Ask Sam – Church Protests & The World Economic Forum Episode 79

Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett

Co-host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: Joe Rigney

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 1/23/26. 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:

Thank you so much for tuning in on Pastor Isaac Crockett, and I want to just go right to our first guest before we get to the rest of our program. He doesn’t have a lot of time with us today, but I want to introduce Dr. Joe Rigney. He is a pastor and a professor and somebody who loves Jesus. Joe, thanks so much for being on this program with us.

Joe Rigney:

Hey, thanks for having me, guys.

Isaac Crockett:

Joe, you’ve been on a lot of several Fox News programs and other big podcasts this week, but you were one of the founding pastors of city’s church in Minnesota that’s been on the news this week for a huge blow up. These protesters came into a church, sat down and then stood up interrupting the Sunday morning worship service. Maybe you’ve seen Joe on Fox News this week. Joe, can you tell us a little bit about the Church City’s church and what happened there at that Sunday morning service? As I understand it was actually their 11th anniversary Sunday. For those maybe who haven’t heard, or even those of us who have, tell us a little bit about what happened at this church that you have a history with.

Joe Rigney:

Right, so I was one of the planting pastors of city’s church back in 2015. It was 11 years ago last Sunday, and we were planted out of Bethlehem Baptist Church. So if your listeners are familiar with Dr. John Piper, we were kind of in that community. And so we planted from Bethlehem. I was a professor at Bethlehem at the time, and we were planted as a Southern Baptist church and they’ve been a Southern Baptist church for the last 11 years. I left about three years ago to move to Idaho where I currently serve, but this is a normal evangelical church. When we planted it, we spent a lot of time, what’s the mission, what’s the vision? And the mission and vision was we worship Jesus. We serve one another, we love one another, and we seek the good of the cities. That was the core values and priorities of the church and still is.

The fundamental banner is Jesus is real and everything’s about him. So very normal and very, I’d say nonpolitical in general. I tend in my current role to be getting into more of some of the political, but the church itself really isn’t. It’s just a very normal evangelical church. And then on Sunday, the chaos invaded, the politics invaded as during their second worship service. They had actually just started the second service last Sunday and the second service, some people came in, they sat through the first half and then got up and began chanting slogans, screaming at people commandeered the building. Essentially they were I think 50 to a hundred. I don’t know exactly the number, but it was a large number of anti ICE demonstrators who had discovered that one of the lay elders of the church worked in law enforcement for ice. And so they came to harass him and anybody associated with him threatened his family, intimidate those because of their opposition to enforcing our immigration laws.

That’s what happened. My friend Jonathan Parnell was in the middle, had just done a pastoral prayer and you see him on those videos saying, shame on you. And then he was accosted immediately after by a journalist that’s in scare quotes, Don Lemon, who basically was insisting that this was all perfectly legitimate, that this disruption of a Christian worship service was constitutionally protected and perfectly fine and appropriate. And Jonathan very capably said, this is unacceptable. This is shameful that you would interrupt the worship of Christians on the Lord Day, Lord Day. We are here because Jesus is the hope of the world and that’s what we’re about and this is absolutely shameful. And so that’s what happened. And I think what it tells us, I think part of the takeaway is that I think for many of us, many people, they may not be interested in the culture war.

They may not be interested in the political, but the culture war and the political is interested in you. It doesn’t matter. You may be the sort of Christian who goes, I don’t really think a lot about that. And I think in sort of normal times that may be possible in a normal healthy society, people just go about their day and they vote when they vote and that’s all they have to give thought to. But we don’t live in normal times. We live in times of chaos, of times of disorder and tensions and those who are just trying to go to worship with their family can be sort of drug into this because of the hostility and the anger that’s coming in. I think particularly in our day and age from the left encouraged by democratic politicians, this is something that they encourage. I think even in the aftermath, I’ve been shocked to see some democratic legislators say, this is essential and must continue. We must continue to do this sort of thing because it’s a part of our pursuit of what they view as justice. And so I think it’s great tragedy. It’s not what we would want, but it’s the moment that God has given us.

