Ask Sam – Week in Review: Episode 72

Ask Sam – Week in Review: Episode 72

August 1, 2025

Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett

Co-host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 8/01/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Isaac Crockett:

Welcome to this program, this Friday edition of Staying in the Gap Today. And if you’re listening to it live or on the day that it is broadcast, I hope that you’re getting ready for a good weekend. And of course, staying in the Gap today is a ministry of the American Pastors Network and I’m a pastor. My name is Isaac Crockett and I’m joined by my co-host, the president of the American Pastors Network, the Honorable Sam Rohr. Today we are going to do a Friday edition Ask Sam episode. We’re going to try to tackle some of the pressing issues and put a biblical worldview to it looking well, first of all, we’re going to start talking about death, celebrity death. We’ve had a lot of famous people going to eternity lately. We’re going to hopefully look at the Middle East tensions, look at weather, is God using weather as judgment?

And just overall kind of wrap up this week’s news and point all of it back to biblical truths in a biblical worldview. So with that, Sam, thanks for joining us and thanks for letting us ask you the tough questions. Some of these are questions I’ve been getting, people texting me, some people who listen to our program and others. And I do just want to say this on the outset too. Please reach out to us. Please contact us, especially on Facebook or X used to be Twitter. You can go to Stan in to get media.org. You can mail, send us a snail mail, a letter or whatever, but we’d love to hear from you and we would particularly love to hear if you have any themes, topics or questions like this that we can ask Sam on Ask Sam additions or other things that we might look into and do a whole program on.

We’d love hearing from you, hearing what you’re liking and what your questions are in particular, so we can throw them at Sam and kind of try to see what Sam has to say about those. But Sam, sobering topic. Every time I hold a funeral, really even every time I go past the cemetery, we think about eternity. We think about death in the last few weeks it seems there have been a lot of celebrity deaths helping focus our minds on eternity really. And I’ll try to name a few of them. We had evangelist televangelist, Jimmy Swaggert, and a whole lot of interesting things in his life that went on good and bad, a lot of things that he was known for. We had celebrity Chef Ann Burrell passed away. Suddenly Pastor John MacArthur at 86 years of age passed away musician Ozzy Osborne had a big kind of final farewell thing. And then shortly after that he passed away. We saw the drowning death of the Cosby Show actor Malcolm Jamal Warner, the professional wrestler, Hulk Hogan died very suddenly. Several others. But Sam, how can we as Christians use moments like this to help point people to eternity?

Sam Rohrer:

Isaac, the first thing, it’s just like you’ve done, I think is calling attention to the fact and that it does happen. It is appointed unto man once to die. Alright? That’s the reality of life. But from a believer’s perspective, and then the judgment, the reality is this, we will all die. None of us are going to live forever. And it’s kind of strange, isn’t it? In this time in which we live where modern science and now AI is involved in what’s appearing to be almost an effort to produce eternal physical life. It’s not going to happen. But that’s a goal that many people have. It’s not my goal to live forever on this earth. It’s my goal to live forever in heaven and I’m guaranteed I got a home there. And you do too. That’s the promise. I think, Isaac, that all believers should be looking for opportunities, as you say, weddings and funerals as a pastor, perfect opportunities because it’s then that we break away for a little bit and say there are points in life that are very, very serious. And when life disappears, that is the most serious of all because the time to make choices is gone.

All of that, it’s now gone. So what a perfect time to share with people. Yes, death occurs, but are you prepared to die? And to walk into that question and say, at one point I was not prepared to die, but I am now. Can I share that with you? Something of that type can engage a question at a perfect time and then bring a person and tell ’em about what Christ has done for us. I mean, it’s just a perfect opportunity for all those reasons,

Isaac Crockett:

Right? Right, the right opportunity. And it comes naturally when people are talking about this. The other thing is looking at our legacy, we all want to leave a legacy and are we going to leave a legacy of one that points people to Christ and points people to eternity? I’d just love for you to kind of contrast

