And let me make sure I'm not blocking the microphone. I think I'm blocking the microphone a little bit. There we go. And it looks like we're rolling. Hello, Facebook land. Welcome to the Household of Faith in Christ. And remember, these videos are not just on my Facebook page, but you can find all of our videos archived on the Household of Faith in Christ YouTube channel. Feel free to subscribe there and hit the notifications bell. Anytime we post a new video, you'll get a notification that it's there. You can do that if you like. Feel free to like and comment on YouTube. Feel free to like and comment here on Facebook. Speaking of our videos, two weeks ago we didn't have our Saturday evening live gathering, so the only video we posted then was a short two or three minute testimonial video from a young lady who had the honor of officiating her wedding last weekend. And then last weekend we didn't do our typical thing either, but I did do a live video where I kind of recapped some of the highlights from the wedding ceremony. They did that mostly for Dan and Sarah, so they'd have a memento from their wedding day, but also I put it up there live for anybody who might wanna see kind of the biblical and Christian importance and meaning that's packed into our marriage. And so I put it up there for that purpose as well. And before we get back into our regular stream and habit of recent weeks and months, We're gonna do something a little bit unusual this week too, but let me set the stage for what we're gonna be doing starting next week. We're gonna get back into our series on 1 John. Next week we'll be focusing on, beginning our focus on 1 John chapter four, verses seven through 21. So if you wanna read that between now and next week, you'll be prepared to hear that message. There's gonna be a two-part message on those verses called Love Is, Love Is Not. And so the first part of that two-part message will be next week. What we're going to do this week is more of a family meeting, and I'll explain to you what we're talking about and why we're doing it the way we're doing. But before I go any further, would one of you two ladies want to open us in prayer? Sure, I will if you want to close in. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this opportunity to come together and worship you. We ask that your Holy Spirit would come into this discussion. that it would guide it, that it would cause it to be in perfect alignment with the truth, the one and only truth. We ask that you would be glorified, Lord Jesus. We ask that those who are watching would be changed forevermore into your likeness, that you would call us all to yourself, that you would be glorified. And I pray that you would fill Troy with your words in Jesus' name. Amen. So I'm gonna start by reading a relatively well-known and well, I mean, all of the Bible for a devoted Bible-reading Christian is gonna be well-known, but there are some parts of the Bible that stand out, and I don't know that this is on the top 10 favorite parts of the Bible, but it's a very well-regarded and a favorite passage of scripture for a lot of people, so you're gonna be familiar with some of what I'm gonna read. It's Psalm 139. If you're not familiar, this is a Psalm, but if you were to read it in the original Hebrew, there's tons of repetition, or impact, which I kind of like with the theme that we're in with First John, because the Apostle John in the New Testament, he uses lots of repetition in his writing style, too. And so there's kind of a correlation and connection in style, anyway, between those. And this is a psalm that talks about God's knowledge and God's presence and God's care and how his care is precious to us. and our loyalty to God and the need for humility before God. These are some of the big themes that are in this. And as I read this, I want you to consider, this is true for all of the Psalms, okay, but I'm reminding you now as I read this Psalm. Christ himself is the first singer of this psalm. The psalms are songs. And he, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Word of God, wrote this along with David. But David, moved by the Spirit, wrote this psalm. And so Jesus is the first singer of this psalm, in a sense. And it's a psalm, of course, about him as well. So he sings with us as we sing about him. Okay, and I'm gonna start with verse one and read all the way through to the end. There's about 24 or so verses in this psalm. Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out, my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, oh Lord. You hem me in, behind and before. You have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there, your hand, will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me. Even the darkness will not be dark to you. The night will shine like the day for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, oh God. How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Now, if you are reading along, you notice something. If you weren't reading along, you might not have noticed anything at all. You're like, yeah, I kind of know that psalm and the talk about the fearfully and wonderfully made. It's a common passage. It's cited in abortion discussions and that sort of thing. Like, yeah, Psalm 139. I love that psalm. Well, if you weren't reading along, you probably If I were hearing this and I wasn't reading along, I might not have noticed it. I'm not rebuking you if you didn't notice this. But if you really, really, if you've committed this on the memory, some people have, you notice that I skipped over four verses. I skipped over verses 19 through 22. And so the reason I did that is the other verses, 24 verses here, I skipped over four of them, 18 of these verses are this beautiful, passionate, loving, touchy-feely, God's so good and And I feel the comfort of that, and I'm committed to living my life in such a way that expresses that sort of heartfelt attitude out of gratitude. And that's all good, and that's all true. The problem is it's not sufficient. We can't choose to leave out the parts of scripture that are hard truths. The fact that God loves us, and he's there with us, and he knows all things, there's great comfort in that. And so that's a truth that's not really hard for a Christian to embrace. But right now we're living in a climate, and I don't know if it's just right now, I think it's been historically true, but it feels particularly poignant right now, that we're living in a moment in church history when we only want the other 18 verses, and we don't want to focus on the four I left out. So let me read the four that I left out. If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! They speak of you with evil intent. Your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them enemies. We are in a situation right now, I'm gonna use some of the big more popular names, just this week John Piper, a very famous pastor in the Midwest in the Minneapolis area, faithful man of God, one of my favorite preachers of all time, dynamic leader of men, so much to love about John Piper and his ministry, and yet, for some reason, this week, he posted an article, published an article, saying that he was going to abstain from voting for either candidate for president this year because he didn't like, basically, the platform that one guy stood for, and he didn't like the arrogance of the other. That's his right and we'll talk about that in a minute. But we also have Tim Keller just this month. He published some things that didn't say that you should as a Christian vote for Joe Biden, but he basically gave you enough runway that you could get in that plane and have enough runway to