Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 479 | Biden's 'Most Misused': Isaiah 6:8

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

Today we begin by honoring the 13 U.S. soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan on Thursday by a suicide bombing attack. Many of them were less than three years old when all of this started on 9/11. Then, we discuss Biden's misuse of Isaiah 6:8 during his speech to honor the fallen soldiers and what the verse actually means. Was Isaiah really saying "Here I am, send me" ... to the army? --- Today's Sponsors: Alliance Defending Freedom has been standing up for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, freedom of speech, marriage, and parental rights in America's highest courts — at no cost to their clients — and is completely funded by the generosity of patriots, like you. Go to ADFLegal.org/ALLIE & join the growing number of Americans standing in solidarity to defend freedom & liberty. Hunter Douglas has unique shade designs that actually transform raw sunlight, casting a beautiful glow across the space & brightening dark corners of a room. Visit HunterDouglas.com/ALLIE today for your free 'Style Gets Smarter' design guide with fresh takes, creative ideas, and smart solutions for dressing your windows. Good Ranchers safely delivers American craft beef & better-than-organic chicken, right to your door! You can place a one-time order or, better yet, subscribe & save 20% with each purchase. Go to GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE to get $20 off & free express shipping. --- Past Episodes Mentioned: Ep 477: Why Biden Is Turning His Back on Americans in Afghanistan | Guest: Rebeccah Heinrichs https://apple.co/3BmwTx1 Ep 476: Anxious About Everything: Addressing Anxiety Biblically | Guest: Dr. Andi Thacker https://apple.co/3jvHu2G Ep 472: Biden's Afghanistan Disaster & How We Can Help | Guest: Morgan Ortagus https://apple.co/2Y1yeL8 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed. You can watch

this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. We've got a whole lot. I know I say this. I say this every day because it's true. We've got a whole lot to talk about today. We've also got a whole lot to talk about this week. We've got two awesome interviews as well coming up. So I hope I'm able to talk about everything I want to. I really want to talk about the eviction moratorium and what it means, what it means for the CDC's actual power, why we should be thankful for the Constitution and thankful for the Supreme Court and just talking about how close we are in so many ways to tyranny. And thankfully, we still have these,

we still have these barriers in place that protect us from that. So I really want to talk about that. Hopefully that will be on Wednesday, but I also want to talk about what's going on in John Piper's church and why that matters to us. But today we're going to give a brief update on what is happening in Afghanistan. We're going to go through the servicemen and women who died. And also we're going to talk about Isaiah 6.8, the president, he mentioned Isaiah 6.8. Here I am, Lord, send me in his speech last week. And so I want to talk about that and what that verse actually means.

So it's a little bit of a most misused. If you've been here for a while, you know that sometimes we do most misused episodes where we take a verse that is misapplied, misinterpreted, and we talk about the context and what it actually means and how the true meaning of these verses is so much better than when they are decontextualized and used in a way that they are not. meant to be used. So we've done, for example, Philippians 413, Jeremiah 29-11. And so today we're going to kind of do an abbreviated version of that with Isaiah 6-8. And so we'll have a lot of theological encouragement as well. But I just want to give a brief update at least right now as I'm recording

this Monday morning. This is what's happening. So as I said, 13 American servicemen and women were killed by the blast of an ISIS-K suicide bomber last week. ISIS-K is an offshoot of ISIS, which I'm sure you've heard of before. I'm sure you've heard of ISIS. It stands for Islamic State in Karazan province. Sorry if I mispronounced that. They're a terrorist organization. They're seeking to establish more power.

And we'll be doing so with the protection of the Taliban in Afghanistan. We knew that an attempt. at Kabul was a possibility. Terrorists tend to seek these highly crowded areas, these chaotic areas, and thanks to the haphazard withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan, that is causing millions to flee, including American citizens. Thanks to this administration, keeping all of our troops at the airport, rather than allowing them to go into the country and rescue our civilians and allies like other countries have. Thanks to this administration allowing the Taliban to serve as the security for the airport, this happened.

