Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Andy Woods: Top Stories From 2024, A Pastor’s Perspective

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Andy Woods: Top Stories From 2024, A Pastor’s Perspective · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

• 0:00
  Hi, friends. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year coming up.
• 0:03
  Got one of our dear friends, Andy Woods, Andy Woods ministers coming up.
• 0:07
  We're going to get a pastor's perspective on some of the top stories of 2024. Don't move.
• 0:17
  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues,
• 0:22
  discerning current events, defending biblical Christianity, no topic off limits.
• 0:30
  And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
• 0:35
  Hey, friends. Thanks so much for tuning in for praying, for sharing the podcast and for remembering
• 0:39
  the reason for the season. We'll touch on that at the end of today's show with Andy Woods.
• 0:44
  Andy Woods ministries.org, one of my favorite Bible teachers and pastors,
• 0:48
  also president of Chaffer Theological Seminary. Andy, welcome back to World View Matters.
• 0:54
  So good to see you as always. Yeah, David, good to be back. Thanks for having me.
• 0:59
  Yeah, thank you for being here. You've had a busy year as most of us had and lots going on.
• 1:05
  But before we get to some of the top stories, you've got a new book out. And the reason I want to talk
• 1:12
  a little bit about it today, we'll talk about it again in the coming year is because we've got to
• 1:17
  keep fighting friends just because there was a good result in the recent election with President
• 1:22
  Trump and more of America turning red. That's not going to stay that way because remember,
• 1:28
  the biblical world view of the left did not change. And Satan has not repented. And you know,
• 1:33
  they're going to pull out all the stops and double down. So we've got to keep fighting. We've
• 1:38
  got to keep getting Christians engaged and millions did not vote. So let's bring up your book.
• 1:42
  Andy, thank you for writing it. It's over on Amazon, the Bible and your vote, equipping the American
• 1:48
  Christian to stand for righteousness at the ballot box. So Andy, we've talked a little bit about
• 1:55
  this, not about your book, but about this topic of Christian engagement for, I mean, for years.
• 2:01
  And it just seems like people need more information, more prodding to really do their,
• 2:06
  their responsibility to do diligence every election. So in your book, first of all,
• 2:11
  you could have written this 10 years ago. You could have waited until next the midterms,
• 2:17
  but you decided to get this out now. Just tell us about why you decided to write this and how you
• 2:22
  saw it was important. Well, I did notice a lot of the woke type books trying to use the Bible to defend,
• 2:30
  you know, leftism are now hitting the marketplace. And so I kind of felt like there was a need for a
• 2:38
  book that defends what actual Christianity teaches, not taking verses out of context, but thank you.
• 2:46
  And, you know, I did a sermon series on this in 2016. It's not a series on Trump or Hillary or
• 2:54
  Kamala. There's no political personalities, modern political personalities, you know, mentioned in
• 3:01
  the book. But basically what it is, it's, is the subtitle of it is biblical principles for any
• 3:08
  election, you know, state, local, national. And I'm of the view that God has spoken in certain areas.
• 3:17
  And there are certain guidelines that he gives us in economics, foreign affairs, social issues,
• 3:26
  and a few other topics like that, you know, where it's actually chapter in verse, where it's a
• 3:31
  thus say of the Lord. And I guess my heart is for Christians to, first of all, not just be registered
• 3:37
  to vote, but to actually vote. And when they do, they put on their biblical lenses in so doing.
• 3:46
  It's not voting based on party loyalty or, you know, this is the way my parents voted or anything
• 3:52
  like that. It's a topical Bible study on what God has said on these issues. And my hope and
• 3:58
  prayers that Christians will read it. And they will take that mindset with them into the ballot box.
• 4:05
  So over on Amazon, people can read it now. I mean, on Kindle, right? They can read it before
• 4:10
  Christmas. So if you guys are interested in doing that, the Bible and your vote is up on its
• 4:15
  live on Amazon. I just want to mention a couple of these subcategories under economic issues.
• 4:20
  We've got ownership of private property. What else? How about opposition to runaway debt?
