← I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST
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Frank Turek
Foreign.
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Ladies and gentlemen, you want controversy? We have it here on I don't.
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Have enough faith to be an atheist.
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As we approach the end of the year, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Let me ask some questions because we're going to get into the Bible here and see how it applies to a very controversial subject. And that is, what does the Bible teach about borders, about immigration, about deportation? Because you hear, you know, Jesus was an immigrant, and it would seem that if you read some passages, you might think it's wrong for a nation to have borders and deport illegal immigrants. I mean, as Christians, we're commanded to love. So should we oppose borders and deportations? Not only that, but the Bible says that the government should punish wrongdoers, but it also says to turn the other cheek into love people. So how can you do both at the same time? Isn't the Bible contradictory? And can we enforce laws and love people at the same time? In fact, what does it mean to love people? Well, in order to dive into this, I want to give a thought experiment. It's probably something that's happened to us all. Did you ever get a text from somebody and you're looking at it and you're going to, Is that for me? And then they text you back like a second later, go, oh, sorry, that wasn't for you. And, you know, you've probably done that. I've done that. You know, you're texting somebody and somehow you, you get off that thread and you're on another thread and you, you, you thought you were texting one person when you're really texting another. It's happened to all of us. Right? That text was not intended for you. Never mind. And sometimes it's embarrassing, of course. Well, I think that's the case with some of the arguments people make on this issue. And the reason I say that is because there are texts in the Bible that are for you and texts in the Bible that are not for you. Remember how we've spoken about that? When you're looking at a, a passage in the Bible, you always have to take yourself back to the people to whom it was written. The Bible was not written to you. It was written for you. And we talk about this in our course, how to interpret your Bible. Not every passage is a command to you. Some are, some aren't. Some are commands to, say, the Israelites or a certain group of people at a particular time. So you have to try and discover whether these commands or these passages are written to you as some sort of prescription or are they Written to maybe somebody else or maybe some other entity. You have to try and uncover that. Are the text in the Bible just for individuals? Are they for governments? Or are they for both? Are there texts meaning passages in the Bible that are particularly for governments but not individuals? And particularly for individuals but not for governments? And the answer of course is yes. And by the way, this is the case with our own.
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Commands.
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We might say give to our children. We have different commands for our children based on different periods in their life.
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Different.
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Like for example, if they're three years old, you always tell your kids, stay out of the street, stay out of the street, stay out of the street because it's dangerous to be in the.
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Street, especially for a three year old.
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Of course everything's dangerous for a three year old, but especially being in the street. So we say, hey, stay out of the street. And we may say to that same 3 year old when he suddenly becomes say a 16 year old, hey, get out in the street and find a job. It's the same person just at a different time. The first command was for a particular time. The second command is for another time in that same person's life. And by the way, the intent behind the command is the same. Both of the commands are commands of love. Stay out of the street when you're three years old because it's dangerous to you and we love you. Get in the street per se, so to speak, and find a job. Because I love you. I want you. I want you to be someone who's productive. I want you to somebody who learns the value of a dollar. I want you to somebody. I want you to be somebody who can support yourself and someday support a family. So both of the commands, even though they're opposite commands, are motivated by love. And not every command is for every person or, or not every command is for every person at a particular time in their lives. The same thing is true in the Bible. Also a question we need to ask. Are the passages in the Bible always prescriptive or are some just descriptive? Let's look into that. And in order to do this, let's start with the off often heard claim that Jesus was an immigrant. And somehow this is supposed to inform us on how we are supposed to treat immigrants? Okay, let's take a look. Was Jesus an immigrant? Actually, the answer is no. Jesus and his parents never left the Roman Empire. They were actually obeying the laws of the Roman Empire when they went from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a census. They never left the Roman Empire. They never of course left Israel.
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At that point.
