Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 11, 2021


Ep 349 ｜ Cutting Through the Chaos： What Really Happened？


Episode Stats

Length

55 minutes

Words per Minute

171.91386

Word Count

9,514

Sentence Count

527

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

14


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a good and restful weekend.
00:00:07.320 Maybe you unplugged a little bit and haven't been following the very stressful news that
00:00:13.220 has been coming out in an hourly basis today. We are going to get into some of that. We're
00:00:18.100 going to analyze once again what happened last week with storming the Capitol. We're going to
00:00:22.940 talk about some of the narratives surrounding that. So we're going to talk about this claim
00:00:27.440 of this was a white supremacist insurrection or this was evidence of white privilege that these
00:00:34.720 people were actually able to effectively storm the Capitol and get inside the Capitol. We're also
00:00:39.900 going to talk about the potential of impeachment and what that actually means. And then we're going
00:00:43.960 to end the episode with something that I hope is encouraging, edifying, and equipping for you guys,
00:00:49.300 which is trying to answer the question in light of scripture, what do we do in the midst of all of
00:00:53.520 this chaos, especially in light also of the tech censorship that has been going on? That's a
00:00:58.580 subject that we're going to tackle in depth tomorrow. It's a huge subject and it would, again,
00:01:04.460 stretch this episode to an hour or an hour and a half. So we'll talk about tech censorship tomorrow,
00:01:09.060 but at the end of the episode, we'll try to answer this question. All right, how am I supposed to look
00:01:14.180 at this? And what are my action items in the perspective or through the perspective of God's
00:01:21.620 word? So that's what we are going to cover today. Okay, so you guys know last Tuesday, Trump supporters
00:01:36.860 held a rally together while Trump spoke for over an hour. And then they walked to the Capitol,
00:01:43.460 mostly peacefully. But then a couple hundred people actually broke into the Capitol. And here's what
00:01:49.760 happened right before they marched from the rally where Donald Trump was speaking and then moved over
00:01:59.480 to the Capitol. And we're going to the Capitol and we're going to try and give, the Democrats are
00:02:07.400 hopeless. They're never voting for anything. We're going to try and give our Republicans the weak ones
00:02:14.080 because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride
00:02:21.000 and boldness that they need to take back our country.
00:02:33.820 So Trump did play a part in this. I keep hearing that I am scapegoating Donald Trump, that I'm putting
00:02:38.760 too much on his shoulders, that it had nothing to do with Donald Trump. Look, I don't think this had
00:02:43.180 everything to do with Donald Trump. I don't think Donald Trump is the only person or the only thing at
00:02:49.800 play here, the only factor playing into this. But of course, he did have a part in it. And not just
00:02:54.520 what he said for that hour long speech, but what he has been saying for the past two months. As I've
00:02:59.080 said, I think it's important to expose voter fraud where we think it exists. I think the legal fights
00:03:04.440 are important. I support that. I don't think that we should just look away and pretend that irregularities
00:03:10.220 didn't happen or that states like Pennsylvania didn't follow election law. But the way that Trump has
00:03:16.460 been intentionally riling people up and actually in at least implicitly encouraging people not to vote
00:03:23.900 in Georgia, of course, had some kind of effect on people's attitudes. Now, I also think that it is a
00:03:30.780 very slippery slope to say that a president talking about voter fraud or holding a rally where he doesn't
00:03:37.900 explicitly call anyone to violence or anyone to a riot or chaos saying that that is inciting violence,
00:03:46.800 then that means a lot of different kind of speech could be considered inciting violence. And I don't
00:03:53.340 think that we want to lower the standard that much, even when it comes to the president of the United
00:03:59.520 States. Now, some people, when I talk about the riots, when I talk about the storming of the Capitol,
00:04:04.960 say, you know, there was no violence. I'm talking about Trump supporters. They say this this wasn't
00:04:09.920 violent at all. Capitol police just let these people in. That's a false narrative. Well, that's
00:04:15.600 not true. I'll show you this clip of a crowd of Trump supporters trying to trample the police in front
00:04:21.260 of the Capitol. I mean, that is terrifying. Can you imagine what law enforcement felt who were on the
00:04:40.640 front lines of that? There is actually another part of the clip that we didn't play there, but there is
00:04:45.460 a police officer yelling. You can tell out of desperation, feeling like he is going to be
00:04:50.980 trampled or feeling like he is going to have his head smashed in the door. That is terrifying.
00:04:57.300 And so for people to tell me that there was no violence, there was no coercion by these Trump
00:05:02.380 supporters, you're denying reality. We have video footage of it. It's the same way that when we saw
00:05:07.920 Antifa and BLM writing over the summer and you just kept hearing people say these are peaceful
00:05:13.100 protests. These are mostly peaceful protests. I mean, it became a meme that CNN reporter standing
00:05:18.500 in front of Kenosha flames all around him, parts of the town being burned to the ground and the
00:05:24.320 chyron on CNN saying mostly peaceful, but it was like mostly peaceful, but burning protests,
00:05:31.160 something ridiculous and just seemingly paradoxical like that. That's just as ridiculous for Trump
00:05:37.680 supporters who are in support of what happened at the Capitol to say there was no violence.
00:05:42.080 This is violence. And that's just one example of the violence. Now, I will say that there were
00:05:48.060 other clips of people just walking into the Capitol and Capitol police standing by and doing nothing.
00:05:55.920 I'll show you that clip.
00:05:56.760 Okay, so that's weird. I mean, maybe those police officers thought these people are peaceful. This is
00:06:14.740 the people's house. They can just come in here. There seems that there should have been better
00:06:19.660 discernment. There should have been better leadership there. The people who were walking in at that moment
00:06:24.740 didn't seem like they were violent or that they were trying to cause a riot. But maybe there should
00:06:30.720 have been some deductive reasoning going on with the Capitol police force in that particular case to
00:06:36.620 say, okay, you know what? This probably isn't the best idea. Tensions are really high. We know that
00:06:41.280 they're trying to verify the results of the election and that these people are probably unhappy because
00:06:45.620 they're Trump supporters and their guy lost. There probably could have been some reasoning there
00:06:50.840 for Capitol police in those cases to say, we're probably not going to let people in. And they did
00:06:56.420 in some cases, but also for the people saying, oh my gosh, Capitol police did nothing. Law enforcement
00:07:02.660 did nothing. They just let everyone in. Well, that's not true too, because you just saw that clip.
