It appears that the live stream is now going. Hello, Facebook and later on any and all streaming platforms you might be capturing this on. It's Originating Live on Facebook. We're going to be talking about a whole bunch of civic-related kind of topics today, but all from a biblical, theological framework. That's the goal anyway. That's always the goal, right? Well, usually the goal is to talk about biblical theological things and we drift into civic discussions. We're going to try to flip the tables on that. So anyway, if you have comments, please feel free to share them, but we won't be able to interact with you live because I'm going to be busy taking care of the recording for the radio show. But I always respond later on. Usually I don't get responses on Facebook actually, but I get comments on other social media platforms and I'm always happy to interact until you cross the line. You got a mouse with a tail this time. Yes, that should work better. Welcome to the Faith Debate on News Radio 930 WFMD. Thanks for spending part of your Sunday morning with us here. As we're here every week and if this is your first time, well, you're in for a treat. Not sure why, but I just feel like saying that. You're in for a treat every week, 9 o'clock to 9.30 on Sunday mornings. You're in for a treat. My name is Troy Skinner. I'm the pastor of Household of Faith in Christ. You can find everything I'm about online at HouseholdofFaithinChrist.com. I'm joined this week by Imran Razvi and Daniel Razvi. They co-pastor a church in Thurmont called The Church That Meets at Imran's, and they also run a ministry they founded quite a number of years ago now. It's called Conquered by Love and their website is conqueredbylove.org. Conquered by Love Ministries and the website is conqueredbylove.org. So we've tackled a lot of really heavy theological things in recent years. We actually went through some and tried to digest and process what was being said in these tomes, right? These theological tomes about all the key issues in the world. And before we got into all that, though, we spent a lot of time talking about what's going on in the world and what Christians and what the Bible would tell us. how Christians should understand all that, interact with that, what should our policy positions be on certain things, that sort of thing. And so we're kind of pivoting back to those sorts of discussions today. So some of these, we've got a list of like five or six different things we're going to hope to cover during a single recording session. For those who are on the outside looking in, we tend to record a whole bunch of shows kind of at one time. in show arcs, as they call them. And most of these were instigated by side comments that were made by somebody on the panel. Most of them were Daniel Razvi's side comments, and I said, ooh, let me write that down. I'm good that way. Yes, you are good that way. I said, let me write that down. That'll be a good show topic one day. I think one of these maybe was a David Forsey thing, but he's not here to comment, so we can just bludgeon his position to death, whatever it might have been. And perhaps one or two of these is my, I don't know, I'm not sure, but I think most of these actually were Daniel's. I don't know if they were suggestions for shows, but they were things he brought up that others thought, ooh, that could be a good suggestion for a show. So I'll be curious to see what we all have to say, particularly Daniel. So the first thing we want to talk about is drugs. I wish I could do, like, with my mouth, an egg-cracking sound effect and then the sizzling. Remember those commercials back in the day? This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Yeah. Drugs. Should they be legal? Now, I know when I was much younger, much, much, much younger, my mother had this to say about drugs. She said, don't do dope because it'll make you a dope. And it stuck with me, as corny as it is, it stuck with me. And so I was never big into drugs, you know, I'll have some alcohol, you know, don't want to count that as a drug. And I've had some pharmaceuticals prescribed by physicians when I was ill, don't want to count that as a drug. Or given my audience in the studio, Imran, this is for you, I've had my fair share of sugar, which I know some consider to be a drug. So guilty as charged, however, I've never been too big on thinking about what the policy positions should be about drugs. Most of my life, I had kind of a libertarian philosophy about it. Like, you know, hey, if somebody wants to go be comatose, stoned high on whatever their drug of choice is in the basement of their house for days on end, whatever. I don't know that it's the government's job to worry about that for them, but maybe I'm wrong. uh... i do see the damage that's caused by it and so should the government or what if it's not the government what entity so again the question is drugs should they be legal so and now we have a big epidemic of fentanyl and you got the walking dead now in most of the country with fentanyl that uh... mixed with horse tranquilizer and all sorts of nasty stuff and it really makes you people just stand there like they're dead but standing upright it's crazy I wonder if that's what I saw. I wondered. Does it happen maybe in flashes or they're standing there dead for a long time? Both. Because I was driving with my wife the other day going to a store in Frederick. And we turned a corner and there was this guy with like a, I think it was a bicycle or maybe a little motorbike or something off to the side. And he was staring down, almost like in a frozen, slightly cockeyed, like he was ready to tumble over into the road. And we're like, is that guy okay? And so we drove past him slowly to make sure we wouldn't hit him. I could, my wife was the one driving, I could tell she was thinking, should I stop? Like, do we need to go help this guy? And so she slowed down to like five miles an hour, and all of a sudden we noticed, like, he came back to life, if you will, and stood upright and then started walking. I said, what the heck was that? You think it was fentanyl, maybe? Yeah, probably. Wow. Yeah, there's a, there's fentanyl mixed with something else that's been going around that I've seen on the news a few times about that type of thing. I guess to answer the policy question, we should first figure out what does the Bible say about it. And a lot of people, I've heard proponents of drugs say, God gave us every green herb. every green herb for us, for our benefit. All of it is created by God, right? So it shouldn't be useful for all purposes. And I think a lot of the drugs that are used in extremely small doses can be used for anesthesia and things like that or for certain health benefits. And I don't want to make this into a discussion on the benefits of CBD oil and all that because I don't really have a lot of knowledge in that area. I just know there's a lot of proponents of that, back pain and all these things. I think there is a lot of biblical teaching on drunkenness. I think that's probably a really good analogy because when you're under the influence of drugs, it can be very similar and in many cases worse than the influence of alcohol, depending on the drug and what you're doing and how it's affecting you and so on. And I think my position on alcohol would be that the Bible does not prohibit you from drinking alcohol, it just says, don't be drunk. And, you know, then there's all sorts of people that argue, well, even a couple sips is going to make you feel the effects and make you impair your judgment and all that. And so we can go off on that tangent as well. But I think just as a general principle, the biblical, and something that I think most Christians should be able to agree on, is the Bible condemns drunkenness. Some Christians would go quite a bit farther. It says the Bible condemns alcohol as well. I'm not one of those. I think Jesus did drink wine, not grape juice, as some would say. But I think, don't be drunk, and I think that can apply to other drugs, to marijuana, to cocaine, to fentanyl, to anything, to mushrooms. And I think there are certain types of drugs that do open you up spiritually to demonic influence. I think a lot of the hallucinogenic drugs are going to invite spiritual attacks in ways that you may not want, or in many cases that some of the people that are doing them, that are proponents of them, they do want. That's if they're more in the occultist gleaning. As far as what the government should do about it, I don't know. I mean, I think, I come back to, my principle is what was prohibited in scripture for people, and then what was the government supposed to enforce? Because there are many crimes, and according to scripture, you're an adulterer if you look with lust. Those adulterers were not condemned to death under the law, only ones who actually physically committed adultery, even though God is clarifying, you know, you're just as worthy of hell as somebody who committed the act, if you're thinking about it. that doesn't mean for thinking about it, you're going to be killed on this earth or punished on this earth. And I think there's a lot of sins and vices that are like that. There isn't much in scripture about penalties, like civil penalties for drunkenness. There is the one example of, you know, parents can bring out their son and say, well, he's He's a drunkard and a glutton, and he doesn't obey. He's of no benefit to society and all this, and then they stole him. So there's a specific isolated case or law about that. But by and large, I don't see a lot of micromanaging people's behavior that's in a biblical light that the government should be doing. I think there's things you should do to live honorably before God, and then there's other things the government should enforce, mainly as it affects other people immediately so. Right, there should be consequences. I'm more of a libertarian in that respect as well, and biblically as well. You have access to all those, the government should be involved, but if you make an impact on somebody else's life, or their freedom, or their enjoyment of life in any way, then you've got to make recompense. And that brings us into the other topic we're going to talk a little about, which is jail and incarceration. And neither one, I believe, is biblical. But in this situation, if we had a system where we would actually have people make recompense for something they did while they were intoxicated or under the influence, that would be sufficient. And then if you want to be whacked out in the basement and do that and ruin your life and ruin your family, I don't think it's the government's job to regulate that. The government tries to babysit us way too much. They really want to put pillows all around us and make sure we don't walk around in public without bumping into anything. Yeah, I'm glad that Daniel was very quick to make sure we want to frame this. But what does the Bible say about it? Because if we do it just based on popular opinion these days... Again, a story about me and my wife. We were having to wait in the car. We chose to wait in the car. We went to place an order for takeout. And he said, oh, it's going to be like 15, 20 minutes before it's ready. I said, OK. So I walked around the strip mall that surrounded that restaurant a little bit. And after like 5, 10 minutes, there really wasn't anything that was interesting for me to walk into and check out. So I thought, OK, this is a boring strip mall. Let me go wait in the car. So we sat in the car and we waited. So we were there for like, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes waiting. And during that time, more people, there's a dispensary in that strip mall. More people by far went in and out of the dispensary than every other store in the strip mall combined. It was shocking, actually. We didn't know what it was at first. What is that store? They're doing bang-up business. Like, look at that place. Like, every 30 seconds, somebody's walking in and coming out of that store. What is happening? So you didn't go in to find out? Well, then we saw there was a security guard stationed outside of us. Like, what the heck is that? And then I think my wife was the one who said, oh, it's one of those marijuana places. I was like, oh, you're right, it is. So if we went on popular opinion, oh, it's totally fine, no harm, no foul kind of a thing. I would agree with pretty much everything that's been said so far. So we've got to figure out if we can wrestle something to get more of a debate going, I don't know. I think the debate would be in some of the grayer areas around the fringes of where positions are. I don't think anybody disagrees that drunkenness is bad. Even non-Christians probably would say drunkenness is not a good thing, and all Christians are going to agree that being a drunkard is not a good thing. There are some, though, that will have gradations, like being a drunkard might mean you're habitually drunk, you're like Otis from Mayberry on the Andy Griffith show, or you're just constantly, everybody knows you're the town drunk, and you have that reputation, and that's what it is to be a drunkard. You shouldn't be that. But if your metabolism can handle one or two glasses of wine within, let's say, two hours, but you have three glasses of wine and you start to feel the effects a little bit, you get just a little bit... tipsy or warm or whatever, however you want to describe that feeling, that that's okay because you're not really drunk. And even if you are, you're not a drunkard, you're just in that moment hyper-relaxed, let's put it that way. And then there's others, of course, who go so far as to say you shouldn't touch it and grape juice is okay. And I agree with you. There's not a biblical defense for that, honestly. I mean, if it was... The argument that's made is that the word is the same for grape juice or for wine. But look at the effects that are happening. The context of the passages seemed to indicate it was actually wine. Yeah, and Noah sure did get rather drunk on grape juice. You know, I mean... And in fact, there's passages in the Old Testament that say when you go on vacation, you get your tenth of all your... So by the way, and maybe this is another topic, I think there's a biblical precedent for spending 10% of your gross income on vacation. I think that there's a vacation tithe in the Bible. It has to be a God-honoring vacation tithe. I don't think I've ever heard that before. Did you make up that term, vacation tithe? The term vacation tithe, maybe I made it up, I don't know. You coined a term. But there's several different tithes in the Bible, as you know. There's a tithe that you give every year to the Levites, and there's a tithe you give every three years to the poor, and then there's also a tithe every year for one of the feasts, you take 10% of all of