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And when they went down to Egypt, they were still in the Roman Empire. So they were not immigrants. They were in the land that God had put them in. But even if they had crossed borders, does that mean a government should not have borders or. Or have laws governing immigration? I mean, even if Jesus and Mary and Joseph did cross a border, does that mean there's no place for borders? Because the Bible has a lot to say about borders, very favorable things to say about borders. In fact, as we get into this, you're going to see that God actually established borders. So we have to keep our categories straight here. Jesus, first of all, was not an immigrant, but even if he was, that wouldn't negate the fact that the Bible commands borders. God set up governments and nations, and that governments and nations have not only a right, but a duty to protect people within their borders. We're going to unpack that as this program goes. And not every description in the Bible is a prescription. In our course, how to Interpret yout Bible, we have this acronym. S, T, O, P stop. Whenever you come up to a passage, you always have to stop and discover some things about the passage. The STOP is an acronym. S stands for what's the situation? In other words, get the context of the passage. The T is, what type of literature is this? Is this law? Is this poetry? Is this apocalyptic literature? Is it prophecy? Is it an epistle? Is it a gospel? You know, is it just history? All of those questions are going to help you discover how you ought to interpret something, because you're not going to interpret poetry the same way you interpret law or, say, a genealogy. And so you have to try and figure out what type of literature it is. And the oh, who is the object of the passage is the object of the passage. The ancient Israelites is the object of the passage. Government is the object of the passage. An individual is the object of a passage. A particular church or all believers is the object of a passage. A particular person who was trying to carry a message, say, off to Rome. In fact, when Paul says, greet Rufus, he's not telling us to greet Rufus. He's telling the person, carry the letter to Rome to greet Rufus.
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That's.
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That's Romans 16:13. Have you greeted Rufus today? No. You're in sin? No. You see, you've got to figure out who the object of the passage is. And the P and stop is. Is. Is this passage prescriptive or is it descriptive? Because not every description is a prescription. And if you want to say everything that is a description is a prescription, then you have to say you ought to buy weapons. Why? Because Jesus told his disciples to go get a sword, to buy a sword if they don't have one, to write to self defense. Does that mean everybody needs to buy a sword? Or in today's economy, a gun of some kind, a weapon? Because you, you read something about Jesus, that's a description now, now it's become a prescription. No, it's not a prescription. It's a description for the time. It may affirm that you have the right to self defense, but it's not prescribing. Everybody needs to buy weapons. Or when Jesus tells a woman caught in adultery that he doesn't condemn her, does that mean that we can never convict anyone of a crime? No, it's a description of what happened with Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. It's not a prescription for all of us because elsewhere the Bible says the government ought to convict wrongdoers and punish wrongdoers. Jesus was simply saying he doesn't condemn her because it's a false charge. If, if you're caught in adultery, there must be a man, right? There was no man. It was a setup. But it's a description. It's not a prescription. We have much more about this. You're listening to I Don't have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist with me, Frank Turek on the American Family Radio Network and other radio programs or stations around the country. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. More on the Bible and immigration right after this. What does the Bible say about immigration, about borders, about deportations? We're looking at the Scriptures to try and get some clarity on very controversial topics in our culture. As Christians, we should always go to the Bible as our resource for how we ought to live here on Earth. And it's also going to reveal to us how we're going to live in heaven if we're going to get there at all because of Jesus sacrifice. But I wanted to address this topic especially now because it's so controversial in our culture. How can we look at the Bible rightly and interpret it rightly for our day today? And you might have noticed I'm trying to give principles here that you can apply to any issue, not just immigration. For example, the STOP acronym I mentioned in the first part of this program, ST O P. What's the situation? What type of literature is it? Who is the object of the passage? And is this passage prescriptive or descriptive? We unpack that much further in the online course called how to Interpret yout Bible by the way we have two online courses coming up in January. One is why I still don't have enough faith to be an atheist. I'll be your instructor in that. And I'll also, if you take the premium version, be with you on five occasions for live Q and A zoom session. So sign up for that before it sells out. And then we have Train youn Brain. Those are courses in logic. One for adults, one for children sixth to eighth grade.
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It could go fifth to ninth grade if you have smart kids.
