A Response To The Shooting of Donald Trump

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Good evening everyone. It is Sunday, July the fourteenth, twenty twenty four It is currently six forty eight pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. You may have noticed kind of a slight pause before I started the introduction. That's because I almost just started with saying, Wow, what a crazy twenty four hours. It has been crazy. That's the way I was going to start, but I thought, you know what, I'll just go ahead and welcome every Wednesday, good evening to everyone, and just remind you it's July the fourteenth. I know, in the last twenty four hours, it feels like maybe it's been it's been a month already, but it's only been twenty four hours. And it's been twenty four hours or about twenty four hours since the assassination attempt against President Trump, or against the former President Trump, obviously the presidential candidate Donald Trump, and it has been well, it's been crazy to watch and to try to process everything. Now I'm referring to it as assassination attempt. I know there are others sing maybe we don't really know the motivations yet, so should we call that. But

1:32 if someone takes a gun and shoots at a presidential candidate or a former president, I'm going to refer to that as assassination attempt. If it doesn't meet the technical qualifications for that, I'll be more than happy to correct it at a later time. But it is a very it's been it's been crazy. It's been just I don't really even have words, and I've been trying to process it. Last night, I did a live broadcast just kind of thinking about it in real time. I know it probably wasn't one that a broadcast that made everyone happy, but I have been just I mentioned it, you know, in my sermon this morning, I kind of mentioned the shooting, just just maybe briefly. It wasn't a major focus on what we were talking about, but I thought it served to kind of connect with some of the things we are talking about. I spent two hours this morning while teaching on Psalm eighty three. As many of you know, we have been working.

2:29 We've been We've spent hours working on Saw eighty three. I think we made some pretty decent I think we made some I think we made some decent progress. I think I think we accomplished a little bit. I hope it was beneficial, but really, since I well, even off and on throughout the night, a couple of times I woke up multiple times and I would either check a podcast feed or I would check I even checked my sermon's audio, my sermon Audio two point zero app feed, and I kept looking to see if anything else popped up that would people talking about the situation right now. Obviously, there were a lot of political podcasts that immediately started talking about it, right because that's what they do. So they were looking at it from a political perspective, whether they were conservative or whether they were liberal, or you know, some news Obviously podcasts looking at it more from just a news angle, whether they leaned left or right, and may impact the way they perceived it. I did see just some general reactions to the shooting online, and some of those were quite disturbing and frustrating. So I just I was kind of getting a general idea how people were reacting to the shooting of Donald Trump or I still think it's fair to refer to it as the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, So I just you know, and then with church, though, I kind of I didn't want to make that too much of a focus, right, I mean, obviously when people walk into the building,

4:00 there there were you know, there was talk of it obviously, but I just kind of just put, you know, like, let's get to SAW eighty three and let's work, and that's what we did. There wasn't a lot of discussion after church necessarily about that, so you know, I didn't get a lot of reactions and regards to it. But I have been curious throughout the day, but I haven't had the opportunity. I really wanted to monitor the sermon's two point oh app live webcast feed throughout the day to see how many churches or ministries broadcasters were speaking of the shooting, How were they what were they stating about it, What did they say about it? Did they offer any concerns or thoughts about where this is had? Like what?

4:51 I really kind of wanted to get more of a Christian response, but I did not have the opportunity to even look, well this I'm gonna give you the exact time at two thirty pm Central time, two thirty pm Central Time, I received an email with this for the subject line, You're ready fight fight, Fight, And I'm like, okay, all right, I have a feeling I know what this is about, right because after Donald Trump was shot and he got up, he's got a clinched fist raised and he's like, fight, fight, fight, all right. So obviously it's going to be kind of a rallying cry for many, right, especially many on the conservative side. Fight fight fight. Now, you you can have your own opinion on how that should be handled or viewed. So I was like, okay, well, who is this email from? And I noticed that the email was from gab. Gab. Now you may not know what gab is.

6:00 It's like a social media platform that's all about free speech. It was, you know, especially when there was all kinds of you know, many in the conservative world was very upset with Facebook and Twitter at the time that they were shadow banning them or blocking or taking away their free speech. There was a lot of these platforms that kind of arose out of kind of a protest against many of these big social media platforms. Obviously, we know of truth social we know of gab. There was Parlor. I think it was called parlor, there's telegraph, there's all these other platforms where people can gather who are somewhat like minded. Right now, there's good and bad about that, right, I guess you can feel like, well, at least my viewpoint is not going to be censored or silenced or or shadow banned or kept from other people seeing it. But then it also creates these kind of you know, echo chambers. I know some people don't like that phrase, but basically you are only hanging out with like minded people. So then obviously just that just leads to confirmation bias. Right, you put forth an idea, Well, everyone already there agrees with your idea, so then they say oh great, awesome, awesome, and then they say something, well, you already agree with them. So everyone just goes around going you're right, you're right, you're right, and there's very little dissenting voices. In any dissenting voices get shouted down and basically told to go away quickly. Right, But I've tried to monitor them. I have watched and kept up with what's going

