Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 331 ｜ Tiny Tyrants of Thanksgiving

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone has had a great week so far.

00:00:14.680 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

00:08:56.080 unbelievable to a lot of people that they could be slipping into death and it had nothing to do

00:09:00.040 with politics at all. She said, it's not any one specific patient. It was just a culmination.

00:09:05.420 Did it happen or did it not? Because if I were a betting woman, which I'm not, but if I were,

00:09:11.240 I would bet money that that didn't happen, that you saw a moment to go viral, which she did.

00:09:16.360 You saw a moment to go on the news, which she did. And so you created this narrative based on

00:09:22.980 what you already think about Trump supporters. And yes, there are people, probably disproportionately

00:09:28.640 Trump supporters, who think this is a hoax. There are some people who think that this is just not

00:09:34.520 real. That number of people is so small. It's so incredibly small. Most people have the attitude,

00:09:41.740 I would say on the Trump side and maybe even on the other side as well, the attitude that I do.

00:09:47.800 They say, okay, yeah, this is a virus. I know people who have been affected by it. I know friends of

00:09:52.280 friends or parents of friends who have gone to the hospital, who have been in the ICU, who have died

00:09:57.900 from it. Okay. So I'm not saying this is a hoax. I think most people see it that way, but they say,

00:10:03.440 but hang on a second. The whole person matters. Mentally, we matter. Emotionally,

00:10:08.620 we matter. Those things matter too. Going to school matters. Going to church matters. And again,

00:10:14.700 people can be trusted to do that in a way that is safe. Small businesses matter. Livelihoods

00:10:19.820 matter. Depression and suicide and child abuse rates matter. Those things matter too. But we've

00:10:26.320 been told for the past few months that we can't care about those things or else we want everyone

00:10:30.860 to die. It's absurd. It's absurd. And the most absurd part about it, which is why I think there is so

00:10:37.580 much confusion and pushback is that we have a media, like I said, who will criticize some people

00:10:44.080 for gathering for Thanksgiving. Chris Hayes of MSNBC said, you know, he doesn't know what to say to

00:10:50.640 people who are going to gather for Thanksgiving, whatever. And a few days before that, he reposted

00:10:57.160 a video of people celebrating Biden's win, some people with masks on, some people not in these mosh pits

00:11:02.840 saying, you know, people really need this right now. So people really need to be gathering in mass

00:11:08.820 gatherings in the streets, celebrating a projected Biden win. But people don't need to gather with

00:11:14.680 those who love them the most for Thanksgiving. And it's that kind of hypocrisy, the selective

00:11:21.340 outrage, the selective criticism that seems to be based completely on political affiliation

00:11:27.540 and hatred of Trump. That has caused people to flout the rules and in some cases to flout the

00:11:35.380 seriousness of it, because you see the hypocrisy of people like Gavin Newsom eating at that fancy

00:11:40.580 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.

00:12:20.900 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 absence

00:12:45.500 of truth in media reporting, people are going to fill that. People are going to fill that with

00:12:50.960 conspiracy theory. People are going to fill that with rebellion. That's just what happens. It is

00:12:56.000 bad leadership and bad reporting that has created so much of the confusion. That's not to say President

00:13:01.360 Trump and other leaders don't have any responsibility at all, because there has been some confusion in the

00:13:06.960 leadership there. Absolutely. But it is the hypocrisy, more than anything, of the elites in this country

00:13:14.180 that has created a lot of questioning by a lot of people to say, are these regulations really for

00:13:22.520 our own good? Or is it about power? Is it about politics? And people have every right to have that

00:13:29.840 curiosity. People have every right to ask that question right now. It is no one's fault, but these

00:13:36.560 liberal leaders, because they're the ones that are cracking down on these harsh regulations and then doing

00:13:42.140 something else themselves and the media, who are outraged about people meeting together for

00:13:47.320 Thanksgiving, but they're not outraged by unmasked mosh pits for Joe Biden. It is because of that

00:13:53.160 hypocrisy, because of that bad leadership, that people have decided, you know what? I'm done with

00:14:00.280 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've finally seen the light. The government has

00:14:09.880 never cared about you and your family. That's not to say all politicians are bad or all government

00:14:14.800 leaders are bad. They all go into office saying that they care and that they want to change your

00:14:18.920 life for the better. And there are some politicians that truly do. But the fact of the matter is,

00:14:23.620 a lot of them get drunk on power and they don't have any intention whatsoever of relinquishing it.