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Not a problem. You can sign up. Shanda Fulbright is the lead instructor, but I'll be involved, too. And if there's anything you want to teach your kids, it's logic. Because in public school, we don't teach logic anymore. Instead of teaching kids how to think, we're teaching them what to feel. And that's very dangerous, ladies and gentlemen, because if you trust your feelings without reason or without moral restraint, you're going to wind up in a very dark place, and so are your children. So teach them logic from the get go. It's a lot of fun, too. The problem is, if you teach your kids logic, they're going to be impossible to live with, because everything you say, so every time you say something wrong, they're going to go, hey, mom, that's an ad hominem fallacy. Hey, dad, slippery slope. You're going to be like, oh, I can't believe we taught this kid. These kids this stuff. All right? But no, they really have to know logic. So check all that out on our website, cross examine.org, click on online courses.
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You'll see it there.
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All right, so we're talking about these principles, and one thing I want to mention is just earlier this week, we were in Phoenix with so many believers.
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And conservatives at the America Fest conference put on by tpusa. I had the privilege to speak there, as did so many others, and I was there with. One of the speakers was Ali Beth Stuckey.
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You know, Ali is a great apologist.
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And a theologian, has a great podcast.
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Called Relatable, and she wrote a book called Toxic Empathy.
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We've had her on the program for that.
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And this is the idea that people will play on your feelings and your compassion to get you to abandon truth and God's commands, because they'll bring up some sort of extreme story, and. And they'll try and get you to think that the most important thing is empathy, the most important thing is compassion in every situation, when, in fact, if you tried to empathize and give compassion to people, that ought to be, say, punished or corrected. That empathy goes from just empathy to toxic empathy. It's the idea that love means approval. And we've pointed out in this program many times, love does not mean approval. If you want to love people, you don't approve of everything they want to do, you tell them when they're going off the reservation, you tell them when they're doing evil, you tell them for their own good that you can't enable them to go down a road that is a sinful road, a road that's going to hurt them and hurt others and be an offense to God. You need to stand in the way of evil. When you don't stand in the way of evil, when you enable people to do evil, that's called toxic empathy. You're doing it out of what you think is love, but it's toxic empathy. It's not true love. True love, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, that love always protects, that love always perseveres, that love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but love rejoices in the truth. And so many of the claims that you hear on this topic of immigration are claims that really are toxic empathy claims. They'll give you a story about somebody who is desperate to get into this country, maybe for very good reason. And that one exception, that one story is supposed to get you to somehow be for open borders, which actually would create far more problems than it would solve. I'll get to it as we progress here in this program. So your feelings of empathy, while may be well placed in many cases, can also lead to bad results if you don't balance that with reason, and you don't balance that with what true love is, and that's seeking what's best for the other person according to the will of God. So let's get into it. In fact, let me quote a proverb here. This Proverbs 17:15. The idea that we're not going to punish anybody that comes into the country or punish wrongdoers is completely wrongheaded. Proverbs 17:15 says, he who justifies the wicked and who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord. Whether you are exonerating the wicked, not punishing the wicked, or you are punishing the innocent, both of them are an abomination to the Lord. So what I'm going to go through, and I don't know if we'll get through all of these in this podcast. If not, we'll continue it on the midweek Podcast. I'm going to go through the top 10 points about what the Bible says and what good reason says about this immigration topic. And the first one is, is that everyone believes in borders. In fact, God established borders.
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We're going to get into it.
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So point one, everyone believes in borders. In fact, we actually make our own borders. We have locks on our doors and passwords on our bank accounts, on our phones, our computers, on our medical records and our online accounts because we know that we must protect our lives and our property because it's a fallen world and people can take advantage of us if we don't have those borders. And the Bible agrees with, agrees with this, by the way. It presupposes private property. Thou shall not steal, Thou shall not covet. Those two commands, which are two of the big ten, wouldn't make any sense if you couldn't have private property because you can only covet something you don't own. And you can only steal from something you don't have or you don't own.
