Johnny Sanders (00:00)
Hello and welcome everyone to another Faithful Friday. Hope your work week has been fantastic and that you're getting ready for a great weekend. So last Faithful Friday, I had a little bit of a different spin on things. I said it was more of a current event with President Trump being shot at. I thought that was just worthy of me kind of shaking things up a little bit and doing a

Faithful Friday about something pertinent to the time. Now, as many of you know, I record a lot of these before they air, even weeks and months or so in advance. So I typically try to keep these evergreen, keep them more focused on things that are just applicable for the long haul. Usually, I do it based on the Monday interview and kind of base the Friday episode on that. But for the second time, I'm going to

go a little bit off-script here. Let me know in the comments or feel free to go to faithfullyengaged.com and send me a comment or something, tell me what you think about this. Would you rather I continue to do Friday episodes based on that Monday episode or kind of make Friday episodes their own thing, being a little more off the cuff, more about current-day events? I would love to hear your viewpoint on this.

For today, I wanted to cover more about the political response and about voting for the lesser of two evils, right? We've all heard that phrase before. So going into this election, the 2024 election, as I'm recording this, Donald Trump just secured the, officially secured

Republican nomination for president. The Democratic National Convention has not met yet. I'm trying to think through it. I think by the time this is recorded, that will have happened. So this could be old fake news by this point, but I'm going to assume that Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee and again, subject to change. But with that, we'll be faced with basically

Johnny Sanders (02:33)
two candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, in the election in November of 2024. Now you can say there are other people running, for the presidency, which is true. Robert Kennedy is running and, he certainly, has a bigger, he's polling better than most third-party candidates somewhere.

around 10 or 13%, somewhere in that range. But realistically, we all know he doesn't have a chance. Third-party people that run typically don't have a good chance. Ross Perot's run in the nineties was probably the closest that we've had in a century, more than a century. So we can have a debate about that, about having more of a two-party system. That's not what this is about this episode. This is about the realism

There's going to be one president from two men. Now, say that again, there was an assassination attempt. Maybe it's going to be JD Vance, who was just announced as the vice president pick for Trump. So maybe it's Kamala Harris on the other end. But we know that it's going to be either Trump or Biden. That's who we have to choose from. And I see a lot of things online.

on X, on Facebook, between conservatives who are upset about Trump, the GOP platform that has changed. And I sit here as a conservative Christian myself and can understand some of the concerns. The two biggest being in the Republican platform, changing some language centered around same-sex marriage. They really

neutered a lot of that language and for abortion. And both of these are really hot-button issues. And I think that Biblically speaking, the Republicans have missed the ball on this and that it's, that's an issue that has long been things that they have run on and are now kind of neutering it to appeal to a broader base.

Johnny Sanders (04:59)
I think that conservatives need to do a better job of standing for things instead of just trying to appeal. So I have a gripe with this and I wanted to show that in the beginning that having legitimate complaints as a conservative about the Republican platform is legitimate. This is not to say that you can't bring up issues. You absolutely can and you should, especially as it relates to something like abortion. That is something as a pure social conservative is a very important issue and I'm not saying that you need to be quiet about that. However, this is where I run into some gripes that a lot of the online discourse and I'm stressing online discourse because online isn't really real life. Online, as much as people are online, sometimes we get caught in

social media bubbles and don't realize that there's a greater, broader world out there and that not everybody shares that opinion just because it's online. But seeing a lot of this discourse online that basically as a Christian you can't vote for either candidate because of the platforms that they are running on. And again there's a difference between having legitimate gripes and maybe saying hey we need to really pray for these candidates pray for God's intervention, that they would change their ways, and that we would have more biblical candidates rise up in the future. Again, all of that, that makes sense. But at the end of the day, end of the day, in November, Donald Trump or Joe Biden is going to be the president. That's it. We can spin this any way that you want to, but those are your choices. That's

We can look at what the future may hold. We can look at 2028. We can look at local elections, which my recent guest, Joy Pullman, talked about. Those you need to give way more thought to. I will stress that time and time again. This won't be the only Faithful Friday I talk about your local elections. They matter way more than the presidency. You can disagree with me all you want on that. You need to have your local elections run well to have Godly men and women

Johnny Sanders (07:22)
to represent you, especially men, we'll get into that maybe a little bit later. That matters who you have around you. But the presidency obviously does matter. And if we're gonna play a purity game of having the best possible president up there, look, you have two flawed individuals up there. You can vote for Robert F. Kennedy if you want to, but he's a flawed individual as well.

