Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 22, 2025


Ep 1244 | Charlie Kirk Memorial Inspires Great Revival, 'Christian Nationalism' Panic from Media | Ron Simmons


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 19 minutes

Words per Minute

181.46048

Word Count

14,358

Sentence Count

947

Misogynist Sentences

11

Hate Speech Sentences

15


Summary

On today's episode of Relatable, my dad joins me to share his perspective on the Charlie Kirk Memorial and the government shutdown. He also shares his thoughts on Christian nationalism and what it means to be a Christian in a secular world.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 In the end, it was not the soft presence Christians, the compromising Christians,
00:00:06.060 the quiet Christians that sparked the revival. It was the bold Christians, the Christians who
00:00:11.580 relentlessly pursued and represented the truth, who pushed back persuasively against the lies
00:00:19.460 of our culture. The memorial for Charlie Kirk yesterday was incredible. I was there. I'm going
00:00:26.120 to give you some really special highlights and insight, but my dad is also going to give you
00:00:31.020 the perspective of a parent. He's also going to talk about the government shutdown. We're both
00:00:36.040 going to give you our takes on Christian nationalism. Before we get into this episode,
00:00:42.020 which I know is going to be so encouraging for you, I just want to say a couple of things. Number
00:00:45.260 one, I have the absolute honor of filling in for Charlie Kirk tomorrow on his podcast. Please tune
00:00:52.360 in for that. I'm really excited to be able to do that. And then also on this show, Relatable. If
00:00:58.360 you love Relatable, if it's meant anything to you, or maybe if you're new here, if you would please
00:01:02.500 subscribe on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on Google Play, wherever you listen, it means so
00:01:08.920 much. And again, I know I say this a lot, but it's because it's true. I'm just so thankful that y'all
00:01:13.660 are here and I'm grateful for each and every one of you, especially in such an important moment like
00:01:20.300 this one. This episode is brought to you by our very good friends at Good Ranchers. If you go to
00:01:25.300 goodranchers.com slash Allie, you'll get a discount on your order. Go to goodranchers.com slash Allie.
00:01:41.480 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. My dad is going
00:01:48.220 to join us in just a little bit, not just talking about his perspective on Charlie, but a lot of the
00:01:55.320 things that you guys asked about, other things that are going on in the world. But because I was there
00:02:00.860 yesterday, I wanted to give you some highlights and give you my perspective. It's easy to see these
00:02:08.120 clips on social media and feel like you were there and feel like you know what went on. And the clips on
00:02:14.080 social media do give you a really good indication, but I want to encourage you even further as someone
00:02:20.620 who had the privilege of seeing all of this up close and personal, there is something happening.
00:02:27.660 Like the Holy Spirit is at work, y'all. And it was tangible. It was thick in that room. And so I'm
00:02:33.720 going to go through some of the thoughts that I have, as well as to preempt some criticism that I know
00:02:40.680 we are going to see from certain segments of Christianity and certain segments of the media.
00:02:47.740 Obviously, I am recording this remotely. And so things look and sound a little bit different,
00:02:52.080 but I'm also going to have to look down at my phone because that's where my notes are. So just FYI,
00:02:58.320 if you see me looking down, that's what I'm doing. And there are just a few things that I want to make
00:03:02.320 sure that I say absolutely correctly that I'm going to have to read verbatim. Before we get into all of
00:03:09.200 that, I want to remind you women out there, especially if you're new, maybe you're new to
00:03:13.680 Christianity altogether, because as we've seen the Charlie effect that God has used to revive so many
00:03:20.280 hearts and awaken so many people, you've got so many people who now are interested in faith.
00:03:25.820 They're interested in Christianity. They're going to church for the first time or the first time in
00:03:28.880 a long time. And it can't just stop there. It's really important for it to start with that
00:03:35.820 overwhelming feeling of needing something more. But we also need teaching and we need
00:03:40.460 encouragement and we need Christian friendship. And we need to instill in ourselves a love for
00:03:46.900 God's word and a boldness for the truth. And that's what we hope to accomplish at Share the
00:03:51.460 Arrows. Last year was our first year. 4,000 women joined us from around the world. This year, we so far,
00:03:58.440 5,500 women are joining us from around the world. And we are so blessed and so honored and so excited to
00:04:04.620 see what God is doing. Y'all, it's going to be amazing. We've got such solid Christian female
00:04:10.060 teachers. We've got amazing worship. We've got incredible fellowship that's going to be there.
00:04:16.120 So go to sharethearrows.com. When you go to sharethearrows.com, you can see all the details.
00:04:20.580 You can see all the speakers. You can see the schedule. This is October 11th, just a few weeks
00:04:24.780 away in Dallas, Texas. It is going to be awesome. I cannot wait to see you guys there. Go to sharethearrows.com
00:04:32.460 for a discount. You can do Allie20, and that is 20% off your ticket. So go to sharethearrows.com,
00:04:40.840 code Allie20. All right, let's go ahead and get into just this incredible weekend and this incredible
00:04:48.420 day of not just honoring Charlie Kirk, but really glorifying God as much as possible. Wow, what an
00:04:55.760 amazing, amazing moment. First, Chief Related Bro and I, we had a uniquely crazy weekend. We are not
00:05:03.720 usually as busy as we were over the past few days, but I just want to thank the Lord for His provision,
00:05:09.440 for His protection, and for opportunities to share the gospel and to encourage so many Christians
00:05:15.840 across the country in the last few days. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for using me, for using all
00:05:21.620 of you, no matter what capacity you're in, no matter if you have a microphone or if you are an employee,
00:05:27.920 a student, a stay-at-home mom, whatever stage of life you're in. God has placed us exactly where we
00:05:33.100 are at this moment in history, at this spot of eternity, this speck of the earth, not arbitrarily,
00:05:39.160 not accidentally, but providentially and purposely, and what an incredible time. What an incredible time
00:05:46.540 to be alive. So just thank God every day for using you and using your capacity and your abilities and
00:05:53.040 your resources to advance His kingdom. That is how things go forth by the unseen and unsung work
00:05:59.780 of believers that God is working through with His Holy Spirit. So I'm just thankful to play such a small
00:06:04.640 part in that, but what an honor it is to be a Christian and to be a part of this really special
00:06:10.720 moment. I filmed something really special over the weekend. Really excited about you seeing that. I
00:06:16.620 can't talk about it yet, but it was a great opportunity to share the gospel that will be very
00:06:21.960 public that you'll see soon. And then we had the honor of going to Charlie's Memorial on Sunday,
00:06:29.260 yesterday. And as you saw, if you watched it, you haven't watched it yet, I really encourage you to
00:06:34.700 watch the entire thing on YouTube in its entirety. Huge stadium, tens of thousands of people
00:06:40.560 there, but there were people camped out. There were people in long lines. We were sitting
00:06:46.560 on the floor in front of the stage, but to the right. And we were in front of one of the big
00:06:52.760 jumbotrons and we were behind all of the presidential cabinet, which was pretty surreal to see these people
00:07:00.660 who are leading our government sit here in honor of Charlie Kirk and to worship alongside them and to
00:07:08.740 hear the name of Jesus proclaimed alongside them. I was just praising God in so many ways in so many
00:07:15.120 different times. The worship was really, really powerful. We weren't there for the entirety of
00:07:22.420 the worship before the speeches started. However, we got to be there when Christian Stanfill and when
00:07:32.800 Brandon Lake were leading worship and then Carrie Jo was leading worship and then we had Chris Tomlin.
00:07:39.380 And I just want to give a shout out to them, by the way. Like, I just want to give a shout out to all
00:07:43.280 of those Christian artists because there are Christian artists out there who are scared. They're scared to
00:07:48.440 be perceived as political. They're scared to be perceived as divisive or controversial. And so they
00:07:56.960 could have easily said, no, they don't need the money. They don't need the fame. They did it,
00:08:01.840 not caring what people might say. And people will say. People will say this is some kind of like
00:08:06.520 white nationalist rally, some ridiculous thing like that. And they decided that it was worth
00:08:11.280 sharing those arrows. And it was worth taking the heat for that. And I just respect. Respect to those
00:08:17.760 artists and thank you to those artists. And to me, one of the most emotional parts, like where I just
00:08:25.820 shed the most tears. First, I walked in and it's just incredible. It's incredible how many people
00:08:32.500 are there and how sweet everyone was. Like usually when you have a crowd like that, you usually have
00:08:37.200 some kind of crazy people, some kind of troublemakers. Saw zero of that, which was amazing. We also had
00:08:43.720 like the most security that anything has ever had ever. But just an incredible feeling of camaraderie in
00:08:50.640 there. And then I'm sitting on, I'm sitting on the floor, we get to our seats. And I'm like, this is
00:08:56.900 amazing. I'm sitting next to Matt Walsh and his wife. I see all of these different commentators that
00:09:01.280 I only typically get to see on the internet. And I'm like, this is so special. This is amazing.
