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The Proper Function of Civil Government · Passing On The Faith

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Certain African and Asian countries, such as Pakistan, India, and Nigeria, also fail at prosecuting criminals who kill Christians, rape their daughters, and destroy their property.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: These rulers are culpable before Almighty God for permitting the widespread persecution of Christians at the hands of roving gangs, terrorists, and religious fanatics.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Governments will look the other way when the Hindu mobs and jihadist radicals murder innocent Christians.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: These government officials are complicit for their failure to prosecute.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: For this reason, these nations register as the worst nations in the world for their immorality, unjust systems, and radical opposition to the true and living God by the 2025 Evil Index.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: You're listening to Passing on the Faith, a podcast from Generations.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Every week, we bring you a powerful moment from one of our series: audiobooks, webinars, or conference topics.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Hand picks to help you build a strong biblical foundation for your family.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: This week's episode is a chapter from our audiobook, Under God, entitled The Proper Function of Civil Government.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Written by Kevin Swanson.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter 3.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be unafraid of the authority?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: For he is God's minister to you for good.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter thirteen, verses three through four.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Since God is the only authority which may grant legitimacy to the state, what then is the state commissioned to do?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: What are the God given functions or the God ordained jurisdiction laid out for the state?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: As already mentioned earlier, civil governments have been put in place to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 13, verse 4.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: The text is descriptive, more describing what a legitimate state will be doing rather than laying out a prescription for it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: That state, which pretends to be a state but does not execute God's wrath on him who practices evil, is surrendering its position.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: The prescriptions are contained in God's laws, which define what are good works and what are evil works.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: The apostle defines these evil works more clearly in 1 Timothy chapter 1, when laying out the purpose of the law as intended for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thus, people who practice evil must be those who violate God's law in egregious ways.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: There are two functions God assigns to the state.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: The civil government has the responsibility to go after the bad guys, those who rob and murder within the civilian population, and those who invade the country from the outside.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: These are typically referred to as justice and defense.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of police.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, then both men and the controversy shall stand before the Lord, before the priest and the judges who serve in those days.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness who has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you shall put away the evil from among you.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter nineteen verses sixteen through nineteen.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, first, justice involves the police and the courts, because judges have the special God given responsibility to make careful inquiry into difficult cases.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: That inquiry may naturally involve full-time police, federal agents, and sheriffs.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: This, therefore, is a legitimate use of government funds.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs chapter 15, verse 3.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: We may rest assured that God sees and knows all things going on at all times, and we can be very certain that He will bring every work into judgment.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse 14.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: The administration of His justice is absolutely without any moral flaw.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Human governments are not characterized by this perfection of holiness and this absolute knowledge of all things going on within their jurisdictions.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: That being the case, human governments will fail in the pursuance of justice at some level.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: They should strive by all realistic means to administer honest and fair trials and verdicts, but man is still finite in his knowledge and character.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Human courts will convict an innocent man of a crime from time to time.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yet many governments have become increasingly lax, incompetent, and unconcerned with true justice.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: They drop the ball on this single responsibility.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: For example, only about half of murders are solved in the United States today, down from 93% in 1962.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: A shameful record, to say the least.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Of the cases actually prosecuted, only 70% of indicted persons are convicted.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: That means only 40% of murders are solved, where the murderer is actually sentenced for his crime.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the worst commentary on the American judicial system is the percentage of murders resulting in the death penalty.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: The United States successfully executed about 10% of murderers in 1850.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not long after this, liberal Christians and social reformers campaigned for the removal of the death penalty.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: By 1900, only 3% of murderers were put to death.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: After the 1920s, the numbers decreased sharply.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Of the 1.3 million murders committed since 1960, only 1,600 murderers received the death penalty.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: That is a 0.1% compliance ratio to God's command.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: In baseball terms, it's like batting.001.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not good.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Put another way, the modern state's follow-through on things God assigned to it is about one one hundredth of what it was in 1850.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: The human estate has demonstrated abysmal failure at this one thing, the single most important responsibility laid upon the state by Almighty God.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: The fault of this terrible lapse lies primarily with the courts, the left-wing media, the left-wing churches, and the left-wing colleges and law schools.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: The hands of the police are very much tied, thanks to a legal system that is uncommitted to seeking God's justice for the most severe crimes like murder, abortion, and armed robbery.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: The nineteenth century marked an antinomian age for Europe and the Americas.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: The Catholics and Protestants both abandoned God's laws.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: A sentimentalized and downgraded theology in the church took up a view of the nature of man as essentially good, only damaged by wrong influences like bad parenting.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: The state was there to reform and educate, no longer to punish criminals.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: This softening or suppression of a biblical perspective of sin and evil resulted in the elimination of the death penalty.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: The sword was used in vain, not the sharp end, but the flat end of it.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Michigan dropped the death penalty for murder in 1846 following the strong advocacy of John O'Sullivan, a New York newspaper editor.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: O'Sullivan appealed to the self-evident morality within natural man and the government's responsibility to uphold the natural law of equality.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: He argued against using Old Testament law, which he considered to be a Jewish holdover intended for a semi-barbarian and semi-savage people, in his words.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: The law of God was not intended for the high moral character of a Christian people.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: O'Sullivan's extensive treatise insisted that no human being can ever become too far gone in crime that he cannot be reformed.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: He went to great lengths to show how Jesus brought a new law of love and mercy, a new social reformation and a radical democratic spirit which would remove the death penalty.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: This he called an experiment of reformation, in order that justice become the agent of the dictates of mercy and the best and kindliest feelings of man being engaged in unison with the due execution of the laws.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: His argument rested on natural law, or what seemed to be natural, to an enlightened, compromised, moralistic cultural Christianity at the moment.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: This was the spirit of a softened theology that introduced the liberalism of the next two centuries.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: The death penalty for murder was abolished in the state of Rhode Island in 1852, Wisconsin in 1853, and Kansas in 1907.