Scheduled Political Talk, Divine Plot Twist | EP 26

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And I think we have to say that he's not the savior and we have to be careful. We're not elevating this man higher than Jesus Christ.

00:08

We're not even saying that. We're not even confident that he's a Christian. We just think that maybe God is using him to help run the country, not as a born again

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Christian. We're hoping and praying that's the case, but we're just saying this guy is a much better choice than the alternative.

00:45

And welcome to Tearing Down High Places. My name's Average Joe. Nice to have you today. Today, we've got

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Seth Brickley as our honored guest. Welcome to the show, Seth. It's great to be back, guys.

00:59

Fantastic. Let me say hi real quick to our pastors in the house, as per usual. Pastor Tim.

01:05

Hi, Joe. Hi, Pastor Jeff. Greetings. All right. Today's show is going to be exciting.

01:12

We had planned several weeks ago to talk about the presidential election, because why?

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Well, it's Republican Convention Week. We had no idea, guys, did we?

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The things that were going to transpire leading up to this convention, especially this weekend. So I also have a video to share with you guys that I want to get your reaction on.

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It may lead us down to a conversation about God's providence.

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So let's see that video real quick. Take a look what happened,

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Joe. Take a look what happened,

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Joe. Whoa.

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What do you guys think of that? Wow. Yeah, remarkable.

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What's happening in that video? You got the real image up top, and then an AI generated, or some kind of TikTok.

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I think it's called geospatial. Geospatial of where his head was. Geospatial recognition that takes a graphic representation out of the video and extracts it and then replays it, and then you can add layers.

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Just like they do in any of the video editing, they're adding layers on top of layers. So I don't know if the bullets trajectory,

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I can't even speak to the accuracy of it. But I mean, you can see from the video compared to the geospatial rendering below it, it's super accurate from that point of view.

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I mean, I can't see the bullets, but - And you can hear the sound effects of it too, the pop, which would be just at that second.

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Wow. Wow. What do you guys think? Could God providentially have Donald Trump move like that for a purpose right in that very moment as the gun was shot?

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Because that was a peculiar, even like the microphone is here and normal people talk like this.

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He literally turned all the way like this and was like horizontal with the microphone. Not many speakers really do that.

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Hey, if Genesis 1 .1 is true, I do think it's possible. Yeah. Yeah. I was watching an experienced sniper explain that this shot would be performed accurately nine times out of 10 by a beginner.

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He was only, I think, 130 some yards away, a clear shot, and remarkable that he missed.

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And he only missed, of course, because he turned his head at the last minute. Yeah. So to answer your question,

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Tim, we know what the Bible says about the providence of God. Ephesians 1 .11 says that all things happen according to the counsel of his will.

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Proverbs 16 .33, the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the

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Lord. There are no random events. Yeah. Amen. And R .C.

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Sproul said there's not one maverick molecule in the universe. So yeah, this is God protecting the life of former

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President Trump. In fact, Psalm 91 talks about we need not fear the arrow that flies by day or the pestilence that stalks at night, but God is covering us with his wings.

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And he clearly watched out for President Trump. He has yet more of a purpose for him.

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Mm -hmm. And I think you got to see more of Trump's true character, even getting hit with a bullet.

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I mean, the guy's almost 80 years old, takes a little bullet to the ear, but still has the presence of mind to just be like, yeah, you know,

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I don't know what he was yelling, but he just looked very bold. I liked that as well.

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That was awesome. That was like Braveheart. He was yelling fight.

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He was yelling fight. I was texting with another brother over the weekend about that, and we're like, we're not sure what that F is, but if he's getting hit with a bullet, we're going to give him a little grace, right?

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Yeah. I think he got some street cred, too. I think that's going to end up working to his benefit, everything that's happened.

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Yeah. He's focused. He's so focused to be saying fight, fight. I mean, I would have been probably the

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F -bomb. When you think of some of the iconic pictures in American history, that picture with him with the flag in the background, with his face bloody, his fist up,

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Secret Service carrying him off. I mean, that's like you and Dima.

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That's like somebody's grandpa, you know? Very cool. So everyone's saying he's planned it now because of that, right?

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So it's so perfect. It's so perfect. It's so providential that, of course, Trump planned to get shot in the ear.

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Somebody planned it. Somebody did plan it. It couldn't have been done by humanity because the odds of turning just that slight second for just the fact that God allowed him to get hit in order to have blood on his face, it shows everyone just how close it was so that nobody could say, ah, these bullets, you know, he was just shooting, taking pot shots from a distance or something.

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It wasn't that close. It shows that it was God who saved his life. Have you heard the comparisons to Leviticus 8 .23?

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No. 8 .23. Moses slaughtered the ram and took some of its blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron's right ear.

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There we go. So now he's part of the Levitical priesthood. That sounds more like the

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Bible code kind of stuff to me. You know, like numerology out of the scripture and everything. Yeah, I brought that up.

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I like it. It's fun. But no, I'm not going to give you that one. You're not going to go on that side of the ditch.

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You're not going to go that far and anoint Donald Trump. Good for you. He's not a

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Levitical priest. But I think one thing we need to consider here is the hatred toward this man.

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It's rare to see this deep of hatred directed toward one man. And we see it, of course, with Donald J.

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Trump. And we've seen it. And this is nothing new. Right. It goes back all the way to when he was running for the presidency back in 2015 and 2016.

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Where do you guys think this hatred is coming from? Why is this different? From the platform worldview difference between the

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Republican National Convention. Yesterday, I read the whole platform in the RNC. And the difference between that and the

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Democratic National Convention, they still have their 2020 out. They haven't brought out the new one. But the desire to murder babies versus the

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Republican platform, which is to save the lives of babies. And not just with abortion, but with the

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LGBTQ agenda and pushing so many of these things. There is a qualitative difference between these two platforms.

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That's the difference. It really comes down to different worldviews. Go ahead, Joe. What about now,

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I'm watching this convention and I'm seeing a whole lot of promotion of homosexuality and this big tent thing now has sin issues included.

