How Should Christians think about Trump?

It's loud, it's crazy, it's clamorous, because a certain man, who is maybe one of the most controversial characters in the world, is about to take the stage at the National Religious Podcast Convention.

I'm with two men. One man is super funny, one man is super powerful for the pulpit, and both men have been longtime friends. Pastor Robert Jeffers, I mean, you have been a big Donald Trump supporter to the angst and the animus of a lot of, I mean, a lot of pastors may turn this show off forever when they hear that I'm interviewing you because you've made them so mad. Why the controversy? Like, what is it about Trump that's so marginalizing and what's it like to be a pastor in this situation?

You've got a great seat. He's about to speak to the religious broadcasters. Well, listen, I think he's going to say exactly what the broadcasters want to hear him say. He's going to affirm his pro-life stance. I think he's going to point to his record that is just unbelievable, especially compared to Biden.

I do believe that he has done not only what he promised to do in 2016, but he exceeded expectations when it comes to being pro-life, pro-Israel, pro-religious liberty. And look, I think evangelicals have evolved when it comes to Donald Trump. They came to the position that they're not electing a pastor or Sunday school teacher.

They're electing a president and the qualifications are different for that office. Okay. Now, Eric Metaxas, I'm going to throw out some words that have been called Trump.

Okay. Vulgar, mean, angry. So many, even Christians are saying, I'm not going to vote for him. He's mean.

I want to vote for the nice guy, even though the nice guys, you know, for killing our young. You've jumped in the middle of this debate. You've got some hate from a lot of people.

What say you? Well, I think Paul said some things that could be construed as vulgar. I think Elijah said some mean, sarcastic things. I think Jesus said some strong things.

I think John the Baptist made some ad hominem attacks. So when people are doing that and accusing Trump in that way, I think they just don't like him and they're looking for a way to explain it. But it really has nothing to do with him as president, as a candidate. The question is, what are his policies going to be? His policies in the first term were mostly extraordinary, not just good, extraordinary. And there are a lot of people who didn't vote for him in 2016.

They said, well, we don't know if we could trust him. Well, now you see, you have four years to see what he did, right? And you're going to have to compare that to either Biden or whoever they're putting up. And it's pretty obvious if you're any kind of a Christian, you cannot vote for someone who believes in murdering the unborn. And if you do that, God will hold you accountable. And if you don't vote and you allow someone in who believes that murdering the unborn is a sacred right, God's going to hold you accountable. So people who act like I'm so holy that I'm not going to vote, God is going to judge you for sitting on your hands.

You have to make a mature decision. And the fact of the matter is there has never been a perfect candidate. It's preposterous when people act like, well, I'm going to vote for somebody because he's so wonderful. Jimmy Carter was a Bible believing Christian and he was not a good president. Okay. George W. Bush was a Bible believing Christian and in many ways not a great president. In some ways he was a good president, but it's preposterous that people hold Trump to this. They just don't like him.

They're looking for excuses and they don't have any and I will call him on it. Okay. Robert Jeffers, you heard Eric Metaxas. What do you say to that?

He's exactly right. The first, the first vote I ever made and the worst vote was for Jimmy Carter as president. He was a fine Christian, but he was a terrible president. My second vote was for Ronald Reagan. He was the first divorced president in history. I voted for him not because I approved of divorce, but I approved of his policies.

It's all about the policies, not the personality. This isn't a Trump rally. You know, Haley was invited to this, you know, Biden's well, I'll be like, okay, I gotcha. Well, no, but you know, Biden, this event tonight, you know, Biden was invited. He didn't come. Haley was invited.

She didn't come. So it's like, but this is, they invite people of high, you know, you know, countenance in our culture candidates to come and speak to the religious broadcast. It's been an age old tradition. I thought you just said they invited Nikki Haley. They did. Yeah. Yeah. She declined. No, that was, that was a joke. I was being like, is she still in, is she still in the neocons need a representative?