• 4:30
  I mean, that's a biblical principle. Social issues. We've got family as the building block to society,
• 4:36
  parental authority. What about public expressions of Christianity? Interesting. You talk about the
• 4:44
  environment and you get into environmental stewardship and not earth worship. These are very
• 4:52
  important principles. And as you said, the left and their social justice agenda, I mean,
• 4:55
  they're pushing all kinds of woke ideologies that are not biblical. And as you say, they're very
• 5:01
  good at taking versus out of context foreign relations. So a lot of very important issues,
• 5:08
  friends. So you can check those out. We will have Andy back in the new year. And we're going to
• 5:12
  go through this a little bit more in depth. But anything you want to share on any one of these or
• 5:16
  about the book before we move into some of the top stories of 24? I mean, well, the book just
• 5:22
  covers countless issues, but just taking one, probably the biggest issue in the past election,
• 5:28
  presidential election that we just emerged from is borders. I mean, most people are shocked to
• 5:35
  discover that God has spoken on the issue of borders. God has a viewpoint and it's not this kind
• 5:43
  of open borders, George Soros mentality that we get from the left. So that would be just one of
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  many examples that we could talk about. Most Christians, when they talk about voting
• 5:54
  biblically, they usually are talking about abortion. And obviously that's a big deal and God has
• 5:59
  spoken there. But what you'll discover is abortion is as important as an issue as that is.
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  I mean, that's one of many issues that we should be thinking about when we go to the ballot box,
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  borders being one are attitude towards Israel being another. And we could just go right on down
• 6:15
  the list. Well, let's talk about borders a little bit, Andy, because there may be some newer
• 6:20
  believers or some younger Christians that maybe aren't as familiar with the Old Testament. I mean,
• 6:25
  God mapped out borders, expanded borders for Israel. They're not even, you know,
• 6:32
  have occupied an extraction of that land now. Speak to that for a moment, because that's in the Old
• 6:37
  Testament. Yeah, it's Paul and on Mars Hill talked about, you know, the boundaries of humanity's
• 6:45
  habitation. And I was listening to one of our woke pastors saying, well, that just means God is in
• 6:51
  favor of people traversing, you know, open borders. And that passage isn't talking about that at all.
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  What it's talking about is God ordained the nation state at the Tower of Babel. That's God's
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  design that the world, you know, before he comes back would not be governed by global governance,
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  but individual nations. And what do you have to have to have a nation? You've got to have a
• 7:15
  common language, a common culture, a common currency. And you have to have enforceable borders.
• 7:23
  I mean, not having enforceable borders is like calling me, you know, the owner of my home and family,
• 7:31
  leader of my family, when anyone under any circumstances unbedded can enter my home without my knowledge.
• 7:38
  Now, you know, you can call me a lot of things, but don't call me a homeowner or the leader of my
• 7:44
  family, if anybody can sneak in through the back door without being vetted by me by going through
• 7:49
  the front door. And that's just a common sense thing. But that's a Bible thing. And so when I'm
• 7:55
  thinking borders, I'm thinking Bible, I'm not thinking Republican, Democrat, or all of these other,
• 8:02
  you know, what the latest mean tweet of the day was or whatever. I mean, I'm basically thinking
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  scripture. And as you read this book, you'll discover you can do that, not just in the area of
• 8:13
  borders, but a plethora of issues. And I'm afraid these are the things that people,
• 8:18
  strictly Christians aren't thinking about when the fact of the matter is God has spoken in these
• 8:24
  areas. And if we're going to have the mind of Christ, it includes how we vote at the ballot box.
• 8:29
  Amen. Brother, thank you. Such an important book. And that's why we will we'll be talking more about
• 8:34
  this because midterms are not too far off. And I don't want to get I don't want to get too far ahead
• 8:39
  of ourselves. But so what do you think? I think borders was one of the key issues that drove
• 8:45
  the red wave, so to speak. What are your thoughts? What else other than borders, do you think helped
• 8:50
  that election that Trump got it got reelected? Well, I think the American people got a taste of
• 8:59
  what socialism is like in the last four years. And Marxism and you know, learning about socialism
• 9:08
  and Marxism from a book is completely different than living under it. And you know, inflation is
• 9:15
  a universal language. Everybody understands inflation that you go to the store and things are not
• 9:21
  as affordable as they once were. And so I think people got a glance of how the current economic policies
• 9:29
  of just rampant government spending, too much money chasing too few goods, which is the
• 9:36
  definition of inflation, is not healthy. It's not good for families. It's not good for your mental
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  or emotional state. And that in addition to borders, in addition to crime, in addition to countless
• 9:51
  other issues, in addition to, you know, sending your kids to a public school and to discover that
• 9:57
  they've been, you know, transgendered without parental knowledge or insight. And then complaining
• 10:05
  about it at a school board meeting makes you under the FBI or Department of Homeland Security,
• 10:13
  some kind of domestic terrorist, you know, members of the Catholic Church being targeted by the FBI.
