All of the video and audio for the 2016 Word of Truth Conference is now available at the following locations:  VIDEO  and AUDIO.

This was year two on The Gospel.  Next year will also be the gospel, our third year on that teaching. We’re going to keep the normal dates, November 8-12, 2017.

Most of the 2016 Word of Truth Conference Audio Is Up.  Much of the Video Is Up Too.

When I consider all the shots I’ve taken for supporting Trump, it’s easy to understand that I don’t like Trump’s immorality.  I would have been fine with other Republican candidates winning the primary, but I still stuck my neck out for Trump.  A lot of people comprehend it, because they did too. Opponents want you to feel guilty for that support, attaching his immorality to your support.  I dislike it.  It isn’t true.  It’s really a cheap shot in my opinion.

I just watched thirty some minutes of the CBS 60 minute interview, posted at RCP, and Trump said one thing about the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade that I’ve never heard anyone say — no politician.  It says something about Trump that explains support from someone like me.  Before I mention it, Trump is someone who doesn’t sit and take it from the media.  He knows what they are doing and he calls them on it.  Very few, perhaps two or three, would do what he does, and no one as good as him.

Trump was asked about who he would choose for Supreme Court justice.  Maybe you watched, but he said, someone pro-life and someone pro-second amendment.  You put those together and you have now narrowed it down to a very, very small number.  It’s got to be a conservative person.  She asked, will the person overturn Roe v. Wade?  Trump said even if someone did overturn it, it would go back to the states.  She said, women couldn’t get an abortion.  He said, yes they would.  She said, they couldn’t get it.  He said, they’ll have to go to another state.

They’ll have to go to another state.  What other Republican would say something like that?  Who?  Maybe no one.  Those criticizing Trump, who can’t be happy about him, I guess you can’t be happy about that?  It’s sad really.

Only one comment really gave me pause, and that was Mat’s quotation of Proverbs 29:2.  I want to consider it for a moment.  I won’t squirm at all with it, but deal with it head-on.  I think people very often take wrong Old Testament texts.  We want to take them like the people in the day would have taken them, not just use them as proof texts.  Solomon, of course wrote that Proverb, the man with 300 wives and 700 concubines.  I’m not supporting Solomon’s lifestyle, but he would have been excluding himself, Mat would have to agree.  If he was thinking sinless perfection, that also puts everyone out.

The idea of “ruler” is mostly unlimited power, like a monarch, someone who has absolute authority.  If you have an unjust person in that position, people won’t be happy.  It’s got to be someone who will be fair, like Solomon was.  He wasn’t personally righteous, but he was a fair ruler overall, as you look at it.  The “wicked” person that makes people mourn, literally, sigh, is used in various ways.  It’s not always talking about someone who is “righteous,” like “justified.”  It is a person who isn’t guilty of crimes, someone who isn’t a criminal.  I think that’s it in this context.  People don’t want someone who will abuse his position of authority in an unfair way.

Hillary Clinton was a criminal.  She was a politician who used her position for political favor. That’s not someone you want in a position of authority.  People don’t get treated fairly.

I can tell you right now that the country was headed a direction where if you said you were a Christian, you would be persecuted.  If you said anything that was different than the way political correctness was going, you would get treated very badly.  Trump, I believe, will at least slow that down.  Or, we’ll have a more quiet and peaceable time, a more just time, fair time, and I will rejoice in that.

Is globalism righteous?  When someone can move a job overseas and then bring the product back to sell it without punishment to the person who lost the job, is that just?  If I’m against same-sex marriage, I should be able to show it without recrimination, shouldn’t I?  I could list pages of these types of questions that indicate the justice by which this election was voted.

When I supported Trump in the primary, it was because I thought he could win.  I thought he would win, and I wanted people to be prepared for that.  If you go back, you’ll know I was saying that.  I was mocked by a lot of people, very few of which are now saying, you were right.  Those people joined the mainstream media and about every liberal in doing that with them.

When someone, like Jon Gleason, says I endorse Trump, he makes it sound like I’m endorsing all there is about his character.  Everyone knows that isn’t true.  If someone were to say otherwise, that would be crazy.  It isn’t just to treat my support as anything but what I say it is.  That is righteous in the Proverbs 29:2 sense, that is, fair.

I don’t think Trump is repentant, because there is only biblical repentance, but he did say he was wrong.  He also said he regretted the failure in his marriages.  I know what he should do to repent.  I think someone can support him for president without supporting his immorality.