00:07:08.060 Here are people walking out of the Capitol after everything happened and they were basically kicked out
00:07:13.780 by law enforcement saying, uh, next time this is not going to be peaceful.
00:07:28.240 All right. Uh, so we've seen a few clips now where the people who are trying to infiltrate the Capitol,
00:07:36.540 people who are trying to get inside, uh, not only we're not peaceful, but saying that next time
00:07:41.140 they're even going to be less peaceful. And you can see where this is coming from. Like if you truly
00:07:45.560 believe the entire election has been stolen from you and that you are completely disenfranchised and
00:07:51.700 that no one is, is listening to you. If you've been told that over and over again, and that Congress is,
00:07:58.040 is doing nothing on your behalf, then you might be, if you are of that, uh, proclivity anyway. Um,
00:08:06.220 if your anger is easily riled up anyway, you could see how that would quickly lead to people,
00:08:12.860 uh, acting, behaving and speaking in this way. The fact of the matter is, as we talked about last
00:08:18.760 week, if this hadn't have happened, if they hadn't stormed the Capitol, you would have actually been
00:08:23.120 able to hear the case laid out for election fraud from senators like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. Now
00:08:29.860 people are saying that Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, that they actually caused this, what they're
00:08:34.580 calling an insurrection, that they're to blame for violence. I think that is completely ridiculous.
00:08:39.620 We're going to get into in just a minute, democratic lawmakers, whose rhetoric could be,
00:08:44.120 if you use the same standard said to have incited violence. And so it's not a fair standard. Simon
00:08:49.500 and Schuster saying, okay, we're no longer going to have a book deal, uh, with Josh Hawley. Sure.
00:08:54.380 They are free to do that as a company, but should they do that? In, in my opinion, no,
00:08:59.860 they were, uh, they were fulfilling their duty as the representatives of some people in their state
00:09:06.440 to use lawful, peaceful, rhetorical means to lay out their case of election fraud. Now you might not
00:09:14.000 agree with what they were going to say. As I've said on this podcast, I actually, uh, was partial
00:09:19.420 to Tom Cotton's argument and to Chip Roy's argument that says, you know what, that's not really our role
00:09:25.600 as representatives and senators to try to defy the will of the electors. Um, I'm partial to that argument.
00:09:32.580 I think they lay out a good case and I wasn't really on board with Hawley and Cruz. Nevertheless,
00:09:38.480 it is their right to do that. And to say that doing something lawfully speaking in a way that was meant
00:09:45.520 to convince fellow lawmakers that fraud actually occurred in the election in a way that could have
00:09:52.240 changed the outcome of the presidential election, uh, was completely in their rights and in no way
00:09:58.660 directly incited any kind of violence, either implicitly or explicitly. So I think holding them to that
00:10:05.000 standard again, sets a really scary precedent for people on both sides of the aisle. Now, some people are
00:10:12.180 saying that this was Antifa infiltrating, that this had nothing to do with Trump supporters, that actually
00:10:17.580 there were buses of Antifa and Black Lives Matter supporters that actually dressed up as MAGA
00:10:24.020 people. And they just wanted to make, uh, you know, Trump supporters look bad. Washington Times reported
00:10:30.820 that a software company found that two Antifa BLM supporters were among the crowd. But as I talked
00:10:37.880 about last week, I, I didn't really see the, uh, validity or the veracity of that story. There was no proof
00:10:45.040 provided of that. Um, and that software company actually told, uh, Buzzfeed that that's not true.
00:10:52.900 Uh, like I said last week, the idea that this was Antifa or BLM and not predominantly Trump supporters.
00:11:01.420 And the reason I say predominantly is because is there a possibility that Antifa or someone on the
00:11:07.520 left infiltrated and decided, okay, you know what? I just want to cause chaos. I want to go scorched earth
00:11:12.620 to, of course, there's a possibility. There are people on the far left and the far right who share
00:11:17.340 common cause and wanting to see the country destroyed, wanting to start over and to build,
00:11:23.080 you know, their vision of what they think is a good country. So of course it's possible that there
00:11:28.180 were left-wing people there, but from the videos that we see from the testimonies that we hear, uh,
00:11:34.360 from the support from Trump supporters of this storming of the Capitol that I see on the internet,
00:11:39.940 I see no indication that this was some big, uh, Antifa infiltration and insurrection. I just don't
00:11:49.140 see proof, uh, proof of that. And this is not Black Lives Matter because as you can see from the
00:11:55.080 videos, uh, this is mostly white people and they don't look like Antifa either. Also a huge number
00:12:00.740 of Trump supporters. Like I said, I have seen online defending this. You would think if this wasn't Trump
00:12:06.180 supporters at all, there wouldn't be Trump supporters online saying that this was fine. Um,
00:12:11.080 again, like I said last week, this is very similar to Joy Reid on MSNBC peddling the conspiracy theory
00:12:17.820 over the summer and last year that all of the violence and the arson that we saw, uh, that we
00:12:23.680 continue to see in places like Portland, Seattle, Kenosha, Minneapolis, et cetera, were all just right
00:12:29.180 wingers, uh, dressing up as Antifa and, uh, BLM. That is a conspiracy theory. Uh, anecdotes about,
00:12:37.880 uh, the large Antifa infiltration. Uh, I just don't think amount to anything real. I think that's
00:12:46.300 also a conspiracy theory. Um, this has invited some criticism from some interesting international
00:12:55.140 characters who are looking at the unrest of the United States and saying, wow, that's really bad.
00:13:01.380 They no longer have, uh, any moral standing to criticize the rest of the world and to, you know,
00:13:08.520 slap sanctions on countries who aren't doing what they want us to do. Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela,
00:13:14.360 the vicious socialist dictator that has precipitated the starvation of its people and has jailed and killed
00:13:24.060 political dissidents. Um, he tweeted on Sunday, I shared the video that an individual disguised as
00:13:29.960 a Buffalo recorded making comments against Venezuela made before he violently entered the
00:13:34.680 U S Capitol. This shows us the madness of racism, extremism, and supremacism. Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.
00:13:43.020 I don't want to hear from you. I do not care what you have to say. One of the most wicked
00:13:49.200 dictators. This is all of this is by the way, uh, cause it's not just him. It's also, uh,
00:13:55.620 it's also the leader of Iran. It's also the leader of Saudi Arabia. Uh, it's also Russian leadership.
