Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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I'm your host Lincoln Steed,
until recently after 22 years,
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editor of Liberty magazine,
and my guest is Ed Cooke.
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He's a researcher or writer
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or a minister of
religion based in Texas.
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And you have a doctorate
in Church-State Studies
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from Baylor University?
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That's correct.
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So that's a
pretty good sheepskin
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to be on this program.
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Thank you.
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But let's talk
about some current events.
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Sure. Or pretty current.
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It's not too
long as we record this
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since Washington was
transfixed by an event
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just before the inauguration
where an unruly mob,
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really not that unruly,
many of them had an idea.
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They were pre-trained
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and planned to
get up to nonsense,
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perhaps take
hostages, perhaps worse.
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And they stormed
into the chamber there,
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the temple of Liberty I
think as Nancy Pelosi called it.
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Yep.
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And almost brought
down our government
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and almost stopped
the process of government.
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What are your thoughts on that?
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Because, you know, I
saw that, it's like 9/11,
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but what did I see?
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It was something so
jarring with reality
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and our concept of freedom
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and the orderly
process of governance
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that I could hardly
get my head around it.
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Well, you know,
from my perspective,
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I was shocked.
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I mean, just outright, as
soon as I read in the news,
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what was happening
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and not only the
aspect of challenging
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the democratic process
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of a duly
elected incumbent, right?
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Coming in, President Biden,
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but also the aspect
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of the impact that it
had on the nation's capital,
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shutting down a lot
of the traffic in and out
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around that area.
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The inciting of a
protest, police forces involved.
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I believe I even read
in an article in the news
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about the FBI, you
know, having gotten involved
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and had sent out
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some kind of a
pre-warning preemptive notice
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to the local police forces,
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I think at least a day before.
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And I don't know whether
they kind of dismissed it
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or played it down,
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but nonetheless as
obvious they weren't prepared.
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Yeah. It wasn't
business as usual.
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But let me tell you what
really got me on that day.
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The whole scenario was shocking
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and I've lived longer
than I ever thought I would,
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but a lot of
this type of behavior
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hacks me back in my mind too,
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the Watergate experience
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that's where Washington
was rocking on his foundations,
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but things were a
little different this time.
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And I could
summarize it by what happened.
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I think it was a little
later we saw the footage
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inside the chamber,
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a bunch of these rowdies
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perhaps to use a
more of an Australian term
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gathered around near
the speaker's podium.
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And they had a
little prayer service.
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Yeah. Yes. You remember that?
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And they brought, invoked
God's blessing on their endeavor
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and the freedom
and all the rest,
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used a lot of the same language
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that we're used to reading
in the history books as this,
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you know, this godly nation
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establishing God's
rule, which is not true.
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I mean, it's not ever
been structurally true,
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but it's been easy in
normal history to invoke God
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and His blessing
on national endeavors.
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But here, these were, you
can say they were rioters,
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but I think it was a
little more calculated.
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These were people
with an agenda to overthrow
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what they saw as
a corrupt government
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and here
installed a godly vision
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at the center of power.
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In fact, wasn't
there one individual
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that was there he called
himself the Shaman, Q Shaman?
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Yeah.
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He wasn't one of
the ones praying though,
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but yes, to me that was
sort of a pagan intrusion,
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but this was an
attempt to almost a prayer.
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Well, it was a
prayer service there,
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asking God's blessing
for what they were doing.
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Now, Abraham Lincoln,
remember what he said,
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remember his
statement about the civil war?
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I do read, there
are several I say.
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You know, both sides
prayed to God in this matter.
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He couldn't answer
both their prayers.
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So, you know,
people easily invoke God
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either the Old Testament
or, you know, foreign gods.
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Gods are invoked
in times of stress.
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That's not unusual.
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But in a country
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with a generally
Christian population,
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that was quite jarring,
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I think to see it invoked
on the side of revolution.
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So there it would seem almost
seemed like it was implying
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or at least giving
the impression, right?
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That a group of Christians
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were trying to
overthrow their own government.
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That's the...
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And I think
that's how they saw it.
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And, of course, from the Bible,
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I don't find any warrant
for such behavior, do you?
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No. Certainly not.
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I mean, if you're
inclined to get a false analogy
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between theocracy or,
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and the story of the
Jews in the Old Testament,
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you could maybe get there,
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but not in the New Testament.
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Correct.
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You know, what are
some of the statements
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that Jesus made
about His kingdom?