00:09:07.860 And then it just hits me why I'm there. Like why I'm there is this awful, tragic, terrible reason.
00:09:16.960 And as that's kind of like dawning on me, I'm looking around. The singing itself has stopped,
00:09:25.460 but the music is playing. And Brandon Lake is just standing on the stage and he's looking out.
00:09:31.300 And all of these people spontaneously start lifting up their Charlie signs because everyone has these
00:09:37.660 signs, white and red. And the white signs say, Isaiah 6, 8, send me. I'll go, here I am, Lord.
00:09:45.740 Send me. And then the red signs have, well done, good and faithful servant. And the videographer
00:09:53.900 has just this footage, this incredible footage up on the screen. And then after all of these signs
00:10:02.880 are up, people are just raising their signs in solidarity with Charlie and commitment to being
00:10:08.720 obedient to the Lord. The videographer then zooms in on this huge unfurled banner of Charlie in a very
00:10:17.880 victorious stance. And I just, I mean, I lost it. I lost it because it just hit me. I can't believe
00:10:28.320 that that is why we're here. Obviously, God is accomplishing something good. And I looked back
00:10:33.960 at the stage and I could see Brandon Lake was crying and it was such a powerful moment.
00:10:39.500 What a privilege it was to be there. Like, I don't know that I ever would have thought that I
00:10:44.940 would be in a room with President Trump, with the vice president, with, you know, all of Daily Wire,
00:10:51.780 Megan Cowley, Tucker Carlson, all of these incredible people in media and activism that I've loved and
00:10:58.020 known for a long time. I don't know all of those people that I just listed, but known who they are
00:11:03.780 for so long, worshiping together. I think I would have assumed that would only happen on the other
00:11:09.440 side of eternity. But Charlie made it happen here on earth and I got to see a foretaste of heaven.
00:11:14.660 And I'll never forget that. I'll never forget that. I'm going to play you some of my favorite moments
00:11:21.180 from the memorial in just a second. But let me pause, tell you about our first sponsor for the day.
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00:12:35.260 Pastor Rob McCoy, who was considered Charlie's pastor, he kicked off the speeches and he did a
00:12:42.700 really, really good job, Satu.
00:12:45.340 Thank you, Pastor. So good. He did an altar call at the end of it. I mean, people didn't come down to
00:13:14.200 the altar, but at the end, he said, look, if you've made a profession of faith, and he made clear,
00:13:19.060 it's not by your own works. It's only by grace through faith in Christ. Then raise your hand. And tons
00:13:24.240 of people stood up and raised their hands. Praise God. And it wasn't just the people in the stadium
00:13:28.420 who heard that. Millions and millions of people heard that. And remember, the word of God does not
00:13:32.920 return void. He sends it out. It accomplishes exactly what God wants it to accomplish. And God
00:13:40.080 doesn't need us, but he chooses to use us as the means by which, as a means by which, he draws people
00:13:46.820 to himself. So incredible. All right. My friend, Frank Turrick, who is just an amazing apologist,
00:13:54.680 he was there with Charlie when Charlie was shot because he was Charlie's mentor. And if you have
00:14:00.660 not watched this YouTube video describing exactly what happened, then you've got to go watch that.
00:14:05.840 He's an amazing man. And the Holy Spirit was speaking through him right here. Sot three.
00:14:10.400 Now, I want you to know that Charlie right now is in heaven, not because he was a great husband and
00:14:18.500 father, not because he saved millions of kids out of darkness on college campuses, not because
00:14:26.680 he changed minds and chased votes to save the country, not because he sacrificed himself
00:14:35.460 for his savior. Charlie Kirk is in heaven because his savior sacrificed himself for Charlie Kirk.
00:14:45.020 Yes. And amen. Like, if you could have seen me, like, I was basically like out of my seat,
00:14:51.060 nodding. I mean, for us Reformed Baptists, nodding ferociously is like as much charisma as you are going
00:14:58.440 to get when someone is preaching. And I might clap and say amen. But I was amening that. Yes,
00:15:04.340 Dr. Frank Turek. Thank you so much. God was glorified. And Charlie would have been thrilled
00:15:10.600 in that. Okay. And can I tell you also my perhaps if I had to pick a favorite, it's very difficult
00:15:19.000 because truly I was moved in different ways by every single speech. I thought everyone did a really,
00:15:24.940 really good job. But I was blown away by Secretary Marco Rubio. I was blown away by his passion.
00:15:34.340 And his clarity and his conciseness and sharing what Christianity is. This is the bedrock of what
00:15:43.160 we believe. And Marco Rubio articulated it in just an incredible way. I still, I get chills when I just
00:15:49.900 think about it. Here's thought five.
00:15:51.600 One of the things he wants us to take away from this, from all of this, is the following. His deep
00:15:58.480 belief that we were all created, every single one of us before the beginning of time, by the hands of
00:16:05.500 the God of the universe, an all-powerful God who loved us and created us for the purpose of living
00:16:11.160 with him in eternity. But then sin entered the world and separated us from our creator.
00:16:16.100 And so God took on the form of a man and came down and lived among us. And he suffered like men.
00:16:24.080 And he died like a man. But on the third day, he rose unlike any mortal man.
00:16:29.340 And to prove any doubters wrong, he ate with his disciples so they could see and they touched
00:16:39.820 his wounds. He didn't rise as a ghost or as a spirit, but as flesh. And then he rose to the
00:16:46.060 heaven, but he promised he would return. And he will. And when he returns, because he took on that
00:16:52.160 death, because he carried that cross, we were freed from the sin that separated us from him.
00:16:56.740 And when he returns, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. And we will all be together.
00:17:02.100 And we are going to have a great reunion there again with Charlie and all the people we love.
00:17:08.500 Oh, I loved that. I love that so much. I just thought he did a great job. I'm like,
00:17:14.000 yes, I voted for you in the 2016 primary. I'd do it again. Just so incredibly thankful for that
00:17:22.240 clarity. Vice President J.D. Vance, he also, he had a good speech. And he mentioned that,
00:17:32.360 you know, he wasn't really one to talk publicly about his faith. But since Charlie was murdered,
00:17:37.480 that's changed. Sot 6.
00:17:39.840 I have talked more about Jesus Christ in the past two weeks than I have my entire time in public life.
00:17:47.120 And that is an undeniable legacy of the great Charlie Kirk. You know, he loved God. And because
00:17:56.700 he loved God, he wanted to understand God's creation and the men and women made in his image.
00:18:05.020 Really good. I mean, may that be all of our legacy, that when we die, people can't stop talking about
00:18:10.740 Jesus because it's what our life was about. And so in order to talk about you, someone has to talk
00:18:16.560 about Jesus. That's what I thought about when I heard Donald Trump Jr., who was super close to
00:18:20.300 Charlie, who went up there and gave us some comic relief. And he was like, first, he imitated his
00:18:25.700 dad, which was really funny. But then he was like, to say, you know, Charlie knew more than me about
00:18:31.420 the Bible is like saying Donald Trump knows more about being president than Kamala Harris. It's an
00:18:35.380 understatement. But then he went on to honor Charlie's faith and compared him to Stephen the
00:18:41.480 martyr, which is exactly the right comparison. And I thought that was beautiful. And he did that
00:18:48.520 because he had heard Charlie say that he wanted to be remembered for courage for his faith. And so
00:18:54.420 he honored his friend in that way, how Charlie wanted to be honored. And you could tell from his
00:18:59.940 speech, Charlie shared the gospel with the Trumps many, many times. And I just thought that that was
00:19:05.920 really sweet. People who don't even follow Jesus had to talk about Jesus, had to hear about Jesus
00:19:13.320 because Charlie's life is about Jesus. All right. I want to play you this powerful clip from Erica
00:19:18.440 Kirk. Before I play that for you, let me go ahead and tell you about our next sponsor. It's Preborn.
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00:20:17.940 All right. There were a lot of amazing parts to Erica's speech. In fact, I thought one of the most
00:20:22.040 emotional parts was when she just walked out and she stopped before the podium and she looked up to
00:20:28.200 heaven and she said, Jesus, and she said, Charlie, I was on the edge of my seat right there. I could
00:20:33.960 feel the Holy Spirit interceding for her through the prayers of other believers. I just could. I mean,
00:20:41.860 there are just moments in your life when you're in corporate worship or you just feel so convicted to
00:20:47.080 pray that it's undeniable that it's the Holy Spirit. And I was on the edge of my seat. I was just
00:20:52.760 like, I wish I could have been up there being like, come on, girl, you got this. You got this. You got this.
