Episode 102: Jacob Reaume and the Annexation of Canada

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. Welcome to the

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Ruled Church Podcast. I am your host, Alan Nelson. Have a great treat today with the, what should

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I call you? The Calvin of Canada? That's nice. That's got a nice ring to it. The Calvin of Canada.

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That sounds a little crazy. But more probably doctrinally aligned with Spurgeon, although it doesn't have the alliteration.

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The Spurgeon of Canada. Jacob Rayom, one of the elders of Trinity Bible Chapel.

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How long have you been at Trinity now, brother? 15 and a half years. 15 and a half years.

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And I have known of you for a little bit longer than we met, but we officially met,

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I guess, almost a year ago. You came down and preached for us in our little part of the world, and we were really appreciative of that, encouraging to our association and our church.

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So it's great to have you on today. It's good to be on Quatro, and it's good to reconnect too.

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It's been about 10 months since I was down there, nine months since I was down there in Arkansas.

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Was that March when I came? It must have been March, eh? March 24th, that's right. Yeah, so it was a really good trip, and I really enjoyed being with your congregation and just sensed a really sweet spirit there, real love of Christ among your people.

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And it was just a refreshing trip where I left encouraged. Well, you don't know this probably, but some may listening to this know this, but you actually have been on this podcast before.

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And that's because I took one of your messages from the conference last year and plugged it in.

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The one on, oh, now I shouldn't have said that.

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The one from Matthew, you preached on Matthew. Oh, Christ over Caesar. Yeah, that's right.

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Yeah, that's right, man. On who do you pay taxes to, and it was such a great message. And so you didn't know it, but you've been on the podcast before, so welcome back.

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It's good to be on again. Yeah, yeah. So what we're doing today, we've got kind of a broad topic, but later we'll bring it down to,

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I think, the reason that folks should care. You know, this is the Rural Church Podcast, but honestly, we love the church,

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Jacob. And it's not just that we care about the rural church. I feel like churches like ours, like here in Perryville, kind of underrepresented sometimes in the broader discussions of what's going on.

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And so later we'll talk about why any of this matters to small churches in Arkansas. But you had written an article,

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I've got it pulled up, from December on the American annexation of Canada.

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Why don't you just take over and kind of walk us through where does that article come from?

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If people don't know, they should. But where does that article come from? And what are you arguing for here?

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The article surfaced, I think, about two weeks. I wrote it about two weeks after there was a leaked media report that the president,

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Donald Trump, do you call him, I guess you call him president -elect at this point, although he was president at one point, but another week, half a week, he'll be president again, had indicated to our

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Canadian prime minister that Canada should become the 51st state. And a lot of people thought it was a joke at the time.

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But then he kind of showed his hand a little bit by making another social media post or two.

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And I initially, I thought, I don't think he's joking. I think he's toying with this idea. And there's something about this that is capturing his imagination.

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And I think Canadians should take it seriously and consider what's going on.

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And so in the article, I talked about some history. I talked about what was going on in the

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United States, what's going on in Canada, and then why this might not be a bad idea, at least for Canadians.

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But there's obviously some objections that come from conservative Americans to this idea and those we might want to talk about.

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And I tried to address some of those from a historical perspective in the article too. I think a lot of Canadians are offended by the idea.

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Not all of them. I'm certainly not, but a lot are. And I think that if we actually start to live in reality, the reality of the situation we find ourselves in, this could actually be a very good idea.

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Yeah, so obviously, no surprise, I voted for Trump in this election.

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I think for years that evangelicalism, at least in America, has made you feel bad if you love your country.

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You know, it's like make you feel guilty to want to have secure borders is something that you should feel ashamed about is kind of what popular evangelicalism has preached, it seems like, from my perspective.

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And so Trump comes along and I think his apologies, of course, I wish he was stronger on abortion, reprehensible to not have a pro -abolitionist stance.

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Of course, I would agree that we need to outlaw it across the board, but he's got a lot of policies that I'm very grateful for and I think that we should be grateful for.

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And I think that the underestimation of Trump, it surprises me. I don't know if you have the same position here, but what

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Trump has always won on, it seems like, is people just underestimating. That's right, I agree with you.

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Yeah. I agree. I remember when he first ran, so he got in 2016. Yeah, that's right.

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And I think he announced his candidacy in 2014. Am I right on that?

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But anyway, I remember when he first ran, and my associate pastor,

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Will, will tell you, I said, I think he's onto something here. People are joking. This guy's joking. He's talking about immigrants and racist and all this nonsense.

