Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1244 | Charlie Kirk Memorial Inspires Great Revival, 'Christian Nationalism' Panic from Media | Ron Simmons

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Today, we get a firsthand account of Charlie Kirk's memorial from Allie, who was in attendance. She also addresses the dangers of labeling the event as "Christian nationalism," while celebrating the members of the Trump administration who preached the gospel. Plus, we are also joined by guest-host Ron Simmons, who reflects on Charlie Kirk's legacy and the impact his assassination has had on families, especially parents. He also dives into the latest news from Capitol Hill, which includes a possible government shutdown. And finally, Ron answers some impactful viewer questions, ranging from mortgage rates and life insurance to when to stop having children. Get in touch and send your questions to Ron Simmons at [e-mail] Share the Arrows 2025 is on October 11 in Dallas, Texas! Go to ⁠http://sharethearrows.com⁠ for tickets now! Sponsored by: ⁠Carly Jean Los Angeles⁠: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.carlyjeanlosangeles.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Good Ranchers⁠: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.goodranchers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠EveryLife⁠: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.everylife.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Allie's new book, "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://a.co/d/4COtBxy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Timecodes: (01:45) Intro (06:45) Firsthand Account of Charlie Kirk's Memorial (12:35) Highlights from the Speakers (20:20) Forgiveness and Justice (27:15) What is Christian Nationalism? (32:20) Allie's Dad's Thoughts on the Memorial (47:05) Schumer's Government Shutdown (51:03) Viewer Q & A --- Today's Sponsors: A’del — Try A'del's hand-crafted, artisan, small-batch cosmetics and use promo code ALLIE 25% off your first time purchase at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://⁠⁠⁠⁠AdelNaturalCosmetics.com⁠ Good Ranchers — Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://goodranchers.com⁠ and subscribe to any of their boxes (but preferably the Allie Beth Stuckey Box) to get free Waygu burgers, hot dogs, bacon, or chicken wings in every box for life. Plus, you’ll get $40 off when you use code ALLIE at checkout. Seven Weeks Coffee — Experience the best coffee while supporting the pro-life movement with Seven Weeks Coffee; use code ALLIE at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.sevenweekscoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to save up to 25% off your first order, plus your free gift! Pre-Born — Will you help rescue babies' lives? Donate by calling #250 & say keyword 'BABY' or go to ⁠https://preborn.com/allie⁠. Range Leather — highest quality leather, age-old techniques and all backed up with a “forever guarantee." Go to ⁠rangeleather.com/allie⁠ to receive 15% off. Patriot Mobile — go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PatriotMobile.com/ALLIE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 972-PATRIOT and use promo code 'ALLIE' for a free month of service! --- Episodes you might like: Ep 1241 | The "Charlie Effect" Spreads Across the Country https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000726956449 REPLAY | My 2019 Interview with Charlie Kirk https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000726543411 Charlie Kirk: My Friend https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000726366944 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://alliebethstuckey.com/book⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

In the end, it was not the soft presence Christians, the compromising Christians, the quiet Christians that sparked the revival. It was the bold Christians, the Christians who relentlessly pursued and represented the truth, who pushed back persuasively against the lies of our culture. The memorial for Charlie Kirk yesterday was incredible. I was there. I'm going to give you some really special highlights and insight. But my dad is also going to give you the perspective of a parent. And he's also going to talk about the government shutdown. We're both going to give you our takes on Christian nationalism. Before we get into this episode, which I know is going to be so encouraging for you, I just want to say a couple of things. Number one, I have the absolute honor of filling in for Charlie Kirk

tomorrow on his podcast. So please tune in for that. I'm really excited to be able to do that. And then also on this show, Relatable. If you love Relatable, if it's met anything to you, or maybe if you're new here, if you would, please subscribe on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on Google Play, wherever you listen. It means so much. And again, I know I say this a lot, but it's because it's true. I'm just so thankful that y'all are here and I'm grateful for each and every one of you, especially in such an important moment like this one. This episode is brought to you by our very good friends at Good Ranchers. If you go to Good Ranchers.com, you'll get a discount on your order. Go to good ranchers.com slash alley.

Hey guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. My dad is going to join us in just a little bit, not just talking about his perspective on Charlie, but a lot of the things that you guys asked about other things that are going on in the world. But because I was there yesterday. I wanted to give you some highlights and give you my perspective. It's easy to see these clips on social media and feel like you were there and feel like you know what went on. And the clips on social media do give you a really good indication, but I want to encourage you even further as someone who had the privilege of seeing all of this up close and personal. There is something happening. Like the Holy Spirit is at work, y'all. And it will, and it

It was tangible. It was thick in that room. And so I'm going to go through some of the thoughts that I have. As well as to preempt some criticism that I know we are going to see from certain segments of Christianity and certain segments of the media. Obviously, I am recording this remotely. And so things look and sound a little bit different. But I'm also going to have to look down at my phone because that's where my notes are. So just FYI, if you see me looking down, that's what I'm doing.

and there are just a few things that I want to make sure that I say absolutely correctly that I'm going to have to read verbatim. Before we get into all of that, I want to remind you women out there, especially if you're new. Maybe you're new to Christianity altogether, because as we've seen the Charlie effect that God has used to revive so many hearts and awaken so many people, you've got so many people who now are interested in faith. They're interested in Christianity. They're going to church for the first time or the first time in a long time. And it can't just stop there. It's really important for it to start with that overwhelming feeling of needing something more.

But we also need teaching and we need encouragement and we need Christian friendship. And we need to instill in ourselves a love for God's word and a boldness for the truth. And that's what we hope to accomplish at Share the Arrows. Last year was our first year. 4,000 women joined us from around the world. here. We, so far, 5500 women are joining us from around the world. And we are so blessed and so honored and so excited to see what God is doing. Y'all, it's going to be amazing. We've got such solid Christian female teachers. We've got amazing worship. We've got incredible fellowship that's

going to be there. So go to share the arrows.com. When you go to share the arrows.com, you can see all the details. You can see all the speakers. You can see the schedule. This is October 11th, just a few weeks away in Dallas, Texas. It is going to be awesome. I cannot wait to see you guys there. Go to share the arrows.com for a discount. You can do Alley 20, and that is 20% off your ticket. So go to share the arrows.com code All right.

Let's go ahead and get into just this incredible weekend and this incredible day of not just honoring Charlie Kirk, but really glorifying God as much as possible. possible. Wow, what an amazing, amazing moment. First, deep-related bro and I, we had a uniquely crazy weekend. We are not usually as busy as we were over the past few days, but I just want to thank the Lord for his provision, for his protection, and for opportunities to share the gospel and to encourage so many Christians across the country in the last few days. Like, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for using me, for using all of you, no matter what capacity you're in, no matter if you have a microphone or if you are an employee, a student, a stay-at-home mom,

whatever stage of life you're in, God has placed us exactly where we are at this moment in history, at this spot of eternity, this speck of the earth, not arbitrarily, not accidentally, but providentially and purposely. And what an incredible time. What an incredible time to be alive. So just thank God every day for using you and using your capacity and your abilities and your sources to advance his kingdom. That is how things go forth by the unseen and unsung work of believers that God is working through with this Holy Spirit. So I'm just thankful to play such a small part in that, but what an honor it is to be a Christian and to be a part of this really special moment. I filmed something really special over the weekend, really excited about you seeing that.