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Certainly not, we're protecting life, but we're not recognizing a lot of bad stuff.

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Yeah. Of what they're platforming at the convention. I agree. Yeah. But this hate for Trump has been for a long time.

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When I was in California, I lived in California for three months during his first election or in 2020.

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I went on a dating site for maybe, I think I had it downloaded for 10 minutes. And every girl that was on there, it would show a little profile.

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Every single one of them, I'm going to say 99 out of 100, it started with like, F Trump.

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I hate Trump. Trump is bad. Something bad about him. And I'm just like, is this like real people or is this like big tech or something?

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I have no clue, but I just deleted the app. But I thought it was insane that so many people hated him. I believe that if anybody else had been elected in 2016, by 2020, the same outrage and hatred would have been there.

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Do you remember when George H .W. Bush was the president and Jeremiah Wright was saying things like, not

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God bless America, God damn America, he said. And then he said, because you're killing innocent people and he has these reasons.

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The primary person that he thought was Hitler at that time was George W. Bush.

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Think about that. Because he thought that Bush was like this extremist of conservatism.

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Think about that. George W. Bush, an extremist of conservatism, which is absolutely not true at all.

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What we see is Trump, he's this great enemy of globalism.

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And I just want to look at some of the policy, some of the things he did in his first term.

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He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. He kept America out of wars and the world was a safer place.

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Of course, immigration, strong on immigration. Oil production in America.

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So he's against the climate change agenda. He supported

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Americans to find lockdowns. And I know, of course, there's the whole Operation Warp Speed thing that he was involved in.

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But he was an opponent of Anthony Fauci. I mean, that's clear. When John MacArthur opened up his church in the summer of 2020,

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Donald Trump called John MacArthur to support him in opening his church.

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So you see a man who hates globalism.

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He's an American first guy. I mean, think of his opponents here. Klaus Schwab, Yuval Noah Harari, is that a name you guys are familiar with?

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I mean, he's about as evil as it gets. Bill Gates, the Democratic Party in America, which includes, of course,

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Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton. I mean, all the big names.

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He pulled America out of the World Health Organization. Love that. Yeah. I mean, he's against NATO.

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He's against the mainstream media. He's against academia. And of course, and here's the connection with us, the elite evangelicals can't stand him either.

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Right. Which is interesting. Joe, I got to send you a video I took yesterday. Maybe you can even get it into this episode.

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I don't know if you can cut and paste later. I took it on my cell phone. Oh, OK. Curtis Chang from The After Party, who we talked about last week.

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Yeah. The After Party is so -called evangelicals, Russell Moore, David French, Curtis Chang.

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Well, he was doing a question and answer time on a Zoom call, and I jumped on it.

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And he was even less guarded on that Zoom call than he is in The After Party for public consumption.

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He said that he's voting for Joe Biden. Wow. That's an episode in itself,

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Jeff. We got to interact with Curtis Chang, because I'm telling you what, you resonated with a lot of people with last week's episode.

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You know, that was... Well, whether you put it in there or not, I can say this much for this week.

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There is leftist evangelicals, some of them probably funded by Soros, who are political operatives trying to move evangelicalism, which has been united, 85 percent united around the ethics of Christianity in the public square, reflected in the

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Republican National Convention platform. Not in everybody that they put on the platform, but in their actual written policies.

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You have leftist progressives who are trying to move evangelicalism away from the truth of the

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Christian ethic. And it's working, though. But I mean, the Hegelian dialectic, every time I look, they're doing that.

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I mean, isn't that what homosexuality is? We're going to take the LGBTQ++ and we're going to accept the

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G and throw out the rest as the Republican Party. You know, you're saying the

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Republicans aren't pure. Heck to the no. I have that.

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Actually, I've got a confession, guys. While I really want Donald Trump to win and I was very, very happy with a lot of the things that Seth brought up, although I think he needs to, you know, confess a little poor management with Fauci and that, he's not taking any accountability for that.

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But I've never voted for Trump, you know, and I may still not. So you guys got this episode to convince me.

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I'm still leaning towards RFK because I live in Jersey and I think a vote for RFK is a vote for Trump in a blue state like New Jersey.

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So. That is that's a bombshell, Joe. I just see that as no shot, though, like if you think

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Trump has no shot, I also think RFK has no shot. So I don't see the difference of your vote going to RFK or Trump.

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You know what I mean? Why not just vote for Trump? Because I think he'll still beat RFK. No, here's here's the thinking.

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Here's the thought process in New Jersey. Totally blue. Completely blue. In our state primaries, the

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Trump backed candidate. And now the shooting the other day may change all this upside down.

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So I don't really know. But in the primary last month, the Trump backed candidate, a woman, was not only did she lose to a homosexual man who's a

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Republican. She got pummeled. She wasn't even close. So in the Republican primary,

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Trump's not carrying New Jersey in the Republican primary. However. You know, everything that happened last week could change everything, you know, so I don't know.

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But I don't think I trust polls, you know, and so I'm not sure. But but in a state where RFK is extremely liberal, but people aren't you know, nobody's happy with the establishment.

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So in New Jersey, too, I mean, you know, we finally got Menendez thrown in jail or convicted the other day.

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Unfortunately, I think that's just in time for Biden to pardon him on the way out. So I just want to get my hands around after Operation Average Joe helped to vote for RFK is the idea that maybe

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RFK could win New Jersey. RFK could beat Biden in New Jersey.

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I mean, Biden's a walking corpse. Biden's a walking corpse. Am I going to vote for if I'm a never

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Trumper in New Jersey? I'm going to go. I could pull the I could pull the lever for RFK.

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I'm never I'm never pulling that Trump. So if if let's see, like, wouldn't that not make any sense if some of the

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Biden people are going to vote for RFK? That works to Trump's favor. Now, people just like people who are supposed to vote for Trump just continue with Trump and then he beats both of them.

