word faithfully each week, they're okay?

01:29:07

No, I mean, this is, again, is murder a matter of conscience? It's not hard.

01:29:14

Again, this is not hard, right? Is murder a matter of personal conscience?

01:29:21

Of course not. Is unbiblical views of sexuality, unnatural views of sexuality, is that a matter of personal conscience?

01:29:36

No, it is part of God's moral law, the unchanging standard by which

01:29:44

God has given us for every time, at every point.

01:29:50

It's never okay. It's never okay. It's always condemned.

01:29:58

So, you think that pastors should be condemning the Democrat Party from the pulpit? You know, absolutely.

01:30:06

What did John the Baptist do? I mean, why did he get himself in trouble? He called out

01:30:11

Herod. And he called out the immorality. Yeah, he called out their immorality. So, who are we supposed to be modeling?

01:30:21

I mean, it couldn't be… This is so… If you're not allowed to call the devil a devil, then what are you doing as a pastor?

01:30:31

What are you doing? It's not… And I want to substantiate this a little bit because, you know, the

01:30:37

Democratic platform, they literally want to steal, kill, and destroy. You know, how do they want to steal?

01:30:43

Because they want to take rich people's money and give it to the other people who are not as rich. They want socialism.

01:30:50

They want to sanction the coveting of other people's goods and redistributing the wealth.

01:30:58

And so that's… They want to steal. How do they want to kill? We already talked about that. They want to murder. They want to sanction the murder of unborn children.

01:31:07

They want to sanction and they want to extend it all the way up to birth. And maybe even beyond.

01:31:14

It wouldn't be… See, and what's so dishonest about them, they won't tell you that if it makes them look bad.

01:31:21

Because Kamala Harris, when she was debating Pence, she refused to answer almost anything.

01:31:28

Because she knew it would make her look bad. And on these issues, when they came up in the debate, she did not want to even touch them.

01:31:36

But they're not… At the same time, they're not hiding it. They're not hiding it. The platform is very clear.

01:31:42

They're pro -choice. They want you to go ahead and end the baby's life if you don't want it.

01:31:52

For whatever reason. And they want to destroy. They want to destroy. Well, that goes part and parcel with the other two.

01:31:59

But they also want to destroy our nation. They want to unravel the very fabric of our society.

01:32:05

Everything that causes stability and balance and decency and order, they want to completely do away with it.

01:32:12

They want to get rid of cops. They promote rioting. They promote these…

01:32:17

You see Maxine Waters and these… They're practically traitors.

01:32:23

These people are practically traitors to our country. They have no place in our political process.

01:32:30

And you have them endorsing these riots, this chaotic upheaval of just a dismantling of law and order.

01:32:40

They want to get rid of… They want to destroy our nation. And that's what the devil wants to do. That's exactly what he wants to do.

01:32:46

That's his agenda. Steal, kill and destroy. And all three of them are exemplified,

01:32:53

I mean, clearly through the democratic agenda. It's just…

01:32:58

And it's not hard to see it. It's just not even hard to see. I mean, it's black and…

01:33:06

It's literally… It's black and white. And this presidential election, that's one thing that really shows you just how black and white it is, especially with respect to the

01:33:15

Democratic Party. Now, I know we touched on this already with respect to… Well, the

01:33:20

Republicans don't exactly have a stainless record. And so we need to be clear about…

01:33:29

Of course, there's issues with the Republican Party. That's exactly why I personally didn't vote for Trump in the first place last time.

01:33:36

Those are issues that we have to wrestle with and have a responsible, discerning, knowledgeable discussion about these issues.

01:33:46

But again, you have to look at the big picture as well. You see, I don't like a lot of Trump's tweets.

01:33:55

I really don't like that he was going back and forth with Kim Jong -un saying, Hey, my button is bigger.

01:34:01

My nuclear missile button is bigger and it actually works. You don't go back and forth on social media with a meganomaliacal tyrant about whose nukes are bigger and work better.

01:34:18

You don't do that. That's irresponsible. Yeah, he says stupid things. He does sinful things.

01:34:24

He does very sinful things. And he's done sinful things in the past. But look at the big picture.

01:34:29

We also have to look at the big picture. And we also have to recognize that he's actually made some improvements.

01:34:36

When he first started out, he said something like, I don't need to ask

01:34:42

God for forgiveness because I don't think I have any sins to forgive. I don't need to ask him for forgiveness.

01:34:49

He said something like that. But you see him now and you see there is something that seems to indicate a certain amount of growth.

01:35:00

And one of those times was when he was really distraught. He was extremely distressed and he actually went to a church asking for prayer.