Isaac Crockett:

Amen. And you’ve pointed out this week on the news, it’s Christ or chaos, and one of the things you’ve done, and I actually heard you preach a whole sermon on this right after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, but comparing Acts chapter one through nine, the beginning, the formation of the church to what we’re living in now, could you give us a little bit of encouragement there and talk to us, we only have a couple of minutes left, but about this comparison between what we see in the early New Testament church and acts and what we see facing us right now.

Joe Rigney:

Sure, yeah. And if your listeners are more interested, they can go for the sermons, just my name Joe Rigney, and it’s called Acts for Americans, and they can go find that online. And I wrote an article version of it called an American Steven for World Magazine. They can go find that as well. But the basic argument is in the early chapter of Acts, you see these collisions between the apostles and the Jewish leaders of their day who basically are disturbed. They’re at first annoyed by the apostles as they preach on the resurrection of Christ and they seek to heal people and bless people, and they’re annoyed by them and they tell them, stop doing that. Stop preaching in the name. Of course the apostles don’t. And so they get hauled in again and the authorities say, look, we told you to stop this, and they beat them and there’s kind of this escalation over time as if they’re filled with rage and they almost go to kill them.

But one of the wiser heads kind of prevails and said, no, no, don’t do that right now. And then there’s this kind of final collision in Acts chapter seven with Steven, the evangelist who’s hauled before the authorities and lied about slandered. And then when he makes his testimony, he condemns their sin and points to Christ, their rage erupts and he’s murdered by a mob. And you just see that escalating thing and you go, man, isn’t that what we’ve been living through over the last 10, 20 years? We’ve seen escalating collisions between Christians and American society over issues like sexual ethics and things like that. And then I think my read last fall was when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, he was essentially an American Steven, he was an evangelist preaching the gospel on college campuses and a witness for Christ and they hated it and they couldn’t withstand his wisdom, and so they killed him a violent leftist, targeted and assassinated him.

And so that’s where we are in the story, and I think it’s significant after this last weekend that the next thing that happens in Acts chapter eight is the persecution spreads. And it’s not just leaders who are being harassed, but now just normal Christians are being persecuted and driven from their homes and whatnot. The encouraging word I would say to those listening would be those people when it got more heavy, when it spread, not just to the apostles who were the leaders, but just normal Christians trying to do normal Christian things. They didn’t tuck tail and run and they didn’t whine and mope. Instead, it says in Acts chapter eight, verse four, those who were scattered went about preaching the word. They were bold. They were bold for Christ, and they imitated that boldness. And so that’s what we should do. We should pray God look upon their threats and grant us to speak your word with boldness.

Isaac Crockett:

Amen. Amen. We need to have that courage and that boldness, Pastor Rigney, Dr. Joe Rigley, thank you so much for taking the time to be on with us. Thank you so much for standing up and preaching Christ and those in city’s church have been doing the same thing as the spotlight has been on them. Thank you very much. We’re going to say goodbye to you right now, but thanks for this time that you shared with us. We’re going to be right back. Talk more about these protests and a lot of other things. Welcome back to our Friday program of Stand in the Gap Today. And we just heard from Pastor Joe Rigney who was the founding pastor of city’s church in Minnesota, a church that had their 11th anniversary service interrupted by protestors. According to Joe, he was saying that I think was their first Sunday to move to having two Sunday morning worship services.

They had their first service in which Pastor Parnell, the senior pastor there, he was preaching on loving others and showing love church that has tried to do that and a church in an area in the Twin City region where just back in August of 2025, enunciation Catholic church had a service at their Christian school part interrupted by a trans shooter, a man born as Robert and changed his name to Robin, shot dozens of people, killed children, and then they had this violent, loud, volatile group of people protesting in their church service. And so we just heard from Pastor Rigney about some of the things going on and some of what we expect as Christians, but the encouraging thing is that we’re turning the world upside down with the gospel like the church always has and it’s a gospel of God’s love and there’s a joy and a confidence that we have when we’re doing what’s right.

But Sam, some have used this most recent protest in that church and there’s other churches that are being protested sometimes like this and they’re saying, you know what? You need to be ready for this sort of intrusion. We need to have security teams trained and ready. We need to know what the law is about trespassing and what to say and what to do. And then there are others saying, you know what? We expect persecution. Jesus warned us of persecution, Sam. Some are saying one way or the other, but some are saying, you know what, both can be right. We can expect persecution, but at the same time seek justice and seek preparation. What do you think? Is it possible to do both? And what would you suggest we think in situations like this?

