Let's start. Thank you, Father, for the many blessings you've given to us. And even when it's very cold outside, thank you. You've given us a warm building to be able to meet in. Father, we can have a discussion and not shiver. We are grateful for that. Father, thank you for the journey mercies you've given to people over the Thanksgiving holidays that being able to return and be able to meet tonight, give us insight into your word as we apply it to a whole area of political involvement in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, so there was a lot of different things I gave you. I gave you one extra thing. It wasn't directly related. Anybody get a chance to read through Wayne Wilson's thing? Yeah, about censorship. It's a good discussion. So you read it? You read it? Yeah. Okay. You get through it, Mark? Yes. Okay. I read it a few weeks ago. Okay, you read it a while ago. All right. If you haven't read it, it is just a good discussion. He's going to end up focusing on okay, should pornography be censored? But he gives a good historical background on where we were and what changed and why you see some strange things out there and have, at least in my lifetime, you see a lot of things changing about things being censored. When I was a kid, there was no problem. Pornography, it's gonna be censored. This is bad for everybody. And then Edwin Meese's report from the attorney general under the Reagan administration was very, direct with it and a lot of things were being prosecuted. Clinton administration came in and it all disappeared. Most of the people doing the prosecuting were let go and he replaced them with his own people and that stopped to the point that now we have pornography as a major problem. Even in the secular media, I'm starting to see a lot of stuff saying this has got to end. It's destroying people. And it is, it's extremely detrimental. Now Wayne wrote this in the mid 80s, I think 84. Yeah, it's It's gotten a lot worse in 40 years. And a lot of it's because smartphones, what used to be you had to go someplace, now it's on your phone and it's ubiquitous. I saw an article not too long ago, something, it was touting some figures that were a little, well, disturbing to say the least, that something like 90% of all men have looked at pornography within the last two weeks. Ninety percent? Ninety. And women, it's increasing with them. It was up over 50 percent. It's just so easy now, though, you know? And that's part of the problem. And then you also have the problem of you don't have to go looking for it. That's what I was going to say. Because even if, let's say, we were still messing around with the flip phones and no video, the way that they put it in just shows and movies, it's just as if, like it's soft porn or something like that. I mean, access is everywhere. And then it's just like, how? You got to watch the channels. And it's just like, and then I remember us talking, um, those ad advertisements on computers is just swinging around or just shows up, pops up. Like you, you definitely don't have to look for it, but you can just get there. Yeah. That's bad. So we'll see. Uh, I don't expect anything to come out of government. No. sure to be an uproar trying to censor that. Because of what he says there, we've moved really into this idea that we really can't censor things. And that's not where we started off as a nation, and certainly not. Now, we as Christians, we have a different basis. And that is what Wayne points out. Originally, we had that. We understood. No, we want free discussion. And we want that in politics. We believe that truth can prevail over the lies. But also, there were things that are harmful. harmful to children, they're harmful to people, and so there was a means by which to say this is bad. Hence, even those who advocate quote-unquote free speech, they still understand you can't shout fire in a movie theater unless there is one. And even then, you better be a little cautious on how you shout it, otherwise you'll get people trampled to death. Or a bomb on a plane. Or a bomb on a plane. And why is that? Because he said you're doing harm to people. And then he went into that extreme detail of what kind of psychological and moral harm that it's doing to the family. And in dealing with pornography 40 years later, there's a lot more of that. It's well known the damage that's there. He already was alluding to it. With pornography, it actually does change your brain chemistry. You don't think the same way. And there actually is a huge problem with young men. They get married and they're no longer capable physically. But it's that bad. So he talks about, so it's moved a long, long way, but I thought it's just a good paper to start thinking through. What about censorship? You have to think through this about where the boundaries are. We really don't want to have the libertarian idea, because the libertarian idea is a false one. This idea that as long as I'm only harming myself. Well, when it's not true, if you're harming yourself, you're harming everybody around you. So it's not, you're not isolated. And what they're saying is not harm, is harm to many people around them. So. The problem is defining harm. Well, here's one. We have one woman here. How do you feel walking around and thinking, yeah, all these guys think of me as an object? Oh, yeah. I mean, working in corporate, it's like that. You know, everybody's dressed up. They look nice. And it can be very uncomfortable. It is very uncomfortable. That is the whole mindset of it's just change. There's harm there, and it ends up in actual harm, not just psychological. You have to deal with all that, and then you have the people who will eventually act upon it. You have the destruction of marriages to it. Philography is a big one now. I don't know what the latest statistics are. Money is still usually number one, Because when you're spending money is when you're finally making decisions and you see that you don't agree on those decisions. And so there's conflict over money. But this stuff has gone a long way too. It's destroying people. How long ago was it that the Tendricks brothers put out that movie, Fireproof? That's a while ago now, right? And that was dealing with the issue of he was involved in pornography and what it was doing to his wife. So there is real harm there, and it destroys the relationships. We don't tend to think of that, because we've gotten into it. As he was saying, it's Mill's idea of it has to be something very tangible. It doesn't have to be something tangible. We have a different standard, because we know that God has a different standard than the world. It's also an affront against God. He has said this is no. Um, it's an affront to, um, was actually the playing the same one. He, he was not a Christian when he came to LA, he was from the Midwest and he came to get involved in the film industry. Um, and something I did not know until he told me is that the area that I lived in in San Fernando Valley was one of the number one areas for producing porn. So since he was involved in the industry, he knew about it. He became a Christian. What are you talking about? You know this guy personally? Hm? This guy? You know this guy personally? Yeah. Oh. He was not in the. This is my class. Oh, good. Good. I didn't read that. All right. Sorry. Yeah, I held Wayne's ordination. He did it at our church. The TMS grad has been at the same church the longest. because he was in the first graduating class, and he had a church the next year. He's been there ever since. So he's been there longer than me. He's still there. So that makes, I think, 36 years, I think. Yeah, it'll be 36 years this year. So yeah, I know, Wayne. So he was telling me what was going on, And there's these nondescript buildings and industrial areas, that's where they're making the porn. This is a big business though, right? It's probably a billion dollar type of huge business, right? Multi-billion dollar business. So there's another thing that's gonna make it difficult. But a good discussion, a good thing to think through when you have someone start arguing about censorship. We have a different view because we have the scriptures tell us what we can and cannot be looking at. And no, we're not to be looking at other people. We have our spouse. That's it. looking at other people, and we need to help people with it. So there's a lot of things that are out there now to try to help with that. Covenant Eyes is probably one of the better blocking services and accountability services you can put on your computer. I think you can put on your smartphone. You need to have accountability now. It's just part of life. things that are screened, what's coming in on your emails, texts, they're gonna find you out someplace. So any other thoughts on what he wrote? Was this new to you of thinking through the whole area of censorship? On the basis of it? I think it's good that he compared John Milton and Stuart Mills the way that they think about these things, right? I mean, Mills is totally humanist type of perspective, while Milton is much more, you know, there's worth what you've done because your image of God, right? but for this Mills is totally just like what you're seeing now with the explanation of, you know, as long as I'm not doing harm, right? Supposedly not. All right. But then who gets to define that? So they don't. And you probably have noticed that if you get out of secular society, no one wants to medieval. They don't like that word. That's a proper word. And that's the proper description. Law of the Meraviging is just plain evil. There is no other way to describe it. It is evil. It is from the pit of hell, and it's certainly satanic. That becomes it. He had a discussion there of always, under Mill's idea and the libertarian idea, pushing the envelope. Otherwise, are you really pushing the envelope? Well, it changed so fast. It's like we got into weirder and weirder stuff, stuff that's more and more evil, and trying to make it somehow normal. And that's one reason. And I don't know about you, but the whole thing, we end up, OK, the Supreme Court made a horrible decision or gave a horrible opinion. the majority of them did with Obergefell. And then within a year, you're hearing all this transgenderism stuff being pushed. Like, where'd that come from? How'd you jump from that all the way to this? With a lot of homosexuals being upset about it too. Like, how did they get there? Oh, this is part of it. We want to keep pushing, pushing, pushing. So it's coming down the line. Well, he mentioned incest. Incest's been around, but you're also going to have bestiality being pushed. Okay. So, We have a standard set by God, so we know what is right, what is wrong. And yes, we will censor those things, not just for a philosophical reason, but because God says they're harmful. And we will believe God, and so we need to protect people from these things. It's not up to humans to decide what is or is not harmful, and God has said it is. When he said this is the standard, There's