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You know, Tim, I know I know you're in the trenches here in New Jersey and you're witnessing to all the heathen, maybe you don't know how many heathen there are.

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But it seems to be like a split, just I think

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North Jersey probably is mainly Democrat. Right. I like how Joe's thinking outside of the box.

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I just don't think the math is there. I think Trump will probably get like forty five percent of what he is in all of New Jersey.

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The problem is that Biden's going to get fifty five. And so, you know, RFK is just well, maybe it's like sixty to forty or something like that.

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If he couldn't carry the primary candidate. Right. Yeah. That means he got twenty five percent of the total vote,

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Max. What did he get in twenty twenty? Oh, my gosh. I mean,

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I don't know. The numbers were so better than twenty twenty. Now that he's like Braveheart, I was looking at something that said

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Ronald, I wasn't alive at this time. Maybe some of you guys were. But it says when Ronald Reagan was running for president, he someone attempted to assassinate him and the entire country turned red and then they voted him.

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Yes. He had a landslide in his first election, too. Reagan had a landslide in his first election, too.

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He lost one state in his first election and one state in the second. Oh, yeah. My homestead, my homestead,

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Minnesota, Minnesota. Yeah, that's what it says here. And that's where Mondale was from.

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And he lost Georgia in the first election against Jimmy Carter. That's where Jimmy Carter was. Yeah. The assassination attempt was in nineteen eighty one.

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So the next election was until eighty four. Yeah. Another video. I should have grabbed that video.

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And I could. There's another video of Ronald Reagan speaking in Berlin, I think. And he's after he was after his assassination attempt.

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And they're comparing Trump to this because while he's speaking, a balloon pops in the audience.

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And Ronald Reagan goes like this. Mm hmm. Miss me. And then he continues to speak.

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It's a miracle. It is so. By its very existence and character,

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Berlin remains the most compelling argument for an open world. We're reminded of the many traditions of openness and democracy that have marked the history of this city.

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Amir, miss me. Yeah. So what's interesting, guys,

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I think that if you look back at Bush and Kerry and Romney and Obama, those those elections,

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I think it was an establishment candidate versus an establishment candidate, even though it was

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Republican and Democrat. What you what happened in 2016 was different in the sense that Donald Trump is this outsider.

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You know, he he's one of those guys. He isn't going to do what he's told. He's going to do what he wants to do.

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Yeah. Yeah. He's he's he just makes his own decisions. Right. And and the

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Republican Party, the establishment, that he terrified them because of that.

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So so I think that, you know, even though Bush was hated, no question about it, even though McCain was hated when he ran in Romney, even

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Romney was hated. It was tolerable. They're like, oh, we can we really don't like this guy, but we can tolerate him with with with Trump.

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Look, look at what's happened during his first term as a president. And I'm saying first term because I'm hopeful that there will be a second term.

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During his first term, he was impeached twice. And then, of course, in his reelection bid, once he starts running for president and they realize he's running again, he goes through all these legal issues where they're trying to find a crime.

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Right. They're trying to throw him in jail. And of course, you know, we don't we want to be careful how we say this because we don't know everything with the

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Thomas Matthew Crooks shooting here. But to say that this is isolated from all of that,

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I think would be naive. You know, things have just been ramped up. Impeachment, jail, assassination attempt.

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So I find that very interesting. He is a threat. He's an existential threat to this evil, globalistic push that we see taking place all over the place in America and all over the world.

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Pastors, do you guys think the average Christian sees how wicked and potentially church crushing the globalist agenda is?

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I think those who watch a lot of the Calvary Chapel and kind of in times teachers have been more aware, like Jack Hibbs and understanding the times of Jan Markell and Amir Safari.

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There's a number who are focusing on what's happening with globalism. But I think most have not been aware of where this world goes, because ultimately what's going to happen is a one world government.

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Babylon, mystery Babylon with a one world religion, and that is what falls in Revelation 17 and 18 at the end of the tribulation.

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So it has to gain momentum. It has to gain steam, and it's restrained.

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That's the key point that we need to focus on. That's good. Strainer is holding it back until the restrainer is taken out of the way.

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Who is the restrainer of Second Thessalonians 2 7? Who is he? The pronoun he.

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It's the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit. Ministry in the church is what is restraining this mystery of lawlessness.

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Yes, there will be an anti Christ. There's been many anti Christ in the world, and many have wanted to unify the world in a one world government.

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But the restrainer has kept it at bay. God has been doing that through the church. Did you know that Donald Trump does have a boss?

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He does submit to someone. I just watched a clip recently where he said, Oh, I have a boss.

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There's a boss higher than me. And then he went on to say a lot of people tell me that I'm the most famous man in the world.

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And I tell them I'm not the most famous man in the world. And they say, Well, who is?

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And Trump said, Jesus Christ. Amen, man. Yeah, and he says it's not even close.

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Yes. There are people who point out the fact that he said he never repents. That's true.

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He said that has changed, and maybe it will change even more now that he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that only

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God. Life by making him turn like the second that a bullet whizzed by his head.

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There's actually a video that I saw of a I think he was a pastor or a prophet or I'm not sure if it was legit.

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But apparently he made this video and prediction that Donald Trump was going to get shot in the ear and his eardrum was going to be hurt or something.

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And then he was going to fall on his knees and become a born again Christian. And this was predicted before it happened.

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So apparently I have to look into it, but I saw it floating around on the Internet. I think it was

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Jeremiah Johnson, who's famous as part of the prophetic camp, a bit of the

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NAR kind of prophet. And he shut down his ministry in 2021 because he had predicted

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Trump into the White House. Oh, he started his ministry under a different title.

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He's back again. Now, I saw that video. The problem is I haven't been able to validate because I went to his own website to see if he and there's no video with him saying that three months ago.

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But it's on TikTok. So is it possible that he said that the day it happened? Beforehand, I kind of said, you know,

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I don't know if it's true or not. Because I do believe God could do that. God could give a prophetic word.