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Well, let me put it another way.
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You can Only stealing would only. The prohibition against stealing would only make sense if private property was justified. If you had the right to private property, if everyone owned everything together, stealing would. Wouldn't be possible. So it's really important to recognize that borders and passwords and locks on our doors are not created because we hate people on the outside. They're created because we love people on the inside, our families and friends. But if borders are good for homes, aren't they good for nations? They are. Which leads us to the second point. Before I get to the second point, I want to reiterate what I just said. When you have a border or a lock on your door, it's not because you hate people outside. It's because you love people inside and have a responsibility to take care of the people inside before you have the responsibility to take care of the people outside.
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And I'll get to that here in a minute, too.
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All right, so the second point after the fact that everyone believes in borders, is that God established national borders. God scattered people by language in Genesis 11. That's, of course, the Tower of Babel. And he marked out borders for the promised land of Israel and its surrounding nations. In fact, Deuteronomy 32, 8 says, God set up boundaries. Quote, when the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God, unquote. Now, this is getting into Michael Heiser's point. About the Divine Council. I don't have time to go down that rabbit trail right here. We've had programs with Dr. Heiser before. You can go back in the archives, particularly if you have the app, the Cross Examined app and you can find our program on the book Supernatural. Actually the main book is Unseen Realm. The Supernatural is his sort of simplified version of Unseen Realm. I don't have time to go down that rabbit hole and talk about all that right now. But the main point is, is that God established borders. And as it says in Deuteronomy 32, in Genesis 11 and also in Acts 17, Paul says this. He declares that God determines the times and the borders for the nations. Quote, and he made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth and has determined their pre appointed times and the boundaries of boundaries of their dwellings. It goes on to say that so that people would reach out for God and find him. And there are several other passages in the Bible that talk about the same kind of idea that God establishes borders and even walls. It talks about how walls are necessary, borders are necessary. And we're going to put a link in the show notes because again.
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I.
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Don'T have time to unpack all of this. Dr. Wayne Grudem back in 2018 had a very concise article, a column on borders and the necessity of walls and some other issues related to immigration that we're going to put in the show notes. So you can read that for yourself. But borders are something that God establishes. Established they are. Also. He also said that walls are necessary to protect innocent people from evil. So we'll put that in the show notes. So point one is that everyone believes in borders. Point two is that God established borders. And point three is God established government and assigned the punishment of wrongdoers its primary responsibility. Okay, here's this is the principle that we talked about at the top of the program that not every command in gov or not every command in the Bible is a command for individuals and not every command in the Bible is for governments. There are some commands that are just for governments and there are some commands that are just for individuals. And that makes sense. Our own laws have those distinctions that governments are supposed to do certain things and individuals are supposed to do other things, or governments are not supposed to do certain things and individuals are not to do certain things. Not every command in the Bible is a command for an individual and not every command in the Bible is a command for governments. They, they have different commands and too often we forget that. And I'll, I'll, I'll give you an example of this here in a minute, but let me just point out what this, this, the essence of point three is. In Romans 13, Paul writes, quote, let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God. And those that exist have been instituted by God. For the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid. For rulers bear the sword for or. For rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment to the wrongdoer. Unquote. This is Romans 13, Romans 13:4, essentially. And the point here is, is without a good government punishing wrongdoers, protect, to protect innocent people from evil, we would have anarchy. And that's very bad. Obviously, we need a government to protect innocent people from evil and to punish wrongdoers. Now, we have a lot more. We're just in point three. We have 10 points here. Don't go anywhere. You're listening. I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. With me, Frank Turek on the American Family Radio Network and other other stations around the nation. Merry Christmas and happy New Year. We're back in just a couple of minutes, so don't go anywhere where lots more coming.
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Announcer
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Frank Turek
Ladies and gentlemen, today on I Don't.
