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Steve Smothermon: Do Pulpits Have Power To Affect Elections? · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

0:00
Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current
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events, defending biblical Christianity.
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No topic off limits.
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And now, here's your host, David Fierazzo.
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Hello friends.
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Thank you so much for tuning in.
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Do America's pulpits have the power to affect or influence elections?
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We're going there today.
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We're going to talk about the P word politics, and I can't wait to get our guest, Pastor Steve
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Smotherman.
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So Pastor Steve Smotherman, Legacy Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico, he's been a favorite brother
1:37
of mine since I met him in Dallas, Texas.
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Several years ago at Liberty Pastors, those troublemakers for the Kingdom of God, Pastor
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Steve, thank you so much for coming on.
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Well, thank you so much again for having me.
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I always enjoy being on with you.
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And I just love your spirit and the fight.
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And you're engaging this culture in a biblical way and a great way.
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And so thank you for what you do.
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Praise God, brother.
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I couldn't do without men like yourself.
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Whenever I have a pastor on, oftentimes the type of pastor I like to have on the show,
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those that are actually getting out of church doors Monday through Saturday and trying to
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impact our culture for Christ.
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And that means impacting things politically voting.
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And it's just sad that we have to have these conversations.
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Sometimes I get angry, but it's sad that in the church, we have to have these conversations
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about getting Christians off their butts to the stinking ballot box to the polls to vote
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for elections.
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It's a responsibility.
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It's a privilege.
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It's a duty.
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And I like to say, if you love your neighbor, you will go vote because legislation will
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be affecting your neighbor or their children.
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And that includes demonic agendas in the government schools.
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Pastor Steve, your thoughts on that right off the top.
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Well, I think every Christian should vote.
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I mean, when we look at the Providence of God that he established this nation, he took
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people from every country in the world and said, I'm going to make one nation and one nation
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under God.
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And for us to say, and I hear this a lot, let's just not my thing to vote.
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It's not my thing.
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I'm not into politics.
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But you don't have to be into politics, but you should be into wanting representation
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that represents who you are, your biblical worldview and things.
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And so it irritates me when we have, you know, because of God, we have the ability to be
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heard and people don't want to be heard.
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And I'm like, how can you say as a believer, a Christian, that it is not your responsibility
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to vote for people who are more closely aligned with our biblical worldview than others?
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And the reason, and I say this all the time, the oppressed always vote in their oppressors.
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So the things they don't like, they vote those people in.
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And we as believers should vote in those people that are more closely aligned with our
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values and our beliefs.
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And so they would make policies and procedures, I mean, you know, policies and, you know,
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decisions that are more in line with what we believe that God designed for America to
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be in the first place.
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Amen, brother.
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And I appreciate your voice.
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We've had some great conversations in the last, I don't know, four years or so.
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And it's been a blessing because there's a lot of pastors that don't get it.
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And for whatever reason, it might be cowardice, it might be fear, which those aren't good
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reasons anyway.
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But some of it, Steve, that we've learned is ignorance, ignorance of the law, the first
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amendment, the 501c3.
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And to my knowledge, there's never been a church that lost their 501c3, the IRS came
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after them because they got, quote, unquote, political.
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I'm, in fact, pulpit freedom Sunday, I think they have that every year.
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I think the family research council started that where they encourage pastors to preach
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a political sermon or an election sermon and then send their notes to the IRS and they
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know they can't come after the church because they'd lose that.
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So your thoughts about that?
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Well, I think that we are uninformed and I think we are, and I am a citizen of this country.
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My dad died for this country.
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And I believe I have a right as a citizen of this nation to say what I want to say, what
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Johnson, the Johnson amendment did because a lot of pastors went against him, you know,
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when he was ruling.
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So they put this bill in and this law that limited churches from using the pulpit to
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encourage people to vote and vote for the candidates that more align with our beliefs.
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And I just think it's a tragedy and the reason I believe the IRS has never really gone
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after anybody is because they know the first time they do it's going to go to the Supreme
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Court.
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And I do believe the Supreme Court would overrule the Johnson amendment.
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So it's a fear tactic.
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Too many pastors are ignorant and some of them aren't ignorant, they're just afraid.
