Okay, so you're saying that because you read the Bible for 20 years and meditate upon it, no one has done that.

Maybe done that, but I certainly, I am among the top 1% who spend that much of meditation and reading scriptures.

You can assume that's why.

So that you are saying.

I. I just came up with some opinion, and then I try to find it on the scriptures.

It's not like that.

Okay, I have a question.

Does your arm hurt?

No.

No.

Because, I mean, you're patting yourself on the back so much.

I. I was afraid your arm might hurt.

You know, I was just, I mean, leaning on the wall.

Did you.

Did you know that pride is a sin?

It's actually like the number one sin.

That's okay.

I know.

I know all that.

Shaming tactics.

It's not a shaming tactic.

You just praised yourself.

Yeah.

Paul says you're.

You're in the top percent of all Christians in the world.

I should be blessed to be in your presence.

It's not.

You should be ashamed.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

This is Apologetics Live to answer your questions, your host from Striving For Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rapaport.

We are Live Apologetics Live, here to answer your most challenging questions you have about God and the Bible.

That is what we do here Thursday nights.

This is Apologetics Live.

I am your host, Andrew Rapoport, here to answer your most challenging questions.

And the way to ask those questions, well, go to apologetics live.com from there you'll be able to scroll down to the duck icon and at the duck icon, you can join us.

And any question, and I mean any question you have about God and the Bible, we can answer here.

Just remember, one thing I don't know is a perfectly good answer.

And with that, tonight's topic that we're going to get to is Christian nationalism.

I was hoping to have some co hosts with me, but none are here.

So I'm going to count on you as the audience.

Someone come in, ask some questions so we can have some good dialogue.

I actually don't like doing the shows all by myself, so.

But we do want to tackle this topic, but not politically.

I'm looking to see if we could address this.

Well, what's the name of the show?

Right.

Apologetics Live.

So can we handle this?

Can we discuss this instead of politically do it using apologetics?

That's going to be what we're going to look to do because this is a political issue, but it is also, well, a Christian faith issue.

And they kind of get Intermingled.

And so because of that I thought that we, we have.

I have a list of topics that we're going to be covering over the next several months and we wanted we looked at some Bible topics now we're going to look into some cultural topics.

We'll look at you know, religious movements and ministry, things like that as we continue throughout the year, well into next year.

But a good way to get your topic would be to email us if you want and you could just email us.

Email that you could get to us is just questions@sfe.bible.

yes, it's.bible not.com or.org and SFE stands for Striving for Eternity.

So just questions at SFE Bible.

And that will get those questions into the queue and we will just keep working through those that long list that we have.

We are, we're trying to answer the questions you might have.

So when we talk about Christian nationalism I want us to first look at some definitions because Christian nationalism, it is a topic where a lot of different people have a lot of different definitions.

And the reason I think that so many people have different definitions is really because it, it hasn't had a clear, a clear definition that was given for it.

And therefore lots of people are taking how it was originally used and they're trying to co opt it for themselves for what they're trying to do.

And so with that we have to recognize that when we use the term Christ nationalism it was.

It's something that was first is being used by the Marxists in America in an attempt to go after or make illegal Christianity.

This is the goal of it.

And this is why I don't actually like using the term.

And I understand that some have co opted the term.

We're going to get into discussing that.

But the idea of Christian nationalism is the idea that Christians want to make America a Christian nation as it specifically forcing everyone to be Christian.

Now right off the bat that is an irony because it shows that the left doesn't understand what Christianity is.

We are not Islam, we are not Muslims.

And I say that to say what you see in Islam is a desire to force everyone who is within a country to accept Islam to submit.

That's what Islam means.

And a Muslim is one who does submit.

And so they look to conquer countries is interesting.

I was just in Tennessee and there I was walking around town and met a couple from England and this couple was informing my bride and I about how it is there in England.

And they live in an area where there's many illegal or legal and illegal Muslim immigrants moving in and they could do whatever they want.

They can rape a 14 year old girl as this one gentleman was explaining and the police will not do anything about it.

In fact they'll arrest the 14 year old girl for reporting it.

That is where things have gone in Europe and they're quickly losing their countries because it is now where you can't have.

The Muslims don't like to have church bells being rung in England where there is a state religion and it's the church, it's the Anglican church, but the church bells cannot be rung.

And yet the, the Muslim call to prayer is, is played at, you know, on their sound speakers.

They will play that, you know, five times a day, blasting it in a Christian nation.

Now that's a Christian nation, meaning there is a Christian church.

That is the religion of the country here in America.

There was just an individual who basically was told by the mayor that it, because they're in, in, in his town the Muslim call to prayer is being blasted from the mosques.

And in that same town you're not allowed to have church bells ring, but the mosque can do a call to prayer and it is a violation of the noise ordinance because that morning prayer, they do it before, I think it was six o'.

Clock.

So someone put, filed a complaint.