Sam Rohrer:

Well, Isaac, I will respond just like we try to do in this program all the time and say, right, what does the Bible tell us?

What is our biblical response in such cases as this? It includes both of what you’ve said. For example, Jesus said that in the days that he said, if they treated me this way and persecuted me, do you not think that they’re going to persecute you? The key is that they persecute us for his name’s sake, which is what the Lord says in Matthew 24. Just because one is persecuted or attacked by people around who do not like them does not mean it’s biblical persecution. It just may mean that there’s lawlessness that’s taking place. So it’s for the Lord’s sake, it’s for the preaching of the gospel, it’s for that persecution that term accurately applies. So that’s one thing. But Jesus said it’ll be on the up crease on the increase and therefore we need to be aware that that can happen. But the other principle is that every person in authority, Romans 13, makes it clear.

Romans 13, it gives the civil authority the sword. Now that’s the ability literally means to take a person’s life, but it’s to enact justice across the other jurisdictions of authority, individual, parental, religious, and the civil God has given the sword to provide throughout the breadth of society justice, praising those who do well, protecting those who keep the law and then punishing and bringing to justice those who break the law, those who do evil, but all in positions of authority have that same responsibility, just don’t have the responsibility and the ability to take a person’s life. For instance, parents do not. We as parents have a duty to protect our children. Yes, we do. To watch out for them to care for them. Does a pastor not have a spiritual, and I’m going to say yet a physical responsibility and duty to protect the flock? Their sheep a shepherd.

There are wolves that are out in the street. There are the wolves who could come into the church. Scripture talks a lot about it, warned about ’em for number one. But just as in the days of old when a shepherd has a sheep at night, you close the gate, you put ’em in within a fence and you close the gate. So point being church leadership, just as parents would or an employer with his employees have a duty to make sure where possible that the safety, physical safety of their people, those under their charge are watched out for. We are to watch out for them, not just their souls, but for them physically. So that’s why we have been in support and we’ve talked much about it, that churches, if they can, they should attempt to have a security team. They should have people who know what to do in such matters and they should, in the best of circumstances, do and put together such a plan working with their local police, their local law enforcement.

So civil authority and those within the church are working within the confines of the law to accomplish that, which is a responsibility at all in the end, even if you do have a safety team and their functioning perfectly, is that a guarantee that something may not happen? The answer is no, but we’ve done what we can, but at the end, our trust is in the Lord and we know that difficult and increasingly difficult times will do, but do we want to encourage those in civil government to actually come in, arrest the law breaker and prosecute them under the law? The answer is yes. That is government’s responsibility according to Romans 13. So yes, it’s a balance of both.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, now that’s my next question. You’re getting into it already. Then there are Christians quoting very valid parts of the Bible about being peacemakers, turning the other cheek, quoting Jesus on that, and then others saying, well, Jesus went in and he turned over tables and he did things like that. We have Paul appealing to Roman law for certain things. Hey, you’re not allowed to treat me that way. I’m a Roman citizen, or I appeal to Caesar as a Roman citizen. And so I guess kind of similar to the question you just answered, you started answering this one too. So it it’s not unbiblical you’re saying to have security teams and to trust the Lord. What about seeking justice or wanting to see arrest made for those who terrorized the city’s church, which we have seen on a federal level, not on a local or state level, but on a federal level.

Arrest have been made maybe probably are being made even during this program. But some of the notable ones, a professing pastor herself, she calls herself a pastor. Naima Levy Armstrong apparently was arrested. Pam Bondy had posted about this on Thursday. St. Paul school board member who was a part of this, she was arrested. And then also I’ve seen news reports of an agitator, oh, I don’t even know if I can say his name, what he goes by, but I think his legal name is William Kelly and he’s one who’s very flamboyant and using a lot of curse words and was in this service as well. I believe he was also arrested. He actually said, come and get me. Come arrest me if you don’t like what I did or something. And he has been arrested. I don’t know who all else. So I guess the question on this one is Sam, is that okay that a church says, well, we believe in peace and in this case, I don’t think it’s up to the church really even to make this. I think this is the government deciding this, but is it possible to seek peace and to seek justice by having people that do this sort of thing? Arrested?