a saying I will use a lot. You don't have to put your head in the garbage can to know it stinks. But we seem to live in a society that, well, you can't say that's bad unless you've experienced it and got it all over you. And like, I don't have to. God has already told us what is good, what is not. If it quacks, it's a duck. It quacks like a duck. It quacks like a duck. It's a duck. So I hope that was just a helpful read. Wayne did a good job on this paper. So I wanted to add nothing to it. All right, I have quite a few questions here. So that was trying to stimulate you in thinking through these things. Some of these things we've actually talked about quite a bit in leading up to elections, because usually you have an election sermon every four years. the bigger elections, but it applies all the time. The first thing is, how many different kinds of governments are there? Several. There's quite a few, right? And until you really start looking at scriptures from that standpoint, then the first question is various types of government described in the scriptures which God sanctioned. Yes, patriarchal, tribal, Okay, the elders of your tribe are in charge. Theocratic. Theocratic, so that didn't work out too well because people did what was right in their own eyes and they were following God, so then you had judges. So judges would, well, you know what the name of that is if it's ruled by judges? Theocratic. oligarchy. That's an oligarchy. It's the period of judges though. It's both the theocratic nation, but you ended up in an oligarchy. So judges were ruling. They went from judges then to kings. Then within Israel itself, you end up with the Sanhedrin. What kind of government was that? Even though understanding of Jesus' time, they're limited what they can do because Rome is over it. But within the nation itself, you had these 70 guys. It's representative. It's like, wow. They weren't chosen by vote, they were chosen by the elders of the people they're representing, but it was representative. They represented their tribe, their particular group. So you have a lot of different ones. If we go back in history, non-biblical history though, they're interacting. Greek democracy, how's that different from our democracy? Are we a democracy? People came and established citizens, usually male, not slaves, come and debate for election and vote. So it was the whole population, whoever the voting was, right? Probably the closest you're going to get to democracy in the United States would be the New England town meeting. That'd be about it, right? Because everybody's had their say, but even there, does the whole town vote on everything? No, they just come and they have their say because they're trying to sway their representatives. So we don't have a democracy. We have a republic. So democracy is different than that. So we have, or we call the democratic republic. We vote for our representative and then they do the governing. Would you want to be involved in every vote? No. You'd never get anywhere. Nothing ever get done. Not only that, but it's usually bad because then it's just whatever tends to be popular, not what's right. So there's a lot of different ones. What's important here when you get, well, what is the final government going to be? Yeah, a benevolent dictator. We're looking forward to it. God as dictator is a good thing. So there's a lot of different things there, and a lot of people don't think about that, because we tend to get trained here in the United States so much that only our form of government is the best. Well, no. Actually, can our form of government, we in the United States, work in other nations? It actually can't, because our government requires certain things. One is an educated population. If you have an ignorant population, what you do end up with? You get the popularity of, well, who gives me the most goodies? So democracy itself is not necessarily good. If you have an ignorant population, you need someone who's going to direct them. So you have to have that. Second thing, in order for our democracy to work, and one reason we're declining rapidly, is you have to have a moral people. If it's an immoral people, then they will vote themselves a largess at the public trough. So, because I just want what I want. not with what's good. I'm not going to make decisions. We're just talking about censorship. So if it's a democracy of immoral people and you're trying to get some laws passed to censor pornography, can that get through? I guess. No, you're going to have the pornography is going to put a lot of money into making sure they're swaying the rep their way and saying we should do something. All right, we just had a law passed here in New York, Proposition 1. How in the world did that get through? How many actually read it? I think very few because they didn't even print the second paragraph of it that was not in the voting guides. the name of it was so deceiving, like so many people I talked to, like what was it, like Equal Rights Act or something? So I do know that the polls switched from around 84% down to whatever the vote was, 67% in just a short time. Once it was finally being put out, this is what's in it. It's too late. But it's too late. Most people were just that, of course, that looks good to me because we have this idea. Equality is what we're after. Are we really wanting equality? We got four students here. You want equality of grades? I think you want to get the grade you've earned, not the grade someone else drug you down to. Everyone should always be based on merit. They should. But you can see where we've come as a nation that's pushed into it. So we have an ignorant population. We now have an immoral population. So how long can our form of government last? It won't. That's why we've already seen the decline already so much within our government. So these are things that we have to think through, but they come out of scripture. Scripture has already given us direction. Take any of these forms of government, whatever they are, we'll use kings because that's the easiest one to see in scripture. You had good kings and bad kings. How much did they affect the population? Some. Well, there's no good kings in Israel, so they're taken away by Syria first. What about in Judah? whenever you have the good ones. It went well. You had the bad ones, and it went down. You had those that would bring revival. So even on Josiah, Manasseh had a 55-year reign. Right at the end of his reign, he did repent. He was defeated, he was taken captive, and he repented. And, but after over 50 years of absolute debauchery, idolatry of every form, moving the idols into the temple and all that, and the people becoming used to that, even though Josiah brought a huge change, the people acquiesce because he's king and you don't want to get in trouble with the king, but as soon as he's dead, what do people go back to? They immediately went back to what they had before. So a good king can bring about good. When you had evil kings, they brought about evil. So there is that kind of influence on those who are the leaders of any kind of whatever it is, whatever kind of government it is. If there are good people in it, it doesn't matter the form. If there's bad people, it doesn't matter the form. It will become corrupt. Okay. Two, according to scriptures, who ultimately establishes any particular leader in the government? Yeah, but Nebuchadnezzar learned that the hard way, right? So he was warned, but he had to spend seven years out in the back 40, grazing around to finally get his senses back. And that's when he said, it's like, God is the one who he raises up, he puts down. So he may raise up a godly leader in a position or necessarily godly, but at least one who understands some basic morality and the nation will be blessed. Or he may use somebody evil and they're used to punish that nation. And that is throughout history, throughout biblical history. All right, Romans 13, three major functions that God's ordained for government. The principles and precepts of God's law, to protect its citizens from evil actions outside, and those within its realm, and three, promote what is good among the people. Yeah, it's pretty basic, right? So if a government's not doing that, is it going to remain legitimate? No, it's getting outside of God's bounds for its purpose, and God tends to do things with that, right? To whom will every government leader be held responsible? to God. So that's one thing to always remind them. If you go visit one, just remind them that it's not your constituency that you should be concerned about. It should be the one you're going to stand before and judge you for eternity. See if you can help them understand a little bit of fear of God. Some various ways God has replaced leaders in governments that do not fulfill his purpose for government. It's quite a few, right? Natural disasters, oppression by other nations, striking down the ruler supernaturally. Yeah, that one gets a little bit, right? Okay, Herod's one. Okay, yeah. Yeah, his guts fell out. the inside out yeah that's yeah you should have a little fear of gods it could be in those positions because it could be back all right yeah aside from other people want to play king of the hill with you and they want you off the hill they want that spot so intrigue assassinations other nations simply want your nation. They want to oppress you. A lot of things that God can do to replace a government that's not fulfilling his purposes for that government. That's true no matter what form it has. That's throughout history, biblical history, as well as secular history. What are Christians' responsibility toward government? submit to the government as long as it doesn't require us to just obey God. We're going to expand on that a little later, but that's the basic principle. As soon as any government wants you to do something contrary to what God says, we can't obey it. We have to respectfully decline to do so. Even if it means that we're persecuted for it, thrown in jail, executed, it still happens. I'm sure it's happening even today. There are those who are probably going to be executed because they will not obey the government because government wants them to do something that God says no. We won't be persecuted. We're not being executed yet. We may have four years. Hochul would certainly like you out of here. Of course. She doesn't want Christians here. That's contrary to her need for getting votes. So get the Christians out, get the conservatives out, and she can have her way. Well, aren't you thrilled? That's the whole motive of Proposition 1. Well, sure it is. They want us to move out of there. They want us to move out. And it's working. Since the figure was given back in the summer, I'm sure, we're at least at least at half a million that have moved out of New York. We're 437 in the early summer that have left New York. And of two years, well, a year and a half ago, the Siena poll, I think it ended up a total of 26% of all New Yorkers expect to be gone within five