00:14:29.440 So as I said on Monday, whatever you do, don't vote to give the government more power and more money.

00:14:35.100 It never works in your favor. It never works in the favor of the government either. Like you'll

00:14:39.740 notice some of the most run down cities are led by politicians who run and win on taking care of

00:14:49.900 the vulnerable. And then they never do. They take that power. They take those tax dollars. They become

00:14:55.140 corrupt. They become drunk on power and they don't serve their constituents. It's the cycle that never

00:15:02.140 ends. So as I say, the moral of the story is not to not take the virus seriously. It's not to rebel

00:15:10.720 for the sake of rebellion against these tiny tyrants, because we should submit to authorities as far as we

00:15:18.100 possibly can without sinning. It is simply to say, you know what is best for you and your family.

00:15:25.980 And right now it is important for a lot of people to gather together. If you are someone who is

00:15:32.880 struggling mentally, if you are someone who feels like, wow, I think I've slipped into depression

00:15:37.040 or serious anxiety without even realizing it. Like I'm really struggling with loneliness and isolation.

00:15:42.720 Know that you're not alone in that. That is unfortunately a trend that has been happening for the past few

00:15:51.040 months. I know people who have been struggling in the same way. The CDC said they just released an

00:15:57.980 analysis showing a 31% increase in mental health related ER visits among children ages 12 to 17

00:16:05.380 since the lockdowns in March and even a 24% increase in the ER visits for children as young as 5 to 11.

00:16:12.400 A lot of those, they don't just have to do with anxiety and depression and isolation and

00:16:18.040 oversaturation of screens. That also is not good for mental health for children.

00:16:22.740 It is also, it's also because of increased child abuse. When you've got parents who maybe lost their

00:16:28.780 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,

00:17:40.200 on Monday, there are states that allow casinos to operate, but not churches. There are states that

00:17:44.360 allow strip clubs and abortion clinics and liquor stores to operate at least at half capacity, but

00:17:50.880 churches still have to meet outside or meet online or schools are closed down while these strip clubs

00:17:56.200 and casinos and abortion clinics are all open. It shows the backwards nature of our society that,

00:18:05.960 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

00:18:15.720 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,

00:18:27.160 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

00:18:58.460 together out of fear of government punishment because they might be imprisoned. They might

00:19:04.820 be tortured. They might be martyred for meeting together with their brothers and sisters in Christ.

00:19:09.960 That has been true, by the way, about Christians in most of human history. Religious liberty, this idea

00:19:18.780 that's really started in the West, that was a Western idea and then almost an exclusively American idea for

00:19:26.720 the past at least century or so. That has provided a respite, not just for Christians, but people of other

00:19:32.940 faiths too, to practice our faith, to gather together without fear of punishment. Right now, we're going

00:19:39.720 through it. We're getting a small, small, small taste, a small taste and a very mild taste of what it is like

00:19:46.940 to wonder whether or not we are able to legally gather together without fear of government punishment.

00:19:53.380 Well, brothers and sisters in Christ around the world have been suffering through real threats of

00:19:59.540 this for a very long time. So while we can Christians, while we are allowed to, while we don't fear

00:20:04.780 imprisonment and punishment, we need to make every effort to meet together. Again, distance, wear masks,

00:20:11.860 don't shake hands, don't hug if that's what you want to do. If you want to mitigate the risk as much as

00:20:16.960 possible, there's a way to gather together and be safe. You know better. The church knows better. You know your

00:20:26.240 congregants better than the state does. You care more about them than the state does. You can be trusted to make

00:20:32.660 the best decision for not just your family, but your church family. Hebrews 10, 24 through 26 says,

00:20:38.440 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 drawing

00:20:49.480 near. I think now more than ever, we need to stir up one another to love and good works. I think our

00:20:55.720 temptation right now is to get into fear, into bitterness, into resentment. And while I think it's

00:21:00.880 okay to have some righteous anger against hypocritical tyranny, I think that's actually healthy and very good.