00:14:01.480 It's also Chinese leadership. They're all saying the same thing. They're saying, wow, this is really
00:14:06.260 bad. America is really racist. It's really unstable. It's really extremist. And you see people on the
00:14:11.300 left saying, wow, even these dictators get it. Even these totalitarian monsters understand
00:14:18.280 how terrible Donald Trump and how terrible Trump supporters and how terrible America is.
00:14:22.760 Give me a break. Like this is the same anti-American propaganda that these regimes have been peddling
00:14:29.080 for decades. And for Russia, literally a century, this is just propaganda to them. They are using it
00:14:36.600 as a way to distract from the atrocities that they perpetuate that most Americans can't even imagine.
00:14:44.380 Uh, this is, this should be scoffed at whether you are in the left or the right, you should scoff
00:14:50.120 at these leaders. They are not worried about racism and extremism in America. They are not worried
00:14:56.420 about the dangers of Trump supporters or the dangers of Donald Trump. It is all a farce. It is propaganda
00:15:02.720 that has been perpetuated for decades against America, that communists, that leftist regimes
00:15:08.880 have been pushing about anti, uh, about, uh, they would call it capitalist imperialism, or they would
00:15:16.880 call it, uh, evil Americanism or American chauvinism. That is propaganda that has been repeated and
00:15:23.780 reiterated by people on the left in the United States that really doesn't have a founding in reality.
00:15:28.600 That's not to say that there isn't any fair criticism to be leveled against the United
00:15:33.180 States, especially right now, but for these people to think they have any moral standing whatsoever
00:15:39.740 after perpetuating the kinds of atrocities that has America has never perpetuated. Uh,
00:15:47.360 and I, and I mean that like the things that are happening in the countries that these leaders
00:15:52.260 criticizing the United States are leading, uh, has never happened in the United States,
00:15:57.480 even with the horrible injustice that injustices that have been perpetuated here. So it's just
00:16:02.200 hypocrisy. If you are on the left or the right, you should roll your eyes and you should say,
00:16:06.700 sorry, we're not listening to the leader of Zimbabwe, who is even more cruel than his predecessor,
00:16:14.340 Robert Mugabe, who again has dragged his country into poverty, who has allowed genocide, who jails dissidents,
00:16:22.600 who executes people who, uh, uh, not even who break the law, but just to speak out against him,
00:16:29.280 who incite mob violence constantly. Like you have no right as a leader of those countries to criticize
00:16:35.760 the United States. This is just a way for them to peddle propaganda. Please do not fall for it.
00:16:45.040 Don't fall for it. What is happening in the United States is shameful. It is really bad. Um,
00:16:51.400 it is embarrassing in so many ways it is unstable. And yes, of course, our enemies are going to look
00:16:57.220 in and are going to say, wow, that is, that's really shameful. And that's really bad. But people
00:17:03.380 who have never allowed freedom in their own countries do not, do not have, uh, do not have
00:17:10.980 the rights to look at the United States of America, which has been carrying the torch of liberty,
00:17:15.620 almost exclusively our entire existence and say that we are, uh, we're no longer, uh, morally able
00:17:25.740 to point fingers at them. It's just hypocrisy and we should all scoff at it. Uh, now there are
00:17:33.880 articles of impeachment being filed in the house. According to CNN, the U S house of representatives
00:17:39.520 has released its resolution to impeach president Donald Trump, charging him with incitement of
00:17:43.920 insurrection, an article for which the house is expected to vote on this week. So the question
00:17:49.820 is, is this going to happen? And if it does happen, is it going to help anything? What does it actually
00:17:55.160 accomplish since Joe Biden is about to be, uh, inaugurated? Well, Senate is not in session right
00:18:01.840 now. So for the Senate to vote on this, which is now, um, going to be, I mean, it's, it's 50,
00:18:08.280 50. And so it would actually depend if it falls along partisan lines, which it might not be there
00:18:14.580 probably some Republicans in the Senate who would vote to impeach Donald Trump. But if it did fall
00:18:19.800 along partisan lines, um, we would have to see how that would actually play, play out. Um, this would
00:18:26.540 happen if the Senate actually did vote on it, this would happen about 24 hours before Biden is
00:18:32.260 inaugurated. So you might be asking what would be the point of, uh, of impeaching Donald Trump.
00:18:38.280 He would be stripped of some presidential, uh, privileges, and he also wouldn't be able to run
00:18:43.740 again in 2024. And so, and also I think that they are trying to make the argument that this just,
00:18:51.520 you know, it pushes back against Donald Trump. It makes a statement against Donald Trump. It denounces
00:18:55.480 Donald Trump, which a lot of people in Congress think is necessary. Now, is it actually going to help
00:19:01.100 things? I don't, I don't think so. I don't think it's going to make too much of a difference either
00:19:06.440 way, except that it does stop him, like I said, from running in 2024, which, um, a lot of people
00:19:12.860 left and right might be, uh, might be happy about, but people are also saying this, you know,
00:19:18.180 is counterproductive. If your goal is to unify and heal, as Biden says it is, it is not going to
00:19:23.680 accomplish that. He is going to be out in just a couple of weeks. There's no point of impeachment. So
00:19:28.980 those are the two sides to that. And I also think that there is a slippery slope, uh, argument to be
00:19:35.100 made, like a true slippery slope, not just the fallacy, um, to be said that, okay, if what you're
00:19:40.680 saying, uh, Donald Trump, if, if what you're saying, um, is inciting violence, uh, that Donald Trump has
00:19:49.000 tweeted about election fraud for the past two months, that, uh, he held a rally saying, you know,
00:19:55.060 we're going to walk to the Capitol and we're going to, you know, basically tell them who's boss.
00:19:59.300 They stole this election from us. If that amounts to what they are saying is incitement of insurrection
00:20:06.060 and is impeachable, like you can probably see how slippery of a slope that is. He didn't explicitly
00:20:12.200 call for violence. Um, he, I guess you could say maybe he implicitly inspired violence, but then
00:20:20.220 the, the waters are really muddy. Like the line is really blurry. And so, uh, how do we judge that
00:20:28.020 kind of rhetoric going forward? So if, uh, any people on the left cause violence and they say it's
00:20:35.200 because it's something that Biden said, is that then impeachable? Like how do we actually determine
00:20:41.100 the correlation and causation between someone's words who didn't explicitly call for violence and
00:20:47.320 something that actually happened that is violent? I think that's very difficult. And I think for the
00:20:51.640 sake of free speech, we need to make sure that the definition of incitement of insurrection is very
00:20:56.620 narrow and very specific. And that is to protect presidents both on the left and the right, because
00:21:01.480 you could see both parties weaponizing this against politicians and presidents, um, that they just
00:21:08.960 don't like who say things that they disagree with. You can always try to make a correlation causation
00:21:14.600 argument between what someone says and then what someone else does, but it should be a very difficult
00:21:20.660 and a very specific and narrow, uh, case to make. And I'm going to talk about some of the hypocrisy
00:21:27.020 and that, that we are seeing from Democrats in just a second. We're going to answer the question.