years. And if you narrow that down to certain segments, conservatives or Christian conservatives, it's in the 40 percentiles of conservative Christians expect to be gone. And we saw that in the last election. The Hudson Valley pretty much all went Democrat. And our conservative numbers were way up this year. We didn't win, though. But they were the closest they've ever been in about 40 years. And if we'd had more of the conservatives here. Didn't leave. Didn't leave. Probably could have won. So it's a nice figure. New York City is its own state. I agree. It's encouraging, but we know it's figures that it's going to keep changing. So Dutchess County flipped. Yeah. It's always been a conservative county. It flipped. So God has ways of dealing with things and he will. So we have responsibilities toward government and it basically comes down to we are going to be good citizens. We should be the model of good citizens but that up until the government wants to do something contrary to God and that's what the government doesn't like. they want the allegiance to it themselves. Some government forms even to that particular individual. Hitler wanted it to himself. There was a true story. It was put in, it was dramatized in a film. They would call it a simple life, ordinary life dealt with a guy in Austria. And he fought initially in the war with the Austrian troops. And then after Germany took over Austria, they wanted Austria to fight with the German army as part of the German army. And he was willing to go to war again until the oath was to Hitler himself. And he couldn't do it. And eventually, he was executed because he would not take that oath. So there are people like that. What about responsibilities of Christians in a democratic republic such as this? Do we have responsibilities that are more so than other kinds of government? It's like voting, right? That's kind of a minimum, isn't it? Yeah, voting. Because the form of our government is it's we as the people, the citizens of the nation have responsibility to keep the nation going. So voting is a minimal. So those who don't vote, it's neglecting their responsibilities. So it's, in other words, for us, we should see it as not just a privilege to vote, it's a responsibility. Now, if you're gonna vote, though, what other responsibility do you have to do that? Do your research. Don't, you know, hold up two pictures. Well, that guy looks better than this guy. Or what do they try to use? Well, they do. Why do you think? Sarah Palin was chosen. And why? It wasn't because she was a hockey mom. She did match McCain in being kind of an outlier. But it's not like it balanced the ticket. It didn't. OK, we get it. John Carey, it started coming out. He was getting Botox treatments. So he'd look better for the cameras. Come on guys. They had their hairstylist and everything. Just gotta look good for the cameras. Because yeah, there's so many. That's a terrible way to vote. Okay, you have to do your research. Okay, it may be the ugly guy. That's the better one. All right, you may have heard this one. Maybe I even said it. So the Nixon-Kennedy debate. Television was new back then. And those who watched it on TV had a different response than those who heard it on the radio. So if you listen to the radio, who won the debate? Nixon. And if you watch TV, who won? JFK. JFK. That's not doing your research. You got to figure things out, right? So we have responsibility. Do you have to be a political junkie to be able to be responsible? No. You don't. But you do have to have some awareness of what's going on. For example, at minimum, you probably should know what the party platforms are and where the candidate stands on those issues. That shouldn't be too hard. There's plenty of people want to give you some kind of little voter guide. This is where this person stands, this is where this person stands, right? But you should know what the major issues are and vote accordingly. Okay, aside from even maybe getting involved with government, taking on a position. All right, eight, what are the strengths and weaknesses of a democratic republic as a form of government? I think you mentioned it earlier that since people are going to be selecting, right? They're evil themselves, they will be selecting the same. But that's also a strength. If there's a revival, you will see the government change. If there's not, well, it could just... There's no more blue dog Democrats. I don't know, you may not even know what a blue dog is. Those were the conservative Democrats of the South, often sided with Republican conservatives, not Republican liberals, but Republican conservatives. But there's none left. They got primaried out. So that's a strength and a weakness. Bill Clinton was the one that really started pushing that with trying to get people to identify him because he felt their pain. So that was the policy. I relate with you. And people already had switched it out to like, OK, then that's a good thing. Another weakness in the Democratic Republic is because it is open to everyone pretty much now, let's face it, some of the Democrats are trying to want felons to be voting too, even in prison. They've advocated that. Some wanna lower the voting age to 16. Does that sound good? You can drive a car, you should be able to vote. I can understand a little bit by 18, if I can die for the nation, shouldn't I be able to vote? All right, I understand there's some reason there, I kind of wonder why are we sending an 18 year old out? Really? Should we send an 18 year old out? Is an 18 year old really smart enough to be out there? No, but it's easy to manipulate. It's easy to manipulate, and now you got it. You know, when you're talking about freedom and courage and advertisement and fill it in their head, and they'd be the first ones on the front line. Yeah. Otherwise known as cannon fodder. You're the one to go out and die for everybody else. So no, it's not necessarily good. At one time, the armies were made up of older folks, at least in their 20s. You'd always have young ones who want to get involved with it, but you had plenty of older ones around to try and protect them. But that got changed. So really should a 16-year-old be voting? I don't think so. Should people in insane assignment be voting? What about a convalescent home? That's a habit or what's in it. Where are they at mentally? You can see where all the manipulation comes in. So you can see the strengths and weaknesses in that. Another strength of democratic republic is if you do have those that are running that are of sound character, then they can buck even their constituencies like this is what is right because they see I had to train them. I have to teach them. I'm gonna advocate that stuff of that was right before God. So there's strengths and weaknesses. Nine, which is more important, the form of government or the leaders in the government? That's the leaders, whatever the form is. The quality of the leader makes the difference. 10. What are some priorities of concern that should guide the Christian when voting for government representatives or on a ballot issue? Rank them in the order of importance to you. So it may not be the same order as everyone else, but there should be some things are pretty much for Christians, right? So what are some of the main issues that can be for us? Human life should probably be number one. I've always taken very simple. If someone will not protect the most innocent and vulnerable among us, Who will they protect? So you can see we're already, so sanctity of life is certainly one of them. Protecting our nation. Protecting nation, that's a responsibility of government is to protect it. So you should know where does the guy stand on our military and also on police, okay? Our protective services, are they for it or are they against it? And we certainly have had a lot recently that have been against the police force. So yeah, call your local BLM representative. They'll come and protect you when you're getting broken into, right? Yeah, they'd probably come, hey, Charlie, I'll join you here. What else they got in here we can take? They owe us money. Supposedly so. So that's because that's a very purposeful point that God has given government protection. It does not bear the sword in vain. So along with protection, the physical protection, you need police and military, military for outside or in invasions, internal insurrections, police for local crime problems. Something else goes directly with that. So police arrest somebody, well, now you need You need a proper justice system, right? This has been a problem for police in a lot of places is they have a DA that will not prosecute. George Soros got a lot of DAs elected by throwing a lot of money into it and it's destroying the cities. At least LA got rid of theirs. San Francisco got rid of theirs. When San Francisco gets rid of one, it's gotta be really bad. So that's been true quite a few places. So you need a proper justice system. So that's gonna be very important, where they stand on rule of law. Are they advocates for that, that we actually follow our laws? What else might be in there? Sexual immorality and perversions. Okay, are they advocates of it? Are they practicing it? Yeah, what about this one from Delaware? Create a real controversy. Where will this person go to the bathroom? Yeah. Well, use the one in her office, his office, it's a him. Those should be pretty simple, but who's advocating what? All right, so those are lists of hierarchies. some basic ones, because if they're not going to stand on some things that are very obvious, then you know they're not gonna stand firm on other things that are not as obvious. If you're not gonna stand firm on that, what are you gonna do with the bills that are coming through trying to protect children from being pushed into sex surgeries that are going to destroy their bodies? They're gonna be mutilated. So that was this argument in the Supreme Court. So it's interesting to see which judges are which. And the one that could not define what a woman is is exactly where you thought, still can't define it. Not sure she can define a child either. Isn't there always one that identifies as a woman? Using the same word? Sort of. Define the word by. Sort of. Circular. We don't know what that is. It's a female man. Yes. Yes. So those are going to be there. Now, these are things you have to think through, because a lot of times you're going to find candidates that may be close. How are you going to distinguish them? Some are going to be way out there. Some, and maybe there is none that you could possibly vote for. That's a possibility. That issue doesn't seem to be on the federal level, though. That's only state. Which? the transgender rights and everything, right? It's gone to federal level. It has? Yeah, there was a bill introduced yesterday. It was either this morning or yesterday. There's a senator who wants to get a bill in on eliminating federal money being used in any way, shape, or form for sex surgeries for kids. So some senator