Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 323 ｜ SPECIAL EPISODE： Election Update + God's Sovereignty

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. So I want to give you guys the most recent update that

00:00:14.560 I possibly can on what's going on. And then we are going to move to a couple other pieces

00:00:20.060 of news. We're going to talk about a measure in Colorado that passed, one that we're waiting

00:00:25.080 to pass, and what it just means about the state of morality in this country. We're also

00:00:29.100 going to talk about Pastor Carl Lentz from Hillsong NYC, something that has happened there.

00:00:35.180 And I want to answer this question that so many of you have been asking me. Is it okay

00:00:39.860 to say right now that God is in control? Obviously, we know that's true, but you've been hearing

00:00:45.500 a lot of professing Christians, particularly those that identify as Christians on the left,

00:00:51.060 say, no, no, no, that's something called spiritual bypassing. That is white privilege. You shouldn't

00:00:57.260 be talking about God's sovereignty right now when people's lives are on the line if Trump

00:01:01.840 wins. So we're going to talk about the theology of pushing back on the statement that God is

00:01:07.020 sovereign, what the Bible actually has to say about that. So let me give you the most recent

00:01:11.340 numbers. Again, this is changing moment by moment. So by the time this comes out, it could

00:01:15.100 be slightly different. I got on Instagram yesterday and gave you the most updated update that I

00:01:20.460 could. I'll do that again today if I have to. So as of right now, as I am recording, we are still

00:01:27.000 waiting on the state of Georgia, 49.6 percent for Trump, 49.2 percent for Biden with 99 percent

00:01:35.940 reporting. Now, no matter what happens, even if Trump pulls this out, it is still too close for

00:01:42.020 comfort in Georgia. If Trump takes Georgia with that narrow of a margin, it is very likely if they

00:01:48.460 have to that team Biden will ask for a recount if it's looking like that could mean that Trump would

00:01:54.340 win. And I'll talk about what actually has to happen for Trump to get to 270 electoral votes and

00:01:59.960 take the presidency. So that's where we are in Georgia. I've been saying for a couple of weeks

00:02:05.500 now that Georgia was going to turn blue and all these people rolled their eyes at me. They said

00:02:09.840 that's impossible. Well, even if it goes red, it's obviously very possible for Georgia to go blue.

00:02:15.640 So the feeling that I had when I was driving from North Georgia to the other side of Georgia that,

00:02:22.640 hey, that's there's a lot of Biden signs in rural Georgia. This is really crazy. It was it was a

00:02:29.860 correct feeling. It was a correct observation and a correct vibe. Georgia is turning into a purple 0.78

00:02:37.040 state. Now, this maybe it's just a fluke. This election, maybe it'll go back red. I hope so. I genuinely

00:02:43.360 do. But obviously, there are some political changes going on in Georgia that we really need to pay

00:02:49.260 attention to. We're still waiting on Pennsylvania right now. As I'm as I'm recording this, it's 50.5%

00:02:56.120 for Trump, 48.4% for Biden with 87% reporting. The Trump team is optimistic about this. But because

00:03:03.820 of the counties that are still reporting have yet to report, team Biden is also optimistic about this,

00:03:10.620 that this will end up going in the way of Biden. Arizona has already been called for Biden. It's

00:03:16.220 been called for Biden for a couple of days. It's 50.5% for Biden, 48.1% for Trump with 88%

00:03:23.480 reporting. Trump team, even though Arizona has been called, is actually optimistic about Arizona.

00:03:30.580 And there are outlets actually saying that, you know, the other outlets who have called Arizona need to

00:03:36.080 retract their calling of Arizona. But again, the outlets who have already called it are doubling

00:03:40.960 down and saying, look, there's just no way that Trump can pull this out in Arizona. However,

00:03:46.020 the Trump team is saying, yes, there is. Yes, there is. Yes, there is. So we'll see about that. It seems

00:03:51.700 to me like Arizona is going to stay for Biden. Michigan has already been called for Biden,

00:03:56.660 50.6% for Biden, 47.6% for Trump with 99% reporting. I've seen a lot of conservatives say,

00:04:04.540 hey, why are they calling Michigan? If you look at the Michigan voting website, it shows that President

00:04:11.160 Trump is ahead of Biden. So why is there this discrepancy? But if you look more closely at the

00:04:16.060 details on the Michigan site, what you'll see is that they don't have the most updated counts