You're not going to get that perfect candidate and the issue that I see with all of this is the way that some Christians are viewing their vote, your vote casting a vote towards somebody is not an endorsement for everything that they do, it's not a Biblical mandate. Look in the Bible most of the cultures that we're talking about even the Israelites and

And Judeans, they had kings. And you can go through all arguments that they shouldn't have needed to have a king and Samuel really talked bad about that whole argument there. most of these cultures, Biblical cultures, you're going to have more of a king and empire. There weren't a lot of democracies going around written in the Bible. So yes, our governance does matter. And scripture does write heavily about how the government

The rulers are under God's rule. God is in control over all of this. What is more important is where you choose to go to church, being under church leadership, how you're raising your families. You have a lot more control over that. And that is a whole lot more of a moral argument there as opposed to your vote. Your vote doesn't matter. It does have more weight to it. But it's not the same thing as going to an unbiblical church. Voting for an unbiblical man who's going to do more good than this other unbiblical man is not the same thing as going to an unbiblical church. Going to an unbiblical church or not going to a church, is high priority. I would much rather you sitting there listening to

Johnny Sanders (09:50)
Quit your job, move towns, get plugged into a biblical church. It matters that much. You've got to do everything to have a Biblical church. Your vote, you don't have that same level of control. You don't have that same level of intensity of responsibility of voting for a biblical man. He's not your pastor, whoever you're voting for for president. We are voting based on what we are given.

in this situation. Can you write in somebody? You can, but look, realistically, if you write in somebody, you're not voting. That's pretty much all there is to it. So live by your conscience. I'm not gonna tell you to just, you know, not listen to your conscience at all. If you are feeling like I just can't vote for either of these flawed men, I'm not gonna tell you that that's a sin.

That you have to vote for the Republican or you're sinning. I'm not saying that. I am saying that if you're putting so much weight into your vote, especially if you're in a swing state, you need to look at yourself on what is my reasoning for not voting for them and what is the consequence here, the potential consequence
of not voting or voting for a third party or whatever it may be? Because we are pretty well established here. This is a very unique election because we have two people, two men who are running for office and we know how they legislate. That's very rare. That, I believe has not happened in any of our lifetimes.

I could be wrong on this, but I believe the last time that this has really happened and actually I'm not. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the last time was, was Teddy Roosevelt back in the early 1900s. I could be wrong on this. Teddy Roosevelt. I know that he was president, lost the presidency, and then ran again. This was as a third-party. but this doesn't happen often. Usually, if you have a president who runs and,

Johnny Sanders (12:14)
Back in this case, Donald Trump that he won in 2016 over Hillary Clinton. And then he lost, we have a whole discussion about him losing in 2020. But losing in 2020, usually in that case, if that happens with that president like we can take, I believe the most recent case of that, aside from Trump, was George Herbert Walker Bush. Usually, they just don't run again. So Herbert Walker Bush, won

88 and then he lost in 92 to Bill Clinton. So if he had run in 96 again against Bill Clinton, we would have had two different track records that we know. We would have had the 88 through 92 presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush, and then the 92 through 96 with Bill Clinton. And we could have compared and contrasted that. We didn't have that, right? But this time we do. We know what Trump

ruled like, 2016 to 2020, we know what Joe Biden has ruled like 2020, 2024. Technically it's a little bit different with inauguration dates being the next year, but you catch my drift. If you're a conservative Christian out here, like I'm not going to try to change your mind. If you're a conservative Christian and you're like, I don't know who ran the country better during that, those times. if you don't know the answer, then I'm not talking to you. I'm not, I'm not here to change your mind.