Not only did that complaint go nowhere, but the mayor ended up saying if you don't like it, you don't belong in this town.

Get out.

What that is what they think Christians are.

See Christianity, Biblical Christianity, you cannot force someone to be a Christian.

Biblical Christianity is something that you believe, you convert, you go from being a someone who trusts in yourself or your good works and you recognize your sin before a holy God and you turn from trusting self or good works or your genealogy and you trust in what Jesus Christ did on the cross.

Being fully God, he could pay an eternal fine.

Being fully man, he could be a substitute for human beings.

And so this is the difference between Islam and Christianity, Biblical Christianity.

And we granted the, the Marxists don't make a difference between Catholicism, Baptist, Presbyterian, Jehovah Witness, Mormon.

I mean it's all just, they lump it all as Christianity.

So when they say Christian nation, they're they're just lumping all of that together.

They are not really making specific differences.

And so what we see is that there is an idea that many have that Christianity is like Islam.

And so when we examine this, we have to first recognize that Christianity is not something that the state can just declare on people.

Okay, so you could not ever truly have a Christian nation where everyone would be Christian except for maybe the Millennial kingdom.

Okay, that, and for those who are not pre millennial, well then you'll never have, you don't believe there'll ever be.

But, but the idea being is we would not see where everybody is a Christian.

That would be what it takes to be a Christian nation.

Now there could be a nation that gets its laws based on Christianity, but unlike the Old Testament where we have specific laws for the nation of Israel, we don't have the same sort of thing for the church because the church is under a different function.

And so I'm saying this to say when we want to define Christian nationalism, the world has created the term so that they could look to say that well, Christians are looking to cause insurrection.

Christians are looking to force everyone to believe in Christianity.

They're trying to make it the national religion and, and make it illegal to, to doing, to want to worship any other God or no God at all.

Now many Christians have taken that term and they have co opted it.

They've taken from what the leftist intended it to be.

And what they end up trying to do is to give it a new meaning.

That, and there's been several books that have been written on it, several different definitions.

So there's not one clear definition.

And so what you see when people use the term Christian nation or Christian nationalism, you need to get into defining what someone means by that.

Now again I'm going to say I don't like to use the term period because of its origins.

The, the fact that the left wants to use it to outlaw Christianity.

That's the irony is that they say they use this term to try to convince people that Christians want to take over the country and outlaw anyone that doesn't worship Jesus Christ.

And they're creating this term and using it so that they can outlaw Christianity.

Interesting.

They don't see the hypocrisy because politically the people that we're referring to there are complete blind to their own behavior.

And they justify anything they do.

I mean look at the shooting of Charlie Kirk and, and they justify it saying well, he deserved it because he was a racist and he said, well, hurtful things and he, he spoke hatred.

They can't actually produce any evidence of these claims.

But it's really what it is, is he preached hate because he said things they disagree with.

And to the left they believe that when you disagree with them, that is hate.

Now I want you to see that that is what the left says.

Why?

Because the Right.

Does the same thing.

Christians do the same thing.

There are those who in within Christianity who want to, every, who want to go to the extreme.

And I, I dealt with this recently on Twitter where somebody and I said that this will be the, this tweet.

I, I, I didn't save it so that I could read all the back and forth I should have.

But basically this person said that we, we as in America need to outlaw and put in prison any Muslim or Mormon.

This was right after the, the person that burned down, that ran the car into the Mormon church and set it on fire.

And he's trying to say that there is a we, we are to be that God is against all evil and therefore he would be against any false religion and we should outlaw the false religion.

So this is the other extreme right.

This is, this is people that actually are buying into what the left is saying Christian nationalism is, they're taking it on.

And they're not saying we just, we want America to be filled with Christians or based on Christian values.

No, they're saying that Christianity should be the only religion in America or in the world.

And they, they're acting very much under the same laws of Sharia, by the way.

So, and we're going to get into the question of should we be looking to have America have Christianity as the only nation, only religion.

Now, America wasn't founded with a national religion.

In fact, it was explicitly founded without a national religion, but the freedom to worship in whatever religion.

And so that is one thing that makes you, the United States of America, different from other countries.

There isn't a state religion.

So I, I'm, I say this to say that when we look at this, it's, it is hard to define because so many people have used different definitions.

Now Jesse Heller is saying, I'm having a hard time defining Christian nationalism myself.

And this is the problem that I see is because so many people have different definitions.

And so when you have that, typically what you want to do is go to the who first started, came up with the term and how was it initially defined?

And if we do that?

Well, that's why I don't like the term because it was from Marxists that want to outlaw Christianity.

So I don't want to use the term.

Do I believe that we should have laws in America that reflect Christian values?

Of course.

Do I think that the laws in America should reflect the Old Testament law?

No, not necessarily.

Because those laws were specifically to a nation of Israel.

And so what you have is you have the case that these Laws for Israel.

