Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 121

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. If you're watching this, you see that I'm in a

00:00:05.480 little bit of a different setting than I usually am. We've been having Wi-Fi problems at my house

00:00:09.980 and I'm very frustrated. I could put this company on blast. I'm not going to. We've had power

00:00:15.580 outages in Texas because there's been storms. And for some reason, every time the power goes out

00:00:20.920 and comes back on, our Wi-Fi dies. And so I had to go somewhere else to make sure that I had Wi-Fi

00:00:27.800 so I could look at my computer during all of this. So if you see, I have a very plain background that

00:00:33.920 is not my lovely place of doing podcasts typically. That is why. So today we're going to talk about

00:00:41.280 two things and we're going to spend a good amount of time on each. And if I have something else that

00:00:47.160 comes to my head at the end of it, then we'll talk about that too. But we're going to talk about

00:00:50.500 Taylor Swift and her voicing her opinions on the Equality Act. Not because we care really what

00:00:57.720 celebrities think, but because it says something interesting about our culture and cultural

00:01:03.640 influences that someone like Taylor Swift would come out in favor of something like this. And

00:01:09.620 then we're also going to talk about Pastor David Platt praying for President Trump and some of the

00:01:14.680 backlash, crazily enough, that he has seen from that. Okay, so let's talk about Taylor Swift and

00:01:21.060 the Equality Act. Now, you probably remember for a couple of years, it seems like on social media,

00:01:27.400 there was kind of this meme or this funny thing that people would say that like,

00:01:31.280 why hasn't Taylor Swift weighed in on this political topic or this cultural issue or this

00:01:35.720 social scandal? We need to hear Taylor Swift on this. Her silence is deafening. And it was a joke

00:01:41.000 because Taylor Swift, for the most part, has always stayed out of politics, which I think is something

00:01:46.100 that has made her extremely charming. I never think when whenever a celebrity decides not to say

00:01:51.460 something about politics, I never see that one way or another as, oh, wow, they're just weak or

00:01:57.460 they're just ignorant or they're not strong or brave or whatever that is. I always think of that

00:02:02.400 as a very conscious decision to say, you know what? I've got people from both sides of the aisle that

00:02:07.200 either buy my product or tune into my show or listen to my music. So I'm just not going to say

00:02:12.380 anything. I actually think that that is more brave nowadays to stay politically neutral in your public

00:02:18.900 persona than it is to say something, especially when you come out as a celebrity saying something

00:02:24.680 that is leftist. It's like really like all of these like clappy hand emojis on your political

00:02:30.680 pro-abortion Instagram posts. I'm like, is this really brave? Like, is this really courageous?

00:02:36.300 In fact, if you said the opposite of this, like if you came out as pro-life as some kind of mainstream

00:02:41.600 celebrity, like you're going to be totally lambasted and you're going to have a hard time finding work.

00:02:46.400 So it just cracks me up when celebrities, even someone like Taylor Swift is lauded as courageous

00:02:53.300 by her feminist friends on the left for coming out in favor of something that is liberal. Of course,

00:03:00.960 she's going to because that's what celebrities do. That's not brave at all. That's the most

00:03:05.220 mainstream and with the grain thing that you can possibly do. And that's what she has done.

00:03:11.680 Now, the other week we did a whole episode dedicated to the Equality Act. It is titled

00:03:16.860 the Equality Act. And I'm going to remind you a little bit about some of what it is today. But

00:03:22.540 if you want a more thorough analysis of what is actually in this act, that is not, by the way,

00:03:29.000 actually going to go to the desk of President Trump because it's not going to pass the Republican

00:03:33.620 held Senate. If you want to know more about that, I encourage you to go back and listen to

00:03:39.460 my episode on the Equality Act. Basically what it does, if you're talking to a Democrat,

00:03:45.380 they will say that it extends protections for the LGBTQ plus whatever community. So they cannot

00:03:54.260 be discriminated against. And it sounds all well and good. But of course, what we know that it does

00:03:59.040 is that it threatens doctors' rights. It threatens religious people's rights. It threatens counselors'

00:04:03.640 rights. It threatens psychiatrists' rights, which of course, I guess, falls under doctor. It threatens

00:04:08.900 parents' rights. It really threatens individual rights to live according to their conscience,

00:04:13.820 which I believe is not the role of the government. And actually, the founders believe that too. It's

00:04:18.500 a constitutional belief that that should not be the role of the government, whether you're coming at it

00:04:22.880 from a freedom of association standpoint or a freedom of religion or freedom of conscience standpoint.