John MacArthur. I spoke a little bit about that, I think the week that he had passed away, but maybe him with somebody like Rock legend Ozzy Osborne. Now I’m just reading from his Wikipedia album. It says that he sold over a hundred million albums. It says here he was prominent in the 1968, but 1970s he rose to prominence as the founder of Black Sabbath. It was a heavy metal band. It says he then formed his own band and it says during his time, he adopted the title, prince of Darkness talks about some of the albums that were very popular. Black Sabbath had an album called Paranoid, another one master of Reality. Then his other band had Blizzard of Oz, diary of a madman, just all sorts of things. Even just shortly before he died, 17 days before he died, he had a huge concert in Birmingham and he was intending to record more music even though his body was shutting down due to Parkinson’s. So just be curious here you have someone like that who’s very, very well known in most of the world. And then you have a John MacArthur known for his expository preaching and speaking the truth even in national and international levels.

Sam Rohrer:

Isaac, these are what comes to my mind right now. Is that alright, these two, this is the way you asked the question. Two men different. Two men made different choices as to their life. So two different impacts. Since choices have consequences, two different consequences. It reminds me of the principle in the scripture it says, only one life will soon be passed. Only what’s done for Christ will last one leaves behind something that means no difference and does not last. Osborne, I’m looking at MacArthur leaves behind the impartation in the communication of biblical truth. And with that comes changed lives, which then changes families. Alright, that will last reminds me of also the fact in Neil T that scripture talks about Israel, that a nation wants knowing God. People once knowing God, but a generation arose who knew not the Lord. And there’s nothing good that scripture records about those generations.

What is recorded are those generations who feared the Lord and things that happened there. Fearing God and keeping his commandments is what scripture says is true success. And I look here at Legacy and I brought up Osborne and I have pictures here, free pictures. It’s from shutter stock. People can find pictures. I look down through all the pictures that are available. It is indeed black. It is Prince of Darkness black. That’s the legacy I bring up John MacArthur’s. And I see in the pulpit, I see seminary Isaac choices have consequences. Choosing a life for Christ leaves a legacy that

Isaac Crockett:

Lasts. Well, there you have it. Well folks, we are just getting started. Up next, we want to start tackling some more things that latest tensions going on in Israel, the UK’s push for two state solution, looking at media misinformation going on about Israel. We want to get into some things about Donald Trump. There’s a lot of questions for Sam today, so don’t go away. You don’t want to miss this. We’ll be back right after this. Well welcome back to our Friday program of Stand in the Gap. Today we’re doing an Ask Sam program. So we’ve asked Sam some questions, and Sam, it’s about to heat up. We are talking about the celebrity deaths and pointing towards eternity. I love what you were saying, using these as opportunities that come up naturally in conversation to point people to our security in Christ. I love the legacy that you talked about from John MacArthur as to an Ozzy Osborne.

But let’s turn our attention now to the Middle East, especially to the land of Israel. It’s gotten a lot of attention. I know you and Pastor Carl Brogue talked a lot about it just this week on Wednesday and it comes up in a lot of things. But what’s been making news a lot this week is the United Kingdom. And there are other countries too, I think you mentioned to me beforehand, France, and I’ve also seen Canada. They’re following a similar thing, but UK is basically what I’m seeing in the news is that they say they are going to consider recognizing a Palestinian state by this September, September of 2025. If Israel doesn’t agree to a Gaza ceasefire, I think some of the other countries plan to do it, whether or not there’s a ceasefire. I would just like to get your reaction. Biblical perspective, Christian biblical worldview on this is the two state solution a good thing. And what you think is going on with these major western countries that are pushing for this.

Sam Rohrer:

Isaac, there is no issue. I think it’s happening in our current day that is any more, I’m going to say it this way, confirming of the accuracy of biblical prophecy than what we are witnessing right now in our days. And that is a global focus on Israel. It’s come about since they came as a nation in 1948, but it’s only continued to build. But that’s exactly what scripture says would happen. And that in the days in which we live and it’s only going to increase the rise of antisemitism, the hatred of the Jews and Israel as a nation would increase. And I’m going to put in there along with a hatred and the persecution of Christians. Now on a recent program I did with Olivier Melnick, I think it was back on the 16th of here of July, we dealt with a little bit of this concept of the rise of antisemitism and dealt with another programs as well in depth.