I can't talk about it yet. But it was a great opportunity to share the gospel that will be very public that you'll see soon. And then we had the honor of going to Charlie's Memorial on Sunday yesterday. And as you saw, if you watched it, you haven't watched it yet, I really encourage you to watch the entire thing on YouTube in its entirety, huge stadium, tens of thousands of people there, but there were people camped out. There were people in long lines. We were sitting on the floor in front of the stage, but to the right, and we were in. in front of one of the big jumbotrons, and we were behind all of the presidential cabinet, which was pretty surreal to see these people who are leading our government sit here in honor

of Charlie Kirk and to like worship alongside them and to hear the name of Jesus proclaimed alongside them. Like I was just praising God in so many ways, in so many different times. The worship was really, really powerful. We weren't there for the entirety of the worship before the speeches started. However, we got to be there when Christian

Stanfill and when Brandon Lake were leading worship and then Carrie Joe was leading worship and then we had Chris Tomlin and I just want to give a shout out to them, by the way. I just want to give a shout out to all of those Christian artists because they're Christian artists

out there who are scared. They're scared. They're scared. to be perceived as political. They're scared to be perceived as divisive or controversial. And so they could have easily said, no, they don't need the money. They don't need the fame. They did it, not caring what people might say. And people will say, people will say this is some kind of like white nationalist rally, some ridiculous thing like that. And they decided that it was worth sharing those arrows. And it was worth taking the heat for that. And I just respect. Respect to those artists. and thank you to those artists. And to me, one of the most emotional parts, like, where I just shed the most tears,

first, I walked in, and it's just incredible. It's incredible how many people are there and how sweet everyone was. Like, usually when you have a crowd like that, you usually have some kind of crazy people, some kind of troublemakers saw zero of that, which was amazing. We also had, like, the most security that anything has ever had ever. but just an incredible feeling of camaraderie in there. And then I'm sitting on the floor. We get to our seats and I'm like, this is amazing.

I'm sitting next to Matt Walsh and his wife. I see all of these different commentators that I only typically get to see on the internet. And I'm like, this is so special. This is amazing. And then it just hits me why I'm there. Like, why I'm there is this awful, tragic, terrible reason. And as that's kind of like dawning on me, I'm looking around. The singing itself has stopped, but the music is playing.

And Brandon Lake is just standing on the stage and he's looking out. And all of these people spontaneously start lifting up their Charlie signs because everyone has these signs, white and red. And the white signs say Isaiah 6, 8, send me, I'll go, here I am, Lord. send me. And then the red signs have well done good and faithful servant. And the videographer has just this footage, this incredible footage up on the screen. And then after all of these signs are up, people are just raising their signs in solidarity with Charlie and commitment to being obedient to the Lord, the videographer then zooms in on this huge unfurled banner. of Charlie in a very victorious stance. And I just, I mean, I lost it. I lost it because it just hit me.

I can't believe that that is why we're here. Obviously, God is accomplishing something good. And I looked back at the stage and I could see Brandon Lake was crying. And it was such a powerful moment. What a privilege it was to be there. Like, I don't know that I ever would have thought that I would be in a room with President Trump, with the vice president, with, you know, all of of Daily Wire, Megan Cowley, Tucker Carlson, all of these incredible people in media and activism that I've loved and known for a long time. I don't know all of those people that I just listed, but known who they are for so long, worshiping together. I think I would have assumed that would only happen on the other side of eternity. But Charlie made it happen here on earth, and I got to see a

four taste of heaven, and I'll never forget that. I'll never forget that. I'm going to play you some of my favorite moments from the memorial in just a second, but let me pause, tell you about our first sponsor for the day, and it is seven weeks coffee. Y'all, seven weeks is America's Pro Life Coffee Company, and that's because they put their money where their mission is, where their heart is. They donate 10% of every sale of their coffee to pregnancy centers across the country, and because you guys have chosen to allow your coffee to serve a higher purpose, they've donated over one million dollars to pregnancy centers across the country that is translated into saving thousands of the lives, serving thousands of moms and dads, praise God, but don't just buy their coffee

for that reason. Buy it because it's really good and it's really high quality, pesticide-free, mold-free, as clean as it gets. They're called seven weeks because at seven-weeks gestation, that little baby, that little image bearer inside the womb, is that. the size of a coffee bean. So join their mission, get good coffee, subscribe. You can get a box of coffee to your front door every month. You'll save money when you do that. Plus, when you use my code Alley, you will get 10% off your order. So seven weeks coffee.com code Alley. Pastor. Pastor, who was considered Charlie's pastor, he kicked off the speeches and he did a really, really good job, Satu.

He's the king of glory. He's the prince of peace. He's the savior of the world. He's the living God. He's the God of all mercy and grace. The total embodiment of love. The total embodiment of truth. And he's here today to call his children back to him. Thank you, pastor. So good. He did an altar call at the end of it. I mean, people didn't come down to the altar, but at the end, He said, look, if you've made a profession of faith. And he made clear, it's not by your own works, it's only by grace through faith in Christ. Then raise your hand. And tons of people stood up and raised their hands. Praise God. And it wasn't just the people in the stadium who heard that millions and millions of people heard that.

And remember, the word of God does not return void. He sends it out. It accomplishes exactly what God wants it to accomplish. And God doesn't need us, but he chooses to use us as the means by which, as a means by which he draws people to himself. So incredible. All right. My friend Frank Turricks,

who is just an amazing apologist, he was there with Charlie when Charlie was shot because he was Charlie's mentor. And if you have not watched this YouTube video describing exactly what happened, then you've got to go watch that. He's an amazing man. And the Holy Spirit was speaking through him right here,

Sot 3. Now, I want you to know that Charlie right now is in heaven, not because he was a great husband and father, not because he saved millions of kids out of darkness on college campuses, not because he changed minds and chased votes to save the country, not because he sacrificed himself for his savior. Charlie Kirk is in heaven because his savior sacrificed himself for Charlie Kirk. Yes and amen. Like if you could have seen me, like I was basically like out of my seat nodding.

I mean, for us, Reformed Baptist, nodding ferociously as like as much charisma as you are going to get when someone is preaching. And I might clap and say amen. But I was amending that. Yes, Dr. Frank Turrick, thank you so much. God was glorified. And Charlie would have been thrilled in that. Okay. And can I tell you? Also, perhaps if I had to pick a favor, it's very difficult because truly I was moved in different ways by every single speech. I thought everyone did a really, really good job. But I was blown away by Secretary Marco Rubio. I was blown away by his passion and his clarity and his conciseness and sharing what Christianity is. This is the bedrock of what we believe.