There is something to rejoice with Trump.  Mainly I say I’m happy he won.  I’m happy he won.  When someone uses “rejoice,” “righteous,” and “repentant,” those are loaded words.  All rejoicing is tempered and very focused.  He is righteous in that he is someone who will be just, certainly more just than the alternative.  If you save unborn children, that is just.  If you put in a conservative Supreme Court justice, the land will be more just by far.  Is he repentant?  He said he was wrong and he regretted.  That isn’t repentance.  All of that, however, still misses the point.  We are not even electing a ruler.  He represents one branch of government, and under his leadership, we now have something we have seen very, very rarely in our lifetime, a Republican house, Senate, and Presidency. Then with a conservative Supreme Court justice, we will have a 5-4 majority again.

I’m happy.  If you want to be sad, I still don’t get it.

One more thing to close.  If Hillary won, nothing would have changed for me.  I would still be and do what I’ve already been doing.  It would change nothing.  I’ll do the same whether it was Trump or Hillary.  However, I foresee it being a little easier with Trump, maybe a lot more easy.  We don’t know.  I would do the same, but it will be easier.  Quiet and peaceable.

I say, Praise the Lord.  It’s what I think.  We’ve been given something here.  We will have, it seems a Republican House, Senate, and White House.  Wow.  It was against great opposition, opposition I felt here, right here, from people.  You can be happy we don’t have Hillary.  It’s OK.  Be happy.  I’m very happy for a number of reasons.  One of the greatest is that my son is in the U.S. military and she won’t be his commander-in-chief.  I’m so happy about that for him.

This is the biggest political win in my lifetime.  I watched Steve Schmidt on RCP, the Morning Joe program, and he said it was 95% Clinton one day before, and he said it with a level of condescension and pompousness that’s hard to describe.  Someone like him should not be respected again as a political leader or pundit.  He pandered to that group and he lost.  He himself is a loser.  He should go away to a different profession.  He ran Republican campaigns and he said it with glee on his face, like a complete know it all.  People weren’t disagreeing.  He lost.  He should eat the biggest humble pie of all time.  I do want to hear it from any of them.  They. were.  all.  wrong.

George W. Bush did not vote for the Republican candidate.  The governor of Ohio, Kasich, what a repudiation of him in his own state.  These are people that I don’t believe thought this was coming. They were bold, I’m quite sure, with the thought that Trump wasn’t going to win.  All those Anti-Trump — Erick Erickson, William Kristol, Jeb Bush, Glenn Beck, and others — should pay for this disloyalty.  Some of them signed the pledge.  Maybe Trump will reach out to them (he did), but they should humble themselves.  That’s the way it should go.  Or perhaps, while everything is going really well, they could admit they were wrong.

People were saying Trump was going to lose, and saying that he would lose against someone easy to win against, worst candidate ever.  That’s easy to say. She won the democratic nomination with a very big machine.  She was popular with Democrats and they wanted her over Bernie Sanders.

Trump won.

We really don’t know if someone would have won easier.  We don’t know.  Trump fought back like I’ve never seen in a candidate.  He had more against him than anyone and he deserves credit for fighting.  He was very alone. He had very few surrogates.  Rudy Guliani.  Chris Christie.  Mike Huckabee.  Ben Carson.  Newt Gingrich.  He got Mike Pence above all, who won the vice presidential debate in a big way.  He had really strange surrogates, like Bobby Knight.  Almost everyone else ran away from him. It really was his family and a bunch of regular people, and they won.

It’s interesting to see people throw the Clintons under the bus now.  Now.  But they own the Clintons. Own them.  They are yours. The Obamas own the Clintons.  All those pundits own the Clintons.  Enjoy the Clintons, you.  You Sunday show people.  You Republicans, establishment, Colin Powell, you guys, embrace your people.  They are yours.  You must let the Clintons drip down your chin, like a Richard Nixon, worse.  She, they, are yours.  Own them.

If you read here, I’ve stuck my neck out for Trump.  I got a lot of very angry and heated opposition. When or if, but I’m saying when, we get the Supreme Court justice, the one we want, we will be in charge there.  It wasn’t because of you, Anti-Trump.  When you get it too, that justice, I hope you’re happy, because it wasn’t because of you.  I’m interested in the various spins now.  We’re already seeing them.