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I watch it. I was like, what? He said that. I mean, I'm hopeful that it's true.

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I hope it is true. When he was down, he prayed to the Lord and then the Lord brought him back up. And then he really was a true

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Christian. And he he's going to lead the whole nation. I'm telling you, if Jeremiah Johnson said that three months ago, that's crazy.

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That is awesome. But I hope he did say it three months ago. Yeah, but we'd be naive to just take it because someone put three months ago on TikTok, you know.

25:55

Right. Yeah. That's why I have to look more into it. Yeah, I think one of the great weaknesses of the anti -social justice evangelicals, this is a critique

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I'm offering, is they don't see, they don't often talk about the relationship between this problem and eschatology.

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Right. And how, you know, the social justice movement, what is it?

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I mean, it's this oppressor, oppressed system that gives power to a small group of people who, frankly, want to rule the world.

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And they're all globalists. Right. And Jeff, I'll read this here, Revelation 13, verses 5 through 8.

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Right. So we don't know how long it's going to take, but this is where the world is heading.

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And Donald Trump, in God's wisdom, is an obstacle to this.

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If you think about that, I mean, all his agenda is against, I mean, even if he's not a born,

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I don't believe he's a born again Christian yet. I mean, let's pray that he becomes one. But it's remarkable.

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Do you think he's a lot like Cyrus of Persia? Yes. That's a good comparison.

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Yeah, that's a great comparison. I like that. I was going to say Nebuchadnezzar.

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Before Cyrus. Well, and guys, as we connect this with evangelicalism,

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American evangelicalism, think of how naive a lot of these men, you know, the

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Tim Kellers, you know, John Piper. I mean, I used to read up everything

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John Piper wrote. I loved John Piper until I started to realize, you know, this liberal drift that was there, this progressiveness that seemed to be in his heart.

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You know, he had sympathies towards social justice, no question about it. And even when the

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COVID stuff came out, he was forgetting the jab. And I'm thinking like he might not know this, but he's actually supporting this beast system that's coming on the world.

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And it's really frightening when you think about it, to be honest with you. As the non -pastor in this quad,

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I want to say how important it is for me to have my pastor help me look at current events.

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You know, and I feel sad for any Christian who's going to a church where that's not happening because my

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Christian worldview is not as strong as it should be. I've been steeped in this cultural trash for so long.

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And, you know, to be able to discern really what's going on through a biblical lens is the thing we need to promote, to provoke even, revival.

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You know, amen. So one of the things that struck me when I read the

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Republican National Convention platform is that they explicitly call for protecting religious liberty.

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And standing up for Christians when Christians are being persecuted.

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It wasn't that big of a deal before 2020. But in 2020, you have in Canada, Pastor James Coates thrown in jail for resisting big government, the rise of big government and its totalitarian control over churches.

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It could happen again. And the same people who were doing this kind of thing are part of that globalist system.

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So things like forcing masks upon the faces of Christians in church, forcing or requiring injections.

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And I didn't catch, Seth, what you said about Piper and that. He wrote an article saying, get the jab,

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I mean, saying it was the moral, the right thing to do. And, you know, just following,

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I don't know if he is following Francis Collins instructions, but we know that Big Eva, elite establishment, they're all connected in this group think.

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Didn't you tell me one time that Piper registered as a Democrat? Correct. One year.

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And this is a bombshell. My wife is an eyewitness to this. Seth, you can't possibly be a true

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Christian. If you're a Democrat, there we go. Yeah. So, so,

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I mean, there's actually been documentation about people like, you know, Tim, Tim Keller was a lifelong registered

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Democrat. Mark Dever, of course, Jeff, you know, Mark Dever was a registered Democrat. You showed paperwork to show that.

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Yeah. Um, so John Piper. So my wife was, look, she actually had a really silly infraction, um, for tinted windows.

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And, and she, and she was always bothered that it was on her record, you know? And so there, there, there was actually this site where you could actually see things that are on your record.

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And, and she went out, she went on there to see if it was on there and it wasn't on there anymore.

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And you can actually look up other people on this site as well to, to see their records.

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And I was just kind of joking. I'm like, oh, let's try John Piper. And she types in John Piper's name.

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And what comes up on there is, I, I, I remember this vividly. I wish I would have taken a picture of it, but I mean,

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I'm sure it's still on there. Um, it was, I believe it was February, 2012 registered

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Democrat. And think about this November of 2012 is when

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Obama ran against Mitt Romney. So, so, so I'm just,

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I mean, it makes sense that, well, apparently he voted for Obama in the 2012 election.

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Now he didn't vote for Obama in the 2008 election. I know that. Um, so, so Piper has not been a lifelong

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Democrat, like a, like a Tim Keller and possibly a Mark Dever. Um, but you see this kind of thinking here though, there's this connection between this, this globalistic, this beast system that is coming on this world, the social justice push, this

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COVID -19 climate change. Uh, I mean, it's the WHO organization.

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I mean, it's all connected. Right. But Romney is all about that. Romney was a globalist.

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Romney is a globalist and a Mormon. And he, he implemented a more, uh, a more socialistic version of Obamacare than Obama did.

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So, I mean, if I'm John Piper, why wouldn't I vote for, you know, racial healing over? It makes more sense.

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And I didn't want to talk about Piper. I don't know why it just kind of came up, uh, in this conversation, but Piper wrote that book, Bloodlines.

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And in that book, it shows he has a social justice understanding of race. So that's been his weak point.

33:37

So if you have one candidate where you can elevate black voices and the other, well, he's a, he's a

33:42

Mormon anyway. Then, and you know, they're both compromised. Why not just pick this compromise over that compromise?

33:49

But even in the 2012 election, the difference between the

33:54

Republican National Convention platform and the movement and trajectory of it versus the Democrat was enormous.

