RLL.Ep.45: An Appeal to Heaven

You're listening to Radio Looks. Listen, I'm your host Steve Matthews. Thanks for joining me for episode 45. The title of today's episode is An Appeal to Heaven. And I think this is about my third take trying to get this podcast started.

So I apologize to anyone that's watching this on live stream. I keep coming and going because I keep finding I'm having technical difficulties. I guess that's what happens when you start to do a podcast too late at night.

You know, it's one of these things I always say, you know, I'm going to get this done early and, you know, here I am. It's about quarter after one local time in the morning and I'm doing a podcast. So maybe I'm a little bit sleepy or, you know, whatever.

But anyway, so here we go with, with episode 45. And, you know, I wanted to start out by saying, you know, tonight we're actually getting a little bit of snow here in Cincinnati. And it's, it's really about the first snow we've had.

You know, I've got, let's say a friend of mine that lives in a very warm place and he thinks I live in the Arctic circle. But actually we don't really get super severe winters in Cincinnati compared to a lot of places.

Yeah. I was, was talking to a client this past week at work in, in Flagstaff, Arizona, and she told me they had 33 inches of snow. And I think that was maybe within a 24 hour period or maybe a little bit longer, but, but anyway, it was a lot of snow in just a very short period of time.

I've never seen 33 inches of snow at one time. I think maybe we've had 33 inches on the ground in some really extreme circumstances, but that's after, you know, several snowfalls have built up. We've never just had that in one, one snowfall.

And I also had some colleagues in, in Lincoln, Nebraska that got quite a bit of snow this past week. I think they said about 14 inches or something. So we don't have anything near what they did. And, you know, as far as I'm concerned, they can keep that stuff too.

You know, winter was more fun when I was a kid because of course winter, it always meant the possibility of a snow day. Now that when you're a kid, I mean, there is nothing better in all the world than kind of getting a surprise random day off of school because of snow.

And, and when I was, was growing up and I'm going to sound like a dinosaur from probably the last century, which honestly, I guess I kind of am a dinosaur from the last century. But when I was growing up, you know, we didn't have the internet.

And so the, if you had a day where you thought there might be school called off, what you had to do is you had to put the radio on. You had to go to a certain radio station in town, or there are a few radio stations that did this and they would start reading off alphabetically the list of all the schools that were called off.

And you would just wait in eager anticipation, just praying that your school would be called. And oh, when you, when you heard your school district called and it was closed, that was rejoicing. That was, that was the thrill of victory.

Now, what was a real, really, really upsetting was, really crushing was when they'd pass by and you hear all these other schools getting off and you had to go to school. That was the agony of defeat. And sometimes that happened, or sometimes you'd get something that was kind of lame.

Like you get like a one hour delay or something like that. Well, you know, how come the school district one, one, uh, you know, one city, you know, one, you know, one district over, how come they're closed and they get a day off and they get to go sledding and sleep in or whatever.

And I got to go to, and I got to go to school. I, all I do is just get a, get an hour, hour delay, big deal. I mean, that was, that was kind of a, kind of a raw deal. Um, but yeah, this is what we would do.

Of course now, of course, it's all handled online. You can just go online, check your, check your, uh, the status of your school. But back then, boy, you had to wait for that, that announcer. And there were a lot of schools and something, it seemed like it took forever for them to, to read through the whole list of cancellations and delays.

And you just, I remember just that anticipation of just waiting, just praying that, that, that your school would be called. Now that was what made winter fun. Um, you know, when you get to be an adult, on the other hand, it's just a drag and there's nothing fun about it.

I mean, it, it, it makes it hard to get into your car. You got to fight driving to work. Uh, of course now with everything, all the work from home stuff, I don't even have to drive to work. So it really doesn't affect me much at all.

Um, but, uh, yeah, that was, uh, we, we had some really pretty severe winters when I was a kid growing up. And, um, in fact, it was kind of interesting just this past year, the, they celebrated or mark the 44th anniversary of the Ohio river freezing up.

