Donald Trump Shot

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Good evening everyone. It is Saturday, July the thirteenth, twenty twenty four. It is currently nine fifty eight pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, I'm going to be completely honest with you. Right now, I don't really know what to say. I'm still trying to process a lot of thoughts and a lot of feelings. But if I'm being honest with you right now, I feel a sense of dread, almost a feeling of depression maybe if I'm being maybe even a little sense of worry, maybe not quite to anxiety, but some very strong negative opinions, negative feelings, And you probably know why. But if for some reason you have not heard the news, I have these negative feelings, these negative thoughts, this sense of dread, this sense of worry, anxiety, discouragement,

1:34 maybe even a little bit of depression. Maybe all of these I have all of these emotions. Not maybe I have all of these emotions and it's not Maybe it is a definite because of the news that you probably are already familiar with. But if you are not, let me play this for you. This is from NPR News. This is the at top of the hour news update line from NPR News in Washington. I'm Luis Skiovone. A shooting at a Trump political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this evening has left the former president with a gunshot wound to his right ear, one spectator dead, too, seriously wounded, and the shooter dead. Attorney General Merrick Garland is stating the FBI, ATF and US Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania are working with Secret Service, as well as state and local law enforcement in Butler County. They are reeling along with the rest of the nation. District Attorney Richard Goldinger told CNN, we haven't seen this since Reagan in nineteen eighty and it's it's mind blowing. You know, maybe we got a little lackadaisy, like a days goal about it that you know, this wouldn't happen to a president or a former president, but it's crazy, and I mean sadly.

2:53 Maybe it's a just the state of our current political situation. Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee say the GOP convention will start as expected on Monday in Milwaukee. President Biden is condemning the shooting, and PR's Tamarack Keith has more. President Biden said everyone must condemn what happened, as well as all political violence. There's no place in America for this kind of violence. It's sick. It's sick. It's one of the reason why we after unite this country. We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this. Biden declined to weigh in on whether this was an assassination attempt, and said he was waiting to get more information before saying more. He is being briefed by national security officials. A Biden campaign official says they are working to take down all TV ads and other messaging in the wake of this incident. Tamer Keith and PR news Now, the shooting at and of Donald Trump has obviously been the major news this even there was a shooting at a campaign rally. He was hit in the ear. You can, if you've seen the video of it, you can hear the sound of the shot, you can hear him. You can see Donald Trump grab at the side of his head. He goes down. The Secret Service obviously rushed to him. When he stands back up, he's you know, he's

4:23 got blood coming down the side of his face. He's very defiant. He's he's saying fight, he's raising his fist. They're trying to get him off the stage. And we find out when it's all throughout, after all of the chaos, after everything kind of settles for just a few minutes, we start finding out that not only was he shot, the shooter was shot and killed, but someone in you know, someone who was also attending the rally was shot and killed, and two others were seriously wounded. It seems so we have two people dead, one the shooter, the other one just a spectator of someone at the rally Donald Trump shot, and two others we don't I don't know the seriousness of their injuries as of right now. Now all of that information could obviously drastically change. It has been a few hours since all of this happened. I I I was I was conflicted on what to do do I do I just get to the microphone as soon as possible.

5:26 Well, I knew the information would be changing, like by the minute it would just be changing and changing. I didn't really have an opportunity to do that anyway, and in some ways that's good because of situations here. I didn't really have the opportunity to come to the microphone, which was actually probably a positive because if I would have came to the microphone, all I could have really done is just trying to be a reporting thing, reporting things in real time while I was trying to monitor other sources, and well, you could you could, you know already look at those other sources. So I really couldn't add anything to it. But as I have watched and read a lot of responses to it, in some ways it's shocking how either almost in joking manner, how many people have taken this in almost in a joking way.

6:16 That's been somewhat disturbing, Like you know, I some people almost mocking it, making fun of it. Some people obviously who don't like Donald Trump, almost celebrating it or disappointed that it wasn't worse, which is horrifying and horrible. Already, misinformation, disinformation conspiracy theories are abounding all over the place, which is again frustrating and horrible. The reaction should be just you think this is one of the situations that you know about ninety eight percent of the people in the world. You're always gonna have some people who are going to respond in just a horrifying way. But you would think most people would respond, this is horrible, this is outrageous. This should be condemned, period.