Some of them are known what we refer to as kosher laws or holiness laws.

The word holy means separate.

And so the idea of these laws were to keep Israel separate from the other nations.

Why?

So that there would be a line, a seed from Abraham that we would know as Messiah, or in Greek, Christ, so that there would be this promise of a child of Abraham that would come.

How was that line kept pure?

It was through the holiness laws.

Now that Messiah has come, we do not need those laws that kept Israel separate from the nations waiting for Messiah, because Messiah has come.

And so that is something that we, we have to recognize is that there were some laws for Israel that were, well, for Israel.

And we have to take that into account and recognize that those laws were not for all people.

So one of the questions I want to ask with this is, was America founded as a Christian nation?

The answer to that is no.

Now I know I have.

I have a hat that I got.

I kind of like it.

It says make.

Make America Christian again.

But see, America was never a Christian nation.

It was a nation founded on Christian values and principles.

And there is a difference between them.

A Christian nation would say that Christianity is the religion of the land.

And when you're born in America, you're born as a Christian.

Now define Christian, because if you're going to say it's just Christian, who gets to define that?

Is it going to be Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, Evangelical, Mormon, Jehovah Witness?

They all say they're Christian.

So what now defines Christian?

In fact, in the founding of the country, you.

You had men who were Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, you had a whole mix there.

And so what we end up seeing is that we can't say that there was one Christian nation, one denomination, if you will, that they would be able to say this is what the Christian values are based off of.

No, it was a more general view of Christianity, even such that a man like Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, two men who were deists, they weren't Christian, but they still spoke like Christians.

They use Christian language because they needed to fit into society.

And so the.

There is a difference in what some would call Judeo Christian values, meaning Old and New Testament values.

The country was based off of those, but we can't say that they were specifically a Christian nation in its founding.

Now, as we look at that, I want to go back to this gentleman on Twitter.

And the reason being is this individual's view was that we must outlaw off false religions.

He was arguing that this is what the Bible commands to Put away evil and false religion is evil.

The question I tried to ask, and, and this is always the hard part when you're dealing with social media.

You have people, as I talked about the, the Muslims or the Marxists, there are those that profess to be Christian and are just as blind as the Marxists, not seeing their own behavior, their own actions.

So, and they justify their own views and ignore, well, even scripture, as I kept pointing out to this individual because I asked him, how come if his view is the view that Christ came to bring, why did Christ never condemn the Roman Empire and the false religion there?

See, he did condemn over and over again, very often the Jewish religious leaders because they were over the Jewish people and they had a responsibility to teach God's word.

And they were not doing that.

That was the issue.

They were supposed to be representatives of God and they were misleading God's people.

Now when I say God's people there in the Old Testament, I'm using that in a broad sense, not saying they are God's people as we would see in the New Testament.

God's people, New Testament we would say are believers.

But God's people in the Old Testament is more reflected referring to the nation of Israel.

And it could be, it would be made up of believers and unbelievers.

So the term is used differently between Old and New Testament.

That sometimes causes confusion.

And so what we see when we look at what this individual is saying is he is justifying that he, he just doesn't like the other religions in the world.

So they're evil and we must put a, put them away.

But see, Christ didn't condemn Rome.

He never, he never said to, to overthrow Rome.

Nope.

Neither did any of the apostles.

You didn't see them condemning and saying we must, we must force Rome to be Christian.

In fact, time and time again, when you have seen that with Constantine, for example, he just declares we're, we're a Christian nation.

Everybody's now Christian.

Again I said, you can't just dictate that from the government and say everyone is Christian.

It, it doesn't work that way.

Christianity is something where God brings someone to repentance.

So every single time that people have tried to mandate Christianity or what, you know, whatever religion, but we'll stick with Christianity.

What have we seen is unbelievers who start using Christianity for political means.

And you see a corruption of, of Christianity every time because you're putting, you look at Constantine, that, that is what started to form what we now know of as the Roman Catholic Church because you had unsaved men that saw a nice cushy job of being a bishop, because Constantine the emperor would, would give you free housing.

You get a salary, you get a cushy job.

So they went into that, but they didn't know the Bible because their eyes were still veiled.

And then they become men that sit in councils to discuss and decide what, what is Christian orthodoxy.

So this is what ends up happening.

If you were to declare that America is a Christian nation and say, okay, everyone's going to be a Christian now, you're still going to have politicians that may pretend to be Christian, profess Christianity, but they are, they don't possess Christ, they're not actual Christians.

And therefore you're going to have people who are going to use Christianity for their political ends.

And in doing so, it's not the politics that gets lessened, that gets strengthened and it's the Christianity that will be weakened and corrupted because you're dealing with unsaved people.

So you're never truly going to get a Christian nation other than when Christ himself reigns on earth.

So there's nowhere where the Bible tells us to overthrow governments and force them to put away false religions.

Now Israel came into the land to conquer and were told to wipe out the people because of their belief in idolatry and these false gods.