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I said, no, I think he's onto something. I think he's tapping into something because I'd listened to US talk radio for years and I could tell right away that he was striking a chord that was resonating with a lot of people that were participating in those, that were part of those audiences.

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Yeah. And so they underestimated him then. Yeah. Okay. It seems something fishy went on in 2020.

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Of course. Right. And they obviously underestimated him in 2024, but I think what's happened in that four years, although it wasn't good in 2020 when they, it seemed that they messed around with things and it was, there was some illegitimacy to Biden getting in.

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But I think what happened in that four year period is he had the opportunity with his team to study the system.

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Yeah. And to reflect on the four years when he was in office and say, okay, if I get in again, I know how the system works and this is how we're gonna do it.

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And I got some big ideas that I'm ready to execute. Now, whether he's able to execute some of those big ideas is to be determined, but I think he's gonna be very effective.

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That's my opinion. He's absolutely brilliant. Yes, he is brash, a New York businessman, but he's absolutely brilliant.

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And he has a creative mind that far surpasses all of his, most of his peers.

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And then he's got some, when do you have this many smart people kind of coalescing together within the political realm?

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And that's happening right now with some of the people he has around him. Yeah, and I think I'm not trying to overstep my hope.

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My hope is obviously not in Donald Trump. Our hope is in Christ. However, I think in the providence of God that as difficult as the last four years have been, that he's gonna be a better president in 2020, starting in 2025, than he would have been starting his second term in 2021, just for all the reasons that you said.

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He's been surrounded by the right people. He's studied the system. And all that to say, I was making a point with that.

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All that to say, don't underestimate him on this Greenland stuff and on this

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Canada stuff. I think someone would be foolish to just laugh it off because that's how he's got a lot of success in the past.

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People not thinking he would actually do what he said. Yeah, he is. I mean, when

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I say, I believe that a man like Donald Trump, and you and I both have concerns about his character on a number of issues.

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And you mentioned the abortion stuff. Of course, we're concerned about this. I don't agree with him on that. I wish he would change his view on that. He did appoint judges that overturned

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Roe versus Wade though. And I anticipate that he will continue to appoint those types of judges as he takes a second term here.

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There's nothing he's indicated that would, but he's not after abortion on a federal level. Okay, he's not going after.

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That's not good. However, I do think that as far as great men, his character issues notwithstanding, he is a great leader that doesn't come around every 10 years.

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This is a great man with great vision and great ability that has the potential to do some very great things in this next four -year term.

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Well, the problem as you know is, okay, yes, we completely have stated our position on abortion.

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The issue is what president in the last 50 years has been actively for a national ban on abortion, right?

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Some evangelicals are holding him to a standard that I think is just, it's not fair. Of course, we agree that abortion should be outlawed and it's only the mercy of God that judgment doesn't rain down on our nation for the continuation of abortion, but it's interesting how some people, whether it's the left or Big Eva, will pick and choose things that they want to hold him to that they didn't hold

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Obama or George Bush or whatever. I agree with you.

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And the reality is, is because Roe versus Wade has been overturned, I think there's now the opportunity for you to deal with it at a state level.

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And if you live in a conservative state like Arkansas, which you do, there's a lot of opportunity to deal with these things now that wasn't there prior to that ruling.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. I think one glaring thing, so your article now is outdated and it's just a month, it's just a month old, but it's a little bit outdated because of the news that's coming out from our friends up North in Canada that Justin Trudeau, he has resigned, is that right?

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So he has indicated that he will resign. Okay. He's still our prime minister.

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However, what he has done is he has created a national crisis because you have the

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Trump inauguration in less than a week and he has said that we will have 25 % tariffs on all

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Canadian exports going into the United States on day one. Now what Trudeau has done is he has requested permission from the governor general to prorogue parliament, meaning that the legislative body at the federal level has been shut down until Trudeau's party can determine who will lead them into the next election.

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So we are not going to have a functional federal government until about four to six months while we are entering into a massive economic crisis.

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One, I don't think people realize how bad this is going to be at the street level.

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I think we're hearing people talk about it now in a leadership level how bad it's going to be, but we are completely without federal leadership now for four to six, maybe eight months in a major, major, major crisis.

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And I don't understand all the ins and outs of American politics sometimes, let alone another country, but do you, what do you see this as?

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Do you see this as Trudeau saying, okay, I'm beaten, I can't, I've got to just get out or do you see it as, is this some sort of ploy or strategy?

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What I believe that he's done is he's realized he doesn't have a fighting chance of getting in as the next, in the next election.