7:03 It doesn't matter who the presidential candidate is, or the president is, former president, active president, any political leader. You don't want people people shooting at political leaders because we disagree with their politics or we disagree with their policies. It's a horrible, horrible thing. So as I've kind of just let the hours go by, and I was focusing on other things, just more for entertainment. I would keep up with the news a little bit, but I was just trying not to. I didn't want to. You know, if you go down that you know that trail, and you're going to start seeing all of the reactions and comments, and I was trying to avoid a lot of that as much as I possibly could. I was trying to avoid it as much as possible. But as you know, everything kind of of you know, everything else that I was doing ended, and so then immediately I was like, okay, so let's let's walk up the stairs to the studio. What do I do? What do I do? And it's it's somewhat I don't know how to describe it. It's very odd. The way this day went all right, the way this day went so This morning, I had a lot of things to do, a lot of responsibilities.

8:30 But I received an email. Let me go to this email. This was first thing in the morning. I received an email with a link to a story and the headline of that story Trump's negative influence on an already wicked nation. Trump's negative influence on an already wicked nation. And I saw it and I'm like, okay, this is this is really good. I went to Theology Central die net and I posted the article there and I was going to send out a notification on the church one app Hey, this article is at theology Theologycentral dot net. Go check it out. Make some very valid points.

9:16 It's written from a Christian perspective, a very conservative philological Christian perspective, but making an argument that hey, we don't need need to get wrapped up into politics, and trying to draw a distinction between conservativism from a political standpoint and biblical Christianity. I thought it was powerful, I thought it was insightful, But it was just interesting that the morning kind of started off with an article about Donald Trump. And if my day would have gone any different, I would have come to this microphone earlier today and did a podcast episode about this article that many would would perceive it as I'm attacking Donald Trump or I'm being very negative about Donald Trump, and and and and Trump supporters would have been very angry with me. But because of the situation of circumstances here today, I was not able to do so, which now and then and then guess what happens then this evening. We may not want to call it an assassination attempt yet, I don't know if it's been, you know, completely, uh accurately defined that way, But definitely someone was shooting at Donald Trump, and he was struck in the ear with a bullet, So I think I think it would be fair to say an assassination attempt, but I want to be as fair and accurate with everything I say. So it's just the beginning of the day starts with that, and then it ends with that.

10:46 So it's kind of just like and I could have possibly have been talking about well Donald Trump somewhere in the middle of the day. So I so in some ways I'm glad that did not work out. I'm glad because because some people but would have been like, well, see you were attacking him, and and and it would have just it would it could have been just ugly. So I'm kind of glad it didn't work out that way. But here we are this evening. Here we are this evening, and I don't know how you're feeling. I don't know what you're thinking. I don't know what you're feeling. Some of you may go, okay, I don't know. Look, I don't even want to try to try to guess all of the emotions and feelings. But I'm obviously really bothered right now. So I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna start with the first thing. And this is going to bother you, all right, You're gonna be bothered with me, But that's okay. I just what I want to do here is just try to talk through my own feelings and emotions and struggle with a lot of this. Okay, So here's my first thing that bothered me greatly on within an hour, maybe within an hour, of this all happening, you could start finding on certain platforms, especially Donald Trumps supporters they had they were making memes and these posters of like there's Trump and there's like Jesus standing behind him, and like

12:16 Trump was in God's grace. God protected him, God's looking out from him. No enemy formed against him can prosper. God is on you know, God is protecting Donald Trump because we need him and this type of thing, and I understand maybe someone's motivation to do so, but it struck me in a very negative way. And here's the reason why. Okay, so God stepped in save Donald Trump, and we're going to talk all about that, but I'm sorry for the person attending his political rally who was shot and killed. I'm not talking about the shooter. I'm talking about someone who was there watching. As far as we know, they had nothing to do with the shooting. They were just an innocent bystander and they are dead. And I struggle with this constantly when Christians do this, right, if if a storm strikes your if the storm strikes your town and your house is spared, you'll be like, you know, it'll be some Christian on the news going, well, God protected us, and his angels were looking out for us and God, God did not allow it to happen, and we were praying and the tornado did not come to our house. But on the news, it'll be like two blocks away or two houses over, an entire family died, and it would be like, well, huh, I understand. On one hand, you want to say thank God that you didn't die, but you got to understand how that comes across when someone else died. So God was