And Marco Rubio articulated it in just an incredible way. I still, I get chills when I just think about it. Here's thought five. One of the things he wants us to take away from this, from all of this, is the following. His deep belief that we were all created every single one of us before the beginning of time by the hands of the God of the universe, an all-powerful God, who loved us and created us for the purpose of living with him in eternity. But then sin entered the world. world and separated us from our Creator. And so God took on the form of a man and came down and lived

among us. And he suffered like men. And he died like a man. But on the third day, he rose unlike any mortal man. And then, and to prove any doubters wrong, he ate with his disciples so they could see and they touched his wounds. He didn't rise as a ghost or as a spirit, but his flesh. And then he rose to the heaven, but he promised he would return. And he will. And when he returns, because he took on that death, because he carried that cross, we were freed from the sin that separated us from him. And when he returns, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. And we will all be together. And we are going to have a great reunion there again with Charlie and all the people we love. Oh, I loved that. I love that so much. I just thought he did a great job. I'm like, yes, I voted for you in the

2016 primary. I'd do it again. Just so incredibly thankful for that clarity. Vice President J.D. Vance, he also, he had a good speech. And he mentioned that, you know, he wasn't really one to talk publicly about his faith, but since Charlie was murdered, that's changed SOTSix. I have talked more about Jesus Christ in the past two weeks than I have my entire. time in public life. And that is an undeniable legacy of the great Charlie Kirk. You know, he loved God. And because he loved God, he wanted to understand God's creation and the men and women made in his image. Really good. I mean, may that be all of our legacy, that when we die, people can't stop talking about Jesus because it's what our life was about. And so in order to talk about you, someone has to talk

about Jesus. That's what I thought about when I heard Donald Trump Jr., who was super close to Charlie, who went up there and gave us some comic relief. And he was like, first he imitated his dad, which was really funny. But then he was like, to say, you know, Charlie knew more than me about the Bible is like saying Donald Trump knows more about being president than Kamala Harris. It's an understatement. But then he went on to honor Charlie's faith and compared him. And him to Stephen the Martyr, which is exactly the right comparison. And I thought that was beautiful. And he did that because he had heard Charlie say that he wanted to be remembered for courage for his faith. And so he honored his friend in that way, how Charlie wanted to be honored. And you could tell

from his speech, Charlie shared the gospel with the Trumps many, many times. And I just thought that that was really sweet. People who don't even follow Jesus had to talk about. about Jesus. Had to hear about Jesus because Charlie's life is about Jesus. All right, I want to play you this powerful clip from Erica Kirk. Before I play that for you, let me go ahead and tell you about our next sponsor. It's pre-born. This is another pro-life sponsor I'm so thankful for. They equip pregnancy centers across the country with the tools and the resources that they need to save lives. They, for example, offer they give sonogram equipment so women can walk into these pregnancy centers, see and hear their babies inside the womb and know that this is not just a clump of cells,

it's a real life, it's a human being that's a part of them that they have been given to take care of. Pre-born is in the business of saving lives. You can partner with them. You can be a part of that by giving your best gift today. And you can just give $28. And right there, you've covered the cost of this life-saving ultrasound. But whatever you can give is so helpful. Just go to preborn.com slash Allie, make your best donation today. Put your money where your heart is. Partner with them and saving lives and serving these moms and dads. That's preborn.com slash alley. All right, there were a lot amazing parts to Erica's speech. In fact, I thought one of the most emotional parts was when she just walked out. And she stopped before the podium. And she looked up to heaven. And she said Jesus.

And she said, Charlie, I was on the edge of my seat right there. Like I could feel like the Holy Spirit interceding for her through the prayers of other believers. I just could. I mean, there are just moments in your life when you're in corporate worship or you just feel so convicted to pray that it's undeniable, that it's the Holy Spirit. And I was like, I was on the edge of my seat. I was just like, I wish I could have been up there being like, come on, girl, you got this, you got this, you got this, that's like what I was saying. That's what I was thinking. I was praying. And then she got up, and she delivered a beautiful speech. And thank you God for that. And then she said this. And this, and this has stopped people in their tracks.

This is SOT 8. Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do. That man, forgive him. I mean, that is only possible with the Gospel of Christ. That is only possible when you know the depths that you have been forgiven. That sounds like foolishness to a very bitter in a dying world, because you have some people who think that when someone who looks like them dies or they perceive as a victim dies who will riot and will commit violence and will murder, and they think that that's

some form of justice or biblical retribution when it's 100% not. And by the way, Erica pointed that out in her speech that the responses have been so disparate. You've got violence over there and then over here you've got vigils. We're not the same. It's not left versus right. Ultimately, it is good versus evil. She pointed that out very well. She did a good job. That's really difficult to do. And I just, I'm thankful for that. And I just pray that God would continue to give her and her children and turning point strength. And there was a lot. Like there was a lot more that I could play you, but you should go watch it. And it was really amazing. Okay, then we have something that was very different from Stephen Miller, who always gives the tough words. Like you guys know, I love Stephen Miller's tough words.

Like, you can't shame me on that. You can't make me feel guilty. Like, we need tough people in government. I won't say sorry for that. We need tough people who will tell it like it is. And I think that tough talk is also needed. And I'm going to explain the dichotomy here. We just heard that incredible grace that was given to her by the Holy Spirit,

from Erica Kirk, and then we have something like this. And they might seem contradictory. I'll explain why they're actually not sought for. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing.

You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred, you are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce. nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create.

We are the ones who lift up humanity. You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk? You have made him immortal. You have immortalized Charlie Kirk. And now millions will carry on his legacy.

He's right. He's right. You don't have to like what he has to say, But he is right. And let me just distinguish something, okay? We honor the God-given forgiveness and grace and mercy that Erica showed and that only those close to Charlie Kirk have the ability to really be able to do for this guy who murdered Charlie. God gives him the power to forgive and to turn the other cheek. That is not the government's responsibility, okay? When Jesus is saying, you turn the other cheek, you've heard it said, eye for an eye, too. for a tooth, but I say to you, and then he talks about forgiveness and grace and mercy and turning

the other way and blessing those who persecute you and praying for your enemies and relieving people of the bitterness and resentment that you're trying to place on them. He's talking about our interpersonal relationships, okay? We give grace, the government bears the sword. We forgive the government restrains evil. It is a God-given responsibility by the God-instituted governments that exist to restrain evil and to punish wrongdoing. Okay, so we have to be able to hold both of those. Someone said, oh, Stephen Miller, that's Old Testament. Erica Kirk, that's New Testament.

No, no, no. That is not the case. Romans 13 is in the New Testament. In Romans 13, which is the Word of God, which means it's just as much Jesus's words as the rest of the Bible is, as the red letters are in the Gospels, says that the government is instituted by God and does not bear the sword in vain.

and the sword is a symbol of a method of execution. The government's God-given obligation is to reward good and to punish wrong. And in a good and righteous governance situation, they are defining right and wrong by the God who created righteousness, who embodies righteousness. Okay, so, like both of these perspectives are needed. I know a lot of people are hating on Trump and the thing he said about hating his enemies and all that. And obviously we should all pray for Trump to truly understand the gospel. However, the government is supposed to punish enemies of goodness who commit crimes and who hurt

people because it's not just about the people who are affected by it. It's about all of us. And it's about upholding God's principles of justice. And in this case, Genesis 9 tells us that those who purposely shed the blood of an innocent person, their blood has to be shed. So execution is the right and proportional punishment for someone who commits this kind of murder according to the God who created justice. Okay? So, like, I don't think we need to criticize Stephen Miller here. There is a place for this. There is absolutely a place for this. I thought this was a beautiful display of both patriotism and love for Jesus on display at the same time. And, you know, what you're going to hear and my dad's going to talk about this a little bit in a second.

