Transcript

Jenna Ellis welcomes Dr. Ben Carson to American Family Radio on Friday

Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio. I love talking about the things of God because of truth and the biblical worldview. The U.S. constitution obligates our government to preserve and protect. The rights that our founders recognize come from God our creator, not our government. I believe that scripture in the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raised up each of you and God has allowed us to be brought here to this specific moment in time. This is Jenna Ellis in the Morning.

Jenna Ellis: Good morning and happy Friday. Welcome to Jenna Ellis in the Morning. Today is Friday, June 26th. On Fridays, we like to take a 30,000 foot perspective on what is going on in our country, in the world. And especially heading into America's 250th anniversary. There's so much to talk about from a biblical worldview about our nation's founding or where we have been and where we are going. And I am so incredibly privileged and excited to have for this conversation this morning. Dr. Ben Carson joining, who of course is, a neurosurgeon, former secretary of the of Housing and Urban Development under Trump's first administration, author, and of course ran for President of the United States and has done so much for America. Ah. But also in standing up for truth and the Christian worldview. So, Dr. Carson, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, thanks for having me. Delighted.

Jenna Ellis: Yes.

Charlie Kirk: America has made it 250 years without changing its Constitution

And so, so first, before we get into some of, the specifics, I wanted to get your perspective Overall on America 250, because, as we are headed into this celebration, for conservatives and especially for Christians, there's a lot that we're concerned about. But I think there's also a lot to excited about for America's future. So how do you view where we are at at this moment in time?

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, first of all, it's incredible that we've made it for 250 years without changing our Constitution. we're facing a time now where there are many forces that want to change it, that want to change fundamentally how we live and how we exist. And the only reason that we're able to really fight this, I think, is our founding was based on our relationship with God. We're the only nation whose founding document says that our rights come from our Creator and not from government. And the government can't take them away. Marxism, all the things based on it, communism, socialism. They try to get rid of God because they want to be the primary influence in the society. the question is, are we going to be able to withstand, their charge they're pushing extremely hard right now, with ideas that are very inconsistent with our Judeo Christian foundation. Do we have enough courage, do we have the willpower to resist that? Many nations have fallen victim to it. None of them are successful.

Jenna Ellis: And that's so true. And as I see the civil government and the current state of the Republican Party, and the lack of will perhaps in Congress to legislate according to the Constitution, to close our borders, to ensure that we don't have immigration infiltration, to ensure that we don't have these rogue judges that that persist on the bench. I, mean so many different things that Congress could do. There's also the church government, aspect under the three institutions that, that God has ordained, the church, the family, and the civil government, and the church government in America. And and the church writ large has really ceded a lot of ground not only to the civil government and kind of just wrapped ourselves up into the four walls of our own churches, but has, by and large. And of course there are exceptions to this, thankfully, but by and large a large swath of, especially the evangelical churches in America have failed that mission to stand up and teach truth, perhaps out of fear, of the government or their, their tax exemptions being revoked or going woke or some of these other, not very good justifications or excuses. where do you see the church in America needing to rise up and fight alongside the civil government? Because that's what we saw at America's founding. There were so many preachers involved and sincere Christians, no question.

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, you know, in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville came to America ostensibly to study our penal system. But he said, while I'm here, let me look at their source of government and let's look at their educational system and their business environment. And he was extremely impressed with all of those. And then he looked at our churches and the incredible sermons he came coming from those pulpits that inspired a bunch of ragtag militiamen to defeat the most powerful military force on earth. And he said those preachers really had fire coming out of their mouths. That has changed. Now we have a lot of preachers who have their finger up in the air trying to see which way the wind is blowing. And they preach according to what the society thinks that it should be doing. It should be just the opposite. The church, the Bible, God's word should be the thing that inspires us, that motivates us and that guides us. So I think if we can get our church leaders to have the courage once again to speak the truth. I think it will make a huge difference in our country. I think a lot of the people understand that and I'm very encouraged by the fact that a lot of the young men particularly are coming back to the church, are coming back to their faith position and God. It will make a big difference if the people are willing to take on the burden of guiding the church back to where it should be.

