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It's Thursday, June 18, 2026. I'm Albert Mohler and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. When you're looking at intractable conflicts such as that between the United States and Iran, you're talking about a conflict that dates, at least in its active phase from the Islamic Revolution in 1979 that toppled a regimental the Iranian Shah. And the Shah had been an ally of the United States. The United States was depicted as the Great Satan, the great enemy of Iran. And Iran ever since then has had a very active role over against the United States, including the backing of terrorist groups, the backing of militia groups, sometimes direct action, and the subversion of American interests anywhere Iran has had influence. Of course, you're also looking at a very historic civilization. You're looking at a very historic part of planet Earth where Iran is situated. You're talking about that strategic location that as we discovered in recent weeks, allows for Iran to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and thus to shut down about 20% of the maritime traffic, particularly the traffic related on the oceans in terms of water bound petroleum and oil products. So we really are looking at a very significant issue. And of course, yesterday the President of the United States spoke further and he was speaking from the G7 meeting in Europe. And President Trump held a very long press conference in which he made a very long statement. And of course he's justifying what is now being declared a victory by the Trump administration. And that is a memorandum that will establish something of a 60 day period, an immediate ceasefire, an immediate opening of the Strait of Hormuz, an immediate stop of the US Blockade. And President Trump has been saying all along that this will lead to a restoration of world trade and a resumption of the normal oil and petroleum movement. Now, all of that is something that the world markets have responded to with a great deal of positivity. No doubt about it, oil price is already going down. As a matter of fact, in many states, gasoline prices at the pump are already going down in anticipation of all this. And on the other side of it, there will be something new. And we have to say on the other side of this memorandum, that's 60 days. President Trump was pretty clear in his statements made yesterday that if Iran does not follow through with a substantial agreement that involves the enriched uranium, then the United States and Iran could be back at war. However, it's just a matter of current geopolitics that looking at that situation, it's hard to imagine that the United States would go back into an active phase of warfare against Iran. Anything like what was true a matter of weeks ago. And one of the ways you can follow that is simply by looking at the placement of US Naval vessels, American troops, and other factors that just play into the equation. Okay. Okay. So what we're looking at here is a problem that is sometimes referred to as intractable or absolutely insoluble. We're looking at a situation in which you have Iran and the United States of America. Now, Israel, of course, is a close ally to the United States and an absolute enemy of Iran. That goes both ways. And Iran considers Israel its great enemy. It wants to destroy the Jewish state. Israel has to oppose Iran with great force simply to ensure its own existence. But what we are looking at here is you have a face off. And that face off now is a situation that clearly is upsetting the entire world, most importantly, upsetting navigation and trade, oil prices, all the rest. And so the President is in Europe meeting with his G7 allies, and those allies are counting on some resumption of a new normal. Okay, so one of the things we point out is the asymmetry. Iran is nowhere near as powerful as the United States. As a matter of fact, the United States is more powerful than Iran in every way, by every measure, many times over. But when you have a smaller power intent on defying a larger power, unless the larger power is willing to just basically eliminate the smaller power, it continues to be an ongoing problem. And not only that, it is kind of like a rock in your shoe. It tends to be a very, very troublesome problem. This is one of the issues that everyone just has to keep in consideration. We don't know exactly how this is going to turn out. But another big factor here is understanding that it takes time to figure all these things out. It takes time for the dust to settle. President Trump has declared a victory in that Iran's navy and air force basically eliminated. But that doesn't mean that the threat of Iran is eliminated. He has said of the new leaders in power, the others, of course, were largely eliminated in the American military attack with Israel. The President has said that he thinks these are responsible people he can work with. But of course they are until they are not. And my point is not that the President is right or wrong. My point is that it takes a long period of time to find out. And that is something that most Americans just don't keep in mind. Christians need to have this even more firmly in mind, because, of course, our timeline is not just, say, years and months. Or even centuries and millennia. Our timeline is measured over against eternity. But we do understand that many great massive moral problems, they continue and they just take new forms. They follow a morphology. They just are transformed slightly, maybe ever so slightly, from generation to generation. As long as you have this particular kind of regime in Iran and you have the United States, you're going to have an ongoing problem. This is not one of those things that you can see just going away. That also puts the American political system under considerable strain, because presidents are elected for four years and then they may be elected for a second four year term. Of course, in the situation of President Trump, you gotta go back to