34:01

I mean, you talk about how Bergefell was yet to happen at that point in 2015, the LGBTQ agenda being pushed and placed at all upon our, our country, the, the socialist economics, because all that Barack was, was advocating for was, um, you know, healthcare being centralized by government,

34:19

Obamacare, all of these things. It's socialism. There were so many other things. It just seems to me that Piper is one of the best expositors of scripture when he just opens the text and says, this is how this word relates to that word.

34:33

Look at the book circle and underline connections and handle the text. Well, he's the best, but why does that not translate into Christian ethics and applying those in the public square?

34:45

That's what I, I can't understand about it. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a, there's a video of him where he was asked, can a

34:52

Christian vote for Obama? And, and of course we say absolutely not. Um, but he's, you know, he said, well, it's the time it's, you know,

35:00

I know someone in my church who, uh, uh, who did, uh, people in our church who did. And it was just,

35:06

I was always bothered by that answer. And at the time I was, you know, a big supporter of Piper and was really helped by him.

35:12

So I was kind of like, well, that's kind of a weird answer. And we shouldn't have been surprised based off of that, that in 2016, he writes this article saying, don't vote for Donald Trump in 2020, again, writes an article pretty much saying, don't vote for Donald Trump.

35:27

and Grudem actually came out refuting Piper at that point, it became a back and forth. So thank the

35:32

Lord for, I wonder what he's going to say now. He probably just stays out of it now.

35:40

I don't know. You know, it's funny. I just figured out that you can type in like a street name and then you'll get everyone on that street and what they're registered as like Democrat, Democratic party or Republican party.

35:52

I didn't know that. So if you want, you can type in your own street name and see what neighbors around you kind of believe what you believe.

35:59

Maybe. I don't know exactly what it is. What's that? Where, where are you typing that? I don't,

36:05

I just first did it on Google, but it comes up with everyone's name in the household and then house for house.

36:11

I just found this out today, actually. So I don't know if that's helpful or not, but if you're not sure, it's public knowledge.

36:20

It's not like, you know, a secret. So yeah, that's what Seth was doing back in 2012 with Piper. Yeah. You figured it out.

36:26

And I, and I want to be clear here that I, I think John Piper is a brother.

36:32

I, I don't, you know, there's other men. I'm not so sure. I do think that there are wolves within, you know, like a

36:39

David French, you mentioned him last week. I don't, I don't, I'm not optimistic there. You know,

36:44

I do think that there are wolves, but I think, I think what you have here is there's a mixture of wolves and men who are, they've been in this big

36:52

Evo, this club, this, you know, John Harris calls it the industrial evangelical complex.

36:59

You know, this publishing industry, they all think the same and it's scary. They actually kind of think like George Soros on some of these things, you know, and, and Klaus Schwab.

37:08

I mean, they, they have some similar thinking here and as us common pastors need to warn people and say, guys, these are not trustworthy voices on these issues.

37:20

I voted for Donald Trump in 2016. I voted for him in 2020. I'm going to vote for him in 2024. And I have,

37:25

I have a clear conscience over it all. And based off of what he did in his first term, it was outstanding.

37:32

You know, I mean, I mean, he had some failures. Yes, he did. Um, but I can't name one thing that Biden has done that agrees with the

37:40

Bible. Not one. Yeah. I think Joe made an exceptional point.

37:46

Like a lot of people look at the pastor of the church for direction sometimes and wondering what they're thinking.

37:52

And I, even when I went to school and I'm studying under the professor and they're stuck and they're teaching, you know, something that can, you can believe this or this is up for interpretation.

38:03

I want to know what they think about it and what they've settled on. And I had, I lost respect for some of them were like, they were afraid to say, well,

38:11

I don't know where I fall on that issue, but I'll leave that up to you. But I love when Jeff says, this is what I think, this is what the

38:18

Bible says, and this is why I think it and then relate and then just correlates it to what's going on in the world.

38:23

I love that. I need that. And as a pastor, you need to be able to, to do that just out of protection of the flock.

38:30

So I, I really respect that. And that, that was a really good point, Joe. And that, thank you.

38:36

And that's going to make even more, that's going to get even more important as the Republican party gets worse and worse because they are on a downward trajectory, a trajection.

38:46

And, you know, I would ask you, I would ask you guys, how do we, as, as congregants, how do we discern a pastor that isn't going to be able to help us to see what's going on in the culture?

39:04

What should we look for? Listen for this. And you use the term earlier,

39:09

Joe, the Hegelian dialectic. And most people probably don't know what that is.

39:15

Hegel had this idea of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, right? So you have one opinion over here, you have the other, the opposite, and you meet somewhere in the middle.

39:24

When you hear that middle of the road kind of idea and that you can't take a stand to one side or the other, that's when the red flag should go up.

39:34

Because what these leaders understand is that look, 85 % of evangelicals agree on the

39:40

Christian ethic and how that applies in the public square. They can't just come out and choose the opposite side.

39:46

So what they can do is cast aspersions and cast doubt on the validity of that Christian ethic by making the other side, the antithesis, seem at least plausible.

39:59

And, hey, let's just meet in the middle. What they're really trying to do, and this is what Hegelian dialectic does, is move the bar left.

40:07

So the Overton window of what's acceptable within evangelicalism, they can shift the whole thing this way by saying, you know, it's, it's all right to vote for a

40:18

Democrat because, look, abortion or the LGBTQ agenda or the transing of America or socialism or, you know, whatever the other agenda that they put forward is not that big of a deal.

40:34

That's the idea. Not it's not like we're fighting jihadis in the words of David French.

40:39

It's just the other side of the coin. And let's meet in the middle. So that's how you recognize it.

40:44

They're just trying to move your left. They're not going to come out and say everything they really believe. Do you think, do you think that bringing in people as immigrants that don't think in a

41:00

Protestant logical way is currently the big, big problem in changing

41:09

America's Christian character? Or has it been that way for 100 years or 150 even?