00:20:56.680 That's like what I was saying. That's what I was thinking. I was praying. And then she got up and
00:21:00.740 she delivered a beautiful speech. And thank you God for that. And then she said this, and this has
00:21:06.460 stopped people in their tracks. This is thought eight. Father, forgive them for they not know what
00:21:15.260 they do. I forgive him. I mean, that is only possible with the gospel of Christ. That is only
00:21:37.040 possible when you know the depths that you have been forgiven. That sounds like foolishness to a
00:21:45.700 very bitter and a dying world because you have some people who think that when someone who looks
00:21:51.960 like them dies or they perceive as a victim dies, who will riot and will commit violence and will
00:21:57.780 murder. And they think that that's some form of justice or biblical retribution when it's 100%
00:22:04.040 not. And by the way, Erica pointed that out in her speech that the responses have been so disparate.
00:22:10.420 You've got violence over there. And then over here, you've got vigils. We're not the same. It's not
00:22:15.560 left versus right. Ultimately, it is good versus evil. She pointed that out very well. She did a good
00:22:21.640 job. That's really difficult to do. And I just, I'm thankful for that. And I just pray that God would
00:22:28.780 continue to give her and her children and turning point strength. And there was a lot, like there was
00:22:35.380 a lot more that I could play you, but you should go watch it. And it was really amazing. Okay. Then
00:22:41.300 we have something that was very different from Stephen Miller, who always gives the tough words.
00:22:47.800 Like you guys know, I love Stephen Miller's tough words. Like you can't shame me on that. You can't make
00:22:52.760 we feel guilty. Like we need tough people in government. I won't say sorry for that. We need
00:22:58.740 tough people who will tell it like it is. And I think that tough talk is also needed. And I'm going
00:23:04.560 to explain the dichotomy here. We just heard that incredible grace that was given to her by the Holy
00:23:09.200 Spirit from Erica Kirk. And then we have something like this and they might seem contradictory. I'll
00:23:15.760 explain why they're actually not. Stop four.
00:23:17.980 And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us,
00:23:24.780 what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You
00:23:32.820 are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can
00:23:41.200 create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up
00:23:49.620 humanity. You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk? You have made him immortal. You have immortalized
00:23:59.320 Charlie Kirk. And now millions will carry on his legacy. He's right. He's right. You don't have to
00:24:08.360 like what he has to say, but he is right. And let me just distinguish something, okay?
00:24:12.400 We honor the God-given forgiveness and grace and mercy that Erica showed and that only those
00:24:20.060 close to Charlie Kirk have the ability to really be able to do for this guy who murdered Charlie.
00:24:29.060 God gives him the power to forgive and to turn the other cheek. That is not the government's
00:24:33.380 responsibility, okay? When Jesus is saying, you turn the other cheek, you've heard it said,
00:24:38.380 eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, and then he talks about forgiveness and grace
00:24:43.820 and mercy and turning the other way and blessing those who persecute you and praying for your enemies
00:24:49.320 and relieving people of the bitterness and resentment that you're trying to place on them.
00:24:54.560 He's talking about our interpersonal relationships, okay? We give grace. The government bears the sword.
00:24:58.960 We forgive the government restrains evil. It is a God-given responsibility by the God-instituted
00:25:06.580 governments that exist to restrain evil and to punish wrongdoing, okay? So we have to be able
00:25:12.700 to hold both of those. Someone said, oh, Stephen Miller, that's Old Testament. Erica Kirk, that's New
00:25:17.180 Testament. No, no, no. That is not the case. Romans 13 is in the New Testament. In Romans 13,
00:25:23.300 which is the word of God, which means it's just as much Jesus's words as the rest of the Bible is,
00:25:28.740 as the red letters are in the Gospels, says that the government is instituted by God and does not
00:25:34.600 bear the sword in vain. And the sword is a symbol of a method of execution. The government's God-given
00:25:43.640 obligation is to reward good and to punish wrong. And in a good and righteous governance situation,
00:25:52.820 they are defining right and wrong by the God who created righteousness, who embodies righteousness,
00:25:59.560 okay? So, like, both of these perspectives are needed. I know a lot of people are hating on Trump
00:26:04.580 and the thing he said about hating his enemies and all that. And obviously, we should all pray for Trump
00:26:09.080 to truly understand the gospel. However, the government is supposed to punish enemies of goodness
00:26:15.540 who commit crimes and who hurt people because it's not just about the people who are affected by it.
00:26:22.500 It's about all of us. And it's about upholding God's principles of justice. And in this case,
00:26:27.440 Genesis 9 tells us that those who purposely shed the blood of an innocent person, their blood has to be
00:26:33.880 shed. So, execution is the right and proportional punishment for someone who commits this kind of
00:26:39.800 murder according to the God who created justice, okay? So, like, I don't think we need to criticize
00:26:46.700 Stephen Miller here. There is a place for this. There is absolutely a place for this. I thought this
00:26:52.800 was a beautiful display of both patriotism and love for Jesus on display at the same time. And you know
00:27:01.680 what you're going to hear, and my dad's going to talk about this a little bit in a second,
00:27:04.740 but people are going to call this Christian nationalism. I saw someone already call this
00:27:10.320 white Christian nationalism, which is just so stupid, okay? I got a couple things to say about
00:27:14.640 that, and you can hear what my dad's take is. Number one, I don't care. I don't care. I do not
00:27:19.600 care. And number two, make the person accusing you of that or this memorial of that to define
00:27:26.940 Christian nationalism. What do they mean by Christian? What do they mean by nationalism? What do they mean
00:27:31.140 when they put those two words together? And then have them tell you where they got that definition.
00:27:36.160 Number three, it's good to be a Christian, and it's good to be a nationalist. A nationalist
00:27:40.340 does not mean that you idolize your country. We should not idolize our country. We pledge allegiance
00:27:45.980 to Christ first, and then we love our country from that love that we have for Christ. Nationalist
00:27:51.920 just means that you put your country first, and that your well-being of your country and its security
00:27:57.920 and its safety and its prosperity should be prioritized before the well-being of other
00:28:02.600 countries. And that factors into economic policy, foreign policy, immigration policy,
00:28:07.280 but that is good. That is a way to love your neighbor. And so I know all these people are
00:28:11.820 going to be calling you names. It does not matter what a blessed mercy it is, grace of God, that we
00:28:17.520 have people in the highest rungs of power in our government who love Jesus, who are unashamed of
00:28:22.800 the gospel. That is God's mercy. Be thankful for that. Be thankful for that. Be grateful that God
00:28:29.140 placed you in this country right now, providentially, to seek its welfare. Jeremiah 29 talks about
00:28:36.860 Israelite exiles seeking the welfare of the city that God has placed them in. God didn't place you
00:28:42.780 here accidentally. We are to love our neighbors by doing everything we can personally and politically
00:28:48.680 to make this a safer and more secure and more righteous and more truly biblically just society
00:28:58.120 and country. That is, again, a way to love our neighbor. Politics matter because policy matters
00:29:02.560 because people matter. Politics affects policy. Policy affects people. And people matter. And so
00:29:08.340 loving your country, serving your country, pushing your country toward what is good and right and true,
00:29:14.480 allowing your faith in the good God of the universe to be infused into all of your political ideas and
00:29:23.800 how we think about policy is not only good, it is literally the only right way for a Christian to
00:29:29.620 think. That does not mean that we are forcing people to believe. That doesn't mean we force people to go
00:29:34.560 to church. That doesn't mean we punish speech or punish beliefs that we don't like. But it does mean
00:29:41.320 that every single law is informed by a worldview. And through debate and through this exchange of
00:29:47.360 ideas that Charlie was so good at, we should be advocating for the Christian worldview to inform,
00:29:53.400 in principle, to inform our policies. Progressives get to bring the fullness of their worldview to the
00:29:58.100 table to inform policies about gender and abortion. Christians should too. Do not let people use this
00:30:03.640 moniker of Christian nationalism to silence you or silo your politics and your cultural views away from your
00:30:10.500 faith. Jesus is king is a total statement. He's king over our lives. He is king over the universe.
00:30:17.740 And we do everything we can to infuse the gospel into everything we think, say, and do. Everything.
00:30:23.380 You don't compartmentalize it, okay? So let them call you what they're going to call you and make them
00:30:30.200 answer for it. You don't even have to defend yourself. Know what you believe and why you believe
00:30:34.740 and never be ashamed of the gospel in any way. Christians for 2,000 years have been seen as
00:30:40.820 countercultural and too in, you know, too political or too divisive for speaking what God says into a
00:30:48.400 decaying culture. That's love and that's boldness, all right? All right, I'm about to hand you off to
00:30:53.980 my dad. But before I do that, let me tell you about our next sponsor, Adele Natural Cosmetics.