Now, if you, you're in live in Cincinnati and you're, you know, age 50 plus or so, that's kind of a legendary thing. Uh, you talk to people around here and they'll tell you, Oh, do you remember when the river froze up?

Did you go down and see it? Did you walk across it? Yeah. You know, the, the Ohio river between Cincinnati and Ohio and Kentucky, it's a pretty substantial river. I mean, it's a navigable river. You can go down there, you can watch, you know, barges and that going up and down the river.

Uh, so it's, it's a substantial river and, and it just doesn't freeze up. In fact, that's the only time in my life, 50 plus years that it's frozen up. And I don't know, maybe I'm sure it probably has frozen up at some other point in the past, but you know, here we are, it's, uh, it's 44 years and it hasn't happened since then.

And who knows when it might happen again. Um, but that was a pretty severe winter that we had in 1977. And, um, and it did freeze up and it's kind of interesting because there's all these pictures of people walking across between Ohio and Kentucky.

And, uh, I guess that wasn't really the smartest thing, but, uh, it was, uh, it was pretty tempting for a lot of folks and I can understand why they might, uh, think that was, think that was fun. Well, anyway, with all that said, I wanted to kind of dive into talk about today's segments here a little bit.

Transgender Soldiers and the Military

And, um, one of the, uh, the things I wanted to talk about, one of the stories, and this is kind of falls into the heading of calling good evil and evil good. There's a story out, uh, and here's a headline.

I'll just read it to you. It says army chaplain is under investigation for saying transgender soldiers are mentally unfit and unqualified to serve after Joe Biden overturned Trump memo, barring them from the military.

And on Monday, president Joe Biden reversed Donald Trump's ban on transgender people serving in the military. On the same day, army chaplain, major Andrew Calvert wrote comments on Facebook saying transgender soldiers were unqualified to serve.

He implied that soldiers that the soldiers were mentally unfit and compared them to flat earth is because they denied biology and science. And it says Calvert's Facebook page has now seemingly been disabled.

The security force assist command says it launched an investigation into the incident. So, you know, here's somebody who's an army chaplain. Now, my great grandfather was an army chaplain, uh, in, uh, in world war two and, and also in the Korean war as well.

Um, and, and I don't know, I can't imagine what he, he might think of, of the situation here today. Um, but I mean, it's a case here where this, this, uh, you know, this, uh, this chaplain, you know, raises some objections and interestingly enough, he really doesn't even appeal to the Bible.

I mean, he, he simply talks here about, about biology, you know, and that, that, uh, you know, that someone who is, is transgender, that is a male biological man who thinks she's a woman or a biological, uh, female who, who thinks that she's a man, uh, and identifies as a man, um, that criticizing these people is, is really, uh, in fact, there's probably no quicker way to get yourself in hot water today, uh, than to question this type of thing.

But, you know, as Christians, of course, you know, we can have compassion on people because they're struggling with sin. You know, we all do struggle with sin in one way or another, but this type of thing has been normalized now.

And what we're told is that we have to go along with this. And to me, it strikes me a bit as, as someone saying two plus two equals five. Well, you know, two plus two does not equal five, two plus two equals four.

Um, you know, and somebody might be out there and be very, very, very insistent that two plus two equals five. And again, you might say, you might try to correct that person. You know, you might, um, you might have, uh, you might wonder about them, maybe why they're thinking what they're thinking.

Uh, but you certainly don't go along with them and say, well, yeah, you're, you're right about that. But we've gotten to a point in the world where, um, if you have somebody who is a biological male who claims to be a woman, you can't question that.

And if you do question that, you get in a world of trouble. And so this, uh, this, uh, this, uh, army chaplain finds himself there and he says, I'll just read his full quote. He says, how is rejecting reality biology, not evidence that a person is mentally unfit ill and thus making that person unqualified to serve.

