Is THIS the White House's REAL Strategy on the SAVE America Act? | 3/12/26

Summary

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Steve Deace Show: "Is THIS the White House's REAL Strategy on the SAVE America Act?" | 3/12/26

Overview of the Episode

This episode of the Steve Deace Show, hosted by Steve Deace with co-hosts Todd Erzin and Aaron McIntyre (Blaze Podcast Network), dives into conservative analysis of current political and cultural events, focusing specifically on the political maneuvering around the SAVE America Act. The team discusses White House strategies, the broader implications for the GOP and upcoming midterms, and the tension between conservative base and establishment. The episode also features a deep-dive theological segment addressing questions of faith, denominational differences, and biblical interpretation. Notably, the team interviews Scott Shara, author of "Is the Government Legally Killing Us?", discussing government and medical overreach during the COVID era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. News Rundown & Political Analysis

Operation Epic Fury & Trump's Messaging ([02:45])

• Trump claims victory and flexibility in timelines but cautions against leaving "early."
• (Trump, [03:06]) "We don’t want to leave early, do we, huh? We gotta finish the job, right?"

SAVE America Act – White House and GOP Maneuvers ([03:37]–[04:46])

• Trump outlines strong stances: voter ID, proof of citizenship, bans on gender surgeries for minors, and men competing in women's sports.

  • (Trump, [03:37]) "We want no transgender mutilation of our children."
  • (Trump, [03:44]) "No men playing in women’s sports. We don’t. Nobody does."

• Notably, not all issues Trump mentions are actually in the SAVE America Act—suggesting the White House may be strategically using these hot-button issues to force Democrats (and reticent Republicans) to take public stands before the midterms.

• Senate Majority Leader John Thune promises robust debate but the actual GOP appetite to push these policies is questioned.

State Politics & GOP Base Mood ([04:46])

• Wyoming passes heartbeat abortion ban, joining a handful of other states.
• In Iowa, Adam Steen dramatically surpasses the signature threshold for GOP primary ballot access, reflecting the energized mood of the GOP base. (Aaron, [05:11]) “Yet another indication of the mood of the GOP base in the crucial and in some ways bellwether state..."

Cultural Satire: "Euphemism Filter" Skit ([05:38]–[07:46])

• Parody by Lutheran Satire (featuring James Talarico) exposes the absurdity and euphemistic language around abortion advocacy, deconstructing sanitized rhetoric and forcing the real meaning into the open.
  • (Talarico, [07:12]) “Your argument that the Bible supports legalized abortion sounds pretty stupid when you can’t hide behind positively coded vague concepts.”

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2. Analysis of SAVE America Act Strategy

Is the White House Bluffing? Assessment of Strategy ([09:54]–[14:50])

• Steve frames the passage of the SAVE America Act as a sine qua non for GOP victory in November: "If the SAVE America Act does not end up on President Trump’s desk, we’re not winning in November.” ([09:54])

• The hosts use sports analogies: This is the GOP's pivot play, putting forward high-approval, emotionally resonant issues to force stark contrasts ahead of the election.

• (Steve, [14:18]) “That’s your voter guide for the 2026 midterm elections. ...Democrats voted no on all this and Republicans voted yes."

• The group agrees this is the best available strategy—even if there’s skepticism it can succeed—because it keeps political momentum and draws clear lines for voters.

Will This Political Play Actually Work? ([16:10]–[24:35])

• Aaron and Steve voice doubts: Many Republicans lack the courage to force votes or go on record regarding controversial issues, and the base’s various factions (MAGA, establishment, traditional conservatives) have distinct needs.

• (Aaron, [16:53]) “How many of those are in the Republican caucus that don’t want to be exposed to that [difficult votes]?"

• Steve analyzes the struggle to mobilize key conservative base groups, observing that normies and disillusioned factions have tuned out and aren’t likely to be won back by explanations about legislative process.

• (Steve, [22:49]) “You’ve already lost normies—they’re already out, they’re tuned out. That’s way too long of an explanation already.”

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3. Procedural Pathways & The Reconciliation Gambit

Could Budget Reconciliation Force the Issue? ([24:43]–[28:07])

• Steve discusses Senator John Kennedy’s suggestion to use reconciliation to circumvent Senate procedural obstacles.

• Warns that the "Byrd Rule" (from Sen. Robert Byrd) would make such a move vulnerable to a Supreme Court veto on grounds of violating Senate rules—not the merits of the legislation.

• (Steve, [27:24]) “You don’t want to give a free shot to your enemies to screw you... but it may be ultimately the only shot that they have.”

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4. Moral Stakes and Party Identity

Choosing Good vs. Evil: The Trump Play ([28:07]–[29:52])

• Todd likens the moment to the film "Lincoln," arguing the ultimate test is to force senators to publicly choose sides on fundamental moral issues.
• (Todd, [28:33]) “This is about something of cosmic importance—right and wrong, good and evil, and Donald Trump is saying, here’s how we’re going down.”

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5. Interview: Scott Shara – "Is the Government Legally Killing Us?" ([32:09]–[44:27])

Personal Tragedy, Systemic Accountability

• Scott recounts the circumstances of his daughter Grace's death in a hospital during COVID-19, after administration of contraindicated meds and the imposition of a do-not-resuscitate order without parental consent.
  • (Shara, [32:44]) “Our medical expert at the jury trial said... when they gave Grace morphine, that was the worst clinical decision he’s seen in 46 years...”

The Big Picture: Systems of Control

• Shara argues the government and “medical industrial complex” use dialectics (evil vs. lesser evil) to control populations, suggesting a Satanic agenda behind it. He criticizes both left and right as falling into "dialectical" traps set by unseen powers.
  • (Shara, [35:07]) “They control us with dialectics... the evil virus, the reaction, fear, and then the less evil jab. It was masterful. …Covid was a huge success in the goal of the population reduction agenda.”

Restoration through Repentance, Not Legislation

• Shara contends the only true solution is repentance and individual refusal to participate in statist overreach; he dismisses the idea that voting in the right leaders or legislative fixes can solve the root problem.
  • (Shara, [39:18]) “We cannot rely on a new king... that is putting our faith in men... We can’t legislate our way out, can’t vote our way out.”
  • (Shara, [41:34]) “You get whatever amount of tyranny you are willing to comply with.”

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6. Panel Reflection: Culture, Idolatry, and the “Euphemism Filter” ([44:34])

• Todd and Aaron tie together the Shara interview and earlier parody skit, observing that programming and idolatry (be it government, medicine, or language) have pervasively shaped American responses, particularly during COVID and current culture wars.

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7. Theology Thursday: Deep-Dive Q&A ([50:29]–[95:42])

Big Questions Covered:

• Who are God’s Chosen People? Jews or Christians? ([51:48]–[68:39])

  • Steve, Aaron, and Todd give theologically nuanced answers, referencing Romans 9–11. All agree faith in Christ is the ultimate criterion, not ethnic lineage—but differ on how present-day Israel fits prophetically.
  • (Steve, [57:09]) “There is no salvation for anybody aside from the atoning work of Christ at the cross...”
  • Aaron channels R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur views: for both, faith supersedes lineage, though MacArthur would still recognize Jews as significant in God’s plan.
  • Todd (Catholic): Now the Church is the chosen people, open to all.

• Is the Roman Catholic Mass Blasphemous? ([68:39]–[76:43])

  • Protestants question the Catholic Mass and the doctrine of transubstantiation.
  • Todd responds (as a Catholic): “It is not crucifying [Christ] over and over again. It is having access out of space and time to the one crucifixion that saved us for all time...” ([74:57])

• Who Created the Church—A Protestant vs. Catholic Debate ([78:07]–[82:28])

  • Protestants: Christ founded the Church, unity is in the Gospel, not Rome.
  • Catholic: The visible, apostolic Church persists through history; calls out Protestants for “bearing false witness” by claiming otherwise.

• Calvinism and Assurance of Salvation ([82:28]–[87:15])

  • Listener troubled by teachings that “you can be deceived into thinking you are among the elect.”
  • Steve: If you’re troubled by this, it’s evidence of a soft heart—likely you are not in spiritual danger.
  • Todd: Don't make yourself the center; assurance comes from surrender, not self-analysis.

• Romans 13 and Government: Are All Taxes Holy? ([91:23]–[92:23])

  • The team rejects the idea that Romans 13 mandates blind obedience or validates all government actions, focusing on “give honor to whom honor is due”; Christians must evaluate what is truly owed on moral grounds.

• Angels in Catholicism vs. Protestantism ([94:31]–[95:42])

  • Protestants don't dismiss angelic beings, but are wary of distracting from Christ. Catholics integrate angel concepts centrally in liturgy and theology.

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8. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Steve on GOP credibility: “So wait a minute, you want me to vote for you guys to do the stuff that I thought I was voting for you to do the last time… How’s that going to play?” ([22:49])
• On euphemisms in abortion debate (Talarico/Parody, [07:12]): “Your argument that the Bible supports legalized abortion sounds pretty stupid when you can’t hide behind positively coded vague concepts…”
• Todd on the Trump play: “This is about something about cosmic importance, right and wrong, good and evil, and Donald Trump is saying, here’s how we’re going down.” ([28:33])
• Scott Shara: “If everybody was willing to say no, it would be—the house of cards would come down.” ([41:21])

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Notable Timestamps for Key Segments

• Big Ten Tournament and opening banter – [00:00]–[02:45]
• News/Political Montage – [02:45]–[07:46]
• SAVE America Act Analysis – [09:54]–[24:35]
• Budget Reconciliation & the Byrd Rule – [24:43]–[28:07]
• Moral stakes & cosmic importance – [28:07]–[29:52]
• Scott Shara Interview ("Is the Government Legally Killing Us?") – [32:09]–[44:27]
• Theology Thursday - Chosen People Debate – [50:29]–[68:39]
• Catholic vs. Protestant Q&A – [68:39]–[82:28]
• Calvinism & Assurance – [82:28]–[87:15]
• Romans 13 & Taxation – [91:23]–[92:23]
• Protestants, Catholics, and Angels – [94:31]–[95:42]

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Tone & Language

• Sharp, candid, and occasionally playful: The hosts combine snark with substantive analysis.
• Sincere theological engagement: Addressing in-house disagreements with mutual respect.
• Pop culture & sports analogies: Frequent, accessible reference points.
• Deep skepticism of government, media, elite institutions—with a strong moral and spiritual framework guiding their critique.

