In Matthew 16, Jesus chastised the Pharisees who could interpret the appearance of the sky but failed to interpret the signs of the time in which they lived. Who are the Pharisees of our day? This strong hold of sort of whiteness and white identity and pristineness is really part of what keeps us from making progress. We need to do better. The church rich in theological scholarship has lingered in academic sanctuaries and ivory towers failing to translate its lofty doctrines into a tangible and practical cultural apologetic. At the Worldview Youth Academy we bridge this critical gap. Here theological depth is not an end in itself but a means to engage with contemporary cultural issues for the glory of God and the expansion of his kingdom. Our mission is to cultivate thinkers who can articulate and apply Christian truths within contemporary societal challenges. So embrace this call to worship God with all your heart, all your soul and with all your mind. We will do better as this next generation tears down the idols of our modern culture and works to build a brighter future toward Christendom 2.0. Non-rockabletus must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it. Are you going to burk all day? Little doggy? Where are you going to bite? We're going to delusion. I love to get that. Yeah, delusional is okay in your worldview. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you call me delusional using your worldview as perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt. It's young up on me. Yes! Oh my God! What? What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men lauding them for their courage. Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Right. Don't go into the world and make homies. Right. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, pasta. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say their speaking truth when they're not. [Music] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased as well and through him to reconcile to himself all things. Whether on heaven or on earth, or excuse me, I did it wrong on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross. Here, here, amen. Collagen's won 15 to 20. It's a good one. It's a good one. It's a great one. Who are we kidding? It's great. It's the word of God. It's all great, but then there's nuggets like that that you just feast on. Yeah. We'll talk about why it's important today. Welcome back everyone to another episode of apology radio Luke the bear hosting today. Pastor Jeff is away with this family for the week, spending some time with them, getting a little breather. And in case you're wondering who this guy is left to me. It's not a guest. It's not a special guest. That is Zachary Conover. We've lost his beard. Someone did something with my facial hair. I don't know. It's funny because we were having a whole conversation and I hadn't seen your face yet. Who are you and what have you done with Zach? No, investigation pending on who stole my facial hairs. But yeah, you should have seen the look on my kid's faces. Did you terrify them? Oh, my baby. Oh, I'm sure. That my youngest, I woke him up in the morning. I went to get him from his little crib and he just looked up at me in amazement and horror. Who is this guy? Yeah. So it's okay little guy. Don't be scared. So yeah, I'm excited for today's show. We'll get here. We'll, we use a lot going on right now. A lot of craziness. We haven't had a chance to talk about the presidential debate yet, which we're going to touch on briefly. That was fun. Yeah. I don't know if I could describe this fun. It was funny. It was definitely entertaining. Yeah. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at some points. Craft, we were crafting. But before we do that, let's talk about some of our partners. Hey, Luke, what's the best part of waking up? Pre-sipping your cup. Yes, and indeed introducing an epic collaboration between Apology of Radio and Landmark Roasters in Redlands, California, we bring you premium coffee that boasts delightful notes of flowers, decadent chocolate, and the crisp sweetness of Red Apple. Source from Ethiopia's Yurgashay and Columbia's Jericho. It doesn't take. Grab a bag and take Dominion for Christ. 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And I'm like, I'm like, bro, I picked it up and I cut myself. And he looks like. Yeah. Like if I was doing, if I attempted those moves he was doing, I would like, but like, merely, it's merely a flesh wound. I'd be missing arms and legs and it'd be bad. They're great. We love them. And, uh, of course, heritage defense. We love our guy, Bradley Pierce, he's our constitutional lawyer, writes all of our, uh, legal protection bills and is on call half the time with heritage defense. Um, I'm not going to read this today because I just want to say we had a situation at our church last week that praise God, he preserved the life of one of the children at our church. Yeah. Um, but the parents, uh, had to talk to DCS of the hospital, um, no, no wrongdoing on their part at all. But praise God, we had, had heritage they could talk to and, and, um, so here you go, talk to my lawyer. Wow. So if you're homeschooling, please sign up with heritage bench and go to heritagefence.org. I would apologize to keep on coke at your first month free. Please, please, please, please do it. Okay. Look at that. Look at the timing on that. Look at us. That was, that was God's sovereignty right there. Amen. Which is a little bit in league with what we're talking about today. Yes. A lot of it. Actually, actually that is the main point. Um, as you'll see, I mean, it's like then, so why don't you break us in? Yeah. So, um, I mean, there's, there's a lot going on. So obviously we just had the presidential debate, uh, Trump and Biden head to head and it was about what you would expect clown show. Yeah. Uh, part of the course for, uh, living in clown world, there with, of course, some zingers and some entertaining moments in there, where I'm sure that we could play one of your personal favorites right now. Is that, is that what this one? Yeah, just to get a vibe for how things went, um, hold on. Sorry. I wasn't ready. Keep talking. So that little arrow in the top are the bottom right hand corner of the box there. There we go. That blows up the screen. There we go. We'll breath to where we need to be. Okay. Now we're good. All right. It's better when he left office and I'm going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the, the, the, the total initiative relative to what we're going to do with more border patrol and more asylum officers. President Trump, I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either. Look. So, I mean, that gives you an idea right there of how things went and really the, I think the mental cognitive state of the man that occupies the Oval Office right now that, I mean, unless you've been sleeping under a rock for the past