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And he sees an election coming. And so he wants to give his party, the Liberal Party of Canada, the opportunity to develop, to elect a new leader, to lead them into the next election.

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So you have to understand that our election, we could have an election any day in Canada. We don't have to wait four years. So we could have one any day.

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And so he has to have one by October, but we could have one any day. And he's realized he doesn't have a fighting chance.

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So he wants to see a new leader in the party appointed in order to lead the party.

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So this is not about Canada. This is not about caring for Canada. This is about saving the Liberal Party of Canada, which is in, for all intents and purposes will be decimated in the next election.

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There will be nothing left of them. We will have a conservative government after the next election.

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It will be a conservative sweep, like we've never seen in the history of Canada in recent memory, at least in 50, 60, 75 years.

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And the Liberal Party will be completely destroyed because of Trudeau's leadership. Can I though, can

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I just offer a bit of a counsel and that would be make sure that you've got people monitoring the polling places.

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Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. Because that happened to us in 2020. So that's right.

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So let me ask you this. So now back to the article, does that change your position any or any of your thoughts as you're thinking through what

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Trump has said or is he serious? Is he not? But now since your article was written, we have a little bit of a change with Trudeau.

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What does that change anything? Or is this something you had already kind of anticipated? Well, I knew it was pretty clear that Trudeau's number was up.

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The writing was on the wall. He was a cooked goose. I think that's been fairly obvious for about three months and maybe longer, but maybe a year even.

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But Trump exasperated Trudeau's problems with some of the things he was saying and demonstrated how weak

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Trudeau actually is. My position has only strengthened that this would be a good thing for Canada since Trudeau's resignation because I just can't see

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Canada ending up in a good place at all at this point in time, giving the just bare bones, basic economic realities, never mind civil liberties realities.

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The civil liberties problem is huge and we have not been able to win any court cases in favor of the churches or businesses that were shut down during COVID in favor of the vaccination mandates.

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You've had a lot more success in the United States. You have a judiciary that is much more sensitive to civil liberties, whereas here our rights, or however you want to phrase it, whereas here ours has demonstrated that they're just simply in bed with government policy.

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We've appealed our cases to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court won't even hear us. And so we were, you know,

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I mean, you know the story with our church. So I think that is, we'd be a lot better under American governance for that fact alone.

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And I think there's historical precedent for us to desire another government to replace our government from a foreign country if they're gonna liberate us.

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And I believe that an American government would liberate us in a way that our own government just can't do at this point in time because it's just, it's too far gone.

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And further that, and then you boil down the economic realities and you start to understand what a 25 % tariff is going to do to the

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Canadian economy. And I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say, it's either gonna be we're the 51st state or we're

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Cuba with snow. Well, we had, are you familiar with the term in American history, manifest destiny?

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Yes, I am. Yeah. And so there's part of me that it's like, so there's part of me that's like manifest destiny.

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Welcome, get Canada, welcome me. And obviously we want it peaceful and all that. But there's another part of me that's like, and in talking to a member here that you know, and we were discussing like, boy, does that flip the electorate?

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Does that mean, so we welcome in Canada, all of a sudden that means for ever now, we can't elect a conservative president because the electoral college is too out of balance.

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What do you think about that? Well, there's a few ways around that. And I think one of the ways, and I guarantee

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Trump's thought this through. He's not a stupid man. He's extremely intelligent. And people don't give him enough credit for how bright he is.

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He's absolutely genius. And I guarantee he's already thought this through. But there is a way around this just because you absorb a territory into your country doesn't mean you need to enfranchise all the people into citizenship or into the vote.

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And that, I mean, even at this point in time in the United States, how many immigrants, and I'm not just talking illegal immigrants, how many legal immigrants, lawful immigrants do you have in the

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United States who don't vote? So there is a way around this. I mean, I go into my article a little bit.

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I touch on the American Civil War and how at least the Confederacy, there was Confederate soldiers that were disenfranchised from the vote for a long time.

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Certainly Jefferson Davis was never even given citizenship until his dying day. And so there is precedent for something like that.

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And beyond that, I think the greatest problem with the Canadian electorate is not so much the fact that we have liberal instincts as much as we have a liberal media that holds a monopoly on the people.

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And the liberal media is financed by the federal government. And the federal government keeps conservative media at bay by essentially prohibiting it.

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So you can't even have a moderately conservative partisan channel like Fox News up here because the

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Canadian government will not allow it to happen. But all of our major media outlets are financed by the government and they would go belly up if the government wasn't paying for them.

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So take away the financing and allow the free market to take over.

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And I guarantee within a few years, you would see the Canadian electorate shift in their sentiments because logic and reason have a way of taking root in the hearts of the people.