There's little difference in this than over those who believe and argue for flat earth, despite the overwhelming evidence of the contrary. The motivation is different, but the argument is the same. This person is a med board for mental wellness waiting to happen.

What a waste of military resources and funding. And, and, and I would, of course I would add to that. I mean, it's, it's God dishonoring. I mean, when, when God makes us, you know, he make, you know, he created man, he created the male and female and, and he created us with a certain biology.

You know, every, I mean, if, if you want to talk about science, I mean, every cell in our body is either male or female. You know, it's, it's either, uh, a, uh, you know, what an X and a Y or, or a two Y chromosomes, every cell in our body testifies to whether we are men or whether we are women.

Uh, if you want to appeal to science, um, I mean, I would simply just appeal to scripture and say, I mean, there's nothing in scripture that says anything about, uh, you know, uh, uh, someone who's a biological male, but who's actually a female.

I mean, the old, the old word, I don't think they, they describe this or use this particular way of speaking anymore, but previously it used to be, they'd say, well, it's a man, uh, a woman trapped in a man's body or a man trapped in a woman's body.

Sometimes you'd hear people talk like that. I don't know that they use that kind of language anymore, but, but no, I mean, that's, that's not the case. And, and there are some people out there who, who generally struggle, um, you know, with this.

And, and I mean, we can have as Christians, we can have compassion on them, but we, we cannot agree with them. You know, there's, there's nothing in the scriptures that support, uh, that particular assertion and the people who do claim that if, if they are sincere, uh, they're very troubled individuals.

And, and of course there may be people who are, are taking that stance for, for reasons other than sincerity. I don't know. Um, but it, it has caused real problems and it's continuing to cause, uh, problems and it's not something that's going to go away.

And in fact, with the current administration, the current, the Biden administration, it's probably going to get even more encouragement than it's had in the past. And so we can expect this kind of thing to become increasingly, uh, a problem.

COVID Lockdowns, Masks, and Government Overreach

Now, another thing we were talking about calling good, evil, evil, good gets to this whole thing with, with COVID and, and the COVID lockdowns. I mean, the, um, the folks that are doing this stuff in the United States, of course, we have the governors are really the ones that are taking the lead on this and they want to tell us that they're doing this, you know, to save lives and, and, and such like, but I mean, they have caused enormous damage, uh, to the liberties of the American people and, and to the health of the American people, to the economy of the United States.

Um, and, and I get so frustrated with this. I mean, this has been something I, I remember when this, we first started hearing about this, um, it's been almost a year now, what did they say? You know, we're going to lock down with 15 days to flatten the curve.

Well, here we are almost a year later and we're still substantially locked down. We're still substantially masked up and many, many people have been hurt, um, really devastated even by the decisions of, uh, of governors, uh, in the United States.

And, and unfortunately, I mean, this is something that even, uh, even Donald Trump, uh, to a large degree encouraged, uh, either, either directly or, or maybe indirectly by just not, uh, by, by, you know, he had an opportunity, he could have refused to go along with these things, but he didn't.

And, you know, he, he kind of set the stage for the governors to do the kind of work that they have done. You know, here in Ohio, we were, we're probably better off than some places, but we're worse off than other places.

Uh, I'm, I'm very thankful that I don't live in California and I feel very bad for anybody who does live in California because they're having their state destroyed by Gavin Newsom. Uh, and he's somebody who needs to be recalled.

Now we've talked some about the whole COVID thing in the past and, and how, you know, how governors have posited this and they're saying, oh, well we, we have to lock down because if we don't lock down, you know, that, that terrible things are going to happen.

Well, they have locked down and terrible things are happening. You know, and here's the thing. I mean, there's a lot of evidence out there to suggest that lockdowns do nothing to stop the spread of the virus.

And what they do though, on the other hand, is to destroy people's jobs, uh, to destroy people's businesses. It's caused apparently, uh, from a number of studies I've read about a lot of mental health problems with people.