01:35:09

I think it was, I don't know if it was David Platt's church. I think it was in the

01:35:15

D .C. area somewhere. He went to a church and the guy looked like he was undone.

01:35:23

That takes a lot of humility. You're the president of the United States. And you're walking to a church and you're asking somebody for prayer.

01:35:36

And I'm not saying that makes the guy a Christian. And I'm not saying we should give him a pass on all of the other stupid and sinful things he's done before.

01:35:44

But when you look at the big picture and you look at the progress that he's made.

01:35:49

You look at the policies that he's enacted. He has made an incredible amount of beneficial change for everyone.

01:35:57

For everyone in our society because he's promoting things that enable us to live peaceful, quiet and peaceable lives.

01:36:06

And the left will do the exact opposite of that. The exact opposite.

01:36:11

Because you can't have peace and you can't have quiet when there's rioting and there's people stealing, killing and destroying you at every level.

01:36:18

When the government is stealing your money. When they want to sanction the murder of unborn children.

01:36:27

And they want to destroy the very infrastructure of everything that makes us a stable society with law and order.

01:36:35

And a criminal justice system. Let me capitalize on three points

01:36:42

Carlos. I think that was really good. First is wealth redistribution. You pointed out that it's theft.

01:36:50

And it's not difficult. In our last episode when we talked about Black Lives Matter.

01:36:56

I pointed out that Christianity is a system of truth. And the Bible alone is it's objective standard.

01:37:03

So we have an objective standard of truth. So Christians should be arriving at the same conclusions on a lot of these things.

01:37:12

Yet we see that so many Christians. And professing Christians whether they are or not.

01:37:19

But they're buying into ideas like socialism or wealth redistribution. It's pretty simple.

01:37:29

What's one of the commandments? It says you shall not steal. You shall not steal.

01:37:36

So I don't have the right to go and take your stuff. Why? Because that's your private property.

01:37:44

And that's exactly what socialism denies. It denies the right of private property.

01:37:50

Well it says you shall not cover your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. Or his male servants or his female servants or his ox.

01:37:57

Or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's. Anything that is your neighbor's.

01:38:03

So they sell this idea of wealth redistribution. It's sold on the basis of greed.

01:38:14

We vilify. The people that are rich. Well good for you. You're rich. God has given you.

01:38:21

He's made that possible for you. He's given you the talent to make that money. And it's like we need to tax them more.

01:38:29

And it's really a stupid idea. Because it's like the United States government is probably one of the most wasteful institutions on earth.

01:38:38

With all of its bureaucracy and corruption. And so it's like do you really think that the government taxing rich people more is like going to somehow filter into your pockets?

01:38:52

You're pretty deceived if you think that's the case. The other thing that you brought up was that you don't like Trump's tweets,

01:39:00

Carlos. And I agree with you. And I got into a conversation with somebody from work.

01:39:07

And we were talking about this. And the issue of well he tweets a lot.

01:39:14

And he's a moron. And blah, blah, blah. And I said okay. Fine. Whatever. I'll give that to you.

01:39:20

Right? But are you telling me. This goes back to straining a gnat and swallowing a camel.

01:39:25

Are you telling me that you're more upset about Trump's tweets than you are about the

01:39:31

Democrats wanting to murder babies? Is that where we're at in this conversation? And then finally you said that he walked into church and that he was asking for prayer.

01:39:44

And I think that as Christians that's really where we need to be in this whole situation. We really, really need to pray for Trump.

01:39:53

Because I honestly don't – a lot of people were – the debate was terrible and a lot of people were saying that he was unpresidential.

01:40:02

And I'm thinking, you know, I would be seriously ticked off if I was in his position.

01:40:09

If I was constantly being lied about. If I was impeached over a phony, fake, quid pro quo and yet it's now coming out that Biden actually did engage in a quid pro quo in which he said you're not getting the billion dollars to Ukraine unless you fire the prosecutor who's investigating

01:40:32

Burisma. Like that's an actual quid pro quo. I'd be ticked off if I got impeached for that, for a phony one, and then

01:40:43

Biden actually engaged in it and Chris Wallace doesn't even want to entertain the discussion.

01:40:49

And nobody will ask him about it. I mean I'd be pretty ticked off. So I don't really blame him for going hard after Biden's son,

01:40:59

Hunter Biden. So I think that those are three things that I just want to add to that.

01:41:06

I mean socialism – let me just point this out as well. Socialism is so anti -Christian it should be obvious.

01:41:15

Show me where in the Bible that Jesus said that it was good to lobby the government to take money from one person to give to another person on your behalf.