This election is surely a repudiation of the Clintons and the last eight years.  I guess all those celebrities didn’t work.  Wall Street didn’t work.  The media didn’t win it:  NY Times, Washington Post, even Wall Street Journal, CBS, NBC, ABC — all losers to the people.  The people said, no, to you.  Let that sink in.  It was the worst ever against a candidate, against Trump, and the American people stood up to them as a whole.  It wasn’t the Republican establishment. They failed.  Trump actually brought them through, when they wouldn’t do it.  You’ve got to say that now.  People are sick of it.  I was sick of it.

I recognize that Trump isn’t the solution.  I wrote that.  It is still the gospel.  It is still the true church. We can’t rest.  We should understand that we’ve been given some time, some time of peace, some time to work hard in the field.  Trump isn’t the solution.  I say it again.  It’s time to get to work, doing the work of the Lord — preaching and praying.

Part One

Some evangelicals, fundamentalists, religious conservatives, and political conservatives either will vote or have already voted for Hillary Clinton, a third party candidate, a write-in candidate, or skipped the presidential race altogether.  Trump announced on June 16, 2015.  Others were already running.  We’ve been at this over a year.  509 days.  Some will say 509 wasted days.

I’ve had plenty of time to read arguments for following the path of the anti-Trump crowd.  It’s not that hard not to vote for Trump.  You just don’t vote for Trump.  There, you did it, or didn’t do it.  Made your point.  Way to go.  I’m going to take their reasons why and deal with them in this post, not necessarily in any order, just as they come to mind.  I’m not going to assign representatives to these points of view.  Some of them are theological and some political.  I’ll separate these into the two categories of arguments.

THEOLOGICAL

Conscience.  I’ve already written about this.  I want to be helpful here.  Let’s argue that you are a spiritually mature person who can recalibrate his conscience.  The conscience operates according to the highest perceived standard.  If you are a Moslem, it accuses you of not praying your five times a day, even if that isn’t in the Bible.  If you converted from Islam, your conscience might tell you to keep praying five times a day.  You can take whatever energy and discipline that went into fulfilling that demand of Islam, and recalibrate it.  The same can be done with your standard for voting.

The “conscience argument,” as I’ve read it, is something like the following.  Trump is too bad or immoral a person, and when I vote for him, I’m compromising standards.  My conscience won’t allow me to do that.  It might even relate to conservatism.  I believe in conservative principles.  Trump violates those principles with his trade stance as an example.  My conscience won’t allow me to support his transgression of those principles.

I think it is possible to violate a conscience with a vote.  However, recalibrate your conscience by looking at voting standards at the most as non-biblical.  You are not supporting Donald Trump by voting for him.  Scripture doesn’t say who to vote for.  1 Timothy 2:1-2 does say the following:

I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

I ask, “How can I vote in a way that will allow for my family and me to lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty”?  If you are praying in faith for that, then you should vote for that too.  Trump is the best opportunity for that, so I vote for that.  Recalibrate your conscience to obey that standard, a biblical one.  Based on objective criteria, I believe that the anti-Trump voter, violates scripture.  He should recalibrate his conscience to scripture, which should be his highest perceived standard.

Hillary says, it takes a village.  Her village says same-sex marriage, no spanking your children, no preaching against homosexuality, and the end of home and church schools.  Not doing what she wants is akin to a hate crime.  That will not allow for a quiet and peaceable life.

Acceptance of God’s Judgment.  As I understand this anti-Trump argument, if you vote for Trump, then you are attempting to find a way out of God’s judgment, and you need to repent of that. Repenting of that is some form of anti-Trump vote, because it embraces judgment.  In this case, it can’t be voting for Hillary, but it must be one of the three other options.  That will still only help Hillary, but that’s OK, because that will still result in the judgment we deserve.  If you’re repentant, then you are receptive of God’s judgment, and a Hillary presidency is a full acceptance of God’s judgment.  This all seems very complicated way as a protest to what people don’t like about Trump.

It seems also with the complicated acceptance of God’s judgment, that only the Trump vote isn’t an acceptance of God’s judgment.  You are voting with him for less severe judgment, slower and less in your face.  You want things to be better, and you are relying on Trump, which is to be relying on something that gives a false sense of security.  Instead, you need to rely on God and that means judgment for America.  Judgment for America is someone besides Trump, because that will bring Hillary, which is to accept judgment.