But people are going to call this Christian nationalism. I saw someone already call this white Christian nationalism, which is just so stupid. Okay, I got a couple things to say about that. You can hear what my dad's take is. Number one, I don't care. I don't care. I do not care. And number two, make the person accusing you of that or this memorial of that to define Christian

nationalism. What do they mean by Christian? What do they mean by nationalism? What do they mean when they put those two words together? And then have them tell you where they got that definition. Number three, it's good to be a Christian and it's good to be a nationalist. A nationalist does not mean that you idolize your country. We should not idolize our country. We pledge allegiance to Christ first and then we love our country from that love that we have for Christ. Nationalist

just means that you put your country first and that your well-being of your country and its security and its safety and its prosperity should be prioritized before the well-being of other countries. And that factors into economic policy, foreign policy, immigration policy. But that is good. That is a way to love your neighbor. And so I know all these people are going to be calling you names. It does not matter. What a blessed mercy it is. Grace of God that we have people in the highest rungs of power in our government who love Jesus who are unashamed of the gospel. That is God's mercy. Be thankful for that. Be thankful for that. Be grateful that. Be grateful that God placed you in this country right now, providentially. to seek its welfare. Jeremiah 29 talks about Israelite exile seeking the welfare of the city that God has placed them in. God didn't place you here accidentally. We are to love our neighbors by doing everything we can personally and politically to make this a safer and more secure

and more righteous and more truly, biblically just society and country. That is, again, a way to love our neighbor. Politics matter because policy matters because people matter. politics affects policy, policy affects people, and people matter. And so loving your country, serving your country, pushing your country toward what is good and right and true, allowing your faith in the good God of the universe to be infused into all of your political ideas and how we think about policy is not only good. It is literally the only right way for a Christian to think. That does not mean that we are forcing people to believe.

That doesn't mean we force people to go to church. That doesn't mean we punish speech or punish beliefs that we don't like. But it does mean that every single law is informed by a worldview. And through debate and through this exchange of ideas that Charlie was so good at, we should be advocating for the Christian worldview to inform, in principle, to inform our policies. Progressives get to bring the fullness of their worldview to the table to inform policies about gender and abortion. Christians should too.

Do not let people use. this moniker of Christian nationalism to silence you or silo your politics and your cultural views away from your faith. Jesus' king is a total statement. He's king over our lives. He is king over the universe and we do everything we can to infuse the gospel into everything we think they do. Everything. You don't compartmentalize it. Okay. So let them call you what they're going to call you and make them answer for it. You don't even have to defend yourself. Know what you believe in why you believe and never be ashamed of the gospel in any way. Christians for 2,000 years have been seen as countercultural and too in, you know, too political or too divisive for speaking what God

says into a decaying culture. That's love and that's boldness, all right? All right. I'm about to hand you off to my dad. But before I do that, let me tell you about our next sponsor, Adele Natural cosmetics. All of their products are made in the U.S. They are completely toxin-free, all natural. This is skincare and this is makeup, and it's also good. I am wearing my Adele Natural Cosmetics Foundation, their cream foundation. It's really easy to put on. It blends so easily. And it gives you good coverage while still being lightweight. And I can just feel good, knowing that it is actually helping my skin as I'm wearing it rather than like weighing it down, clogging my pores. And I love their essential cleanser. I love their essential moisturizer. I use this stuff every day and have four years,

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I know our fall is super busy, and Allie and her family are busy, and, of course, with all that we've had going on in the last couple of weeks, it's just intensified. I want to thank Allie again for allowing me to do this, having me on. I know you just heard from her. Her and her husband were out at the Charlie Kirk Memorial, and her on-site view of that was just fantastic, and I know that you appreciated it as well.

I also want to thank obviously all your listeners and those of you that are watching on YouTube. Just appreciate you supporting her and what she's doing, but more than just listening to her praying for her. That's been so important. I don't know if you've ever had a situation in your life where you really, truly needed prayer from other people. I'll tell you, I've had that this year, actually, with a health situation that I had, which is all good now. But you can feel that. And I know Ali feels it when you're earnestly praying for her. You can see I'm in a little bit different studio today.

I'm not at the relatable studio. I am away on business, and I have my good friends at the Texas Public Policy Foundation have allowed me to utilize their studio today, and I want to thank them for that. And if you don't know who they are, I encourage you to look online, go find them. You can search and find them. They're the largest state-based think tank in the United States. So they focus on things public policy in Texas. Allie's spoken at some of their events and what have you,

and I have worked with them for quite a while on some issues. So thank them again for that. And if you're looking for a place where you can put some of your charitable dollars to work, I know that they will make good use of those in their efforts to make sure that we stay a conservative state here in Texas. And what happens in Texas, a lot of times ripples around the country. So even if you don't live here, what they do, probably has a long-term effect on what's happening in your state as well. So thanks again.

Well, yeah, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the memorial service. I do want to talk a little bit about the service, but more just about Charlie, specifically for a few minutes. You know, I think, and I was thinking about this yesterday when I was listening to it on my drive down to Austin, is that we probably witnessed. Those of you that either listen to that or watch the service yesterday, the largest single one-day Christian revival in the history of mankind at a memorial service. And it wasn't intended for that.

That wasn't why it was done. But the people that spoke speaking from their heart about a friend, not about a policy issue, not about politics, but about a friend and his love and faithfulness to our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, was just fantastic. I don't know how many people around the world were affected by that yesterday, but God knows. And I believe it's changed a lot of people's lives that service alone. And I'm so, so grateful for that. You know, I did a Facebook post a couple of days after Charlie's passing.

Lisa and I were on a trip when we got a call from Mally Beth about what had happened. we did not know we were out of the country. And that was one of those phone calls that you'll never forget. I can tell you that. Obviously, Allie and Charlie were pretty close. They'd kind of grown up together in this young conservative movement. She has spoken at a lot of his events, and they stayed in touch regularly. In fact, I'd met him a couple of times, but as I, and if you want to go read my Facebook post, you can, I'll pull out a little bit of it myself.

I didn't know him personally, but I felt like he was a part of our family. And the reason that I felt that way is because of the relationship that he had with Allie and an extension to Ali's husband. I can't tell you how many times that Ali would come to me and say, well, you know, Charlie said this or Charlie texted me this on a question that she had had, whether it's about policy, about media, or whether they have a discussion on, you know, biblical worldview, related items. I just, it was just amazing how much that they were in contact. And based on his answers, I began to trust him indirectly with her. And many times she would come to me and ask me a question, specifically, more specifically about the media business. And I would say, hey, why don't

you check with Charlie and see what he thinks about it? And she would, and he would obviously have a good answer for her. But that tells you how much our family trusted him, because I don't trust many people with anybody in my family as far as given advice and mentorship for, but that's how much we respected him. And that's the type of person based on what we even heard yesterday that he was. He did that for a lot of people. I don't know how he had enough time to do that, but he did. You know, and I don't understand what happened. Don't understand it at all. But I do remember a quote that I heard golfer Aaron Badley said one time in a Bible study that I was in. He had, we had watching this video and he was being interviewed by someone related to his faith.