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Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, we're seeing what the Bible has to say about the controversial topic of borders and immigration and deportations. And before I get back to that discussion, I know also that at this time there's a lot of people suffering. The holidays, Christmas, New Year's, kids can be difficult for people, especially if you just lost a loved one, especially the first time. This is why I'm very concerned about my friend Erica Kirk. She's very strong, but it's got to be very difficult. The first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, the first New Year's without Charlie. And I know you might be experiencing the Same thing if you. You've just lost a loved one. So I want to read a passage. I actually sent this to Erica recently because I think it's a passage that can be very helpful at this time.
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It's from 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, which.
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Is a great passage on suffering. Let me just read you this passage. I'm using the NLT here, the new living translation, because I think it does a good job of capturing the essence of the passage. So let's take a look at.
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Says we know that God.
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This is beginning. I want to say it's about verse 15. I'm reading from the text I sent.
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We know that God, who raised the.
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Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you.
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All of this is for your benefit. And as God's grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving.
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And God will receive more and more glory. Let me stop right here. The message that many of us preached at America Fest went out to many thousands. And I know for me and Ali Beth and John Amachuku and Bryce Crawford and Greg Laurie and Lucas Miles and others that spoke who are Christians there.
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We wanted people to know the gospel.
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We wanted people to know the truth about the gospel. And of course, that's why Jesus came into this world, to save us from evil. I just did a podcast with Dinesh d', Souza, and he asked me, sum up the essence of Christmas.
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What is it about?
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And I said, dinesh. And it's going to sound a little bit odd, but I think it's true. Christmas is the answer to the problem of evil. If we had never sinned, there'd be no reason for us or no reason for Jesus to come to earth and save us. But we have sinned. And so this gospel is the essential message we all have. In any event, this passage here in 2 Corinthians 4, after it says that the message reaches more and more people. In verse 16, Paul says this, and this is very important if you're in a painful time.
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He said, that is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed day by day. For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. So we don't look at the troubles that we can see now. Rather, we fix our gaze on things that we cannot see. For the things we see now will soon be gone. But the things that we cannot see will last forever.
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You need to have an eternal perspective. When you're going through difficulty.
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And by going through difficulty now, you're.
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Enhancing your capacity, ladies and gentlemen, to.
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Enjoy God not only now, but in eternity.
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Going through difficulty focuses you.
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Going through difficulty takes sometimes to focus off you and on others. Going through difficulty puts the focus on God. Going through difficulty builds character, as Paul.
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Says, builds patience, as James says.
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And we know that all things work together for good to those that love God and are called according to his purpose. Paul doesn't say all things are good, but all things work together for good on into eternity.
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And I said this to Erica at one point, that the Christmases that you will miss with Charlie will be dwarfed by the Christmases you will have with Charlie, because both as believers, you will enjoy many more Christmases together than you will apart. That's true for any of us. Friends, if you've lost a Christian loved one, you're going to have many more days with that person than you will have without. In the meantime, keep an eternal perspective. That is an eternal perspective.
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All right, let's go back to what.
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We'Re talking about here on this program.
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We're talking about immigration and the.
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Situation regarding deportations and borders. And we gave three points so far. Everyone believes in borders. Secondly, God established national borders. And thirdly, God established government.
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Government and assigned the punishment of wrongdoers its primary responsibility. In other words, governments often make or break civilization. It was the fact that we have.
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A fallen nature that James Madison, the founder of our Constitution, by the way.