Ukraine needs represented. But let's give an example of that. I mean, what if Trump said, Hey, you know what, God bless her. You know, like Tony Dunshee wins the super bowl and he doesn't say he doesn't cut, you know, he doesn't tear down the other coach.

He said, Hey, that coach did a good job. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's the thing, you know, like there can be, there can be a gentleman diplomacy too, right? Not with Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley. Well, listen, I'll tell you, Nikki Haley, uh, is not pro life. She, she is pro choice. She's been, uh, she is a, effectively a globalist, a neo con.

She's in with the deep state. I think she is, uh, as far from the base of the Republican party and the heart of America as can be. And that's very different from somebody like Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis is a good man. You could disagree with him on some stuff, but Nikki Haley's in a different bag.

I would not, I don't think it would be right. I think Trump would lose points with his base if he ever said a kind word about Nikki Haley. I'm saying as a religious broadcaster, I want her soul to be saved. I want Joe Biden's soul to be saved.

That's what I'm saying. But like here's the challenge is, is so many pastors out there. Okay. Speak to the pastor who is a devotee of someone like Russ Moore, who's full blown left, who's a, you know, who hates Donald Trump. And the second I said Trump, that guy turned the radio off, but maybe he's still listening. What is your appeal to him, Robert Jeffers, about how he should think about voting in terms of policy versus personality and all that stuff? Well, first of all, voting is a stewardship. John Jay, the first chief justice of the Supreme court said, God has given us the privilege in this Christian nation of choosing our leaders.

The leaders we choose determine the policies we follow and the policies we follow determine the moral and spiritual direction of the country. And my friend Eric has done such a great job of showing what happens when Christians withdraw from public life as they did in Nazi Germany and let evil prevail. This is no time to be silent. It's time for us to stand up, speak out and push back against the evil. And Donald Trump will do that.

You wrote a book called Bonhoeffer. I mean, this was going on in Nazi Germany. Now the weird thing is the left calls, the left calls Trump, you know, Hitler. I mean, it's like, they're calling him everything they're doing, right?

Yeah. Well, they'll call you and me Hitler if they don't like us. Here's the, here's the issue. Christians are called by God to do the right thing, not to go with our emotions, but to do the right thing. And I got to tell you, I wrote a book called Letter to the American Church and I wrote that to people who do not agree with me. I want to speak to people in the middle who do not like Trump and I want to say, listen, brothers and sisters, let us reason together. God has, is taking us through some tough stuff in this country and we need to band together as believers and not say I'm going to opt out of politics.

We have to be very, very sober minded about it. So I wrote the book letter to the American church to try to exhort believers to understand that the German church missed it in the thirties. They said, you know, we don't do politics, we're just going to preach the gospel. Because of that, Hitler rose and satanic evil prevailed. Some of the ugliest stuff in the history of the world because pastors said, we're going to sit down, we're not going to get involved. Pastors and Christians are called by God to speak against evil, to stand against evil.

And if you, if you don't get that, you're, you're, you're making a theological mistake. So I begged my brothers and sisters to consider that. We made a film which it's called Letter to the American Church. It's free. Any church in America that wants to do a screening of it, it is 100% free, two churches only. Letter to the American church.com, uh, letter to the American church.com is the website and the film, it's a documentary film, brilliantly done.

I didn't do it, but it is brilliantly made and is 100% free to any church in America that wants to do a screening. Uh, you can go and sign up already. Hundreds of churches have signed up.

Okay. Dr. Jefferson, I hear you from the pulpit. When I hear your sermons on the radio, I hear you preach the gospel. I hear you feed the flock and I'm encouraged by that. But, but people out there, critics accuse you guys of being Christian nationalists.

Now they've called us these, you know, you know that, that whole label. Speak to that and give us a closing thought about how leaders, pastors, and all of us should, should not divorce policy from our Christian life. Look, if you're defining Christian nationalists as being somebody who believes America is exempt from God's regulations and that America is going to be blessed no matter what she does and that our love for the country is the same as a love for God. No, I'm not a Christian nationalist, but if you mean by Christian nationalists, somebody who believes this country was founded on a Christian principle that our majority of forefathers were Christians, that we as Christians have not only the right, the responsibility to vote our convictions. If that's what a Christian national list, count me in.

