Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 25, 2020


Ep 331 | CORRECTED Tiny Tyrants of Thanksgiving


Episode Stats

Length

44 minutes

Words per Minute

176.26439

Word Count

7,844

Sentence Count

521

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary

It's up to you to decide whether or not your elderly parents or grandparents should be allowed to attend your family's Thanksgiving gathering. It's not up to the government to decide what's best for your family, its up to YOU to decide.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone has had a great week so far.
00:00:14.660 Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I don't know what your plans are. You might live in a state
00:00:19.040 in an area where your governor or your local official is telling you that they're going to
00:00:24.680 stick the cops on you. If you do the scandalous, the scandalous illicit thing of gathering with
00:00:33.480 your family for Thanksgiving and enjoying fellowship, or maybe you live in a state where
00:00:39.480 there aren't as many regulations and you're looking forward to that gathering. There's
00:00:44.020 been a lot of back and forth on this. We talked a little bit on Monday. I do recommend going to
00:00:48.580 listen to Monday's episode because we talked a little bit about, well, we talked a lot about
00:00:53.380 what it looks like to live under God's authority above any other authority. That doesn't mean
00:00:59.020 that we subvert the leadership here on earth just because we want to. Romans 13, it's clear about
00:01:04.260 that. But when any kind of edict or earthly authority causes us to sin, then that is when we choose to
00:01:11.880 obey God rather than man. When it comes to gathering for Thanksgiving, I think it's up to you. You love
00:01:18.900 your family and know your family better than the state does. You love your elderly parents better
00:01:24.820 than the government does. You love your kid coming home from college better than the state does. You
00:01:30.920 know their mental and their physical needs. And I promise you, you are more resistant to harming them
00:01:37.600 or putting them in harm's way than the state is. So you can trust yourself. You can trust your family to
00:01:43.700 decide what is best in gathering. Is it that you have a smaller crowd come over? Is it that you use,
00:01:50.540 I don't know, disposable cutlery and plates? Is it that you, you know, distance everyone while you're
00:01:59.320 eating? Or maybe you don't feel like it's important to do any of those precautions whatsoever. I think
00:02:04.720 it's up to you and your family. The fact of the matter is, is that you know better what is best for you
00:02:10.320 and your family? That is my basic political philosophy. That is certainly my philosophy when it comes to
00:02:16.460 gathering for Thanksgiving. It's not that the virus isn't serious. It's not that you won't ever get it or
00:02:21.280 that you won't die from it. There is a very, very, very slight possibility that that will happen, that it
00:02:27.740 will be serious for you or someone in your family and they could die. That is possible. It's possible with
00:02:33.520 the flu. It's possible with other sicknesses as well. And it is up to you whether or not you want to take on
00:02:39.160 that risk. But it should be up to you, not up to the government, not for a virus that has the survival
00:02:47.420 rate that this does. It should be up to you. So take it as seriously as you want to take it. Take
00:02:54.180 all of the precautions that you want to take. If you feel like you're more comfortable not meeting
00:02:59.320 with your family, then that's completely fine. That is your decision and that is what is best for you.
00:03:07.980 And I, you know, I applaud you in making that decision for yourself. I don't think that you
00:03:13.880 should decide any one way based on the threats of a tiny tyrant. This is not about for them for a lot
00:03:22.440 of them. I don't think this is really about protecting you and your family. Like, do you
00:03:26.240 really believe the pro-abortion, pro-rioting and looting, pro-mass mosh pits after Joe Biden was the
00:03:33.060 projected winner? Do you really think those people care whether or not your elderly parent
00:03:38.320 gets COVID-19? No, they do not. They do not actually. I'm not going to believe that the party
00:03:44.060 who believes that slaughtering babies inside the womb really cares all that much whether or not
00:03:50.460 your grandparent gets coronavirus, especially when they give someone like Andrew Cuomo an Emmy
00:03:56.000 Leadership, Emmy's Leadership Award. I don't even know what that is for awesome, outstanding leadership in
00:04:02.840 New York when he, by executive order, shoved thousands and thousands of elderly people,
00:04:09.060 COVID-positive elderly people, back into nursing homes, causing mass sickness and death
00:04:15.260 in the elderly population in New York. The same thing happened in New Jersey.
00:04:20.040 A similar thing happened in Michigan. So those same people who had a blatant disregard for the lives of
00:04:25.140 elderly people, that could have been avoided very easily. But because they were reckless and
00:04:30.540 arbitrary in their leadership, they're going to say now that you can't safely gather for Thanksgiving
00:04:35.880 because of your elderly parents and grandparents, that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
00:04:41.640 So like I said, I'm not saying don't take this virus seriously. I am saying that you are best
00:04:48.960 equipped to make those decisions, not the government who does not know you. They do not know the needs of
00:04:55.360 your family, but you do. So you decide. You decide what is best. We are going to decide what is best
00:05:02.740 for my family. You decide what is best for your family. There's a lot of people right now who are
00:05:08.100 struggling. There's a lot of people who are struggling mentally and emotionally. There was
00:05:11.820 someone who, I guess you could call him an influencer or commentator, a conservative commentator on
00:05:18.820 Twitter who shared that he's had a very rough few months mentally and that he has even in a few
00:05:26.920 moments considered suicide. Well, the leftists, and I know this is not representative of the left,
00:05:32.180 and I'm not trying to make this argument, but the people who happen to disagree with him, who happen
00:05:35.940 to be on the left on Twitter, were actually saying, you know what, it's really selfish of you to even
00:05:41.900 bring this up. It's selfish of you to say because you're struggling mentally and struggling with
00:05:45.680 thoughts of suicide that you should go visit your family. You're going to kill your family.