But why?

Because that land was given to Israel as a promise.

And it was, they were to be separate there.

They were not to be there.

And why did God say it?

Because if they did not remove these people, they would fall into idolatry.

And what happened in Israel's history, they fell into idolatry and therefore they were led astray.

They ended up spending many years in captivity, 70 years in Babylonian captivity.

And that was to curb them of ever believing in idols again, which was successful because they got into illegalism, they created a, a new religion, a new form of Judaism, Rabbinic Judaism and, and it's a man's works based system.

So what you see is the fact that you will never have a truly Christian nation.

Now let me deal with Jesse is saying post male position would not promote a top down Christian nationalism, but a bottom up Christian nationalism in evangelizing the nations.

That would be true.

The difference here between Christian nationalism, the way many are talking about as this guy on Twitter, is that the government should just start outlawing other Christians.

So from the top you go down.

He's saying that in post millennialism the view is that we evangelize and as people be more and more people become Christian.

That will then lead to the government becoming Christian.

I have said for a long time that's, that's not actually just a post mill view.

As a pre millennialist, I have said for decades that if we were as the church more active in evangelizing, maybe God would bring more people to repentance.

And in bringing more people to repentance, the, the politicians would follow suit.

In other words, it's Christianity from bottom up and we would have, yes, we would probably have a more moral country because people would not do the things, the politicians wouldn't make laws that like they do now because it would never be accepted.

They would never get voted in.

And so that will follow with the majority.

So if the majority is Christian, they will follow suit with that.

And so in that sense I could agree with that.

But that's not, that's not so that's not unique to primal, to post millennialism it is.

I think anyone can recognize that that behavior would happen.

But I would still say that there's going to a future physical thousand year millennium where Christ will rule, adds the seed of David as the son of David as he promised to literally rule on earth as king.

And so I just don't want us to think that.

Well, post mill is it has it right because that's something that I think every male, post male, pre male can all hold to the that view.

Jesse.

So what we have to recognize, and a lot of people do think that Christian nationalism is within the post mill circles, post millennialism.

It's not, I don't think that's really true.

I think there's, it's spread out between all, all different views because I think a lot of it is you have a lot of people that are trying to, to well, they want to make America great again.

And the way to make America great again would be based on Christian values.

This is a thing Charlie Kirk recognized, and I've mentioned this the past couple episodes, that Charlie Kirk realized to change the country back because the left realized to change the country.

They need to change the culture for us to return it to biblical values, to return it to normalcy.

We do need to change the country back, but we need to change the culture.

But the only way to do that, as Charlie Kirk recognized, is based on Christian values.

And so we need Christianity values for that.

And so I don't think the Bible teaches us that we should be forcing the government to outlaw other religions to you know, put to death or put in prison anyone that's from another religious system.

And that's what Many would think.

Now I want to deal with some passages of scripture that we look at with this.

And the first would be Romans 13 because this is one where.

And you can also turn another passage would be in first Peter.

But I, I just one is enough.

I want to look at Romans 13.

It's the clearest because this is Peter giving instructions to how to deal with the authorities over them.

Now this is the authorities.

Where there is Emperor worship, the Emperor was seen as God.

And therefore what you see is you, you, you see that.

If the view that some have of Christian nationalism for America was the same for Paul's day, would he say the things he said in Romans 13?

Would he command the things he commanded and give the instructions he gave to the believers in Rome under the Roman system that had its false deities and and its views of Emperor worship.

It says Romans chapter 13, verse 1.

Every person is to be subject to the governing authorities.

Now stop there.

He doesn't that be subject is a, is an imperative.

It's command.

He does not say when they agree with God.

He says we are to be subject to governing authorities, not when we like what they govern all governing authorities.

The governing authority that he's speaking of is the Roman pagan worship emperor worship system.

And so what we see is he says every person is to be subject to the governing authorities.

For there is no authority from, except from God.

And those which exist are established by God.

Which means these false authorities, the false religious systems that are authorities in, in different countries, they're established by God.

So every Arab country that is submitting to Sharia, they exist because God established them.

And this would say you are to submit to that.

So if we, you live in an Arab, in a Muslim country, submit to the governing authorities, should you try to change it where you can?

Yes.

Should you try to leave to.

To be in a, a place that doesn't have that and has a more Christian values?

Yes, you could.

But the fact is he doesn't say overthrow that country.

In fact, he says the kind of the opposite in next verse.

Therefore, whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God and they who opposed will receive condemnation on themselves.

Oh, so this guy on Twitter who's saying that we must outlaw all these other religions and be becomes the question, well, who is going what religion then is good?

Is it going to be Evangelical broad?

Is it going to be Presbyterian, Reformed, Baptist, Reformed, Baptist?

I mean who, who gets to say right, well this says that we shouldn't be resisting them.

Because if you resist the authority and in America the Authority of this country is different.