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: By 1966, only forty two percent of Americans supported the death penalty.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Supreme Court determined the God instituted ordinance as cruel and unusual punishment in 1972 and abolished it altogether.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: The death penalty has been eliminated in almost every post-Christian anti-Christian nation, including all of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, most of the United States, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Certain African and Asian countries such as Pakistan, India, and Nigeria also fail at prosecuting criminals who kill Christians, rape their daughters, and destroy their property.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: These rulers are culpable before Almighty God for permitting the widespread persecution of Christians at the hands of roving gangs, terrorists, and religious fanatics.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Governments will look the other way when the Hindu mobs and jihadist radicals murder innocent Christians.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: These government officials are complicit for their failure to prosecute.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: For this reason, these nations register as the worst nations in the world for their immorality, unjust systems, and radical opposition to the true and living God by the 2025 Evil Index.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: How are criminal justice systems fail?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: The modern police force is mainly concerned with traffic administration.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Criminal cases make up only 24% of police business.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Of these cases, only 22% concern serious felonies like robbing banks or maiming and killing others.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Only 5% of police business is taken up with serious crimes.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: About 46% of the federal prison population and 15% of state prison population are taken up with persons who have possessed certain banned drugs or attempted to sell drugs without a license.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Additionally, federal, state, and local courts are essentially ignoring the law and avoiding judicial trials in the United States today.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: According to the American Bar Association, between 90 and 98% of convictions are plea bargained.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: The plea bargain is a negotiated justice, something very far from what God would define as justice.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: The prosecutor, the attorney bringing charges against the accused, and the defense, the attorney advocating for the accused, negotiate the deal, after which the judge accepts or rejects it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: As much as is humanly possible, no judicial system should be in the business of negotiating justice.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: By plea bargaining, the thief can reduce the charge from armed robbery to shoplifting.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: The rapist can reduce his sentence from twenty years in prison as mandated by the law to five years in prison.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: He can dismiss certain counts of breaking the law by submitting a guilty plea on other counts.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: If anything, this form of justice is slothful, corrupt, and inequitable.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: God's law strictly forbids impartial justice or respect of persons under the law.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: You shall not show partiality in judgment.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: You shall hear the small as well as the great.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: You shall not be afraid in any man's presence, for the judgment is God's.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless, there may be some negotiation on the penalty assigned to a particular conviction, especially if the victims wish to extend mercy to the accused.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is not the business of the court to extend mercy.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: God has assigned the courts to the responsibility of implementing his justice, but the victims may allow some leniency in the punishment or restitution.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: The biblical view of justice.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: From the man-centered or state-centered perspective, the offended party in a court trial is the state, or sometimes the people.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is because the humanist state considers itself to be God, where God is no longer received as God and the source of law, the voting public will come to think of themselves as God.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is the religion of humanism.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: When criminals break the law according to this religion, they have offended the state or the people as the self-professed source of law.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Christians, however, do not worship the state, and they do not worship themselves, nor will they worship the beast or his image.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation chapter 14, verses nine through eleven.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Genuine Christians will only acknowledge the true and living God as the source of law.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: That being the case, the offended party in any criminal case must be God Himself.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: The concern in the case of unsolved murder is not first the victim, but God.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 21 verses 1 through 9.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: The prayer offered up in the criminal case dealt with in Deuteronomy 21 is that God would not lay innocent blood to the charge of your people Israel.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Atonement is made to God on their behalf for the blood.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 21, verse 8.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: The state is assigned to the position of avenger for God, not for man.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 13, verse 4.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Only after recognizing the primary party offended in any crime as God himself, the scripture would present the victim of the crime as another offended party.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore, the righteous state is concerned with administering God's justice for God and compensating victims.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Biblical law requires compensation for victims in cases of theft, gross negligence, rape, and fornication.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Biblical restitution for victims.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Restitution hardly ever happens today, however, because the state has the wrong view of God, justice, and everything else.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: federal courts have assigned$110 billion over a three-year period to criminals to repay victims, of which only$3 billion was ever collected.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: State compensation programs have collected as much as$400 million per year.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thieves, shoplifters, and burglars set their victims back by at least$100 billion each year.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: And all told, barely 1% of the value of the stolen material is ever restored to the victims.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sweden levies a$100 fine for all criminals for a restitution fund, intended for the comfort of victims, but still a mere pedit when considering the overall loss, pain, and suffering caused by the theft.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible requires anywhere from 120% to 400% restituted value to the victim for that which was stolen.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's consider a chart listing the offense type, the restitution rule, and the scriptural reference.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the listing.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Theft of tools, working animals, sold or killed, five times the value.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 22 verses 1 through 4.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Theft of animals relied on for reproduction, sold or killed.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Four times the value.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 22 verses 1 through 4.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Other theft two times the value.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 22 verses 7 through 9.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Grazing damage with best produce value.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 22 verse 5.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Fire damage.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 22 verse 6.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Open pit injury at full animal value.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 21 verses 33 through 34.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Animal kills animal.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Split value.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Full value if negligent.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 21 verses 35 through 36.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bodily injury and fight.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Medical cost plus lost time.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 21 verses 18 through 19.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Gross negligence person killed.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Ransom or set payment.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus 21 verses 28 through 32.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Rape of unbetrothed virgin fifty shekels plus marriage.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 22 verses 28 through 29.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Seduction of virgin at bride price.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 22 verses 16 through 17.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: False accusation of bride's morality 100 shekels.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 22 verses 13 through 19.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: General wrongs.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Full value plus 20%.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Numbers chapter 5 verses 6 through 7.