00:21:32.360 Um, we're going to answer the question, was this white supremacy, was this white privilege
00:21:36.740 and compare, uh, the things that the Democrats have said about other riots and violence that have gone
00:21:41.480 on in the country for the past few months and then what they are saying right now. But first,
00:21:46.560 we're going to take a quick break. All right, let's talk about this claim of white supremacy
00:22:00.780 and, uh, white privilege surrounding this. There were several articles, cable news segments,
00:22:06.580 Instagram posts claiming the reason that these people were able to get into the Capitol is because
00:22:12.080 of white privilege. Uh, here is what Biden and Harris had to say about this. Biden tweeted,
00:22:17.620 no one can tell me that if it had been a group of black lives matter protesters yesterday,
00:22:21.760 that they wouldn't have been treated very differently than the mob that stormed the Capitol.
00:22:26.140 We all know that's true and it's unacceptable. That tweet had like 550,000 likes, by the way,
00:22:33.920 this is the same kind of rhetoric that we heard from, uh, Barack Obama. And, uh, people always said,
00:22:41.640 you know, Barack Obama was so unifying. He brought us together. He never used the kind of divisive
00:22:45.780 rhetoric, uh, that Donald Trump did. Donald Trump is a lot more obvious with his rhetoric and in
00:22:50.780 particular his divisive rhetoric, his tweets have played a part in that. But, um, Barack Obama was
00:22:56.960 very subtle with his division. He was very subtle with what I would call his race baiting
00:23:02.040 and trying to, uh, divide people, not just by race, but also by class and by political party.
00:23:09.420 He would say that he's bringing people together, but in every chance, every chance that he got,
00:23:15.060 he would slam the other side. He would condescend the other side as just being, you know,
00:23:19.300 gun grabbers and, and, and, and Bible clingers and things like that. So that's what we can expect
00:23:24.720 from Joe Biden saying that he is going to bring unity and healing and then trying to make racial
00:23:30.020 divisions like this, which is only going to disintegrate us further. Here's what Kamala
00:23:34.760 Harris said in a statement. We witnessed two systems of justice. When we saw one that led
00:23:39.200 extremists toward the United States Capitol and another that released tear gas on peaceful
00:23:43.620 protesters last summer. We know this is unacceptable. We know we should be better than this.
00:23:50.160 The thing is, none of this is true. None of this is actually true. It makes matters worse
00:23:55.400 because none of it is true. Remember Minneapolis, Kenosha, Portland, Seattle, there were arson riots,
00:24:02.200 assault, almost completely unchecked. We talked about it a lot on this podcast. There were a lot
00:24:08.200 of people arrested, but most were released immediately and very few were actually prosecuted.
00:24:13.700 There's a New York times article that was released in November. Why charges against protesters are being
00:24:19.440 dismissed by the thousands. Here's what the article says, quote, prosecutors called the scale of both the
00:24:24.920 mass arrests and mass dismissals within a few short months unrivaled, at least since the civil rights
00:24:30.800 protests of the early 1960s. With the police detaining hundreds of people in major cities,
00:24:35.500 the arrests this year ended up colliding with the limitations of the court system. In the aftermath,
00:24:41.780 prosecutors declined to pursue many of the cases because they concluded that the protesters were
00:24:46.340 exercising their basic civil rights. Cases involving free speech or free assembly rarely succeed in court,
00:24:52.260 according to prosecutors across the country. And the coronavirus pandemic also played a role in the
00:24:57.160 decision. And yet the article goes on to say most charges and almost 300 federal protest cases
00:25:04.280 involve arson or assaulting police officers, as do the state and municipal cases. And yet most of those
00:25:12.140 charges were dropped. Kamala Harris even tweeted this a few months ago when Minneapolis was burning.
00:25:18.340 If you're able to chip in now to the MN Freedom Fund to help post bail for those protesting on the
00:25:24.180 ground in Minnesota, peaceful protesters, unless there was some rare exception, which I would speak
00:25:30.720 out against, were not arrested in Minnesota or in these cities. Again, if that does happen,
00:25:37.160 I am against that because I will always fight for people's right to peacefully protest, whether or not
00:25:41.560 I believe in the premise of their protest. But the people, for the most part, who were getting
00:25:46.200 arrested and who were charged in these cases, who eventually, again, were not prosecuted, were people
00:25:51.900 who were setting fire to buildings. There was a car shop in Minneapolis that was set fire. A man was
00:25:57.900 inside and he was burned alive. He died because of that. And Kamala Harris, the now vice president
00:26:03.820 elect of the United States, was tweeting shamelessly about donating to the Freedom Fund that would help
00:26:11.540 post bail for these people who were setting these fires and ruining people's lives and livelihoods in
00:26:16.880 Minneapolis. Most people have not received any kind of punishment for burning federal buildings or
00:26:22.700 private businesses. We're talking billions of dollars in damage. Someone pushed back on me about
00:26:28.380 that. It's about two billion dollars in damage in Minneapolis alone that occurred in the riots over
00:26:33.960 the summer. I mean, not to mention the rest of the cities that endured this kind of stuff.
00:26:37.820 We're talking about people's businesses, their livelihoods ruined, people who need services in
00:26:43.180 these cities unable to access them. It is always the most vulnerable that are hurt by this kind of
00:26:48.220 stuff. According to The Guardian, at least 25 Americans were killed in connection with protests
00:26:53.120 and riots last year. All but one was killed by a fellow citizen. The only person who was killed by the
00:26:58.540 police and all of the riots and the protests that happened in several cities across the country last
00:27:04.180 year, most or not most, many of them violent, was a white guy who called himself 100% Antifa,
00:27:11.500 who shot a Trump supporter in cold blood in Portland. According to the Justice Department,
00:27:16.700 700 law enforcement officers sustained injuries. And let's not forget about David Dorn, the police
00:27:22.640 chief who was black, murdered by BLM looters in St. Louis. Antonio Mays, 16-year-old boy who was black,
00:27:28.560 shot and killed in SHOP, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle, that the governor and the Seattle
00:27:36.780 government, the police, just allowed to exist with impunity until this poor young man was murdered.