But it has been prophesied, it will increase. And why is that? It’s because the world as a whole is continuing to move away from God and a moving away from God’s plan of redemption. So as we witnessed the rise of humanism, we witness what is taking place with the unbelievable advancement of artificial intelligence, which is being pursued not to bring closer to God, but so that we as people, as humans can become God. That’s in the words of those who are developing and working with it in reality that we’re seeing the conflict that scripture talks about coming into being. So bottom line, what’s taking place is that, so when you have a France and a UK and Canada and others and the United Nations, which is already on record since their existence in 80, it’s 87 to one, they condemn Israel and they have all along the condemnation and the hatred of Israel is only building and the two states solution that is being put forward is as at its heart, is a condemnation of Israel.

Because what it is saying is Israel and its boundaries that Israel is saying the boundaries given to us by God as believers, we know that God covenanted and gave them boundaries that the world says we don’t agree with you Israel, but ultimately the world is saying, we don’t believe you God. And that’s the heart of it. Now, what happens as a result? Well, every time an American president has done anything to further a two-state solution, basically dividing the promised God, promised land to Israel, there has always been a major event here in the United States, a hurricane or some event of that type. So what does it mean God is watching over Israel. They’re in the land though yet by unbelief. They haven’t recognized Yeshua yet, but they’re there because God brought them there. And any nation though that steps up and curses Israel as the promise and Genesis talks about bless Israel, curse Israel will be blessed or cursed a dividing of the land and a disagreeing with God as to the boundaries and God’s covenant promise to Israel will bring about God’s judgment. So I perceive according to scripture that these nations and any nation that goes forward as they are in saying we want a two-stage solution, it’s not because it’s good for those in Gaza, that’s not, that’s what they’re saying, but at the heart of it, it’s a disagreement with God. So these are eventful days, let’s put it that way. These are eventful days and every believer should keep aware of what’s taking place.

Isaac Crockett:

Alright, so we want to mark this, you want to watch this look in the news, maybe search in the news for this. If you’re listening to this right now and you haven’t heard about it, be in prayer about what’s going on there. I found it very interesting, Sam, I don’t know how much time we’ll have on this program to get into this, but you said that people are in the land even though in unbelief, which is very interesting, and there’s a lot of accusations flying around right now. Netanyahu and many in Israel are blaming Hamas or even the UN for things and others are blaming him. But the accusations are that there’s starvation mass, widespread starvation being used against the Palestinians and Gaza and Netanyahu’s responding that they’ve given over I think about 2 million tons of food. And he’s saying if Hamas is hijacking it, that’s Hamas’ fault.

It’s not our fault. So there’s been a lot of back and forth. Well, in the midst of that, some pictures have come out and at least one of the little boys who’s been kind of, I don’t know, the main picture being used by many New York Times and different ones, it’s been exposed this week now that this little boy that they were saying was an evidence of starvation, that he actually has a genetic or congenital disease that he’s dying of. It’s not starvation. And in fact, so on Wednesday there’s been tons of articles have come out, but the Christian Post has run some very good articles on this Christian post on Wednesday I did a big article about it says, world leaders, aid groups react to humanitarian crisis, competing narratives and Gaza. And then they had an op-ed on Thursday of this week and it says, no, Israel is not starving poor Gazan children don’t buy the fake news lies. And this little boy who they’ve been using according to this article in the Christian Post, he was actually airlifted out of Gaza to Israel for treatment. And that’s how manipulated this story has become. And so Sam, when we see this kind of misinformation, purposeful, purposefully propagandizing the situation, how does this affect our trust on the reporting that we’re getting in Gaza and Israel and really in general with biblical worldview looking at this, how do we focus on what’s right, what’s wrong, where the truth lies?

Sam Rohrer:

Isaac, frankly, I don’t know what always to believe. I come back to this. I know what God says. I know what God says about his covenant promises to Israel, a land a people in a city Jerusalem. I know that what God says is that he brought them back and that he will, through the events that he’s laid out in scripture, bring about the return of the belief of Israel and the recognition of Yeshua. And that will bring about the second coming of Christ at the end of the seven year tribulation period. That is the heart of what the Bible talks about in these days in which we are living. Antisemitism, as I said, is increasing. Why? Because the Bible says that why? Because the devil hates Israel. He thinks if he can keep Israel and the Israeli people from coming to the point of saying Yeshua is blessed, is he who comes in the name of the Lord that then he will defeat God’s plan?