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Who really wrote the First Amendment and wrote the first 10amendments, he wrote this. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. In other words, in this fallen world, the use of or threat of force by a legitimate government is essential to curb our depraved impulses. Now, here's where some people will say, but doesn't that contradict Jesus? Command to turn the other cheek. And this is where you have to understand, there are different commands to governments than there are to individuals. And the answer is, of course it doesn't contradict that, because the command to turn the other cheek is not for governments. That's a command for individuals who are insulted, not even individuals in grave bodily harm. Since the world is a broken place, God wisely gave different commands to governments than he gave to individuals. Turn the other cheek as a command for individuals who are insulted not being held at gunpoint. In fact, Jesus didn't even turn the other cheek when he was being beaten. He asked, who struck me? He didn't say, well, why don't you hit me on the other cheek. Governments by contrast, are explicitly commanded to bear the sword, to use force when necessary to punish wrongdoing and protect the innocent. It's only the the insane Marxist mayors who are deluded enough and deluded enough about human nature to send a social worker to a shots fired call. Okay, you need legitimate use of force in this fallen world by a legitimate government. Now that's not to say that sometimes governments don't misuse that force. They do. But we're not talking about bad governments here. We're not talking about what governments ought not do. We're talking about what governments ought to do. The government's God given role isn't a therapeutic compassion or hugs. It's justice. The ancient proverb says this is Proverbs 18:5. It is not good to be partial to the wicked and so deprive the innocent of justice. In other words, he who spares the wolves sacrifices the sheep. If you fail to punish wrongdoers like some leftist DAs and mayors and judges do, that isn't merciful. It just shifts the punishment to innocent citizens. So when you fail to punish wrongdoers, you're actually punishing the innocent. And God says that's an abomination. This is what happens when you mix up the commands. You wind up doing more harm than good because you're applying a command meant for individuals to governments. And it's not even meant for individuals who under grave bodily harm turn the other cheek. It's, it's basically saying you don't need to turn insult, return insult for insult. Any government that fails to restrain evil to protect or to protect innocent people or worse yet does. Evil itself is not following God's command for government. And history bears this out. Bad governments have caused more wars and deaths than any other establishment. Even the Encyclopedia of War points this out. People always say, oh, religion is the cause of most wars. Nonsense. According to the Encyclopedia of War surveyed all these wars over the over recorded history that 7% of wars are caused by religion. If you take Islam out, it's 3%. Hardly any of them are caused by religion. They're caused by so many other factors, usually political and economic factors or greed or all sorts of civil strife or natural resources. In fact, just, I mean just let's just take a survey of the last, the last century. World War I caused by religion? No. World War II caused by religion? No. A Korean War caused by religion? No. Vietnam War caused by religion? No. Gulf War caused by religion? No. Saddam wanted the oil. The war in Afghanistan was, was Imposed on us by religion. Yeah, by radical jihad. We had to respond, okay, but most of the time wars are not caused by religion. They're caused by bad governments. But that's not an advertisement for no government. Even a bad government is normally better than anarchy. So governments have caused. Bad governments have caused so many deaths. But if we didn't have government all, we'd have many more deaths in many cases. In fact, there's really only three kinds of governments you can have. You can have a global government, a national government, or a tribal government. We're all in tribes.
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And global doesn't work.
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It's too big. Too much power in one person's hand.
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Or one group's hand.
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Tribal tends to create all these unnecessary conflicts between smaller groups. A national government is the way God established it, and it appears to be the least worst choice. Okay, since we're fallen human beings, there's probably no ideal choice, but let's go with the least worst choice, and that is a national government. And our founders, by the way, rebelled against a bad government, the bad government of King George, because he was legislating immorally. And as we pointed out on this program, all laws legislate morality. The only question is, who is morality? And I don't want to legislate my morality or your morality. I want to legislate the morality. The same morality that Thomas Jefferson said was self evident. The same morality the Apostle Paul said, the Gentiles are not of the law of the law written on their hearts. So we need governments in order to protect the innocent, to punish wrongdoers, and to protect the innocent. Number four. Governments have different responsibilities than individuals. So I already mentioned turn the other cheek or love your enemies. Governments are not commanded to love our enemies. Governments are commanded to punish wrongdoers. If governments were to overlook offenses, law and order would quickly cease and people would get hurt. That would be the exact outcome governments are supposed to prevent. This is why government officials, from the president to judges to the military, to police to ice, et cetera, can't elevate compassion and forgiveness over justice like an individual in a personal relationship can choose to do. Jesus wasn't nice when lives were at stake. And I'll unpack that further right after the break. You're listening to I Don't have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. Atheist. We're dealing with a controversial topic in our culture today, and that is immigration, deportations, borders. What does the Bible say about it? That's what we're talking about today. I'm Frank Turek. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. We'll talk much more in the final segment, so don't go anywhere.