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Yeah. He said, "My
kingdom is not of this world."
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Right. "If it were, He says,
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My followers
would fight for Me."
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Correct. But it's
not and they didn't.
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And He even
referred to being able,
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I mean, if He recognized
that He needed to fight, right?
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That He could have
called the legion of angels
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to help to assist
Him, but He didn't do that.
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Yeah.
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But one thing I did
want to just touch on
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maybe as a
point of clarification
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from a theological perspective.
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In the Old Testament,
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we do have an
established theocracy.
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God actually, you know,
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and you're well
acquainted with this,
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you know, just kind of
filling in maybe or sharing
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a few perspectives here.
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But in the Old Testament,
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God was the original one
who led Israel through Moses
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out from Egypt and led
them to the Promised Land.
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And then through that,
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the establishing them
there set up a system of judges.
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And then after that,
you had the monarchical rule
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until the nation
was in essence divided
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between the north and south.
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So that was an
established theocracy where...
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No, all of it, the theocracy,
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the first part of the
three that you outlined,
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that was God ruling directly.
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Correct.
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The Shekinah Glory, the
literal presence of God,
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or the angel of the
Lord, as it says in the Bible,
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the God, Ancient of Days,
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but God in a visible
way had manifested Himself.
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Correct.
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And He would speak
to the high priest.
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He would speak
through Moses to Moses.
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So there was no...
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And even I would add
that, you know, there were times
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when He was leading
the people of Israel
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at night as a pillar of fire...
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Yes, the Shekinah
Glory. Leading them.
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Was in the
temple during the day.
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And at night as they moved,
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it was the pillar
of the cloud or pillar.
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We always, so well, one
would look at look at that
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as being a literal theocracy,
right during that time?
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So there's no
analogy for that today.
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No analogy today.
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I mean, who can perceive God,
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He's in the still
small voice, right?
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Yep. Yeah, yeah.
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I would say that's
something as Christians that
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you know, we need to be aware of
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obviously the Holy
Spirit speaking to us,
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but looking at
that historical aspect
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for just a moment.
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So we've got the,
the pure theocracy
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where God actually was
directly speaking through Moses
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and leading the people, right?
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Then we had God
establishing them
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in the Promised Land
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and a period of
rule through judges
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and then
eventually a monarchical rule
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being set up.
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But God, God still spoke
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to try to guide the
nation through prophets,
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right at that time.
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Yeah, but...
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Be careful, the people
in the pews understand this,
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our wider audience may not.
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And when we're making a
comparison or an illusion
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to a Bible model versus
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what we started
talking about in Washington
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that can be dangerous.
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A pure
theocracy it's God direct,
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that doesn't exist now.
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So that's not even a
good model to invoke.
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The times of the judges,
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what does it say about
those times in the Bible?
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That each one
did their own thing.
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Right.
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Everyone did what was
right in their own sight.
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So you can't
make a good argument,
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even with some of
them who are godly.
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Others were quite
bloodthirsty, Jehu and so on.
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What they really
were, were tribal leaders
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and strong men that God used,
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but not always as God
would have wished, like Samson,
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not really a good example.
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So that's part of the
story of God's people stumbling
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and a lot of
stumbling toward recognizing Him
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and living under His rule.
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But the
theocracy is the clearest,
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but we don't have step model.
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We don't want to get under
the period of the judges now.
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Correct.
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But the best
parallel to that I think is
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the Taliban in
Afghanistan, not good.
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So let me just add this
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to throw this in
as a brief little
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maybe kind of a
capsule of clarification,
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Lincoln, on that.
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So I'm in 100%
agreement with you
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regarding the Old
Testament history of God
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leading His people, right?
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I started alluding to
that in the beginning though,
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to make the distinction
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between the Old
and the New Testament.
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In the Old Testament,
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that was in a
theocracy in the...
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pure theocracy in the beginning,
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monarchical eventually
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where God still spoke
to them through prophets
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and manifested Himself
as well on behalf of them.
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But in the New
Testament, we have a transition
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to what we refer to
as the people of God
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and the people of
the faith of Abraham,
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as Christians in other words.
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We don't see the
exact structure, i.e.
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there's manifest differences
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between Old
Testament and New Testament,
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literal Israelites
that were descendants
00:10:01.10\00:10:03.06
by blood of Abraham
00:10:03.10\00:10:04.73
in the New Testament
is by faith in Jesus.