7:32 on in truth social I've tried to kind of just see how things are going there. And at one time I had gab on my I think my iPad and I would monitor it and just kind of keep an idea what's going on. And you know, and what you see is I think I'm describing it in a real, very fair way. It's like there's not very much room for dissenting voices. It's they just want their voices and they want all anyone else. And if you post anything kind of contray to it, they'll tell you to go away. Immediately, you're gonna be called names, you're gonna be called a liberal, and they're gonna tell you to go away. And it's like, so you don't want any dissenting voices. I thought you were all about the freedom of speech. You should want as many dissenting voices there as possible, because dissenting voices you're confronted with different ideas. But they didn't really want that. But as truth Social as obviously the whole selling point of truth Social is it's Donald Trump's platform. It's all about Donald Trump. And if you look on there, it's just filled with you know, posters and memes all about Donald Trump. Basically, you know, is the savior who's come to fix all the world's problems and GAB is again very conservative and and maybe even well, well you could you could judge what's there on your own, okay. But the one thing about GAB is my understanding is that I don't know exactly who maybe the CEO, maybe the chief executive officer of GAB.

9:07 I think maybe him, because I think the email comes from him. As far as I can tell, he professes Christianity, some allegiance to Christianity, I would refer to it in many cases promoting a very Christian nationalism. But he professes Christianity. So when I saw Fight Fight Fight and saw that it was from GAB, and then I read these first the first part of this email. While we may feel anger and frustration in the wake of tonight's tragic event, it is crucial that we respond with wisdom and grace. And I was like, Okay, now, most likely this is going to provide at least something that claims to be aligned with Christianity, some form of a Christian response. And I've been kind of looking because I kind of want to see how Christians are going to respond to the shooting of Donald Trump. Or again, we could we could argue the assassination attempt of Donald Trump. All right, however you would like to classify and im and I'm being very I'm questioning the way I classify it because I just want to be accurate. I just, I just I don't want to be like the one hand, you don't want to use hyperbolic language, but at the same time you want to you don't want to downplay it. Right again, if someone takes a gun and trying to shoot a presidential candidate, former president, I think that meets the criteria of an assassination attempt. And I think some have classified that,

10:37 and I think there's some who've pushed back on that. I do agree that we have to wait and get the full motivation of the shooter. The shooter has been identified, and there's already back and forth about how to interpret certain things about the shooter and and I'm not going to get into any of that speculation at this time. But what I want to know is as Christians, how should we respond? And I tried to put forth a little bit of that late last night, right, and it was still very just. I was more just, I just felt a sense of dread where things may be headed. And so let me just let me just make sure because people will misunderstand my approach here. Whatever the world does, I'm never that interested or really bothered and not very and I don't obsess over and I'm not consumed with what the world is doing. From my theology, the world who rejects Christianity don't claim to be Christians, reject the authority of the Bible. I don't have any expectation except for them to pursue a non Christian life, right, a non Christian life with non Christian ideology, non Christian perspectives, non Christian morality. That's the life they're going to pursue. I'm not shocked by it.

11:54 And you know what, I don't want to change their morality. What I want is for Christianity to present Christ to them and call them to repentance and faith in Christ. Not to change their morality, but to be brought to faith in Christ, and then allow their faith in Christ to begin to change what they how they think about morality, well, how they think about right and wrong. And then they can struggle with trying to live according to scripture, even though we know no one can ultimately do that. We will all fall short. But you get the idea. We want them to put their faith in Christ and have the righteousness of Christ imputed to their account, so that they can stand before God perfect even though in practice that they are not. So that's I'm not those Christians who want to change the culture by making everyone act like a Christian. You want to change the culture, you give them Christ. You offer them Christ as they come to faith in Christ.

12:46 Then you disciple them, then you call them to obedience. There's no point in trying to force the world to act like Christians. I just I don't get that mindset within the Christian world. From that perspective, I don't really care what the world is doing. And you know, they can worship politics, they can worship politicians, they can worship their ideology, they can fight, yell, scream, they can do whatever. What I'm always concerned with from a theological perspective is where's the church going? What is the church doing? How is the church responding? And you know, I've been yelling and screaming about the political hijacking of American Christianity. It seems like I've been yelling about it for ten fifteen years. I've been bothered and bothered and bothered by it. So now we have obviously something that's going to have great political fervor now as a response about how we respond to the shooting of Donald Trump, how how there's going to be a lot of political ideology and political fervor involved in the response. So I want to know what the church is doing.