Sam Rohrer:

I’m going to go back to Romans 13 and where the apostle Paul there says, we are to be under authority, be subject to the higher authority. In every case there are higher authorities. There’s ultimately our authority, our responsibility to God. We have a responsibility to Caesar civil authority. Children have a responsibility to parents. Ultimately that must all conform to what the hierarchy of authority in America, the law. The civil law does say you harm someone’s property or you threaten their life, or in this case, coming into a setting like a church. Alright, civil government has the authority. We want the law to be fulfilled. Now, other countries like China, they don’t have such a law. The Christians there could not appeal to their civil authority. They may not do it in a lot of other countries as well. So the civil law of whatever it is, the Christians, there must still be under that law of their respective nation.

In some cases though they have no one to appeal to. Paul did appeal. The apostle Paul did appeal to that one provision of being charged without having a hearing under Roman law. So he did that. But different situations, different Christians, different churches, different places would’ve different law. So you operate under the law. Ultimately everything is under God’s law. But even in the dealing with the people who are the law breakers like Steven did when he was killed Steven and he was stoned to death. He was down on his knees, he wasn’t fighting. He looked up to heaven and he said, Lord, please forgive them. Alright? Now in that case, in the church out there or anything that would happen, I would hope that there would be believers in that church led by the leadership in that church to actually try to reach out to those people who came into their church. They need to hear the gospel and if they go to jail to visit them in jail and say, you came into our church to create harm, but let me tell you about Lord Jesus Christ. And so all of these must be opportunities to share the gospel, but we still operate under the law. So justice being the primary character of God must be carried out when it can be carried out. So again, these factors kind of work together

Isaac Crockett:

And we’re running out of time. I have a couple other questions I would’ve loved to ask, but it doesn’t always have to be an either or then is what you’re saying I believe is that we could be peacemakers and also law can happen.

Sam Rohrer:

Absolutely. And if something’s personal, if somebody comes against me personally, then I am to turn the other cheek because I am giving the gospel and they strike me on the face. I am to turn the other cheek. That’s what the Bible says. But circumstances are different, but biblical principles are there to guide us in every one of them.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, I want to come right back after this break. We’re going to hear from some of our partners and switch gears a little bit. Sam, when we come back, we want to look at the World economic forum that’s been meeting this week. Some crazy things going on there, maybe not unexpected. Sam, if you probably expected some of this very interesting news, we’ll be right back on Stand in the Gap today. We welcome back to Stand in the Gap today on Pastor Isaac Crockett, the Honorable Sam Rohrer, the president of the American Pastors Network is with me. We’ve had an exciting Friday edition so far. We started off by talking with Dr. Joe Ney, a pastor who helped found city’s church in Minnesota that’s gotten so much attention for the protest that interrupted their service on Sunday. Pastor Joe has been on a lot of podcasts and news programs this week and was able to take time out of his busy schedule to be with us for a little bit at beginning.

And then Sam and I worked through biblical admonitions about loving and seeking peace and loving our neighbors, but also justice and the fact that the government needs to arrest and enforce laws and a lot of different things like that. And we’re kind of getting into a different direction as we go into this part of the program. So thank you if you’re just tuning in or if you’re still listening. Thanks for listening. But before we go into more questions for Sam, I have a question for our program producer, Tim Schneider, are you available to come and talk to us about some of the things going on behind the scenes at the American Pastors Network and stand in the gap media?

Tim Schneider:

Well, yes, Isaac. Someday I’m just not going to answer. And then if there’s silence for like 30 seconds or more, then you might know, well, maybe he’s not available. But today I am thankfully, and I’ll go ahead and let you know about some things that are happening around here. One of the big things happening here next weekend is scheduled return to God 2026. It’s actually our fifth year of doing Return to God Sunday, this year’s theme, he is worthy. It’s happening February 1st, 2026. For more information, you can go to our website, american pastors network.net. We encourage you to consider being a part of this. You don’t have to officially do it on Sunday, February 1st, but if you would like to, we encourage you to do that. You can find more information about what return to God Sunday is and some resources for that upcoming event on American Pastors network.net.

