Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 479 ｜ Biden's 'Most Misused'： Isaiah 6

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. We've

00:00:15.660 got a whole lot. I know I say this. I say this every day because it's true. We've got

00:00:19.060 a whole lot to talk about today. We've also got a whole lot to talk about this week. We've

00:00:23.000 got two awesome interviews as well coming up. So I hope I'm able to talk about everything

00:00:27.500 I want to. I really want to talk about the eviction moratorium and what it means for the CDC's

00:00:35.640 actual power, why we should be thankful for the Constitution and thankful for the Supreme

00:00:40.580 Court, and just talking about how close we are in so many ways to tyranny. And thankfully,

00:00:46.520 we still have these barriers in place that protect us from that. So I really want to talk about

00:00:53.940 that. Hopefully, that will be on Wednesday. But I also want to talk about what's going

00:00:58.260 on in John Piper's church and why that matters to us. But today, we're going to give a brief

00:01:05.640 update on what is happening in Afghanistan. We're going to go through the servicemen and women

00:01:11.980 who died. And also, we're going to talk about Isaiah 6-8. The president, he mentioned Isaiah 6-8.

00:01:24.180 Here I am, Lord. Send me in his speech last week. And so I want to talk about that and what that

00:01:30.860 verse actually means. So it's a little bit of a most misused. If you've been here for a while,

00:01:35.640 you know that sometimes we do most misused episodes where we take a verse that is misapplied,

00:01:44.960 misinterpreted, and we talk about the context and what it actually means and how the true meaning of

00:01:51.400 these verses is so much better than when they are decontextualized and used in a way that they are

00:01:57.160 not meant to be used. So we've done, for example, Philippians 4-13, Jeremiah 29-11. And so today,

00:02:04.740 we're going to kind of do an abbreviated version of that with Isaiah 6-8. And so we'll have a lot

00:02:10.640 of theological encouragement as well. But I just want to give a brief update, at least right now,

00:02:15.780 as I'm recording this Monday morning, this is what's happening. So as I said, 13 American servicemen

00:02:24.080 and women were killed by the blast of an ISIS-K suicide bomber last week. ISIS-K is an offshoot of

00:02:32.060 ISIS, which I'm sure you've heard of before. I'm sure you've heard of ISIS. It stands for Islamic State

00:02:37.920 in Kharazan province. Sorry if I mispronounced that. They're a terrorist organization. They're

00:02:46.420 seeking to establish more power and will be doing so with the protection of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

00:02:53.580 We knew that an attack at Kabul was a possibility. Terrorists tend to seek these highly crowded areas,

00:03:00.060 these chaotic areas. And thanks to the haphazard withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan

00:03:06.440 that is causing millions to flee, including American citizens. Thanks to this administration

00:03:12.400 keeping all of our troops at the airport rather than allowing them to go into the country and rescue

00:03:16.660 our civilians and allies like other countries have. Thanks to this administration allowing the

00:03:20.960 Taliban to serve as the security for the airport. This happened. We've talked about all of

00:03:26.020 these things on two previous episodes with Rebecca Heinrichs and Morgan Ortegas. Go listen to those

00:03:31.680 episodes. If you have not already, you will get a very good and simple understanding of everything that

00:03:36.660 is going on there and why. We'll link those two previous episodes in the description to this episode.

00:03:43.640 Another thing that happened over the weekend, the U.S. launched a drone strike targeting ISIS-K.

00:03:49.020 Now, apparently, reportedly, it killed ISIS-K leaders, but very strangely, they won't say

00:03:56.820 which leaders it killed. And reports are now saying it looks like the drone also killed civilians. So

00:04:04.020 people are pointing out how bizarre it is that this administration won't release the names of the

00:04:08.620 people killed by the drone, but it reportedly did release the names of Americans and American allies

00:04:16.340 in Afghanistan to the Taliban, supposedly to ensure their safe passage, but in actuality,

00:04:22.000 putting a target on their back. So just horrible leadership all the way around. Like I said on an

00:04:27.320 Instagram live last week, yes, we can chalk a lot of this up maybe to incompetence and fumbling the

00:04:33.220 ball, but every day it gets harder and harder to do that. And it looks more and more nefarious. I

00:04:39.200 don't like to ascribe nefarious motives when you can just ascribe to them stupidity or incompetence.

00:04:46.600 But again, with every step that has been taken so far, it gets more and more difficult not to look

00:04:53.920 at this situation and see that it was an intentional disaster, at least in some ways. I'm not sure if the

00:05:02.940 goal was to cause chaos and to ensure that America is no longer trusted by its allies and ensure that

00:05:14.040 America is no longer respected as the world superpower, that this would have gone any differently.

00:05:21.100 So that's I'll leave it. I'll leave it there and I'll allow you to draw your own conclusions.