13:56 How did the church respond today? What did they say? How did they respond? Was it biblical? Was it Christian? Did they would? Would they have responded the exact same way if there was an assassination attempt or if Joe Biden was shot? Would they respond with the same grace and wisdom and mercy and compassion that I think that's a valid question. Would they I'm not saying they wouldn't. I'm not saying they would. I'm just putting it forth as a question. But I want to know where the church is going. So this email at least gives me something that claims to be associated with Christianity, at least claims it all right, I will as I see other Christian responses, then obviously we will talk about them on this podcast. And as you're listening to to random sermons on the sermon's two point oh app if you'll just keep hitting the new tab and choosing random ones in the new tab.

14:48 Well, then you'll get a fight. You're gonna hear this coming week all the sermons that were preached this Sunday, and so you'll that we're preached today, and then maybe you'll hear how much the shoot comes into play in the sermons, how much they influence. They may they may not. You can tell me what you discover. But so here is at least one. So let's read this and see where it goes. All right, we begin with the sentence I've already read. Now, underneath the subject line fight, Fight, Fight, there's a picture of Donald Trump. All the Secret Service agents are surrounding him. He's he's got his fist raised and right above him as an American flag. I mean, it looks like it looks like an awesome photograph from at least like a from just a visual standpoint. Obviously, he's bleeding, so it's not so awesome from that perspective because someone has shot him and his you know, he got his ear got hit. So all right, so obviously that image is going to be you know, used.

15:50 I think there's already T shirts with the image on it, and I think there's already t shirts that say fight, Fight Fight. So this is already going to be used to to make things and and it's going to become routling crime. Whatever you think about the merchandise that's sold for it, whatever you think about that, it's going to be now a major part moving forward. So how does GAB the CEO, handles this. This is what he said. While we may feel anger and frustration in the wake of tonight's tragic event, it is crucial that we respond with wisdom and grace. As the CEO of GAB, I urge all users to refrain from posting any threats of violence or even remotely hinting at it. GAB disavows all threats of violence and has zero tolerance for them on our platform. Please do not post anything foolish on gab or elsewhere or anywhere else online. Our enemies are watching closely. Do not post any threats. If you see people posting threats, please use the report button to let our mod team. No. I haven't been on gab forever. I don't even know if I know my sign in anymore. But if I was on there, it would be interesting to see if there's a lot of that going on. I did take a glance at a truth social Again, sometimes all it is is just these posters and memes, and it's like it's sometimes I look like there's not really much actual conversation going on.

17:12 But you may have a different experience if you look so. But I appreciate. Hey, stop with the violence, stop with the calls for violence. Let's let's stop that. So here's what they go on to say. We must not give our enemies any reason to lock us up or silence our voices. Now immediately though, I caught that are enemies our enemies. Now, this is a very common language. It's used in the pulpit, it's used in politics that those who disagree with us, those who have different beliefs, those who have different ideologies, they are our enemy. Please note, we must not give our enemies any reason to lock us up or silence our voices.

18:06 That is speaking about people. So this is just a question, and light of the shooting of Donald Trump, and light of just seeing that the world is going in a different direction and we're in a post Christian world where people reject the authority of the Bible, don't care about the authority of the Bible that may have had very influence, very little influence of the Bible upon their lives. Do you see those people as your enemy? I think this gets into the mindset of many Christians. Do you see homosexuals as your enemy? Do you see transgender as your enemy? Do you see people who hold to a liberal political ideology as your enemy? Are they your enemy? Do you see people who make music that you don't like your enemy? Because and my experience within Christianity, that's used constantly, like they're the enemy, They're the enemy, They're the enemy. Is it the people that's the enemy or is it their ideology that we are fighting our Is our battle against flesh and blood? Or is it against principalities and powers? Is it against rulers and high places? Is it against spiritual? Is our enemy spiritual? Or is it physical? I'm not so. I don't like necessarily referencing people as my enemy. I may disagree with your belief system. I may say that your

19:37 belief system is an enemy to the truth of God's word, But I don't know if I'm going to label the person as an enemy. To be an enemy, they would have to be directly attacking me. But then again, do I see the physical person, or do I see the spiritual behind it? We could have a debate there, but I at least want to put forth. That's the first thing that caught my attention. He referred to enemies. Now, remember, even if you identify people as your enemy, even if you identify them as your enemy, Jesus is very articulate. And how we are to respond to our enemies. We are to love our enemy.