• 10:22
  I think people just got a taste of this. What it's really like to live in a big government socialist
• 10:27
  slash communist country. And they don't want anything to do with it. And they saw that Kamala's
• 10:33
  father was an open Marxist. She definitely had Marxist tendencies. And I think people just
• 10:41
  you know, reacted against it. And that's why we saw the, not just the win in the popular vote,
• 10:47
  which was wonderful in and of itself, but the electoral landslide that we saw.
• 10:51
  You're too kind to pass your Andy Woods Marxist tendencies.
• 10:55
  Yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness, because I remember reading about what she did is the AG in California.
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  And even during, was it Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation riots that she was bailing out
• 11:08
  felons, convicted felons with the Minneapolis Freedom Fund. But anyway, we learned a lot. And thank
• 11:13
  you so much America for pointing us in the right direction. But we can't assume that it's going
• 11:19
  to stay this way. That's why we wanted to talk about some of these things. So Andy, we've got also
• 11:25
  issues with fentanyl and other things. It's not just crimes, not just well human trafficking and
• 11:30
  other, but fentanyl. I don't think people realize how that is not only spreading across the
• 11:36
  border in the big cities. I mean, people are affected in small towns because drugs spread very
• 11:42
  quickly. Can you speak to that for a moment before we get to the next topic? Yeah, it's, you know,
• 11:49
  I'm sure I mean, I'm close to the border. I'm here in Houston. And you'll notice the border
• 11:58
  towns went incredibly red this time around in Texas. So they got a taste of what open borders
• 12:05
  looks like with crime, drugs, other countries just dumping their prisons and criminals into our
• 12:14
  country. And they're still coming in, by the way, under the current administration. People coming
• 12:20
  in, we have no idea who they are, why they're here, what their motives are. And you can sit in
• 12:26
  a classroom and make arguments for this stuff, but it's a totally different thing living under it.
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  I remember back before the Berlin Wall fell down, I was playing basketball for our college team and
• 12:38
  they took us from West Berlin in the East Berlin. And I saw communism firsthand, you know, what it's
• 12:45
  like. I saw the poverty. I saw the general despair in people's lives. I saw the, you go into a
• 12:53
  restaurant and there's like two things to order from. If, if that. And the people running the
• 12:59
  restaurant can care less if you're there or not, because they're getting paid through the state.
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  So there's no incentive, you know, to work hard. I saw cars broken down and unrepairned still
• 13:10
  from World War II. And, you know, I could sit in front of some professor wax eloquently about
• 13:19
  communism, but it's a completely different thing when you visit a communist country. And I think
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  that's what happened in the United States. It's like God said, okay, if you want to go this direction,
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  let me give you a little foretaste of what it's going to be like. And we saw the prices of things go
• 13:35
  up and the government doing crazy things and people just didn't want it and they reacted against it.
• 13:42
  Yeah. We saw communist policy in America and the weaponization of federal government agencies.
• 13:49
  Again, political, their political enemies, meaning Christians, conservatives, Republicans.
• 13:53
  Andy, what would another one more big story be take away from 2024 that you thought that's
• 14:00
  pretty insightful, whether it's from the Christian perspective or otherwise, just something you
• 14:05
  thought, man, that that's that's going to go down in history in 2024 is a pretty big development.
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  Anything? Well, I thought this explosion. I know some of it started October 7th, 2023, but it
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  really I saw it picking up in 2024. Just this explosion of anti-Semitism on our university campuses,
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  of just mobs of people chanting from the river to the sea, meaning Jordan to Mediterranean,
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  the land of Palestine, a false name, go into that in the book, by the way, the land of the
• 14:41
  land of Palestine will be free, meaning we want to get rid of the Jewish presence, meaning we
• 14:48
  want to get rid of Israel is what they're saying. And I remember Mark Lamont Hill, a commentator,
• 14:55
  for either CNN or MSNBC, one of those maybe, oh, I don't know, maybe four or five,
• 15:01
  six years ago, used that expression from the river to the sea and he lost his job just like that.
• 15:07
  It was considered to be too anti-Semitic and too extreme. I mean, even for MSNBC or CNN,
• 15:13
  which is a real accomplishment. Well, now they just chant it with regularity. And you have
• 15:23
  you have a university professor standing up and saying he was experienced exhilaration
• 15:29
  when the October 7th massacre happened from Gaza, which was really per capita,
• 15:35
  Israel's 9-11, when you think about it. And just how this anti-Semitic thought has become part
• 15:42
  of our culture now. And that was, to me, a big development in 2024.