And you can understand that, right? I mean, you know, we all want to be able to go out and, and do things, whether it's go out and, you know, whether it go to a movie, go to a restaurant, go out to a sporting event, go visit friends, go visit family, uh, go visit maybe even people in a hospital, uh, you know, who are sick.

Um, and you can't do these things and it's very hard on people mentally. And it's also very hard on people physically. I mean, the interesting thing is, I mean, when you lock people down, uh, that makes it harder for them to get to the doctor to get treatment for other things.

And there have been a number of, of people who have made the point that, you know, there's, you're going to see increased deaths from other types of diseases because people aren't able to get, uh, the treatment that they need, uh, because of all the difficulty.

It is that there's been, uh, been put in their way. All the roadblocks have been put in their way because of all the COVID lockdowns. Yeah. And I think that this has just been a complete disaster for Liberty.

Uh, it's been a disaster for our economy. I mean, thankfully in my case, my job that I have translates pretty well into work from home. So it hasn't been, you know, by God's grace, uh, a big burden on me, but even at that, I'm just, I'm, I'm outraged by the suffering that has been created by the governors and their decisions.

Uh, and in what I think are really very, very high handed and arrogant type decisions to, uh, to continue to pursue these lockdowns, especially now that more and more evidence is coming out to say that these things are wrong.

Now, of course they should have known this before we, before they even jumped into doing it. And we've covered this before in past podcasts, but it's probably worth mentioning here again, that if you look at what the Bible has to say, the basic principle is you don't lock down healthy people.

You don't quarantine healthy people. You quarantine sick people only. And you can read this, you can read about this in some of the, the old Testament laws, the Levitical laws and how you deal with, um, how you deal with people who had leprosy.

You didn't lock that, you know, the, the, uh, the priest didn't lock down all of Israel in order to prevent, uh, somebody from, uh, from getting leprosy. What they did is they identified people who were leprous after they went through a, a pretty detailed, um, diagnosis.

And at that point, yeah, they would quarantine them. I mean, I think there is a biblical warrant to, to quarantine people who have serious infectious diseases, but the, the idea that you have to quarantine healthy people, uh, that you have to lock down healthy people to, to prevent them from, from getting sick or to spreading the disease there, there is no precedent for that in scripture and, and the people who, uh, who have done this thing should have known this ahead of time.

Yeah. So they, they can't get off by saying, Oh, well, you know, the, uh, the, uh, the studies didn't come out until after the fact. I mean, they should have had this information before this happened.

They had the opportunity, but they ignored it. Um, and this kind of brings me talking about the, the whole transgender thing, talking about the whole COVID stuff. Oh, one last thing about the COVID. You may have seen this last week that, uh, that Anthony Fauci, uh, is out there saying that it's common sense to wear two masks to stop the spread of COVID -19.

Uh, and then there was another doctor that same day or within, or maybe the next day, uh, Scott Siegel, I guess he's, uh, does some work for NBC news. He came out and said that Americans should consider wearing four masks.

You know, I guess breathing is highly overrated for these guys. So it's just common sense to wear two. And really maybe you ought to be wearing four. And I don't know, maybe why stop at four, let's go to six or 10 or 20.

Um, you know, I mean, I say who actually needs to breathe. Yeah. I remember. And of course, every, you know, if you paid attention to this stuff, I mean, a year ago, Fauci and these other people going around saying, you don't need to wear a mask.

You don't need to wear a mask. Don't wear a mask. In fact, they told people, you know, that it was harmful that, that, uh, you know, that most people, unless you had a, an N95 mask that it wasn't going to do you any good anyway, but somehow all of that changed, you know, and then the mask became this, this great symbol of the COVID lockdown.

And, you know, a lot of people have posited that the whole purpose behind masks is obedience. It's not that they're actually effective in stopping the spread of COVID, but to get people to obey. Um, and it's, it's kind of hard to, uh, to deny that.

I mean, I, I, I do think that that's what it's about. I think that's principally what it's about. In fact, that may be entirely what it's about. Um, you know, and we've created this almost cult of the mask and it's, it, uh, it needs to stop.