20:23 We are to turn the other cheek. We are to resist, not evil. Now, as soon as I say that, people go well, and they're gonna make nine hundred excuses to lower that moral standard. You know why we want to lower the moral standard because we never made the moral standard. We are in a perpetual sin. We never love our enemy. We rarely turn the other cheek. We rarely, we constantly try to fight back instead of resist not evil. It puts forth a morality. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Don't do good unto your enemy, Feed them, give them drink. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

21:06 We're supposed to be loving, compassionate, caring, sacrificial like that's the way we are to treat our enemies. See, this is not from a Christian perspective, we don't respond the way the flesh wants to respond. We don't respond the way the world would respond. We don't respond the way conservative people who are conservative from a political standpoint may want to respond next line in this article or in this email. Instead, let us fight back with our words, our votes, and our unwavering commitment to freedom and justice. Now let me fix this instead of Instead, let us fight back with our words, our prayer, are fasting, our evangelism, our love, are doing good to our enemies. I don't care about fighting back with our votes.

22:17 I don't know what our unwavering commitment to freedom and justice is. You want to fight back, Fight back with prayer, fight back with fasting, fight back with love to your enemy, fight back with doing good to your enemy. Fight back back with an unwavering commitment to the Word of God. To scripture, not voting, not freedom, not justice. Our commitment is to the Word of God. So at this point, and then I'm like, well, maybe I'm not going to even mention this because this may may not be going to be going the Christian direction, but I know that that Christianity is going to come up in this. So I kept reading very next line.

22:57 We must be why is this serpents and harmless as doves? As the Bible says, And there it is. So Now I know this is going to approach it from a Christian perspective, and I agree we are to be as wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. But that does not change that our response should be spiritual love our enemy, do good unto them, commit our self to prayer, to fasting, to evangelism, could have an unwavering commitment to the Word of God. Let this tragic day serve as a reminder that our unity and faith in the face of adversity is our greatest weapon against those who seek to destroy us. Now, please note those who seek to destroy us.

23:52 It's using that language that we have enemies and they want to destroy you. Now, do they want to destroy you? Or do they may want to destroy Christianity? Sometimes as Christians we almost have a persecution complex, and anytime anyone does anything we don't like, it's like they're out to destroy me. Now, in this particular case, we don't know the motivation of the shooter, but I don't. I think we got to be very careful to take one one situation and then extrapolate from that and to something bigger, because now we're starting to possibly use very exaggerated language, and I get nervous about that.

24:33 But remember, even if people want to destroy us, our response should be love, turn the other cheek, do good, do over do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. That's the Book of Romans. So all of that's from scripture, all of it. I everything I'm referencing a scripture, scripture, scripture, scripture. But let's see where they go with this. We pray for the families of the victims, for the healing of our nation. Now I would say we pray for our enemies. Right are we not to do that? As we mourn this devastating attack and loss, Let us also stand firm and are resolved to protect our cherished freedoms and the values that unite us. Again, I would say, what we need to be dedicated to to protect is the true word of God, the true doctrine, true theology, a truly spiritual mindset. Now, the next part is where the reason I'm doing this broadcast, this person goes on to write the following, and I quote after tonight's events, I have come to the realization that I no longer want any association whatsoever with any liberals none.

26:03 Okay? Is that the Christian response is the Christian response those people are against us. I want no association with them none. I'm not gonna have anything. But I thought the whole point was we're to be friend, a friend of sinners, a friend to sinners. We are to demonstrate love and compassion that if the liberals are so anti everything we are about, instead of fighting with them and arguing with them, we just demonstrate what living out faith looks like, being open and honest and humble, and let them see what it looks like to try to live a life committed to the things of God.

26:48 You know what we are to do to them? Love them, do good unto them. This is saying that this person wants to no longer have any association with them. Now, maybe they're just expressing their emotion, and maybe later on they will change their tune. Because I definitely can understand having some strong emotions that may not necessarily be right. We've all been there. Let's see what they happen. They go on all. After tonight's events, I've come to the realization I no longer want any association whatsoever with any liberals. None, not in the community, not at church, not anywhere.

27:33 You don't want any You don't want to associate with any liberals, even at your church. You don't want liberals visiting, You don't want liberals there. Like, so, what do you want liberals not to have any what? You're just going to isolate yourself from any liberals. You don't want any association with them, not in the community, not at church. You just don't want anything to do with them. Like that. I that does not sound like a Christian mindset at all. This goes on to say, the reason for this decision are rooted in the belief that being around these people poses a threat to our sanity, our safety, and families. So, now, as a Christian, being around people who differ from us impacts your sanity, impact your safety, and your family. So if there's a threat to your safety, do you just abandon them and say, well, sorry, you can all burn in hell. We're gonna go isolate ourselves and we don't want any association with you. And so do we just preach at them. You realize that there's a difference of preaching at someone and sharing with them. Are preaching at versus preaching too preaching at It's almost like, hey, you stand over there, you and I. I don't want any association with you.