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00:32:19.900 Well, hello, everybody. It's been a little while since I've seen you. Hope you've had a good summer
00:32:25.000 and headed into the fall. I know a lot of you are super busy with kids going back to school and all
00:32:31.300 the activities that seem to be happening in the fall. I know our fall is super busy, and Allie and
00:32:36.580 her family are busy. And of course, with all that we've had going on in the last couple of weeks,
00:32:40.720 it's just intensified. I want to thank Allie again for allowing me to do this, having me on. I know you
00:32:46.400 just heard from her. Her and her husband were out at the Charlie Kirk Memorial, and her on-site view of
00:32:56.340 that was just fantastic. And I know that you appreciated it as well. Also want to thank,
00:33:01.960 obviously, all your listeners and those of you that are watching on YouTube. Just appreciate you
00:33:06.340 supporting her and what she's doing. But more than just listening to her, praying for her, that's been
00:33:11.240 so important. I don't know if you've ever had a situation in your life where you really, truly
00:33:17.240 needed prayer from other people. I'll tell you, I've had that this year, actually, with the health
00:33:22.580 situation that I had, which is all good now. But you can feel that. And I know Allie feels it when
00:33:27.760 you're earnestly praying for her. You can see I'm in a little bit different studio today. I'm not at the
00:33:33.900 Relatable Studio. I am away on business, and I have my good friends at the Texas Public Policy
00:33:41.440 Foundation have allowed me to utilize their studio today. And I want to thank them for that. And if
00:33:48.060 you don't know who they are, I encourage you to look online, go find them. You can search and find
00:33:52.800 them. They're the largest state-based think tank in the United States. So they focus on things,
00:33:59.680 public policy in Texas. Allie's spoken at some of their events and what have you, and I have worked
00:34:05.120 with them for quite a while on some issues. So thank them again for that. And if you're looking
00:34:10.560 for a place where you can put some of your charitable dollars to work, I know that they will make good
00:34:16.580 use of those in their efforts to make sure that we stay a conservative state here in Texas. And what
00:34:23.120 happens in Texas a lot of times ripples around the country. So even if you don't live here,
00:34:27.000 what they do probably has a long-term effect on what's happening in your state as well. So thanks
00:34:32.560 again. Well, yeah, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the memorial service. I do want to talk
00:34:38.240 a little bit about the service, but more just about Charlie specifically for a few minutes. You know,
00:34:46.100 I think, and I was thinking about this yesterday when I was listening to it on my drive down to Austin,
00:34:51.080 is that we probably witnessed, those of you that either listened to that or watched the service
00:34:57.300 yesterday, the largest single one-day Christian revival in the history of mankind at a memorial
00:35:06.220 service. And I don't, it wasn't intended for that. That wasn't why it was done. But the people that
00:35:11.960 spoke, speaking from their heart about a friend, not about a policy issue, not about politics,
00:35:18.800 but about a friend and his love and faithfulness to our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus was just
00:35:26.020 fantastic. I don't know how many people around the world were affected by that yesterday, but God knows.
00:35:35.880 And I believe it's changed a lot of people's lives that service alone. And I'm so, so grateful for that.
00:35:44.060 You know, I did a Facebook post a couple of days after Charlie's passing. Lisa and I were on a trip
00:35:51.580 and we got a call from Allie Beth about what had happened. We did not know. We were out of the
00:35:56.940 country. And that was one of those phone calls that you'll never forget. I can tell you that.
00:36:04.320 Obviously, Allie and Charlie were pretty close. They'd kind of grown up together in this young
00:36:10.280 conservative movement. She has spoken at a lot of his events and they stayed in touch regularly. In
00:36:17.680 fact, I'd met him a couple of times, but as I, and if you want to go read my Facebook post, you can,
00:36:22.900 I'll, I'll pull out a little bit of it myself. But I, I didn't know him personally, but I felt like he was a
00:36:30.460 part of our family. And the reason that I felt that way is because of the relationship that he had with
00:36:36.340 Allie in extension to Allie's husband, I can't tell you how many times that Allie would come to me
00:36:42.940 and say, well, you know, Charlie said this, or Charlie texted me this on a question that she had
00:36:48.160 had, whether it was about policy, about media, or whether they have a discussion on, uh, you know,
00:36:54.500 biblical worldview related items. I just, it was just amazing how much that they were in contact.
00:37:00.740 And based on his answers, I began to trust him indirectly with her. And many times she would
00:37:09.180 come to me and ask me a question specifically, more specifically about the media business.
00:37:14.080 And I would say, Hey, why don't you check with Charlie and see what he thinks about it? And she
00:37:18.900 would, and he would obviously have a good answer for her. But that tells you how much our family
00:37:23.420 trusted him because I don't trust many people with anybody in my family, as far as giving advice and
00:37:29.540 mentorship for, but that's how much we respected him. And, um, that's the type of person based on
00:37:37.420 what we even heard yesterday that he was, he did that for a lot of people. I don't know how he had
00:37:41.960 enough time to do that, but he did, you know, and it, I don't understand what happened. Don't
00:37:48.080 understand it at all. But I do remember a quote that I heard, uh, golfer Aaron Baddeley said one time
00:37:54.560 in a Bible study, uh, that I was in, he had, we had watching this video and he was being interviewed
00:38:00.400 by, um, uh, by someone related to his faith. And he said, you know, God promises us the peace that
00:38:09.460 passes all understanding. That's a promise. That's a promise in the word. However, sometimes we have to
00:38:15.860 give up the understanding to get the peace. And that just hit me, uh, when that happened, uh, when I
00:38:22.360 listened to that a few weeks ago and I wrote it down and stuck it on my computer, because I need
00:38:27.840 to remember that because I always want to understand. Okay. Just let me understand. If I
00:38:31.580 understand it, I can generally kind of get through it. Not understanding it really sometimes bothers
00:38:37.880 me on a lot of situations. And this one's no different, but remembering that quote, that if we
00:38:43.520 will, sometimes if we want the peace, we have to give up the understanding and have the trust
00:38:47.540 that as the Bible says, all things do work together for the good, uh, that those that love the Lord.
00:38:54.400 So, um, anyway, I, the other thing that I put in my post and I, and I know that, um, all of you
00:39:01.380 believe this as well, and certainly this is not, uh, removing or belittling anything related to what
00:39:08.780 we need to be doing for a Charlie's wife, Erica, and the two kids, as far as praying for them and
00:39:13.980 lifting them up. We need to do that daily base. I can't imagine the devastation that Erica feels
00:39:20.840 and really over the longterm that those kids of his will feel by not getting to have that full
00:39:26.900 relationship with their dad, but also think about his mom and dad. Um, you know, Ali is in the same
00:39:34.260 world in a sense that Charlie was in probably not as much on the political side, but certainly as much
00:39:39.720 on speaking the truth, which a lot of people don't like, and I can't imagine the devastation
00:39:46.580 that we would feel if something happened. And, um, I know that his parents just have to be really,
00:39:54.180 really, really hurting. You know, we're, we're kind of our, our psychological system is set up to
00:40:01.940 watch certain people pass away and realize that's just the cycle of life, right? Like our parents,
00:40:08.620 you know, my, my dad is still alive. Thank goodness. My mom passed away a few years ago
00:40:13.440 and it was sad when she passed for sure, but it wasn't something that we didn't expect going to
00:40:19.920 happen at this stage of her life, but we're not set up psychologically to see our children pass away
00:40:26.360 or our young husband or our young father. And so the ability to overcome that and, and move past that
00:40:34.760 is much more difficult. And so I just would ask that you, when you think about them and, um, maybe
00:40:40.900 when you, you know, have interaction with your own parents that remind you to pray for Charlie's
00:40:45.660 parents, cause I know that they are suffering greatly as well. Um, what, uh, what I think is
00:40:52.620 going to come out of this on the negative side, and it's not a negative as far as you and I are concerned,
00:40:57.920 but the media is going to make it negative. It's probably already happening. And that is they're
00:41:03.680 going to look at that service yesterday and talk about Christian nationalism. Now, Ali's talked about
00:41:10.120 that and she may have some more to say about that in the next few days, but that's what they're going
00:41:15.360 to claim this was because all of the people that whose job happens to be in our government gave their
00:41:22.840 testimony and talked about their faith in Christ, they're going to say that's Christian nationalism.
00:41:28.840 Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's the furthest thing from the truth. Okay.
00:41:33.040 What Christian nationalism is, is if you're trying to set up a theocracy, which that is not what is
00:41:40.260 going on in the conservative movement, not at all, not the Republican party, not in the conservative
00:41:44.860 movement. A theocracy is what happens in a lot of these Muslim countries, which is happening like
00:41:50.680 with in Afghanistan now with the Taliban or what happened or what's going on in Iran. Those are
00:41:55.720 theocracies, right? That they apply their rules, not even biblical, of course, to society. That's not
00:42:07.100 what's going on here. What happened yesterday was that men and women who have jobs like you and I have
00:42:13.640 a job, but also happen to have a deep Christian faith. And they were simply up there explaining their
00:42:20.140 faith and honoring Charlie's faith and encouraging other people as a fellow brother in Christ or
00:42:27.600 sister in Christ to have that same faith. They weren't saying, hey, as secretary of state,
00:42:35.020 you need to be a Christian. That's not what at all. Mark Rubio, and what a sweet message he gave.