We've talked about all of these things on two previous episodes with Rebecca Heinrichs and Morgan Ortegis. Go listen to those episodes. If you have not already, you will get a very good and simple understanding of everything that is going on there. And why will link those two previous episodes in the description to this episode. Another thing that happened over the weekend, the U.S. launched a drone strike targeting ISISK. Now, apparently, reportedly, it killed ISIS-K leaders, but very strangely, they won't say which leaders it killed. And reports are now saying it looks like the drone also killed civilians. So people are pointing out how bizarre it is that this administration won't release the names of the people killed by the drone.

But it reportedly did release the names of Americans and American allies in Afghanistan to the Taliban. supposedly to ensure their safe passage, but in actuality, putting a target on their back. So just horrible leadership all the way around. Like I said, on an Instagram live last week, yes, we can chalk a lot of this up maybe to incompetence and fumbling the ball. But every day, it gets harder and harder to do that. And it looks more and more nefarious. I don't like to ascribe nefarious motives when you can just ascribe to them stupidity or

incompetence, but again, with every step that has been taken so far, it gets more and more difficult not to look at this situation and see that it was an intentional disaster, at least in some ways. I'm not sure if the goal was to cause chaos and to ensure that America is no longer trusted by its allies and ensure that America is no longer respected as the world superpower, that this would have gone any differently. So that's, I'll leave it, I'll leave it there and I'll allow you to draw your own conclusions. According to USA Today, quote, one day ahead of the American withdrawal deadline from Afghanistan, the U.S. military kept up a constant flow of airport traffic in an effort to evacuate citizens and service members from

Kabul. President Joe Biden was slated on Monday morning to meet with his national security team for updates as the operation winds down late Sunday. So that's yesterday. Biden was briefed by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chief of Staff Ron Clayne on a rocket attack at Hamid Karzai Airport, international airport. It did not disrupt evacuation efforts. So Biden said this are set this arbitrary deadline of August 31st that we would have all American troops about out by then that is tomorrow. The Taliban has said there is no wiggle room on that. And so that is that's where we are. There are many more details that we don't have time to get into today that a lot of people I'm sure will be covering. As you guys know,

I can offer as much commentary as I can. When it when it gets to expert analysis, that's when I call on other people to come on the show and give you that. And that is why I have done so over over the past couple of weeks. What we can talk about is the loss of life. There were about 170, at least 170 Afghans that were killed by the blast of the suicide bomber. There were also 13 service men and women. So here are the names and a little bit about each of them. So this is according to the New York Post. Maxton Soviet, he was 20. He was 20. He was a Navy corpsman, Soviet a Navy hospital corpsman, according to the New York Post, hailed from Burland Heights, Ohio, graduated from Edison High School in Milan in 2017.

The Sandusky Register reported his sister wrote on Instagram, what a good kid he was, how excited he was to serve his country. It's crazy to think that he was only two years old on 9-11. Kareem Nikuai, I'm not sure how to pronounce. his last name. He was 20. He was in the Marines. Kareem Nikoi's father didn't realize that his son had been killed until he saw a clutch of Marines show up at his door in Norco, California. That's what the Daily Beast reported. He reportedly hadn't heard from his son in a while, but he had seen news reports that Marines had died. And apparently he says he had that sunken feeling that it could

have been his son since he hadn't heard from him. And then on his, on the ring camera, on his doorbell, he saw the Marines on his front porch. And that's when he knew he went on Tucker Carlson tonight on Friday. And he said, quote, I'm going on about 36 hours, I believe, that I've been up. And I'm still in shock. So he hasn't been able to sleep since, or he hadn't been able to sleep since he found out that he had lost his son. Quote, the family is devastated. And his mother, who's an excellent mom is doing the best that she can, considering the circumstances. Oh, I just have a lump in my throat thinking about this. The day before Kareem, Nikai was killed, says the New York Post.