13:46 at the same event that one person was spared the other person wasn't. Now I know what some people say, well, God is sovereign, he can say who he wants to say so, but that sounds so callous, and so I don't lie that. I don't. I don't like that in any way, shape or form. It bothers me. It It just bothers me so much. It bothers me so much because because sometimes we forget when we are supposedly praising God for sparing someone, well what about the those he did not spare? And I guess you can just shrug your shoulders up and be cold and callous and say, well, you know, God sovereign. The end. Yeah, I mean that's that's easy to say when you're the one spared. But someone tonight I don't know if the other person who was shot was a woman or a man, I don't know, but they're family members now being probably a being notified that your loved one went to a political rally and they're never coming home. And that bothers me greatly. That bothers me greatly because no one should life, no one's life should ever be in danger for going to a political rally, no matter how much I agree or disagree

15:16 with said political rally. So I that's that's that. When I started seeing some of these kind of memes and things going around, I immediately got bothered by that. I almost wanted to respond to some of them and go, come on, now, there's there's someone's family right now. God wasn't protecting them, And that's always a difficult thing for me. It maybe it. I know it doesn't bother most Christians. I understand it doesn't, but I look, the goal here tonight is I'm not sitting here trying to come with some you know, I'm just trying to be real. I'm just trying to talk through it. So I guess that's the first thing that kind of bothered me was that the second kind of alluded to in the news the audio, the news audio clip that we played here at the beginning, is someone we don't know their motivation, we can't speak to it. But someone, for some apparent reason, obtained a gun went to a political rally to try to kill It appears that, at least from the again, this could all change in the next you know, thirty minutes to an hour could be changing right now as I'm speaking, So be aware of that. It appears someone obtained a gun went to a political rally to try to kill Donald Trump. How

16:47 on one hand, I understand it from the perspective of human depravity. We are all totally depraved. We have a sinful nature. And what that sin does not, oh, it doesn't manifest the same and all of us right like the sin that's manifested in your life may be different than the sin that's manifested in my life. But we are all sinners and it manifested itself in some way. So on one hand I understand it to prave people. Sinful people do sinful things like attempting to kill other people, or killing other people, or murder or robbery or child molestation, rape, sexual assault, you know, stilling, bearing, false witness, covetiousness. We can just go on and on and on. A sexual morality. You name it, right, it's always going to be there. So on one hand, I understand it from that perspective, I do. But ladies and gentlemen, our country has almost become oh, let me state it this way. A large number of people within our country have become so politically obsessed, so politically consumed,

18:18 that all it's leading to is divisiveness, anger, division, fighting, discouragement, despair, anger, hatred, And it's it's horrifying that politics have almost become a religion in itself. Politics have almost become a god to some people. And even though not everyone will react in such a violent manner like obtaining a gun, you know, attempting to kill someone, But our rhetoric, our words, our bitterness, our hatred, are fighting, are calling people names, it's all so oh ugly. And I look, I can understand the world like those who are not Christians, I can understand. Right, what else do you have? So you you you've rejected God, So you're going to always replace something? Right, if you reject God, something is going to be a god. Everyone's going to worship something. Right, it's going to be yourself, it's going to be your career, it's going to be your family. It's gonna be money, it's gonna be some everyone's going to have a God, whether they call it that or not. Well, much many in our society as we because we continue down this path of a post Christian nation. Right, Christianity has lost its influence. It's not it does not have any powers. People move away from Christianity that we're going to replace it with something, And even many who call themselves Christians, Christianity is

19:52 more of a tool to support their political opinions. God is almost second to their political into their political desires. So someone now there may be mental health issues, we don't know, but I just just in a symbolic way, this person, whoever they were, who attempted to shoot and possibly well, I think their intent was obvious to kill Donald Trump. Clearly they had issues depravity obviously, maybe mental health issues, but it also seems someone who has become consumed with politics. Maybe they weren't, but it feels that way.