00:04:28.900 It is unconstitutional. It is the left saying we are going to impose all of our ideological views on

00:04:37.520 you to where the point to the point where if you do not comply, you will be punished professionally and

00:04:42.460 probably personally as well. Now, Taylor Swift doesn't know this. And, you know, we shouldn't really

00:04:49.700 expect her to. She's got a lot going on. She's making music videos. She's writing music. She's going back

00:04:56.440 from Nashville to L.A. to New York. She's got cats to take care of. So we cannot expect poor Taylor

00:05:02.600 Swift to do a whole lot of research on the Equality Act. All we can expect from her is to post a very

00:05:09.880 passionate letter about the Equality Act and how everyone who doesn't support it is really just a

00:05:15.860 bigot. So she posted her letter on Instagram. Don't you just love open letters to another sign of real

00:05:22.540 bravery to Senator Lamar Alexander? He's a Republican about protecting LGBTQ rights by voting to support

00:05:30.260 the Equality Act. So this is her plea for him to do that. So Taylor Swift wrote in the caption of her

00:05:36.580 letter, while we have so much to celebrate, we also so this is, I guess, in she's doing this at the

00:05:42.160 beginning of Gay Pride Month. And so she's saying, so while we have so much to celebrate, we also have a great

00:05:48.280 distance to go before everyone in this country is truly treated equally. In excellent recent news,

00:05:53.360 the House passed the Equality Act, which would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in their

00:05:58.740 places of work, homes, schools, and other public accommodations. She states, I've decided to kick

00:06:05.200 off Pride Month by writing a letter to one of my senators to explain how strongly I feel that the

00:06:09.800 Equality Act should be passed. I urge you to write to your senators too. I'll be looking for your

00:06:14.820 letters by searching the hashtag, hashtag letter to my senator. And in the letter, she said this,

00:06:20.640 for American citizens to be denied jobs or housing based on who they love or how they identify,

00:06:25.460 in my opinion, is un-American and cruel. Now you might be listening to that. And if you haven't

00:06:30.160 listened to my episode on the Equality Act yet, you might be thinking, well, yeah, that's so true.

00:06:34.540 People shouldn't be discriminated against. But remember, this Equality Act wants to regulate

00:06:38.220 religious nonprofits, and it wants to impose its secular beliefs, its leftist beliefs,

00:06:43.540 on even private Christian schools. A private Christian school who believes in traditional

00:06:47.500 marriage because the Bible teaches traditional marriage under this act would probably no longer

00:06:53.440 be able to deny, to not hire someone based on their gender identity or based on their sexual

00:07:00.500 orientation. To someone on the left, they think, well, yeah, duh, of course, you shouldn't be able

00:07:05.280 to discriminate on that. So you are saying that a religious school is not able to actually act out

00:07:11.060 or manifest its religious views. You are saying that the government has a right to dictate who

00:07:16.060 you can hire and not hire, no matter what your religious views are. And so but it's it's never

00:07:21.440 seen that way for the left. It's never seen as religious people have a legitimate beef with the

00:07:26.920 government stepping in and saying, hey, you cannot follow your conscience. Instead, we see something

00:07:31.560 like this, that they won't be discriminated against for who they love or how they identify. I mean,

00:07:37.720 just the wording of that, if you don't see the influence of the God of self and the elevation

00:07:44.300 and the glorification, the idolatry of self and everything that we see in, I won't even say just

00:07:50.400 on the left, but in secularism today, it's it's I don't know what to tell you. It's there. It's

00:07:56.800 crazy. She then talks about how protecting the LGBTQ community would bring more jobs to Tennessee,

00:08:02.340 referencing the fact that businesses like Amazon and Apple have spoken out against the anti-LGBTQ

00:08:07.980 slate of hate in recent months. Now, the slate of hate she's talking about, it's a term that

00:08:14.380 advocacy groups have coined after Tennessee introduced a series of bills that from their

00:08:19.600 perspective, that's important from their perspective, would be against the gay community,

00:08:25.900 for example, in the transgender community. One of the bills, the Tennessee Natural Marriage Act,

00:08:30.500 it would ban gay marriage in the state. Now, you could be against that. You could be against

00:08:37.080 banning gay marriage, but it's the prerogative of these legislators to be able to propose legislation

00:08:43.720 like this. So she talks about, OK, because of the slate of hate, we're going to lose jobs. Apple and

00:08:50.080 Amazon said that they're not going to they're not going to be doing business with these states.