a president like Grover Cleveland in the 19th century. You have a president serve a four year term, be out four years, come back for four years. And thus you're talking about President Trump having influence over what's going to amount to 12 years of American presidential history. And that simply isn't enough time for a lot of these things to fall out to be known, even to be determined in terms of where this is going to go. We just don't know. President Trump doesn't know, and frankly, the Iranians don't know. But there is motivation on the Iranian side that is disproportionate to the motivation on the American side, and the Iranians now know it. All right, so the President made those statements. We're looking forward to seeing the text that is to be signed tomorrow. We will see exactly what we're looking at, or at least we hope we will, with the release of that text. And then remember, that starts a 60 day clock on a far more difficult text in terms of the enriched uranium and other interests. Okay, coming back to the United States, very, very bizarre situation. We talked about the White House and American culture and American history with the UFC event that was held there to coincide with the president's 80th birthday in Washington, D.C. on Sunday night. And then news started coming out of an alleged plot, and now there have been arrests and the FBI and the Department of Justice have been making announcements. Kash Patel, the FBI director, said that, quote, multiple individuals are now in custody and allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold, end quote. So in the hours subsequent, well, number one, there was some disagreement within the administration, even within federal departments, about how much should be said. But the fact is that enough has been said that we know of several arrests. And as the story has unfolded, it turns darker. And this is not a surprise. Oftentimes when you see something like this, if they're real and this one's Real, then you understand behind it is something darker. Here's what's really dark. A group of very young men had decided that they were going to try to topple the government of the United States. And so we're talking about what USA today reports on FBI sources as being no less than 14 young adults. Fourteen, and all of them, by the way, so far as we know, young men, and then some described as even younger. Presumably that means teenage boys who are involved in this. We also note that the meeting place was not in a geographic space, it was in digital space. In other words, they met online. They came up with a plan. And by the way, the plan, as it is now known, called for the use of drones with explosives to go off. That would then send the crowd running across the lawn, in which case there would be gunmen to try to shoot people. But in particular, it is at least alleged some individual persons. Among the people who have been arrested are a couple who are older than what you might call young adults and certainly teenagers. But it does appear that there was something like a conspiracy that was put into play. It was reported to the FBI and to the Secret Service, or at least it was reported by local police, passed on to the Secret Service and the FBI, and thus it triggered a team known as the Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit. ATIU government comes up with all kinds of things, all kinds of just Alphabet soup. So when you hear atiu, that's Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit, that means, let's just put it this way, very serious federal law enforcement. Okay. As of the last day or so, we now know something else, and that is that the FBI was specifically tipped off by one of the young men's mothers, as a matter of fact, described as a teenage boy, his mother tipped off authorities. Just imagine, a mother in that kind of situation must be thankful that she did. It becomes clear that in the early hours, there were people who doubted that this was a legitimate concern. Not that this wasn't a legitimate report, but that there probably wasn't a whole lot to this. Turns out that it appears there was a whole lot to this. And this is going to shock a lot of Americans. Frankly, I'm surprised at how quickly this story has just. Has just been say, pushed out of the way by some other stories that I don't think are quite so important. I think when we look at this, anyone looking with an historical and moral perspective has to see something bigger than a lot of Americans have yet recognized. So what am I talking about here? Let's just talk about, for example, the 19th and 20th centuries. And let's consider the fact that in the last part of the 19th century, there was huge instability all across the world. Now, of course, that instability would eventually result in what we know as World War I. But before that, there was instability all around the world, and it led to the breakout of anarchist groups. These were radical political groups, mostly, you would say, on the political left. And as anarchists, they came to the conclusion that government itself was the problem. And. And they wanted to topple governments. And so there were mass assassinations. Now, remember, in the 19th century that included two presidents of the United States in this period. And you had anarchist groups in the United States and even all the way through the time of Teddy Roosevelt. And then remember that World War I was started by a band of young men who weren't particularly competent, but nonetheless, almost by just a freak of circumstance, were in the position to kill the Crown Prince of the Austria Hungarian Empire. And in doing so, they, in assassinating the Crown Prince there in Sarajevo, they began what eventually became World War I. And so you're looking at basically just very young men. They were outcasts of society. They were barely organized anarchist groups. By the way, just consider the irony when you say anarchist group. You already have a problem because anarchists don't like leadership. And so