Wow. And there may come a day where you guys are thrown in jail for your faith in Christ. Matthew chapter five. People are being killed for their faith while we're having this nice conversation. People are being thrown in jail, tortured, and killed for their faith. Christians need to understand living out your faith in Jesus comes with a price and it is a glorious price to pay because he paid the ultimate price. We are believers. We stand for our faith and God calls us to live out our faith in every sphere. And when somebody uses the term Christian nationalists, I'm convinced they have nothing to say. They've created a term to shut the voice of God's people and that's not okay. Okay.

Eric Metaxas, Dr. Robert Jeffers. We got to wrap this up because Donald J. Trump is speaking at the National Religious Broadcasters. It'll be interesting to see what he says. It'll be interesting to see how it's received, but we need to pray for him too. We need to pray for everybody, right?

All kings and all those who are in authority, we need to pray. Get involved, get registered to vote and vote your faith. Well, and I'll say to people again, letter to the americanchurch.com. Free to churches only. If you're a church or you go to a church, letter to the americanchurch.com and you can sign up there. Look both these guys up, check them out and what I might try to do is have like an anti-Trump pastor on and we'll do a little debate and I'll moderate and y'all will kill me, but that's fine. But how Christians kind of check their brain at the door sometimes when it comes to this stuff and it needs to, the lordship of Christ needs to affect how we think about everything, right Doc?

Absolutely. He's lord over everything including politics and it's time for us to infiltrate politics and to try to preserve this country a little longer so we have an opportunity to share the gospel. Give the website for your teaching ministry that's all over the Truth Network and all kinds of stations that carry this program. It's Pathway to Victory, that's ptv.org. Pathway to Victory, that's ptv.org. Bless you brother. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. He's got a hat on that says, Make America Pray Again and it's red.

I thought it was one of those MAGA hats, but it's more like a MAPA hat, right? Tell me your name and what God did in your life. Sure. My name is Drew Forsberg. I'm retiring out of the SEAL teams after 22 years of service in one more week. Right now I'm kind of interning with pray.com because the military has a program where you can intern with other companies while you're on the tail end of your military service. About me, I got saved in 2005 after my first deployment to Iraq. A few months later, as I'm looking for more discipleship, I was deployed and another Christian man took my iPad and uploaded me up with a bunch of podcasts and sermons so that I could get that digital discipleship during these months where I was alone out in the Southern Philippines and really helped strengthen my spiritual growth, which helped all my mental health and all these other things so that 22 years in the teams, I've still got a healthy marriage. I've had a successful career and a testimony that's still in fact, all thanks to digital discipleship as well as all the faithful church attendants and everything else. But between all the training cycles and deployments, that digital discipleship kind of helped me get grounded. Well, I feel a little safer because I'm next to a Navy Seal. So like, I feel kind of good as a Christian radio talk show host who knows, you know, they don't want me doing this. You know what I'm saying? We're in an event at the Religious Broadcasters Convention.

It's a little bit loud. And this young lady here is connected to the founder, right, of Pray.com. And you're connected with Pray.com too, right, sir? That's right.

Yes. Navy Seal came to Christ through digital discipleship. Some cool digital platforms. Tell us real quick about that and how this all started. Well, Pray.com is the number one app in 125 countries around the world. They do anything from meditations, bedtime stories. We have content from all different kinds of influential people. We partnered with people like Dr. Phil to do pray therapy for people.

Drew Brees, inspirational prayers. That's right. Yeah. NASCAR prayers, all different kinds of things on the platform. But yeah, my husband is one of the four founders.

There's four guys. My husband is Matthew Potter. And the other founders, Steve Katina, Mike Lynn, and Ryan Beck. Pray.com. You know, the power of social media, the power of and I'll post this as a podcast and it may be listened to by more people who listen on the national radio show. And don't be nervous because the 200 million people that are listening, you can't see them or they can't see you. But I'm standing also in this group with one of your hats is your dad's like, why is my daughter up there with a MAGA hat?