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  Huge, yeah, anti-Semitism, prophetic, scriptural, right, but not
• 15:53
  disappointing, very disappointing, especially in America. But we've got to take a brief pause with
• 15:59
  Dr. Andy Woods. And you can get more information on his website, Andy Woods Ministries.org.
• 16:04
  Remember to check out the book, The Bible and your vote. We'll be talking about that book
• 16:09
  continually into the new year. But we'll be right back on World View Matters.
• 16:14
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  deductible gift or donation at worldviewmatters.tv. Andy Woods is with us today. A lot to talk about
• 17:32
  big stories from 2024. Before we get into this very interesting one that you pulled up from the
• 17:38
  times of Israel, Andy, is there one other story that you think maybe it's prophetic? It involves
• 17:45
  the church, maybe the election, whatever you think is one that's a takeaway from 2024. What would
• 17:52
  that be? Well, the other big one is the sovereignty of the United States just being given away by the
• 18:00
  Biden administration. I don't think people realize the details. Yeah. Yeah. At the United Nations
• 18:05
  meeting, what was it in September? Basically, if there's an emergency of some kind as deemed by the
• 18:16
  World Health Organization, which I sometimes call the World Homicide Organization, but the World
• 18:25
  Health Organization, then the World Health Organization takes over. I mean, they take over
• 18:30
  information. They take over travel. They take over what can be put into your body. And it's
• 18:37
  interesting that we were never we never voted on this as a treaty. Article 2, section 2, I think it's
• 18:48
  clause 2, right in there in our constitution says a president can't enter into a treaty unless
• 18:54
  two thirds of the majority of the senators present, you know, ratify what he has done.
• 19:02
  That's right. So they just called it something other than a treaty. They called it an agreement
• 19:07
  and accord, you know, something like that. And there was the Biden administration with countless
• 19:12
  other countries just giving the World Health Organization jurisdiction over the United States.
• 19:19
  And so I think that's big prophetically because of what the Bible predicts about world government
• 19:24
  in the last days. Yeah. In America, what's going to happen to America? We know everyone's going to
• 19:30
  turn against Israel at some point. And that's sad because we've been in ally for so long.
• 19:36
  So Andy, before we run out of time, I want to get to this story that you shared in your
• 19:40
  pastor's point of view, one of them recently. And that is an interesting, is this a change in
• 19:47
  Trump's approach? The headline is, I support whatever gets us to peace. Trump avoids backing his
• 19:54
  2020 two-state solution offer. And the article says briefly, US president-elect Donald Trump
• 20:00
  refrains from explicitly backing a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict,
• 20:05
  asserting that he'll support whatever framework brings peace. Your thoughts on this, Andy?
• 20:11
  I think that's a big story. Yeah, to me, it's music to my ears because by my way of thinking,
• 20:18
  Trump was a two-state solution guy in his first term. And almost the moment, and there's ministries
• 20:27
  like Bill Canig and others that document this very carefully, almost to the moment where he put
• 20:33
  that map up on his Twitter feed or White House, also on the White House website that had Israel
• 20:41
  sort of carved up and went this two-state solution direction, is almost to the moment everything
• 20:47
  started to go sideways for him. I mean, remember David, the economy was roaring. Yes, Trump was
• 20:55
  headed for re-election. And then all of a sudden that happened and everything that we know about
• 21:00
  from 2020 in hindsight happened as well. You know, the virus, the masks, the shutdown of the economy,
• 21:09
  the this, that, you know, the election issues that were brewing, you remember, in 2020. I mean,
• 21:19
  all of that happened. Post him moving in this, let's carve up Israel, two-state solution mentality.
• 21:27
  That's what the two-state solution is. It's trying to take Judea and Samaria and take it away
• 21:32
  from the Israelis, which they won in a war of self-defense, 1967, barely, and give it to the so-called
• 21:39
  Palestinians and the world thinks if Israel did that, it would bring peace to the region. So that was
• 21:44
  the Trump mindset. And then this time around when Trump was re-elected, I kind of got disheartened
• 21:51
  because he put a guy named, I think his name is Boulas, if I've got the name right,
• 21:56
  into his cabinet who's also a two-state solution guy. So I was like, well, here we go again.