00:05:26.780 According to USA Today, quote, one day ahead of the American withdrawal deadline from Afghanistan,

00:05:33.840 the U.S. military kept up a constant flow of airport traffic in an effort to evacuate citizens

00:05:38.680 and service members from Kabul. President Joe Biden was slated on Monday morning to meet with

00:05:43.620 his national security team for updates as the operation winds down. Late Sunday, so that's yesterday,

00:05:49.640 Biden was briefed by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chief of Staff Ron Klain

00:05:55.260 on a rocket attack at Hamid Karzai Airport, International Airport. It did not disrupt evacuation efforts.

00:06:03.940 So Biden said this are set this arbitrary deadline of August 31st, that we would have all American

00:06:11.040 troops about out by then. That is tomorrow. The Taliban has said there is no wiggle room on that.

00:06:17.860 And so that is that's where we are. There are many more details that we don't have time to get into

00:06:25.140 today that a lot of people, I'm sure, will be covering. As you guys know, I can offer as much

00:06:31.420 commentary as I can when it when it gets to expert analysis. That's when I call on other people to come

00:06:37.260 on the show and give you that. And that is why I have done so over over the past couple of weeks.

00:06:44.080 What we can talk about is the loss of life. There were about 170, at least 170 Afghans that were killed

00:06:54.340 by the blast of the suicide bomber. There were also 13 service men and women. So here are the names and

00:07:02.780 a little bit about each of them. So this is according to the New York Post. Maxton Soviak,

00:07:09.080 he was 22. He was a Navy corpsman. Soviak, a Navy hospital corpsman, according to the New York Post,

00:07:15.620 hailed from Berlin Heights, Ohio, graduated from Edison High School in Milan in 2017.

00:07:21.940 The Sandusky Register reported his sister wrote on Instagram what a good kid he was,

00:07:27.200 how excited he was to serve his country. It's crazy to think that he was only two years old on 9-11.

00:07:36.280 Karim Nikuai. I'm not sure how to pronounce his last name. He was 20. He was in the Marines.

00:07:42.740 Karim Nikuai's father didn't realize that his son had been killed until he saw a clutch of Marines show

00:07:50.340 up at his door in Norco, California. That's what the Daily Beast reported. He reportedly hadn't heard

00:07:56.260 from his son in a while, but he had seen news reports that Marines had died. And apparently,

00:08:02.540 he says he had that sunken feeling that it could have been his son since he hadn't heard from him.

00:08:07.940 And then on his on the ring camera on his doorbell, he saw the Marines on his front porch. And that's

00:08:15.420 when he knew he went on Tucker Carlson tonight on Friday. And he said, quote, I'm going on about 36

00:08:20.680 hours. I believe that I've been up and I'm still in shock. So he hasn't been able to sleep since or he

00:08:28.280 hadn't been able to sleep since he found out that he had lost his son. Quote, the family is devastated

00:08:33.000 and his mother, who's an excellent mom, is doing the best that she can considering the circumstances.

00:08:38.240 Oh, I just have a lump in my throat thinking about this. The day before Karim Nikuai was killed,

00:08:43.020 says the New York Post, he sent his dad a video that showed him talking with the Afghan children

00:08:47.040 and giving them candy at the Kabul airport. Steve Nikuai said Friday that the clip put him and his wife

00:08:52.920 at ease to where we felt like, OK, he's all right. And so obviously it was after that,

00:08:59.940 a couple of days after that, that he figured out that his son had been killed by the suicide

00:09:05.400 bombers blast. New York Post says he was born the same year it started. No, actually, this is his

00:09:11.420 father saying he was born the same year it started 2001 and ended his life with the end of this war.

00:09:19.660 That's what he told the Daily Beast. David Lee Espinoza, he was 20. He was also 20. He was in

00:09:26.240 the Marines. Espinoza, 20, was from Laredo, Texas, according to the Laredo Police Department. So

00:09:32.260 he was at most a few months old on 9-11 when this all started. Riley McCollum was also 20. McCollum was

00:09:40.360 from Wyoming. He was on his first deployment. He had just gotten married. He was three weeks away

00:09:47.120 from being a dad when he was killed in Thursday's blast. He was also just born on 9-11. Jared Schmitz,

00:09:57.200 20. He was also in the Marines. Schmitz was a Lance Corporal from St. Charles, Missouri. His life

00:10:05.100 meant so much more, his father says. I'm so incredibly devastated that I won't be able to see the man that

00:10:11.260 he was very quickly growing into becoming. I cannot imagine the pain that these parents are

00:10:17.620 feeling. As parents, you want your children, you expect your children, you hope for your children to

00:10:22.480 outlive you. I just cannot even imagine the pain of knowing, of seeing that that's not going to be

00:10:30.500 the case. Hunter Lopez, 22, was also a Marine. Lopez was a corporal who hailed from California,

00:10:36.900 planned to follow in his parents' footsteps, and become a sheriff's deputy once he was done

00:10:42.240 with deployment. He was two years old on 9-11. Dagan Page, he was 23. He was also a Marine,

00:10:51.880 Marine Corporal. Dagan Page was native of Omaha, Nebraska, who loved hockey and hunting,

00:10:58.000 according to the New York Post, and will always be remembered for his tough outer shell and giant

00:11:01.340 heart. His family said on Friday, so he was three years old on 9-11. Ryan Knauss, 23, he was in the

00:11:10.320 Army. The first U.S. Army soldier identified as a victim of Thursday's attack, Ryan Knauss,

00:11:15.060 was a, quote, motivated young man who loved his country, his grandfather said on Friday. Now,

00:11:19.820 that's something that you never imagine in your wildest dreams, that you will outlive

00:11:26.000 your grandchild. And yet, that's what's happened. I can't imagine, again, this grandfather's pain.