Uh, it, it really does. I mean, they've gotten people so worked up about this and I, I just, it, this whole thing needs to stop and it needs to stop yesterday. Um, for the, for the sake of the country, for the, the mental health of the country, for the economy, um, this stuff needs to stop and, and these governors, they need to remove these restrictions.

An Appeal to Heaven and Christian Resistance to Oppression

But anyway, all of that kind of leads up to a final point that I wanted to talk about tonight, or really the main point that I wanted to get to, and that is an appeal to heaven, a cry for divine justice.

Now that's the title of a book by a gentleman by the name of Dr. John Diamond. And I had an opportunity, I didn't even know about this book until earlier today, but it really grabbed my attention. I actually saw an interview, uh, where he, where Dr. Diamond was interviewed by, uh, by Alex Newman.

Now, if you haven't, you're not familiar with Alex Newman, he does a lot of work for the New American. He's got his own, uh, uh, website called Liberty Sentinel. And I like his work. He's, he's very smart.

He's a young guy. I think he's in his early thirties and he does some really good work, some very compelling work. Uh, he's a good researcher, good speaker. And he had this gentleman on, this Dr. John Diamond, uh, interviewing him about his book, uh, and appeal to heaven.

And the basic idea about the book is that Christians should not despair when they find the rulers of this world are working against them. You know, Christians can appeal to their father in heaven, both to rebuke evil rulers and to ask God's intervention on their behalf.

And this is a very timely book because this is sort of the situation that you and I face, you know, as, as Christians, there's a lot of bad things going on. And, you know, you look at some of the policies that have been instituted by the Biden administration.

I mean, again, you know, the, the whole transgender and, uh, issue and, and bringing that back into the military, the, you know, the, the canceling of the XL pipeline, you know, the, you know, the, the, uh, garrisoning of Washington DC with, uh, with the national guard, there's a lot of bad stuff going on.

And there are a lot of threats. I mean, maybe you've noticed this, but there are a lot of threats from a lot of corners against, uh, the, uh, people whom top Democrats perceive of, perceive as their enemies.

You know, there, there are a lot of, uh, people in Congress screaming that, uh, that certain, uh, certain people should be thrown out of Congress if they question the election results. You know, there are, uh, moves to, uh, you know, create a, uh, some domestic terrorism laws that can really be, be aimed at political opponents.

And some of the, the rhetoric that you hear from TV stations and from, from politicians and from people in, uh, in academia and even in, in, in corporations, um, they, they want to make it a, a crime.

Uh, they want to talk about the need to deprogram people. There was a Katie Couric was being interviewed by Bill Maher this past week, or maybe it was the week before that, but, you know, she was talking about the, you know, wondered how, uh, Trump supporters are going to be deprogrammed.

Now, I mean, Trump supporters are not necessarily Christians and not all Christians are Trump supporters. I don't mean to say that, but a lot of Christians are Trump supporters. You know, I supported Donald Trump.

Uh, I voted for him twice, not because I think he's perfect, not because I agree with him on everything, but I think he does get some big, high level issues right. And, and I think he was a better option, certainly than Hillary Clinton.

And he was a better option by all means than Joe Biden. I personally believe that he won the election. I think the election was fraudulent. I think that Joe Biden is, is not a legitimate president. Um, I know those are very dangerous things to say.

And some people think that I've been programmed. I mean, that's, um, you know, but I mean, when I look at the evidence, when I see what happened with, with that election, uh, in, in 2020, back in November, uh, I am convinced, uh, that that was a stolen election.

And, and, uh, I've talked about that in some other places, and I don't intend to go into a big, long, uh, spiel on that at this point. Um, I made my point and I'm sure I'll have an opportunity to talk about it again.

But the only reason I bring all of these things up is that simply having an opinion now that doesn't go along with the narrative that you're supposed to get out of the, you know, whether the mainstream press, uh, you know, the, the, the, you know, the, uh, current administration or the Democrats that are in charge in Congress.

