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
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
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In the end, it was not the soft presence Christians, the compromising Christians,
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the quiet Christians that sparked the revival. It was the bold Christians, the Christians who
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relentlessly pursued and represented the truth, who pushed back persuasively against the lies
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of our culture. The memorial for Charlie Kirk yesterday was incredible. I was there. I'm going
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to give you some really special highlights and insight, but my dad is also going to give you
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the perspective of a parent. He's also going to talk about the government shutdown. We're both
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going to give you our takes on Christian nationalism. Before we get into this episode,
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which I know is going to be so encouraging for you, I just want to say a couple of things. Number
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one, I have the absolute honor of filling in for Charlie Kirk tomorrow on his podcast. Please tune
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in for that. I'm really excited to be able to do that. And then also on this show, Relatable. If
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you love Relatable, if it's meant anything to you, or maybe if you're new here, if you would please
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subscribe on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on Google Play, wherever you listen, it means so
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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
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are here and I'm grateful for each and every one of you, especially in such an important moment like
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this one. This episode is brought to you by our very good friends at Good Ranchers. If you go to
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goodranchers.com slash Allie, you'll get a discount on your order. Go to goodranchers.com slash Allie.
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. My dad is going
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to join us in just a little bit, not just talking about his perspective on Charlie, but a lot of the
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things that you guys asked about, other things that are going on in the world. But because I was there
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yesterday, I wanted to give you some highlights and give you my perspective. It's easy to see these
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clips on social media and feel like you were there and feel like you know what went on. And the clips on
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social media do give you a really good indication, but I want to encourage you even further as someone
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who had the privilege of seeing all of this up close and personal, there is something happening.
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Like the Holy Spirit is at work, y'all. And it was tangible. It was thick in that room. And so I'm
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going to go through some of the thoughts that I have, as well as to preempt some criticism that I know
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we are going to see from certain segments of Christianity and certain segments of the media.
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Obviously, I am recording this remotely. And so things look and sound a little bit different,
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but I'm also going to have to look down at my phone because that's where my notes are. So just FYI,
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if you see me looking down, that's what I'm doing. And there are just a few things that I want to make
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sure that I say absolutely correctly that I'm going to have to read verbatim. Before we get into all of
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that, I want to remind you women out there, especially if you're new, maybe you're new to
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Christianity altogether, because as we've seen the Charlie effect that God has used to revive so many
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hearts and awaken so many people, you've got so many people who now are interested in faith.
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They're interested in Christianity. They're going to church for the first time or the first time in
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a long time. And it can't just stop there. It's really important for it to start with that
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overwhelming feeling of needing something more. But we also need teaching and we need
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encouragement and we need Christian friendship. And we need to instill in ourselves a love for
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God's word and a boldness for the truth. And that's what we hope to accomplish at Share the
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Arrows. Last year was our first year. 4,000 women joined us from around the world. This year, we so far,
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5,500 women are joining us from around the world. And we are so blessed and so honored and so excited to
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see what God is doing. Y'all, it's going to be amazing. We've got such solid Christian female
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teachers. We've got amazing worship. We've got incredible fellowship that's going to be there.
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So go to sharethearrows.com. When you go to sharethearrows.com, you can see all the details.