your increase, and if you go to Jerusalem to celebrate, and if it's too far to take all your physical increase with you, you turn it into money, and then when you get to Jerusalem, it says, spend it on whatever your heart desires, whether it be wine or strong drink, specifically. So, not just wine, but also strong drink. Wow. I'm going to look that up. I would caveat that any sort of analogy to the modern times that we make with that, it would definitely have to be a God-honoring vacation. I don't recommend you take a 10% and go to the strip club. Right. Okay. But – Well, yeah, you shouldn't go to the strip club regardless. Yeah, don't take any money for that. But – Yeah. That passage, the reason I bring it up, is because it mentions strong drink as something that would be acceptable to use at least in a certain celebratory occasion, which I thought was interesting, and I think that kind of flies in the face of the people that say, well, the wine just means grape juice. Well, how do you deal with strong drink? Yeah, I think there's no restrictions on drugs. We talked about drugs. I don't see any restrictions. There are restrictions on behavior. There are restrictions on not being in control of your senses and behaving inappropriately or behaving in a manner that is dishonorable or not proper. And if you hurt somebody, then you're responsible, whether you meant it or not. Because even if you killed somebody by accident, you never had any ill intent towards them before, you're still guilty of murder, but you have a sanctuary city to go to. Yeah, we're touching upon the spheres of government, really, and usually you talk, and when you talk about the spheres, there's three that are mentioned, but I always like to include a fourth. So, you know, because I think the government has control over certain things, right? The church has control over certain things. The family has control over certain things. And I argue, this is the fourth one, that the self is to have control over certain things. And so I think this falls into the context of a self-control measure. And if you can't control it, I think the first line of defense is your family to say, like, you know, in your family, you know, if Imran's getting, you know, lit every night on his favorite, you know, alcoholic beverage, Daniel's going to say, Dad, Come on. You're like the leader of the family. You can't be doing that. The family's going to hold you to account, I would assume. And that's what we talked about briefly, and maybe we'll talk about it some day in more depth on the show, about honor and shame and the idea of collective guilt is maybe a good way to understand it. Societal, you know. uh... it you for your for your family right and we don't really have that kind of feeling in this country every as well he that's his problem if he's if you might and he's a good this and that that's his that's not me that's isn't it we feel some of it through sports that's my team we won we won now you have nothing to do it in practice you want to be looking for a single test out but we want to honor that's brought to the family into your plan to whatever and i think that's actually a good thing uh... and i i agree that will be a week uh... to impact now how do you implement that in society it does not have collective honor shame uh... i don't know uh... i think he he hears an interesting uh... crippled throwing if we're gonna say okay so what you do in the privacy of your home with the uh... You know, the alcohol or the cocaine or the fentanyl or whatever, shrooms, whatever you want to do, that's your business, that's not in my business. What do you then say to somebody who says, oh yeah, well then can I call myself a girl too, in the privacy of my home? Can I have a gay relationship in the privacy of my home? Can I kill my baby in the privacy of my home? So maybe we can argue, well that's a different person, now you're affecting another person specifically. The homosexual relationship, there is a specific command in scripture, and it does say this is in purview of the government, is to punish any form of fornication, heterosexual or homosexual, and there is a death penalty for all of that. So they're not singling out gay people, it's those men and women too. But that's something that Especially right now, and I think this is very relevant, because a lot of conservatives are saying, well, you can't train as a kid. But what you do as an adult, consenting adult, if you just want to hold yourself out as a woman, I mean, I don't have to call you a woman, but you can dress in a dress, that's okay, put a dress on, no problem with that, you're not hurting me. And I think that's because of confusion over what the spheres of authority and control over different things are. So if the person – all of those things, I think – maybe I missed one or two that I wouldn't include, but I think every single thing you listed there as the kinds of things that a libertarian mindset would say, hey, to each his own. The Bible, you know, God tells us those things are bad, right? Avoid those things. In all instances, there's never a situation where dressing up as a woman and holding yourself out as a woman is okay. There's never a situation where homosexual acts are okay. So keeping it on, you know, the drugs and alcohol theme, if you want to get completely wasted every single night, you know, you're sinning. Right. And so that's where your friends, your family are going to step in, hopefully, and have like one of the, what are those meetings called? The accountability meetings. Intervention. They have an intervention, right? And if that fails, and they're church people, you can go to the leadership of the church or mature people in the faith and say, can you get involved and help here? Because this person needs help to understand that they're sitting against God, they're sitting against their family, they're sitting against all that's right, true, good, and beautiful. And the church can exercise some discipline if it's found that they are an unrepentant drunk and they refuse to stop being a drunkard. Well, then Matthew 18 comes into play and you exercise church discipline to try to call them to their senses. All of that aside, we usually don't talk about that stuff. because we don't really have family value anymore. We have it takes a village value these days. And there is no self-control. It's never my fault. It's always somebody else's fault. And nobody goes to church or cares what the church has to say. So all we're left with are the civic powers, the civil magistrates. And what is their role? It sounds like all of us, unless I'm misunderstanding, all of us are saying, yeah, there's a role for all those other things to be involved But there's not really a role for the civil government to be involved unless they do damage to somebody. And then big reparations is a big word these last few years, right? Reparations, the word we should be focusing on is restoration. We should have a restorational justice system so that if I do something that's harmful to you, I should restore things. And that's what you're talking about, right? You go drunk driving and you hit somebody's car, well, they should fix it. So we're all on the same page on that. And you kill the person. Now they can't earn an income. Now you need to be providing for their family now because they can't provide for their family. They're not alive anymore, right? There are consequences to acting under the influence of any substance. And that's much better than actually going to jail and sitting there and nobody wins. Yeah, and we're going to talk more specifically about prison and jail in next week's show. We've only got a couple minutes left in this show. Here's the dilemma then. Let's say we all agree this is normally regulation of drugs and alcohol is more family and maybe the church, but for sure not the government. Well, what do you do with the fact that those spheres of influence aren't existing anymore? You only have the government. So is it incumbent on the government to step in because these other institutions are not doing their job? And that would be the argument that people make for welfare, right? Well, the church should really be providing the charity. They're not, so therefore the government should provide it. And now that the government is providing it, the churches say, well, we don't have to because you can just get on the government benefits. So now you have that problem. And I think it's a big problem. It's growing. And we have roles and we have lanes we're supposed to stay in for a reason. And sometimes a ridiculous argument is best understood by a ridiculous example. Those who would argue that, well, if the husband's not doing what he's supposed to do as a husband, he's not providing a paycheck to support his wife, for example, then the government has to come in and do that. Okay, well, if the husband's not fulfilling his husbandly duties in the bedroom, does the government have to send somebody in there to go have sex with his wife? Of course not. That's not the role of the government. The government shouldn't be having sex with your wife. So we all have our lanes and our roles of responsibility, and we need to be held to account. Because one person, somebody doesn't do it, doesn't mean you can get this usurpatory authority in another way, in another area. We talked about that with women pastors previously. Because there are no qualified men to lead the church, it still doesn't mean you can have a woman pastor. Now, the one thing you said earlier, and I made a note because I wanted to, and we have a couple, we have like 90 seconds if you can just give me a quick reason, because I'm not sure I see a difference from somebody being open to demonic activity if they're just completely plastered on alcohol versus being stoned out of their mind on some other pharmaceutical. I think certain drugs do have a specific hallucinogenic effect, and there are some spiritual aspects of that that are not present in normal. So the hallucinogenic part of it. I think that when you're opening your mind up to hallucinations and... So you're really annoying all the Native Americans right now? That's specifically what they're doing with the peyote, is seances. I don't have a problem saying that, yeah. I mean, that's what it is. It's inviting demons to come possess you, and walking in the spirit world. And they'll say that they're walking in the spirit world. The Bible says it's possible. It says don't do it. It is possible to do. You should be filled with the Holy Spirit and be in communion with God. That's a good distinction, I think. Stay away from that hard stuff. It's funny how the hard stuff has changed over the years. you know, just a little, little tyke back in, like, the, you know, the 70s. The thing that was talked about on TV, all the cops and robbers shows, you know, heroin was the big scary drug. And in the 80s, you know, cocaine and crack was the scary drug. And in the 90s, I'm not sure, transitioned into some other, I forget what, and then, you know, fentanyl eventually. Well, pills were a big deal, too. Meth, right. Meth was a thing. And then the pain-killing drugs, the Oxycontin and Oxycodone stuff, that was very in vogue, and now it's Fentanyl. And it'll be something else next year, probably. There's always some new thing that we're trying to destroy ourselves with, all in the name of fun. Isn't it fun to destroy ourselves? We need Christ. Without Christ, that's all meaningless. So next week, we are going to transition into jail, whether there should be jail systems, prison systems, that sort of thing. And Imran is right. There's a logic to our progression here. So we talked about drugs and illegality or legality of that, and then what you should do about the incarceration of people or what the penalty should be. Imran Razvi, Daniel Razvi. Again, you can find them online at conqueredbylove.org. They co-pastor the church that meets at Imran's in Thurmont. I'm Troy Skinner. You can connect with me either through WFMD.com or through HouseholdOfFaithInChrist.com. Now that's more keystrokes. But it's worth it because there's a whole lot more stuff that's related to the ministry, the show, me, social media links, all that stuff. There's a lot more content and stuff at HouseholdOfFaithInChrist.com as it relates to the faith debate than you can find on WFMD.com. And that's not a slate to the radio station's website. I have an entire website dedicated to the stuff that is important to me that I'm involved with. I've got one page on WFMD's website because they have other pages. I'm not sure why. They only need the Faith Debate page, but they've decided to have other pages. So anyway, we're going to pick up our conversation where we're leaving off this week next week, about 167 and a half hours from right now. Till then, God bless. Turn off the silence. Years ago, this would start recording as soon as audio was sensed. So you'd hit record, but it wouldn't start recording until some sound happened. Now, as soon as you hit record, it starts recording. So I always have to trim a few seconds of silence off the front end, and while I'm at it, I double-check the back end. Yeah, some of those strict old-school kind of Baptist types or the really strict pietist elements within the church are the ones that would say, you know, grape juice only. Yeah. And if they could make their case from the Bible, I'd be right there with them. But you just can't. You just can't. All right. Drugs. Should there be any? And then the next topic, in case the jail thing doesn't take almost a half hour to talk about, the next thing is related as well, profiling, particularly police profiling. So let's see, OK. You're looking mighty tired over there, my friend. Me? No, I'm not. I'm tired. Yeah, you're looking tired. Only one of us was up at 3 AM. You're up at 3 a.m.? I was flying back from a trip. Oh, you were up at 3 a.m. You're the one that should be tired. Yep. This is my normal wake time. Yeah, this is your second wind time. Yeah. I've noticed at the beginning. And last time it was too agreeable. We need some discord to keep me awake. Yeah. I'm wondering if David would have agreed or if he would have brought some discord. Probably not. Do you think that Steven would have brought some discord on this? He's a little harder core on some of this stuff, maybe. I don't think so. Not on this, I don't think. Yeah. All right. Let's see. Hit OK. Oops. File does not exist. You want to continue. Now what do I do? Oh, I clicked the wrong button. Duh. Alright. Welcome to Faith Debate on News Radio 930 WFMD. I'm Troy Skinner, the host of the show and the pastor of Household of Faith in Christ, online at HouseholdofFaithinChrist.com. Of course, you're listening to WFMD and you can find the station online as well, WFMD.com. Imran Razvi and Daniel Razvi, you can find them online at