He sent his dad a video that showed him talking with the Afghan children and giving them candy at the Kabul airport. Steve Nikai said Friday that the clip put him and his wife at ease to where we felt like, okay, he's all right. And so obviously it was after that, a couple days after that, that he figured out that his son, had been killed by the suicide bombers blast. New York Post says he was born the same year. It started, no, actually, this is his father saying he was born the same year. It started 2001 and ended his life with the end of this war. That's what he told the Daily Beast. David Lee Espinoza, he was 20. He was also 20. He was in the Marines. Espinoza, 20 was from Laredo, Texas, according to the Laredo Police Department. So he was at most a few.

months old on 9-11 when this all started. Riley McCollum was also 20. McCollum was from Miami, Wyoming, sorry. He was on his first deployment. He had just gotten married. He was three weeks away from being a dad when he was killed in Thursday's blast. He was also just born on 9-11. Jared Smith's 20. He was also in the Marines. Schmitz was a Lance Corporal from St. Charles, Missouri. His life met so much more. His father says, I'm so incredibly devastated that I won't be able to see the man that he was very quickly growing into becoming. I cannot imagine the pain that these parents are feeling.

As parents, you want your children, you expect your children, you hope for your children to outlive you. I just cannot even imagine the pain of knowing, of seeing that that's not going to be the case. Hunter Lopez, 22, was also a Marine. Lopez was a corporal who hailed from California, planned to follow in his parents' footsteps, and become a sheriff's deputy once he was done with deployment. He was two years old on 9-11.

Dagan Page, he was 23. He was also a Marine, Marine Corporal. Dagan Page was native of Omaha, Nebraska, who loved hockey and hunting, according to the New York Post, and will always be remembered for his tough outer shell in just. giant heart, his family said on Friday. So he was three years old on 9-11. Ryan Nouse, 23, he was in the Army. The first U.S. Army soldier identified as a victim of Thursday's attack. Ryan Nouse was a, quote, motivated young man who loved his country. His grandfather said on Friday,

now that's something that you never imagine in your wildest dreams, that you will outlive your grandchild. And yet that's what's happened. I can't imagine, again, this grandfather's pain. He hailed from Knoxville, Tennessee. He had just completed psychology operations training and was hoping to move to Washington, D.C. His stepmother said. So he was three years old on 9-11. Darren Taylor Hoover Jr. He was 31. This is the oldest fatality. He was the oldest victim, at least American victim, of this attack. He was also Marine Staff Sergeant Darren Taylor Hoover, Jr., known as Taylor, was a former high school football player from Midvale, Utah, who lit up a room when he entered. His father told The Washington Post, he was the most loving, giving, understanding person you could

ever meet. The elder Darren Taylor told the paper. So he was 10 years old on 9-11. He is probably the only one, I would say definitely the only one from this group of servicemen and women who has any recollection at all of that day. Johani Rosario Picardo, 25. She was also a Marine, Sergeant Johani Rosario. Picardo, a native of Lawrence, Massachusetts, was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps' female engagement team, according to local reports.

Humberto Sanchez, 22, he was also a Marine. Corporal Humberto Sanchez of Logansport, Indiana, was just 14. years out of high school when he was killed. We don't know too much more about him. We do know, obviously, he was two years old on 9-11. And then we've got Nicole G. I actually shared a picture of her. This was before she was killed because there was this very iconic photo of her holding an Afghan child. Marine Sergeant Nicole G. loved her work, says the New York Post, and told the world so only a week before she died. I love my job. The 23-year-old captioned in August. August 20th photo on Instagram showing the young sergeant cradling a rescued Afghan infant in her arms.

G, a maintenance technician with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit was from Roseville, California. She's roommate. She wrote this very poignant, heartbreaking Facebook tribute talking about the fact that her car is still in the parking lot where she was. She said that she finds peace, knowing that she left this world doing. what she loves and talks about what a caring and loving and fierce person she was. Nicole was only three years old on 9-11. And then you've got Dylan Marola, 20 years old, also a Marine. This is the last one.

Lance Corporal, Dylan Marola arrived in Kabul less than two weeks before he was killed and Thursday's attack. According to his older brother, his brother says that we were notified last night. and then he tweeted a photo a photo of the beaming marine in fatigues. He says, RIP and say hey to dad and grandma for me, maybe a few months old on 9-11. So this is devastating, obviously.