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For New Listeners

This episode provides:

• A primer on the current GOP grassroots vs. establishment divide.
• Insights into strategic political messaging and its real impact.
• A poignant personal story highlighting the costs of government and medical overreach.
• Honest engagement between conservative Catholics and Protestants over deep theological questions.
• Tools to parse today’s euphemistic political rhetoric.
• Sharp wit and humor alongside serious critique.

Bottom Line: The Steve Deace Show offers both cutting cultural and political critique from a principled conservative perspective, and a space where real ideological and theological differences are debated honestly, grounded in lasting values—and, as always, with “a snarky twist.”

Transcript

[Steve Dace]

Foreign. Welcome. Happy Thursday. Welcome to the Steve Day show. Powered by Blaze tv, radio and podcast. I'm Steve Dase alongside Todd erzin and Aaron McIntyre whom I cannot see. Sorry about that, Aaron. I just figured that out. Yeah, there you go.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Definitely not watching the Big Ten tournament. That's what you can see on your monitor.

[Steve Dace]

That is what I can see, yes. All right. We are powered by our friends over at Miracle made their sheets. Handcrafted NASA inspired silver infused fabric that helps to regulate your body temperature. If you're a hot sleeper, cold sleeper, you're going to become a better sleeper. And these are the sheets they came with us I think in 2023 is when miracle made showed up here. And I have not had any other sheets. I mean I've, I've like washed them if not just been the same ones unwashed, clarify that. Right. But it's the same sheets that have been on our same brand of sheets, I should say that have been on our bed now for going on three years. They and they also feel great, particularly if you're in the change of seasons parts of the country as we are. You can't beat it. By the way, that same silver infused fabric that helps with thermoregulating all night long also helps to get rid of about 99.9 of the bacteria that accumulates on your sheets as well. So upgrade your sleep, give yourself the gift of better rest. Go to try miracle.com dace try your Miracle made sheets today. You'll save over 40. When you use the promo code dace you'll get an extra 20% off plus a free three piece towel set. That's try miracle.com dace using the promo code [e-mail] dace promo code dace all right, coming up on today's show, a new book asks a very provocative question. Is the government legally killing us? We'll get an answer to that question here at the bottom of the hour. And then next hour we're going to conclude the two year study of the book of Romans with part two of our Ask Me Anything based on some of the issues that came up over the course of studying what I still believe is the greatest theological treatise written in the history of our species. And that'll conclude that study. And then we're off next Thursday taking our annual spring break vacation. And then I think we'll probably just do some topical stuff for a while before we we dive into another Bible study. What's a while? I don't know. A while. However, right now we're going to get to Aaron's rundown of what happened while we were away.

[Aaron McIntyre]

What happened while we were away. Brought to you by declaring victory Epic Fury.

[Steve Dace]

I said, I like that name. Well, it's only good if you win, you know, you can only do. And we've won. Let me say we've won.

[Aaron McIntyre]

President Trump made those comments during his trip to Ohio and Northern Kentucky, where he also continued giving himself flexibility on the timeline of Operation Epic Fury.

[Steve Dace]

We don't want to leave early, do we, huh? We got to finish the job, right?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Massive coordinated attacks from headlines Hezbollah and Iran rocked northern Israel yesterday evening. Estimates are around 150 rockets flew towards the northern Israeli territories as the country expands its operations against Hezbollah. In Lebanon, Iran's new supreme leader, Motaba Khamenei has spoken for the first time, kind of. He spoke through state television and threatened everyone with death if they crossed the regime. Basically. Back at home, President Trump says he still wants to see the Save America act passed.

[Steve Dace]

We want voter id. We want proof of citizenship. We added a couple. No men playing in women's sports. We don't. Nobody does.

[James Tallarico]

I think it's about a 98% issue.

[Steve Dace]

We want no transgender mutilation of our children.

[James Tallarico]

Very basic things that you wouldn't even

[Steve Dace]

think we'd be talking about 15 or 20 years ago.

[Aaron McIntyre]

President Trump's comments echo messaging from the White House in recent weeks on the Save America act, demanding not only voter ID and proof of citizenship to vote, but also a ban on meatball surgeries in the name of gender for minors and a ban on dues competing in women's sports. Neither of those items are involved in the Save America Act. So you start to wonder if this is a play on the part of the White House to get Democrats on the record on those cultural flashpoints ahead of the midterms. If indeed the Save America act is doomed one way or another. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says we're going to have a vigorous debate later today.

[Steve Dace]

We will finish up the 21st century

[James Tallarico]

road to Housing act, the latest piece

[Aaron McIntyre]

of legislation in Republicans affordability agenda.

[Steve Dace]

And next week I will be bringing

[Aaron McIntyre]

the Save America act to the floor

[James Tallarico]

and we will be having a full and robust debate.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Couple of notes from flyover country. Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon on Monday signed legislation banning baby killing after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected, generally about six weeks gestation. The signing makes Wyoming the fifth state to protect babies at the sign of a heartbeat, along with Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Iowa. That last state, Iowa is Where gubernatorial candidate Adam Steen announced yesterday he has over 9,600 signatures to get on the ballot in the Hawkeye state for the GOP primaries over the minimum threshold for ballot access by 274%. His main challenger, Congressman Randy Feenstra, Squish produced around 7,500 signatures for ballot access. Yet another indication of the mood of the GOP base in the crucial and in some ways bellwether state of Iowa in the midterms. And finally, introducing you to a new term, the euphemism filter. Here's James Tallarico along with Lutheran satire.

[James Tallarico]

So you're saying you can be a faithful Christian and support abortion? Absolutely, Joe. As a proud Democrat running here for Senate in the great state of Texas, and as a committed Christian, it's clear to me that God would never want anyone violating a woman's bodily autonomy. God would never ask a woman to sacrifice her reproductive rights. God would never take away a woman's right to choose to kill the child growing in her womb. Wait, you think abortion's murder? No, no, I. I don't know why I said that. What I meant to say is that a woman should be free to control her by killing the child growing inside her body. What the heck? Why am I saying this? Oh, dude, you know what's probably happening? I bet you just broke your euphemism filter. My what now? Your euphemism filter. It's that part of your brain that uses pleasant or righteous sounding terms to describe something unpleasant or sinful so you don't have to deal with the unpleasantness or sinfulness of the thing. I don't have a euphemism filter, John. Yeah, sure you do. We all do.

[Aaron McIntyre]

I'll show you.

[James Tallarico]

Repeat after me. John is economically disadvantaged. John is poor. Sarah's on a self care retreat. Sarah's drunk in Aruba. Robbie just had Taco Bell and is having bathroom had Taco Bell and is having explosive diarrhea. I broke my euphemism filter.

[Steve Dace]

What do I do?

[James Tallarico]

Well, for starters, you probably want to stop talking about abortion. No, Joe, I'm not afraid to keep talking about this important issue. You see, I have God on my side. All right, so a minute ago you were saying you think the story of Mary shows how the Bible's pro choice. That's right. So the fact that God asks for Mary's consent to conceive Jesus shows that God would have upheld whatever decision Mary made, whether that was to continue with that holy pregnancy or. Or to murder the son of God. Ah, shoot, that wasn't good. I didn't mean that. What did you mean? I mean that God gave Mary the freedom to give life to the universe redeeming Messiah or grind him up into a pile of goo. Ah haha. Shoot, that was worse. Yeah. I gotta say man, your argument that the Bible supports legalized abortion sounds pretty stupid when you can't hide behind positively coded vague concepts like rights and freedoms and you just have to kind of say what abortion actually is. Joe, please don't buy into the right wing framing of this issue. I am simply saying that God would have respected Mary's right to rip the savior of the world's head off of his body and smash it up and throw it in the garbage.

[Scott Shara]

This is a terrible curse.

[James Tallarico]

Let's talk about something else again.

[Aaron McIntyre]

That bit courtesy of Lutheran satire and that's what happened while we were away.

[Steve Dace]

It's funny man, but it's tragic. And what was the Jim Carrey film in the 90s? Fire.

[Todd Erzin]

Liar. Liar.

[Steve Dace]

We had to tell the truth the entire time. Kind of reminded me a little bit of that.

[Todd Erzin]

Aaron, for me, I'm not the final vote, but mark the tape on video of the year that pick this Catholic

[Steve Dace]

is here to endorse the Lutheran parody website. Yes.

[Todd Erzin]

Come let us reason together. I mean you can apply that to just about any issue. That's not comedy, that is theology. And not just the one, not just one.

[Steve Dace]

On one level, don't disagree at all. The whole euphemism filter thing, I mean, what is it we really mean? Yes, 100%. All right. By the way, Aaron's montage brought to you by our friends over at Relief Factor, if you're struggling with too much chronic pain, it's because you've probably got too much inflammation in your joints and that's where you get that lingering pain in the back, your neck, your knees, your hips that just won't go away. No guarantee that Relief Factor will work. But over the years, 1 million plus people have tried the three week quick start I'm about to offer to you and over 70% of them have stayed with the product long term because of the results that they saw. So why don't you see if you don't see a difference in your pain in three weeks or less, especially when it's a value bet, it's only going to cost you 20 bucks to find out. That's it. 20 bucks over three weeks to see if you don't see a difference in your pain in three weeks or less when you go to relieffactor.com. get started today with the three week quick start at relief factor dot com. Okay, now let's carry over the conversation. We were briefly happening, we were brief, briefly having, I should say off air right before the show started, because as I, as I watched your montage, I came away with the exact same conclusion. All right, so yesterday, just to frame this a little bit, yesterday, I made it very clear if the Save America act does not end up on President Trump's desk, we're not winning in November. That's my analysis. Do I know the future?

[Todd Erzin]

No.

[Steve Dace]

Am I empowered singularly to make that future happen?

[Todd Erzin]

No.

[Steve Dace]

No. But similarly to like, you know, we've got on one of the monitors here, Aaron's favorite team. They're playing in the Big Ten tournament right now. Right. If, if, if Ohio State, they didn't. But if Ohio State got off to a 15 to nothing lead in this game, there's still a lot of game to be played, right, Aaron? But what would the odds be that your Hawkeyes would come back and win at that point?

[Aaron McIntyre]

This Hawkeyes team?