It's the Constitution.

It's not the president or Congress.

They're not the law.

They make law.

But we have a judicial branch that is to take a look at those laws and look back at the founding document, the Constitution, to see if it is, if it's legal.

So a Constitution is the founding document which clearly states that we're not a country based on a religion, but the freedom to worship.

So there, it says there will not be a Christian nation or any religious nation in America to resist that is to.

Well, according to this passage, to oppose the ordinance of God.

He says, for rulers.

This is verse 3.

For rulers are not a curse of fear, sorry, a cause of fear for God, for good behavior, but for evil.

Do you want to have no fear of authority?

Do what is good and you will have the praise of the same.

So what do you do?

He's speaking of an evil government.

What does he say?

Do what's right, do what's good, and they'll praise you.

Okay, and.

And that is the thing that we end up seeing.

This is no different that we could see elsewhere in scripture.

I mentioned first Peter, but let's go to the Old Testament, Psalm 2.

This is looking forward to Christ as the Messiah reigning.

But.

But what the psalmist says is, why are the nations in an uproar and people devising vain things?

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take their counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us.

He who sits in the heavens laughs.

The Lord scoffs at them.

Then he will speak to them in his anger and terrify them in his fury, saying, but as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain.

By the way, that hasn't happened yet.

Where was that post?

Let's see, Jesse had said, speaking of Jesus being, you know, as being king, he says, Matthew 28:18, all authority has been given to me, given to Jesus from heaven and earth.

So Jesse is saying, this is the words of the risen Jesus.

I agree with that.

It is the words of the risen Jesus, but that doesn't mean he reigned the way he was promised to reign.

Right?

That's what we have in Psalm 2, that he will reign as king.

He will be installed as king on Mount Zion.

Okay, that hasn't happened yet.

And so what you see here is, you don't see in the psalmist saying, to overthrow the governments we don't like, and, and take, take them no, that's not what he says here.

Okay.

In Proverbs 14:34, it says righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace of any people.

And this is back to what I was saying earlier.

If we are to share the gospel, if we were to proclaim the gospel, the more we do that righteousness, will it exalt the nation.

We see this in, in Israel's history.

So when we, when we look at this, we have to recognize that the Bible does not tell us to overthrow the government, but to submit to it.

And I think that personally, some people have too much of a view of their time on earth.

And because of that they're looking for a, to create heaven on earth.

They, they, while they're alive, they want to try to create heaven here.

This life for the Christian is a time of sanctification.

It is a time of us getting molded more and more into the image of Christ.

And the moment we die, we, our sinful body is done away with.

We no longer have the sinful flesh and now we'll be glorified.

But until then, this is the sanctifying work.

Some people, I think, just want it easy.

And they want to, they, they want earth to have no sin and they don't want to have to have any suffering of sacrifice and sanctification.

But that, that suffering is the work of sanctifying in our life.

And I think too many people are fixed on the temporal things of this world rather than the eternal.

That is what is meant when we say here we're striving for eternity.

We are striving for eternity.

It is having a mindset of what is eternal rather than temporal.

Looking forward to the next life.

Not trying to make this life comfortable for us, but dealing whatever the Lord has for us.

And instead of trying to make comfortable decisions, maybe we have to make things that make us uncomfortable because that's what God is going to use to make us more like Him.

Different type of mindset.

And so this is a thing we have to recognize now.

Striving for striving in grace.

Not familiar with who that is, but I wonder what.

You know, maybe it's similar to concept that we have here at Striving for attorney, but it says so is your Christian national and so striving in grace.

I'm not, not 100 sure I understand the question.

Maybe you want to come in and we could discuss it but.

Or you could type it out and we can understand more, but I just don't understand how you're using it.

So Is, is my, you know, so.

So you are for Christian national.

I don't know.

I think I'm for a nation that is based on Christian values.

That's not a Christian nation.

Oh, he's saying here.

Sorry, wasn't looking at my typing.

I have been guilty of that more than once, I must admit.

So what I've tried to do here is, is not get so much of the political side, but I'm trying to attack this or address this from an apologetics viewpoint of what does scripture say do?

Would I like America to be run by Christians?

I mean, true Christians.

Yes, but look at what happens when you actually have true Christians in government.

Okay.

You have a bunch of people that don't like them because they don't agree 100% like you do.

We have such tribalism within Christianity.

You had a man like Mike Pence who was, who is, I should say a Christian or Mike Johnson, who's Speaker of the House, who is a Christian.

Now, both people who I've mentioned, I know people who know them personally and very, very well, and they will, they have confirmed that yes, their, their life does match their Christian testimony.

But you see, there's a bunch of people that just don't like the way Mike Pence, or, you know what, what he might have done with the, the whole issue on January 6, and therefore they want to throw him out.

Now, all the people that were arguing they want a Christian as president, did invite for Mike Pence in the, in the primary, right.