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens in the case of the thief who has nothing with which to repay his victim?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well the answer is simple.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: The thief is required to sign up for a work program and use all of his compensation short of a little for his own food to repay his victim.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: These work programs may be administered by the state or by private individuals.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: In most cases involving an offended human party, with the exception of the crime of murder, biblical law allows the offenders.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: The right to drop all charges.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: For example, Joseph legitimately intended to put away his wife quietly when she was found to be pregnant during the betrothal period.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter one, verse nineteen.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Prisons.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter four, verse twenty eight.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: The biblical wisdom regarding victims' rights calls the whole system of prisons into question.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly, the Quakers introduced the idea of penitentiaries first in Philadelphia in 1773.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Pennsylvania had largely incorporated such a system by the eighteen twenties and the rest of the nation by the eighteen fifties.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Removing a man from his family and placing him in a prison where his room and board is paid for by taxpayers for years on end was one of the worst ideas humanists have ever invented.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: If victims' rights and restitution are of primary importance to God, how does the man sitting in prison do his work?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: How will he work with his hands, according to the principle contained in Ephesians chapter four, verse twenty eight, and Exodus chapter twenty two verses one through four, that he may restore what he has stolen and give to him who has nothing.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: The average cost to put up a prisoner in U.S.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: state penitentiaries today stands at sixty five thousand dollars per year.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: The costs vary across states, ranging from three hundred thousand per prisoner in Massachusetts to twenty three thousand dollars in Arkansas.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Federal prisons cost taxpayers about forty three thousand dollars per year per prisoner.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's about what the average American worker earns per year before taxes.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: All told, roughly one hundred billion dollars per year of taxpayer monies is spent taking care of prisoners who steal over$100 billion in value from their victims each year.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sweden, the Netherlands, and Ireland spend over$100,000 per year per prisoner.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: sported the highest prison population in the world in 2007, with an incarceration rate of 755 per 100,000 citizens.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: The rate has dropped slightly, and today El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan hold the record.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Turkmenistan and Cuba are exceedingly repressive states, imprisoning innocent citizens for non-crimes.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: El Salvador and Rwanda are nations that were cursed with anarchial gangs given to violence and genocide.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: is afflicted with drug epidemics, drug laws, and recidivism.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Criminals who were arrested repeatedly for similar crimes.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: News stories abound these days concerning repeat criminals with rap sheets and arrest records that run on for pages.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Liberal states and cities release these wicked men back on the streets to abuse more victims.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, one miscreant, James Sharp, was convicted over 100 times in UK courts for various crimes, including drug dealing and burglary.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: He would revert into criminal activity within 24 hours of release from jail, much to the amazement of the UK press.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Another son of Belial type character from the U.S., James Shannon Farthing, spent 30 years behind bars in 25 separate institutions.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: He had racked up charges including assault, drug trafficking, smuggling, and bribery.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Of the 4.9 million Americans arrested in a recent year, 930,000 of them were arrested twice, and 430,000 were arrested three or more times in the same year.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Recidivism and incorrigible criminality are not tolerated in a system based on God's justice.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 17, verses 12 through 13 provides that safeguard.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God or the judge, that man shall die.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you shall put away the evil from Israel, and all the people shall hear and fear and no longer act presumptuously.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 17 verses twelve through thirteen.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Biblical law and the rights of the accused.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: God is concerned for the truth.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Although perfect justice is unachievable on earth, certain measures must be taken to preserve truth and justice in trials.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the Bible does not permit the government to force a confession from the accused.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Every case must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is the unwavering scriptural standard for all judicial proceedings.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: He shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy seventeen, verse six.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any inequity or any sin that he commits.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: By the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy nineteen, verse fifteen.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 18, verse 16.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Akon confessed what he did before Joshua and the judges of Israel, but additional witnesses were sent immediately to verify his testimony about the concealing of the stolen goods after the fact.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua 7, verse 22.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Corroboration is important in a proper trial.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Those who witness a crime have a responsibility to bear witness to the truth and seek justice for the victims in the trial.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have been a partaker with adulterers.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: You sit and speak against your brother.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: You slander your own mother's son.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: These things you have done, and I kept silent.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: You thought that I was altogether like you, but I will rebuke you and set them in order before your eyes.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: For example, a false witness in a murder trial would have to be put to death.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Strict requirements on witnesses may reduce the number of trials that end in a false conviction, as well as discourage all false witnessing.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: God's law concerning witnesses.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here is a listing of the biblical principles and their corresponding scriptural references.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: The biblical principle at least two or three witnesses required.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: It can be referenced in Deuteronomy chapter 19, verse 15, Numbers chapter 35, verse 30, and Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse 6.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: The biblical principle of truthful testimony commanded.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: It can be referenced in Exodus chapter 20, verse 16, and Exodus chapter 23, verse 1.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: The biblical principle of false witnesses punished.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: It can be referenced in Deuteronomy chapter 19, verses 16 through 19.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: The biblical principle of impartiality and no bribery can be referenced in Leviticus chapter 19, verse 15, and Exodus chapter 23, verse 8.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the biblical principle of responsibility of a witness to testify can be referenced in Leviticus chapter 5, verse 1.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: God's wisdom concerning judges and trials conveyed through Jethro in Exodus chapter 18 included a trial by peers, or at least a trial adjudicated by a local judge.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Cases were first handled by rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 18, verse 21.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: This prevented outside bias, and these local community residents would better understand local norms, values, and context.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Moreover, God's system also allowed an appeal on the more difficult cases to a higher court.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 18, verse 22.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Courts can get bogged down in endless appeals, but what is suggested here is a single appeal to the higher court.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Over the last 75 years, roughly 1950 through 2025, the United States has set a legal trend toward expanding the rights of those accused of crimes.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: This expansion of rights has been driven primarily by Supreme Court rulings, congressional legislation, and shifts in public attitudes toward due process.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: The infamous Warren Court from 1953 to 1969 is much to blame.