conqueredbylove.org. They're the co-pastors of a church in Thurmont called The Church That Meets Imrans. If you were listening last week, you had the pleasure of us really entering into a lot of fisticuffs. We were arguing, it was a real throwdown. Actually, there's a lot of agreement. That's the Mandela effect for you. I'm sorry, I didn't have your mic on. Say it again. That's the Mandela effect for you. So, we were talking about drugs, whether they should be legal or not, and all of us took a, politically a lot of people would refer to as kind of a libertarian point of view, but I would argue it's the biblical point of view, and it's an area where the libertarians accidentally kind of get it right. Because their worldview isn't necessarily biblical, you know, but even if a plant squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while. And so now the piggyback on the drugs and it should be legal question is jail. Should they be legal? Should we have jails? Should there be a prison system? I took this kind of question for granted most of my life. uh... of course there should be of course of course there should be jails what you're talking about what kind of questions that that was in the question i was asking right was a question people resting on me so i just went along with what the societal norm is my whole life has been jails you know you watch the old uh... cops and robbers movies are the cowboy in india movies and there's a sheriff in town and he takes away the guy's guns and he puts him in jail like they had jailed back in the eighteen hundreds of course jail around for And then you start really asking the question as you're reading the Bible, and there are jails in the Bible, but the question is, are the jails that we find in the Bible prescribed by God? Are they supposed to be there? And so I'm still... I think my view on this is emerging a bit, although over the last couple of years I've begun to formulate what I think is an opinion, but it's not super strong and I'm finding it loaded with nuances. So I'll be curious to see. What do you think? Jails, prisons, should they exist? No. Well, you said, you know, even a couple hundred years ago we had jails in this country. But those were holding cells. They weren't systemic incarceration for the rest of your life. They were holding until you got in front of a judge, made a verdict, and you got branded or you got capital punishment, killed, or whatever kind of capital punishment. You got stocks and whatever, and it was done. You don't spend years or days or weeks or months or years in a jail's holding cell where society is now funding your, you know, quote-unquote, vacation from life. And the thing is, either a person is harmful enough to the general public that they should not be allowed anywhere near anybody. In that case, this person should be killed if it's that violent of a person. That's the remedy. Or they're not that violent of a person, so then why are they in jail? They should be making restitution. Because we have, and I think the problem is in this country, we have a fundamentally wrong view of what crime, the consequences of crime are. We have this idea, and it's a communist idea basically, is that society is harmed when you commit a crime. No, no, society is not harmed when you commit a crime. The person you harmed is harmed. The victim is harmed when you have a crime. And it's all, you know, it's a victimless crime. This is a victimless crime or that's a victimless crime, you know. But even for murder, oh, society is harmed, you know, or theft. Society was, no, the person you stole from is the one who was harmed. And, you know, if you steal, if I steal your TV and then I go to jail, you still don't have a TV. That didn't fix the problem. All it did is put me off the streets, and now guess who's paying for my food? You are, if you're paying taxes. So it's completely backwards. Well, what about the victimless crime of Trump? The banks weren't suing him, and the New York State decided to sue Trump because he overvalued his properties and got better rates than he should have otherwise, and supposedly society was harmed in some way we can't really identify. And in fact, the prosecutor said to the appeals judge, well, we need to punish him because even though nobody was hurt in this case, but somebody could be hurt in the future. So we need to punish Trump. That was her actual. Yeah, and I think I agree with you, but I would probably phrase it slightly differently. I do think that there is some sort of a harm done to the greater society. The society is diminished when there's a bunch of crime taking place. Sure. But to the extent that it exists is so much less important. Yeah, it's certainly not merely society and it's not mostly society. In fact, it's compared to the one who actually suffered the crime upon themselves. It's infinitesimal by comparison. And there are a few crimes that are so great and so awful Great as in big, not as in good, right? Great and awful as so that there would be no way to possibly ever make restitution, such as rape. You can't ever repay for that. Or murder. Or treason. And so there's a few things that capital punishment is warranted, and the Bible makes it very clear what those things are. One of the things is blasphemy, which we discussed on here before, whether that should be ever punished by the government or not. But there is two specific reasons for a type of jail. One is while you're waiting for a trial, because I think a fair trial is a hallmark of a God-honoring society, having a fair trial in which you're presumed to be innocent. I think that's a very biblical concept. You can only be convicted. on more than one witness, not just your word against my word. You've got to have credible evidence, preferably eyewitness testimony. And I think that's very, very important. So that part is good. And yeah, if you're concerned the person is actually going to do some more bad things, or they're going to escape, then yeah, hold them until the trial. Fine, but it needs to be quick. The other method, which this is the biblical version of a type of jail, is the sanctuary cities. Sanctuary cities are a form of house arrest, like an ankle monitor. It's the biblical version of an ankle monitor, basically. If you were committed manslaughter, and maybe it wasn't intentional murder, but maybe somebody's accusing you of that, it was, first of all, an appeal system. So if you didn't like your verdict, you can go run to this other city. And it was predetermined, if you got to the city walls, then You had another trial because there was another – there was a prescription for having another trial. The elders and everybody would do that. And it was determined that this wasn't really murder, but it was manslaughter. It wasn't intentional, but you did kill a guy. Now you have to remain in that city. But you're free to live your life and work a trade and do all this and that and the other thing until the death of the high priest, which is a set amount of time or a certain number of years or decades it might be, and then you could go back home. You should only commit crimes when the high priest is old. So you can twist any sort of thing into a loophole for yourself. But that's the other example, right? So a type of house arrest... Is that being wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove? I don't know. Wise as a serpent, maybe. So those are the two, right? So you have holding place until trial, which I think is a biblical prescription for jail, and then you have some kind of limited access to the greater part of the country, but not really interfering with your life otherwise. You can still work and transact and things, you just can't step outside certain boundaries, which is very similar to the ankle monitor probation type of thing we have. So I think that's very reasonable. But jail as an institution, I think, should not exist. And either the person is dangerous enough that they should not be alive, or they're not dangerous enough that they shouldn't be alive, and therefore they should be working to pay off their debts. And what happens if you refuse? Well, you become the slave of the person that you harmed until you've repaid that. And yes, slavery is a specific biblical... In fact, people say, well, slavery is not only evil, but it's illegal in America. No, it's not. The amendment that outlaws slavery in the Constitution, it says, slavery nor involuntary servitude may exist in the United States except as a punishment for a crime whereof they have been duly convicted. Or if you're working nine to five somewhere. But that's the point, right? So slavery actually is legal in this country if you are forced to pay back restitution to a victim that you have personally harmed. Not somebody your ancestor harmed 60 or 80 or 100 years ago. I'm not talking about reparations, which we mentioned last week. I'm talking about specifically restitution for the victim that you harmed. That is a legal form of slavery. Now, we're connecting to something that came up last week with the restitution or the restorational justice, where you hurt somebody, you've got to make it right. And you were pointing to that, Daniel, and you said certain things can't be made right, and so the only way to make it right is you forfeit your life. So you can't unrape someone. You can't un-murder someone. There's certain things. you can steal their TV, well, you can restore the TV with interest. There's things you can do to restore things, but some things can't be restored, and so that's where the death penalty comes in. And while you're figuring all that out and you collect the witnesses and all that sort of thing, one, you want to keep, if it truly is a dangerous person, keep them off the streets until you know for sure they're safe. So there's that. But also, you talked about the cities of refuge, right? The sanctuary cities in the Old Testament. They're there for people so that somebody in the wronged individual's family doesn't come hunt you down and take justice in their own hands. They could run to the city refuge and say, hey, I'm safe while I'm here. I'm not sure I quite agree with that interpretation. I know that's kind of a popular interpretation. But the avenger of blood, I think, was a specifically authorized person to carry out. And yes, it may be part of the victim's family, but I think that was somebody that was authorized Well, that nuance aside, though, that they weren't going to have their blood avenged if they were in the protected city until they could stand trial and things could be figured out. Sure, and appeal, right. So basically an appeal system. So what we're talking about is the system, the prison system, the institution of jails and where people are held like for ever until they basically, like, a life in prison sentence, right? And they're maybe 25 years old and they lived to be 100. Or 100 consecutive lives in prison. Exactly, yeah, whatever that's supposed to mean. So while they have that sort of ridiculousness because they can reduce their life thing to something less than life, like they can get off of one of the charges or they can, you know, there's different ways, but if you stack the life ones, then it's pretty much going to be for life. It's crazy. But what we've turned it into now is... A business. Yeah, it's a business. It's like, labor camps and uh... i don't even know what it means to prison lobbies all pro-private has a lot of private has a lot of money in prisons and so it's it's an industry itself and that's one of things this country's done is they have given you know because we spend so much tax dollars and so many different things the whole industries are popping up where the money's being spent And that's with the renewable energy. I mean, nobody really wanted it, nobody really cared about it, and there wasn't any real cost saving or anything, so the government subsidized it, and then a whole bunch of people made millions and millions of dollars pretending to be green. Anyone hearing our voices can tell over the last 10 minutes that what we're saying isn't anywhere near, because when Daniel first answered, they said, so should we have jails? No! Well, a lot of people on the left, non-biblical people, would agree. Totally different rationale, totally different reasons, and they're letting people out of jail who should be dealt with So how do we deal with that? So we, as Bible-believing Christians, would all agree, at least the people in this room, say, yeah, jail's not great, prison system's really bad, but that's what we've got. So if we remove it and we don't replace it with a biblical model, Is it – I mean, is the devil we know better than the devil we don't know? Like, are we kind of stuck with a prison system? Is this just kind of LARPing, you know, live-action role-playing? We're just talking hypothetically. Well, I think you can't just replace it wholesale. It's just like – I'm very much in favor of not having any sort of government benefits, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all that, but you can't just stop tomorrow. There's a whole bunch of people that have been promised something and have made life decisions and investment decisions based on this thing that they were going to receive that they were promised. So you have to account for that somehow. So you have to have some kind of gradual phase out if you're going to make any sort of changes there. Same thing with the prison system. I think it starts by correcting our understanding of who was wronged by the crime fundamentally and primarily. Yes, like you say, society may at large have some benefit or detriment from certain criminal activities, but the person that was the actual victim, that should always be the priority. And I think once we have that understanding, then we can transition to, okay, well, you're in jail, but because we don't trust that you're actually going to go work for this person, so now you're earning money while you're in jail. You don't get to keep any of that. It's all going to the victim's family until they're paid back, right? So there's ways that you can start to bring in some of those biblical concepts through our current system and then try to change it a little bit. The only way to completely upend and change the system wholesale is some kind of revolution, and that's not good for anybody, generally, until many, many years after the fact. Now, I think that it would be more ideal if we had a restitution model as opposed to an imprisonment model. But I'm not so sure that I can – this is where the – I said I've got an opinion kind of, but there's some nuances I'm still trying to figure out. I'm not so sure I can – I'm comfortable making an argument that Governments are somehow sinning against God by having a prison system. There are prisons in both the Old and the New Testament, and there's opportunity for it to