00:21:06.140 I think it's very Christian historically. Protestants are the original protesters. That's where we get

00:21:13.760 our name. We have been the mortal enemy of dictators since the Reformation. Christians in general have

00:21:21.120 been a boil on the back of tyrants for our entire history. And so I think some of that righteous anger

00:21:30.060 is really good, but we have to make sure it is not characterizing our whole lives. It's not preventing us

00:21:35.540 from honoring the Lord and loving the people around us, especially our fellow members of the body of

00:21:42.160 Christ. So let us consider how to stir up one another to love and to good works. There's no

00:21:49.800 asterisk there to say, except when there is a pandemic or except when there are lockdown regulations,

00:21:56.280 there is a way to love and to do good. Even in those circumstances, the church has gone through

00:22:01.220 much harsher and harder circumstances than we are in America right now. It's important to remember

00:22:06.300 that. And God inspired this word, knowing all of those things, not neglecting to meet together as

00:22:13.860 is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

00:22:20.700 I would encourage pastors, look at the other gatherings that are happening. Look at the mass protests,

00:22:27.140 look at the riots, look at the looting, look at the people still going to strip clubs, still going to

00:22:32.040 casinos, still going to get abortions, and tell me that the church doesn't need to open its doors to

00:22:37.240 the world. The world seems a lot more passionate about meeting together than some churches do right

00:22:42.520 now. That should not be the case. Again, be as careful and cautious as you want to. I do not think

00:22:48.640 you are doing your church or your community any favors whatsoever by keeping your doors closed

00:22:53.980 when many parts of the secular world are insisting on meeting together. And this goes on to say,

00:23:04.460 encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. I saw a good tweet today,

00:23:11.180 and it was a quote by Charles H. Spurgeon. Let's see if I can pull it up. I must not have. I thought

00:23:20.000 that I had it on my profile, but I don't. But the quote was saying that life goes by moment by moment,

00:23:30.420 second by second. It's like sand in an hourglass, and there's nothing that we can do to get it back

00:23:36.740 here. Actually, I have it pulled up. Let me read it. Like sands from an hourglass, time passes. Life is

00:23:41.760 wasted by driblets and seasons of grace lost by little slumbers. Oh, to be wise, to catch the flying

00:23:47.640 hour, to use the moments on the wing. So life has not paused. We have not gotten any extension

00:23:53.660 on our life because of these lockdowns. Life is still going forward at the same pace that it was

00:24:00.920 before. We have the exact number of days that we did before the lockdown started. God says that in

00:24:07.940 Psalm 139 that he counts every single one of our days before any of them come to be. So before

00:24:13.560 we are even born, all of our days are numbered. What's happening right now doesn't pause our life.

00:24:21.160 It doesn't add a number or a certain number of days to the span that God has already preordained

00:24:27.880 before we were born. So we still are obligated right now to obey the Lord and make every use of

00:24:35.760 our time. It's so easy to say, okay, well, when the virus is over, when the quarantine is over,

00:24:40.920 when the lockdowns are lifted, first of all, I don't know if we're ever going back to normal.

00:24:46.060 People don't give up power easily. This is a way to see, and I'm not saying that this whole thing

00:24:53.420 is a conspiracy, but I do think some people in power are seeing just how far, just how much they

00:24:59.640 can get away with, just how far they can go, just how much they can oppose the Constitution,

00:25:05.580 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,

00:25:25.000 under these lockdowns, to obey the Lord. And one thing that God calls us to do, no matter what,

00:25:31.240 unconditionally, is to be hospitable. 1 Peter 4 and 9 says,

00:25:36.040 show hospitality to one another without grumbling. Romans 12, 13, contribute to the needs of the saints

00:25:41.400 and seek to show hospitality. Those are not the only verses that talk about hospitality. Now, that doesn't

00:25:47.860 mean that you have to invite the whole neighborhood to your house and kiss them on the lips. That's not

00:25:52.640 what I'm arguing. But God calls us to hospitality. He calls us to generosity. He calls us to meet together.