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You know, I believe this, the Bible says the gates of hell will not prefer against the
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church, but it will prevail against the crowd and too many of us are building crowds
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not churches.
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We're just wanting a lot of people to come, but we're not making disciples and part of
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being a disciple is being a good citizen and part of being a good citizen is let your
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voice be heard and what you do that at the ballot box.
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I wrote on this 10 years ago in my book, The Cost of Our Silence and the Johnson Amendment
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and the agenda to silence Christians because Steve Smotherman, you said it exactly right.
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Johnson had opposition, conservative groups, churches and anti communist groups from what
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I've read historically coming after Lyndon Johnson, he was a senator in Texas.
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And he asked the IRS if what they were doing was legal and they said, yes.
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So he slipped this amendment into this massive tax code overhaul bill that they were debating
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on the Texas Senate floor and the Johnson amendment was slipped in and now pastors are going
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to, oh, now I can't say anything political.
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And so you got to define that now, but anyway, it just created a lot of confusion.
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And unfortunately still today, what was that?
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That was actually in the late 50s and then Johnson, of course, became president late 60s
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and still how many years later are pastors saying, well, what are they are doing is they're
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unnecessarily self censoring from the pulpit.
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And so anyway, this is a problem we're seeing and that's why I have you on and I want to
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bring up an article now that I found from two years ago and I'm just going to quote this
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news station in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
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By the way, friends, I didn't give you the website for legacy church in Albuquerque.
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It's legacy church.com.
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Over on Facebook, it is Facebook.com slash legacy church, ABQ, meaning Albuquerque.
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So Steve, the title of this, and this is right, you can expect this from the media outlets
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from the, I call them the Marxist media.
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Here's the title, friends, legacy church stirs the pot during election season, dun dun dun.
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Right, very dramatic.
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So Steve, it starts off by saying one local church is stirring the political pot once again.
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And then it goes into this, the whole idea behind that is churches better be silent and
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not talk about politics and you better not influence elections.
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So Steve, you got in trouble two years ago, at least, you know, you got a viewer email
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came in apparently to channel seven there.
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And they said, oh, this church commented about political candidates and some feel that
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his sermon breached the his 501c3 status and I know you responded.
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I know you'll probably I'm guessing with an election in November, you're going to get
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political again, brother.
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I know you, which is a good thing, yeah, it'll, it'll happen.
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So hold your breath because I mean, I've appreciated how you've spoken so straightforward
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and openly to the governor there, who anyway, she's pro-bortion and everything else.
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And I appreciate your voice, what you put out on Facebook.
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So go ahead and share this is not only the government there that you're fighting, but
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it's the local media too saying, ah, we're going to use an legacy church as an example.
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You better not say anything about political candidates and they've got it wrong.
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Do they realize that Steve or are they ignorant about first amendment?
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Well, I think they are very ignorant and I think in the article that you're referring
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to, I really criticized the media and I said, you watch.
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And I haven't predicted what happened.
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They're going to put me on.
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They're going to put these attorneys on that really don't know what they're talking about.
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And they're going to say that we violated this and violated that.
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And you notice they never comment on my comments other than he endorsed this candidate or said
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he was going to vote for this person.
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They never refer to or make a statement when I called the governor, the wicked witch of
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the north, which I believe she is wicked and evil, very evil.
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And so and then they get these attorneys on and they said, I think he breached it on
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this article, specifically the last attorney said, I think this guy smart, which I've
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not been called smart very often.
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And he and I don't think he violated, but he got real close so he's smart.
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He comes right up to the line and and he said he's probably gotten it from his attorneys,
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which I didn't I didn't know there was a line.
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So I just said what I wanted to say and they put it all on the media and make this big
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deal about it.
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The issue I think pastors need to understand is we never apologize to the media.
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We are never to apologize for our belief in the word of God for the stands we today.
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And when you don't they don't know how to deal with you when they can't put fear in
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you.
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And you look at him.
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I'm not going to say, I just think every, you know, when they put me on there and say
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legacy church legacy church legacy church, I'm like, this is free advertisement.
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Thank for this.
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That's great.
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Keep saying it, you know, and legacy church did this and legacy church did that.
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And I just think that we as pastors need to decide are we serving God or the government?