00:27:43.260 Sequoia Turner, an eight-year-old girl who was black, murdered by Black Lives Matter writers after
00:27:48.200 Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed in Atlanta, a man who was armed, by the way, with a taser.
00:27:53.040 Here is her mom after she was murdered as they're trying to find the suspect.
00:28:23.040 She was shot in the back of her car in a parking lot. Like her parents didn't take her to this
00:28:36.240 riot. Her mom was driving. She was in the car trying to turn around as they were getting somewhere.
00:28:42.500 And Black Lives Matter writers who were rioting and demonstrating, protesting, if you want to use
00:28:49.440 more generous terms, because of Rayshard Brooks, again, an armed man that was shot and killed by the
00:28:56.240 police, reached into their car and shot this eight-year-old girl point blank and killed her.
00:29:03.800 This is not whataboutism. I'm not trying to say that this in any way minimizes or excuses what
00:29:10.220 happened at the Capitol. I think what happened at the Capitol was absolutely egregious and that the
00:29:14.420 people there should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I'm just trying to say
00:29:19.260 that let us not, because what happened at the Capitol is egregious, forget about what happened
00:29:24.600 in the lives that were lost over the past few months and the Democrats, including Kamala Harris
00:29:28.300 and Joe Biden, that did nothing about it, that said nothing about it specifically, never called
00:29:33.320 out this violence by name. Maybe some vague platitudes about, oh, we don't want violence. But I
00:29:38.760 always think specificity and naming names is important and Democrats fail to do that time and
00:29:45.000 begin. So who is on the line, is my question, for these lives that were lost? Whose rhetoric do we
00:29:51.020 blame for those lives being lost? Whose rhetoric do we blame for that violence? Who gets thrown off
00:29:56.660 Twitter for that? Is Black Lives Matter held accountable for that? Are they charged with inciting
00:30:02.860 violence? And what about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who tweeted this a few months ago, quote,
00:30:08.080 protests are supposed to make people feel uncomfortable? This is in the midst of people
00:30:11.880 being murdered by rioters. Oriana Presley, who said on MSNBC, there will be, quote, unrest in the
00:30:18.400 streets as long as there is unrest in our lives. These are after these people have been murdered by
00:30:23.640 rioters. What about all the MSNBC commentators saying riots are just the voice of the unheard?
00:30:29.520 Chris Cuomo on CNN, we played the clip last week asking, who says protests are supposed to be
00:30:35.620 peaceful? What about the Democratic mayors and the governors who allowed this to happen,
00:30:40.920 who allowed CHOP in Seattle to flourish and to grow with impunity until someone was murdered?
00:30:50.160 Like, do we hold the Democratic Party on the line for that? Did Kamala Harris visit Sequoia
00:30:54.900 Turner's family the way that she visited Jacob Blake, the man who was armed with a knife at his
00:30:59.840 ex-girlfriend's house where he was violating his restraining order that was issued because he had
00:31:05.580 sexually assaulted her in front of her kids? Are we saying her name or David Dorn's or Antonio
00:31:12.300 Mays' name? Are their names being worn on NFL players' helmets? Why not? Ask yourself that. Why not?
00:31:21.980 Because it's a farce. It's a farce. BLM and its related causes have raked in $10 billion,
00:31:29.180 according to The Economist, in donations since May. And reportedly, its chapters across the country have
00:31:34.160 seen none of that money. They are lining their pockets. The city of Detroit is suing Black Lives
00:31:41.080 Matter for civil conspiracy, not just because of property damage and disturbing the peace for rioting
00:31:45.880 while rioting, but also for allegedly purposely issuing false statements about police officers
00:31:52.680 in the city. I just want to know who in the media, on social media, in Congress, in the Black Lives Matter
00:32:00.640 and their organization, in their leadership gets held accountable for that damage and that violence
00:32:05.740 and those lives lost. The stories and Biden and Harris, soon to be our president and vice president,
00:32:14.980 their statements about Black Lives Matter being treated more harshly than Capitol rioters does not
00:32:21.400 tell the whole story. And therefore, it is divisive. It is unnecessary.
00:32:26.800 There are also people comparing certain pictures of Trump supporters getting through the Capitol that
00:32:32.940 we showed already with pictures like this, pictures of the National Guard standing ready for the Black
00:32:39.820 Lives Matter protests that happened in June there in D.C. But anyone can take one picture, compare it to
00:32:47.920 another picture and say, this tells the whole story, but it doesn't. Why aren't they showing a picture
00:32:52.980 like this from the New York Times that shows how many police were there that were actually guarding
00:32:58.440 the Capitol? There was eventually heavy police presence at the Capitol building, but there were a lot of
00:33:05.760 very bad decisions that led up to the lack of security that clearly had nothing to do with race, and I will
00:33:12.940 prove that. The D.C. mayor, Mayor Bowser, actually rejected more police help. A letter to the Justice
00:33:21.060 Department that Bowser wrote and then tweeted out said this, Metropolitan Police Department are
00:33:27.260 coordinating with its federal partners, namely the U.S. Park Police, U.S. Capitol Police, and the U.S.
00:33:33.040 Secret Service. She also said that 340 of the D.C. National Guard had been activated to address the
00:33:40.540 upcoming protests, but she stood against that. This was before, right before all of the riots and the
00:33:48.700 Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, she said Metropolitan Police Department is trying to get
00:33:53.480 more help. They're trying to call the National Guard, but she said, look, we don't want that. She said,
00:33:58.360 the District of Columbia is not requesting other federal law enforcement personnel and discourages
00:34:03.620 any additional deployment without immediate notification to and consultation with MPD if such
00:34:10.220 plans are underway. So she said, you want to send more help because people were expecting protests on
00:34:16.320 January 6th. The mayor of D.C. said, we don't want your help. And so that was one thing that happened.
00:34:23.180 That was one reason for the lack of security at the Capitol. The Democratic mayor of D.C. said,
00:34:29.240 we don't want and we don't need more help. Also, the FBI and National Guard both offered assistance,
00:34:35.820 reinforcements to Capitol Police on January 3rd, but Capitol Police themselves turned them down.