01:41:23

And people will say like, oh, well, what about the Good Samaritan? The difference between biblical charity and government -run socialism is that biblical charity is always a one -to -one basis.

01:41:36

So you see that the Good Samaritan – go back and read that story. Notice what the Good Samaritan did. He gave his own time, his own money, his own resources to help out an individual.

01:41:46

He didn't like go and say, well, we should – this is a real problem.

01:41:53

We need to get the government involved and we need to tax rich people so that they can fix this problem.

01:41:59

No. So if you see somebody who's in need, again, do what James says. If your brother's in need, if lacking in food or clothing, give it to them.

01:42:09

Help them out. So, Hiram, did you have anything that you wanted to add to that word now?

01:42:17

I think at an hour and 47 minutes. And I think that this is an important episode. I mean there's so many things that we haven't covered.

01:42:25

I mean we could just go on for days talking about these issues. But I think that we've covered the main gist of it, which is

01:42:34

I think it's OK for a Christian to vote for Trump. I can respect those people who maybe struggle with some of these things and it's like, well,

01:42:44

I can't really vote for him because I struggle with that. And it's like, OK, I'm fine with that. But you better not vote for Biden either.

01:42:52

Like you better just like refrain and pray about the election or pray for him and just withhold your vote.

01:42:59

But you're a total hypocrite if you're saying I'm not going to vote for Trump but then you're going to go and vote for Biden. You're a total hypocrite.

01:43:06

And I think that we need to have these conversations with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And I don't think

01:43:12

I mean we need to be accountable to each other as we think through this because this is not an area that is outside of our

01:43:20

Christian worldview. You know, guess what, everybody? Politics is part of our

01:43:26

Christian worldview. We have a complete and comprehensive worldview from Scripture. We can formulate a view, a biblical view of government and the role of government and these political issues from Scripture as we've been doing.

01:43:42

So I think that, you know, we've made it clear that we don't think that you have the option to vote for a

01:43:51

Democrat. You know, Carlos, you've said it pretty plainly that you don't even know how the person can be a

01:43:59

Christian and they need to repent. Which, you know, Carlos, how would you define repentance in this?

01:44:08

Would you say that the person is sinning or what would you say real quickly?

01:44:13

Yeah, it's sin.

01:44:19

It's clearly sin. How can you endorse a candidate who is promoting everything that's contrary to what the

01:44:25

Bible teaches? How are you going to endorse a candidate who is promoting sin in their agenda?

01:44:32

And not just pecadillos. We're talking murder, theft.

01:44:39

We're talking moral law. We're talking Ten Commandments sin. Okay, this is not like, you know, tertiary stuff.

01:44:49

So it's absolutely sin. Absolutely it's sin. And it's sin to such an extent that it really betrays who you are claiming to be.

01:45:01

Because, again, if you don't have a problem with the Democratic Party's agenda, you're basically forfeiting your claim to be a

01:45:11

Christian. Because you have nothing in common with Christ and the Scripture. Nothing.

01:45:19

Yeah. Hiram, what about you, man? I called on you and then I went to Carlos. I noticed that.

01:45:24

That's all right. Yeah. I was going to say, I don't, okay, as regards

01:45:31

Trump's tweeting and the way he talks, I don't have, you know, if it's not sinful, if it's just him trolling people on Twitter like he does and him, you know, bickering sometimes with people back and forth over political issues,

01:45:47

I don't really have a problem with that. And, you know, the whole idea of someone being presidential and not being presidential to me is one of the most superficial things

01:45:56

I've ever heard. You know what I mean? I mean, it's like, is that really, like, the person, okay, this is like when, this is like judging someone's intelligence on the basis of some idiosyncratic behavior that you have that you say all intelligent people should have, right?

01:46:14

Not you personally, Tim, but just you in general, right? You have some sort of idiosyncratic behavior that you hold up as the standard and then you say anyone who doesn't do this idiosyncratic thing that only

01:46:23

I and a few other people do is not worthy to be called a human being, let's say, right? Or they're not a good person. It's like, well, that's, no, we have an objective standard like you said, right?

01:46:32

We have an objective standard and sometimes we need somebody to be very blunt and I'm not even, sometimes, all the time.

01:46:42

I mean, the same, again, well, let me backtrack because I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

01:46:49

Basically, the idea that I'm trying to get across here is that we as believers need to be grounded in scripture, right?

01:46:54

And we need to look at things as they are and not as they appear to be, right? Because I have a philosopher, like a legit philosopher friend on my

01:47:04

Facebook friends and this guy, I had respect for him and I no longer do. And the reason why is because he's demonstrated that rather than looking for truth and rather than looking for what's good, he's looking for what is aesthetically pleasing to him, right?