That will not happen. We know, but there’s going to be a fight for that going an underway and we’re seeing that now. Now it comes about by those I believe who are clearly in league with the devil. There are a lot of Luciferians out there. There are those in the media who just hate God under any circumstance and therefore they hate Israel. That’s one group. I think there’s another group though that’s there, and that’s just the humanists and the globalists and the liberals who do not understand or refuse to God’s truth. And so they’re on that side and so they’re blinded, they can’t see the truth. But there are conservatives and there are others and some who profess faith in Christ who I’m finding getting wrapped up in this. And we’ve talked about it in other programs. Dr. Carl Broggi and I have talked about it on a program, and that’s those who hold to a belief of replacement theology who says that God is done with Israel.

He has no concern with Israel, came from Augustine and was believed by Calvin and Luther and many today who would hold that and say Israel’s of no more consequence than any other nation of the world and that therefore they can get caught up sometimes unconsciously, perhaps, but to contribute to this idea because well, they don’t interpret God’s word literally as we just explained. So this is why I believe ultimately scripturally, we know that as we approach these days, every nation in the world will oppose Israel. That includes the United States. Every nation will oppose Israel and ultimately oppose God. These are many reasons why, but ultimately that is happening and we’re just at a point in the process, Isaac, where we see this further developing. But we’re in that process now. I believe

Isaac Crockett:

Interesting times of process going on. We need to be discerning. We need to be wise as serpents, harmless as doves reading scripture, applying scripture, not believing everything we hear, looking at Israel and being discerning about what they’re saying and what they’re doing. And again, understanding that at this point most of them are an unbelief, but also the other side. So, so many things here going on, we’re going to be right back. We want to dive into a bunch of other things happening and look at what might be going on with our weather. Welcome back. Before we go back to asking Sam more questions on this Ask Sam edition, I want to ask our program producer Tim Schneider, if he could give us some updates or promotions from what’s going on here at Stand in the Gap Media or the American Pastors Network.

Tim Schneider:

Yes, I can give some updates. Isaac, good afternoon to everybody and since today’s question day, it appears to be Ask Sam Day as Isaac ask Sam questions. I’ll ask you a question. Do you ever find yourself too busy to listen to the whole Stand in the Gap today show we are under an hour usually if you add up how long the show is, but a lot of people are busy and they have other things going on. Did you know that we have shorter audio segments of between usually averaging two to 11 minutes depending. That’s usually the timeframe covering various topics discussed on our Stand in the Gap radio show. We call these podcast q and as. These are podcasts, short little clips, which are good for listeners who desire to hear a short segment on a certain topic, have very topics, lots of them. We have, I think somewhere over 3000 podcast q and as since this thing has started many years ago.

Topics such as Islam, finances, current events, cultural issues, biblical worldview, the Constitution, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If you find some of these useful, some of these podcast q and as, you can go and find a whole show in our archives afterwards. Check out our podcast q and ass on our app and at our website, stand in the gap media.org. And also you can subscribe to our podcast through Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, tune in Spotify. Most of the major streaming platforms you can subscribe to hear Truth every day. So sign up to get our podcast downloaded to your smart device. Every time a new podcast is released, they will get downloaded to your phone and it’s a really great feature and very convenient if that’s the way you would like to follow our program. Additionally, if you’re a subscriber to our podcast through one of these platforms, please make sure you rate us ratings, will allow other like-minded individuals to find us as they search for podcast and thank you in advance.

Also want to let you know about our two great websites. We have two of them, American Pastors network.net and stand@thegapmedia.org. You can find lots of great information, archives of programs, articles, bunches of different things, lots of resources on those two websites. Also, if you’re over to our American Pastors network.net websites, sign up for our e-newsletter. That way you can be informed of information and things that are happening around here at the American Pastors Network as they become available and we want to let you know about them. So that’s what I got here. Isaac and I will go ahead and send it on back to you.

