Menu
Join Roger Marsh in an enlightening conversation with Gary Bauer on Family Talk, as they unpack the current political climate following the Inauguration Day of 2025. Amidst a new presidential term and changing policies, the dialogue flows around maintaining Christian principles while engaging in today's societal debates. Reflecting on the previous administration, they analyze how political decisions affect cultural values and discuss the necessary involvement of faith communities in shaping moral standards.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, hello, everyone. I'm James Dobson, and you're listening to Family Talk, a listener-supported ministry. In fact, thank you so much for being part of that support for James Dobson Family Institute.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast ministry of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh, and today here on the program, a very, very special installment of Family Talk. Today is Inauguration Day 2025, and who better than to join me in studio to have a conversation about what we're anticipating with a brand new presidential administration than Gary Bauer. Gary is our Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute and And he knows, he's been around Washington a little bit. He knows a little bit about what happens on Capitol Hill. Gary, Happy New Year and welcome back to the broadcast.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you, Roger. It's an exciting day in Washington, D.C. You know, this is one of the little things that happens every four years here. We inaugurate a president, but this year seems particularly profound. And it's also historic, as you know, because we're inaugurating a president who was Wow, wow. We've already made some history today. Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, I love the fact that we do have this history. It does seem like the Trump administration is now going into its third term because the last four years were somewhat tumultuous. I think first and foremost, we are giving glory to God, not because we here at the JDFI were backing any particular candidate, but I know the work that you did and Dr. Dobson did and we did with our Countdown to Decision 2024 program. The whole name of the game there was to encourage people to vote biblically, if you're a Christian, especially to vote for your biblical values. But secondly, to get Christians who typically sit on their hands to get engaged. And I think we saw a huge turnout of people who ordinarily don't engage get engaged.
SPEAKER 02 :
You're absolutely right, Roger. This is something that's been dear to the heart of Dr. Dobbs in his entire career. He and I, over the years, over the decades, have been complaining about Christians not being good Christian citizens. It seems like for about 100 years we've been complaining about that. But in fact, in recent years, and particularly in this last election, there has been a more encouraging turnout. of men and women that believe the Bible and believe that our liberty comes from God, not from government. And they made a difference. And, of course, it needs to be mentioned. You know this, Roger, but I know a lot of Christians are still confused about it. We hear over and over again from people that say, look, I'm just going to go to church on Sunday. I'm going to worship God. I'm going to leave all that noise outside of the church. It has nothing to do with me. Well, that's really flawed thinking. This is a country whose founders believed that it could only exist, it could only survive if the population were moral people. Everything they built was was based on that idea. It's also a country that has sent more missionaries around the world to bring the good news about our Savior Jesus Christ than any country in the history of the world. So America is deeply intertwined with our Christian faith. So that means today on Inauguration Day, the battle really begins in a very profound way. And one of the things we want to do at JDFI is keep people informed and let them know when they're going to need to weigh in on legislation that's pending or something that the president is or isn't doing as we deal with these great issues that will determine the future of our country.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, you know, it's interesting, Gary, because I appreciate the position that you have with us here at the JDFI as the senior vice president of public policy, because a lot of people don't realize. They think, well, that's politics and those are laws and that's not my lane, if you will. And realizing that as Christians, that's absolutely something that we should be concerned with. The policy decisions that are made by an administration have huge ramifications in the culture. And then this year, we also launched, brought in Dr. Owen Strand as our senior director of the Dobson Culture Center to help us understand the policies, kind of set the agenda for what the administration is going to do. And then the cultural impact causes us as believers to head back to Scripture and say, wait, is this forcing me to compromise my values or not? Maybe one of the black eyes, if you will, of the Biden administration has been the fact that they have sought so aggressively to to seek out ways to basically undermine biblical and traditional values that, beyond the fact that they're an offense to God, but they really do bring havoc in society. Talk about, from your vantage point, what we've seen over the past four years and why Donald Trump being in the White House means we're going to see a shift in those policies.
SPEAKER 02 :
It's a great question, Roger. And I think all of us here at JDFI, we get a little nervous. Maybe that's not the right word, but we don't want to come across as being political partisans or tied to one political party or whatever. But there is a certain reality in American political life and public life right now. And one of the ways we've addressed this is to look at the platforms of the two parties. And nobody in the Democrat Party is going to disagree with what I'm getting ready to say. The Democrat Party platform is all in on abortion on demand, to give you just one example. And it's all in on the political demands of the LGBTQ community or special interest group, however you want to refer to it. And because of that, the Biden years have been four years where our religious liberty, our rights of conscience, have been under constant attack. It's not just that the president promoted abortion and promoted LGBTQ issues. President Biden did that at the expense of our right to not be involved in those things. That's good. So, in fact, right now we're part of a lawsuit against the outgoing Biden administration over regulations they issued to try to make Christian ministries and Christian businesses – violate our conscience by promoting abortion or paying for abortions or promoting LGBTQ issues or being implicated in the whole transgender movement and all that's going on with that that threatens our children. All that ends, all those things that were coming out of Washington, all that ends today on Inauguration Day.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. You know, Gary, you brought up an excellent point in the fact that there are a lot of people who don't see the interrelativity, if you will, the interconnectivity of the things that the previous administration, the outgoing one, thank the Lord that we've survived four years of that. But isn't that a testament to the great American system that we have here, Gary Bauer? I mean, let's face it. There are a lot of people every four years who say, I'm so glad that person's not president anymore. Other people who say, thank the Lord they are. But the system still works. I mean, it really does. It's a testament to the Constitution and to God's hand of providence on our nation that even a fascist dictatorial type and maybe fascist is a bit too strong. But the Biden administration really did have those tendencies in terms of saying, look, we're going to push abortion rights. We're going to push transgender ideologies at the expense of religious liberty. I mean, if it weren't a zero sum game like that. There's no way you can do one without the other, and yet they keep saying, no, no, no, everybody can be accepted. Everybody's welcome. But as you duly noted, that's a place where Christians have to stand in the gap and say, wait a minute, not only is that not morally right, it's also unconstitutional.
SPEAKER 02 :
That's a great summary, Roger. You know, to stay on the LGBTQ part of this, and I don't know if any new letters have been added since our show began, it seems to be a growing phenomena. But early on in that movement, the appeal that it made to the American public and, quite frankly, to Christians was – look, we know you don't agree with us, but we're not asking you to marry somebody of the same sex. We're not asking you to have an abortion. We're just saying, let us live our lives the way we want to. If we love someone, who are you to question our love? And that was a very effective argument. And I think, quite frankly, there's a lot of evidence that particularly younger Christians believe Found it persuasive and said, well, yeah, why are you being so mean-spirited and not letting those people have the same rights that we do? Well, now that that movement got traction, the LGBTQ movement got traction, it was no longer a live and let live movement. It was an iron fist movement. You will participate and bake cakes for our weddings. Right, right. And all the rest of it, you will not preach about this in your churches or we will sue you for denying us our constitutional rights. So it's been very, I think, instructive to see the live and let live argument really doesn't play out. And there's no society that's neutral. Right. Every society will have a set of things that it admires, that it looks up to, that it wants to teach its children to follow and to be committed to. And it will have a series of things, of ideas and ways of living that that society will say, no, don't do that. That is not right. That is wrong. Somebody always wins in a society. in our society over these sorts of things. And thank God for JDFI, and thank God for Dr. Dobson's voice over the decades, because we have said that the things to look up to here in America are faith, family, and freedom. That's what the country was built on, and that's what we remain committed to following and to defending.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, today here on Inauguration Day, Gary Bauer is with us here in studio on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh, and we're talking about what this new administration, we used to call President Trump President 45, now he's also President 47, which is kind of interesting, hasn't happened in this country in well over 100 years. But as I was just thinking, Gary, of the image as Donald Trump placing his hand, left hand on the Bible, right hand in the air to take the oath of office, I could hear the border closing. You know, I could hear the gates, the doors shutting up. And not only that, but I could hear Homeland Security under the capable direction of former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem coming in and saying, OK, we're shutting things down now. That open border issue, I think that's a hand that the Democrat Party horribly overplayed in the election as kind of downplaying the fact that, well, it's really not that important to American families. And yet the open border has put so many families at risk. So many communities are being overwhelmed. We think about right even here in Colorado, you know, I mean, the gang activity moving into taking over apartment complexes and things of that nature. A lot of Christians are going to say, but Gary, you know what, though? It's not right. People are coming here. And they need a place to flee their homeland and they need a safe place to land. Why is it good and godly for us to close the borders and have not keep people out necessarily, but have a better way of filtering those who come in?
SPEAKER 02 :
Roger, you're absolutely right. This is another one of those issues that there's been division in the church about. Although when you do polling on it, Americans overwhelmingly are against what they watched the last four years. And that goes for men and women of faith, men and women who are in church every Sunday. Just their common sense told them you can't have 8, 10, 12 million people walk into America without having a profound impact on the country. And now some of it might be a positive impact, but a lot of it is a very negative impact. If a good person can walk across the border and now go wherever they want and never leave, even if a court demands that they leave, well, then what would stop a bad person from walking across the border?
SPEAKER 01 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 02 :
Or a terrorist from walking across the border. And in fact, we know that that has happened. And the reason we know it is that American citizens – The people that our government has the first responsibility to defend and protect have been raped and killed and robbed. That's unacceptable. There's nothing Christian about that. I will often hear someone, usually a progressive, self-identified progressive in the church, who thinks that the argument is over if that person simply says, Jesus loves migrants. Well, Jesus loves all human beings. He sent his son to die for our salvation as the perfect lamb. The fact that Jesus loves men and women that he created does not in any way settle the argument about what a nation's border policy should be. Jesus loves taxpayers. Jesus loves American citizens. So you've got to bring a more— well-thought-out moral mindset to deal with these sorts of issues.
SPEAKER 01 :
I remember one theologian one night, the guy was trying to do the open border thing with him, and his response was, well, do you lock your door before you go to bed?
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly right, yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
I mean, of course we do. So that's the thing, and last time I checked too, heaven does have a gate and does have a narrow way in, and there is a way that people can get in, but there's also... provisions for keeping people out. That's a godly principle.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, there's a half million children we shouldn't forget about. That's the number of children during the Biden years that crossed our border, many of them unaccompanied by an adult. And those children were given to other adults in the United States that claimed they were a relative or claimed that they were somebody that there had been a prearrangement made with the family in the home country. child comes from to take care of that child. And we found out in the closing months of the Biden administration that we were no longer able to locate the great majority of those children. There is absolutely no doubt that some of those children are being abused. They've been trafficked. Others are no doubt working in sweatshop factories as illegal minor workers for businesses that are off the grid. So this is a human tragedy. No country can legitimately allow something like that to happen, and yet that's exactly what happened over the last four years. And I know that the Trump administration – has said all during the transition period, they're going to do everything they can to find those children and rescue them wherever they are. That is something that Jesus would be smiling about.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. Well, we're smiling about it here at Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk in the JDFI. Gary Bauer is our Senior Vice President of Public Policy. He's the host of the Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom podcast and a regular contributor, of course. to the Family Talk program. And today here on Inauguration Day, Gary, also having served in the Reagan White House for many years, and also you served President Trump in a capacity. I didn't want to make you a cabinet member or anything like that at that point if it wasn't more to give you that promotion. But you served the last couple of years of his first term working in an area that I know a lot of people think is kind of an anomaly. Donald Trump and religious liberty, especially as it pertains to Christians, And yet he's got to look at all his foreign policy decisions. Look at the Christians that he's picked to cabinet posts and ambassadorships and things of that nature. It's a very exciting time for Americans, again, to see men and women of faith put in these positions.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. Well, it's an old saying in Washington that personnel is policy. A president brings six, seven, 8,000 people with him to all these posts. There are Christians everywhere. all over the Trump administration. There wasn't his first term. You mentioned the assignment I had. It was not a paid assignment, but he nominated me to be one of the nine members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. And our job was to look at every nation in the world and rate them on whether they were allowing the citizens of their country to enjoy the most fundamental right that all human beings should have, which is to seek God and worship God as they see fit. And President Trump was very committed to that issue, remains committed to it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Did I read this correctly, Gary? There's a new faith office that's going to be coming in as part of the Trump 47 administration? Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, there is going to be a faith office. Now, he had an office in the administration in his first term, and it was very effective. But it still had to deal with bureaucracy and so forth, like all these departments and commissions and agencies do. This faith office is going to report directly to the president. And there's going to be an individual in each government cabinet agency that is part of that faith office and will represent it in each of those agencies around Washington, D.C. For years, Donald Trump has had a faith advisory board— He had that in his first term, and Dr. Dobson is a member of that faith advisory board, continues to be a member of it today. And it will this time report directly to the president, this faith office. So I think it's another example of how seriously Donald Trump is committed to religious liberty. One other thing on this, Roger, that I think a lot of Christians forget – Religious liberty right now at the Supreme Court is in a stronger position than it's been in in 50 years. And the reason for that is that in his first term, Donald Trump had three Supreme Court vacancies that he was able to fill. And that gave us, depending on the issue, somewhere between a five or six vote margin. majority on the Supreme Court in defense of religious liberty. We don't know what's going to happen in the next four years. I believe there could be another vacancy of another one of the liberal justices. And if that happens, I have no doubt that Donald Trump will appoint somebody that is committed to the First Amendment. and its guarantee of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, what we call the first freedoms that are part of our Constitution.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it's an exciting time. It's an exciting day, Inauguration Day 2025. We've been having this conversation with Gary Bauer, who's the Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, former Undersecretary of Education, and served on the advisory board for the—I always get the lettering wrong—the
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, it's USURF is the alphabet name, but it's U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom. And by the way, Roger, the most persecuted group in the world, we found at the commission, and this won't surprise anybody, are followers of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 01 :
It's come to that point. So this is the world we live in. For such a time as this, we are very hopeful and anticipating that the next four years are going to be years of not necessarily just easy-feasy for Christians, but rather to see the biblical worldview carried out from the highest level of government here in the United States. Gary, thank you for handicapping that with us. Would you take the final moments of our time together and just offer a prayer for the incoming administration, for our nation, and also for maybe believers who are kind of scratching their heads saying, wait a minute, why would God put this man? As our president, how is that a good thing from God, if you would be so kind?
SPEAKER 02 :
Of course, Roger. Well, Father God, we just thank you for the incredible blessing we received when you allowed us to be born or to immigrate legally to the United States of America. Of all the places in the world that someone could be born in, to be born here is an unbelievable blessing. This is a nation built on the idea that liberty comes from you. You weren't surprised by the fact that we were born in America. You knew exactly where we were going to be born. And so because of this gift you gave us, Father God, we have an obligation to preserve it, to take care of it, to protect it. Otherwise, we would be ingrates. Nobody would want to abuse or ignore a wonderful gift given to them. And you've given us this gift to be citizens in the United States. So thank you for that blessing. Give us the courage as Christian citizens to speak up for our faith and to stand for faith, family, and freedom. And Father God, for some who still don't understand why Christians voted by massive margins for Donald Trump, help them to have the wisdom to know that the Bible is full of stories of heroes and heroines, often unlikely and fallen men and women. who you used for your purposes in ways that helped the world of the time they lived in. Father God, we pray for your protection on President Trump and the members of his administration, that you would keep them safe. We would pray, Father, that all those in the administration, followers of Jesus Christ, would be strengthened in their faith, but also members of the administration that may not yet understand you and your message of salvation to us that may be during their time of public service. This will be when they find Jesus and being even better in the jobs that they've given us. Father God, finally, we ask that this great country that has done so many good things, we're a flawed nation, as all nations are, but we pray, Father, that you would continue to help America follow your will to make us a nation that, in fact, is a shining city on a hill. Father God, we know that America can't be great again until it's godly again. We ask these things in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. Gary Bauer, thank you so much for helping us to get the proper spiritual perspective on Inauguration Day 2025 here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. Gary, it's always a pleasure to be with you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Always great to be with you, Roger.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, you've been listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, featuring an insightful conversation about Inauguration Day 2025 with our own Gary Bauer, our Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dr. James Dobson Policy Center. Now, if you missed any portion of today's historic broadcast, or if you'd like to share it with others, go to drjamesdobson.org forward slash Family Talk, or you can also access this audio through the Family Talk app. And speaking of apps, you can now follow JDFI on the Bible app, the YouVersion Bible app, which is utilized by millions of people worldwide. You can join the nearly 100,000 people who have subscribed to three-day devotional plans with practical biblical insights to strengthen marriages and equip others. parents. For example, you can get started with one of these popular plans, Dr. Dobson's three-day marriage plan for improving communication skills or finding true love in your marriage. You'll also benefit from Dr. Dobson's three-day parenting plan for a mother's impact on her children and opting for effective discipline. You can follow JDFI when you access the YouVersion Bible app, and you'll find that information in Google Play or the App Store. Well, I'm Roger Marsh, thanking you so much for listening to the broadcast today. Be sure to join us again next time for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
Family Talk is a Christian non-profit organization located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Founded in 2010 by Dr. James Dobson, the ministry promotes and teaches biblical principles that support marriage, family, and child-development. Since its inception, Family Talk has served millions of families with broadcasts, monthly newsletters, feature articles, videos, blogs, books and other resources available on demand via its website, mobile apps, and social media platforms. The Dr. James Dobson Family Institute (JDFI) is a Christian non-profit organization located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Founded initially as Family Talk in 2010 by Dr. James Dobson, the ministry promotes and teaches biblical principles that support marriage, family, and child-development. Since its inception, Family Talk has served families with broadcasts, monthly newsletters, feature articles, videos, blogs, books, and other resources available on demand via its website, mobile apps, and social media platforms. In 2017, the ministry rebranded under JDFI to expand its four core ministry divisions consisting of Family Talk, the Dobson Policy and Education Centers, and the Dobson Digital Library. Dr. Dobson's flagship program, "Family Talk," is aired on more than 1,300 terrestrial radio outlets and numerous digital channels that reach millions of people each month.
Join Roger Marsh in an enlightening conversation with Gary Bauer on Family Talk, as they unpack the current political climate following the Inauguration Day of 2025. Amidst a new presidential term and changing policies, the dialogue flows around maintaining Christian principles while engaging in today's societal debates. Reflecting on the previous administration, they analyze how political decisions affect cultural values and discuss the necessary involvement of faith communities in shaping moral standards.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, hello, everyone. I'm James Dobson, and you're listening to Family Talk, a listener-supported ministry. In fact, thank you so much for being part of that support for James Dobson Family Institute.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast ministry of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh, and today here on the program, a very, very special installment of Family Talk. Today is Inauguration Day 2025, and who better than to join me in studio to have a conversation about what we're anticipating with a brand new presidential administration than Gary Bauer. Gary is our Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute and And he knows, he's been around Washington a little bit. He knows a little bit about what happens on Capitol Hill. Gary, Happy New Year and welcome back to the broadcast.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you, Roger. It's an exciting day in Washington, D.C. You know, this is one of the little things that happens every four years here. We inaugurate a president, but this year seems particularly profound. And it's also historic, as you know, because we're inaugurating a president who was Wow, wow. We've already made some history today. Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, I love the fact that we do have this history. It does seem like the Trump administration is now going into its third term because the last four years were somewhat tumultuous. I think first and foremost, we are giving glory to God, not because we here at the JDFI were backing any particular candidate, but I know the work that you did and Dr. Dobson did and we did with our Countdown to Decision 2024 program. The whole name of the game there was to encourage people to vote biblically, if you're a Christian, especially to vote for your biblical values. But secondly, to get Christians who typically sit on their hands to get engaged. And I think we saw a huge turnout of people who ordinarily don't engage get engaged.
SPEAKER 02 :
You're absolutely right, Roger. This is something that's been dear to the heart of Dr. Dobbs in his entire career. He and I, over the years, over the decades, have been complaining about Christians not being good Christian citizens. It seems like for about 100 years we've been complaining about that. But in fact, in recent years, and particularly in this last election, there has been a more encouraging turnout. of men and women that believe the Bible and believe that our liberty comes from God, not from government. And they made a difference. And, of course, it needs to be mentioned. You know this, Roger, but I know a lot of Christians are still confused about it. We hear over and over again from people that say, look, I'm just going to go to church on Sunday. I'm going to worship God. I'm going to leave all that noise outside of the church. It has nothing to do with me. Well, that's really flawed thinking. This is a country whose founders believed that it could only exist, it could only survive if the population were moral people. Everything they built was was based on that idea. It's also a country that has sent more missionaries around the world to bring the good news about our Savior Jesus Christ than any country in the history of the world. So America is deeply intertwined with our Christian faith. So that means today on Inauguration Day, the battle really begins in a very profound way. And one of the things we want to do at JDFI is keep people informed and let them know when they're going to need to weigh in on legislation that's pending or something that the president is or isn't doing as we deal with these great issues that will determine the future of our country.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, you know, it's interesting, Gary, because I appreciate the position that you have with us here at the JDFI as the senior vice president of public policy, because a lot of people don't realize. They think, well, that's politics and those are laws and that's not my lane, if you will. And realizing that as Christians, that's absolutely something that we should be concerned with. The policy decisions that are made by an administration have huge ramifications in the culture. And then this year, we also launched, brought in Dr. Owen Strand as our senior director of the Dobson Culture Center to help us understand the policies, kind of set the agenda for what the administration is going to do. And then the cultural impact causes us as believers to head back to Scripture and say, wait, is this forcing me to compromise my values or not? Maybe one of the black eyes, if you will, of the Biden administration has been the fact that they have sought so aggressively to to seek out ways to basically undermine biblical and traditional values that, beyond the fact that they're an offense to God, but they really do bring havoc in society. Talk about, from your vantage point, what we've seen over the past four years and why Donald Trump being in the White House means we're going to see a shift in those policies.
SPEAKER 02 :
It's a great question, Roger. And I think all of us here at JDFI, we get a little nervous. Maybe that's not the right word, but we don't want to come across as being political partisans or tied to one political party or whatever. But there is a certain reality in American political life and public life right now. And one of the ways we've addressed this is to look at the platforms of the two parties. And nobody in the Democrat Party is going to disagree with what I'm getting ready to say. The Democrat Party platform is all in on abortion on demand, to give you just one example. And it's all in on the political demands of the LGBTQ community or special interest group, however you want to refer to it. And because of that, the Biden years have been four years where our religious liberty, our rights of conscience, have been under constant attack. It's not just that the president promoted abortion and promoted LGBTQ issues. President Biden did that at the expense of our right to not be involved in those things. That's good. So, in fact, right now we're part of a lawsuit against the outgoing Biden administration over regulations they issued to try to make Christian ministries and Christian businesses – violate our conscience by promoting abortion or paying for abortions or promoting LGBTQ issues or being implicated in the whole transgender movement and all that's going on with that that threatens our children. All that ends, all those things that were coming out of Washington, all that ends today on Inauguration Day.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. You know, Gary, you brought up an excellent point in the fact that there are a lot of people who don't see the interrelativity, if you will, the interconnectivity of the things that the previous administration, the outgoing one, thank the Lord that we've survived four years of that. But isn't that a testament to the great American system that we have here, Gary Bauer? I mean, let's face it. There are a lot of people every four years who say, I'm so glad that person's not president anymore. Other people who say, thank the Lord they are. But the system still works. I mean, it really does. It's a testament to the Constitution and to God's hand of providence on our nation that even a fascist dictatorial type and maybe fascist is a bit too strong. But the Biden administration really did have those tendencies in terms of saying, look, we're going to push abortion rights. We're going to push transgender ideologies at the expense of religious liberty. I mean, if it weren't a zero sum game like that. There's no way you can do one without the other, and yet they keep saying, no, no, no, everybody can be accepted. Everybody's welcome. But as you duly noted, that's a place where Christians have to stand in the gap and say, wait a minute, not only is that not morally right, it's also unconstitutional.