00:08:56.460 And in her letter, she talks about President Trump's opposition to the legislation that the

00:09:01.960 House just passed. She says, I personally reject the president's stance that his administration

00:09:06.880 supports equal treatment of all, but that the Equality Act in its current form is filled with

00:09:11.120 poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights. Swift wrote. So she rejects

00:09:15.980 that. She said, no, one cannot take the position that one supports a community while condemning it in

00:09:20.560 the next breath as going against conscience or parental rights. That statement implies that there is

00:09:25.780 something morally wrong with being anything other than heterosexual and cisgender, which is an

00:09:29.280 incredibly harmful message to send to a nation full of healthy and loving families with same sex,

00:09:33.100 non-binary or transgender parents, sons or daughters. Well, there are plenty of people who do believe

00:09:38.340 that it's immoral. Taylor Swift, there are a lot of people in this country who believe that

00:09:43.740 homosexuality is something that doesn't align with their religious views. So if they run a religious

00:09:48.880 nonprofit or if they run a Christian school, for example, they should have the prerogative and the

00:09:55.780 ability to say, hey, we're only going to hire people that fall into our worldview, that fall into our

00:10:02.220 value system. And it's the same thing with parental rights, by the way. I mean, she's saying, no, parents

00:10:08.360 shouldn't have rights to say that their child shouldn't get, for example, hormone therapy to change their

00:10:14.080 gender when they're 10 years old. Taylor Swift, are you really saying that a parent shouldn't have a

00:10:19.140 right to do that? Parents do not care, Taylor Swift, whether or not you think it's immoral for their

00:10:25.840 child to transition. And doctors don't care about what you think, Taylor Swift, about whether or not

00:10:33.040 they should perform an abortion or whether or not they should, which this is something that's something

00:10:37.260 that the act covers or whether or not they should do a sex change surgery if they are morally opposed

00:10:44.460 to that. So because Taylor Swift, and this is a problem that all celebrities have, it's this crazy

00:10:49.740 hubris. She thinks that she is the moral arbiter, that she thinks that it's wrong to imply in any way

00:10:56.220 that someone might think that homosexuality or transgenderism is immoral and they are not allowed to

00:11:02.640 operate according to that belief system. Why? Because Taylor Swift doesn't think it's immoral.

00:11:07.900 It's so close-minded and completely delegitimizes the views of millions of Christians and Jewish

00:11:14.940 people and probably people of other faiths, too, that are more conservative-leaning. It completely

00:11:20.040 discredits their views on traditional marriage and on gender roles that exist. And this is exactly why

00:11:26.220 so many people, conservatives especially, don't listen to celebrities. Like, Taylor Swift tried

00:11:32.060 to advocate for a candidate in the Senate race last year and it completely failed. I mean,

00:11:39.780 she came out and said, you know, this person's against the LGBTQ community and I'm for them,

00:11:45.440 blah, blah, blah. So please vote for this Democrat. Well, the Democrat ended up losing. And so even

00:11:50.300 though she probably does have a lot of cultural sway, especially, I would say, more so outside of

00:11:56.740 Tennessee than she does inside Tennessee, it's still an interesting thing to talk about. But I just

00:12:02.720 don't know how much manifest impact she is having when it comes to how people vote and what people

00:12:10.800 actually do. All she's doing is stirring up a bunch of resentment and anger among people who just don't

00:12:17.640 know better. There is no thought anymore, particularly among the left, to religious liberty. There is no thought

00:12:23.360 anymore to freedom of association. There is no thought anymore to being able to operate according

00:12:27.400 to your conscience, a conscience that might contradict leftist politicians. No, they have

00:12:32.000 said that they are the arbiters of truth. They are the arbiters of morality. And they will say, oh, no,

00:12:37.000 we just want love. We just want inclusion. We just want tolerance. We just want everyone to be

00:12:41.920 included and not discriminated against. But again, that's not the role of the government to be able to say

00:12:47.180 that you as a person who wants to operate your business or your organization or your family,

00:12:51.720 according to your conscience, it should not be the role of the government to say you can't do that.