take off on that mission and have no compunction about voting for the Democrat candidate. Was Tim Keller right to do that? And Phil Vischer, I just posted a video about this actually today on my Facebook page, Phil Vischer put out a video talking about abortion. And we might think as Christians that the Republicans have always been right about the abortion question, but maybe that's not so. So if you wanna vote for, maybe the gist of it is if you wanna vote for the Democrats, maybe that's okay. Is Phil Vischer right? It sounds winsome. It sounds loving. It sounds gracious. But there is a spiritual war that we can feel in a visceral way as a culture war right now, and we've gotta make some decisions. And so we're gonna spend some time in this family meeting having a discussion, and if you have comments or questions you wanna share in the comment section, we'll try to address those during this time together. What is a Christian to do? And so I've made myself a few notes so I wouldn't forget any important things that we might wanna talk about. Let's start with our current president, Donald Trump. Donald Trump is famous, or you could even argue infamous, for name-calling, for that crass statement. He was caught on tape, and he didn't realize he was on mic, and grabbing women where you're not supposed to be grabbing them, and he's been called a buffoon or a clown. He is clearly a man with a big ego. You could even argue that he demonstrates that he can be rather egotistical. He's very bombastic and brash. Now some people love that about him, but a lot of Christians recoil from that sort of a persona. He too often, I would agree with this, that he too often lacks sufficient nuance in some of the things that he says. He blurts out sometimes half-baked or mistaken ideas, and then later on he has to try to walk it back or explain it or maybe just abandon the idea completely. He insults people. He can be vindictive when people attack him. He's been married three times. He's admitted that he's cheated on his wives. I mean, there's a lot there not to like. Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate, former Vice President of the United States. He's pristine, right? He's as white as the wind-driven snow. Well, Joe Biden, during his nearly 50 years in public office, is on record showing glowing support for white supremacists who are his colleagues as politicians. Joe Biden has this creepy habit, it would seem, of sniffing women's hair and touching little girls in odd, inappropriate ways. He has demonstrated, particularly this year, we've seen it a lot, a volatile, unpredictable temper. He's gotten into arguments with people that he's trying to persuade them to vote for him, and yet he practically challenges them in fistfights. He called a woman a dog-faced pony soldier. And now we have all these stories with reasons to believe that he abused his power as vice president and that he has allowed or perhaps even enabled relatives of his to profit as he served in high public office and that that profit might have come at the expense of the taxpayers. So he's got problems. Neither man is perfect. If you're going to say we can only vote for somebody who's got perfect, impeccable character or something very close to it, you might have to agree with John Piper and say, I'm not gonna vote for either one of these guys. Now, if you're gonna say, well, Trump's worse than Biden, well, maybe on style, because Joe Biden's style is a little bit more palatable based on our cultural norms. And so we as Christians would have to grant that to somebody who wants to make that point. But is that what this is about? Let's say, okay, we have to admit, at some level, Joe Biden is kind of a jerk, right? I mean, in the debate, he referred to the sitting president of the United States as a clown and a liar, totally diminishing the office of the president on an international stage, because the whole world is watching that debate. So that's not an indication of a strong character. But let's just say that, on the whole, Joe Biden is only half the jerk that Donald Trump is. Donald Trump is twice the jerk, three times the jerk that Joe Biden is, okay? Whatever, let's say for the sake of argument that that's true. Is that what Christians primarily should be thinking about and worrying about? Now, if the character is so bad that it precludes someone from being even considered for the president, You can have knockout blows. If somebody is so heinous and so evil and so bad, you say, you know what, I don't care what they stand for. Their character is so bad, they can't be president. And I would argue, as bad as the record for Joe Biden and as bad as the record for Donald Trump might be, I think both of them passed that test. They don't get an A, I'm not sure they get a B. But they passed the test. I think that they have a right to be on the ballot and people have a right to consider them for president. So, what are we to do? What are we to do? In this particular case, it's true every year, but in this particular case, I would argue more than ever, we're not voting for men. We're voting for ideas. We're voting for policies. We are voting for the trajectory and the future of this nation and the ability for Christians to express themselves freely in their worship and to try to advance positive change for the culture from a biblical perspective. which platform of ideas and policies and which track record of the men who are involved is gonna best help us to do that. And I'm gonna show my hand right now, and I'm gonna anger a lot of people. You're probably already sensing where I'm going, but I'm gonna anger some people. And I would just ask you to hang in there and understand why I'm gonna say what I'm right now gonna say. Someone who is a Christ follower does not have to vote for Donald Trump. but someone who is a Christ follower cannot vote for anybody on the Democratic ticket. Anybody involved with the Democratic party, you can't. That's offensive, I know. To some people watching this, hearing my voice, that's offensive. Let's walk through why I say that's the case from the Bible, because that's all we really need to be caring about as Christians. What does God say? What would the Bible instruct us to do? It's not about our mere opinion, it's trying to best determine what is God's opinion. So, we have one candidate who favors higher taxes, and by this I mean taking money by force from one person so that you can give it to another person. One candidate advocates for more government regulation, which Believe it or not, it hurts the working poor. It limits the number of jobs available for the working poor. One takes positions for a weaker military, open borders, which puts all of the citizenry at risk. One believes in a living constitution, which means that the words on the page don't mean what the words on the page mean. One is for extended abortion rights, quote-unquote, which gives sanction to the painful slaughter of innocent babies. And one also agrees with restrictions on freedom of religion, the freedom to assemble and to worship as the Bible would instruct, and also has hostility towards Israel, and these are things that Christians should not abide. Those half a dozen or so, whatever it was I just listed, all of those would be the position of the Democratic Party. Christians cannot support those policies. Those of us who are in Christ are called by God to be exiles on earth. So we are sojourners, right? Our citizenship is in heaven. But at the same time, they're simultaneously to seek the welfare of the city, to seek the welfare of the nation within which we live. And so, are those policies the kinds of things that are