00:04:21.020 on their website. They are like a million behind. And so that's not really that is a discrepancy,

00:04:28.880 but it's not necessarily an indication of dishonesty by the media. The website is just not

00:04:36.460 quite updated yet. Apparently now. Well, I'll get to the recounts in just a second. Wisconsin called

00:04:43.040 for Biden, 49.6 for Biden, 48.9% for Trump with 99% reporting. Nevada, too close to call with 75%

00:04:54.040 reporting. North Carolina, Trump ahead with 94% reporting, but again, too close to call. So

00:05:00.780 here's what Trump needs to win the presidency. He needs Nevada. He needs Georgia. He needs Pennsylvania.

00:05:06.260 He needs North Carolina. So he needs all the states that are in question right now,

00:05:10.000 even if he ends up officially losing Arizona, which a lot of people, of course, would say that he already

00:05:14.500 has officially lost Arizona, but they are still counting votes. If you live in Arizona, I think

00:05:19.500 you can actually look up the state of your ballot. I know a lot of people, Republicans in particular,

00:05:23.660 that have looked up the state of their ballot and it hasn't been counted yet or it hasn't been marked

00:05:27.740 as counted yet. And so I think that you can look that up just to check. So Trump needs all of those

00:05:35.940 states. And then he would get to 270 and some change or he could win via recounts. The Trump

00:05:43.960 campaign has filed lawsuits in Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia. They want to act in Pennsylvania as

00:05:50.640 well, but it's a little bit of a different situation there. And what they're hoping for

00:05:54.420 is better access to the polling process to make sure that only legal votes are counted. And that is

00:06:00.120 the big contention here. So the left Democrats keep saying count every vote and the right isn't

00:06:08.420 saying the opposite of that. But we are adding an adjective count every legal vote. And the reason

00:06:14.580 why we are making that distinction is because we keep seeing stories proper or crop up. And I haven't

00:06:21.600 I haven't been retweeting all of these stories. I haven't been reposting all of them because it's

00:06:26.840 hard to personally verify every single one. But there are so many stories. Some of them actually

00:06:32.920 have been verified of crumpling up ballots, people receiving ballots that like absentee ballots after

00:06:42.540 they have moved out from a state. There are reports and this is actually verifiable. You can look up I

00:06:50.020 think it's in Michigan's database. You can look up the name of a person that you know died and it'll show

00:06:55.460 you their voter status. And in some cases, people who have been deceased for a long time, the online

00:07:02.060 indicates that they voted. So dead people are voting. There's been 100 to 200 percent voter turnout

00:07:07.940 in some states, which literally is impossible. People, like I said, getting absentee ballots when they

00:07:15.560 don't even live in the state that is sending them the absentee ballot. There are ballot dumps,

00:07:21.040 voting dumps that are all toward one candidate. It seems to be all for Joe Biden. And so all of a

00:07:27.420 sudden, it seems like a state will find like twenty three thousand votes and not a single one of them

00:07:31.960 will be for a third party or Trump. And so that is why people are having some questions here in Detroit

00:07:37.440 where they're counting votes. They were covering up the windows and the room where they were counting

00:07:41.800 votes. Well, no, this is supposed to be a transparent process. And apparently also every time

00:07:47.940 a GOP poll or a poll worker got kicked out, there were left wing activists there with their Black

00:07:54.500 Lives Matter T-shirts on cheering for it. So this is not supposed to be a partisan process. We've also

00:08:00.120 seen vote counters in some of these states wearing Biden masks. You're not supposed to have any kind

00:08:05.580 partisan paraphernalia in these rooms. This is supposed to be a nonpartisan process. It's obviously not a

00:08:12.740 nonpartisan process in some places. As we talked about in Wednesday's episode, the AG of Pennsylvania

00:08:20.120 already said days before the election that if every vote is counted, Trump will lose. And he wants to

00:08:25.560 make sure of that. That is really troubling. Project Veritas, a whistleblower, said that poll workers

00:08:40.440 were falsely backdating absentee ballots for November 3rd so that they could be counted. That

00:08:46.820 was in Michigan. That was a USPS insider that told that to Project Veritas. Again, we don't know if

00:08:54.460 that's true, but that is the testimony of this one person. And all of this adds up to at least a

00:09:01.280 justified desire to ask questions and investigate. We never thought that Trump was just going to lose