00:05:49.720 You're so selfish. There were even a couple of tweets, and I actually quote tweeted them just to
00:05:55.080 show people the attitude that some people have in regards to this. There were some people under his
00:06:00.460 tweet that said, you know what, maybe you should let those thoughts play out. You should give in to
00:06:05.480 those thoughts if you're going to be that selfish. And so on the one hand, some of the people who are
00:06:10.100 saying, hey, COVID-19, it's going to kill everyone, and I really care about your elderly parents,
00:06:14.800 are also telling someone who struggles with mental health that maybe he should just kill himself
00:06:19.780 if he's going to be, quote, selfish. That's the attitude, not that specific wish of death upon
00:06:27.880 someone, but that's the contradictory hypocritical attitude of a lot of people on the left who have
00:06:32.840 had nothing to say about the health risks of the Biden celebrations in the streets or any of the riots
00:06:40.100 or any of the mass protests where a lot of people were not wearing masks and they were gathered
00:06:44.100 together body to body. But now when it comes to Thanksgiving, gathering with, I don't know,
00:06:50.360 five to ten people safely in your home, maybe even wearing masks and washing your hands and maybe even
00:06:56.420 distance, that is apparently selfish. That is wrong. That is what's going to kill people. That's not even
00:07:02.020 statistically true. It's not logically true. It is not morally correct. And so please do not take your
00:07:08.420 moral cues or your public health cues or your political cues from the people who simultaneously
00:07:15.300 have nothing to say about the public health risks of the gatherings that they deem politically correct,
00:07:21.460 but have everything to say about what you do inside your home with your family. Let's just have a little
00:07:26.900 bit of common sense here. Let's have a little bit of compassion. I'm okay. I'm okay with people saying,
00:07:33.020 you know what, this is a more serious virus than we're thinking, and we need to spread out and take
00:07:38.080 this more seriously than people are taking it right now. That's fine. You can say that, but please,
00:07:44.420 for the love of all things good, apply that standard to everyone. You know, there's a lot of self-righteous
00:07:49.900 people in the media saying, oh, Trump supporters, they're not taking this seriously. There was actually
00:07:53.900 a nurse from South Dakota that was on CNN who claimed that people who are Trump supporters,
00:07:59.980 as they were gasping for air in their dying breaths, that they were saying, oh, this isn't
00:08:05.360 real. Biden ruined everything. First of all, I don't think that that's true. I don't think that's
00:08:10.700 true because even in this interview, she said, you know, it wasn't one specific patient. It was just
00:08:15.320 a culmination. What is that supposed to mean? Either it happened or it didn't. Did you hear those words?
00:08:21.360 Someone dying from coronavirus in the hospital that you were taking care of in South Dakota,
00:08:25.780 who this nurse, by the way, is very active on Twitter as a liberal activist, an outspoken
00:08:31.880 liberal activist on Twitter. She just happened to have these interactions with so-called Trump
00:08:37.060 supporters as they were on their deathbed in the hospital. Did that really happen? Did it really
00:08:42.640 happen that these Trump supporters said that this was all Biden's fault, that this is not real?
00:08:47.420 Could they just be grasping for something to hang on to because they're dying? Maybe it's unbelievable
00:08:56.600 to a lot of people that they could be slipping into death and it had nothing to do with politics at
00:09:00.800 all. She said it's not any one specific patient. It was just a culmination. Did it happen or did it
00:09:06.560 not? Because if I were a betting woman, which I'm not, but if I were, I would bet money that that didn't
00:09:13.220 happen, that you saw a moment to go viral, which she did. You saw a moment to go on the news, which
00:09:19.780 she did. And so you created this narrative based on what you already think about Trump supporters.
00:09:25.140 And yes, there are people, probably disproportionately Trump supporters, who think this is a hoax. There are
00:09:32.120 some people who think that this is just not real. That number of people is so small. It's so incredibly
00:09:39.280 small. Most people have the attitude, I would say on the Trump side and maybe even on the other side
00:09:45.580 as well, the attitude that I do. They say, OK, yeah, this is a virus. I know people who have been affected
00:09:50.480 by it. I know friends of friends or parents of friends who have gone to the hospital, who have been
00:09:56.640 in the ICU, who have died from it. OK, so I'm not saying this is a hoax. I think most people see it that
00:10:02.440 way. But they say, but hang on a second. The whole person matters. Mentally, we matter. Emotionally,
00:10:08.740 we matter. Those things matter, too. Going to school matters. Going to church matters. And again,
00:10:14.680 people can be trusted to do that in a way that is safe. Small businesses matter. Livelihoods matter.