00:34:41.620 Capitol Police said that they were worried about the optics of active duty or National Guard troops
00:34:46.980 being deployed against Americans, which is what happened in June with Black Lives Matter. And so
00:34:52.740 National Guard and FBI said, we again, we want to help. We think that there's probably going to be
00:34:58.260 some problems there. There's probably going to be some unrest. So let us have a presence there.
00:35:02.680 Capitol Police said no. Capitol Police Chief Stephen Sund was only expecting a peaceful rally. So he
00:35:09.520 rejected more help. So it doesn't seem like race had a role in this. It seems like really bad leadership
00:35:16.340 had a role in this. The D.C. City Council passed a measure to limit police force on June 8th after the
00:35:24.560 June 2nd protests and riots. So after Black Lives Matter set fire to the streets and rioted in D.C.
00:35:30.880 over the summer, the District of Columbia decided that the problem wasn't with that violence, but the
00:35:37.880 problem was actually with the police reaction to the violence. And so they passed a measure to do what
00:35:44.560 they could to neuter the police. It banned the use of tear gas and chokeholds, which, by the way, as we've
00:35:50.680 talked about on this podcast, as an expert talked to us about on this podcast, that chokeholds, when done
00:35:56.200 properly actually can save lives, save lives because it stops the use of lethal force to restrain a
00:36:03.900 violent suspect. And so this was a decision that was made very hastily. And that's exactly what the
00:36:09.800 Metropolitan Police Department said in the statement, that this measure actually harms the police because
00:36:16.980 it stops them from being able to do their jobs well. But if you want to know why less force was used
00:36:23.660 on these demonstrators and these rioters who were Trump supporters, that more force was used on them
00:36:30.400 than the force used on Black Lives Matter, it's not just because of the bad leadership of the
00:36:33.740 Metropolitan Police Department and Mayor Bowser. It is also because the D.C. City Council said, OK,
00:36:39.360 you can't do what you did to Black Lives Matter on June 2nd. There was also a federal problem here.
00:36:47.580 Democrats, according to the Federalist, blocked a resolution condemning mob violence. Here's what the
00:36:52.180 article says, quote, Thursday afternoon, this was a few months ago, Democrats killed a resolution aimed
00:36:57.840 at curbing mob violence. Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, introduced the bill after a
00:37:03.240 man in Utah was mobbed, then shot by a group of rioters. The non-binding resolution offered a statement
00:37:10.720 of support for peaceful protesters and law enforcement who do their job well, while condemning violence and
00:37:17.140 the destruction of monuments across the country. Democrats blocked that resolution. They blocked
00:37:22.500 that measure in Congress. Now they're very angry about mob violence. They didn't care about it a
00:37:28.640 few months ago. They didn't want to do anything in Congress to actually stop it. Now, amidst all of
00:37:34.120 this, eventually, last Tuesday, the police did crack down. Not only were arrests made, but a woman was shot
00:37:40.700 and killed by Capitol Police. A white Air Force veteran was killed by Capitol Police. No one was
00:37:46.420 killed, thankfully, by police in the D.C. Black Lives Matter protests or riots over the summer. The
00:37:53.800 Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is calling for rioters to be prosecuted. Everyone who assaulted an
00:37:59.460 officer, damaged property, broke into the Capitol with force, who broke the law, should be prosecuted,
00:38:06.320 again, to the fullest extent of the law. A police officer also died from his injuries. So that is
00:38:12.800 tragic. The situation was absolutely terrible. People should be charged. They should be put in
00:38:18.320 jail for the crimes they committed. It's an awful situation. All I'm saying is that we should be
00:38:23.160 consistent. We keep hearing 93% of the Black Lives Matter protests were peaceful last year. Okay,
00:38:30.040 well, 99% of Trump rallies and protests are peaceful. But that's not really the question, is it?
00:38:35.240 No one said that everyone who marched with Black Lives Matter is a criminal. I certainly don't
00:38:39.060 believe that. I will fight for Black Lives Matter's right to peacefully march and protest all they want
00:38:46.000 without fear of brutality or restraint or punishment, whether or not I agree with every part of the
00:38:51.940 premise of their protest. The point should be that the 7% of Black Lives Matter demonstrations and
00:38:57.980 Antifa protests or riots that were not peaceful represent real lives and real livelihoods lost.
00:39:05.140 And almost no justice was served for this. The 1% or less of Trump rallies that have turned into
00:39:11.180 violence represent real lives lost and real property damaged and real danger threatened.
00:39:17.400 We can't judge all of Black Lives Matter by that 7%. We can't judge all Trump supporters by what
00:39:22.640 happened either. We also keep hearing that everyone who voted for him is complicit. So is everyone who
00:39:28.400 voted for a Democrat complicit? And what's gone on in Democratic cities across the country? Are you
00:39:33.440 complicit if you voted for a Democrat in the ripping apart of babies in the womb because you voted for
00:39:39.900 the party that you know supports that? There's a better case to be made that you are complicit in
00:39:46.520 the murder of babies for knowingly voting for that than it is that blood is on the hands of everyone,
00:39:53.540 all the 75 million people who voted for Donald Trump because there were a couple hundred thugs who did
00:39:58.200 something that they shouldn't have done. And so all I'm asking for is consistency. I'm not asking for
00:40:04.840 whataboutism. I'm not saying that we should say one is worse and one is not. But what I'm seeing is a whole
00:40:10.620 load of hypocrisy, especially from some people on the right who condemned the left-wing riots, but think that
00:40:16.980 this is totally fine. And then from a whole lot of people, a whole lot of people on the left who all of a sudden
00:40:23.060 have a problem with mob violence, but haven't had a problem with it for the past few months because
00:40:27.600 they agree with that cause. They agree with the reason why that violence is happening. We've talked
00:40:33.200 actually about the misinformation and the false premises of the demonstrations, the left-wing
00:40:38.420 demonstrations that happened last year. All I'm asking for is a little bit of consistency. I don't
00:40:45.100 want to hear that this has to do with white supremacy. This has to do with white privilege. Clearly,
00:40:49.020 it doesn't. The facts don't show that at all. All you're doing is looking at decontextualized video
00:40:55.180 versus decontextualized video, comparing those two things and saying, see, this is white supremacy,
00:41:00.760 white nationalism, and white privilege. It's clearly not. There are other reasons why there was a lack of
00:41:07.260 security and why what happened last Tuesday happened that have nothing to do with race. And the insistence
00:41:12.580 upon making it about race by our president and vice president-elect is just going to make matters
00:41:19.660 worse. And they're never going to be held accountable for their rhetoric. Why? Because they're Democrats.