00:09:07.400 easily, that he was just going to let this go. Of course, there's going to be recounts in places

00:09:12.880 where there needs to be recounts. And that is what he is doing in some of these states where it is just

00:09:18.400 it's just a razor thin margin by which he seems to have lost. He just wants to verify it. Biden,

00:09:26.480 I guarantee you, they'd be doing the same thing. Hillary Clinton called for recounts in 2016. 0.99

00:09:32.180 Like I said, I think Biden would, if he has to call for a recount, if he loses by a razor thin

00:09:37.560 margin in somewhere like Georgia, and he actually needs those electoral votes to win. Here's what I say.

00:09:43.520 I actually care about fairness in this election much more than I care about Trump winning. So no

00:09:48.480 matter the results of the election, I want us to make sure that we root out corruption and that we

00:09:53.580 root out fraud. That is more important to me. In my opinion, that has much longer, longer lasting

00:09:59.380 implications than who wins the presidency. So even if Biden wins, we need to root out the corruption and

00:10:05.380 the fraud. We need to make sure the dead people are not voting. Like we need to make sure that we are 0.88

00:10:11.040 only counting legal votes. And the fact that there are people on the left, there are Democrats on the

00:10:15.340 left pushing back on that and saying, no, no, no, you just need to count all votes no matter what.

00:10:20.760 Well, I would say that's a problem. I very much care about the integrity of this election more than I

00:10:25.640 have been praying for Trump to win or any kind of outcome. I have been praying that the process would

00:10:33.300 be honorable, that it would end up being honest. We know in a lot of cases it's not honest right now,

00:10:38.420 but that is my desire for honesty and integrity and honor in the process. Even if Biden, even if Biden

00:10:45.140 wins, especially if Biden wins, I just want to know that he won fair and square. I want to go explore all

00:10:52.060 the avenues that we possibly can just to make sure that the process is being done with integrity. If Biden

00:10:58.820 wins just because he won all of the electoral votes fair and square, then so be it. We accept the results of the

00:11:05.540 election and we move on. Whatever. That's fine. That's obviously not the outcome that I wanted and

00:11:10.600 that many of us wanted. But that's the way it is. We go through political disappointment. There's a

00:11:16.240 possibility of that every four years, of course. But I just want to make sure that he wins fairly. I also

00:11:22.980 want to make sure that Trump wins fairly. If Trump wins, we don't need to stop talking about corruption

00:11:28.060 and potential fraud. We need to make sure that our election process is protected. And for the people

00:11:34.500 that say on the left that are saying, oh, that's just fear mongering. Y'all are just paranoid. You're just

00:11:39.340 sore losers. Excuse me. Excuse me. You are the same people who have not accepted the results of the 1.00

00:11:45.580 2016 election. OK. And for the past four years, you have been saying that Trump's election was actually it was

00:11:53.240 it was illegitimate, that it was actually just Russian collusion, that there was actually Russian

00:11:59.080 interference that caused him to win. And there is no proof of that whatsoever. And so for us to say,

00:12:06.920 hey, there seems to be evidence of fraud. There's at least reason for us to ask some questions and to

00:12:12.760 seek some recounts in some of these states. That's not at all paranoid. That's very sane. That's just

00:12:18.940 making sure that whoever wins, whether it's Joe or whether it's Donald Trump, that they win fairly and

00:12:24.860 squarely. That is all we're saying. You guys have been trying to delegitimize Trump's presidency and

00:12:32.740 Trump's victory for the past four years. So I don't want to hear any of that from you guys' accusations

00:12:37.680 of being paranoid and being sore losers when you guys haven't even conceded the 2016 election.

00:12:44.420 There also seems to be some confusion about why Trump is saying we need to stop the votes in some

00:12:50.060 places and we need to keep counting in other places. And people are saying, oh, my gosh,

00:12:54.460 she's just losing his mind. Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, she's a really great

00:12:59.640 follow. She explains all of this in a tweet thread. She says this. A lot of folks are saying incorrectly

00:13:05.160 GOP wants to both count and stop ballots at the same time. Let's be more precise. There are three

00:13:10.340 categories. A, ours calling to count votes that came in by election day or before per state law.

00:13:17.700 This is obvious. B, ours calling to halt votes until GOP observers given access to vote counting.