00:10:04.77\00:10:06.70
So it's a
principle, not a people.
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Correct. And so we...
00:10:08.57\00:10:09.94
Not by inheritance,
00:10:09.97\00:10:11.41
as Jesus has said
to the Jews in His day,
00:10:11.44\00:10:13.81
that sort of
invoked their ancestry.
00:10:13.84\00:10:15.84
He says, He could
raise up children of Abraham
00:10:15.88\00:10:17.65
for the stones if necessary.
00:10:17.68\00:10:20.08
So it's not your birthright,
it's your faithfulness.
00:10:20.12\00:10:23.89
Yes.
00:10:23.92\00:10:25.25
But back to what
we were talking about,
00:10:25.29\00:10:27.49
this easy
invocation of the United States
00:10:27.52\00:10:30.86
as a Christian nation,
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which is only
demographically true,
00:10:32.26\00:10:34.83
not structurally true.
00:10:34.86\00:10:37.13
That easy
invocation lends itself
00:10:37.17\00:10:39.13
to this abhorrence scene
there in the capital in my view.
00:10:39.17\00:10:43.24
And we need to
just sweep that away,
00:10:43.27\00:10:46.07
that easy comparison
to the theocracy wrong.
00:10:46.11\00:10:50.85
It might be a comparison
to the time of judges,
00:10:50.88\00:10:53.21
but that's the time of
violence in the name of God,
00:10:53.25\00:10:57.42
not always even
close to what God wanted,
00:10:57.45\00:11:00.26
and then the kings,
00:11:00.29\00:11:01.86
that's the worst time in Israel.
00:11:01.89\00:11:03.66
Remember God said
to Samuel, you know,
00:11:03.69\00:11:07.66
"They've rejected
Me by wanting a king."
00:11:07.70\00:11:10.23
And he says, if you read
the Old Testament description
00:11:10.27\00:11:12.73
or the king will do,
00:11:12.77\00:11:14.10
he will take the young
men, send them off to war,
00:11:14.14\00:11:16.30
or you know, it goes on
and on, tax you and do this.
00:11:16.34\00:11:19.47
In other words, he
will subvert what I,
00:11:19.51\00:11:23.21
the authority I have over you,
00:11:23.24\00:11:24.98
and he will use
it to his own ends.
00:11:25.01\00:11:26.35
Yeah.
00:11:26.38\00:11:27.72
So, I think for maybe
I could put it this way,
00:11:27.75\00:11:31.22
individuals that are maybe
a part of the viewing audience
00:11:31.25\00:11:34.82
that would uphold or support
00:11:34.86\00:11:38.49
what happened in that
Capitol attempt right to,
00:11:38.53\00:11:42.36
the coup, whatever they call it,
00:11:42.40\00:11:43.73
storming the capital.
00:11:43.77\00:11:46.07
The argument that
I would make though,
00:11:46.10\00:11:47.47
is that biblically
there's really no basis for it,
00:11:47.50\00:11:50.27
because again, yes,
00:11:50.31\00:11:51.97
the Old Testament
speaks of a theocracy,
00:11:52.01\00:11:54.21
but in the New Testament,
00:11:54.24\00:11:55.78
if these Christians
that stormed the Capitol,
00:11:55.81\00:11:58.51
then were praying there
in the hall of democracy,
00:11:58.55\00:12:01.35
the temple of
democracy as Nancy Pelosi stated
00:12:01.38\00:12:05.15
if they would see
that in the New Testament
00:12:05.19\00:12:06.82
as Christians, we
don't have a theocratic model
00:12:06.86\00:12:10.36
and in the New Testament
00:12:10.39\00:12:11.73
as there was in
the Old Testament.
00:12:11.76\00:12:13.86
So in that regard,
there's no biblical foundation,
00:12:13.90\00:12:17.17
no New Testament foundation
00:12:17.20\00:12:18.97
for that kind of viewpoint
or those kinds of action.
00:12:19.00\00:12:20.90
And what you're hinting at.
00:12:20.94\00:12:22.27
And this is what I want
to bring out in a discussion.
00:12:22.30\00:12:24.84
We are not given
a theocratic model,
00:12:24.87\00:12:27.38
but that has been the
story of Christianity.
00:12:27.41\00:12:30.88
I mean, even
Columbus planting the flag,
00:12:30.91\00:12:34.18
and then
beginning to exterminate
00:12:34.22\00:12:36.99
the non-believing Indians,
00:12:37.02\00:12:40.26
that's the model of conquest.