00:12:57.400 So Taylor Swift, of course, very narrow minded and very short sighted, as most people are when they

00:13:02.980 hear this emotional language of protecting a particular vulnerable, vulnerable community.

00:13:10.900 She said the reason why she's getting involved in this when she supported the Democrat for the Senate

00:13:16.360 race. I think his name was Phil Bredesen. She she posted saying, you know, a lot of people have

00:13:23.560 have seen I've been reluctant to publicly engage or to voice my opinions, but that's changed.

00:13:29.080 A lot of things have happened in my life that make me want to speak out about this. I think she just

00:13:34.700 kind of got embarrassed that she became a meme and she kind of got embarrassed that people were making

00:13:39.280 fun of her, I guess, for being silent. I just wish she understood the joke. The joke was not that

00:13:44.380 we actually wanted to hear her opinions. The joke was that we are glad that she doesn't voice her

00:13:48.000 opinions. I think that she took that as thinking, OK, well, I've got this platform. I've really got

00:13:52.420 to speak up about democratic values. Woo. You're so different. So she has put her money where her

00:13:58.760 mouth is. Maybe maybe that's something to speak of. She gave one hundred thirteen thousand dollars

00:14:04.940 in 2018 to the Tennessee Equality Project, which, of course, is a pro LGBTQ advocacy group.

00:14:11.380 I don't know much about them. I would say that they're probably behind something like the Equality

00:14:15.260 Act, and they might even be the advocacy group that said, hey, Taylor Swift, it's time for you

00:14:19.580 to say something about this. She performed at iHeartRadio's Wango Tango. I think it was this past

00:14:26.140 weekend. And during her performance, she got political by talking about the LGBTQ community

00:14:33.900 and their rights and what we need to be standing for. And she said, you know, a lot of my songs

00:14:40.120 are about love. And I just feel like you you who you love, how you identify, you should be able to

00:14:45.800 live your life the way that you want to live your life. You should have the same exact rights as

00:14:50.460 everybody else. Well, they do. Well, they do. They do have the same gay people do have the same exact

00:14:54.920 rights as everyone as everyone else. But also it just tells us what Taylor Swift thinks is the

00:15:02.920 is the guidepost of morality or is the moral compass. And it is. This is such a perfect

00:15:10.340 encapsulation of the so-called morality of this age, which is exchanging the God of the Bible for

00:15:17.960 the God of self. And it is exchanging the truth with my truth. It is exchanging any kind of principle

00:15:25.640 or objective reality for my principles and my subjective reality that all that matters, the only

00:15:33.520 values to the secular world, particularly the secular left today in America, are there are two

00:15:39.860 things. The two values that they have are autonomy and authenticity. Those are the only principles that

00:15:46.400 you need to abide by in order to be seen by them as a moral person. And the only way to be an immoral

00:15:52.420 person is if you try to step on someone's autonomy or step on someone's authenticity. And so all laws

00:15:58.900 that they want implemented, all value systems, all schools, all doctor's offices are supposed to affirm

00:16:06.340 everyone's autonomy and authenticity. So autonomy, you have full control over what you do no matter what.

00:16:13.980 That means that if you want to get an abortion, well, autonomy speaks to that and you get to. Now,

00:16:20.100 of course, where's the autonomy for the baby? We don't talk about that. That's too confusing.

00:16:25.220 Authenticity, however you identify, whoever you want to love, whatever you want to be,

00:16:29.860 that is your prerogative. That's what you get to do. And no one is allowed to tell you

00:16:35.740 that your autonomous choices and your authentic choices are wrong. The only wrong is saying that

00:16:42.320 there's wrong. The only sin is saying that there's sin. The only bad way to be is a bigoted way to be

00:16:47.640 by telling someone that who they are, what they've decided to do is not right. Apparently,

00:16:53.500 no one has the job anymore of being able to say that there is any kind of objective standard of

00:16:58.960 right and wrong. Now, you already see the paradox in that, in that by saying that there is no right

00:17:04.220 and wrong for everyone, they're saying that there is a right and wrong. Because while they're saying

00:17:08.780 that everyone gets to be who they want to be and do what they want to do, they're saying anyone who

00:17:12.940 says that there is an objective standard, that there is, say, a God who is a moral authority,

00:17:18.040 that there is a right way to live, that they're wrong. So there is no absolute truth, and they

00:17:22.640 know that absolutely. And anyone who says that there is, is wrong. So you just see the confusion

00:17:27.440 there. It's not a sustainable worldview. Any worldview, really, any worldview without God is not a

00:17:33.940 sustainable worldview because we are naturally made in the image of God. We are naturally moral people.