I am willing to bet the majority of conservative Christians I'm listening to here say, you know what? The country was run a little bit better, was run better with more biblical principles, 2016 through 2020, as opposed to 2020 through 2024. If that is your case, that you believe that, you need to look at yourself in the mirror why do I not want to vote?

Can you list some of the immoral things that he has done? I highly, highly doubt that Donald Trump is an actual professing Christian who has the fruit of that in his life. I'm not the one to call that. God's the only one that can call that. But I highly, highly doubt that. Legitimate gripes. Again, you can have very legitimate gripes about

Johnny Sanders (14:41)
But he is not your pastor. We're not voting for him to be your pastor. Did he rule the country? he was a leader of the country that led to, that could potentially lead to more Christians flourishing, to more flourishing of your neighbors, in this country, as opposed to the last three years under a Joe Biden presidency. And we can have a whole argument about who's actually running the country. I think we all are pretty sure it's not Joe Biden. That's what you're voting for. You can give me any other argument you want about, again, the abortion stance. I think he's aired here lately, talking about Donald Trump. We can say that, but is Joe Biden's better? Like the Democrat, the national platform of Democrats, we're not talking about the fringe left, the crazy far left people.

We're talking about just the platform. They want abortion at any point. No questions asked. They want illegal immigration just to pour on in here. No questions asked. Spending for all sorts of things, gender transition things all over the place. This was just passed in the state of California and the parents are not going to be informed if their children are thinking about transitioning. They're using different pronouns, a different name at school. They can't tell the parents. That's what we're voting on here, people. This is not a, here's this bad person over here, here's this bad person over here. I'm smack dab in the middle. They're both bad. Look, I get that mentality, but this is not what it is. You can't compare the issues Donald Trump has, that they're the same issues just the opposite way as a Joe Biden presidency. They're not, they're not equivalent. This is not a perfect election. You are not in, you're not electing two perfect people. You're just not, but let's not pretend that they're equally bad. They're not there. You have a choice here between somebody who we know how he rules and we know

Johnny Sanders (17:06)
how his presidency, what the country looks like during that time, for his policies. Now I want to pause on that too, that we're electing Donald Trump if you're voting for that for his policies, not the media reactions, not BLM. Those are reactions. Yeah. Guess what? We haven't had BLM stuff in the last few years. Do you think that's because Joe Biden has ruled the country in such a wonderful way that we've gotten rid of racial violence? Of course not. There's just not been that reaction. There's not been that media type of stoking the flames going on. So if you vote for Donald Trump and there's social chaos that happens, that's not Donald Trump's fault. That's all the nonsense that's reacting to it. I about guarantee you that BLM and Antifa are going to start firing things up again. It's not his fault. That's the hate on the other side's fault. So kind of getting sidetracked on that, I'm sorry, you can't look at me and say that they're both equally bad on the right and the left. They are not. There is a considerable difference when one side is telling me that if my children decide that they're gonna listen to this nonsense, that they can be whatever they wanna be, whatever gender they wanna be, and they don't even wanna inform me as a parent, they think I have no right as a parent to care for my child. That's nonsense. Sorry, that is absolute nonsense that that's the same equivalency because we have a president that we have elected and that we're going to elect again that has led some immoral things and is shifting some of the Republican platforms towards a granted and more leftward lean that I'm not comfortable with. It's not the same problem. It's not the same issue. One side actually cares about the country to at least a modicum of a degree. The other side doesn't give a crap about you. They hate you. So when you're pulling the lever, when you're voting for somebody, look, don't just look at this as a lesser of two evils that it's, it's 51%. Trump's really bad. but Joe Biden's just a little bit less worse. It's not even close. It's just not. So if you're choosing to not vote and look at the end of the day, if your conscious won't allow you, your conscious won't allow.

Johnny Sanders (19:33)
I'm not going to change your mind on that, but either Joe Biden or, or Donald Trump is going to be president. That's it. That's it. And you need to look at your conscience too there as well. If you're in a swing state, and you're like, Hmm, my conscience wouldn't allow me to vote for Donald Trump, but it did allow Joe Biden to win because I wouldn't vote for that lesser of two evils. That's a conscience that you need to live with as well.