00:11:31.420 He hailed from Knoxville, Tennessee. He had just completed psychology operations training and was

00:11:36.720 hoping to move to Washington, D.C., his stepmother said. So he was three years old on 9-11. Darren

00:11:43.540 Taylor Hoover, Jr., he was 31. This is the oldest fatality. He was the oldest victim, at least American

00:11:52.600 victim of this attack. He was also a Marine Staff Sergeant Darren Taylor Hoover, Jr., known as Taylor,

00:11:59.280 was a former high school football player from Midvale, Utah, who lit up a room when he entered,

00:12:04.620 his father told the Washington Post. He was the most loving, giving, understanding person you could ever

00:12:10.560 meet, the elder Darren Taylor told the paper. So he was 10 years old on 9-11. He is probably the only

00:12:18.700 one, I would say definitely the only one from this group of servicemen and women who has any recollection

00:12:27.500 at all of that day. Johanny Rosario Picardo, 25. She was also a Marine. Sergeant Johanny Rosario Picardo,

00:12:39.480 a native of Lawrence, Massachusetts, was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps' female engagement team,

00:12:46.580 according to local reports. Humberto Sanchez, 22. He was also a Marine. Corporal Humberto Sanchez

00:12:57.180 of Logansport, Indiana, was just four years out of high school when he was killed. We don't know

00:13:02.400 too much more about him. We do know, obviously, he was two years old on 9-11. And then we've got

00:13:09.080 Nicole G. I actually shared a picture of her. This was before she was killed because there was this very

00:13:15.480 iconic photo of her holding an Afghan child. Marine Sergeant Nicole G. loved her work, says the New

00:13:23.060 York Post, and told the world so only a week before she died. I love my job. The 23-year-old

00:13:28.540 captioned an August 20th photo on Instagram showing the young sergeant cradling a rescued Afghan infant

00:13:33.640 in her arms. G., a maintenance technician with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, was from Roseville,

00:13:41.240 California. She's roommate. She wrote this very poignant, heartbreaking Facebook tribute talking

00:13:50.920 about the fact that her car is still in the parking lot where she was. She said that she finds peace

00:13:57.620 knowing that she left this world doing what she loves and talks about what a caring and loving and

00:14:02.420 fierce person she was. Nicole was only three years old on 9-11. And then you've got Dylan Marola,

00:14:09.880 20 years old, also a Marine. This is the last one. Lance Corporal Dylan Marola arrived in Kabul less

00:14:17.040 than two weeks before he was killed in Thursday's attack, according to his older brother. His brother

00:14:23.860 says that we were notified last night. And then he tweeted a photo of the beaming Marine in fatigues.

00:14:31.640 He says, RIP and say hey to dad and grandma for me, maybe a few months old on 9-11. So this is

00:14:42.280 devastating, obviously. And we should allow the sadness just to kind of sink in and remember the

00:14:47.720 human cost to war. These are young men and women who answered the call to defend our country, to defend

00:14:54.360 our Constitution. Most of them babies and toddlers when this war began. Because of a day

00:15:01.520 all but one of them wouldn't be able to remember. They made the choice to join the Army or the Marines or the Navy

00:15:10.240 knowing it was a possibility they may die, but hoping to return home to their families and to do the things

00:15:16.080 they wanted to do, to accomplish their goals, to finish college, to get married, to start a family. Their families

00:15:21.680 knew it was a possibility they'd never make it home, but they prayed for them. They hoped for their safe return.

00:15:29.380 I cannot imagine, as I've already said, the heartache of a parent whose child is gone forever. I can't imagine

00:15:35.880 what it's like to see those soldiers show up at your door knowing what they're about to say. The dread,

00:15:41.140 that sinking feeling, knowing exactly the news you're about to hear, the news that you prayed that

00:15:47.800 you would never hear, and maybe that you expected that you would never hear. The young woman who is

00:15:52.680 about to give birth to a baby who will never meet his father, about to go through labor and delivery

00:15:59.100 without him and without the anticipation of introducing them to each other. There were also,

00:16:04.220 as we noted at the beginning, at least 170 Afghans who were killed. And while we don't know their names,

00:16:09.680 obviously their lives matter too. These are all people made in the image of God, all people with

00:16:14.320 souls that will now live forever. No matter how many lives have been lost to this war or to any war

00:16:22.460 since the founding of our country, the sting of death does not get any duller. The ugliness of war

00:16:29.040 does not fade. War is really ugly. Death is ugly. The pit that all of this gives us in our stomach,

00:16:36.680 the way it makes our hearts ache with this kind of inexplicable, almost physical pain,

00:16:43.200 the way it makes us angry. It is all an indication of something eternal, something that is set in every

00:16:51.140 human heart, that it's not supposed to be this way, that we were originally created before sin entered

00:16:57.020 this world for peace, not war, for justice, not oppression, for order, not chaos. And it makes us

00:17:04.540 long for the day when we no longer have to hear about 20-year-olds dying in war and suicide bombers

00:17:11.600 and terrorists and incompetent, wicked administrations. It makes us hope for heaven,

00:17:17.260 for the new heaven and the new earth where Christ will establish his reign on earth forever.