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You can see all the speakers. You can see the schedule. This is October 11th, just a few weeks
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away in Dallas, Texas. It is going to be awesome. I cannot wait to see you guys there. Go to sharethearrows.com
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for a discount. You can do Allie20, and that is 20% off your ticket. So go to sharethearrows.com,
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code Allie20. All right, let's go ahead and get into just this incredible weekend and this incredible
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day of not just honoring Charlie Kirk, but really glorifying God as much as possible. Wow, what an
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amazing, amazing moment. First, Chief Related Bro and I, we had a uniquely crazy weekend. We are not
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usually as busy as we were over the past few days, but I just want to thank the Lord for His provision,
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for His protection, and for opportunities to share the gospel and to encourage so many Christians
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across the country in the last few days. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for using me, for using all
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of you, no matter what capacity you're in, no matter if you have a microphone or if you are an employee,
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a student, a stay-at-home mom, whatever stage of life you're in. God has placed us exactly where we
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are at this moment in history, at this spot of eternity, this speck of the earth, not arbitrarily,
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not accidentally, but providentially and purposely, and what an incredible time. What an incredible time
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to be alive. So just thank God every day for using you and using your capacity and your abilities and
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your resources to advance His kingdom. That is how things go forth by the unseen and unsung work
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of believers that God is working through with His Holy Spirit. So I'm just thankful to play such a small
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part in that, but what an honor it is to be a Christian and to be a part of this really special
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moment. I filmed something really special over the weekend. Really excited about you seeing that. I
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can't talk about it yet, but it was a great opportunity to share the gospel that will be very
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public that you'll see soon. And then we had the honor of going to Charlie's Memorial on Sunday,
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yesterday. And as you saw, if you watched it, you haven't watched it yet, I really encourage you to
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watch the entire thing on YouTube in its entirety. Huge stadium, tens of thousands of people
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there, but there were people camped out. There were people in long lines. We were sitting
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on the floor in front of the stage, but to the right. And we were in front of one of the big
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jumbotrons and we were behind all of the presidential cabinet, which was pretty surreal to see these people
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who are leading our government sit here in honor of Charlie Kirk and to worship alongside them and to
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hear the name of Jesus proclaimed alongside them. I was just praising God in so many ways in so many
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different times. The worship was really, really powerful. We weren't there for the entirety of
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the worship before the speeches started. However, we got to be there when Christian Stanfill and when
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Brandon Lake were leading worship and then Carrie Jo was leading worship and then we had Chris Tomlin.
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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
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of those Christian artists because there are Christian artists out there who are scared. They're scared to
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be perceived as political. They're scared to be perceived as divisive or controversial. And so they
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could have easily said, no, they don't need the money. They don't need the fame. They did it,
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not caring what people might say. And people will say. People will say this is some kind of like
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white nationalist rally, some ridiculous thing like that. And they decided that it was worth
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sharing those arrows. And it was worth taking the heat for that. And I just respect. Respect to those
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artists and thank you to those artists. And to me, one of the most emotional parts, like where I just
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shed the most tears. First, I walked in and it's just incredible. It's incredible how many people
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are there and how sweet everyone was. Like usually when you have a crowd like that, you usually have
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some kind of crazy people, some kind of troublemakers. Saw zero of that, which was amazing. We also had
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like the most security that anything has ever had ever. But just an incredible feeling of camaraderie in
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there. And then I'm sitting on, I'm sitting on the floor, we get to our seats. And I'm like, this is
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amazing. I'm sitting next to Matt Walsh and his wife. I see all of these different commentators that
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I only typically get to see on the internet. And I'm like, this is so special. This is amazing.
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And then it just hits me why I'm there. Like why I'm there is this awful, tragic, terrible reason.
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And as that's kind of like dawning on me, I'm looking around. The singing itself has stopped,
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but the music is playing. And Brandon Lake is just standing on the stage and he's looking out.
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And all of these people spontaneously start lifting up their Charlie signs because everyone has these
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signs, white and red. And the white signs say, Isaiah 6, 8, send me. I'll go, here I am, Lord.
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Send me. And then the red signs have, well done, good and faithful servant. And the videographer
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has just this footage, this incredible footage up on the screen. And then after all of these signs
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are up, people are just raising their signs in solidarity with Charlie and commitment to being
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obedient to the Lord. The videographer then zooms in on this huge unfurled banner of Charlie in a very
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victorious stance. And I just, I mean, I lost it. I lost it because it just hit me. I can't believe
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that that is why we're here. Obviously, God is accomplishing something good. And I looked back
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at the stage and I could see Brandon Lake was crying and it was such a powerful moment.
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What a privilege it was to be there. Like, I don't know that I ever would have thought that I
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would be in a room with President Trump, with the vice president, with, you know, all of Daily Wire,
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Megan Cowley, Tucker Carlson, all of these incredible people in media and activism that I've loved and
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known for a long time. I don't know all of those people that I just listed, but known who they are
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for so long, worshiping together. I think I would have assumed that would only happen on the other
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side of eternity. But Charlie made it happen here on earth and I got to see a foretaste of heaven.