00:17:39.780 We have this kind of sense of right and wrong, this sense of injustice. We are mad when someone

00:17:45.340 steals from us or steals from someone else. We are angry when someone's rights are violated.

00:17:50.500 There's a reason why we are angry about something like theft or rape or murder or something like that.

00:17:56.400 Now, of course, there's disagreements with an abortion and things like that. But in general,

00:18:00.280 there is a desire for justice, for rectification, for vengeance. When wrong is done, we are naturally

00:18:06.940 moral people. There are not very many people, no sane people, who would look at, for example,

00:18:12.480 Hitler's Germany and say, oh, that's just relative. I mean, it's just, you know, cultural relativism.

00:18:18.720 That was just a different time. That was a different place. You know, it's probably fine. There's not very

00:18:24.260 many people who would say that. No sane people would. We would say, no, that was immoral. That was wrong.

00:18:29.440 It was wrong to think that way. But that doesn't make any sense from a secular leftist perspective,

00:18:35.580 where the only God is self and where the only values are autonomy and authenticity. It doesn't

00:18:40.440 really make any sense to say anything is ever wrong. It doesn't make any sense to say that any

00:18:46.180 kind of totalitarian regime that's killed millions of people were wrong. Well, maybe they were just

00:18:50.920 living their truth. Maybe they were just doing them. Maybe they were just living their best lives

00:18:55.400 and doing what they thought was best. Maybe they were just being autonomous and authentic.

00:19:00.120 And so you see the confusion there when you claim that the God is self. Therefore,

00:19:07.040 all truth and all morality is relative. Therefore, all you have to do is be yourself

00:19:10.960 and be authentic. And then that takes away any right of judgment that you have to say that one

00:19:17.040 action is wrong and one action is right. But they're not willing to do that. So you see the inherent

00:19:23.060 contradiction there. That's why it's so much easier to believe if you believe in a moral law,

00:19:27.400 if you believe in a right and wrong to thus logically say, well, there has to be a moral

00:19:32.200 lawgiver. If you haven't read mere Christianity and read the argument of C.S. Lewis for the moral

00:19:36.700 lawgiver in that book, I highly, highly recommend that you do. It will give you a lot of clarity on

00:19:42.820 why it doesn't make any sense to say that there's a right and a wrong and not say that there's a God.

00:19:48.320 That's why it is okay for Christians to cite God for the reason why they believe something is right

00:19:54.480 and wrong because there is no right and wrong. If there is no God, there is no moral law. If there's

00:19:58.620 not a moral lawgiver. And so in Taylor Swift's letter where she says discrimination is wrong,

00:20:04.840 this bigotry is wrong, but you should be able to be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want

00:20:09.720 to do unless your Christianity or your religion runs up against how other people want to be and what

00:20:15.700 other people want to do. You just see this contradiction of our age, how it's not sustainable

00:20:21.060 for us to be our own gods. And that is the freedom and the beauty and the purpose and the

00:20:26.300 liberty that we have as Christians to be able to bow down to the God of the universe, the creator of

00:20:31.220 all things, the ultimate supreme transcendent moral lawgiver and say, I don't have to be confused by

00:20:37.080 this. I know right and wrong. God told me in his word, he sent the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom and

00:20:42.760 he tells us things are not going to get better from here, but we stand strong and we persevere and we

00:20:47.620 know what the truth is. That is the joy and the clarity that we have when we're reading something

00:20:54.800 like Taylor Swift and we're reading this backwards logic from people in the world who think they have

00:21:00.460 it figured out. We don't have to be confused. We don't have to be confused about this. We get to go

00:21:05.380 to the word of God and seek clarity for that. So Taylor Swift has also said that she's going to be