anyway, who's the anarchist leader? Well, that's an oxymoron, but nonetheless, just showing human nature. You do have these bands come together. You do have some kind of leadership within them. Someone is at least coming up with the plan. And sometimes, in just what turns out to be one of those strange twists of history, Christians understand is never just that, but in terms of world history, a strange twist. The car carrying the Crown Prince goes down a street, wasn't expected, basically, drives to the anarchist assassins, they assassinate the Crown Prince and his wife, and world history has changed. I want to make the point that what we see right now is what happens when you add that kind of alienated young men. And you have this basically all throughout human society. It's a big problem. Just in terms of every sociological context, you have young men who are not finding their way in the world. Some of them turn quite bitter, some of them turn quite violent, they turn inward, they turn towards conspiracies. And, you know, that was a huge problem. Here's my point. In the 19th and 20th centuries, those were a huge problem before the social media age, before the digital age. Now they can connect not only in, say, urban conversational networks, they can connect worldwide, globally, and they can do so Digitally, electronically, and they can do so very fast. So, unfortunately, looking at this in an historical perspective, what you see is, well, this is exactly the kind of thing. Now, Obviously, in the 19th century, they didn't have drones, they didn't have similar kinds of technology, and they wouldn't have known what the UFC is. But the. The point is, it is a recognizable pattern, and we as Christians need to understand that. It's another parable of what happens when young men become alienated and they are not pointed towards maturity, useful adulthood, manhood, and all the responsibilities that come with it. When you have a significant number of disaffected young men, you add to that weapons, you add to that the digital age, you can see where we have a problem. It's going to be very interesting to see how long it takes the national media to start connecting at least some of those dots. Okay, so many interesting things for us to talk about. And I find myself wanting to talk about happening in Major League Baseball, because this one is big. And it has to do with the fact that three pitchers for the San Francisco Giants appeared last Friday wearing Bible verses written on their Pride Night caps. Okay, so I want to read to you the lead for. From the New York Times. Also at the athletic quote. After three San Francisco Giants pitchers appeared in Friday's game with Bible verses written on their pride nightcaps, Major League Baseball issued a warning that similar behavior will not be tolerated. But in an expanded statement on the matter, the league emphasized Tuesday it wasn't policing the specifics of what the players wrote. Oh, right. Okay. So this is one of those stories you wonder, is this big? Well, yeah, you look at it, it's big. And I want Christians to understand what's going on here and to see what is at stake. Sometimes when you look at a media report like that, and especially at the lead, the lead is the introductory paragraph. It's how the story is introduced. It tells you just about everything. Here we are told that these three pitchers for the San Francisco Giants had appeared in Friday's game, and this is what it said with Bible verses written on their pride nightcaps. Okay, so that's one of those phrases you just have to look at and say, okay, what in the world is a Pride night cap? Well, it is a cap that is designed by the team in order to signal. This is moral, signaling their support for Pride Month. That means LGBTQ Pride Month. And yes, we are talking about the city of San Francisco. You know, enough to connect the dots. Okay. So they're not in trouble for wearing Pride Night caps that was mandated by the team. Now, notice here's the big problem. So before we go any further, let's just say, here is the problem. No employer has any right to tell Christians how they must morally signal. That is the essence of the problem. Now, the New York Times does not want to say it's the essence of the problem. The Giants surely do not want to say that's the essence of the problem. The organizers of Pride Month don't want to say that's the essence of the problem. It is the essence of the problem. And we have to understand this is a religious liberty issue. What the team was doing was trying to coerce believing Christians to wear a cap that lies. As a matter of fact, that is in defiance to what they understand to be the law of God, Christian morality, the authority of scripture, creation, order, all that. Okay? Major League Baseball says, however, that the rule is not that they can't put Bible verses on their caps, but, no, they're saying it's just a general rule. Players don't get to customize their caps in any such way. Now, let's just remember there have been other precedents in which players have gotten away with similar things. But let's just say that Major League Baseball here has a big problem, because Major League Baseball wants. It wants it both ways. It wants to be able to have its teams very seriously push the agenda of the LGBTQ movement, something like Pride Month, even Pride Night, when it comes to a baseball game. But they don't want to take responsibility for what they're doing, which is violating religious liberty. They want to morally signal. But here's where Christians understand. If you're saying moral, okay, let's understand a basic Christian principle. If you say moral, you are talking about religious. One way or another, it is because there is no such thing as a totally secular morality. It turns out to be impossible. And when you're looking at this, you recognize when I say it's impossible, I don't mean you can't express moral principles. A lot of them, a lot of them in secular terms. What I'm saying is that's going to run into conflict