00:42:42.040 He laid out the gospel. As a follower of Christ, this is what I believe, and I would like for you
00:42:49.360 to consider believing this as well. And this is what Charlie believed. So do not be put aside by
00:42:55.060 the left trying to say, this is all Christian nationalism. That's the furthest thing from
00:42:59.660 the truth. It's nothing but spouting lies that come directly from the devil. And don't ever forget
00:43:06.880 that. The last, the other thing that on this subject, or the last thing on this subject I want
00:43:12.040 to talk about is you're going to, we hear a lot about free speech. Okay. And it kind of came out
00:43:18.860 of the, you know, Charlie got killed for speaking in a place where he was invited to speak. Okay.
00:43:24.340 And a crowd that he was, that invited him to speak there. And he was killed because of his beliefs
00:43:31.580 and his speech. And he was encouraging actually, um, counter speech. And what's happened is you see
00:43:40.840 with, with a lot of people that were, uh, celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk, some of them have been
00:43:49.920 terminated from their employment. And so there's this all big blow up on the left, which is super
00:43:56.200 ironic based on how they tried to cancel all of us during COVID and, and after the George Floyd
00:44:01.380 stuff and all that, but they're saying, well, you, you know, firing Jimmy Kimmel from a late night
00:44:07.260 show, you're violating free speech. No, that's not true. Jimmy Kimmel can say whatever he wants to
00:44:12.880 say. All right. Now there are some limits on that. For example, the Supreme court says you can't go
00:44:17.400 into a theater and holler fire. That's not free speech. Okay. But Jimmy Kimmel can spout his opinion
00:44:23.000 on the death or on Charlie Kirk specifically. However, he is not guaranteed by the constitution to have
00:44:31.280 a job at ABC and even a Stephen Colbert to have his job. Okay. You, you aren't guaranteed to have a
00:44:38.460 job at your company. If you have speech that they believe just they disagree with and could have a
00:44:45.340 negative effect on that firm. There's a book out there, uh, written by, uh, Rod Smola, who was the
00:44:51.220 former president of Furman university called the constitution goes to college. I would encourage each
00:44:56.720 of you to get that. It's a very small book, but, uh, and it was written just a few years ago when all
00:45:02.200 of this, um, uh, talk was about free speech in college campuses and free speech. Some of the
00:45:08.480 professors were saying some things that were, uh, very degrading to conservatives and some of them
00:45:14.080 lost their jobs. And they were saying, well, that's a violation of free speech. No, you can have the
00:45:19.600 speech, but you don't, you're not guaranteed to keep your job or to be involved in the same things
00:45:24.300 you're involved in that the people there don't want to associate with. So don't, don't misunderstand
00:45:30.520 free speech. Uh, you can say what you want to, but you're not guaranteed to be able to say it and keep
00:45:37.000 your job or your association that you had before you said it. So just remember that, uh, that's really
00:45:43.180 important to do. Okay. Quick pause from that analysis from my dad to tell you about range
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00:45:59.720 at their kitchen table in Wyoming and all of their stuff is still handmade in Laramie, Wyoming.
00:46:06.040 They've got their own workshop there and, uh, where they are making everything by hand. And it's so
00:46:12.600 incredible. Their hats, their boots, their belts, their wallets, all of their bags. I'm thinking about
00:46:18.640 all the stuff that I have that I love so much. Um, everything is just so amazing and it lasts
00:46:23.960 forever and it's really unique. Again, another Christian family owned company that's making
00:46:29.080 excellent stuff. So we need to do what we can to support them. A lot of times I hear people say,
00:46:33.940 well, why aren't Christians doing this? Christians should be in this realm. Christians should be
00:46:36.960 competing here. Well, they are, but we just have to know who they are and then support them so that
00:46:42.100 we can have more and more of these companies that are explicitly glorifying God in a completely
00:46:46.700 unapologetic way. Plus their stuff is awesome and lasts a lifetime. Go to range leather.com slash
00:46:53.460 Allie and you will get 15% off any product that you order. That's range leather.com slash Allie.
00:47:05.780 Uh, let's change subjects a little bit. Let's talk about the Schumer shutdown. And what I mean by that
00:47:11.580 it's the, it's the potential shutdown of the government. And that's a little bit of a misnomer,
00:47:16.460 but I will tell you, it lays directly on the hands of Schumer because the, uh, the house passed
00:47:22.960 a continuing resolution to keep the government up and running for the next few months while they work
00:47:28.120 out other details, but Schumer and his cronies. Okay. And a few, a couple of our people on the
00:47:34.480 Republican side, uh, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski voted against the Republican proposal as well in the
00:47:41.960 Senate, which I'm not exactly sure why Murkowski is a pretty far left guy, a left lady, uh, for a,
00:47:47.920 for a Republican and Rand Paul, uh, has some very, uh, and, and good thoughts. Okay. Nothing wrong with
00:47:54.520 them. Very good thoughts relating to spending and what have you. And I don't know the specific issues
00:47:59.280 he had with this, but, but, uh, I respect him quite a lot, but what does really a government
00:48:05.300 shutdown really mean? Okay. I want to make sure that people don't panic over this. All right.
00:48:09.720 First of all, it's going to be okay. There's not a lot you and I can do about it. This is what we
00:48:14.000 elected our representatives for. Of course, you should always voice your opinion to them. And
00:48:17.640 that's totally fine to do that. But just remember that all of the essential services that are provided
00:48:23.880 by your federal government, of course, it doesn't affect the state governments, but your federal
00:48:27.860 government continue. For example, public safety, like military and those types of things,
00:48:32.320 border patrol, all of those still stay in place. Um, air travel, the, you know, the FAA is not going
00:48:38.980 to shut down air traffic controllers. They can't go on strike. So air travel is all good. Your mail
00:48:43.980 will still be delivered. Uh, social security payments happen. Medicare, if you've gone to the
00:48:48.940 doctor and they submitted a claim for Medicare, they'll still pay that same way with Medicaid.
00:48:53.440 That all still happens just the way it has in the past disaster. If we happen to have a hurricane
00:48:58.580 or something like that, or there's a fire somewhere, it doesn't affect disaster
00:49:02.280 recovery. In fact, everything that has a specific appropriation, what they call, um,
00:49:08.680 guaranteed spending though, or mandatory spending, uh, those, those services continue.
00:49:15.280 And did you know that that represents two thirds of the entire federal budget is mandatory spending.
00:49:20.120 So while there's going to be a lot of, you know, sticking their chest out and pounding their chest and,
00:49:26.520 you know, they want to do this and they want to do that. Uh, it's not something that I would spend a lot
00:49:31.720 of time worrying about. I do not want the Republicans to, to go backwards on the Medicaid
00:49:38.520 reforms that president Trump put in or the removal of the spending of some of these aid packages that
00:49:43.960 were just totally ridiculous. And also I do not want them to, uh, extend permanently the, uh,
00:49:51.480 Obamacare subsidies, which do run out at the end of this year. And they were never supposed to be
00:49:56.520 longterm. They were only supposed to be temporary. So don't spend a lot of time worrying about that.
00:50:01.800 Uh, now, if you have a mortgage loan, that's a federally backed, or you're doing an SBA loan
00:50:07.400 and the government shuts down for a few weeks, those could get slowed down a little bit, but the main
00:50:11.880 essential services will stay in place. So not something to spend a lot of time on, but this is
00:50:16.920 clearly right on Chuck Schumer shoulders. There's no question about that. And, uh, if he decides to shut it
00:50:23.560 down, then, you know, he can shut it down. He's talking about, well, we want to negotiate with
00:50:27.000 the president. Well, president Trump's already said, I am happy to have a meeting. I don't think
00:50:30.520 it'll change my mind, but I'm happy to sit down with you. You know what? That's all he can do.
00:50:34.440 You can't just because you're the other side want something doesn't mean you say yes. It means that
00:50:39.000 you, you should listen and you should try to find points of agreement. However, if there's not,
00:50:44.280 then that's what elections are for. And Republicans right now are in the majority. And so therefore,
00:50:50.280 um, you know, the Democrats can't get everything they want. We've been in the other, we've been on
00:50:53.880 the other side of that many times. So, uh, this, that's the way our system works again, messy,
00:50:58.760 but still the best system in the world. All right. Um, talk for a little bit about some of the
00:51:05.640 questions that have come up. You guys are so great at sending questions, uh, when Allie asked for them,
00:51:12.440 and I want to answer as many of those as I can. Now I might not get to all of them. So if I don't get to
00:51:19.400 all of them, then please, you can always email me directly at Ron at ronsimmons.com. And they'll
00:51:26.360 put this in the show notes. Uh, you can email me directly and I get several emails a week and I
00:51:31.160 really enjoy doing it. If I don't get back to you within a few days, please email me again.