00:12:40.29\00:12:44.19
And without God's command,
00:12:44.23\00:12:45.56
that's what the
Israelites would have to do
00:12:45.59\00:12:47.60
with the corrupt
tribes of Canaan.
00:12:47.63\00:12:50.17
But it's so misbegotten,
00:12:50.20\00:12:51.97
but we're at the
rump end or the stump end
00:12:52.00\00:12:57.27
of that sort of thinking,
00:12:57.31\00:12:58.64
even in the United States today.
00:12:58.67\00:13:00.18
A Christian nation
00:13:00.21\00:13:01.54
is to be in a
New Testament model,
00:13:01.58\00:13:04.68
bringing light and understanding
00:13:04.71\00:13:07.12
and illumination
and the Spirit of God
00:13:07.15\00:13:09.38
into the hearts of all mankind,
00:13:09.42\00:13:11.15
not, you know, as the crusades
were with the sword and,
00:13:11.19\00:13:14.29
you know,
acknowledged God or else.
00:13:14.32\00:13:16.56
Yes.
00:13:16.59\00:13:17.93
But that lingers
in human thinking,
00:13:17.96\00:13:19.83
and I don't even think
it's unique to a unique
00:13:19.86\00:13:24.03
obstacle to Christian behavior.
00:13:24.07\00:13:26.03
It's the domination
of, the need to dominate
00:13:26.07\00:13:30.07
that comes natural to
a human heart I think.
00:13:30.11\00:13:34.41
I've got
something you don't have it,
00:13:34.44\00:13:36.04
or I don't want you to
have it, you know, watch out.
00:13:36.08\00:13:38.75
Or perhaps even you
have something that I want
00:13:38.78\00:13:41.52
and I'll take it, right?
00:13:41.55\00:13:42.88
And, you know,
maybe the best example
00:13:42.92\00:13:44.69
that comes to mind,
00:13:44.72\00:13:46.05
I've mentioned it
on this program before,
00:13:46.09\00:13:47.49
but I heard Cardinal Dolan
00:13:47.52\00:13:51.36
talking to a
Catholic audience once
00:13:51.39\00:13:52.96
and he gave a wonderful
talk on religious liberty,
00:13:52.99\00:13:55.40
and something was bothering him
00:13:55.43\00:13:57.93
in thinking
about his own church.
00:13:57.97\00:13:59.37
And he stopped and
to a Catholic audience,
00:13:59.40\00:14:01.87
he said, you know,
00:14:01.90\00:14:03.24
he said once we
would not speak this way
00:14:03.27\00:14:06.91
about religious liberty,
00:14:06.94\00:14:08.28
we held that
error has no rights.
00:14:08.31\00:14:12.25
And that's the
absolute us versus them.
00:14:12.28\00:14:15.38
We have the truth, we have God.
00:14:15.42\00:14:17.22
You don't have Him,
therefore you have no rights,
00:14:17.25\00:14:20.06
no place in this earth.
00:14:20.09\00:14:22.72
And in an extreme case,
maybe you were to be removed.
00:14:22.76\00:14:25.56
Well, you were
mentioning a point
00:14:25.59\00:14:27.06
that actually,
it's a very interesting,
00:14:27.10\00:14:29.03
there are some historians,
00:14:29.06\00:14:30.60
church
historians and theologians
00:14:30.63\00:14:33.27
that have recognized
00:14:33.30\00:14:35.64
that tracing all the way
back to early Christianity.
00:14:35.67\00:14:40.48
There was an idea,
00:14:40.51\00:14:43.11
you might say a
misconception theologically
00:14:43.14\00:14:45.88
that carried over from that.
00:14:45.91\00:14:47.65
And down through the centuries,
00:14:47.68\00:14:49.28
that was
transferred from Catholicism
00:14:49.32\00:14:51.49
to the Protestant groups,
00:14:51.52\00:14:53.09
your majority Protestant groups.
00:14:53.12\00:14:54.69
And from there
brought to America
00:14:54.72\00:14:56.59
with the idea of
kind of a theocratic model
00:14:56.62\00:14:59.46
that does not exist
in the New Testament.
00:14:59.49\00:15:01.40
You are right.
That's where we got it.
00:15:01.43\00:15:02.76
Let's take a short
break. Stay with us.
00:15:02.80\00:15:04.67
We'll be back shortly to
continue this discussion.
00:15:04.70\00:15:06.90