00:10:20.900 Depression and suicide and child abuse rates matter. Those things matter, too. But we've been told for the
00:10:27.000 past few months that we can't care about those things or else we want everyone to die. It's
00:10:32.580 absurd. It's absurd. And the most absurd part about it, which is why I think there is so much
00:10:37.940 confusion and pushback, is that we have a media, like I said, who will criticize some people for
00:10:44.300 gathering for Thanksgiving. Chris Hayes of MSNBC said, you know, he doesn't know what to say to people
00:10:50.900 who are going to gather for Thanksgiving, whatever. And a few days before that, he reposted,
00:10:57.000 a video of people celebrating Biden's win, some people with masks on, some people not in these
00:11:02.300 mosh pits saying, you know, people really need this right now. So people really need to be gathering
00:11:07.500 in mass gatherings in the streets celebrating a projected Biden win. But people don't need to
00:11:14.140 gather with those who love them the most for Thanksgiving. And it's that kind of hypocrisy,
00:11:20.260 the selective outrage, the selective criticism that seems to be based completely on political
00:11:26.640 affiliation and hatred of Trump. That has caused people to flout the rules and in some cases to
00:11:35.000 flout the seriousness of it. Because you see the hypocrisy of people like Gavin Newsom eating at that
00:11:40.300 fancy restaurant. Andrew Cuomo, who recently said, oh, yeah, I'm going to host my elderly mom for dinner.
00:11:45.440 And then he backtracked on that when he got backlash. When we see these people in power who are
00:11:52.760 forcing down our throats, these arbitrary, unscientific lockdowns and regulations,
00:11:58.120 and they're not following them themselves, the media doing the same thing. And people say, okay,
00:12:04.040 those in power must not take this as seriously as they are telling us to take it. So it must not be
00:12:10.940 as serious. So, but those same people who are so hypocritical and are causing everyone to think that
00:12:16.400 are mad at everyone for not taking it seriously. You're the reason they're not taking it seriously.
00:12:20.860 It's your hypocrisy media. It's your hypocrisy leaders. So if you are the cause of people's
00:12:29.260 questioning, if you are the cause even of people's conspiracy theories, because that's what happens
00:12:34.320 when there's a vacuum created by bad leadership, when there is a vacuum that is created by the
00:12:45.120 absence of truth in media reporting, people are going to fill that. People are going to fill that
00:12:50.740 with conspiracy theory. People are going to fill that with rebellion. That's just what happens.
00:12:55.800 It is bad leadership and bad reporting that has created so much of the confusion. That's not to
00:13:00.900 say President Trump and other leaders don't have any responsibility at all, because there has been
00:13:05.960 some confusion in the leadership there. Absolutely. But it is the hypocrisy, more than anything,
00:13:11.820 of the elites in this country that has created a lot of questioning by a lot of people to say,
00:13:19.660 are these regulations really for our own good or is it about power? Is it about politics? And people have
00:13:28.060 every right to have that curiosity. People have every right to ask that question right now. It is no one's
00:13:35.040 fault, but these liberal leaders, because they're the ones that are cracking down on these harsh
00:13:40.960 regulations and then doing something else themselves and the media who are outraged about people meeting
00:13:46.740 together for Thanksgiving, but they're not outraged by unmasked mosh pits for Joe Biden. It is because of
00:13:53.020 that hypocrisy, because of that bad leadership that people have decided, you know what? I'm done. I'm done
00:14:00.120 with this. These people really resent me. These people really loathe me. They really don't want what's best
00:14:05.800 for me and my family. And I say, praise the Lord. You finally seen the light. The government has never
00:14:10.080 cared about you and your family. That's not to say all politicians are bad or all government leaders
00:14:15.200 are bad. They all go into office saying that they care and that they want to change your life for the
00:14:19.380 better. And there are some politicians that truly do. But the fact of the matter is a lot of them get
00:14:24.580 drunk on power and they don't have any intention whatsoever of relinquishing it. So as I said on
00:14:30.160 Monday, whatever you do, don't vote to give the government more power and more money. It never works in
00:14:36.140 your favor. It never works in the favor of the government either. Like you'll notice some of
00:14:40.380 the most run down cities are led by politicians who run and win on taking care of the vulnerable.
00:14:50.520 And then they never do. They take that power. They take those tax dollars. They become corrupt. They
00:14:55.900 become drunk on power and they don't serve their constituents. It's the cycle that never ends.
00:15:03.060 So as I say, the moral of the story is not to not take the virus seriously. It's not to rebel for the
00:15:11.300 sake of rebellion against these tiny tyrants because we should submit to authorities as far as we possibly
00:15:18.640 can without sinning. It is simply to say, you know what is best for you and your family. And right now,
00:15:27.920 it is important for a lot of people to gather together. If you are someone who is struggling
00:15:33.200 mentally, if you are someone who feels like, wow, I think I've slipped into depression or serious
00:15:37.960 anxiety without even realizing it. Like I'm really struggling with loneliness and isolation.