actually has a backbone. That's a good one. So some senator finally has a backbone. So yeah, it'll be federal. There's no way that should never be federal money that's doing that kind of stuff. No. The federal government's involved in all sorts of things it shouldn't be. We'll get into that in a little bit. I asked you to read the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Did you get a chance to do it? I haven't read that since I was in high school. For me, that was a while ago. I've read it more than that since then. You want to think through those kind of things of what would be the proper thing before God. That's why I preach sermons on that, and these are basic things that are always in there. You can some things may be more important than others. You might even eventually get into like foreign policy and those kind of things. But you want to think through from a mindset of what does scripture, what scriptures apply, what principles apply, and all these issues. Is immigration an issue? Of course it's an issue, right? Okay, if people are coming in contrary to our laws, then those who are in charge, are they fulfilling their responsibilities? They're not. Okay. Are we against immigration itself? No. Are we against immigration that's done illegally? Yes. That illegal part's an important part of it, right? Okay. Then you might want to get into, okay, what about legal immigration? How are we going to control it? What are the pros, the cons of different groups coming in and why would you do that? And that would be a different part of the discussion. But some of this is simple. Other can be complex, including immigration, legal immigration. Who do you allow in and who do you keep out? Because that is going to be, what is your vision for your nation? Who are you letting in? What qualifications? Our immigration laws are extremely lax now compared to what they've always been. Well, clearly, people aren't coming over the border I meant legal immigration, too, is extremely lax. We've moved to, I mean, they even have this called anchor babies, right? Now I can get up on the scale because I have a relative there. So this is one reason why there is going to be a move to try to remove the policy of, if you're born on US soil, that you're not a U.S. citizen. That was always wrong. Let's go back a little bit. The Soviet Union has its embassy here in the United States, and they have a baby. Citizen of what nation? Right now it's still the United States. Yeah, right now they'd say it's the United States, but that's not true. They're a citizen of the nation of whom their parents are citizens. They'd be citizens of the Soviet Union, or now it'd be Russia. So if you have a citizen from another nation, they don't get automatic citizenship. That's something that got changed in practice. So these are things that also get in, but you're probably not going to have to get into those unless you're a representative. What if you have dual citizenship, though? That's a new thing. Well, because I'm thinking of the missionaries. The missionaries that have kids, they're going to be citizens of that country. They could be. They shouldn't be. They've got They've got pretty much permanent residency there, right? They could. It depends on the nation. Most nations require you to make a choice at 21. You're either going to be a citizen of this nation or that nation, one or the other, but you have to make a choice. The citizenship actually follows the citizenship of the parents. And that actually got changed. There was no dual citizenship in the United States until, I'm trying to think what year that was. I don't know if it was the 80s, maybe it was the late 70s or the 80s. There was no dual citizenship. If you came here and you want to be a citizen of the United States, you had to renounce your previous citizenship because your loyalty had to be to here. And most countries still did that. You had to have loyalty to the country for which you're a citizen. Yeah, we've changed. We've gone a long ways from where we were, right? And it doesn't take that long where memory of that isn't there because the old folks die and no one remembers. And most people don't like history, so they don't look into that stuff. I mean, what does that look like though, practically though? Somebody wants to go back to where they were born, they wouldn't be allowed to anymore. Well, they'd have to get permission from that country. you wouldn't have people carrying two passports to make it convenient for themselves. Yeah, they'd have to get rid of the other one, right? Yeah, that makes sense. Who would be a nation? China. They're a member of the Communist Party in China, and they come here. They're diplomats. They have children born here. those children raised by communists from China. So what citizenship should they have? Who's their loyalty going to be to? And that was an issue. So these are the kinds of things you get into it and you have to think through it. Fortunately, you don't have to think through all those issues just starting voting because usually there's things more clear, but you do want to start thinking through these things. There's a lot of stuff that gets into politics. It's not just politics. This goes back to a definition of, well, what is a nation? That's actually what you're debating when you're talking about dual citizenship. Well, what is a nation? And to whom does your allegiance belong? So this is the idea of the globalist, is that we're all one world, and we can just go back and forth wherever we want. Well, I'm all for treaties that allow me to easily travel to places without having to get all sorts of special permission and stuff. It's nice to be able to go to the DR and I got a US passport, so it's no problem. That's nice. Other places I had to get a visa before I could get on the plane. That's how you didn't have to do it in Ukraine? It was. I don't think it is right now. Europe, I can go most places in Europe without a special visa. When I went to Australia, I had to have a visa, but that was 1988, that was a while ago. I don't think you have to have that now because treaties are made and so there's freer movement. But why did you have to have a visa? Because the country you're going to has the right to protect itself from who's coming in. So a visa was a way of saying, yes, you have been vetted, you can come in. Well, now you have the ability to get information, like, real easily. So I'm sure all that stuff is null and void at this point. Well, you'd hope so. It should be easier to get a visa. But you don't have to have one for most travel now. At least as a U.S. citizen, you can go most places. Other places, no, not so much. I remember Trump was criticized so much because he was going to restrict people from certain countries coming in. He was racist because of that. Why did he want to do it? Just exercising his racist bones? Well, COVID was one of them. But before that, it was picking the countries that were our enemies and saying, no, you can't just come in here. You're not going to immigrate from there. We can't even get the information about, are you a criminal coming in? Who are your ties to? Are you part of the Iranian Revolutionary Army? Which there were some that commented. So he was like, no, we're going to cut this off. These people have to be vetted. And we weren't even vetting them. But he was considered a racist for that. What's behind that discussion? What is a nation? Does scripture define that for us? Actually, it does, doesn't it? All right, let's consider the side issue here. But Ruth, she's an immigrant. What allowed her to remain in Israel? It was Naomi Bederer, basically. Yeah, and what was her mindset? Your people be my people. That's immigration. If she just came in and wanted to do whatever she could, could she? Were there restrictions on Moabites? There were. There are a lot of restrictions on anybody coming in. A nation has the right to protect its borders. So a nation was the people of that land and those were their culture and customs. And so Naomi brought Ruth with her because Ruth wanted to assimilate, there's the other word that we should use, into that new culture. So that's a big difference. So if you have people coming here, they want to be part of us, but they don't want to assimilate. You see where we're going with this? see that was like my my mother's way of thinking as well being mixed why she didn't teach us Korean because at that time we she wanted us to assimilate as quickly as we could to show that we are our citizenship we are Americans and right and so But now it's like it's a little bit different. It's like, OK, you can be proud of your heritage, but still, well, of course, you are. Are you lose your loyalty to right? Exactly. Mm hmm. South Korean. Yes, that's true. Check in here. But I'll leave North Korea. Not he's not. But you can see where the problem starts arising from there. But that comes back to, again, a basic issue. All these things get related. The scripture defines things for us. What's a nation? What's a people? Is this globalism a good thing or not? What do you assimilate to in the United States, though? Because everybody's allowed to just bring their culture with them. That's because it's changed over the years. Multiculturalism really got going in the early 80s. with this idea that before that it wasn't multiculturalism. We prefer to ourselves as a melting pot. We would take the best of whatever came from wherever you came from, generally food. We're going to take your food thing. Or as I heard someone say, like, hey, we got your food now, go home. We'll take what's part of that culture. And yes, you can celebrate that. But the loyalty is to the United States as a culture with certain backgrounds. One of them is going back to colonial, going into revolutionary times of what we are as a people and as a culture. But as that gets more and more diluted, well, then what is our culture anymore? We don't know. And I don't think we can go back. So what I've found consistently is that those who have immigrated and naturalized usually understands United States history and who we are as a nation better than those born here. Because they actually have to pass a test that includes history in our form of government and how we function. In English language too, and they have to be able to do it in English, although there's a lot of pushing to change that. That was a mistake early on, should have made an official language, and we wouldn't be dealing with some of this stuff. That's another subject. All right, so this is part of the strengths and weaknesses even of Democratic Republic. As more people flood in from other places, and they bring their ideas with them, instead of assimilating into who we are as a culture and a people, a nation, then it starts, the terms have been used since, well, for a while, it's Balkanized us. We're all these little groups and we're in contention with each other. And that's what's happening. So there should be no problem. We're all Americans. Well, when you hyphenate