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: This court opened the doors to legal acceptance of pornography and abortion, and at the same time tied the hands of American courts when prosecuting real criminals.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Constitution already provided sufficient safeguards for the accused, including probable cause before a judge could issue a search warrant, the right to speedy trial, the right to an impartial jury, a restriction of excessive bails or fines, the right to remain silent and not admit to the crime, and a ban on all cruel and unusual punishments.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the Warren Court took this a step or two further.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Mapp v.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Ohio 1961 case dismissed evidence obtained wrongly by a police officer who entered the home of a suspect without a search warrant.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of prosecuting the police officer, the evidence was dismissed in the case.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: If a police officer understands that his career and his own well-being are at risk for breaking the rules relating to search warrants, he would be less likely to do it.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Escabido versus Illinois, 1964, saddled the police with a requirement to obtain a defense attorney before questioning a suspect.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the 1966 Miranda versus Arizona case required the police to go over a suspect's rights before completing the arrest.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Between 1960 and 1970, the balance of powers had shifted from the victim to the accused, from the rights of justice to the rights of the accused and criminal investigations and trials.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's take a look at how the balance of power in the U.S.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: criminal justice system has shifted over the past century.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine a chart that tracks balance index from 1900 to 2025.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: The higher the line goes, the more the system has favored defendants' rights.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: The lower it sits, the more power it has given to law enforcement.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: For the first 60 years of the 20th century, from 1900 through the early 1960s, the balance remained relatively stable and low, hovering between about 30 and 40 on the index.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Law enforcement held the stronger hand during this era.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then came a dramatic turning point.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Starting in the 1960s, the line shoots upward sharply.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: This surge reflects a major expansion of defendants' rights during the decade.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Key Supreme Court decisions drove this shift, including Gideon versus Wainwright in 1963, which guaranteed the right to an attorney for those who couldn't afford one, and Miranda versus Arizona in 1966, which required police to inform suspects of their rights before questioning.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: The balance peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s, reaching about 75 to 80 on the index.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: But the pendulum didn't stay there.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Beginning in the mid-1970s, the line begins a steady decline.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Landmark cases like Greg v.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Georgia in 1976, which reinstated the death penalty, Escabito versus Illinois, and Mapp versus Ohio are marked on the chart showing how the court gradually restored more authority to law enforcement and prosecutors.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: By the late 2000s and into the 2020s, the balance index had settled into the high sixties to low seventies, still significantly higher than the pre-1960s era, but noticeably lower than its peak.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Overall, the chart reveals a clear pattern, a long period of stability favoring law enforcement, followed by a sharp pro-defendant shift in the Warren Court years, and then a gradual rebalancing back toward law enforcement power in the decades that followed.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: National defense.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: The second legitimate use of the state is defense.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: To reiterate what has been previously covered, state officials do not have the authority to commit genocide, throw Christians in jail, conduct purely imperialistic wars, nuke cities, pillage their own citizens, or force removal of peoples from lands they have settled and cultivated for centuries.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: There are limits to what governments are allowed to do by God's laws.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yet the civil government does not use the sword in vain.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: They use the sword to kill people, and that must still be governed by God's rules.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: Governments are permitted to defend their own borders from invasion.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Israel was not to engage in imperialistic wars and empire building beyond its borders, from the river to the river.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: See Genesis chapter 15, verse 18.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: God had specifically designated the nation's borders, and they were to hold to it.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you come to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: You shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses, one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: You may not set a foreigner over you who is not your brother, but he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Neither shall he multiply wise for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: God did not want the nation turning into a warfare state, and if the king would have any full time military men, the rule was to keep the numbers to a minimum.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: The king was to avoid multiplying his cavalry, or aggrandizing the state with huge stores of money.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: God did not want empire status for Israel, as was characteristic of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: This implies that Israel would remain in a defensive posture on an ongoing basis.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not Israel and not any other nation is called to be a global policeman, interfering with other states in their wars.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Nations have a right to train their men into a militia.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: It is best for all the men to be armed and know how to defend their homes and homeland.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: They have a duty to defend their borders on the off chance that an invading force comes upon them.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: This happens occasionally.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Chinese invaded Tibet in nineteen fifty.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Soviets invaded Hungary in nineteen fifty six.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Turks invaded Cyprus in nineteen seventy four.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: Indonesia invaded East Timor in nineteen seventy five.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: Iraq invaded Kuwait in nineteen ninety.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: The US invaded Iraq in two thousand three.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Russia invaded Ukraine in twenty twenty two.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Certain nations have successfully fought off occupiers, subjugators, and invaders throughout history.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: The United States, for example, declared independence and defended the nation from its British oppressors in 1776.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Russians resisted Napoleon's imperialist invasions in 1812.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: After Mexico arbitrarily suspended the 1824 Constitution, Texans successfully defended their new nation in the War of 1846 through 1848.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: And Greece successfully defended itself against Mussolini's armies in 1940.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: Terrorism.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Threats to nations have increased of late due to terrorism, requiring a strong defensive posture on the part of the state.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: Beginning in the 1970s, worldwide terrorist events have been on the rise.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: An international study records nearly 67,000 Islamic terrorist events from the 1970s into the 2020s, resulting in the deaths of 250,000 persons.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Of these 67,000, some 2,200 occurred between 1974 and the year 2000, then increased to 8,000 attacks between 2001 and 2012, and another 56,400 attacks between 2013 and 2024.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the attacks occurred in South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Only a very few reached the Americas.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: The world has entered a new era, the age of anarchical attacks even within extremely wealthy and powerful nations.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: The deadliest terrorist organizations in the world from greatest to least are the Taliban, contributing 71,965 deaths, the Islamic State Group, contributing 69,641 deaths, Boko Haram contributing 26,081 deaths, Al-Shabaab contributing 21,784 deaths, and Al Qaeda contributing 14,856 deaths.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: For the record, the Irish Republican Army has contributed to about 1,700 deaths over the last 50 years.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: These heightened threats required a significant escalation and vigilance and enforcement on the part of the U.S.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Border Patrol and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: Department of Homeland Security formed in 2002 after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: Border protection has become more of a matter of national defense for this country and others.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's examine the long-term pattern of annual global terrorist incidents from 1950 to 2024.