Isaac Crockett:

Alright, thanks so much, Tim. Well, Sam, we’ve seen some weird weather this summer. The fires going on. Wildfires in Canada, flooding New York City just a couple of weeks ago had so much flooding that some of the subway stations were actually having a lot of water come in again Thursday night, I think throughout the week we’ve had a lot up here in New York, but New York City, Philadelphia, some of the big eastern cities getting hit with some strong storms. There was the tsunami watch this week for Hawaii and Japan because of earthquakes in Russia. So a lot of strange weather patterns or weather things going on. Sam, there are those who of course are saying, this is climate change, this is what we’re talking about, or global warming or terms like that. There are others that say, Hey, this is maybe God’s judgment, Sam, what do you say? How do we discern what’s going on biblically when we see major weather issues like this?

Sam Rohrer:

Well, Isaac, I go often or referred to it. What does the Bible say? That’s where I go first. Before I am really overly concerned about what the weather service says or any government says, I go and say, what does God say about it? Well, what the Bible says is that in the days that approach, all because of Israel being on the land and the things we just talked about, it says within that context that we would begin to see greater and more widespread pandemics health related things. COVID was one of them, but there’s been more. And the threat is out there. We have seen the scripture says that the Earth would begin to shake earthquakes and those things related to that volcanoes, earthquakes, and weird or strange, unusual weather events. Now then it says other things in there too, but that’s a part of it.

Now why is that? Well, scripture tells us that the earth groans because of the curse of sin. Why awaiting its remaking, which will happen, which will happen in time. There’ll be a new heaven and a new earth where the effects of the curse, the fall that happened back in the first part of Genesis after creation will take effect. I mean, that’ll be evidenced, but for now, what we witness is an earth that is groaning. Earthquakes is a groaning. And how do we measure that? Well, I mean some would say, well, we’ve always had earthquakes or always had some droughts and we’ve always had strange weather. We have. So there have always been earthquakes, there’s always been earth volcanoes. What makes the days in which we’re living now significant Isaac, is that there is a convergence of all of these things of the pandemics, the rise of persecution and the antisemitism and signs in the sun and the moon.

We don’t get into that. There’s all kinds of things that are happening in that area as well. And all these weather events, these things will begin to converge and they will begin to increase both in intensity and frequency. Their there in scripture refers to that as birth pangs. And ultimately those birth pangs, I believe are going to occur after the rapture of the church where they will begin in earnest. But right now, one could say, and even we’ve talked about it, Carl Brogue and I have talked about it on this program, kind of referred to these things these days right now as Braxton Hicks, it’s the kind of thing that women who are about to deliver begin to have these indications that there is a baby about to be born and it’s preparing the delivery process. But once delivery at the actual birth pangs begin, there will be a birth and there’s no turning back.

We’re building to that frequency and intensity. Here are just a couple facts as a volcano, discovery is an entity that tracks volcanoes right now, Isaac, across the world, there are 41 volcanoes, 41 that are currently in some level of eruption, 41, that’s an all time record. Earthquakes, Mount Rainier, that’s one that people are on track. Just this month in July, there’s been a thousand earthquakes at Mount Rainier. And why is that significant? Well, Mount Rainier is one of the largest volcanoes in the northern hemisphere, and it’s predicted to blow. They just found not too long ago from satellites seeing heat under the ground that under New England is a rising mass of magma. That’s what comes from a volcano. People didn’t even know it was happening, but it’s moving and it’s rising floods. Alright, well, we’ve had a lot of floods just in the United States this month of July, there were 17 1000 year floods in July alone in the United States.