00:13:25.120 No one is suggesting these votes not be counted, only that ours be allowed to witness the counting.

00:13:31.180 Why not? Transparency is good. We'll raise confidence in the outcome. I agree with that.

00:13:36.400 It will raise confidence in the outcome no matter what happens. C, ours questioning states that want to

00:13:42.940 count votes that contravene state law on deadlines, etc. Like in Pennsylvania, for example,

00:13:49.080 they have said that you are allowed to count ballots that aren't even postmarked. And so

00:13:53.640 we don't know where they came from in some of those cases. But more importantly, we don't know when they

00:13:59.740 were actually filled out. If they're filled out after election day, they are illegitimate. They should

00:14:04.840 be illegitimate. The left is claiming this is disenfranchisement. But why? Laws are laws. We are all

00:14:11.020 expected to follow them. And why should some states get extra judicially granted privileges,

00:14:16.860 not others? The left is saying count every vote. I completely agree, but I would modify count every

00:14:23.540 legal vote as defined by the state legislatures. We elect them for a reason. This cannot and should

00:14:30.200 not turn into a fight over what laws will get overruled to benefit one side. That is exactly right,

00:14:36.380 especially in the midst of the election process. The time is coming gone for all of those decisions

00:14:41.640 to be made. Let's just make sure that every legal vote is counted and that every vote that is counted

00:14:48.680 is legal. That really shouldn't be that difficult. This process is so inefficient. It's so ineffective.

00:14:55.360 We are losing trust, obviously, in the pollsters, obviously, in the media, obviously, in our politicians.

00:15:00.080 We already knew all of that. But we're also losing faith in our election process to be fair,

00:15:07.460 to be free. And you really don't live in a free country if you cannot trust the election process

00:15:13.160 to actually reflect the will of the people and actually reflect any kind of integrity.

00:15:19.840 We have very good reason to doubt that the Democrats would be running the election process

00:15:37.200 in some of these places with integrity. We have very good reason to believe that. I mean,

00:15:42.060 if we look at the ideology, the leftist ideology that drives so much of the Democratic Party,

00:15:47.900 if we look at the rhetoric that has been coming from the left for the past four years, 0.97

00:15:52.040 it's that Trump is a Nazi, that he is the greatest threat to not just America, but the world. 0.98

00:15:57.000 All of his supporters are at least complicit, if not outright guilty of white supremacy, 0.99

00:16:01.540 that he is a fascist, that his followers are fascists, and that we must do absolutely anything 0.90

00:16:07.000 to get him out of office. We've seen him try to, the Democrats tried to impeach him. They tried

00:16:14.340 to say that he was an illegitimate president. They tried to say that he was a Russian agent. There

00:16:19.340 was the whole Russian investigation that amounted to absolutely nothing. We've seen

00:16:23.220 rioting in the streets. We've seen harassment of Trump supporters. We've seen Trump supporters

00:16:28.200 targeted with threats of violence. And so we've got a party who might not be holistically

00:16:34.240 characterized like this, but a large chunk of them are characterized by an ends justify the means

00:16:42.020 mentality. And so, of course, a little ballot harvesting and a little fraud is worth it if

00:16:47.620 that means getting an actual Nazi, what they believe to be an actual Nazi, out of office. I mean,

00:16:53.900 they've compared Trump to Hitler. If you actually believe that Hitler was running the country,

00:16:59.280 wouldn't you throw out some ballots from the people that voted for him? And so we don't know. We don't

00:17:04.940 know. But all I'm saying is there is a reason. There is enough reason for people to question

00:17:10.520 and for people to want to be vigilant about protecting the integrity of our elections. There's

00:17:16.020 absolutely reason for people to be skeptical. Now, if all the investigations come out and the recounts

00:17:22.340 come out and Biden wins, then like I said, we accept the results of that. We move on. We don't reflect

00:17:28.760 the craziness, the unhinged nature that we have seen for the past four years from the left. We don't

00:17:35.320 say, that's not my president. I'm never accepting the results of this election. Let's try to impeach

00:17:40.500 him from the beginning. Let's lose our minds and suffer from Biden derangement syndrome. No, no,

00:17:47.400 no. Politics are not our God. The president is not our savior. Our joy is not derived from a political

00:17:53.760 outcome. Yes, those things matter. Obviously, you guys know I think those things are significant.