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And beyond that, below the surface, the Canadian people, there is a deep conservative sentiment that is there.

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And if they can start to see the other side, I think it would shift. I don't think it would shift as far as it is in, you know, for example, rural

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Arkansas, but I think things would shift. And then furthermore, we have this province that is called

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Quebec, that is predominantly French -Canadian, historically Catholic. And over the years, it has simply been a ball and chain on free enterprise, around the ankle of free enterprise and around the ankle of liberty.

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And Quebec has always been that way. And I guarantee if they were told they don't have any

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French language rights anymore as far as preserving their culture by law, you're not allowed to have a sign in Quebec that is in English bigger than it is in French.

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And if all of a sudden the free market takes over in Quebec and they're not allowed to legislate all this nonsense that they do anymore, and they're not unequally represented in the legislature as they are right now in order to pander to French -Canadians in Quebec, and they would just become their own country.

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They wouldn't want anything to do with it. Let them go and then just take all of English Canada. And I think things would be okay.

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You know, I don't know how much you've paid attention, but since the election, already since the election in America, there has been changes.

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For example, I'm sure you saw Mark Zuckerberg, you know. That's right. I saw that. Yes. And it's to your point that you just said, if you could kind of show conservatives can win.

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Now, I'm not throwing my stock in with Mark Zuckerberg and say, well, he's a conservative now, but I'm just saying he's feeling, in my opinion, he's feeling the pressure.

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That's right. And I think that's a good thing to show, you know, there's been a great pushback here on liberal media.

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And so I think it's just to your point that you could see something similar in, and without even knowing much culturally about Canada, I've seen it here and I know it.

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Well, let me give you an example. Just in recent Canadian history that you're well aware of, we had our lockdowns were very draconian.

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They lasted. We never thought they were going to end. I was at the point where I'm like, okay, I'm never getting out of this.

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I've just, this is it. We're, you know, we're going to live in this basic hellscape under COVID lockdowns for the rest of my life.

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And I'd accepted that in my heart. You know, I always had hope in God and believe that, you know, he could deliver us if he wants.

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And then all of a sudden out of nowhere, you have thousands of truckers descend on Ottawa and basically take over the city.

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That is a conservative undertone within this country that exists and is alive and well that has not yet been tapped.

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Yeah. Amen. That's good. So I think something else here, here's something about conservatives and kind of change trajectory here of the conversation.

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But one thing about conservatives is they, they really like just kind of being left alone.

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You know, that's right. Just leave me alone. Let me do my thing. Let me raise my family. Let me farm on my own land.

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Let me stop paying all these ridiculous taxes and all these ridiculous regulations. Let me just do my own thing, which

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I think is, I think is, is good. But there is an element of that, that I have seen personally, that's crept into the church whereby, and I'm speaking of my experience here in rural

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Arkansas and other churches I know of in the South. Just, I don't even care about this stuff.

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You know, like I'm saying that's the mentality of some pastors. I don't have time to think about the annexation of Canada and these big national politics.

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So I'll just wonder if like, as a pastor, you would speak to pastors for a moment, just say, hey brothers, here's why you should care.

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And here's the way you should care maybe. Well, bare bones basic, we love the glory of God and we want to see him glorified on a large scale, including in the halls of government.

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And number two, we love our neighbors. And I want what's best for my neighbors, including my children.

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And so I try to think on these policy levels and say, okay, if you apply biblical principles, the public policy, what will be the best case scenario for my children, my children's children and my neighbors who live beside me at this point in time?

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So this is simply in obedience to the two greatest commandments that we have. One of the ways we love our neighbors is by being engaged on a political level and pastors should really model that on how to think scripturally through these very difficult issues.

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And two is, is I want to see God glorified. And God is glorified when his law is upheld. And one of the ways that his law is upheld is if people are given freedom.

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Amen. So I know for me, there seems to be a gut reaction sometimes for pastors to respond to things that the liberal media says they should respond to, but less of a inclination to respond to things like this.

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And I'm thinking of another scenario, actually, another example. The fires right now in California are ridiculous.

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And part of that is completely attributable to liberal policy.

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And so the other night I was preaching and I was just preaching from that passage in Jeremiah about seeking the welfare of the city.

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And I just happened to mention that we care these things that you just said.

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We care about our neighbors. We care about injustice, including not just what liberal media says is injustice, but including the corrupt governments.

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And so I just wonder if you'd weigh in like, as we think about these big policies, national policies, he's saying like, should that crop up in our sermons and how?