that, well, are we all Americans? I don't know. I find that as soon as you start hyphenating it, you've already demonstrated there's a problem. So I can go on that for a long time, but I'm going to go on. All right, define politics. And what is the limit of political activity by a Christian, by churches? are the science of public affairs and government. So is that evil? No, not necessarily. Well, it could be, but I hope it's not. So how, to what level should, can Christians be involved in politics? They can and should be involved. All, any level. Right. Any and every level. So, Who are the best qualified people to be involved in politics? The godly people. The godly people. Everybody gets blessed by that one, right? If you read the sermon on Proverbs, it's over and over. It's the godly king is a blessing. The godly king is a blessing. Righteousness is a blessing. You go the other way and it's bad. So it would be best if it was Christians who were doing things. Now, the early Republic, it was Christians. As we moved away from that, well, now we got more problems. We got other people who have these ideas of what is right and wrong, and it's contrary to scripture. And therefore they think pornography is just wonderful. We should subsidize it. Abortion is wonderful, we should subsidize it. And God says both things are evil, right? So there is no limit of political involvement by Christians. Do understand that there are certain elements within conservative Christians that seem to want to move away from that. it's wrong. It's an honorable thing to be involved in government, especially when Romans 13 specifically says that those who are in those positions are ministers of God in their responsibilities. So no Christians can be involved in any level of government. Is it difficult? Yes. It's very difficult. Will you stand out like a sore thumb? Probably now you would, because if you're not going to compromise with basic truths, then you're not going to see as a good politician, because we moved away from that being a virtue. And that's why politics have gotten a bad name and politicians have become a negative word. It wasn't at one time. It really was something virtuous that you'd be involved and sacrifice of yourself because it was considered public service. you couldn't get rich being in government. You shouldn't. Sure seems different than that now, doesn't it? Let's see how that skews your allegiance to doing the right thing. You're doing it for the money. And it doesn't really matter how it performs as long as I'm getting the paycheck. Yeah, perish. Well, I think another problem is a lot of the money that people make in government isn't necessarily coming from government. It's coming from, if it's not lobbyists, it's enterprises and business entities that are kind of international at this point. There's all sorts of laws against what you can receive as a government official from lobbyists. And it's amazing how they can get around it. Yeah, even if it's just like, people working in like energy in the government owning stock and trading companies and stuff like that. Laws against that but doesn't seem to apply. Insider trading. It applies when you are picked out. But if you're not picked out or for scapegoating, then it's just like, oh, we're just trying to blind eye. Or pardon your son. You think the same way. And it just came upon him during Thanksgiving weekend. I know. Oh, right. I miss my son. Yeah, except all those statements made behind the scenes months ago is that we're going to say this to the public, and we're going to be working on this other thing. A whole lot of others too. All right, 12. What is the origin of the phrase separation of church and state as applied in the United States and what did it actually mean? And you're very close to where this history happened, only a few miles from here. So it came from a letter from Thomas Jefferson in response to the Danbury Baptist That's Danbury, Connecticut. That association comes here into New York. If you're along the Eastern Ridge, that association, the Baptists there are part of that association, still exists. Very close. Why were the Danbury Baptists upset? The government was trying to interfere in the church. Yeah, it was the state government was trying to interfere in their church. So some of their statements is they were requiring of things that are not right for free men. Another thing most people don't realize is most of the states had a favored church. Connecticut were congregationalists. A lot of these states early on, you had to be a member of a particular church to be in office. Maryland was Catholic. So that changed over time, but it actually, so separation of church and state was not what they're making out to be now. And these people are the ones that came from England, right? Where they have the Church of England and all that. And that's what they're after. They didn't want it to be sectarian. That's going to be some particular church supported by the state. That was a debate within the Constitutional Congress, or they're trying to figure it out in some of these things, is should churches receive a subsidy from the government? And there were those who were advocating. So prevailed is that no, the government shouldn't be involved. Mostly, I think, because they saw the writing on the wall, if the government's involved, you're going to have this whole control issue again. So the separation of church and state phrase coming from Jefferson's letter was to tell the Danbury-Bapst Association is the state may not interfere with you. Exactly the opposite of where we've gone now with the idea that the church cannot interfere with the state. Of course we can. You become a Christian, doesn't remove your citizenship. Being a pastor doesn't remove my citizenship, but some would want to treat it that way. Being a Christian does not remove your citizenship in any form, okay? You have as much right to speak out on any issue as anybody else. And yes, you have the right to put in, it's like, here's what God says about us, here's what the Bible says. Although that'd be anathema. That's separation of church and state. Well, you could say it's like, you're ignorant of your history, dude, okay? Go do some research and find out that the Supreme Court was wrong. Has the Supreme Court ever been wrong before? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh yeah, many times. Ask the Dred Scott decision. Ask him how he felt about it. That's an important one, because that's you so often against us as Christians. You're not allowed to bring your religion into the public square. Well, of course I am. That was from the beginning. You trying to kick it out is going against what Jefferson was talking about. You got to keep that in mind. All right, 13, what is wisdom and why is it important for any government leader to be wise? See Proverbs. What's that foolishness doing for you? What's it doing for your people? Yeah, it's just bad. So yeah, we want to be careful on all these things. Wisdom is crucial. When you have two candidates and one party puts up someone who obviously is not wise, you're laughing. I think you know who I'm talking about. The son of the renter of this house I now have in Tennessee, he was very upset when he found out that the last name of the people in the house was Harris. was really upset about this. It's like, this is terrible. We can't be running from someone like that. So I had to write him a note saying, I'm not related to her. She's English, I'm Scottish. We're not related. I mean, that used to be something you actually look for in candidates for office. Like, do they show us a little wisdom? I still don't understand how in the world that happened. It's mind boggling to me. But foolishness begets foolishness. Or what is the importance of righteousness in the government and its leaders? Righteousness exalts a nation, but it doesn't disgrace any people. Yeah, that is as important, if not more important, than the wisdom. You don't have to be all that smart. If you're righteous, you can still do the right thing. If you're wise, but not righteous, you're probably going to be very dangerous. That's got to be taken into account. Righteousness. And so when it comes to any kind of representative, you're looking for people who demonstrate a righteous character. They demonstrate some basic morality. We've gone a long way, but it wasn't all that long ago that men who are going to go for high office, if it was revealed that they had an affair, that was the end of their career. Now we flaunt it. But that used to end careers very quickly. We've gone a long ways from that. Righteousness is an important quality for those in leaders. The importance of justice in government as leaders. Good ruler will establish justice. Yeah, all through progress you have that, right? If there's no justice, what's going to happen to the nation? That's where you're going to end up. And we've had that, right? So all the BLM writers and all that stuff in 2020 and the stuff that's come since then, that was complete anarchy. There was no justice. They wanted to play games with something instead of right and wrong, and the law didn't mean anything to them. Justice is needed. What factors determine whether a government is bad or good, successful or unsuccessful? That's actually going to be moved more towards how are they fulfilling the purposes God has. If your nation is doing well economically, does that mean you're successful? It doesn't. If you're doing poorly economically, does that mean you're unsuccessful? It could be you're actually doing being very successful. Because the real key is, is your nation doing what God actually has determined is the purpose of it? Your people may be poor, but if they're living in security, because your government's pulling that, both from outside forces and internal, if justice is being done within, if it's the rule of law and the law is matching government, you're going to have a happy people. But if you're a wealthy nation and you're going against all those things, are you going to have a happy people? Is this one reason why the United States usually pulled really poorly in happiness, satisfaction, being content? Poor nations do a lot better than us in all those factors. Scandinavians are usually pretty high. Even their jail system, compared to ours, it's a completely different way of... Yeah, because we moved away from our system we had, and we went to penal colonies. The idea you're going to do penance, penitentiary, penance and then change your character. So instead of dealing with the real issues of, you did something wrong, here's your punishment, it's over, get along with life. We hide them away and it becomes more and more corrupt. Very different. So we don't have a justice system. We actually have an injustice system. So I got lots of stories on that too, but I'm gonna move on. Justice is extremely important. And success is going to be, again, marching toward the government fulfilling its purposes. And so the people can be secure in wherever