00:17:59.700 As I've said, politics matter because policies matter because people matter and policies affect

00:18:05.780 people. And so you don't have to explain to me the significance of elections and the significance

00:18:10.000 of politics and policies. I already know all of those things. But I'm not going to lose my mind

00:18:17.240 if Biden wins. I'm not going to weep and gnash my teeth if Biden wins. I mean, I lived through eight

00:18:22.880 years of the worst, one of the worst presidencies in history, Barack Obama's. And we survived. I think

00:18:29.520 America is a lot worse off because of it. That's tangible. We've talked about the quantifiable ways

00:18:34.880 America worsened while Barack Obama was president. But we survived. We'll survive this time. Do I think

00:18:41.240 that we are on the precipice of totalitarianism? If if Democrats were to take take the presidency and

00:18:50.220 take the Senate? Yes, I do. I think that they have been very clear about that, that they want to pack

00:18:54.640 the court, that they want to abolish the Electoral College. They would love to reconfigure the Senate.

00:19:00.360 They want to do away with the Constitution. They think the First Amendment should be limited. The

00:19:05.540 Second Amendment should be abolished. They don't believe in the constitutional and the constitutional

00:19:11.200 norms and the institutional integrity of our country. They don't they don't care. They don't

00:19:17.600 care about those things. They actually believe that America is fundamentally bad, that it needs to be

00:19:23.060 torn down and then rebuilt with something new. And so, of course, I believe that we are headed

00:19:28.720 towards the direction of authoritarianism, as Roger and I talked about, if Democrats take control.

00:19:35.420 Even so, even so, we don't let that steal our joy and steal our peace. And we'll go into more of that

00:19:42.520 a little bit more in just a second. But first, I got to talk about the Senate. So you've probably been

00:19:47.940 hearing that the Senate looks good for Republicans, but we are waiting on some things that should probably

00:19:54.740 make us a little bit nervous as conservatives. This is honestly what I'm more concerned about.

00:19:58.880 I'm far more concerned about the Senate than I am the presidency. If Donald Trump loses, but

00:20:03.200 Republicans keep this in it, it's going to be very hard for Joe Biden to get anything done.

00:20:08.900 It's going to be very difficult for him to get cabinet members approved, especially radical cabinet

00:20:13.720 members. It's going to be very difficult for him to get judicial nominees approved, which is good

00:20:17.960 for conservatives. It's going to be very difficult for him to get any of the legislation that he

00:20:23.140 approves of past. And so we want Republicans to keep the Senate, even if, especially if Donald Trump

00:20:31.760 loses. So the Senate does look good for Republicans. Cocaine Mitch, he is still in charge, and that's

00:20:38.840 great. And right now, it looks like Republicans are going to keep the majority. But the recounts could

00:20:44.180 affect the makeup of the Senate, could affect it for the better, possibly the worst. It could be that

00:20:49.080 a recount in Michigan means that John James wins, but probably not. Unfortunately, he lost.

00:20:58.100 So sad. I think that he would be a great senator, and I hope he keeps running. We are waiting on some

00:21:03.760 things in Georgia. So we're waiting on Perdue versus Ossoff. Perdue is the Republican. Ossoff

00:21:08.160 is the Democrat. It's very close, but Perdue is leading right now in Georgia. There's going to be a

00:21:13.460 special election. Loeffler versus Warnock in Georgia. That's going to be in January. So Loeffler

00:21:19.640 won her election, and it's going because this was a very strange race. She was against Doug Collins

00:21:28.900 and I think one other person. And so she's going to run against Warnock in January. I'm not feeling

00:21:35.080 really great about that race. I think Warnock, I mean, he's a radical leftist from Atlanta. He would

00:21:41.320 be a terrible senator for Georgia, but I think it's very possible that he beats Loeffler. Loeffler

00:21:46.960 has been accused of corruption at the beginning of this year, at the beginning of coronavirus. I am

00:21:52.680 shocked that she won against Doug Collins. I really like Doug Collins a lot, and I was disappointed in

00:22:00.720 the outcome of that race. Of course, Loeffler versus Warnock. I'm going to go for Loeffler, absolutely,

00:22:06.460 100%. But I was surprised. I was surprised at the people who voted for her, knowing some of the

00:22:13.820 things that we know about her. I don't think it's possible for her to win against Warnock. I hope

00:22:18.140 that I'm wrong. I really hope and pray that I am. But I don't think that she has as strong of a

00:22:25.320 chance, probably, as Doug Collins did. We're waiting for Tom Tillis versus Cal Cunningham in North Carolina.