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And how do you, I guess, how do you guard against where that becomes everything you're talking about? Well, you're wanting to hit a few strings and application in every sermon.

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And I think the main thing you want to focus on is the hearts of your people and their own personal sanctification and how to deal with the world we live in that is wrecked with sin, suffering, sorrow.

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And so that's the main thing. But I think part of it too is showing your people how the scriptures bear upon this incursed earth that we live in.

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And I think that includes interacting with ideas like the one we're interacting with.

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I mean, there's implications for the United States and for Canada in these discussions that we're having between the two countries.

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And obviously you're right as a pastor, as an American pastor say, well, what about the electorate? Well, right.

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Because you don't want this to tank your country. You're most concerned about the local level than you are about helping

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Canadians. You're more concerned about helping people from Arkansas than you are about helping Canadians. And that makes sense. And I'm rightfully here saying, hey, well, this could work and this could be a really good idea.

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Why? Because I'm most concerned about my, the people that I deal with here locally. And I think if you love people, you will help them think through all of these issues on a biblical level and throw the ideas out there into the public sphere and see what happens to them.

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Right? So I could say, I could say like Trump's sanctions, for example, just to kind of bring it back to that, is

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I'm, I'm, sorry, not sanctions, tariffs. If he brings in 25 % tariffs is what he, what he's talking about doing at this time.

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Like we're talking about a hemorrhaging, you know, local school of business just down the highway from us of 1 .5

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million jobs in Canada overnight, which, you know, this is a country of 40 million people.

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So you do the math. That's a massive, that's just overnight. However, as an

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American pastor, you should be concerned of the fact that there's 34

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American states whose number one destination of exports is

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Canada. Okay. And so, and I think Arkansas is, is one of those states.

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It could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Arkansas is just north of Louisiana, right? That's right. Yeah. So I'm looking at the map right now and Arkansas's number, if you're exporting goods internationally from Arkansas, one of your number, your number one destination is a citizen of Arkansas is

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Canada. Wow. So, so if you're, if your number one destination is

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Canada, guess what? Our government has threatened to retaliate with tariffs. So not only are your costs going to go up because our exports are going up in price by Trump's 25 % tariffs, but guess what?

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Your local businesses are going to get hit because your number one export market is Canada and, and it's going to cost more to export into Canada.

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So someone's going to have to eat that cost on both sides. Number one, the goods coming into Arkansas, number two, the goods coming out of Arkansas.

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So there's going to be, there's going to be pain felt on both sides of the border over these, over these tariffs. And then beyond that, you look at a state like Kentucky, the number one, which is just north

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Arkansas, the number one purchaser of alcohol in the world is the, is the

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LCBO, which is the government owned liquor bureau in the province of Ontario, number one purchaser of alcohol.

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And so what happens if the LCBO, one of their major customers or one of the major customers of some

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Kentucky bourbon, let's just throw one of them out there, Jim Beam or Maker's Mark is one of their major customers is the province of Ontario because that's the number one.

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And then, so the province of Ontario all of a sudden says, hey, guess what? If Trump's going to give us 25 % tariffs, we're not going to buy bourbon from Kentucky anymore.

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And now three or four distilleries in Kentucky have to shut down and lay off people. So this is what this trade war is going to look like.

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It's going to hurt us more in Canada because like, it's going to decimate our economy. It's like,

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I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it's going to be a nuclear winter, but you're going to feel the pain down there too. But that's pretty much the gamble, if you will, that Trump's willing to take.

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That's right. But he knows, he sees our weakness and he sees that if we're going to negotiate on this, we're negotiating from a position of weakness.

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We're not going to go, he is the 90 % of the chips are on his or in his corner, but it is going to hurt the

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United States. You think then that seems obvious that it was that accelerated

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Trudeau's probably realization of, I can't survive with this stare down.

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I'm done. He was already feeling done, but then the 25 % tariff.

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Well, I think he's, he showed how much of a buffoon he is because he went to Mar -a -Lago and Trump says to him,

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I'm going to put 25 % tariffs on all your exports. And Trudeau's like, well, you can't do that. And Trump's like, well, why not?

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He's like, well, you'd destroy the Canadian economy. And then Trump's a smart guy. So he said, well, why don't you become the 51st state if you can't survive without us?

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What Trudeau should have said is what I just said to you. Well, then what are you going to do with the state of Arkansas and the state of Mississippi and the state of Michigan, right in the state of Nevada and the state of Florida, whose number one export market is

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Canada. They're going to hurt all of them. I mean, Ohio is a swing state. So is

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Michigan. So do you want to hurt the economy in Ohio and Michigan over this? But he didn't even bring that up.