20:34 So I cannot speak dogmatically about the shooter since we don't have that information, but to me, it serves as a depressing reminder of the state of a lot of our country today, politically consumed, politically hijacked, politically obsessed, politically focused, and it's leads to division and divisiveness and attacking people and calling people names. Even if it's never done physically, it's done verbally, it's it's in some ways. You've already killed your political opponents fifty times in your mind and in your heart, even though you haven't done it in a physical way. There's been great concern for a while a number of polls saying that America's on the verge of a civil war. Now, I've always tried to be somewhat skeptical of those polls, going maybe that's more talk, hopefully it's not true. But I've been worried. I said in the end of twenty twenty three that I felt twenty twenty four is just going to be a year that's going to just be It's going to be horrible, and I feel like it's going to get worse and worse and worse the closer we get to the election. And here we are July the thirteenth, twenty twenty four. It's a Saturday night. You know what I should be doing right now. I should be focusing on what I'm going to preach when I stand behind a pulpit.

22:07 But right now I can't help but feel like things are just not right. Things are just not right, and I don't think they're going to get better. The animosity, the anger that's going to possibly arise from this. Now, maybe maybe I am completely wrong. What I would hope is that this would all unify and bring together, but it's already misinformation, disinformation, conspiracies are already abounding, and in some cases I didn't really see the emotional outpouring, right I felt like that for a minute, everyone would hit pause and go, you know what, you know what, you know what, you know what, you know what. Whether I agree or disagree with Trump, this is horrible and I condemn it now many are, But I felt like in many cases that I wasn't as widespread as I felt or thought that it would be. On one hand, you know, I struggle with the whole Okay, so God did this or God didn't do this, And you know, people saying God protected Trump, but obviously he didn't protect the person,

23:38 and the spectator at the rally. Obviously, those things bother me. Those are deep philological issues that I struggle with, and I don't know how all Christians don't struggle with that to some capacity. On one hand, I understand exactly what happened because human depravity. But on the other hand, I just feel that this entire situation just screams at me the poison, the poison the politics is. I think political obsession, political idolatry, political focus just is a poison. It corrupts, it divides it. I just I just think it's more destructive than it is ever beneficial. And even if your team wins an election, you can celebrate until what until then the midterms, and then your party loses the mid terms and then okay, we're gonna come back to the general election. And then maybe you'll lose the general election, and then you go four more years trying to get back that power, and then it's just a never ending cycle of win, lose, win lose, when back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Maybe you'll get you'll get you know, two terms whatever, but then maybe you'll get two terms, but then it'll be Okay, the president is this party but then the Congress or the Senate is controlled by this party, and well, now we're kind of in a deadlock since nobody can get anything done. And the

25:10 meantime, it's just day after day talking politics, politics, politics, politics, politics, politics, politics. In the meantime, everything just seems to be disintegrating around us, and everything seems to be crumbling around us, while we just continue to fight and thinking that politics is going to solve anything, and it's not going to solve anything. It's just not the answer. I just feel like that this is just I feel again. And I hope you understand I'm using lots of term. I'm using that term liberally. I'm using that term frequently because I want to make sure I'm not necessarily trying to articulate dogmatic claims. I'm making claims about how I'm feeling and processing this. In real time. There's just this, And maybe I'm hoping that twenty four hours from now, forty eight hours from now, this feeling will just have be gone and it'll just be a sense of peace and calm and everything. I'll feel like it's back to normal. I don't know, I don't that would be great right now. I just feel like, what is happening? Where are things headed? Now? I know this is not the first time I was alive for President Reagan when he was shot. I was alive for that.