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And I'll never forget that. I'll never forget that. I'm going to play you some of my favorite moments
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from the memorial in just a second. But let me pause, tell you about our first sponsor for the day.
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Pastor Rob McCoy, who was considered Charlie's pastor, he kicked off the speeches and he did a
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Thank you, Pastor. So good. He did an altar call at the end of it. I mean, people didn't come down to
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the altar, but at the end, he said, look, if you've made a profession of faith, and he made clear,
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it's not by your own works. It's only by grace through faith in Christ. Then raise your hand. And tons
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of people stood up and raised their hands. Praise God. And it wasn't just the people in the stadium
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who heard that. Millions and millions of people heard that. And remember, the word of God does not
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return void. He sends it out. It accomplishes exactly what God wants it to accomplish. And God
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doesn't need us, but he chooses to use us as the means by which, as a means by which, he draws people
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to himself. So incredible. All right. My friend, Frank Turrick, who is just an amazing apologist,
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he was there with Charlie when Charlie was shot because he was Charlie's mentor. And if you have
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not watched this YouTube video describing exactly what happened, then you've got to go watch that.
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He's an amazing man. And the Holy Spirit was speaking through him right here. Sot three.
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Now, I want you to know that Charlie right now is in heaven, not because he was a great husband and
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father, not because he saved millions of kids out of darkness on college campuses, not because
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he changed minds and chased votes to save the country, not because he sacrificed himself
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for his savior. Charlie Kirk is in heaven because his savior sacrificed himself for Charlie Kirk.
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Yes. And amen. Like, if you could have seen me, like, I was basically like out of my seat,
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nodding. I mean, for us Reformed Baptists, nodding ferociously is like as much charisma as you are going
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to get when someone is preaching. And I might clap and say amen. But I was amening that. Yes,
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Dr. Frank Turek. Thank you so much. God was glorified. And Charlie would have been thrilled
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in that. Okay. And can I tell you also my perhaps if I had to pick a favorite, it's very difficult
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because truly I was moved in different ways by every single speech. I thought everyone did a really,
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really good job. But I was blown away by Secretary Marco Rubio. I was blown away by his passion.
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And his clarity and his conciseness and sharing what Christianity is. This is the bedrock of what
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we believe. And Marco Rubio articulated it in just an incredible way. I still, I get chills when I just
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One of the things he wants us to take away from this, from all of this, is the following. His deep
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belief that we were all created, every single one of us before the beginning of time, by the hands of
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the God of the universe, an all-powerful God who loved us and created us for the purpose of living
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with him in eternity. But then sin entered the world and separated us from our creator.
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And so God took on the form of a man and came down and lived among us. And he suffered like men.
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And he died like a man. But on the third day, he rose unlike any mortal man.
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And to prove any doubters wrong, he ate with his disciples so they could see and they touched
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his wounds. He didn't rise as a ghost or as a spirit, but as flesh. And then he rose to the
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heaven, but he promised he would return. And he will. And when he returns, because he took on that
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death, because he carried that cross, we were freed from the sin that separated us from him.
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And when he returns, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. And we will all be together.
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And we are going to have a great reunion there again with Charlie and all the people we love.
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Oh, I loved that. I love that so much. I just thought he did a great job. I'm like,
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yes, I voted for you in the 2016 primary. I'd do it again. Just so incredibly thankful for that
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clarity. Vice President J.D. Vance, he also, he had a good speech. And he mentioned that,
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you know, he wasn't really one to talk publicly about his faith. But since Charlie was murdered,
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I have talked more about Jesus Christ in the past two weeks than I have my entire time in public life.
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And that is an undeniable legacy of the great Charlie Kirk. You know, he loved God. And because
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he loved God, he wanted to understand God's creation and the men and women made in his image.