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That's how much of a buffoon he is. Ineptitude. It total inept. And so people saw that and they're like,

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OK, we are totally done with him. This is not a serious person. His entire party imploded and they just wanted him gone.

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So I grew up with this view of the church, particularly really kind of dispensational.

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I wouldn't have called myself that. I mean, I've moved on from that, but that's the area I've grew up.

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And I think there's a there's a tendency sometimes in that group to have like these patriotic services.

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And like when July 4th happens, you sing all these patriotic songs. And so there's on one side, we're like, wait a second, that's that's not right.

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This is not the place to we don't come to church to celebrate the country. We come to to worship

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Christ. You know, there's no there's no we transcend nations, as it were, as the church gathers.

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But then there's the other side where it seems like like I already brought up earlier, you feel guilty for even loving your nation.

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You feel like is it OK to even call myself a patriot? Some people, you know, have have believed the lie that you can't even you can't even have those kind of loves for your for your country.

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And so I find myself in the last 10 years trying to to find that biblical balance of absolutely.

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No, you don't idolize your country. You don't worship your country. On the other hand, it's OK to love your country.

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It's OK to to to be a patriot. It's OK to to want a secure nation and a sovereign nation.

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And so I think all of this comes into play. I just don't see the point I'm trying to get to is

33:39

I just don't see a lot of pastors, particularly in in my area in the

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South, that that try to think through this properly and teach their people to think through this problem.

33:51

Well, they should, because if you want to honor the Fifth Commandment and honor your mother and father, that your days may be long in the land of the

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Lord, your God's giving you that commandment is repeated in the New Testament. And so part of honoring your mother and father is honoring the patriots that came before you and build the country and county and state or province and city that you live in.

34:10

Right. You want to honor their memory. You want to honor the principles upon which they stood, their sacrifices for your nation.

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And and I think that and then and then and then with that, you're on you want to live in that actual land.

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So a nation is a people who have descended from, you know, you have a history and you have land. That's a nation.

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And and that's all tied up in the Fifth Commandment. So I don't know how you can't be a true patriot and love your people, your nation, your land, and uphold the

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Fifth Commandment. If you if you don't love your people, nation, land, you're not upholding the

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Fifth Commandment. You're dishonoring God and you're violating your your sin. Well, I think he's kind of shown his true colors now.

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But when I was when I went to Louisville, when I went to Southern, I started out seminary at Southern.

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Russ Moore was there. Yeah, he was there when I was there, too. And and at that point, you can go back and read and listen to some of the things he said.

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And and you and I would agree. It was like, yes. But over the years, that kind of became less and less and less.

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And I think that kind of brand of evangelicalism really has has a root in a lot of a lot of people's hearts.

35:20

You know, this idea of if you if you love your nation, you're you're wrong.

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But it's really sad to see where Russ Moore has has gone now. Now, looking back as a seminary student,

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I left Southern in 2008, but I can see that he was planting the seeds for some of this stuff back then.

35:38

Yeah. And I can see that clearly from my perspective. I did not see it then. Yeah, but it is really sad to see where he's gone.

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And and he has dishonored God. He's dishonored Scripture. The the publication at which he oversees

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Christianity today is is just it's useless. It's it should be done away with.

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It should be disbanded. I don't know why anyone wants anything to do with it. It's Christianity yesterday, as they've said, as you've heard people say many times.

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But I yes, he is he's a he's a sellout. He's a fraud. And I hate saying that because I'll tell you,

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I got one of his books on my shelf that it was just a real blessing. Tempted and tried. Excellent book.

36:17

I was about to say the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Exposition of the Christ temptation. Just beautiful exegesis.

36:23

And I've heard him preach when I was a seminary student. I it befuddles me what has happened to this man. But whatever it is, he has taken a very, very dark turn.

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And I don't think anyone should be paying attention to him. And I'm sorry to hear that people down in the south still are, because if you want to pay attention to him, he's leading you off a cliff.

36:41

Well, I think now it's it's much less now, especially since he left SBC. And it's just like, OK, but but one area

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I was going to go with that is like that's introduced kind of another problem. And that is this this Russ Moore brand,

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Beth Moore brand of evangelicalism. You can't love your country. Men are bad, particularly white men are bad.

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That has created a generation that we're seeing now that are rightly upset.

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That's right. They're rightly like, no way, that's not right. You know, I'm going to react to a negative extreme on the other side.

37:16

And that's right. And so and so that's another issue as we think through this that's happening. I mean, you have any thoughts or comments about that?