00:17:22.980 Everything that's happening in the world right now makes me long for that. People calling good evil

00:17:30.180 and evil good, irrationality, depraved minds, the rejection of reality and morality that we see in

00:17:36.140 mainstream culture, political divisions that I don't think can be bridged, tyranny, chaos. But at the same

00:17:42.960 time, at the same time, it's hard for me not to cling to this world and this life. That is a struggle

00:17:51.440 that we talk about a lot that I'm going to talk about more today.

00:18:00.740 So as I was talking about this kind of struggle between hoping for the future of eternity and

00:18:08.180 really wanting to cling to everything that I have now, I think it's probably a struggle that most of

00:18:13.680 us share as Christians because I, we have a lot of people and things that we love. Like I have a lot

00:18:20.520 in this life that I look forward to, a lot that I don't want to let go of, a lot that I rest my

00:18:28.120 happiness and hope in. And honestly, sometimes it is hard for me to imagine anything better than the life

00:18:35.060 that I have with the people I have in it. And my temptation is to really fret over losing these

00:18:40.780 things, to not put my hope in heaven, to not put my hope in eternity and really put my focus and my

00:18:47.360 hope in the here and the now, to put my hope in things getting better in this life, in our country,

00:18:54.220 swinging in the other direction for the better. Because I love America so much. I believe in her

00:18:59.040 so much that sometimes I just can't let myself accept that maybe she is not destined to bear the

00:19:04.900 torch of liberty and prosperity forever. That things really could continue to plummet. That chaos

00:19:11.440 could continue to grow more and more. And maybe it's good that I can't accept that because I don't

00:19:18.900 grow complacent because I do believe regardless of what's to come, I have a responsibility to seek

00:19:24.240 the well-being of my country and its citizens by standing for what is good and right and true. And I

00:19:29.360 will continue to do that with the hope that things can change. But I can't allow my hope in my

00:19:34.820 happiness to depend on that possibility of change. I have to surrender to the fact that even if all

00:19:41.860 is lost here on earth, even if America goes to you-know-what, even if we have nothing to cling to

00:19:48.200 in this life, that Christ is enough, that the hope of glory is enough, that eternity is more than enough,

00:19:55.600 that what is in store for us after this life is enough. It's enough for joy and gratitude and

00:20:01.680 contentment today, even if all of the wonderful blessings that we have right now and hope to have

00:20:06.280 in the future are no longer there. I have the propensity to worry. I worry about my kids. I worry

00:20:13.640 about my husband. I worry about myself, my work, a bunch of different things, things halfway across

00:20:20.020 the world. I worry about all of these things being okay and working together. But here are the things

00:20:31.940 that I have to consider when I worry. And they might seem counterintuitive, but I'll explain why

00:20:39.160 they do help me calm down when I'm laying in bed at night, trying to fall asleep, and I have all of

00:20:45.240 these thoughts of anxiety swirling around about things happening in my life, things happening in

00:20:50.160 other people's lives, wanting to control all these factors to make sure everything works together

00:20:55.500 how I want it to. Here are the things that I remember. Number one, number one, every single one of us

00:21:02.640 will die. Every single one of us will die. That might not sound comforting, but I'll explain why it is.

00:21:08.180 Hebrews 9.27 says that man is appointed to die. So we are all going to die. Psalm 103.14 says that

00:21:15.900 we are like dust. So we are specks on the span of eternity. We are here on earth one second. We are

00:21:21.780 gone the next. Every single one of our days were written by God before any of them came to be. So

00:21:30.920 that's the second point that comforts me. Psalm 139.16, your eyes saw my unformed substance.

00:21:37.440 In your book were written. Every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there

00:21:43.480 was none of them. So God is not waiting to see what happens to any of us. He is not contained by time

00:21:49.640 like we are. He is not moving along a linear timeline. He is present everywhere, all at once,

00:21:54.780 suspended over and intimately involved in every moment in world history and eternity. He knows and

00:22:02.200 authored every second of our lives before those seconds actually unfold. And here's the

00:22:07.420 third thing that comforts me. And I'm going to tie all of these together. Jesus said that we cannot

00:22:12.420 add a single hour to our lives by worrying. Matthew 6.27. And which of you by being anxious can add a

00:22:20.260 single hour to his span of life? So as bizarre as these comforts might seem, the reality is that we are

00:22:30.980 all predestined to die at some point in our lives. How we are to die has already been predetermined and