Because the whole country is going to face that consequence if that's the case. I know rambled a bit here, but you can tell I'm a little passionate about this, Christians, your vote matters. We do need every direction of the Republican party. I agree with that. I agree with Forum and some other party and electing other men and women, again, especially men. We need strong men in this country to lead us in the right direction. We want to form another party. If you want to elect other people in the future, 100%, please do elect those in your local, your local elections. They're going to push us towards a more biblical side of it. But November has already decided between two people. Don't over-spiritualize everything. It's going to be Trump or Biden. Which one do you want? Pick the one that is going to be better. That's

That is all that we can face. We don't live in a perfect world that we're going to fix it all overnight. We're not. We deserve these two types of candidates. Our culture is horrible and a good chunk of it is our fault. So we need to wake up, make our families better, make our towns better, and make our cultures better in general. We need to do a better job of that when we have to look ourselves in the mirror to fix that. It's not Donald Trump's job to fix our culture all the way around. It's just not. It's our job and we need to do a better job of it. But that's not what we're voting for in November. It's for Trump or Biden. Which one do you want? You can't pick somewhere in the middle. You can't. You gotta pick one. That is my plea here. I've gotten way off on this. I've gotten way longer on this rant than I had intended. Let me bring some scripture into this before we go. Add a couple of Proverbs.

Johnny Sanders (21:59)
to kind of help us navigate this decision in November a little bit better. Proverbs 29:2, “When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.” Look, when the righteous increase, the people rejoice. Part of that is our job, like I said, stop pawning things off on the elected officials. We need to do a better job of being a righteous people. All right. Not just let our voting be righteous. You yourself, what are you doing to be more righteous? Me, myself, what am I doing to be more righteous? But when the wicked rule, the people groan. And look, there's been a lot of wicked things. Tell me all you want about Joe Biden being a decent man. All these things will throw dementia out, out of that for a second. But when a party is telling you that your boys and girls can chop off their genitalia, they can change their pronouns, change their name, take puberty blockers, not even the gall to tell you that that process is going on, that is wicked. It's wicked, okay? And people will groan when we let that happen. Proverbs 11, sorry, Proverbs 11:14, Where there is no guidance, a people falls.

But in an abundance of counselors, there is safety”. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Trump is the wisest man in the whole wide world. He has some guidance. When he was shot, his ear was shot and he was this far from being assassinated. What did he do? He got up and he guided, he led the people in that crowd. You could see they were panicked, were cowering in fear. He got up, and raised his fist, “Fight, fight, fight.”

Then what happened? USA, USA chants wrung out. They were calm. They were ready to go into action. There was guidance there. Do you think Joe Biden is leading with guidance? No way. Now, can we also say in the last part of that proverb, the abundance of counselors, and their safety. Does Trump need some better counselors? I agree with that. I agree that the party platform has drifted more leftward than I'm comfortable with.

Johnny Sanders (24:24)
100 % agree. Are you being a guide in your family? Are you being a guide to your local officials, to your city council, to your kids? Focus on that for sure. But boy, when we're voting in November, we've got two choices and I know without a doubt which choice is going to give me more guidance, which choice is more righteous than the other.

Which side is more wicked than the other? To me, it's a slam dunk. That's my conscience. I'm not going to tell you what your conscience is, but I am going to tell you practically, you're going to have to look at yourself in the mirror of do I want Joe Biden or do I want Donald Trump? That's it. I hope that this is invigorating to you. If you are on my side, I hope that it is thought-provoking if you're struggling with it. But look, at the end of the day, we need to focus on what we can control. We can control who we vote for in November. We can control what kind of father you are, what kind of mother you are, what kind of employee you are, and what kind of local citizen you are. But as far as national politics go, you got two choices. That's it. That's it. You can't over-spiritualize this. Don't overthink it. Do you want Joe Biden's policies? Do you want Donald Trump's? To me, I believe the voice is clear.