00:15:42.820 Know that you're not alone in that. That is unfortunately a trend that has been happening
00:15:50.020 for the past few months. I know people who have been struggling in the same way. The CDC said
00:15:56.140 they just released an analysis showing a 31% increase in mental health related ER visits among
00:16:02.680 children ages 12 to 17 since the lockdowns in March and even a 24% increase in the ER visits
00:16:09.900 for children as young as 5 to 11. A lot of those, they don't just have to do with anxiety and
00:16:15.820 depression and isolation and oversaturation of screens. That also is not good for mental health
00:16:21.680 for children. It's also because of increased child abuse. When you've got parents who maybe lost
00:16:28.540 their job, they're financially strained, or they have their kids at home all day with them. Of course,
00:16:34.340 in an ideal world, no parent would be mad about that. No parent would be disappointed in that. But
00:16:39.840 unfortunately, there are parents who are. That increases the likelihood of domestic abuse for these
00:16:47.120 children. A University of Wisconsin research survey found significant mental health, anxiety, and
00:16:52.480 depression issues in the high school age population with 65% reporting anxiety symptoms. This is also
00:16:59.380 true of the rest of the population. Like I said, I know people who have been really struggling, who have
00:17:05.120 all of a sudden, not all of a sudden, but over the past few months, slipped into depression and have
00:17:10.460 entertained suicidal thoughts that they never thought that they would have. And that is because human
00:17:15.620 beings are social creatures. God made us this way. I know I say this a lot, but leftist, just the
00:17:22.020 ideology of leftism gets human nature wrong. They believe that human beings can adapt to any new
00:17:28.180 progressive social whim. They can adapt to any new government regulation and that they will be fine.
00:17:34.980 It's just, it's not true. Human beings need community. You need fellowship. And like I said on Monday,
00:17:40.540 there are states that allow casinos to operate, but not churches. There are states that allow
00:17:44.640 strip clubs and abortion clinics and liquor stores to operate at least at half capacity,
00:17:50.460 but churches still have to meet outside or meet online or schools are closed down while these strip
00:17:55.880 clubs and casinos and abortion clinics are all open. It shows the backwards nature of our society
00:18:05.180 that again, these people that are making these arbitrary rules that seem to be discriminating
00:18:09.640 against religious people, discriminating against children. They don't have your family's best
00:18:15.740 interest at heart and don't be convinced into thinking that they do. The whole person matters.
00:18:21.200 The heart and the mind and the soul matter. Human beings need fellowship. We need church,
00:18:27.580 not just virtual church. You need to gather. Yes, it's true that the church scattered is also the
00:18:35.280 church gathered. Of course, church is more than a building. We know that. But God has called us to
00:18:41.740 come together in corporate worship. And what a privilege it is that we get to do that. You know,
00:18:46.880 there are Christians throughout the world. The majority of Christians, I would say, now that's just
00:18:52.100 a guess, but at least a large portion of Christians throughout the world cannot consistently gather together
00:18:59.020 out of fear of government punishment because they might be imprisoned. They might be tortured.
00:19:05.620 They might be martyred for meeting together with their brothers and sisters in Christ. That has been
00:19:10.920 true, by the way, about Christians in most of human history. Religious liberty, this idea that's really
00:19:20.000 started in the West, that was a Western idea and then almost an exclusively American idea for the past
00:19:27.240 at least century or so. That has provided a respite, not just for Christians, but people of other
00:19:32.920 faiths too, to practice our faith, to gather together without fear of punishment. Right now,
00:19:39.360 we're going through it. We're getting a small, small, small taste, a small taste and a very mild taste
00:19:45.460 of what it is like to wonder whether or not we are able to legally gather together without fear of
00:19:52.380 government punishment. Well, brothers and sisters in Christ around the world have been,
00:19:57.240 suffering through real threats of this for a very long time. So while we can, Christians, while we are
00:20:03.220 allowed to, while we don't fear imprisonment and punishment, we need to make every effort to meet
00:20:08.760 together. Again, distance, wear masks, don't shake hands, don't hug if that's what you want to do.
00:20:15.040 If you want to mitigate the risk as much as possible, there's a way to gather together
00:20:20.220 and be safe. You know better. The church knows better. You know your congregants better than the
00:20:27.520 state does. You care more about them than the state does. You can be trusted to make the best
00:20:33.160 decision for not just your family, but your church family. Hebrews 10, 24 through 26 says,
00:20:38.520 and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together
00:20:43.200 as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another in all the more as you see the day
00:20:48.740 drawing near. I think now more than ever, we need to stir up one another to love and good works.
00:20:54.960 I think our temptation right now is to get into fear and to bitterness and to resentment. And while I
00:21:00.560 think it's okay to have some righteous anger against hypocritical tyranny, I think that's actually
00:21:05.100 healthy and very good. I think it's very Christian historically. Protestants are the original
00:21:11.940 protesters. That's where we get our name. We have been the mortal enemy of dictators since the
00:21:18.700 Reformation. Christians in general have been a boil on the back of tyrants for our entire history.
00:21:28.400 And so I think some of that righteous anger is really good, but we have to make sure it is not
00:21:32.460 characterizing our whole lives. It's not preventing us from honoring the Lord and loving the people
00:21:37.920 around us, especially our fellow members of the body of Christ. So let us consider how to stir up one
00:21:45.700 another to love and to good works. There's no asterisk there to say, except when there is a pandemic or
00:21:54.080 except when there are lockdown regulations, there is a way to love and to do good. Even in those
00:21:59.560 circumstances, the church has gone through much harsher and harder circumstances than we are in
00:22:04.420 America right now. It's important to remember that. And God inspired this word, knowing all of those
00:22:10.980 things, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another in all the
00:22:17.280 more as you see the day drawing near. I would encourage pastors, look at the other gatherings that are
00:22:25.480 happening. Look at the mass protests, look at the riots, look at the looting, look at the people still
00:22:30.220 going to strip clubs, still going to casinos, still going to get abortions, and tell me that the church
00:22:35.540 doesn't need to open its doors to the world. The world seems a lot more passionate about meeting
00:22:41.000 together than some churches do right now. That should not be the case. Again, be as careful and
00:22:46.280 cautious as you want to. I do not think you are doing your church or your community any favors
00:22:51.920 whatsoever by keeping your doors closed when many, many parts of the secular world are, are insisting
00:23:00.860 on, on meeting together. And this goes on to say, encouraging one another in all the more as you
00:23:06.660 see the day drawing near. I saw a good tweet today and it was a quote by Charles H. Spurgeon. Let's see
00:23:15.240 if I can, if I can pull it up. I must not have. I thought that I had it on my profile, but I don't.