00:21:11.000 more political in the future so we can get really excited about that. Again, if you want to know more

00:21:17.360 about the Equality Act and what exactly it is and why it's so dangerous, particularly for Christians,

00:21:22.100 you can go back and listen to the episode from a couple of weeks ago. Okay, we are going to talk

00:21:27.840 about now David Platt and Donald Trump. And so there was a day of prayer for Donald Trump and this was

00:21:36.200 in Virginia. And it was so there was an unannounced visit by Donald Trump to McLean Bible Church in

00:21:44.020 Vienna, Virginia. It's one of the largest churches there. This is the church of former IMB President

00:21:52.160 Pastor David Platt. You've probably heard of David Platt. I think he wrote the book. It was called

00:21:56.680 Radical. It was really big when I was in high school. He has been an extremely popular teacher

00:22:01.540 and author for a long time. You maybe have heard some of his sermons. He's extremely passionate,

00:22:07.840 extremely passionate about overseas missions, for example. And while I don't agree with everything

00:22:15.760 that he said, he certainly takes a different approach to racial issues than I think is biblical

00:22:21.400 or has sometimes in the past. I do think that he is a solid pastor who is solid theologically and who

00:22:29.340 is grounded in scripture and has a genuine love for the gospel and seeing the gospel spread. So

00:22:34.420 apparently he was surprised by the president visiting the church. And so he was told backstage,

00:22:43.320 apparently he's going to have an opportunity to pray over Donald Trump. And he had no idea this was

00:22:48.780 going to happen. And so he took this opportunity and here's what that sounded like. And so we stand

00:22:54.200 right now on behalf of our president and we pray for your grace and your mercy and your wisdom

00:23:04.040 upon him. God, we pray that he would know how much you love him so much that you sent Jesus

00:23:16.280 to die for his sins, our sins. So we pray that he would look to you, that he would trust in you,

00:23:28.360 that he would lean on you, that he would govern and make decisions in ways that are good for justice

00:23:36.240 and good for righteousness. So a lot of people were really excited about, about this. I was really

00:23:43.220 excited about it. I listened to it and, or I watched the video and I thought that it was amazing. I

00:23:49.480 thought that he did a great job of not in any way endorsing him. Like this sounded exactly like a prayer

00:23:55.900 prayer that you would pray for Barack Obama or that you would pray for any president. There was

00:24:01.860 no, and correct me if I'm wrong, if you listen to it and disagree with me, but there was no,

00:24:06.960 there was no partisanship in it. There was no endorsing in it. There was no praise of Donald Trump

00:24:12.180 in it. It was just like, Hey, I want this guy to know the gospel and I want other people to know

00:24:16.240 the gospel. And I pray that he would enact laws that are just. But a lot of people apparently were

00:24:22.280 upset about this. Now I saw on social media, this long thread of someone saying that president Trump

00:24:28.100 has like literally ruined their lives and taken away everything from their families. And how could

00:24:33.620 David Platt do this? So I'm guessing David Platt. So David Platt wrote, writes this response to his

00:24:39.900 church because of some complaints. I'm guessing that the thread that I saw on Twitter is an example

00:24:44.960 of some of the complaints that David Platt had inside his church. I mean, that's crazy to me.

00:24:52.220 So this is a part of what he said. As I said in the sermon today, Christ alone unites us. I love

00:24:57.180 that we have over a hundred nations represented in our church and our church family, including all

00:25:01.620 kinds of people with varied personal histories and political opinions from varied socioeconomic

00:25:05.360 situations. It's clear in our church that the only reason we're together is because we have the same

00:25:09.760 king we adore, worship, fear, and follow with supreme love and absolute loyalty. And his name is Jesus.

00:25:15.680 There, he said that he was very upset by the fact that there were people in his church

00:25:19.600 that were angry about this, that had beef about this, that how dare he pray for President Trump

00:25:27.620 when President Trump is such, you know, an awful person in this person's, in these people's minds.