Jenna Ellis: Yes. And that is an encouragement. And you know, what we saw in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder with a spark of revival and a desire, especially among young people, to know the truth, know the Lord. where can we continue to build on that and to fight the ideologies that want to destroy not just Western civilization, but destroy us and our country because we are specifically founded on a Judeo Christian worldview.

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, the key is going to be courage. You know, a lot of people just stand in the corner and keep their mouth shut, staring at the floor because they don't want to be called a nasty name. they don't want to be canceled. But the fact of the matter is you really cannot be the land of the free if you're not the home of the brave. If you're not willing to stand up for what you believe, it will fall, you will lose it. And that's the decision that we have to make. And I say everybody has a sphere of influence. They may not think so, but everybody does. And you get to determine what's going on in your sphere of influence. what kind of individual are you going to be and are you going to stand up for what's right? Or when people say it's okay to take these young children who are very curious and very suggestible, and to mutilate their bodies and to do things that are irreversible, which many of them regret in the long run. But it's too late. Are we just going to stand by and let that happen, or are we going to speak up for them? You know, in the book of Proverbs, the 24th, chapter 11 and 12 verses, it says, what about those innocents who are being led to the slaughter? Did you say anything? Did you do anything? Does not he who knows and sees everything know what you did? You know, ah, that means we have a responsibility when we see wrong happening, to say something and to do something, not just to sit there and complain about it where nobody hears you.

Jenna Ellis: And m, you've lived a remarkable life in service and public service.

Dr. Carson was Secretary of HUD during Trump's first administration

Of course and in Trump's first administration, when you were the Secretary of hud, what was the greatest thing that surprised you, perhaps of the depth of depravity, of where, we've seen so much, that has overtaken Washington with this mindset of political power and power for its own sake instead of true service to the people that America really needs to focus on to correct.

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, you know, there were several things that surprised me. I was surprised at how much corruption, there was. We had not had an audit at the department for eight years. You're required by federal law to have an audit every year. You couldn't do an audit because there was so much mismanagement, so many defects. And, it required a lot of hard work to get in a team of people who could really audit what was going on and correct it. You probably noticed about a year and a half into the administration, you stopped hearing all those horrible stories about hud. that was because we were able to get the foundation straightened out. But the other thing was there were so many rules and regulations that were anti church, anti faith, so many types of grants that could not be considered, for faith based organizations. And, we did a lot of work to clear that out. Although the next administration that came in did a lot of work to put them back in. but those are the kinds of things that we have to do. I thought also that it would be easy to get bipartisan support, for programs that get people out of dependency. I was wrong about that. There were a lot of people who want people to be dependent on them. That's their power base. And so you can't assume just because somebody comes, on television and says, I'm one of the good guys and I'm going to make sure that you're taken care of and all of your needs are paid attention to by the government, those are not your friends, people who encourage dependency. That's not what America was about. We went from a bunch of ragtag militiamen to the pinnacle of the world in record time because we created an environment that encouraged entrepreneurial leadership and innovation. And we had an educational system that actually worked. Those one room school houses, that had four or five grades in them, they worked. And when de Tocqueville came here, he was shocked to see how well educated the American people were. He could find a mountain man in the woods and the guy could read and the guy could tell you about the Declaration of Independence. What a difference that makes. Because if you have a group of Educated people, they're much more difficult to manipulate. And, what's been happening recently is our society's been dumbed down. You may have noticed on some of those man on the street interviews, they ask people just the simplest stuff. They have no idea what you're talking about. those are people who are very easy to manipulate. And that's why we need to guard carefully what's being taught in our schools and to our children. There has been enormous proliferation of homeschooling and private schools for that reason. And hopefully that will play a large part in saving our nation.