26:41 I was in I think middle school. I think middle school I was when that occurred, if I remember correctly, So I remember that. Obviously we know of the jfk assassination. Obviously we know of that. We know these things have happened in different parts of history. So on one hand, you don't want to be hyperbolic. You don't want to you don't want to blow this out of proportion. At the same time, you want to take it serious and you want to be bothered by it, and you want to condemn it outright. I don't care who the political leader is. This kind of divisiveness it must stop. I don't care who it is. I don't care if it's a Republican Democrat. It all needs to stop. But you know, I can just sit there and say stop it. But you don't just stop human depravity by saying stop it. So I can't there. There's only a limit on what I can do there. What I guess all I can do from a philological perspective is say Okay, those of us who call ourself Christians, can we just see the destructive, corrupting nature of politics and we retreat from the political flag waving, political party supporting mindset, and we treat in a sense. When I say retreat, we just in a sense retreat back to well being a christ focused people, focusing on Christ, the gospel, salvation personal and you know, church wide revival that I don't know

28:18 what else to do. I don't know what else where else to turn. Now what some people are gonna do, This is gonna motivate them even more. We're gonna get Trump elected in twenty twenty. We're going to win and win? What what are you going to win? Trump's already been president once then he lost. He wins again, well he won't, he won't make it another term. So even if he wins, what and then how what is the Congress and Senate going to look like? What do you think you're really going to do? I know in your mind it's like you get your your you're party elected as president, and then you're gonna you're gonna transform the world into some kind of utopia. But you are not the world needs Christ.

29:04 The world doesn't need a political victory. The world needs Christians for us to do right and be right to the best of our ability, or let me take that back. We need to show the world that as sinners, hope is found in the and imputed righteousness of Christ, and just see that we care about that, and that we put our focus in something else, like and I and I. You know, I can look at all kinds of scriptures here, and then we get into a struggle of Okay, so how do we understand the scripture and a lot of what happened? How do we understand God's sovereignty and a light of what happened? Those are the things I always struggle with. You know, well, God did this, I can't what about the person who didn't make it? And not just that incident, all the other incidents that happened in the United States of America and around the world today, of how many people were killed, how many horrible things.

30:15 So I always struggle with all of that. It's interesting and our study of Psaw eighty three, I keep saying this over and over and over, saw maybe three kind of describes this to me. It kind of describes this reality that as a believer in God, we all, this is what we experienced. This is the Christian life. The Christian life is us as people who believe in a God and whom we cannot see, as we live in a world filled with circumstances that we very much can see, that we very much can feel, that we very much are impacted by, and those circumstances, time and time again scream at us there is no God. Where is God? And that's the struggle we have. On one hand, No, No, I believe in God. I cannot see him. I believe by faith, I believe he is there. But when I look at all these circumstances that I can see, that I can hear, touch, feel that they're all around me, it makes me question where is God? And sometimes on a day like this and a night like this, I'm kind of like, God, where are you now? Some people are like, well, he spared Trump, great, okay, but he didn't spare the other person

31:45 who died, so obviously that's gonna that causes me struggle. Maybe it doesn't cause you struggle. That's okay, Maybe you're more spiritual than I am. But then it makes me feel like, okay, but what's next? Where do we go from here because it's is it going to be anger or is it going to be everyone's going to go pause and go stop stop. We got to stop all of this. I don't think everyone's going to stop. I think it's just going to spiral. The Roderick is only going to get worse. The intensity is only going to increase. The frustration and anger and divisiveness and bitterness, it's only going to increase, and the Church will get pulled right into it. I remember when Obama was elected there were Christians they were claiming they were praying in pregatory psalms for his death and destruction, and I was horrified that Christians would do that. Some played the same little game with Hillary and with Biden that you know, oh, we're just praying in precatory psalms that they would be killed. We can get a whole discussion about it, precatory psalms and how we should understand them, and we'll get to that in our discussion on psal Maty three. I don't know what won't get

33:16 there tomorrow, but hopefully soon. Whenever anyone wants to see other people die because we disagree with the political policies, that's a problem. I think it's probably good to be reminded of these words from the Book of Romans, Chapter twelve. Repay no one evil for evil, have regard for good things in the side of all men. If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men beloved. Do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. But rather give a place to wrath.

33:59 For it has written ingins as mine. I will repay saith the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him drink, for in so doing you will keep coals of fire on his head. Do not overcome. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Now by no means am I saying that the government, the police, the military doesn't have the right to defend. I'm not saying that. I'm saying us as people, as Christians, let's not turn this into hatred and name calling of our political opponents. In fact, I would beg of you, plead of you. If you know someone of a different political party. You know of them family member, friend, neighbor, coworker, don't argue, don't fight, show them love, even if you consider them your enemy because you disagree with their political opinions and policies they support.