• 22:03
  You know, he's he's learned nothing. But then I saw the article that you're referencing there,
• 22:08
  where he says we're going to try to achieve peace in the Middle East and the two-state solution
• 22:14
  is not the only option. There's other options. And I said to myself, well, there it is. He's learned
• 22:20
  his lesson. He's moved away from his 2016 to 2020 mentality. And I think this bodes well for
• 22:28
  our nation because God's word is very clear that he promises to curse those who curse Israel
• 22:35
  and bless those who bless Israel. I don't see any statute of limitations on that passage. And
• 22:41
  Genesis 12, verse three, I think it's binding today. And so I was very heartened to read that article
• 22:48
  that you're referring to. Yes. And here's the guy that moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem,
• 22:54
  you know, fascinating. Yeah. Donald Trump probably did more for Israel
• 23:02
  than all of the presidents combined that I could think of. He allowed
• 23:08
  annexation of the Golan Heights at that time. He moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,
• 23:14
  recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of undivided Israel. And things were just roaring along
• 23:20
  just great for him until he brought forth the deal of the century. And I would encourage people
• 23:26
  do their own research. You'll see that things started to disintegrate for him. The moment that
• 23:31
  happened, by the way, almost the exact same thing happened to George Herbert Walker Bush
• 23:38
  in 1992 when he had emerged from the Gulf War as a victor with 90% approval ratings. Wow.
• 23:47
  And he was roaring to re-election. And then he moved into this two-state solution mentality.
• 23:53
  He started to pressure the Israelis to give up land, I think at the Madrid conference.
• 24:00
  And that's when his whole Canada C started to disintegrate and his constituency was divided.
• 24:06
  Between the Republicans and a guy named Ross Perot came along and took the conservative
• 24:13
  vote and divided it, giving the presidency to a guy named Bill Clinton, who then went on to
• 24:19
  become a two-term president. And I'm of the view that because Bush tried to divide Israel,
• 24:26
  God said, I'm going to divide your constituency. And so what happened to Bush,
• 24:33
  I think is what happened to Trump in his first term. With Trump, I think he's learned his lesson
• 24:40
  or somebody's in his ear, maybe Michelle Bachman or somebody like that that can explain these
• 24:46
  things to him. And so when I saw his change of position on the two-state solution, I became very
• 24:53
  encouraged by that. Yeah, the timing is really interesting. And it must, it indicates that there
• 25:00
  must be a sovereign God about all things that it's governing the universe. Andy, we just have
• 25:06
  two minutes left or so. If there was one other story that you thought we should, maybe you think
• 25:11
  we should be watching. I mean, we hear this about drones, about AI, about all kinds of stuff,
• 25:17
  the market, the beast technology. What would be one thing that you would keep an eye on as we
• 25:22
  go into 2025 now? Well, one of the things that happened in 2024 recently that I think is going
• 25:29
  to accelerate is this international criminal court issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu
• 25:37
  and Galant. In other words, if those guys travel to what is it, a hundred and twenty-one
• 25:43
  different signatories to the international criminal court, they could be arrested.
• 25:48
  So what that shows me and arrested for what? What are they doing? That's so bad. Well, they're
• 25:53
  clearing out Hamas out of Gaza so that another October 7th, 2023, you know, won't happen again.
• 26:02
  And I guess that's an international crime. So the in the minds of the globalists. And so
• 26:09
  the international criminal court issues an arrest warrant for that. And what I'm seeing come
• 26:14
  come into existence is global governance that's anti-Israel, anti-Semitica that's core,
• 26:21
  which I think is an outworking of Daniel 7 and other passages. And so I expect that kind of
• 26:27
  trend to accelerate into the new year. Interesting. We'll keep an eye on that. Man, I wish we had
• 26:32
  several hours with you, but that just means we have to have you back again. I think we first
• 26:39
  connected about five, six years ago. Maybe I think it was when the Middle East meltdown,
• 26:45
  what year did that book come out that you wrote? Yeah, well, we're back now to 2016, right in there.
• 26:51
  Yeah, I remember that came out and I talked to you on a Christian talk show and I still love
• 26:56
  that book. And that's a very still relevant, very relevant today, the Middle East meltdown by
• 27:01
  Andy Wood. So brother, thank you for your voice and all the work you do, may God enlarge your
• 27:06
  territory, keep you healthy, protect you and your family, and you sir have a Merry Christmas.
• 27:10
  Appreciate you. Yeah, thank you, Merry Christmas to you and yours and happy new year.
• 27:14
  Thank you so much, Andy. All right, guys. And remember, we will have him back to do a much more
• 27:20
  of a thorough show on his book, The Bible and your vote. Biblical principles for any
• 27:28
  election because we will continue to have elections. Hopefully free and fair elections in America,
• 27:34
  but Merry Christmas, friends. God bless you. And as always, keep speaking the truth about things
• 27:40
  that matter. See you soon.