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We'll see you right after the break.
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What does the Bible say about borders, about immigration, about deportations, about government? That's what we're talking about. We're going through the top 10 points to make about this issue from the.
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Bible and also common sense.
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We're only on point four, so we'll come. We'll complete this in the midweek podcast. But just before the break, we were talking about how governments have different responsibilities to individuals. And I was pointing out how Jesus was. Wasn't nice when lives were at stake. In fact, if you look at Jesus, he went after people. If you think Jesus was always a nice guy, you haven't read John chapter 2, John chapter 8, or Matthew chapter 23. Because Jesus was tough. When people were doing evil, he went after them, including the politicians of his day. Yes, Jesus was involved in politics. He went after the politicians of his day who were at the time were the Pharisees. He went after them and he says, what are you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You're tithing your spices, but you're neglecting the more important matters of the law. Justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the former without neglecting the latter. You blind guides, you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. That's Matthew 23:23, by the way.
- [38:12]
Easy to remember.
- [38:13]
What's he essentially saying? That a government has to major in the majors and not the minors because the, The. The Pharisees were of the Sanhedrin. They were tithing their spices, but they were neglecting the. The more important matters of the law, like justice. So what do you think Jesus would say to somebody like Kamala Harris, who in the last election wanted to BL. Bland wanted to ban plastic straws, yet she wanted to promote abortion and child mutilation with. With tax dollars. What do you think Jesus would say? You're neglecting the more important matters of the law. You're banning plastic straws, but you don't want to ban abortion or child mutilation. That's crazy. Get your priorities straight. The government is supposed to punish wrongdoers and protect innocent people from evil. You're punishing innocent people. You're punishing children, unborn children, and you're punishing children who are born, who can't make a decision for themselves. They don't have the capacity to. You're doing exactly the opposite of what a government ought to do. Jesus, of course, famously said, anyone who leads these little ones who believe in me astray, it would be better for you to have a millstone hung around your neck than to do what you've done. And by the way, Jesus will not be nice when he comes back to judge the nations and rule the world. Whether it's governments punishing wrongdoers, individuals in self defense, or Jesus overturning tables and later judging the world, some amount of force is necessary and authorized. In fact, let me go back to my point earlier on borders. You know there's going to be a border between heaven and hell. Yeah. If there weren't borders between heaven and hell, heaven would be hell and hell would be heaven. And evil would be able to infiltrate heaven. Borders are necessary.
- [40:17]
And it's naive to say they're not. And you have borders all around your personal life. Why shouldn't governments have borders around their jurisdiction, around their lands to protect their own innocent people from evil?
- [40:35]
In fact, that's point 5 of 10.
- [40:38]
Reasons or 10 points about what the Bible says about immigration and deportation.