be condemned, and there's no language that condemns the jailing of someone or holding someone in prison. You know, two of the highest profile people in the Bible were imprisoned, Joseph in the Old Testament, Paul in the New Testament. Neither of them in a God-honoring country. But also, those were holding cells. Well, neither is ours. Until they went to Rome. Even Paul's prison was, like you said, it was holding until he could see Caesar. And Caesar just took a sweet time. Yeah, exactly. He was in prison for a long time. But that was at least officially. And so was Joseph. He was in prison for a long time, right? Again, I would say that's less ideal But it's certainly the lesser of the two evils, right? You're not going to have the prisoners just running free, right? These guilty criminals running free. It has to be some consequence. Now, it doesn't make sense that the person who got robbed from then has to pay to keep the person in jail. Like they got robbed from twice. If you're in jail, they don't feed you. They're just keeping you off the streets. If you want food, you better hope you have enough friends and family on the outside that'll bring you food. Wow, what countries do that? Almost a majority of the world does that. I believe a lot of the Western world and the more civilized first world countries, they don't do that. But in much of the world, that is the case. In a lot of the Middle East, that's the case. In a lot of other countries, it's the case. And it may not be in the last few years. It may be changing some way. So the government won't pay for their food, but the government in these other countries will pay for their trans surgeries, right? Everybody does that, right? No? So related to this topic of drugs last week, jail so far this week, is how people get there in the first place. A lot of people on the left particularly are concerned that we need to let these prisoners out because they were arrested falsely for under false pretenses. They were targeted unfairly. People actually that look like you too, right? You have a darker olive complexion to your skin. You don't look like you're Aryan. And so you might get targeted by the police. You might have the security guards at the store look at you a little funny or something, and it's not your fault. And so that leads to the question of profiling. Is it okay for police to engage in making judgments of people based on their appearance? Well, I would argue that we all make judgments based on appearance. everyone makes judgments what you're wearing a t-shirt or a suit coat you're wearing shorts or pants or a skirt you make judgments you make judgments about your wealth about your status in life about how old you are about what you see if you see somebody walking down the street And he's got his underwear hanging out of his pants. His pants are down on his knees. He's wearing this tank top that's ill-fitting. He's got all these tattoos everywhere and piercings. And he's just this big, hunking guy walking down the street with a swagger. And then you see another guy. And he's dressed in a business suit that's well-fitted and got a suit and tie. And he's clean-cut. And he's walking briskly down the sidewalk. These are two people that you're going to assume certain things already, and we didn't talk about what color their skin was. We only talked about everything else about them. So I would argue, if you were confronted with these two people walking down the street, and the guy in the suit is black, and the other guy's white, you're gonna still be much more apprehensive about this white guy that's, you know, walking down in a gangster type of mentality. It doesn't really have to do much with the color of the skin. Now, certainly you can make assumptions, well, somebody that looks like that did this and such and such last week to me, and therefore, so you can have your own personal experience that's gonna color some of that. But that's gonna be the case. For all characteristics, I think this country focuses way too much on skin color as the only characteristic that really matters as far as discrimination goes. But discrimination is how God designed our brains to try to make quick decisions. with scanty information, say, what is the most logical and probable thing that's going to occur based on X, Y, and Z? So what we have is a guarantee of a fair trial and of, you know, innocent until proven guilty and all that. And so there's many people that say, well, I was targeted because of this, just because I looked like such and such. And I think sometimes that may be the case. And sometimes it's just there's a lot of other factors that play into it that you may not be aware of. And really, how you carry yourself does make a huge impact. Go ahead. As I say, if you want to see profiling in action in a non-legal kind of a thing or in a way you typically don't even think about it, like 25, 30 years ago when I didn't have a wonky back and sore knees, I used to play a lot of pickup basketball. And pickup basketball is usually played outside on like concrete or asphalt kinds of things, right? And it's just, it's gritty and it's fun. And you don't necessarily have to be great to play and have a good time, but people still play competitively. They wanna win. If they're gonna beat up their backs and knees, they want it to be for something, right? They wanna try to win. And you're, sometimes you're showing up and it's just a bunch of guys and you don't really know them. Now, if you play a lot in the same locales over and over, you begin to recognize guys like, ooh, that guy could really play. But if you're walking onto the court for the first time with a bunch of guys and you have to pick up a team, almost always the tallest guy is the first guy you try to get on your team. Not only tallest, but usually black people because there's no reason to have basketball players, right? Right. But the tall guy, if you've got a guy that's 6'8 and a guy that's 5'3, the 6'8 guy is going to get picked first. Absolutely. And that might not be fair because oftentimes the 5'3 guy, he might be a klutz, right? He can't shoot the ball in the basket from two feet away. He can get in the way. But the 5'3 guy might be an excellent ball handler. He might be able to shoot three-pointers from all over the place. So you don't know, but you're making these judgments all the time. And I don't think it's possible to remove discrimination and profiling from society. I think that's how God designed our brains. Now, prejudice is different, I think, than profiling. and where you have hatred for a somebody that looks a certain way because assuming they're guilty or any evidence and that's really what i think when people talk about profound that that's really the problem with it you know if uh... it now if there's a you know bowl out on somebody and say, hey, this guy was a dark-skinned male of about 25 years old and wearing this. That's profiling. That's how you do it. I mean, you're not going to go and stop every white guy and say, hey, were you at this drugstore recently because I got robbed. I mean, you're white and you're not. It's like playing Guess Who, the game, right? You can pretty quickly eliminate a whole bunch of people based on some kind of evidence. But see, that's where there's the APB on somebody. Somebody was spotted. They have a description. It looks like this. So I think in that case profiling is very relevant and good and police should be doing that to find the specific person that's a suspect. If you're just walking down the street and you just stop everybody that is a certain color of skin or a certain height just because, Well, I think the reasons that you're doing it probably have a lot to do with it. I think it's much more nuanced than what the Black Lives Matter people would want us to believe. But didn't Rudy Giuliani put something like that in place in New York, where you stop and frisk type stuff? Stop and frisk. And it cleaned up the crime tremendously. Yeah, and you know, if memory serves, it was probably four or five years ago, something like that, I believe at Montgomery County, just south of Frederick County, they passed some sort of ordinance or whatever that the police were not allowed to pull somebody over merely because the person driving the car fit the description of a criminal that had an APB out on them. So they might be described as somebody who's maybe in their 50s, balding, gray beard, Middle Eastern looking, dressed sharp, sport coat, gray, black and whitish shirt in a nice car. I just basically kind of described him, Ron. And if there's an APB on somebody that looks just like you, who just murdered somebody, I see you, I'm like, that could be the guy. But I'm not allowed as a police officer to pull you over until I have some other reason to pull you over. And if I can't find another reason, then you get to go. That's ridiculous, right? It's police work. Profiling is police work. Absolutely. And just in our personal lives, you know, it's got a bad rap because it's got the word phobic in it, and so it probably should have a bad rap, but xenophobia, the xeno part of it, like the stranger part of it, I think we've got, like, God's given us this instinct to beware the strange. To be concerned about things that are different than we're used to because there might be danger. We're not familiar, there might be danger. There's a line in a movie where this guy is trying, he's a con artist, and he's trying too hard to come across as unassuming and safe or whatever. He's totally beguiling the love interest that he's targeting. But the love interest's mom was a little sharper, and she wasn't trusting him. And the lady who was being beguiled said, Mom, why don't you trust the guy? And the answer she gave was, I've always felt like strangers should be a little strange. and the fact that this stranger was behaving in a way that made him artificially not strange was an alert. Strange is strange. I think it's good to be a little bit nervous. You do that with, I do, with dogs. Somebody's walking their dog and if it's a certain breed of dog or a dog that has a particular posture about it, I'm going to walk to the other side of the street. It's a cute little poodle and it looks like all you know, wispy and frail and submissive, how many are going to say, hey, can I pet your dog? We do it in all areas of life. So anyway, anybody want to get in a last word? Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing is there's a big push that police officers will stop somebody that's driving just because they're black. Driving while black. Driving while black has been a big issue. And if they're looking for somebody that committed a crime and that person is there, they should be able to stop and ask questions. Now, you don't have to answer the questions. There's a law of protection. You can say, under the advice of my lawyer, I'm not answering your questions. And they can't search without a warrant. So there's still all those same protections. But the biggest thing is a lot of these people, these kids or adults or whatever, they act disrespectfully, and that just riles up the police more, and then there's confrontation. If you act disrespectfully, you're going to be treated disrespectfully. End on those wise words. Imran Razvi. Also from Daniel Razvi, they co-pastor a church in Thurmont called the Church of Mesa Imrans. You can find them online at conqueredbylove.org. I'm Troy Skinner, pastor of Household of Faith in Christ. Find me online at householdoffaithinchrist.com. Of course, you can find this show and this radio station online at wfmd.com. If you go to the website for the station, you'll see the upcoming show for next week listed usually in advance so you can see what we're going to be talking about. You can access all the old shows. You can find all that stuff through the church website as well, householdoffaithinchrist.com. Until next week, 167 and a half hours from now, God bless. Are we up to January yet? We are up to January. We actually, I forgot to, not that I forgot, but I neglected to mention. Merry Christmas. What's that? Merry Christmas or Happy New Year. No, no, no. I'm glad actually that we didn't worry about that because there was a technical snafu from the radio station side of things and one of the shows aired twice. Oh. So it threw everything off by a week. I actually came in a couple days ago to make sure and reset all the run dates to make sure it was going to run correctly. That happens every once in a while. I make it a habit to try to listen to the show on the radio live, even if it's just for a minute, just to make sure the show is running and it's the right one. And I caught it. I was like, that's not the right show. That show aired two weeks ago. Why is the same show from two weeks ago running again? What the heck? Well, there was a problem with what's called the skimmer recorder, and in the process of them trying to pull podcasts and stuff for the website, they ended up changing a run date on a show, and the system doesn't know, it just goes, oh. So we had a 50-50 chance. So the show that was supposed to run had that date, but then the show had already run, had the end date changed. And so the computer, only one show airs at a time, right? So it has to pick one. It could have picked either one. It picked the wrong one. Otherwise, nobody would even know the mistake was. I wonder how many times that's happened where there's been that kind of mistake and nobody even knew it was made. That, I don't know. So anyway, so yeah, we are now in January, by the way. We're in 2025. Way ahead. Yeah, well, we're about where my comfort level always had been. I like to be recording shows that are going to start airing in about three months, and that's where we are. We're the first part of October, and recording shows are airing the first part of January. So who won the election? That's a comfortable place for me with this thing. What's that? So who won the election? Should we make a prediction right now and say it on air? Sure, why not? I'm all for it. Who knows if we'll have a world? These shows might never air. Are you going to watch the debate tonight? I'll probably catch it on, like, tape delay later. You know, skip all the commercial stuff, and... I mean, Iran's bombing Israel right now. You know, I... And there's the strike, right, that's going... that's taking place in Iran right now, and... You know, I would say the world's going to hell in a handbasket, but we've been in hell in a handbasket for a long time, so I'm not sure what's after that. Without the handbasket. Yeah, no handbasket, just... Handbasket's burned up. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it does remind me that I did want to kind of make mention of the passage of time a little bit. You sound like Kamala Harris right there. The passage of time. There's great significance to the passage of time. There's great significance to the passage of time. We must become... And tomorrow will be today when it's tomorrow. Tomorrow will be tomorrow and today will be tomorrow. Make sure you're unburdened by what has been so that you can be tomorrow what might be. All right, you guys have to forgive me when I use that. I have to. Whether she's won or she's lost, it'll still be fun. Let me get a sip of water so I don't lose my voice. They probably still won't know. Is this January 20th? Right. They probably still don't know at that time who won. Yeah. So, yeah, let me get this. I got to get that ready. Whoever lost will be denying the election. Yeah, well, and rightfully so. Well. From my perspective of who I think's gonna lose, rightfully so. I think Trump's winning because I think he'll win because I think he's controlled by the D.C. now. You know, you and some other people I know are beginning to say stuff like that, which could be. I don't know. I don't know that he is, but his people around him. Good morning! If you're listening to the radio, Good, whatever time of day it is if you're listening to the podcast. Thanks for listening to the Faith Debate, making us part of your day. Appreciate it very much. Do not take it for granted. I am Troy Skinner, the pastor of Household of Faith in Christ, online at HouseholdofFaithinChrist.com. Joined this week by Imran Razvi and Daniel Razvi. They can be reached online through their ministry website, ConqueredByLove.org. They co-pastor a church in Thurmont called the Church that Meets at Imrans. And I've been wanting to say this the last few weeks and I keep forgetting, so I'm going to mention it now. We had a technical snafu not too long ago with the show that had the shows end up airing a little bit out of sequence and the dates got messed up. And so I'm taking a chance by doing this. I typically don't time stamp when the show is going to air. I will sometimes time stamp when the show is being recorded in case something's going to change and we don't want to feel like idiots. It's too late for me. But timestamping, this show is scheduled to air on January 19th. And for me, that's an important date, symbolic of the passage of time. And there's great significance to the passage of time. And as I examine what it means to have had this passage of time, the things that happen as time moves forward and passes on, we have cleared now the 20-year mark. The Faith Debate has been on the air for more than 20 years. That means we have done more than 1,000 shows. I've been working feverishly to upload a faith debate, well some sort of an upload, usually it's a faith debate show, online every day until all the archives are exhausted. I don't think I'm gonna be successful locating every single show that's ever been recorded, but we already have well over, I think, 700 faith debate shows that are available online. Actually, as this airs, it might be over 800, I don't know. So we might be in the ballpark of It's hard to say. Maybe 85, I'm hoping we can get as high as 85% of all the faith debate shows that were ever broadcast will be preserved online and that sort of thing. So anyway, this wouldn't happen without the support of the listeners. And I don't go out of my way to do this very well because it sounds very insincere and self-serving to bring it up all the time. And you also can get in trouble if you highlight things that are specific about ratings and that sort of stuff. So I'll be very generic and generalized here. I don't have access to the ratings numbers like I once did. I used to have full, unfettered access to all of the ratings information for the market. I don't anymore. But when I did have that access, this show did very well. did particularly well against its competition, and did very well against its compatriots on the radio station. For years, maybe it still is, I don't know, but for years it was the most listened to half hour on Sundays on the radio station. There was a span of time of a handful of years where it was the most listened to show over the entire weekend. In fact, there were a couple of ratings periods where the data indicated anyway, for what that's worth, right? A lot of people take the data with a grain of salt, The data indicated that there were only three programs on the entire radio station. They had more listeners than the faith debate. And we were airing on Sunday mornings. So I don't know if that's still the numbers. I will say we have tens. I have access to data for the uploads on the podcasts, not the radio station's data, but my own personal data for Sermon Audio and Odyssey and places like that. Tens of thousands of downloads of the faith debate since I've started putting them there a few years ago. So this show doesn't exist. And also, by the way, was it maybe a year ago probably now or pretty close to that, I had the opportunity to read a letter or at least share the gist of the contents of a letter from somebody who went out of their way to share with station management how much they appreciate the radio show and how we conduct our affairs, and we try to do things with some fun and panache. It's show business after all, but talk about serious matters in a serious way, in a way that hopefully will be sticky and get you thinking and that sort of thing. And the person gave us some kudos, and I get kudos like that in person on occasion. People will occasionally recognize me or my voice and say, hey, you do that faith debate show. It doesn't happen that much, but it happens on occasion. Yeah, I listen and I love when you guys talked about this and that's always cool But it's really cool and so he takes the time to write it down and send it to the general manager of the radio station Because they could take this show off the air tomorrow right they could it's their radio station and yet they see some value in having this the show and they see the value because you support it you listen to it and We appreciate all of that. So anyway, that's all I have to say about the passage of time anything. I And speaking of which, we are recording this show. Actually, years ago, our consistent habit was to record the show at least three, if not six months in advance. In recent years, we've been recording the show anywhere from two to three weeks in advance, up to two to three months in advance. That happens to be where we are now. We're recording the show about three months in advance, so the election hasn't happened yet. So I think this will be fun. It'll be a little time capsule, a forced time capsule. This was kind of Daniel's tongue-in-cheek recommendation earlier before we started the show. So, who won? We still don't know. We still don't know. They're still counting the votes. Because this coming week is Inauguration Day. Oh, is that what it is? Right, yeah. I remember recording this in October. yeah and it's always what the third week in january is uh... is moderation is an operation is as we may not have decided yet who's going to be not only have to If they decided the last one by this date, they decided this one by this date. I'm concerned they decided the results of this election four years ago. That's my concern. Well, my belief was that whether Trump himself is or not, I don't know. But I think as a conservative, I believe the signs are pointing to the deep state believes that they can control Trump now and has enough people in place around him. that they don't care and I think they would prefer to have Trump in fact because a lot of the patriots would be more complacent and not protest too much about injustices of government, overreach and things like that. I think it's because it's more easy to control the population if you have a Republican president than a Democrat president because the Democrats will lay down and take it anyway. I've heard some others that I know say something similar to that kind of a thing. As recently as probably five, six years ago, out on Peshawk. Are you crazy? Come on, man. But after what we've all been through these last four, five, six years, man, nothing's off the table. Nothing. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump could both be lizard people as far as I'm concerned at this point, right? I mean, nothing's off the table. That's crazy times. So that, for a moment, just for the sake of rhetoric, let's take that deep state thing off the table. Let's say, because you're not certain that's the case, right? So let's take the part of your brain that thinks that's not the case. Maybe it's 5%, maybe it's 40%. Whatever percent of your brain doesn't think that, answer this question. This is in advance of the election. Right now, again, he's not connected to the deep state. Donald Trump is, next week, going to be in office in jail in the ground what's the most likely scenario uh... i think i think if if if uh... lose the election i don't think they're going to care so much about putting him in jail because he probably won't run again uh... he's not he won't be relevant anymore uh... so he may win a lot of his cases on appeal i don't think they're going to bother too much And I think that if that's not the case, if it wouldn't be for the deep state, then I think that Kamala Harris will win the election because I think there was so much stuff that happened last time that it all was predetermined. And I don't see any evidence that things have changed in the last four years to make it less predeterminable. As of the date of this recording, he has been shot at, and there was an attempt to shoot him a second time. And between now and the election, who knows, there could be more attempts. So that was the in-the-ground part. Do you think he survives? We could have world wars between now and then, too. Iran could be no longer existing as a state. There's a lot of things. Yeah. The only people who hear this show might be those listening on the live stream as we're recording it, because we could all be vaporized, right? Like, any second now. I think we're as much at risk of a wide-scale, potentially nuclear-level kind of a war. I think we're as close to that as we've been in my lifetime. That's saying something. So I think we got pretty close once upon a time. The thing is, how many people really have no clue? They're not paying attention. All they care about is who's going to the Oscars. What they're wearing. Or not wearing. Yeah. I mean, I think we're closer now than we were during Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs. Cuban Missile Crisis. Cuban Missile Crisis. I think we're much closer now. We've got subs and battleships, Russian and Chinese, on the border of Alaska. We've had incursions there. So at this time in January, I have no idea what's happening. So we'll have to see. All right. Well, let's do a segue here and to our scheduled topic off of this. So let's assume that Donald and Kamala both survived and one of them is going to be inaugurated into office. And we're not in World War III. Right. Let's assume all of that. And Kamala, if she ends up being the winner, is going to be portrayed as this great heroine figure who the first a woman, first woman of color to ascend to that level. Not Indian, but black. Yeah, she's going to be turned into this great icon, right? She's going to become a figure. And Donald Trump's already, for those who support him, he's already a figure, right? I mean, Donald Trump jokingly once said he could go kill somebody on Fifth Avenue or whatever, and everybody would be fine with it, right? And there's a little bit of truth to that, I think, sadly. But both these, they would be positioned as, by their side, as heroic figures. So should either one of them be given a statue? a statue. Should anybody be given a statue? Are statues okay? Are statues ever appropriate, biblically speaking, or are statues, biblically speaking, akin to idols? Well, let's take a step back from statue. I think by statue, you are referring to an image of a person. Correct. Yeah. Like in the rotunda of the Capitol building, there's a whole bunch of depictions of men. Let's take a step back from that, because there is biblical basis for monuments. Yes. Piles of stones and other structures that are set up specifically to remember times in history. Correct. And so the Bible says, build 12 stones from the Jordan and put them on top of each other. And then your kids, when they ask you in the future, you can tell them, this is to remember the time when God brought us over Jordan. And those stones weren't chiseled at all. No. But the point is, monuments have biblical precedent. So I think that's one. So the Washington Monument is safe? We're okay with the Washington Monument? Potentially, as it relates to... You might not like the inspiration for the shape it took or anything like that, possibly, right? Potentially, yeah. Okay, how about the wall, the memorial wall for Vietnam veterans? That's just a wall with a bunch of names on it. Is that okay? I don't know. I don't think monuments are a problem. Let's look at another example. God commanded Moses, when there was a plague, make a brass serpent, put it up on a stick, hold it up high, and everybody who looks upon it will be healed. So God commanded a graven image to be made, not to be worshipped, But as a symbol, here's God's, God's going to save us from these serpents. So remember God. When you look at that, you remember God. And then it says, a few hundred years later, and then such and such king, I forget which of the good kings, maybe Josiah or Hezekiah, one of the good kings, destroyed the wrath serpent that Moses had made. Because, it says, in those days, the children of Israel worshipped it as a false god. So, The idol itself, it does say in scripture, it can neither see, nor hear, nor taste, nor smell. It has no power of its own, but the power that we give it. And yes, you could argue that there is demonic presence around it, and there could be demons that control different things, but ultimately, people are the ones that give idols the power. And I think the context and the The motivation behind the image or the monument is very important. Now, I think who you're making the monument to is also important. There's this whole big push that you should tear down the statue of anybody who did some bad things that you found out later they did some bad things. I wouldn't go there because You've got to take down everybody's statue if that's your standard because everybody's done some bad things. Right. You're all sinners. So that's not the thing. The whole point of the monument is to remember some specific good thing that was happening or potentially some bad thing so that we don't repeat it. And I'm not sure where this thought line began for me, where the beginnings of the thread are. To the best of my recollection, I think it was when I had friends visiting, possibly family, can't remember who was with me, visiting from out of town, when they've never