00:23:23.080 But, um, the, the quote was saying that life goes by moment by moment, second by second. It's like
00:23:31.700 sand in an hourglass and there's nothing that we can do to get it back here. Actually, I have it pulled
00:23:37.920 up. Let me, let me read it. Like sands from an hourglass, time passes. Life is wasted by driblets
00:23:42.820 and seasons of grace lost by little slumbers. Oh, to be wise, to catch the flying hour, to use the
00:23:48.940 moments on the wing. So life has not paused. We have not gotten any extension on our life because
00:23:55.980 of these lockdowns. Um, life is still going forward at the same pace that it was before. We have the
00:24:01.780 exact number of days that we did before the lockdown started. Uh, God says that in Psalm 139, that he
00:24:09.420 counts every single one of our days before any of them come to be. So before we are even born,
00:24:15.400 all of our days are numbered. Uh, what's happening right now doesn't pause our life. It doesn't add
00:24:21.640 a number or a certain number of days, uh, to the span that God has already preordained before we were
00:24:28.680 born. So we still are obligated right now to obey the Lord and make, uh, every use of our time.
00:24:36.400 It's so easy to say, okay, well, when the virus is over, when the quarantine is over, when the
00:24:41.320 lockdowns are lifted, first of all, I don't know if we're ever going back to normal. People don't
00:24:46.540 give up power easily. Um, this is a way to see, and I'm, I'm not, you know, saying that this whole
00:24:53.240 thing is a conspiracy, but I do think some people in power are seeing just how far, just, just how
00:24:59.240 much they can get away with, just how far they can go, just how much they can oppose the constitution,
00:25:04.860 because that is what's happening. They're opposing the constitution, which is supposed to protect us
00:25:09.360 from tyrants, but they know most people aren't going to push back. It takes too long to get it
00:25:13.220 to the courts. And so while the moment lasts, they can just kind of flout the constitution as much as
00:25:18.200 they want to, and they can act as dictators. We still have the obligation under that kind of tyranny,
00:25:24.900 under these lockdowns to obey the Lord. And one thing that God calls us to do,
00:25:29.540 no matter what unconditionally is to be hospitable. Um, first Peter four and nine says,
00:25:36.140 show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Romans 12, 13, contribute to the needs of the
00:25:41.200 saints and seek to show hospitality. Those are not the only verses that talk about hospitality.
00:25:46.920 Now that doesn't mean that you have to invite the whole neighborhood to your house and kiss them on
00:25:51.220 the lips. That's not what I'm arguing, but God calls us to hospitality. He calls us to generosity.
00:25:57.680 He calls us to meet together. He calls us to encourage one another and loving good works.
00:26:02.400 And it is our obligation, our responsibility to find ways to do that as creatively, as cautiously
00:26:08.780 as we possibly can. Even under, uh, the leadership of these tiny tyrants that are flouting the constitution,
00:26:16.280 we make every effort to obey their edicts. That's what Romans 13 calls us to do. We make every effort
00:26:22.720 to submit to authorities, but we still have to obey the Lord. And so we find ways to do that.
00:26:28.820 Remember, as we talked about on Monday, separation of church and state also means, um, it also means
00:26:34.560 that the church is supposed to be protected from the state. Most people who talk about separation of
00:26:38.900 church and state just want the state and really the entire public square to be protected from religion
00:26:44.140 or any religious talk or any spirituality whatsoever. Not realizing one, that secularism is a religion.
00:26:49.720 And number two, that the church is also supposed to be protected from the state in the separation
00:26:54.540 of church and state, uh, principle. And so seek to honor the Lord, seek to glorify God in all that you
00:27:02.280 do. Uh, that includes how you gather for Thanksgiving. That includes how you gather for church. That includes
00:27:08.340 how you show hospitality, how you show generosity, how you encourage one another. This is a hard time
00:27:14.560 for Americans. I'm not going to try to trivialize that mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically,
00:27:19.500 this is a hard time for us. We haven't gone through something exactly like this at this exact
00:27:25.800 political and cultural moment. And Christians are called to step up. We're not called to hide,
00:27:31.180 as Jesus says, we're not called to, um, hide our, our light under a basket. And again,
00:27:36.560 our responsibility as Christians, our obligation to obedience is not put on pause because there's a
00:27:42.820 virus going around or because there are burdensome regulations. No, we need to step up all the
00:27:48.860 warrant. Make sure that we are ambassadors of Christ. We are the aroma of Christ. We are salt
00:27:54.380 and light. You're not going to add any flavor or any illumination if you're not salty. And if you're
00:28:01.080 not bright, uh, if you are like the rest of the world and all of your views and all of your actions
00:28:07.760 and all of your attitudes, if you are as dull as the secular world and everything that you think,
00:28:15.180 say and do, then you are not fulfilling your obligation of being salt and light for the Lord.
