Johnny Sanders (00:00)
Hello, it's finally good to be on here. If anybody has waited for me and joined here, just about, 40 minutes late. All sorts of weird tech issues. My wonderful virtual assistant, Katie, always helps to get all the stuff prepped for me so I just have to hit buttons. And there was some really strange glitch going on that...

I can't even begin to tell you what happened. She could see it on her screen. I couldn't see it on my screen and it was a whole lot of weirdness. Tried to just schedule a new one. It wouldn't let us do that. Anyway, figured it out. We got it up here. So I imagine a lot of you who normally tune in during this normal time might be looking at this on replay or something. But hey, I'm just glad that we're able to get it back up and running and glad to be able to talk with you all today. So, jumping into today's topic. This past Tuesday, I recorded this live on Friday, September 13th. And I just realized the second that it's Friday the 13th. I hadn't really thought of that. But earlier this week, was the, depends on how you look at it, first or second presidential debate. It's technically the second, but they had...

Biden and Trump for the first one in June, and then they kicked Biden to the curb. So it's now Kamala and that was Kamala's first presidential debate with Trump. Anyways, I don't know about you. For me, debates don't really do a whole lot for me. I tune in for them for more entertainment purposes than anything. I'm all for a legitimate debate where there's actual good moderation and more set rules and standards of how to conduct the debate. Presidential debates are not that way. They are entertainment. It's simply just to see how people can get clips from them and rile up the base or whatever. I don't think they serve a lot of purpose. Feel free to leave a comment disagreeing with me or if you agree with me, but for me, I just don't.

Johnny Sanders (02:19)
find a whole lot of value in the way that debates are run currently. That being said, I know a lot of people were concerned, especially from conservatives, because Trump seemed to get pretty riled up during the debate and looked like Kamala might've gotten under his skin a little bit and were concerned that, does this mean Trump's going to lose? Is Kamala going to win? Like what's going to happen? Again, first I will say, that debates historically have very little sway in the grand scheme of things. I won't say that they won't matter at all, but more than likely, if we see any positive direction and calmness direction, more than likely it will be a very small bump that will be short-term in nature. So I highly, highly doubt it's going to move the needle in any which direction. So there's that piece. But also, if you've watched any of Trump's debates, you go back to 2016, that's who he is. I get it. There are times when he gets riled up and like, why can't you just stick to the prompt or be more disciplined? It's who he is,  just is who he is. People who are voting for Trump know that. And here's the other kicker- There's a very small amount of undecideds in this race. This race is going to come down to turnout.

Which base is more motivated to come out and vote? I think that's why, whether you vote by mail or early voting or in person, you got to make a plan to go vote, especially if you're in one of the swing states. But there's not a whole lot of undecided people out there. Most people already know who's going to get out there. Those that are undecided though, that's part of what's interesting about it, and we'll see more data as it comes out, but a lot of the independents were tracking with what Trump was saying specifically on the economy. And I think this is a big point and really what the election's coming down to is who is going to help people at the grocery store, having a job, day -to -day life. And Trump had a great closing statement there of, for Kamala, why hasn't she already done it? Why haven't you fixed it now?

Johnny Sanders (04:44)
She can say she's just vice president, which is true. But the administration right now has not helped the average working man. The guy in Michigan that's just an auto worker or the steel worker in Pennsylvania, they don't really care as much about some of the LGBT stuff and abortion and all of that other stuff that really matters to the left. They want food on the table. And that and turnout is what's going to help make this election happen, who's going to win the election is that turnout. And Trump is winning on a lot of those big issues. So I'm not really here to say of the debate performance. You can disagree with some of my take on that. I more so want to talk about how we handle dealing with just the anxiety of dealing with these debates. We're getting really close. We're within just a couple of months of election day, it's going to be nonstop, just advertisements and, podcast interviews and all sorts of stuff. It's going to be nonstop political here for the next couple of months. And this debate was really one of the last ones that I saw that just saw some of that anxiety, unnerveness up through social media and people's personal life. I just wanted to shed a little bit more light on how we can handle that and how we can pray about it. So for today's text, going to get into 2 Timothy 2:1 through 2, it reads, “First of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”

 And in this passage of Scripture, it's kind of similar to Romans 13 in the sense that it just talks about the government and our role as Christians in how we should view the government. Now, here in the beginning, urge the supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings made for all people. I want to stay on that, get out of politics just for a little bit.

Johnny Sanders (07:08)
We all have people in our lives. We have loved ones. We have our parents, our kids, our spouses, things of that nature that we're going to be more likely to pray for, really have those intersections. And they do mean a lot. They do. But we do care about all people, especially those that you're close to, but those within your church, those who are in your community. We need to pray for them. I know sometimes we disagree with a lot of the people, maybe even our family members and those in our community. We absolutely may disagree and that is good. If they are very much against God living ungodly lives, we should be against some of things they stand for. But we need to be prayerful and that might even be a prayer of conviction and prayer for our culture, for our community to turn to God. But it's not all in our action. Again, I'll stress, we need to vote. We need to be active in our political discourse as Christians, yes. But we need to be active in the spiritual connection as well, that prayer. We don't have it all under control, but God does, and we need to remember that. Now, the second verse is really what I wanted to focus most of the time on.

