America NEEDS Salt and Light

Hi, this is Joanne Vigner with the podcast It's Storytime, Meemaw, and answered prayer for stories that point children to God. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. influential and respected voices on cultural and political issues. An apologist, Christian political advocate and author, here is the founder and chairman of the Citizens for America Foundation, Dr. Chris Hughes.

Welcome to The Christian Perspective, where we look in God's Word in order to develop a Christian worldview and modern culture. I'm Chris Hughes, and today's guest is a man who's dominated the world's headlines for three decades. He served in the United States Congress in the 1990s. He took a break and did some great work for the Leadership Institute and some other organizations, and then he served another term in a different congressional district 13 years later. He's been on the forefront of what's happened really across the world for a long time now, and I'm honored to have him here today.

During the Obama administration, he led the fight against the Affordable Care Act. Congressman Steve Stockman, it is an honor to have you on The Christian Perspective today. Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. Well, you're one of my heroes. I mean, throughout my life, I've seen so much you've done to fight the good cause, not just in the United States and around the world. And I know that you love the Lord and that he is a priority in your life. And that's why it's so exciting to have you on our show, because many of our listeners are coming on and trying to determine how they can engage the culture for Jesus. And you've been on the forefront of that fight before it was ever popular by a lot of different people. So thank you so much for what you've done for us.

Thank you. One of the things that you mentioned, I was part of the 104th Congress, which took over Congress. And one of the first things we did is so many Christians got elected, there used to be what's called the speakers area where they they had a gathering where the congressman used to drink and smoke and do all kinds of things. And first thing under Newt Gingrich, we asked if we could have permission to turn it into a prayer gallery. And I think to this day, it still is, but it's right above. If you're in the speakers chair, if you look up above the clock, that's where the Christians used to go. The Christian Congressman, both Democrat and Republican, we didn't have any Democrats, but we did have some that would go off there in prayer before really serious legislation.

And it was really nice to have that contrast to to the different bodies. But right now, it seems as if all that may be gone. I don't know. Well, I was just speaking, my representative in Congress is Congresswoman Virginia Fox. And I saw her last week and she said that there's a group of about 17 that after the I don't know exactly how it set up, but I guess after the meetings are convened, there might be some kind of formal vote to start the day and then there's a break and then they come back and and really get into the business. And she said there's about 17 that still gather and pray before every session. And even though it's 17, there's power in prayer. And I'm so glad that there are men and women serving us in the United States Congress that still seek the Lord's guidance before they they actually go and vote throughout the day.

Yeah, that was the watermark. Ninety four was the monitor watermark in terms of Christians turned out to vote. And what a tremendous difference because that year I think we had between 40 and 60 that were Christians that were Bible believing Christians, born again Christians that really cared for this nation. And what a tremendous blessing if Christians would get out there in the numbers that we did back then. But frankly, a lot of the churches, we don't vote. And we are the Christians of the salt and light of the world. And when we don't vote, you take away the salt and the light and you have darkness.

And you know, they use salt as a preservative and meat rots. And so we're going to be held responsible for the outcome of this country because the citizens are the ruler of this country. And it's not the President or the Congress, but the citizens are. So when Christians don't participate in choosing their leaders, they by abdication turn it over to ungodly people. And then of course, ungodly people do ungodly things.

And so it's kind of a natural progression when we are absent as salt and light, the things that happen naturally happen. And so we should be surprised. Our country's in deep, deep trouble right now. And I really think it's because Christians are not getting involved enough. You know, we quote 2 Chronicles 7.14, which is true, you know, if he calls his people, he doesn't call not his people, to turn from the wicked ways and return to God. He'll heal the land. We need to heal our land.

Boy, boy, we do. And I heard a recent study that there could be more than 40 million Christians in the United States who are eligible to vote but are not even registered. And when elections are so close, as we're seeing across the country, if Christians would just wake up and realize the impact, I mean, you've run for office many times, you know, that can be close, and that that Christian vote can really make a difference. Yeah, people don't realize this, most elections, and even, you know, I quote Biden's election, when in truth, most of the numbers count as California. But if you take the numbers in the states that matter, it was under, I guess it was under 200,000 votes or less, changed the entire dynamics. And we just don't see the turnout.

I mean, I think 94 was the high watermark. We actually had pastors work in the polls because they felt so committed to this country. And now they're frightened, you know, they're changing policies. And even in Canada, you know, they're locking up ministers for preaching the Bible.