they are. That's extremely important. That's where a lot of contentment comes from. I know I'm secure here. If you have a culture where your neighbors are people you like, because you have a common culture of we try to do good for each other. rather than I don't trust this person. I don't know what they're going to do. And so we've got cameras all over the place for your next door neighbor. That's bad. And that's one reason why you do see a lot of people moving from one place to another. They're trying to get away from their neighbors. Unfortunately, they take themselves with them wherever they go. And they're not a nice neighbor either. What factor determined whether, let's see, 17, what was the cause of the American Revolution according to the Declaration of Independence? The Boston Tea Party. The Boston Tea Party. Well, that was an action demonstrating something. It was being a tyrant. That's it. Where did taxes come in? 18th and 19th. It is the fourth subpoint of the 13th charge against the king. Subpoint? It wasn't even a major point. And I mean, we read the definition of the law. The whole law is a big issue. It was huge. Not carrying out the law. He wasn't. They saw themselves as Englishmen, so they saw him as becoming a tyrant, as he was a law unto himself. A bunch of charges there. Refuses assent to laws. He's forbidden the governors to pass laws. He refused to pass other laws accommodating the people. He dissolved the representative houses. Those were all important because they saw themselves as Englishmen with the rights of Englishmen who had a representative government. So he's removed that. That means they were no longer Englishmen. If they're not Englishmen, well, what are they? It was a colony of Englishmen. If they're not that, then what are they? That was another couple ones that were huge in here. Let's see. He was allowing foreigners to come in. He obstructed the administration of justice. Here's another one. He is kept among us in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature. Now, standing armies may not be a bad thing if you have a threat from the outside, right? But that's why they put in peace time. Why is this army here? How are you looking at it? Are we Englishmen or not? Okay. In fact, you have to render military independent of the superiors. So now the military actually is over their own government set up by charter or by parliament or the king. And now the military is doing independent. combined with other subjective jurisdiction of foreigners in our constitution. And that's, within that was a whole bunch of things, A through I. Taxes without our consent was the fourth set point within that section. So when everybody keeps saying, it was taxes without representation, like, I know you haven't read this thing, because it's minor. Here's the bigger ones. Advocate a government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. That's probably one of the biggest ones. Let's see, you are not treating us Englishmen and you're waging war on us. Well, what does that make us? It makes us enemies. It makes us something other than part of your nation. And then that also went on plundering, them at seas, burning their towns down. And he was transporting large armies of mercenaries to come in. And he excited domestic insurrections among us. So he's trying to cause war with us. So the Declaration of Independence has got a wrong name. It's not a Declaration of Independence. It's a recognition of independence. We recognize we're not part of you anymore, therefore, Now, why am I making a big deal of that? Because if you don't understand the origin of the nation, how do you understand who we are as a people? You can't. And most of our population doesn't even understand this document. They understand the caricature, which is why taxation without representation. Or as one guy said, you'd think that's bad. You should see what taxation with representation is like. It's worse. I get to pay my own taxes, so I know it. And I just paid property taxes. Ouch. For God's sake. Texas. It might as well have been here. Yeah, it might as well have been here. Yeah, that's another story. So that figures in, because remember, the Constitution is based on the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence sets out the reasons for us forming a government. So the formation of the government, both by the Arborist Confederation and then the Constitution later, we're thinking is, how do we carry this out? But this is what the basis is. These are the things that are important, which is why the Bill of Rights got shoved down there, with the things that are specifically in the Declaration of Independence. Now, I make a big deal about that because it figures into something else. we're going to get into. So the cause of the American Revolution, according to the Declaration of Independence, was you're no longer part of England. You're no longer a conglomerate of England. We're some kind of separate entity, and he's waging war on us. So we recognize we're independent. Now, it's also is the declaration of the United States that's independent states, the 13 United States, not the Declaration of Independence of the United States, but of the 13 United States. How is that different? When we say the United States, what are we talking about? We're talking about a whole nation. We're talking about one, right? If you say the 13 United States, what are you talking about? 13 individual states that united together. Prior to the Civil War, there was no such thing as the United States. It were these United States. So that's changed in our history, right? That came with the Civil War. So by force of might, federalism of the wrong kind was forced upon us. Because prior to that, it was individual states. So Lincoln tried to make it as the states were formed by the union, not that the union was formed by the states. There's a big difference between the two, right? um as constructed in the united states constitution to what allegiance of its citizens to what is the allegiance of a citizen supposed to be it's actually the constitution right you talked about that in just war theory a little bit because i threw out is what is your the what will inspire in the military Did you swear to the current president, whoever he was? Would you have done that? No. That money kept you out of the military. That's right. Let's see. I'm trying to think. If I go back 20 years, that could have been Bill Clinton. Was it? When you first joined? I joined in July 99. He's 2000. Yeah, that's Clinton. Would you have sworn allegiance to Clinton? no he's here in the bible yeah and a pretty one too so now why is that important because there's a lot remember said before there's the movement within conservative evangelicalism of christians should be involved in government government's evil Well, that's a problem there. But then they also go through this idea that we should just submit to government. Should we submit to whatever the president says? If the governor says we should do something that's contrary to our state constitution and the U.S. constitution, should we obey the governor? If you're in the military and you just were given an order and that order is contrary to the constitution, should you obey it? But the general just told you to do this private. You were a corporal. Well, you were a lieutenant. Now you're private. Now you're private. But should you do it? No. And that's because the allegiance we actually have here in the United States is different than it will be in other countries. Our allegiance is to be the Constitution. And fighting for that can cost you a lot. Not a lot of people have gone to jail or got kicked out of their office or anything else, because they're like, I'm not going to violate. This is what the Constitution says. Can the Constitution be understood by someone who hasn't had three years of law school? Of course. Was it written for common people? Yes, it was. It was read that way. It was read that way. It was written for common people. You didn't have to have three years of postgraduate work, which is all a JD is. I like pointing that out, right? So Ashley, you're going to go for your master's, right? No. Katie is. Katie's going to go for it. You're not going for a master's? No. Smart. So if you were going to go for a master's, how long would it take you to get a master's? It all depends on the master's. There's many different kinds. You can get a one year, you can get a two year, you can get a three year, you can get a four year. And that's just with a theology. You get an MA, you get an MA that takes two years, an MDiv is three years, and a THM is four years. Now, if I had gotten, went in science, I could have got a master's of science, an MS in entomology in one year. I chose wrong. I was just trying to collect degrees. It's three years. So I'm just pointing that out. So a lawyer only has three years of post Graduate education. So who's sitting on the Supreme Court? They have three years of postgraduate education. Does that really even sound like it qualifies for a doctorate? But they have a JD, a Juris Doctorate, three years. I'm sorry. I'm just against lawyers right now with this idea that they're somehow superior. You can read the Constitution. You can understand what it says. It was written that way. Admittedly, it's older English. You might want to read some Shakespeare person bone up on, or at least go grab your old King James. And that's the same time period, but it's understandable. But that's where allegiance is in this nation. That's not true in other nations. Allegiance is to be to something else. If I don't seek to obey the constitution, I'm actually violating my citizenship in this nation. Does that make sense? All right. Now, why am I making a big deal of that? Because I got criticized a whole lot during the whole COVID thing, because I kept saying, but the Constitution says this. And I had a lot of people that went, but the government says this. I said, the government's not following what our Constitution says. We have to follow that. I can't. If I obey them, I'm not obeying what my allegiance is to. All right, so that's just something that's different here. Now, we have three branches of government in the United States. What are they? Legislative. Judicial. Executive. All right, what is the legislative supposed to do? Create the laws. They're supposed to create the laws. What have they been doing lately, last 30 years? Law enforcement. Well, they create agencies who create regulations that have the force of law instead of writing laws themselves. All right, what is the executive supposed to do? They're supposed to enforce the laws that are created by the legislature. What have the last, man, it's going back a ways now, predecessors been doing instead of enforcing the law? Well, they make these executive orders, right? So they're creating a law in that sense, and then they're choosing which laws they want to enforce and which they don't. That's not always bad, but that's not what they're supposed to do. What