Jenna Ellis: Amen. And you may not know this, I'm actually a very proud homeschool grad. My parents, on the first kind of wave of homeschooling, when it wasn't nearly as popular as it is now and widespread, I was homeschooled along with my brothers, kindergarten through, graduation in high school. And that set me on a good trajectory, not only for a solid education of just the regular disciplines that you need to learn, but also substantively in worldview, in theology. And my parents took discipleship very seriously. And hopefully the homeschool movement will continue to thrive for that reason. For parents who want to ensure that they're imparting, the values of children, truth and of Christianity and also of our country and our founding, to persist to the next generation. And you mentioned, Dr. Carson, in the beginning, that it's remarkable that we haven't, changed or overhauled our U.S. constitution over the last 250 years. But now we do see a lot of these problems in education, in mindset, in ideology. Do you think the solution is more in education, is more in the church? Or do you. Do you think that we do need to have some amendments or perhaps, the Convention of States project, Not a complete overhaul, obviously, of the Constitution, but do you see through your experience in the federal government, some ways perhaps, that we should be modifying our highest law to further reflect our Christian founding?

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, the elements to preserve our Judeo Christian foundation are there already. We just need to stop being afraid. you know, when we talk about separation of church and state, for instance, we've allowed people to just take that phrase and take all references to God and to religion out of our schools, out of our public schools. There's nothing in our Constitution that says we should be doing that. And, you know, we should post in every school the Ten Commandments. we should post something talking about the rights of people to believe as they believe. and we should put that in all workplaces. Because the side that wants to get rid of God intimidates people, by telling them, that things exist that don't exist. They don't exist and we shouldn't accept them. But we have to be courageous and we have to be, people who are willing to step out on faith, with courage to do what needs to be done. If we don't do that, we will lose what we have here. And people try to denigrate our country and say how horrible it is, and yet at the same time, they're all trying to get in here.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah. Isn't that fascinating? I mean, the very people who say that they hate our country want to come here for, the opportunities that we provide. But others, I think, want to come in to simply undermine our country and to transform it into, undermining Western civilization and everything that America stands for.

Dr. Ben Carson: Getting people to recognize good things outweigh bad things

And so what do you think from your experience, Dr. Carson, in Trump's first administration was, what do you think is the greatest accomplishment so far that he's done, looking forward to America? 250. And then also, what do you think is the most important thing, for the Trump administration to accomplish to protect America moving forward?

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, I think one of the things that really was very encouraging during the first, Trump administration was getting people to recognize that the things, the good things that happened in our country outweigh the bad things that happened in our country. We should learn everything, the good, the bad and the ugly. But there's a heck of a lot more good than there is bad and ugly. And, you know, the 1619 Project and all these things that denigrated the United States, putting a stop to that, I think was a tremendous, victory. And it helped to refocus us on who we really are. And then, in the current administration, what we are fighting is propaganda. We have a very strong economy, and yet we have forces, particularly in the media, that are trying to convince people that you're much worse off. things are horrible for you don't mind the fact that your 401k has increased in value by twice as much. And all the good things that are happening in the economy, the fact that manufacturing is springing back, the energy prices are heading downward, a lot of good things are happening. But fighting, those who want to fundamentally change their country, is very important. Trump's fighting them very vigorously. you know, I think it's good that he's pushing the SAVE act, for instance. you know, it Seems like common sense would tell you that you would have to have identity to be able to vote. And, just if you lived in a neighborhood and they were talking about putting in a swimming pool, a community swimming pool, and they were going to vote on it, would it make sense for people who don't live in the neighborhood to come in and vote on that? No, of course it doesn't. they're not the ones who would have to pay for it or be responsible for it. So that just gives you an idea of how illogical some of the positions that are being pushed and why people should challenge them. They should talk about why is that illogical? Why does that not make sense? Why does it not make sense to have men playing in girl sports? It's just things that are completely illogical are being pushed to the forefront and they try to normalize them. And, if people accept them as normal, it's not going to be long before you see really major changes in our society. Yeah.

Jenna Ellis: Ah, what a stark warning. And we have to take a break here, but my special guest this morning, Dr. Ben Carson, is going to follow through, the break and then we want to talk, talk about a fight, specifically Dr. Carson, that you and Wriley Gaines as well are pushing for when we're talking about education, the knowledge and the ideology of, truth and education in our public schools as well. So we will be right back with more here on Jenna Ellis in the morning with Dr. Ben Carson.