00:22:37.980 we cannot change how or when we are going to die by worrying about it. And no, I'm not saying that

00:22:44.420 that permits us to be foolish or to be nihilistic with how we spend our time or how we think about

00:22:51.460 life and death. Because even as God is totally sovereign over our lives, he still calls us to

00:22:56.460 obedience. He calls us to do certain things. So between now and whenever we are appointed to die,

00:23:02.780 we are called to love God and to love our neighbor. We're to do all the things right in front of us

00:23:09.580 that he has asked us to do. So he asks us to pray without ceasing, to seek him and his kingdom first,

00:23:17.460 to love our spouses, to love our kids, to love and serve our churches, to love our friends,

00:23:24.140 to work really hard, to produce things. He calls us to rest. He calls us to enjoy gifts of common

00:23:30.700 grace like food and fellowship and nature. He calls us to share the gospel, to be unafraid and speaking

00:23:36.340 and standing for what is good and right and true, to seek the welfare of those in our community and in

00:23:42.820 our country. I want you to remember that C.S. Lewis quote that we read here the other day. I'm going to

00:23:48.580 read it again because I think it bears repeating. Maybe it bears repeating every single day.

00:23:53.360 Quote, How are we to live in an atomic age? I am tempted to reply. Why, as you would have lived

00:24:00.640 in the 16th century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in

00:24:05.740 a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night, or indeed,

00:24:11.680 as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air

00:24:17.640 raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents. In other words, do not let us begin by

00:24:24.600 exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love

00:24:31.320 were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented, and quite a high percentage of us

00:24:37.240 were going to die in unpleasant ways. This is the first point to be made, and the first action to be

00:24:44.000 taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that

00:24:49.520 bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things, praying, working, teaching, reading,

00:24:54.400 listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a

00:24:58.780 game of darts, not huddled together like frightened sheep thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies,

00:25:04.000 a microbe can do that, but they cannot or they need not dominate our minds. This relates to a lot of

00:25:12.040 things that have caused people to fear and to panic today. We are not meant to. It is not obedient to

00:25:19.220 stop our lives and to hide in our homes and to sit on our hands and to spend our lives worrying because

00:25:30.040 there are threats to our safety. Now, I think there are prudent ways that we can seek the safety of

00:25:38.460 ourselves and our families and we can try to mitigate risk as much as we can, but simply hiding

00:25:44.820 from the world and spending our time anxious, Jesus already says, that's not going to add a single hour

00:25:51.420 to your life. So if we spend the next year huddled inside, refusing to live life, refusing to engage in

00:25:57.640 the things that God has called all human beings to engage in, refusing to engage in the things that

00:26:02.400 really make us human, and you die from something else that is not a virus or not one of the million

00:26:10.100 other threats that we, you know, are hearing about on the news every day, you're just going to have

00:26:15.200 wasted a year of your life and you're not going to have stopped anything. And so we are called to keep

00:26:20.560 moving forward, to keep obeying the Lord, to keep doing the things that He has called humans and

00:26:25.000 specifically Christians to do. We've talked a lot on this podcast, especially last week, about anxiety

00:26:31.160 and capacity and the limits to our knowledge and compassion, the important balance of knowing what's

00:26:38.080 going on in your community and even in the world and doing what we can with what we're dealt, balancing

00:26:44.400 that with also enjoying the here and the now and focusing just on doing the next right thing that's

00:26:51.020 right in front of us. It's a hard balance, but it gets easier when we recognize that the God of the

00:26:56.180 universe has written our days, He's numbered our days, and He is totally and completely in charge.

00:27:02.780 And so I hope that those things also comfort you when you find yourself wading through the tides of

00:27:10.440 anxiety and unable to come up for air. Remember that God is sovereign and totally in charge over all of

00:27:20.860 it. And He has called us to do certain things and not other things. And we can only do what is right

00:27:26.680 before us. We can only do what He has called us to do. All right. I want to get into Isaiah 6 and

00:27:34.420 President Biden using this in a way that was completely off in his speech last week and what

00:27:40.940 Isaiah 6 actually means and why any of this matters. Okay. So Joe Biden gave a speech last week and it

00:27:53.320 was you've probably seen it at this point. He recognized the lives that were lost and he did

00:28:03.640 see one part that I thought was compelling. I know a lot of people give him grief for this. He talked

00:28:07.620 about how his son Bo, who also served, he actually died of brain cancer after he served. But Joe Biden

00:28:15.660 talks about his son Bo a lot. Now, some people criticize him for inserting Bo into the conversation

00:28:21.380 when it doesn't really make sense or trying to distract from the conversation or subject at hand

00:28:27.040 by bringing up his son or trying to garner sympathy. But the fact of the matter is, is that he did lose

00:28:32.700 his son and I imagine that it is incredibly painful for him, even if I hope that he's not using him as

00:28:39.400 a political pawn. I hope that he's not. I will try to give the benefit of the doubt there. Some people

00:28:44.620 accuse him of doing that, but I don't doubt that his pain is sincere. I thought that the pain that he

00:28:49.780 communicated when he was talking about his son, when he was talking about the families who have now lost

00:28:55.260 their sons and their daughters and their sisters and brothers and friends, I thought that that was

00:29:01.820 genuine. Now, maybe I am naive for thinking that, you know, a 50-year politician can be genuine when

00:29:08.840 talking about these things. But in giving the benefit of the doubt, I did think that that was

00:29:12.720 sincere. Do I think that he comforted the nation at all? No, I truly do think that he is on a serious

00:29:20.040 and a very steep cognitive decline. And I think that he, and I don't think it's rude of me to say,

00:29:27.040 I think that this is factual. I think it's important to note that I think that he communicates.