We should allow the sadness just to kind of sink in and remember the human cost to war. These are young men and women who answered the call to defend our country, to defend our constitution. most of them babies and toddlers when this war began because of a day all but one of them wouldn't be able to remember they made the choice to join the army or the Marines or the Navy knowing it was a possibility they may die but hoping to return home to their families and to do the things they wanted to do to accomplish their goals to finish college to get

married to start a family their families knew it was a possibility they never made at home, but they prayed for them. They hoped for their safe return. I cannot imagine, as I've already said, the heartache of a parent whose child has gone forever. I can't imagine what it's like to see those soldiers show up at your door, knowing what they're about to say, the dread, that sinking, feeling, knowing exactly the news you're about to hear, the news that you prayed that you would never hear, and maybe that you expected that you would never hear. The young woman who is about to give birth to a baby who will never meet his father, about to go through labor and delivery without him and without the anticipation of introducing them to each other.

There were also, as we noted at the beginning, at least 170 Afghans who were killed. And while we don't know their names, obviously their lives matter too. These are all people made in the image of God, all people with souls that will now live forever, no matter how many lives have been lost to this war or to any war. since the founding of our country, the sting of death does not get any dolor. The ugliness of war does not fade. War is really ugly. Death is ugly. The pit that all of this gives us in our stomach, the way it makes our hearts ache with this kind of inexplicable, almost physical pain, the way it makes us angry. It is all an indication of something eternal, something that is set

in every human heart that it's not supposed to be this way, that we were originally created before sin entered this world for peace, not war, for justice, not oppression, for order, not chaos. And it makes us long for the day when we no longer have to hear about 20-year-olds dying in war and suicide bombers and terrorists and incompetent, wicked administrations. It makes us hope for heaven, for the new heaven and the new earth where Christ, will establish his reign on earth forever. Everything that's happening in the world right now makes me long for that. People calling good, evil and evil good, irrationality, depraved minds, the rejection of reality

and morality that we see in mainstream culture, political divisions that I don't think can be bridged, tyranny, chaos. But at the same time, at the same time, it's hard for me not to cling to this world and this life. That is a struggle that we talk about a lot that I'm going to talk about more today. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality.

We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. So as I was talking about this kind of struggle between hoping for the future of eternity and really wanting to cling to everything that I have now, I think it's probably a struggle that most of us share as Christians because I, we have a lot of people

and things that we love. Like I have a lot in this life that I look forward to, a lot that I don't want to let go of, a lot that I rest my happiness and hope in. And honestly, sometimes it is hard for me to imagine anything better than the life that I have with the people I have in it. And my temptation is to really fret over losing these things, to not put my hope in heaven, to not put my hope in eternity, and really put my focus and my hope in the here and the now, to put my hope in things getting better in this life, in our country,

swinging in the other direction for the better. Because I love America so much, I believe in her so much that sometimes I just can't let myself accept that maybe she is not destined to bear the torch of liberty and prosperity forever, that things really could continue to plummet, that chaos could continue to grow more and more. And maybe it's good that I can't accept that because I don't grow complacent because I do believe regardless of what's to come, I have a responsibility to seek the well-being of my country and its citizens by standing for what is good and right and true. And I will continue to do that with the hope that things can change.

But I can't allow my hope and my happiness to depend on that possibility of change. I have to surrender to the fact that even if all is lost here on earth, even if America goes to, you know what, even if we have nothing to cling to in this life, that Christ is enough, that the hope of glory is enough, that eternity is more than enough, that what is in store for us after this life is enough. It's enough for joy and gratitude and contentment today, even if all of the wonderful blessings that we have right now and hope to have in the future, are no longer there. I have the propensity to worry. I worry about my kids. I worry about my husband. I worry about myself, my work, a bunch of different things. Things halfway across the world I worry about. I worry about all of these things being okay and working together. But here's here are the things that I have to consider when I worry. And they might seem counterintuitive. but I'll explain why they do help me calm down when I am laying in bed at night, trying to fall asleep, and I have all of these thoughts of anxiety swirling around about