00:25:59.120 He calls us to encourage one another in loving good works. And it is our obligation, our responsibility

00:26:04.720 to find ways to do that as creatively, as cautiously as we possibly can. Even under the

00:26:12.540 leadership of these tiny tyrants that are flouting the Constitution, we make every effort to obey their

00:26:18.700 edicts. That's what Romans 13 calls us to do. We make every effort to submit to authorities, but we still

00:26:25.260 have to obey the Lord. And so we find ways to do that. Remember, as we talked about on Monday,

00:26:30.320 separation of church and state also means, it also means that the church is supposed to be protected

00:26:36.640 from the state. Most people who talk about separation of church and state just want the state and really

00:26:41.200 the entire public square to be protected from religion or any religious talk or any spirituality

00:26:46.080 whatsoever. Not realizing, one, that secularism is a religion. And number two, that the church is also

00:26:51.940 supposed to be protected from the state in the separation of church and state principle.

00:26:57.860 And so seek to honor the Lord. Seek to glorify God in all that you do. That includes how you gather

00:27:04.820 for Thanksgiving. That includes how you gather for church. That includes how you show hospitality,

00:27:09.840 how you show generosity, how you encourage one another. This is a hard time for Americans. I'm not

00:27:15.840 going to try to trivialize that mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. This is a hard time for us.

00:27:21.540 We haven't gone through something exactly like this at this exact political and cultural moment.

00:27:27.620 And Christians are called to step up. We're not called to hide, as Jesus says, we're not called to

00:27:33.020 hide our light under a basket. And again, our responsibility as Christians, our obligation to

00:27:38.960 obedience is not put on pause because there's a virus going around or because there are burdensome

00:27:45.700 regulations. No, we need to step up all the more and to make sure that we are ambassadors of

00:27:51.540 Christ. We are the aroma of Christ. We are salt and light. You're not going to add any flavor or any

00:27:58.180 illumination if you're not salty and if you're not bright. If you are like the rest of the world in all

00:28:06.040 of your views and all of your actions and all of your attitudes, if you are as dull as the secular world

00:28:13.820 and everything that you think, say, and do, then you are not fulfilling your obligation of being

00:28:19.380 salt and light for the Lord. And now, more than ever, more than ever, it is important that we do

00:28:25.780 that. So again, decide what's best for you and your family. The fact of the matter is, is that,

00:28:32.880 for example, if you look at the school regulations that are being implemented in places like New York,

00:28:41.000 they had an arbitrary positivity rate where they said, OK, this triggers a lockdown 3 percent.

00:28:46.880 Silly. There's no scientific data to back that up. They decide they're going to shut down schools.

00:28:52.320 There are a number of places that have decided that they are going to they're going to shut down

00:28:58.760 their schools based not on science, because there's a variety of sources that say, look,

00:29:06.080 schools are not the places that are the breeding ground for coronavirus. The Dutch government

00:29:13.040 conducted a large study of forty four thousand teachers after schools were reopened in May much

00:29:17.180 earlier than other countries. They found those teachers had a cumulative infection rate of just

00:29:22.040 point seven percent, much lower than the total of two percent of the over nine hundred forty thousand

00:29:27.220 adults tested in the test lanes in the same period. And so people want to tell you that it's to

00:29:33.600 protect the teachers and it's to protect the children that schools are remaining closed.

00:29:38.800 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

00:29:53.600 which they are attending school. A study carried out in over 100 institutions in the UK has concluded

00:30:00.660 that there is very little evidence of virus transmission in schools. Icelandic researchers

00:30:04.960 sequenced all the all the genomes from samples of every positive case in the country and failed to

00:30:10.540 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 the

00:30:21.720 transmission of novel coronavirus infection. That is from the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

00:30:27.960 A recent survey of over 57,000 daycare providers in the U.S. published in the Journal of the American

00:30:33.780 Academy of Pediatrics found no association between exposure to child care and a diagnosis of covid-19.

00:30:42.680 So this is the work of Democratic politicians. This is wanting to, you know, just say that they're doing

00:30:48.580 something. This is the work of teachers unions who want to flex their muscles. They are suspending

00:30:56.260 holding hostage, really, their taxpayer funded services in states where there are teachers unions to be able to use it as

00:31:06.140 leverage to get the other political non-educated related demands that they have. That's how much teachers unions care about

00:31:13.760 your kids. You should go listen to last Friday's episode if you're interested in more on that.