And he said, you know, God promises us the peace that passes all understanding. That's a promise. That's a promise in the word. However, sometimes we have to give up the understanding to get the peace. and that just hit me when that happened when I listened to that a few weeks ago and I wrote it down and stuck it on my computer because I need to remember that because I always want to understand. Okay, just let me understand.

If I understand it, I can generally kind of get through it. Not understanding it really sometimes bothers me on a lot of situations. And this one's no different. But remembering that quote that if we real, sometimes if we want the peace, we have to give up the understanding and have the trust. that as the Bible says, all things do work together for the good, those that love the Lord. So anyway, the other thing that I put in my post, and I know that all of you believe this as well, and certainly this is not removing or belittling anything related to what we need to be doing

for Charlie's wife, Erica, and the two kids as far as praying for them and lifting them up, we need to do that daily base. I can't imagine the devastation that Erica fills and really over the long term that those kids of his will feel by not getting to have that full relationship with their dad. But I also think about his mom and dad. You know, Allie is in the same world in a sense that Charlie was in. Probably not as much on the political side, but certainly as much on speaking the truth, which a lot of people don't like. and I can't imagine the devastation that we would feel if something happened. And I know that his parents just have to be really, really, really hurting.

You know, we're kind of our psychological system is set up to watch certain people pass away and realize that's just the cycle of life, right? Like our parents, you know, my dad is still alive, thank goodness. My mom passed away a few years ago. And it was sad when she passed for sure, but it wasn't something that we didn't expect going to happen at this stage of her life. But we're not set up psychologically to see our children pass away or our young husband or our young father.

And so the ability to overcome that and move past that is much more difficult. And so I just would ask that you, when you think about them and maybe when you you know, have interaction with your own parents that remind you to pray for Charlie's parents because I know that they are suffering greatly as well. What I think is going to come out of this on the negative side, and it's not a negative as far as you and I are concerned, but the media is going to make it negative. It's probably already happening, and that is they're going to look at that service yesterday and talk about Christian nationalism. Now, Ali's talked about that, and she may have some more

to say about that in the next few days. But that's what they're going to claim this was. Because all of the people whose job happens to be in our government gave their testimony and talked about their faith in Christ, they're going to say that's Christian nationalism. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's the furthest thing from the truth, okay? What Christian nationalism is, is if you're trying to set up a theocracy, which that is not what is going on in the conservative. movement. Not at all, not the Republican Party, not in the conservative movement. A theocracy is what happens in a lot of these Muslim countries, which is happening like

in Afghanistan now with a Taliban or what happened or what's going on in Iran. Those are theocracies, right? That they apply their rules, not even biblical, of course, to society. That's not what's going on here. What happened yesterday was that men and women, who have jobs like you and I have a job, but also happen to have a deep Christian faith. And they were simply up there explaining their faith and honoring Charlie's faith and encouraging other people as a fellow brother in Christ or sister in Christ to have that same faith. They weren't saying, hey, as Secretary of State, you need to be a Christian. That's not what at all.

Mark Rubio, and what a sweet message he gave, he laid out the gospel. As a follower of Christ, this is what I believe, and I would like for you to consider believing this as well. And this is what Charlie believed. So do not be put aside by the left trying to say, this is all Christian nationalism. That's the furthest thing from the truth. It's nothing but spouting lies that come directly from the devil. And don't ever forget that. The last, the other thing that on this subject, or the last thing on this subject I want to talk about is you're going to, we hear a lot about free speech, okay? And it kind of came out of the, you know, Charlie got killed for speaking in a place where he was invited to speak, okay? And a crowd that he was, that invited him to speak there. And he was

killed because of his beliefs and his speech. And he was encouraging actually counter speech. And what's happened is you see with a lot of people that were celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk, some of them have been terminated from their employment. And so there's this all big blow up on the left, which is super ironic based on how they tried to cancel all of us during COVID. and after the George Floyd stuff and all that. But they're saying, well, you know, firing Jimmy Kimmel from a late night show, you're violating free speech. No, that's not true. Jimmy Kimmel can say whatever he wants to say, all right?

Now, there are some limits on that. For example, the Supreme Court says you can't go into a theater and holler fire. That's not free speech, okay? But Jimmy Kimmel can spout his opinion on the death or on Charlie Kirk specifically. However, he is not guaranteed by the Constitution to have a job at ABC. And even Stephen Colbert to have his job, okay? You aren't guaranteed to have a job at your company if you have speech that they believe, they disagree with and could have a negative effect on that firm.

There's a book out there written by Rod Smola, who was the former president of Fermin University, called The Constitution Goes to College. I would encourage each of you to get that. It's a very small book, and it was written just a few years ago, when all of this talk was about free speech in college campuses and free speech, some of the professors were saying some things that were very degrading to conservatives, and some of them lost their jobs. And they were saying, well, that's a violation of free speech. No, you can have the speech, but you're not guaranteed to keep your job or to be involved in the same things you're involved in. that the people there don't want to associate with. So don't, don't misunderstand free speech.

You can say what you want to, but you're not guaranteed to be able to say it and keep your job or your association that you had before you said it. So just remember that. That's really important to do. Okay, quick pause from that analysis from my dad to tell you about range leather.

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And it's really unique. Again, another Christian family-owned company that, It's making excellent stuff. So we need to do what we can to support them. A lot of times I hear people say, well, why aren't Christians doing this? Christians should be in this realm. Christians should be competing here. Well, they are, but we just have to know who they are and then support them so that we can

have more and more of these companies that are explicitly glorifying God in a completely unapologetic way. Plus, their stuff is awesome and lasts a lifetime. Go to rangeleather.com slash alley, and you will get 15% off any product that you order. that's range leather.com slash alley. Let's change subjects a little bit. Let's talk about the Schumer shutdown. And what I mean by that,

it's the potential shutdown of the government. And that's a little bit of a misnomer. But I will tell you, it lays directly on the hands of Schumer because the House passed a continuing resolution to keep the government up and running for the next few months while they work out other details. But Schumer and his cronies,

Okay, and a few, a couple of our people on the Republican side, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski voted against the Republican proposal as well on the Senate, which I'm not exactly sure why. Markowski's a pretty far left guy, left lady for a Republican, and Rand Paul has some very, and good thoughts, okay, nothing wrong with them, very good thoughts relating to spending and what have you, and I don't know the specific issues he had with this, but I respect him quite a lot.

But what does really a government shutdown really mean? Okay, I want to make sure that people don't panic over this. All right, first of all, it's going to be okay. There's not a lot you and I can do about it. This is what we elected our representatives for. Of course, you should always voice your opinion to them, and that's totally fine to do that. But just remember that all of the essential services

that are provided by your federal government, of course, it doesn't affect the state governments, but your federal government continue. For example, public safety, like military and those types of things. Border Patrol, all of those still stay in place. Air travel, you know, the FAA is not going to shut down air traffic controllers. They can't go on strike. So air travel is all good. Your mail will still be delivered. Social Security payments happen. Medicare, if you've gone to the doctor and they submitted a claim for Medicare, they'll still pay that.