with, for instance, Christian morality and with the right of Christians to hold to their own religious convictions and not to be forced or coerced into moral signaling by communicating what they do not believe and is actually in violation of their deepest theological and spiritual commitments. The league said in a statement. To be clear, this routine verbal warning not to wear the hat in future games is not disciplinary and had nothing to do with the content of the message. End quote. Yeah, right, whatever. Okay, so let's just, for a moment, assume that that's honest. What is not honest in this statement is the acknowledgment that the team has no right and the league has no right to violate the religious beliefs of their own members, their own players. They were on to say, quote, we respect players right to free expression. However, okay, so whenever you say that and follow that with however, you got a problem. However, writing of any kind with any message is prohibited per Major League Baseball's uniform regulations, which provides, in part, that a player may not write, attach, affix, embroider, or otherwise display nicknames or messages on apparel or. Or playing equipment. End quote. Okay, okay. Let me just say. Let me just say that in a context of employment, that kind of rule might make sense. I said might. It might make sense. In other words, employers have a routine right to establish something like a dress code. And you can understand where in professional sports that might be especially important, because after all, the uniforms are not just, say, advertising. The uniforms also can be athletically significant. In other words, knowing to whom you throw the ball. I say that, of course, as an expert in sports, but the point is that if the employer is going to say that's the case, then the employer has no right to offer its own statement that would be in conflict with an employee's deepest religious and moral beliefs. And by the way, we're not talking about something here that's just culturally eccentric. I think it's very interesting that we're talking about the San Francisco Giants team and we're talking about three pitchers, okay? So we're not talking about some kind of unusual thing. We also know that this kind of thing has come up again and again and again during these Pride Night or Pride Month events in various employment sectors, including already professional sports. So there's no great surprise here. But what is most important is that Christians understand this is not something that can be tolerated. Major League Baseball also came out saying, quote, the writing on the cap violates our rules. And consistent with normal practice, we have warned the players about future violations. Landon Rupp is one of the most significant of the Giants pitchers at stake here. He's identified as a right hander. He started the game with Genesis 9, verses 12 through 16 written on his cap, and it was written out as Gen 9, colon 12 to 16, just the way a Christian would write a biblical text like this written on his cap, with the end of the verse bleeding into the rainbow SF logo. Relievers, J.T. brubaker and Ryan Walker also had Bible verses on their caps, while Sam Henches came out to the bullpen with a giant standard black cap with an orange logo rather than the Pride Knight hat. In other words, he just said, I'm not going to do the team signaling by wearing the Pride Knight cap. It was interesting, by the way, that Rupp actually went on and explained the problem with the rainbow. He said, quote, it's just about God's covenant and a promise that he makes to us that, you know, his faithfulness and his mercy. That's just kind of something I believe in and I stand firm in that, and I'm thankful. We live in a country where, you know, we have the freedom to believe what we want and, and express what we want. End quote. Okay, so I'll just say in the language of a Major League Baseball pitcher put on the spot with the press. That's a pretty clear statement. He does believe in the rainbow. He doesn't believe in Rainbow as the gay Pride flag. All right, there will be more about this, of course. This is the kind of thing that gets immediate headlines and then the world tends to move on. But this is one of those issues I think will galvanize what should be not only some cultural attention, but some legal attention. I think this is one of those cases that calls out for legal and political action. Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, sent a letter to the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. He ended the letter by saying, quote, the freedom to live out one's fate does not end at the ballpark gate. Americans of every creed are entitled to confidence that the institutions of our national pastime will not single out religious expression for punishment while celebrating messages of the League's own choosing. I trust the League shares that commitment and I look forward to your prompt and complete response. I appreciate the way the Senator wrote that letter and I understand exactly what's going on in that last line when he says, I trust the league shares that commitment. In other words, you had better, and it is going to be interesting. He asked for a prompt and complete response. I believe there will be a political response and a legal response, and both are absolutely necessary in this case, another wake up call for Christians in terms of where we stand in American culture in the United States in the year 2026. We are talking here about a Central American institution, Major League Baseball, and both sides in this cultural conflict know it full well. Finally, for today, of course, we have a major event coming up in The United States. July 4, 2026. The 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Such an important day focusing Americans, and frankly, the world on the remarkable story of American history and the remarkable achievement of American independence. And of course, that's only a remarkable achievement because it was followed by the