They went with a third party, many of them.

You had someone that was actually a Christian.

You see, this is where I find when I would talk to these people that they didn't actually hold to the values they say they hold to.

And so when you have a guy like, you know, Mike Johnson, who's Speaker of the House, you have a bunch of people that want to throw him out because.

Let me just answer Melissa's thing.

She said, I thought Mike Pence was Roman Catholic.

No, I mean, this is the.

That's a common claim that everyone gets Charlie Kirk, he was Roman Catholic.

No, he wasn't.

You know, but, you know, this is the issue is when you have a guy like Mike Johnson who's, who's speaker of the House right now, people.

People don't like maybe his, the Christianity he holds to because he doesn't believe everything that they hold too.

So they say, oh, he's not really Christian.

Or more.

What I'm finding is they don't like that he is not pushing for the politics that they Want.

So they say he's not really Christian.

Now that's a bigger problem.

Striving in grace is, is asking a question.

What about the NAR which stands for New Apostolic Reformation Camp?

They, they seem like they're really into Christian nationalism.

Yes, they, I would say think they would be in Christian nationalism much the way that post millennialists would be in Christian nationalism because they believe that their Christianity, their activity in Christianity of evangelism is going to bring about a Christian age where the whole world is, is Christian and living in Christian nations.

And so that is the, that, that, that is that an outworking of it.

It where they want to take dominion over the earth and all its seven mountains.

You know that what they call the Seven Mountain Mandate, where they're going to take over the, the media and take over the governments and all these things.

Yeah, that is, that is where they're at.

But I would, I would say that that doesn't mean it's biblical.

So you know, so as we look at it, I, I don't think America was founded as a Christian nation.

So how, how should we engage the culture without compromising the gospel?

That becomes the question.

This is where I think as Christians we need to be focused is not in trying to change the government do I want us to have in America.

We have the freedom and the responsibility to, to vote and we have, we have the responsibility to hold our congressmen accountable and you know, our legislature and to vote according to our conscience.

So we do have that.

But you see, our job is to be about the business of sharing the gospel.

Okay, let me just make this clear since maybe Jesse is saying seven Mountain mandate does not equate equal post post mill.

I, I don't think I said in that.

I don't think I even implied that Jesse.

But if it came out across that way, then thanks for the correction.

No, they're not the same.

Both are looking to, both are having a similar thing of trying to change the government to, to bring about a Christian nation or widespread Christianity through their evangelism.

But you have both sides with.

You have one that has a seven Mountain mandate.

You have some in post mill that want to, you know, bring back theonomy.

And so you do have those that are looking to in a different theology bring about a similar thing, but they're not equal.

I agree.

So I think back to what I was saying.

I think that our responsibility is to focus on sharing the gospel as believers.

That is our mission.

Our mission is not to change politics.

Our mission is to share the gospel and so how do we, how do we engage culture without compromising the gospel, focus on the gospel and not changing culture?

I think the culture will change when more people repent and believe the gospel.

And so that would be the thing I would say we do.

Now, does that, does that mean we shouldn't get involved in politics?

No, I think that I'm very glad that we have men like, you know, Mike Johnson who are devout Christians and are in office.

Okay.

Hexef is similar thing.

Now, he's not, you know, he wouldn't be holding to the same views I would hold to, but I'm glad that as a believer, he's there holding prayer meetings and with other believers and Bible studies with other believers.

I'm glad to see that even though he's Presbyterian post mill.

Right.

So.

And so because of that, I, I do see, I, I put a thing of.

What we want to cover is the dangers of replacing spiritual revival with political reform.

And this is the thing that I, as, as we address this apologetically, we, we have to address it from the spiritual side, not the political side.

And therefore I do see that possible danger of confusing those two.

We, we had a, a memorial for Charlie Kirk, and it did, it seemed like a revival might have happened.

I, I was hopeful.

You, you had even those who are Catholics that were preaching a better gospel message than many that claim to be Christian, you know, not Catholic.

And so it is something that I see that was, were we going to have a revival?

Well, I don't.

I will now that we've been far enough away from it.

I don't see it that it was a revival.

It seemed like it could have been a lot of people talking about it there.

Many people were coming to church.

We have several that came to church at our church, and they're still coming.

And so the, the thing is, is that we see, we see people who are confusing the two even with that.

You see people who were taking that focus of the memorial and right afterwards, they were trying to use that to push for political reform.

Well, then, now it's not, it's not really a revival.

It's a political action committee, you know, and so a revival is going to start with repentance, Mass repentance of people repenting of their sin, turning to Christ.

And so we are, we are seeing some of that.

Is it widespread?

Time will tell.

But I don't, I haven't seen it since, since then.

And so I have to say no, I think it may not be.

Am I glad to see the political reform that turning point is doing.

Sure, because I'd like to see a more conservative nation based on laws that are more in line with scripture.