00:28:21.260 And now more than ever, more than ever, it is important that we do that. So again, decide what's
00:28:27.840 best for you and your family. The fact of the matter is, is that, uh, for example, if you look at
00:28:35.140 the, the school regulations that are, that are being implemented in places like New York, they had an
00:28:41.400 arbitrary positivity rate where they said, okay, this triggers a lockdown 3%. Silly. There's no
00:28:48.180 scientific data to back that up. They decide they're going to shut down schools. There are a
00:28:52.720 number of places that have decided that they are going to, uh, they're going to shut down their
00:28:59.200 schools, um, based not on science because there's a variety of sources that say, look, schools are not
00:29:07.980 the places that are the breeding ground for coronavirus. Um, the Dutch government conducted
00:29:13.500 a large study of 44,000 teachers after schools were reopened in May, much earlier than other
00:29:18.080 countries. They found those teachers had a cumulative infection rate of just 0.7%, much lower than the
00:29:24.640 total of 2% of the over 940,000 adults tested in the test lanes in the same period. And so people want
00:29:31.780 to tell you that it's to protect the teachers, uh, and it's to protect the children that schools are
00:29:38.120 remaining closed, but there's no scientific data to back that up, that that's necessary. The CDC,
00:29:42.860 the European CDC concluded that child to child transmission in schools is uncommon and not the
00:29:48.780 primary cause of COVID infection of children whose infection onset coincides with the period during which
00:29:53.860 they are attending school. A study carried out in over a hundred institutions in the UK has concluded
00:30:00.660 that there's very little evidence of virus transmission in schools. Icelandic researchers
00:30:04.980 sequenced all the, uh, all the genomes from, uh, samples of every positive case in the country and
00:30:10.240 failed to find a single instance of a child infecting parents. And so closing down schools also is not for
00:30:16.860 protection from the parents. School closure carried out in Japan did not show any mitigating effect on
00:30:21.600 the transmission of novel coronavirus infection. That is from the International Journal of Infectious
00:30:27.400 Diseases. A recent survey of over 57,000 daycare providers in the U S published in the journal of
00:30:33.460 American Academy of Pediatrics found no association between exposure to childcare and a diagnosis of
00:30:40.940 COVID-19. So this is the work of democratic politicians. This is wanting to, you know, just say
00:30:48.000 that they're doing something. This is the work of teachers unions, um, who want to flex their muscles.
00:30:54.860 They are suspending, um, holding hostage, really their, uh, taxpayer funded services in states where
00:31:02.940 there are teachers unions to be able to use it as leverage to get the other political non-educated
00:31:09.500 related demands that they have. That's how much teachers unions care about your kids. You should go
00:31:14.920 listen to last Friday's episode if you're interested in more on that. So these people that are making
00:31:21.160 decisions are not doing it based on science. The same thing with the, with a lot of the other
00:31:26.840 lockdown regulations. So much of it is not based on science. A lot of it is arbitrary. There's no
00:31:33.940 thought to small businesses. There's no thought to your mental health. There's no thought to your
00:31:37.760 emotional health. There's no thought to the constitution it seems. And so, as I say, obey everything
00:31:44.580 you can without sinning, have a positive and a joyful attitude, but be as hospitable as you can
00:31:52.600 be as much in fellowship safely as you can encourage one another. Don't neglect to do good works. Um,
00:32:01.080 do what is best for you and your family, knowing that you can be trusted far more than the government
00:32:05.860 can. That has always been and will continue to be, um, will continue to be my stance on, on all of
00:32:14.900 this. Take it seriously. It's not fake. Make your own decisions. Okay. I want to give a little bit of
00:32:33.180 an update on Georgia, just really quick. Um, so you guys have probably heard that you've probably
00:32:42.500 seen a little bit of all the craziness that's happening with the recounts and with the litigation
00:32:48.700 with president Trump trying to prove fraud. Now, a lot of the lawsuits have been thrown out. Rudy
00:32:56.760 Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, they're still positive about what's going to happen. They feel like they're on
00:33:00.620 their way to the Supreme court. They do feel that they have evidence of fraud in a variety of places
00:33:05.720 where dead people, um, were sent voting, voting registration cards. And they actually voted in
00:33:11.480 some cases where there were software glitches. And so they are going to keep fighting this.
00:33:17.620 Obviously president Trump, as you can probably tell from his Twitter, he would like to keep fighting it
00:33:21.780 as well. Uh, Sydney Powell is also an attorney that says that she has a lawsuit coming of biblical
00:33:27.840 proportions. Now, Sydney Powell was the, as the Trump lawyers made clear, doesn't actually work
00:33:32.880 for, um, for president Trump, but she was the lawyer for Michael Flynn. And she promises that
00:33:40.000 there's going to be, there's going to be a lot of evidence of voter fraud. And I think they believe
00:33:45.200 that it's going to be decisive in the way of, of president Trump. There's a lot of people right now,
00:33:50.940 uh, on the right who really think that Trump is going to win, um, that he is going to end up being
00:33:58.120 victorious in all of this. Um, it sure, anything can happen. 2020 has been crazy. 2021 could be
00:34:06.300 crazy too. It doesn't look like that's going to be the case though. There's a lot of people who said
00:34:11.460 that they prophesied that Trump is going to win and that that prophecy must come true. I saw a lot of
00:34:18.140 people typically in a particular section of Christianity saying that they got a vision from
00:34:27.040 the Lord and they know for sure they have a strong feeling that it's going to be a landslide. Well,
00:34:31.240 even if the, the cases are true, even if they're proven true, even if the fraud is proven true,
00:34:37.200 and then it's decisive, it's not a landslide. And it's always interesting how those prophecies
00:34:42.680 always are, uh, always are an indication of that person's feelings, like what they want to happen.