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Really good. I mean, may that be all of our legacy, that when we die, people can't stop talking about
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Jesus because it's what our life was about. And so in order to talk about you, someone has to talk
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about Jesus. That's what I thought about when I heard Donald Trump Jr., who was super close to
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Charlie, who went up there and gave us some comic relief. And he was like, first, he imitated his
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dad, which was really funny. But then he was like, to say, you know, Charlie knew more than me about
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the Bible is like saying Donald Trump knows more about being president than Kamala Harris. It's an
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understatement. But then he went on to honor Charlie's faith and compared him to Stephen the
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martyr, which is exactly the right comparison. And I thought that was beautiful. And he did that
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because he had heard Charlie say that he wanted to be remembered for courage for his faith. And so
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he honored his friend in that way, how Charlie wanted to be honored. And you could tell from his
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speech, Charlie shared the gospel with the Trumps many, many times. And I just thought that that was
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really sweet. People who don't even follow Jesus had to talk about Jesus, had to hear about Jesus
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because Charlie's life is about Jesus. All right. I want to play you this powerful clip from Erica
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All right. There were a lot of amazing parts to Erica's speech. In fact, I thought one of the most
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emotional parts was when she just walked out and she stopped before the podium and she looked up to
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heaven and she said, Jesus, and she said, Charlie, I was on the edge of my seat right there. I could
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feel the Holy Spirit interceding for her through the prayers of other believers. I just could. I mean,
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there are just moments in your life when you're in corporate worship or you just feel so convicted to
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pray that it's undeniable that it's the Holy Spirit. And I was on the edge of my seat. I was just
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like, I wish I could have been up there being like, come on, girl, you got this. You got this. You got this.
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That's like what I was saying. That's what I was thinking. I was praying. And then she got up and
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she delivered a beautiful speech. And thank you God for that. And then she said this, and this has
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stopped people in their tracks. This is thought eight. Father, forgive them for they not know what
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they do. I forgive him. I mean, that is only possible with the gospel of Christ. That is only
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possible when you know the depths that you have been forgiven. That sounds like foolishness to a
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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
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murder. And they think that that's some form of justice or biblical retribution when it's 100%
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not. And by the way, Erica pointed that out in her speech that the responses have been so disparate.
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You've got violence over there. And then over here, you've got vigils. We're not the same. It's not
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left versus right. Ultimately, it is good versus evil. She pointed that out very well. She did a good
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job. That's really difficult to do. And I just, I'm thankful for that. And I just pray that God would
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continue to give her and her children and turning point strength. And there was a lot, like there was
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a lot more that I could play you, but you should go watch it. And it was really amazing. Okay. Then
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we have something that was very different from Stephen Miller, who always gives the tough words.
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Like you guys know, I love Stephen Miller's tough words. Like you can't shame me on that. You can't make
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we feel guilty. Like we need tough people in government. I won't say sorry for that. We need
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tough people who will tell it like it is. And I think that tough talk is also needed. And I'm going
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to explain the dichotomy here. We just heard that incredible grace that was given to her by the Holy
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Spirit from Erica Kirk. And then we have something like this and they might seem contradictory. I'll
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And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us,
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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
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create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up
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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?
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We honor the God-given forgiveness and grace and mercy that Erica showed and that only those
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close to Charlie Kirk have the ability to really be able to do for this guy who murdered Charlie.
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God gives him the power to forgive and to turn the other cheek. That is not the government's
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responsibility, okay? When Jesus is saying, you turn the other cheek, you've heard it said,
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eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, and then he talks about forgiveness and grace
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and mercy and turning the other way and blessing those who persecute you and praying for your enemies
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and relieving people of the bitterness and resentment that you're trying to place on them.
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He's talking about our interpersonal relationships, okay? We give grace. The government bears the sword.
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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,
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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
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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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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
00:45:53.920
leather range. Leather is another amazing family owned company. They started their leather company
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.
00:55:38.280
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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
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Wagon. If you haven't read that, please go to Audible and get that, or go online to Amazon
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and get it. If you'd like to have the hard copy book, just let me know. I can also, uh, happy to,
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if you want one, email you one, uh, I think they cost 20 bucks or something like that. And I'll happy
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to autograph it for you, but Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon. So I call this last bit section
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wisdom from the wagon. All right. Wisdom from the wagon. Um, and one of those pieces of wisdom is what,
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what books are you reading? What do you, what book would you recommend? Well, you know,
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we've already talked about one of them, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today.