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And I don't serve the 501 C3.
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I serve the God of the Bible, the God who created the heavens and the earth.
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And I think that's where pastors miss it.
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There was a pastor well known over COVID that came out against Charlie Kirk and he and
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then he apologized.
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He went on a apology tour for liking a post.
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And if they were to talk to people who've dealt with the media a lot, people like myself,
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we to tell them don't ever apologize, don't even speak to it.
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Just don't even address it, don't respond to the media.
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We feel like we have to respond to the media.
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Like there are bosses, we don't have to respond to them at all.
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And so I said what I said from the pulpit, knowing that the media was going to get a hold
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of it and sure enough they did exactly what I thought they would do and but I'm in charge.
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I know what they're going to do.
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I know what they're going to say.
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And I don't care because I want to reach more people for Jesus.
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I want people to be discipled.
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And part of being discipled is to take responsibility as you said earlier, big loving your neighbors
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yourself and taking a stand for righteousness.
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Amen.
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We have a tough time with that.
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Amen.
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And by the way, they lied.
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Now again, I don't know if most people in the media, if they're younger, they probably
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have no idea and they're ignorant about these things.
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But they lied in this article.
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It says the IRS code says, if you're a church for non-profit, you cannot endorse political
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candidates or cannot oppose political candidates directly or indirectly or you lose your tax
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exempt status.
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This is just amazing to me, but it shouldn't surprise us because I think that's what most
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in the media these days, maybe not in the 80s or 90s, but by this time, we know
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the kids that go through college and end up in journalism.
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I had Alex Numenon recently and you've got to put most journalists in air quotes, but
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not like Alex Numen, he's one of my favorite international correspondents and brothers in
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Christ.
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In fact, he wrote something I'm going to ask you about when we come back from our pause
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Steve about Christian nationalism, the smear tactics, but just the fact that they put
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this in the article, Steve, but they did the whole article because they got viewer emails
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about legacy church.
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Uh oh, that pastor is going off again and he's getting all political, but then they write
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this and I'm going, so there's either an agenda here or they're ignorant about it.
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Could it be both?
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I think it's, I think it's both, I don't think they're ignorant.
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I think, I think they just don't like that somebody that believes in God is standing up
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for righteousness sake and going against the flow of the world.
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I mean, in our governor, she wants to make this the abortion capital of the United States
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to Mexico.
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We're already the partial birth of abortion capital in America and she wants to make this
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a destination.
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They call it abortion tourism and you come, kill your baby, we'll help you or whatever.
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And then you get a guy like me and then the people that come to legacy church that are
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so supportive of our leadership.
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And we say, no, killing a baby is murder.
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I don't know why we call it abortion.
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We should just call it what it is.
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It's murdering.
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Amen.
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You know, they try to pick nice words to, you know, to tone it down so it doesn't seem
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so bad.
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And so when you take a stand against that, the media is liberal, the media is bought off.
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There's no honor in the media.
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They don't realize that our constitution says there needs to be a free media, not bought
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and paid for by any people.
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They're just supposed to report the news.
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But what they do is they write a narrative and then they report on their own narrative.
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And it's like, wait a minute, what happened here?
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And they just, I just think they just have never had it.
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They've never seen it done.
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And so they keep threatening me with the 501C3 in the IRS.
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I'm like, so what?
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They've never called me.
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They've never dealt with.
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In fact, I know a pastor in Seattle that actually got people on his pulpit and said, we need
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to vote for these people.
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He overturned the whole city council and some legislators won.
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And then these people threw a fit.
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I guess he got hundreds of thousands of complaints.
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The IRS sentiment letter came and visited him and nothing happened.
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And so, you know, it's a fear tactic.
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It's trying to keep us in our place.
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So you'll lose your 501C3, but so what?
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I'm still a church.
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We still believe in God.
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And you don't get to tell me what to say.
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It's just like COVID.
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They try to silence our voices.
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We don't get to tell me how to serve God.
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And so we just keep fighting.
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And I just think the media is bought and paid for by the left, by the liberal people.
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And there's very few conservative people in the mainstream media.
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They're all liberal.
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They're all anti-God.
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Yeah.
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They're the spirit of the anti-price.