Jenna Ellis welcomes Dr. Ben Carson back to American Family Radio

Welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.

Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. I am here with my special guest this morning, Dr. Ben Carson, and we're talking about America 250, where we have been in the founding of this great nation that was specifically on a biblical Judeo Christian worldview and acknowledgement of truth, that our rights come from God, our Creator, not our government. And the sole legitimate purpose of any government, any civil government, is to preserve and protect those rights and how we're doing in America 250. And specifically that Christians need to stand up and fight to engage in the public square, to engage in our civil government, not forgetting that we must first engage in our churches in our families and ensure that we understand the theology and the knowledge of God as applied to our civil government, so that we're prepared to, to defend the principles of liberty, to of course, give liberty an answer for the hope that lies within us as Christians. And Dr. Carson, you are fighting the scrubbing of faith from kids, U.S. history books. And, this is really incredible that, a new report and this, according to Fox News, alleges that public libraries and publishers are censoring faith from the American story while actively pushing progressive revisionist history to young readers. And you were just talking, before the break about how we need to know the truth about American history, our founding, the good, the bad and the ugly, so that we can create a more perfect union. So what is your fight here?

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, you know, the Bible says in Proverbs 22, 6, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. But the Marxists understand that too. And that's why Vladimir Lenin said, give me your children to teach for four years, and the seed I sow will never be uprooted. We have to understand that there are people who intentionally try to take God out of our learning process for our children. And, myself, Wriley Gaines, Kirk Cameron, we've all written books, recently. In fact, we have a bundle. You can bundle them all three of them. Wriley Gaines book is called 1, 2, 3, we are free. Kirk Cameron's book is called Built on Bravery. Mine is called Built on Faith. And they are there to fight against those who are trying to rewrite our history to tell us that our founders were not people of faith. we have evidence that they were people of faith. George Washington carried a Bible around with him, all the time. Read it constantly. Jon Adams, our second president, said that our Constitution was designed for moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. Thomas Jefferson said, our rights come from God and cannot be taken away by government. On and on it goes. So when they say that they were deists, that they didn't really believe, that's not true. But they try to take all that stuff out of our, books. It used to be in the history books about the bulletproof George Washington. You know, he was a courier during the French and Indian War. General Braddock, all the couriers were killed. And Washington had two horses shot from beneath him. He had four bullet holes in his coat, but no flesh wounds. And he attributed that to God. And many years later, he was in the area, and one of the Indian chiefs said, I need to see that man. This was still before he became president. And they took him to where Washington was, and he said, sir, I'm an expert marksman, and I shot you 17 times and my men shot you. And pretty soon I told them, stop wasting their bullets. And I just wanted to meet the man who's protected by the great Spirit above and will become the father of a great nation. That story used to be in all of our history books until it was deemed politically incorrect and they took it out and many of the other incredible stories about the development of our nation.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah. And isn't it so tragic that it's a hijacking and a revision of American history to, to somehow project that the only successful revolution, because it was built on an acknowledgement not of turning to man and in and of ourselves and a rebellion, but actually a recognition of God's supreme authority, this was the only revolution that was actually successful and built the greatest nation, in the history of the world. And it's because we were founded on those principles and a recognition of God himself. And that could not have happened with men who were deists or who, read the Bible as, you know, just a list of wisdom verses or proverbs or you know, little maxims. I mean these were people who deeply believed. And now were they absolutely sincere perfect Christians? No, none of us are. None of us are perfect. We're all sinners fall short of the glory of God. But the, the theology and the understanding of the principles of liberty and God's supreme authority. I always go back, Dr. Carson. My favorite name of God that the founders used was in the Declaration, the supreme judge of the universe. I mean, it's just beautiful. And no one who isn't a Christian with at least an understanding of a knowledge of God could have possibly brought forth this great nation, obviously with his help.