[Steve Dace]

Low, Low. Okay. And so you can't win a game this early in the game. Right. The 2026 midterm campaign game is kind of just beginning. Right. So you can't win it right now, especially because it doesn't go final till the first Tuesday in November or however long it takes Democrats to get the votes they need at about 15 counties they control. I'm sorry, is this on? That brings us back to the Save America act, does it not? Okay. All right. And so, so we just started this game. It's just underway. But, but if it, your best player's already got two fouls and he's on the bench. Right. You've already turned it over three times and you're like, this is not starting. This is not the way this is going to go if we're going to win. Is that a fair analysis? Right, Right. And that's what not getting this yet on the President's desk means. Now, in that kind of a scenario, you know, the coach of your favorite team, you know, he can't think like you as a fan at home or like I can think as an analyst sitting here watching, which is, yeah, this is probably not going to end well. And I'm not going to like the end result of this game. His job is to still go out there and try to figure out how to pull a rabbit out of the hat and change the trend line that everybody that's watching at home can see take place. Right. Okay. And so I view the President as doing that in what you laid out in your montage there, right? This is the president saying, hey, all right, here's the audible, here's the call. All right, we're going to go ahead and we're going to put these issues up for a vote, including the Save America Act. We're going to put Tranny Madness up for a vote. We're going to put all this stuff that draws stark differences between us and them up for a vote. And that's your voter guide for the 2026 midterm elections. Right? And you're going to see Democrats voted no on all this and Republicans voted yes. That's the audible call, it appears. That's the can we change the momentum of this game? Right? That's the Let me take this guy out or a couple guys out and put these two guys in substitutions, however you want to, whatever sports analogy you want to use here. But that's the, that's the play call to try to reverse the momentum of the game. Now, our job as analysts is to, is to discuss whether we think that's a good play call, then it's to discuss whether we think it'll work. Because those two things aren't always mutually symbiotic. They can be mutually exclusive. For example, let's answer the first question first, because I think that's the easiest one to answer. Is this a good play call? Well, if I still believe they're going to find a way to get that thing on the President's desk and there's another way to do it I'll discuss in a minute called budget reconciliation. I've seen John Kennedy talk about this, and let me. And I'll explain to you why they haven't done it this way yet. But I'm going to get to that, too, here in a minute. Okay? But I do think inevitably that Bill, by hook or by crook, is going to end up on the president's desk, because what it does to expose the entire, you know, whatever you want to call it, mirage, scam, grift, necessity, desire, whatever word you prefer, you use in your parlance of why a lot of us that are beyond existentially frustrated with the Republican Party still keep voting for it. All right, that all of that just blows it up, man. Just all that blows up if they can't get this done. So I still think they're going to get this done, but for now, we don't know that yet either.

[Todd Erzin]

Right.

[Steve Dace]

That's also the future. So as a. As A, as an audible or a substitution or an att. This is, to me, this is the right play call. I think it is the only play call they have. There's no other play call. The only other alternative to we can't get it on the president's desk is to try to frame this. That I can see anyway, is to try to frame this in an overall national slate. Now, we're going to get to whether or not it'll work in a moment. But in terms of if you're watching the game and you're like, I can see why they did that. Oh, man. Because that's, that's the only thing we got to get this guy on the bench. He's a sharpshooter or that's our fastest wide receiver. Let's put him out there and see if we can, you know, get a big play right. You, I can see the logic in what the president is doing here and trying to pivot to an overall agenda of stark differences between Republicans and Democrats on, on all issues that have like 70% or higher public approval, regardless of the partisan breakdown of who we're asking. So I, I get the strategy of pivoting to this. I do think it's the right call. We'll discuss in a, in a second whether we think it'll work. But I, I, when I see this as the alternative play call, I'm not like, what are we doing here? This doesn't make any sense. It makes total sense to me why we're pivoting to this.

[Todd Erzin]

It makes total sense to me, too. As you said, the data align in terms of there being, when polled, an overwhelming sense that these are top two issues where not only red meat eating, red staters, but normies and even some Democrats are like, enough already. We need to clean this up. But attaching these things regularly in conversation makes sense because it has everything to do, Steve, with what you've talked about very recently with the head argument and then the emotional argument, the storytelling side of things. Because here's the thing, wins are happening. There's still all kinds of momentum, even though there's still problems, certainly in California with save girl sports. But because people see this on a regular basis, people are playing sports on a regular basis. And it's in people's minds. And so it makes them politically active all the time. Elections don't happen every single day.

[Steve Dace]

No.

[Todd Erzin]

And so it's, even though, yes, this thing is coming along, we know how long people wait to start the oh, politics elections. I don't want to Think about it. This is a way to make people think about the crazy right now by tying these two things in an emotional storytelling way that you always tell our people is more important now than ever. I agree.

[Steve Dace]

Agree.

[Aaron McIntyre]

I don't hate the strategy. It's either cynical or strategic, depending on your viewpoint here. The rub with this strategy is this. If we can't even get John Thune and the cadre of Republicans who we believe are holding up the Save America act to do what needs to be done to actually pass it without going through reconciliation, won't even make an attempt to do that without reconciliation. What are John Thune's demands from his caucus going to be? Don't make me vote on the save women's sports. Don't make me vote on ending genital mutilation in the name of gender. Please protect me from getting on the record. I'm not talking about Democrats. I'm talking about Republican senators. How many of those are in the Republican caucus that don't want to be exposed to that?

[Steve Dace]

See, now we get to whether to work, all right? And I, and I think we have to define work. If this is your alternative to getting this thing on the President's desk. And again, I, I still think that they will. And I'll explain why I think that there's a second reason why I think they'll do that here in a second. Okay, but let's assume that it, that it does not, right? This, this strategy is being deployed as a, as a, as a plan B, as a fail safe mechanism, as a fallback if they cannot get the bill on the President's desk. Okay, here's why I don't believe it'll work, even though I think it's the right call here. Here's why I don't believe it'll work. All right? The reason why I don't believe it'll work. Well, it may on one end help your hemorrhaging with your base. But if the, the two groups of people that we are struggling with in our base right now to turn out, all right, the, the, the, the hardcore ma. The hardcore MAGA person is in. Is, is in. That person is, is energized by all the data I've seen and they're in the, there's two groups of people within our base we are struggling to turn out. One is a very small group of people, but they still represent 15 to 20% of the base. And that's your hardcore Republican establishment figure, establishment voter. That's the person, you know, that was that thought Nikki Haley should have been the next President of the United States or John Kasich. In fact, maybe saying they're 15 or 20% might be too high. Let's say 8 to 12. Now can we afford though, in this election to have 8 to 12% of our, of our base demoralized?

[Aaron McIntyre]

No.

[Steve Dace]

No. Okay, so it's not, it's not big, but it's significant in the, in the, when your margin for error is what ours is right now, 8 to 12% is A, is a big factor. Okay. The other one you have is your, your, your long term traditional conservative voter who thought Ted Cruz should have been president over Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis should have been over Donald Trump. You're struggling to motivate that person too. They take policy very seriously. They're not really driven by your memes. In fact, in fact, in many respects, that person thinks meme culture is, is. I don't, I think that goes too far. But they, that person a lot of times thinks that we're not serious about actually fixing things, you know, running a country. We're just here to, you know, meme and troll and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, engagement bait and clickbait. Okay. That voter is not very happy right now on our side either. And it's those two groups of people that are, that are predominantly not showing up in a lot of these primaries and special elections and off year cycles where we're just getting obliterated all over the country. Not pretty much no matter where it's at, except Boca Raton, Florida, where there's a huge amount of Jews who love what Trump is doing in Israel and they should have been mass at that primary on Tuesday. But short of that, Daniel was telling us about that yesterday. Short of that, that other. Now that block of people is a significant group of people. That is a significant group of people. And, and, and then on top of it, they are, that group of people would be very, very much against what Tucker's doing. What Candace is doing. The, you know, the attempts to whitewash Nick Fuentes, they'd be very against that. And Ted Cruz knows this. And, and, and Tucker has opened up an avenue for Ted to run for president that did not exist for Ted Cruz a year ago. And Ted knows this. This is why his entire presidential campaign message for 2028 is running against Tucker. Now that's, Is that enough people to win Ted Cruz a Republican presidential nomination? No.

[Aaron McIntyre]

No.

[Steve Dace]

But is it enough to launch a bid to win it? Yep. It's still a significant group of People. So you may get that second group that, when I was just talking about that Ted Cruz DeSantis conservative, that messaging may get them back on board. I don't know that it works for the Nikki Haley voter, but I would suggest it at least stops the bleeding. But sort of like what we've done with inflation, where we've slowed its rate of growth, but we haven't addressed the inflation that was already kind of baked into the formula here. Right. So we're no longer, you know, down 15 to nothing. We're scoring points now, but we're, we haven't addressed the 15 point deficit that we had. Right. So from the time we made this move, the game's been relatively close and back and forth. Okay, you see where I'm going with this. But the 15 point lead that was in, that was, that was in play before we made this move has not been about. We've not made a dent in that. We're just now back to treading water in the game. And I'm going to tell you right now, you cannot possibly. I, you know, I've said this with Trump several times. Maybe he'll make me eat these words again and I would love it if he did okay in this case. But I don't even think the greatest pitch man, arguably in American history can go to normie voters and say, well, you guys just need to understand how the Senate works. And we didn't have enough, you know, to get through the filibuster. And so I need three or four more senators and I need a handful more of members in the House as well. You've already lost normies. They're, they're out. They're already out yet. They're already out. They're tuned out. That's way too long of an explanation already. And it took a minute and a half. Not going to work. So wait a minute. You want me to, you want me to vote for you guys to do the stuff that I thought I was voting for you to do the last time when you guys had total control of D.C. now, of course, there's the devil's in the details here. Republicans had one of the smallest majorities you could possibly have, right? Okay, fine. But do normies care about details? Do you think like that or no?

[Todd Erzin]

No.

[Steve Dace]

So, so you're going to say to normies, hey, we vote for us to do all the stuff you thought you were voting for us to do the last time to this time, go ahead and do it for sure again. How's that one going to play do you think, like, how's, how's, how did the. Read my lips know new taxes. And then here's the largest tax increase in American history. How'd that, How'd that one go over? You. You and I will just remember that one. How'd that one play to this? Well, we lost the next congressional election by eight points on the generic congressional ballot. That's how it played.

[Todd Erzin]

And that was then. Now we have an even more comfortable crowd. So, no, that's not gonna happen.

[Steve Dace]

Yeah, I just don't. I don't think that's sellable. I just don't. And I'm saying that to the guy that has. That's worth 7 billion in his last assessment, by selling ice to Eskimos. And really in the New York City skyline, man. Okay, so I'm just a schmuck in Des Moines. What do I know? But I mean, I know human nature, and I just, I don't think you're going to sell that to normies. I just don't. So maybe it stops our bleeding. Now, maybe the Georgia state legislature doesn't go Democrat. Now, maybe in Iowa we can survive and go ahead and still win the governorship with a 200,000 voter registration advantage because we are giving that, you know, base of our base maybe reasons to remember why the Republicans in the first place. But you've not done anything to deal with the deficit. We already had before we had a base problem, which is are we delivering on what normies asked us and thought they were voting on? What did normies think they were voting on? No stupid wars. Now, is Iran a stupid war or not? That's up. That's open for debate. But they were. They thought they were voting for no stupid wars. They thought they were voting for an economy to get boosted again. They thought they were voting for mass deportations, and they. They thought they were voting for government accountabilities were all major factors in the president's message down to the day before the election in 2024. Correct?