01:47:20

Trump doesn't speak a certain way, so he thinks Trump is unseemly, Trump is uncouth, Trump is not fit to be president.

01:47:26

Because he doesn't speak a certain way, really? Because he doesn't engage in debates with individuals the way that you think he should?

01:47:32

That's incredibly superficial, right? That's asinine and again, like I said, it's not the sinful stuff that I'm talking about.

01:47:41

But what I'm thinking about is essentially this, the standard is

01:47:46

God's law and the standard, that's what we use to judge whether or not a person is doing what's right or wrong.

01:47:53

Not our aesthetic preferences, right? Our worldview should not come from what we think is nice sounding, what we think looks nice, what we think is pleasing to us.

01:48:04

Because Democrats say a lot of things. I mean, look at Obama, he's very well spoken. Not to use

01:48:10

Biden's racist line of saying he's the only clean, articulate African American. As if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were just quintessential models of public discourse, give me a break.

01:48:26

Well yeah, there's that too. But look at Obama, look how well he spoke, right? And this is the guy that's, you know, drone bombing kids.

01:48:35

Like, this is the guy that's funneling money to corrupt organizations. This is the guy who is involved in all sorts of illegitimate stuff, right?

01:48:42

This is the guy who committed treason by spying on the president while the president's in office, right? So, we need to get our heads on straight, all

01:48:51

Christians, and not follow the world because that's essentially what it is. You're following the world when you're judging by appearances.

01:48:58

You're following the world when the world says, this person is cleaned up, and they speak nicely, and softly, and they're likable, and therefore, you should vote for them because they're good.

01:49:08

When in reality, that person supports every evil under the sun, right? That's the way the world thinks. Those are the people that would fall for Antichrist.

01:49:19

Yeah. Those are the people who haven't considered what it means when it says that Satan can present himself as an angel of light.

01:49:29

It's like, yeah, he can be very polished and very well -spoken, and then he's going to murder babies, you know?

01:49:37

And the thing that has always driven me nuts ever since I was a kid was, and this is just an observation that I've made, is, look, someone can hate you, absolutely despise you in a way that sounds so pleasant, and if you value that person because they speak their hatred for you in a way that's pleasant as opposed to the person who yells at you, then you're an idiot.

01:50:04

I mean, there's no way around it, right? Because, I mean, that's the long and the short of it. There are people who are very good at concealing or, you know, being indirect about what it is they're saying or being subtle or having nuance, and that's irrelevant.

01:50:18

It's really irrelevant because if, at the end of the day, what's in their heart toward you or toward whatever issue is something vile and wicked and disgusting, and they're trying to sugarcoat it, and they're presenting it to you in a way that's not offensive to you, then that person needs to go because it shows a depth of depravity that goes so far as to say,

01:50:38

I know that what I'm saying is going to have a negative effect, and so I'm going to cover it over so that it doesn't have a negative effect, and yet I'm not going to relinquish those ideas.

01:50:46

You see what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. And, you know, this is the way that false teachers work, and Christians are warned about this.

01:50:57

Let me look it up. It's Romans 16, 18. It says, And so he's referring to false teachers.

01:51:16

And so, I mean, Christians, again, have a biblical worldview. Go to Scripture. This is exactly,

01:51:36

And so it's like, yeah, Obama was a fantastic orator. He could speak well, but look at what he was doing.

01:51:46

Look at what he supported. Look at, I mean, he was the most pro -LGBT president that we've ever had.

01:51:54

You know, he was radical in his agenda, and it was anti -Christ.

01:52:00

It was anti -Christian, but yet, because he spoke well, and he was presidential, and, you know, honestly,

01:52:08

Hiram, I agree with you. I don't, first of all, I don't really, I don't get on Twitter that much, so I don't really follow the president's tweets.

01:52:16

But what I'm saying is, for the sake of argument, I'm willing to say, Okay, fine, I'll give it to you.

01:52:22

His tweets are awful. For the sake of argument, just to point out that you're straining a knot and swallowing a camel.

01:52:28

Like, why are you not this morally outraged by the other side when they actually want to do things that will kill people?

01:52:36

You know, and yet, so, yeah, I, you know, I appreciate what you're saying, and I agree with you.

01:52:45

Guys, let me ask you, we've gone for about two hours. Any other lingering, final thoughts that you want to throw in there?

01:52:55

You know, there's, unfortunately, there's more that I wanted to get into.

01:53:03

We could have talked about China, we could have talked about, you know, Tim, you brought up the Supreme Court, and I really wanted to get into that as well.