And I said, it's not a MAGA hat, it's a map hat. It's Make America Pray Again. As we get ready for this Donald Trump speech, Grace and Jeremiah Baker, Grace and Baker, you know, Caleb, your awesome husband, but you are the daughter, the granddaughter of David, Jeremiah, the daughter of David Michael, Jeremiah, you've seen the Lord use their ministry and even turning point your granddad's ministry through social media. It's just talk about the power of the impact that can have. Yeah, social media is a great tool to reach people with the gospel. We did a campaign this last fall that was able to reach 330 million people with the gospel just by using different tools with the message of the rapture and kind of showing people what that would look like in today's world. So social media can be a really incredible tool to reach people with the gospel with the apostle Paul, David Jeremiah. That's right. That's his granddaughter. Wow.

All right. So the podcast that I got in 2006 was Chip Ingram to give me that practical Christian living tips and David Jeremiah to walk through the book of Revelation. So I got all of this great biblical content as well as the balance of the Christian living things and Revelation especially like ties to everything. So David Jeremiah is and Chip Ingram are like the two heroes that helped ground me as a newborn babe of Christianity. That's incredible. This is unraveling on like a national radio show that I'm recording here in front of the stage where Donald Trump is about to speak to address the religious broadcasters.

Again, they invited all the candidates and no one else could come but him and it's a packed house. The line was been here for three hours and you opened up with your testimony about these digital programs help bring you to faith in Christ as a navy seal way out in the Philippines and little did you know that one of the granddaughters of those pastors that you heard digitally is standing right here. Gracie, Gracie, Gracie, Anne Baker, Jeremiah, how's that make you feel? Incredible. It's just encouraging to see all the efforts that we're doing or reaching the people that we want them to reach.

So that's really encouraging to hear. She got in a little bit of hot water and I don't mean that like getting into trouble, but she started posting these videos of, you know, the rapture. You know, Christ is coming back. He's going to take his own and it got pretty intense, didn't it, with the feedback and did you expect it to go that viral? No. I mean, we had a whole team that prayed over the campaign expecting it to reach, you know, millions of people, but we never expected it to reach 330 million people and so it's just, you know, goes to show the power of the Lord and what he can do when you're doing his work.

You know, what would happen? Everyone listening out there like can I make a difference? They can make a greater difference. One person that has a highly influential Facebook page can post and share a David Jeremiah sermon like he talked about, can post and share your testimony or share this podcast to their 10 million people on their email list. They could help bring someone to Christ. They could touch with one click, point and click of the mouse or one little slide of the finger on the smartphone, which is really smart when it's doing this. They could reach more people than Jesus reached his whole time on earth.

How about that? Right. He said we were going to do greater things than he did, and now you can kind of, oh, that's what he kind of meant. What's your challenge to young people out there about seizing these moments and using the digital social channels, not just to put pictures of food and all this stupid, crazy stuff with these pop celebrity nuts and Super Bowl stuff, but about the Lord? God can always use whatever tools the devil is using.

He can use it for his own glory. So as many people are being distracted and going down wayward paths with all this technology, it can be equally used for great good and great understanding of working with his power and his spirit and getting to know Jesus a lot better. Grace and Jeremiah Baker, the granddaughter of David Jeremiah. I interviewed, by the way, your older brother and your dad today.

It was kind of fun. I said I got David Jeremiah on and David Jeremiah, but not the David Jeremiah that you're thinking about because there's a lot of y'all, you know, but the power of just a post to reach a soul. Contextualize that force and give us a challenge to the next generation. I mean, here you would deliver university studying, you know, I guess technology is studying some like graphics, social media, write that and talk about that. And like, how can our listeners and our young people next generation make a difference with it? Yeah, everything that you do, you know, the Bible says everything that we do, do it to honor and glorify the Lord. And that's even you know, something so simple as the social media posts. Anytime we can post or get something out there with the gospel, that's another chance that we can spread that message with somebody and get somebody else saved.