gonna bring welfare to the city? The Bible tells us no. And we don't wanna get caught in the absolute mindset of being single issue voters. However, I once worked for a man who was one of my better bosses, And he talked about his hiring practices, and he was a big believer in hiring the right person for the right role, and he didn't worry as much about their resume, their skill set. He felt you can teach somebody skills, you can give them experience, but you want to identify their talent, and if they have the right amount of talent for the right job that you have open, you hire them. The person that has the most talent for the job is who you hire, hands down, no questions asked, except if there was what he called a knockout blow. So you can have somebody that on the talent scale, I don't know, one to 10 talent scale, their talent level for the job you're looking to fill is a nine and somebody else is a six, you're clearly gonna hire the nine, right? Unless the nine has something that you can't overcome. I don't care how talented they are, how wonderful you might think they are for the job, there's something that you cannot hire them for. That's not being single-issue voter. I just ran a whole bunch of issues. There's a lot of issues that the Democratic Party stands for that Christians cannot get behind. But even if that weren't true, the killing of innocent little girls and little boys is a knockout blow by itself. You cannot, as a Christian, support the killing of innocent people. And it's even worse than that. It's supporting the killing of innocent people and forcing you to pay for it. Christians cannot abide that. It doesn't make you a single issue voter, but it does help you to recognize that's a knockout blow. To put this in historical terms, would it be okay to vote for Joseph Stalin because the trains ran on time, and he looked like a leader, and he accomplished some good social programs, even though he killed tens of millions of people. Clearly not, right? I mean, it's a cliche, but you wouldn't vote for Hitler, right? Put in contemporary terms, should we vote for a KKK leader? Should David Duke, if he were on the ballot, should a Christian vote for David Duke? Of course not. Well, why not? Why do I say of course not? Because David Duke stands for hate. He stands for things that are anti-God, anti-Bible, anti-Jesus Christ. And that's what the Democratic Party has become. Now, if you're a lifelong Democrat and you haven't been paying close attention, the Democratic Party has shifted over years. They're not what they used to be. Now, I will say the Democratic Party has been a problem for a long time, but not like this. There is something afresh here. And so I'm telling you, doesn't mean you have to vote for the Republican, but you cannot, in good conscience, as a faithful Christian, vote for the Democrat. That's a hard thing to hear, right? If you were a member of my church, and I were your pastor, I'd be talking to you about this directly. If you said, well, I always voted Democrat, and I'm voting Democrat this time, and I would walk through all the reasons why you can't, and say, you can't do that. You'd be sitting against God to do so. You'd say, I don't care, I'm gonna do it anyway. We would institute Matthew 18. We would walk you through the steps of church discipline. That's how serious I believe this is for Christians. And that's a hard thing. I'm not making friends right now, but you know what? I'm long past caring. I'm not worried about making friends. I'm worried about being obedient and faithful to my maker. And if you're a believer and a follower of Christ, that should be the only thing you care about too. So I got more notes here, more things to say, but I don't know if we've gotten any reaction, but I'd be curious to know if the ladies in the room have any reaction to the stunning statements I've made so far this evening. Anything you guys care to add? You probably aren't disagreeing with me too much, other than my tone might be striking you a little bit, I don't know. No, it's absolutely, Everything you said is absolutely on point. I think Americans historically have gotten addicted to the idea that they need to love their leaders. And if nothing else about the couple of candidates that are in front of us, they should help us to understand that personally loving them should not factor into our decisions whatsoever. because each candidate is standing on two different stark platforms. And what we're voting for is a platform and everything that platform stands for. And I think we're at the point now where, to your point, Troy, we can't go with one party because basically nothing that they stand for is unoffensive to God. And as a Christian, as a Christian, our number one priority is to be loyal and faithful in service to Christ. And we don't have to like the people that run the country any more than we have to like the person that runs a personal business that we work for. It's not about that. We are putting a person in power in this country who is going to implement policies. And if these policies are wicked in the sight of God, he cannot forever look the other way and give us grace. That's what Christians need to wake up to. We need to wake up to that as a fact and a reality because God and his love He not only is kind and giving and this and that, in his love, he judges evil. Even now. Even now. He judges wickedness. And if he didn't, he wouldn't be good. So how can we go to the ballot box because we don't like a certain person, I'm gonna vote for his opponent, although that opponent stands for everything that God calls an abomination. And that person gets in the office, I'm speaking hypothetically, gets in the office and just perpetuates these things that are abominable in the sight of God. How are we not responsible for that? If we cast a vote for that person, how can we not be held accountable for it? And how can God keep looking the other way? Christians in this country seriously need to get past this feel-good, you know, kind of kumbaya type of Christianity and walk in righteousness. That's what we need to do. We're at a crucial point. We've got to begin doing that. Well, a lot of what I'm hearing from what I've seen on social media is that, you know, voting for the Democratic Party is voting for policies that take care of the poor, that take care of those who can't work, and those who are disabled, and those who are basically kind of that population. So what would you say to someone like that? You're asking me? Anybody. Because that has come up a lot, and there is a biblical answer for that. So first of all, that positioning is really good marketing and branding. It is not rooted in truth. If you want practical proof of that, look at the cities and states that have been ruled by democratic policies for a generation and a half now, and the poor are not taken care of there. So that's a practical proof, if you will. But biblically speaking, The role of government, the government is given the power of the sword. And what are they to do with that sword? They are to execute retributive judgment on those who do bad things. That's why we can have capital punishment and they can go after the bad guys. And they can also defend us from the bad guys who are trying to invade our country. So we should have a military, we should have law enforcement, and we should have judges. That is the government. The government's role is to judge good from evil and to punish the evildoer. And if that evildoer happens from outside our borders, it's to wage a war against those who are trying to infringe upon our God-given rights in this country. That is the role of government. And that