01:53:10

Maybe we can do that in another episode. But the one thing, and I will say this, at least about China, because this is where Trump, you know, because we have been touching on the economy as well.

01:53:28

And this is where Trump really started to earn my respects. When you saw in the 2016 election the

01:53:38

Republican nominees, and you saw the issues that people were raising, there's something very interesting that happened because Trump started to shine the light on a lot of problems that people tended to ignore a lot in the public sphere.

01:53:57

One of those issues was China. And Trump immediately started to go after China.

01:54:05

And very vocally, very clearly, and I was thinking to myself, like, I wasn't even aware of what the problem was with China.

01:54:15

But it was thanks in large part to Trump who motivated me to investigate more and realize there's a documentary on Prime called

01:54:31

Death by China, I believe. It's an excellent documentary. I encourage everybody to check it out.

01:54:37

But the issue here with China, you know, Trump was one of the few people

01:54:43

I've heard that was so vocal against the whole problem with China.

01:54:49

And China, what is China? What's China all about? They just happen to be called, ruled by, the

01:54:55

Chinese Communist Party. Okay, so, number one, they're communists, okay? Not only that, they're a bunch of lying, scheming, vicious communists, okay?

01:55:08

They've lied for decades to the U .S. about how they're going to reform their government.

01:55:13

They're going to become more democratic. They've done nothing but lie to our face as a nation about everything that they claim to be doing.

01:55:23

And they're just like the Democrats, you know? They throw all these empty promises at you and end up just lying through their teeth.

01:55:29

And now you have this whole virus situation, right? China lied again through their teeth about this virus.

01:55:37

If you want to talk about who was lying, yeah, there's the issue with Trump saying the virus is not— I forget, people called him out for saying that the virus is not a— it wasn't deadly or something like that.

01:55:48

I forgot what he said or what people called him out on. You want to talk about lying, okay? Let's talk about China.

01:55:54

China lied through their teeth about the virus getting out, about it being a problem, and ended up spreading it worldwide because of China's delinquent, communistic, wicked behavior.

01:56:09

And now we get into these issues now. See, China hates—the

01:56:17

Chinese Communist Party despises its own people. That's what happens when you have a communist in charge.

01:56:23

They tend to brutalize and despise their own people and are not afraid to kill them at their— to advance their agenda, to kill them at the people's expense to advance their own agenda.

01:56:36

And there's so many problems with China. And this is one—and I'm not saying we don't have our own problems internally.

01:56:42

Obviously, we had problems with Fauci. We had problems with our own—the medical leaders in our country.

01:56:48

They were in cahoots with China about this whole virus situation. And—but the thing here, you know, even

01:56:57

Bill Gates—gosh, I could—I've been wanting to get this out for a while. You know,

01:57:03

Bill Gates published a memo on his website about the virus and about how we should handle it.

01:57:09

And he said, one thing—one good thing that's come out of this virus is that you see the entire world coming together against this virus.

01:57:19

It's like, you know—well, thanks. Thanks, Mr. Gates. Now I know where your sympathies really lie.

01:57:26

You know, it's like, who are you trying to kid, my friend? It's so—you couldn't be any more obviously in league with China.

01:57:34

Obviously, you have a vested interest in China because you have company. You have companies in China. You have—you're friends with China.

01:57:41

You actually commended China for their strategy of dealing with the virus. You know, the brutal, tyrannical way in which they were forcing people out of their homes and throwing them into quarantine, even apparently burning some of them.

01:57:54

You know, it's like, yeah, let's—this is the China that—I mean, we're talking about a wicked communist regime that has completely undermined our country and because we allowed it to happen.

01:58:09

We allowed China to basically undermine—our country has allowed

01:58:16

China to undermine our country by selling these inferior, toxic, cheap products at our expense.

01:58:24

And now our GDP, our gross domestic product, is so abysmally low. And Trump—Trump was one of the only people who was calling attention to this problem.

01:58:34

And he really earned my respects for that because he helped me to see just how wicked and how much of a problem

01:58:41

China really is. And who happens to be friends with China on the other side?

01:58:48

Mr. Biden. Surprise, surprise. You know, it's like, why are we even surprised, right?

01:58:54

That's the thing. Let me jump in here because this is another thing that you really have to consider when voting for Biden.

01:59:02

I want to—I'm going to—in the show notes, I'm going to put an interview with Rudy Giuliani.

01:59:09

Because Hunter Biden didn't just take money from Ukraine. Hunter Biden also took millions of dollars from China.

01:59:17

And so Biden is so totally compromised when it comes to China.