If you don't go along with that, you're very, you, you can, you're almost, you're kind of like right on the verge of, of, uh, of treason with some of these people. There was an interview just last week with, uh, George Stephanopoulos was interviewing Rand Paul, Senator Rand Paul, Ron Paul's son, and Senator Rand Paul's from Kentucky.

And I think he may be the best Senator that we have. I mean, he's someone who I think has been pretty consistent in standing up for the, for the constitution, for individual liberty, and, and he deserves high praise for that.

But George Stephanopoulos really went hard after him and he started the interview off. And this isn't an exact quote, but he said something like, uh, will you, uh, state plainly, um, that, um, you know, that the election was, you know, was not stolen.

And I don't think those were his exact words, but he was trying to get Rand Paul to say, yes, the election was legitimate. It was a perfectly decent election and there's no reason to question it. Uh, and Rand Paul wouldn't give into that.

And it was, it was, I think, uh, George Stephanopoulos was a little bit frustrated because he actually came back and asked him this a few times. And Stephanopoulos was just very aggressive with his questions, his questioning of, of Rand Paul.

And I think at one point he said that, you know, the people that, uh, that denied that, uh, Joe Biden was a legitimately elected president, that they were believing lies. Well, you know, I, I don't think that those are lies.

Um, but, uh, but anyway, this is kind of the tenor of the political discourse in our country right now, where if you have the quote wrong opinions, you know, you can be fired from a job. Um, you can be publicly shunned.

And I mean, there are some people I think very much like to see you in some kind of re-education camp. I guess apparently Katie Couric does. Um, or you at least kind of get that sense. So this is the kind of thing that we're facing as, as Christians.

You know, we're, we're in this position where, um, it, it really does feel like the entire structure of society is, is against us. I mean, the, certainly the, much of government is hostile to Christian ideas.

Corporate America is hostile to Christian ideas. The universities and schools are hostile to Christian ideas. Certainly the media is, the entire entertainment industry is. Um, it's a little bit easy to feel intimidated.

Uh, it's, it's, it's, it's pretty easy to even, you know, go into, uh, go into despair, but we're not called to despair and we're not, we're not called to fear. And that's one of the things that really impressed me about some of what Dr. Diamond said, because his, his remarks in this area really echo a lot of the things that, uh, that I've been saying, uh, for some time here.

And so I wanted to take just a couple of minutes to read through a few things that he says here, because I think he makes some very good remarks. And I'm actually going to just, uh, quote, um, from a few paragraphs out of his book.

I got a Kindle version. You can actually get this on Kindle. I think this was maybe $7 .99 or so on Kindle. So it's actually not, not that terribly expensive. And I think, I haven't read through the whole thing, but just from what I've seen so far, I think there's some very good points that he makes in here.

And one of the points, let's see. Oh goodness. Um, I'll just start reading here. Uh, God's people are commanded to stand up and defend those who are too weak politically, socially, or economically to defend themselves against those who are using their political positions of power and authority to oppress their fellow man.

This duty to rebuke the oppressors even extends to our political leaders. Jesus was telling his disciples that because the Gentiles did not know God or his ways, they did not understand God's directives in this area and therefore must be admonished by those who did have this knowledge.

And he quotes in here, he's talking, um, has a few quotes. One of the things I like about this book is he actually cites the, uh, the new King James version, which is, I think certainly the best of the modern translations and one that I use quite a bit.

Um, but yeah, you know, you, you look in, you know, there's the, uh, account with the disciples. They were, they were arguing among themselves, right. About who was the greatest and, and, and Jesus rebuked them.

And he said, you know, he, he talked about the distinction between, you know, what, what leadership looks like among the world, among the Gentiles and what leadership is supposed to look like in the church.

And he talks first about, you know, the rulers of the Gentiles. He says, the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them. You know, they act like their Lord master and those who, who exercise authority are called benefactors.