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What I'm talking about today is there's a book by Tim Keller and, uh, and it, and it, and it's,
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it's about every good endeavor. Okay. And I don't know this and these people, when I recommend a book
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and the author doesn't mean I believe everything that they say. Okay. They may have other books I
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don't agree with, but this one is really talks about how you can take your, whatever job you're
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in, whatever career you're in and turn that into a mission field. It doesn't mean that you're out
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witnessing and evangelizing at work every day, beating people over the head. But what it might
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mean is that your endeavor. Okay. Maybe, maybe that you're in an endeavor that makes a lot of money so
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that you can support a charity that's out, you know, in the mission field somewhere, but it's a
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really, really good book. And it helped me get a perspective because sometimes when you're in the
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business world and you're a Christian businessman, you figure you're focusing too much on business
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and you need to be doing more ministry. This really kind of helps you understand that better.
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So I would encourage that. Uh, the last thing is, um, just a little bit of, I don't know,
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interaction from me. And it kind of goes back to the Charlie Kirk thing. You know, there are events
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that go on during our lifetime that are personal tipping points. And the most of you have heard of
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the book by Malcolm Gladwell, tipping points and, or they're much bigger societal tipping points.
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For example, one of societal tipping points was nine 11 when, uh, you know, when we had the terrorist
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attack, uh, in Boston and Washington and in New York city, that was a societal tipping point.
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Society changed COVID in some ways was a societal tipping point. Never, not always for the good.
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Okay. Uh, but it is something that, that we're, we're going down a path of history and all of a
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sudden it takes a little bit of a turn. Okay. And there's been lots of those in, in history.
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What happens when you have those is you have to decide what that means to you. Okay. And I think
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we had one of those last week with the passing of Charlie Kirk and how it happened.
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And the outflow of support from around the world. Now I was familiar with Charlie Kirk mainly through
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Allie and I had no idea the influence he had around the world. Um, I, I wasn't shocked at the
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turnout in, in, uh, the United States, although some of the blue cities, I was kind of shocked at how
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big that was, but around the world in Italy and UK and Korea, I mean, just unbelievable. And so I
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want folks, that's a tipping point. Now, the question is, what are you and I going to do with
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that tipping point? Are we going to just go back to our daily lives and whatever it is that we're
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doing? And, you know, this will be something we remember, but we don't really change. Or are we going
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to say, you know what? The sacrifice that he made and his family has made, what, how's that going to
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affect me? And what am I going to do about it? Am I going to be a better witness? Am I going to be
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someone that gets more involved in what's going on in our country so that we don't let the demonic
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forces. And as they spoke on yesterday, this is a spiritual battle that's many times fought through
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willing individuals. Okay. And that's what's happening right now. The people that are, that are
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condemning Charlie, the people that made fun of his death. Those are, it's not really even them
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speaking, although they're willing participants, it's demonic forces that are speaking through them.
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And are we going to stand up to that? Are we going to take some of the risks that Charlie took to speak
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out? All right. Now we'll probably never be put in the same situation he was, and we can't be Charlie
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Kirk, but we can be Ron Simmons. And when I have the opportunity to speak out on truth, I need to make
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sure that I'm willing to take the risk to speak out on truth. Even if that's something that puts a risk
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to me, maybe it, I'm not saying it puts me at physical risk, although I guess it could, but maybe
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I lose a friend over that, or, or I, uh, you know, or maybe I don't get a, you know, a financial
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assignment that I've, you know, wanted to get or a consulting agreement, or, or maybe somebody won't read
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my book or something like that, or I won't get a speaking engagement. Those are risks. Okay. But those are risks
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that we need to be willing to take individually. Your kids are watching you right now. They're
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watching you right now on what we do. My kids are still watching me as adults. My grandkids are now
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watching me. What, what am I going to do? How am I going to stand up? How am I going to make sure
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that none of this was for naught, and it just goes away in the next few months or few years?
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So this is a tipping point. And the question is, what are you and I going to do about it?
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Thanks again. Always good to be with you. Hope you all have a great week.