28:59 You just listen to me. You're a center. You're gonna go to hell. You need to get right. Another thing is showing love and compassion and then preaching to sharing with first and foremost. The article continues, the constant bombardment of liberal ideologies and beliefs has become a source of mental and emotional exhaustion. Now, this is what blows my mind. Liberal ideology and beliefs as a source of mental and emotional exhaustion. Why liberal ideologies don't create any mental or emotional exhaustion To me, I expect lost people to think like lost people.

29:45 What causes me mental and emotional exhaustion is listening to the church and listening to the things going on inside the church. What causes me mental and emotional exhaustion, it's my own sin and my own failure and my own lack of spirituality that can cause my my my What causes me mental and emotional exhaustion is deep questions about God and his how he works and how he doesn't work, and what he does and when he doesn't do that can cause not The liberals don't cause me anything if it's liberals who deny the Bible, deny God.

30:25 Okay, so it doesn't even doesn't even it doesn't even get me fired up? What I you know what I expect from a loss to act like a loss. I don't expect someone who's not a Christian to think, act, or even desire anything Christian. Why would I? The never ending debates, the constant need to defend our values, and the relentless pressure to conform to their worldview has taken a toll on our mental well being. Now it's taken a toll on your mental well being because you engage in all of this. Why am I going to do? Like? Why am I going to debate a liberal like? That? Is the when Christians do this stuff like on social media. I just want to look at the Christians and go, you people are ridiculous, not the lost people, the Christians? Why okay, So let me get this right. You're going to argue with them about matters pertaining to morality, to ultimate truth, to right and wrong. But kiss what, they reject your authority, So why are you going to argue with him? You have two different sources of authority. There's no purpose in arguing with someone who rejects the authority in which you're basing your argument on. You're basing your argument on, well, the Bible says, God says, they reject that, So then what's the point engaging in a debate. What you need to do then is demonstrate love, compassion, mercy to them, and then as opportunity arise, you begin to share to them the truth of God's

31:57 word, the truth that they're a God who sent his son Jesus Christ. And as they come to faith, then you say, now, here's what the Word of God says about this and about this, and about this and about this, and then you challenge their way of thinking because now you have the same source of authority. Why are you involved in never ending debates and constant need to defend your values? Why are you going to defend Why is there to defend your values? You can just say, look, if I'm dealing with a lost person, there's no need to defend my values. Look, here's the thing your values come from. Well, your own morality, like what you think is right and wrong. My values arise from what I believe God is saying is right and wrong. Therefore our values are never going to be in agreement. I don't need to defend that. I'm just going to have to say, wait, our values are coming from two different perspectives.

32:50 There's no point in arguing with each other. We're never going to get anywhere. Why do Christians get all wrapped up? That's why Christians engaged in these culture wars. It's not the liberal's fault. It's your own fault for engaging in culture war, which you're just you're arguing over something that you're never going to get anywhere because you have different sources of authority. These people are insane, so now we're going to attack these people and associating with them will allow this madness to infect us. So they are insane, not us. Not see to see how this is the us against them mentality that we got to keep ourselves from falling into this. It's not us against them if we are engaged in a spiritual war, not these people. We may be in a war against their ideology, but we're going to fight the ideology by not arguing ideology bye, by demonstrating the source of authority, which is God's word, and their insanity is going to infect you. If you are a Christian, you're infected with something far worse than liberal ideology. It's called a sinful nature, and it's already in you. You were born with it. You want to talk about the insanity of the liberal world, look at the insanity and the American church. Look at the chaos inside the American church. Forget

34:22 the liberal world. Look, look, just do some research. You don't need me do some research. How many children have been sexually molested inside churches in the United States of America since let's say nineteen seventy. Look at the number of children molested. How many church splits have there been, fighting, arguing all the things going the church. There's just as much insanity in us as it is in anybody else. We just may have a different quote unquote ideology, but we're just as insane as far as our own own wickedness and depravity. The safety of our families and communities is at risk when we associate with liberals. See you don't associate with them. See this is not the response we should have to the trump shooting, the assassination attempt against the former president against the presidential candidate Donald Trump. The liberal narrative often promotes a sense of victimhood, division, and chaos. Now here's the thing. The liberal narrative often promotes a sense of victimhood. This sounds your perspective, sounds like victimhood. You're such a victim that you can't even associate with liberals because it leads to mental and emotional exhaustion. That sounds like victimhood. But the liberal

35:59 narrative promotes a sense of victimhood, division and chaos, which leads to violent protest, property destruction, and even physical harm to those who dare to oppose their views. As we witness tonight, okay, and January the sixth was division, chaos, violent property destruction, and physical harm to some of the officers. And and that physical harm happened to one of the protesters who was shot. So I can't this happen on both sides. We must prioritize the safety and well being of our loved ones by distancing ourselves from those who subscribe to such destructive ideologies. Get and stay far away from these people. This is a frightening response to the shooting, I told I, see, this is why I was so depressed and worried last night. That the Christian response, Oh, and here we go. So the response is, hey, someone attempted to assassinate the former president Donald Trump, the presidential candidate Donald Trump.