been to this area of the country before, they'd love to go down to D.C., right, see all the monuments and maybe go to the museum or the zoo or whatever, that sort of thing. Pardon me as I clear my throat. And so we're walking the mall, and the Washington Monument's there, and the Lincoln Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, all those sorts of things are there. And I've seen those bunches of times in my life, actually, at this point, and it never really hit me until I saw the one for Martin Luther King Jr. And have you seen that one in person? It feels almost like the Martin Luther King presence is godlike. He's emerging from the stone. He's ethereal. And it's huge, by the way. And unlike some of the other monuments, which you kind of take them in from a distance, this one you're standing on top of it. And it just felt like, wow, this feels worshipful to me, like should we really be making these monuments? That might be where it started. I get the same feeling when I go by the Lincoln Memorial. Yeah, okay. Lincoln is also this giant impressive figure. Yeah, and he's standing on the throne, right? Yeah. On the throne, looking out into the distance, and it's a very majestic, very It's almost like he's in a Holy of Holies kind of a setting, right? It's kind of the vibe. It's like a Greek version of a Holy of Holies kind of thing. And a lot of the architecture in D.C. was very much Greek-inspired and Roman-inspired. And you got a whole bunch of statues of actual gods and goddesses all around D.C. as well on some of the building buildings. And so those, I would say, should be torn down. If you're going to remember a specific person for a specific thing. It's also history. I mean, the monuments are there to talk about history. No, I totally get that. To talk to your kids about history, to learn about history. I mean, the left has been in Catholic culture taking all the monuments down. Even Lincoln's monument they want to take down. Jefferson's monument they want to take down. And that ties to the second phase of my thinking on this. So I remember at some point, I think it was that visit to the mall and seeing the Martin Luther King thing. And yeah, you're right, the Lincoln thing. I've had that same impression myself, actually. And thinking, boy, should we even be doing this? And then, five years ago, there was all the push to take down the monuments, and people were defacing monuments. And then you want to say? No, keep them up. that look like idol worship, from a certain point of view anyway, that's even God-sanctioned. And so yeah, the Washington Monument or, I'm trying to think, well. Statue of David. Headstones at a grave site, that's a monument, a memorial of the person, right, that they're buried here and it has their name and their dates and stuff like that, and maybe a little phrase or something that tells you about them. That's a memorial. Like, if we had little carved images, could you imagine how creepy? If we went to walk in the graveyards, and instead of memorial stones, it was, like, lifelike carved images of all these people? That'd be creepy, I think. I don't know. Well, there is a service, I believe, where you can get your body embalmed and put in a glass coffin and have it made into a coffee table and put in the living room. A coffee table? And so your family and loved ones can stare at your embalmed corpse in the living room. That can't be real. Who would pay for that? Who would do that? Crazy people. Oh my gosh. There's lots of crazy people out there. All right, so... I don't know. Again, I'm not going to die on the hill on the other side either. I'm not going to take a firm stand and say we should never have any sort of statues of a human or a creature like a snake that we would potentially risk bowing down to. But I started thinking about it biblically. There are examples of statues that look like men. And every single one of them is bad. Every one. So I'm like, I don't know. I don't want to surrender the fight to the wackos. It's like saying people are drunk driving, so just get rid of cars. People are going to be people. They're going to worship images. They're going to worship statues, whatever, and they're going to lift them up. But that's a sinful behavior. You can't eliminate history or historical objects because somebody's going to worship it. and when they do start worshipping it then there is cause to take it down and that's what the king of israel did with the serpent and i think that was that was the right move at that point and they had made it into an idol so anything can become an idol now we've talked on the show about bringing in statues into your home a statue of buddha and that can invite uh... demonic presence into your home that you don't need uh... what if you don't rub his belly is it okay i would say it's not we've talked about this before and we've had some slight disagreements but mostly we agreed that If, err on the side of caution and don't bring in things into your house that may invite demonic influence, right? So any idol, truly an idol, can invite that. I think if you're making it into a guide and you're calling it that, that's one thing. If it's supposed to be a specific person and nobody's under any delusion that this is anything other than a remembrance of a specific human person that lived a long time ago, I think it's the same thing as writing a book about the guy. Right? For a long time in many places, until the invention of the printing press anyway, it was very difficult to get a lot of printed copies of stuff that would last. And so one of the best ways to remember things is by storytelling. object lessons will be very useful for telling stories. So your children, like God said, your children are going to see this and say, Daddy, what does this mean? And you say, well, I'm glad you asked, because it's this history. And I think that is important. You are channeling Bernie Beal right there, a good friend of all three of ours. He tells stories about as a kid, and somebody would say, what does this mean? I'm glad you asked. And then he'd tell all his history. He knows all this stuff. And I have to give you a hard time, because you just said I was channeling somebody. And it's not my intention to ever channel a spirit. It's just the common vernacular. I know, I know. So let's put a more firm religious spin on this, because the things we're talking about are pretty much in what are called the secular sphere. We're talking about government statues and community statues and war memorials, things like that. Protestants don't typically have statues in their churches, in their sanctuaries, but Eastern Orthodox will. And Roman Catholics do for sure. They'll have statues of Mary, a variety of the saints, and of course they've got a statue of Jesus hanging upon the cross. up front and center in their sanctuary. In fact, if you go to Rome and you go to the Vatican, all of the false god statues that the Catholic Church confiscated from all the different countries that they Christianized, they didn't destroy them. They brought them to the Vatican. So the Vatican is full of these Roman and Greek and Hindu gods and goddesses statues all over the place. So that's a whole other thing. But if you wonder why they There's such a darkness there in the Catholic Church, that may be one of the things. I think I'll say this is a practical thing. I'm not going to get all worked up in arms if somebody puts a statue, let's say in Frederick, of a former mayor or somebody. But if somebody were to ask me before they did it, do you think we should? I think I would probably say, you know, we can do some sort of memorial, some sort of a thing that represents what their life meant to the community and put a plaque on it that explains what this represents. But let's not make it a statue of the person because the human heart is so sinful and we can... People aren't bowing down and praying to the statue of Abraham Lincoln. But Abraham Lincoln has taken on kind of a deified level of appreciation in American culture, whether it's deserved or not. And there's some debate over that, actually. And I think some of the accusations against him are unfair, and I think some of them are fair. Jefferson, same thing. and less so, it seems to me, Washington. I think there's more of a reverence for Jefferson and Lincoln than there is Washington, and it might be because there's statues of the other two and there's not one of George. I don't know. Isn't there a statue of George Washington riding a horse? I'm sure there's statues, but the main one is just this big stick. But it's taller than the others. It is. I didn't realize this, I just learned this recently, but at the time of its construction it was the tallest man-made structure in the world. in the world. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I did not know. Now it's dwarfed by so many things, but yeah. So, back to the Catholic Church and the statues they have, and right near my house is Mount St. Mary's University. In fact, you can see the shrine. Sure, yeah. You can see this big, giant statue of Mary. And a lot of people go there to walk the gardens and stuff. I think it's Mary. Yeah, I think so, yeah. Mount St. Mary's, yeah. So, you can see that from my house, in fact, you can see it. It's only a few miles away, and it's It's very impressive looking. It's covered in gold. Do you pray in this direction three times a day or anything? I don't, but there are people that do. And see, that I think is an example of an actual idol that should be destroyed, right? Because people are actually reverencing the statue and talking to the dead when they're near the statue. And I think that is wrong and it's ungodly and it should cease. I think that's very different from a political or historical remembrance of somebody, you know, if it's not being worshipped. I think I'm going to put this in the category of statues. They might be permissible, but not all things are helpful. Yeah. I think I'm going to put it in that category. If you have to exercise some wisdom of when and where and how and why. Muslims don't have, strict Muslims don't have any pictures of people either. They don't want to put up pictures. And the reason was they didn't want anybody worshiping Muhammad as God. So they didn't want any likeness of him. So whatever he's been played, it's... Well, how would you ever prove or disprove if somebody is a ghost or not? So that's why they have a lot of designs and things like that, but not actual statues of people. And many Muslim homes don't have pictures of people on the walls either. Interesting. Did not know that. Yeah. A little cultural lesson here on the faith debate towards the end. I think it's two weeks in a row everyone got the last word. Good for you. I'm Ron Rasby, also Daniel Rasby on the show. I'm Troy Skinner. You can find the Rasbys at ConqueredByLove.org. All their contact information is going to be there. That's their ministry. You can find me online at HouseholdOfFaithInChrist.com. That's the church I pastor, HouseholdOfFaithInChrist.com. Of course, you can find this show and this radio station and all things related to the faith debate at WFMD.com. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week again as the passage of time continues, because it's very significant, the passage of time. In fact, 167 and a half hours will pass. Till then, God bless. That one was a me. That's been on the list of a show to do for a long, long, long, long, long, long time and never really opportunity to present itself in the context of talking about all this. secular government intersection with religion kind of thing. This will fit the theme enough that I can piggyback it. So we finally got it off my checklist. Let's see. Still live. Okay. Yeah, now we're going to thematically be in the same place, but the specifics are. So I don't know if the whole glass coffin thing is real or not. I remember reading it. Somebody's done it. It honestly would not surprise me. Somebody's done it. Yeah, somebody's done it. I think the original story was a fake thing designed to shock, but I believe there are people that would want to do such things. I mean, the entire country did that with the Soviet Union, right? Yeah. They had, was it Lenin? Was it Lenin, I think, behind glass, right? And they could stare at him. It's a little creepy when somebody, you were mentioning the guy's got thousands of dollars worth of stuffed animals. It's a little creepy when I walk into his house and they got a whole bunch of stuffed, you know, trophies. That's a little creepy to me, to be honest with you. People, I don't think I can handle it. I don't think I can handle it. Seriously, I might pass out. Well, it's still a little weird when you walk in and you have the urns, and they're like, and my sister over there. Yeah, that kind of skeeves me out a little bit. It's not even like they have it. They even heard it once, and my sister here with us, and then it's like, as if she's there or whatever. Yeah, there's gradations. I don't know if I want to talk about this on the air, so I'll do it right now. It's still live, you know. Yeah, that's fine, but for the context of the radio show, if it's like a deer with impressive antlers, OK, that's OK. But that's what he has. Right? If it's their dog, that's weird. Right? If it's an urn with the ashes, that's OK, but that's kind of weird. But if it's the actual person, that's off the charts. What if it's an urn of a dog? I know people. Really? They cremated their dogs and put them there? Yes. So that might be actually, by the way, make a note of it. Cremation, I think, is a good topic for the show because I think that there's a good case you could make that it is ungodly to cremate. All right. Is that an entire show or is that like just a show segment? I don't know how long we can spend on it necessarily, but I think there's some good arguments you could say that God desires people to be buried honorably and respectfully, and whole, not... I've made a note. I'll figure out how to fit that in with some other topics that are related, because I'm not sure if I would have a whole lot to contribute. I haven't thought about it at all. Yeah. Anyway, let's... Welcome to the Faith Debate on News Radio, 930 WFMD, or on your favorite streaming platform. If you haven't found us on Sermon Audio or Odyssey.com yet, I encourage you to find us there. All of the Faith Debate shows make their way over to those two platforms eventually, usually pretty quickly. And so if you want to track along easily, just go to the Household of Faith in Christ channels for SermonAudio.com or for Odyssey.com. We also record our recording sessions as a live stream. We live stream and record that as a video, and those videos are posted there as well. The videos are typically not posted on WFMD.com, so you get the audio there because it's a radio station, but it's not