[Todd Erzin]

Yeah.

[Steve Dace]

And that's what normies voted for. How much of that have they gotten? Well, not as much. It's great as they thought they were going to. As they thought they were going.

[Todd Erzin]

It's gray.

[Steve Dace]

And so now you're going to want to argue with them. Well, you know, we just had four more Republican Senate. I mean, that's just. No, that's not going to work. I don't think so. It's the right play. But that's why I also don't think ultimately it'll win. We've got to get this on the president's desk because it doesn't just, it doesn't just remobilize our, off our, our base. We have to show normies we can govern a country. Okay? I mean, if we, if the only thing we did in two years was a mass, big, big, beautiful bill last July and we can't do anything legislatively significant other than that, then what are we doing here as a party? That's what I mean, what's the, what's the pitch we have to normies? So that brings me to what I think will be how they'll eventually have to try to get this bill on the president's desk. And Senator John Kennedy suggested this on FOX the other night. All right. It's through what's called reconciliation. And this is how they've passed all your budgets without a budget, all right. And it, and it allows things that fund the government to come up and go to the president's desk with just a strict plurality of votes. It suspends the filibuster if it involves funding and matters of immediate funding and need that the government has to take care of. So what Kennedy is saying is, is, is throw that on to reconciliation and passive. Now the problem you're going to have with that is what's called the Bird Rule, named after former Senator Robert Byrd, the former Klan, a grand wizard of the KKK Democrat from West Virginia who was very concerned about white Negroes late in his life. True story. So anywho, that's not important now, but I just wanted to mention it. Fun fact, but the Bird rule says that you can't now use the, the budget reconciliation to just turn that into an omnibus bill. Just start throwing in glomming stuff on that doesn't clearly deal with direct funding of necessities of the government. You can't do that. And so the reason why I think you haven't seen this applied to a reconciliation yet or discussed in Mass in the Senate is because if they use that to put it on the president's desk, it'll probably work and it will get on the president's desk. That's good. But you now have given immediate grounds for a, for a federal judge to put, not that Democrat judges, judges needed rationales anyway. But see, you're not worried about what the first district judge from the 666th district of Babylon, Democrat Obama appointee is going to say. You're worried about what happens when you get, when this ultimately gets to the Supreme Court and you're essentially handing John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, the justification decide against you without even thinking of the merits of the legislation in the first place by just saying you guys violated your own legislative procedure to pass this. What are we even doing here? You guys knew going in this violated the Bird Rule. That's why you didn't do it from the start. It very clearly violates your own legislative process. Right. So of course this is unconstitutional. You violated your own legislative process. And I think that's why they're hesitant to do it, because it improves the odds that this won't stand up in the courts. You don't want to give a free shot to your enemies to screw. You thoughts on that? But it may be ultimately the only shot that they have. I don't know.

[Todd Erzin]

Yeah, it's. It, it's desperate. It's not principled. It is illegal and should be illegal. I mean, Robert Byrd, for all his flaws, understood what time it was in terms of then, in terms of why we do that. So the principled way. Once again, Donald Trump on his third marriage talks about, you know, I like people who don't get captured, and I've never asked for forgiveness, but he's got the moral high ground once again. This is like in Lincoln, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. This is not about just one issue. This is not just about one election. This is about something about cosmic importance, right and wrong, good and evil, and Donald Trump is the set. You know what? Here's how we're going down. I'm going to put everybody on the record and John Thune and all you guys, if you want to go down this way, I'm going to make sure you are branded as full tranny for the rest of your lives. And in the movie, it's portrayed at the end when everybody has to vote the cosmic stakes of their up or down on whether black men should be free or not. That's what's portrayed, and that is absolutely what should we do now? And if we can't pull that off, that should be exposed right now as well. I don't want to do some procedural thing. I want to see if we are choosing God or the devil.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yep. And I agree with that assessment. I would hope that Trump would do that. Nuke the thunes of the world. Nuke those who are trying to stand in the way of just the. Just the lowest bar that you could possibly cross. But then again, we're getting into the territory where we're trying to ask one man to do everything. When ultimately, look at the GOP splits in Primaries. And it's just all about us again.

[Steve Dace]

Stay tuned. The steve day show. All right, back here on the Steve Day Show. And one key to getting active, staying active, particularly as we get older, is preventative health. And that's why you want to get to know our friends over at Chirp. Dr. Trusted FDA cleared devices that work just like the clinic treatments but without all the expensive appointments. I've got a little tennis elbow issue, little tendonitis in my left elbow. Got up this morning because it's a lifting day for me. Pull out my Chirp rolling power mini massager just to kind of try to massage that up, massage that out a little bit, stretch it out a little bit so that it didn't limit me when I went to the gym this morning. That's one of those devices that you can get from our friends over at Chirp. There's the, the Chirp contour decompression and massage table which provides professional grade relief, spinal decompression, soothing massage, relaxing heat right there in the comfort of your own home. And then foam rollers, trigger point rollers. You definitely want to have these at your disposal. I was watching something the other day about my beloved Michigan Wolverines who just won the Big Ten championship. And one of their more fitness minded players was asked, hey, because he lives in the training room, he's working out, doing preventative health all the time. And they asked him, hey, if you can only take one thing out of here, what would it be? He said it was the foam trigger point roller. That's what he said. So they've got all of those at Chirp too. All right, so go to go chirp.com dace all right. Go chirp.com steve I always screw that up. I'm sorry. Go chirp.com Steve Visit C-I R P gocherp.com steve all right, name of the book is the Government Legally Killing Us. Is the Evidence Obvious? How Fear of Death and the Illusion of Freedom Turns Us into Accomplices to Evil by Scott Shara. And if you read my best selling book Rise of the Fourth Reich written by Daniel Horowitz with Daniel Horowitz, then you know him also as Grace's dad because his was one of the sadder stories that we unfortunately profiled in that book. And he joins us on the show. It's good to see you again, Scott. How are you?

[Scott Shara]

Well, it's great to see you again too, Steve. Thanks for having me on.

[Steve Dace]

If you don't mind, just kind of reset for the audience a little Bit to your story that you did share a few years ago in Rise of the Fourth Reich. And what happened to you, Grace, your family, during. During the scamdemic of 2020.

[Scott Shara]

Well, first, I'm glad you call it a scamdemic, because we don't want to slip and call it Covid, because then we're adding to the drama that's still being portrayed that this was just the thing that happened. No, it wasn't the thing that happened. And, you know, we got sucked it. And my beautiful daughter Grace, who was 19, she had down syndrome. She was my best buddy. We were not awake to most of the scam a little bit, meaning that Grace was never vaccinated. So we were awake a little bit. Big picture, but not relative to Covid. I still thought hospitals were safe. The morning of October 6th, we took Grace to the hospital with a cold. She just had Oxygen saturation dropped to 88%. We were led to believe that was an emergency, and she was dead seven days later. They gave her a combination of meds that should never be combined. Pressedex, lorazepam, and morphine. In fact, our medical expert at the jury trial said that when they gave Grace morphine, that was the worst clinical decision he's ever seen in 46 years of medical practice. And to make matters worse, when it came time to revive Grace after giving her morphine, they refused to even come in the room. And that's because the doctor had put an ill, illegal, do not resuscitate order on Grace's chart. And ultimately, that situation woke me up. And the start of it was that evening as my wife was being walked out in a wheelchair. One of the nurses leaned down and said to her, Mrs. Shera, me and several of the nurses don't think Grace should have died today. And that started a process that ended up into a mission. And it's still going strong today. I invest between 75 and 90 hours a week making sure that Grace's death is not in vain and that her death is being used to save literally thousands of lives already across the country. And I'm humbled to be used. It's an interesting position to be in. I never thought that I would ever do something like this. But now we've released the book, and that's what we're going to talk about today.

[Steve Dace]

So this book is kind of a compilation of everything that you've seen, learned since you dug into what happened to your precious daughter and why. And that's a lot of heartache and a lot of work A lot of heartache that you're experiencing through the other people that you're interviewing and talking to as well. What would you say is the biggest truth that you've learned through this process?

[Scott Shara]

Well, in the process, the biggest truth that I've learned is how they control us. And I touch on that in the book. In fact, I have a fair number of pages touching on it. But that's not the real message of the book. But the biggest thing that I've learned is they control us with dialectics. And so they consistently they. And when I say the word they, by the way, Steve, what I'm talking about is the way that I see it. I have a biblical worldview. I see Satan as the puppet master, and then the minions that he is using to pull this off on us, I'm calling them they. And I introduce that topic in the book also because it's important to understand that many of these minions are just cogs in the wheel. They don't really know what they're doing. But, you know, there's a fair number of them that have sold out for money and greed and whatever. But, you know, this dialectic process of evil versus less evil, God's way is always outside of that. And I used to fall trapped to it, too. And you know, just to give you a couple of simple examples, I mean, we have cnn, evil Fox, less evil. And so, you know, people think they're awake because they watch Fox News. Well, I mean, they're. They're foolish. That's not even close to true. Then you have, you know, the evil Democrats, the less evil Republicans. And I'll just be blunt. God's way, again, is always outside of these dialectics of evil versus less evil. And, you know, with respect to Democrat versus Republican, you'll have the typical race where the Democrat believes in woman's right to choose, and the Republican says abortion in the first trimester, both men are murderers. It's just a matter of degree. God's way is always outside of those dialectics. And that methodology is what Satan used in the garden with Eve, and he's still using it today. And, you know, as you zoom out to a much bigger level, the Hegelian dialectic process takes over. So that's how they pull off getting 80% of the population to take this Covid kill shot. You know, they start out with a fake virus problem reaction solution. So you have the evil virus, the reaction, fear, and then the less evil jab. And boy, it was masterful. They pulled it off perfectly. So Covid when anybody tells you Covid was a failure run, it was a huge success in the goal of the population reduction agenda.

[Steve Dace]

So you're, you're essentially describing when we saw These messages in 21 and 22, especially, Hey, I fully vaccinated, but I tested positive for Covid. But the good. But. But I would have been even worse off and had serious consequences if not for the COVID You're kind of explaining the dynamic that led to that kind of messaging, for example.