But that's not my focus as the Christian.

My focus is on sharing the gospel.

Now, I'm not opposed to those who do work in the realm of political reform, and we do need Christians doing that, but that shouldn't be the goal of every Christian.

I think the goal of every Christian should be sharing the gospel, and the political reform will follow.

You know, as we saw in Proverbs, righteousness exalts a nation.

And if we have more people repenting and being righteous, I think the nation will be exalted.

So the last question that I wanted to cover is, can patriotism, Patriotism coexist with biblical Christianity?

I think it can, and I think there could be a danger.

How's that for an answer?

Okay, obviously you can.

You can be a Christian Christian and be patriotic to your country, even if your country's Muslim, because Paul was a Christian who said to submit to his government, his governing authorities.

So we end up seeing there that there is a.

A place for Christianity to coexist with patriotism.

However, it only works when the.

The focus is Christianity and not the patriotism.

If you're more focused on the patriotism, then you have a Christless culture.

Oh, maybe more moral, but it's still Christless.

A Christless patriotism is not founded on any firm foundation.

It is what the Marxists did when they changed the country to be more Marxist.

They created a culture that didn't have a foundation.

It was a cult culture hanging in thin air.

And that is why Charlie Kirk had such an impact, because he grounded the change of culture in scripture.

So that becomes the preeminent idea.

So the preeminent idea is the Christianity, not the government, not the reform, not the patriotism.

And so that would be how I would end up seeing these things.

Right.

I'm gonna put up here a question or a statement from Saving in Grace.

He said, I wish Pete Hessef.

That would get Trump to kick out Paula White.

Yeah, I'm in favor of that.

Mike Johnson, too.

Say, hey, like, she really.

I know you.

You know, she's.

She's good friends with you, but she doesn't, you know, she doesn't really represent Christianity, but she's a heretic.

Kathy is saying what I was trying to say.

Well, she said, what would.

It took me many words to say, and she said it in just three.

Conservative without Christ.

Yeah, that's what it becomes.

And, oh, and Jesse's saying a similar thing here.

He says, yes, Christless conservatism is determining is the detrimental to our nation.

And I agree with that.

Melissa asked the question, I haven't read it fully, so I'll just read it with y'.

All.

She said, if my family member has a streaming account and they let me use it, is that considered stealing?

What if they pay extra to have me on their account?

Okay, so no, wouldn't be stealing unless the, their streaming account is, is really clear that you can only use it for one purpose.

For example, we use, we're using EV Mux and we have different people that are on the team and we could set up multiple streams and they can set up their own streams and do what they want.

When we were using Streamyard, we had a team and I could use it for what we're doing at Striving for Eternity.

I could have some of the other guys use it for what they want to do.

Right, if they're on the team because I'm paying for that account.

Now most of the accounts will have a limit on the number of hours you can stream or, or things like that.

So it depends how much they're paying for.

But if you're, if they're paying for it and they're letting you use it, that's fine, you know, as long as that's within the, the rules of that streaming account.

So if you have a streaming account, however, that is that, that says you can only have one user and you're sharing a, and a login or if they charge you per user and to save money they're, you're both sharing the same login, then that might be considered stealing.

Okay, so in that case you might need to pay for two logins.

Now if it's something, you know, before Streamyard had the team set up, we did have the other co host.

We all logged into the same account.

Why?

Well, we did it because it was the only way everyone would be able to share the comments that come up that we share online.

And so with that, yes, we were sharing it, but we weren't doing that to avoid paying extra because they didn't, they didn't have that set up.

And so because of that it wasn't stealing.

Right?

Now they allow for teams and we, that's, we work within that and, and I actually had appealed to them to do that because I didn't want everyone using the same email or same login information.

So I hope, I hope that is helpful for you, Melissa.

And as you're hearing this is one of the reasons I like to have my co hosts in because as I speak for a while my voice starts to get raspy.

And so this is something that I found is coming with age being that I speak for, you know, all, all day long.

It's what I do.

Therefore, as I get older my vocal cords get weaker and I can't, I can't do two three hour talks anymore.

And so, so for that I'm going to end up ending the show a bit earlier.

But we do want to give a quick word about some things coming up.

I do want to let you know this next weekend if you're watching live.

October 16th to the 19th, 2025, I will be at Fight Laugh Feast.

I know it's not the my typical crowd.

It might be more Jesse's, I don't know.

He's kept arguing for Postmill.

But you know, I'm Baptist, they're Presbyterian who run the conference.

I'm pre mill, they're post mill.

And so you know.

But there are still things that we can see that the thing I like about Fight Left Feast is really the name does define it well.

A bunch of guys get together who don't agree theologically.

We argue over our theology in a fun way.

We laugh together.

Then we go out of dinner.

And I like that.

I like when we able to have some great discussion like that.

This is a bit at Last minute but October 24th to 26th I will be going to the Jesus and Politics conference.