00:22:31.260 Tom Tillis is the Republican. Cal Cunningham is the Democrat. It's looking okay for Tillis, but

00:22:36.320 we are apparently not going to know the result of the North Carolina election until November 11th,

00:22:43.340 especially for the presidency. Don't know why. Apparently, some of these vote counters are like,

00:22:49.060 I'm busy. I'm tired. I'm going to kind of chill out for a while. So here's the deal. So we've got the

00:22:55.360 two races in Georgia that we're waiting on. We've got the one race in North Carolina that we're waiting

00:22:59.660 on. I don't know how long we're going to be waiting on them. If Democrats win both Senate

00:23:03.880 races in Georgia and the Senate race in North Carolina, that gives them the majority in the

00:23:08.060 Senate with 49 Democrats and two independents that caucus with Democrats. So that's 51.

00:23:14.120 So that gives them the slight majority. If Democrats win, say, two of those races,

00:23:19.720 they'll be at 50. Republicans will be at 50. And then the presidency matters very much because the

00:23:26.580 vice president is the tiebreaker vote, which will be either Mike Pence or Kamala Harris, depending

00:23:31.760 on who wins. So we really need Republicans to win all three of those Senate races. So if you are going

00:23:38.460 to pray for an outcome, that is the outcome that I would spend your time praying on. Okay, speaking of

00:23:46.240 prayer, let's talk about this statement, God is sovereign or God is in control, because I've seen a lot

00:23:52.220 of people triggered by that statement. I've been seeing a lot of posts going around, typically from

00:23:58.260 left-wing identifying Christians, social justice identifying Christians that are saying, oh, that's

00:24:04.560 something called spiritual bypassing. You are ignoring the real suffering and the real danger

00:24:09.960 that is threatening the lives of marginalized people if Donald Trump wins. And so please don't just

00:24:17.480 kind of gloss over their suffering and their pain and their fear by saying that God is in control.

00:24:25.920 You've heard people say, oh, well, you know, God was in control during the Holocaust, but people still

00:24:30.180 suffered and died. God was in control during all of these terrible things that have happened throughout

00:24:34.680 history, and people still died and suffered. Yes, all of that is true. Number one, let's not compare

00:24:42.180 those things to what is happening right now. We are going through an election where the candidate,

00:24:46.040 that you might not like, will win. That's really different. And there's not going to be, and I know

00:24:52.720 people get mad when I say this, but if Donald Trump wins, like your rights are not going away. They

00:24:58.880 haven't gone away for the past four years. People say, oh, there's people who are going to die if Donald

00:25:03.600 Trump wins. Who? Who and how? Through what policy that he is advocating for? I mean, we already have the

00:25:11.100 Supreme Court that you don't like. I mean, what's Donald Trump going to do that is going to take away

00:25:16.760 your life and livelihood, lower your taxes? I mean, there's just not a whole lot of explanation for that.

00:25:22.200 So let us try to not make the comparison between something like the Holocaust and then something like

00:25:28.920 your politician possibly losing an election. But the question is, should we be saying that God is in

00:25:35.140 control when we are in a crisis? My answer to that is absolutely yes. Now, as I said on Instagram, saying

00:25:41.580 that God is in control as an excuse for complacency, as an excuse for apathy and paralysis and not doing

00:25:48.160 anything is a sin. Obviously, saying that God is sovereign is not an excuse for disobedience. It's not an

00:25:55.680 excuse for laziness. It's not an excuse for us not to take things seriously. You guys know, I think it is our

00:26:01.580 right, and it is our privilege. It's our responsibility as human beings, especially as

00:26:05.820 Christians, as good stewards of the time and the resources that God has given us, the freedom that

00:26:10.560 God has given us. It is our responsibility to use that wisely for the good of our families and for the

00:26:16.100 good of other people. And I think one of those things is voting and being involved in politics.

00:26:20.200 As I already said on this episode, politics matter because policies matter because people matter.