things happening in my life, things happening in other people's lives, wanting to control all these factors to make sure everything works together how I wanted to. Here are the things that I remember. Number one, number one, every single one of us will die. Every single one of us will die. that might not sound comforting, but I'll explain why it is. Hebrews 927 says that man is appointed to die. So we are all going to die. Psalm 103.14 says that we are like dust. So we are specs on the span of eternity. We are here on earth one second. We are gone the next. Every single one of our days were written by God before any of them came to be. So that's the second point that comforts me. Psalm 139-16. Your eyes saw my unformed substance in your book were written. Every one of them,

the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them. So God is not waiting to see what happens to any of us. He is not contained by time like we are. He is not moving along a linear timeline. He is present everywhere all at once suspended over and intimately involved in every moment in world history and eternity. He knows an author, every second of our lives before those seconds actually unfold. And here's the third thing that comforts me, and I'm going to tie all of these together. Jesus said that we cannot add a single hour to our lives by worrying, Matthew 627, and which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?

So as bizarre as these comforts might seem, the reality is that we are all predestined to die at some point in our lives, how we are to die has already been predetermined, and we cannot change how or when we are going to die by worrying about it. And no, I'm not saying that that permits us to be foolish or to be nihilistic with how we spend our time or how we think about life and death, because even as God is totally sovereign over our lives, he still calls us to obedience. He calls us to do certain things. So between now and whenever we are appointed to die, We are called to love God and to love our neighbor. We're to do all the things right in front of us that he has asked us to do. So he asks us to pray without ceasing, to seek him and his kingdom first, to love our spouses, to love our kids, to love and serve our churches, to love our friends, to work really hard, to produce things. He calls us to rest. He calls us to enjoy gifts of common grace like food and fellowship and nature. He calls us to share the gospel, to be unafraid and speaking and standing for what is good

and right and true, to seek the welfare of those in our community and in our country. I want you to remember that C.S. Lewis quote, that we read here the other day, I'm going to read it again because I think it bears repeating, maybe it bears repeating every single day. Quote, how are we to live in an atomic age? I am tempted to reply. Why, as you would have lived in the 16th century, when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age, when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night, or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents. In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our

situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced, to death before the atomic bomb was invented. And quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. This is the first point to be made. And the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things. Praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children,

playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts, not huddled together like frightened sheep thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies. A microbe can do that, but they cannot or they need not dominate our minds. This relates to a lot of things that have caused people to fear and to panic today. We are not meant to. It is not obedient to stop our lives and to hide in our homes and to sit on our hands and to spend our lives worrying because there are threats to ourselves.

safety. Now, I think there are prudent ways that we can seek the safety of ourselves and our families and we can try to mitigate risk as much as we can, but simply hiding from the world and spending our time anxious, Jesus already says, that's not going to add a single hour to your life. So if we spend the next year huddled inside, refusing to live life, refusing to engage in the things that God has called all human beings to engage in, refusing to engage in the things that really, make us human and you die from something else that is not a virus or not one of the million other threats that we, you know, are hearing about on the news every day, you're just going to have wasted a year of your life and you're not going to have stopped anything.

And so we are called to keep moving forward, to keep obeying the Lord, to keep doing the things that he has called humans and specifically Christians to do. We've talked a lot on this podcast, especially last week, about anxiety and capacity and the limits to our knowledge and compassion, the important balance of knowing what's going on in your community and even in the world and doing what we can with what we're dealt, balancing that with also enjoying the here and the now and focusing just on doing the next right thing that's right in front of us.

It's a hard balance. But it gets easier when we recognize that the God of the universe has written our days. He's numbered our days, and he is totally and completely in charge. And so I hope that those things also comfort you when you find yourself waiting through the tides of anxiety and unable to come up for air. Remember, that God is sovereign and totally in charge over all of it. And he has called us to do certain things and not other things. And we can only do what is right before us. We can only do what he has called us to do. All right, I want to get into Isaiah 6 and President Biden using this in a way that was completely off in his speech last week

and what Isaiah 6 actually means and why any of this matters. Okay, so Joe Biden gave a speech last week and it was, you've probably seen it at this point. He recognized the lives that were lost and he did see one part that I thought was compelling. I know a lot of people give him grief for this. He talked about how his son Bo, who also served, he actually died of brain cancer after after he served. But Joe Biden talks about his son, Boe a lot. Now, some people criticize him for inserting Bow into the conversation when it doesn't really make sense or trying to distract from the conversation or subject at hand by bringing up his son or trying to garner sympathy. But the fact of the matter is is that he did lose his son.