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Well, I think that's why we have to stay very, very close to Scripture. Yeah. And and so you don't want to you don't want to react one way or the other.

37:32

You don't want to become partisan theologically or partisan with various leaders that are there in the

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Church at this time or emerging within the Churches, whether it's on social media. You simply want to interact. Someone says something.

37:44

Well, let's evaluate idea by idea, Scripture by Scripture, chapter by chapter, verse by verse.

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And and I think the, you know, so there's certain appeals to a group to, you know, people who you can understand why they're angry.

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They've been lied to and treated poorly their whole lives. But I think we just simply want to be scriptural in all of our views and evaluate everything according to the

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Word of God. Then we'll be safe, whether it's on the right or the left. Yeah, that's good. And I would just want to make the case and argue that also it's in the in the context of the

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Church. I there's a lot of and I felt it before. Maybe you have too. But there's temptation for platforming, you know, outside the

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Church. And and there can be a there can be good that comes out of men who who lead movements.

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And you and I are both don't mind to publicly say that we're very grateful for men like like Tom Askle and and founders and grateful for that kind of stuff.

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But but there is a temptation to kind of try to pull this stuff out of the Church and kind of leave the

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Church as secondary or or or even unimportant. And let's hey, let's attack these cultural issues outside the

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Church. What I would actually argue is we need to be teaching our people inside the Church. We need to. We need to help our people understand these issues inside the

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Church so that we can be the right the right pushback. God's plan for pushing back against these things.

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It's always through the through the Gospel and through and the Church is the vehicle for the for the

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Gospel to the nations. Anyway, maybe I'm rambling. Did that make sense or? It did. I think I think there's a people who desire a big platform or a big splash.

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And really what it comes down to is taking care of our families, taking care of our homes, taking care of our churches.

39:31

Yeah, yeah. Amen. Amen. Well, we kind of you followed my lead, so I don't

39:37

I don't blame you. It was kind of rambled around with with things. But what what?

39:43

Maybe just kind of circle back to this and we can we can kind of land the plane here in just a minute.

39:49

But what do you think? Realistically, as as you talk about Canada, as you talk about there going to be a conservative land side victory, do you see talks furthering between our two nations on this?

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Or what do you see? If Trump does what he says that he's going to do, it's going to be it's inevitable.

40:12

I don't think how you I don't know how we can avoid America taking over Canada in the next two or three generations.

40:18

But if Trump does what he says he's going to do, this will expedite the process very, very, very fast.

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So I saw a statistic today that 50 percent of Canadians are two hundred dollars away from insolvency on their homes.

40:36

Fifty percent of Canadians are two hundred dollars away. If that's how bad the economy is at this point in time.

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And then so overnight, 1 .5 million jobs lost in Canada.

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So so this means that by this time next week, if Trump brings in the 25 percent tariffs on Monday, we could be in a very, very dark economic situation in Canada that like we haven't seen in generations.

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So by the time I don't know when this podcast can release, by the time this podcast release, we could be living in a different world here in Canada.

41:11

And so so and Trump knows that, you know, the only thing I've said this for a while, that he needs to do to take

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Canada. He has to do one thing, and that is don't let any

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Canadians into the United States because Canadians own homes in the states, whether it's

41:29

Florida or Arizona, vacation homes. Canadians have business interactions with Americans.

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Sixty seven percent of the Canadian economy depends on exports, the bulk of which is towards the

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United States. And so just if he just shuts the American border from Canada so Canadians can't enter the

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United States, Canadians vacation in the United States more than a vacation in Canada. If he just does that, he's going to have us begging for mercy.

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So I don't think the reality has set in in the hearts of Canadians as to what this looks like.

42:05

But once if he does what he says he's going to do. And once that reality sets in,

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I think he is expediting what I think is either way is inevitable. And that is that the United States will eventually absorb

42:17

Canada. You either mentioned this in your article or it was on cross politic.

42:23

But is it true that even militarily Canada has allowed itself now to become basically dependent upon America?

42:32

Or you're talking about something like that, where that's absolutely right. Yeah, that's right. And so the Canadian I mean, this isn't this isn't recent.

42:40

I mean, we we've with the exception of Vietnam, we've fought side by side with Americans for 100 and, you know, 25 years.

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World War One, we fought beside each other. World War Two, we fought beside each other. Korea, we fought beside each other.

42:56

Desert Storm, Gulf War, all of this Afghanistan, we've we've fought, died beside each other.

43:03

OK, this has been a very happy partnership. But the Canadian military for the better part of 30, 40 years has been underfunded.