is it. Government is not supposed to take care of the poor and the needy. That's not to say that conservatives, like myself, don't believe in taking care of the needy, but the person who's supposed to take, the Bible says is responsible for charity and mercy and generosity. It's the individual, the family, the church. And so the government is trying to take over the responsibility of the church, the family, and the individual, and they weren't designed for that, and they do a miserable job of it as a result. That's not what they were made for. And then they've made us lazy in our giving. And you can see, the more you buy into big government, the less generous you are out of your own pocket. They've done research on this and it's not even close. Those who are registered Democrats give a microscopic percentage to charity compared to those that are registered Republican. In raw dollars, it's not close, and in percentage of income and wealth, it's not close, because those that understand, it's not for the government to do, it's for me to do. There's something else to think about. In the Old Testament, God was the king of the Israelites. The nation of Israel, he rescues them out of Egypt, delivers them to the promised land, and he was to serve as their king. But they rebelled against him as king over and over again. They even put God on trial at one point. They were grumbling so horribly. So, they then say, we wanna have a king like the other nations around us. And God realizes what they're saying. What they're saying is, we're rejecting you as king, we want a human king like these other nations. And God's like, okay, fine, you want a king? You can have a king like the other nations. And just like those other nations, they are going to oppress you. They're going to conscript you into military service and they are going to oppressively tax you. They're gonna be so oppressive in their taxation that they're gonna put themselves in my place, and they're gonna tax you as much as I ask of you. I, as your creator God, am saying that you need to give me back 10% of what I'm giving you, and these oppressive kings, they're gonna put themselves in the place that is mine, and they're gonna demand from you 10%. And that 10% is a curse from God and a sign of oppression. 10%. Do you know what the average American pays in taxes right now? When you count income tax, property tax, sales tax, all the hidden taxes, they call fees and all that sort of stuff. It's somewhere between 50 and 60%. The average American is spending more than half of their income and wealth on taxes. God said 10% was a sign of his judgment. That was a sign of an oppressive government, and we have a government that is taking five times that from us. So that's the Democrat position. Now, the Republicans aren't perfect on this either. The Democrats want the income tax rate to be, I don't know, 35%. The Republicans want it to be 26%. 26% is still too much. But 35% or 38% or whatever is worse. So they're both bad in a lot of ways, but the Democratic Party is worse. So I read Psalm 139 the way I did on purpose. So we have the kumbaya parts of the passage that we wanna focus on, and that's the part, that's the winsome part, that's the part that I as a pastor am supposed to connect with, and I'm supposed to be all love and joy, happy, happy, joy, joy, and smiling, a big winsome grin, and Jesus loves you, and that's true, and there are times when I do that. a majority of the time when I'm sharing the truth of God's Word with you, that's the tone. But there's also passages like, if only you would slay the wicked, oh God. Away from me, you bloodthirsty men. They speak of you with evil intent. Your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them as my enemies." And again, Christ is the first singer of this song. If Jesus Christ can say something like that, I as a pastor, and you as a Christian, can and should say something like that on occasion when the time is right, and the time is now. Here's just a quick rundown. There's more that could be said, but I don't wanna go on forever. 10 Commandments. That's a pretty good rule and standard, right, for how Christians should think about their lives and how the world should go. So let's look at the 10 Commandments. Commandment one, have no other gods, right? No other gods before me. The Democratic Party has embraced primarily a secular humanist idea. And secular humanism doesn't have the creator as God, they make the state God. So the Democratic platform violates commandment number one. God says you're to make no idols. They have no graven images, make no idols that you're going to bow down and worship. Only I should be bowed down and worshiped to. Well, those who have this socialist ideology, which is what the progressive movement has come to stand for, it's all about this dictatorial power. in a vain attempt at utopia, and that utopia becomes the idol. They're chasing after this vapor, this dream, this perfect Star Trek universe where in the future everything's gonna be just so, if only. If only we shut down all the businesses so no one will ever get sick and die again. If only we could have utopia. So they're chasing after this figment, this false God that they made an idol instead of worshiping the one true God. So the democratic platform violates commandment number two. Commandment number three, do not take the name of God in vain. blasphemy abounds against Christ in the Democratic Party. They took God out of their platform, they booed God, they take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance, all those sorts of stuff. It's an anti-God movement within the party. But it's not only his name, but his name stands for his power and his authority and his standards, and they stand against his standards, which we're now gonna get into some of that. Talks about keeping the Sabbath. Well, Christians under democratic rule haven't been allowed to go and worship on the Sabbath day freely, but also there's no day for resting in the Lord in a democratic mindset, in a democratic platform mindset. There's no day of rest, none whatsoever. Honor your parents. It's interesting because the government has created what some like to refer to as the nanny state and puts the government in the place of the parents. That is not honoring parents, that's replacing the parents. The parents become irrelevant, unnecessary, even problematic. The teachers know best, the experts know best, the medical community knows best. Parents don't know anything. How many of you have teenagers and they're coming home telling you, well my teacher says, and you just don't know. They're smart, they went to school, you're an idiot. How many of your teenagers have that attitude that's been instilled in them by the state who dishonors parents and trains up our children to dishonor their parents. The next commandment is, thou shall not commit murder. Well, I'm sorry. Abortion is murder. The slaying of innocent, defenseless children by ripping them limb from limb, shoving scissors into their brain, snapping their neck, injecting their heart with a deadly poison, It's premeditated, and the person being subjected to all that horror did nothing even remotely close to deserving it, as though anybody would deserve that sort of torture. So they violate that commandment. The next commandment, no sexual sin, no adultery. Well, the LGBTQ stuff is not just accepted, it's celebrated, it's advocated, it's funded. It's glorified. In one of the debates, Joe Biden talked about, you should let your eight-year-old son or daughter choose their sex, and if they want to, have reconstructive surgery so that they can change their, if they have an