three and a half years, you've seen. There have been plenty of clips circulating online here. And really a lot of concern has been pressed upon the minds of the American people in particular because it's hard to feel safe in your nation when the leader of your nation has to be escorted off the stage and more often than not forgets which way is the exit point and the entry point to the debate stage. Yeah. That is even the worries I have. Yeah. Here it is, forgets names, mistaken identities, you know, talking about people that have passed away. Yeah. It makes up words, trails off in sentences like you just saw. And so I think, you know, there's been concern about this given, you know, where we are because on one side, you know, you have Trump, he's a mess, obviously. You have Biden on the other side who, I mean, I think incompetent to do the job is an understatement at this point. Yeah. He's barely surviving. I think that's kind. And really after this whole debacle, the media was ablaze with the Democratic Party calling for him to step down. It was amazing to watch. It was like, it was synchronized messaging all the way across the board. You know, people were talking about who is going to take his place at the Democratic National Convention League. Who's going to be announced to take his place and President Biden has said that he's not going anywhere. He did. Which he probably didn't even write that because he probably doesn't even hunt. He's a keyboard right now. He was tweeting during the debate. I don't know if you saw that, but it takes a lot of skill for someone with that level of verbal mastery, command of the English language to be able to tweet simultaneously while debating. I guess you can think whoever 20 something intern runs his Twitter account. I mean, but really this is kind of a picture of where we are. So it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence where we've been. Obviously there's a lot of problems that we see in our nation today, you know, the unchecked illegal immigration, you know, foreign wars, encroachment on our pretty much our entire way of life. You're a, if you love God, you love your nation, if you love your people and don't want to see it completely given over to a foreign power. There's a lot of fears and concerns, you know, going through people's minds right now, but maybe we could play that next clip too to get an idea of what we're talking about. Yeah, I was just going to say for just a disclaimer because we, I mind you've watched in the chat right now, but there's probably somebody in here. People either are mad at us because we're not supporting Trump or they're mad at us because we're trashing Trump. This is not an endorsement for any candidate. This is just talking frankly about the debate. And if you listen to us, you know that. Yeah. At this point. Yeah. Biden's clearly a mess. Like you said, I mean, yeah, there's not even much more need to say about that. And you know, Trump, we have a lot of issues with Trump a lot, especially what we're going to talk about today, you know, because very entertaining. Oh, yes. He's definitely a fulfillment. I, that was my favorite part of the debate. And I was like dying left when I heard the part because he said what everyone else is thinking, which is one reason if I, if I, if there's something I like about Trump is that he's usually good about saying what everyone's thinking just not saying that load. Right. But yeah, it was, it's either way, it's, it's a hot mess. And yeah, so let's go right into the next clip game if you want to play this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, other networks lie to you about what's happening now, info wars tells you the truth about what's happening next. That's good. Now, I mean, obviously there's some comedic license taken there to highlight the discrepancy. But I think we all see the problem going on and have for a long time and I think we should just feel confident to say that it's unfortunate that this man has been paraded around and that someone that really no one loves him enough to step in. But at the same time, I think his pride as well won't, he won't allow himself to drop out. And so you have, it's kind of a bizarre and strange turn of events. Like I know David Bonson posted something on his page today like this, like it's the first time in his life, like viewing things in the political realm as the Democrats seem to be begging for Biden to step in it even further. So that way they have a greater justification to remove him and replace him with something. And then on the other side, you have the Republicans who are saying, no, like, we hope that he stays in because it'll be the easiest political victory in history for Trump, if these are the two choices in front of us. But that was until also the Republican platform, or I guess I should say the GOP, the good old party dropped their recent policy list of things that they're emphasizing at their platform and conspicuously missing from those things that upset quite a few people on the internet were marriage and a solid statement on the issue of life in abortion. Yeah, before we get into that real quick, I was just going to say more thing about the debate. Just if you watched it, I mean, it was just, it was just, you know, like they're literally just trying to one up one another. I mean, it's even talking about golf course and handicaps and like goodness gracious. But so many lies, so many lies just blatant as if it's truth, you know, and I mean, I don't know if I heard one true thing come on a Biden's mouth. Trump, I don't know. I really don't. He probably was making things up too. But I know some of the stuff that I like the especially when I came to the border stuff like, look, we we have the border here in Arizona. But I have been in my church that work in that department and some of the things that Biden was saying were just blatantly false and, you know, and I even saw the next day Biden sent out an email or something saying every single thing that Trump said was a lie. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is like, I'm going, are people really this stupid? And sadly, I think the answer is yes, I think at least some people. Yeah, some people not everyone. So yeah, so the, you know, before we get into the GOP debacle, like, there's a lot of people kind of freaking out right now. This is kind of the theme we're going to talk about today is just, you know, those right now are probably the two best options we have is this guy who, which by the way, if you didn't see one of Doug Wilson's podcasts this week, or maybe been blogging a Mayblog, he was it was about elder abuse and he was talking about Biden and like, I was like, Oh, yeah, that falls under that category. Yeah. So you got it, you know, you got an old geriatric dude, it doesn't even know where is that half the time possibly run the country, or you got a loud mouth bumbling idiot who did some great things. I'll give him that. He exceeded my expectations and did some great things. There's some major issues and flaws with him, but you know, what's scary, I think, and maybe scary is not the right word concerning, it's just the how soft he's getting on some of the moral essentials. And so that brings us right into this conversation. You want me to play this clip right here? You want to talk about it first? Yeah. Let's go ahead and jump right in. So this is, you know, just after the GOP finalized their new platform. And the question of the abortion pill, what so many of us have said is that, look, we certainly don't, the Supreme Court made a decision saying that the American people should have access to that medication. Donald Trump has supported that opinion. I support that opinion. I think it's important to say that we actually have to have an important conversation in this country about what our abortion policy should be. Donald Trump is the pragmatic leader here. He's saying most abortion policy is going to be decided by the states. We want to make it easier and more affordable for young women and parents to have families to begin with. We want to lower housing costs, eliminate the surprise medical bills that so many families see after they have a baby. That's the Trump and Republican approach to this issue. Meanwhile, Joe Biden once tax payer funded abortion up to the moment of birth. It's so crazy to me how the Democrats frame this as Republicans, let me finish, Kristen. They frame Democrats as being reasonable and pragmatic when in reality, Republicans are the one trying to find some common ground as you know, abortions, very few abortions take place later in pregnancy and almost always because there is a medical emergency. I know Trump is trying to distance himself from project 2025, but we have to point out that a number of people who are involved with it are former Trump officials, Ben Carson, Peter Navarro, Russ Vaught and others. But just to be clear, you support Miffa Pristone being accessible. Yes, Kristen, I do, but again, on the project 2025 issue, what the media and the Democrats are trying to do is attach its most unpopular elements to the Trump administration. It's a 900-page document. I guarantee there are things that Trump likes and dislikes about that 900-page document, but he is the person who will determine the agenda, the next administration. All he said very explicitly is I am in charge of the next administration because I'm the person running for president. Which is important to make that clarification. So maybe help to read the platform that they did pass its brief beer, but it says we proudly stand for families in life. We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process and that the states are therefore free to pass laws protecting those rights, which is really interesting because the reason that the 14th Amendment exists federally was because a certain group of people were being dehumanized and needed to have protection under the law. Yeah. Equal protection. So it's ironic that in distancing themselves from a federal abortion ban, the GOP is saying no, let the states handle it. Well the problem with that is that when left to the ballot, our population is a wicked population that wants the murder of children on demand. And so surrendering it over is immoral, it's wrong. And this is really the downfall and the, I mean, I should say the fallout of Roe being overturned as well. But continuing on here, after 51 years because of us, that power has been given to the states and to a vote of the people. We will oppose late term abortion while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control and IVF treatments. So just like Vance said in the clip, I don't think he would put it this way, but this is what they're doing. They're trying to moderate to the center in order to gain the appeal of those who would not normally favor the Trump platform. They're trying to tailor the platform to the candidate is what they're trying to do right now in order to reach people in the middle and get votes. So it's not about standing on the protection of life. The anchor was actually correct. The majority of abortions are not late term. They take place with the abortion pill, which that administration is for obtaining. Okay? So again, there's so many problems here with it, but the idea is that if we can placate to the middle, we can get these votes and we can win the election. So the principal becomes placed on the altar of what will get us the victory. Yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it was apparent in the last election, in the midterms, that abortion was the hot topic that for whatever reason, it seemed like the Republicans were not ready for. It seemed like it caught him off guard. Well, he didn't have an answer too. That's also true. You know, and so I know there's, the Republicans, the GOP feels that they lost a lot of these seats and lies elections because of that issue and they didn't have, they just weren't prepared for it. Like distancing themselves from it now. Exactly. I mean, that's been so obvious this year with an abortion now and red state reform, we're going to all these states button, trying to get these equal protection bills and nine, we've talked about this, but time and time again, the majority of our legislators that we've been working with that are faithful men that love God and want to do the right thing, they've, they fold it and a lot of it's been because the Republican party's been like, we can't do this this year. We have to win this election, right? And that's exactly what this is. It's, it's capitulating to try to win this election. And it's just pragmatism. And no one is willing to stand up and say, no, we're going to do the right thing because it's the right thing, not, not, we're going to do this because we want to make sure we win. Yeah. And it's been blatantly obvious. Well, the unfortunate thing about that too, is that it, it picks a fight amongst conservative voters because there's good men on both sides arguing for both positions. Exactly. No, I'm not willing to compromise and reward this betrayal with my vote. Get it completely. On the other side, then it's like, well, listen, someone's going to be in office. I don't want 30 million illegal immigrants in my country making it unrecognizable so that we can't pass any kind of change at the state and local level. We won't have a nation if we don't win this election. I get both sides and I'm sympathetic to both sides, honestly. So the problem is, it's like, okay, since there hasn't been accountability in wrangling in our side also, like political accountability, like Donald Trump knows that he's not going to get pushback, really, from the pro-life side. He could. I certainly hope so. I pray to God so, but it was a tactical decision on his point to say, I don't care. I have unfain support now basically