00:29:31.120 Just his disposition communicates weakness. And I think that he is very old. And that's not his

00:29:38.820 fault. He is just old. And I don't think that we should elect someone this old again, especially

00:29:43.820 someone in this kind of state. And I don't think that he addressed the concerns of many Americans

00:29:49.700 about prioritizing American lives. And if there truly is a plan, if America is protected, and if we

00:29:56.520 have an administration that is actually fighting for the interest in the security of the United States,

00:30:00.580 I think most people believe right now that we don't. And that is why Biden's approval rating

00:30:05.080 has plummeted so much in the past few days. I don't know that he recovers. I don't know that he

00:30:11.740 recovers from this. Now, he said in his speech, when he was talking, you know, trying to say that the

00:30:18.500 people who have given their lives and the people who are still serving right now, that they are brave.

00:30:24.060 And he quotes Isaiah 6, 8. Here's a clip of him doing that.

00:30:29.060 Those who have served through the ages have drawn inspiration from the book of Isaiah.

00:30:34.280 When the Lord says, whom shall I send? Who shall go for us?

00:30:41.740 American military has been answering for a long time. Here I am, Lord, send me.

00:30:46.520 Here I am, send me.

00:30:50.520 All right. So obviously, he didn't write that. He is a speechwriter who wrote that. It very much

00:30:57.960 reminds me of the inauguration. There were many instances of him and others quoting scripture in a

00:31:05.820 way that was completely decontextualized and therefore misapplied. And please don't butt Trump

00:31:11.700 me. I have talked plenty of times about Trump sometimes doing the same thing, although I don't

00:31:18.460 think necessarily that you saw it in this way. And I do want to ask all of the people on the left

00:31:24.380 who are constantly and exclusively accusing people on the right of being Christian nationalists. And

00:31:30.880 the definition of that gets changed about every five seconds. Apparently, it's very malleable,

00:31:35.460 depending on the situation and the person you're talking about. Like, is this Christian nationalism

00:31:39.480 to use a verse that has nothing to do with the military to apply to the American military?

00:31:46.560 Like, is that Christian nationalism? Is Joe Biden the big Christian nationalist threat that you said

00:31:52.680 that Trump was and you said pretty much exclusively Trump supporters are? Like, I just want to be clear

00:31:58.000 on that. And I think that we should be fair. And for to be fair, on my end, I actually did see

00:32:04.880 maybe one person on the left say that, oh, see Democrats and Republicans. They're both Christian

00:32:11.020 nationalists. I don't even know if it's accurate to describe this as Christian nationalism. Again,

00:32:16.920 whatever that means. And I have sought to define that as clearly as possible on this podcast

00:32:22.160 before. And I've talked to some people about what it means and what it doesn't mean

00:32:26.980 and the goods and the bads and all of that. We won't get into that conversation right now.

00:32:32.700 But I think that we should just be able to say, wow, this was spoken like someone who doesn't know

00:32:38.140 anything about the Bible. And we can just kind of leave it at there. So let me give you some

00:32:45.440 background on Isaiah and what Isaiah actually is. And I took from a few different resources here. So

00:32:54.880 Isaiah is a prophet that the Lord called in a vision to prophesy about Judah. So in Isaiah 6,

00:33:07.400 8, the Lord is asking whom shall I send and who will go for us? And Isaiah's response was to

00:33:14.780 volunteer to say, here I am, send me. So to give you some background about the book of Isaiah and what

00:33:22.580 is happening. There was a time of peace for about 52 years. And then King Uzziah of Judah, he died of

00:33:31.880 leprosy in 739 BC. And then that was the same year that Isaiah began his prophetic ministry after being

00:33:39.840 called by the Lord. The Lord wanted Isaiah to tell Judah that, look, you have betrayed me.

00:33:49.240 You have rebelled in a time of judgment is coming. Isaiah doesn't feel like he is up to the task.