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And they just do what they do, lie, deceive, try to intimidate.
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And when you can't be intimidated, they don't know how to treat you.
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That's right, brother.
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Thank you so much for saying that.
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I mean, China's behind this, the left, and the media has been compromised for at least
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50 years since the days of Paul Harvey or before.
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And we've got to take a brief pause.
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We're with Pastor Steve Smotherman, Legacy Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
17:36
We'll break back on World View Matters.
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And back to Steve Smotherman in 2022, two years ago leading up to those elections.
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Steve, you said, and they quoted you in this article, we've got to change our thinking
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on what it means to vote.
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You need to get, now you're speaking to Christians.
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You need to get registered to vote.
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You need to vote.
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Let me just stop right here.
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We have two choices in New Mexico.
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We have the Wicked Witch of the North or Mark Runchetti.
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And unfortunately, Runchetti did not win.
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But you mentioned the candidates and you compared them and a lot of people went gasp.
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He actually mentioned names and even gave Runchetti a little plug there.
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Nothing wrong with that.
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But pastors are confused.
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So Steve, clarify, in my understanding, the only thing, now first of all, I believe you
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can do anything.
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The personally, I believe you can say anything, whether you're behind the pulpit, in the
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foyer, whatever you are in the church or on your personal time.
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But according to the IRS, Johnson Amendment, from what I understand, two things you're
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not supposed to do is endorse a candidate, A and B, give church money, write a check
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with the church name on it, to a political campaign.
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Is there anything I'm missing or what are your thoughts?
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Well, no, I mean, that's what they say.
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And I tried to help Mark Runchetti and I'm going to add this.
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The problem with the Republican Party today is they don't stand for anything.
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They just keep moving the line to the left, to the left, to the left.
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Mark Runchetti got up and said, I think it's okay to kill a baby in, you know, as long
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as this before, 15 weeks.
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And I'm like, but you understand you're still murdering a baby.
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And I said, you know, I told him, I said, you're going to lose, because you're not standing
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for anything.
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Sure enough, the southern part of New Mexico, which is more conservative, they didn't come
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out and vote.
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We lost, you know, United States Representative C, with a vet, Harold, he lost pretty badly.
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Because there's no, we're afraid to differentiate ourselves from the left.
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And I keep telling Republicans or conservatives, just take a stand, whatever that is, take
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it so people know who you are, and then be able to articulate why you take the stand.
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And the media just kind of tries to, you know, timidate, they try to put fear in you.
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And we as pastors, we God put us there to influence people for Christ, but also to stand
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up for the innocent.
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And how do you say I'm not going to vote and just let babies be murdered in masses?
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And I just said it, I've said it.
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And notice the media in their story, never commented that I called her the current governor,
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the wicked witch of the North.
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In fact, I started calling her that during COVID and people kept telling me, I don't think
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you should do that.
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I don't think you should do that.
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And I'm like, well, I'm going to do it.
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Because I really believe it.
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And they never will comment like the pastor called her this, the pastor did that.
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They won't get into that debate because I'll debate them with that.
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And we as pastors were trying to, you know, it's this old adage, David, that we're going
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to love people into the body of Christ.
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You know, there's no scripture that says that.
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We preach them into the kingdom.
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We show love of God.
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We show the goodness of God.
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How great is.
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People, I'm just going to love them in the kingdom.
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There's no such monster that loves people in the kingdom.
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You preach them into the kingdom.
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And then when you come to the kingdom, every part of your life is on the table to be changed.
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And Jesus said, if you're going to follow me, you've got to give up your own way.
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That means you've got to give up your own beliefs, your own, the way you've used to vote,
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the way your family voted, to get in line with what God wants.
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And we, we as preachers and ministers as the whole are afraid just to tell people that
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because we're afraid we'll lose some folks.
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Well, the problem is if we lose them, God never had them anyway.
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So why do we think we're bigger than God?
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Just let's tell the truth.
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So I did.
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And I'll do it again.
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And I'll, you know, when Trump won in 2016, I did the same thing.
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I emceed when he came to the Abokirky.
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And I don't like everything he says, but he's a whole lot better than Biden or the left,
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you know.
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And we just have to be who we are.