Once again, return to God 2026 theme. He is worthy more information@americanpastorsnetwork.net. Also, we thank you for all your prayers for this ministry and if you’re not praying for us, we please ask you to please pray for us. We appreciate prayers. It is the catalyst for ministry and we would appreciate your prayers for all the things that the Lord has us to do. So please pray for us and we thank you in advance for that. Also, if you are blessed by what you hear, consider giving financially. No amount too big, no amount, too small, it’s too much. Whatever the Lord might put on your heart. If there are ways you’ve been blessed and are continuing to be blessed by this ministry, unfortunately ministry does. Cost prayer is free, but you can take it for what that means and consider giving if the Lord puts it on your heart. No amount too big, no amount too small, as I said before is too much. But we appreciate whatever you might be able to do in the Lord does put on your heart. So that’s what I’ve got. Isaac, I’m going to go ahead and send it on back to you.

Isaac Crockett:

Alright, great. Thank you so much for that Tim. And don’t go too far away because I have another question for you. Sam and I, we’ve been talking about the World Economic Forum and Sam, you know so much more about what’s going on than I do, but you were telling me about some of this artificial intelligence talk and a lot of it has been coming from somebody we hear a lot about Yuval Noah Harari of the World Economic Forum. Tim, I’m just wondering, could you play the 92nd clip that we had talked about? Sam was talking about this one, and if you play that then I can ask Sam a whole bunch of questions about this idea that AI could supposedly take over the Bible.

Yuval Noah Harari:

Do you know as far as putting words in order is concerned, AI already thinks better than many of us. Therefore anything made of words will be taken over by ai. If laws are made of words, then AI will take over the legal system. If books are just combinations of words, then AI will take over books. If religion is built from words, then AI will take over religion. This is particularly true or religions based on books like Islam, Christianity or Judaism. Judaism called itself the religion of the book and it grants ultimate authority not to humans but to words in books. Humans have authority in Judaism, not because of our experiences, but only because we learn words in books. Now no human can read and remember all the words in all the Jewish books, but AI can easily do that. What happens to a religion of the book when the greatest expert on the Holy book is an AI?

Isaac Crockett:

Alright, Sam, that’s an interesting question. What happens to a religion of the book when the greatest expert of it is actually a computer? It’s artificial intelligence. But Sam, I’ve seen a lot of pastors reacting to this clip and the full clip saying, oh, hold on to your bibles. Don’t let anybody change your Bible. And that sort of a thing. Is that the point that he’s making or could you explain what your thoughts are on this?

Sam Rohrer:

In reality what he’s talking about? Isaac is not the words, although I mean he’s saying the processing, the ability to read, understand, comprehend and from it produce logical thought. And he talks about that in the other part of his 20 minute presentation about this ability of ai. And he doesn’t refer to it as AI singular, he refers to it as AI plural, where this ability, not just a computer, people should not think of a computer or a laptop or a phone in their hand. This is a system that exists in the cloud as he talks about, that are fed by hundreds of databases that together form this entity that he makes a case for it. That this entity of AI’s plural ought to actually be given a human or the recognition of being a person. So he’s ascribing to this technology, this thing that you cannot see, but it has an ability to think and make decisions as he talks about and make better decisions than people because it never forgets anything.

Everything that goes into it, it remembers and it can assemble and put together thought. That’s why he said it actually thinks better than many people who are here makes better decisions than people who are here this thing. And he says, eyes will end up being the doctor in the doctor’s office that treats you, or it could be an employer that may hire you. And it becomes the law. It actually becomes the law because it is now superior in words. But he was making the case for how it actually becomes God. He didn’t say that in this setting, but he said it in other settings. But he’s making the case for it because it can read the Bible or the Torahs he’s talking about or the Quran, he mentioned Islam. It knows those words and it remembers all of them. Therefore it can analyze and it can tell you what it means and how to apply it better than you.