41:17

Does it go back to 1832, which is kind of where I think it goes back to? Well, I mean, what's the reason for this mass immigration push and the opening of borders is to undermine the

41:30

Christian ethic for sure. If you just look at where Roman Catholicism colonized and I would say where they settled, because it was really the those from Europe who settled the land in many cases.

41:45

Sometimes they conquered and colonized, but in other cases they were the first to settle a land.

41:51

So for an example, in 1607 in Virginia, it was those from Europe, from England, who settled a land that was at war between warring

42:03

Indian tribes. It was hunting land for some of the Native American tribes, but it was first settled and established by the settlers.

42:12

OK, right. So circling this back around where the Europeans settled, the

42:17

Roman Catholics were south of the border. Right. So Spain had

42:23

Florida until the Union took it over. But go to Mexico, go all the way down to South America.

42:29

Compare the differences in outcome between the Roman Catholic settlements and the

42:35

Protestant settlements. And you can see just by the difference between the United States of America and that which is south, that there is a difference in the culture, in the

42:45

Protestant work ethic, in the logical thinking, in so many of the things that came from Calvinism through John Knox, through John Witherspoon, through the

42:56

Founding Fathers to establish the United States of America. There is a difference. It's not that there is a major problem of Protestants heading from the

43:06

United States of America south over the border into Mexico. It's the other way around. I so agree.

43:13

Yeah, we've inherited is is a culture as well as a

43:19

Protestantism. Not only that, I think that happened in the mid 1800s.

43:24

OK. Right. So I look at my Irish ancestors and and there and I and I grew up Catholic and the way

43:32

Catholics think about doctrine. Well, you know, you got to kind of let a little this go and let a little that go.

43:39

And that's what we've done with the Constitution. We are actually last week. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but we haven't had a legal vice president election since guess what year?

43:52

1832. That's the last time we had a the 12th Amendment of the US Constitution requires separate ballots for the president and the vice president.

44:01

Right. So we didn't get I don't think we're going to get the J .D. Vance today. Maybe we will. But but we're on a roll.

44:07

Let's go. He's completely illegal as far as how he has been handpicked by Donald Trump.

44:14

We really didn't have we were supposed to under the 12th Amendment have separate ballots, one for vice president, one for president.

44:22

They did that under the 12th Amendment because it was kind of weird when the president had a vice president that was on the opposing party.

44:30

But you're still supposed to have separate ballots. And but we haven't done that since 1832. And in 1940,

44:38

FDR said, I'm just picking my guy. And that's what we've done. And they called up the

44:43

Republicans and said, do you mind if FDR does this? And they said, no, it's OK. Good. But I mean, that kind of forget doctrine, forget what it says on paper.

44:52

If everybody's willing to do it. And now we got the Senate and the Congress. They just vote on whatever they want.

44:57

You know, OK, well, that's supposed to be the state's power. That's supposed to be left up to the church. That's supposed to be up to the individual.

45:03

Oh, we're just going to vote on it anyway. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing how little the Constitution is followed.

45:10

And like you said, it just becomes normal. We don't really follow that that part of the Constitution anymore. Tradition sets in five minutes.

45:17

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So and of course, that happens in churches with the Bible. Right. We can we don't really do that anymore.

45:23

But but anyway, so J .D. Vance, here's why I think Trump picked him. He picked a guy.

45:29

He's learning from his mistakes. He picked Pence. Eight, you know, eight, nine years ago, whenever that was

45:37

Pence turned on him. I mean, we can see that. Right. And and then

45:42

J .D. Vance is a guy I don't think will turn on him. I think he I think he picked he thinks he's going to win.

45:48

He did. He didn't need to go pick like a Nikki Haley or something like that. So he he picked a guy who's going to be loyal to him and who is not going to turn on him when because because, you know, we know things can turn.

46:00

I mean, things can things can I will tell. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see. He picked an apprentice. Yeah, yeah.

46:07

It's another episode of The Apprentice. He picked a young guy that he can fashion and mold to be his successor.

46:15

And Pence was was pretty much, I would say, an establishment guy. Vance very much is not an establishment guy.

46:23

I mean, have any of you have you heard his story? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, his he should have been killed, too, by the way.

46:33

His his mom was driving down the road. He was in the car with her. His mom was just out of control.

46:39

And he actually jumps out of the car and saves his life. So it's interesting.

46:45

Yeah, I mean, he had very and he's had very little time in office because he was elected as senator of Ohio.

46:52

But I think Trump picked a guy who's he's going to keep like Jeff said, he's going to keep the agenda going.

46:59

The mega agenda, which is not a bad thing, right? No, no. Yeah. It depends on what he becomes.

47:07

That that's the key. And so we talked about Roman Catholicism. J .D. Vance is a Roman Catholic. What is his faith?

47:14

Does he have a genuine born again evangelical faith? He's a recent convert to Catholicism, by the way.

47:21

Right. Which is, to me, even a bit more troubling. Although maybe it means he doesn't have, you know, especially kind of being raised where he was.

47:30

He talks about being hillbilly elegy. He probably was surrounded by a Protestant ethic in the wherever.

47:37

Was he in Virginia or Ohio, Tennessee? I know. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

47:42

So speaking just a bit more about this Roman Catholic versus Protestant thing.

47:48

Roman Catholicism was the seedbed of social justice. Luigi Taparelli coined the term social justice.

47:56

The idea of the Catholic social teaching is where you get liberation theology.

48:03

It's where the pope was fashioned in his theology. And that's been the competition. It's much more collectivistic than what we have in the individualized

48:13

Protestant side. And that explains the biggest difference. In fact, you can see I was just listening to was it

48:19

John Harris? Somebody did. Yeah, I think it was John Harris. He had an incredible episode about the difference between the

48:26

Puritans in the Northeast and the Virginians in.

48:31

Yeah. Yeah. In Virginia. So why did Puritanism not hold on to Christianity the way

48:38

Virginia did as part of the Bible Belt? And what was that?