So even though you might think it's something small, it could be something that could change somebody's lives forever. And we're connecting more with pray.com. I don't know a whole lot about y'all, but I've, I've been getting to know y'all because y'all are sponsoring this big event tonight where they invite a candidate every year. I guess Biden couldn't make it and Nikki Haley declined, but Donald Trump's coming to speak. So who knows, because he's a very controversial character, even among believers. But we should never divorce our faith from how we vote, right?

Right, exactly. Yeah, I think the church has probably been a little bit quiet on a lot of this for a while. But one thing that should not ever be debatable is that our country needs prayer. So let's pray. What's the website for pray.com? Oh gee, I wonder, is it www.pray.com?

Hey, he's smart enough to be a talk show host, I tell you right now. I spend a lot more time in the gym playing ball than I do in the classroom and it's coming out now. What's the David Jeremiah Turning Point website, best website for folks to learn more about y'all, to learn more about this best selling book. The Great Disappearance is going crazy.

It hasn't disappeared on the best selling list. I'll tell you that right now. What's the best information about that, Gracie, to get that information? Davidjeremiah.org. You can find all of our information there.

Awesome. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. He's a powerful preacher of God's word. He's out of a wonderful church in Dallas, Texas. He is Pastor Jack Graham. You hear him on PowerPoint all over the Truth Network. Pastor Graham, something interesting is about to happen at the Religious Broadcasters Convention. I'm going to say this name and everyone's going to get either mad or really happy.

It's really interesting. Donald Trump is about to speak. They invited Haley, they invited Biden, they invited all these people, but he's the only one that agreed to come and speak to the religious broadcasters.

Now you're a pastor, a man of the word, a man of the cloth. In this room, there's going to be people that are very mad. They're like, just here as journalists, like all this guy, this mean vulgar guy, and there's going to be people really happy.

There's going to be a lot of cheers of support. How do you work, you know, how do you process all this and contextualize this for our listeners? You know, I'm really glad Donald Trump is here at National Religious Broadcasters. When he was president, I had the privilege of serving on his faith council and praying for him and with him many times. He appreciates evangelical Bible believing Christians. He appreciates the impact of media. Donald Trump watches Christian television. He does and has through the years. Billy Graham, for example, way back, his father, his family. So he understands who we are, what we're doing. And I can tell you when he was president, he did more for Christians, churches, religious freedom, sanctity of life, Supreme Court appointments, Israel, all the things, so many of the things that we care about and much more.

But he led the most faith friendly White House in my lifetime. And so we appreciate him. And I know I'm sure there will be critics.

There always are. But the vast host of everyone in this room is really glad that he's come. And because he's come to say, you know, we're going to support him as we can, but he's coming to say, I support you. You know, that now now the left is calling people like you and probably even me, Christian nationalists, you know, because we're in favor of not killing our young.

We're in favor of the sanctity of marriage and we're in favor of freedom of speech, religious liberty. What do you say to people that say, oh, Jack Graham, he's just a he's politicking from the pulpit when he tells Christians to vote their faith, when he tells Christians to vote for a policy, not personality. How do you address those critics of yours?

Maybe some of this room? Well, expect critics always the way never to have a critic is to say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. And so when you stand for something and especially biblical convictions, a biblical worldview, then those who oppose that will resist you. And we just can't afford. I'm bringing a message here tomorrow night in our B and I'm going to I'm going to say, here's why we can't quit. And we must preach the word of God and gaze the culture, the moral questions of our times and not allow the enemy led by Satan himself to run us off the field. And, you know, the victory is ours in Christ.

We know who wins. We've already won. Christ has given us victory. We share his victory. So now we go on the field to fight the good fight and take what God has given us and really to let our voice.

We just need to let our voices be heard and not be ashamed. If I'm you know, if I'm preaching or teaching or leading to please men, then I'm no longer the servant of God, Paul said. And you're not saying politics suddenly becomes more important than the gospel and then the preaching the God's word, because when I hear you preach on the Truth Network or where, you know, from your pulpit, you know, I'm hearing God's word being taught. You're feeding the flock.