Dr. Ben Carson: And when you say that to people, a lot of people say, yeah, but if we were a God fearing nation, we would have never had slavery. And you know, they say that that's why we were uniquely evil. But that doesn't take into consideration the fact that every society come back as far as you wanted, go back, has had to deal with slavery. So that didn't make us unique. What made us unique was the fact that we had so many people who vehemently opposed it that they were willing to fight a civil war and lose a large portion of the population to stop it. That's what our kids need to know. They need to know about the Underground Railroad where people from all races worked hard together, sacrificed a lot of things, sometimes even their lives to make a way for people to escape from slavery. And they don't talk about that. And you know, we need to tell people there's another side of the story. It was our Judeo Christian friends and the Quakers and the people who really believed the principles that are set forth in our Declaration of Independence.

Jenna Ellis: Absolutely. And to have literature that our kids are learning that specifically excludes faith, excludes theology and that worldview mindset that our founders had are leaving out the rationale and the bigger purpose of what our founders. And then throughout American history, so many of our presidents, I mean, we look at Lincoln and, you know, his great addresses and how he looked to the Lord as well, and that there was this common understanding. Yeah. Among our presidents, among our civil servants, and among our community and our society. I mean, the. As you mentioned previously, this notion of a separation of church and state that, that necessarily the state should be insulated from faith and faith should be excluded, rejects the truth of our history and our American history. And it's, it's irresponsible for libraries and for, you know, anyone who's looking at children's literature to exclude the. The rationale and the underlying worldview from being taught to children.

Dr. Ben Carson: Absolutely. It's really schizophrenic because, you know, when you think about the fact that our founding document, our very beginning, says our rights come from God, that our pledge of allegiance to the facts is we are one nation under God, that every coin in our pocket, every bill in our wallet says in God we trust, and many courtrooms on the wall, it says, in God we trust. It's throughout everything that we are, everything that we do. And then all of a sudden we say, but we're not supposed to talk about it. That doesn't make any sense. And, you know, we're dealing with common sense versus complete schizophrenia.

Jenna Ellis: M. It is. That's such a great way to put it. And you recently, posted this week on your X page. And by the way, a listener should follow Dr. Ben and his wife Candy at Real Ben Carson on X. And then you can also, go to the, American Cornerstone.org is the link that they have there. But you posted about.

Charlie Kirk says if we continue down road of political correctness, it will destroy America

The NewSong York legislature has passed a bill, and this is so ridiculous, to replace the term mother with gestating parent and father with non gestating parent in state law. It's not compassion, it's ideological nonsense that denies basic biology, that diminishes the dignity of motherhood and fatherhood. This is also just linguistic gymnastics. similarly to say that somehow, if we hijack our vocabulary, that somehow that can change reality, when in fact it doesn't. It just makes a mockery of our language and our attempt to communicate, well,

Dr. Ben Carson: you know, our whole obeyances when it comes to political correctness is a real Problem. You know, I talked about that the first time I was a keynote speaker for the Presidential Prayer breakfast back in 1997. And I said, if we continue down, this road of political correctness, it will destroy us as a nation. And you see how it's grown into the WOKE movement and how it's brought us to the point where we don't think logically, where we give consideration to absolute foolishness, things that we would have laughed at 20 years ago. And if we continue to do that, we won't have any principles underlying girding, who we are and what we do and we will continue to disintegrate as many other nations have. People should think about the fact that we are the nation, a young fledgling nation that became the pinnacle power of the world, that had the strongest economy in the world, is the place that gave the world the most life changing inventions, is leading in so many, arenas. Is that just a coincidence? And if you really stop and think about it, you have to ask yourself, what is it that was different and unique about that country, this country that allowed us to accelerate the way that we did? And do we want to take those things that led to our success and throw them away? And if we do that, won't we go away with them? Why don't people think about things like that? We need to challenge people, to think about things like that. And that won't happen if we remain silent.