SPEAKER 02 :
That's a great summary, Roger. You know, to stay on the LGBTQ part of this, and I don't know if any new letters have been added since our show began, it seems to be a growing phenomena. But early on in that movement, the appeal that it made to the American public and, quite frankly, to Christians was – look, we know you don't agree with us, but we're not asking you to marry somebody of the same sex. We're not asking you to have an abortion. We're just saying, let us live our lives the way we want to. If we love someone, who are you to question our love? And that was a very effective argument. And I think, quite frankly, there's a lot of evidence that particularly younger Christians believe Found it persuasive and said, well, yeah, why are you being so mean-spirited and not letting those people have the same rights that we do? Well, now that that movement got traction, the LGBTQ movement got traction, it was no longer a live and let live movement. It was an iron fist movement. You will participate and bake cakes for our weddings. Right, right. And all the rest of it, you will not preach about this in your churches or we will sue you for denying us our constitutional rights. So it's been very, I think, instructive to see the live and let live argument really doesn't play out. And there's no society that's neutral. Right. Every society will have a set of things that it admires, that it looks up to, that it wants to teach its children to follow and to be committed to. And it will have a series of things, of ideas and ways of living that that society will say, no, don't do that. That is not right. That is wrong. Somebody always wins in a society. in our society over these sorts of things. And thank God for JDFI, and thank God for Dr. Dobson's voice over the decades, because we have said that the things to look up to here in America are faith, family, and freedom. That's what the country was built on, and that's what we remain committed to following and to defending.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, today here on Inauguration Day, Gary Bauer is with us here in studio on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh, and we're talking about what this new administration, we used to call President Trump President 45, now he's also President 47, which is kind of interesting, hasn't happened in this country in well over 100 years. But as I was just thinking, Gary, of the image as Donald Trump placing his hand, left hand on the Bible, right hand in the air to take the oath of office, I could hear the border closing. You know, I could hear the gates, the doors shutting up. And not only that, but I could hear Homeland Security under the capable direction of former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem coming in and saying, OK, we're shutting things down now. That open border issue, I think that's a hand that the Democrat Party horribly overplayed in the election as kind of downplaying the fact that, well, it's really not that important to American families. And yet the open border has put so many families at risk. So many communities are being overwhelmed. We think about right even here in Colorado, you know, I mean, the gang activity moving into taking over apartment complexes and things of that nature. A lot of Christians are going to say, but Gary, you know what, though? It's not right. People are coming here. And they need a place to flee their homeland and they need a safe place to land. Why is it good and godly for us to close the borders and have not keep people out necessarily, but have a better way of filtering those who come in?
SPEAKER 02 :
Roger, you're absolutely right. This is another one of those issues that there's been division in the church about. Although when you do polling on it, Americans overwhelmingly are against what they watched the last four years. And that goes for men and women of faith, men and women who are in church every Sunday. Just their common sense told them you can't have 8, 10, 12 million people walk into America without having a profound impact on the country. And now some of it might be a positive impact, but a lot of it is a very negative impact. If a good person can walk across the border and now go wherever they want and never leave, even if a court demands that they leave, well, then what would stop a bad person from walking across the border?
SPEAKER 01 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 02 :
Or a terrorist from walking across the border. And in fact, we know that that has happened. And the reason we know it is that American citizens – The people that our government has the first responsibility to defend and protect have been raped and killed and robbed. That's unacceptable. There's nothing Christian about that. I will often hear someone, usually a progressive, self-identified progressive in the church, who thinks that the argument is over if that person simply says, Jesus loves migrants. Well, Jesus loves all human beings. He sent his son to die for our salvation as the perfect lamb. The fact that Jesus loves men and women that he created does not in any way settle the argument about what a nation's border policy should be. Jesus loves taxpayers. Jesus loves American citizens. So you've got to bring a more— well-thought-out moral mindset to deal with these sorts of issues.
SPEAKER 01 :
I remember one theologian one night, the guy was trying to do the open border thing with him, and his response was, well, do you lock your door before you go to bed?
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly right, yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
I mean, of course we do. So that's the thing, and last time I checked too, heaven does have a gate and does have a narrow way in, and there is a way that people can get in, but there's also... provisions for keeping people out. That's a godly principle.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, there's a half million children we shouldn't forget about. That's the number of children during the Biden years that crossed our border, many of them unaccompanied by an adult. And those children were given to other adults in the United States that claimed they were a relative or claimed that they were somebody that there had been a prearrangement made with the family in the home country. child comes from to take care of that child. And we found out in the closing months of the Biden administration that we were no longer able to locate the great majority of those children. There is absolutely no doubt that some of those children are being abused. They've been trafficked. Others are no doubt working in sweatshop factories as illegal minor workers for businesses that are off the grid. So this is a human tragedy. No country can legitimately allow something like that to happen, and yet that's exactly what happened over the last four years. And I know that the Trump administration – has said all during the transition period, they're going to do everything they can to find those children and rescue them wherever they are. That is something that Jesus would be smiling about.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. Well, we're smiling about it here at Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk in the JDFI. Gary Bauer is our Senior Vice President of Public Policy. He's the host of the Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom podcast and a regular contributor, of course. to the Family Talk program. And today here on Inauguration Day, Gary, also having served in the Reagan White House for many years, and also you served President Trump in a capacity. I didn't want to make you a cabinet member or anything like that at that point if it wasn't more to give you that promotion. But you served the last couple of years of his first term working in an area that I know a lot of people think is kind of an anomaly. Donald Trump and religious liberty, especially as it pertains to Christians, And yet he's got to look at all his foreign policy decisions. Look at the Christians that he's picked to cabinet posts and ambassadorships and things of that nature. It's a very exciting time for Americans, again, to see men and women of faith put in these positions.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. Well, it's an old saying in Washington that personnel is policy. A president brings six, seven, 8,000 people with him to all these posts. There are Christians everywhere. all over the Trump administration. There wasn't his first term. You mentioned the assignment I had. It was not a paid assignment, but he nominated me to be one of the nine members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. And our job was to look at every nation in the world and rate them on whether they were allowing the citizens of their country to enjoy the most fundamental right that all human beings should have, which is to seek God and worship God as they see fit. And President Trump was very committed to that issue, remains committed to it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Did I read this correctly, Gary? There's a new faith office that's going to be coming in as part of the Trump 47 administration? Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, there is going to be a faith office. Now, he had an office in the administration in his first term, and it was very effective. But it still had to deal with bureaucracy and so forth, like all these departments and commissions and agencies do. This faith office is going to report directly to the president. And there's going to be an individual in each government cabinet agency that is part of that faith office and will represent it in each of those agencies around Washington, D.C. For years, Donald Trump has had a faith advisory board— He had that in his first term, and Dr. Dobson is a member of that faith advisory board, continues to be a member of it today. And it will this time report directly to the president, this faith office. So I think it's another example of how seriously Donald Trump is committed to religious liberty. One other thing on this, Roger, that I think a lot of Christians forget – Religious liberty right now at the Supreme Court is in a stronger position than it's been in in 50 years. And the reason for that is that in his first term, Donald Trump had three Supreme Court vacancies that he was able to fill. And that gave us, depending on the issue, somewhere between a five or six vote margin. majority on the Supreme Court in defense of religious liberty. We don't know what's going to happen in the next four years. I believe there could be another vacancy of another one of the liberal justices. And if that happens, I have no doubt that Donald Trump will appoint somebody that is committed to the First Amendment. and its guarantee of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, what we call the first freedoms that are part of our Constitution.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it's an exciting time. It's an exciting day, Inauguration Day 2025. We've been having this conversation with Gary Bauer, who's the Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, former Undersecretary of Education, and served on the advisory board for the—I always get the lettering wrong—the
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, it's USURF is the alphabet name, but it's U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom. And by the way, Roger, the most persecuted group in the world, we found at the commission, and this won't surprise anybody, are followers of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 01 :
It's come to that point. So this is the world we live in. For such a time as this, we are very hopeful and anticipating that the next four years are going to be years of not necessarily just easy-feasy for Christians, but rather to see the biblical worldview carried out from the highest level of government here in the United States. Gary, thank you for handicapping that with us. Would you take the final moments of our time together and just offer a prayer for the incoming administration, for our nation, and also for maybe believers who are kind of scratching their heads saying, wait a minute, why would God put this man? As our president, how is that a good thing from God, if you would be so kind?
SPEAKER 02 :
Of course, Roger. Well, Father God, we just thank you for the incredible blessing we received when you allowed us to be born or to immigrate legally to the United States of America. Of all the places in the world that someone could be born in, to be born here is an unbelievable blessing. This is a nation built on the idea that liberty comes from you. You weren't surprised by the fact that we were born in America. You knew exactly where we were going to be born. And so because of this gift you gave us, Father God, we have an obligation to preserve it, to take care of it, to protect it. Otherwise, we would be ingrates. Nobody would want to abuse or ignore a wonderful gift given to them. And you've given us this gift to be citizens in the United States. So thank you for that blessing. Give us the courage as Christian citizens to speak up for our faith and to stand for faith, family, and freedom. And Father God, for some who still don't understand why Christians voted by massive margins for Donald Trump, help them to have the wisdom to know that the Bible is full of stories of heroes and heroines, often unlikely and fallen men and women. who you used for your purposes in ways that helped the world of the time they lived in. Father God, we pray for your protection on President Trump and the members of his administration, that you would keep them safe. We would pray, Father, that all those in the administration, followers of Jesus Christ, would be strengthened in their faith, but also members of the administration that may not yet understand you and your message of salvation to us that may be during their time of public service. This will be when they find Jesus and being even better in the jobs that they've given us. Father God, finally, we ask that this great country that has done so many good things, we're a flawed nation, as all nations are, but we pray, Father, that you would continue to help America follow your will to make us a nation that, in fact, is a shining city on a hill. Father God, we know that America can't be great again until it's godly again. We ask these things in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. Gary Bauer, thank you so much for helping us to get the proper spiritual perspective on Inauguration Day 2025 here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. Gary, it's always a pleasure to be with you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Always great to be with you, Roger.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, you've been listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, featuring an insightful conversation about Inauguration Day 2025 with our own Gary Bauer, our Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the Dr. James Dobson Policy Center. Now, if you missed any portion of today's historic broadcast, or if you'd like to share it with others, go to drjamesdobson.org forward slash Family Talk, or you can also access this audio through the Family Talk app. And speaking of apps, you can now follow JDFI on the Bible app, the YouVersion Bible app, which is utilized by millions of people worldwide. You can join the nearly 100,000 people who have subscribed to three-day devotional plans with practical biblical insights to strengthen marriages and equip others. parents. For example, you can get started with one of these popular plans, Dr. Dobson's three-day marriage plan for improving communication skills or finding true love in your marriage. You'll also benefit from Dr. Dobson's three-day parenting plan for a mother's impact on her children and opting for effective discipline. You can follow JDFI when you access the YouVersion Bible app, and you'll find that information in Google Play or the App Store. Well, I'm Roger Marsh, thanking you so much for listening to the broadcast today. Be sure to join us again next time for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
This episode provides a meaningful exploration of how God's blessings are more than mere words—they're powerful, transformative, and multi-generational. Pastor Rick explains the biblical concept of makarios, a state where all needs are met and fulfilled, and shares inspiring stories of faith and trust in God. Discover how living a blessable life can impact your family and community, creating a legacy that endures for generations.
SPEAKER 01 :
Pastor Rick's Daily Hope Pastor Rick's going to kick off a powerful new series called Discover Your Destiny. And in this life-changing journey, you'll uncover how to grow in every area of your life, spiritually, emotionally, financially, physically, mentally, vocationally, and relationally. So let's dive right into God's Word and discover how to make the next 10 years the best years of your life. And now here's Rick with part one of a message called Your Choice, Blessed or Stressed.
SPEAKER 02 :
One of the most common phrases I'm sure you've heard on a daily basis is the phrase, God bless you. God bless you. What in the world does that mean? What is a blessing? Can anybody define it? I mean, most people wouldn't know a blessing if it hit them flat in the face. When you pray God bless my family, God bless my work, God bless my church, God bless America, what are you praying? What is a blessing? I spent the last two weeks studying this subject and I studied every single verse in the Bible and every promise of blessing for God on your life. Because that's what we're talking about when we go into the decade of destiny. You know, as your pastor, the Bible holds me accountable for your spiritual growth. I don't take that lightly. In fact, it keeps me up at night. And if you choose to put yourself in this family, in this flock, under my spiritual care, the Bible says I am accountable to God to help you grow. I want the next 10 years of your life to be the best 10 years of your life. I want you to be more blessed and less stressed. in the next 10 years. I want God's blessing on your finances. I want God's blessing on your health, your relationship, your family, if you're married, your children. I want God's blessing in every area of your life and on your life. Now what is a blessing? The word actually means good word. It means to speak a good word. But a blessing is a powerful word because when God blesses someone or something, he takes what they naturally have and he multiplies it And he makes it sufficient to meet all of your needs. That's what a blessing is. Do you remember the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, that miracle where they were out in the middle of the desert and nobody brought any food. One little kid had a lunch and he gave it to Jesus. Jesus took that little lunch of that little boy, five little rolls and a couple of fish, and he raised it up to heaven and he blessed it. And then he broke it and it multiplied and it met everybody's needs. Now, that's what happens when you are blessed. All your needs are met. Now, the common word for blessing in the Bible, in the Greek, which the Bible was originally in the New Testament was written in Greek, is the word makarios. And makarios, interesting, was the same word that they used for the island of Cyprus in ancient times, because Cyprus was famous for being an island that was self-contained in that everything you needed to sustain life was already on the island. It was famous for that. So the people didn't have to go off the island for anything they didn't need. The island was self-sustaining. It had all of the needs met there. And to be blessed, makarios, means that all of your needs are met and they're all sustained. Now God's blessing on your life is not limited to how big your needs are. God's blessing on your life is not limited to how you got those needs. It may be your own stupidity, your own fault that you got into that need. God's blessing is not based on the resources available. It's based on his power and your trust and obedience to what he tells you to do. You know, I read a story recently about a man who was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for seven years in the famous Hanoi Hilton. And he said, you know, for seven years, my daily meal was a bowl of broth. Really, it was just colored water. There was never any meat in it, seldom any vegetables. It was just pretty watered down broth. And he said, but you know, every day I would take that meal and I would pray and I would ask God to bless it. And he said, somehow God used that to be like meat and potatoes and it kept me alive for seven years. When I wouldn't have had it, stayed alive on my own. God says, I want to bless your life. And what I wanna do before we get into the second half of the message today is in the first half, give you a summary of all that the Bible says about his blessings on your life. Now this isn't on your outline, so don't even try to take notes. The Bible tells us seven very important facts about God's blessing on our lives. The first fact it tells us is that we don't deserve it. Now that's an obvious one. I don't deserve God's blessing. I can't earn God's blessing. I can't work for God's blessing. I can't figure out a way to pay for God's blessing. It is totally a gift. In fact, the Bible says, all these verses are here on the screen, from the fullness of his grace, we've all received one blessing after another. God's blessing, everything God does in and for and to your life, he does because he's a good God. Not because you're good, but because he's good. It's all because of his grace. And the Bible says everything in our lives is a gift of God. Everything is because of his grace. Now the reason, number two, the reason God blesses you is because he enjoys doing it. God enjoys blessing his children. Now any father can understand this. I really get a kick out of buying my kids things. And I especially get a kick out of buying my grandkids things. And it's like, it's always burning a hole in my pocket. It's like when I first fell in love with Kay, man, I could not keep money in my pocket. I was always buying her stuff. I'd see all this stuff on TV, you know, Fish and Magician. Oh, she'd like one of those, I'm sure. The Oriental Walk Steamer. But wait, we'll throw in the Ginzu knives. And I'd buy that. And I was always buying her stuff just because you cannot love without giving. God enjoys blessing his children and one of the big things I want you to learn in Decade of Destiny is that God wants to bless you. He's not holding back, he's waiting on you. The Bible says this, I will enjoy blessing them. This is God talking. With all my heart and soul, I will faithfully plant them in this land. Now he's talking here about Israel moving into the promised land and he says, I'm gonna enjoy blessing them. He said, well, great Rick, but that's, he's talking to the Israelites. He's talking to Jews. I'm not Jewish. Well, let me show you another verse. Look at this verse on the screen. My blessings are for Gentiles too. Who's a Gentile? Anybody who's not a Jew. That's me, that's you. My blessings are for Gentiles too. When they accept the Lord, don't let them think that I will make them second class citizens. They can be as much as mine as anyone. God wants to bless your life. Now the third thing the Bible teaches is that God promises and actually even guarantees that he will bless your life if, and here's the big condition, if you do what he says. The promises of God and the blessings of God in your life are not automatic. They are conditional. Would you write this down? Every promise has a premise. Every promise has a premise. There are over 7,000 promises in the Bible where God says, if you do this, I will do this. If you confess your sins, I will forgive you. If you call upon me, I will save you. If you obey me, I will bless you. There are over 7,000 promises and every promise has a condition. Now, God isn't waiting, you're not waiting on God, God's waiting on you to fulfill the conditions so he can bless your life in ways you've never imagined. Let me give you one example. Here in your outline, Deuteronomy chapter 28, verses two to eight, this is a longer passage, it says, and notice all the different blessings in here, but notice the condition. You will experience all these blessings If, circle that, if, here's the condition. If you obey the Lord your God, another is you follow the instructions, you will be blessed in your towns and in the country. You'll be blessed with many children and productive fields. You'll be blessed with fertile herds and flocks. He's talking about blessing your business. You'll be blessed with baskets overflowing with fruit and kneading bowls filled with bread. You'll have all the food you need. You'll be blessed wherever you go, both in coming and in going. The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. That's a blessing. And the Lord will bless, circle this, everything you do. and will fill your storehouses with grain. That's called prosperity. Bless everything you do. As your pastor who loves you, I want this verse true in your life. In the next 10 years, I want you to be in such a position so that God can bless you. You gotta get blessable so God can bless you. When you are blessable, God says, I will bless everything you do. Now, not only does God want to bless you, this is a cool thing. God wants to bless you visibly, publicly in front of other people. In any ways, God wants to show off his blessing. He wants to show what a good and loving God he is. And when God blesses you, it is a witness to other people. Notice this verse here on the screen. Lord, you have stored up Great blessings for those who honor you. Now let me stop right there before we look at the whole verse. The Bible says that right now, God has already stored up the blessings he has for you in the next 10 years. He already wants to give them to you. They're already stored up. He's already planned what he wants to give, but they're not automatic. And you can go the whole next 10 years and not get a one of them. Because there's a condition, there's a premise for every promise. They're not automatic. God has stored up blessings, but you can go through life and miss all the blessings of God that he intended for your life. You can miss them. Relationships, successes, goals that are reached, you can miss them all, they're stored up. But he says they're blessings for those who honor you. You do much, Lord, for those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world. I want God to bless your life in such a way in the next 10 years as your pastor and as a part of our church family that when people look at you, they go, good night. That woman is blessed. That man is blessed. That family is blessed. What's going on over there at that Saddleback Church? The people who go there, man, they're all blessed over there. What are they smoking? What's in the water? How do all those people over there in that church, how do they get so blessed? God says he wants to bless you in front of a watching world. It's a testimony. Now, why does God bless you? Well, there are three reasons. Not because you deserve it, but first because he's a blessing God. He loves to bless. He enjoys blessing. Second, he wants it to be a witness to other people. And third, God blesses you so you can be a blessing to others. That's the third reason. He blesses you not so you can be just some fat cat and be self-centered, but he blesses you so you can help people less fortunate. The Bible says this on the screen. I will cause my people and their homes, God wants to bless your home, around my holy hill to be a blessing. Not notice, not receive, but be a blessing. And I will send showers, God says. Showers of blessings. In other words, that's a ton. Which will come just when they are needed. I can't think of a better time than right now. We need the blessings and showers of blessings of God in our lives. Now it all depends on what you're looking at because your focus determines your feeling. If you're looking at the problems, you're gonna be down. If you're looking at the provision, you're gonna be up. It's all what you focus on. Your obsession with the recession will cloud your vision of God's provision. And you'll miss it. You'll miss it and you'll miss what God wants to do in your life. God wants to bless you so you can be a blessing to others. And here's another thing that I learned in studying all these verses is that blessings can be multi-generational. Did you know that? Yeah, you can actually pass on the blessing of God to the next generation. They are multi-generational. There are many, many examples of this. If you live a blessable life, it can actually benefit those who come after you. Here's one example, I could have given you hundreds of verses for each of these points. Genesis 25, 11, after Abraham's death, God poured out rich blessings on Isaac. Now who's Isaac? Abraham's son. Decade of destiny is a program and an attitude and an idea of obedience to God so that you are so blessed, it blesses those after you too. You know, I'm exhibit A of this. The reason God has blessed me so much is not because I deserve it, I don't. But the reason why God blesses me is because I had four generations in front of me who were all godly. I had parents who were godly followers of Jesus Christ. I had grandparents and I had great grandparents. So I'm getting fourth generation blessing down. I just got lucky. I got in this family. I had a grandmother who told me when I was a little boy, she said, I pray for two people every day, Billy Graham and Ricky. I think I'm still floating on some of those prayers. Now, I want you to start that in the next generations. And one of the things we're going to look at, you may be 15 years old, or you may be 50. One of the things we're going to look at in Decade of Destiny is how to create a legacy. I want your children and their children and their children blessed because you lived a blessable life. I want that to happen. And I'm going to show you how that happens in Decade of Destiny. Now, some of you say, Rick, this is all good, but it's a little too late for me because I'm on the backside of the mountain. I've already passed middle age or I'm no spring chicken. I'm out of college. I'm married. My kids are growing up. I'm on the backside of this and I've already had a number of years. Well, here's the good news. It's never too late to get in the blessing of God. You may have five years left or 15 years left or 50 years left. I don't know, but I'm praying that God will give you in this next 10 years will be the best 10 years of your life. That it will make all the previous years of your life look like a Sunday school picnic in terms of blessing. That all of the blessing of God, people are going to look at you and go, what is going on in that guy's life, in that woman's life? They are so blessed. Everything they touch, God blesses. That's what Decade of Destiny is all about. Notice this verse there on your outline, Job 42 verse 12. The Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life, even more than in the first half. I want that to be true of you. I want God's blessing in the next 10 years of your life to be so great, the first all just looks like prologue. I want the second half, the next phase, the next stage of your life to be far more blessed. God says, it can be. You must just meet the conditions. God says, if you do this, I will do this. If you do this, I will do this.