35:10 You know what, Feed him if they're hungry, thirsty, give them drink. Do good. Overcome evil with If you see them as evil, overcome that evil with good. Do good under them, Show them love, show them compassion, show them mercy. Live that out. I don't, I know, And I'm very grateful for everyone that's taken time to pray for Donald Trump and his safety and his family and everyone. I hopefully pray for the safety and security of every all of our elected officials, whether Republican or Democrat, and that this will stop, and that all this madness will just stop. I can be if I'm being fully transparent. I struggle with what to pray. Remember, from a purely theological standpoint, You know my struggle, Right, We're going to pray to God to do certain things, but he's the God who allowed what happened to happen. So it's always a contradictory struggle there, right, So we're going to pray to the very God who

36:43 allowed it to happen to now do something different, and even if we're praying to the God to protect this person, what about the person who died? Like? Those are the things I struggle with, And I got no problem acknowledging that I'm a podcaster. That's the one of freedom. I can struggle with these things. A pastor, if he said these things will lose his job. I can be more real and transparent. I struggle. I don't know what to pray tonight. I'm just gonna be honest with I don't know what to pray, because again, I would be going to the very God who allowed what happened to happen. I do feel that what we as we struggle and however you decide to pray tonight, I think we should all pray.

37:36 I'm going to pray and just be more honest with my Hey Lord, I don't know what to say, and I don't know what to do, and I don't understand. I don't understand what is happening. But I am going to pray that myself and hopefully you who listens or will listen to this, that all of us who claim to be Christians, that we will not run towards politics, will run to towards the cross run towards scripture, run towards prayer, run too fasting, run to that, and not and not towards political rhetoric, political division, political divisiveness, political arguing, fighting and calling names, that we will just run away from that, that we're not going to be We're gonna we're gonna be not gonna be pulled into that.

38:30 We're going to stand above it in some way, shape or form. That this would be a wake up for us for spiritual reasons. This would be a wake up for us to be even more concerned about the spiritual condition. And I know people are going to say, well, be worried about the political the spiritual condition of the nation. I think we need to be worried about the spiritual condition of your life, my life, and the church. Let me see, I hear sirens in the background, meaning while I'm worried and pray, maybe even if I was focused on what has happened tonight with Donald Trump, right, that's sovereigns right now. You know what does represent?

39:13 They could represent a fire, so someone may be getting ready to lose their home, could be a medical emergency, so some families getting ready to lose a loved one who's going to be rushed to the hospital and possibly die. Could be horrible traffic accident, could be some kind of violent crime has occurred, but there's a high probability. But whatever that is could result in injury or death, because that's the world in which we live in, where pain, suffering and death occurs. And as I said, while I believe in a God in whom I cannot see, I am constantly surrounded and reminded of circumstances and tragedy and difficulty which calls and I see it and I feel it. But that calls into question the existence of the God in whom I cannot see, or it forces me, on one hand, to acknowledge the God in whom I cannot see is really in charge of everything I do see.

40:12 And even though these things I see, it calls into question him being in charge, because you're like, so, I'm going to pray to the God who is in charge of this. But it's that's the difficult thing with trying to understand it. Sometimes some of the scriptures that I had written down, Some of the scriptures I had written down I had, I had a bunch, but just a couple just to kind of just I don't know. Maybe these are not scriptures you would turn to, but these are scriptures where I struggle from a theiological perspective with everything some one oh three, verse nineteen.

40:59 The Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all. This seems to speak to God's sovereignty, his rule, his reign. He's sovereign over everything. Well, when we have a sovereign God whose rule over everything, well, then sometimes we're perplexed by those very things that occur Proverb sixteen nine. Proverb sixteen nine. We read these words Proverb sixteen nine. A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps in their hearts. This is how one translation puts it. In their hearts.