and I imagine that it is incredibly painful for him, even if I hope that he's not using him as a political pawn. I hope that he's not. I will try to give the benefit of the doubt there. Some people accuse him of doing that, but I don't doubt that his pain is sincere. I thought that the pain that he communicated when he was talking about his son, when he was talking about the families who have now lost their sons and their daughters and their sisters and brothers and friends, I thought that that was genuine. Now, Maybe I am naive for thinking that, you know, a 50-year politician can be genuine when talking about these things.

But in giving the benefit of the doubt, I did think that that was sincere. Do I think that he comforted the nation at all? No. I truly do think that he is on a serious and a very steep cognitive decline. And I think that he, and I don't think it's rude of me to say. I think that this is factual. I think it's important to note that I think that he communicates. It's just his disposition, uh, communicates weakness. And, uh, I think that he is very old.

And I'll, that's not his fault. He is just old. And I don't think that we should elect someone this old again, especially someone in this kind of state. And I don't think that he addressed the concerns of many Americans about prioritizing American lives. And if there truly is a plan, if America is protected, and if we have an administration that is actually fighting for the interest in the security of the United States. I think most people believe right now that we don't. And that is why Biden's approval rating has plummeted so much in the past few days. I don't know that he recovers. I don't know that he recovers from this. Now, he said in his speech when he was talking, you know, trying to say that the people who have given their lives and the people who are still serving right now, that they are

brave. And he quotes Isaiah 6.8. Here's a clip of him doing that. Those have serve through the ages, have drawn inspiration from the book of Isaiah, when the Lord says, whom shall I send? Who shall go for us? American military has been answering for a long time. Here I am, Lord, send me. Here I am. Send me. All right. So obviously, he didn't write that. He is a speechwriter who wrote that. It very much reminds me of the inocubes. there were many instances of him and others quoting scripture in a way that was completely decontextualized and therefore misapplied. And please don't butt Trump me. I have talked plenty of times about Trump sometimes doing the same thing, although I don't think necessarily that you

saw it in this way. And I do want to ask all of the people on the left who are constantly and exclusively accusing people on the right of being Christian nationalist and the definition of that gets changed about every five seconds. Apparently, it's very malleable, depending on the situation and the person you're talking about. Like, is this Christian nationalism to use a verse that has nothing to do with the military to apply to the American military? Like, is that Christian nationalism? Is Joe Biden, the big Christian nationalist threat that you said that Trump was and you said pretty much exclusively Trump supporters are? Like, I just want to be clear on that. And I think that we should be fair. And for to be fair, on my end, I actually did see maybe one person on the left say that,

oh, see Democrats and Republicans. They're both Christian nationalists. I don't even know if it's accurate to describe this as Christian nationalism. Again, whatever that means. And I have sought to define that as clearly as possible on this podcast before. And I've talked to some people about what it means and what it doesn't mean. And the goods and the goods. the bads and all of that. We won't get into that conversation right now. But I think that we should just be able to say, wow, this was spoken like someone who doesn't know anything about the Bible. And we can just kind of leave it at there. So let me give you some background on Isaiah and what Isaiah actually is. And I took from a few different resources here. So Isaiah is a prophet that the Lord

called in a vision to prophesy about Judah. So in Isaiah 6.8, the Lord is asking, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And Isaiah's response was to volunteer, to say, here I am, send me. So to give you some background about the book of Isaiah and what is happening, there was a time of peace for about 52 years. King and then King Uzziah of Judah. He died of leprosy in 739 BC. And then that was the same year that Isaiah began his prophetic ministry after being called by the Lord. The Lord wanted Isaiah to tell Judah that, look, you have betrayed me. You have rebelled in a time of judgment is coming. Isaiah doesn't feel like he is up to the task. In Isaiah 6, he says,

woe to me. I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips. And I live among a people of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the king, the Lord Almighty. And so that is one trait that we see in all the Lord's prophets is a trait of humility, of feeling like they're not up to the task and even a hesitant to give to give. To give the message that the Lord wants them to give. Because very often we see the message that the Lord wants these prophets to give is a very difficult message, one of judgment and one of wrath, one of calling out sin. And we know that prophets are not often welcomed when they are giving that kind of message because people don't want to hear about their sin.