48:43

The Puritans were very collectivistic. Yes. And centralized.

48:49

And yes, all the power to be within and try to enforce uniformity that way versus the more the

48:56

Anglicans that that were part of the South were part of the Western Protestant tradition more so.

49:03

This had a more Scottish influence. And so you have in the South, the faith endures longer than it does in the

49:11

North. And now we live up here in the Northeast where it's a wasteland. They used to call this the burned over area because after the second

49:17

Great Awakening, there was hardly anything left of Christianity. Yeah. Yeah. It's been.

49:23

Yeah. The 1607 project John Harris produced. Highly recommend it.

49:29

Yeah. It's it's about an hour and a half documentary. And he talked. They compare

49:34

Virginia with the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts.

49:40

And then, of course, the Puritans were grateful for the Puritans in a lot of ways. But their style of government and their strict control but it was replaced.

49:52

This religious strict control was replaced with a secular strict control, which is very interesting.

49:58

That's it. And John used the example of when a soldier came back in the Puritan Northeast, he kissed his wife on the porch after coming back from war and they threw him in jail because that was indecent.

50:10

Well, kissing his wife. And so that kind of totalitarian government was now replaced by a secular totalitarianism, which is what we have up here.

50:17

Big government in the Northeast. Yes. This is why it's the Northeast that locked down all of the churches, where if you go south, you could have been going to church the whole whole pandemic.

50:27

Yeah. And you have the problem with urbanization, too. They were in this documentary. They're talking about Virginia even today.

50:34

I mean, I mean, even they don't really have major cities. I mean, Roanoke isn't that huge compared to what you have in the

50:39

Northeast. They enjoyed nature. They enjoyed the rural country.

50:47

When you look at Donald Trump, it's very interesting. The big cities aren't voting for Donald Trump, right?

50:53

It's the rural areas. It's or maybe the exurbs. I mean, that's that's most of his voters.

50:59

And if he wins the suburbs, that's he's going to win the election. Right. But it's very interesting that, you know, these rural folks, they know how to vote.

51:09

They don't vote for big government. They vote for small government where they have freedom. They're the

51:14

God given freedoms, right, that are clear in Scripture, that are clear in the Constitution. So circling back,

51:20

I think J .D. Vance, although a recent convert to Catholicism, probably has more of that Protestant ethic, and that's what

51:26

Trump represents. Smaller government. He wants to cut regulations everywhere he can.

51:32

And I think didn't they cut like thousands of revelation regulations in his first term?

51:39

And the opposite has been true in the other regime. Yeah, well, we can pray for him, too.

51:45

I mean, a lot of a lot of new converts go from church to church before they. Yes. And somewhere theologically sound.

51:53

So, yeah, who knows? Quick question for for everyone here. What about the fact?

52:00

What about the well, I don't know if it's a fact, but what about the there's been no changes in voting since 2020?

52:08

I mean, as far as elections go, I mean, are we I mean, do we think that we're going to have a fair vote?

52:15

Great question. So I also want to jump in. I have my thoughts, but I don't want to take your guess.

52:22

You're the guy. We are going to we want to hear from you. Yeah, so I have you know,

52:29

I have no problem telling anybody that the 2020 election was stolen. I mean, there's

52:34

I think there's there's I mean, and there's so much proof. And I've had pastors think

52:40

I'm crazy. You know, for saying that. And I have been disappointed with the lack of efforts among the

52:48

Republican Party in fixing the elections. And I think my reason is, is that I think a lot of these people, they don't want to be labeled this crazy conspiracy theorist.

53:00

So so it's politically incorrect to say that the election was stolen in 2020.

53:07

You know, of course, 2000 mules. I mean, there's so many places you can look to to find that. I mean, does anybody really believe that Joe Biden got 81 million votes?

53:17

He there's no way he beat Obama. Obama was wildly popular with everyone because everyone wanted racial healing.

53:26

Everyone wants the racial fighting to stop. Yeah. You know, whether you're you know, whatever philosophical bent you may come from,

53:35

I don't think anyone wants racial. Disunity. Yeah.

53:40

And of course, they misunderstood. Yeah. Donald Trump is going to win back to back to back.

53:47

Yeah, there we go. Yeah. So yeah. So the question is, will it be recognized?

53:52

Yeah, I don't know. It might not be somewhere down the line. It could be recognized, hopefully. Hmm. Yeah.

53:59

Hoping that the history that's been unwinding in the past, let's just say five or 10 years is recorded properly and is in the textbook properly 30 years from now about people walking around in masks and just a crazy time to be alive.

54:15

Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And the Democrats, they might be in a position where.

54:22

They they knew they know what they did four years ago, but but they fooled so many people into thinking that it was actually a fair election that stealing at this time would be too obvious.

54:35

So maybe they'll maybe they'll wave the white flag and then try to actually win it in 2028.

54:40

I don't know. I mean, because I'm hoping hoping for a documentary or someone to come forward and really just tell the truth of like an inside scoop of this is how it happened.

54:50

And this is this is what happened to steal the election. And in 2000 mules. Oh, actually,

54:56

I'm not. Dude, they did it. I watched it. OK. And it was what was it? Democrats that came out and said they did it.

55:04

Oh, that's kind of what I'm looking for. They have some admitting of that in 2000. But it's geotagging of their devices.

55:11

Oh, OK. To prove the the roots that they were running back and forth. Yeah. So that's been done.

55:18

But yeah, still, I to answer that question, Joe, I would say that the victory will probably be so overwhelming that even cheating won't be able to help.

55:28

And that will probably make them back off a little bit. You know, they can't push it over by cheating.

55:33

So I think but then the key then will be for Trump to put in place the measures that will keep it from happening in the future.

55:42

So you've got to have voter ID. You've got I mean, if how can we not have voter

55:48

ID at this point in our country's history? It makes no sense. Yeah, we have it in Wisconsin.