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: Our chart shows an indexed trend of the number of incidents each year, making it easy to see the overall rise and fall over more than seven decades.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: For the first two decades, from 1950 through the early 1960s, the level stayed very low, barely registering above the baseline.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: Incidents remained rare during much of the post World War II era.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: Things began to change noticeably in the late 1960s and especially through the war.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: Through the 1970s.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: The line starts climbing as international terrorism becomes more frequent, driven by groups involved in conflicts like those in the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: By the 1980s, the trend has risen further, reaching a plateau around 40 on the index, reflecting a sustained higher level of activity through the end of the Cold War period.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: The real surge came after 2000.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Following the September 11th attacks in 2001, the line begins a steeper upward trajectory.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: It accelerates dramatically in the 2000s and early 2010s, fueled by the rise of groups like Al-Qaeda and later ISIS, along with ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and parts of Africa.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: The peak hits sharply around 2014, soaring close to 100 on the index, the highest point on the chart, making the height of what many analysts describe as the global terrorism wave associated with the Islamic State's territorial expansion and worldwide affiliates.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: After that dramatic high, the line drops noticeably in the following years, reflecting the military campaigns that degraded ISIS's caliphate and reduced its capacity for large-scale operations.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: By the early 2020s, incidents had settled into the 70s range, still far higher than the pre-2000 levels, but down significantly from the mid-2010s peak.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: Overall, this chart reveals a clear story.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: Relative calm in the early post-war decades, a gradual increase starting in the 1970s, a massive escalation in the new millennium that crushed it around 2014, and then a partial decline in recent years, even as terrorism remains a persistent threat in conflict zones around the world.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: Isolationism.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 5, verse 9.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wise and godly leaders will be most interested in maintaining peace, but not at all cost.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: There are reasons to go to war, but this should be a last resort.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: Peacemaking is as essential in government as it is in the rest of human relationships.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: Free trade, international sports competitions, respectful dialogue, and regular meetings among officials of state are all helpful means to avoiding war.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking softly and carrying a big stick is usually a good rule of thumb for putting off international conflicts.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: Deterrence by developing military technology, building up formidable military systems, operational intelligence, and missile defense systems may also prevent war.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: When Europe ruled the world between 1500 and 1945, power concentrated on the continent and threatened peace everywhere.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is almost impossible to avoid the temptation to covet more power and fight for that power when the power to rule the world is concentrated in one place.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: As the French were fast losing a position of power in Europe, France fought hard for its position against the rising English Empire from 1689 until 1810, producing the Nine Years War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the French and Indian War, the Seven Years War, and the Napoleonic Wars.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the European wars after 1848 involved Germany, Prussia, and Austria fighting for their own place in Europe as the balance of powers tipped in favor of an English-French coalition.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: Russia and Germany were latecomers to the Empire game and fought hard for their place in history in the 20th century.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: German ethnic pride, Russia's Slavic pride, and Russia's fear of losing Serbia to Austria-Hungary touched off World War I and consequently World War II as well.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: While the European power mongers were elbowing for position and territory, the United States offered a reprieve from the headache of foreign invasion or sending boys out to be mowed down by foreign forces and worthless wars.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: An ocean separating the continents offered more of an incentive to isolationism.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: The wisdom contained in George Washington's final warning to the nation is worth considering to this day.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far I mean as we are now at liberty to do it.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences, consulting the natural course of things, diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing, establishing with powers so disposed in order to give trade a stable course to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: Conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied as experience and circumstances shall dictate, constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another, that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character, that by such acceptance it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: It is an illusion which experienced must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: The United States of America maintained an isolationist policy for almost a century, thanks partly to the Monroe Doctrine of eighteen twenty three, the intent of which was to keep European powers out of the Western hemisphere and keep America out of European wars.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: Earlier, President John Quincy Adams had warned the country not to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy, and admonished the nation to avoid all the wars interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: The stated objective for a wise and prudent nation at the beginning was to stay out of European wars.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: The nation would only consider war if invaded or seriously menaced, that is, until eighteen ninety eight.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: The Spanish American War of eighteen ninety eight was inspired by a wayward news media, aided by a freak explosion on the USS Maine, which was quickly attributed to an act of aggression on the part of Spain, but to this day, never proven conclusively.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: Mutual blockades of English and German ports and the sinking of American commercial ships brought the country into World War I.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: But why transport noncombatants into dangerous waters while a war is going on?
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: And why stuff the hull of the Lusitania with hundreds of tons of munitions unless the nation was already committed to war?
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: The United Nations made the decision to send a security force into the Korean conflict, which committed American troops to fight off communism on foreign shores.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: The war turned into a stalemate, but carved out the south of the country for freedom of religion and economy.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: was determined to keep communism from spreading into the south of Vietnam, resulting in another war that extended over 20 years from 1955 to 1975.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was a lost cause, producing no less than fifty eight thousand deaths of American soldiers.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: Vietnam was ultimately unified under the rule of communists.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: entered yet another war with Iraq in 2003 over the supposition that the nation was assembling weapons of mass destruction.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: This turned out not to be the case, and the ensuing war and unrest resulted in a purging of the Christian churches from the country and the installation of Islamic Sharia law.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: Something similar had occurred in the 1970s with Iran.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: The Afghan war resulted in a takeover by the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalism taking over that country.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: Since 2020, the United States has funded wars in Israel, Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen, none of which involved defending the geographical borders of the 50 states.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_00: Lest any should suggest that isolation and national peacekeeping are impossible for any nation, Switzerland successfully exempted itself from most of these European wars for several centuries.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: The nation fortified itself sufficiently to intimidate any foreign power attempted to invade.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Swiss maintained universal mail conscription, each home outfitted with guns and ammunition, and the state installed extensive bunkers, tunnels, and fortifications throughout the country to protect his people from invasion.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: Taking sides and picking sides in conflicts.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_00: He who passes by and meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a dog by the ears.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs chapter 26, verse 17.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: The wisdom literature warns of taking part in somebody else's conflict.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: Washington's warning to avoid long-term entangling alliances is well taken.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: Alliances between nations should be limited in scope and time frame.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: On what basis does a Christian leader choose to support one nation over another in a conflict?
