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SA Ep107 - Where Does Your Allegiance Lie? · Seeking Approval Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Smithster from the Iliad Baptist Church.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, life loses faith.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And faith is not meant to be rushed.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: So join me here today on Seeking Approval.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: God, country, and the Constitution.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: In a person of deep faith, serve everyone.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: This past week, a question was asked of a man running for Michigan, running for U.S.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Senator out of Michigan.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Abdul El Saeed.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You may not know a lot about politics, and that's fine.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a political episode, but it's about allegiance.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: But El Said is a Muslim candidate running for the U.S.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Senate, and he was asked whether he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I have a little bit of issue with that question, first off, because anybody can say anything.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I could, you know, say I disavow uh soft drinks and then go in my car and drink one while I'm driving home.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: We could say anything.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So someone stating they disavow, you know, what does that really mean anyway?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But he answered yes, that he does.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but then he challenged the assumption behind the question from the young man who was asking.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: He essentially asked, Well, does being Muslim automatically create suspicion of my allegiance?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'll deal with that in just a moment.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: He compared it to a similar uh question that was asked back in 1960.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk about that uh in just a little bit.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the real issue that comes with this uh should be allegiance, not religious label.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's Catholic, Muslim, Baptist, Methodist, Jewish, uh, Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, Atheist, whatever the case is, that does not itself tell you everything that you need to know about the person, but it does answer some important questions.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: We do have responsibilities when it comes to civil government as far as leadership.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: They have responsibilities they need to have.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if they are a truly religious person and devout in their religion, then they also have responsibilities in that direction.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Constitution does address this question.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: In Article VI, it says no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that was added because they didn't want to become a religious oversight.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: But that also doesn't mean that people aren't allowed to ask the question or be concerned about someone's allegiance because of their beliefs.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if someone is affiliated, as in this situation, with a system that has uh systemically over time been known to hate Christians, uh, call for the death of America and Israel and Jews, uh has been known for uh, I mean, slanderous attacks and murderous attacks.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it would raise questions.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you're going to be associated with something like that, then it ought to raise questions.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And those questions should be fair questions, and it shouldn't be turned back on the person asking the question, saying, Well, you're doing that because you're racist or whatever else, uh, you know, you're you're it's misogyny or you're being a bigot or anything else.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: It shouldn't be turned back on the person for being small-minded because someone is associated with a group uh like that.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: JFK, back in 1960, when he was uh running for uh the president, he was asked the very same question as a Catholic.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the question was very simple: will you serve the Pope or will you serve the United States?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Which comes first to you?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a fair question because the Catholics believe in the infallibility of the Pope.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if the Pope says that blue is green, they better believe that blue is green.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not that we can have can't have questions about our religious affiliation or our allegiance, we might have allegiance to.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the question becomes: if someone has a, let's say in this case, a uh an allegiance to the the Muslim Brotherhood and they're running for public office, I think the question is fair to ask which do they serve first, the the Muslim Brotherhood or the public office in the United States?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: If for some reason, uh I I was trying to figure a um uh an example that I could give that would maybe help this uh uh to be a little bit easier to understand.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: But let's say that I I was the uh the brother of Charles Manson, known serial killer, and I'm running for some public office, and someone asked me, Do you believe in the same things?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do you uh do you believe that what your brother did was okay?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you have those same tendencies?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's a fair question.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've got my brother in that situation, in that scenario, my brother would be a a serial killer, a mass murderer, an evil man.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm if I'm running for public office or if I'm trying to become a you know a school teacher or work in a nursing home or something where I'm going to be around people in vulnerable states, why would that not be a fair question?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So then we pose the question back again, as was being asked in this situation by this young man in Michigan when he was very simply asking, do you have your allegiance with the Muslim Brotherhood?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, there is.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: There are different groups inside every religious sect.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: We could look at a Baptist right now.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you another scenario.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: We could look at a Baptist right now and say, Are you a Calvinist or are you a whosoever will?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do you believe in predestination that you have no say in the matter when it comes to your salvation?