establishment of a nation and the very nation from which I speak right now. And it's the nation that also is going to have some very interesting conversations about the July 4th anniversary, this 250th anniversary. The Washington Post reports on something that doesn't have a lot of attention. It's not a big story, but I think it is something of big significance, especially as Christians think about this. The headline is a look at the rare historic documents heading to the Lincoln Memorial. Okay, so it's just kind of an announcement. I read from the story, quote, the workers brought the copies of the Emancipation proclamation and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution into the warehouse display room and carefully placed them on a table covered with blue blankets. Both documents, which date to the 1860s, bear the original signature of President Abraham Lincoln. Remember, this is about a display that will be happening at the Lincoln Memorial. Quote, both are treasured milestones in the nation's bloody struggle to eradicate slavery, and both are worth millions. Both are now being loaned for public display in a new exhibit area under the Lincoln Memorial, which is due to open June 25th to honor the nation's 250th birthday. Okay, so the Washington Post, we're told, was given a quote up close look at the historic documents in a private storage facility before they were taken to the memorial. The two documents are on loan from a billionaire collector and philanthropist, Kenneth C. Griffin. He bought them last year, we are told, at auction for a reported $18 million. Now, the National Archives has the originals, but these are signed copies. So you can understand why they cost millions of dollars and they're going to be on display. We're told that a 15,000 square foot space will allow visitors to see through floor to ceiling glass the massive concrete foundations that support the memorial. And in the undercroft, and that's a similar word for what's under great gothic cathedrals. These things are going to be on display, and we are told with full security, an official behind the display said, quote, it will be one of the Hottest Tickets in D.C. talk about powerful. You have a chance to see these documents under the memorial for the President who signed them. Okay, so that is a very unusual historical opportunity. You're talking about the signature of Abraham Lincoln for when he was the living president of the United States making history. And you're going to be able to see this in the Undercroft. What is underneath the Lincoln Memorial. I want to point to the fact that these are written documents. These are written and printed documents. They're made up of words. And it just reminds Christians how important words are, how important a piece of paper can be, how important a document is, how important a manuscript can be. And here you're talking about some works that will soon be something like 200 years old. Just looking at the generation ahead. But we're also looking at formative documents in American history. But, you know, that's not what makes them so interesting in one regard here. A part of what makes them interesting is that these documents bear the signatures of those who were involved in issuing these documents at the time. Most important, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, but also Secretary of State William H. Seward and others. Lincoln's private secretary, John Nicolay. Okay. I just want to say that for Christians, this should come as no surprise. And that is because in the Old Testament and in the new documents, even something that isn't in Scripture, such as the annals of the kings of Israel, which is cited in Scripture, these things turn out to be really, really important. You can understand why Americans will be drawn just to see these documents. They can't touch them, but they can see them with their own eyes. I just want to remind Christians that something far more significant takes place every time we open the Bible, which is God's Word. And we are drawn to the Scripture precisely because it is the inerrant, infallible, verbally inspired word of God. And we need never to take for granted the incredible opportunity that Christians in this generation have to own the Scripture, to hold the Scriptures, to read the Scriptures, to study the Scriptures, to preach the Scriptures. Something infinitely beyond historical documents from American history. Yeah, people are going to line up to see these documents. And given this patriotic celebration and the milestones in the nation's history represented by these documents, that makes perfect sense. It makes even more sense for Christians to understand the incredible privilege of the fact that we get to hold God's word in our own hands. We get to translate the Scripture and into languages which have never known the Scriptures before. We get to go and purchase these things. We get to own them. We get to give them. We can pass them down to our children and our grandchildren and beyond. And it is because we are a people of the Book. And when we look at a story like this, we see people lining up. We need to recognize this is exactly an indication of how important such documents are. When we're talking about the Bible, the Word of God, we're talking, of course, about an all surpassing authority and value. I just want to close by saying it's one thing to understand why Americans very justifiably would line up to see these documents. We understand that Christians, driven by an even deeper hunger, should line up every Lord's day to come in and hear the preaching of God's Word. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website@albertmohler.com you can follow me on X or Twitter by going to x.comalbertmohler for information. For more information on the Southern Baptist Theological seminary, go to sbgs.edu. for information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com I'm speaking to you today from Chicago, Illinois and I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.