a TV station, so you don't typically get the video there. Anyway, thanks for tuning in again. We appreciate it so much. I'm joined this week again by Imran Razvi and Daniel Razvi, co-pastoring the church called The Church That Meets at Imran's House. Getting all the words jumping up, there's like a dyslexic moment or something that happened for half a second. Again, I think I said it this week, but I'm not sure in case I didn't, find them online at conqueredbylove.org. So, we've been talking in recent weeks about things related to the government and civil matters and things where the civil magistrates and biblical instruction kind of cross-pollinate a little bit. Talk about drugs and prisons and profiling. Last week, we spent a lot of time talking about statues and whether the government should erect these statues and that sort of thing. We're going to kind of stay in a similar vein here, but shift things up a little bit. I think I'm going to title this episode, by the way, Ants Stepped on by Elephants. I think that's going to end up being the title of this show. Because I worked for a general manager years ago in another radio market who used to – it was one of his favorite playful phrases. He would say, you know, when the elephant stands, it's the ants that get stepped on. And there's wisdom in that. So you have these big power brokers, these elephants, right, these multi-billionaires or these big people of influence who have like dirty pictures of people in compromised positions or something, and they can leverage that to have their way with what happens in the world. And then there's the regular little guys like us, the ants, and we're getting the step done. So are you a victim now? So here's well, it's not so well at some level. We're all victimized, right? I mean if if you were following the law, you are a victim of legalized theft on behalf of the government, taking way more money than they should take from you. There's no way. I mean, you think about it. You add in all the taxes, not just income tax, but sales tax, property tax, all the various fees that they have, and that's not just federal income tax, but state and a lot of places you have like county or local precinct taxes. the average middle class or upper middle class American is probably paying somewhere between 50 and 60% of their income in taxes. And then that gets taxed when they die. Additional tax, the inheritance taxes and stuff. So it's crazy. So yeah, we are victims in that sense. But here's the question. Given that we're victims and there's nothing we can do about it, so let's not live our lives as victims. You just press forward. You do the best you can. God is sovereign. He's in control. This is the system we have. Make the best of it. I get it. However, there's the practical part of me that kicks in. It's like, okay, there's one thing like just going along to get along, but should we be fighting to defend it? Should we be embracing The marketplace impact and these overarching entities, like we all want the government to do something to help the economy. Do we want the government controlling the economy? who are in business tend to have an appreciation for things like the Chamber of Commerce because they're pro-business. But are these entities really helping? Are they doing more harm than good? By the way, I'll go on the record now. I didn't think this 20 years ago. Over the last 20 years, it's become increasingly clear entities like the Chamber of Commerce do far more damage than the good that they do. That's my personal conviction on that. And you could see it play out in real time back in 2020. When the Chamber of Commerce did not step up to protect the businesses, they protect their relationships with the power brokers and government and elsewhere. And they let these businesses die. Well, that's like saying, I mean, should lobbyists exist? And I think there is a place for lobbying, especially in a governmental system where the government does have a lot of economic control. I think you kind of have to employ lobbyists to get things done sometimes. I think what I guess you're asking is, should we get rid of that entirely? Should the government really not be involved in the economy at all? And then, of course, there's no reason for lobbyists, because they're not involved at all in the economy. And I agree with that. I mean, do you... Well, the government's involved in the economy by tariffs. They can place tariffs on other countries, too, and that doesn't impact the economy. They can print money that really impacts the economy. And, you know, when you print money, you're going to have inflation. You have more money than things to buy, and things are going to cost more. So those are things that the government does and it shouldn't do. But how do you stop it? Now, tariffs, the relationship with other countries, that is part of the purpose of federal government, is to have that relationship with other countries. So I don't know if you can get away from that, but controlling the businesses inside the country. And I think we should be able to petition our government. And if that's what we mean by lobbying, then I'm all for it. But what it's come to mean are these special interest groups spending lots of money to push through, force through, finagle a way to get it through things that are not beneficial to anybody in this country, other than that very narrow special interest. Yeah, but that's the whole idea of a lobbyist group, would be, look, it's not just one guy that's going to be affected by this law, it's all these thousand farmers that we represent, or a million farmers that we represent. They're all going to be affected by this, so please vote this way, because you're going to impact all these other people who have signed this position, and have me come to represent them to say that. Right? So that's the concept. Now, you're correct. In practice, it doesn't end up being that way. But the concept, I think, is not a – I don't know if we want to outlaw or ban the concept of lobbying or special interest groups, honestly. Yeah, but when they're getting subsidies – I'm in the financial industry, right? And the financial industry has some big lobbying arms. Some of the insurance organizations and the investment groups, they have some very big lobbying organizations that have been many times successful in canceling or getting rolled back some very onerous regulations, including over the last few years from the Department of Labor and the other And I think there's a lot of overreach by government that some of those business-friendly or consumer-friendly, even supposedly or allegedly so, groups can make a case for. Here's – this is a problem. This is an unintended consequence of such-and-such law that you're trying to pass. Please don't do that. Or please pass this other law because we would appreciate some additional guidance in this area. And the fact that there is corruption, there's always going to be corruption. I don't know that you can make a system that's not corrupt. And that was a whole idea of checks and balances in this country. That's why you have multiple different levers that can be pulled. I think that's actually a good thing. The more people that can argue about how things get voted, the better. Yeah, I don't want to get taken away so far. What was his name? Lenny Thompson? Was that his name? He was one of the muckety-mucks in Frederick County government like 20 years ago. And I think one of his big things, one of the signature things that he stood against was against lobbying in Annapolis. He was opposed. If I remember correctly, it's- Lenny Thompson, yep. Yeah, I think he was like a big anti-lobbying guy, if I'm not mistaken. And a lot of what he said made a lot of sense to me, even though I think he was a Democrat. But a lot of what he said made some sense to me, but he took it to a rather obtuse degree. That's unfair, because I can't think of a specific example. But I just remember my impression at the time, well, I kind of understand where you're coming from, but I think you're going too far. But I couldn't articulate it. It's like 25 years ago probably now. But anyway, so I'm not saying get rid of it completely. Too often I see people who are on my side, whatever that's supposed to mean these days. They're on my side. They think like me. And they're all about, doesn't matter what the big business interests do, they will defend it. Doesn't matter what the big military industrial complex does, they'll defend it. Doesn't matter, you know, as long as it's not the government doing it. Right, or if the government is doing something that they support, then they'll make an exception. Like, you know, we have to suspend the free market principles in order to protect the free market. Here's a great example of that. Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was convicted on the gun charge. And I don't know if he was, was he also convicted on the tax charge? No, just the gun charge. Just the gun. Let's say even if it was taxes, but forget that. The gun. So we all know Hunter Biden and the whole Biden family was super corrupt. They've been taking bribes from foreign officials for years and years and years. And Hunter was at the center of all this. There's all sorts of evidence of that. And what do they get him on? They get him on lying on a form to apply to buy a firearm, saying that he was not under the influence of cocaine and was at the time, due to some other statements he made in other documents at the time. And so they convict him for lying on the federal government, which is a felony to lie when you're trying to buy a firearm. And all the conservatives, a lot of them, were like, great, we finally got Hunter Biden. At least we got him on something. I wish it was more, but at least we got him on something. We gotta get him on something. No. That is a terrible law. That should not exist. You should not have any restriction on buying a gun. For any reason. At all. Right? And I think you have to be consistent on that. So just because the guy you don't like gets it, does not mean that we should all of a sudden bend the principles for that. And the whole way they got Al Capone. Oh, they found some tax thing to get him. You can get on, and I say that kind of jokingly sometimes. if i'm a government and i want to put you in jail troy for anything i can probably find some kind of tax law that you've broken and put you in jail for tax fraud and i know you i know you're honest upstanding citizen i'm sure you intentionally pay all the taxes that you think you know and that as far as being legal great but i'm sure because the tax code is so many tens of thousands of pages long i could probably find something you did wrong and therefore put you in jail that's way too much power that we give the government so there's a lot of these things that we shouldn't exist and i agree with you i think there's people that just because it happens to the other side, they're like, okay, it's okay this once. No, it's not. So I would ardently defend Hunter Biden against that gun charge, and I would work to get him off. Yeah, I just want us to wise up. I think that's why I put this topic on the agenda. All these big entities that are the elephants in our lives, they have so much sway, so much power, so much control. And if it's a government, it's a direct kind of a control. But even the indirect control, it's pretty pervasive and powerful. And people who think along the lines of the person who's more likely to listen to a radio station like WFMD is going to think Fox News Channel can do no wrong. I don't even watch Fox News. I haven't watched Fox News Channel in, it's come up on five years. And not a single, when I say don't watch it, not a single second of it. I do not watch it because I cannot trust them. How do you get viral clips and stuff when they get passed around? I think I've accidentally seen, literally, I'm going to try to be as accurate as I can. Over the last five years, I've probably accidentally stumbled into maybe seven or eight minutes of viral clips that I've seen. Wow. I do not watch, I don't trust them, I don't like them. They're elephants who pretend to be on my side and they're not. And I feel like we've got to wake up to that, these power – like, I had the wake-up call a number of years ago as well, and I know I'm going to make a lot of enemies saying this in this context. The Chamber of Commerce, including the local one, maybe especially the local one, I don't know, they do not have the business people's best interests at heart. They have the Chamber of Commerce's best interests at heart. And they're a big elephant until the ants realize that they're an elephant that cares more about the elephant than the ants. We're never going to solve this from a world perspective, right? From a practical perspective. I mean, God can do all things or whatever. And a recent example is back in September of 2024, where Kamala Harris met with Alex Soros. And two days later, their business enterprise was approved by the FCC to take over all these radio stations. And now they can control all the radio stations. They can start taking conservatives off the radio, and that's what they're trying to do. And how many stories have you heard about people in Congress selling their stock the day before a bad report's coming out about that company, right? So these elephants are looking out for themselves. Does it make any sense at all? I want farmers to make it, right? I want farmers to be able to provide good, healthy food that's organic and not laced with all sorts of weird chemicals and genetically modified in ways that don't go well with our body chemistry. I want them to be able to do that. They can't do that if the elephants are paying them to farm what the elephants want them to farm. Or not farm at all. Or farm and then destroy. The elephants are making those decisions. And I guess politically elephants are Republicans. That's not what I'm saying. Although This is the thing. This is the thing. The elephants are pretty much not elephants anymore politically. They're all rhinos, right? The number of actual conservatives that have the R behind their name that are actually conservative, and if you want to add the biblically conservative on top of that, you're talking about single digit percentages. Seriously. They're not on your side. And until we wake up to the fact that these elephants, we all will shoot at the elephants that are not on our side, we'll properly recognize they're bad guys. We gotta recognize some of those other elephants we think are good, they're not good guys either. Until the ants realize, and you know what, that ant can move the rubber tree plant. If he works in concert with all the other ants. Right? Because ants are really strong for their size and they work together. They can move that rubber tree plant. So how do you back that up