Same way with Medicaid, that all still happens just the way it has in the past. Disaster, if you happen to have a hurricane or something like that, or there's a fire somewhere, it doesn't affect disaster recovery. In fact, everything that has a specific appropriation, what they call guaranteed spending, or mandatory spending, those services continue. And did you know that that represents two-thirds of the entire federal budget is mandatory spending? So while there's going to be a lot of, you know, sticking their chest out and pounding their chest and, you know, they want to do this and they want to do that. It's not something that I would spend a lot of time worrying about.

I do not want the Republicans to go backwards on the Medicaid reforms that President Trump put in or the removal of the spending of some of these aid packages that were just totally ridiculous. And also, I do not want them to extend permanently the Obamacare subsidies, which do run out at the end of this year. never supposed to be long term. They were only supposed to be temporary. So don't spend a lot of time worrying about that. Now, if you have a mortgage loan that's federally backed or you're doing an SBA loan and the government shuts down for a few weeks, those could get slowed down a little bit, but the main essential services will stay in place. So not something to spend a lot of time on, but this is clearly right on Chuck Schumer's shoulders. There's no question about that. And if he

decides to shut it down, then, you know, he can shut it down. He's talking about, well, we want to negotiate with the president. Well, President Trump's already said, I'm happy to have a meeting. I don't think it'll change my mind, but I'm happy to sit down with you. You know what? That's all he can do. You can't. Just because the other side wants something, doesn't mean you say yes.

It means that you should listen and you should try to find points of agreement. However, if there's not, then that's what elections are for. And Republicans right now are in the majority. And so, therefore, you know, the Democrats can't get everything they want. We've been on the other side of that many times. So that's the way our system works. Again, messy, but still the best system in the world. All right.

Talk for a little bit about some of the questions that have come up. You guys are so great at sending questions when Ali asked for them, and I want to answer as many of those as I can. Now, I might not get to all of them. So if I don't get to all of them, then please you can always email me directly at Ron, at ronsimmons.com and they'll put this in the show notes. You can email me directly and I get several emails a week and I really enjoy doing it. If I don't get back to you within a few days, please email me again because that means I've missed

it. You know, like a lot of times it gets down on the next page and I forget about it or what have you, but let's go through some of those. I've got them here on my phone. Allie sent them to me so I want to pull those up real quick and we will go through those. Interest rates was one of the big ones. You know, they just dropped the interest rates a little bit last week, and I think they'll drop them some more this before the end of the year.

I think that they need to get them down, well, they need to get the Fed rate. In other words, what the Fed loans is the rate where they loan money to banks and other places, they need to get that down into the under 5, into the 4% range. I don't know they'll ever go back down to the 2% range like it was at one time. But under five, I think, would be a good rate to be. That will get mortgage rates down close to the 5% level. That would be really, really good. Right now, I just saw where they've gone down a little bit, 6.25, I think I heard.

And so I think they'll continue to lower them. Now, the challenge is that the Fed lowers them, and they announce it immediately, it takes a little while to get through the system, but it should get through the system in the next couple of weeks. Now that also, though, has an effect on your savings, like your, if you have money on a CD or in a bank or a money market fund, because the Fed rate interest rates go down, those will go down as well. So those of you that have money in savings accounts, you want to pay attention to that to see how much that drops. It, again, you think if the Fed dropped the interest rate that they loan money out on goes down a quarter, that the money that you can make on your savings

would only go down a quarter. But sometimes, It doesn't work like that. Sometimes the banks, if they can, will want to pay you less on your savings and keep collecting the same amount from people that have loans against them. And so you got to just look around. You may have to look at some other banks or some other opportunities for that. But I'm monitoring that, and I do think that the economy, certainly the housing industry, needs it.

You know, last time I was on, we had some questions about housing, and we saw a video clip of a guy that was talking about how he couldn't afford it. And while it's not exactly the same, I do remember having some similar challenges when Lisa and I first got started, mainly because interest rates were so high. I mean, I think I told y'all that our first home interest rate was like 13%. Well, if you're paying 6% now and we pay 13%, that means we could only buy a house that cost half as much because we couldn't afford the payment and what have you. So I do know that that's a big problem. And I, I do know that that's a big problem. I do know that the administration is working on that.

You know, it's expensive to live, especially if you live close to a large metropolitan area. It's more expensive. To the extent that you can work from home, I would really strongly consider moving out to a smaller area, smaller city, smaller town, maybe even rural area where things are a lot less expensive and you can work from home anyway so you don't have to have that commute. I know that several times in my career, we moved further out to be able to afford the home that we needed for our family. And I had a longer commute. Now, I traveled a lot, so a lot of times I was just going to the airport.

But it was just the sacrifice that me as the father decided to make. And dads, you may have to make that sacrifice. And moms, you may have to do some of that as well. But if you can work from home, and I would really encourage you to consider anyway moving out a little bit further so you can get – and you can't afford a home where you live. move out to get one where you can't afford. But hopefully this housing scenario will correct itself. Those things generally do, not always in the same timing that we want, but they generally do correct themselves through just the normal markets of supply and demand. Last sponsor for the day is Patriot Mobile. Patriot Mobile is America's Christian,

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slash Alley, you can make the switch today and you will get a free month of service when you use my code Alley. PatreonMobile.com slash Alley, code alley. The other question that I get is should we trust the FBI's investigation into Charlie Kirk? Well, well, you know, I think we should always be skeptical of investigations by our government. Does it mean that all of them are corrupt because they certainly are not. In fact, probably the vast, vast majority are straight down the middle like they should be. But I do believe that we should always ask questions, be skeptical, you know, encourage our media to be transparent and to dig into this. And we, though, I believe that just because everything doesn't make sense doesn't mean there was a conspiracy all right now sometimes it feels like a

conspiracy because there is a conspiracy i don't know of any such any scenario in this situation that is that has shown that yet but i just read where director patel is they are following all of these leads and there are some questions out there about you know text messages that were sent and people that visited the home before leading up to the murder and all that type of stuff. So I just think that we watch it, process it go through. Try not to believe everything you read on the Internet. I mean, even coming from your friends, that it's just people just speculate so much without having the facts. So try not to do that.

Listen to Allie. I know that she'll stay on top of it. There are some other people you can listen to like Bill O'Reilly that she's had on her show that really deals with the facts. so try to do that as opposed to following, you know, just random things that happen on the internet. The next thing, the next question is, is it okay to decide to quit having children? And this person that called in said, we're already at four. And well, that's a very personal decision, but surely it's okay.

Yeah, absolutely. That's up to you. And that's a decision that between the husband and wife and through their seeking the Lord's will in that, it's totally up to you. There's not a, there's not a, you know, a biblical command that says you must have X number of children. Now, I know that Charlie would say, here's what you do. You know, you find someone that you can marry, get married, you know, have faith in God, have children, right? And so, and I agree with that. And, you know, Lisa and I had three kids. Ali has three, our oldest son has three.