And that doesn’t count China, which has been flooded out in Spain and other countries around the world. It’s not just the United States. So Isaac, these things are happening as a part of the bigger plan. At the same time, God says, and he told Israel, if you obey me, and I think it pertains to the United States, when you obey me, I’ll give you good weather, I’ll give you security. But if you disobey and you walk away from me, then God says judgment will come. So in the end, the weather’s controlled by God. He’s not given out to the devil. God controls the weather. And when these things occur, it’s God speaking, saying to people, look up, consider me. That’s what our pilgrim, our pilgrim fathers, that’s what’s exactly what they did. When it didn’t rain, they got down on their news and said, God, what do you want us to know? But in all of these events, Isaac, I see little to know action or response by leaders, by even most church people to consider what would God have us to consider by these things? And is our life in order? And as we talked at the beginning, am I prepared to meet my maker? Am I prepared to stand before God? We’re not even considering the right things, but these things are things that God said would happen.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, Sam, there are so many things, questions I still have that I don’t think we have time for all of them, but as you’re talking about this, we need to have the right heart towards all of this as Christians. And how should we pray for our country? How should we pray for those who are leading our country, those who are ministers of government, of civil authority over us In times like these where the stakes are so high,

Sam Rohrer:

I think like the early church was supposed to pray when they were under the heavy hand of Rome. And that is, we are to pray for all of those in authority. What do we pray for? Well, if it could be possible, and it is that they would come to faith in Jesus Christ, ultimately because their souls are important and they’re just one of all of us for whom Christ died. But secondly, we pray that those in authority would actually have some fear of God and would rule in the fear of God, why that we could live a quiet and peaceable life. Yet we’d know that as we approach the times in which we are living, that peace will increasingly be taken from the earth because God has been so merciful for so long and he’s warned nations and he’s warned us so much that when we refuse, refuse to hear and refuse to humble ourselves in the sight of God, that judgment will only increase. So our leaders can lead us to God or they can lead us to the God of government. And we pray that they would lead us to the God above. And that’s what I would hope and pray.

Isaac Crockett:

Amen. Amen. That’s what we should be praying for and seeking first God’s kingdom. What we’re wrapping things up in the next segment with a big picture. Look at this week’s news, again, doing all of this through a biblical lens and asking Sam a couple of final questions here as we finish. So please stay with us. We’ll be right back after this brief break from our partners. We’ll be right back on Stand in the gap today. Well welcome back to our Friday edition, a stand in the gap today. And Sam, we’ve asked you quite a few questions. I know there’s always more that we’d like to get into, but as we wrap things up, I think back to Monday’s program, you were interviewing Leo Holman and you discussed seeing the headline news through a biblical lens, which is what we talk about daily here. And one of the things you really drove home was this idea of avoiding distractions. And I’d just be curious now that we’ve come to the end of the week, what do you see as for Christians, for the biblical worldview that we’re talking about? What do you see as some of the news that really was the important stuff this week? And then maybe what was some of the news that you think maybe kind of fell in that category of just distractions?

Sam Rohrer:

Without getting into super detail, I would encourage people to go back and listen to our program from Monday that you mentioned with Leo Hohmann because that was really a more in depth discussion of it. And the theme of that one was remaining focused in days of distraction. And we talked about a number of different things. But the bottom line is this, the world and the world system, the media that we come to have seen digital media, the iPhones that are in our hands or the iPods or the news system, we all want to know what’s going on. But all of these things that are not coming through the lens of scripture and biblical truth are all geared to sensationalism.

They’re intended to create fear and an imbalance. The goal is not to lead people to truth, truth being Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth and the life biblical truth, but it’s to lead it to the humanistic view that government is God, that AI can make you God that there is no need for the God of the Bible because it’s all within ourselves. So pursue what is in your heart, which is something a hallmark does in their movies. Pursue your heart, okay? All those kinds of things. These are all Isaac example of distractions. And what we have I think in our day today, which is in that category is that because things happen so quickly, because this entire globe is interconnected and connected to satellites in the internet in a moment, the entire world can all know the same thing. And we’re overwhelmed by information which is driving people.

And we know the younger, the more you’re attached to these things, the more you are driven to the point of a mental illness. And that is a big issue, but it’s because there is no hope being offered by these things. These are distractions. Now what do they do? Well, the overwhelming aspect and the part that says be consumed with whatever your heart is, happiness is the goal. Entertainment be entertained and everybody can be entertained playing games and all these kinds of things. All of these things as a distraction. Isaac are designed by the world and the devil himself to keep people’s minds and hearts so occupied with what may be whatever they want it to be, rather than what is. To actually see what is taking place and as a distraction move them into be so consumed with things that there’s no consideration given that I’m going to stand before God one day and give an account, and therefore am I prepared to die taking us back to the first segment.