And that will come here if we don't step up and take our place. Well, I know you live in Texas. There's a great example in Houston. Just a few years ago, there was a mayor that was the lesbian mayor of Houston, and she was requiring pastors to submit their sermons before they could be preached on Sunday morning for approval by her office.

And so it's happening here. But you know, we're just talking a minute ago about the importance of Christians voting. And I may have my statistics off a little bit, but I believe that I read somewhere that she won that mayor's race by less than, I think it was less than 7000 votes. And there are numerous churches in the Houston area that have more than 7000 members. And if the Christians had just turned out to vote, she would have never been elected.

And she wouldn't have been able to persecute those pastors when they were preaching the Word of God. Actually, I mean, Joel's the church, I think has over 100,000 members. Second Baptist, I think has 60,000 members. And First Baptist, I believe has 40,000.

So that more than it's kind of unfortunate, really. And speaking of pastors, even before that happened, you may not be familiar with what happened to me, we put together a conference called Mobilized Morality in America. We had Tim LaHaye, Bev LaHaye, and well not Tim LaHaye and Jerry Falwell. We had a bunch of great conservative Christian leaders, pastors. And after it was over, I was investigated by Lois Lerner in the 90s, because she worked at the Federal Election Commission, and she subpoenaed and took down a deposition from several of the pastors.

So that was not the first time that happened. But I think now under the current regime, we're going to see the pastors and nonprofits from Christian Radio all the way up through pastors being persecuted more. They turned over for I guess they said they're going to turn over $40 billion to the Department of Justice, which is really, you know, Department of Injustice, if you look at what they're doing. Well, I know when we look in the country right now, there are a lot of pastors who refuse to address the issues and they say that Christians should not get involved in politics. The issues are not issues of politics or issues of sin that are addressed in the Bible. And what so many Christians and particularly pastors don't understand is that persecution is coming to the United States. And if we don't take a stand now, we're not going to have the right to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Right now, many are lobbying to not allow pastors to address issues like homosexuality and transgender and the sexualization of children. And all those are issues from the Bible.

And if we don't take a stand, we're not going to be allowed to address those. So I know and part of the reason we want to have you here today is you know about persecution firsthand. You have a powerful testimony of how when you stood up against the evil, how they came after you. Yeah, you know, I think it was and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was Peter who said it's quite an honor to be persecuted for my faith or for my belief.

Unfortunately, I think there's going to be a lot of Christians following my footsteps. We stood up to both Barack Obama and, frankly, Lois Lerner, who went after the churches. People don't realize this, but she was the head of now she moved from the FEC to the IRS. And someone told me once, actually, one of the administrators, commissioner at the FEC stated that she hated Christians and conservatives. And so she ended up in the nonprofit division.

And when there was a huge tea rally, Obama got alarmed, and she went after started going after nonprofits. Well, she was pretty embittered when I called for her arrest on national TV. And two weeks later, were you a congressman at the time that Yeah, yeah, two weeks later. Yeah, I was on if you want me to be specific was the Kelly file.

So Fox show. And I called for an I'll send you a link, your listeners can watch it. I called for her arrest. And two weeks after that I had the FBI at the door. The DOJ guys were liberal that comment. When I got arrested, they said they hated the border wall, which was astounding because here I'm getting arrested there. Two of them were talking politics.

The other guy said you defeated my dad's friend. So it was highly politicized. And what they've done. If you look at the hiring practices at the DOJ, they went away from people with criminology degrees that now they're hiring what they're called soft science. So you if you got a degree in women's studies, they'll hire you at the FBI. And if you got a degree in criminology likelihood, you won't get hired. Remember years ago, you had to either be a lawyer or a CPA, I think, to even be a field agent in the FBI. So a lot has changed.

No, no, all that's been dropped. The two women that came to my door, the two FBI agents, one of them just recently, as I understand it, as I understand got her citizenship. So she was in the country, matter, I mean, citizen for a matter of just 24 months or something like that. She belonged to I don't know why she left all this information out.

But it was she belonged to the socialist Democrats of America and things like that. So they go through and use Facebook and people don't realize this. I keep warning Christians against us.

I'm not a big fan of that. Because from what the rumors are, where people said, Obama used that to get rid of a lot of Christians and conservatives in the military. What's really alarming is if you go back and read some of the reports, while Obama was in office, over 1100 conservatives were pushed out of the military. And so now we have a very woke, as you know, from the leader, a very woke military who says the most important enemy is not China creating a scramjet that can hit any city in the United States with a nuclear weapon. But it's the white supremacist, even though on September 11, it was a white supremacist that killed 3000 people, my fear is that the next time we happen, we're going to all our systems shut down, because we're letting in agents through our border, that were what they call them planned agents or whatever. And they're going to end up circumventing our industries to protect us.