00:31:18.620 So these people that are making decisions are not doing it based on science. The same thing with

00:31:24.360 the with a lot of the other lockdown regulations. So much of it is not based on science. A lot of it

00:31:32.580 is arbitrary. There's no thought to small businesses. There's no thought to your mental health. There's no

00:31:36.960 thought to your emotional health. There's no thought to the Constitution, it seems. And so, as I say,

00:31:43.180 obey everything you can without sinning. Have a positive and a joyful attitude. But be as hospitable

00:31:51.820 as you can. Be as much in fellowship safely as you can. Encourage one another. Don't neglect to do good

00:31:59.580 works. Do what is best for you and your family, knowing that you can be trusted far more than the

00:32:05.600 government 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.

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00:35:13.120 Okay, I want to give a little bit of an update on Georgia, just really quick. So you guys have

00:35:28.400 probably heard that you've probably seen a little bit of all the craziness that's happening

00:35:33.140 with the recounts and with the litigation with President Trump trying to prove fraud. Now,

00:35:42.000 a lot of the lawsuits have been thrown out. Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, they're still positive

00:35:47.040 about what's going to happen. They feel like they're on their way to the Supreme Court.

00:35:50.660 They do feel that they have evidence of fraud in a variety of places where dead people were sent

00:35:56.520 voting registration cards, and they actually voted in some cases where there were software glitches.

00:36:02.880 And so they are going to keep fighting this. Obviously, President Trump, as you can probably tell

00:36:07.620 from his Twitter, he would like to keep fighting it as well. Sidney Powell is also an attorney that

00:36:13.740 says that she has a lawsuit coming of biblical proportions. Now, Sidney Powell, as the Trump

00:36:18.700 lawyers made clear, doesn't actually work for President Trump. But she was the lawyer for Michael

00:36:26.480 Flynn, and she promises that there's going to be a lot of evidence of voter fraud. And I think they

00:36:33.180 believe that it's going to be decisive in the way of President Trump. There's a lot of people right

00:36:38.840 now on the right who really think that Trump is going to win, that he is going to end up being

00:36:46.380 victorious in all of this. Sure, anything can happen. 2020 has been crazy. 2021 could be crazy, too. It

00:36:55.620 doesn't look like that's going to be the case, though. There's a lot of people who said that they

00:36:59.980 prophesy that Trump is going to win and that that prophecy must come true. I saw a lot of people

00:37:06.840 typically in a particular section of Christianity saying that they got a vision from the Lord and

00:37:15.860 they know for sure they have a strong feeling that it's going to be a landslide. Well, even if the

00:37:20.620 cases are true, even if they're proven true, even if the fraud is proven true, and then it's decisive,

00:37:26.980 it's not a landslide. And it's always interesting how those prophecies always are an indication of

00:37:35.540 that person's feelings, like what they want to happen. Like I haven't seen someone who didn't vote

00:37:43.320 for Trump or who didn't like Trump prophesy that he was going to win. It's always someone who is

00:37:47.540 diehard MAGA. Then they happen to say that they prophesied that Trump was going to win. There's a

00:37:53.040 difference between desires and prophecy. And obviously, I've talked before about cessationism

00:38:00.140 versus continuationism and how I feel about that based on scripture. But I would be very wary of

00:38:06.860 political prophecies, especially when they are given by someone who is partisan themselves. So there's a

00:38:15.600 lot of disappointed people who refuse to believe that the prophecies that they followed or that they

00:38:20.700 feel that they had are not going to be fulfilled. There's a lot of people who just, you know,

00:38:25.160 that aren't in that camp who believe that there is a fight to be fought, who really support President

00:38:30.140 Trump and wants him to fight this to the end. I am in the camp that says, sure, like fight this to

00:38:35.340 the end. Let's uncover every single instance of fraud, whether it's decisive or not. I care about the

00:38:39.700 integrity of our elections. I even said back in the day that, sure, we should have an investigation

00:38:44.340 into Russian collusion. I don't want the Russians. I don't want the Russians infiltrating our