[Scott Shara]

Right, right on. I mean, that's, that's how programmed the population is. I can remember hearing people on the radio when they would go into the hospital after getting the jab, and then they would come on and say, yeah, boy, it would have been a lot worse if I wasn't jabbed. It's like, oh, boy. I mean, they have bought into this. And, you know, the virology vaccine agenda has been going on since the mid-1850s. I mean, that's. And of course, I expose that in the book. I talk at length about the virology vaccine psyop and how they will never cut off the head of that snake because they can control too many people with it and kill too many people with it. It's a very important tentacle of master plan to control the population.

[Steve Dace]

So I think a lot of people in our audience, the host of this show included, have awakened to a lot of this in reaction to what we all witnessed during the scamdemic and trying to come up with reasons why this all occurred and in the way that it did. I think the challenge now, Scott, is what are the solutions to all of this? So let's start with a couple of those. Based on your work and what you experienced tragically yourself with your own family, what are a couple solutions that we could be doing right now that we're not?

[Scott Shara]

Well, I will start with, let's talk about things that aren't going to work. We cannot rely on a new king. We cannot rely on a new HHS secretary that is putting our faith in men. That's how we got into this problem. So we can't legislate our way out of this, and we cannot vote our way out of this. So those are things that are not going to work. What I know is, is the promotion of the Golden Age cannot happen without repentance. You cannot have revival without repentance. And I believe that the answer to this is for every single person to look in the mirror and say, how did this happen and what was my contribution to it? And we have become A statist hell. And we have all had either direct or tacit approval of turning our God given birthright, our freedom over to the state. And the only way out of that is repentance. And then we can reclaim the ground that we've lost. Then we can stand. You know, and you look at something as simple as not participating, that sounds like, oh yeah, well that's a no brainer to not participate. And just going back to the scamdemic, if everybody would have said we're not wearing a mask, it's bs we're not wearing a mask, they could have not pulled it off. But we obediently complied because we are herd animals. They program us to trust, you know, we all went to the public fool system. They program us to have our civic duty, to trust the government. And you know, that's turning our birthright over to the state. That's why, you know, every chance I have an opportunity to talk about this, I want to always look in the mirror first and say repentance is the answer. We got to this point by rejecting God, period.

[Steve Dace]

How much of this do you think would be alleviated if more people were just willing to say no?

[Scott Shara]

If everybody was willing to say no, it would be, the house of cards would come down, you know, process. You know, Steve, let's say that you,

[Steve Dace]

in other words, in other words, you get the, you get, you get whatever amount of tyranny you are willing to comply with is essentially what you're saying.

[Scott Shara]

Spot on. And that's why I believe everybody has a part in how this has happened. We want the Israelites back. In 1st Samuel, chapter 8, what happened? They wanted a king and they pleaded to Samuel the prophet. And Samuel went directly to God and said, hey, these dummies want the king. And God told them, well, tell them what the king is going to do, you're going to become slaves. And so Samuel goes and tells the people and they say, well, we still want a king. And God said, consistent with God's character, he will not override our free will, give him a king. But then God washed his hands of it. So now the consequences of a king was on the people. And that's exactly where we're at. We don't want to do the hard work. We want to turn over our birthright to the medical insurance company and then have the medical insurance company negotiate with the system. I mean, think through how crazy that is. If you wanted to get your windows washed at home, Steve, and you didn't have a referral, you'd maybe Go online and you'd get a couple of. You get a couple of calls in, and ultimately they would give you a quote. And they might come to your home to do the estimate. You'd get a email with a written proposal. Then they have an agreed time, they're going to show up. They have a cell phone number to contact them. And once they're done with the job and during the job, if they make a mistake, you'd expect that they would fix it, and they would fix it. That is how business practice is in America. Okay, so now look at the medical system. No quotes. You can't get a hold of the. The doctor with questions. They're always late. And if they make a mistake, for example, with the surgery, they have to redo the surgery. You get billed twice. I mean, it's. It's insane. And we let all that happen because we have such a faith and, you know, it's a faith in a false idol. This white coat and this book. I have invested 4,000 hours of research since Grace's death. And after the trial was over, Steve, God put on my heart to write down everything you know about the medical industrial complex. I thought, okay, I was already moving on to work on a much bigger project that I'm working on called Escaping Babylon. And so then, all right, here we go. And ultimately, this book is a summation of 4,000 hours of research into the medical industrial complex complex.

[Steve Dace]

And if you want to read this summation, it is out now. Is the government legally killing us? Is the evidence obvious? How fear of death and the illusion of freedom turns us into accomplices to evil. It's good to talk to you again, Scott. Brother, God bless you and your family. Thank you for the work.

[Scott Shara]

So God bless you too, Steve, and thank you very much for your endorsement of the book. You are inside the front cover. And I'll be mailing your personal copy that I'll be signing next week.

[Steve Dace]

You got it, brother. God bless you guys. Thank you very much. Thank you. You take care. What do you guys think?

[Todd Erzin]

Well, we had no idea this was going to be on the same day as that video that Aaron shared at the beginning, at the end of the montage there with Talarico. But they're both addressing the same thing. The degree to which our idolatry has overcome us through a lot of programming. Nailed it. That's what. That's why I said that. What. That could be the video of the year because it applies to so many issues. That's exactly what happened to us with COVID We chose a very nice way, and then we still haven't recovered because all these people suddenly found a new way to believe in something and be part of the team, and they carried it on through transgenderism and God only knows what. And so now, Steve, our conversation about the election also have everything to do do with this. Our respect for experts, the white coats, whoever they may be. This is an important book. You should go out and buy it. And it has a lot, because it. It's not Covid's enough, but it has a lot more to do with reality than just that.

[Aaron McIntyre]

God bless this man. We've had him on the show before, and you've. You've mentioned he's in you and Daniel's book as well. And I just hear a man. Everything we talked about, obviously, I think is very valid and very worthwhile, especially the notes that Todd picked up on about the language. But I want to look at this from a different aspect as well. That's a dad who is making sure. Making sure, going to the ends of the earth, rhetorically and sometimes literally to make sure that the person or persons that God entrusted to him to protect with his life didn't just die for. Fill in the blank. Didn't just die for a system, wasn't killed, murdered for a system. He's doing everything in his power to make sure that he is doing his duty to those that he loves, to those that. That God entrusted to him. He's taking that all the way. He's going hard all the way. And I just tip my hat to that man.

[Steve Dace]

One of the challenges with this idol in particular is that unlike most idols, it actually does work. It actually does something for us. We actually do need medicine. We actually do need surgeons. There are scores of people alive today who otherwise would not be because of certain kinds of advancements in modern sciences. For example, I mean, a triple bypass heart surgery 40 years ago was basically a death sentence. Now you can go back to work in six months. And so that's why in particular, we need a form of a biblical worldview again. All right, just because we can do something, should we do that thing? What filter would it be that would tell us, no, don't do that just because you can. Or what authority would we all be accountable to as opposed to just your particular expertise? Well, then, who's your expertise? Or what's your expertise accountable to then? Right, Theology Thursday is next. All right, we're back here with hour two, live and on demand on Blaze tv, radio and podcast. I'm Steve Dace. With Todders and and Aaron McIntyre. Don't forget that. You can let us know what you think about what we think via the stevedace.com inbox. Take advantage of that by emailing the show Steve dace.com that's D E A C E like us on Facebook, Miwi and Gab. You can follow me at steveday show on X Instagram and Tick Tock and you can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at Day show on YouTube. That's at Day show on YouTube. You can also subscribe to the podcast if you're a podcast listener and you haven't done that yet. Yet many, many of you have. But you can do it too. Just hit that little subscribe button there on top or hit the follow button if you're on Apple itunes. And that's how you're going to ensure that you never miss an episode because it's going to for sure be in your podcast feed every time we do one. And you can hit us up with a five star review. Tens of thousands of you have done that for us. So we appreciate all of those and we'd appreciate it if you would add yours today to the list as well. As well as we appreciate our friends over at Patriot Mobile. As America is entering its 250th birthday year, what better way than to celebrate with an actual American company? Take your business to them. Our family did it six years ago and we've never looked back and we've never regretted it. All right? They've been on the vanguard of the red parallel economy and they're the only non communist mobile phone provider who doesn't hate you out there. So they've got access to every major network you can switch anytime you want for free within their hub. They give you all the premium priority bells and whistles you get from the communist corporations without the communism. And they're 100 US based customer service support team can activate you in minutes and answer any questions you have in minutes as well. They're fantastic. Used them a lot. So you can keep your phone, switch your phone, keep your number, switch your number. You can also get started with a free month of service with my promo code Steve when you go to patriotmobile.com Steve. Steve again get started today with a free month of service with the promo code [e-mail] Steve, are you ready for some Theology Thursday?

[Aaron McIntyre]

No, no, I'm just kidding. First three questions I think have the same answer.

[Steve Dace]

Listen, I decided this is the last one on Romans, all right. I decided to try and pull out some bangers. Okay. I decided to. And there's, there's some gotcha questions on each side. I hand selected those two. Okay. So I figured, you know what? We, we need to raise the level of discourse maybe a little bit.

[Todd Erzin]

Yeah, but aren't gotcha questions the opposite of bangers?

[Steve Dace]

Depends on if you've got the gotcha answers or not, my friend. All right. I think we needed raise to give Romans the true honor it is due to. Which is a part of Romans. Right. Give. Give to those. The honor it is due Romans is due a certain amount of honor. And therefore I, I think we had to raise the discourse here. One last, one last lap around the track with Paul's magnum opus, in my humble, not so humble opinion. All right, so let's just kick this thing off right and proper. Let's just go right to it, man. Instead of waiting for the closure to come in with a. With the high heat and the chin music in the ninth inning, just go ahead and see if we can clear the dugouts here. Right here in the first AB of the game. What do you think? Should we just go right for it?

[Todd Erzin]

That's always interesting when like there's stuff from the game before that's hanging over.

[Steve Dace]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Todd Erzin]

First pitch of the game, which pitcher

[Steve Dace]

is going to be the first one. Yes. To give a down payment on that. Yes. Let's go. Walker Miller wants to know who are God's chosen people? Are they the Jews or are they us, the Christians? Now, based on. We're all going to answer this one. Okay?

[Todd Erzin]

Say it. Say it. Steve knows. I don't know if you do, but Steve knows and I knew he would. I knew.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Can I just say that's the outside.

[Steve Dace]

Of course, yes.

[Aaron McIntyre]

I think obviously we get this question a lot. Maybe we should do like a two year series in the book of Romans.

[Steve Dace]

Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh.