SPEAKER 01 :
Wow, some powerful words from Pastor Rick today. And now this is really one of my favorite parts of the broadcast. This is letters from our listeners. And now here's Rick.
SPEAKER 02 :
Today I want to share a note from Dion with you, who listens to Daily Hope, and she came to faith in Jesus along with her husband. Isn't that wonderful? Here's what Dion wrote. Pastor Rick. A couple of years ago, I would describe myself as a person who believed in God but definitely was not a Christian. My husband started listening to pastors on YouTube, and he started sending me your different videos, and you spoke my language. Your explanation about Jesus Christ described the person I was striving to be more like. I then found your podcast at Daily Hope and A Purpose Driven Life and even The Daniel Plan. Basically, I became a super fan. Ha, ha, ha. You always emphasize the need for a church home in small groups, and I began asking God to lead my husband and I to find the right church home. Well, the third church that we tried just happened to be a church where we attended a weekly AA meeting for over three years, and we loved the Sunday messages from the very first service. It felt like home. They have small groups like you talk about, and we jumped into attending the small group meetings weekly. Within two months, we both got baptized and are now official members of our church. I truly believe God allowed you to plant this seed in our souls. That led me to want a deeper relationship with God through Jesus. Jesus. I'm now a Christian that's working to spread the love of Jesus to others. Thank you so much. I pray that you can continue being a vessel for others who seek Jesus. May God bless you, Dion. Well, wow. Dion, I am so encouraged to know that you and your husband became followers of Jesus. And it's always so exciting to hear how God uses our simple small steps of faith to make a lasting difference in our lives. You know, those of you who are listening right now, did you notice that Dionne and her husband also got baptized and they joined a local church and they're part of a small group? Have you done that yet? If you haven't, I want to encourage you to do that. I hope everybody listening here will get baptized, will join a church family and get involved there. This is how we grow in the body of Christ. We need each other. We're better together.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, if you'd like to let Rick know how this broadcast has blessed you, he would love it. Please feel free to send him an email at rick at pastorrick.com. That's rick at pastorrick.com. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's Word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.
In today's episode of Family Talk, Pastor Paul Blair brings a compelling message about cultural engagement and faithfulness. Dive into his fascinating journey from the fields of the NFL to the sacred halls of ministry, where he challenges Christians to live out their faith boldly and consistently in every aspect of life. Pastor Blair reveals how the early church's understanding of faith as shown in the Hebraic mindset remains relevant for believers today, encouraging us to see life as a single, undivided commitment to God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It's a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute supported by listeners just like you. I'm Dr. James Dobson and I'm thrilled that you've joined us.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, hello and welcome to Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh, delighted to be with you today. You know, in these challenging times, Christians face a profound calling to be salt and light in our culture. But this raises an essential question that many of us struggle with. How do we effectively stand for biblical truth in today's rapidly changing world? Well, our guest today here on Family Talk has walked an extraordinary and unique path to answer this question. From the roaring crowds and intense competition of the NFL gridiron with the Chicago Bears to the sacred calling of shepherding his congregation at Fairview Baptist Church in Oklahoma, his journey is nothing short of remarkable. He is Pastor Paul Blair, and he now leads Reclaiming America for Christ and is the visionary founder of the Liberty Pastors Network. His powerful message today here on Family Talk brings fresh biblical insights on how to stand firm in our faith while engaging our culture with both truth and grace. Before we dive into Pastor Blair's compelling message, I have some exciting news to share with you. This message, of course, is part of our 2024 Best of Broadcast Collection, a six-CD set or digital download that features all of the most popular programs that we've aired here on the radio in 2024. Now, this December presents an extraordinary opportunity for you to double your impact. Through a special matching grant, every gift to Family Talk between now and December 31st will be matched dollar for dollar. But as Christmas is drawing closer, you know the days are drawing shorter as well, so your generosity will have twice the power to help families thrive and to strengthen the biblical foundations for our society for just a few days more. To double the impact of your year-end giving and to receive your copy of the six-CD collection called the 2024 Best of Broadcast Collection, go to drjamesdobson.org and give a gift through our secure website. That's drjamesdobson.org. Or call us at 877-732-6825. And now let's dive into this powerful message from Pastor Paul Blair, a message on cultural engagement and biblical faithfulness recorded right here in beautiful Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, good morning, everyone. It is a honor to be here. Dr. Dobson, Shirley, thank you so much for the invitation. If I can get the slides up here, I'll introduce you to myself. Now, for those of you, a little football trivia, how many of you recognize the guy that's in the picture there with me? How many of you knew that Jimmy Johnson began his head coaching career at Oklahoma State University back in 1979? So J.J. is actually who recruited me to play college football. And, of course, he went on to, rumor has it, had a little bit of success at the University of Miami Hurricane. And then, I don't know, some team called the Dallas Cowboys. I don't know. I try to keep up with them. But then I was drafted by the Chicago Bears, the defending world champion Chicago Bears, and had the privilege, as Bob said, of playing with some Hall of Famers and some legends, you know, Dick Butkus would travel with us in our games because he was working for WGN. Gail Sayers would come by just to say hi to the guys and be around Hallis Hall. So that was really a privilege to be a part of that family. And then at the age of 37, I was called into ministry. And understand, my father was a bivocational pastor, so I loved pastors. I walked an aisle and trusted Christ when I was six years old. I loved pastors, but having been a pastor's son, I saw what the work entailed. and I never wanted to be a pastor. As a matter of fact, most days now, I still don't want to be a pastor. That explains why I'm so bold in the pulpit. I've been trying to get fired for 23 years, but they refused to do so. But I'm a retired NFL football player. I had my own business in Oklahoma City, and I was serving as a volunteer youth pastor in our youth ministry in our church at the time when God called me clearly. And at the age of 37, my wife and I Well, my wife gave me great counsel because, you know, I didn't want to be a pastor. She didn't want to be a pastor's wife. So we agreed on that deal. But she said, if God is calling, that's where we need to be because the safest place to be is in God's will. And of course, having my background, I've had an unusual opportunity to be around the country and participate in a number of different events, even got to teach about biblical economics that the pilgrims brought with them to the new world and biblical civil government on Glenn Beck's show with his chalkboard. And those of you that know him know he is very selfishly greedy over his chalkboard So I count that a privilege, as Bob said, detoured with throat cancer back in 2019. And that was not a pleasant journey, as many of you know, but I am now considered a cancer survivor. And a good friend of mine came to work on our staff there five years ago. And we worked together with Liberty Church of Edmond and now a satellite branch in Liberty, Orlando. But Bob mentioned, I've got some good news. It tracks right what you've been hearing the last couple of days, but we are trying to respond to it. as we have done. In fact, next week in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a week from today, we begin our last Liberty Pastors training camp of the year. We bring 100 pastors at a time together with their wives into a luxury hotel, and we hold them hostage there for three days. We want them to have great fellowship, get to meet one another and love each other, and have a second honeymoon. Because, you know, most pastors only pastor churches that run around 75 to 100 people. So most of them can't afford to come to a place like the Broadmoor or something like that. So we reward them. We want to be a blessing to them. But in return, they give us 20 hours of their time for continuing education. And we teach them to think biblically in areas of their life that seminary taught them not to think biblically. So we begin our camps with this question. And I'll start my remarks this Sunday morning with you with the same question. What part of your life is Jesus, not the Lord over? The answer is obvious, ladies and gentlemen. He's supposed to be the Lord of all of our lives. Therefore, there should be nothing off limits in our preaching and disciple-making at church. Jesus is not just the Lord of Sunday morning. Jesus is the Lord of our families as Dr. Dobson and Shirley know. He's the Lord of education. He's the Lord of our work habits. He's the Lord of our work ethics, all of you business owners. He's the Lord of our sex lives. He's the Lord of how we handle money in the realm of economics. He is the Lord of our politics. Jesus is Lord of all. So why is it that we compartmentalize our lives? Why do we believe that there are subjects that can't be talked about in church? Well, I'm going to explain that to you this morning. And let me just say this, your pastor has been trained to think this way. This concept is a lie straight from the pit of hell that the church has bought hook, line, and sinker. Now, let me explain. There's no question that early on the church at Pentecost was 100% Jewish. They had a Jewish worldview with a great knowledge of the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, ironically, Andy Stanley, the only Bible that the New Testament church had for about two decades was what we call the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the Bible that Jesus would have used to teach the disciples and those on the road to Emmaus how it all spoke about him. That's the Bible that the Apostle Paul would have been debating over in Jewish synagogues throughout Asia and Europe. The Tanakh was the only Bible for the New Testament church for about two decades. As a matter of fact, the question of the early church was not about baptism or the work of the Holy Spirit. The question among the early church was about circumcision. Christianity was treated as just another sect of Judaism by the Romans. At the time of Jesus, there were 24 sects, S-E-C-T-S, or I would say denominations among Judaism. You're familiar with many of them. There were the Pharisees, there were the Sadducees, there were the Essenes, there were the Herodians, and now you had this new group called the Nazarenes. all gathering together under the umbrella of the temple in Jerusalem. Christianity was Jewish to its very core. In fact, the question was not whether a Jew could become a Christian. It was whether a Gentile could become a Christian. But as the church grew into Asia and Europe, And after the destruction of Jerusalem, let me tell you, as the church grew exponentially through across Asia, after the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, after the Hebrew apostles died off with John being the last living apostle, the Greek line of thought affected the thinking of the church. In fact, much of the New Testament addresses the error of Gnosticism as the apostles warned against this heresy in their many epistles. Now understand what this Greek line of thought was. The Greeks viewed the world in two compartments or two spheres. There was the spiritual world and there was the material world. the spiritual was good and could be redeemed, but the material world was inherently irredeemably wicked. Well, this led to the logical conclusion, but heresy in the early church that Christ could not have actually come in the flesh. How could he, which is holy, become a part of this irredeemable, unholy material world? So they had a number of theories. Some theorized that Jesus was actually A phantom spirit wasn't really there. If he was walking along a seashore, he wouldn't leave prints in the sand because he was just this phantom spirit. Others theorized that the spirit of the Messiah came upon this man, Jesus of Nazareth, at his baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, and then departed the body of this man, Jesus of Nazareth. as he hung on the cross. But either way, they came to the conclusion that the word had not become flesh and given his life as a substitutionary sacrifice for us, that his blood had not been poured out for our atonement, that the resurrection did not, he wasn't actually raised from the dead, declaring our justification. So this obviously, this Gnostic thought was heresy theologically. But it was also ungodly in practice. In fact, they were pushing the concept that you can sin all you want to in your body as long as your spirit was pure. That's what John was addressing in 1 John and addressing that error head on. But again, this led to the concardinalization between the spiritual world and the material world. And we have adopted the same mindset in modern day America as we have compartmentalized Christianity. Much like a picnic plate. We keep our Christianity, if I could have the next slide, please. We keep our Christianity in its proper place, but we don't dare let Christianity spill over and influence any other sphere of our lives. That obviously is our secular life and the spiritual realm doesn't belong there. Christianity has become something that we do on Sunday morning, but we don't let our church thing interfere with real life in the material world. We have our spiritual life where we place all of our sacred things that we can talk about in church. By the way, this box is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Then we have reality, which is our physical life, which is reserved for secular thinking. And we can't talk about those things in church. But the Hebraic mindset, ladies and gentlemen, was they understood that God created the material world and the spiritual world. Therefore, Rabbi Apostle Paul said, whatever you do, you are to do to the glory of God. Paul again said, glorify God in your body, i.e. the material world, and in your spirit, the spiritual world, as they both belong to God. So salvation and subsequent lordship was understood in the Hebrew mentality. You cannot separate them. Let me give you another example. I was sitting next to a wonderful gentleman, Craig, the other night. We were talking on our opening night. And he brought up the Shema. The Shema is the John 3, 16 of Judaism. Deuteronomy 6, 4. Shema Yisrael, hear, O Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, the Lord your God, Adonai Ikad, the Lord is one. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. This is the passage of scripture that they put on the masseuses that they hang on the doorpost. This is the passage of scripture that's inside the Teflon when they put their prayer boxes on their foreheads and on their hands. This is the fundamental, it's a rededication of life twice a day. It's a pledge of allegiance done twice a day in the morning and evening. But understand in biblical Hebrew, there are only about 7,000 words. In modern day American English, we have about 100,000 words that we use. So when you're studying the Bible and you go back and you look in the Hebrew, and whether you speak Hebrew or not, you all have Hebrew lexicons, so you can, with a little effort, do this. But you have to understand that the words there have a broader and deeper meaning than what we might first conclude reading it from an English or from a Western mind. So it's important that we look at the passages in context. So this word Shema, to hear, hear O Israel, literally means when you look at the lexicon, Shema means to hear. But you know what the Hebrew word for obey is? Take a guess. Shema. Shema was understood among the Hebrews to hear is to obey. You have read it in your King James Bible, he that hath an ear to hear, let him hear. No, what it's saying is that if you have an ear to hear, then do what I'm telling you to do. So there was no controversy between James and Paul from a Jewish theological perspective. although we have wasted volumes of ink debating this conflict that didn't really exist. They were both addressing two sides of the same coin. The apostle Paul was emphasizing the fact that it is faith alone that produces our salvation. And James is emphasizing that true faith will produce works. So the natural result of one falling to his knees to call upon the resurrected Christ as his personal savior is to recognize that he is in fact the Lord of your life. In other words, to put it simply, the confession of our faith should match the expression of our faith. We should be consistent. Now don't misunderstand a word that I'm saying. We are not saved because of a transformed life, but a transformed life is the natural result of one being saved. In fact, I put it like this. The new birth is a prayer of faith as a heart's confession that's based upon the revelation that Jesus is the Lord and that results in a transformation. Just as Thomas doubted, he said, I don't believe it. I saw his dead body. There's no way that guy's alive. I'll not believe unless he stands right here and I can put my fingers in the nail prints in his hands. A week later, he shows up, says, Thomas, go ahead. Thomas, when coming face to face with the resurrected Christ, hit his knees and cried out, my Lord and my God. That is a Jesus moment. The Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus going to persecute Christians came face to face with the resurrected Christ and permanently transformed his life. That is a Jesus moment. Now, I love this page I'm going to put up here because it doesn't come from a Christian website. This actually comes from a Jewish website. But it analyzes the difference between the Greek thinking pistis, which means faith, and the Hebraic meaning faith. Imunah, which means faith, says this, Imunah is more than belief that certain statements about God are true. It is a belief in God, trust and reliance upon God, all of which call forth behavior consistent with that trust and reliance. So our expression of faith should be consistent with our confession of faith. Now, Consider as an example, if you happen to be a member of a church that's not active, and your pastor says, oh, we shouldn't talk about those things. That's part of the secular world. Consider this list of charges, and it's rather exhaustive. I may have missed a couple, but this is pretty exhaustive. You go through all of the books of prophecy in the Old Testament, and you compiled a list of charges of the things that God was upset with Israel and Judah over. I want you to think in your mind as I go down each of these point by point very quickly about whether you would consider this a spiritual issue or a secular issue. Whether this is something your pastor would talk about in church, or if you are a pastor, is this something that you would consider talking about in church? Okay, things that God was upset with. They were dishonest in business. Is that spiritual or secular? Yeah, it is. Actually, it's both. So that's a trick question. They ignored the sabbatical year of release. That's an economic issue. That's a personhood issue. They used unjust weights and measures. By the way, When we just simply inflate the amount of dollars in the money supply, that is an example of ungodly, unjust weights and measures. And not only are they stealing from us, but we are stealing from our children and our grandchildren simply by putting digits into a computer. There's nothing about what the Federal Reserve or our government is doing right now with this deficit spending that is in accordance with biblical principles of civil government or economics. They removed landmarks. They didn't recognize private property rights. Ticked God off. They bribed judges. Leaders fed off of the flocks rather than caring for them. They were disrespectful to their parents and elders. They didn't care for their family. God had designed it where we were to take care of our children when they were young, and when we were old, our children were to take care of us. They lived for revelry and drunken parties. They murdered their children. Religion became big business. They were no longer ashamed of immorality, even celebrating homosexuality, and paraded and reveled in their debauchery. Things that common sense and God said were evil, they called good. Things that experienced common sense and God called good, they called good. they called evil. They were proud and arrogant. Their court system became corrupt. The government was corrupt. They denied and abandoned God. And when Jeremiah would come to the temple and face the people of Jerusalem and say, repent, they would point to the temple and say, what are you talking about? We're God's people. We go to church on Sundays. Ladies and gentlemen, God is not impressed with how pretty we look on Sunday mornings. God wants to see the reality of our love for him with our obedience. Remember what Jesus said? If you love me, keep my commandments. With our obedience and following him 168 hours out of the week. That's 24-7. Now, it's what James was emphasizing. Go ahead and talk about your faith here. Let me show you my faith. Now, here's where our pastors have that come to Jesus moment. The Great Commission tells us to go into all the world and make disciples. Doesn't say make church members. Doesn't say make professors of faith. Doesn't say make people repeat the sinner's prayer. But that's not what we've been called to do. We've been called to make disciples. And what do we do? How do we make a disciple? We teach that convert to observe all things whatsoever the Lord has commanded us. Now, folks, Ephesians says, We will often misappropriate, Christians often misappropriate verses that really weren't intended for us. We have books of devotionals where God made a promise to David and we take it because it sounds good and it's encouraging. We'll put it in a little something and we'll apply it to us. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes it's really not a correct or exegesis of scripture. But understand that Ephesians is clearly written to the New Testament church. So everything here is directly to us. And my responsibility as a pastor is, one, I'm supposed to be an evangelist. Boy, you better believe it. In fact, I have a little booklet if any of you want it. It's a wonderful book. We've had great success with this in college campuses. Just 24 pages. It's a heavy track, heavily influenced. In fact, Frank Turek did the editing for me. Frank Turek, Josh McDowell, but it's called Not Blind Faith, Verifiable Evidence That God Exists and Rose From the Dead. We have found this to be a real plus. Hey, we are huge on evangelism. I required my church members about a month ago to write out their testimonies. I wanted a copy of it. Reason being is I wanted them to consider whether they actually had one. And if they didn't, then we needed to talk. But evangelism, of course, what does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world but lose his own soul?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, our faith isn't just for Sunday mornings. It's meant to be lived out every moment of every day. It should flow naturally into every aspect of our lives, from the business decisions we make to how we raise our families, the way we engage with our communities, and how we serve others. That is the powerful message we just heard today from Pastor Paul Blair here on Family Talk as he challenged us to live authentic Christian lives in an increasingly secular world. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, with every single day, we receive incredible testimonies about how Family Talk is transforming lives nationwide. We hear from moms who found hope and practical guidance while dealing with troubled teens. Or couples write to us to tell us how they've rediscovered God's divine plan for their marriages. Well, fathers are sharing how they've embraced biblical leadership in their homes after years of struggling as well. And even young parents are writing and calling us, telling us how our broadcasts have given them confidence to raise their children with godly principles. Please know that your faithful financial support makes all these life-changing moments possible. And right now, your giving will have twice the impact. Thanks to some generous ministry partners who have stepped forward with an incredible matching grant opportunity, your donation will be matched dollar for dollar now through December 31st. This means a $50 gift becomes $100, $500 becomes $1,000, $10,000 becomes, well, you get the idea. Every gift, no matter the size, will go twice as far to bring biblical truth, practical wisdom, and lasting hope to families nationwide. So we boldly invite you to be part of this mission to help families grow closer to God and to each other. You can make a secure donation online when you go to drjamesdobson.org. That's drjamesdobson.org. You can also call our dedicated customer service team at 877-732-6825. That's 877-732-6825. And if you prefer, you can send your donation through the mail. Our ministry mailing address is Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. P.O. Box 39000, Colorado Springs, Colorado. The zip code 80949. And while you're on the line with us, whether you call or click or write, make sure you also ask about the brand new 2024 Best of Broadcast Collection. that captures the most powerful and transformative programs from the past year. Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, Victor and Eileen Marks, Dr. Dobson's timeless wisdom on strengthening marriages and more. This carefully curated six CD set is also available as a digital download, and it's our way of thanking you for your gift of any amount in support of the JDFI today. So have that gift doubled when you go to drjamesdobson.org or call 877-732-6825. Well, I'm Roger Marsh. Hope you've been encouraged by today's program. Please join us again next time for part two of Pastor Paul Blair's inspiring message about living out our faith in every area of life. That's right here next time on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
SPEAKER 02 :
Saying no to our children can sometimes become an unfortunate habit in the home. With another Dr. Dobson Minute, here's Dr. James Dobson. Every child needs to be acquainted with denial of his more extravagant wishes, and there's a need for parents who have the courage to say no when circumstances warrant. But this responsibility of holding the line and turning down a child's petitions can lead us to say no when we really ought to say yes. What's behind the habit of saying no? Well, it's like an umpire who immediately calls a runner out or safe at home plate. He knows that to waver is to invite an avalanche of protests. And because the kids ask for a thousand favors a day, we find it convenient to refuse them all. But this knee-jerk negativism is irritating for the child and unduly restrictive to him. Say yes to your child unless there is a very good reason for saying no. For more information, visit drdobsonminute.org.
Join Dr. J. Vernon McGee as he delves into the profound depths of Hebrews 7, bringing to light the significance of Christ as the ultimate fulfillment of the dispensations. This episode guides listeners through the complex shift from law to grace, portraying how this transition reflects on contemporary Christian faith. Discover our current age of grace and the challenges faced by the early church in reconciling their legal past with the liberating truths of the gospel.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to Through the Bible. Dr. J. Vernon McGee picks up our study in Hebrews 7. But first, here's another intro on how God works over times and seasons.