43:11

We've denuclearized, so we no longer have nuclear weapons. And then under Trudeau, it's it's become so it's just it's so, so, so sad what's happened to our military.

43:23

And and since the Cold War began, and it's over now, but since it began, it's been it's been a fact.

43:31

We depend on the United States. And the only reason that we can have all the garbage social programs that we have in Canada, don't let anyone tell you that our health care is great up here.

43:42

It's not. It's total garbage. The only and all the other garbage social programs. The only reason we can have those garbage social programs is because the military is underfunded.

43:51

And almost not funded at all at this point. And the only reason the military can be underfunded is because we have a big brother to the south of us who's going to take care of us if the

44:01

Russians or the Chinese or some other, you know, nation comes after us.

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And so America has a vested interest in protecting Canada because they don't want Russia landing on Canadian borders.

44:14

They don't want China landing on Canadian borders. So so yes, we have taken advantage of that.

44:21

And and and it's almost like it's almost like we've been spending daddy's credit card and blowing it.

44:29

And now daddy's showing up and saying, OK, payments do. Like we should have thought about this before we depended on the

44:35

United States for trade as much as we do. We should have thought about this before we depended on United States for military as much as we do.

44:42

Yes, the United States will hurt if these tariffs go through, but we're going to hurt more. And and we are way more dependent on the

44:49

United States than the United States is dependent on us. Yeah, well, we can pray that the

44:55

Lord would be merciful to both of our nations. And I consider it a mercy of the Lord, of the trajectory of Trudeau and and my hope.

45:06

I hope you're right. I hope a conservative victory. I think the Lord has been very merciful to our nation with the prevention of not just merely the prevention of Kamala Harris, but even some of these policies that Trump has.

45:20

And so I think the Lord has been merciful and we'll pray that he would continue. I know

45:25

I want to just ask you this and then we can kind of wrap up here. But you guys have a lot of projects going on.

45:33

I don't know if there's anything you want to mention, but maybe one thing you'd like to mention is is your book available in the

45:39

States? Well, you got to ship it from from Canada, from the 51st state, from the it is available in the states, the 51st state.

45:47

So you just came out with your book and you guys got a publishing company.

45:53

You want to mention anything about that and where folks could go to look at that? Yeah, so we're you can go to askherpress .com,

46:03

a -s -s -e -r press, p -r -e -s -s dot com. That's also available on our website, trinitybiblechapel .ca.

46:12

And the book is Bible -based marriage and just came just printed that published it in October.

46:20

And it's it's just foundations. It's foundations for marriage. There's chapters in there on a biblical theology of marriage, on how to pick a spouse, communication, practical things like communication, conflict resolution, wealth management, and even an entire chapter on birth control.

46:35

And so and some of the problems that we should see with birth control.

46:41

And so I've it's it's available. I hope that your listeners would consider purchasing it.

46:46

And I think it would actually be a real asset to a lot of pastors who want to do premarital counseling. We've we're shifting.

46:53

We're going to do all our premarital counseling with it. I've been struggling with for years, 15 and a half years. Oh, we need a book on premarital counseling.

46:59

I don't like what I'm using. I don't like what I'm using. And so this was really curtailed for that. But it's a good refresher for anyone who wants to, you know, tune up their marriage,

47:10

I guess you could say. askherpress .com. Yeah, no, that's great. That's that's really the Baptist way.

47:16

I don't like all this stuff. I'm just going to do my own. So I love it.

47:22

No, that's great. I really appreciate you. I think more people should know about you and your and your ministry.

47:29

And I'm grateful for what you guys have stood for. Continue to stand for everything that you're doing.

47:35

And I hope I hope this will bless some folks and maybe introduce some more folks to you and what you guys got going up there in in our

47:45

I want to say neighboring nation, but neighboring, hopefully, state soon.

47:51

Well, I wouldn't I wouldn't be disappointed, but I could understand why brothers like you would be pretty hesitant about that, considering the electoral issue.

48:01

Yeah, I'm always look, man, I'm always hesitant at what our corrupt liberals will come up with.

48:08

You know, so they'll find a way they you know, if all of a sudden you hear Nancy Pelosi say, yeah, we should.

48:14

We should. That'd be a huge red flag for me, brother. I'd be like, OK, I'm I'm out there.

48:19

There's something up there. I could understand. I totally could understand. Well, thanks for your time today.

48:26

And thank you guys for for joining us on the rural church podcast. And we will we'll catch you next week.

48:43

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house. The church is what

48:49

God's doing. This this is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poem of the masterpiece of God.