[Todd Erzin]

See? Yes.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Maybe we should do a two year series in the book of Romans. Why didn't anybody think of that before?

[Todd Erzin]

I have never loved where Aaron McIntyre's mindset is at. More than right there. Dig that.

[Steve Dace]

That was very well played. That, that, that was very well played.

[Todd Erzin]

It's like this is what. When I saw the first three questions, like, it's like we did nothing.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yes, that was exactly my reaction.

[Steve Dace]

But.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Exactly my reaction.

[Steve Dace]

But, but in fairness to Walker's question, this is a heavily debated question today. It's especially a heavily debated question since May 15th of 1948. Okay. So. And normally I would say you cannot determine. Let me say you cannot. That's going too far. You, you in general should not determine the efficacy of your theology from the outside in, in other words, from events in the world confirming Scripture. Because if you make that your, your main rubric of whether a scripture or your understanding or your theology is true or not, then you're often practicing what is called eisegesis, meaning you're, you're interpreting the Scriptures from the outside. You're letting world events or your opinions interpret what the Scriptures mean. Okay, as opposed to exegesis, which is you see the world through the lens of Scripture. But in this case, is it really isa Jesus if your theology is that as you read the Bible, there will be a future nation of Israel that will be a prophetic nation that will signal a period of time, whether that comes before the tribulation, meaning the final, you know, the final lasting judgment of this world against God, by God, against this world by God, whether it comes before the tribulation, whether it comes in the middle of it, whether it comes after of it. But, but that tribulation will, will indicate that the fullness of the time of the Gentiles is over and God will now finish his prophetic work within the Jewish people. If that is your theological exegetical read of the Scriptures, then maybe you're not really doing eisegesis when you see a nation called Israel formed on May 15, 1948, because your, your exegesis is that prophetic thought. You see what I'm trying to say? You're not simply, you're not simply just taking world events and saying, well, that must mean this part of the Bible is true, since the world has confirmed it. You're prophetically claiming that you think the Bible says something and then when that event happens, it's not isa Jesus to then turn around and say, see that event happened. So my read of the situation is correct. We're not going to settle this question. And that's why I, and, but I'm going to give you my answer. I'm not, we're not going to duck this question. We're all going to answer it. Okay?

[Aaron McIntyre]

And I'll do my best to answer this as non cynically as possible.

[Steve Dace]

I appreciate that, thank you. But I want to set a disclaimer here that no matter what everybody's answer is, here there is a high. The highest law is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. Correct? That is the highest law law. The second highest law is to love your neighbor as you love yourself all Right. Therefore, am I permitted to scapegoat Jewish people if I do not believe they are the chosen people? Does that permit me to do that?

[Todd Erzin]

I was told online today by a Catholic Christian that you can.

[Steve Dace]

Yeah, but that would violate the second highest law. Yes, of course, of course. Right, right. And so that's why throughout these conversations we've appealed to these two laws. Laws. Because Jesus summarized the entirety of all the law, all 613 laws beginning with the 10 commandments. He summarized them all in those two things as kind of symbolic of what are those 10 commandments on those stone tablets that Moses came down the mountain with? Well, love the Lord your God like her soul, strength in mind, love your neighbor as you love yourself. So we are not permitted to false witness people, smear people, other people, on the basis of whether or not we theologically agree with them. You're not, you're not allowed to create second or third class citizens. You're not allowed to do that as a believer. Are we all agreed on that?

[Todd Erzin]

Yes.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yes.

[Steve Dace]

All right. Now to the theological point. Here is my best reading of what Romans 9 through 11 means. All right. And we spent a good deal of time parked in those three chapters when they came up. My best reading of Romans 9 through 11. To quote Paul, the Jews were given the oracles of God. Right. The primary purpose of the nation of Israel was to secure and present the Messianic line and the Messiah to the world. It fulfilled that mission with the, with the ascendancy and launch of the Christian church that signaled that we are now in a time known as the time of the Gentiles or the Church age, where Gentiles or non Jewish people are now grafted into the covenant. And everybody, Jew and Gentile alike, there is no salvation for anybody aside from the atoning work of Christ at the cross. There is nothing you can do to atone for your sins. At a meta level. That does not mean as believers we should not seek after we repent to make restitution or to restore or to pay penance. That's not to say that, but that is not to necessarily. That cannot, that cannot bridge the chasm of your sin and God only the, only the blood of Christ can do that. So you may need to do those things to restore individual relationships. You may need to do those things to atone for your character and what you've done to your own witness. But you can't put yourself on the cross and your atonement wouldn't be sufficient anyway because you're a sinner. Sinner. There is one spotless Lamb, one Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, and it is Christ Jesus. And when he said the words, it is finished or it is accomplished at the cross. The law, the rat. God's. God's wrath for sin was fulfilled. It was satisfied. The law was not satisfied. Everyone is under either grace or law. Law. There is no in between. So you are under the blood covering of the grace of Christ or you must now fully and wholly keep the law that cannot be kept. So therefore you are damned. And that is true for Jew and Gentile alike. I do believe whether that. Now, what I'm not sure about, and I'm open to debate, is whether that applies to this particular nation of Israel or not. But has been been the belief of many of the greatest thinkers in the history of the church, including Charles Spurgeon, who by the way, was preaching during the advent of. Of dispensational theology. It came out of England originally. He was a staunch proponent of it. I'm sorry, a starch. Staunch opponent of it, I should say. I mean he detested it in fact. And yet he also believed, as did someone who preached before we even knew what dispensationalism was and whose preaching might have had as much to do with America being a free nation as any military act, Jonathan Edwards, that there would still come a time. And Jonathan Edwards, by the way, not a friend of Jews if you look at a lot of his writing, but there would still come a time where God would return to complete the covenant with the Jewish people in Christ as their Messiah. There would be a final harvest of the Jews. Now, whether that takes place in a future nation called Israel, whether that takes place in a worldwide event, it is in my view, and I think Romans 9:11, preach teaches it is a key component to the fulfillment of God's plan this side of the second coming of Christ. That's my best understanding of what Romans 9:11 means. Let me repeat, that's my best understanding. A guy who wore a hoodie to work. That's my best understanding. I am open to the idea that this nation of Israel is that final conglomeration, but I don't know that for sure. I don't. And it's not a dogmatic position for me. My view of this nation of Israel eschatologically has zero to do with my for. With my foreign policy views. Which is why when Michael Knowles put me on a show during Amfest with a guy, now a bunch of people are telling me is an anti Semite who I'd never heard of before, and Kai Schwimmer, when he put me on that show. And as the guy who was pro Israel. You guys were there when we taped that show. Right. How many eschatological reasons did I give for my re. For why I'm a pro Israel? How many did I get?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Pretty hard number.

[Steve Dace]

He was a low number. The lowest. One. Zero. And you noticed. What was the look on Michael Knowles's face when I did that? Oh, he was very surprised. He said something to you about it afterwards at the after party that you went to and I did not. Did he not?

[Todd Erzin]

Correct.

[Steve Dace]

He was. He was surprised that to hear an evangel as a Catholic. He was surprised to hear an evangelical make this case without using any Bible verses whatsoever. All right, now I will also add this, and this is also my opinion, the demonic way people instantly look to scapegoat the Jewish people and the nation of Israel, I have to tell you, it's one of the strong. It, it's. It is a stronger argument for the dispensational view of Israel than often many dispensationalists can muster on their own.

[Todd Erzin]

I totally agree.

[Steve Dace]

Okay. Because that's just simply supernatural and cannot be explained in any other way other than some level of demonic, supernatural resistance sense like the current nomenclature of I'm not anti Semitic, I'm just anti Zionist. Todd. I'm not anti Urza. I just don't think you and your family ought to have a home. Take that personally. Do you think you still think I'm not anti Iran?

[Todd Erzin]

I do not.

[Steve Dace]

No. I mean, I have no idea how you're possibly not anti Semitic. You're not anti Semitic, but anti Zionist. So you just want, you know, the, the, you know, the 9 million Jews in Israel to do what then? Where should they go? What would you like them to do then? I mean, how did. What, what, what does that even mean? I have no clue what that means. And it's a distinction without a difference. Now, if you want to say that you're not anti Semitic, but you're not in favor of a. You think strategically a close alliance with the Jewish nation has not been a winner for American foreign policy and has been a loss leader, then by all means you can go ahead and make that argument and list and itemize your policy arguments and we'll. I'll be happy to consider them. I might even agree with a couple. But that is my best theological understanding of what Romans 9, 11 means, as well as my own personal opinions. Aside from what I Think Scripture is clear on as well. That's my view. Who wants to go next?

[Aaron McIntyre]

I can go next. And I'm going to try to do something here off the top of my head very intentionally. And I'll tell you why at the end of the first three questions, if we get to all three of them, why? I think the answer in this day and age is the same for all three of these questions. But I will, in as much charity and as much sincerity as I can muster, what I'm going to try to do is answer and toggle back and forth between how I think two people would answer this question. And I'm doing this on purpose because these two people were very good friends with very different views on these pertinent issues. And that would be R.C. sproul and John MacArthur. R.C. sproul, I think, would answer this question by saying, yes, one line of God's people, but it's faith that determines what makes up God's people. I think John MacArthur would answer this question the same way. It is faith that determines what's God's people. But he would also say the Jews are still God's people, just for a different purpose and a different meaning at this time. That would be the general answer, I think that both of those individuals who were great friends would give.

[Steve Dace]

I like it, Todd.

[Todd Erzin]

Oh, full stop. Okay. All right. Our present tense. Who are God's people? The Jews are not. This modern nation of Israel is not. This is the point of Jesus's lamentations, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that this is coming to an end. And it is a tear filled tragedy. But he's here too, as he one of the great lines of the Passion of the Christ. And I know Steve likes it as well on Via de la Rosa. Look, Mother, I make all things new. So the. And. And which is what? Here's what. The modern nation of Israel. It is a group of people bruised and battered by centuries upon centuries of abuse and pogroms, who decided to rally for a home that may not have come to pass at all had it not come come to the Holocaust. And there were notions again, once again, within the Jewish community of even if they do have a home, should it be back in the Holy Land itself? Or should it be in a whole new place, some new patch of land somewhere in some other continent? Because they understood some of the variables that we still talk to this day. And after the Holocaust, it became something akin to a fait accompli. It is in like I am a. A Catholic refugee at a Protestant school. I mean, that they still, they're just, just they, they basically came back and declared refugee status in the place where they were born in the first place. So while the Catholic Church itself argued against that happening early on, and again, there's many reasons, as I just alluded to, the Jewish, it had some of the same reasons that some Jews had themselves for maybe this wasn't a good idea. Now that it exists, we have whether it's to the point Steve made, whether it's the people that are looking for just peace and to be left alone in as much as possible, or when we start getting into Third Temple conversations that, you know, that's where things get messy because heck, the second Temple wasn't even the first Temple. The Ark of the Covenant wasn't there. We have all so trying to keep this as simple as possible. No, the Jews are no longer the chosen people, but they can still be chosen just like anybody else. The chosen people is the church, one holy, catholic and apostolic, most fully ordered through time. And that is a welcome to you and me and the Jews and everyone.