Jenna Ellis: Amen. And I'm so grateful, Dr. Carson, that you are speaking out and that you have dedicated yourself and your life's work, of course, to the Lord and to pursuing truth. And you know, one of the, the things beyond seeing some of the wokeness that has infiltrated churches, as we talked about earlier, is this kind of godless populism that has characterized and I would say infiltrated the Republican Party because unfortunately we're getting a lot of people who maybe are pro America, but not necessarily, or in fact they declare that they are not principled and they're certainly not Christians. How do we combat that while trying still of course to maintain. I mean we need a majority of voters, that's just the simple math. But we need more Christians who understand this as deeply and as philosophically as you do, to be public servants and to engage in the civil realm where we're seeing so many in the current MAGA movement that don't reflect the principles of liberty, just maybe some of the the benefits like capitalism and other things, but they're missing the core foundation.

Dr. Ben Carson: Well Again, I think that the real problem is that those of us who do believe, believe the right things, are not courageous. They're not willing to go out there and put it all on the line. What you got to realize is, you know, the Bible says, if you follow the words of Jesus, you're going to be persecuted. And some people say, I don't like that very much. But when you think about it against the backdrop of eternity, what is a little persecution, like a little pin prick, Nothing to really be too concerned about. And, you know, that's where your courage comes in. And you need to talk about these things with people. One of the things that I loved about Charlie Kirk, he, wasn't afraid to talk to people. He wanted to hear from them. He wanted to hear why do you believe what you believe? And a lot of times when they were trying to explain why they believed it, they came to realize that they didn't really have any basis for their beliefs. but unless you engage people, then people will just continue to split off and go down their own, separate paths. And those paths will get further and further apart. And that won't lead to a United States of America. It will lead to a divided States of America. And Jesus said it, and it was echoed by Abraham Lincoln. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Jenna Ellis: Absolutely. Amen. And while the left loves to preach diversity, and their, totem hierarchy of, the oppressed and systematic racism and all of this stuff, they fail to see that we have to be united and we have to have a common worldview of our nation, and have a, as our declaration said, the unanimous declaration, of the 13 colonies. I mean, they weren't divided on their worldview and their mission that held truth as self evident, recognizing God as, ah, Creator and who endowed us with our inalienable rights. I mean, I can't imagine Congress today, being unanimous on almost anything, certainly not something as controversial as the Declaration.

Dr. Carson: I'm optimistic about what will happen post Trump

And you, know, so we've talked about kind of where America, is, is headed writ large. Where do you think? In your experience with The Republican Party, Dr. Carson, where do you see, the Republican Party specifically headed post Trump?

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, I think actually we have a pretty deep bench of, young people, who could do the job. Now Trump is a very unique individual. he's one of those people who comes along once every hundred years or more. but he's demonstrated some things that I think are very good. And I think we have a lot of young leaders who can step in and are courageous enough, to move us in the right direction. We're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but if we remember the principles liberty and justice for all and a nation that's under God, and a nation where we emphasize the family unit, as the building block for the community and strong communities make a strong nation, those kinds of things are held dear by several of our young leaders now. So I'm actually kind of optimistic about what will happen post Trump. That's assuming that we get there. You know, if there's a big loss and you have a lot more of these Marxist leftists get in place, they will put into place a system that will never allow another system to exist.

Jenna Ellis: Yeah. And this is why we have to be engaged. We have to have courage, as you said. Dr. Carson, I'm so thankful for your testimony, your willingness to stand up for courage and, and thank you so much for coming on.

American Family Radio audience prays for courage for America's next 250 years

And the last question for you. Would you be willing to pray, with me in our American Family radio audience for America's next 250 years and for courage?

Dr. Ben Carson: Absolutely. Heavenly Father, we're so grateful that we live in this country where we still preach freedom and where we still have it, although we recognize that there are threats to it. We ask that you would give us wisdom and give us courage so that we can preserve a nation that is free, where people can live according to their faith and not be persecuted. And ah, we know that a nation that honors you is a nation that will flourish and our nation can show the way to other nations. Because your love is not only for the people of America, it's for the people of the world. And those of us who love you also love everybody else. We want to do what is necessary for salvation of everyone in the world. Give us what we need in order to accomplish that. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Jenna Ellis: Amen. And amen. Thank you, Dr. Carson. And we'll be right back with more.