My little son's not married. But that's up to you. But it's certainly okay. That's not something that you have to feel like you're forced. Now, if God's calling you to do that, to have more kids, then man, go for it. We need plenty of young children that are growing up in a Christian home that, you know, believe in God, believe in this country. and what it was founded on. But that's an individual

or actually a couple decision that you need to make. This next question I thought was really interesting, and I'm glad you asked it because it is true. The question was, why do so many baby boomers, which are people in my area, people that were born between 1946 and 1964, why do so many of those,

what we would still, or maybe former call, or currently still call Republicans slash conservatives, is why do they have Trump derangement syndrome so much? I don't know the specific answer, but I can give you my general opinion on it based on my observation of people and my, you know, experience in a political world and in the business world. And that is, we grew up in an era where we grew up in the Ronald Reagan era, right? And so Ronald Reagan went about things much differently than Donald Trump. Trump does. His personality is different. His approach on things are different. Their underlying

goals are very, very similar, okay? Isn't that they believe that, you know, the worst thing you can have say, heard from the government is, I'm the government and I'm here to help. I remember President Reagan said that. I know President Trump believes that in a lot of ways also. And so we measure how someone that we respect in the highest office in the land should conduct themselves. And so when someone conducts themselves differently than that, and President Trump really is the first person on the Republican side that has conducted himself in such a different way,

that we automatically are, you know, that's kind of a, I'm not sure about that. And I remember when President Trump first ran, I certainly wasn't sure about that. I'm like, seriously, this guy, I didn't really know. I mean, I know who Donald Trump was, but I didn't know him. And I hadn't spent much time thinking about him,

didn't watch The Apprentice, didn't keep up with him or anything like that. But I think what happens is that, so we measure Donald Trump and how he conducts himself against Ronald Reagan, and we don't like that comparison. Now, on the bottom line is, most of those people that say have Trump derangement syndrome, they really do agree with his policies, even if they're not willing to admit it.

they do. And so I just think that's the reason. I, you know, just because I've been more engaged and involved, I've gotten past all of that for sure. I saw, I, you know, somebody once said, you know, I can't hear what you say for seeing what you do. And that's the way I had to do it with President Trump. I had to roll off some of the stuff he said. He says a lot of things I would never say. But when I pull all that back and I look at what he's done and the people he's, he's, surround himself with oh man in fact right now i think he probably has the strongest cabinet and the strongest uh group of appointees that any president that's been conservative could ever have had so very very pleased with that and uh all of these appointees that

they said weren't qualified have certainly worked out i think pretty well so far and i think they'll continue to work out work that well also uh the questions also should we get life insurance on kids i've gotten a couple of emails on life insurance Let me explain to you what life insurance is, okay? And this seems oversimple, so don't, I'm not trying to be sarcastic. But life insurance is simply that. It is set up so that if something happens to someone who need, who, who, who, who, is providing a financial value to your family, then life insurance on

that person can be important if you don't have other assets that would take the place of whatever financial value that they had. For example, I used to have quite a bit of life insurance when I was younger because if something happened to me, Lisa was a schoolteacher and most of the time I stay-at-home mom, but a school teacher by training, she could not replace quickly the income that I was bringing to the table every year. So I needed to have enough life insurance where that, you know, she could continue to have a reasonable lifestyle with the kids if she if she even if she didn't increase her income at all but once that we were able to have our savings and then my company grew and that had value in it once that equaled or exceeded what I

knew if something happened to me that I left her with these new assets that she could take care of herself then I didn't need that life insurance anymore. So several years ago, I took, I took my life insurance away. I don't have any life insurance other than something attached to a long-term care policy that I have. And so when you ask about do you need life insurance, just in it, let's say that I, let's say that even, but even when our kids were little, I also had some on Lisa because if something happened to her, I needed to keep working, but I still needed to help fill her, fill the shoes that she had as a caretaker of our children and home and those types of things. So I had some life insurance on her because I knew I

would have to go out and, you know, pay for that. And so that's the way you need to think about life insurance. Now, when it gets specifically, should I have life insurance on your children, I did that when they were very young. I bought a small policy on each of them. At the time, it was a universal life. It wasn't strictly term, wasn't strictly whole life. It was a universal life policy. and then what I and I did that so that they would have life insurance that was guaranteed for them, meaning that it couldn't be canceled on them as long as the premiums pay because they may have gotten to a situation where they had a health scenario where they couldn't get insurance, but they would have that insurance again for the same thing, not so that Lisa and I would benefit,

but so that if let's say they got married, then their spouse would benefit from that if they passed away, you know, prematurely and what have you, while they still needed the income that my kids were making. So that's up to you. It's cheapest to buy it when they're young. You know, I think it cost me $300 a year or something like that to get them each $100,000 policy. Now, when they got married, I just turned that over to them. And whether they kept it or not, I don't know. It's up as it was up to them to do that. But that's what I did. And it's obviously your choice. the next question is it okay for me to quit my $100,000 a year job to be a stay-at-home mom and live on my husband's $60,000 a year job as a policeman.

Again, very personal choice. There's not a right or wrong answer generally for that. There is a right or wrong answer for each person's family, and you just have to be willing to, if that's something that you feel called to do, then you need to obviously honor that call. But you may not be called it. Just because other people who do it doesn't mean that's what you should do. But you also, though, if you do do that, you have to be willing to adjust your lifestyle to live at a $60,000 level.

And it can't be one that complains all the time about us not having enough money. You have to be very satisfied with being at $60,000. And that based on you haven't, you know, your income being $100 and your husband's at 60, that means you're going to have to give up $100,000 worth of something, whether maybe you were saving all that money, okay, that'd be great, but you probably weren't. You could probably have had, you know, probably may affect the type of house you lived in, the type of activities that you, you're in a family could do, the types of vacations. If, if you feel called to be a stay-at-home mom, then yes, you should do that, but you have to be able to adjust your lifestyle with joy,

with joy to the new scenario. If it's going to be one that's going to cause super extra stress in the home, then you have to really evaluate whether or not that's something that you were called to do or you just wanted to do it. But just remember, all of our decisions come with consequences. And the consequences of following the Lord's will is long-term, long-term joy. But you have to be willing, if that's what you're called to do, to make sure that you have that and you understand that going into it. Here's one that's kind of tough, but I'm just going to tell you my tough answer.

The question was, hey, my husband's stepfather is really mean to our children. So his step-grandchildren, what should we do about that? Well, first or obviously, first thing is your husband has to have a conversation with him and has to say, look, you're not going to be mean to my kids. Okay, you're not going to say mean things to them. If you're going to say mean things to them, then you're not going to be a part of their life. And his mom has to understand that as well. doesn't mean the mom can't come see them or they can't meet the mom somewhere and spend time with the grandmother.