[Steve Dace]

All right, next question. This one is for you. All right, but I'm going to actually answer it before you. And I think you'll appreciate that I'm going to do that. Steve Baloga writes, if one takes the Bible as the authoritative word of God, God, and that one must acknowledge the Roman Catholic Church's mass is blasphemy against Christ and would heartily repent of that false religion as I've done in response to God's calling me to repentance of that man made religion. Now I want to give you a chance to respond to this because this does come. This one comes up a lot as well. But I want to do it though with this disclaimer. Okay, Steve, I'm going to have Todd answer your question, but I'm this Steve has a question for the other. Steve, on the other side of your question, if what you view to be true is true, then who was a Christian from about the 4th century until Luther nailed the theses to the door? That's my question now. Now listen, if I, if I thought the way Todd conducts church is the most precise understanding of the scriptures, I'd go to church where Todd does. So I don't. But if I took it to the extent that you do, then did we just go from the era of the apostles and then for 1400 and plus years, Christianity was what and what on the earth? What was it? Who was a Christian? And the. Listen, I can get high on my own intellectual Supply believing I can sit here and essentially take every leader of the Christian church who were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and completely sitting here in the year 2026, just eject them all as anathema and take 1400 years of church history and just say God just took an extended commercial break. I'm not even that intellectually arrogant and I think those of you in our, in our end that have this view have to answer that question. Who was a Christian then? Because the overwhelming majority of people who called themselves Christians for 1400 years attended Mass. So then who was a Christian then? They were all blasphemers. They all belong to a false religion now. Todd, I'll let you go ahead and answer that question.

[Todd Erzin]

Well, I think I had a similar reaction as you, Steve, because I was. Even though the follow up question here says they love us, the one that's kind of turning this on its head, that's where I took umbrage. Honestly, I'm not even moved by Steve. Listen, you were Catholic, apparently. I have, yeah. You have repented of that false religion. Okay. It would have been helpful to me to answer your question in something resembling a helpful way to know specifically what in the heck you're talking about, if you actually grew up Catholic. Here's one. It's common. I think Steven Aaron would probably acknowledge that this is just the water we all swim in. I never learned the Bible, we never read the Bible, we never discussed Scripture. I don't know how old you are, but I'm now a 53 year old man and the Bible is gone through completely in a three year cycle within the readings of the Mass. So that's something commonly said about people who leave the Catholic Church. And I have a pretty obvious rebuttal to that specifically. So again, I don't. It's, it's based on, based on the fact you watch our show, you watch the conversations we have. You, you watch the fact that we believe fruit is evidence of faith. Really short of you giving me specifics and I would say, what more in my life do I have to do to you? As see, Steve answered the broader, deep historical precedent of Catholics. Like I, I don't. I've. I've stood up on principle at, at great personal cost multiple times in my life, went professionally, had to go to court, was offered the easy way out, chose the hard road, stood up when almost no one else would. In the face of training madness, my family had to leave that district. I've raised. My marriage is strong. I have four daughters, some of whom, one of whom has been on the show, all of whom are vocal in their own way and testify to the Lord. The two that have boyfriends, one's a Marine. The other one is actually in a matter of days, who she met at the school where my kids are Catholic refugees at. He's about to enter the Catholic Church. If you have something specific, go ahead and ask. But that is just.

[Steve Dace]

All right, let me ask.

[Todd Erzin]

That's just a straw man. And let me ask a specific question.

[Steve Dace]

Let me ask one then. Because Protestants say this a lot. I'm gonna give you a chance to answer it in three minutes. All right. The Mass just crucifies Jesus all over again every single week. All right. What's the Catholic response to that?

[Todd Erzin]

Well, this is where Steve has been generous constantly in pointing out. Have a difference with what we actually believe, not what you think or need to lie about. We believe that is not true. It is not. How. It is not crucifying him over and over again. It is having access out of space and time to the one crucifixion that saved us for all time, over and over and over again. And I'm. If you can imagine that a God man died and rose from the grave to save your sins and everybody else's sins throughout all space and time, why is that such a stretch that we have the ability today to connect to that one crucifixion in something? You believe you can do it one time, one time in your life through one prayer. We just believe we can do that all the time at every Mass, but it's the same crucifixion, and he's not dying. And over and over again. It's not a perfect analogy, but the time machine analogy, it's not. You can transcend space and time by having access to that. And I know you believe this as Protestants, otherwise your faith would be meaningless.

[Steve Dace]

So it's a remembrance? No, it's not a remembrance.

[Todd Erzin]

No, no. It actually brings. This is where transubstantiation and the Eucharist. Body, blood, soul, and no. So it's not just a mere remembrance. No. But you have access to that in. In a way that is as deep and profound, as real as anybody can.

[Steve Dace]

Okay, Aaron, was there a specific thing you wanted to ask him?

[Aaron McIntyre]

I would just say Sproul would probably ask the same question that Todd just broached if there was something.

[Steve Dace]

What.

[Aaron McIntyre]

What specifically do you mean by this query? And then we can go one by one. And I think one of the first things that Sproul would talk about is transubstantiation in the Eucharist. That would probably be the first one. But it's not because he has some sort of special affinity for the Roman Catholic Church. It's because he has a sensitivity to what you led with Steve, which is the historical realities of the Church. I think John MacArthur would be far more likely, though I'm not even sure he would come right out of the gates swinging with that perceived demagoguery. He would be far more likely to be far more confrontational with this type of thing than I think R.C. sproul would be.

[Steve Dace]

All right, when we come back, we're gonna let one of the Romanists come at us. Aaron, when we come back, and then we'll try to get to the rest of these as best we can with the time we have remaining on Theology Thursday. Stay tuned,

[Scott Shara]

The steve day show.

[Steve Dace]

All right, let's get right back to it. We put the Romanist in the stockade. Now it's, it's time for us to get the Jean Wycliffe treatment. Aaron, you ready to go?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yeah. So we put him in the stockade. He's going to put us on the, on the, on the pike there.

[Steve Dace]

You know what? Let's, let's make this equivalent. We gave him the Sir Thomas Moore treatment. All right, last segment. Now we get. Now we get the John Wycliffe and they're going to dig up our ashes and get burned, burnt. So everybody, everybody's getting burnt here at the stake. It's fair.

[Todd Erzin]

Well, let me go first to honor the way you.

[Steve Dace]

Well, let me give the question first and then I'll let you do that. All right, this one is from Badger. Didn't give me his real name. That was the name he gave me. Maybe his name's Badger. That'd be weird, but also kind of cool, to be brutally honest with you. If your name was. If your name. Your parents named you Badger, Right. You either have a double digit iq, man, or you're. That. You're a starting left tackle. Okay. Anyway, Badger says, hey, Steve, who created your church? What is the ninth commandment? I believe that's commandment against false witness. Right. That's the ninth commandment. Yeah. Okay. I don't. Sometimes I don't remember them all in order. What is the 9th Commandment? Love your show. Love you guys. You don't have to do this publicly, but it's time to come home. All right, so you were going to give the disclaimer this time. Go ahead.

[Todd Erzin]

Well, this is where you're just wrong. At the end, you Don't. You don't have to do it publicly. See, this is where you actually gut. You're trying to be nice, but you're actually gutting the first part of it. Yeah, they do.

[Steve Dace]

Yeah, see, I would actually hear. We do have to do it publicly.

[Todd Erzin]

If they believe this. If they believe that. Yes, they absolutely have to. And that's biblical. So I, I don't.

[Steve Dace]

You took one of my talking points.

[Todd Erzin]

You kind of played yourself, brother. But I don't. I'm going to let. But these two because they're more than capable. And even if I disagree with them, I know it will be in fellowship however they answer. Of course, another gotcha is here. Oh, by the way. Because of the whole way Catholics and Protestants argue because we think it's the eighth commandment, because we separate the coveting and we put first and the second one together. I wasn't sure if he was going to do some weird gotcha with that, but you guys take it from here.

[Steve Dace]

I mean, my answer, Aaron, is very simple. Jesus established the church I belong to, which is the international brotherhood local. How many locals do we have now? All right.

[Todd Erzin]

Global local.

[Steve Dace]

I don't know how many we have. But the international brotherhood of Jesus followers, as evidenced by the testimony of their faithful obedience in the transformation of their lives and then their. Their capability. Whether we're going to say it's because you were elected from before the foundations of the world and therefore you can't lose a salvation you had no role whatsoever in achieving or acquiring, or whether we're going to say God used his foreknowledge that both those words are actually used in the Scriptures. God used his foreknowledge to look down through history to determine who would choose him. And that is then the church and the remnant, whichever we. And so you could lose your salvation because you could walk away from that which was. Was already sealed and given to you. Whichever. Whichever answer we want to give. And the Catholics are pretty strong in the you can lose your salvation argument. The Protestants are pretty split on this. There have been numerous Protestant denominations and there currently still are, that think you can lose your salvation. Okay. But overall, those whose testimony endures to the end, who hear from the master, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master because of the fruit that their lives have displayed of a transformed life via faithful obedience through justification by faith. That's the church.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yep. And just so all things can be made complete here, I've been toggling back and doing the John Thune toggle back and forth between Sproul and MacArthur. Very good friends who saw things very differently. They would have almost a unanimous or unison answer, which is, Christ founded the church and our unity is in the Gospel. Our unity is in Christ, not Rome. And I could even see either one of them probably clapping back at this person and saying, you know, you want to talk about bearing false witness? We don't believe that the reformers invented the new church. So you're the one actually bearing false witness here.