is the judiciary supposed to do? Apply those laws to individual cases. Bingo. They're supposed to apply the law to individual cases. Are they supposed to interpret the law? No, they're supposed to apply the law, interpreting the law to an individual case on how that should be handled. How does that apply to this particular case? Not rewriting laws. So in view of that in our Constitution, are we still following the Constitution of the United States? No, that was a long time ago. So just understand we are in a declining nation because we're not even following our own constitution. We haven't since 1861, maybe even a little earlier. All right, now we can push this a little farther. Christians are citizens of their earthly country. We're also citizens of heaven. To which must we give greater allegiance? Maybe we see this? I'm not sure. Okay, so is a Christian in violation of Romans 13 for disobedience to a government directive contrary to a biblical command or precept? No. No, we're not. What about U.S. citizens who disobey government directives that are contrary to U.S. Constitution? Say that again? What about a U.S. citizen who's disobeying the government directive because it's contrary to U.S. Constitution? we're not violating Romans 13. Now that's for our nation. That's not to be true in other nations. That's true for our nation. But it's part of the important blessing of being part of this nation. We actually have something we can stand on that's not the arbitrary dictates of some person. We actually have a constitution that directs us. Now we still could go to jail for exercising those rights. Um, the laws are now so complex, it's impossible for anyone not to have violated one or more because you won't even know about it. Right. Or they'll make it up and they're still going to throw you in jail. Yeah, there's some bizarre laws. There are some bizarre laws. Can't bring your horse in the shower. That means somebody did it. All rules have something like that. And you clogged up the sewer system, so that's why you can't do it. What? There's all sorts of bizarre laws. There are laws that contradict each other, so it doesn't matter what you do, you're violating something. All right, so for us it actually is fairly simple. Number one, we obey God. Number two, when it comes to things not specifically in the scriptures that do fall in the constitution, we obey the constitution. And we actually should hold those who are in positions of public service responsible to that. It's like in calling them out. You're not following the Constitution. You're violating your oath. Because every public servant has to swear an oath to follow the Constitution, and uphold it. So we can put that. Now, Paul is an interesting character, because he uses his Roman citizenship to his advantage. And he also used it for the advantage of the gospel. So how did he do that? So he understood he has dual, this is where dual citizenship happens. He has dual citizenship. But we already know where his allegiance first and foremost is, right? Yes, they haven't. So how was his Roman citizenship helpful to him then? When he was on trial. and they were trying to bring him in front of the Sanhedrin. He appealed to the Roman government instead. Yeah, so that's an axe. So he already had been taken down to Caesarea, because there was already a conspiracy to murder him while he was in Jerusalem. He had already been down there two years, and a new king or a new governor, Festus, had come in, and so the Jews were thinking they could get him to come back, and he'd do a favor, but that's exactly what he does, right? So is it fair for us to use for citizenship? Yes. we should we should that's right okay that's a privilege we have at it were there many roman citizens at that time not in palestine all right paul was born a citizen which was actually even more so because remember when he was first um first arrested uh the um the Achilliarch was going to flog him. He actually had him stretched out, and Paul just said, is it right for you to flog a Roman citizen? That was immediate. It's interesting what the guy says. Basically, I earned and paid for my citizenship, and Paul says, well, I was born one. Yeah, so he used that. He also used it. He's in another place as he's traveling. He and Silas and Philippi, they were both singing in jail. And he used it to actually, it wasn't so much for himself. They wanted him to go silently. They wanted him to do that. And then he just said, no, you're going to come here and you can release me yourself. You've already done this. You've beaten me. You throw me in jail. It's not right. You've done this. So why would he use that? Well, he's leaving a church behind there. Yes, he can explain and protect those. It's actually protecting them. Be careful what you're doing here, OK? Because you're already violating. And they would be in real big trouble for having flogged Paul and throwing him in jail. He's a Roman citizen. He has a right to a trial. And they can give him one. So it's fair to use your citizenship. So if you're traveling someplace, go ahead and use it, OK? In what ways are Christians the salt of the earth upon society? How can they lose that saltiness? And how can a Christian ensure he will keep his saltiness? What was that referring to? Yeah. So what was the whole point of being salty? Preservation in the world. Salts are preservative. you have to be restrainer of sin. Salt restrains, that's part of the preservation. It keeps things from growing that you don't want to grow. That's why you salt food, right? If it's other thing it does is in food, you're going to salt it for preservation, but you also salt it for flavor, right? Cause you got this area in your tongue that just really likes salty stuff. So it adds flavor. But if it is no longer salty, it's become, It's got too much other stuff in it, so the salt isn't there anymore. What's it good for? Road salt. That's it. It's road salt. It can melt the ice. That's about it. Give you a little traction. That's what Jesus says, right? If you've lost your saltiness, you're worth nothing. You should be thrown out on the road. In what ways are Christians the light of the world? How can the light be hidden? And how can a Christian tree will keep his light shining? When Jesus gave this sermon out right across the sea of Galilee was a city called Hippo. It was up on a knoll. And at that time it was, decent population there. And so there'd be a lot of lights there at night. You can see it clearly across the lake. And he's pointing to that when he's saying this. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill, Hippo, cannot be hidden. So did it have to really do anything to let its light shine? It only had to act as a city, right? So we as Christians, how do we let our light shine? being ashamed of being a Christian. Just live as a Christian without trying to hide anything, right? What is a tendency though? To hide it. We don't want to say anything. It could be bad for us. Mark who comes sometimes, he's running into that at work. He wanted to put on a tag on his signature of, I think it was, follower of Christ or something like that, follower of Jesus. And IBM said, you can't have that. And he's like, I can't have that, but everybody else can have rainbow flags and it's all there. And that's why can't I have it? So he's actually pushing it. It's like, well, then what can I have? Can I put it in Greek? try all sorts of things. All he's doing is like, I'm being a Christian. I'm a citizen here. I have the same rights as everybody else. And I'm not being obnoxious. I just want to know why is it that I can't do this, but everybody else can do all this other stuff. So he's trying to push it. He's letting a light shine. It's okay to be a Christian. And it's okay to use something on your signature that says, yeah, I'm a Christian. It's okay to wear a shirt that says something, or a hat, or anything else. It's okay to do that. We don't need to shy away from the public square. Now you can see how that ties back to what I said earlier. We don't need to shy away from the public square of letting people know this is who we are, this is what we believe. Now we're not going to be obnoxious, but we're going to be forthright. Okay, that's the same thing. Saltiness loses saltiness when it is polluted by other things. So you maintain your saltiness by simply continuing to live for Christ. I don't understand how that's not a direct violation of freedom of religion. It is a direct violation, except that it's a private corporation. So his is that you are violating your own rules within your corporation. So that's what he's going to go after. So he's trying to show that you're being hypocrites here. He's not trying to be obnoxious. It has to be this one thing. I mean, would you put straight white male? No? All right, so there's some case studies here. Christian living in a communist land, what should your general attitude be toward the government? And how would you respond to each of these situations? You're directed to move to a new location. because why you're you're taking you're in a communist land you got a dictatorship what's that what's my fault i'm in domain i'll read the proof you're a christian living in a communist land right you're in china you're directed to move to a new location You move. Okay. All right. I'll see what God has for me this new location. Right. That's all you really can do. Right. You're directed to do a different job. Yeah. Okay, I guess. Well, you know, you're not doing well. I'm really good at this, but you have me doing that. So we all lose. That's how the communists work, right? That's how the military works. You're really good at this. Yeah, but you're not doing that. You're going to go do this other thing. That's how Home Depot works. Are you an electrician? Password. Don't give anybody an opening. We already got a guy over there. Yeah, he knows his tupperware. All right, you're directed to abort your second child. Yeah, you can't do it, right? You're directed to keep your religion private. You're going to be careful, but you can't keep it private. I'm going to have to share. You have to share it. I'm going to share it, right. You're going to be as wise a servant, as gentle as a dove. You're going to be careful what you're doing. But you're definitely going to share it, right? Why? It's because these are things directed to us by God. So that is our first allegiance and that's why Christians get in trouble in communist lands. There's an allegiance that's not to the government, not to Xi Jinping. It's to God and they don't want that competition. Anything that's autocratic is that way. Two, you are a Christian living in a country with a democratic republican form of government. But should your response in the following situation in the Dane domain is used to take your property. I'm playing a lot. Yeah, I'm going to go through the legal process, see if you can fight it off. And because even if I lose, you got to give me just compensation. That's right. Something's happening. You