for the last eight years. I can do what I want, really. That's really where we're at right now. And the unfortunate thing about that is, if we don't hold him accountable, then he will continue to drift and we will continue to see what we don't quite see yet. And that is, when we don't hold our leaders accountable to the word of God, they will inevitably drift and affect these issues that we care deeply about. We've already seen it in our own state, with our own abortion ban, Trump and his influence directly affected that here, that policy. So really, I mean, there's no telling where things could end up at this point. I'm sympathetic to both sides. I see the points on both sides. It's hard to say, though, I mean, we can't defeat our enemies by becoming them, right? It's not if you can't beat them, join them. So we're just going to moderate to the center here in hopes that we win. There has to be a principle, but I mean, even amidst this discussion, Luke, their reaction to this whole thing, like, okay, we're even further divided now, really. So like, what's next? Are we just like, are we screwed? Like, and if so, I'm feeling a little fearful, I'm feeling a little fearful for my family, my people, a little bit of panic sets in, you know, how vulnerable is our nation going to be? Is it going to look unrecognizable? All of these things start to cloud our judgment creep in that worry that anxiety sets in, and then even that pessimism, which I want to hear you speak to. Yeah. Well, I'll just say just quickly to your point about Trump not feeling any pushback. I mean, the pro life industry for 50 years has been playing the pragmatic game. Yeah. The seeds have been sown by that, really. Yeah. And so at this point, they're just going to say, well, if we don't get Trump elected, we have no chance of doing anything. So they're willing to say, well, we'll give in here and sacrifice that, you know, these lives here in order to preserve more here. And it's just awful, it's awful. And you know, we've gotten where we are again, because no one's been willing to stand up and do the right thing and keep our legislators accountable, like you said. So it's going to be interesting. The next, well, let's see, we're already into July. So the next four months or so, five months, it's going to be really interesting to see how things go. I mean, as far as like, I mean, Trump even said this in the debate when I see some of this conversation here in the in the chat thread, you know, he mentioned the Dobbs decision and, you know, the Supreme Court sent it back to States and he applauded that. And it's like, on one hand, it's like, okay, yeah, that's how our nation was set up as a, as a constitutional republic that, you know, these things are handled in the States. But at the same time, the Supreme Court could have, you know, grown a pair of, you know, testicles, right, and done the right thing and said, no, like this is, you know, when we, when we say, they had an obligation, yeah, we, when we, the Constitution, we were talking about the rights of pursuit of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. I mean, like life right there, like they could have said, no, it starts at conception here. They've done that federally. And again, they don't make laws, maybe we'll clear about that. But they could have set a precedent that said, no, it's, it's life, a conception across the board. And they took the all the pilots way, although not, although technically correct in their thing, they did, they took the cowards way out on that ruling. And so now everyone's applying that it's gone and say it's blah, blah, blah. But now what we have is what we're fighting here in Arizona, we're a bunch of these conservative states is these ballot initiatives where they're trying to make abortion up to birth legal by many in their constitutions, you know, and so again, if the, if the, if Scotus would have done the right thing, I would have shut a lot of that down, I think, to begin with, but. And what is the 14th amendment all about, really? It says no state shall deprive to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws. Yeah. So if the 14th amendment says that, and then you turn around and say, let the states decide who lives and who dies. Yeah. It's a contradictory message. Exactly. Exactly right. You're exactly right. So yeah. So I mean, that brings us to the kind of the theme we were going through going, trying to accomplish with all this if I could talk today. Um, I mean, I've seen, I've seen faithful men that I know that love Jesus. Like Christian men, just like golf, go full your, you know, whoa, it was me. Oh, bother, you know, like just tail between the legs, like saying things like every politician is corrupt, you know, just ready to like just throw in the towel, which for the record, there may be a lot of, I'm not going to argue that a lot of the politicians aren't corrupt, but I know plenty that, uh, that are not corrupt, excuse me. And, and so I, you know, I have a problem when you start white, Washington, every politician, you know, but the point being is like, and I saw one of Andrew's sandlands posts the other day, I think it was yesterday, tried to get him on today, but he couldn't do it. Um, he had this whole post about pessimism and he's like, you know, people are being very pessimistic around and there's like, he's like, that's not in scripture. There's no pessimistic versus in scripture. And it's like, it just fires me up, um, to see, see me like what we need is men, faithful men saying, uh, I'm not going to back down. I'm going to do the right thing. I'm going to, I'm going to stand up for what's right. Um, you know, one of my favorite stories I've preached about a lot for end abortion. Now events is David and Goliath, right? And, and it's a perfect day with a perfect picture of, of where we are now, right? We got this big, ugly, scary culture coming at us and threatening us and, you know, cursing our God and David's like, who are you on circumcised phyllis seem to come against the army of the Lord, living God, like that should be our mentality is like, I don't care. I don't care who Joe Biden thinks he is. I don't care who enter these liberals think they are like, who are you on so circumcised culture to come against the army, the living God, that should be our mentality. Um, and it's not in, in like the cowards are being revealed very quickly. Um, and so that's kind of the theme in, in, um, I'll say one more thing and then I'll turn it back over to so not, not panic, not pessimism. Yeah. Courage, courage, yeah, exactly. And you know, I chose, um, Colossians one on purpose because the whole point is like, God is sovereign, right over all of this. None of these leaders have any authority unless God has given it to them. And so for us to start throwing our hands up in the air, which probably 24 tens when my favorite versus if you fancy the day of adversity or