00:41:24.780 That's how it works. Okay. Now into what we actually do about all of this craziness.
00:41:34.160 Some people are saying that I'm not asking people to do enough, that I'm asking people to
00:41:41.840 sit on their hands and just sit back and watch things happen. You know that that's not true. I
00:41:49.040 wouldn't have this podcast if I thought that that was the case. I wouldn't talk about how much I love
00:41:55.240 this country and how much I love liberty and how much I care about the preservation of the Constitution
00:42:00.460 and our republic if I thought that the best option was for us to sit back and do nothing.
00:42:07.660 But my emphasis has been on what I call the subtle resistance of radical obedience to God.
00:42:17.740 And what I mean by that is that obeying God is resisting tyranny. Early Christians faced far greater
00:42:27.200 threats than we are now facing. Christians around the world right now are suffering physical,
00:42:32.400 emotional, spiritual pains that we here in America still cannot even fathom. As we've talked about
00:42:38.640 before, free speech and religious liberty are the exceptions in history, not the rule. And now I think
00:42:45.280 for the sake of all people, we fight for it. We vote for it. We do everything we can to preserve
00:42:50.940 these things. They have been an amazing gift of common grace that God granted to the West,
00:42:58.820 and in particular America over the past few centuries. But listen, and I know this is going
00:43:04.220 to sound crazy to some people, but for those who trust in the sovereignty of God, you know that this
00:43:10.220 is true. The gospel is not advanced nor hindered by our right to free speech. God does not need policy
00:43:17.540 to display his power. The church is not shrunk or expanded by religious liberty. I know that sounds
00:43:24.640 crazy. Can God use these things as gifts to advance his kingdom? Yes, but he does not need them. God and
00:43:33.080 his will are not deterred one centimeter by the chaos that's going on, or unfortunately the tyrannical
00:43:39.980 crackdown on free speech that we have seen since then, and the possible tyranny that's coming.
00:43:46.420 Listen to this, Psalm 2, 1 through 6.
00:43:49.720 Why do nations rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the
00:43:54.780 rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us burst their
00:43:59.340 bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them
00:44:04.720 in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, as for me,
00:44:10.280 I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. The Lord is sovereign over our governments. He is not
00:44:18.860 surprised. He's not thrown back. He's not wondering what's going to happen. A lot of people are scared
00:44:23.880 that the chaos that has been waged, not just last week, but over the past few months, is going to
00:44:29.460 end in a whole lot of censorship and tyranny, that it's going to give the soft totalitarians on the left
00:44:36.380 and excuse to try to control even more aspects of our life, that they are going to be more radical
00:44:43.180 than ever and pushing the legislation and policies that they want that will strip away many of our
00:44:50.360 civil liberties. That is the fear. As a reaction to the real chaos and the real crimes that were
00:44:56.140 committed last week, that Democrats, even those that condoned the violence that have been happening
00:45:01.400 for the past few months, are going to say, see, we really need to take control of this. Conservatism
00:45:06.060 is a threat. All 75 million people who voted for Trump are a threat. All speech is somehow an
00:45:12.100 incitement of violence, and they're going to use that as an excuse. They are using that as an excuse
00:45:16.400 to say, we can't hear opposition anymore. This is the exact kind of tyranny that C.S. Lewis talks about,
00:45:25.640 the tyranny that is exercised supposedly for the good of the populace. That is the most cruel,
00:45:32.160 he argues. And what I'm trying to argue is that obeying God and trusting the sovereign God is
00:45:38.680 resistance to that kind of tyranny. Psalm 37, 10 through 13 says, in just a little while,
00:45:45.020 the wicked will be no more. Though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there,
00:45:49.480 but the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. The wicked plots against
00:45:53.680 the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his
00:45:58.740 day is coming. No tyrant, no amount of tyranny is any match for God. And you want to know why tyrants
00:46:04.780 and tyrannical ideologies hate Christians and Christianity so much, as I've said many times
00:46:10.300 on this podcast, because we are a thorn in the side of tyrants simply by refusing to bow down to their
00:46:15.020 idols, refusing to trust in their power, refusing to submit to any rule that opposes God's rules.
00:46:21.180 So what do we do? What do we do in the midst of this? What does this actually look like?
00:46:27.520 We obey God. And I know that's frustrating. That's a frustrating answer for a lot of people,
00:46:31.980 but hang with me for just one more second. First Peter 1, 3 through 7 and 14 through 16 says this,
00:46:38.280 blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy,
00:46:41.960 he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
00:46:46.560 dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, that is undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
00:46:52.300 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
00:46:57.260 time. In this, you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various
00:47:03.000 trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes,
00:47:08.020 though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor the revelation of
00:47:13.800 Jesus Christ. Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully
00:47:20.380 on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children,
00:47:25.140 do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who calls you is holy,
00:47:29.860 you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy.
00:47:36.840 So people say, well, that's it. You're just, you're just called to do what God has always called
00:47:41.400 Christians to do. You're just called to holiness. You're just called to obedience. You're just called
00:47:45.200 to sober-mindedness. You're just called to boldness. You're just called to loving God and loving your
00:47:50.140 neighbor. There has to be more than that. No, that's it. You just obey God. William Wilberforce
00:47:57.340 was just obeying God when he led the charge against slavery in England. Corrie ten Boom was just obeying God
00:48:03.780 when she was providing refuge for the Jews from Nazis. Bonhoeffer was just obeying God when he was
00:48:10.180 speaking out against Hitler's regime. Mother Teresa was just obeying God when she was advocating on
00:48:15.440 behalf of the poor and oppressed. All of these people were doing, were loving God and loving
00:48:20.760 their neighbor. They were doing what God has always called Christians to do. They were ceaseless in
00:48:26.120 prayer. They were consistent in their love, their joy, their gratitude, believing, sharing, living out
00:48:31.440 the gospel. All they were doing was being obedient into the world. It looks radical. For Christians,
00:48:36.820 it's normal. And it did lead them to what we now regard as acts of history-changing courage.