00:51:35.000 Cause that means I've missed it. You know, like a lot of times it gets down on the next page and I
00:51:39.400 forget about it or what have you, but let's go through some of those. I've got, I've got them here on
00:51:43.800 my phone. Allie sent them to me. So I want to, I'm going to pull those up real quick and, uh, we
00:51:49.480 will, uh, we'll go through those. Uh, interest rates was one of the big ones. You know, they just
00:51:55.000 dropped the interest rates a little bit last week and I think they'll drop them some more, uh, this,
00:52:01.560 uh, before the end of the year. I think that they need to get them down. Uh, well, they need to get
00:52:06.680 the Fed rate. In other words, what the Fed loans, uh, is the rate where they loan money to banks and
00:52:12.840 other places. They need to get that down into the under five and the 4% range. Um, I don't know
00:52:18.520 they'll ever go back down to the 2% range like it was at one time, but under five, I think would be
00:52:23.720 a good rate to beat. That will get mortgage rates down close to the 5% level. That would be really,
00:52:29.160 really good. Um, right now I just saw where they've gone down a little bit, 6.25. I think I,
00:52:34.920 I think I heard. Um, and so I think they'll, they'll continue to lower them. Now, the challenge
00:52:40.440 is, is that the Fed lowers them and they announce it immediately. It takes a little while to get
00:52:46.200 through the system, but it should get through the system in the next couple of weeks. Now that also,
00:52:51.720 though, has an effect on your savings. Like your, if you have money on a CD or in a bank or a money
00:52:58.200 market fund, because the Fed rate interest rates go down, those will go down as well. So, uh, those of
00:53:04.440 you that have money in savings accounts, you want to pay attention to that, to see how much that
00:53:08.760 drops it. Again, you think if, if the Fed dropped the interest rate that they loan money out on goes
00:53:14.120 down a quarter, that the money that you can make on your savings would only go down a quarter. But
00:53:18.600 sometimes it doesn't work like that. Sometimes the banks, if they can, will want to pay you less
00:53:23.800 on your savings and, and keep paying the, keep collecting the same amount from people that have
00:53:29.400 loans against them. And so you gotta just look around. You may have to look at some other banks or
00:53:33.480 some other opportunities for that. Uh, but I'm monitoring that. And I, and I do think that, uh,
00:53:38.680 the economy, certainly the housing industry needs it. You know, uh, last time I was on,
00:53:43.720 we had some questions about housing and we saw a video clip of a guy that was talking about how
00:53:49.240 he couldn't afford it. And while it's not exactly the same, I do remember having some similar
00:53:56.120 challenges when Lisa and I first got started, mainly because interest rates were so high. I mean,
00:54:00.280 I think I told y'all that our first home, uh, interest rate was like 13%. Well, if you're
00:54:05.800 paying 6% now and we paid 13%, that means we could only buy a house that cost half as much
00:54:13.400 because we couldn't afford the payment and what have you. So, um, I, uh, I do know that that's a
00:54:18.840 big problem and I do know that the administration is working on that. Uh, you know, it's expensive to
00:54:25.880 live, especially if you live close to a large metropolitan area. It's more expensive, uh, to the
00:54:31.720 extent that you can work from home. Um, I would really strongly consider moving out to a smaller
00:54:39.240 area, smaller city, smaller town, maybe even rural area where things are a lot less expensive and you
00:54:44.760 can, you can work from home anyway, so you don't have to have that commute. Um, I know that several times
00:54:51.080 in my career, we moved further out to be able to afford the home that we needed for our family.
00:54:56.600 And I had a longer commute. Now I travel a lot. So a lot of times I was just going to the airport, but,
00:55:01.080 but it was just the sacrifice that me as the father decided to make. And dads, you may have to make that
00:55:05.880 sacrifice and moms, you may have to do some of that as well. But, um, if you can work from home and
00:55:11.400 I would really encourage you to consider anyway, uh, moving out a little bit further so you can get,
00:55:16.120 and you can't afford a home where you live, move out to get one where you can't afford.
00:55:20.360 But hopefully this housing scenario will correct itself. Those things generally do not always in
00:55:26.520 the same timing that we want, but they generally do correct themselves through,
00:55:30.200 through just the normal markets of supply and demand.
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00:56:41.000 The next, the other question that I, that I get is, um, should we trust the FBI's investigation
00:56:47.240 into Charlie Kirk? Wow. Well, you know, I think we should always be skeptical of investigations by
00:56:56.680 our government. Doesn't mean that all of them are corrupt because they certainly are not. In fact,
00:57:01.480 probably the vast, vast majority are straight down the middle like they should be. Um, but I do believe
00:57:08.360 that we should always ask questions, be skeptical, you know, encourage our media to be, uh, transparent and
00:57:15.480 to, and, and dig into this. And we, though, I believe that just because everything doesn't make
00:57:24.440 sense, doesn't mean there was a conspiracy. All right. Now, sometimes it feels like a conspiracy
00:57:31.320 because there is a conspiracy. I don't know of any, any scenario in this situation that is,
00:57:37.640 that has shown that yet, but I just read where director Patel is, they are following all of these
00:57:43.400 leads. And there are some questions out there about, you know, text messages that were sent and
00:57:49.960 people that visited the home before leading up to the murder and all that type of stuff.
00:57:54.920 So I just think that we watch it, process it, go through, try not to believe everything you read
00:58:00.280 on the internet. I mean, even coming from your friends, that it's just, people just speculate so
00:58:07.560 much without having the facts. So try not to do that. Uh, listen to Allie. I know that she'll
00:58:12.600 stay on top of it. There's some other people you can listen to like Bill O'Reilly that she's had on
00:58:17.080 her show that really deals with the facts. Uh, so try to do that as opposed to following,
00:58:22.120 you know, just random things that happen on the internet. Uh, the next thing, the next question is,
00:58:28.120 is it okay to decide to quit having children? And this, and this person that called in said,
00:58:33.560 we're already at four and well, that's a very personal decision, but surely it's okay. Yeah,
00:58:39.800 absolutely. That's up to you. And that's it. That's a decision that between, uh, the husband
00:58:44.040 and wife and, uh, through their seeking the Lord's will in that, uh, it's totally up to you. There's
00:58:49.960 not a, um, there's not a, you know, a biblical command that says you must have X number of children.
00:58:56.280 Now I know that, uh, uh, Charlie would say, here's what you do. You, uh, you know, you,
00:59:00.680 you, uh, find a spine to find someone that you can marry, get married, you know, uh, have faith in
00:59:07.560 God, have children. Right. And so, and I, and I agree with that. And, uh, uh, uh, you know, Lisa and I
00:59:12.880 had three kids. Uh, Allie has three, our oldest son has three, uh, middle son's not married. Uh, so,
00:59:20.760 but that's up to you, but it's certainly okay. There's not a, that's not something that, uh,
00:59:26.000 you, uh, have to feel like you're forced. Now, if the God, if God's calling you to do that,
00:59:30.600 to have more kids, then man, go for it. We need, uh, plenty of young, uh, children that,
00:59:36.720 uh, are living growing up in a Christian, uh, home that, uh, you know, believe in God,
00:59:42.160 believe in this country and what it was founded on, but that's an individual and, uh, or actually
00:59:48.160 a coupled decision that you need to make. Uh, this next question I thought was really
00:59:53.080 interesting and I'm glad you asked it because it is true. The question was why do so many baby
00:59:57.580 boomers, which are people in my area, people that were born between 1946 and 1964, why do so many of
01:00:03.720 those, what we would still, or maybe former call or currently still call Republicans slash conservatives,
01:00:10.320 why do they have Trump derangement syndrome so much? I don't know the specific answer, but I can give
01:00:17.280 you my general opinion on it based on my observation of people and my, uh, you know, experience in the
01:00:22.700 political world and in the business world. And that is we grew up in an era where we, we grew up in the
01:00:30.920 Ronald Reagan era, right? And so Ronald Reagan went about things much differently than Donald Trump does.