00:33:56.680 In Isaiah 6, he says, woe to me, I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of

00:34:02.140 unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. And so that is one trait that we see

00:34:07.620 in all the Lord's prophets is a trait of humility, of feeling like they're not up to the task and even

00:34:14.640 hesitant to give the message that the Lord wants them to give. Because very often we see the message

00:34:20.240 that the Lord wants these prophets to give is a very difficult message, one of judgment and one of

00:34:27.040 wrath, one of calling out sin. And we know that prophets are not often welcomed when they are giving

00:34:35.200 that kind of message because people don't want to hear about their sin. So God wants to prepare

00:34:44.200 his people for what's to come. The book of Isaiah talks about God's judgment for their rebellion,

00:34:51.180 God's judgment on the nation for their sin, and then ultimately how he is going to redeem them,

00:34:59.120 how he is going to show them mercy and show them grace, even as they have turned their back

00:35:06.340 on God. In Isaiah 6, we hear God say that they are blind and deaf to God's commands, and that Isaiah

00:35:16.760 is to go to them and to try to open their ears and to open their eyes to a message of repentance. We also

00:35:25.220 see foreshadowing in the book of Isaiah for the ultimate, for the Messiah, Jesus, who is going to

00:35:31.160 come and ultimately save both Jews and Gentiles, who is going to ultimately once and for all one day

00:35:39.220 bring total peace and safety to Israel. Israel will then, through the Messiah, the book of Isaiah says,

00:35:48.440 be a light to all of the nations. One day there will be no more rebellion, there will be no more

00:35:54.560 punishment for rebellion, there will be no more wrath on those whom God has chosen and saved. And so

00:36:02.360 what Isaiah is called to is not military service, has nothing to do with American military service,

00:36:09.900 has nothing to do with any kind of military service. We are talking about a very burdensome task,

00:36:17.120 a very dreadful task in many ways, but a significant task to bring God's message of judgment and a call

00:36:27.880 to repentance and a promise of deliverance and grace to God's chosen people and to prophesy about the one

00:36:36.380 who is to come. And so I encourage you to actually read Isaiah 6 and to read the book of Isaiah and see

00:36:43.680 that God, one, as we see in the first chapters of Isaiah, he is holy, holy, holy. That's who God is,

00:36:51.940 that is what his character is, that is the essence of who he is. He is holy, so he cannot tolerate sin

00:36:57.600 and he loves his people too much to tolerate sin and to allow them to wallow in the misery of sin.

00:37:04.600 And that even though he has every right to wipe his people off the map, and I'm speaking as a saved

00:37:11.200 Gentile. So I am speaking, when I say his chosen people, in today's context, I am talking about

00:37:16.980 his church. I am talking about all of those whom he has saved through Christ. He loves us too much,

00:37:24.700 just as he loved Israel too much to allow us to wallow in our sin, to abandon us. He has made a

00:37:30.800 promise to us today through Christ to deliver us. And so as we look at the judgment upon Israel,

00:37:38.220 because God as holy cannot tolerate sin, and we look at his promise of deliverance both then

00:37:44.460 and later through the Messiah, through Jesus Christ, we too have hope and we are put in our place just

00:37:51.980 as Isaiah was before a holy God to remember that we are but dust, that we are too unclean if it were

00:38:00.420 not for the blood of Christ that has washed over us. As Ephesians 2 says, we were all dead in our

00:38:06.040 trespasses and sins, in which we once walked, following the course of this world, following

00:38:10.540 the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

00:38:14.540 But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive together

00:38:19.200 with Christ by grace, we have been saved. So Isaiah paints a beautiful picture of the gospel,

00:38:26.020 a beautiful picture of what's to come. Ephesians 2, I think, is the best summation of the gospel.

00:38:33.600 Uh, and so this is much bigger. Isaiah 6, 8 itself, and then in its context, the book of Isaiah,

00:38:41.800 the entirety of scripture is so much bigger and better than what Joe Biden or any president or

00:38:47.100 any pastor or any leader is speaking to when they take a verse out of context and apply it to something

00:38:52.420 that is not actually there. And that's not, that doesn't just go for, uh, for someone who identifies

00:38:58.440 as Catholic or someone who identifies as, uh, as Protestant. It doesn't matter. The scripture means

00:39:04.320 what it means. There may be multiple applications of scripture, but there is one right interpretation

00:39:09.160 of scripture. And we can debate what that means, but in order to do that, we actually have to look

00:39:15.340 at the context. We have to look at the history. We have to look at the author. We have to look at the

00:39:18.800 purpose. We have to look, um, at each verse in light of scripture as a whole. That is so important

00:39:24.380 for us interpreting scripture and applying scripture. And I actually think that it is blasphemy. I think

00:39:30.400 it is a huge, um, disservice to Christianity and a huge misrepresentation of Christianity, um, when we

00:39:37.860 apply verses to something much more superficial than the profundity of the, um, gospel itself. And so

00:39:48.220 I, one good thing that I, that I think exists in all of this is that, um, maybe people will look up Isaiah

00:39:56.200 6, 8, and that God will use this for good, um, that they will look at the book of Isaiah. Maybe they'll

00:40:03.680 read the Bible for the first time. So praise God for that. Thank you. I can say thank you, Joe Biden, for

00:40:09.020 bringing up the Bible, because maybe people will look at Isaiah 6, 8. Maybe they'll look at the context and

00:40:13.440 maybe they'll, maybe they'll read Isaiah 53. They'll see the Messiah prophesied and they will