SPEAKER 01 :
I want to continue that which I began some time ago about the dispensations, that it's necessary to understand the dispensations of Scripture, and especially when we come to an epistle like we're studying now, the epistle to the Hebrews. This is an epistle that was directed to a nation that had been under law. And it was answering questions for them. It was saying all the way through that Israel, with all the ritual that God had given them, and he'd given them a great deal, all of that is being fulfilled in Christ now. In other words, Christ is the end of the law in the sense he's the one that the law was really pointing to. You see, God gave to Israel what we call a mosaic system. And that mosaic system was just for a period of time. I'll see that in a moment. It wasn't a permanent arrangement at all. And it was in three parts. Actually, there were the commandments. They governed Israel's moral life. And then there were the judgments, which governed Israel's civic life. And then there were the ordinances, which governed Israel's religious life. And that is the way God has dealt with man. God is a holy God. He demands certain things of his creatures, and he has demanded certain things of man, and he's put him under these different economies, these different administrations. And they are actually in contrast. Law and grace are definitely in contrast. And we see that this nation that had been under that are now told that Christ is the fulfillment of everything that had gone before. And that God now was saving men by what Christ had done for them. And it was very difficult, may I say to you, for them to get that. Then after the age of grace, there was to be the age of the kingdom, the dispensation of the kingdom. And that kingdom is coming upon this earth. And we saw that there are those today that run ahead, but not seeing the great movement in the gospel of Matthew. They run ahead and they try to put the church under the kingdom. And we're not there yet. So that's in the future. Now, there's another group of folk. They attempt to keep us back under the law. They say there was no change of dispensation, that the law is still for today. And they, of course, like to say, well, can you break the Ten Commandments? And the very interesting thing is that if you're a child of God, you can't break the Ten Commandments because God hadn't got rid of the Ten Commandments by any means. But that's not the method of salvation for today. You can be sure of that. And so we have these different systems that have been given to mankind. And we are under this dispensation of grace today. Somebody says, well, if we're under grace, then we could break the Ten Commandments. Well, the very interesting thing is that every one of the Ten Commandments, with the exception of the Sabbath day, is mentioned in the epistles as applying to us too, you see. God says, thou shall have no other gods before thee. First commandment. And we are told by Paul, we preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities, that is idols, unto the living God. And thou shall not make unto thee any graven image. And John, in his first epistle, 1 John 5, 21 says, Little children, keep yourselves from idols, and thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. And James wrote and said, But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath. And then the Sabbath day, well, that's just never been given to Christians at all. and then honor thy father and thy mother. We are told in Ephesians 6, 1, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right, and thou shall not kill. First John 3, 15, seeing whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Thou shall not commit adultery. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10, neither fornicators nor adulterers shall inherit the kingdom of God. Thou shall not steal. And then Paul says in Ephesians 4, 23, steal no more. Thou shall not bear false witness. Paul said in Colossians 3, 9, lie not, and thou shall not covet. And in Ephesians 5, 3, we read, covetousness, let it not be once named among you. So friends, the Ten Commandments there, with the exception of the Sabbath day, and may I say somebody's going to raise the question about the Sabbath day. Aren't we to keep the Christian Sabbath? Sunday, no, the Christian is not given a Christian Sabbath at all. We are told very definitely in Colossians, let no man judge you in respect. to these ordinances and ceremonies and days and months and that sort of thing. And Paul says one man observes one day and another another day. And we today are pleased to observe the first day of the week because that's the day the Lord Jesus came back from the dead. And every Sunday ought to be a resurrection day for a Christian and celebrated in that way. We are now in this marvelous age Wonderful age of grace. And I just can't emphasize that enough. You see, the church didn't come into existence until the day of Pentecost. In fact, there could never have been a church before Pentecost at all. And we today have one group of people that want to put us back in the Old Testament, dispensation. And then others that are hyper-dispensational, they want to divide up this dispensation in several different groupings. And may I say to you, if we just follow the Scripture, we won't fall into either trap. There could not have been a church until Pentecost because of the fact that there couldn't be one until Christ died. that our relation to that event is the basis of our salvation. And there could be no church until Christ rose from the dead to provide resurrection life for us. And we are told that there could be no church until he ascended up on high to become head of the church, the new creation. And there could mean no church on earth until the Holy Spirit came in our ministry to call out the church, which he did on the day of Pentecost. So there could have been no church. The law actually was temporary. We're told in Galatians 3.19, Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come, until the promise was made, to whom the promise was made. May I say to you, it was temporary, you see. And it was done away with in Christ when he came to this earth and went to the cross and died on the cross. And therefore, we belong to a new creation. And a new creation needs a new date of commemoration. May I say to you, the Sabbath day represents the old creation. It was given under the law. It was a special arrangement of God with the nation Israel. So that we today are in a unique dispensation. And if I get time while we're still in this epistle, I want to talk to you about how marvelous this dispensation is. And that is exactly what Paul was saying. in the fourth of Hebrews, where actually that's the only reference in the epistle to the Sabbath day. And as we saw at that time, what he's talking about is rest. And under the law, a man, as I see it, could never have been at rest. He never could have felt that everything's worked out. He continually must go and make these sacrifices. Today, we are to enter into a rest, and that's the rest of redemption. that Christ has provided for us. And if we have time later, I want to come back to that. But today, we'll have to come to our study now. And I want you to have this background because it's so important to the understanding of these people who came out of law into grace. It was a difficult change for them and an altogether different way. And that's what he's trying to tell them in this marvelous Hebrews epistle.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let's pray. Father, help us to see the glory of Jesus Christ in all that we're learning. It's in his name we pray. Amen. Let's study Hebrews 7 on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now I'm going to begin reading again here in verse 2 of the 7th chapter of Hebrews. to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being by interpretation king of righteousness, and after that also king of Salem, which is king of peace, without father, without mother, without descent, that is, without pedigree, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth the priest continually. May I say to you that this man Melchizedek is going to be a type of Christ. He's going to represent him in several different ways. He's king of peace. He's king of righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ is a king. He is righteous. He's been made unto us righteousness. And he also is priest of the Most High God. The Lord Jesus Christ is our great high priest. Now he is a picture and a type of Christ in another way. The Lord Jesus comes out of eternity, moves into eternity, has no beginning, has no ending. He is the beginning. He is the end. And you can't go beyond him in the past. You can't get ahead of him in the future. He encompasses all of time and all of eternity. Now, how are you going to get a man that would fit into that? Well, here we're in a book, the book of Genesis. And this man, Melchizedek, is in a book that gives pedigrees. Adam begets so-and-so, and so-and-so begets so-and-so, and so-and-so begets so-and-so. Abraham beget Isaac, Isaac beget Jacob and his brethren. This one beget this one and this one. And you follow the genealogies down and it's a book of the families. But this man, Melchizedek, in a book that gives genealogies, he just walks out on the page of Scripture out of nowhere into the everywhere, and then he walks off the page of Scripture into the everywhere, and we don't see him anymore. There's a prophecy in Psalm 110, and now we're in the interpretation of it, and he's a picture of Christ in that he is the eternal God. That is, the Lord Jesus is, and he is a priest because he's the Son of God, and he's a priest continually. That is, he just keeps on being a priest. There'll be no change in his priesthood. Now, let's come back and look here at Melchizedek again. He came out at the right time, the right moment, because Abraham's going to be tested. And he needed someone to encourage him, to strengthen him. And he came out with bread and wine. And he was priest of the Most High God. That's the first time he's called the Most High God. That'll be used several times. And it's going to be quoted here. In fact, we're told in this particular chapter that he's the Most High God. That is, that he is the God of creation. That he's above everything. Now, that's going to figure in this very prominently. Then the king of Sodom came to Abraham with a proposition. He said, now, Abraham, it was nice of you to recover Lot and the rest of the people. And we appreciate that. And I know you don't want to make them slaves. Give us the people and you keep the booty. Because according to the Code of Hammurabi in that day, the law of warfare meant that the booty belonged to Abraham. Said, you keep it. It's yours. Abraham said, why, I won't do that at all. Because you couldn't give me a shoestring. You couldn't give me a piece of thread. That's really getting it down, friends. He says, I won't receive anything of you. Then God appeared to Abraham and said, I'm your exceeding great reward. The Lord Jesus Christ is a great high priest, and he ministers to us today. And friends, I want to be very frank with you. If he doesn't minister to you and doesn't bless your heart and life, it's because you're still a little babe and you haven't grown up. And you haven't entered into this great truth that is here. How about it, Christian friend? Have you gone through trials, deep waters? And then has Jesus ministered to you? Has he helped you? Are you conscious of the fact that he blesses you every day? And notice what happened here. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth. I live in a universe that belongs to him. He owns it. And he has said that all things are ours. You enjoy a sunrise. I saw the sun come up this morning. Let me tell you what I did. I went out on the golf course by myself. I saw the sun come over the Sierra Madre Mountains this morning. And he did that just for me. What a performance he put on, friends. He's wonderful. And what a glorious day it was. My, he's so wonderful, friends. He's the living Christ. And I just thanked him again for bringing me to another day. And I thanked him for being so good to me. And I told him I loved him. May I say to you, the living Christ, the under God's right hand. How real is he to you today, friends? Now, I'm going to keep reading here because it's very important. And this is not what you'd call deep theology. T-bone steak doesn't have to be the doctrine of predestination. In fact, that's not T-bone steak. If you ask me, that's pablum. But here is something very simple. And I want to read this now because we've been over this. I'm reading verse 3 again. Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth the priest continually. Now, why did God in a book where he gave the pedigrees leave Melchizedek out? Because he's going to become a type. of the Lord Jesus Christ and his priesthood. That's the reason. And that's the reason all of these things have been given to us. You remember I read last time that all these things happen unto them for tithes, and they're written for our admonition. Do you get a message out of all the Bible? This is written primarily to Hebrew Christians. Well, it sure is slanted toward us too. I'm reading verse 4. Now consider how great this man was. Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. Now, Abraham gave a tenth. He worshipped him and he paid tithes to him. He recognized that he was above him, that he was a priest of the Most High God. And verily, they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham." Now, in Abraham, they paid tithes to Melchizedek. And he's superior, therefore, to Aaron and to his family because of that. My friend, one of the ways that you recognize the lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ is when you come and make a gift to him. And every gift ought to be not just to a church or to a radio program, but it's a gift to the Lord Jesus Christ. You recognize his lordship, and you're a priest worshiping when you do that. You're recognizing his superiority. Now, verse 6, "...but he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham and blessed him that had the promises." Well, you'd think Abraham would be superior to Melchizedek, but he's not. Here's a Gentile who's the priest of the Most High God. Now, where'd he get his information? Now, let's not let this out, please. Not to these critics that write me, because even they think I know a few things. I don't even know where he got his information. I do not know the background of this man. And if anybody tries to tell you He's guessing. He doesn't know either. I can just say it. As a matter of fact, I don't know. But he's the priest of the Most High God. And I can't explain a whole lot of things about the Lord Jesus, because he's God, but he's my great high priest today. And that's all I need to know. That's enough. Verse 7, "...and without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the better." When you worship the Lord Jesus, you recognize his superiority when you bow to him. Verse 8. And here men that die receive tithes, but there he receiveth them of whom it's witnessed that he liveth. And he'll receive you. You can offer yourself to him. Now, when I offer myself, he doesn't get much. But I have offered it to him, and I'm thankful that he will accept it. Now, verse 9. And as I may so say, now a great many people also kid me for repeating certain things. I have certain expressions that I use. My wife gets after me about them. I use the expression today. And she says, why in the world do you say today so much? Well, I said, I say it's today because it is today. And when I say today, that's a fact. That's probably the biggest fact I utter is today. And then I have another thing. And as I may so say, now, I have good authority for saying, may I say, man down here near San Diego, he's a retired college professor. He said, I listen to you, McGee, but says, why in the world do you keep saying, may I say? You're going to say it anyway, and you don't have to ask that of me. I'm going to listen to you. Well, friends, it's just an expression we use, and I've got good scriptural authority for it. Here it is. Verse 9 of the 7th chapter of Hebrews, write it down. And as I may so say, he says it. I'm going to say it too. Levi also who receiveth tithes, payeth tithes in Abraham. Oh, does that open up a new line of truth. That means that back yonder when Adam sinned, I sinned. In Adam all die. The reason I'm going to die, if the Lord tarry and you're going to die, you're in Adam. And I sinned in Adam. I was in Adam. And today, I'm perfect. Do you want to know that? I'm in Christ. God sees me in Christ. And I'm perfect in Christ. I'm accepted in the Beloved. Friends, this is scriptural. This is a great truth here. It's stated in simple language. For he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him. If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedek and not be called after the order of Aaron? In other words, the thing that characterized the Aaronic priesthood is it was incomplete. It never brought perfection. It never gave redemption and acceptance before God to the people. Therefore, we need Christ. For the priesthood being changed, there's made a necessity, a change also of the law. We're not under the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law belonged to the Aaronic priesthood, where they offered bloody sacrifices. They go together. We are now in-lawed to Christ, indwelt by the Spirit of God. Verse 13, "...for he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar." And the Lord Jesus came after the tribe of Judah. And there's no priest there. He could never be a priest here on earth. Verse 14, For it's evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood. And it is yet far more evident, for that after the similitude of Melchizedek there ariseth another priest. That's what the prophecy said in Psalm 110 of the Messiah that was coming, who is made not after the law of a carnal commandment, that is by some laying on of hands, but after the power of an endless life. He became a priest by his resurrection from the dead. Verse 17, "...for he testified, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, for there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof." The Mosaic system went out of style. It wore out. It never gave what man must have, perfection. For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did, by the which we draw nigh unto God. We now come to God through Christ. I break off the reading there, and I'll pick up at verse 20 of chapter 7 next time. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
SPEAKER 02 :
If we can help you in your study of God's Word, just visit us at ttb.org or call 1-800-65-BIBLE. We're grateful for the faithful and generous support of Through the Bible's partners, whom God uses to take the whole word to the whole world.
In this compelling episode of Born to Win, Ronald L. Dart takes listeners on an extraordinary journey through the vision of the Holy Jerusalem as described in the Book of Revelation. Delving into its breathtaking dimensions and architectural grandeur, Dart explores the significance of the twelve tribes and apostles, revealing how ancient prophecies find their fulfillment in this divine city descending from heaven. As we ponder the vastness of God's creation, the discussion challenges us to consider the cosmic scale of His plans and our role within them.
SPEAKER 02 :
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 03 :
And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come here, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great high mountain, and he showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. Now this great city is not like anything you and I might imagine. No artist has ever come close to capturing the image of this city. And of course anyone who's visited the old city of Jerusalem as it now is can dismiss that out of hand. One wonders how anyone could refer to Jerusalem as beautiful or Jerusalem the golden when one visits the city on the ground. But what's there now is not what was and certainly not what will be. Not even John who saw this vision can really do it justice. The vision is found in Revelation 21, and we're beginning along about verse 9. And this is a part of the final vision of John in the book of Revelation. We have to remember that this is a vision, yet it was very vivid and very real to John. Also remember that no man had ever seen anything like this. All John can do is tell us what he saw in terms of what he had previously seen in his lifetime. I mean, after all, he had his language, he had his vocabulary, he had his imagery. That's all he had to work with. And what he was seeing, well, he must have felt totally inadequate to the task. But he continued. He says, He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and He showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. And her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, as clear as crystal. And it had a wall great and high, and it had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon. Now what would be the names written thereon? on the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem. Well, they were the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. On the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Now, it strikes me, perhaps it strikes you the same way, as a little odd, how often the twelve tribes of Israel come into play in a prophecy dealing with the very end of time. You would have thought that something so Old Testament would have long since faded from the scene and would no longer be relevant, but here they are. You have 12 gates. Every gate has the name of one of the 12 tribes. You have 12 foundations, and the names of the apostles are on those 12 foundations. And Jesus said that the 12 apostles would sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel in his kingdom. Well, I guess what we have to conclude is that when all is said and done, God is not yet finished with the 12 tribes. Where are they? Who are they? How are they going to come back into play on this? Well, it's beyond the scope of this broadcast, but drop me a line and I'll tell you where you can get some information on it. Verse 15, And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lies four square. The length is as large as the breadth. And he measured the city with the reed twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. Now, do you have any idea how long twelve thousand furlongs is or are, if we want to get our English right? Well, according to the New American Standard Bible, it is 1500 miles long and wide and high. 1500 miles is something like the distance between Houston and Los Angeles. It is that big, this city is, squared on the ground. And that's like, something like, if my math is right, two and a quarter million square miles on the ground for this city. It's big. Now, Jesus told his disciples when he was preparing to leave this earth that he was going to prepare a place for them. In John 14, verse 1, he said this, Don't let your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. Now, other translations say, in my Father's house there are many rooms or many offices, many places. And he says, I'm going to prepare a place for you, and I'm going to come back. Come back where? Here. That where I am, and when he comes back, where will he be? Here. So that where I am, you may be also. Here. And John gives us a vision, not so much of our going off to heaven someplace, but but of a holy Jerusalem, which is something like what we imagine heaven to be, coming here with Christ. And so he says, I'm preparing in this place a place for you. Now, how many places do you suppose he could prepare in a city like this? Well, my office suite is about 1,700 square feet. but that would be way too small for a son of God. Supposing that God gave each of us, what shall we say, three acres. That would leave room on the ground floor of this holy Jerusalem, once it's come back to the earth and been planted here, for something in the neighborhood of 500 million of us. On the ground floor. Alone. Now, that's plenty of room, I would say, but you go up about half a mile, you put in another floor, and the number of places prepared runs to something like... One billion. But remember, this city is 1,500 miles high. We've still got 1,499 and a half miles to go up. Now, they tell us this. I don't think you have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out that all the Christians who have ever lived are not going to use up much of this city. Right? Right. In fact, all the people who have ever lived on this planet would not use up much of this place. Well, what's the rest of it for? I don't know. Some of us have minds that run this way, I suppose, but sometimes I lie awake at night contemplating the universe, the age of the universe, the scope of what God has built here, and I ponder what he is doing. They tell me that the universe is something in the neighborhood of 15 billion years old. God, of course, is rather older than that. Now, there aren't enough zeros to count the number of stars in the universe, and nobody believes that the planets around our sun are the only planets. The astronomers have gotten so excited about finding the possibility around a star that they can see with a telescope somewhere that might have some planets or some planets being born, but they know nothing. that they're going to find planets. Their problem is that everything is so far away, and planets are so small, you just can't see them, and we'll be old people and die, and generations could come and go on this planet, and we would never adopt the technology that's going to find planets in other galaxies. There's no chance. But when you look around you and you consider nature and you consider the way things are, there just is no chance that we are all the planets that there are in the universe around our little sun. If there aren't enough zeros to count the number of stars in the universe, you're surely not going to be able to count the number of planets. Now, consider what we know about God. If you've read your Bible, you surely have got a vision in your mind, an image in your mind of what kind of a being, what kind of a person that God is. Well, if you wanted to try somehow to describe God in human terms, it's fair to say, wouldn't you say, that God is creative. I was tempted to say highly creative, but highly is an inadequate adjective to describe creative where God is concerned. He is creative. He is energetic. The Bible tells us he never sleeps. It tells us he's wide awake all the time. It tells us that he really has enormous power. Translate that as energy, and you've got someone who is highly creative, terribly energetic, who is a worker who has no interest in idle time. Seeing God sitting on his throne, bored stiff, with a television clicker in his hand, just doesn't work, does it? Now, I said all that to ask you this question. Are you prepared to believe that in 15 billion years, not counting whatever time there may have been before or now, are you prepared to believe that this is the first time God has ever done this? Are you prepared to believe that if the universe could go on again another 15 billion years, that this would be the last time he will ever do it? Well, God has not told us much of his long-range plans and activities. There is nothing in the future of man that qualifies really as long-range on God's scale of time. Everything here is super short. But he goes on forever. And could a creative, active, energetic person stop creating? Stay with me. I'll be back in just a moment.
SPEAKER 02 :
Join us online at borntowin.net. That's borntowin.net. Read essays by Ronald Dart. Listen to Born to Win radio programs every day, past weekend Bible studies, plus recent sermons, as well as sermons from the CEM Vault. Drop us an email and visit our online store for CDs, DVDs, literature, and books. That's borntowin.net.
SPEAKER 03 :
Here we are, walking up to one of the gates of this New Jerusalem, a city that is so splendid that it would put out your eyes almost, with gorgeous foundations and humongous gates put up that are actually, every gate is a solid pearl, we're told. And so we are ready to walk into the city. What do we expect to find there? There's an isolated scripture back in Hebrews 12 and verse 18 that I thought was interesting in this context. I won't read the whole passage, but portions of it, because without even necessarily meaning to, he opens up a little glimpse or a little door into this question that I've been asking. The writer of Hebrews says this in verse 18. For you are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest. This is a reference to Mount Sinai, when the children of Israel assembled before the mountain, and they were going to get the Ten Commandments handed down to them from God, and they were all standing there trembling with their knees knocking together. He says, that's not what we've come to. In verse 22 he says this, But you are come unto Mount Sinai, unto the city of the living God. Uh-huh, that's what we've been talking about, the city of God. You come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all. And then there's one more category of people. that he says, we have come to, as we come to the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, a company of angels, the church of the firstborn written in heaven, and to God, it then says, we have come to the spirits of just men made perfect. Now, we can't know in this life. There's no revelation to this effect. There are only these little hints that God drops on us from time to time to let us think about it. But is it possible that the great city will already be populated with men and women of other worlds and other times, with more to come later, along with us? But perhaps we shouldn't speculate on these things. I don't know. But it's hard not to. When God gives you glimpses of things which make no sense from our narrow perspective, it is almost as though he is tempting us to look ahead and outward beyond our experience, that he's challenging us to think outside of what we know, to think outside of what we have heard, and to reach for him and to try to grope for him as people will grope in the dark and to understand him. and His greatness, and what He is doing. Oh, I think sometimes for many of us, references to the greatness and the glory and the power of God are just so many words we gathered out of the Bible and we use again because it sounds good. But when you begin to get hints of how great He really is, how can you not speculate? How can you not reach out But then there's Deuteronomy 29 and verse 29 that says this, The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. Well, I can live with that. That's satisfactory to me because what it tells me is and what he has hinted at is that there is so much more than I even begin to grasp right now And there is a way of life that I should walk in so that when the time comes that he can tell us all what it is, I'll be there. I'll know. I'll grasp it. And I'll shout with joy when I understand what really he is doing, which is far greater than anything I can grasp or explain. But back to John in Revelation 21, verse 17. And he measured the wall thereof, 144 cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. And the building of the wall of it was jasper. And the city was pure gold, like clear glass. Now, wait a minute, wait a minute. 1,500 miles square at the bottom, 1,500 miles high, pure gold. How many floors it has, we have no idea. Do you understand the mass, the weight of this thing? Well, if it were regular gold... What's being described here, of course, is physically impossible. It would spin the Earth off of its orbit and who knows where we would go as a result of that kind of weight being placed on the planet. But this is not physical gold. This is spiritual gold, if you will. This is a vision in the first place. But there is a reality to what John is describing. But the real world is one that could be sitting here on top of us right now, coming and going by with people passing through us, and let's never know it's here. Because it's the spirit world, not the physical world. Now, the New Jerusalem isn't here, but it could be. And we, us grub worms down here struggling with the earth, would not even know that it's here. The foundations of the wall were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth an emerald. The middle of this sandwich is a gorgeous emerald green. The fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth a topaz, the tenth a chrysoprisus, the eleventh a jacinth, the twelfth an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls. Every several gate was of one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold as it was of transparent glass. Well, what does that mean? Gold's not transparent. Well, a glass in biblical parlance really oftentimes means a mirror. And what it's telling you is that this gold, streets, walls, whatever it is you're looking at, is so polished that that is like a mirror, like glass. Now, when you really consider what we're seeing here, Remember what I told you earlier? John has only his experience. John has only his life to draw on. He can't really tell you what it is he is seeing. He can only tell you what it looks like to him. Take a gate made out of one pearl, for example. Why do you want a round ball of a pearl that's 16 feet high and wide being a gate? But really what it's probably describing is something that looks like Mother of Pearl. It's kind of translucent in a way and with a shimmering quality of Mother of Pearl. The varied colors that change as you might step from side to side looking into the gate makes it a thing of incredible beauty. Nations? Kings? Well, the Greek word for nations is the word often translated Gentiles, and it's really a rather broad word. It means peoples. So what he's just simply saying that the peoples of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it. The kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it, that those of those who have been rulers upon this planet are now bringing every piece of glory, everything they might have ever had of honor to this city. The gates of it will not be shut at all by day, but then there's no night there. And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations or the peoples into it. No night there. For in fact, the beings who live there need no sleep. They need no rest. They are the children of God. They are like Him with His creativity, His energy, His drive. And He and they lighten the whole environment, in fact, the whole world. There's much more to come in this. I'll be back in just a moment to really wrap this up for you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Stay with me. For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. And request the program titled Revelation No.