He’s making the case for why AI becomes God ultimately Isaac. It’s the authority behind it. And within all of this, there’s a lot of other things that are happening along the line outside of his speech to which people are becoming so dependent upon actually building relationships with AI on their phone as if they were a person asking it questions, tell me about this. Tell me that it’s efficient for the employer, it’s efficient for government. Oh, I know it’s even better than the doctor who’s going to look at you because he knows so much more. And he ended up saying it ultimately is bigger than the religion. It becomes God. And I think it’s interesting, as he said in another spot, I believe that those behind the Holy Books as he called it, the Bible from where it came would say it came from people came from a place that were not actually people but supernatural. Yes, the Bible came from the Holy Spirit, breathed by the Holy Spirit, supernatural by God himself. He’s saying AI is now that equivalent. This is extraordinarily dangerous. But what he said should not be discounted. Isaac, he is the voice for the Luciferian global order. He is the philosopher, he’s the moral director for all that comes out of the world economic forum that has its goals set on running the world just sounds to me so much like right off the pages of scripture.

Isaac Crockett:

Well Sam, there’s a lot going on there. I don’t think we have time to discuss everything that you found interesting at the WEF this go around, but what about this board of peace that Donald Trump is putting together? Can you tell us a little bit about that so we have a little bit of understanding of what’s going on with that?

Sam Rohrer:

Well I can indeed. I mean after the Board of Peace, we’ve talked about a lot in this program. That was the peace proposal coming out of Jared Kushner’s proposal to try and resolve the issue in the Gaza. From that, their idea, Jared Kushner’s idea was that Trump should become the chairman of a peace board. That’s where the idea came from. Then the president and the group ultimately went to the United Nations and sought the United Nations sanctioning as a legal body, international legal body. And they designated this peace group, gave it further authority and they, the United Nations designated the Security council designated Donald Trump as the chairman with only a couple of people, nations that are on there abstaining. And that was Russia and China. So now he’s the chairman. Now from that he, Donald Trump in his capacity as chairman, has now given invitations to over 50 countries and basically said, we want you to participate on this board and to be on this board.

Give a billion dollars, give a billion dollars, and you can have a permanent seat on this board. There are now 26 yesterday he actually convened, actually formally convened this board of peace as of January 22nd. I mean convened it and its purpose that Donald Trump has taken it beyond Gaza and now wants it to be involved in adopting broader mandates, allowing engagement in other global countries. This board has grown 26 countries on board now the president and his capacity chairman wants it to take on and solve and address the matters of peace and war around the world. Wow.

Isaac Crockett:

As very interesting, I go back to the statement from Pastor Rigley Christ over chaos. There’s a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion. We need to go back to Christ and be encouraged in him. We have a lot more when we come back after this last break. Alright, well welcome back to the program on Pastor Isaac Crockett asking Sam some questions today we started by talking to Pastor Joe Rigley. Dr. Rigley was one of the founding pastors of city’s church in Minnesota that had this protest breakout and has been such a touch point. Throughout this week, Joe has been on different newscast and podcasts. We started with that and he reminded us Christ over chaos. He brought us right back to the beginning of the church and acts and how that same pattern keeps happening. Satan keeps fighting with the same tactics and what to expect and how to be encouraged and be joyful and people to Jesus Christ.

Sam, we talked through the idea of being peacemakers, but also loving justice and seeing justice done. And then we talked about the World Economic Forum and this artificial intelligence push that it’s plural, it’s not just a thing and it’s not just a person’s handheld device, but it is a bigger scheme than that. I want to go to an interesting thought provoking question that was asked of Donald Trump this week and a reporter actually asked him basically what he thought, God must think of the job he’s doing. And I thought that is a really good question. So it’s a short clip. I’ll ask our producer, Tim, if he could go ahead and play that clip and I’ll follow up with some questions for you, Sam, about this.

Reporter:

First of all, last year you told me that you believe that the reason you won election is because God put you in this place so that you could save the world. Looking back one year, do you feel like God is proud of the effort that you’ve played?

Donald Trump:

I do actually. I think God is very proud of the job I’ve done and that includes for religion. We’re protecting a lot of people that are being killed Christians and Jewish people, and lots of people are being protected by me. That wouldn’t be protected by another type of president. No, I think a lot of people are very proud of the job we’ve done. We’ve had an amazing year. This has been one of the greatest years. Even some people that wouldn’t necessarily love me instinctively, they’re saying, this was an incredible year,

Isaac Crockett:

Sam. I just thought this was such a fascinating conversation. The question is what really got my attention. Although his answer too, and other presidents, I don’t know if they would’ve even entertained this question. I really doubt that President Biden would’ve even attempted to answer that question. I appreciate that Donald Trump, president Trump seems to take that question very seriously, that he really thinks about this maybe, and he’s talked very openly about his relationship with God and he’s seeking world peace. Maybe that’ll help him avoid going to hell or help him get to heaven or things like that. But I think this is really a very good question for us all to consider. I would love to get your thoughts on that question and then maybe your thoughts on even how President Trump answered this reporter.