strength is small, seen a lot of that right now in the church men are throwing their hands up in there. They're showing that their strength is small and they're fainting in the day of adversity. Um, but God sovereign over all of this Biden is in power because God chose for him to be in power. Obviously, it's judgment on our nation if Trump wins course and he's in power. That's God sovereign over that. And, and so we need to trust that, right. And I think we get two, uh, narrow focused on what's directly in front of us. We don't look at the big picture, uh, you know, I've been studying, um, I don't know if you've read, uh, CR Y Lee's, um, household and the bell for the cosmos. Oh yeah, dude. But like the big picture is like, that's why I chose Evers, right? Christ came to reconcile all things to himself. That's our job as a church, like it starts in the garden where Adam's working. God says, take dominion. That's where it starts. And we're not even willing to take dominion over our own households, let alone the culture. Um, and so if we think big picture, like, and stop getting so narrow minded and focused on what's directly in front of us, like this is all part of a bigger plan, a bigger picture. Love it. And it's Christ come to reconcile all things to himself. Um, one thing I learned from Andrew Sandlin, I missed my whole life growing up the church. Um, uh, forget the reference. I think it's first John, I think, um, it, he says Christ came to vanquish the works of Satan. Yeah. And we get, we get so like, oh, Christ came to save me. That's part of it. That's, but that's part of vanquishing the works of Satan's of Satan is saving his people because we are the hands and feet that will accomplish that. The big pictures, he came to defeat Satan and we need to get out of our Christian ghettos and get, and open our eyes up and be like, this is just a, this is just part of the bigger picture of the bigger battle. Our nation isn't the end all be all, and if God destroys our nation, so be it, you know, the next few years, the next generation, maybe two generations, may be really hard and really difficult and suck for our kids and grandkids, right, but we know that they got us faithful. We know it's part of his plan to reconcile all things to himself. And we need to trust him in that and we need to prepare our kids and trainer kids to be a part of that. And, you know, if our nation doesn't exist when Christ returns, who cares? So what, what's important is that Christ's kingdom is growing and expanding and it will do so until all enemies are placed under his feet. Zachary. Well, along those same lines, you know, God is shaking things right now. I don't think anyone could deny that. I mean, Hebrews 12, 26 at that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase yet once more indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is, things that have been made in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire. So our nations are getting shaken up right now. And I think really what you're getting at here is not just the sovereignty of God, which is really along the lines of what I wanted to talk about. And that is the providence of God, understanding and having a providential view of history, like the same one our founding fathers had. If you don't understand this, this idea that God is intimately concerned and connected with the affairs of mankind and involved at the national level, right? The thing Luke was saying is dead on in terms of, if we want revival in the White House, we need to start in our prayer closets. You can do something right now and that's go to the secret place of prayer and cry out to the Lord Almighty for mercy upon our nation and to rule your household and your family well. That would be a great place to start. But what view of providence did the founders have? We talked about that with a lounge logger when he gave us this incredible history lesson on the history of the American Revolution here, I mean, but really the founders had a providential view of history. What is the declaration of independence say right at the end and for the support of this declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence. We mutually pledged to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. It's important to know how that word was defined during the time that that was written. Webster's dictionary defines it saying, "In theology, providence is the care and superintendents which God exercises over his creatures." He that acknowledges a creation and denies a providence involves himself in a palpable contradiction for the same power which caused a thing to exist as necessary to continue its existence. A belief in divine providence is a source of great consolation to good men. Divine providence is often understood as God himself." And when the founders wrote that, when they penned our Declaration of Independence, they had a particular view of history. It wasn't a view of all things that says God is at war with the material world, like a Gnostic view. It wasn't a view of history that was materialist in nature that said there is no God, just the material universe. It wasn't a view of history that was pantheistic that said, "Well, God is everything and everything is God." It wasn't any of these pagan views of history. It was a view in which they saw the biblical view of the king, the sovereign, the almighty, as transcendent and imminent. God is not his creation. He exists over it, ruling over it, but he is intimately involved with it. This is not the deist God that winds up the universe like a watch and then steps away and allows it to run under its own power. This is the God who carries all things along to their intended destination and conclusion. That's what Hebrews 1, 3 tells us about Jesus. He created all things. By him, all things exist. You just read Colossians 1, all things hold together in him, consist in him, find their coherence in him, and he makes sure that history gets where it's going and that it's moving towards the predetermined ends God has decreed. All of this, God's sovereignty, you've used that word, I'm using providence, which really is just purposeful sovereignty. God's sovereignty is his right and his power to do as he pleases with his creation. That's his sovereignty. God has the right to do what he wants. He's the author. He has authority. Providence is when he exercises that power and that authority with wisdom purposefully. Providence is, I mean, it really comes from a word that means to see or to look forward. We kind of have an idiom like that in our English language that says, "Hey, Luke, see to that for me." You see to it. So what is providence but God seeing to it in terms of history, in terms of the things that he's made, see to that and God is seeing to it. Like a good father, he foresees the needs of his world. This is true in a very common sense, general creation, right? He sends rain on the just