SPEAKER 1 :
28.
SPEAKER 02 :
Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888- Bible 44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 03 :
And so we stand outside the gate of this enormous city, this incredibly beautiful city. And the words of John in verse 27 ring in our ears. And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defiles, neither whatsoever works abomination, means detestable or filthy thing, or makes a lie, only they who are written in the Lamb's book of life. It makes sense, doesn't it? Why would God allow anyone in this place whose spirit and heart were corrupt? Well, how does one get written into the Lamb's book of life? I'd like to be sure my name is there. The fact that it is the Lamb's book of life is a hint. It is not the book of the warrior Messiah, the one riding upon a white horse. It's the book of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. One is written into that book by repentance, by coming to the Lamb for mercy, accepting the Lamb of God as your own sacrifice for sin. Baptism must follow, and one must make an effort to live a life of holiness before God, but it is the blood of the Lamb applied for you that writes your name in that book. And he showed me a pure river of water of life. John continues in chapter 22, verse 1, "...clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, there was the tree of life which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the peoples. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it. And His servants shall serve Him. And they shall see His face, and His name shall be written in their foreheads. Read that, His name will be written in their minds. And there shall be no night there. There shall be no need of a candle nor light of the sun, for the Lord gives them light, and they shall reign forever and ever. And he said to me, The sayings that I have given you are faithful and true. And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show to his servants the things which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keeps the sayings of the prophecy of this book. And I, John... saw these things, and I heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel that showed me these things. As well he might. Then he said to me, Don't do that. I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of them that keep the saying of this book, You worship God, not me. And he said to me, Don't seal the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. This is not a time for dawdling. Don't sew this up to where people can't see it. Lay it out before them. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still. And he which is filthy, let him be filthy still. And he that is righteous, let him be righteous still. And he that is holy, let him be holy still. You know, without getting technical about this passage, there's something to think about. There comes a time when it is too late to turn around. The time to set your life right is now. If you don't do it now, then the chances are you never will, not even when the world is coming down around your ears. So when the words of the prophecy began to be given and when they really began to come to pass, he says, well, if you're unjust, you might as well go on. Let him that is holy be holy. Let him that is righteous be righteous. And in verse 12, behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me to give to every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they who do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates of the city. Now let me deal with one small problem. In the light of what we know about salvation, salvation is by grace, not of works, and there is nothing we can do to save ourselves, then why does he tell me that in doing God's commandments I gain access to the tree of life? I'll try to explain. How can you possibly be washed clean while you are still playing in the mud? On the day of Pentecost, when Peter had convicted his audience of their sins, they asked him, Well, men and brethren, what do we do? He answered, Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. To repent is to be sorry for your sins and to stop sinning, at least to the best of your strength. Get up out of the mud so God can wash you clean, and don't go back in the mud again. Now how hard is that to understand? Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates of the city. For on the outside are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, idolaters, and whoever loves a lie and makes a lie. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. And the spirit and the bride say, Come. Let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is athirst, Come. And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. For I testify to every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If any man shall add unto these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of this book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and from the things that are written in this book. He that testifies these things says, Surely I come quickly. Amen, says John. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. And so ends the great book of Revelation. It's been an even greater inspiration than I thought it would be. We've been 28 broadcasts in working our way through the book. If you'd like to know how to get the whole series, give us a call or drop us a line at the address we'll give you in a moment. And don't forget to tune in next time for a new series. Same station, same time. And remember, God does not intend to spend eternity with a bunch of losers.
SPEAKER 02 :
We were born to win. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
SPEAKER 01 :
Christian Educational Ministries is happy to announce a new full-color Born to Win monthly newsletter with articles and free offers from Ronald L. Dart. Call us today at 1-888-BIBLE44 to sign up or visit us at borntowin.net.
This week on The National Crawford Roundtable, the conversation transcends the typical talk of school shootings and gun control. The hosts engage in a meaningful discussion about what really stops criminal acts and how security can be improved in schools, often described as 'gun-free zones'. Are there real common-sense gun laws that would make a difference? Does the deterrence factor work both at schools and in churches? The Roundtable offers a fresh approach to outdated debates. Don't miss the conversation about groundbreaking LED technology – how it uses the power of light for healing – and a candid wrap-up of the complexities of holiday shopping. This is a packed episode filled with insights and valued reflections.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to the National Crawford Roundtable podcast, a view of culture, current events and politics through a biblical lens brought to you by Preborn, saving babies and souls. Join us in the fight to save babies from abortion. Your gift provides a free ultrasound for a mother in need. 80% of the time she will choose life. Visit CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on the Preborn logo to donate to save babies now. and by SunPower LED light therapy devices. Bring light to your pain. Visit CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on the SunPower LED logo to get out of pain and improve your overall wellness. And now, here are your hosts, Neil Boron, Bob Duco, and John Rush.
SPEAKER 05 :
Back with another week of the National Crawford Roundtable podcast. And, of course, very happy to have the guys with us, Neil Boron, Neil Boron, live out of Buffalo, New York. And, of course, John Rush, Rush to Reason out of Denver, Colorado. Guys, how are you? Great. Doing good. One week to go until Christmas. We are getting closer and closer. You guys get your Christmas shopping done, you do that stuff.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Does anybody still go out to the stores? No. I was actually at a mall last week, and I was amazed how empty it was right before Christmas.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don't know how they stay alive.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I'm not sure either. Honestly, don't know how they stay alive. I'm a small business guy, so I try to go out, but I don't do much shopping. And, you know, there's, what, five shopping days till Christmas or something? So I've got about four days left till I start. There you go. That's just how it works for me.
SPEAKER 05 :
And it's, hey, you know what? Thank the Lord for 7-Eleven and gift cards, I guess. Anyway, we're going to talk this week about, obviously, the tragic Wisconsin school shooting and all the gun debates that are... You know, propping up every time something like this happens. We'll also talk about the latest with the drones, the New Jersey drones and such. And some of the stuff in presidential politics. We've got a few things to get to. But first, though, let's talk about the Wisconsin school shooting. This is obviously just a horrible tragedy. Anytime you see something like this, 15-year-old girl goes into the school and shoots up a bunch of people, kills a teacher, kills a student, injures a few others, and then kills herself. according to police with her gun. And they're still trying to determine exactly what the motive is. As of Wednesday morning, the police chief says, well, it looks like there's a number of factors involved in the motive, but they're not really releasing anything yet. So you hate to see stuff like this. Obviously, people need to be in prayer for those families that are grieving in such a tough time, and right before Christmas, of all things, too. So as Christians, we certainly need to be doing that. But, you know, we know and John, I'll throw it over to you. We know that things like this get politicized, especially by the left. We've already been hearing, you know, a bunch of different liberals saying, you know, how many more children have to die before, you know, Republicans take action? We have common sense gun laws and whatever. You know what? You could take every single gun law on the books in liberal left-wing California, apply them all in Wisconsin, and you know something? It doesn't stop things like this. We talked about this before. Sometimes bad things happen in an evil world. It doesn't mean we minimize it, but new gun laws wouldn't change anything.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I hear even, you know, Joe Biden and others, you know, we need more common sense gun control, which, by the way, there's no such thing. We need background checks, universal background checks. We need this. We need that. What reality is this young girl, 15 years of age, I don't believe and I might be corrected on this. And if so, I'm sure somebody will let me know. But I don't think there's a single state. out there that will allow a 15-year-old to buy a handgun. I'd be very surprised. I would be shocked if there is. I know there's some states where young people can buy long guns and things like that, but I don't believe that she could legally go into a gun store. Number one, she doesn't really even have the ID to pass most background checks that are in a lot of states that are out there now. And no, there's not universal, but a lot of states still do that. I'm not sure about Wisconsin. I, by the way, have not looked at their gun laws. I would be surprised, knowing as liberal as they are, if they don't have some things on the books similar to what California and Colorado have when it comes to buying guns at that age. I would be shocked in Wisconsin if she's able to legally buy a gun as a 15-year-old. Point being, it doesn't make any difference. And they use every one of these tragedies to further their agenda, which, by the way, guys, at the end of the day is to remove – all guns, period. They don't want the Second Amendment. They look at that as archaic. They want it to go away. They don't understand nor care. Actually, I think they do understand and they do care. That's why they want to see it go away, because if you can remove it, you can remove all of the rest of the Bill of Rights that we have, because that's the one that really keeps the rest of them in check.
SPEAKER 05 :
And you know something? Of all of those liberals, they, yeah, you got the ones that what they really, really want is to try to make guns illegal in America, which is absurd because the criminals out there, the entire black market for illegal guns, they're not going to go, oh, well, I guess we're breaking the law, so we'll turn them all in. No, it just means the only people that are going to have guns are bad guys, lawbreakers with guns. So we don't need that. But, you know, also, John, they know. They know full well that even the ones that don't want to ban guns, actually, they know that they can use this as a political tool against Republicans by creating the false perception that there's common sense gun laws that if they were just passed, these children wouldn't have to die in school shootings. But those Republicans and the NRA keep blocking it. And if they can trick people into believing that, then it can cause those swing voters to look at Republicans with stink eye. So, Neil, I want to get your take on this as well. And I know before you get into talking about this, one of the things we really want to encourage our listeners to do is to support our sponsors and thank our sponsors. We talk about Preborn. Let's talk about SunPowerLED.com, which has just been helping a lot of people.
SPEAKER 04 :
Totally. And I'm happy to talk about it. In fact, let me tell you a quick story. Excuse me, about a little over a week ago, I was helping a guy do some drywall. He had a problem in his rental apartment and his ceiling was damaged because the shower upstairs was leaking. And anyway, we got that fixed and I fixed the drywall for him. So I was standing on the bathtub in order to reach the ceiling and decided instead of waiting for somebody to bring a stepstool, I would just jump down from the tub. Well, I did. And I landed, I stuck it like a pro, and I made a comment. I just said, I said, I'm like a cat, you know, and he kind of laughed. And that was it. I went home, and I was watching a movie with my wife. Everything was fine, didn't feel a thing. And all of a sudden, I stood up after watching the movie. I couldn't move. My leg was locked. and the pain was so intense I was hopping on one foot. I couldn't bear any weight. Went right downstairs, grabbed the SunPower LED Super Palm, and put it on my knee for about 30 minutes. Went to bed, woke up in the morning, did it again. I woke up in the morning, I was able to walk pretty well, and I did it again. Did it again that night, and the following morning, no pain whatsoever. It was unbelievable how quickly it dealt with whatever happened. And that's the thing. It's using light that God himself created to reduce pain and swelling and promote healing. And I want you to check it out. Red Light Therapy from SunPowerLED. You can find it at CrawfordMediaGroup.net. Real quick, and I know you want to talk about pre-born, but I just wanted to add my two cents on this thing. You know, I don't know what the laws are in Wisconsin, but I bet it's illegal for a 15-year-old to have a handgun.
SPEAKER 01 :
It is. I checked.
SPEAKER 04 :
And it definitely is in school, right? You're not allowed to bring it. So the point is there are multiple laws broken. Who knows how many? Who knows who maybe gave her that handgun? But ultimately, laws were broken. That's the point. I mean, and so how many laws do you want to have? They're going to be broken if somebody intends to act in an illegal fashion. Exactly. And I don't know why that argument never seems to settle on the minds of liberals and progressives. The bottom line is every crime that's committed with a gun is done so illegally because they're breaking the law in order to do it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Anyway. That's right. Yeah. You are so right about that. And actually, Neil, there's something else I want to ask you about that in just a second. First, though, I do want to take a moment and ask our listeners to please support Preborn if you haven't done that yet. Or maybe it's just a thing where you have before and it's like, you know what, I want to go ahead and give them another gift. It saves some more babies' lives. Remember, pre-born is the main pro-life group that shows these ultrasound images of unborn babies to expectant moms. They do this in pro-life centers all across the country. And you know when a mom sees a picture of her baby, she doesn't go across the street to Planned Parenthood. She usually lets her baby live. And she usually accepts Jesus Christ, too. So what we want to do is pay for these ultrasound images, everybody, plain and simple. So here's two ways you can do this. Because we don't have enough ultrasound machines and enough ultrasound images being shown across the country. So here's how we save more babies' lives. Number one, buy an ultrasound machine. We need somebody out there, some people out there to buy ultrasound machines. They're $15,000 a piece. It's a nice tax write-off for you coming up on the end of the year. And your forever legacy will be that you stopped thousands and thousands of abortions year after year. For everybody else, just pay for an individual number of ultrasound images. $28 is the average ultrasound expense to stop one abortion, to save one baby's life. So take $28 times fill in the blank, whatever that number is, and that's your gift to pre-born. And anything you give to pre-born, 100% goes to the ultrasounds, not a penny for overhead. So we want you to give right now, if you would. Here's how you do it. Go online to CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on Preborn. CrawfordMediaGroup.net, click on Preborn. You can give right there. You can also give over the phone to a real live person. They answer 24-7, 833-850-BABY. That's 833-850-BABY. And we appreciate you folks doing that. So, Neil, let me ask you, Neil Boron, Neil Boron, live out of Buffalo, New York. What about with this school shooting and the gun arguments and such? You know, it gets politicized so much from the left. Oh, if we just if we just had more gun laws, we know that, as you said, you're right. The laws are going to be broken anyway. But here's the two main things, Neil, that I see in common every time I see these these kind of school shootings. Number one. There are no new gun laws that would have stopped that shooting, okay? And number two, they're all gun-free zones. You have teachers that aren't armed. And I'm not trying to pick on this school, okay? It's a Christian school. But teachers that aren't armed, I've got to imagine there are some teachers there that probably have concealed carry licenses. They're proficient with firearms. And in cases like that... Would I rather have a police officer, a resource officer? Sure. But if I don't have somebody right there, then I'd rather at least have a teacher familiar with guns that's packing that can maybe stop something like this sooner than when police can eventually get there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, yeah. And, you know, I realize how shocking that sounds to some people. And there are definitely teachers that want nothing to do with a handgun. They just are not comfortable handling one or whatever.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
But other teachers have backgrounds in military service or law enforcement. It's not that big a deal. And I think arming teachers is not a bad thing. In the right context, done the right way, I think it's not a bad thing. And by the way, how many churches, you know, have security teams where people are carrying in states where you're allowed to concealed carry? especially in rural areas. You know, 60, 70 percent of the congregations pack in heat, but nobody's hitting those churches, you know, for mass shootings because they know they're not going to get away with it. There's the deterrence factor. So I don't think it's a bad idea to consider something like that, and I realize it's controversial, but, you know, that ultimately is about protection and deterrence. It isn't about arming people who intend to break the law. It's about arming people who intend to protect innocent citizens like the students at that school in Wisconsin.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. So true. John, your thoughts on that? Because it is a controversial thing, the idea of arming teachers.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, no, I'm with Neil. I mean, I think if you look at most of these individuals... Not all. There's a few rare exceptions, but for the most part, these guys are not heroes by any stretch of the imagination. Most of them are cowards, and what I mean by that, and I honestly believe in this case as well, if this young lady had known that there were several teachers on site, you know, packing, quote-unquote, and that she might risk... you know, being, you know, shot back at immediately. Believe me, that changes the perception in the mind of those individuals right off the bat. And to me, Bob, it's one of the biggest deterrents you can have because when these nefarious individuals are thinking about doing these things in the first place, that has to be the first thing that comes in their mind. You know, even if it's, okay, how am I going to, you know, disarm so-and-so because I know that they've got, you know, a gun in their desk or a gun on them or whatever the case may be. Just the reality that, hey, there are going to be people there shooting back at me if I do this. That changes everything.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, it's interesting that you would think with all of the anti-gun people out there who believe in gun-free zones, you would think there would be a huge retail market for yard signs that say this house is a gun-free zone. But you know what? There's not.
SPEAKER 03 :
There's not a market out there for that. They're all cowards. They're not going to do that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Why would you put that kind of a message out there for the burglars? Of course nobody's going to do that.
SPEAKER 03 :
And really quick, going back to what Neil said a moment ago about the churches, and I'd have to go check the stats on this, but we cover... The three of us, a lot of different things on a daily basis. And the other thing, by the way, that's been coming out here of late on a lot of the national media is how many school shootings there have been. 323 was one report, which is so far off, it's ridiculous.
SPEAKER 05 :
CNN said 83. New York Times said 320.
SPEAKER 03 :
There's been like three all year when it's all said and done. So at any rate.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, thinking about what Neil said a moment ago, and I'm thinking, okay, you know, when's the last big church shooting that we've had? And I know there's been some synagogues and things like that, but churches where in a lot of cases, especially, you know, medium to large churches, even small churches, you know, there's somebody there that's now packing armed and so on. My point is I think now that that's become more well-known that churches are doing that, and I don't want to say this because I don't want it to happen, but we haven't seen a lot of that of late.
SPEAKER 05 :
Since New Life, really, in your backyard. Correct.
SPEAKER 03 :
What happened is churches armed themselves once that happened, and again, most of these criminals know that, so again, when's the last big one of those we've heard about?
SPEAKER 04 :
It's been a long time. Well, I think since New Life, there may have been Sutherland, Texas, and then there was the shooting.
SPEAKER 03 :
But that was one where, and I've interviewed that guy, there was a guy nearby that ran in there and actually ended up diffusing that whole situation, and that didn't end well for the shooter.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, all I'm saying is that they still happen, but they're happening at a less frequent pace because of the deterrence factor. And I don't know. I mean, I think that I interviewed a gentleman. He's an African-American pastor from Niagara Falls, New York. Wonderful brother in Christ. I had him in the studio. He was pushing back on Governor Hochul here in New York, who, on the heels of COVID-19, tried to make it illegal to carry in certain settings, including churches, because, quote, in her mind, they should all be gun-free zones, houses of worship, etc. He said, I've been a pastor for like 40 years, and I've got a small congregation. I don't have money to pay a security team. No one in our church, you know, would qualify. We've got an older congregation. When I'm standing in the pulpit, and I got 35 people sitting in the pews, and somebody comes in the back door armed, I want to be able to protect my congregation, and I'm And he held his ground along with some other pastors, black and white, just pastors that care about protecting their congregations. And ultimately, that thing was thrown out, and he's caring. He's caring in church. But yeah, I mean, think of the mindset of a pastor who's preparing a sermon on Sunday but saying, I've got to protect the people that I'm preaching to.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. That's brutal.
SPEAKER 03 :
Which, guys, really quick, I mean, that attitude, which, by the way, I fully agree with. Let's protect the people that are inside of this particular building organization and so on. There's, by the way, a lot of other organizations that do exactly the same thing. Why don't we do that with our kids?
SPEAKER 05 :
I know. I know. Are they not a valuable enough asset?
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you. Yes, they are the most valuable asset we have.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, because I'll tell you what. We protect celebrities a whole lot better. We protect members of Congress a whole lot better. I mean, we protect just about everybody a whole lot better than we protect our kids inside the classroom.
SPEAKER 03 :
Bob, we do just the opposite. We tell everybody that these are gun-free zones where our kids are actually at. We do the opposite, Bob.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, exactly. Advertising.
SPEAKER 05 :
We put a neon sign out there that says, by the way, it's easy pickings in this school because it's a gun-free zone.
SPEAKER 03 :
It's a shame.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know. Now, John, you mentioned the thing. I want to go a little bit deeper about the media reports we're seeing about how many school shootings there are every year. People need to know there are left-wing schools. groups, left-wing anti-gun groups out there that tabulate their own data of how many school shootings, mass shootings, things like that there are. And they come up with their own liberal left-wing criteria for this. And then the media uses them as some kind of an actual source, a legitimate source. But we got to remember, during COVID, remember how COVID deaths were over-exaggerated because everything was labeled a COVID death, everything. That's right. Somebody gets a motorcycle crash with a fever, okay, well, that could be probable COVID. Therefore, we can call it a COVID death. So they dramatically inflated the numbers by making a mile-wide net to catch anything and call it COVID. Well, that's how these left-wing anti-gun groups do it. They will literally, if you look at, like, for example, the organization that New York Times cited, okay, do you know what their criteria is for a school shooting?
SPEAKER 03 :
Anything that happens on school grounds.
SPEAKER 05 :
That's right. School grounds. And by the way, look at all the inner city high crime areas. It's very common for gangs to gather together and pull out their guns on school grounds, out in the parking lot somewhere. Things like that happen, not even inside the school.
SPEAKER 03 :
In July when there's not even school in session, by the way. Right. That's right. Those get counted also.
SPEAKER 05 :
And all they have to do is pull out a gun. They don't have to fire it. Just pull out a gun. One gang member to another. Three gang members pull out guns. There are three, quote, school shootings that are listed there. What? fire it it's just considered a school shooting this is how some of these left-wing groups do it also again they find any bullets anywhere okay where you can have gang members that in the neighborhood in the vicinity think about how many gang-ridden schools and the vicinities there are one of these anti-gun groups uses anything within what's considered the school zone which is usually around a four or five or six block area and so gangland activity gets credited as school shootings so Those numbers are grossly skewed.
SPEAKER 03 :
Most of them, by the way, come from every town USA. I know, and you know what?
SPEAKER 05 :
It's a way for the left-wing media to trick Americans into believing that this scenario of somebody going into a schoolroom and shooting up children is happening dozens and dozens and dozens of times a year, and it's just not true.
SPEAKER 03 :
Nope, it is not true.
SPEAKER 05 :
It shouldn't happen, and we need to stop it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Really quick, too, Bob, don't forget, even a stray bullet, so say there's a rural school out there and there's some... hunting area nearby, which, by the way, can happen even a stray bullet that, you know, in the middle of summer or, you know, an early morning, you know, whatever, something just happens to land their school shooting.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know, exactly.
SPEAKER 04 :
I was watching the news with my wife the other day, and they said something about the 300 school shootings. And I immediately thought of the overinflated numbers. I wasn't sure how they calculated that. It's shocking to find that out. But she gasped when she heard that number. She said, how is that possible? Well, I guess if you're going to count it the way you're describing, then maybe it's possible. But yeah, that's disgusting.
SPEAKER 05 :
They know if they can trick if they can trick some of those soccer moms out there into going, oh, my, this is horrible. This is happening this often in this country that making them think that the kids getting shot up in a classroom is what's happening with that kind of a frequency. Yeah, it can cause them to look over to Republicans and go, boy, I'll tell you what, maybe those Democrats are right. You know, and these Republicans are the ones with blood on their hands and blah, blah, blah. It's interesting. It's such dishonest propaganda. It just makes my eye twitch. It really does.