So God is, God wants to prepare his people for what's to come. The Book of Isaiah talks about God's judgment for their rebellion, God's judgment on, on the nation for their sin and then ultimately how he is going to redeem them, how he is going to show them mercy and show them grace even as they have turned their back on God. In Isaiah 6, we hear God say that they are blind in death to God's commands and that Isaiah is to go to them and to try to open their ears and to open their eyes to a message of repentance. We also see foreshadowing in the book of Isaiah for the ultimate for the Messiah, Jesus who is going to come and ultimately save both Jews and Gentiles,

who is going to ultimately once and for all one day bring total peace and safety to Israel. Israel will then through the Messiah, the book of Isaiah says, be alight to all of the nations. One day there will be no more rebellion. There will be no more punishment for rebellion. There will be no more wrath on those whom God has chosen and saved. And so what Isaiah is called to is not military service, has nothing to do with American military service, has nothing to do with any kind of military service. We are talking about a very burdensome task, a very dreadful task in many ways, but a significant task to bring God's message of judgment and a call to repentance and a promise of deliverance and grace to God's chosen people

and to prophesy about the one who is to come. And so I encourage you to actually read Isaiah 6 and to read the book of Isaiah and see that God won. as we see in the first chapter of Isaiah, he is holy, holy, holy. That's who God is, that is what his character is, that is the essence of who he is. He is holy so he cannot tolerate sin, and he loves his people too much to tolerate sin and to allow them to wallow in the misery of sin, and that even though he has every right to wipe his people off the map, and I'm speaking as a saved Gentile, so I am speaking, when I say his chosen people, and today, context. I am talking about his church. I am talking about all of those who he, whom he has saved

through Christ. He loves us too much, just as he loved Israel too much to allow us to wallow in our sin, to abandon us. He has made a promise to us today through Christ to deliver us. And so as we look at the judgment upon Israel, because God as holy cannot tolerate sin and we look at his promise of deliverance both then and later through the Messiah, through Jesus Christ. We too have hope and we are put in our place just as Isaiah was before a holy God to remember that we are but dust, that we are too unclean if it were not for the blood of Christ that has washed over us. As Ephesians 2 says, we were all dead in our trespass and sins in which we once walked

following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us made us alive together with Christ by grace, we have been saved. So Isaiah paints a beautiful picture of the gospel, a beautiful picture of what's to come. Ephesians 2, I think, is the best summation of the gospel. And so this is much bigger. Isaiah 6-8 itself. And then in its context, the book of Isaiah, the entirety of scripture is so much bigger and better than what Joe Biden or any president or any pastor or any leader is speaking to when they take a verse out of context and apply it to something that is not actually there. And that's not, that doesn't just go for,

for someone who identifies as Catholic or someone who identifies as, as Protestant, it doesn't matter. The scripture means what it means. There may be multiple applications of scripture, but there is one right interpretation of scripture. And we can debate what that means, but in order to do that, we actually have to look at the context. We have to look at the history. We have to look at the author. We have to look at the purpose.

We have to look at each verse in light of scripture as a whole. That is so important for us interpreting scripture and applying scripture. And I actually think that it is blasphemy. I think it is a huge disservice to Christianity and a huge misrepresentation of Christianity. when we apply verses to something much more superficial than the profundity of the gospel itself. And so one good thing that I think exists in all of this is that maybe people will look up Isaiah 6'8s and that God will use this for good, that they will look at the book of Isaiah. Maybe they'll read the Bible for the first time.

So praise God for that. Thank you. I can say thank you, Joe Biden, for bringing up the Bible, because maybe people will look at Isaiah 6.8. Maybe they'll look at the context. And maybe they'll read Isaiah 53. They'll see the Messiah prophesied and they will come to know Christ because the Holy Spirit can actually work through that. So that could be a beautiful thing that comes out of all of that. And I am very thankful for it. Do I think that Joe Biden is some dangerous Christian nationalist, whatever the heck that even means? No, but I think all of us, Republican or Democrat. Democrat doesn't matter, should be careful as far as we can, as far as we can to make sure that we are reading, interpreting, and talking about scripture in a way that fits with its context and with its intended meaning. All right, I've got a little bit more encouragement for you guys in just one second, but I've got to tell you about our last sponsor for the day. And that is good ranchers. So we love good ranchers at our house. You guys know it. We use it all the time. We've got steaks. We've got chicken. We've got pre-marinated chili lime chicken. We've got non-pre-marinated chicken. We've got filetes. We've got ground beef. And we really love it. It just makes our life so much

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or it's ready to grill. It really does. Just make life so much easier. It's also a really great gift. Like if you know someone in your life who loves to grill, this would be an awesome gift for them, especially if you buy them a subscription, because if you do that, then you save 20% on each box. So it's really a good deal. Plus, with my link, good ranchers.com slash alley, you get an additional $20 off and free express shipping, or you can use code alley a checkout. It's good ranchers.com slash alley, good ranchers.com slash alley. So the beauty of what you read in Isaiah, the beauty of the three points that we were talking about earlier as we remember that we are but dust, that God's great plan of redemption is so

much bigger than what's happening right now, so much bigger than us, so much bigger than all of the things that we are worried about. And all we are called to do is to trust and obey God until our time has been appointed to die or until Jesus comes back. The beauty in all of this is the reminder that God is working, that he is working all things together for His glory and are good, Romans 828. And that is active. He is working right now. He is not. a God who comes in afterward and cleans up the mess. Remember, he is suspended in the eternal now. He is not constrained by time or space the way that we are. He is totally sovereign over all of it, totally in the know, totally in power, and nothing can thwart his will. Job 42.2.

Everything, even while it seems like it's falling apart, it is actually coming together according to the Lord's sovereign will. Does that mean that he enjoys watching sin, in evil and corruption? No, absolutely not. There are things that go against his moral will, even while his sovereign will, cannot be thwarted. And that's why he promises that one day he is going to destroy wickedness forever. He is not just, he's not just sitting idly by as it seems like evildoers are thriving and are coming into power. He is a plan to take care of all of it. That is what we can trust in. This idea, why does God let, you know, bad things. things happen. And I understand that question because I think it speaks to an understanding of God's

power, that if God really is all powerful and he is everywhere and he's totally in the know, why doesn't he stop bad things from happening? I think it's a great question. The answer is we don't know why everything bad, bad thing that happens happens. We don't know the answer to that. What we do know is that he cares about it and that there is recompense coming. There is revenge that is of the Lord that is coming one day and he will destroy wickedness, he will destroy evil, he will reign in perfect peace and righteousness forevermore and that Satan will not get the last word. Everything is working together for his glory and our good and God's work doesn't always make headlines. It's not always trending on Twitter. It's not the thing that's being talked about

on social media or among our friend groups. It's not the thing that is being written about by academics and philosophers at all times. And yet it is the most important thing, the realist thing and the biggest thing that is happening at all times. And we have a privilege as Christians to be a part of that. He doesn't need us, but he chooses to use us again for his glory and the good of his people. And so we have to ask for strength to surrender our grip on the things of this life and to stop putting hope and to stop placing our happiness in the things that we have or the things that we want to have and the things that we want to happen because all of that, no matter how good they may be, no matter how trustworthy, they may seem, they are slipping away. And so we might as

well just surrender and to put our trust and to put our happiness and to put our hope in the one thing that is sure. And that is if we are in Christ, eternity and glory and joy with him forever. All right. That's all we've got for today. I'll see you back here tomorrow. for an awesome, awesome conversation with, well, actually, it could be one of two conversations that are being filmed tomorrow. So I won't say which one it is. Both of them are awesome. And you will get to hear it tomorrow. So I'll see you guys then. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Alley, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality

itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.