So you've got these people that, that, uh, that are very authoritarian in their approach to, to government. Um, but at the same time, they're oppressing people. They like to, to hold themselves forth as though somehow they're, they're great guys and, and they're benefactors, you know, they're, they're, they're benefiting the people with, uh, with their, with their oppression.

Uh, although they, they don't publicly say it's oppression, of course, they try to pass it off as like, well, I'm, I'm doing you good. Um, but, uh, but they're not. And if you look at most, most countries and most times in most places in history, um, big governments have been very oppressive and it really wasn't after the, or until the, the Protestant reformation in the 16th century, when you really began to see the biblical idea of the government as servant begin to be applied in, in society at large, you know, and we have this wonderful heritage in the West of, of this, this thing, you know, dating back to the reformation, but we're losing it.

Um, and we're losing it because we're, we're turning our back on, on the Christian faith. You know, the, the Protestant reformation was fundamentally about, uh, about justification by faith alone. You know, that we're acceptable to God.

We become acceptable in His sight, not based on anything that we do, not based on our works, but our faith in Christ and in His finished work. And because of the widespread preaching of and belief in the gospel, then you began to see the, the ideas of, of, uh, of Christianity begin to, to spill out in the larger society.

And, and one of the effects of that was the government was limited in its power and it was in, in the idea of, of government, of government as a servant of the people rather than a, a ruler lording it over them began to take effect.

So let's go back and continue reading here in Dr. Diamond's book. He says, rebuking the oppressors must be done by those who understand from the scripture that we are all God's creation and that it is contrary to the will of God for the rich and powerful to suppress, control, or subjugate the weak and powerless.

And he quotes here from James, listen, my beloved brethren, has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he promised to those who love him. But you have dishonored the poor man.

Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called in a practical sense? This rebuke can occur only when a person or a group of people who are in possession of both faith and courage rise up and declare to the powerful oppressors, just because you're rich and powerful does not give you the divine right to treat people who are weaker than you in this way.

There is no group of people, and this is really the key here, and this is maybe one of the key statements here, there is no group of people with a greater capacity or the faith, courage, and a divine authority to take the lead in this endeavor than the church of Jesus Christ.

So, I mean, if there's ever going to be any effective pushback on overbearing governing authorities, on government overreach, it's going to have to come from Christians. I mean, this is something that is...

A lot of people find that surprising. A lot of people might think that, oh, what's Christianity have to do with freedom? But it has everything to do with that. What did Jesus say? He says, the Son of Man makes you free, you should be free indeed.

And of course, he was talking in the first place about spiritual liberty, being free from sin, but free from bondage to sin, free from death, free from the judgment of God. But that also has wider application.

It has an application in terms of political freedom, it has an application in terms of economic freedom, and we've seen that in the flowering of Western civilization over the last 500 years. But unfortunately, as we have turned our back on faith, we've turned our back on the gospel, we're falling back into the darkness of almost of a feudal society.

You can see it coming. You really can. And I'll continue here reading Dr. Diamond. He says this, unfortunately, the Christian church has lost its place and seems to have abdicated both its political and its divine authority.

This divine authority was given by God the Father to his son, Jesus Christ, who in turn gave it to the church. This is what it means to be salt and light. Until now, we in the church have lost the idea that we've been given this authority to exhort and rebuke with all authority, or have been too timid, reluctant, or complacent to operate by this authority.

So there's a lot of great points that he makes in here. Now, he equates the idea of being salt and light with speaking out against oppression. I had a Sunday school teacher years ago, he talked about salt and light being the job description of a Christian, and I think that that's a pretty good way of thinking about that.

We're called to do this, we're exhorted to do this, we're commanded to do this, and yet so oftentimes we don't do it. And he makes the point in here that we in the church have lost the idea that we've been given the authority to exhort and rebuke with all authority.

Well, I mean, when you think about that, look through what it says in the Word of God, that statement in Ephesians, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. Now, of course, that verse can be applied in a number of different ways.