My evaluation is that God’s judgment will come when it comes.  I agree it’s already here in the way of God turning America over to our own lusts.  That’s here already with same sex marriage and transgenderism and abortion as the solution of an unwanted pregnancy.  We can admit that we’re under God’s judgment and in a deserved way.  Participating in a bad vote is doing something to be judged.  It isn’t asking for judgment in a legitimate way.  I pray for God’s kingdom to come.  God’s judgment will come.  In the mean time, I want my days on earth to be the best they can be.  You should too. Trump is that way.

POLITICAL

Conservative Purity.  Trump isn’t my conservative party.  I have to have my conservative party.  I vote against until I get it.  I’d rather suffer defeats until the Republican Party learns to be more like me.  If we have to start completely over, it will be worth it.

There will never be conservative purity again.  It’s like the abortion issue.  If you want to do away with abortion, you have to vote for doing away with some abortion at least.  You can be happy about third trimester abortion ending.  You might not get what you want, but you can take the best you can get.  Some call this incrementalism.

Conservative purists seem to think that the acceptance of Trump means moving the Republican party the wrong direction.  Politics don’t work that way.  I understand not compromising theological convictions.  In the realm of politics, you work at getting the most you can get.  Trump represents that.  You only have to accept what you accept.  There is more to accept with Trump than there is Hillary, unless I’m missing something, which I think I am.

Here’s what I am missing, but since I’m writing it, I don’t think I am missing it.  The establishment Republicans like illegal immigration for cheaper labor.  They like some type of globalism in the way of removing the impediments to trade even with corrupt foreign nations, who also might rip us off in trade deals.  They like heavy overseas intervention, almost to an imperialistic level, what people call nation building.  They believe we can export conservative political principles, based on a wrong view of man’s nature.  Their view of a strong military means these types of activities.  This has become a brand of political purity that coops with conservative purity for a large confluence of anti-Trumpism. Even though they might not vote for Hillary, they see her as holding more of these values than Trump does.

Notice that our last two Republican presidents, George H.W. and George W. are voting for Hillary. Colin Powell is voting for Hillary.  Conservative purists, you join them, when they aren’t conservative purists.  Please don’t.

Trump Is a Liar.  Whatever Trump says he’s going to do, he’s lying about.  What he says is better, but you can’t trust him, so you can’t trust he’ll do what he says he will do.  He donated to Democrats.  He contributed to Hillary herself.  Once he uses Republicans to become president, he’ll shift left, and it won’t make any difference anyway.

The best argument against this, and I don’t quite believe the argument, because I don’t think he is going to lie to that extent, is that we know what Hillary will do but we don’t know what Trump will do.  Do you choose what you know is bad over what could be good or at least better?  Trump has published his Supreme Court candidates.  Trump will say he’s against abortion.  Hillary will never say that.  Trump is much more accountable for whatever lies he’s telling.  Hillary isn’t accountable for anything except to be worse than she is already.

Cynicism.  I hate it all.  I’m going to show I hate it all by not voting for either of the main candidates.

Can you for a moment consider whether some self-righteousness exists in portraying how much you hate Trump?  Hating Trump can make one look good.  Calling him a dumpster fire means that we’re what?  There could be spiritual or moral pride in saying or showing that you are “above the fray.”  It’s all beneath you.  You live in a different moral or spiritual dimension and you can’t enter to dirty yourself.  You don’t have to become tainted by voting for Trump.  You don’t like Trump.  You have a more severe dislike for Hillary.  It will work.  Put away the cynicism.

If you are a Christian, you can never love it all.  Love not the world.  His kingdom is not of this world.  While you live in this world, you are to be a wise steward, however, who uses his vote the best way possible.  Allowing Hillary to win isn’t a good use of the vote.  If you are in anything close to a battleground state, you’ve got to vote for Trump at least to defeat her and them.  You don’t even have to hold your nose.  Enjoy defeating her.  Breathe that in with both nostrils.

Part Two Will Be My Argument For My Vote

I’ll be writing about the election on Tuesday, Lord-willing, at least once, and probably twice.  If I write two, which I hope to, the first one will be against some of the thinking out there, that I don’t agree with.  The one more likely to come, even though it might be both, is explaining why to do what I already did (I already voted by mail) on Tuesday.

Events have occurred in this presidential election that are unprecedented in my lifetime, but also in all of American history.  Historians might point to three unique political occasions in my lifetime that this one tops.  I’m saying that too.  The three are Watergate, Bill Clinton impeachment, and Bush-Gore 2000.