01:59:23

And unfortunately, when this pandemic hit, I think like 95 % of our medical supplies was made by China.

01:59:35

And so if Biden is in cahoots with China, if Biden is beholden to China, and they have dirt on him with Hunter Biden, that puts us at a severe disadvantage for something like this to happen.

01:59:50

So you have to look at the fact that he is totally compromised with them.

01:59:57

And he sold us out. Biden and Obama, they basically—and

02:00:02

Bush, too. I'm willing to say that. Bush, the Bush dynasty, they sold us out to China.

02:00:08

Hillary Clinton did as well. Don't forget that. Yeah. Yeah. Man, she keeps—she's like a bad rash that just keeps popping up.

02:00:17

Yeah. I was thinking, I can't remember Hillary Clinton's running mate.

02:00:24

And I wish that I couldn't remember Hillary Clinton either. But she keeps reinserting herself into the political debate.

02:00:34

Yeah, so I think those are good points. I mean,

02:00:40

I hate to get you fired up again there, Carlos, because I'm trying to close it out here.

02:00:47

We're over two hours. But I want to add— And you're right. Go ahead. Go for it. Well, I was going to add one more thing about Joe Biden being compromised by China.

02:00:56

Go for it. I can probably find the clip, or you can look it up on YouTube or alternative sites.

02:01:02

Where he says—is it the one where he says, they're not bad folks, folks? Come on, man. No. Is it that one?

02:01:08

No, he's talking about China, right? And he's saying that we should not only learn from the

02:01:15

Chinese with respect to business, but also we should have them teach us how to do everything, essentially.

02:01:22

Education. So yeah, so like basically saying we should be ruled by the Chinese, right?

02:01:28

And I forget the exact quote, but it's him saying it. That's the position that he took, and that's where he stands.

02:01:36

Just like President Trump said, if Biden wins the election, then the U .S. belongs to China. I mean, that's literally what's going to happen.

02:01:44

Yeah. Do you want to just maybe add it to the show notes? Yeah, I'll see if I can dig it out the memory hole that YouTube has probably thrown it down.

02:01:54

But yeah, I'll try to find it, and if I do, then I can add it to the show notes. Yeah. So to close this out,

02:02:03

I'm taking the position that as Christians, we actually should vote for Trump.

02:02:09

And that's because if you see what's going on with big tech and censorship, and the radical oligarchy tactics of the political left, of the

02:02:21

Democrat Party, it's pretty alarming. It's only a matter of time before our

02:02:28

Christian liberties are taken away. And, you know, our time is short.

02:02:35

We know that Christ is coming back. And jokingly, I said that when

02:02:40

Christ returns, I'll support a globalist agenda at that time. But now, you know, we want to preserve our

02:02:49

Christian liberties. And the Obama administration was extremely hostile towards people of faith.

02:03:00

So I already voted for Biden. For Biden? I mean, it's so late.

02:03:08

I already voted for Trump. Scratch that. Just so our listeners know, it's now 1 o 'clock in the morning where I am while we're recording this.

02:03:19

So that's why I'm not thinking clearly. But I just pulled a Biden move.

02:03:25

We hold these truths to be self -you -know -the -thing. So anyways, are you guys cool with wrapping it up?

02:03:34

Or do you want to talk for another two hours? Another two hours, man. I'll just close with a little food for thought.

02:03:47

There's the issue of whether it's appropriate for Christians to endorse or support non -Christians in our voting process.

02:03:55

And I think in certain circumstances, when you look at the big picture, that's what we have to keep in mind.

02:04:01

When we look at the big picture and we get past the gnat -gagging reflex and focus on what's really at stake here, focus on the big issues, and we understand, overall,

02:04:14

Trump has done some really, really good things for us as a society, us as Christians, because he has better enabled us to live quiet and peaceable lives.

02:04:28

And that's where I think a helpful way of looking at it is that way. Who will better enable you to live a quiet and peaceable lives like the

02:04:37

Bible says? And some other things. We talked about how

02:04:43

Amy Coney Barrett is a Roman Catholic. Trump himself may not be a

02:04:48

Christian. You have men like this, and women, who are not necessarily

02:04:57

Christian. Even back in history, you have men like Lord Acton, who was an old -school

02:05:04

Catholic, and he attacked the papacy with so much fervor that a

02:05:09

Presbyterian journal hired him to write against the papacy. You have very interesting circumstances like this in history.