SPEAKER 03 :
By the way, these are the same individuals that will inflate all sorts of other things and yet deflate certain crime to make it look good on their end. So they are manipulating the data on a consistent basis, guys.
SPEAKER 05 :
And by the way, can I also say the argument of going after gun manufacturers for stuff like this? This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life, going after the gun. Look, if a gun actually malfunctions and someone's injured, then of course the manufacturer's liable for that. Right. But if the gun functions the way it's intended to function, it can be used for good or for evil because the very same gun manufacturer produces a gun that a bad guy uses, also produces a gun that a good guy uses to save people's lives. Let me... Next time somebody gets killed by a drunk driver or plows their car into a crowd of people, do we now say, well, let's go ahead and sue Ford or General Motors because they're the ones who manufactured the car? It's the same car that's used to drive the pregnant mom to the hospital real quick to have the baby. Right. What do you think about that, Neil?
SPEAKER 04 :
Sue the manufacturers? No. I mean, that's a convoluted kind of thing, and I don't want to get into it right now because I want to say one more thing, and I know we're short on time this half hour. But, I mean, there's so many nuances to that whole thing. I do think that parents should be held liable if they're giving kids access to guns who illegally would be possessing or using them at that point. In other words, to not have a firearm in a locked cabinet and allow your 12-year-old to grab it and shoot a friend somewhere, I think the parents need to be held liable and or if they know about it, particularly if a kid makes violent overtures to certain people and says, I'm going to blow that guy up one of these days and for some reason either get them a gun or let them use... a gun that would constitute illegal use, then I think parents should be held liable for that. I don't know. It's controversial in certain circumstances because you could see the overreach people would want to take by just saying, well, if you had a gun in your house, you must be guilty. But I think there are certain cases where it would matter. I think parents are letting kids get away with far too much, especially when they know that they're troubled. A kid that has been posting violent things or saying potentially violent things, I think that parents need to take action at that point.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I mean, but this is a whole other conversation we could spend really an entire podcast on, which is safe gun ownership, proper training of your kids. I mean, guys, I grew up in a home and had a father where I started shooting, and I'm not exaggerating at age five or six, understood at the very early age what that gun could do, what it meant, what you weren't supposed to do, how you were supposed to treat it, all of the gun safety that goes with it, and not to get off on a tangent, but we don't do that anymore.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
We don't teach that anymore.
SPEAKER 05 :
That happened to much. I would agree. I would agree. I think it's important that the kids know, frankly, how guns work and kind of mystify it for them a little bit, demystify it, because then that way they realize how lethal and dangerous.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right. Exactly. Yeah, when I was a kid, you know, growing up and, you know, it was a time where, you know, gun safes, things like that really didn't exist. You know, my dad just sort of hid guns all over the place, you know, wherever, you know, he happened to think that somebody that would be breaking in wouldn't be able to find them, that kind of a thing. But we all had a very healthy, two siblings, we had a healthy respect for guns. I can remember even a few times where friends would come over and they'd ask to see such and such. And it was like, no, that is not okay. We're not going to go do X, Y, and Z. And no, you're not going to look at my dad's gun. I mean, we knew on the front side how this was supposed to work because we had been taught that way.
SPEAKER 05 :
Absolutely. No, you're absolutely right. And by the way, we are going to, in the second half of the podcast, because we're coming up on the end of the first half, we're going to talk about all these drones, the New Jersey drones, and what's the latest with that and how should we look at this as we continue through the podcast. We do want to ask you folks also, please support the sponsors to this podcast because these sponsors are supporting us and we appreciate them doing that. One of them, of course, is Preborn. And if you haven't given to pre-born yet, do it now. You're coming up on the end of the year, folks, and this is a chance to go ahead and do it. If you will give to pre-born right now, you know that you're going to save babies' lives, everybody. You're going to do this. You're paying for ultrasound images for these moms to see pictures of their baby, okay, in pro-life centers. $28 is the average ultrasound expense to stop one abortion, to save one baby's life. So will you pray about a number of babies' lives you'll save? Take $28 times fill in the blank. And whatever that number is, that's your gift to pre-born. And 100% of what you give goes to fund ultrasounds, nothing for overhead. And, hey, we need some of you out there to buy ultrasound machines. We don't have enough of them, okay? They're $15,000 apiece. It's a nice tax write-off for you coming up on the end of the year. And your forever legacy is that you're stopping thousands and thousands of abortions year after year after year. So what do you say? Give to Preborn right now. You can go online to CrawfordMediaGroup.net, click on Preborn, give right there. And you can also call over the phone, 833-850-BABY. They answer 24-7, 833-850-BABY. We appreciate you supporting them. We also appreciate, Neil, our listeners supporting SunPowerLED because they do tremendous work getting people out of pain.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and one thing we know for sure is that God created the human body to heal. If you sprain your ankle, it's going to get better eventually. If you've got a head cold, it's going to go away because our bodies can heal themselves. God made it that way. And SunPower LED helps foster that process, helps move it along. You've all seen video of an opera singer singing a particular note and can explode a champagne glass when the resonance of that particular note hits the right frequency. Well, same thing true with light waves. When the proper red light or near-infrared light is applied to the human body. It literally penetrates the skin. It goes to an area where there's swelling and inflammation. It begins to reduce that swelling, reduce the inflammation, and promote the healing process. It's an incredible thing that you really need to see for yourself. We're talking about the very light God himself created. This has nothing to do with big pharma, nothing to do with surgery. Check it out for yourself by going to CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on Sun Power LED. That's sun like sun in the sky, S-U-N, Sun Power LED. They have videos there you can watch and see for yourself how the very light God himself created can be used to help heal the human body. Thank God for that.
SPEAKER 05 :
And it's so great that it's all natural like that too, which is just phenomenal. 100%. i know we uh in the second half of this podcast we're going to be talking about the drones the new jersey drones what some of the latest is uh intel meeting that took place regarding that and what people are saying should we be concerned or not so we'll get to that maybe a few other things as well in the second half as we continue uh on the national crawford roundtable podcast we encourage those five-star reviews for us thank you very much folks and uh Of course, you can listen to us wherever you listen to our podcast. We appreciate you doing that. We're looking forward to the second half with Neil and with John and myself, Bob Duco, and that's coming up.
SPEAKER 02 :
This is a Crawford Media Group production.
SPEAKER 05 :
Continuing the second half of the National Crawford Roundtable Podcast with John Rush, Rush to Reason out of Denver, Colorado, Neil Boron, Neil Boron Live out of Buffalo, New York, myself, Bob Duco, The Bob Duco Show out of Detroit. You know, the first half we were talking about the whole gun debate following the Wisconsin school shooting and such. Let's talk about the drones, guys. What we're hearing now is that there was an intel meeting that the FBI and the FAA and all the security apparatus of the United States, apparently they had representatives meeting with the House Intelligence Committee yesterday. And the House Intelligence Committee is coming out, mostly Democrats, saying, yeah, they assured us that there's nothing to be concerned about regarding these drones. But they also said this is not a government operation, but there's no real harm or concern about these drones being up there. And so I guess... I don't know, John, for me, it seems like I don't want to be a conspiratorial guy. I've said all along, I'm open to the possibility. This is just a bunch of teenage nerds. I'm open to the possibility that it is some kind of government secret thing, but they just don't want to admit it. And I'm open to the possibility that you have foreign actors out there maybe working through American proxies to do some last minute surveillance before Joe Biden leaves. But it just seems to me that the answer that ought to be forthcoming right now is we now have identified these drones. These are the source of the drones. This is who's flying them. This is who's owning them. They have to know that. Why aren't they telling us that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Because I think they're looking for something that they don't want to scare the rest of the population into knowing is. Out there, there's conversation, and I think the one where some of the stories out there, conspiracies, I guess you could say, was there was a nuke out of Ukraine that was lost. I think that one's been pretty much dispelled. The one that continues to keep rolling along, and I've interviewed a couple of individuals that have some inside information. I guess you could say on my show, is that there is some nuclear waste that has been lost, and they don't know where it is, and that these drones, and the reason they're flying at night is because the signature of is much easier to find at night than it is during the day, that it's the DOE that's actually... you know, doing this. And again, why they don't tell us is, I guess, because if they don't want outright panic and people, you know, fleeing a portion of the country. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what the reasons for this would be. I mean, just be honest and tell people what's going on. But I think it's more along those lines, and I think it's the reason why you even see Donald Trump saying that basically he knows he can't say, and I don't know why they're keeping this hush-hush. I think they know the origins. They're just not saying. And I don't think it's anybody that's from another country, and I don't think it's anybody here doing it on our own shores. I think it's government.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and it is plausible, that particular theory, that if there's some nuclear waste somewhere that's been lost and they're trying to find it, people have no idea if this is going to be another Lima, Ohio chemical kind of nightmare. Correct. Neil, it does make you wonder then – If any of us were in charge, might we possibly say, and I want to defend the Democrats and the apparatus here, but might we possibly say, hey, look, the lesser of the evils is lying to the public and not telling them because if we tell them the truth, we could create a panic and mass exodus and from regions that it doesn't have to happen to. And so maybe the lesser of the evils is to just keep a secret while we look for it. If that were the case, I could kind of see that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and I only agree with you for this reason, probably. I don't think it's a good thing to lie to the public, but the government does it all the time. And I'm not justifying it, but I mean, we were lied to that Joe Biden was fit to serve as president of the United States. We haven't really had a president during these past four years. Who knows who's running the country? But all of it based on a lie that he was mentally fit. He's not. And we saw that during the debate. But You know, are we being lied to? I think it's a strong possibility. We are being lied to. There's one other theory, by the way. I have my own theory on this. I think that the New York Giants are so dreadful this year. No, listen. This is a marketing ploy to rebrand and relaunch next year as a team called the New Jersey Drones. And, you know, join the NFL. And a lot of people are interested in the New Jersey Drones, so maybe they could actually get people in the stand. That's actually a good theory. Yeah. It's not horrible. There's so many strange thoughts that I have about this. Again, if they know anything, why aren't they telling the public? And I think there's so much distrust of government right now. And you heard what Donald Trump said. He's like, they know what it is. They know exactly what it is, and they're not telling you. And I would be curious to know why they're not telling you. He's leading us to believe that they know exactly what this is. And I think a lot of people...
SPEAKER 03 :
I honestly think he knows he just he can't because of where he's at and so on. The fact that he's not president right now, of course, you know, can't say which, by the way, for all of those individuals that have always said that, you know, he he leaked documents and he did this and he did that. Well, if in fact and we come to find out down the road that he in fact did know exactly right now what's going on and didn't say a word that disproves all of that other nonsense as well. It does.
SPEAKER 05 :
Which, by the way, let me – John, do you think, though, that it's – not to try to poke holes in this particular theory of we're looking for some nuclear waste or something.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that's all it is.
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean, I have no idea. But it's almost like I could see that if there were a particular county that they were scanning. But you've got an entire state of New Jersey that's being scanned, parts of New York, even parts of Pennsylvania. It just seems like that's a huge swath of land to be looking for something.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, keep in mind, though, if it's something that's delivered on rail, for example, and somehow a – Car, for example, got lost, which don't ask me how that happens, but I guess it's happened before. Put that one in quotes. Put that one in quotes. Lost. Yeah, I mean, supposedly it's happened before. This isn't the first time. And the one thing that, and this is where I asked my guests the other day about this, if you look at the way the drones fly, they're doing it very much in a grid pattern, meaning they are looking for something. So the question is, if it's not the DOE, then why? Honestly, for me, it's more scary if it's not that. If that's not the case, what are they looking for? I know.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, can I say something, too? I mean, one of the things that's been curious to me is that these things, for the most part, I mean, one of the former congressmen, Adam somebody, Kinzinger or something, was saying that he believes, and he apparently was in the military or a military pilot or something, but that, you know, look at Some of these things I see, he goes, I haven't really seen a drone. I'm seeing small manned aircraft. Well, maybe he's just missing the drones, but we're told that there are actual drones out there. But why would they have like proper FAA lighting on them, right? I mean, if this was like a nefarious foreign government somehow launching drones from a mystery ship out in the ocean. And coming to scan out, you know, the best way to attack the United States or something or find out how secure we are from a drone attack, you know, try to assess all that. Well, why would they put proper FAA lighting on them?
SPEAKER 03 :
Furthermore, Neil, why wouldn't we have shot them down by now?
SPEAKER 04 :
Correct. And that was part of what I was also going to say. And on top of that, why haven't we like scrambled jets or sent a Blackhawk helicopter up there? Blackhawks are used to flying in traffic, man. I mean, when they're low to the ground and there's a cat fight, dog fight in the air going on, they're avoiding objects.
SPEAKER 03 :
We have technology that could land them electronically where you don't even have to fire a shot. Don't forget that as well. So The reality is we could send out a mini EMP pulse near every one of those things and destroy them immediately, and they'd fall to the ground. So the reality is we're not doing that because they're ours. Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
And that would be the speculation, sure.
SPEAKER 05 :
Which I'm still open to the possibility that it might actually be the smarter thing to keep the public in the dark about it.
SPEAKER 03 :
And Bob, you could be, I'm not going to argue that one either. If it is something that, let's say it's even worse than nuclear waste. I don't know what that would be, by the way, but let's say it's something even worse than that. Yeah, do you want to keep the public in the dark and not have them in some sort of a panic mode where everybody immediately wants to leave the coast and drive away? you know, travel inward, I mean, that would be a total disaster. So which is better? I don't have that answer. I don't know what we're doing, so I don't have the answer to that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I know. I get it. I do know this, though. As we continue talking about this, we're going to shift the conversation to political, to presidential politics. And is Donald Trump... in essence, the de facto president right now. Frankly, I would argue that he is, and that doesn't bother me at all, but we'll talk about that. We also want you folks to support our sponsors. We appreciate them sponsoring this podcast, and Preborn is certainly one of them. You know, Preborn is a way to save babies' lives, folks. It's really this simple, okay? If you right now will decide that you're going to pay for some ultrasound images through Preborn, You're literally going to stop babies from being aborted. It's true. In pro-life centers, pre-born shows these ultrasound images. Moms choose life when they see a picture of their baby. But it takes money. $28 is the average ultrasound expense to stop one abortion, to save one baby's life. How many babies' lives will you save? Take $28 times fill in the blank. And whatever that number is, that's your forever legacy of the amount of babies' lives that you saved. And you know what? Some of you coming up on the end of the year that are looking for a nice tax write-off, how about buying an ultrasound machine? They're $15,000 a piece, and you can write it off for yourself. And you know something? Your forever legacy will be that you are stopping thousands and thousands of abortions year after year. Think about that, huh? And by the way, everything you give to Preborn, 100% goes to the ultrasounds, not a penny for overhead. So here's how you give. Go online to CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on Preborn. CrawfordMediaGroup.net, click on Preborn. Or you can give over the phone to a real live person. They answer 24-7. Call 833-850-BABY. That's 833-850-BABY. We appreciate you doing that. We appreciate you supporting our sponsors. Neil, one of the things we really appreciate, too, is SunPower LED and how they've been able to get people out of pain in a completely natural way, the way God actually intended it.
SPEAKER 04 :
There was a ton of distrust about the government that I think helped propel Donald Trump into the White House. And his victory was largely based on government distrust, distrust of big organizations like Big Pharma. So when he said that he was thinking about nominating RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, there was a lot of excitement about that, actually, because I think people don't trust Big Pharma. They've got a lot of dollars on the line and want to keep people sick, but the bottom line is there are alternative therapies for reducing pain and swelling, promoting healing, surgical wound care, etc., and simply using the light God himself created. It's an amazing thing. This same technology was used to heal my lungs after COVID. I was headed for the hospital. I wasn't able to breathe. I was at 79% oxygen saturation. And in about a week, the entire thing turned around with the help of SunPower LED. It's red light therapy. It's a particular device that shoots wavelengths of light, certain specific wavelengths into your body. You don't get burnt. You don't feel it, but it reaches the cells that need help. energizes the mitochondria, wakes up the cell, and promotes healing in your body. You need to see it for yourself. If you're a migraine sufferer, if you've got joint pain, check it out. SunPowerLED at CrawfordMediaGroup.net. Again, SunPower, like sun in the sky, S-U-N. SunPowerLED at CrawfordMediaGroup.net.
SPEAKER 05 :
Absolutely. And we appreciate you folks doing this as we continue through this podcast. You know, Donald Trump being the de facto president, actually, if we could, before we even get to that, John, I do want to get your take on the Biden administration auctioning off... Trump border wall for five cents on the dollar. Texas, by the way, is stepping in saying, you know what, we're going to buy it up then and we'll store it for Trump and then give it to him once he's in. But Ted Cruz, I thought, made a really good point when Trump, when he was asked about this, he said, you know, this may be criminal what they're doing. And then Ted, you know, people are like, oh, that's an exaggeration. But what Senator Cruz said is he said, think about his example was think if you had a sheriff in a town and that sheriff lost the election and he hated to lose. And he's mad now that he lost. And here comes the new sheriff. But before the new sheriff can be sworn in, the old sheriff decides to take the 10 squad cars that are worth $50,000 a piece and auction them off for a hundred bucks a piece. You're going to tell me that that sheriff wouldn't be indicted on charges for this. And so how is that any different than John, than what Joe Biden is doing right now with border wall?
SPEAKER 03 :
In my opinion, there is no difference. This is very criminal in its behavior, if you would, or what he's actually doing. He's doing it on purpose. It's a poke in the eye at Donald Trump and, frankly, all of the Americans that voted for Donald Trump, which, again, just as a side note, I talked in my program yesterday about how the Democrats have lost touch. With, you know, with the country. Another example right now, you've got a majority of the country that voted for Donald Trump because the very thing we're talking about in regard to the border. And yet this particular, you know, party and because, you know, let's face it, it is all part of the same party are going to do exactly what they're doing right now. That is nothing more than a poke in the eye at every voter that voted for Donald Trump.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know. Neil, what do you think about them selling off the border wall for pennies on the dollar?
SPEAKER 04 :
I just picture a kid about to lose a chess game, and he's had enough, and he flips the board and walks out of the room. Good example. If I can't win, I'm taking my sports equipment and going home or whatever. It's the idea that they're trying to stand in the way of the Trump agenda, and the Trump agenda is to crack down on illegal immigration. And I think the American people, honestly, should be outraged. I don't care what your background is. We spent money for a border wall that ultimately will be erected under the Trump administration, at least portions of it, I would think. And the idea that they're standing in the way of that so blatantly... You know, trying to step in the way to say, look, I don't care what the American people said at the polls this past year or how big of an issue illegal immigration is to people that want secure borders. We're just going to sell this stuff off because, you know, we're upset at the Trump administration and we're just going to stick it to them. And I think that they should be held accountable. And we're the ones who bought this. It's taxpayer money.
SPEAKER 05 :
It's taxpayer money. So we're the ones who bought this wall.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 04 :
So 100 percent.
SPEAKER 03 :
And believe me, I can tell you right now from being around some of that type of product, that's not cheap stuff we're getting rid of, by the way, guys.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Nothing in the government is cheap. I mean, that's going to be very expensive to replace, is my point.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, and it's taxpayer money being spent, and I don't see anybody upset about this. CNN, MSNBC, a bunch of Democrats in Congress, they ought to be griping about this or not. Of course not. So they're all complicit in this. So what do you think about Donald Trump kind of functioning as the de facto president at this point? It does seem like he is. I mean, look, you've got this gazillionaire Japanese businessman – who says, Trump is making me confident enough in the U.S. economy that I'm going to go ahead and invest $100 billion in the United States. $100,000 employees, I think, as well.
SPEAKER 03 :
Did I read that right?
SPEAKER 05 :
$100,000 employees, they're estimating, too. Yeah, Trump's not even in the White House yet. He's already meeting with the world leaders and basically starting to arrange the chess pieces already. I imagine that they're already doing some behind the scenes negotiations already with Iran and Hamas as far as getting those hostages released, too. So it really is, you know, if you think about it, Neil, let me ask you about this first. This is an historic thing. I've never seen this in my life before, where you have an outgoing president who's really not the functioning president anymore, and the incoming president actually functioning as the president, but before he's actually legally allowed to. I think it's a good thing that Trump is doing, but I find it incredible that he's seen as the president of the United States right now, not Joe Biden. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it really says a lot about the perceptions that the American people have about what's been happening in the White House over the last four years. And I don't think it's just that Joe Biden lost, so he's going away. I don't think he was ever present. I mean, this was sleepy Joe sitting in his basement. Remember that prior to the 2020 election? Where was he and where has he been? And why don't we see him more often or why haven't we seen him more often at press conferences and you know, in public, making public statements. It's because he's incapacitated, and I don't think he's actually been the president for the last four years. So I think Donald Trump, you know, I think that the public is welcoming the idea that we're going to have a president, a visible president, who's going to be accountable to the American people, who's going to say things and then follow up on those things, you know, make statements, make claims, and then make good on those claims. And I think people are hungry for that. So I don't see that the American people are going to push back at all. I think Democrats ought to be furious in one sense that he's sticking his nose in there. But on the other hand, I think they're just resigned to it. It's over, man. And the whole Biden thing ain't happening. Where's Kamala anyway? She's been invisible. So I think it's entirely appropriate because the world is ready for change. And here comes Donald Trump.
SPEAKER 03 :
Both of you guys understand the whole leadership principle. You've been around things long enough. Neil, you, the church, Bob, you as well. And the reality is this is something, by the way, that the other side, I think, has completely lost. They have forgotten. They don't know what real leadership is. They want to rule in a very Putin way, which, by the way, is not leading. It's dictating. And the reality is the American public doesn't want that. They will follow a good, solid, proven leader. It's why I believe Donald Trump was elected unanimously even by a popular vote. They're tired of not being led, and they're looking for a leader.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, think about John, think about the Mar-a-Lago press conference that Trump just I mean, for over an hour just the other day, allowed himself to be peppered with as many questions as the press wanted to hit him with. He was willing to do that for over an hour. And you can't even imagine just try to picture Donald Trump at that press conference only taking a few minutes and then looking down at a piece of paper saying, OK, hold on a minute. They told me who I told me to call on you. Oh, yeah. This person, OK, I'm supposed to call on you. And then the blank stares. And we just can't. Yes, you're right. Americans are hungry for some kind of leadership right now. And Donald Trump is showing that he's the guy that's in charge, let alone when January 20th comes here.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, I have the Fox News app on my phone, and I don't know if you guys do, but leading up to the election, well, after they named Kamala as the candidate, right? Sleepy Joe says, I'm backing out, and Kamala's it, and nobody had a vote on that, but here she is, and she's the candidate. Fox News started tracking how long it was before she held any kind of a formal press conference. And I believe that the last number I saw, or at least remember, was 105 days that she did not hold any kind of a formal press conference. Like you just described, that Donald Trump stood there and just took questions from the press, unprompted, no teleprompter, whatever, just answering questions. Kamala was nowhere to be found. And yet we were supposed to believe that she was capable of leading our government? I don't think so. Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it really is showing that no matter what you may say about Donald Trump or his personality, his style, anything like that, I don't think anybody can question his ability to lead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Really quick, Bob, which, by the way, his style and demeanor and approachability and so on has changed dramatically. And, again, I think it comes from the assassination attempt, frankly. I think a lot of things changed at that point. But the way he's handling everything is just – it's 180 degrees different than it was prior.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. Hey, what do you think about, you know, I'm curious your thoughts on how he's handling the media, because on one hand, he's basically telling, at least how it looks to me, he's saying, I am either going to be the guy who reaches out the olive branch and tries to get along with you, or I'm going to be your worst enemy. Okay. But we're not going to have some kind of middle of the road relationship. So he's willing to meet with MSNBC people. He's willing to You know, take their calls and talk with them, do the interviews, talk with the press, even have their back a little bit saying, you know, the press is important. We need to have them. But at the same time, he says to Des Moines, Iowa, Des Moines Register, Iowa newspaper. OK, guess what? I'm suing you and your top pollster for election interference. ABC. OK, I'll take your 15 million dollars. CBS. I'm still hauling you into court. We'll see if we get an out of court settlement here. and they're just going to work down the line and start suing the media organizations. And you know something? I don't see that as a contradiction. I see that, John, as being smart. This is Trump saying, if you're going to lie, you're going to have to get better at it, okay? Because if you're going to play this game, I'm going to be your worst enemy. We can either be good friends or we can be horrible enemies, but the status quo is not going to exist anymore.