Now I'm not going to be since it was last minute, I'm not going to be speaking at the conference.

I may they made me put me up in the Q A panel.

I'm going to go there to introduce folks to striving for eternity.

And then I will be preaching at Syracuse Baptist Church on Sunday.

And so that is in Syracuse, not New York, Syracuse, Indiana.

So if you're in that area, please check that out.

I'd love to see you if you do come and you are listener of this show.

Come up, say hello so I get to to meet you.

So Jesse says love you bro.

I. I love you too, Jesse.

You know we're both going to agree on the other side of heaven in our theology for sure.

And so just let you know, give a word for our sponsors.

MyPillow is have been our longtime sponsor and so I do want to encourage you with Christmas coming.

It is a great Christmas present especially for that person who you just don't know what to get them.

Getting them a nice pillow that's going to change their sleep.

Or even better yet, the mattress topper.

If you want really love them, you get them that.

But if you go get them a pair of slippers, robe, things like that, we give the bath towels or the dish cloths as gifts, some to, some for Christmas.

So we, we.

I get a lot of my Christmas gifts or my pillow gifts for especially for those.

You just don't know who to get things for.

It it becomes a nice gift.

And so if you go to mypillow.com, use the promo code SFE it stands for Striving for Eternity.

That lets them know that you heard about them from us and that gets you not only a great discount, but it gets us to have them continuing to sponsor us, which we greatly appreciate.

Also what I consider the best bible software out there is Lagos Bible software.

I use it heavily.

I have a lot of books there with within that and over 60,000 books.

Actually.

I've been working at my Lagos library for a very long time.

But if you go to lagos.comsfe lagos.comsfe in the past there used to be really, really expensive and if you own the logos, you know that.

But maybe you said, you know, I've always wanted to get a larger library.

I just couldn't afford afford it.

Well, you now can get subscriptions and with the subscriptions you can get a lot of books, but you're basically paying for them every month or every year or if you're like me, I want to save as much money as possible.

So I pay every two, I pay every other year.

So I pay for two years up front.

It gets me the biggest discount.

And if you do that, you could, you could get it for.

I think we figured it to be six to nine, seven to nine dollars a month if you pay for two years upfront.

I think the monthly is like $13 at the lowest one.

And depending how many books you want when you buy the subscription, they add different books.

But it's the set of books that they have for that plan.

If you stop paying, you lose the books.

Right?

That's the difference between kind of renting them versus owning them.

You really.

The subscriptions are more like a lease type thing.

But it does get you those books if you, if you want to have them.

So maybe you want to consider getting yourself a great library.

Go to lagos.comsfe get yourself a subscription today and that would be very helpful.

Melissa is saying praying for your your voice to be better.

Just pray that I get younger.

It's it is going to be sun.

I'm going to live with the rest of my life life as I've done a lot of open air for a many, many years.

It just has, you know, it's when you overuse something, it gets weaker.

So Kathy says, I appreciate your time, Andrew, and thank you again for the good content and some teaching.

We'll pray for you giving a message at these conferences.

So I do appreciate it.

And I will say this, if you, if you want to help us out, you could contact us at striving for eternity.org and maybe talk to your pastor or if you are the pastor, talk to your other elders or deacons and have us come out to your church and do a weekend seminar.

Maybe you don't want me, maybe you want some of the better speakers we got.

We have four different speakers.

And so we, then we're spread around the US So we might have someone in your area.

And so whether it be Dan Kraft who is in Washington, the seven foot apologist, or Aaron Brewster who you've seen here regularly, who's in North Carolina, or Anthony Russo who's been on here before, who is another speaker.

And, and he's down south, I think he's also in North Carolina.

North or South, I forget which one.

And then I am in, well, the communist country of New Jersey, but I'll flee that country to come to your town gladly to preach because anytime I can get out of New Jersey, it's a good thing.

So I hope that this has been helpful for you.

I hope that, that you learned a lot, that you got a lot out of this.

Now, I said that I'm going to fight LA Feast, which means I will not be here next week.

And unless I can convince my co hosts to do a show, which right now with their schedules, it's not looking like that's going to be likely.

So there may be no show next week.

All right.

So just keep that in mind.

I'm saying that now so that those of you who like to send me messages and go, is there a show next week?

And you're here, I know you're watching.

And you go, hey, I'm going to ask if there's a show next week.

Well, there probably won't be.

A sure way to know if there is a show next week is if you go to apologeticslive.com I always update it.

And so if it still has the old information by Thursday, there's no show.

I'm going to try to, when we don't have a show, put it up there and say, no show.

We're returning whatever day.

So Jesse says, thank you, brother.

Thank you.

Thankful for you.

Well, I'm thankful for you because if you weren't here in the audience, I'd just be talking to myself, and that would be boring because I don't want to hear myself speak.

So want to remind you guys, as we do every week, to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God, and we'll see you next time.