02:05:18

You even have men like James Lindsay. This guy is really interesting. Albert Moeller did an interview with James Lindsay recently, and I know you probably know about him,

02:05:28

Hiram, because he wrote an extremely good book that everybody should get a hold of called

02:05:34

Cynical Theories. And he just completely dismantles all the stuff that we've talked about with the critical race theory, the postmodern theory.

02:05:45

He brands them cynical theories, and he shows exactly how bankrupt they are. And he just happens to be an atheist.

02:05:53

Again, you have Senator Alan Keyes, who debated

02:05:59

Obama and did a brilliant job destroying Obama when they were running for the caucuses in Iowa, I think.

02:06:09

He's a Roman Catholic, but he has a very sound understanding of how our country should work and the policies that make our country a better place to live in to enable us to live quiet and peaceable lives.

02:06:24

You have people like this. They don't fit the typical mold of the thing that they subscribe to formally, when in reality, they actually, in some ways, agree more with the biblical worldview.

02:06:42

And in some ways, I think Trump resembles that. And I know he claims to be a Christian. I couldn't tell you.

02:06:49

I don't know. I don't know the guy. But that's the important thing, is looking at the big picture, looking at who would enable us to live quiet and peaceable lives.

02:07:05

What has Trump done in the past? You look at the things that he's done, rolling back the

02:07:11

Obama administration's agenda, the massive pro -LGBT push, all of these things, the tax cuts, enabling our country to better prosper and to grow our gross domestic product so that we don't have to rely on corrupt communist nations for our medical supplies and other vital manufacturing that is critical to a functioning society.

02:07:35

So there's so many things that are going on here. And I think

02:07:41

I'm also going to cast my ballot for Trump because he has earned my respects.

02:07:49

He has done some very beneficial things. I think he will better enable us to live quiet and peaceable lives like he has these past four years.

02:07:58

And I think that's not to overlook his flaws and his sins and his failures.

02:08:05

That's not at all to overlook that. We can get into another discussion about that even more as well.

02:08:13

But I think we have to be careful not to gag at gnats and swallow camels at the same time.

02:08:20

Yeah. Hiram, any last thoughts? Yeah. I agree with pretty much everything

02:08:28

Carlos was saying. And, yeah, it's just, like I said, my thing is it's not politics first, but it's theology and epistemology and philosophy, apologetics.

02:08:43

And the thing that I really want people to do, I want Christians to do, is to really think through what it is they're saying, what it is they're thinking.

02:08:52

And it might sound silly, but think through your thinking. Analyze your reasoning process and look at the reasons why you're deciding for or against someone, and in this case against Trump, and see whether or not those are valid reasons logically.

02:09:07

See if they're sound reasons. See if they line up with what Scripture teaches, because you'll find out that they don't.

02:09:15

None of the objections that I've heard to Trump being re -elected have held any water at all.

02:09:22

They haven't withstood any criticism at all. They haven't been logically sound. They haven't been biblically sound or in accordance with what

02:09:31

Scripture teaches. As Christians, we need to get away from what the world is feeding us 24 -7, and it's hard because we're on social media, and whoever watches

02:09:43

TV, I guess a lot of people still do, I don't. But, you know, it's all over the place. The messaging is all around us, and the way that the world thinks is being pressed upon us, and we need to stand back and say,

02:09:52

Okay, they're saying that Trump is unpresidential because he speaks in a way that's abrasive.

02:09:58

Okay, as a Christian, is that something that should be concerning to me? A leader being abrasive and not meeting a certain standard of etiquette, right?

02:10:08

Those are the things we should be doing, is analyzing how we're thinking about things, analyzing and seeing whether or not we're making decisions on the basis of Scripture, and according to the

02:10:17

Christian worldview, and it's something we should always be doing. But for some reason, a lot of people, their judgment is cloudy, you know?

02:10:25

And if there's one thing that this whole, everything that's been going on, actually, for 2020 has shown me, is that there are a lot of people who say they're

02:10:33

Christian who, one by one, it's almost like a checklist is there, right, of what a

02:10:40

Christian should believe in or shouldn't believe in, and they're showing themselves to believe in those things, one by one, like every day when something new happens, whether it's

02:10:48

COVID -19, or whether it's, you know, the media blocking, or Facebook blocking posts, or whether it's, you know, attitude -sourced

02:10:57

Trump or attitude -sourced racism or whatever, these things are being, these attitudes, these beliefs that should not be held by Christians.