00:26:24.980 And so we know all of that. But in light of the gospel, our attitude towards those things

00:26:32.620 changes. And so when we say that God is sovereign, that God is in control, that Jesus is going to rule

00:26:39.220 in perfect peace, that he is seated immovably on his throne, and that he's not freaking out. He's not

00:26:44.720 surprised. He's not wondering what's going to happen. Matthew 10 says that all the hairs on our head

00:26:49.380 are numbered. And so I know that he has every vote number too. When we say those things, we are not

00:26:56.180 saying that policies don't matter. We are not saying that there won't be consequences to the

00:27:00.500 election or that it doesn't matter and that we should just ignore it and that we should just say,

00:27:04.540 la, la, la. We're just going to ignore the reality of what's going on here on earth. No, we are saying

00:27:11.360 that we view everything that's going on here on earth in light of the hope that we have in heaven.

00:27:17.520 The Bible says that we are citizens of heaven. If you are a Christian, we are not citizens of this 1.00

00:27:22.880 earth. We are exiles on earth. We are strangers dwelling in this land, but our citizenship,

00:27:29.460 our dwelling place, our hope, our membership is ultimately in heaven. And so we view everything

00:27:36.160 that's happening in that light. That gives us assurance. That gives us peace. That gives us serenity.

00:27:43.520 Yes. Even when the trials are real, even when the tribulations are heavy, Jesus promises that we will

00:27:50.080 have trouble in this life, but he says, take heart. I have overcome the world. And so that is where our

00:27:57.060 victory ultimately lies. So when we say that God is sovereign, we are simply saying, take heart,

00:28:03.660 take heart. The Jesus that you trust in, that you follow has already overcome the world. And he has

00:28:08.520 promised that he is going to claim ultimate victory once and for all, and that there will be no more

00:28:14.800 elections. There will be no partisan politics. There will be no, there will be no division. There

00:28:20.640 will be no depression. There will be no sadness. And so as we care about the things that are going on

00:28:27.380 in this life, as we care about elections, as we vote, as we seek the truth, as we obey the Lord and do

00:28:34.280 the work that he has called us to do, we have hope. We have peace. The phrase that God is in control

00:28:40.340 or God is sovereign should not be triggering to the, to the Christian. It should not be triggering.

00:28:46.380 It should be relieving. And if it is, if the phrase God is in control or God is sovereign is

00:28:52.580 triggering to you as a Christian, that's not the fault of the person who said it. That should be an

00:28:58.240 indication for you to take a look at your theology. Is God your God or are politics your God? Is your

00:29:03.920 hope in this life or the next one? Because as Christians, we know where our hope is supposed

00:29:08.000 to be. And it is biblical that in the midst of serious trials, of serious tribulations,

00:29:14.120 far more serious than what we're going through right now, to rejoice in the Lord, to remind

00:29:19.100 ourselves of his sovereignty. That is what the Bible is about. We see it over and over again,

00:29:23.620 that God's people throughout the Bible went through much more difficult than what we are going

00:29:27.980 through right now. Christians throughout history have gone through much more difficult than what we are

00:29:32.300 going through right now. And yet they praised God and they trusted in his absolute controlling

00:29:39.320 goodness. Let's read Romans 8, 35 through 37. Most of you know this passage. Who shall separate us from

00:29:45.420 the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or

00:29:50.760 sword? As it is written, for your sake, we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to

00:29:56.420 be slaughtered. No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure

00:30:02.760 that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor

00:30:07.340 height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ

00:30:12.520 Jesus, our Lord. Philippians 4, 4 through 7. Rejoice in the Lord always. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say

00:30:20.220 rejoice. Let your reasonableness be made known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious

00:30:26.160 about anything, God says. Do not be anxious about anything. When he says anything, he means anything.

00:30:32.960 You think he doesn't know what you're going through right now? He does. But in everything, by prayer and

00:30:38.620 supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which

00:30:43.140 surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. James 1, 2. Count it all joy,

00:30:49.000 my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the tasking of your faith produces

00:30:54.740 steadfastness. Psalm 37, 1 through 2. Fret not yourself because of evildoers. Be not envious of

00:31:01.880 wrongdoers. So we're talking about people who do evil. God is saying, don't worry about them. Don't

00:31:07.380 be envious of them, even when it seems like things are going their way. Do not fret yourself. It says,

00:31:12.100 do not fret yourself because of evildoers, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the

00:31:16.560 green herb. So that is our hope being in heaven, even when we are seeing evil done right now.

00:31:21.920 Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. That is our command.