00:34:51.120 Um, like I haven't seen someone who is, who didn't vote for Trump or who didn't like Trump
00:34:56.520 prophesy that he was going to win. It's always someone who is diehard MAGA. Then they happen to
00:35:01.960 say that they prophesied that Trump was going to win. There's a difference between desires and prophecy.
00:35:07.980 And obviously I've talked before about cessationism versus continuationism and how I feel about that
00:35:14.740 based on scripture. Uh, but I would be very wary of political, uh, prophecies, especially when they
00:35:22.520 are given by someone who is partisan themselves. So there's a lot of disappointed people who refuse
00:35:29.380 to believe that the prophecies that they followed or that they feel that they had are not going to be
00:35:34.680 fulfilled. There's a lot of people who just, you know, that aren't in that camp who believe that
00:35:39.640 there is a fight to be fought, who really support president Trump and wants him to fight this to
00:35:44.000 the end. I am in the camp that says, sure, like fight this to the end. Let's uncover every single
00:35:48.820 instance of fraud, whether it's decisive or not. I care about the integrity of our elections.
00:35:52.740 I even said back in the day that sure, we should have an investigation into Russian collusion. I don't
00:35:57.560 want the Russians. I don't want the Russians infiltrating our elections. And apparently they did try to
00:36:02.440 infiltrate our elections, but there's no evidence whatsoever that it was decisive in any way
00:36:07.140 whatsoever. And there's no evidence whatsoever. The Trump campaign colluded with the Russians for
00:36:12.060 that. But I said, Hey, I want transparency. I want honesty. I want to know that the integrity of our
00:36:17.580 elections is secure. That's how I feel here too. My feeling is that it's still not going to be
00:36:22.880 decisive for president Trump. Even if we find out that there is fraud, even if Sid, uh, Sidney Powell says
00:36:29.060 really does show all of this evidence of widespread fraud. I don't think it's going to be decisive in
00:36:34.760 the way of Trump. Now that said, do people have a reason to be suspicious? Sure. I think people have
00:36:41.380 a reason to be suspicious. I mean, we've been hearing for the past four years, Democrats say
00:36:45.000 that they will do absolutely anything to get him out of power. And I think that there's also a reason
00:36:50.820 to kind of, um, to, to be a little bit smug about Democrats and liberal activists saying, you just
00:37:00.740 need to accept the results of the election. You're just a sore loser. When they didn't accept the results
00:37:05.640 of the 2016 election, still probably don't accept the results of the 2016 election. Nancy Pelosi was
00:37:11.380 saying in May of 2017, that the election was stolen. So Democrats and democratic media were arguing
00:37:19.380 that the 2016 election was illegitimate, that he wasn't a real president. There were city members
00:37:24.760 of Congress, Democrats saying that he was like Maxine Waters saying that he was an illegitimate
00:37:30.440 president, that we shouldn't call him president. The whole, there was this whole, not my president
00:37:34.540 movement that lasted for four years. And so spare me the sanctimonious diatribes on accepting the results
00:37:40.740 of the election. You people who still haven't accepted 2016 based on no fact whatsoever, except for
00:37:46.820 your feelings. Um, and so I don't really want to hear it from those people, but I am willing to say
00:37:51.960 as someone who did accept the results of the 2016 election, that we probably need to have some
00:37:58.000 realistic expectations about this election, that even if there is fraud, which I believe that there
00:38:03.720 very well could be fraud. I wouldn't put it past the Democrats who said that they would do anything
00:38:08.140 to make sure that Trump wasn't elected. The, the AG of Pennsylvania saying when all the votes
00:38:13.840 are counted, Trump will lose days before the election. I mean, yeah, all of that is sketchy.
00:38:18.800 All that is sketchy. I wouldn't put it past a lot of these people, especially in some of these,
00:38:24.000 um, in, in some of, uh, of these states, uh, and the people in power there, I wouldn't put it past them
00:38:31.420 to be up to some funny business. And I think that we should uncover all of that. We should investigate
00:38:35.980 all of that. I think that Trump should fight it until the end. Absolutely. But do I think it's going
00:38:41.980 to be decisive? I don't, I just don't. I think that Biden will be the president of the United States.
00:38:47.860 And I also think that Trump will concede. I think that he will transition peacefully. That process
00:38:53.200 has already started as a formality, at least. I think that he's going to transition peacefully
00:38:58.180 and that it will be, um, that it will be fine. He's not the fascist dictator that the left has
00:39:04.740 fantasized about for the past few years to make themselves feel like vigilantes for opposing him.
00:39:10.540 He's just a president that they don't like. Um, and just because you don't like a president,
00:39:16.520 it doesn't mean that he is going to refuse to leave the white house and that he is staging a coup.