and the unjust. He takes care of the animal world, the physical world. He presides over the choices of men, even the sinful ones and overturns all of them for his glory so that they work out according to his plan. All that's true, but he makes sure that history gets where it's going, okay? And it's moving in the direction that accords with his decree. He has an eternal plan that he's working out in history. You and I are involved in that and providence is everything he does along the way to get us there. Like a good father, he provides. He sees to it that the needs of his children are met, okay? That's the God that you and I worship. That's the God of providence. So I mean, I guess, I love to hear what you have to say just to that. I know I said a lot there, but really, I think understanding this will give us a foundation, a providential view of history, because, I mean, you said so much that was good in terms of who God raises up over our nation even, like there's so many texts that you could go to that talk about, you know, God is the one who ordains our rulers to office. He's the one that disposes them, like here's where the founders got it. Just to give you a brief, a brief smattering here, Daniel 2 21. He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. Daniel 4 17, this is after the judgment of Nebuchadnezzar. The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the most high rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets it over, sets over at the lowliest of men. Or Job 12 23, he makes nations great and he destroys them. He enlarges nations and leads them away. Or Psalm 33 10, the Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations. Or Psalm 22, all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship, another way you could say that would be sovereignty, belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. Psalm 46 verse 8, "Come behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the chariots with fire. Be still." Or some translations say, "Stop your fighting and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth." The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress. So these texts and others remind us that no matter what's going on in the world, and it might sound really cliche to say this as a bottom line, God's in control. Yeah. Pinko. Yeah. You know, I've been going through Joseph right now with my three-year-old and talking about God's being silent over nations, and you know, I'm sure these are all eight, so we're freaking out thinking many a lot of our Christians are right now. The end is near, we're done, you know, and hear the whole time, God's preserving Joseph in Egypt. And, you know, we all know the story to provide and protect his people. And so, yeah, we just got to be faithful. Like I want, part of my bedtime routine with my son is putting him down. I always pray over him every night while he's going to sleep, and I just a lot of times to contemplate. I don't think a lot about just the Christian heritage that's been passed on to me. You know, they're multiple generations. I can trace it back at least four or five generations, maybe more, you know, and same with my wife. And, you know, my prayer is always just that I'd be able to pass it on to my children and they can pass it on their children and so forth and so on until the end of time. And if you just like just thinking about that a lot at night, just this, how that multiplies through faithful generations, like I've said this a lot. And I got this from Joe boot, but I truly believe that the way this culture is going can only last for so long, right? Because they're killing their babies or their homosexual and not having babies. And so if we're just being faithful Christians and raising up our children faithfully, we should outlive this nonsense just by sheer numbers. But that means. As long as we're not giving our kids away. Exactly. Well, that's the point. That's the whole point. Like we need to be intentional with our kids and if, and you know, we need to be having kids and, and, and training them up, right? And so my whole thing lately has just been just, I mean, we're having a household leadership class at our church here at the end of August and like just, I want to challenge not just the men in our church. But if you're watching this in your man, you have a wife, you have kids like, don't be fearful. Like one, even if, even if Biden were to win again, God forbid, like you saw the last four years. Our nation. We don't want by the way. We don't want but it wasn't clear. Yeah. Obviously things have sucked. Yeah. Like I've been, we've been having the conversation last week, like my AC bill been like, right? Well, like that's great. Cause like last, last year in June, it was $4 a day. Yeah. This year, it's $11 a day. So like everything is like that and it's not because I'm using more electricity. It's because everything's double everything's double and, but like, that's not going to be the end. Or that's not going to end our nation if he, you know, wins one more term because we have to start. Everything's got to be local. We got to start in our own families. So like what I want to press upon our dads is like, be faithful with your family. Focus on that. Let God sort out the rest. Right. So you can control that too. Exactly. Oh man. That's so, dude, you're going to be on so many routes. I just talked to Daryl the way in here, you know, we're doing this about initiative stuff and he's got like 20 people that are working right now and he, he was just amazed at how much they can get done from 20 people. And he's like, it's so cool. I'm saying one's talents. Come on. And I'm like, bro, we could do so much more like our, our nation, our culture would suck far less if we just had people putting the effort in being intentional. We've gotten so lazy, we've, we've trusted the GOP for so many years to do the right thing and they're clearly not like we need the people to just be faithful to families, be active, be involved politically, start small, start in your own communities. Know who's running for mayor. Know who's running for your city council because you're going to have a better chance of impacting things locally before you get, you know, federally and it's basically like it's just, it's just most likely, it's probably going to be another four years of just going back and forth and not accomplishing anything, just jacking up the national debt. That's basically what's going on to the national level. So like I want to challenge our dads to start in your homes, be faithful with your family. You know, there's the four roles of a dad, provider, protector, priest, prophet, provide start there. We got a lot. And then we got a lot of dads that are doing great jobs providing and maybe protecting, but they suck at being prophets and priests in their home and a prophet is someone who speaks for God to his people. So that's through the reading