- [40:44]
Here's point five. Governments have a responsibility to their own people first. In other words, borders are boundary lines of responsibility to make effective governing possible. For governments to protect their citizens from evil and seek the good of their citizens, they must prioritize their efforts and limited resources to to those within their jurisdiction, because no earthly, earthly government can do that for everyone. And the same holds true for families. We are to Love others, Matthew 22:37, but we don't have the time, the ability or the resources to love others in exactly the same way or to exactly the same degree as we're to love, say, our families. We're not God. We can't love everybody and provide for everybody the same way. We are commanded to love our family and provide for our family. For example, it's wrong to neglect your own children to take care of others. And Vice President Vance said this back last February when he went over to Europe and he was pointing out that this unrestrained immigration is actually neglecting the people who are citizens of your country. It's hurting your own citizens when you as a government are established according to God and common sense to take care of the people within your borders first. Just like you as a parent, have the responsibility to take care of your family first before you take care of anybody outside of your family. And Paul actually says this. He says if you don't take care of your family first, you're worse than an unbeliever. That's first. Timothy 5, 8 and Vance actually quoted Augustine's order of loves. Now, any politician that correctly quotes Augustine's order of loves has my vote. Okay, come on. When have you heard politicians talk about Augustine's order of love? And here's, here's essentially what Vance said. He said you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens and then your country. And then after that, you can focus on the prioritize, or you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world, unquote. Exactly. If you're trying to take, if you're trying to save the whales, but you're not saving your own kids, that's a dereliction of duty. You've got to take care of your kids, your family first, then your church, then your community, then your nation, then you can go to the rest of the world. This is what the Scriptures teach. This is what Augustine was pointing out. This is what Vice President Vance was saying. And if you fail to do that, as Paul says, you're worse than an unbeliever. If every family and government took care of their own, there would be far fewer, fewer problems at home and far fewer people desiring, desiring to come to the United States. I mean, imagine if, if other governments took care of their own people in the sense that they created a government where people had the opportunity to engage in free commerce to bring themselves out of poverty. There'd be far fewer people needing or wanting to come to America. I mean, ladies and gentlemen, why are there no caravans going from the United States to Venezuela? The reason there are no caravans going from the United States to Venezuela and they're only caravans coming from Venezuela to the United States is precisely because we have a government in the United States, at least we have traditionally that allows people to keep the fruits of their own labor to a greater degree. And we have a system of law and order in place that allows investment and prosperity to, to, to prosper. So more people are, are taken out of poverty by capitalism than any other system. And that's why so many people want to come here. They don't want to go to other places because other places don't have this kind of setup here. They don't have the, this kind of, of capitalist, free market system here with freedom, freedoms of the press and freedoms of religion and freedoms of speech and assembly and association. They don't have that. That's why they want to come here. So Vice President Vance is correct. This is what the Bible says that governments have a responsibility to take care of their own people first. And you have a responsibility to take care of your inner circle first your family and then you can take care of people outside your family in that order. And yet if we get this toxic empathy idea that we're somehow responsible for the entire world before we take care of our own, then we're neglecting what God has told us to do and.
- [46:04]
We'Re also neglecting just common sense.
- [46:09]
Now I'm going to cover the next.
- [46:10]
Five in the next session but I've got to tell you that we had a letter come into us that actually made us all cry. It was from an 8 year old, a 7 year old and a 4 year old, a brother, a sister and a brother. And we got some money in an envelope and it said this. Dear Frank, we want to give you our birthday money to go towards your security because our family loves you so much. Love Levi, Payton and Brooks. This is an 8 year old, 7 year old and a 4 year old. So we were so moved by this that we tracked down the mom and I called them just a few days ago and talked to them and thanked them so much for their sacrifice because they were followers of Charlie, followers of my friend Jack Hibbs. In fact they go to Jack's church and, and also followers of us. And so we're so blessed with, with them for reaching out to us this way and supporting us this way. You may have heard that we have a three hundred thousand dollar matching gift because our security requirements now at a college have risen our out of pocket costs from $5,000 approximately per campus to now $15,000 since Charlie's murder. So any money you donate, like the money Levi, Peyton and Brooks donated will be matched here at the end of the year. And 100% by the way of your donations go to ministry. 0% of buildings. We don't have any buildings. You're looking at my house here. We, we all work out of our homes, we have several employees not only in the United States but around the world because we're also translating so much of what we do into other languages. We have I want to say 15 websites, other language websites. Now we're translating our material, other apologists material and trying to get the word out. So any money you give at the end of the year is going to go 100 to ministry, 0% to building. So thank you Levi, thank you Peyton, thank you Brooks and thank you out there for supporting us here at the end of the year. It's greatly appreciated. It'll allow us to do so much that we're planning to do in 2026. Thank you very much.
- [48:54]
Please tune in if you're listening on.
- [48:56]
The American Family Radio Network. You're not going to hear the next show on radio. You got to find me. I don't have enough fake. You need these podcasts, so do that. We'll complete this discussion there. Thank you so much. Merry Christmas.
- [49:11]
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- [49:31]
Frank Turek
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