And that's scary that's coming. So much has happened in our country. In the last two years, it's hard to even fathom. I mean, 10 years ago, we would have never dreamed that the things that are happening now in our country are taking place. Do you think that when you look at the current administration, do you think that the persecutions are going to continue against Christians?

I know, you know, the attacks against you were under the Obama administration. Are you seeing the IRS being weaponized? Again, I read just a couple weeks ago, and I can't remember what the organization was, that some organization had applied to the IRS for a 501 c three status, which, for those of you listening, it was basically a nonprofit status. And they were a Christian organization. And their purpose was to encourage and educate Christians to, you know, learn about the issues get registered to vote and vote.

And the IRS denied their application, because they said that the Christian philosophy was too close to the Republican philosophy. Do you think we'll see more of that? That's absolutely true. That did happen.

People believe it didn't happen, but it did. Do you think we're gonna see more of that to this administration kind of weaponizing? This is Obama's third term, I think they said 90% of people that are in high positions are, are really Obama, former Obama employees are tied to Obama somehow. And there's a lot of talk that the house he bought in Washington, DC is where they're actually operating the White House out of. Ironically, one of the first things he did when he bought the house is he put up a wall.

And Valerie Jared's pretty much working out there all the time. So he actually lives, I guess, in Martha's venue, where he's having a 60th birthday party, supposedly with 200 additional waiters and servants, you know, and this is the same person that's saying he's suffered through America's, you know, you see what his wife gone over Winfrey complained about her persecution. I would love to be persecuted like that, by the way. Yeah, it's a lot different than the persecution you got, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was a little bit more real. And for your listening audience, what happened was is they spent four years, $22 million, and four grand juries to indict me. And then I didn't, I don't have the research in the United States government. And we just simply didn't have the funds to defend ourselves. And the judge ruled against us, he would bring some witnesses, put a gag order on us.

So all in all, if you look at the way, not just me, but the other people are treated. I believe it was Roger Stone, where they spent well over a million dollars just to arrest him when he said he would come in and they had CNN was tipped off broadcasting live, they had frogmen in the water, helicopters, all for what's called a process crime. And yet you have serious problems going on in our nation that are serious security concerns.

And there's really two justice systems. If someone wants to read about what exactly the crime of turning away our defense, there's a book called See Something, Say Nothing. And that gentleman wrote the book actually exposed all the people who were being put in the government that were detrimental to our government names and names. And, and so Obama fired him. And he was writing a second book, I was getting married, and I understand Trump was hiring, going to hire him back.

So he had no reason to be sad. But recently, like there was two years ago, whatever, he, he quote, committed suicide, by shooting himself in the stomach in the street, which is, you know, ridiculous. And the FBI quote is investigating, and they've been investigating for a long time. Maybe it's been a year, but it's an excellent book. And by the way, in his pocket, he had a jump drive regarding the second book, which was going to expose even more secrets. And to this day, the FBI has that jump drive, and no one knows what's in that book. So the book is called See Something, Say Nothing.

Yeah. And you can put that link on your, your website, but I encourage your listeners to become more aware. And it's sad that our Christians now are saying we need to advocate our responsibility for this country. No, I argue that the people that, the Christians that said they couldn't stand Trump's tweets, and supported Joe Biden, the first thing Joe Biden did was to allow abortion through taxpayers' dollars and some other things that he did that were just an abomination to the Christians. And I, I think that if we don't act as Christians in unison, and together, the blood of many unborn babies are our hands, you know, and despite Trump's faults, which there are many, of course, we're all have sinned, and come to the short glory of God, not just Trump, but Trump's actions spoke so loud, loudly than his tweets. He moved the embassy, which by the way, was promised by Democrats and Republicans for over a generation to do, Trump did it, he moved to Jerusalem, the embassy.

He's pro-life beyond more than any president we ever had. And yet now it's the exact opposite. We got Biden funding the terrorists, gave the PLO and some other organization, Hamas, billions of dollars. They said, well, we didn't give it directly to them.

No, your dollars still ended up, American tax dollars still ended up in the pockets of mosque, which is a announced terrorist group. It's really a shame, the direction of this country, but I deplore Christians, you stand up, you don't want to be on your knees, stand up. We were silent in World War Two.