55:56

Oh, do you really? Yeah, we do. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that was

56:03

Scott Walker who did that. Well, I work the polls and everyone gives me

56:09

ID because I tell them it's going to take 15 minutes if I got to look up their name in the system.

56:14

So what do you want? Mm. You're allowed to do that. Nice. I had a Democrat show me that, by the way.

56:23

Well, I think in the presidential debate and Trump getting shot in the ear, I think that's that's got to help

56:29

Trump not hurt him. So I think that we can thank God for those moments and think that he's

56:34

OK. And and maybe it will change people's mind. They need things like that to change their mind.

56:39

Like, I think people were to some extent unaware of how like much of a walking corpse

56:45

Joe Biden was. And then to see the debate and how how he clearly lost almost every single topic,

56:52

I think that that will help. And and they're going to have to try something crazy to take.

56:58

It's almost like someone eventually is probably going to try to assassinate Joe Biden just to get a new person in there or something is going to happen,

57:05

I think, because they can't. I don't think they can continue with Joe Biden. I think they'll win. That's my opinion.

57:12

There's a slander against evangelical Christianity saying that we're trying to make

57:18

Trump into our savior. But I think for some people out there who are maybe in the nuns category, you do want a savior.

57:28

And seeing Trump taking the bullet and being on stage and getting up and saying fight, they could be anywhere, anywhere on the political spectrum.

57:37

But they're like, that's my guy. And I think that's definitely going to help them, no doubt.

57:43

And I think we have to say that he's not the savior. And and we have to be careful. We're not elevating this man higher than than Jesus Christ.

57:52

We're not even saying that. We're not even confident that he's a Christian. We just think that maybe God is using him to help run the country, not as a not as a born again

58:01

Christian. We're hoping and praying that's the case. But we're just saying this guy is a much better choice than the alternative.

58:06

We're going to start critiquing him as soon as he gets elected. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. We don't even know he might turn into something that we're we don't want him to turn into.

58:15

We have no clue. Well, it's an issue, but it's got to be issue by issue. As Christians, we got to be issue by issue.

58:20

We can't we can't put all our faith in one man other than Jesus Christ. And let me let me let me read this here real quick.

58:28

First Timothy two here. First of all, then I urge the supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

58:46

This is good and pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

58:53

Right. So so I think in electing Trump, you mentioned the Republican platform, Jeff. They're going to protect religious freedom.

59:02

They're not going to put up with persecution. Right. So so they're creating an environment where we can go out and share the gospel without getting thrown in jail.

59:11

And so that makes voting for Trump an easy choice in November. Yeah, but someone will say, but Seth, do you really think that Biden would try to throw you in jail for preaching?

59:24

Ask Russ, Rusty Thomas, who was thrown in jail for preaching in front of an abortion clinic.

59:31

Yes, that's right. Ask what would happen with the Equality Act, which is what the

59:36

Democrats are saying they want to promote. Ask what would happen if they do pack the court, which is a possibility.

59:44

Yes. Biden and what that would mean for religious liberty decisions, because it's not like this wasn't already happening just a few years ago.

59:55

And their agenda, their globalist agenda has stayed the same. So it really does matter. And there's things worse than jail because you get three hots and a cot.

01:00:04

They can take your house. They can take your kids. They can take your livelihood and they do it all the time.

01:00:10

Yeah. Look what they did in Canada with Justin Trudeau. Look what happened to James Coates and other pastors there.

01:00:17

Look at what happened to the truckers. Their assets were taken. Their bank accounts were taken away.

01:00:25

Canada is one step ahead of where we are. Nobody wants to live in that. And any evangelical leader who says you can vote for Joe Biden, run for the hills.

01:00:35

This person is corrupt to the core. You know, in a future episode, we got some guests coming up that can tell us some real harsh stuff about stealing children, stealing houses, stealing wealth.

01:00:52

They've been doing this. They've been crushing us from the sidelines. We don't even see it. So we got to have

01:00:59

Seth back during the during the election election. Maybe we'll maybe we'll stay up in the great guest.

01:01:06

Seth, you're our first repeat guest. Yeah. Wonderful.

01:01:11

Yeah, I feel honored. You guys are wonderful. And I tell you what, having like minded pastors and like minded

01:01:18

Christians, it's what we need during these times. And we just need people just to tell the truth, you know, tell the truth about what the word of God says and also be able to understand through discernment what is going on in the world.

01:01:35

There's nothing noble about being ignorant about that. So I just I just threw up a blood red church trophy for you as an honorary.

01:01:45

I was nice. That trophy is only really for New Jersey pastors.

01:01:50

We're trying to do our what we're going to do. And we hope you come,

01:01:55

Seth. But we're we're nominating pastors who are willing to speak out in New Jersey.

01:02:01

We're going to have like the the blood red church summit. Oh, really? Yeah. In the first quarter of next year.

01:02:08

And, you know, you're an honorary because you're you're not in Jersey, you know, but what I mean, maybe you could speak, though.

01:02:16

What I've been thinking is maybe we combine that with this truth script who does they do conferences, maybe combine that up, invite

01:02:24

Seth to speak and also John Harris and maybe giving a word to the South Jersey guy.

01:02:30

So maybe do a truth script conference. Now, Seth, you did one last year. That was the first week in May.

01:02:36

But you're not doing it next year. No, maybe we do ours the first week in May. Is that a great time?

01:02:41

That would be wonderful. I've never been to the Northeast before. I've been to I've been to Washington, D .C. Is that the

01:02:47

Northeast? I don't know. It's kind of mid -Atlantic, but I've never been. I would love to.

01:02:52

I'd love to to come. Yeah. Awesome. So brainstorming here. We'll figure it out.

01:02:58

Yeah, sounds like a good deal. We'll get you. We'll lock those dates up. But yeah, we got to get that going.

01:03:03

And we've got a lot, a lot of tearing down high places before that. So I think, guys, it's time to pick a brother up.

01:03:10

What do you say? If you see a brother down, pick him up.