02:11:03

There's a lot of people now where, you know, I'm just going down the checklist and saying, okay, well, the bigger issue here in the final analysis, right, the biggest issue is, are you even a

02:11:14

Christian? Right, like Carlos was saying, if you're supporting the Democrat Party, if you're supporting the

02:11:19

Democrat Party because you think Trump's a meanie, right, if you're supporting killing babies because you don't like Trump, or if you're calling

02:11:24

Trump a tyrant and a dictator, and at the same time, you're supporting people who openly say they want to kill babies and the elderly because they get in the way of making money and get in the way of personal fulfillment, then are you a

02:11:37

Christian? Check your spiritual pulse, you know? And that's why I say that's the main thing for me.

02:11:42

I want people, like always, and like we always do, is look at the world according to what

02:11:48

Scripture teaches, and in those ways that you don't, repent. Change your mind according to what

02:11:53

God teaches. And that's not, I'm not saying that self -righteously. There's tons of things that I think incorrectly about, and the

02:11:59

Lord has changed me. That's part of sanctification, right? God is bringing us to repentance, and he's renewing us, right?

02:12:07

We're learning what the truth is, and we're learning how to live in accordance with the truth, and we're learning what's wrong with our thinking and our behaving, and he's changing that.

02:12:15

And that's something that we should be focused on, even when it's something that seems just out there, right?

02:12:21

Politics seems like it's out there, but reality, everything that you do in life is involved in the political sphere.

02:12:29

You're talking about ethics. What moral standard do you really uphold? And how do you demonstrate that, representatively?

02:12:35

If you vote for Biden, do you really hold the Ten Commandments, God's law up, you know what

02:12:40

I'm saying? All sorts of things like that. And we just need to think things through, and repent of the false ideas that we have, and ask the

02:12:48

Lord to give us the truth, and empower us to obey him. Yeah, I agree with everything that both of you said.

02:12:58

We need to strive to have a Christian worldview. We've all been in that position where we've had ideas that we thought were good, and then we realized, you know, they're out of accordance with scripture, and we've had to change our views and repent.

02:13:15

I just want to encourage everybody as we close out that I think it's really important that we pray for Trump.

02:13:22

One, pray that he would be elected. Vote for him, and then pray for his safety, and pray for his health.

02:13:30

I don't think that a lot of Christians really understand the gravity of the situation that we're facing.

02:13:39

I mean, here's the thing. 62 million babies aborted since Roe v.

02:13:45

Wade. We are ripe for God's judgment.

02:13:50

And this may be it. Eventually, it seems like, you know, we can't keep Democrats out of office forever.

02:14:00

Eventually, there's going to be a Democrat president. I think that there's probably going to be another very serious financial crisis within the next four years.

02:14:13

So even if Trump wins, I mean, if you look at what the Federal Reserve is doing, it's really alarming.

02:14:19

It's really scary. Everything is in a bubble. The stock market is in a bubble. And I think that if Trump wins,

02:14:28

I think that'll still happen. And probably what will happen is that people won't have the discernment or the understanding to know the difference between crony capitalism or cronyism and capitalism, and they'll blame capitalism, and then there will be a massive shift towards socialism.

02:14:46

So, we're not out of the water. I mean, I really believe that our nation is under judgment, that God is in the middle of the outpouring of His wrath upon our nation.

02:14:58

And, you know, the Bible makes it clear that whom

02:15:03

God wishes to destroy, He first removes knowledge, wisdom, and understanding from them. He makes them foolish.

02:15:10

And so, I think that's what's going on. If you don't know that Bruce Jenner is still a man, you know, that's a sign of God's judgment on us as a nation.

02:15:28

I mean, it's so wicked and it's so obvious. And this is what we're facing as a nation.

02:15:37

You know, I put this on Facebook. I said, you know, people don't recognize the magnitude of the trouble that we're facing as a nation.

02:15:44

It's as if they're complaining about the table arrangements while having dinner aboard the

02:15:50

Titanic. It's that bad, and they're that clueless. You know, as Christians, don't be clueless about these issues.

02:15:58

Go to God's Word. Recognize that there are some very serious issues at stake here that we need to be praying about.

02:16:09

You know, we need to pray, even if Biden wins, we need to pray for the president, that God's will would be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

02:16:20

So, I'm going to close it out with that. Guys, I want to say thank you for joining, for being part of the podcast tonight.

02:16:27

Carlos, we missed you last time, so it was really good to have you here for this one.

02:16:33

It's good to be back. Yeah, we're going to try to commit to getting back to the podcast. I mean,

02:16:39

I hope that we didn't lose all of our listeners. We were pretty AWOL for a while, and hopefully we can get back to it and start discussing these things and having more regular podcasts.

02:16:51

I don't know if we can do one every single week, but hopefully maybe two, three a month. But anyways,

02:16:58

I just want to say thank you. Please be praying about these issues, and we will check you next time.