A lot of them in Germany were silent. And we know the old saying, where they said they came for the socialism. Finally, when they arrest everybody, there's no left to speak up for me. Well, they're coming for us directly. And they're articulating that. And but we only have two choices, a yes or no. Are you going to stand on your feet and stand for principle?

Or are you going to be on your knees begging for for your life and begging for them not to persecute your church? You're so right, Congressman, you did a lot of work. You mentioned Israel and the PLO and the Palestinian situation. You did a lot of work in the in the Middle East. A lot of Christians today just think that we're wrong to support Israel or we need to show more compassion to Hamas and other groups. Can you tell Christian, why is it important that we have Israel as an ally to the United States?

And why do we need to take a stand and help defend them in the Middle East? Well, I actually was given an award for my work in the Middle East. Actually, I was in Beirut, Lebanon.

It was broadcast over, I guess, 50 or 60 million Arab households. And I worked with both Muslims and Jews. And if we recall, we had the Abraham Accords.

Trump was kidding. He had three or four people nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. He, for the first time in the Middle East, had countries wanting to do peace.

Now it's the exact opposite. You see that Iran's being funded different channels. Back door, Biden's and Obama's people are pushing money into Iran, and Iran instantly started up the wars again. And we've seen that bear out fruit again and again. We have to stick with our allies. We have both Arab allies and Israeli allies.

And we need to stick by these folks. And if we don't, Israel will stand alone. And as we know from our Bible, there are going to be other nations come against it. And I guess we're watching the dramatic end that's been revealed in our Bible come bear fruit. But I think in the meantime, God tells us to trim our wicks and be prepared. And Christians are not doing that.

They're interested in how much their cable TV costs and things like that, which are great, but it's not the paramount reason you're here on earth. We need to stick by our allies, especially Israel. We do when we need to read God's Word and know what it says and why it says it.

We've only got about three minutes left. A while ago, you mentioned that Christians need to become aware. What advice can you give to our listeners as Christians? How can we keep up to date with what's going on?

What's a reliable source? What would you recommend that we do to educate ourselves and be more aware about what's going on in the culture? Well, most people can't do what I do because I literally listen to information 24 hours a day.

I even sleep with the BBC on it, and it gets me mad. I'm reading and hearing some of the liberal stuff, but it makes me, as General Patton once said, when he was fighting Rommel, he read Rommel's books to understand the enemy. I was just not doing that as a Christian, unless you're really prepared, but listen to your show. Listen to other people that are... I used to say, listen to Rush Limbaugh. He actually was a very great source of information, but listen to Tucker Carlson.

He's very good. Read your Bible. Also read things that are conserved. There are publications out there. Now don't be fooled.

There are a lot of people out there who want to fool Christians, because Christians are very amenable to information, but sometimes right now there's disinformation, quite a disinformation, coming from China, and especially in terms of TikTok and some other applications they are using. I'm just astounded that they allow that to come in our country, but long and short, follow your show. Follow conservative things and keep abreast on the issues. Another excellent one, of course, is... I'm trying to remember.

His name just slipped my mind, but Frank Gaffney's show is really good too. Well, that's some great advice. Do you have a website that you keep information on also? I used to, but we didn't dwell into this, but we can another time.

I just recently was commuted my sentence back in December by the President, and I haven't put up stuff in a while, but there is a website that's probably dated, but it gives you all the information on what happened to me and what was going on. Some of the amicus briefs that were filed before the Supreme Court, in which 40 top conservative groups signed the amicus brief, but it's defendapatriate.com, and that was put together by my wife and some volunteers. So some people say, well, it's not very polished. It's not working right. Well, that's because we didn't have a lot of money. We're not Jeff Bezos. We're Steve Stockman. So if you want to learn more about Congressman Stockman, go to defendapatriate.com. He has lived persecution for standing on the word of God. He challenged us a while ago. Congressman, thank you so much for being here today.

You gave us a great challenge that we'll end with. You said that we need to take a stand, and that's right out of the word of God, where the Bible says, Ephesians 6, 13, Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, having done all to stand. Congressman, thank you for the stand that you have taken. Thank you, and God bless you, and appreciate all that you're doing for the conservative and the Christians. You're really a great guy, and I appreciate what you're doing, the sacrifices you're making.

Thank you, sir. Well, listeners, thank you for joining me today. I'm Chris Hughes, and this is The Christian Perspective. Please subscribe and like our podcast, and please share it with your friends on social media. Now let's go change the culture for Jesus.

Thank you for listening. The Christian Perspective with Chris Hughes. Learn more about impacting the culture for Jesus. Visit ChristianPerspective.us. This is the Truth Network.