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you believe that you can ask God?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if you ask, you'll receive it.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Whosoever will.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we're still talking about people who attend to Baptist church, many men who stand in the pulpits and preach in Baptist churches, many people who serve as deacons and great Christians and little uh grannies and grandpa who sit on the pews that have a belief that I believe is heresy out of hell.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So is it not okay for me to ask whenever a man is going to either come and preach in our church or whether he's going to preach in revival or something like that?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is it not okay for me to ask?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, are you a Calvinist?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with me asking.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's protecting the people that I'm overseeing or that I'm going to be involved with.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in this in this same situation, is it wrong for this young man to ask the question, are you of the Muslim group that hates America and wants to see us die?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously the man can stand there and lie and only be part of a ruse to get him closer in the inner workings.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I the the fact that that these questions are being turned back on those who are asking the question is is mind-boggling to me that we're in in this state.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: But let me get back to the allegiance.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because the question should be can a person really separate their faith from their decisions?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to put myself in this situation.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to I'm going to put myself in running for public office right now.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing else has changed in my life other than I'm running for public office.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you were to ask me my understanding of right and wrong, my faith would guide what I feel is right and wrong.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if it is voted in in this country that murdering babies, whether in utero or or post uh uh post-birth, doesn't matter to me.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: I still think it's wrong.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I still think it's murder.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And just because I'm holding a public office, and because my city or my county or my state or my my nation decides that, yeah, that's okay, I will never ever agree with that.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: My faith will not allow me to agree with that.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm if I'm in public office and the the city, the county, the state, the nation that I live in decides that same-sex marriage is okay, that it is lawful to do that.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: I will never be okay with that.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot separate my faith from my decisions that I would make on that, and I would always stand against it.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Here's an interesting, interesting stat.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was looking at, I was doing some research for a sermon the other day, and I can't I ran across a stat, I thought it was very interesting.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that in there's about 190 countries in the world, maybe a hundred and I've seen everything from 186 to 198.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we'll just say 190 uh countries in the world.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know of the 190 or so countries in the world, 117 of them?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is it is legal for an adult male to marry a child a female child.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in uh I can't remember how many of the numbers are running together, but in a large number of those hundred and seventeen countries, there's no age restriction on the female, but there is a age restriction on how young a male could be and get married.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that just seems crazy to me.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: If for some reason the the city, county, state, nation in which I live all of a sudden decides, yeah, it's okay for an adult male to marry a female child, as long as the parents consent for the child.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care what office I hold, I would never go for that.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not only is it ridiculously stupid and wrong, and everything about it is wrong, and I mean everything about it is wrong, but my faith would not allow me to agree with that.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: But you can just go down the list the justice, the compassion, the war, how government should be run, how we should treat the poor, how we should treat our enemies, all those things would be guided by my faith.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if that question was posed to me, will you disavow your Christian uh faith to run our country?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: My answer would be no.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Very simple.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I will not dis I would not turn my back on my faith to run the country.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, I like what another gentleman said a few years ago that was running, and I tried to find the video clip and the article, and I could not find it.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can, but they were in a small uh small setting.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was just a local person running for maybe like a mayor's seat or something like that.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember all that.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just know they were in a very small venue, like a small library or coffee house or something to that effect.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was a small area.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And someone in there, he was a Christian, and someone in there said, Why should we elect someone who is openly and knowingly a Christian?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I will answer that with affirming my faith in that you want me as a Christian, you should want me to serve you as a public as a public servant because of the way I feel that we ought to treat the poor, the way we ought to treat our enemies, the way we ought to try to help those that are in need, the way we reserve, we re uh revere human life, justice and marriage and compassion, you should want me as a Christian because all those are good qualities.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's not one thing you would look at Christianity about and say, you know what, I don't like that.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when I look at something like the Muslim the uh uh faith or whatever you want to call it, uh my big question is is yes, there is a large portion of that group, what we call the Twelvers, we'll do we'll do uh something on that here uh at some point.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: But there there's and there's others there's other groups of it, but uh what is very commonly known now as the Twelvers, that group knowingly wants to kill Americans and will do anything in their power to do such.