00:38:48.700 elections. And apparently they did try to infiltrate our elections, but there's no evidence whatsoever

00:38:52.900 that it was decisive in any way whatsoever. And there's no evidence whatsoever. The Trump campaign

00:38:58.320 colluded with the Russians for that. But I said, hey, I want transparency. I want honesty. I want to

00:39:04.180 know that the integrity of our elections is secure. That's how I feel here, too. My feeling is that it's

00:39:10.480 still not going to be decisive for President Trump, even if we find out that there is fraud, even if

00:39:15.120 Sidney Powell says, really does show all of this evidence of widespread fraud. I don't think it's

00:39:22.140 going to be decisive in the way of Trump. Now, that said, do people have a reason to be suspicious?

00:39:28.580 Sure. I think people have a reason to be suspicious. I mean, we've been hearing for the past four years,

00:39:32.700 Democrats say that they will do absolutely anything to get him out of power. And I think that there's

00:39:38.300 also a reason to kind of to to be a little bit smug about Democrats and liberal activists saying you

00:39:48.800 just need to accept the results of the election. You're just a sore loser. When they didn't accept

00:39:53.460 the results of the 2016 election, still probably don't accept the results of the 2016 election.

00:39:58.720 Nancy Pelosi was saying in May of 2017 that the election was stolen. So Democrats and Democratic media

00:40:05.720 were arguing that the 2016 election was illegitimate, that he wasn't a real president.

00:40:12.240 There were city members of Congress, Democrats saying that he was like Maxine Waters, saying that

00:40:17.860 he was an illegitimate president, that we shouldn't call him president. The whole there's this whole not

00:40:22.200 my president movement that lasted for four years. And so spare me the sanctimonious diatribes on

00:40:28.000 accepting the results of the election. You people who still haven't accepted 2016 based on no fact

00:40:34.020 whatsoever except for your feelings. And so I don't really want to hear it from those people. But I

00:40:39.380 am willing to say as someone who did accept the results of the 2016 election that we probably need

00:40:45.660 to have some realistic expectations about this election, that even if there is fraud, which I

00:40:51.400 believe that there very well could be fraud. I wouldn't put it past the Democrats who said that

00:40:55.040 they would do anything to make sure that Trump wasn't elected. The the AG of Pennsylvania saying when

00:41:01.540 all the votes are counted, Trump will lose days before the election. I mean, yeah, all of that is

00:41:06.100 sketchy. All that is sketchy. I wouldn't put it past a lot of these people, especially in some of these

00:41:11.920 in some of of these states and the people in power there. I wouldn't put it past them to be up to some

00:41:20.800 funny business. And I think that we should uncover all of that. We should investigate all of that. I think that

00:41:25.760 Trump should fight it until the end. Absolutely. But do I think it's going to be decisive? I don't. I just

00:41:32.300 don't. I think that Biden will be the president of the United States. And I also think that Trump

00:41:37.500 will concede. I think that he will transition peacefully. That process has already started

00:41:42.480 as a formality, at least. I think that he's going to transition peacefully and that it will be

00:41:47.920 that it will be fine. He's not the fascist dictator that the left has fantasized about for the past few

00:41:55.600 years to make themselves feel like vigilantes for opposing him. He's just a president that they don't

00:42:00.580 like. And just because you don't like a president doesn't mean that he is going to refuse to leave the

00:42:08.080 White House and that he is staging a coup. That's the new that's the new line. But I am hearing some

00:42:14.720 people in the Trump camp, diehard Trump camp, because Sidney Powell has said, look, there's

00:42:19.060 there's voting fraud. There's voting fraud that's happening, especially in Georgia. That's going to

00:42:22.820 be my first target, she says. So there are there are people, Lynn Wood, who also works for the

00:42:27.600 president, who says, no, Georgians don't vote. You need to withhold your vote in Georgia. And because,

00:42:35.320 you know, the governor Kemp and the secretary of state, they're up to no good. They're colluding with

00:42:40.120 all of the fraudsters and the Dominion voting systems. And so you need to withhold your vote.