from scripture? How do I back what up from scripture? That the elephants are bad and the ants are good? Or anything the ants should do about it or care about it? Well, I think it goes back to the fatal flaw of the, people call the United States the American experiment. The Israeli experiment from way back when. The Nation of Israel experiment. They weren't supposed to have a king. But they wanted an elephant. By golly, everybody else has an elephant. I want an elephant, too. God's prophet said, you don't want an elephant. Trust me, they're going to tax you like crazy. They're going to send your men to the front to be killed in war. You don't want an elephant. No, please. That's where we are right now. We insist on having elephants in our life. And these elephants are busy. The people who are running these elephants, they're busy having sex parties with minors and all sorts of weird, gross stuff. I mean, that's in the news, right? I don't know what the outcome of that is as this airs, but all that P. Diddy, that Sean Combs stuff, And then it sounds worse, doesn't it? It sounds way worse than the- Epstein. Epstein. It sounds worse than Epstein, though, doesn't it? I mean, well, it might sound worse because for some reason they've been leaking more information about the P. Diddy story than they have Epstein. They're covering a lot of the Epstein stuff up. But Diddy is all- It's unimaginable evil. It really is. It's unimaginable. The stuff that I'm hearing, and I'm sure you're hearing it, too, is like, oh, that It can't be true, but it is. It's stomach-churning. And who else is involved? Do you hear about all these... Everybody, all the elephants are involved, that's what I'm saying. So let's not just blindly accept all what the elephants tell us to do or what to think or whatever. The only elephant that should matter is the elephant, the preeminent elephant, God. That's the only one that should matter. All these other sub-elephants, you've got to realize they're sinful, they're selfish, Anyway, I went on a tirade there. I don't know exactly what inspired that tirade. You're tired of being stepped on. I am, right? I'm tired of being stepped on. So we have time to address this one last thing that was on our list, and then we'll call it a day. Um, and actually this is related somewhat, I guess, how it presented anyway is related. Being afraid of things that are out of our control. Oh, we love to do that as humans. Now, I think someone could accuse me of, you're being afraid of the elephants. No, no, no, I'm not being afraid of the elephants. I'm calling out the elephants for what they are and trying to wake up and realize that they're not on your side. And more of this might be in your control than you think because those elephants, They have their fingers on the scales when it comes to the economy and inflation and things and even the climate for that matter. We've talked about this in the program in the past about the conservative movement is not in one accord with the Christian belief system or worldview. I mean, there's so many high profile conservatives that are openly gay now and being employed by big institutions like the, you know, the Blaze or the Daily Wire or some of these very conservative institutions, what you would consider is, oh, this is more real and truthful news than Fox News or whatever. And then there's also a very, very large percentage of the pro-life lobby that does not really want to pass any pro-life laws. They just want to talk about it, just kind of like the NRA doesn't really want to pass a lot of pro-gun laws. The NRA, in fact, helped get the machine gun ban in place in 1986. So a lot of these conservative groups really aren't there to help. And I think that's what we need to wake up to, is we're not always equally yoked with these people. And we need to be standing up for Christ, not for some person who happens to vote the same way we do on certain issues. And a big part of the problem, reason for that problem, is that too many Christians aren't Christian. Yes. Too many Christian institutions aren't Christian, that we have that problem too. Maybe by the Great Awakening. We certainly do, yeah. Something like the first one, not the second one. So, but I don't want to, you know, we have like 10 minutes left. I don't want to just take 10 minutes spurring on additional reasons for fear. I want us to take a pastoral turn here. We saw out-of-control fear with COVID four or five years ago. And then there was concern about the potential monkeypox outbreak. And it's always something, climate change and all of the low-lying lands, like Florida is going to be completely underwater in 10 years. And what are some of the other things that have been? There's always like the inflation, measles, malaria. Total collapse of the dollar. Right, exactly. The EMP. And some of that might have some basis in truth, right? It might be factual, but some of that's out of our control because the elephants are controlling most of it. So those of us who are the ants, we can't control it. What do you suggest? You're pastors, what do you suggest we do to navigate the fear? I think it's wise and more than that it's imperative to have your eyes open and to take action to be prepared for eventualities that may or may not happen using the resources that God has given you. So I think if you're concerned about the dollar collapsing or some kind of world war breaking out and having a idea in your mind of where to get food and water and things like that, and to be able to bless other believers during times of crisis, I think that's very important. But do you need to do it out of a spirit, not of fear, but of faith that God has given you plenty, and in the years of plenty, you're storing up, and then you have years of hardship. So being a good steward of what God's given you is not more than just spending your money-wise. It's also looking and seeing what God is showing, and it's plain as day what's coming and what could happen. and then being prepared for it. So I think that's not a problem, but if you're allowing fear to consume you, oh no, woe is me, it's going to be all too terrible, and I'm guilty of this too. Every time God blesses me in some amazing way, whether it's materially or spiritually or however, whatever it is, some abundance, and then the next week, something that I don't like happens. Oh, it's so terrible. My life is ruined, this and that. We're human, and it's very easy to get depressed and downtrodden by things either that have happened or, in a worse way, like you're mentioning, things that might happen and also may not. And the Bible says, don't worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble with his own. But I want to be careful to say, don't not think about tomorrow at all. It also says, don't build a house without counting the cost to build it and all that. Make sure you have logic and reason and the way you conduct yourself, but don't allow fear to consume you. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of sound mind. And there's a great clip, and if you're on YouTube, you can Google, you can put on YouTube, Wile E. Coyote and the train. And there's a bunch of scenes, but one of them is the coyote sees the train coming, and he's sitting in a little shack that's built on the train tracks, and he sees the train coming, and he looks out his window at the train, and what does he do? Does he get out of the shack? No, he causes the shade. And it's a hilarious clip, but it's exactly human nature. We tend to do one extreme or the other. Either we really freak out and we throw everything overboard and we flounder, and then we don't have any faith at all. Or we just blindly shut our eyes because we don't want to hear about it, we don't want to think about it. I'd rather just go zone out and play on my scroll on TikTok. or go to the ball game or whatever, that's not thinking about what I can do to be used for God's kingdom. So I think either extreme is a problem and you need to have a balance there. And the big solution in my view is anytime you have that, Pray, bend the knee, spend time in prayer, because I think these type of times are really when God puts in place to get you to think about Him more and spend time with Him and pray and read His Word, but pray. I think we're called to pray a lot more than we do. We're called to fast, and we don't fast and pray nearly enough these days. We're too wealthy of a country. We're too safe. of a country where we don't have enough fear and enough reliance on God. And I think fasting and prayer does help you rely on God more. And the more you spend time in prayer and fasting, the closer you will be to God, the less these things will impact you. When we are overcome with fear, it's usually because we've forgotten who God is. We've taken our eye off Jesus. We see it with the story of Peter getting out to walk on the water. And he's actually walking on the water successfully while he's looking at Jesus. Then he starts paying attention to the trouble around him, and he immediately sinks like a rock. So if you're overwhelmed with anxiety and fear, you've got to put your eyes on Jesus. That's the only place where you're going to find security and hope. Right. So be thankful. In those times, be thankful. And in context of the fear and the mask, there are still people to this day wearing the masks ever since the COVID crisis. It's crazy. And I used to get angry. agitated, maybe is a better word than angry. Now, it's pity. I have such sorrow well up. You poor thing. And I know you're voting Democrat. Talk about profiling. I know you're both, but if you're still wearing a mask after all these years. With all this evidence, it shows it doesn't do anything for you. You just ruled by fear. And the fear was manufactured, particularly in that case, was manufactured by the elephants in order to control a whole bunch of things. There was some kind of media, I remember that one of the guys came in and he had a mask on and he said, pardon my mask, I think I have a cold and I don't want to get you guys sick. So that was a different reason. He wasn't wearing a mask to protect himself, he was wearing a mask so he wouldn't spread his germs on other people that were there. I'm not sure how much good it did for that either, to be honest, but yeah. I mean, that's really what surgeons do. I mean, the purpose of a mask for a surgeon is not to protect them from the patient, it's to protect the patient from the virus. Right, yeah, so their spittle won't run and stuff. I think the virus could still get out, though, right? Unless you're wearing a mask. Well, that's likely. Yeah, no, no, that's... And I know some people that have a medical condition with breathing problems and air impurities are really difficult for them, and so they might need to wear a mask. But those are generally people that were wearing these things before. Exactly, exactly. And there are not that many of them. No, there's not, no. Unless there's more of them now. Maybe things have gotten so bad with the... Another good passage to look to is in Philippians 4. Everybody knows Philippians 4, 13, it's cross-stitch on every pillow. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And people take that to mean the equivalent of I can move mountains and all this, which there are passages that talk about that. But I would urge you, go read the whole chapter of Philippians 4. That's not what that passage is talking about. Paul just got done saying, I have had plenty, I have also had nothing. I've been beaten, I've had good health, I've had terrible health. All these things, and I have learned in all things to be content, I know how to abound, and I know how to be a base. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And so Paul's talking about his contentment. You should be content in the situation that God has for you, however wonderful and however terrible it is. And don't be overburdened by fear of what could happen. And also be content in where God has for you. He may have given you, have your eyes open. He may have given you the tools and the command to prepare for something. whether it's the world ending or whether it's buying a house next week. Whatever it is, use the things that God has given you and be wise, but not overcome by fear. So be content in all things. You can do all things, but only through Christ who strengthens you. Well, Daniel stole the last word this time from Imran. He got it the last couple of weeks. Daniel got it this week. Thank you. The Razvys, find them online at conqueredbylove.org. Find the show online at wfmd.com. I'm Troy Skinner. Find me online at householdoffaithinchrist.com. Until next week, 167 and a half hours from now, God bless. That's one of my pet peeves, is people using a verse out of context. That was a good exhortation at the end. Yeah, somebody used that on the TV show Survivor. They had won one of the challenges, and the guy says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I was like, oh. There's another one. which a good friend of mine pointed out to me recently. You know that turn of phrase everybody says, you know, oh, it's great, we have a small, even though we have a small group, it's okay, we have a small group of believers here together, the fellowship is, at least we can fellowship, wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst, right? People say that, and I've caught myself saying that too, and I've been encouraged and exhorted recently by another brother that I shouldn't say that, because that's not what that passage is talking about. God is in you, if you're saved, he's in you. But what is that passage talking about? Specifically, church discipline. Matthew 18 is where that verse comes from. Go before the brother, then go before the church, and take him before the elders, because where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst. Meaning, I will be in that proceeding, that civil proceeding in the church for church discipline, because you're all trying to honor me by going through the proper authority structures. That's what he's talking about. But you don't need two or three to have God in the midst. God is in you if you're saved. And I think, don't forsake the fellowship. So again, there's other passages you can preach those things from. I was going to say, that's a sermon right there. I know. I've given the Philippians 4, 13. There's a spirit of Christ is in you. So that's the whole point of the message. But then, what are the implications, the applications? Why is that so? Which is the gospel. That's a sermon right there. Yep. I think Dan's going to be preaching that this weekend. You on Facebook can hear that preview of a sermon that maybe we'll preach some day soon. Yeah, there you go. Alright, well I'm going to shut this off. If you've watched all the way to this end, well, God bless you and we will talk to you again soon.