00:48:47.800 But all they were doing was what Christ has called all of his disciples to do, denying themselves,
00:48:54.500 taking up their cross, and following Christ. And so what do you do? We wake up every morning and we
00:49:01.540 open our Bible, we open our heart, and we pray that God would help us love him and love our neighbor,
00:49:08.280 that we would love God so much that we will do anything he asks of us, that we will be as
00:49:13.300 uncomfortable as God wants us to be, that we will say exactly what he wants us to say, that we will do
00:49:18.400 exactly what he wants us to do, that we will go exactly where he wants us to go. And you know what
00:49:23.460 that might look like some days? That might look like loving your family. That might look like changing
00:49:29.140 diapers with joy. That might look like extending grace to your husband when you don't want to.
00:49:33.720 It may look like working harder and with more integrity than anyone else at your office.
00:49:38.260 It might look like sharing the gospel with your coworker, or it might look like speaking up to
00:49:43.420 your son's school board about the dishonest and postmodern and counterproductive curriculum that
00:49:48.860 they're learning in school. It might look like setting up a meeting with your pastor and your husband
00:49:53.220 and the elders to talk about the questionable theology that's been coming from the pulpit.
00:49:57.080 It might look like you speaking publicly about an issue that you've been scared to speak about.
00:50:01.820 It might look like you refusing to bend your language to the hyperpolitical correctness that
00:50:06.380 forces us to bear false witness about God's creation of biological gender. It might look like those
00:50:10.820 things. It might mean that you're no longer nodding along when your friends say things that you know is
00:50:16.280 not good or right and true. It is always unconditionally a refusal to conform to culture and an insistence
00:50:23.880 upon conforming to Christ. It is a refusal to accept, tell, or tolerate lies. It means fighting
00:50:31.500 for truth in every area of our own lives and becoming absolutely and explicitly resistant to
00:50:38.440 every form of deceit. That means if you hear me say something false on this podcast, if you hear me say
00:50:44.960 something that is not true or misleading, it means that you write me an email and you message me and you
00:50:49.280 tell me why. Now, do it kindly or else I'm just going to think that you're a troll. But tell me when
00:50:55.780 I say something that isn't true or isn't complete because I am committed along with you not to live
00:51:01.320 by a lie. And Steve Day said something on this podcast last week that really convicted me that there are
00:51:07.160 so many cases where we don't want to know the truth because it makes us uncomfortable. So we won't
00:51:12.040 research it. We won't look into it. For a lot of you, for a lot of people out there who you truly are
00:51:17.620 compassionate and you want to help your friends and you want to be as empathetic as possible,
00:51:22.940 you won't actually look into what the Bible says about gender and sexuality. Or you won't actually
00:51:29.800 look into the numbers, for example, about racialized police brutality. You won't actually look into the
00:51:35.040 facts about claims about systemic racism or critical race theory because you're afraid it's going to put
00:51:39.900 you in opposition to people that you love. Digging into the truth, and I'm not saying that I have all of
00:51:45.280 the answers on either of those things either. But we've talked about them many times. We've dug into
00:51:49.940 them many times. There are things in my own life I don't want to know the truth about because it makes
00:51:53.880 us uncomfortable. I think as Christians who want to conform to Christ, that we are not afraid of the
00:51:59.340 truth, that we commit ourselves to searching for it. And so if I get off path, if I am saying something
00:52:05.160 that is not true, as people who are also committed to not living by lies, I want you to tell me.
00:52:11.260 And I want us to talk about this because my promise to you is that I will never intentionally
00:52:16.460 lie to you. That doesn't mean that I haven't made mistakes or that I haven't failed or that I haven't
00:52:21.080 told a story that was incomplete or that I have never let bias cloud something that I say because
00:52:26.440 of course I have. I'm a finite being and I fail, but I pray every day that I would never say something
00:52:31.840 that is not true. Now, some of you listening on the other side of the aisle, you're like, wow,
00:52:35.420 well, you're failing at that every day. Sure, to you. And we might disagree on some of those
00:52:40.280 things, but that is never my intention. And I want you guys to hold me accountable. And I try to
00:52:44.840 hold you accountable too by doing my best. And again, I fail often because I'm a finite human
00:52:50.780 being who sins, but I'm trying my best to tell you that which is true. It will mean refusing to
00:53:00.840 believe in false theology, weighing everything against God's word. And I just want to give this,
00:53:06.640 I'm going to talk about it a little bit tomorrow and then we'll be done. Once again, long episode.
00:53:13.260 Disinformation divides. And right now when there's so much tech censorship and conservatives
00:53:20.020 and Christians are going to our, you know, alternative forms of social media, you can bet
00:53:27.320 that there are going to be people capitalizing on that, trying to share disinformation,
00:53:32.360 trying to spread conspiracy theories, trying to fear monger. Now there are things to be concerned
00:53:38.900 about and scared of. Sure. But there are people who are going to capitalize on your fear, who are
00:53:44.360 going to tell you that, which isn't true, who gain attention, gain followers, and may even gain money
00:53:51.440 from trying to scare you and whip you up into a frenzy about certain conspiracy theories. My prayer is
00:53:57.740 that especially as Christians, I can't, you know, I care more about the church than I do about
00:54:02.420 conservatism, that we would be as discerning as possible. That we would be able to distinguish
00:54:06.660 from a conspiracy theory, that which isn't true, and that which is true. And that God would give us
00:54:13.260 a spirit of wisdom. Try not to fall into the rabbit holes. Try to, try to distinguish the truth from a lie.
00:54:22.800 And if it's theological way, everything against the word of God. It's a very difficult time that
00:54:29.200 we are living in as a country. I think we see even more difficult times on the horizon. But our
00:54:35.340 commitment to truth, our commitment to the truth of God's word, our commitment to having faith in the
00:54:41.720 sovereignty of God, it keeps us sane. It keeps us grounded. And the hope that we have in heaven
00:54:46.240 keeps us joyful. May the world look at the church and say, why are they so happy still? Why are they
00:54:53.000 so joyful? Why are they still loving their neighbor? Why are they still so generous? Why are they still
00:54:56.940 so hospitable? Why is there still something so free about them, even though they're worried about
00:55:03.860 their earthly freedoms? Why does there seem to be some kind of internal freedom that is emanating from
00:55:09.240 the church? Why is that? And the answer, of course, is Christ in the gospel. Let that be our testimony.
00:55:16.260 Okay. That's all we've got for today. I will see you back here tomorrow.