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So why would I think that he would be any different?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and if he's involved with in that group at all, why would I think he's any different and would and would not separate himself from that?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: So is it possible to keep religion completely out of your decisions?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, for me, in the book of Colossians, which we're studying right now on Wednesday night, Colossians 3.17, it says, And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I can't make decisions and say, I'm gonna make this decision, you know, outside of my faith or outside of Jesus Christ.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Religious liberty does not require me to become temporarily irreligious whenever I enter into public life.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: As a public school teacher, I don't lay down my faith whenever I walk in the building.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: It goes with me.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes and sometimes to the detriment of that I'm constantly wanting to help people, I'm wanting to help the kids, I'm wanting to be kind to them, I want to do the right thing.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I mean sometimes that gets very difficult because you're wanting to help and you forget that we do live in a very nasty and hate-filled world of people who like to try to tear down every chance they get.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, it is very difficult, but but we can't separate ourselves from those things if we truly believe.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then we really find out where our allegiance lies.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: There are some people who you could ask the same question on Sunday mornings while they're laying you know at home in the bed or in the recliner or going on the picnic or out uh fishing or shopping or going to the game or whatever it else is that they're doing on Sunday, where does your allegiance lie?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Will you disavow the Dallas Cowboys and come to church and serve God the way you ought to do?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the same question can be asked in any situation, given what your track record shows.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: In Acts 5.29, we're told we ought to obey God rather than men.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it goes on.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let me go on to say that it's we can't separate our allegiance.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible even says you will serve a master.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: No man can serve two masters, you're gonna serve one of them.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if your service is 100% to the public office, and your service is a hundred percent to whatever that the public wants, and that's what you're gonna do, that's where your service is.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm if I'm if I'm back in that situation where I'm running for public office, and and my town, my my uh uh my my people, my constituents, they want abortion rights, they want uh same-sex marriage rights, and if I'm if I am wholly committed to that public office to serve those people, then I'm gonna go along with what they want.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's that's that's simple.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can't you can't ride defense.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can, but you're not serving, you're trying to serve two at that point, and the Bible says you can't serve two.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Christ said that over when he wrote through John and uh to the to the church of uh Laodicea when he says, I wish you was hot or cold, but you're lukewarm.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're lukewarm, I can't do anything with you.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is what he said.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I'll spew you out of my mouth.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we should apply the same test, not just to every religion, but to everything.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: It it like I said, it doesn't matter.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can ask that to uh somebody who's running for public office, you can ask the same question to somebody who's uh uh being uh tried for the you know the pastor of your church, for a new deacon, uh for it for anybody.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: You could ask the same question, where does your allegiance lie?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'll take you back over to David, whenever they were uh after um uh the the uh everything had been taken from David and from his men, all those women, his children, all the goods and everything were taken, and they're on their way to go to go uh uh kill the Amalekites that that took everything, and they found the Egyptian in the field.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And David asked him two questions.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Where do you come from and who do you serve?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, what's your bloodline and who's your allegiance lie to?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I'm an Egyptian and I serve the Amalekites, I serve the flesh.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we could ask this question, and it's a it's a it's a it's a good question to ask, no matter what they're doing.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this man, they're they're fighting him, and they're they're wanting to kill him.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And David wants to know who's your legions lie to?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: So these questions become very, very important.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we ought to be able to ask these questions.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe before these midterm elections come up, so a little bit of the politics here, maybe before these midterms come come up, the the better question uh should should be should be asked of do you believe in human rights?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you believe in in extremism?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do you believe in nationalism?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean those are those are those are quality questions to be asking.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then we can get into the how are you going to deal with the the the the finances of you know whatever group, you know, whatever said group they're running for or office they're running for.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and we need to ask those questions.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I would encourage you, in this time that we are seeing, taking the Christian approach in this, looking at this from a Christian point of view, it is okay to ask where does their allegiance lie?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to hide.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a feeling there's a lot of folks out there who've got some things to hide, and I think a lot of folks who are running for office have some things to hide.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know that they'll ever be honest with us.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And join me, Dr.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, grace and peace to you from seeking approval at Iliad Baptist Church.