Jenna Ellis speaks with Dr. Ben Carson on American Family Radio

welcome back to Jenna Ellis in the Morning on American Family Radio.

Jenna Ellis: Welcome back. And what an amazing privilege, for us to get to pray this morning with Dr. Carson and to hear from his wisdom and also his encouragement. Looking forward to the next 250 years of America. If the Lord tarries and also the admonishment that we need to keep our republic and we need to rise up in courage as Christians and even through, whatever the left or the opposition or, you know, ultimately, the spiritual forces, we know this is a spiritual battle, throw at us. And I'm of Course, no stranger, to things being thrown at me. And what you ultimately do is to continue to walk in truth, never ever go against the truth of God and and ensure that, regardless of what happens in this life to us, as he mentioned, you know, persecution or even the worst, I mean even the stories of the martyrs, throughout Christian and church history have always recognized that this life is so temporary and obviously it matters. we have to be concerned about what happens on this earth because we want to reach as many people with the truth of the gospel of Christ. But as far as our own selves and our own lives, no matter what happens, the worst thing that could happen here is nothing compared to spending eternity with the Lord and hearing those words, a, well done, good and faithful servant. but this is also why we have to take the time to understand implicitly and wholly the truth of the gospel of Christ. A knowledge of the Lord, not just carry a passion for the Lord, passion, emotion is, is. But we have to have the responses, the arguments, the answers and the understanding of not only the truth of the gospel of Christ, which is the most important thing, but then how that translates to what we should advocate for, how we should live our daily lives, ah, that, that translates into how we understand how to operate our churches, how we are supposed to be members of a local church, how we are members of our friends family unit, as Dr. Carson was talking about. The family unit is, the biggest way that we can oppose the Marxist infiltration and the false ideology that is trying to sweep away a Western civilization by going back to the foundation of the family unit that God ordained, which is, between one man and one woman in the covenant of marriage and children that we train up in, the Lord and for the next generation. And we need to take those things seriously. The church government and the family government being good stewards, being good members, having good understanding of that from a scriptural, biblical, truthful perspective so that then we can engage in our civil government, not just to say, here are the things that Congress should pass, here are the things that the president should do, but also what the civil government should not do. We don't talk about that enough. I mean, how much we have over the last two hundred and fifty years really, abdicated to the federal government. I always talk about how the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, to our U.S. constitution and the Declaration itself recognizes that, powers of government are not just on the federal level, but reserved to the states and to the people. We actually retain as Citizens as individuals. Powers of government. What, what does that look like? Well, powers of operating our churches, powers of parenting and the family government and understanding, that we can educate our children and train them in the way they should go. We can exercise our faith without government infringement and intrusion. And we have to exercise our powers of government. That's what it means to be self governed, but under the authority of God himself. Because we are not the sovereign human beings while we the people, yes, retain all of our rights and we have specific limited powers that we provide in the civil realm to the federal government to operate we as a self governed, society and self governed individuals and family units are still under God's authority as much as the church and the civil government is. So in order to to govern ourselves according to liberty, according to truth, we have to be under the authority of Christ himself and under the laws of nature and of nature's God and recognize that authority. and this is where, you know, so many conservatives at times miss that point and they say, well I don't want to be under, you know, an oppressive civil government. And that's true, but they miss that we are supposed to be, and we are in fact under the authority of God himself. And we see that in the reality to which we are confined, in the reality to which we are presented. But we need TO necessarily, like Dr. Carson said, with courage, stand up and not only understand and recognize those principles of truth, but be able to articulate that and be able to advocate for that not only in civil society, but also in our church government system and also our family governments. I mean, family is the first time that you establish justice. You establish law for your family. I mean, you establish the difference between, you know, right and wrong, good and evil, of what you permit your family to do versus what you prohibit. I mean all of these things are so important to not only a well ordered society, but in, in order to advocate for our civil government, for our way of life. And ultimately not just because we're Americans, but because our country and our nation at its very founding recognized that the highest authority is God himself. And we have to renew, in America's 250th anniversary, renew that perspective and acknowledge that truth, that God himself is the ultimate sovereign and that we are responsible under Him.