of the word and the priest stands for his people to God. So that's leading them in prayer and worship. Like start with your families, raise up your kids, focus on that, be intentional with them. And God's sovereign over everything. He's directing all this stuff going around us, let him handle that stuff. Not that we can't, you know, play a role in that, not that we should just completely ignore it. But if we're focused on our family to start there, I think it's going to make huge difference. So. Amen. It's all that, man. God, there's so many things based on what you said there, but I mean, the idea that God has shaken things up is usually the sign that he is getting ready to sweep one thing away in preparation for another to like in every generation, there's a faithful remnant. And that's our call to fix our eyes on his hand of providence and be faithful. What has he called you to do right now? Right. Like where has he placed you at this current moment? And think about all that he's done for you to like that should increase your love for him, your dependence upon him. And think about like, start with this, start with the ultimate provision. Okay, there is again, providence. Start with the ultimate provision he's made for you in Christ. Like start there. Think about like Romans eight, okay? So for the elect, like for God's people, because God is God, what is Paul saying Romans chapter eight, after he expands on this amazing theology of what God has done to reconcile us to himself through the work of his son, right? Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the first born among many brothers, right? And the golden chain of redemption there, those of me called, he also justified, justified, glorified and all the rest. And then at the end of that amazing theological treatise, he says, what shall we say to these things? Like in other words, what's our response to God working out his divine purpose in the world and in our lives? If God is for us, who can be against us? In other words, I mean, recognizing his providence, providence is recognizing that God is for you. He's with you. It's a recognition that nothing we endure can separate us from his love and his perfect plan to make us perfect in Christ Jesus. That's why Paul lists all the things there in that list. And he goes to great lengths. He exhausts the vocabulary to say, no, honestly, it's nothing. Like nothing, trial, danger, famine, nakedness, sword, anything in creation, high, low, nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is to say that nothing can separate us from his purpose being brought to pass. Like God's not going to be thwarted. He's not going to be taken by surprise in this. Like the servant of the Lord will not grow faint or weary until he is established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law. And so remember the former things of old Isaiah 46, nine, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things not yet done saying, my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose. And if you're in Christ and God is accomplishing his purposes and you and in the world, then guess what? All things, even the hard things, the things that we might be in store for in our nation. Okay. This is not like the blind, optimist view of the future. Yeah. Okay. It could get really rough for us. Like let's just say that, but we have the promise in Romans chapter eight and in other places that God is going to bend all of reality, even those tough things to serve the good of his people, right? He causes all things to work together for the good of those that love him and are the called according to his purposes, right? Anything that happens to us is ultimately meant to serve us for the sake of making us look more like Christ and for advancing his purposes in the world. And I just want to end maybe on this right here and give us, you know, some practical application here of how Providence equips us for a future for the future. So I mean, we've defined what it is, see a little bit of it in scripture, but understanding Providence allows us to number one, walk by faith and not by sight. Yeah. Proverbs chapter three, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. We do a very good job of trusting the evidence of our eyes. Unlike Elijah, we need to have our eyes open to see the army of the Lord's hosts that the bad guys can't see surrounding us. We need to look with the eyes of faith on the promises of God so that we can see the victory and the victory is this, the meek and hair at the earth, like the wicked are the ones that are uprooted and thrown out eventually. So understanding Providence allows us to walk by faith and not by sight, which incidentally causes us to focus on doing the right thing and leaving the results to God. Do the right thing and leave the results to God because he's in control. What's your duty? Faithfulness, not trusting in horses or chariots for the battle is the Lord's. And then number three, understanding Providence allows us to fix our eyes heavenward on God's promises and reflect on all of his benefits. Where it's in John Fleevel states, it's the duty of the saints, especially in times of straits to reflect upon the performances of Providence for them in all the states and throughout all the stages in their life. Why? Because in reflecting on God's goodness to you, your heart is filled with thankfulness and it causes you to number four, understanding Providence allows us to wage our warfare with a heart of worship. If your heart is grateful and your heart is clean because you know what Christ has done to forgive you, your life will be carried out from a heart of worship and you will be able to fight from a place of worship and recognizing that God is in control, right, this understanding of Providence, thankfulness, gratefulness, all of that causes us to realize our dependence upon him for everything, which increases our love and our affections for him, which is what we need to fight. Right if our affections are not sold out for God, if our dependence is not completely on him, if it's in some way on our own self-reliance, on our own preparation, on our own abilities, then we're going to unravel and we won't be good leaders and we won't be good to our people. Yeah. So understanding Providence in a world that's going mad really is going like our nation is seemingly falling apart. Like I think we can all see that. So what does it look like to do what the Bible calls us to do, which is to be sober-minded, to have nerve, which just means to not let our emotions or our passions overwhelm us, to have a mind that governs our passions and to have God be the governor of our minds, right? So that's the need of the hour really. And I think understanding the doctrine of divine Providence can help us that if we would but meditate on some of these truths, I mean, yeah, I'm seeking a bill right here to text me. And you probably saw the DOJ released a list of like Homeland terrorist groups or whatever and all the pro-life groups are in there, which is just hilarious, not like national right to life. I think I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they're listed on the like the logos on there. And you saw even two likes the Susan P. Anthony, like they were like praising the GOP for removing the pro-life position from the platform. Yeah. I don't know if you saw it. I did not see that. But it's like, oh, thank you for taking out the core issue that we stand for. It's like just bizarre. Yeah. So you Zach is exactly right. That's fun. Nice. Be faithful. God does always preserve a remnant. Be faithful. You'll be part of that remnant, even if our nation goes by by be faithful. And trust him. And stop worrying. Be in the ears. Stop being fearful. Be courageous. I really believe I got this from Dr. White. He said this once like last year, maybe. I think that God's allowing a lot of this nonsense to run its course so that we can look back and be like, well, that was a dumb experiment. Obviously, we feel that way. But history will look back and say that was dumb. That didn't work. Yeah. New border is going to be just a blip on that radar, you know, in history. But be faithful and trust God and that's what we got to do. And so bury the fear, bury the worry and be faithful with your families. Trust God. And it's all we can do when you look at Gideon. I think that COVID really exposed, we've said this a lot, but COVID exposed a lot of our cultural idols, especially within the church. It exposed a lot of the fake pastors and the fake churches and the cowards for who they are. And God doesn't need a gazillion people. He just needs the faithful remnants that Gideon's army. We just read about that in family worship too. Yeah. They started out with how many? 30 something thousand? Yeah. And God whittled it down to arms. I might have been 20 or 30,000, but God whittled it down to 300, 300. And they surrounded their enemies who were far and away larger than they were and God threw them into a panic and scattered them. And guess why God chose those 300. I mean, obviously it was part of his plan, but there's a common, I mean, I taught on this passage once and I completely had it wrong the whole life. Again, the flammograph version of this just had me all messed up. I always thought that God chose the 300 that were had their face down to the water, not the ones that were lapping like dogs. I was like, no, read it again. He chose the ones that were bringing the water up to their mouths and lapping up like dogs and why? It's because they were vigilant. They were ready. They were watched here. They were watchful. Exactly. Sanfirm in the faith. Be watchful. Be strong. Act like men. That's exactly why God chose them. So be faithful. Be watchful. Put your head up. Quit burying it in the sand and hoping that life doesn't suck because that ain't gonna solve anything. Yeah. Be faithful. So that's it. Amen. That's it. We will do an episode. I don't know what Zach may have to take off. It may just be me. But if you want to stick around all access, or stick around for the after show and I'll bring some questions. I'll try to answer them. I think we got a question. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, man. He says 16 year old theology lover here can men have long hair first Corinthians 11. I just want to live in God's will. Thank you for your huge impact in my life. Thank you for blessing us. I'm not going to dive deep into that passage because it makes people want to fight. I will say that I believe that passage is primarily eschatological. And I would recommend actually Pastor Wade, apology Utah did an excellent little short video on that. We go to apology Utah on YouTube and look up that passage. I don't remember what it's titled, maybe head covering or something like that. We did an excellent, excellent little video on that. I would hold to the same position. Yeah. And there is something to be said, Liam, too, for, you know, we live in clown world where the lines are more blurry than they've ever been in terms of our androgynous feminized culture where the lines between men and women are not distinct. And so I would say just as a matter of practical godliness, the more you can look like a man in this culture, the more you can act like a man, of course, and the conduct and character that you embody that Luke was talking about from the verse in Corinthians, but also in your physical appearance, all the better if you can keep the lines clear. Yeah. Amen to that. Because that's the need of the hours clarity. Amen to that. Well, thank you, everyone. It's been a great show and we go, I won't be here next week, actually I leave next week for my sabbatical. So I'll be gone for two weeks. So I don't know what's going on, that should be here in the passage of, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All the, all access people, you're the best. You make this happen. If you have not got your free bonds in you account, please go to apologies to studios.com. You can sign up for that free, free 99 free Z's free zone. It's free, totally free, just got to sign up. And you have his entire digital library, Greg Monson, who is one of our heroes. And of course, the an, we love all of our people that support you and you're the best for that. You're helping us every day. I mean, there's so much going on literally every single day, trying to say babies and an abortion in our nation and we can't do it without the faithfulness of God's people supporting us. Anything you want to mention along those lines? I echo it. Okay. Well, we will be in Louisiana and Baton Rouge at Pastor Brian Gunter's Church first weekend I did in September, believe it's the sixth. So be watching for that if you're able to make it, be having a pastor's meeting there. And then I believe it's September 20th, whatever that third weekend is, we're going to be in North Dakota, which I'm excited about that we've not been there yet. So we're going to be. Be there, trying to end abortion in North Dakota as well. So that's all I got anything else there, Mr. Babyface McGee. Nope. Thanks for tuning in guys. Really appreciate it. I hope it was a blessing. All right. We're grateful for you all. All access people. See you on the other side. Peace. This is the Academy. I am Eli Ayala of Revealed Apologetics and I will be bringing a six part series on presuppositional apologetics. What is this called? The Apology Academy? It's just called the Academy. Okay. What's up everybody? My name is Pastor Jeff Durban and you're watching Collision Today. I'm going to be interacting with an atheist on TikTok. So here we go. Unsupervised and unhinged. Welcome back to Cultistry Aftermath. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Ask Me Anything. You are watching Apologia Radio's Aftershow exclusively for all access. Bye. (drum beats) [BLANK_AUDIO]