41:49 Humans plan their course, but the Lord their steps. This seems to imply God controlling and directing. So we can get into the idea of God. So for an eternal decrease, he decrees whatsoever comes to pass. If you look at it in the London Baptist Confession of Faith or the Westminster Confession of Faith. Well, though we struggle with that because of the things that come to pass. Isaiah forty six is another one that I have down Isaiah forty six, verse nine and ten. Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. That's Isaiah forty six, nine through ten. Once again, God God doing what he wills everything he he He's in control. Another translation puts it this way, Remember the former things, those laws ago, I God, and there is no other eye God and there and there is none like me. I know the end from the beginning, from ancient times, and what is still to come. I say my purpose will, and I will do that. I please. God knows the

43:22 beginning from the end, and he's going to do his will and his good pleasure. He's in charge, he's in control. How do we wrap our minds around it when things seem to be spiraling out of control and we don't understand. I don't understand. I just don't. I'm perplexed and confused. And it's hard sometimes to pray to a God about a situation that he obviously let happen. Decree depending on your theological background or your theological stream. Either he decreed it to happen, or he allowed it to happen. But either way, I'm coming to God and prayer about the to the very God who allowed it, or decreate it. I struggle. Now there's more sirens outside.

44:08 Whatever the situation is, it appears to only be getting worse. Even more sirens. Now, something obviously very serious has happened somewhere near my location. Another passage Daniel, chapter four, verse thirty five. All the people of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of Heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, what have you done? God? God will, whatever his purpose is, whatever his will is, it's going to happen. I'm gonna read it from a different translation Daniel chapter four, and we read it from a different translation. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to his will and the army of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, no one can restrain his hand or say to him, what have you done? Well, I'm gonna be honest sometimes I want to say, what have you done? What are you doing? Where are you? Just as we read in Psalm eighty three, verse one, where Asaph is crying out to God, God, where are you? You've been silent? We need you to do something. Well, I feel like in some ways things are only things. It seems to be getting worse and worse, but somehow it all fits a part of God's plan.

45:37 And I don't sometimes understand Colautions one, Colautions one, And I don't know if any of these passages how you struggle with them. I struggle with these passages all the time, as soon as I started my theological education, even before I started my theological education, and all the degrees I may have in theiological whether religious studies are what religious education, biblical studies or theology itself, I struggle. But here's Colossians one, verse fifteen. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn overall creation. For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him, And He is before all things, and in him all things consist everything was made by him, everything was made for him. He holds it all together. He is sovereign. His sovereign purpose and will will be accomplished. No one can withstand it, and no one can really say, what have you done? Because he is sovereign and I don't understand it. I have struggled with God's will and plan and purpose forever

47:09 because whatever. When I was a young Christian, Your God has a perfect plan for your life, Well, then you know a perfect plan. Well, my mom died. I'm young. That's the perfect plan for my life. My mom didn't make it to the age of forty. That's that's I don't know. I kind of need my mom, right, I would at least like to have been able to excel. Oh, then my father dies of cancer. Oh. I was raised in an abusive home. I could go on and on and on and on and on and on in horrible and and what things that happened in my life are considered probably a Sunday School story compared to the things that's happened to other people. So I look at the situation tonight, and on one hand, I understand somehow, even though I don't understand, God is working and in control, right, I mean, or either nothing is in charge and nothing is in control and it's just complete chaos. Sometimes it feels like complete chaos. If I struggle, I struggle, and I have these struggles. I have these struggles all the time again.

48:40 And and you know, when whenever there's a pay or there's difficulty, someone will say pray and I and I understand about it. I always my brain always says, I'm going to pray to the God who's allowing the difficulty. May even have decreed the difficulty, depending again on once theilological perspect active. Well, then that seems odd because if God decreed it, if God allowed it, then why am I asking God now to reverse his plan in it? Obviously we can ask, I mean, obviously, there's literally nothing wrong with the asking. There's nothing wrong with the asking since we don't are not given that information completely. Obviously, I want Donald Trump to be perfectly okay, and everyone should pray for that. And we want all politicians to be protected and safe. But while we're paying praying for the politicians to be safe and protected, to think of all the people in the world who will die and suffer. We want them to be protected as well, we don't want any We should not want anyone to suffer and die and be shot at or killed or hurt or robbed or mugged or raped or molested or a beaten or any of the horrible things that happened. Sometimes it just seems like I don't know where to even begin. But where are we headed? The shooter