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: For example, should some Islamic nation enter into a state of war with a secular nation known for its promotion of sexual perversion and abortion, which side represents the more righteous position in the side of God?
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in this conflict?
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: In a sinful world where Egyptians fight Assyrians, communists fight Nazis, and Muslims fight post Christian atheists, which side represents the more righteous position?
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: In more cases than not, the better choice is to stay out of the conflict altogether.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: Preemptive warfare.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: More often than not, nations will engage in preemptive warfare, entering into conflict with an enemy for the ostensive reason of warding off what they believe to be an imminent attack.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: The subsequent military engagement is framed as self-defense rather than conquest.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes a nation will provoke another nation to commit an initial aggression so as to incite the war.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes a nation will go to war, fearing the balance of power is about to shift due to nations aligning with a competitor for power.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the nation fears economic or political power loss, or a nation may declare war when it fears that waiting will only weaken its ability to resist an invasion.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_00: Nations will enter into war when a decision not to fight appears more dangerous than fighting.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: The underlying motive in the initiation of any war is the fear of loss, whether that fear be generated first with the media, the people, or the power mongers in leadership.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the question remains for us.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_00: Who do you fear, God or the enemy?
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: Shall we fear God or the loss of personal power and affluence?
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: Fearing God is the beginning of wisdom when it comes to matters of state, and not fearing God will always result in unwise decisions and catastrophic effects.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: Combine this fear of loss with unchecked national pride, political incompetence, cowardice, avarice, and tomfoolery, and we will see the nations tipping into gigantic wars with their attendant horrors and indescribable forfeiture of human dignity and life.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: Just war theory.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nations are obligated to God's laws when conducting wars.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_00: When sinful men are let loose to kill one another, they can easily slip into anarchical patterns and cross moral boundaries.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, Christian teachers like Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, and others have produced lists of moral constraints to govern warfare, that which is known among civilized Christian nations as just war theory, has mostly biblical roots.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_00: Here are the principles that constitute just war.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: Legitimate authority.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: War is a public act, not for private persons.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: Magistrates bear the sword.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter thirteen verses one through four.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: Augustine defined just war as a public punishment for the common good.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: Wars are fought to avenge wrongs committed by other nations, to recover what was unjustly taken by other nations, to defend the innocent or remedy a grave injustice.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_00: See Genesis chapter fourteen, Deuteronomy chapter nineteen verses eleven through thirteen, Psalm chapter eighty two verse four, and Romans chapter thirteen verse four.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right intention.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is peace or to restore the tranquility of order in human society.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wrong motives.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_00: Augustine pointed out the motives of hatred, cruelty, domination, and personal revenge as off the table for any nation contemplating war.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_00: See Matthew chapter five, verse forty-four, Romans chapter twelve, seventeen through twenty one, and first Timothy chapter two verse two.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: Last resort.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: Augustine recommended against the itchy trigger finger, urging a spirit of longstanding reluctance to enter into war.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: All possible negotiations and forbearance are to be exercised for years if necessary before engaging in military conflict.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_00: See Deuteronomy twenty, verse ten, and Romans chapter twelve, verse eighteen.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: Another wisdom consideration to be noted prior to entering into war is probability of success, Luke chapter fourteen, verse thirty one.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: Honesty would also demand a formal declaration of war on the part of the nations in order to avoid the tendency to anarchy and random acts of violence initiated by the state.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_00: The modern warfare state.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: Superpowers like ancient Rome, the English Empire, and modern America usually maintain their powers in the geopolitical arena by military strength.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: Their militaries serve as something more than just a deterrent to foreign invaders and a defensive force protecting the borders of a nation.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_00: A large part of the economy is dedicated to manufacturing weaponry, stationing armed forces units and bases around the world and fighting wars.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_00: The warfare state is heavily organized around preparing for, engaging in, and sustaining war on a continuing basis.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_00: The United States has edged in that direction since the turn of the 21st century, deploying troops in forty separate countries in the 1980s and 1990s, an average of 60 countries in the 2000s, and 70 countries in the 2010s and 2020s.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_00: Since 1950, the major warfare states by number of wars are the United States, 10 wars, Russia, 10 wars, Israel, 10 wars, China, seven wars, the United Kingdom, six wars, and Australia, five wars.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sudan, Afghanistan, the Congo, Angola, Yemen, and Myanmar have also been bogged down in long-term conflicts over the last half century.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_00: Quite a few of the world's nations impose a mandatory military conscription, and some nations, like the United States, require a registration for the draft.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: While the state may rightly interview any able body man for military service, this does not allow for pressing him into combat positions.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is the thrust of Deuteronomy chapter twenty, verse eight.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: The officers shall speak further to the people and say, What man is there who is fearful and faint hearted?
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let him go and return to his house, lest the heart of his brethren faint like his heart.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 20, verse eight.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: Women in the Armed Forces.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: The Soviets and the atheistic communists were first responsible for legalizing abortion, advocating homosexuality, and introducing women into combat.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Bolshevik Revolution was the beginning of the end for Christian influence in Europe.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: The USSR deployed women for snipers, pilots, and combat roles in armored regiments in World War II.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_00: As the feminist doctrine captured the entire Western world, Norway introduced women to combat in 1985, Canada in 1989, Germany in 2000, Australia in 2013, the UK in 2016, and the United States in 2016.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_00: As of this writing, there were 6,000 women in combat roles in the U.S.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_00: military.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_00: God's law specifically assigns the role of fighting wars to men.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_00: Women are meant to be life givers, not life takers.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_00: Men are intended to defend their women and children.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I looked and arose and said to the nobles, to the leaders, and to the rest of the people, Do not be afraid of them.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the Lord, great and awesome, and fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_00: Dehemiah chapter four, verse fourteen.