37:08 Someone attempted to do that. And so now that's it. Nothing to do with liberals. Get away from these people. These people are enemies. Have nothing to do with them. That is, there is nothing biblical about that. There's nothing biblical at all. And some people say, well, the Bible says, come out from among them and be ye separate, separate from who who is that being separate from? To go find the passage and you tell me, is that separating from ungodly the world? Or is that separating from believers professing believers who are having serious issues? Because to separate from the world, we would have to leave the world entirely. If you're gonna say, I'm not gonna have any more association with liberals, what are you going to do? You're gonna quit your job? What are you going to do? You're just going You're gonna, I don't know, go bill the monastery somewhere. We're supposed to be of the world, will be very much supposed to be in it. We're supposed to be salt. We're supposed to be light. We're supposed to be loving our enemy. We're supposed to be doing good to them that would use us and persecute us. We should be blessing them. We should be giving our enemy food and drink. We should not be overcome by evil, but we should overcome evil with good. This is literally the biblical way of handling this. But this says, get away, get and stay away from these people. Moreover, the liberal agenda often seeking to undermine the very fabric of our society by attacking traditional values and institutions.

38:42 Their relentless pursuit of progressive policies and agendas has eroded the sanctity of the family, the importance of religion, and the value of hard work and personal responsibility. Now I get so tired of people saying they have destroyed the sanctity of the family. Look at the church. Stop blaming the world. Look at the church. The church, we'll just say, been around for two thousand years. How is the church doing? And divorce and remarriage, how is the church doing? How is the church doing. How is the church doing when supposedly the importance of religion? How is the church doing? Come on? Tell me how many churches have had to cancel services because enough people won't show up. How many churches have to close down because people won't show up or people won't support it financially. How many Christian ministries can't last because people won't support it. It's not the world's job to support those institutions.

39:43 It's Christians. But do Christians put their money where their mouth is? Do they support with their time, with their talent, with their treasure. By distancing our self from the liberals, we can protect our families from the corrosive influence of these toxic ideologies and preserve the values that have made our community strong and resilient. By removing yourself from removing yourself from liberals is not going to protect it from those toxic ideologies. Those toxic ideologies arise inside of your kids. See, the problem isn't the thing outside of your kids, it's the thing inside of your kids. It's called a depraved nature. The problem isn't what's outside of your church, It's all the people inside of your church.

40:37 The problem isn't the things outside of your church. The problem is the thing inside your pastor, which is a sinful nature. We always want to make it us against them. It's us against us, it's the real problem. Finally, it's essential to recognize that liberals are not interested in genuine dialogue or understanding. They are content to dismiss opposing viewpoints as hate speech or bigotry without engaging in any meaningful conversation. Have you dealt with Christians? Have you dealt with conservative Christians? They won't engage in meaningful dialogue because immediately they'll just refer to you as a liberal, a heretic, or ungodly or whatever. All sides do this. This is the problem, and your solution is don't have anything to do with them anymore. Let me tell me in a minute, I do a broadcast that people don't like. They don't have meaningful dialogue.

41:37 They attack me, they call me names. It's just ridiculous. Okay. This lack of intellectual honesty and open mindedness makes it impossible to build bridges and find common ground. Yeah, there's intellectual honesty and open mindedness within the world of Christianity, and it's better to walk away from these fruitless exchanges and focus our energies, our nuturing relationships with like minded individuals who share our values and beliefs. Can you believe what this is saying? Hey, anyone who differs with you, just no more and no relationship with them, pull away.

42:24 Only find like minded people. Only find the people you agree with and they agree with you, and then you'll feel like you're great, and they'll feel like they're great, and there will be nothing to ever challenge you. And guess what, you can just tell the rest of the world to just jump off a cliff because we don't stink and care about them. They're stinking liberals. They can go to hell because we don't care about them in any way, shape or form. That's the Christian mindset now because of what happened twenty four hours ago, that's the response. Hey President Trump was shot. Hey, that's it all. Can conservative Christians stop get rid of don't have any more relationships anymore in contact, no more engagement with liberals. So you know, if you want create a gab account, go on there as a liberal, putting forth liberal ideas and see how quickly I guess you get. I don't know, they don't want to have anything to do with you. Do you get removed from the GAB platform Now if they allow liberals on there, well then you're the CEO. Just make it now, it's a liberal free zone. If you post anything liberal, you'll be removed from the platform.