00:40:17.960 come to know Christ because the Holy Spirit can actually work through that. Um, so that could be a

00:40:24.720 beautiful thing that comes out of all of that. And I am very thankful for it. Do I think that Joe Biden

00:40:29.240 is some dangerous Christian nationalist, whatever the heck that even means? No, but I think all of us,

00:40:34.660 Republican or Democrat, doesn't matter, should be careful as far as we can, um, as far as we can

00:40:43.040 to make sure that we are, uh, reading, interpreting, and talking about scripture in a way that fits with

00:40:49.380 its context and with its intended meaning. All right. I've got, um, a little bit more, uh,

00:40:56.060 encouragement for you guys in just one second, but I've got to tell you about our last sponsor

00:41:00.280 for the day, and that is Good Ranchers. So we love Good Ranchers at our house. You guys know it.

00:41:07.820 We use it all the time. We've got steaks, we've got chicken, uh, we've got pre-marinated

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00:41:37.240 high quality meat, and, uh, they've really just perfected the whole process. You go online,

00:41:45.800 you go to goodranchers.com slash Allie, and you pick the meat that you want, and they put it in a box,

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00:42:13.000 also a really great gift. Like, if you know someone in your life who loves to grill, this would be an

00:42:17.160 awesome gift for them, especially if you buy them a subscription, because if you do that, then you save

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00:42:43.380 So the beauty of what we read in Isaiah, the beauty of the three points that we were talking

00:42:49.840 about earlier, as we remember that we are but dust, that God's great plan of redemption is so

00:42:57.140 much bigger than what's happening right now, so much bigger than us, so much bigger than all of

00:43:03.380 the things that we are worried about. And all we are called to do is to trust and obey God until our

00:43:10.000 time has been appointed to die or until Jesus comes back. The beauty in all of this is the reminder

00:43:17.520 that God is working, that He is working all things together for His glory and our good,

00:43:22.720 Romans 8.28. And that is active. He is working right now. He is not a God who comes in afterward

00:43:28.400 and cleans up the mess. Remember, He is suspended in the eternal now. He is not constrained by time or

00:43:35.120 space the way that we are. He is totally sovereign over all of it, totally in the know, totally in

00:43:41.540 power, and nothing can thwart His will. Job 42.2. Everything, even while it seems like it's falling

00:43:48.880 apart, it is actually coming together according to the Lord's sovereign will. Does that mean that He

00:43:54.520 enjoys watching sin and evil and corruption? No, absolutely not. There are things that go against

00:44:02.020 His moral will, even while His sovereign will cannot be thwarted. And that's why He promises that one day

00:44:08.700 He is going to destroy wickedness forever. He is not just sitting idly by as it seems like

00:44:16.360 evildoers are thriving and are coming into power. He has a plan to take care of all of it. That is

00:44:22.900 what we can trust in, this idea. Why does God let bad things happen? And I understand that question

00:44:29.480 because I think it speaks to an understanding of God's power, that if God really is all-powerful and

00:44:34.980 He is everywhere and He's totally in the know, why doesn't He stop bad things from happening? I think

00:44:40.020 it's a great question. The answer is, we don't know why everything bad, bad thing that happens,

00:44:47.680 happens. We don't know the answer to that. What we do know is that He cares about it and that there

00:44:53.380 is recompense coming. There is revenge that is of the Lord that is coming one day, and He will destroy

00:45:00.160 wickedness. He will destroy evil. He will reign in perfect peace and righteousness forevermore, and that

00:45:05.880 Satan will not get the last word. Everything is working together for His glory and our good, and

00:45:12.340 God's work doesn't always make headlines. It's not always trending on Twitter. It's not the thing that's

00:45:17.880 being talked about on social media or among our friend groups. It's not the thing that is being

00:45:23.100 written about by academics and philosophers at all times, and yet it is the most important thing,

00:45:29.140 the realest thing, and the biggest thing that is happening at all times. And we have a privilege,

00:45:34.940 as Christians, to be a part of that. He doesn't need us, but He chooses to use us again for His

00:45:40.980 glory and the good of His people. And so we have to ask for strength to surrender our grip on the

00:45:46.960 things of this life and to stop putting hope and to stop placing our happiness in the things that we

00:45:51.600 have or the things that we want to have and the things that we want to happen, because all of that,

00:45:56.300 no matter how good they may be, no matter how trustworthy they may seem, they are slipping away. And so we

00:46:02.920 might as well just surrender and to put our trust and to put our happiness and to put our hope in

00:46:08.960 the one thing that is sure, and that is if we are in Christ, eternity and glory and joy with Him forever.

00:46:18.220 All right. That's all we've got for today. I'll see you back here tomorrow for an awesome,

00:46:23.760 awesome conversation with, well, actually, it could be one of two conversations that are being filmed

00:46:30.060 tomorrow. So I won't say which one it is. Both of them are awesome and you will get to hear it

00:46:34.880 tomorrow. So I'll see you guys then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 30, 2021

Ep 479 ｜ Biden's 'Most Misused'： Isaiah 6_8

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