01:00:40.960 His personality is different. Uh, his approach on things are different. Their underlying goals are
01:00:48.380 very, very similar. Okay. Isn't that they believe that, you know, the, the worst thing you can have
01:00:55.720 say heard from the government is I'm the government and I'm here to help. I remember president Reagan
01:01:00.200 said that I know president Trump believes that in a lot of ways also. And so we measure how someone
01:01:08.940 that we respect in the highest office in the land should conduct themselves. And so when, when someone
01:01:15.040 conducts themselves differently than that, and president Trump really is the first person on the
01:01:19.940 Republican side that has conducted himself in such a different way that we automatically are, you know,
01:01:29.660 that's kind of a, uh, I'm not sure about that. And I remember when president Trump first ran, um,
01:01:34.700 I certainly wasn't sure about that. I'm like, seriously, this guy, I didn't really know. I
01:01:38.420 didn't know who Donald Trump was, but I didn't know him. And, uh, hadn't spent much time thinking
01:01:42.720 about him. Didn't watch the apprentice, didn't keep up with him or anything like that. But I think
01:01:47.740 what happens is, is that, so we measure Donald Trump and how he conducts himself against Ronald
01:01:53.760 Reagan. And we don't like that comparison. Now on the bottom line is most of those people that
01:02:01.820 say have Trump derangement syndrome, they, they really do agree with his policies, even if they're
01:02:08.320 not willing to admit it, they do. And so I just think that's the reason, uh, I, you know, but just
01:02:15.500 because I've been more engaged and involved, uh, I've gotten past all of that for sure. Uh, I saw, I,
01:02:22.740 I, you know, somebody once said, you know, I can't hear what you say for seeing what you do.
01:02:29.200 And that's the way I had to do it with president Trump. I had to roll off some of the stuff he
01:02:33.800 said, he says a lot of things I would never say, but when I pull all that back and I look at what
01:02:38.400 he's done and the people that he's surrounded himself with, oh man. In fact, right now, I think
01:02:42.820 he probably has the strongest, uh, cabinet and the strongest, uh, group of appointees that any
01:02:49.080 president that's been conservative could ever have had. So very, very pleased with that. And, uh,
01:02:54.960 all of these appointees that they said weren't qualified have certainly worked out, I think,
01:02:59.700 pretty well so far. And I think they'll continue to work out, work that well also. Uh, the question
01:03:05.400 to also, should we get life insurance on kids? I've gotten a couple of emails on life insurance.
01:03:10.500 Let me explain to you what life insurance is. Okay. And this seems over simple. So don't,
01:03:15.360 I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but life insurance is simply that it is set up so that if something
01:03:23.720 happens to someone who, um, need, who, who, who, uh, is providing a financial value to your family,
01:03:36.740 then life insurance on that person can be important. If you don't have other assets that would take the
01:03:44.800 place of whatever financial value that they had. For example, I used to have quite a bit of life
01:03:50.160 insurance when I was younger, because if something happened to me, Lisa was a school teacher and,
01:03:56.160 and most of the time I stay at home mom, but a school teacher by training, she could not replace
01:04:01.980 quickly the income that I was bringing to the table every year. So I needed to have enough life
01:04:07.660 insurance where that she could continue to have a reasonable lifestyle with the kids.
01:04:14.120 If she, if she, uh, even if she didn't increase her income at all, but once that we were able to
01:04:21.600 have our savings and then my company grew and that had value in it, once that equaled or exceeded
01:04:29.460 what I knew, if something happened to me that I left her with these new assets that she could take care
01:04:36.880 of herself, then I didn't need that life insurance anymore. So several years ago, I don't,
01:04:42.700 I took, I took my life insurance away. I don't have any life insurance other than something
01:04:47.140 attached to a long-term care policy that I have. Um, and so when you ask about, do you need life
01:04:53.320 insurance? Just in it, let's say that I, let's say that even, even, but even when our kids were
01:04:58.140 little, I also had some on Lisa because if something happened to her, I needed to keep working, but I
01:05:03.180 still needed to help fill her, fill the shoes that she had as a caretaker of our children and home and
01:05:10.420 those types of things. So I had some life insurance on her because I knew I would have to go out and,
01:05:14.700 you know, pay for that. And so that's the way you need to think about life insurance. Now,
01:05:18.700 when it gets specifically to, should I have life insurance on your children? I did that when they
01:05:23.120 were very young. I bought a small policy on each of them. At the time it was a universal life. It
01:05:29.300 wasn't, it wasn't strictly term, wasn't strictly whole life. It was a universal life policy. And
01:05:34.680 then what I, and I did that so that they would have life insurance that was guaranteed for them,
01:05:42.220 meaning that it couldn't be canceled on them as long as the premiums pay, because they may have
01:05:47.380 gotten to a situation where they had a health scenario where they couldn't get insurance, but
01:05:51.500 they would have that insurance again for the same thing, not so that Lisa and I would benefit,
01:05:57.120 but so that if they say they got married, then their spouse would benefit from that.
01:06:02.180 If they passed away, you know, prematurely and what have you, while they still needed the income
01:06:07.580 that my, my kids were making. So that's up to you. It's cheapest to buy it when they're young.
01:06:12.940 You know, I think it cost me $300 a year or something like that to get them each $100,000 policy.
01:06:17.860 Now, when they got married, I just turned that over to them and whether they kept it or not,
01:06:21.920 I don't know. It's up, it was up to them to do that, but that's what I did. And it's obviously
01:06:27.220 your choice. The next question is, is it okay for me to quit my $100,000 a year job to be a stay-at-home
01:06:35.200 mom and live on my, my husband's $60,000 a year job as a policeman? Again, very personal choice.
01:06:43.020 There's not a right or wrong answer generally for that. There is a right or wrong answer for each
01:06:48.240 person's family. And you just have to be willing to, if that's something that you feel called to do,
01:06:53.860 then you need to obviously honor that call. Um, but you may not be called it just because other
01:07:00.180 people will do it. Doesn't mean that's what you should do. But you also though, if you do do that,
01:07:04.600 you have to be willing to adjust your lifestyle to live at a $60,000 level. And it can't be one that
01:07:09.340 complains all the time about us not having enough money. You have to be very satisfied with being at
01:07:15.380 $60,000. And that based on you haven't, you know, your income being a hundred and your husband's at
01:07:21.300 60, that means you're going to have to give up a hundred thousand dollars worth of something,
01:07:26.580 whether maybe you were saving all that money. Okay. That'd be great. But you probably weren't,
01:07:30.100 you could probably had, you know, probably may affect that the type of house you lived in,
01:07:33.100 the type of activities that you, you and a family could do the types of vacations.
01:07:37.500 If, if, if you feel called to be a stay-at-home mom, then yes, you should do that. But you have
01:07:44.000 to be able to adjust your lifestyle with joy, with joy to the new scenario. If it's going to be one
01:07:52.480 that's going to cause super extra stress in the home, then you have to really evaluate whether or
01:07:58.020 not that's something that you were called to do, or you just wanted to do it. Um, but just remember
01:08:03.780 they, all of the, our decisions come with consequences and the consequences of following
01:08:10.380 the Lord's will is long-term, long-term joy, but you have to be willing, if that's what you're called
01:08:16.960 to do, to make sure that you have that and you understand that going into it. Um, uh, here's one
01:08:24.360 that's kind of tough, but I'm just going to tell you my tough answer. And, um, the question was, Hey,
01:08:28.900 my husband's stepfather is really mean to our children. So his step-grandchildren,
01:08:36.640 what should we do about that? Well, first, obviously first thing is your husband has to
01:08:42.000 have a conversation with him and has to say, look, uh, you're not going to be mean to my kids.
01:08:47.740 Okay. You're not going to say mean things to them. If you're going to say mean things to them,
01:08:50.800 then you're not going to be a part of their life. And your mom has to, his mom has to understand that
01:08:55.300 as well. Does it mean the mom can't come see him or they can't meet the mom somewhere and spend time
01:08:59.900 with the grandmother, but I'm not going to subject my kid, my grandkids to my, whether it's my
01:09:06.820 biological father or my stepfather, uh, that he's going to, in my opinion, verbally abuse them,
01:09:14.180 just not going to do it. I, you know, I'm sorry, I'm not going to do that. And you shouldn't either.
01:09:18.700 And if the stepfather is not willing to change, then, uh, you have to remove them from that situation
01:09:24.320 and figure out another way. If the grandmother is someone they have a good relationship with,
01:09:27.700 figure out another way to do that. Now that's going to cause tension between your stepfather and
01:09:31.940 your, uh, and your mother, but that's not your issue. Okay. That's their issue. That's not your
01:09:38.300 issue. And remember that. Uh, the next thing is how do I help my husband find Jesus? Wow. That's a hard
01:09:46.860 one. And, uh, again, um, we can't help Jesus come. We, we can't make Jesus come into his life because
01:09:54.520 Jesus says, I stand at the door and knock and whoever answers, I'm willing to come in,
01:09:59.160 but your husband's going to have to answer. My, my answer to you is keep living your life,
01:10:05.620 honoring Jesus and honoring him. Obviously if he's abusive, which you didn't say that in your
01:10:10.880 question. So I assume he's not, then you're not required to stay in that situation in any shape,
01:10:16.040 form or fashion. But the way I think that they're the best way to do it is if you're trying to,
01:10:22.440 don't try to force him to do Christian things, right? Like go to church or do this or do that.
01:10:29.840 You help him encourage people that, you know, to be good, solid men to get involved in his life.