43:37 Get then that I'll keep all of the open minded. Remember liberals are the closed minded one. This will keep all of the very open minded conservatives. They can be so open minded that they can only hear the exact same viewpoint they already hold to. That's why they many of them ran off to these little you know, echo chambers instead of engaging in the public square. All right, but okay, thesion. The decision to sever all ties with liberals is a necessary step to protect our sanity, safety, and families. By distancing ourselves from those who promote chaos, division, and the erosion of traditional values, we can create a safe and nurturing environment where our beliefs and values can thrive. Let us stand firm in our conviction and surround ourselves with those who share our vision for a better future. Yeah, because if we get rid of all those bad liberals, everything will be good inside the church.

44:37 Right, If we could just get rid of all the liberals. There'll be no sin, There'll be no division, there'll be no divorce, there'll be no adultery, there'll be no pornography, there'll be no lust. Everything's good. There'll be no premarital sex. They'll be everything will be perfect, and we'll have we'll have heaven on earth. Well, every time that has ever been a tempted, it leads to hell on earth. Because the enemy is inside of you and me. It's called our sinful nature. And these tumultuous times, it is important, it is more important than ever to remember President Trump's inspiring words from tonight as he got up off the ground. Fight, Fight, Fight, as we can continue to battle for the soul of our nation, our culture, and our people. How are you going to fight for the soul of our nation, culture, and people if you just told everyone to stop all involvement with liberals. So what you want to do is, hey, we all come together and then we'll vote policies that will tell the liberals how to act. That's your solution. See, that is not biblical Christianity, not even close. The forces that seek to undermine our values, traditions, and way of life are relentless, but so to us our determination to preserve and protect all that we hold dear. May God have mercy on us. Then it gives the name of the CEO and he signs it Christ is King. Christ is King, And everything you suggested there had nothing

46:14 to do with the Christ of the Bible. It's a Christ that you're utilizing for your own political agenda, which is one of isolationism and separating yourself, and not one of evangelism or loving your enemy, serving your enemy, doing good unto your enemy, but simply removing yourself from them, and only building up a little community of like minded people so that you don't have to get in touch with anyone who possibly could challenge your little point of view. That is not the lesson we should take from the shooting and the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. That cannot be the Christian response. That just cannot be.

47:01 Now, my concern was the last night, where is this going to go? Now? Again? The CEO from GAB, I don't think he has much influence in the Christian world. I don't. Maybe I'm wrong, I just don't think he does. I don't think the GAB platform has much influence in the Christian world. I could be wrong. You can determine that on your own. But what we want to look for is this. I want to make sure I make this very clear because some people will accuse me of something I'm not doing. I'm not saying that we take this response from the gab CEO and then extrapolate that and say this is how the American Church is responding. No, this is how a voice within the American Church is responding.

47:44 What we need to look for is how these ideas show up in the American Church as we move forward. It's July. We've got a lot of time, at least relatively speaking. In some ways, it's a short amount of time, but it's going to feel like a long time between now and the election and then whatever happens after the election. I think it's going to get ugly. I'm hoping him wrong. I'm hoping this brings unity, but I'm not so sure. I think this may bring more division, more distrust, more hatred, more anger, and it's only going to get uglier now as the world lights the fires and burns everything to the ground. The church should stand outside of that and say we're not going to play in your reindeer games. We are here, and our mindset is this is not our home.

48:50 We're passing through. We're aliens, we're strangers here, we're pilgrims here. We don't We are in it, but we're not of it. Our job is to call you to turn your attention and focus to something better, which is not this earthly kingdom, but the spiritual kingdom, the heavenly kingdom. To eternity, to God, to sin, to righteousness, to imputed righteousness, to repentance. That is what we're going to call people to, not to a political party, not to a political agenda, and not we should not have and I know I'm going to take off Christians. You got to stop this idea that we have to impose traditional values on those who don't want them. If you want traditional values, live them, don't force them, live them out, get people in your church to live them out, teach them. But if you're going to try to teach traditional values to the world, you're getting it all backwards. You don't teach traditional values to the world. You teach them of a God who is holy. We have fallen short. We cannot keep his law, but Christ kept the law for us by putting our faith in him. He pays for our failure, and his perfect righteousness is imputed to our account. You bring them the Gospel once they become saved, then you call them to obey what God has laid out, even though it will be imperfect. If you want traditional values, you first

50:24 live them, and then you call people to the Gospel, not to traditional values, and then you call them once they become Christians, to pursue traditional values. You do not force traditional values to people who do not have the gospel. Why do we want to impose traditional values on the unregenerate. I do not understand that. That's ridiculous. If you want traditional values, worry about you, worry about your church, worry about Christianity, not the world.

51:08 This response to what happened is not a response to attack people separate from people. The response should be this world is messed up? How do we respond spiritually? What is a spiritual response? What is a godly response? What is a response where we do not lean to our own understanding? What does that look like? And it's not going to look like it makes any common sense because we're not going to be relying on common sense. We're going to be trying to rely on biblical sense, which is not always makes sense from a human perspective, because God's ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. So what are you seeing? What are you hearing?