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_00: When soliciting the citizenry to fight in the nation's wars, the officers of Israel were tasked to address the men, not the women.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_00: The officers shall speak to the people, saying, What man is there who has built a new house and is not dedicated it?
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_00: Also, what man is there who has planted a vineyard and has not eaten of it?
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man eat of it.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_00: But what man is there who is betrothed to a woman and has not married her?
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let him go and return to his house lest he die in the battle and another man.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_00: Man marry her.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 20, verses 5 through 7.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_00: Lately, Western nations have favored feminism and the incorporation of women into combat.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_00: Eastern countries, as well as communist and Muslim nations, have been far less likely to incorporate women into military roles.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_00: By the metric of women in active duty, the most feminist nations in the world are presently Australia and the United States.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here is a listing of women and active duty military in Western nations.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's broken down by country, percent of women in active duty, the scope of their assignments, and the year it was enacted, ranked highest percentage to lowest.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_00: First is Australia, with 20.7% of women of active duty.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Their scope is in the permanent ADF, and that happened in the year 2024.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_00: The United States, 17.7% women, active duty, Department of Defense, 2023.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_00: France, 17.3% military personnel, the year 2025.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Canada, 16.3%, part of the regular force, the year 2024.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Germany, 13.6%, all soldiers, including medical, the year 2024.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Spain, 13.2%, Werzas Armadas, the year 2023.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Poland, 13%, Boisko Polski, the year 2024.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_00: United Kingdom, 11.9%, Regular Forces 2025.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Japan, 9%, JSDF, 2024.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_00: South Korea, 9%, ROK Armed Forces, 2024.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Italy, 8%, Armed Forces 2025.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_00: For comparison, here is a listing of women and active duty military in Eastern nations broken down by country, 4% of women and active duty, and the scope of their assignments.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_00: China, 5%, PLA all services, estimate from official PLA media via USCC and CASI.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Russia 4%.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Indonesia 2% TNI 2022.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_00: India 0.7% all ranks by service, official reply.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Pakistan 0.6% FSF paramilitary.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Iran 0% women exempt from conscription.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Limited roles.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right conduct in war.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 20 offers an extended treatise on principles governing warfare, primarily of which is to accept offers of a truce from a village, a city, a state, or a nation at any time.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_00: This may prevent much loss of life.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Also, as far as the fighting men are killed in the fray, the women and children are to be saved.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_00: They may have to be relocated and provided for by the prevailing nation.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_00: These were the normative standards required of God's people in the Old Testament.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Although God ordered one exception to the rule in the conquest of Canaan.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_00: This special dispensation required the utter destruction of the Canaanites, according to God's righteous judgment and sovereign determination, communicated by a special prophetic word to his people.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_00: This Christian principle for warfare was mostly laid aside in the 20th century.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_00: For comparison's sake, the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in the U.S.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_00: War for Independence in the 1770s was less than 1%, and the U.S.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Civil War, 1860s, was considerably worse, somewhere around 8%.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Civilian killings were typically random anarchial actions committed by lawless soldiers and by no means normative.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in World War II exceeded 300%.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_00: These numbers expose the radical worldview shift that occurred in the post-Christian age.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_00: The world had entered the age of firebombing cities and the use of weapons of mass destruction.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_00: When you besiege a city for a long time while making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you can eat of them, do not cut them down to use in the siege, for the tree of the field is man's food.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, to build siege works against the city that makes war with you until it is subdued.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 20, verses 19 through 20.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Scorched earth warfare is absolutely forbidden in Deuteronomy chapter 20.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_00: While God would allow certain non-fruit-bearing trees to be cut down for the siege, the fruit-bearing trees were to remain in place.
• 1:15:31
  SPEAKER_00: This may come across as a trivial point, but a larger principle is in mind here.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_00: God is concerned for his world.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want man's passion and war to kill off the women and children, to kill the earth, to diminish subsequent food harvest, or even to devastate the birth rate.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Civilization must carry on.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_00: God's world must get back to reproduction.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_00: For over a thousand years, Christian states were largely faithful to God's principles of warfare.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_00: This changed with the dawn of the humanist age.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_00: God's standards no longer applied.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_00: The totalitarian state came into view with its bare knuckle pragmatism and a commitment to cold administrative repression.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Philip Sheridan and William T.
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Sherman, under the command of President Abraham Lincoln, conducted some of the first scorched earth warfare across Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and Georgia in the fall of 1864.
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Columbia, South Carolina was burned to the ground.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Barns and mills were torched, livestock was slaughtered, and sexual violence took place in the Carolinas.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_00: The British carried on the practice of this unbiblical warfare in the Second Boer War, 1899 through 1902, raising farms, slaughtering livestock, and confining Boer civilians in death camps.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_00: The Russians followed suit in World War I and World War II, in conflict with the Germans.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Japan, as well, conducted a three alls campaign across China, nineteen forty one through nineteen forty two, with orders to kill all, burn all, and loot everything in village after village.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Indiscriminate bombing followed Sherman and Sheridan's scorched earth principle, but only after the invention of the airplane.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Powerful militaries could drop bombs from a relatively safe distance in the air on civilian homes, businesses, and gardens.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Germany used incendiary bombs to destroy homes and terrorize London in 1915 at the beginning of World War I.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Japan's infamous firebombing of Chinese cities in 1938, and Germany's blitz on British cities, 1940 through 41, normalized the practice in 20th century warfare.
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Allies copied their enemy's modus operandi, and the single most destructive air raid in the war occurred in the attack on Tokyo, March 9th through the 10th, 1945.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: A quarter of the vast city was destroyed, and the most devastating act of scorched earth warfare in modern history.
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And all two hundred and sixty seven thousand buildings were destroyed, leaving about a million people homeless.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_00: All this culminated in the release of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, August 1945, with what has come to be known as a weapon of mass destruction.
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Historically, Christians have held to several other principles for the just conduct of war.
• 1:19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Measured force.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Combatants are to apply only that which is necessary force.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_00: They are to avoid wanton cruelty and show clemency where possible.