01:10:39.180 Maybe, you know, some couples, you know, through the wife where the husband is a solid Christian
01:10:44.280 and you can encourage that guy. Hey, why don't you, why don't you call my husband? Y'all go to lunch
01:10:48.100 sometime. Or, Hey, he likes to play golf. Why don't y'all go play golf? Or he likes to hunt. Why don't you do that?
01:10:52.100 And, and you don't want the guy, you don't want your friend's husband to, um, you know,
01:10:57.880 jump on him right away and say, well, Hey, tell me about your faith. You want them to build a
01:11:02.560 relationship. And then they had the opportunity for his heart to be open to something that Christ
01:11:10.180 would be willing to walk into. And then you can build a discipleship with that. So that's what I
01:11:17.480 would do. And, um, obviously that's something that I know is heavy on your heart and it's not
01:11:22.500 a light matter, but you continue to live your life. And then you try to get other Christian men that
01:11:29.380 you know, to engage with him on a friendship relationship basis and let God take it from
01:11:34.560 there. Um, all right, this next one, the last one that I'm going to read again, if I didn't read yours,
01:11:40.560 please just, um, email me back and I'm happy to, to, uh, answer yours is parenting boy toddlers.
01:11:47.440 Well, the first thing I'd tell you is make sure your house is totally rubberized because it will
01:11:52.020 be destroyed. There's no question about that. Our boys were, were pretty good. They weren't super,
01:11:57.940 you know, off the chart wild or anything like that, but boys need to be able to experience
01:12:05.880 danger. And what I mean by that, not danger in a way that, you know, they're obviously, if, if
01:12:12.840 thing goes wrong, they're going to get, they're really going to get hurt, but they need to be able
01:12:17.300 to scratch, have their knees scratched. They need to be able to, you know, have conflict with friends
01:12:23.040 and what have you. They need to be able to, you know, dig in the mud, do all those types of things.
01:12:29.800 Now I do think there's a limit on how angry you can let them be with each other. Cause I do think
01:12:35.860 no matter what, that brothers need to treat each other with respect. Okay. They may have different
01:12:42.000 personalities and they may fight quite a bit, but at the end of the day, they need to teach each other
01:12:47.340 with respect and you have to teach them to be able to do that. Um, outside of that, you kind of
01:12:52.960 have to give a little bit of rope so that they, you want them to develop their masculinity. That's
01:12:58.520 part of developing masculinity. We've demasculized so many boys, you know, in our, in our country and
01:13:04.020 young men that they don't know how to be boys. And we need to make sure that we're encouraging
01:13:09.000 it. They need to be outside. Okay. All of, all of you that have kids that live at totally in the
01:13:13.200 city, you got to get them in some way. You got to figure out how to get them out of the city,
01:13:17.280 get out to some rural areas, let them run, play, do whatever, take them to hunt, take them to
01:13:22.720 fish, you know, camp out, all those types of things. You got to be able to do that so that
01:13:27.380 they can, that's just a natural thing for them. They learn to be a protector. They learn to be a
01:13:32.800 hunter. They learn to be a gatherer. Those are all things that are, that are just really important
01:13:36.760 to becoming a young man. And, uh, this starts when they're, when they're little boys. So do that.
01:13:42.320 Now, just a few more things we're wrapping up here for the day, but I always like to do wisdom from
01:13:46.820 the wagon. And most of you have heard me talk about my book, Life Lessons from the Little Red
01:13:50.800 Wagon. If you haven't read that, please go to Audible and get that, or go online to Amazon
01:13:55.380 and get it. If you'd like to have the hard copy book, just let me know. I can also, uh, happy to,
01:14:01.300 if you want one, email you one, uh, I think they cost 20 bucks or something like that. And I'll happy
01:14:06.240 to autograph it for you, but Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon. So I call this last bit section
01:14:10.580 wisdom from the wagon. All right. Wisdom from the wagon. Um, and one of those pieces of wisdom is what,
01:14:17.200 what books are you reading? What do you, what book would you recommend? Well, you know,
01:14:22.860 we've already talked about one of them, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today.
01:14:25.620 What I'm talking about today is there's a book by Tim Keller and, uh, and it, and it, and it's,
01:14:31.260 it's about every good endeavor. Okay. And I don't know this and these people, when I recommend a book
01:14:36.720 and the author doesn't mean I believe everything that they say. Okay. They may have other books I
01:14:41.580 don't agree with, but this one is really talks about how you can take your, whatever job you're
01:14:47.760 in, whatever career you're in and turn that into a mission field. It doesn't mean that you're out
01:14:53.720 witnessing and evangelizing at work every day, beating people over the head. But what it might
01:14:58.460 mean is that your endeavor. Okay. Maybe, maybe that you're in an endeavor that makes a lot of money so
01:15:04.340 that you can support a charity that's out, you know, in the mission field somewhere, but it's a
01:15:09.480 really, really good book. And it helped me get a perspective because sometimes when you're in the
01:15:13.700 business world and you're a Christian businessman, you figure you're focusing too much on business
01:15:18.020 and you need to be doing more ministry. This really kind of helps you understand that better.
01:15:22.400 So I would encourage that. Uh, the last thing is, um, just a little bit of, I don't know,
01:15:29.640 interaction from me. And it kind of goes back to the Charlie Kirk thing. You know, there are events
01:15:33.620 that go on during our lifetime that are personal tipping points. And the most of you have heard of
01:15:40.440 the book by Malcolm Gladwell, tipping points and, or they're much bigger societal tipping points.
01:15:47.260 For example, one of societal tipping points was nine 11 when, uh, you know, when we had the terrorist
01:15:52.460 attack, uh, in Boston and Washington and in New York city, that was a societal tipping point.
01:15:59.040 Society changed COVID in some ways was a societal tipping point. Never, not always for the good.
01:16:05.140 Okay. Uh, but it is something that, that we're, we're going down a path of history and all of a
01:16:11.580 sudden it takes a little bit of a turn. Okay. And there's been lots of those in, in history.
01:16:16.420 What happens when you have those is you have to decide what that means to you. Okay. And I think
01:16:23.180 we had one of those last week with the passing of Charlie Kirk and how it happened.
01:16:26.940 And the outflow of support from around the world. Now I was familiar with Charlie Kirk mainly through
01:16:34.200 Allie and I had no idea the influence he had around the world. Um, I, I wasn't shocked at the
01:16:41.260 turnout in, in, uh, the United States, although some of the blue cities, I was kind of shocked at how
01:16:45.880 big that was, but around the world in Italy and UK and Korea, I mean, just unbelievable. And so I
01:16:53.640 want folks, that's a tipping point. Now, the question is, what are you and I going to do with
01:16:58.440 that tipping point? Are we going to just go back to our daily lives and whatever it is that we're
01:17:03.340 doing? And, you know, this will be something we remember, but we don't really change. Or are we going
01:17:09.380 to say, you know what? The sacrifice that he made and his family has made, what, how's that going to
01:17:17.320 affect me? And what am I going to do about it? Am I going to be a better witness? Am I going to be
01:17:22.340 someone that gets more involved in what's going on in our country so that we don't let the demonic
01:17:28.140 forces. And as they spoke on yesterday, this is a spiritual battle that's many times fought through
01:17:35.220 willing individuals. Okay. And that's what's happening right now. The people that are, that are
01:17:41.300 condemning Charlie, the people that made fun of his death. Those are, it's not really even them
01:17:47.640 speaking, although they're willing participants, it's demonic forces that are speaking through them.
01:17:52.760 And are we going to stand up to that? Are we going to take some of the risks that Charlie took to speak
01:17:57.700 out? All right. Now we'll probably never be put in the same situation he was, and we can't be Charlie
01:18:03.740 Kirk, but we can be Ron Simmons. And when I have the opportunity to speak out on truth, I need to make
01:18:09.920 sure that I'm willing to take the risk to speak out on truth. Even if that's something that puts a risk
01:18:14.960 to me, maybe it, I'm not saying it puts me at physical risk, although I guess it could, but maybe
01:18:19.460 I lose a friend over that, or, or I, uh, you know, or maybe I don't get a, you know, a financial
01:18:26.320 assignment that I've, you know, wanted to get or a consulting agreement, or, or maybe somebody won't read
01:18:31.220 my book or something like that, or I won't get a speaking engagement. Those are risks. Okay. But those are risks
01:18:37.000 that we need to be willing to take individually. Your kids are watching you right now. They're
01:18:41.880 watching you right now on what we do. My kids are still watching me as adults. My grandkids are now
01:18:48.220 watching me. What, what am I going to do? How am I going to stand up? How am I going to make sure
01:18:52.300 that none of this was for naught, and it just goes away in the next few months or few years?
01:18:58.080 So this is a tipping point. And the question is, what are you and I going to do about it?
01:19:04.180 Thanks again. Always good to be with you. Hope you all have a great week.