got to just compensate my mouth. All right, you understand there was a Supreme Court case some years ago in Connecticut that actually has destroyed that law. They still have to give you compensation, but they decide what the compensation is. An eminent domain had to be something for the benefit of your community, usually related to government, for example, and the domain for building a highway. All right, yeah, you're losing your front yard, sorry. but we do need the extra lane here. It's getting dangerous out here. Or as some friends of ours as well, they took the whole property and there's a freeway on top of it now. So it's four or eight lanes across. So they moved to a beach community. Except they went from a house to a trailer. Oh, wasn't clean. That's how they viewed it. Because by that time, they're in their 80s. Like, yeah, we need a downsize. All right. But you still have the it could be used, but you still have some rights to try to fight it or see if you can do something else with it. All right. But they could you could lose your property. All right. The government outlaws your charitable business. to go through a legal process. You're going to fight in the legal process. You still could get outlawed, but you're going to fight it. So you see the advantage here of a democratic republic. Government taxes you to pay for abortions. Well, thank you. Do you pay your taxes? The government uses your taxes to pay for a lot of things that are evil. Do you pay your taxes? Right, we're told to do so. And then even so, it's like, you know, until that switch, I forget when, but it comes out of our pay automatically. So it's not like you really have a choice. Well, I do. I write a check every quarter. I write the check. You don't have to. You can put zero on your exemption and then you're just responsible to pay taxes at the end of the year. Yeah, I guess so. Just make sure you're saving. Now this one comes up, that's why the questions here is, I shouldn't pay my taxes or doing evil things with it. Are you responsible for the evil the government does with your money? No. You got to keep that in mind, okay? So when Jesus said, render him to Caesar, what is Caesar's, were they actually doing good things with all that money? No, not all of it. They were doing some good things. I mean, it was good that they were paying the military. It's good that the roads were in shape. I mean, there were some good things, but there were other things like, yeah, this isn't so good. All right, so understand that. Government may do evil things. You're not responsible for that. What you are responsible for is you can fight that by who you vote for or petitioning the government, things like that. You can fight it. but you're still going to pay your taxes. The government passes laws restrict the expression of your religion in public. Nope. I'm still sure. So you're going to go out there. Are you going to be obnoxious? No. No. But you're still going to go out there. So government has passed some laws, some of that. Some, there have been people arrested at gay pride parades because, well, they're passing out tracts. What's the problem? The government didn't like that, because you could be creating a disturbance. So that's how they charge them. You could be creating a disturbance. I'm not creating a disturbance. The gay pride parade is causing a disturbance. And I'm doing what is called, that's actually called pamphleteering. And it's completely illegal to do that. So the government's trying to make a restriction out there. You're going to have to fight it. So you're going to be careful what you're going to do. You're not trying to be obnoxious. move down the street, all right? You can be careful with it, but you're still gonna follow God because God's more important. If he wants you to be a witness, then go witness. Right? Okay. There's a lot of these things that happen. There's a grandmother who currently is serving four months because she was praying near an abortion clinic. Wow. Silently. I don't remember. Same thing happened in England. That was a while ago when she won in English courts. They had to pay her restitution for all she went through. Same kind of thing. She was just praying silently. I said, you can't do that. How do you know what I'm doing? I can tell you what I'm doing, but you don't know what I'm doing. So now we have thought crime. So you know what I'm thinking. It is George Orwell. We were there 40 years late, but we're there. Government leader praises those who do evil while haranguing those who do good. Well, start with praying for them. One, pray for his mercy that he lives long enough to hear the gospel. This guy could just strike him dead. If you're very active kind of, how about campaigning against him? You can protest. We have that. All right, this one's a little more interesting. Two major candidates for political officer, self-proclaimed socialist with a 75% rating by the National Right to Life, and an economic conservative libertarian with a 75% rating by NARAL, National Abortion Rights Action League, that's what NARAL is, and the Hemlock Society, they advocate assisted suicide. What is your response and what other factors would help you decide how to vote? Isn't that a lovely choice? So it's between a socialist and a libertarian. A socialist who has a 75% rating on life issues and an economic conservative libertarian who is 75% pro-abortion and assisted suicide. Very nice. Aren't you glad you have these choices? None of the above. It's my right. Well, it could be. Write in a vote. Because at what point could it be so bad just that I can't vote for either one of them? That is a right you have here as well. You don't have to vote for whoever's on the ballot. You can write in. That's a good thing to do. Now, is it going to make any difference in who gets elected? No. But that's good for your conscience. Because I want to go back to something pretty simple. There was a lot of debate in this last election about that. Well, you're throwing away your vote if you vote for a third party candidate. Depends on which candidate you're voting for. We had this discussion with Jonathan and David when Trump ran in 2016. Well, I said, you're not throwing away your vote. You can vote that way if you want. But do understand that you're advocating to third party candidates. How are they any better than Trump? And they weren't. I said, I don't trust him. I was pleasantly surprised he actually kept his word. That's a weird thing for me. A candidate that kept his word, that's weird, should have more non-government people. Reagan was the same way, you know? He wasn't a government guy. So maybe that's kind of people got to go on to something. Yeah, kind of on to something, you know? So are you throwing away your vote? No, you have a conscience. First Corinthians 14 tells us, whatever is not his faith is sin. If you cannot in clean conscience vote for someone, if you do do that, guess what you just did? You violate your conscience. If you're violating your conscience, you're in sin. So don't let anybody persuade you to something that causes you to violate your own conscience. you have to work through it, and you should work through why you're going to do what you do, why you make decisions you make, and that includes the whole political realm, but never at the cost of your conscience, because you have to be able to stand before God. You can't be able to put your head on the pill that night and go to sleep in peace. not in turmoil, because you just did something like, I don't know if I should have done that. Does that make sense? And you're going to run into people, that's going to be a common dilemma, because it happens all the time. It takes time to develop your political philosophy, where it fits, how it fits with all these things, but let that be guided by what is the biblical principle that will apply to the situation. And if you ever end up in a political office, that's the same thing that has to guide you. Not the clamoring by the people or who's trying to lobby you. It's, I have to stand before God. So what is the right thing to do before him? Minor office or major office, doesn't matter what it is. And you'd be on the school board. Or maybe it's just the library association, whatever it is. make sure you're thinking through are the biblical principles of this. All right. So next week, we're going to be getting into, I think it's abortion, euthanasia, adoption, having children. I'm still posting stuff. I got some stuff already linked on the website. I'll be posting more tomorrow, along with some papers. Some of the papers are good. Some are, they just, Get the topic going and I'll be putting together a Questions. I have a question for you. December 19 We are showing that class. I don't know what you end up doing with all your schedules. You'll be gone. I'm a the rest of you heading out. When do you start your Christmas break. I think kind of the latest most people are leaving. And then they come back, we all come back as early as the 4th or something, and then I come back on the 5th of January. Well, then we'll have class next week, and then we'll resume on the 8th of January. So we will not have class on the 2nd, nor will we have it on the 26th. I think my wife would rebel. One more class for the rest of the year. My wife would rebel against me if I tried to have something on the 26th. The family's here. You're not doing that. But it's not Christmas. That was yesterday. All right. So we'll delay that. I'll change that and that. But it's going to be adoption, birth control, abortion, having children, hopefully get into euthanasia, may not get into genetic manipulation, vaccine, hospice, suicide. Someone actually asked me if maybe I could do a session where we're going to talk about health, and maybe medical ethics would fit better with that. How should you treat your body? So that's always a discussion that it's kind of calmed down. That was a big discussion. Not all that many years ago is your body is a temple of God. Therefore, you know, take these vitamins, take those vitamins, take this supplement. Like, I think this is a marketing approach. Okay. But that'd probably be a good discussion. And that'll be later on. All right. Any questions or anything else you want to add? Ready to go home? Yes. Are you ready to go home? Okay, just checking. You seem like you're zoning out there. You're already home in that chair. All right, that's great. Thank you, Father, for your goodness to us. And as we do think through these kinds of issues, that you do give us the direction. It's there in your word. Father, some of the other things I know coming up in our discussions, in many ways more controversial, at least to society, but very clear with what you tell us to do. Some of the things that we've done with technology, give us some things that are hard to work through, and I know that'll be some discussion next week. But do give us insight from your Holy Spirit into the application of your Word into each of these areas in Jesus' name. Amen.