00:39:21.800 That's the new, that's the new line. Um, but I am hearing some people in the Trump camp,
00:39:28.340 diehard Trump camp, because Sidney Powell has said, look, there's, there's voting fraud. There's
00:39:32.180 voting fraud that's happening, especially in Georgia. That's going to be my first target,
00:39:35.260 she says. So there are, there are people, Lynn Wood, who also works for the president,
00:39:39.620 who says, no, Georgians don't vote. You need to withhold your vote in Georgia. And, uh, because,
00:39:47.060 you know, the governor Kemp and the secretary of state, they're up to no good. They're colluding
00:39:51.540 with all of the fraudsters and the dominion voting systems. And so you need to withhold your vote.
00:39:56.900 And I've heard some people in Georgia conservative saying, oh, you know, why would we even vote if,
00:40:01.500 if it's rigged against us, you know, one way, you know, one really good way of making sure
00:40:06.880 the Democrats take control of the Senate is not voting and having that attitude. Sure. Maybe
00:40:11.960 there, maybe there is funny business. Maybe there are sketchy things going on, but one way to make
00:40:17.700 sure that you lose the Senate is to not vote. So for the love of everything, please Georgians go vote.
00:40:25.240 Like, have you seen Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff, the things that they stand for,
00:40:30.020 the legislation that the Senate wants to pass, like that is going to have a direct effect on
00:40:35.040 your life and your children's life for the worst for generations. And you are going to put what
00:40:39.620 some revenge against governor Kemp by, uh, withholding your vote. That is the most ridiculous and stupid
00:40:46.600 thing that I've ever heard in my life. I said on Twitter, I said that that's right up there that
00:40:52.740 that's withholding your vote as a Georgia conservative is among the worst ideas in human
00:40:59.680 history, right up there with communism and perms, two of the worst ideas in human history.
00:41:05.100 Um, I actually said bangs on Twitter, but some people got mad at me. And so I had to add a caveat
00:41:10.140 that some people can pull off things. I can't. And so I was just speaking out of bitterness,
00:41:14.480 but perms, I think we can universally agree. Bad idea right up there with communism and not voting
00:41:20.180 as a Republican in the Georgia election for the love people. Come on. So I don't know if there was
00:41:26.480 fraud in Georgia or there was some sketchy stuff that happened in Fulton County. And I think maybe
00:41:30.540 DeKalb County too, with some glitches, but all eyes are going to be on Georgia. It's going to be very
00:41:35.580 hard for them to get away with fraud, uh, in this one. And so please go out and vote, convince your
00:41:42.040 friends to vote, research the candidates, have lunch with your friends, have dinner with your
00:41:47.300 friends, gather with them, tell them, Hey, this is why you need to vote. These are the issues that matter.
00:41:52.700 Here's the threat the Democrats pose to our constitution and to your liberties and to your
00:41:57.440 life and to your children's life, to your children's school. And this is why you need
00:42:01.660 to vote for these Republican candidates. That's what I encourage you to do. Please don't become
00:42:06.120 apathetic. Please don't think that we have this in the bag. Please don't think that it's not
00:42:09.140 worth voting. I don't know what's going to come of these fraud, of this fraud litigation,
00:42:13.140 but this whole movement to not vote in Georgia. Wow. Like, are you a democratic operative? That's such a
00:42:20.440 silly, silly idea. So please, please vote. Please encourage your friends to vote in Georgia.
00:42:25.620 The Senate race really matters. And we'll be talking more about that in the month of December.
00:42:30.720 Um, okay. That's all I have time for. I, uh, hope that you enjoy your Thanksgiving. However you are
00:42:37.880 celebrating, if you are celebrating gathering with your family, or if you unfortunately have no
00:42:43.800 other option, but to sit at home, um, then I hope that you still enjoy that. I hope that you
00:42:50.780 at least are able to binge on some good food. I'm not really a turkey person. I'm more of a ham gal
00:42:56.160 myself. Love me some mashed potatoes. I will be making, um, I'm not gathering with a ton of people.
00:43:02.080 Okay. Just gathering with some people. And I will be making pumpkin pie and pecan pie. We'll be having
00:43:10.120 turkey, ham, and mashed potatoes. I think we'll have chocolate pie, probably green beans, hopefully
00:43:18.020 sweet potatoes, hopefully sweet potato casserole. Um, I don't know what else we'll be having. A lot of
00:43:24.840 carbs, a lot of carbs. Rolls definitely somewhere in there. Uh, I hope that you are planning to have
00:43:30.240 some good food at the very least, even if you can't gather with your whole family as usual.
00:43:35.060 Okay. A lot to be grateful for this year. Don't forget that a lot to be grateful for. If you are
00:43:40.580 alive and if you are in Christ, there is so much, so much to be grateful for forever and ever. Amen.
00:43:46.940 Okay. No episode, no new episode on Friday, but we will be back here on Monday
00:43:51.320 with a fascinating interview that I know that you will love. See you then.
00:44:00.240 Bye.
00:44:13.440 Bye.
00:44:13.520 Bye.
00:44:14.160 Bye.
00:44:14.740 Bye.
00:44:15.100 Bye.
00:44:15.640 Bye.
00:44:17.560 Bye.
00:44:19.400 Bye.
00:44:22.080 Bye.
00:44:23.580 Bye.
00:44:24.040 Bye.
00:44:25.580 Bye.
00:44:26.160 Bye.
00:44:27.280 Bye.
00:44:28.160 Bye.
00:44:28.500 Bye.
00:44:28.820 Bye.
00:44:29.440 Bye.