00:25:32.500 But he reminded them, and I think this is a great thing to remind people of 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 6,

00:25:38.100 that says this, first of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions,

00:25:42.140 and thanksgivings be it made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions,

00:25:47.680 that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good,

00:25:53.040 and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to

00:25:58.720 the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men,

00:26:03.300 the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper

00:26:08.740 time. I thought that David Platt's prayer was a perfect reflection of that, no matter what side

00:26:14.620 of the aisle that you're on. I can't imagine if I were someone who didn't like Donald Trump,

00:26:19.520 who weren't a Republican, I would still be listening to that and applauding and being like,

00:26:23.860 yes, he just shared the gospel with him. Thank God. Thank God for this opportunity. If you are a

00:26:28.940 Christian, if this were Barack Obama, and I mean this genuinely, if this were Barack Obama and David

00:26:33.600 Platt did the same prayer, said the same prayer for Barack Obama, I would be on my knees praising God,

00:26:39.020 saying, thank you, God, for this opportunity. Thank you for speaking through David Platt. Thank

00:26:43.360 you for the opportunity and the reminder to pray for people in high places, the reminder to pray for

00:26:48.520 people who lead us. Thank you, Lord. But because so many people, unfortunately, are completely corrupted

00:26:56.180 and deranged with Trump hatred. And I'm not saying, I shouldn't say completely corrupted. I'm not saying

00:27:03.780 that these people aren't Christians, but their mind right now is so warped by a resentment against

00:27:08.800 Donald Trump. They have demonized him. They truly think that he is some kind of spawn of Satan, that

00:27:13.480 they can't even obey the scriptures. They can't even defer to God's word and say, okay, you know what?

00:27:18.920 I don't like this guy, but God's word is clear to pray for all people, that God wants all people to be

00:27:24.280 saved, that we're supposed to pray for all people who are in high positions, because this is pleasing

00:27:28.140 to the Lord. And we are supposed to share the gospel, the mediator between God and men, which

00:27:33.860 is the man, Jesus Christ. We're supposed to share the story about him. David Platt did that. Amen.

00:27:38.080 End of story. There is no biblical beef that you can have with this. No biblical beef whatsoever. I saw

00:27:44.180 some people on Twitter saying, oh, you know, this is just another white pastor condoning and supporting

00:27:52.680 a white supremacist president. Are you crazy? If he is a white supremacist, if he is a white

00:27:59.500 supremacist who you think is truly evil to the core, who has enacted all of this evil legislation and

00:28:04.700 whatever, of course he doesn't necessarily enact legislation, but you know what I mean, that he has

00:28:09.480 advocated for all these evil policies. Wouldn't you be praising God all the more that maybe Jesus is going

00:28:15.180 to change his heart? That maybe David Platt planted a seed here? That maybe this was an opportunity for

00:28:23.100 Donald Trump to know Jesus? If you really think that he's the spawn of Satan, like, aren't you just

00:28:28.940 rejoicing and hoping that Jesus changes his heart? Of course, if you like Donald Trump, you also think

00:28:34.880 that this is a great prayer. There's nothing wrong with this at all. You think that we should be praying

00:28:39.820 for that he has wisdom to lead this country, but I don't see if you are a Christian who believes in

00:28:45.560 the Bible, how you could have any beef with this whatsoever. And the fact of the matter is there is

00:28:50.060 no biblical reason to have any problem with it. If you have a problem with this prayer and you call

00:28:55.580 yourself a Christian, you have a problem with the word of God. You don't have a problem with David

00:28:59.140 Platt. You don't have a problem with Donald Trump. You have a problem with the word of God. You have a

00:29:04.280 problem with 2 Timothy or with 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 6. That is your beef. I would take that

00:29:09.720 up with God if I were you. I would say, God, forgive me. Forgive me for not believing your

00:29:15.820 word. Forgive me for not believing you. Forgive me for not prioritizing the supremacy of scripture

00:29:21.060 and change my heart. I am a sinner. I am sinful for being angry over this. If you are angry over this,

00:29:27.940 you need to repent of that sin because you are living and you are pushing in opposition against

00:29:34.120 what the word of God says. And I would be saying this, I promise you guys, I would be saying this if

00:29:39.440 this were Barack Obama, if he were praying over Kamala Harris, if you were praying over Bernie Sanders,

00:29:44.080 if you were praying over Pete Buttigieg, I would be saying the same thing. Any Republican, any

00:29:49.480 conservative who called themselves a Christian, who had beef about that kind of prayer being prayed over