Sam Rohrer:

It’s hard to know where to begin, Isaac, but I would agree with you from a reporter perspective, and I’m looking at the question as he phrased it, that he’s reminding the President where you said you won the election because God put you in this place. Okay, that’s a piece to itself and that’s a significant question. And then this last word so that you could save the world. Now, I have never heard, I’ve never heard anybody state or even the president state that is this purpose to save the world. But nonetheless, everybody goes into office with an expectation. And I think all of us who are as citizens, and there are others in positions of authority and government that are above us, there are expectations for what we think they ought to do.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, every one of us, whether we are a citizen under authority to somebody higher or a president or a king or whoever it may be that’s in authority, is that at some point in the future, all of us will give an account to God for what we do in this life and within the various hats, for instance, that we may function. So as a father, I’m going to give an account for what I do as a father based on what? Well, based on am I doing what a father should do in loving my wife and raising my children and providing for them as what the Bible says a father’s duty is. That same father could also be a president. So in the case of asking Donald Trump, he’s going to give an account for how he’s performed in that capacity.

And here’s the point. Here’s where people or get it wrong. The President has made it very, very clear over multiple cases that he’s very clearly attempting to earn his way to God’s favor. He wants to earn his way to heaven. And not long ago it was, I don’t know, I don’t think I’m even a candidate for heaven, that comment that he made. So it’s very, very clear he does not have a relationship through Jesus Christ, through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Otherwise you wouldn’t say, I don’t think I’m a candidate for heaven and I weren’t trying to work my way. So he does not have by his own voice, his own words, a relationship with the God of heaven. Now when it comes down to how do we measure whether or not we are doing what we should be doing, and that’s just like I said by the Father, a president, anybody in office going back and saying, all right, well what does God expect me to do?

What are my duties and responsibilities before God? How is God actually going to hold me accountable? And of course, does the scripture speak to that answer is absolutely yes. And that comes out of Romans 13, which we’ve already, we cited I think a little bit, at least I did in yesterday’s program, but David knew. But within that, we have the understanding that God ordained authority and anyone in any position of authority, whether an individual as an individual person or a father or an employer or somebody in office, a president or whoever, they are ministers of God. What’s that mean? They are diakanos. The word means for which you get deacon, they are a servant of God. Every position of authority which God has established are all ministers or servants or deacons, servants of God. But in Romans 13, in verse six, minister of God is a different Greek word like turga and it means literally leader in worship. So that at the end of the day, the real measurement before God is in my capacity as a minister of God in government, minister of God, in the Father, in the home as a father is do I in my capacity, in my policymaking, in my attitudes, in my words, in my deeds, am I leading people to the worship of God?

That’s the purpose, that’s the measurement by which God will measure and hold all people in authority. So the question is, it’s not whether I think, well, God would be proud of me. It is, well, have I been obedient to the responsibilities as called out by God For me, in my position, am I giving deference to God? Am I pointing to God? Am I leading selflessly as a selfless leader of people? The model is Jesus Christ himself, I doing that. If I’m doing those things and thinking about enacting justice as defined biblically and pointing people to the God of heaven, who is the authority to which we will all give an account so that nobody’s above somebody else? If I’m doing that and that’s being done, Isaac, then God will be proud. Other than that, it’s wishful thinking.

Isaac Crockett:

That’s so true. Well, thank you for all of that insight. Sam, thank you for taking us back to God’s word and remember, it’s Christ over chaos. In our lives, in our nation, in the world, we love God who created us, but Jesus Christ, he has been given to us, and if we will believe on him, we can have salvation and we want to be doing what’s right for his sake and have that relationship with God through him. Thank you for listening. Until next time, stand in the gap for truth, wherever you are.