SPEAKER 03 :
I think the other thing that plays into this, and even Van Jones on CNN not that long ago, I think just a few nights ago, said that, you know, At one time, we were the mainstream media and all of these other sources, the social media end of things and so on, that was fringe media. And even Van Jones himself said, that has switched. We are no longer the mainstream. What used to be the fringe has now become mainstream. And I think Donald Trump, by the way, understands that. Unfortunately, I'm not sure all of mainstream other than maybe Van Jones understands that.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know. And by the way, Neil, we're coming up on the bottom of the hour. But your thoughts on that real quick. And then please tell us about SunPower LED after your thoughts, too.
SPEAKER 04 :
There's going to be a radically different administration in charge as of January 20th. And I think that so much skepticism about where our country's headed and who can be trusted. One big thing, people don't trust the government. We saw that in the election, and they definitely don't trust big pharma. Well, listen, if you're tired of big pharma telling you that you need pills or doctors telling you you've got to have surgery to deal with certain situations that you've been dealing with, like joint pain and arthritis and migraines, etc., you need to know that there's something that can completely change the direction you go with regard to treatment. It's the light. Using the light God himself created, And use that to help heal the human body. Certain wavelengths of red and near-infrared light harnessed inside of sun power LEDs, different devices. One of them is handheld. There's more like canopy kind of units that go over top of an entire table. unbelievable what light can do to restore cells, get them working properly to help heal your body. And you can learn all about it. You can watch videos and understand this for yourself simply using the light God created to heal your body. Go to SunPowerLED by visiting CrawfordMediaGroup.net. CrawfordMediaGroup.net. Click on the videos, watch and learn what the light God himself created can do to help heal your body.
SPEAKER 05 :
I'll tell you what, it works phenomenally. It does. We're also asking you folks to wind down this podcast. Give to Preborn. Let's save some babies' lives. Okay, we're coming up on the end of the year, and this is a time to say, hey, look, let's do this. Let's pay for some ultrasound images. Preborn shows these ultrasound images in pro-life centers across the country. But you know what? We don't have enough ultrasound machines, and we don't have enough money to pay for as many ultrasounds as we could. And that's the reason why we're asking you folks – Pay for some of these ultrasounds, okay? $28 is the average ultrasound expense to stop one abortion, to save one baby's life. How many babies' lives will you save? Take $28 times fill in the blank. Whatever that number is, hey, that's your gift to preborn. And 100% of what you give goes to fund ultrasounds. And for some of you out there that can do it, we need you to buy ultrasound machines. They're $15,000 a piece. If you buy just one, it's a nice tax write-off for you. But your forever legacy is you're stopping thousands of abortions year after year. Think about that. So right now, give to pre-born if you would, okay? 100% of what you give goes to fund the ultrasounds. Nothing for overhead. And you can give online at CrawfordMediaGroup.net. Click on Preborn. CrawfordMediaGroup.net. Click on Preborn. Or they answer the phones 24-7. You can give to a real-life person over the phone by calling 833-850-BABY. That's 833-850-BABY. And we appreciate you folks doing that. We appreciate you folks listening to the Crawford Roundtable podcast. And we welcome your five-star reviews wherever you listen to your podcasts. And John Rush, Rush to Reason out of Denver, Colorado. Neil Boron, Neil Boron Live out of Buffalo, New York. Myself, Bob Duco, The Bob Duco Show out of Detroit. Guys, always great having you with us and all of us getting together again. And we've got a week until Christmas. So look forward to our special Christmas program that we'll be doing next week as well. We'll see you guys later. Thanks for listening, everybody. Thank you. Merry Christmas, everyone.
SPEAKER 02 :
You've been listening to the National Crawford Roundtable podcast, a view of today's culture through a biblical lens brought to you by Preborn, saving babies and souls. Join us in the fight to save babies from abortion. Your gift provides a free ultrasound for a mother in need. 80% of the time she will choose life. Visit CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on their logo to donate. And by SunPower LED light therapy devices. Bring light to your pain. Visit CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on the SunPower LED logo to get out of pain and improve your overall wellness. You can download this podcast from Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and more from your local Crawford Media Group station's website or at CrawfordMediaGroup.net. And please give this podcast a five-star rating on your Apple app. Look for the notification on your app for when the next weekly edition of the National Crawford Roundtable Podcast is ready for you to download. This is a Crawford Media Group production.
Join Pastor Jack Hibbs on Real Life Radio as he tackles the complex yet relevant issue of divorce for Christians. This episode delves into the emotional and spiritual aspects of experiencing divorce and guides listeners toward anchoring themselves in faith and making wiser, godly decisions moving forward. Pastor Jack pulls wisdom from Scriptures to showcase how building a personal relationship with Jesus can help strengthen your resolve and steer you through life's toughest challenges, including marital dissolution.
SPEAKER 02 :
Today on Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 03 :
People are getting tired of driving two miles to church. I think I'll stay home today. What's the matter? I just can't make it to the car. You guys, this is serious stuff and it's spiritual in nature. I don't feel like continuing any longer. That's dangerous.
SPEAKER 02 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's Word, the Bible.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, Pastor Jack Hibbs here, and I want to wish you a Merry Christmas, and I also want to challenge you. Join me, will you, to share the love of God with everybody we meet at this time of the year. Now listen, the whole world is decorated in colors and in lights, and people are saying Merry Christmas. Let's take advantage of the reality. Let's take advantage of the truth. It's the recognition of the birth that God has sent His Son into the world. So we should tell people, hey friends, hey family, this is about Jesus, the Lord's Savior, mankind's redemption. Remind them that the baby that was born in Bethlehem is the man who died on the cross for our sins. So please, Merry Christmas to you, but let's not keep it to ourselves.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let's tell the world. From Pastor Jack and all of us here at Real Life, we want to wish you and your family a Christmas season filled with the peace, love, and joy of Jesus Christ. God bless you and yours today and in this new year to come. Merry Christmas. On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series now called Life and Bible with a message titled Being a Christian and Surviving Divorce. Now, no one wins in a divorce. It tears the heart in two and oftentimes separates the kids and can even ruin a ministry. You see, marriage is one of those sacred agreements that we need to stand up for and fight for. God designed it to work, so we need to do everything we can to save it. Marriage is a covenant that should never be broken, and if it has, we should exhaust every opportunity to reconcile. So today, Pastor Jack teaches us that if you've been through a divorce, then press on by living a life dedicated to God. You've been through a terrible time, and you need to now make wiser choices and more godly decisions. Now, with his message called Being a Christian and Surviving Divorce, here's pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 03 :
Your strength needs to be anchored in a deep, committed, personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Husband, wife, ex-husband, ex-wife, focus on Christ. Should you get married or not, remarried, listen. We can talk about that some other time or maybe if we have time in the close of this, but that should not be your pursuit. Drawing close to Christ should be your pursuit. Strengthen, making sure that whatever went on in your life never happens again. By the way, the statistics are overwhelming. That once a divorce happens, the probability of a second divorce is greatly elevated. In 2 Timothy 2.15, this is what I believe. Every person tonight who's here regarding this topic tonight, if you are post-divorce Christian, you should make 2 Timothy 2.15 clear. an aspect of your life. Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman or a workwoman, how about that, that need not be ashamed. Rightly divide in the word of truth, but shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness. Draw close to God. Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. Make every effort, Christian, to build yourself up, your lifestyle. When I say lifestyle, that is ethos in Greek, how you live your life. I'm not talking about if you have rings or a ski boat lifestyle. That's ridiculous. I'm talking about how you live your life. In Jude, verse 20 and 21, it says, but you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Keep yourself in the love of God. Point number four is this, determining, listen, determining this, that you will make different choices from now on. Does the Lord even want you to marry again is a question often, often stated. Look at this slide right here. According to a recent survey, couples were asked Their number one reason for divorce listed are the top 10 answers. And this survey was done by one of those very well-known marriage encounter seminar thingies, whatever it's called. Number one, cheating and infidelity. Number two, poor communication. Three, physical, psychological, or emotional abuse. Four, money. Five, sexual incompatibility. Six, boredom. Seven, religious beliefs and differences. I'm surprised that's on there, but that's biblical that it's there, isn't it? Think about that. Doesn't the Bible say we should not be unequally yoked? Why? God knows. Causes splits in the life, in the home. Child-rearing. I assume that they disagree on how to raise a child. Number nine, addiction. Number 10, change in priorities. These are the top 10 reasons why people get divorced. Interesting. Well mark this down, I'll give you a string of verses here. First Corinthians 739 says, a wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives, okay, but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to marry to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. See, what does that mean? Are you a Christian wife, and for that matter, it's also true about the husband, if your spouse dies, you're free to marry again, but only a believer, it says. Only a believer. You say, well, what's with that? How can, well, in fact, I'll read it. Look at 1 Corinthians 7.10. Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord. A wife is not to depart from her husband, but if she departs, or if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband, and a husband is not to divorce his wife. Meaning verses 10 through 11 apply to the male and the female. There's not some rule for the man and not for the woman. It's equal, even. What's very interesting about this is that if the woman wishes to depart or the unbelieving husband wishes to depart, that person's free. It goes either way. It's very important you understand that. Again, 2 Corinthians 6, 14 says, do not be unequally yoked. That is a believer and a non-believer. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? What communion has light with darkness? And what accord or agreement has Christ with Belial or Satan? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. This is so wise. It's so powerful. Are you unhappy in your marriage? People will say that. I want you to think about that for a moment. Are you separated from your husband or wife right now? Are you going through a divorce right now? I want you to be determining now, my friend, to make wise decisions. Are you unhappy? Are you separated? Are you divorced? Why do I ask you that question? Because listen, you're a Christian now. You belong to the living God. You are to be yoked, that is remarried, if God would have you to be remarried, to a believer and a believer only. Well, pastor, I'm dating this guy, he's a total Satanist, but I think I'll convert him and it's gonna be great. Listen, if you're going through a divorce, or if you're separated, are you not still married, by the way? Are you going through a divorce, are you married? Yeah, you're married. If you're going through a divorce, you're still married. Are you separated? Are you unhappy? You're still married. So when you go to work, keep your wedding ring on. You're married. Stop going to the singles bar with your friends. You're married. And a Christian shouldn't be there anyway. Listen, you may be hurting. You may be upset. You may be angry. Don't adopt the ways of the world. You are a son or a daughter of the living God. And you need to be careful about this. Yeah, well, you know what? I take my ring off sometimes because, you know, what are you doing? Well, how do I find a man? How do I find a woman? Chase Jesus. And as you're chasing Jesus, you'll bump into him or you'll bump into her. How do you do that? Because he'll be chasing Jesus too. Or she'll be chasing Jesus too. And when you guys are independently chasing Jesus and you wind up going along and you wind up looking over and she's there, hey, what's your name? Susie. What's your name? Bob. Cool. And she's still there. That's a good thing. Chase Jesus, bump into him or her, and then you know what? Then you can start saying, hey, Lord, is this somebody? But listen. I don't, you know I'll go on the fishing boats with the church out in the ocean. I go because it's fun to watch you guys. I don't like to do it. Here's the reason, I like to fish, but not in the ocean. You wanna know why? I wanna know what I'm gonna be pulling up. It freaks me out to do what you guys do. Hey man, let's go fishing off the boat over here in Newport. And you, what do you got? I don't know. And you pull it up and it's like, what is that thing? When you fish in the ocean, you don't know what you're gonna get. Listen, there's people like that. What are you doing? Oh man, I'm lonely, I'm gonna go out. And what are you doing? Oh, we were just gonna go to this dance place and then we're gonna go to this club over here. Are you crazy? You're fishing in the ocean, man. You're gonna wind up snagging something. You're going to wind up hooking something. You go, what is this? What do you expect? You went fishing in the ocean. And look at the bait you were using anyway. I mean, my goodness. Listen, my dad taught us how to fly fish. You ever fly fish? You know exactly what you're going to get. And it's pretty classy, too. You're going to catch what you're fishing for. And you're going to catch what you're fishing for by what you use. Be careful. That's a whole other study for a whole other time. Determine now to make the right decisions. Let the word of God be your instrument by which you decide. Don't let pressure and listen. Don't panic. Well, I've been waiting three years. I've been waiting 10 years for Mrs. Wright or Mr. Wright to come along. Wait on God. Man, you'll go right from one disaster to the other one because you didn't wait on God. His timing's perfect. He loves you. You're not going to blow it. Stay close to him. Well, what if I miss the guy? Let God find him for you.
SPEAKER 02 :
You're listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. And for now, let's get back to our teaching. Once again, here's Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 03 :
Number five, this is the last point. Being a Christian and surviving divorce... is this, being, living, being. You will live a more dedicated life to God. Being a Christian and surviving divorce, you're smarter now, aren't you? Cost you a lot, it hurt. But you have a more dedicated life to God now. And if that's who you are tonight, I want you to respect who you are in Christ. and live a dedicated life to God. Romans 12, one says, I beseech you. The word is to urge. You therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what? The good and acceptable perfect will of God is in Ephesians 5, 17. We looked at it earlier tonight. See then that you walk circumspectly, that you walk in uprightness before God and man. 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3. For this is the will of God. Listen to this. Your sanctification. That means you are different than those in the world. You're Christians. You're different. That you should abstain from sexual immorality. That is, marriage is the place for sexual activity. You're not married and you're having sex. The Bible calls that fornication and or adultery collectively. It is sexual immorality. You're sinning against your own soul. The Bible says if you persist in that lifestyle, it says that no one practicing sexual immorality will enter the kingdom of God. Why? It is a spiritual sin. Do you understand that? Your media, your world has billed it as some sort of a thing that just everybody does. It's just what you're supposed to do. They mock and make fun of virgins. In fact, if they find a virgin, they'll make sure that that guy or that girl is not a virgin any longer. You wanna know why it's so important to the world? I'm telling you right now, it's a spiritual issue. The Bible says if a man who has the Holy Spirit in him joins himself with another woman outside of marriage, he's joining Christ to a harlot. Why does it say that? Because it's spiritual. And when two people who are married come together physical, in a physical sense, it's awesome. It's encouraging, it's strengthening. It bonds the marriage even more together. Don't raise your hand in here tonight. But if you're married tonight here, husband, wife, I think that when you have sex, you should be able to pray after you have sex. Are you kidding me? What the, what is that? What, that's weird. Why? God was there the whole time. He is there. He made it. You're married. The book of Hebrews says the marital bed's undefiled. Undefiled, go in there, shut the door, jump up and down on the bed, you know? It's undefiled. Come together as a husband and wife, and then praise the Lord. Thank you God, thank you for this marriage, thank you for him, thank you for her. Think about it. I can't believe he's saying that. He invented it. But if it's abused, it becomes a curse. In Hebrews 10, verse 24 says, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaken the gathering together as in the matter of a son, but exhorting one another so much so as we see the day approaching. What does that mean? These are crazy days, my friend. The world's coming apart. Marriage is under attack. I don't need to tell this church that. Well, what should we do? Pastor Jack, I went through a divorce. What should I do? You know what? You dive headfirst into church, into spiritual stuff, into ministries. You absolutely get yourself inundated with doing things for God, serving the Lord, blessing his people. And listen, even if you haven't gone through a divorce, you need to be doing that right now because the days are evil. And we need to be coming to church more often than stopping and doing our own thing. This is a dangerous time. People are getting tired of driving two miles to church. I think I'll stay home today. What's the matter? I just can't make it to the car. You guys, this is serious stuff, and it's spiritual in nature. I don't feel like continuing any longer. That's dangerous. It's happening everywhere. I don't know. You know, I don't want to read my Bible today. It's dangerous. It's dangerous. It's dangerous. Last final verse. Here we go. It's a big one, but it's the last one. Isaiah 54, 3. For you shall expand to the right and to the left. Listen, this is for someone in here tonight. And your descendants will inherit the nations and make the desolate cities inhabited. Do not fear. For you will not be ashamed, neither be disgraced. For you will not be put to shame. For you will forget the shame of your youth and will not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore. For your maker is your husband. The Lord of hosts is his name, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. He is called the God of the whole earth, for the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused, says your God. The Lord is saying to all of us, I want to heal your life. I've got a plan for your life. Now tonight in this brief period of time as we end this we can only cover certain things. The very specific details of is my marriage according to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and chapter 7? Is it biblical? Is this situation I'm in? Can I remarry again or should I not? Does the Bible command me to stay unmarried? Those things you read carefully, quietly as your homework. Read them tonight. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and 7. the specific things, come in for counseling. Contact pastors here at the church. Dive into your Bible. Just know this, God hates divorce. I highly recommend the situation that you're in right now, if it is before divorce has taken place, make it work. Get help. Don't give up. If you are now divorced, You either find out if you think that you have to be married and you should be married. You talk to God about that. And then number two, find out if it's biblical if you should be remarried because some cases forbid it. Number three, ask God, Lord, do you want me to be single and serve you? You need to ask him these questions. Far too many people seek their identity alone. in their spouse rather than in their God. And that is a dangerous situation. Know who you are in Christ and everything else God will take care of. Heavenly Father, we pray tonight, Lord, over this sanctuary, your people, and we pray, Father, in Jesus' name, that you know the very situations. And Lord, I think also of young people that are here tonight. They're not yet married and they're listening to this and I have no doubt that they're thinking, well, we won't have these problems. And I pray that they don't. They don't have to have these problems. As long as they keep you in their sights. Father, we pray that the young generation would begin to see marriages working together. And that they would say, I want to be married. I want that in my life. Heavenly Father, we pray in Jesus' name that those that are hurting right now, you administer to them. Divinely, supernaturally. There may be some of you that are here tonight and you're hurting, and no human can meet your need. I want you to hear that. No human can meet your need. can counsel you enough right now. For some of you tonight, maybe it's just one of you, one person tonight, you need to get away with God. You need to just get alone with him and let him speak to you. Everywhere you go, you just keep coming empty handed and you're not getting the answer and you're not getting the encouragement that you were searching for and frankly, God has been doing that. He's been frustrating you so that you'll get alone with him Seek him. And then tonight there may be those that are here and you are divorced and some of these things have pierced your heart. I want you to, my friend, I want you to get alone with your God. You open up your Bible, you talk to your Lord Jesus, and you decide today who and what you're gonna follow. Your agendas, my friend, need to fail. Your plan needs to evaporate. If you name the name of Christ today, you need to follow him and obey him. Because you know what? He loves you more than you love you. He wants what's best for you more than you want. Trust him. Father, we give you these things and we pray in the name of Jesus and all God's people said, amen.
SPEAKER 02 :
pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Being a Christian and Surviving Divorce. Thanks for spending some time with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called Life and Bible. It's a series on how to apply God's Word to the everyday challenges of the Christian life. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
SPEAKER 01 :
So as you heard from our broadcast, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And if you'd like to know what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life personally, we would love to help you out with that. Go to jackhibbs.com slash know God. That's K-N-O-W God. And there you'll be guided through what a commitment to Christ can mean in your life and the freedom that you'll find in knowing God. Don't miss out. That's the Know God tab at jackhibbs.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, if you're struggling in your marriage or maybe you're getting ready to tie the knot and want some practical spiritual advice, check out Pastor Jack's YouTube channel called Real Life with Jack Hibbs. Once you're there, look for the interviews I did with Pastor Jack and his wife, Lisa. It's called Real Marriage, Real Life. We talk about some pretty important subjects like dealing with our families in marriage and dealing with forgiveness in marriage. Jack and Lisa talk about the ways they put God first in every situation, especially in handling sensitive issues. Again, the series is called Real Marriage, Real Life, and it's on Pastor Jack's YouTube channel called Real Life with Jack Hibbs. You can access his channel on YouTube or at our website, jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey everybody, something that you should know that in our church and in our media community, in the social media community, we have for decades as a church started every year off with the reading of the one-year Bible all the way through. So I'm encouraging you to join us and do the same. If you are not one of the tens of thousands of people that are actually on the same page with me, with my wife, Lisa, with the church and beyond, the entire Real Life audience and beyond, get a copy of the One Year Bible and get started with us on January 1st. You can get a copy for yourself at jackhibbs.com. But by all means, please do this. And listen, get one for your friends or maybe a son or a daughter or a mom or a dad. The one-year Bible, through the Bible, in one year together. Join us.
SPEAKER 02 :
That's the one-year Bible, and it's available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That's jackhibbs.com slash real radio. Did you know that along with the radio program, Pastor Jack also has a TV show? with more of the Pastor Jack Hibbs content that you like. It's called Real Life TV. If you enjoy Pastor Jack on the radio, you're going to love him on TV. So check out your local listings or visit jackhibbs.com and catch the latest episodes. That's jackhibbs.com. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
In this compelling episode of Born to Win, we delve into the profound biblical prophecies found in the book of Revelation. Ronald L. Dart explores the concept of a thousand-year reign where Satan is bound, allowing Jesus Christ to rule with His saints on earth. Intriguingly, listeners are introduced to the two resurrections that occur a thousand years apart, and the implications of these events for humanity's ultimate fate.