50:16 is gone, has entered into eternity. Someone who is at the rally was shot and killed. They're in eternity. I think two people are wounded. We don't know how severe Donald Trump was. We can call it a wound. It definitely was wounded. He appears to be okay, Thank Goodness and praise God. I see, But if I say praise God for that, do you see where then my theological struggle arises. I'm praising God for that, But at the same time, do we say we praise God for the person who is attending the rally who died. That's why, just come on philological perspective. That's why I think when we praise God, praise should be I think focused on his attributes. Right, I praise God not for what you do. I praise God for who you are, because that never changes.

51:15 I could praise God whether bad things are happening or good things happen, because I'm praising Him for his attributes, which remain consistent and true no matter circumstances. Right, you praise God for his power, for his love, for his mercy, for his grace. Those are his attributes. We thank God for maybe action. But then if I thank God for the action of preserving one, do I what do I do with the fact he did not preserve another. I feel bad because I would like to bring words of comfort right now, but I don't have them. Oh, I mean, I could give the standard words of comfort, but I don't. I don't think it would be very comforting because I think it would be not very real.

52:05 In fact, in many kisses, I think it actually would paint a wrong biblical perspective. But if we do plead with God for anything tonight, and if you do so tomorrow at your church, I just pray that us who are Christians are confronted with the vanity and the corruption and the destructive nature of political idolatry and political obsession, and we would run and retreat back to a biblical God focused perspective that we can hopefully be spiritually revived and not politically motivated.

53:15 I pray that we would maintain an idea of loving our enemy and doing good to them, because vengeance is not ours, and we are not overcome by evil, but we overcome evil with good. I think those are very sound words that they come directly from Scripture. I don't know how you're feeling tonight, and I wish I had a better answer for you. I don't have good answers here. It's physically dark outside this window behind me. It is almost eleven pm here in West Texas for many of you as much later.

54:07 That physical darkness just really gives me a sense of an emotional darkness, like an emotional dread of where things are going. I am praying and hoping that maybe by Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday of next week this at least sense of oh, no, where are we going after this? This could get ugly. I'm hoping that feeling dissipates and I can go, you know what, all right, that's horrible. We now have more understanding of what was going on, why it was happening. Maybe that will ease some concern, and maybe they'll the rhetoric will tone down. People will come together instead of coming apart. Maybe, and my cynicism says I'm being foolish and even hoping for all of that. But I am hoping for all of that. But I am also hoping that somehow, in all of this, Christians will be like man politics, it's we've got to turn our focus to something better than that. I know Donald Trump from certain videos and from certain reports, he was holding up his fist and saying, fight, fight, fight. I just want to remind Christians the fight is not political. The fight is not physical. The fight is spiritual, and the fight is us, not the

55:42 fight is you and I looking at us and focusing on our own spiritual life and being revived spiritually, so that we are a more spiritually minded person, and we can help others be more spiritually minded, and then the Church becomes more spiritually mind and then we distinguish ourselves from the political chaos and craziness, and we can offer something much better than what politics can. Eternal salvation, the infallible and errant word, an absolute truth, not subjective political ideology.

56:32 Now that would be good that could come from this from a spiritual perspective, I hope from just a national perspective. It brings unity, but it's just going to turn in I bet you it turns into arguments about guns. It's going to turn into argument. It's just I just have a feeling it's just going to dissent, agreat I just feel like it's going to be a mess. I really really do, I really do. We'll watch it, we'll talk about it, we'll struggle with it. I guess all we can do is beg God that we as believers, we'll throw ourselves upon him and towards him. Well, maybe everything around us maybe gets worse. I don't want it to get worse, and I'm not predicting it will, but I don't think we can deny the possibility that it may. Maybe this is appropriate at

58:09 this time we've been talking about it. Maybe we need these words, maybe more than ever. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding and all your ways. Acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. That direction comes from his word. Thanks for listening. You can email me news I F at yahoo dot com. That's news I F at yahoo dot com. Everyone have a great night. Please pray, God bless