For kings and all who are in high positions. Again, just said, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. Verse two, for kings and all who are in high positions. Look, we don't have a king here in the United States of America. Joe Biden, whether you like it or not, right this second, and sometimes you might forget about it, that he is the president because he's kind of been kicked to the side. If you didn't see this last week, he did put on a nice Trump 2024 hat. That was pretty entertaining. But regardless of how you feel, if you think the election was rigged or whatever, doesn't really matter. He is our elected president right this very second. He is in that high position. Kamala, whether she wins or not, she is the current vice president. She may be.

Johnny Sanders (09:29)
our new president. I pray not, but she might be. Goes beyond that. Again, we don't have just a king. We've got congressmen. We've got governors. We've got mayors, city council members. There are elected officials all throughout. And I guarantee you that you don't like every single one of them. You either didn't vote for them. I didn't vote for President Biden. You may have voted for them in the general, but not in the primary. Maybe you just don't care about them. It doesn't matter if you don't like them or not. We are called to pray for them. They are put in these positions, not just because people voted for them or maybe they're shenanigans to get them in those positions. Ultimately, God has put them in those positions of power. We may call them out. We may call them to the mat of their evil deeds. I'm not saying that we have to act like everything's good. You don't. But we do need to call to pray for them. And at times that means praying for repentance on their end and to return to God. But they are ministers of God. Not ministers in the sense of being Christians or being a part of the church or anything like that. But they do serve a purpose. God put them in those positions for a reason and we do need to pray for them. Kamala becomes president, You need to pray for her. That does not mean you have to like her or that you can't call out her deeds, but you do need to pray for her. Pray for President Trump. Pray for President Biden. We need to do these things and and I know I have to check myself here. Now. I thought about this during the during the debate. That's why I chose this theme here because

Some of the things that were said in the debate were just flat out wrong. The biggest thing, this just personally irks me, living in the age of YouTube, living in the age where we don't have to go to the nightly news to get all of our sources. We can look at stuff all the time. say YouTube, although they might censor some of the videos and make it hard to find. But the Charlottesville hoax. Kamala said this again, and of

Johnny Sanders (11:56)
Of course, the moderators did not call it out. That's a whole other thing. Said again, that Trump was talking about the Nazis and white supremacists being fine people. This has been done time and time and time and time again, that Trump clearly said, I'm not talking about the white supremacists and neo -Nazis. They should be condemned totally. The clip that they show on the news was ripped about 30 seconds before Trump said that, but the Democrats are still using that and that was seven years ago. So when I heard that again from a presidential nominee, still using a seven year old hoax that's been debunked by Snopes of all places. If you know what Snopes is, it is not a right wing site. But even they say that that is false claim, but still going. That annoyed me. Honestly didn't finish the debate because I was getting too annoyed and said, I don't think it's the end all be all to watch the whole debate if you already know who you're voting for. But I need to watch my heart and I need to have a prayerful heart towards her, towards this whole election that God's glory would be shown through it all. Even if I don't understand it, even if there's evil means, I pray that hearts are repented. We are called to do that. Even if we disagree. In fact, I would say, especially if we disagree with them, we are called to pray for them. This last piece.

That we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, Godly and dignified in every way. And look, I hope that's the case. And I'm going to pray that we're able to do that. That we are able to lead a peaceful, quiet life, go about, do our business, work our jobs, take care of our children, be able to worship our God, do it in a Godly and dignified way and go on our very way. I have criticisms towards some Trump supporters, even though I will be voting for Trump, that I understand the attitude, but sometimes there's a vitriol. Some of the signs that some Trump supporters wave are rather explicit. I won't repeat them here, but that's not a peaceful, quiet, Godly, dignified life. I get it. I understand what they're trying to do. They're pushing, pushing back. We need to resist that.

Johnny Sanders (14:22)
We want to not just win elections, but to make our culture a more Godly and dignified culture. And us being, having vitriol is not going to do it. Now note, I'm not saying that you can't stand up. I think men in this country have done a very poor job of standing up. We don't need to back down, but you don't have to do it with vitriol. I think that's the big difference here, saying to be strong. Stand on the word of God. Don't let some of these ideologies take you over. Stand strong, but do it in a Godly and dignified way. And I hope that through prayer, we are able to look at this to help give us a more whole worldview here and understanding that ultimately God is in control of this election. We need to pray for everybody involved. And pray too, honestly, for Christians to stand up and to vote with their conscience and to not just be in the backseat there. Hope you all have a great weekend, that this was helpful for you, helps ease a little bit of your anxiety. Next week we will definitely iron out the details, get back at 12:30 Central and whatever the weird Rumble stuff, we'll figure that out. But appreciate you tuning in today, being a little late with me today and

I'll catch you on the next episode.