[Steve Dace]

That was relatively snotty. I liked it. Thank you. All right. Kelly Atkins writes, I had been a lukewarm Christian for a number of years and then the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk happened and I felt the law, the Lord tugging at my heart to really surrender to him and stop fence sitting. Since then I've rededicated my life to him and I'm attending a church and reading my Bible daily. I have a desire to get closer to God. But recently I discovered Calvinism and the teachings associated with that viewpoint. And now I'm constantly questioning my salvation. A lot of Internet Calvinists will say a person can be deceived into thinking they're part of the elect when they really. When they're really not. And that is always in the back of my mind every time I read the Bible or pray. How can I get the. Get past the constant questioning and be sure of that? I'm truly born again. Number one. I find it fascinating that Calvinists are questioning your eternal security because that would put them in opposition of, well, Calvinism. That's the P in the tulip, the perseverance of the saints. Eternal security is, is fundamental to the Calvinistic understanding, understanding of what's called sodorology or the science and study of salvation and how it works out and how it's achieved and how it's secured. Alright, so it is inherent to Calvinism is eternal security. It's inherent. Okay, so I find that fascinating. I don't necessarily want to take issue with anybody that you read online, no matter their label though without reading it myself and knowing myself for myself, what they would say. But Kelly, here's what I would in general say. If your heart is so softened towards the Lord that you're sensitive to wasting and not, and not fully, fully being in connection to what he has done for you. I'm pretty confident you don't have to worry about being one of the examples that Todd will use against me later on one day day. It's, it's those whose hearts are not that sensitive and their consciences aren't that soft towards the Lord for what he had done for them, for the high price that he paid on their behalf, and think they can therefore just kind of go live whatever they want whenever they want. Those are the ones that Todd and I will be arguing about later on, but probably not somebody whose conscience is as sensitive and whose heart is as tender towards the Lord and what he has done for you as yours is. That would be my answer. Answer. Anybody else want to chime in on this?

[Todd Erzin]

I. I do. I'm going to say this in a. As loving a way as I can because I've. I've said this very thing to family members that I love. But you. You need to hear it. Get over yourself. You, You. You aren't the point. And this is where it. It's funny, Steve, I. You're speaking my answer to existence by how you followed up in the question about what Protestants think about Catholicism and the Eucharist. But this is the level of access I'm talking about. Catholics go to the Eucharist to God. We go to Him. And your implicit psychology of everything is constantly, how is he coming to me? How am I feeling Him? There's multiple kinds of prayer and the majority of them are the kinds of like Thanksgiving repentance, asking for help, asking

[Steve Dace]

him to come, but imprecatory.

[Todd Erzin]

The most important. Yeah. Others. The most important is you going to him. Worship with no terms. He's God and you're not. And, and that's why the Eucharist in Catholicity, in the, the imagery and the remembrance of it, again, it's. But it's specifically going to him on the cross and resurrected over and over and over again. The one time thing helps us over and over and over again. And that's what you're looking for. I, I submit to you, as long as you continue to make yourself an emotional and psychological experiment, you're never going to have the answer you crave. You have got to surrender that you have to. This is part of the game. This is one thing that while it's common to deal with this, if you make it the thing, you've made it an idol.

[Steve Dace]

I disagree with that.

[Todd Erzin]

The relationship is that he is God and you are not. And this is a thorn in your flesh. And it might not be one that you are really understanding that you need to surrender, but you do, just like all the other thorns in your flesh.

[Steve Dace]

I don't disagree with that at all. I think a lot of times people have this, Kelly, I'd want to know what's your relationship like with your own father? Because one of the reasons we struggle with this is I struggled with it for a while, the idea of a truly altruistic, loving father. I did not have that connection. Never had that in my home, never had that in my life. And trying to, you know, wrap my mind around that level of trust and faith that what Todd just described was very. It took. It took time. It took time for me to get there. Okay. And so I think, in particular in this era where we lacked a generation, collective of critical mass fathers, I think this one, you know, this is kind of on the Protestant side, we would say this is what it really means to know God as father, right? You can know Jesus as your savior, but what does it really mean to know God as father? What does it really mean to know that? All right, To. To trust in that. To trust that, you know, when I come home, there will be food on the table, a safe place to live. I will be protected. I will be loved unconditionally. Not approved of unconditionally, but loved unconditionally. Right? What is that like? And if I'm disciplined, it is because it's out of love. Even if the discipline feels harsh at the moment. Moment, that correction is needed because it's meant to put me right on the right proper path. When we don't have that stuff modeled in our homes via a loving father, it can be very difficult to get to the point where you can embrace that. That level of trust in God as your father.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Aaron, man, I think what you guys just did, not even realizing it, kind of in tandem, is a little bit of a version of. I think it's Matthew 19. The rich young man, what deed must I do to get into heaven? Or what must I do to be? What good deed must I do to get into heaven? And Jesus replies, there's only one who.

[Steve Dace]

Good.

[Aaron McIntyre]

But let me answer your question anyway. And he gives three things that he must do. And the rich young man says, I've already done all of that. What else do I have to do? And then Jesus says, go and sell all of your possessions and give the money to the poor. And the young man went away, troubled, dismayed, sad. Why? Because Jesus had stepped on his idol. But at the same time, Jesus did answer his question, but not the way that he wanted to. And I think what you guys did was a version of that. Because, Steve, you looked at this as the father aspect, that I think it's in God's character that if we have those questions of him earnestly and maybe we don't have an idolatry issue. I think it's in God's character. Absolutely, there are answers to those questions. But then Todd, more often than not, this is reflected in his answers. More often than not, there's an idolatry issue. And so the answer that I was going to give is, are you keeping his commandments? Are you smashing all of your idols on a day to day basis? When you get that taken care of, then I think maybe we can have a conversation about that. But I think you guys unwittingly kind of did a version of the rich young man in Matthew.

[Todd Erzin]

And the water we swim in now is self help oriented. And we don't realize how programmed we've been. Even as conservative Christians, we think, how can you help me feel better, get better? Well, God only knows that the Christian faith can and will do that, but it can't fundamentally do it the way that it's meant to happen. Unless you worship first and you get yourself out of the way and then you will be helped if you make yourself the center instead of God, even as a Christian, especially as a Christian question, you're going to end off. End up off target.

[Steve Dace]

That's. That's very sound theology right there. Jennifer Dockery wants to. I'm going to cut these, abbreviate these now because we're running short on time. I don't want to make sure we get to the both. Both of them. Jennifer Dockery says, hey, she saw someone take the first two verses of Romans on Facebook and now she's wondering if it means that all taxation is justified and that means the American Revolution was ungodly. No. And no. That's not what it means. And that's because you. Someone took only the first two verses.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yes.

[Steve Dace]

Of Romans 13. Yes.

[Todd Erzin]

All right.

[Steve Dace]

That's why we spend a good deal of time parked in Romans 13 as well. How does, how does, how does the first half of Romans 13 end? Give honor to those whom honor is due. Okay. Taxes to those who whom taxes are due. Okay. So a dishonorable government paves your roads. Should you pay their taxes? Yes. A dishonorable government says, though, that we're going to come to your house and take money to slaughter innocents. Should you give it to him?

[Todd Erzin]

We've just talked about. No, I'm just trying to listen if you finally hit and found the golden bullet on this issue, because we've done this so many times. John MacArthur has had issues which you've diagnosed. I haven't been the one to point it out. I don't.

[Steve Dace]

I mean, MacArthur had to change his entire exegesis of Romans 13 late in his life because he realized he preached it wrong for 40 years. Years. The key verse in Romans 13 is to give honor to whom honor is owed. Taxes to whom taxes are owed to my Protestant brothers. In other words, render under Caesar that which is Caesar and render under God's that which is God's. That's what's fleshing out.

[Todd Erzin]

The best advice I can offer to my Protestant brothers whom I genuinely love. Read every other chapter in the Bible except for this one for now, please,

[Steve Dace]

because it'll clarify what that one means if you do.

[Aaron McIntyre]

That's exactly what I was going to say. The Bible is not Romans 13. 1. 2.

[Steve Dace]

2. Yes, 13.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Romans 13:1 and 2 is part of the Bible, just like, you know, Matthew 7:1 is not the Bible. Matthew 7:1 is a part of the Bible.

[Steve Dace]

So when. When. When do we have any. Any episode. We have anything in either Epistle, the epistles, or tradition of Paul complaining about Nero's taxes for all the roads that he traveled to spread the Gospel. Do we have any. Anything saying that?

[Aaron McIntyre]

No.

[Steve Dace]

No. But we also have a record of Nero cutting Paul's head off. Correct?

[Todd Erzin]

Yes.

[Steve Dace]

Which means that at some point Nero asked Paul for an honor that Nero was not due and call, and Paul refused. Correct? Correct.

[Todd Erzin]

Correct.

[Steve Dace]

Correct. That's really what Romans 13 means. All right. And then finally this one from Trina, who was left over from last week, we didn't get to. So I want to make sure we dealt with it. She said she was a Protestant for 45 years in several denominations and then ultimately went back to communion as a Catholic. As a Catholic adherent. And she just wants to know. Again, I'm abbreviating here, Trina, sorry. Why? There is a far less emphasis on angels within Protestantism as there is in Catholicism. I would say as a Protestant. There's not less emphasis, there's less fixation. I don't know. I don't know any major Protestant figure that doesn't believe in angels or even guardian angels, for example. We're just. We get very sensitive when we start on anything that we think tempts people to take their worship off of Christ. We get really hypersensitive about it. All right, But. But angels are all throughout the Scriptures. Only a few are given names in the Scriptures, but angels are all throughout the Scriptures. It's hard to read the Bible without giving angels a prominent place within that. Within that narrative. We just get concerned when we Start talking about things outside of the Bible. Maybe they're not even wrong. But are those things going to take the focus and emphasis off of Christ and his salvation and his majesty? And that is just a sensitivity that we have within the Protestant ranks. Aaron, you want to add to that before I give Todd the last word?

[Aaron McIntyre]

I don't believe. So if I could say one more thing. The answers to the first three questions, I realized that I was going to tease this and I didn't say it. The answer to the first three questions, in this day and age, you could ask those in good faith, but more often not. The answer to those first three questions that we tackled is who is asking the question.

[Steve Dace]

That's good, too. Todd, you get the last word on the angels.

[Todd Erzin]

Well, I would say you're probably being overwhelmed. I mean, didn't Steve, you're the one who always pointed out Protestants are always the ones who say the devil's got me on the run. So my experience was that at the very least, you're talking about demons amongst Protestants and that you're talking about fallen angels. At the very least. So you believe in their existence, but now that you have the Mass as again, we have the Eucharist and we believe that to be the. The, you know, the fullest. Not only are we distracting from Christ, that is the fullest realization of Christ on this earth that there is, but we also have the Gloria, which is the communion of all the saints, including the angels. So you're just being exposed to it in a way now that I think you have to get used to yourself.

[Steve Dace]

That's gonna do it. And that puts a wrap on Romans 2. Two years of work is now complete. Back at it again tomorrow, noon to 2 Eastern, right after Glenn Beck. Until then, go hard. Romans 8, 28.