51:58 What are your Christian friends saying? What are your Christian family saying? What did people at church say? What did people in Sunday School say? Today? I'd love what are you hearing? What are you hearing? As we go through we enter into a new week, as we maybe keep up with what's going on in the sermon's two point oh app this week, you can just kind of for the sermon's two point oh app challenge right now. I don't have any specific thing for you to focus on, whatever you're listening to, whatever you're doing, just how you know, keep an eye out and ear out for where this, how people are directing, how ministries are directing people. After this horrible, horrible situation, I'll be monitoring as you hear or see things, send it to me at newsif at yahoo dot com, and we'll just see where this all leads. I'm not going to make any ominous predictions because I could be very wrong, and right now it's too early to tell. But it's a horrible looking situation, and I just my feelings are it's not good. I'm hoping I am wrong. But please, just as we pray for you, pray for Donald Trump, and pray for all the political leaders. Just remember someone who was attending that rally. They died and other people are in the hospital with critical injuries, so obviously pray for those people as well. And the family family of the person who attended a political rally is now dead. All right, you can well, I've already given the email address. Thank you for listening. Everyone, have a

53:30 wonderful Sunday evening. If I have said anything incorrect in this episode, I apologize. I was trying to be very careful with Do I refer to it as an assassination attempt? Do? I like a lot of times a former president will refer to them as president Donald Trump just still maintaining the as an honorary title because they were president. The reason I try, I sometimes stumble over exactly what phrase to use, and you've probably heard me do a little bit of that the beginning is because I'm you know, I'm so tired of all of the you know, President Trump really won and he's actually the president and and Biden is not actually in charge of all the I mean, just go to some Trump rallies and listen to people crazy stuff. I just want to make it very clear. Trump lost the election. He is not the president. He is the former president. He is a presidential candidate. I don't want to get used language that would support that, so I try to be very careful. Even though I think it's it's okay. It's an honorary way to say President Donald Trump as meaning he was the former president. So that title, I think is still is honorary. But I just don't want to use that to give any impression that I am supporting the idea that the election was stolen. The election Trump lost, and every court attempt to try to find otherwise has failed. There's not been any evidence. And obviously Fox News and other people who made some of these claims have already been sued by Dominions. The dominion software program for you know, you know well started off with billions of dollars. They paid what one hundred and fifty million dollars for defamation. Other people are being sued because you make these claims and then you

55:05 can't back up the claim in court, right, so then what do you do. Well, you know, if someone's got the evidence, don't email me, go prove it. Go prove that the election was stolen. I don't know why people are still going with that. Every attempt you've failed, so you know, the president Trump lost the end. So that's why I'm very careful about the phrase I use. The assassination term is I just try to be careful because we don't yet know the motivation. But I think it's fair to say it meets at least I think the general definition of an assassination attempt. I think it does. But at the same time, I'm trying to be I don't want to be hyperbolic, and I'm trying to be very careful and precise in my language. So if I stumbled over any of that, it's because I just I don't want to be seen as in any way buying into the conspiracy theory that the election was stolen. Trump lost. Okay, now we'll see what happens in this election. My feelings are Trump is going to win, and probably in a landslide numerous reasons. So that may be great for the country, may be bad for the country. I don't really care too much about that. Oh, I have my own selfish reasons, right, whichever president will do better and support veterans and veteran rights and veterans benefits and those of us are one hundred percent disabled, if they increase our disability pay or my military retirement pay, that benefits me. So I've got selfish reasons for that, right. Obviously, anything that can help the economy, Yeah, I mean, obviously I have selfish reasons in it.

56:37 But I'm saying ultimately, I don't care about that. What I am interested in whether Trump wins or whether Trump loses. How does it all play out for the church in some ways because of the political hijacking of many conservative churches. I've stated that in some ways, I think from a philological and spiritual perspective, the best thing to happen to the church that every Republican is voted out of office and the church has no place to turn but God. Now, whenever I say that, people lose their ever living minds. But I just think the Church is so prostituted itself to political power because we want to accomplish things through political power and force that we've lost. We are losing our spiritual minds. So but you can you can art. Well, just look at that article. None of that sounded Christian, but yet it was signed christ as King. I don't know what christ that is because everything you suggested there was not anything Christian. So right, you can email me news if at yahoo dot com, news if at yahoo dot com. Everyone, have a wonderful Sunday evening. And look, I don't know what this week is going to look like. I think we have the public. The Republican Convention starts Monday. It's going to be a probably a crazy week of politics.

57:52 I'm going to try to maintain a spiritual balance here and see if we can keep our focus where it needs to be. But you know, at the same time, we'll see if what we need to address as the week moves forward. All right, thanks for listening. God bless