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_00: See Luke chapter 3, verse 14, Proverbs 24, verse 17, and Deuteronomy chapter 20.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Moral posture of the combatant.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_00: The soldier is bound to obey rightful authority.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_00: He is to love God and love his neighbor and fight to protect the innocent, not motivated out of any personal vengeance or hatred for the foe.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_00: See Luke chapter 7, verse 9, and Acts chapter 10 verses 1 through 2.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Restoration of order and peace.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_00: The objective is to achieve a better peace, better than what preceded it.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_00: This should include some measure of reconciliation, punishment of grave wrongs, and protection of the weak.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_00: See Micah chapter 6, verse 8, and Isaiah chapter 2, verse 4.
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Humane treatment of prisoners.
• 1:20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Combatants who were taken as prisoners in war are to be treated humanely.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Elisha, the prophet of God, affirmed this strongly with the king of Israel.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when the king of Israel saw the enemy's soldiers, he said to Elisha, My father, shall I kill them?
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Shall I kill them?
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_00: But he answered, You shall not kill them.
• 1:20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Would you kill those whom you have taken captive with your sword and your bow?
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Set food and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Second Kings chapter six verses twenty one through twenty two.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Whether or not the individual corps subscribe to it in teaching or practice, the U.S.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Army acknowledges this just war theory as foundational to military ethics.
• 1:21:06
  SPEAKER_00: The document Army Leadership and the Profession, ADP 6-22, states that the Army ethic encompasses moral foundations to include the just war tradition.
• 1:21:22
  SPEAKER_00: How might Christian principles ever be restored to modern warfare?
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_00: That question should be first on the mind of any Christian in the armed forces or national governments in the years to come.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_00: What follows are several obvious modern day applications.
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, budgetary priority will be placed on iron dome defense systems over the development of more weapons of mass destruction.
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Biological, chemical, and nuclear instruments will have to be replaced by technology geared to defending a nation's borders from missile attacks.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Precise laser-based defense systems will have to be installed at the borders of large cities and states that would be most likely targeted in an enemy missile attack.
• 1:22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Most nuclear bombs have a kill radius of five miles, meaning that the warhead would have to be stopped somewhere outside of a 15 to 20 mile radius from the center of larger cities.
• 1:22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, large cities themselves become increasingly risky in the age of weapons of mass destruction.
• 1:22:35
  SPEAKER_00: For the future, nations who wish to protect the lives of their citizens from mass destruction will have to limit the size of their cities.
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, smaller nations have already proven themselves capable of defending their borders from invasion of a larger and more powerful force.
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_00: This can be done effectively by arming the able-bodied men and distributing the technology to divisions across the country.
• 1:23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Godly nations will clearly mark out who is a combatant and who is a civilian in combat.
• 1:23:11
  SPEAKER_00: All aerial, marine-based, and land-based assaults must target military facilities, infrastructure, and combatants to preserve the lives of women and children.
• 1:23:21
  SPEAKER_00: While Muslim nations prefer to use their own people for human shields and battles are fought in populated cities, this must not be the case for Christian nations.
• 1:23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Other nations may deploy their women and children in combat, but Christian nations will clearly demarcate the combatants and noncombatants and keep women out of all combat situations.
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, terrorism is a unique problem in the modern world.
• 1:23:52
  SPEAKER_00: These are anarchial enemies operating ostensibly independently of the nations in which the terrorists reside.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_00: As far as there is clear evidence that certain nations have funded terrorist organizations and supported their assault upon a nation, that nation under siege may legitimately declare war on the nation supporting the terrorist.
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Bombing military camps and terrorist training camps is quite appropriate in such cases.
• 1:24:24
  SPEAKER_00: The degree to which Middle Eastern nations are tolerant of and supportive of terrorism is usually a bit unclear.
• 1:24:33
  SPEAKER_00: The quality of gathered intelligence from spy networks is quite important for those making decisions concerning these matters.
• 1:24:41
  SPEAKER_00: One thing is for sure.
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than wasting copious numbers of valuable lives and resources invading other nations to eliminate terrorist threats, nations would do better to prevent terrorists from crossing over their own borders.
• 1:24:57
  SPEAKER_00: This means religious-based discrimination against radical Muslims entering a nation.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Immigrants and visitors would need extensive references from reputable sources before being allowed into the country.
• 1:25:27
  SPEAKER_00: These are men who would be more concerned with domestic issues and obeying God within their own nation first than they would be about cleaning up the rest of the world.
• 1:25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Conclusion The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water, he turns it wherever he wishes.
• 1:25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs chapter twenty one, verse one.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, or at the end of a civilization, let us remember that God is always and ever in control of the hearts of men.
• 1:26:00
  SPEAKER_00: What can possibly maintain the incredibly delicate equilibrium of peace between man and man, let alone one nation and another?
• 1:26:11
  SPEAKER_00: He has made desolations in the earth, but he also makes wars cease to the end of the earth.
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm chapter 46 verses eight through nine.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Should the voters elect wicked men, children, or fools who lack wisdom to lead a nation, that itself is the judgment of God upon the country.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_00: If the man leading a nation into worthless, unwinnable, and brutal wars turns out to be imprudent, hot-headed, arrogant, impetuous, power hungry, and brash, the citizens may rightly see themselves as under God's judgment.
• 1:26:53
  SPEAKER_00: But every wise leader will keep that principle in mind, which is contained in Proverbs chapter 16, verse 7.
• 1:27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Domestic policies are of higher importance than matters of international relations.
• 1:27:08
  SPEAKER_00: The sins of a nation are of the highest concern to God.
• 1:27:12
  SPEAKER_00: If a nation has murdered one hundred million babies over fifty years, shall that people be surprised to find themselves in a bloody war that wipes out one hundred million living citizens, men, women, and children?
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_00: When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
• 1:27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs chapter 16, verse 7.
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a production of the Generations Media Network.
• 1:27:42
  SPEAKER_00: For more information, go to generations.org slash media.