00:31:26.980 Even when we see evil going on. Even when we are going through trials. Psalm 27, 3. Though an army

00:31:33.120 encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war arise against me, yet I will be confident. Those are

00:31:40.340 just a few examples that we see throughout scripture of God's people in the midst of serious trials,

00:31:46.700 in the midst of chaos, in the midst of confusion, in the midst of severe persecution, far beyond what

00:31:51.480 we are experiencing right now. Saying, I trust God. God is in control. He loves me. He takes care of me.

00:31:59.280 He is still good. He is still righteous. He is on his throne. And my hope is in him. He is my refuge.

00:32:06.180 He is my strength. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? That's another verse

00:32:12.700 in the Psalms. These are people who were going through much more fear invoking things than we

00:32:20.740 are right now. And the Bible says, what are you to do in that time? You're to trust in God's

00:32:25.540 sovereignty. So again, if that phrase, trust God, God is in control. God is sovereign. It's triggering to

00:32:33.320 you as a Christian rather than assuring and rather than peace giving to you, then it is time 1.00

00:32:42.520 to assess your theology. What do you think about God? What do you think about who he is and what

00:32:49.100 he can do? Where is your citizenship? Where is your hope? That doesn't mean, again, that we don't care

00:32:55.200 about what's going on and we don't care about what happens to people. We don't care about this election

00:32:59.120 our policies. Again, we do, but we don't worry about them in perpetual anxiety. We don't allow

00:33:06.220 those things to depress us. We don't allow those things to steal our joy because that's not where

00:33:10.560 our joy comes from. And if it is where your joy comes from, then you have made an idol of this life.

00:33:16.120 And that's the beautiful thing about Christianity is that we are free from the idolatry of this life.

00:33:20.240 And so, yes, God is sovereign. God is in control. Jesus is king. He is on his throne. That's not

00:33:29.340 spiritual bypassing. That is spiritual encouragement for the true Christian. 0.98

00:33:33.320 Speaking of Christianity, and this is the last thing that I want to talk about.

00:33:46.680 Carl Lentz, he was the Hillsong pastor in NYC. According to Religion News Service,

00:33:57.880 he was fired because of leadership issues and breaches of trust, plus a recent revelation of

00:34:04.420 moral failure. So we don't have the details on all of that. Hillsong isn't releasing the details

00:34:10.200 on all of that. And quite frankly, we don't need to know the details on all of that. It's not any of

00:34:13.980 our business, and we shouldn't be gloating about this. This isn't something that we should rejoice over

00:34:20.180 or be happy about. This is obviously going to be very difficult for their church. And the reason why I

00:34:26.320 give you that kind of warning and I give you that admonition is because I know it's tempting for a

00:34:31.780 lot of people who disagree with Carl Lentz politically and theologically, like I do so much,

00:34:38.900 to, you know, it would be tempting for you maybe to be happy about this or to gloat about this publicly

00:34:46.340 on social media. But of course, that is not what we are called to. Our desire should be for Carl Lentz to

00:34:51.560 repent, for him to be drawn to the Lord and to be filled with the spirit of truth. I mean, we have

00:34:58.100 been seeing over the past few months how Carl Lentz, unfortunately, has been evangelized by the

00:35:04.700 world when it comes to things like social justice, when it comes to things like critical race theory,

00:35:09.500 bad theology and bad politics, they don't happen in a vacuum. There are obviously a lot of other heart

00:35:15.200 issues going on here. And I can't say it's terribly surprising just seeing a lot of the things that he has

00:35:20.360 shared over the past few months in regards to a lot of the political events that are going on that

00:35:27.880 are just contra to scripture, contra to any kind of good theology. Unfortunately, that's what happens.

00:35:34.420 Good on Hillsong NYC for taking this step. And again, we pray for Carl Lentz and his family and pray that

00:35:44.140 the Lord draws him close and draws him into repentance. And then we also pray for Hillsong NYC.

00:35:49.520 And we pray that they find a solid pastor that can lead them, shepherd them in spirit and in truth,

00:35:56.980 and that the Holy Spirit would work in that church and would draw more and more people to himself.

00:36:04.540 And so that's all I wanted to talk about today. Just a quick update. We will be back here on Monday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 05, 2020

Ep 323 ｜ SPECIAL EPISODE： Election Update + God's Sovereignty

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