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They can threaten all they want, you know, half and puff, blow my house down.
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I don't think so.
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If I build my house on the rock, God said, you'll stay in.
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Yeah.
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By the way, when you said, well, we'll just love them into the kingdom.
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Is that how you put it?
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There's this play on language and I just see that as being seeker sensitive.
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I see that as being okay, our letter alive to do the talking, but without the gospel,
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which is the power of God under salvation and the talk about judgment and sin and repentance,
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how are they going to know they're going to die?
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And if you didn't share the gospel with them, they're going to think, Oh, Steve's mother
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or David Fierras, he was a good person.
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He was, he was a nice person.
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He loved me.
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Well, then they didn't down there in hell if they die, right?
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Because the gospel is what saves.
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So anyway, I know I'm preaching to the choir big time with you, Steve, but one more thing
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about patriotism.
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Christian nationalism has been used as a smear and they've been accusing like this is
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some bad thing.
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And I think, you know, America and the greatest parts of it are inseparable from Christianity
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and the Bible are founding the Judeo-Christian worldview.
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And yet people, there's some Christian Steve that are kind of hesitant to even let people
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know they're patriotic.
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This is what the left is done and by accusation and, you know, the father of lies and the accuser
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of the brethren.
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And so your thoughts on that, that it's okay to be patriotic and to be thankful for the
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country that we live in.
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So go ahead.
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Oh, I truly believe we should be patriotic.
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My dad, who wasn't saved most of his life, served in the military 24 years, was in
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Crayon, Vietnam, died of age in Orange Poisoning at a young age.
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And so he taught us, we weren't believers.
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He just taught us to love our country.
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And how can you be a believer and not love the country that God, not somebody else, God
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established.
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And we have to be, you know, there's a famous pastor, I won't say his name unless you
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force me to.
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He got up and told his staff a couple of years ago on July 4th, do not post anything on
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your social media that's patriotic or that's American or do anything like that.
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And I'm, and he's famous, I mean, people flock to him.
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I don't think he preaches much of anything, but he's, he's well known and I'm thinking,
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how dumb, how, how we progress so badly.
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And as preachers, as people, as just, as Christians, we should love the nation that
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God put us in, God established this nation, no one else did.
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And we want it.
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We beat the English.
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We defeated with George Washington and our army, we were, we were, we were not supposed
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to win.
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We didn't have the military might, but we won because God did it.
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And back in those days, it was pastors who started this civil war.
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It was, I mean, the revolutionary war.
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It was pastors who stood up.
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Some of the major battles were fought right outside of churches when pastors said, let's
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go.
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And then the weakness of the pulpit has caused America to go down this, this, this whole
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of ungodliness, not standing for anything.
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And if I can say this too, the church is not getting more political.
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Politics are now invading the church and calling everything political.
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Now portions of political, homosexuality is political.
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I thought those were moral issues and those, but yet, well, they're political issues.
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No, they're not.
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They're moral issues, but the world keeps labeling them to silence us.
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And we're just, we just got to be bold enough to say, you're not going to silence my voice.
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I have a voice.
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God gave it to me.
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You didn't.
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And I'm going to stand for what I believe is right.
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Friends, can you see why I have to have Steve Smotherman back?
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You know, I mean, you brought up so much there.
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And I thought of the history of this country.
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I thought about the black robed regiment.
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I thought about those men of God.
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There was no internet.
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There was no Starbucks.
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There were no places where people gathered.
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They went to church to hear about the affairs of the day.
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And the preachers would stop preaching, get their black robe off and grab their gun and
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go fight for this nation.
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So black robe regiment, I think you gave me an idea for another upcoming podcast.
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We're going to do a lot of these between now and November because we are fighting for
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this nation.
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And it's not heading toward the cliff.
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We're on the cliff's edge.
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But we're out of time.
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Pastor Steve Smotherman, legacy church.
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Thank you, brother.
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I appreciate your voice and I know you will continue to stand strong.
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Thank you.
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Well, thank you for having me in your office.
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I think people should tune in because you are you really are helping educate people and
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I appreciate it.
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Amen, brother.
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We'll do it as long as there's breath in our lungs, right?
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Well, friends, thank you for sharing the podcast.
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God bless you.
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And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.