00:42:45.180 And I've heard some people in Georgia, conservatives saying, oh, you know, why would we even vote if

00:42:49.760 if it's rigged against us? You know, one way, you know, one really good way of making sure

00:42:55.140 the Democrats take control of the Senate is not voting and having that attitude. Sure, maybe there

00:43:00.480 maybe there is funny business. Maybe there are sketchy things going on. But one way to make sure

00:43:06.600 that you lose the Senate is to not vote. So for the love of everything, please, Georgians, go vote.

00:43:13.680 Like, have you seen Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff, the things that they stand for, the legislation

00:43:19.100 that the Senate wants to pass? Like that is going to have a direct effect on your life and your

00:43:23.940 children's life for the worst for generations. And you are going to put what some revenge against

00:43:29.300 Governor Kemp by withholding your vote. That is the most ridiculous and stupid thing that I've

00:43:35.800 ever heard in my life. I said on Twitter, I said that that's right up there, that that's withholding

00:43:42.140 your vote as a Georgia conservative is among the worst ideas in human history, right up there with

00:43:49.680 communism and perms to the worst ideas in human history. I actually said bangs on Twitter, but

00:43:56.000 some people got mad at me. And so I had to add a caveat that some people can pull off banks.

00:44:00.440 I can't. And so I was just speaking out of bitterness. But perms, I think we can universally agree

00:44:04.800 bad idea right up there with communism and not voting as a Republican in the Georgia election

00:44:10.180 for the love people. Come on. So I don't know if there was fraud in Georgia there or there was

00:44:16.400 some sketchy stuff that happened in Fulton County and I think maybe to Cab County, too, with some

00:44:20.080 glitches. But all eyes are going to be on Georgia. It's going to be very hard for them to get away

00:44:25.160 with fraud in this one. And so please go out and vote. Convince your friends to vote. Research the

00:44:32.460 candidates. Have lunch with your friends. Have dinner with your friends. Gather with them. Tell

00:44:36.680 them, hey, this is why you need to vote. These are the issues that matter. Here's the threat the

00:44:42.120 Democrats pose to our Constitution and to your liberties and to your life and to your children's

00:44:46.940 life, to your children's school. And this is why you need to vote for these Republican candidates.

00:44:51.620 That's what I encourage you to do. Please don't become apathetic. Please don't think that we have

00:44:55.900 this in the bag. Please don't think that it's not worth voting. I don't know what's going to come of

00:44:59.860 this fraud litigation, but this whole movement to not vote in Georgia. Wow. Like, are you a

00:45:07.280 Democratic operative? That's such a silly, silly idea. So please, please vote. Please encourage your

00:45:12.120 friends to vote in Georgia. The Senate race really matters. And we'll be talking more about that

00:45:16.680 in the month of December. Um, okay. That's all I have time for. I, uh, hope that you enjoy

00:45:23.140 your Thanksgiving. However you are celebrating, if you are celebrating gathering with your family,

00:45:29.500 or if you unfortunately have no other option, but to sit at home, um, then I hope that you still

00:45:36.840 enjoy that. I hope that you at least are able to binge on some good food. I'm not really a turkey

00:45:42.980 person. I'm more of a ham gal myself. Love me some mashed potatoes. I will be making, um, I'm not

00:45:49.060 gathering with a ton of people. Okay. Just gathering with some people. And I will be making pumpkin pie

00:45:56.440 and pecan pie. We'll be having turkey, ham, and mashed potatoes. I think we'll have chocolate pie,

00:46:03.860 probably green beans, hopefully sweet potatoes, hopefully sweet potato casserole. Um, I don't know

00:46:11.300 what else we'll be having a lot of carbs, a lot of carbs rolls, definitely somewhere in there. Uh,

00:46:16.960 I hope that you are planning to have some good food at the very least, even if you can't gather

00:46:21.280 with your whole family as usual. Okay. A lot to be grateful for this year. Don't forget that a lot to

00:46:26.760 be grateful for. If you are alive and if you are in Christ, there is so much, so much to be grateful

00:46:33.420 for forever and ever. Amen. Okay. No episode, no new episode on Friday, but we will be back here on

00:46:39.320 Monday with a fascinating interview that I know that you will love. See you then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 25, 2020

Ep 331 ｜ Tiny Tyrants of Thanksgiving

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