appendage, remove it, and if they don't have an appendage, give them one. Sexual sin is rampant in the democratic mindset. Next commandment, don't steal. while we talked about what's going on with the taxation. And I understand, I think there is justification for there to be some taxation to support the things that the government should be doing. But anytime the government gets outside its lane and does things the government shouldn't be doing, they have no sanction for that. They have no biblical ground for that. And so, locally there was a story where the county government here in Frederick is gonna give $150,000 to some sort of agricultural thing. The agricultural thing might need the money. I don't really know the details, but I'm sure that there's probably a need for that money. That's fine. Create a GoFundMe account, whatever. Tell people they should contribute. But that's not how it went down. So the county government decided that they were going to take, whether you wanted to take it or not, and if somebody takes from you something you don't want them to take, that's called stealing. That's theft. They're going to take $150,000 of your dollars and give it to somebody else in the name of doing what's right. Well, you can't do something right by starting by doing something wrong. So this burdensome taxation and taxing private property into oblivion, I would argue, is an example of stealing. So we have a violation of the Ten Commandments there. Two more to go, don't bear false witness. This is a little cheeky, but have we heard any truths from the left recently? I mean, from the right too, but I mean, how many years did we hear about this Russia collusion thing? It wasn't true. The stories about Justice Kavanaugh that he was subjected to last year, not grounded in anything that would, there were no trustworthy witnesses, no biblical justification for those charges. Things are made up out of whole cloth all the time. Now, again, Republicans violate some of these things too. The point I'm trying to make is the Democrats consistently, all 10, the Republicans, a lot of them, but not all of them, and even the ones they do violate, on the whole, not as bad. Last one, no coveting. Well, you've probably come to terms and realized there's this new phrase we've all had to learn about this year, critical theory, or critical race theory. You know what that's all about? That's all about, he's got something I don't have and I'm jealous. That's critical theory in layman's terms. It's not fair that he has something that I don't have. The only reason he has it is because he's an oppressor and I'm the oppressed. That's critical theory. And in critical race theory, it's he has what I don't have. He's the oppressor because he's white and I don't have because I'm black. So it's critical theory with skin color attached to it. That's all about covetousness. It's all about jealousy. And the Democratic Party is stoking those flames. They're leading the charge. They're instilling jealousy. You think the welfare state is good? You give somebody a bunch of free stuff that they didn't have to work for, which by the way is also unbiblical because the New Testament says if a man doesn't work, he doesn't eat. But you give somebody a bunch of free stuff and they feel entitled and they want more. And they're like, how come you didn't give me more? And how come that person has more than me? Why don't I get more? Well, they're working hard. Yeah, but I deserve, we're instilling these attitudes of entitlement and craving for other people's stuff. The Democratic Party has an agenda that pushes envy into the culture. That's all 10. All 10. They're a miserable failure on all of them. Again, in fairness, the Republicans, and Donald Trump specifically if you want, fails on a lot of these too. But right now, we live in a system that has a binary choice. It doesn't matter exactly how the three of us in this room vote, or the maybe 20 or 30 that might be watching this video, how you vote, either Donald Trump or Joe Biden is going to be president for the next four years. That's just the way it is. That's our choice. So given that being the binary choice, who would Christians hope to have as their president? The one who breaks all 10 of the commandments and sets us on a trajectory where we might live in a culture that doesn't respect any of the 10 commandments for the next generation. It's a big deal. Now I don't think that if Trump wins and the Republicans win the Senate and the House and all that sort of stuff, I don't think that necessarily solves it, but at least it buys us a little more time for the church to be salt and light in the world and to make some changes where they need. You know, I saw there was a letter to the editor in a local paper here the other day, and I was talking about, you know what we need to do to solve all these problems? We need to end racism. Yes, we do. How do you do that? You're not gonna legislate it out of existence, you're gonna do it by changing hearts, and you need to have a context, a cultural context that allows the gospel to move more freely, and as bad as they can be, the Republican Party, by the way, for the record, I don't consider myself a Republican, per se. I consider myself a biblical-thinking conservative. And when candidates align themselves with that, I vote for them. And more often than not, it's a Republican candidate. It's never a Democratic candidate. I've never found a Democratic candidate that aligns with a biblically conservative, Christian-informed, Holy Spirit-led agenda. I just haven't. So, Yeah, we got some yeah, so Jerry is watching and he says there is such a darkness over the world I'm sorry. There is such a darkness over their belief. We have been asleep and presenting and peaceful Christ to the world Instead of a holistic God forgetting that God is just and we will have his vengeance and we'll have his vengeance then he says He just read that 25 male Christians didn't vote in 2016. I don't know if it's true, but if it is, then we are lukewarm. And then he says it's about pride and power. And he says, that is the magic work, stuff. Why are they running after stuff, not if it makes them happy? I agree because, as you said, both sides are too far their way. I'm not entirely sure what that meant. He's basically saying they're both kind of out of line. Oh, gotcha. And that's true to some degree. Our system has become increasingly corrupted over time. Right, okay. Yeah, it's a good point. I think he meant 25% probably. He saw a stat that said 25% of self-identifying Christian men didn't vote. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the voter turnout is never all as high as it could be. Although, to be honest, Exactly, he said. I'm not always, I'm not one who's advocating for a get out the vote movement. If people don't know what's going on, they're not informed, and they're not thinking righteously, they're not thinking biblically, I don't want them voting. You can stay home all day, I'm fine with that. But if you are, if you're on the side of righteousness, and you have a chance to wield some influence, then I think you're a little bit derelict. Now, there are some arguments, and I think they're interesting, arguments that you shouldn't, no Christian should be involved in the political process, and they shouldn't vote at all ever, and all that sort of thing. Those are interesting arguments, and I respect them. I'm not persuaded, and I think those arguments are wrong. Your sister commented, she said, Kylie is studying the universe and science. They told him it was created by the Big Bang. He was so upset, he said, If his teacher asks him, he will say, God created it, even if it lowers his grade. Yeah, well, the problem with the Big Bang theory, from an atheist's point of view, is all they've done is move the question. And by that, I mean, the question is, where did the universe come from? What is responsible for the universe being here? And they would answer, well, the Big Bang. and say, okay, let me ask the question again with one small change. How did the Big Bang happen? Why is it that there was a Big Bang? What caused it? All it did was move the question. It's the same question, just a slightly different, and the question has to be, something, nothing, the law of physics, the law of logic, dictate to us that nothing that comes into existence, comes into existence without a cause. Everything that comes into existence has a cause. And it's important, by the way, for Christians to understand that that's how you need to make the argument. Everything that has a beginning has a cause. Because they're gonna say, well, you're gonna say that God caused the Big Bang, right? You say, yeah, well, what caused God? Nothing caused God. He has no beginning. He has always been. He is infinite. He is the infinite, uncaused cause. So everything that comes into being has a cause. God never came into being. God always was, always has been, always will be. I think one of the things that might be helpful for people watching that you said, but just to reiterate, is So the democratic platform, I know a lot of people who profess to be Christians want to vote Democrat because they feel like it's their obligation to take care of the poor, to take care of, but what you pointed out, which is so important, it's not the government's job to do that. It is our job as the church to do that. So if we would start to actually be the church, then we can do the things that we are supposed to do. Right now, if you vote for the Democratic Party, it hinders us as the church to be able to do what we're supposed to do. Now, some of that might be, and searching my heart as well, laziness and lukewarmness, like Jerry pointed out, and apathy on our part as believers, and shame on us. that we would say, oh, we just need to vote for the Democratic Party because that's what God says we're supposed to do. You mean the Republican Party? No, no, no. Oh, OK. The Democratic Party because that's what the Bible says we're supposed to do. So that's what they're doing. So to take care of the poor, you mean? Exactly. That's wrong thinking because it's not the government's job to do that. So I think that's where there's a breakdown. And it's a history thing. Let me put it to you this way, for those who are watching and having these comments, I appreciate it. I like when we get comments from Facebook world. They put it in these terms. First, let me answer the math thing, just to reaffirm that. Let's imagine, to make the math easy for me, let's imagine the household income for a particular family is $100,000. And let's say that they fit the statistical norm for this country and that the government takes half of their money through federal, state, local, county, government, sales tax, they take half of it. So you have $50,000 left. Now, if they were merely as oppressive as what God talks about in the Old Testament and the government only took $10,000 of the dollars instead of $50,000 of the dollars, if they were only as oppressive as that, you'd have $40,000 more with which you could support all the local charities and all of the things where you identify. You could buy somebody a trailer and they could live in it with $40,000. But we aren't able to do that, and so we're forced to live under these rules where the government is spending that money, spending it on things we wouldn't want them spending, like funding Planned Parenthood, for example, or spending inefficiently and spending way more money on things than it needs to be because they're not keeping tabs because the government is so out of control and big. You can't properly audit something that big and keep control on spending. The more localized the spending, the more tight the controls, and the more efficient it's gonna be, so there's all of that. But the other thing is, for those of you who are thinking that way, and I get it, and I laud you for it, you should have a heart for the downtrodden, for the needy. You should have compassion on them. But what does God's word instruct his followers regarding that? Who is he talking to? Who is to take care of the orphan and the widow? Who? If someone's hungry, who's supposed to feed them? Who? You. Not somebody else. You. Somebody else maybe should join you in that, but you, you're responsible for you, you're responsible for your family, you're responsible for the community of faith that you belong to and your church, you. That's what God instructs us. He does not instruct us that you know how we're gonna take care of the poor and the needy and the orphan and the widow. We're gonna have some third party come and steal from you what you won't give on your own because we don't trust you to give it, and then after we've stolen it from you, we're gonna then parse it out ourselves. That is not God's instruction. You are abdicating your responsibility if you're gonna turn over that responsibility to the government. You're abdicating your responsibility and handing it off to somebody else. I wish that somebody from the Republican Party would say, It's not our job to take your money and take care of the poor. I think that's a wonderful thing that we take care of the poor. Let me encourage you, let me spur you on to do that by allowing you to keep more of your paycheck so that you can do that because yes, we are supposed to do that. I'm doing that. I mean, Donald Trump does not take any of his paycheck from being president. He gives that all away. He gives that away. And I'm not saying that he should be petted on the back. It's just what he's supposed to do. So it's not to give him all the glory. Absolutely not. It's filthy rags. He's just doing what he's supposed to do. It's that righteousness, that righteous act. It's just filthy rags, really. He's just doing what he's supposed to do. What I'm saying is the other party is not even allowing us to do what we're supposed to do. It's that worse off. I think there's another kind of wrinkle on this whole thing about government giving that I think people forget about in terms of biblical righteousness, which is I mean, the points that you're making about it's not the government's responsibility and job anyway, is an excellent point. And people need to either keep that in mind if they've forgotten it, or they need to learn it if they never knew it. Exactly. It's not the government's responsibility. I don't think people know it. But in addition to that, speaking specifically of the Democrat Party, if someone still has it stuck in their brain, that we need to support the Democrats because in their view, the Democrats are the more charitable of the two parties. I want to also point out the biblical principle that do gooding, it does not absolve you when you are otherwise doing evil. The biblical principle is you cannot be wicked and your morals, and then make up for that by doing good. So it doesn't work anyway, because if you could do that, then we could all work our way to heaven, no matter how evil we are. We could just spend six days a week being as immoral and as irresponsible as we want to, and then show up to church on Sunday, You know put something in the offering plate and that's good enough for God. Well, no God requires righteousness And so if you have a party That is sold out to wickedness It doesn't matter what so-called good they are otherwise