So all these things are distractions designed by the devil. It’s a part of deception of our age. Distractions are deception and they are slights of hand and they’re designed to move us not towards God, but towards the God of this world. So that’s at the heart of Isaac. So almost everything that we can think about today, whether it’s the root wars and rumors of wars, rather than taking us to, well, this is what God said, it’s takes us to fear and staying tuned for what’s going to happen next. What are our politicians doing? They’re not talking about God. They’re giving tweets here and there. What sensationalism they want follows. They want people staying on board with them. Why is it? Well, because they have no hope in themselves. They can’t take us to God. They want people to be dependent upon them and what they say for the purposes of control. But that’s the devil behind all of that. Christ wants us. God wants us to be independent and have freedom in Christ. The devil wants us to remain in bondage and confused forever to him. And that’s ultimately at the end of the day where things are going. But that’s the heart of it.

Isaac Crockett:

This is so practical. Again, if you haven’t gotten the whole program today, I think you’d be good to go back and listen to the whole program. If you haven’t listened to Monday’s program with Sam and Leo Homan, you may want to go back and check that archive as it specifically delves into this. I saw a video, I don’t know when it was taken, but I saw a video clip from an interview with Sam Altman, who’s known for artificial intelligence. He was one of the first movers and shakers in that. And they were asking him what keeps him up at night, worried about ai. And he said, there’s kind of three things. One is that you’d have a maleficent force and some sort of nefarious group that would attack the US or other powers with help from ai. A second one would be kind of the sci-fi situation where AI gets so smart that it won’t listen to us.

You can’t turn it off, it develops its own sort of life or whatever. But I said the third one is one that most of us won’t understand or we won’t see it happening. So that would just so slowly become so dependent on AI that we won’t want to make any decisions without asking our chat, GPT or something like that. And he gave some different illustrations of it and saying what you’re talking about, there’s all these different things. A number of decades ago it was this almost worshiping of mother nature. Now it’s almost this uplifting of AI as this ultimate source of knowledge. There’s always something distracting us from God, and there are a lot of good things in our life on a practical level, good things in life that even God has given us that if we’re not careful, if we don’t put Christ first, can also distract us.

So we really, really need to put our focus on Christ. Well, Sam, we are almost to the end of the program, and I want to save time for you to close us in prayer because we need to spend time in prayer, talking to the Lord, praising him, blessing him. But I just want to give you a last chance, anything that you want to wrap up this week with an encouragement to our listeners, any final words of encouragement or just things you’d like, any final thoughts? And then if there’s time, I would love to have you close this in prayer,

Sam Rohrer:

Isaac. Yeah, it would be simply this, as we’ve talked about, and thank you for all these questions in your thought that’s went into this program because when we look at what is and what’s around us, there is no hope. But in Jesus Christ and the word of God, there is hope. That’s the good news. And the fact, as we try to encourage people all the time on this program, go to the word of God, it never changes. God’s promises are always good and they will last. And the God and His Word has given us everything we need to live and not just live, but live victoriously, fear God and keep His commandments heavenly Father, thank you so much for making this program, this platform of communication across the country and literally the world possible. And Lord, we pray that in this program today, we would’ve honored you. We lift up our hands to you in praise, thanking you for who you are and what you have done, the hope that you have given us through faith in Jesus Christ. I pray for those who are listening. If they do not have that assurance that they would before this day is done, trust in you. And Lord, we commit ourselves to you and we watch with excitement what is unfolding before us awaiting your soon return. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Isaac Crockett:

Amen. Amen. Well, thank you so much Sam and all of you. Thank you for listening. Again. I would love to hear some of your questions for our next Ask Sam episode, things that you’d like to hear us talking more about, we’re asking Sam about. But please, until next time, I would ask you to pray for all of us here at Stand in the Gap and the American Pastors Network. We appreciate you listening to us and sharing this program with others. And until next time, stand in the gap for truth, wherever you are.