00:29:54.000 a Democrat, I would be saying the same thing to you, that your problem is with the word of God. It has

00:29:59.520 nothing to do with President Trump. Unfortunately, politics has so infected, I would say,

00:30:06.280 particularly the minds of the Christian left, that they really don't, I think that they really don't

00:30:13.000 want Trump to be saved if he's not already. They really don't want his salvation. They really don't

00:30:19.000 want him to be influenced. They really don't want him to lead in a way that's just. They really don't

00:30:23.420 want to have to say, God has changed his heart. They really don't want that for him. And that,

00:30:28.820 again, is sinful. That is hate. And that is evil. And as we know from 1 John, you cannot hate your

00:30:34.320 brother and love God at the same time. If you as a Christian hate someone so much to where you do

00:30:40.520 not want them to be saved, that is wrong because God loved you. You know that President Trump,

00:30:45.820 apart from Christ, is no worse than you are, right? Like, you know that all of us, apart from Christ,

00:30:50.380 are dead in our sin? That's what Ephesians 2 says. We are dead in our sin. There are not

00:30:54.220 different levels of dead. We are all dead. And when we are saved by grace through faith, we are not

00:31:01.360 saved because of marriage. We're not saved because we were better people than Donald Trump and because

00:31:05.460 we're more usable than Donald Trump is. No, we were saved in the midst of our depravity,

00:31:10.060 that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You know that you are not any better of a person

00:31:16.440 than Donald Trump is, apart from Christ. All of us are in the same depraved, lost, broken,

00:31:22.900 destined for hell place, apart from Jesus Christ. And if you don't want Donald Trump because you hate

00:31:29.000 his politics to be reconciled to God through Jesus and you call yourself a Christian, again,

00:31:33.640 your problem is with the God of the universe, not with Donald Trump. So I would just take stock of

00:31:39.380 that. Good job to David Platt. Good job. And I don't think that he even needed to, I don't think that he

00:31:47.180 even needed to issue this explanation. Quite frankly, I think it should have been because it wasn't an

00:31:51.820 apology, but it came across as giving validity to the people who were angry in his church about this

00:32:00.060 prayer. Dude, if you got people angry in your church about you obeying the Bible and sharing

00:32:04.520 the gospel and praying for people in high places, then you've got some work to do. You've got some

00:32:10.900 theological work to do in your church. This should have been more of a rebuke than it should have been

00:32:15.320 any kind of concession. You didn't need any explanation of whether or not this was a surprise,

00:32:20.720 why you did it. All you had to do was post this First Timothy passage. That's it. You didn't have

00:32:27.600 to say anything else about that. Now, I understand that he's empathetic, that he loves his church,

00:32:31.860 and I get that. And I think that this probably came from a good place, and far be it from me to

00:32:36.080 say that I know more about the Bible than David Platt does. Of course, I don't. But it saddens me.

00:32:42.800 It saddens me that anyone in his church would compel him to the point of feeling like he needs

00:32:47.180 to explain himself. You don't need to explain yourself. God explains you in his work. And again,

00:32:55.080 I will say, you've got some work to do in your church if people have a hard time with you following

00:32:59.580 the Word of God. That's what you are called to do. And so in all things, in all things, we have to

00:33:05.280 examine ourselves. If we are angry, if we find ourselves being angry to the point of not wanting

00:33:12.300 someone on the other side of the aisle to be saved by the grace of Christ and changed by him,

00:33:16.820 if we don't want the gospel to be preached because we're angry politically, if we don't want someone to

00:33:20.400 be prayed for because we're angry politically, then we have an issue. We have an issue. It's on us.

00:33:28.040 It's not on the politician that makes us mad. It is on us. And even if you see a politician as your

00:33:32.400 enemy, the Bible also takes care of that. The Bible also says to pray for your enemies.

00:33:36.800 So again, I will say there is no biblical reason to be upset about what David Platt did. I hope that

00:33:42.260 he stays strong. I hope he doesn't explain one more thing. I think he already explained too much.

00:33:46.240 I don't think he needs to explain anything else. And anyone who has a problem with it,

00:33:50.420 take it up with God. Okay, that's all I've got for today. Hope you guys enjoyed it. I will be back

00:33:55.740 here on Friday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 05, 2019

Ep 121 ｜ Praying for Trump

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