doing You know, they can't keep killing babies for instance. The abortion thing is really sensitive. You can't keep doing and supporting that and saying, oh, but we give to the poor. That doesn't fly with God. So that's the other thing that we need to keep in mind. And therefore, this excuse of supporting the Democrats on the basis of their perceived perceived reputation of being more charitable. It just doesn't work anyway, because they're otherwise wicked in what they stand for. And the problem, because I think you're probably right to focus on the idea of those who are Christians who feel like they should vote for the Democrats is out of this compassion and social programs. I'm telling you, it's a lot of people I know. So let's take a minute to talk about some of the big key issues there, okay? A Democratic party would stand for something like a $15 minimum wage. Okay, that sounds compassionate. Everybody deserves to have a living wage. You shouldn't work full-time and be below the poverty line. Okay, well, the Bible speaks nothing of that. It talks about paying people what they're due and paying them on time. It doesn't talk about what the wage should be. The only instruction we get from the Bible on that is how much money somebody gets paid is determined by two people. The person making the payment and the person receiving it has nothing to do with the government overseeing or involving themselves in that. And think about this, is it really compassionate? What if somebody has no experience, they don't have any real developed skills yet, and they're not worth anywhere close to $15 an hour for the work and labor that they can do? Maybe they're worth $10 an hour. Maybe they're worth $5 an hour. Maybe in three months they'd be worth $20 an hour. But day one, they're worth less than $15 an hour. They're not gonna get hired. And so the minimum wage laws ends up making it impossible for challenged employees to find work. That's not compassionate. That's not biblical. The immigration issue is a big one. We should have, we're sojourners, we should have welcomed the sojourner and have people come in. And that would be fine except for all of this, what's called the safety net programs that are funded by them taking half of our money and we're like we can barely afford to do what we're doing now we have a bunch of people come here and and and uh become Grifters and grafters and and taking we can't now if you got rid of all of those social quote-unquote benefit programs And so we're gonna do it the biblical way. We're gonna do it out of individual family and church charity And it's not gonna be the government's me forcing people then you know what you can have open borders. I'd be fine with that I'd be fine with people coming here And we kind of keep tabs on who they are and what they're all about have some control over that but we can have we have seven billion people in this country if if we didn't have to be forced at the point of a gun or the threat of prison to feed them and take care of them. And the other thing that's lost on the immigration question, when you allow a bunch of lower skilled people, economically, they can do a lot of manual labor, they're hard workers, they're conscientious workers and all that, but they don't have a lot of training, they don't have a lot of education, They can do a lot of grunt work, and they're good at it, and they're dedicated to it, and we need them, so God bless them. But when they come in, who are they hurting? they're hurting the other people that don't have a lot of education and skill set yet either. Maybe they will come to later in life, but at a particular moment in their life, they're competing for jobs against all these other people, and they've already been disadvantaged by minimum wage laws. So they already can't find enough work as it is, and you got these other people coming in and stealing their jobs. Is that compassionate? I would also argue that it foments restlessness in this country when people can come in illegitimately. because there are people who came in legitimately, and they dotted every I, and they crossed every T, and they paid the money. And so it is manifestly unfair to them to turn around and let another group of people come in, just kind of stroll across the border, when you have these other people who actually follow the immigration laws. By the way, why do we have immigration laws? because we need to control who comes to our country. We need to know who they are, why they're here, and we need to know whether or not they're coming to contribute or not contribute. And I feel fairly passionate about this because I've heard the horror stories of the consequences of not controlling the borders. Horrible crimes committed, and I do mean horrible, from gangs, MS-13, and all this. atrocious things that people do when we indiscriminately let people, I liken it to this. If you think it's okay for anybody to just stroll across the borders, just start leaving your front door open 24-7. Because just like your front door is the border to your home, That border, the physical border at our country is like out the front door to our country. It is stupid. It would be stupid, I think it's safe to say, it would be stupid to let your front door stay open and to not care who comes in and not know what they want and not know their intentions. My front door's open, come in anytime you want. That would be stupid. The same thing applies to the borders of our country. It is stupid. And we have paid much for that stupidity. Murders here, rapes here, trafficking, people are suffering terribly because of that. So that's another thing. It's not compassion. It is actually cruel to our citizenry for politicians to allow for their own personal selfish reasons, by the way, to allow anybody to just walk into our country. And it's also hypocritical because the same people that allow this have security. They have gates. They have walls. They have policemen. But they want to subject the rest of the country to anybody who just wants to stroll across the border and do anything that they want to do. I think it's very evil. And that's one thing about the, that's one of the top things about, although there's so many actually, about the Democrat Party that I can't, there's no way I'm going to ever support that. It is manifestly wicked and mean to the rest of us for them to do that to us. And while they hypocritically sit behind their walled gates with their armed guards, and they're protected. So that's the other issue with immigration. It's just wrong. That stands. Anything else there before we head down the homestretch? Yeah. Mom said that she loves the analogy that Angela just gave about leaving the front door open. It's great. So I want you to hear my heart here a little bit, because this has been a bold, put it right out there kind of thing, because I think the moment calls for it. People are making decisions right now about what they're going to do, and I think you need to hear it plain and clear. This is not to say that Donald Trump is a saint. This is not to say that the Republican Party is perfect. Far from it on both fronts. I mean, Trump is a rather imperfect individual. The Republican Party is a rather imperfect party. So that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is the alternative is so antithetical to the Bible that a Christian cannot support it. And we've made some practical arguments and some analogies and tried to explain what the after effects of going against God's words are and how that plays itself out. Let's just say for the sake of argument that we didn't have those practical arguments. Let's just say that the democratic