SPEAKER 02 :
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into a bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled. This important piece of news is given to us by John in the 20th chapter of Revelation, right at the beginning. And having told us this, that Satan would be bound for a thousand years and we wouldn't have to deal with him anymore, he opens our minds to understand a couple of new things here that, it's funny, he tells it to us almost as though he thought we already knew. He tells us that there is not merely one resurrection at the time of the end, that there are two resurrections a thousand years apart. Now, that's an interesting problem, and that's something to work out. Now, we do understand that the thousand years could be symbolic, like other numbers in Revelation, but there's no hint of that here. In fact, rather, the way everything gets worded, it seems to mean that, give or take a hundred years, that we're talking about a thousand-year period of time in which Jesus Christ rules the earth, the saints rule with him, and during that period of time, Satan is utterly without any influence in this world. Now, there are two chapters in the Bible that deal with the resurrection of the dead. Both of them deal with the first resurrection. They are 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4. I won't take the time to read them to you here. But they make it plain that all the dead in Christ are raised at his return. Now, let me explain. What this means is that everyone who is really a Christian, everyone in whom is the Holy Spirit, everyone who has met whatever requirements there are for salvation, will be either changed into a spirit being or resurrected from the dead at the return of Christ. What this means is that everyone who is written in the book of life is raised in the first resurrection. Now John continues in verse 7 to say, And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is like the sand of the sea. Now this is a little more difficult. After a thousand years of the rule of Christ on the earth, along with the saints ruling with him, with Satan having been bound and sealed up and shut up in a bottomless pit somewhere where he can't have any influence on world affairs, when he is released, there are multitudes of people who can still be deceived. Go figure. You would think by that time that the presence of Christ, the rulership of God, the fact that the world is working for a change would have some influence on them. But these people that are deceived are everywhere. They are typified by Gog and Magog. In Ezekiel 39, and also in chapter 38, you'll find that Gog from the land of Magog attacks the people of God who have been at rest and at peace for some time. Those two chapters back in Ezekiel actually deal with this same period of time, if you'd like to study them. Now, in chapter 39 of Ezekiel, in verse 1, He says, Therefore, son of man, prophesy against Gog and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshach and Tubal. Now, when he throws in this expression, the chief prince of Meshach and Tubal, do you remember in an earlier program we talked about this prince of Persia? who withstood Michael the archangel for all these days as he was trying to reach Daniel. This seems to be another in that class of disobedient spirit. They're going to be powerless while Satan is bound, but they're going to be ready to be active on his return. And so what is released here is not merely a nation, but a prince, a spiritual prince called Gog, influential over many of the people of the earth. And it's not just one area of the earth that he deceives. It's people from the four quarters of the earth that he deceives. It's a strange circumstance. Then it went on to say in verse 9, They went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints round about and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured all of them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet were cast. And the devil shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. It seems that at the end of all these things there is a need to gather up all the loose ends and dispose of them once and for all. Everyone has had a chance, yet so very many have refused God even without the deception of Satan. It seems we are not going to be allowed to blame the devil for everything that's gone wrong on this earth. We're going to have to carry some of the blame ourselves. In verse 11, John continued in his vision to say this, And I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. Now, what is it when the dead stand up? Well, that's a resurrection, isn't it? So here are some dead people who are being brought back to life. The dead, small and great, stand before God and the books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things that were written in the books according to their works. Now this has to be the second resurrection. The common image of this passage here is the judgment day. In other words, here's this great judicial bench with a judge behind it and a gavel in his hand and an austere judge, and here is this poor sinner who's brought before him, and the books are open, and they read all of his sins and the good of his life and the bad of his life out of these books. And if the bad outweighs the good, he goes to hell, and if the good outweighs the bad, he would wait a minute, wait a minute. We don't believe that, do we? We don't really believe that when all is said and done, that it's a question of the balance scales that have to do with whether a person is saved or not. Isn't it the blood of Jesus? Aren't all of our past sins blotted out when we accept Christ? Aren't we granted entrance into the kingdom of God by grace through faith and not of works? Well, then what is this all about, this thing of people being judged? Do we have it right? Now, there are a few things that call the common image of this into question. For example, when do you judge a prize fight? Well, if you're sitting there watching it on television, there are a couple of three guys sitting around the edge of the ring, and they're judging the fight as the fight is in progress, right? They're giving points, taking away points, imposing penalties on fighters who break the rules. The judgment of a fight is is going on while they are fighting. What happens at the end of the fight is nothing more than tallying up the points. We add them up on the one side, we add them up on the other side, and this guy's got 40 points, the other guy's got 39. He's a winner by a decision. Well, now, so judgment goes on while the act is going on, while life is going on. Now, the next question in this is, why is the book of life opened in this judgment? Everyone written in that book was in the first resurrection. We ought to know then at this point there is no one in that book when it is opened. Why open it then? Well, the only logical reason to open the book of life again is to write some new names in it. Now, for some strange reason, the idea that the book of life would be reopened and names written into it at this late date is troubling to some people. The idea that a class of people might live again in the flesh and get a chance to have their names written in the book of life doesn't sit well. But why shouldn't God give people a second chance if he wants to? And what if it isn't a second chance at all? What if it's the first chance they ever really had at salvation? Now, I'm okay with burning Hitler alive. I mean, you take someone who has been that evil and that wicked, and we bring him up before judgment, we find him guilty. I have no problem whatsoever with taking him out and throwing him into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. Visualize a cauldron with lava, molten lava in it. That seems fitting for that kind of evil. I can see Goebbels and Martin Bormann and all that ilk being thrown in there alongside of him. But there's a small problem with the thesis that has these individuals tortured for all eternity. You know, the idea that in hell they jump about from one hot brick to another, that they may stand for a while upside down on a hole with their feet sticking out and steam coming up around their feet. Some of the images from Dante's Inferno. You know, even with the likes of these men, torturing them is a problem. Torturing them for a week is a problem. Torturing them for a month is a problem. But, you know, there is a theology which says they will be tortured in terrible agony and horrible pain day and night, not merely for a month, not merely for a year, not for a hundred years, not for a thousand years, but forever. We'll talk some more about this in just a moment.
SPEAKER 02 :
Join us online at borntowin.net. That's borntowin.net. Read essays by Ronald Dart. Listen to Born to Win radio programs every day, past weekend Bible studies, plus recent sermons, as well as sermons from the CEM Vault. Drop us an email and visit our online store for CDs, DVDs, literature, and books. That's borntowin.net.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, all right. I will let you give you for the moment the idea we're going to torture Hitler for all eternity. Do you want to do it or shall I? Now, I don't know about you, but I think torturing somebody for an hour would be a drag, depending on how badly you hated that person. I really think I would have had enough of it by sundown. Don't you think you would have? And what does torture do to the character of the person who is doing the tormenting? Well, maybe the devil's doing it, but frankly, why should the devil torture these people? They've been serving him all their lifetime. I mean, this is no big deal, and he's not going to be in much of a position to be tormenting anybody. He's being tormented himself. But, you know, this is not even here where the problem lies. Take my granddad for an example. J.D. was a kindly fellow. He was not the least bit religious. I never, in all the time I knew him, never knew him to go to church. And the only time I ever heard him speak of God at all was to take his name in vain. It had to do with a description of a bass boat or with a fishing rod, and he put some appellation on it to have to do with God. That's the only time I ever heard him speak of God at all. But there was a funny thing about the man. He was generous. He was kind. He never would turn his back on a person in need. He would have given a bed to a man who didn't have one. He would have given the shirt off his back to a man who needed it. He was really a very good man in terms of the way he actually lived his life and the way his life impacted other people. He was a good father for his children, a good husband for his wife. Actually, one of the reasons I liked him so much is that he was my protector. He protected me from my aunts and my mother, who thought I should be chastised for my misdemeanors. He didn't much like that idea at all, so I love the old guy dearly. Now, I suppose if God wanted to just leave J.D. dead, I could understand. I would be disappointed, but I could understand. I might even be able to squeeze in some understanding if he were judged and executed for his sins, though in the Bible it is only people who take a life who forfeit theirs, and so it's hard to figure why my granddad should be executed for his sins when he never killed anybody. Far from it. The death penalty seems a little stern to me for someone who frequently uses bad language, don't you think? But even crusty old gents like my grandfather are not the problem. Everyone who has ever thought this through knows that billions of people have died on this planet without ever having a chance to be saved. What about them? What about the children? Let's just take some children in Somalia who starved to death before they ever get to the age they would go to school if there had been a school for them to go to. What about them? I was chatting with a fellow once who held the traditional belief that you either get saved in this life or else. You don't get saved in this life, you go to hell. He believed, as I do, that there is no other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved in the name of Jesus. It was Peter who said it. And he said, This, Jesus, is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, who has become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved. The reference, in case you need it, is Acts 4, verse 12. Now, I'm sorry, but I don't believe that all the religions of the world are headed the same direction but by different means. Neither did Peter. Peter felt that if you did not believe in Jesus, you weren't going to be saved. Neither did Jesus believe that all these religions were going to the same place by different roads. In John 14 and verse 6, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. Now I believe that. Peter believed it. Jesus taught it. So this fellow and I were both agreed that those who had never heard the name of Jesus had never had a chance to be saved. What about those people I wanted to know? Are they condemned to hell and eternal torture when they had no chance, not any chance, to do otherwise? Now, mind you, hell is forever. It's not just a bad weekend. Well, he said, I believe if they never had a chance to be saved, they are saved. Well, very comforting, I thought, but I still had a question. I asked him, why then do you send missionaries to these people? To give them a chance to be lost? Well, think about it. If they never had a chance to be saved, they are saved. So if you send a missionary to someone who has not yet had his chance to be saved, what you're really doing is giving him a chance to be lost. Well, I was going on about this once to a relative who thought I was balmy to think God would ever be so merciful as to give someone a second chance. Never mind how many chances God's given me. I mean, I've had more of them than I should have had. But she heard me out, and then she concluded, well... I just believe that God will make a way. Exactly. So do I. And I believe we have right here in Revelation 20 a hint. Not only that there is a way, but how it might possibly work out. Now I know I have listeners who feel like I do. Old J.D., my grandfather, was not a bad fellow. And it's hard for me to think that God wouldn't love the old guy more than I do. and that he might have some unfinished business with him. I sure want to see him again, and my dad, and my mother, and a few other souls I have come to love whom, well, if I believe some people, I would never see them again. Now, I have an article I'd like to send you that has a detailed study of this question. If you'll drop me a line or give me a call at the address we have in this program, I'll send you a free copy. Ask me for the article entitled, Is There Only One Chance at Salvation? Is There Only One Chance at Salvation? I'll send you a free copy of it. You can get your Bible out. You can sit down and study your way through it, and it will help you come to grips with a question that has troubled all kinds of people down through the years. Continuing in verse 13, "...and the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead that were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works." And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Now that doesn't sound so good, because on this one there seems to be no resurrection. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. So when all is said and done, there is a separation. There is a division, as the Bible would put it, between the sheep and the goats. There are those who are Christ, and there are those who are not. When all is said and done, and there is a final destruction for those who, when they do get a chance, still reject God. But the question is a little more complicated than some might lead you to believe. And, if it is of any encouragement to you, you may see people again that you thought you had lost forever.
SPEAKER 02 :
Stay with me. I'll be back in just a moment. For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. And request the program titled, Revelation No.
SPEAKER 1 :
27.
SPEAKER 02 :
Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free, 1-888-7000. Bible 44 and tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea. John is still in vision, and in this vision he sees a new heaven and a new earth. The first one, the one that you and I are used to, and remember, by the way, the word heaven, if you're going to take the Greek word and really translate it equivalently into English, the word is sky. I saw a new sky and a new earth, for the first sky and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea. In other words, the environment of the earth as we know it is gone and it's all new. Now, I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. Now, the New Jerusalem is not on the earth at first. It's in heaven. And it's a bride prepared for her husband. Her husband, of course, is Jesus Christ. Wow! The tabernacle of God is with men. You know, I don't want to take a big issue about going to heaven when we die because of the fact that going into the presence of God is like going to heaven. That's no problem. But what you need to understand is that what this picture is, the tabernacle of God is with men. God comes to the earth. It's a new earth, but it's still the earth. And God comes down to dwell with men. And they're going to be his people. And God shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. And there shall be no more death, no more sorrow, no crying, nor any more pain. For all of the former things are passed away. What a change. What a world. To consider that the crying, the death, the pain is over. You know, it's a little hard to imagine how we could all be so easily cleared of the past, of the pain of the past, and the suffering of the past. For indeed, we in this lifetime pick up a lot of scars. We get hurt lots of different ways. We get hurt more often than we'd like to think about. Will we not remember any of that? Or perhaps we will have come to the place to where we really understand the meaning of that. that the pain and the suffering that we went through in this life shall have taken on a whole new meaning because of who we are and where we are and who we are with. Take Jesus Christ, for example. Will he no longer be the lamb slain from the foundation of the world? Well, no, we will know him as that. We will know him as our Redeemer. In a sense, his wounds are a badge of honor. The holes in his hand and the hole in his side are those things which identify him to us as our Savior, and we love him for that, and we love him for what he did. The memory of that will not be gone, and I think probably the marks of it would not be gone. And if not for Him, then why for us? And so I think that the reason why there will be no more sorrow or pain, how it's possible that sorrow could be replaced by joy, is because we have come to realize that there was a reason behind it all. And now we know what it is. Now we can see the character that we have developed. Now we know what we have become in God. and it is worth every bit of it. And he that sat upon the throne, Revelation 20, verse 5, said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, Write this, for these words are true and faithful. And he said to me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him that is thirsty of the fountain of the water of life freely." He's talking about a spiritual thirst here, folks, not just the old parched throat that can be cooled with a Coca-Cola. He is talking about that hole down inside of man that was made to be filled with God and God alone. He is talking about that lack that is inside of man, that man was made without something that man has needed in all of our life. We've searched for it, looked for it, hungered for it, thirsted for it, wanted it, and never could find it because it isn't here. and it won't be here until he is here. He that overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. He that overcomes. You know, to overcome, you have got to come up against adversity. There has to be an obstacle for you to climb over. To overcome means that there has to be some wrestling going on. In other words, there has to be the game, as it were. There has to be the challenge that you meet, that you run up against and win. A basketball team goes on the court and overcomes their opponent, they win. The truth is, he is saying, the winner will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son, and that's why we were put here, to overcome, to win. And in the winning becomes something greater than any of us could ever have imagined. But the fearful will have no place there, verse 8. And the unbelieving and the abominable and the murderers and the whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. That's the second death. I don't think I'd want to be one of those. The fearful and the unbelieving. Instead of those who are courageous and who believe and have faith. That's the distinction that's made. And there came to me one of the seven angels that had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and he talked with me and said, Come with me, and I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife. What John is about to see is the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. a city of such staggering beauty that John was at great pains to try to describe it for us, and we read it and try to read between the lines of what he meant and what he was trying to show us. You know, this is basically what I think most people think about when they think about heaven, is the description of this city. It's not really heaven. It's the new Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem, if you will, that's come down to the earth where we are, And where those who are written in the Lamb's book of life, those who have washed their garments clean in the blood of the Lamb, those who have been forgiven, who have received God's mercy and have been given life can enter into this incredible city. I suppose it could be a little bit like going to heaven and the thought of going into this city like going to heaven. But in truth, I think most of us think more in terms of of coming into the presence of God. Jasper and pearls and streets of gold and all those wonderful things are very exciting, but they're nowhere near as exciting as coming into the presence of God Himself, of coming into the presence of Jesus Christ our Savior, and coming to understand what they have done and why they are doing it, and to realize what they have made of us. It's almost too much. Until next time, this is Ronald Dart reminding you, God does not intend to spend eternity with a bunch of losers. You were born to overcome.
SPEAKER 02 :
You were born to win. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560 White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
SPEAKER 01 :
Christian Educational Ministries is happy to announce a new full-color Born to Win monthly newsletter with articles and free offers from Ronald L. Dart. Call us today at 1-888-BIBLE44 to sign up or visit us at borntowin.net.
Join Cherry Campbell in this inspiring episode of Victorious Faith as she delves deep into the boundless nature of God's kingdom. Through Biblical revelations and personal reflections, Cherry reveals the unwavering promise of God to never let us down. Even when we feel helpless or stuck in life's challenges, God’s mercy and strength are ever-present, inviting us to repent and follow His divine guidance towards restoration and abundance.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to Victorious Faith. We believe you will be blessed, encouraged, and receive fresh faith to begin your day as you listen to today's message with international missionary and Bible teacher, Cherry Campbell.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good morning. Welcome to Victorious Faith. I'm Cherry Campbell. This morning, I'm going to continue sharing with you message number six in a series of messages that I've been sharing with you for the last several weeks called the Kingdom of God. And if you've missed any of these messages or would like to hear them again, you can go to my YouTube channel, which is under my name, Cherry Campbell, C-H-E-R-R-I, Campbell, C-A-M-P-B-E-L-L. And then the top category called radio broadcasts. You will see this series called the kingdom of God. Now, join me in our live class for the continuation of this message. Number six called the kingdom of God is superior. Continued. God will never let us down and he will never fail us. As he said in his own word in Hebrews 13, verse five. And the amplified Bible says. For God himself has said, I will not in any way fail you, nor give you up, nor leave you without support. I will not, I will not, I will not. And actually in the Greek, the New Testament was written in Greek. It is a triple emphasis, three times emphasis on those words. I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless or forsake you or let you down or relax my hold on you. Assuredly not. God himself has said, I'm going to read it again. And I believe that there are people that are hearing this today that you have felt helpless in different situations of your life. And whatever it is, God is saying this to you today. God himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up. nor leave you without support. I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless, nor forsake you, nor let you down, or relax my hold on you. Assuredly not. And verse 6 says, So therefore we take comfort. And we are encouraged and we confidently and boldly say, the Lord is my helper. I will not be seized with alarm. I will not fear or dread or be terrified. What can man do to me? Right. Amen. So I want you to take comfort as it says, we take comfort and we are encouraged today because God says, I will never leave you helpless or fail you or let you down. The world will let you down. Your family may let you down. Your friends may let you down. Your church may let you down, but God will never, never, never, never, never let you down. amen amen praise god god will never let you down he will never forsake you he will never desert you your family may desert you your friends may desert you but god will never desert you and he will never say well you deserve what you've got just stay there you're going to have to suffer with this for the rest of your life and i think some people have been told that And there are Christians that will tell you, well, you did it. You're going to just have to suffer with it. It's your own fault. God is a merciful God. And God is a forgiving God. And he will never leave you in your situation if you will just turn to him. And maybe you did do something wrong. Maybe it was your fault that you got in the mess you got in. I mean, all of our messes, we got in them ourselves. You know, God doesn't ever lead us into a mess or a problem. We get into it ourselves. But God is always ready to get us out. You know, and people may tell you, well, you deserve it. You did it. You did that stupid thing. Well, God is not unmerciful. God is forgiving and gracious and loving. And so all you have to do is say, Lord, I repent. I know that what I did was wrong. I messed up. Please forgive me and get me out of this situation. And God will jump in there right in the middle of that situation, right with you. And I'll say, OK, I'll take hold together with you. I'll pick you up. I'll encourage you and I'll strengthen you and I'll bring you out into a good land, into a land flowing with milk and honey. into a place that is abundant with peace and joy, into a place where you can be restored. There is restoration in the kingdom of God. There is restoration to everything that was lost and even into something better than what you had before. Amen. Amen. God can bring you out. He'll jump into that situation with you. But you must first repent and then you must be willing to be obedient to do what he says. If you remain stubborn and unchangeable, then you will stay where you are. And you'll stay in that situation that you've caused for yourself. But if you become willing to change and say, I was wrong. I'm willing to change and go a different way and follow you, Lord. And I'll be obedient and do whatever you say to do. God will bring you out and he'll bring you into a good land. Just like he brought Israel out of Egypt and he brought them into the promised land. God will get you out of your Egypt. He'll get you out of your wilderness, out of your desert, out of your dry place and and He'll bring you into your promised land, into your place that is flowing with milk and honey, your place that is abundant, your place that is rich and rewarding and fulfilling and full of joy and peace and the dream that you've got for your life. God is willing and able to do it when you follow Him. Amen? Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. And Philippians 4, verse 13, most of us know this verse. It says, I can do all things or everything through him who gives me strength. We are able to do everything in the kingdom of God. You know, you may look at a situation and you look at it and say, I can't do that. Maybe you're in college or at the university and you take this test. I just can't do this. This is too hard. Or maybe you're facing another situation that says, I just can't do this. Never say you can't do it because with God you can do all things. And Matthew 19, verse 26, Matthew 19, 26 says, With God, all things are possible. So all things are possible to those who believe. All things are possible with God when you work with God. And when you allow the power and the anointing of God to help you and assist you and empower you, then you can do all things and there is no limit. So what I want you to see is that the kingdom of God is absolutely limitless. Amen? Amen. amen praise the Lord praise the Lord now the next one let's look at another area where the kingdom of God is superior to the kingdom of this world and this is really really I really find this interesting the kingdom of God is superior to the world in duration or longevity duration or longevity length of life or existence. And I want to focus on something here. The world system, the system of this world is both bound by time and ruled by by time. Two things, bound by time and ruled by time. Now, when I say bound by time, what I mean is it has boundaries. has boundaries of time. Now let's study this and look at it for a little bit. That means that there is a beginning boundary, time boundary of the kingdom of the world, and there is an ending boundary of time. There is a beginning boundary and an ending boundary of of the system of this world. And I want us to see the beginning of this world system. Go to Genesis chapter 10. Genesis chapter 10. Now, if you remember, in Genesis chapter 6, 7, 8, and 9, we read about Noah. And in Genesis 6, God told Noah to build an ark because there would be a flood that would come on the whole earth. In Genesis 7, we read about the flood. In Genesis 8, we read about the receding of the flood or how the flood waters receded and went away. And then in chapter 9, we see how God blessed Noah and told Noah to be fruitful and multiply and fill the whole earth, subdue the earth. And so the story of Noah goes all the way through Genesis 9. Then in Genesis 10, we begin to see the descendants of Noah. and what happened after the flood. And when you get down to Genesis 10, verse 8, it says, "'Kush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth.'" He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. That is why it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord. Verse 10. The first centers of his what? His kingdom. His kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calnei. In Shinar. The first centers of his kingdom. This is the beginning of the kingdom of this world operating. This is the first kingdom that was established on earth. The name Nimrod in verse 8. Cush was the father of Nimrod. The name Nimrod means rebellion. Nimrod was not a godly man. Nimrod was a wicked man. And his name means rebellion. And when it says he grew to be a mighty warrior, you can also call him a conqueror. A conqueror. just like the Romans conquered other nations and territories. And if you've studied history, you've heard of Alexander the Great being a conqueror. Nimrod set out to conquer the world and put it under himself. When God blessed Adam and said subdue the earth, he said subdue the birds and the fish and the animals and the plants and everything like that, but he never said subdue people. People were not included in what we're supposed to dominate or control. Nimrod was a man who was trying to make himself king of the earth. What you just heard was the continuation of message number six in a series of messages that I've been sharing with you for the last several weeks called the kingdom of God. And this message number six is called the kingdom of God is superior continued. And we will continue this message tomorrow. So join me again tomorrow. And remember, God loves you. You are blessed and highly favored by the Lord.
SPEAKER 02 :
We're glad you joined us today for Victorious Faith with Cherry Campbell. We invite you to visit our website at victoriousfaith.co where you can listen to the Victorious Faith radio broadcast, find biblical study helps, contact Cherry, and make donations. You can also write to us at P.O. Box 509 East Lake, Colorado 80614. Victorious Faith is a God and Partners supported ministry. As you sow seed and partner with this ministry, we believe God with you for the full harvest of victory you need in your life. Please join us again Monday through Friday at the same time to begin your day with fresh faith. And remember, faith is the victory that overcomes the world.