But I'm not going to subject my kid, my grandkids to my, whether it's my biological father or my stepfather, that he's going to, in my opinion, verbally abuse them. Just not going to do it. I'm sorry. I'm not going to do that. And you shouldn't either. And if the stepfather is not willing to change, then you have to remove them from that situation and figure out another way. the grandmother is someone they have a good relationship with figure out another way to do that now

that's going to cause tension between your stepfather and your and your mother but that's not your issue okay that's their issue that's not your issue and remember that uh the next thing is how do i help my husband find jesus wow that's a hard one and again um we can't help jesus come we We can't make Jesus come into his life because Jesus says, I stand at the door and knock. And whoever answers, I'm willing to come in, but your husband's going to have to answer. My answer to you is keep living your life honoring Jesus and honoring him. Obviously, if he's abusive, which you didn't say that in your question, so I assume he's not, then you're not required to stay in that situation in any shape, form or fashion.

but the way I think that the best way to do it is if you're trying to, don't try to force him to do Christian things, right? Like go to church or do this or do that. You help him encourage people that you know to be good, solid men to get involved in his life. Maybe you know some couples, you know, through the wife where the husband is a solid Christian. And you can encourage that guy, hey, why don't you, why don't you. don't you call my husband, they all go to lunch sometime, or hey, he likes to play golf, why don't you go play golf, or he likes to hunt once you do that. And you don't want the guy, you don't

want your friend's husband to, you know, jump on him right away and say, well, hey, tell me about your faith. You want them to build a relationship. And then they had the opportunity for his heart to be open to something that Christ would be willing to walk into. And then you can build a discipleship with that. So that's what I would do. And obviously that's something that I know is heavy on your heart and it's not a light matter. But you continue to live your life. And then you try to get other Christian men that you know to engage with him on a friendship relationship basis and let God take it from there. All right. This next one, the last one that I'm going to read again. If I didn't read yours, please just email me back. And I'm happy to answer yours.

is parenting boy toddlers. Well, the first thing I'd tell you is make sure your house is totally rubberized because it will be destroyed. There's no question about that. Our boys were pretty good. They weren't super, you know, off the chart wild or anything like that. But boys need to be able to experience danger. And when I mean by that, not danger in a way that you know they're,

obviously, if the thing goes wrong, they're going to get their. really going to get hurt. But they need to be able to have their knee scratch. They need to be able to, you know, have conflict with friends and what have you. They need to be able to, you know, dig in the mud, do all those types of things. Now, I do think there's a limit on how angry you can let them be with each other. Because I do think no matter what that brothers need to treat each other with respect. Okay? They may have different personalities and they may fight quite a bit, but at the end of the day,

they need to teach each other with respect. And you have to teach them to be able to do that. Outside of that, you kind of have to give a little bit of rope so that they, you want them to develop their masculinity. That's part of developing masculinity. We've demasculized so many boys, you know, in our country and young men that they don't know how to be boys. And we need to make sure that we're encouraging it.

They need to be outside, okay? All of you that have kids that live totally in the city, you've got to get them in some way you've got to figure out of the city, get out to some rural areas, let them run, play, do whatever, take them to hunt, take them to fish, you know, camp out, all those types of things. You've got to be able to do that so that they can, that's just a natural thing for them.

They learn to be a protector. They learn to be a hunter. They learn to be a gather. Those are all things that are just really important to become a young man. and this starts when they're when they're little boys so do that now just a few more things we're wrapping up here for the day but I always like to do wisdom from the wagon and most of you have heard me talk about my book life lessons from the little red wagon if you haven't read that please go to audible and get that or go online to amazon and get it if you like to have the hard

copy book just let me know I can also happy to if you won't want to email you one I think they cost 20 bucks or something like that and I'll happy to autograph it for you but life lessons from the Little Red Wagon. So I call this last bit section, wisdom from the wagon, all right? Wisdom from the wagon. And one of those pieces of wisdom is what books are you reading? What book would you recommend? Well, you know, we've already talked about one of them, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today. What I'm talking to talk about today is there's a book by Tim Keller and it's about every good endeavor. Okay. And I don't know, listen, these people,

When I recommend a book and the author, it doesn't mean I believe everything that they say. Okay, they may have other books I don't agree with. But this one really talks about how you can take your whatever job you're in, whatever career you're in, and turn that into a mission field. It doesn't mean that you're out witnessing and evangelizing it work every day, beating people over the head. But what it might mean is that your endeavor, okay, maybe that you're in an endeavor that makes a lot of money so that you can support a charity that's out, you know, in the mission field somewhere.

But it's a really, really good book, and it helped me get a perspective because sometimes when you're in the business world and you're a Christian businessman, you figure you're focusing too much on business and you need to be doing more ministry. This really kind of helps you understand that better. So I would encourage that. The last thing is just a little bit of, I don't know, interaction from me, and it kind of goes back to the Charlie Kirk thing. You know, there are events that go.

on during our lifetime that are personal tipping points, and most of you have heard of the book by Malcolm Gladwell tipping points, or their much bigger societal tipping points. For example, one of societal tipping points was 9-11 when we had the terrorist attack in Boston and Washington and in New York City. That was a societal tipping point. Society changed. COVID in some ways with a societal tipping point. Never, not always for the good, okay, but it is something that we're going down a path of history and all of a sudden it takes a little bit of a turn, okay?

And there's been lots of those in history. What happens when you have those is you have to decide what that means to you, okay? And I think we had one of those last week with the passing of Charlie Kirk and how it happened. And the outflow of support from around the world. Now, I was familiar with Charlie Kirk, mainly through Allie, and I had no idea the influence he had around the world. I wasn't shocked at the turnout in the United States, although some of the blue cities, I was kind of shocked at how big that was. But around the world in Italy, and UK, and Korea, I mean, just unbelievable. And so, folks, that's a tipping point.

Now, the question is, what are you and I going to do with that tipping point? Are we going to just go back to our daily lives and whatever it is that we're doing? And, you know, this will be something we remember, but we don't really change. Or are we going to say, you know what? The sacrifice that he made and his family has made, how is that going to affect me? And what am I going to do about it? Am I going to be a better witness? Am I going to be someone that gets more involved in what's going on in our country

so that we don't let the demonic forces? and as they spoke on yesterday, this is a spiritual battle that's many times fought through willing individuals, okay? And that's what's happening right now. The people that are condemning Charlie, the people that made fun of his death, those are, it's not really even them speaking, although they're willing participants. It's demonic forces that are speaking through them. And are we going to stand up to that?

Are we going to take some of the risks that Charlie took to speak out? All right? Now, we'll probably never be put in the same situation he was and we can't be Charlie Kirk, but we can be Ron Simmons. And when I have the opportunity to speak out on truth, I need to make sure that I'm willing to take the risk to speak out on truth. Even if that's something that puts a risk to me,

maybe I'm not saying it puts me at physical risk, although I guess it could, but maybe I lose a friend over that or I, you know, or maybe I don't get a, you know, a financial assignment that I, you know, wanted to get or a consulting agreement or maybe somebody won't read my book or something like that or I won't get a speaking engagement. Those are risk, okay, but those are risks that we need to be willing to take individually. Your kids are watching you right now. They're watching you right now on what we do. My kids are still watching me as adults. My grandkids are now watching me. What am I going to

do? How am I going to stand up? How am I going to make sure that none of this was for naught and it just goes away in the next few months or few years. So this is a tipping point, and the question is, what are you and I going to do about it? Thanks again. Always good to be with you. Hope you have a great week.