policies were actually properly and effectively feeding the poor and taking care of the sick and all of those sorts of things. Let's just say. but they're doing it in a way that is against how God says it's supposed to be done, then the Christian needs to say, I don't care about the practical stuff. I don't care about the pragmatic quote unquote truth. I care about being obedient to God and his word. Now, as it turns out, when you're obedient to God and his word, you get the positive blessings that come from that, and when you don't, you get the curses that come from that, and that's why the practical parts of the story, the pragmatic realities, support the biblical position. So we don't want to create additional dependency. We don't want people to be demotivated from having, I mean, the welfare state puts women in horrible situations where they're punished financially if they get married. And they're put in a situation where if they somehow have more children out of wedlock than they can possibly handle supporting, and their support structure can possibly handle supporting, they have motivation to make their situation even worse so they can get more money. Why are we putting pressure on people to do things that are unwise for them? But that's what the system has done. So, if you're somebody who's voted Democrat in the past, or you're thinking about voting Democrat this time, or you've already voted this year and you voted Democrat, and you're like, what are you saying? I'm not here to condemn what you've done, or what you're thinking about doing, at least not in this context. I am here to call you to a biblical understanding of what it is, how we're supposed to see these things, and you need to act accordingly, and hopefully it will convict your heart. And you will realize that maybe the way I've been thinking about things has been wrong-headed. And so I feel the only thing that we haven't fleshed out anywhere near enough, and I'll give 30 seconds on this, the women's right to choose thing. A woman can do with her body what she wants. Let me just say this. It is not her body. It's inside of her body. It is not her body. God says that those that are his creation, the human beings that he has created, we bear his image. And to take the life of any image bearer unjustly is murder. And there's nothing just about taking an innocent life. And so science even backs us up. You know, those who are in my position get accused with a wagging finger a lot of times. You're a science denier. The science even backs us up. Not that we make our decisions based on that, but that baby inside the mother's body has different DNA, more often than not, a different blood type, a different heartbeat, A different brain with different neural pathways, a different nervous system. Fingerprints. Different fingerprints. They feel pain, the mother does not. The mother feels pain, the baby does not. They are different individuals. And if you're going to say, well, they're not really a real person until they get to this particular point in development. If you're opposed to what the world labels as racism, I would ask if you had the same concern about what I would think the Bible would have us believe about ageism. Somebody shouldn't be killed. It's not okay to kill someone just because they're young. They're not as old as some other people. So I'll leave it on that. There is no justification for it. Now, what about if the woman's life is in danger? You try to save the baby, you try to save the mother, and if the baby should happen to die in those efforts, that's not a sin. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the purposeful ending of someone's life in horrifying ways, okay? Seriously, it's gruesome. So we cannot, as God's people, support these things. And so the last pastoral thing I need to say is we're talking about all this darkness that's in the world, all those things that can create angst. We care about this because we are in the world and because we are called to try to do good to the city, right? We're God's people and we're sojourners, but we are called by God to try to do good for the city, so we care about these things. That's why we care about the unborn. We care about the poor. We care about our neighbors. We care about the rich. We care about everybody. We're supposed to anyway. We care because we're in the world. God has placed us here at a moment such as this At a time such as this, to be prayer warriors, and to be advocates, and to be bold, and not worry about whether the world's gonna hate you. We're supposed to do all that, but let's not forget. Even though it's true that we're in the world, we are not of the world. And our hope does not rest on the outcome of this election. It does not rest on what our government does or doesn't do. It doesn't rest on anything at all like that. We care about it, we're passionate about it. We should be involved in the agents of change, positive change, biblical worldview, all of that. But at the end of it all, we know that Christ is victorious, he has won, a beautiful change is coming. It might come before I finish this next sentence, or it might come in a thousand years, but it is coming and it is guaranteed, and that's where our hope is. Our hope is in the perfectly trustworthy promise that God has made in his son by the blood of Christ. That's our hope. And if you don't understand that hope, private message me, I would love to talk to you about that. So unless there's anything else, we can wrap things up. Any other comments? All right, I would encourage you, if you can, read 1 John chapter four, particularly 1 John chapter four, verses seven through 21. That's what we're gonna dive into with our message next week. You opened in prayer, right? So would you close in prayer? Gracious Father in heaven, we do thank you for this time together, Lord. We thank you for the truth that you have enabled us to share, Lord, by your Holy Spirit working through us. Father, we've come to glorify you, to glorify your word, to glorify your righteousness. Not just give our opinion, Lord, but to share your truth, even truth that would be called hard truth by some. And Lord, we just pray that anyone that listens to this, Lord, would be motivated to act on the basis of the principles of your word, Lord, and not make an idol of their own opinions and their own thoughts and their feelings, but to be guided by truth, Lord God, and to honor you in that way. Because, Lord, it is, at the end of the day, What matters is that we have honored you, that we have obeyed you, Lord God. It's not about personality, Lord God. It's not about the personality of any human being. It's not about our opinions. It's about what we as Christians do, Lord God, with the truth that you've given us. It's about honoring you. Your word says that whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. So can we look at our vote and say that it glorified you irrespective of the person, Lord God, of the human being that we voted for. Did it glorify you in this, that that person, will be your instrument of righteousness or will be in rebellion to you. That is what we need to remember. We pray that you help us to remember it. We pray that you help us to put this principle into practical use at the ballot box. May everyone, every Christian, Lord God, by your spirit, be guided by your truth at the ballot box. And we thank you, Lord, and we ask these things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, thank you to the commenters and the viewers. Thank you, ladies, for your assistance this evening. May God bless you as you now go as God's people and enter the mission field all about you. God bless.