Well, that's what I do. I preach Christ and teach the Bible. And but that doesn't mean you don't address the great social and cultural issues of our time, because the Bible does. I mean, God cares about how, you know, how we're able to feed.

A man can feed his family. God cares about our economy. And so should we. God cares about the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of life. And God cares about how government should be run there. All of that is in the Bible. And so we don't just go to our churches and and sing the doxology and go home till next week.

No, we're we're to shine his lights in the world and and overcome evil with good. So it's 1865. It's a Sunday morning. The election is on Tuesday to vote, whether we vote for owning black people in our country, slavery or we vote against it.

It's on the ballot. You're a pastor. You get up to preach. Do you risk angering your woke congregants who are going to stop giving to the building program? They're going to stop tithing because you talked about politics or the pulpit.

And would you speak out against slavery or just be quiet about it? Well, of course, you should speak out. And the the important thing is that we're not silenced, because what what Satan what the world wants to do is first to shame us and then to stigmatize us in order to silence us. And we will not be silent.

That's that's the point. We'll earnestly contend for the faith, as you three tells us, which means to vigorously fight the good fight of faith. We don't hate people. We love people. We want to bring people to Christ. Our church is all about evangelism and missions and reaching the world over Christ.

But I also care about my children's future and our grandchildren's future. And I want to do the best that I can on my watch as a pastor to to do the will of God and to align with the will of God and the Word of God in our in our times today and our generation. It says in the book of Acts that that David served God in his own generation and then he fell asleep. And so King David served his own generation, but not just his generation.

What did he do? He served God in his generation. So we serve God in our generation and then we go home to be with him, whether it's by air or by land. Well, I can't wait to hear you tomorrow night as you're one of the grand finale speakers, the big banquet at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. My first one without Big Stu. You know how much we miss him, don't you, Pastor Graham? I miss Big Stu. He meant the world to me. Met him about 30 years ago, about the time we were.

This is the 30th year of PowerPoint ministries. And Big Stu had a lot to do with us being on radio, the Salem networks, and just we met the most wonderful friendship and partnership in the gospel. Thank you for the blessing you've been to the body because I talked to all kinds of pastors who says, Jack Graham, he's been an amazing, supportive ally.

Your books, I interviewed you about your book about the mental breakdown. Amazing. I've shared that with pastors like, wow, this guy's saying what no one else would say. We did that pastor's event in Lynchburg for 93.7. So thank you.

We love you. And we're going to let you tell us real quick the best website for folks to hear your preaching. And if they're ever, hey, in Dallas, they can't miss your church, they need to come hear you. Well, we'd love to have Prestonwood Baptist Church is the church. Prestonwood.org is the website of the church. You can go and watch our messages, sermons there. But my website is Jack Graham.org.

Jack Graham.org. Get all the books he's written, go hear his sermons, listen to them on the. Listen to the Bible in a year podcast. It's now at 50 million downloads. It's the largest religious podcast in the world.

And it's just taking people right through the Bible. Now I'm meeting with Jason tomorrow, but my buddy Scott sealed 30 years. Congratulate a shout out to him. 30 years for that guy. I mean, he is something in there.

25 for Scott or 20. And my wife and I actually started it and Scott's been leading it the last 20 years. What a blessing. Thank you for speaking. I guess we got to get going cause it's loud and Donald Trump's about to take the stage. So we'll hear, we may have to get a reaction from all these pastors. I don't know if there'll be an altar call, but there may be an altercation, right? That's good. Well, I just hope we all get right with God.

That's the thing. You know, revival begins in the house of God with God's people. And we know politics ultimately is not the answer. We know that, but God has a role for government and God wants to sit at his Christians to be citizens, good citizens. And, and to, we're persuaders, aren't we? We're Christian persuaders. And that's what politics is. Politics is persuasion. So we want to persuade people with a biblical worldview.

Yeah. And you know, that's an awesome point. I know we got to wrap it up, but to that point, you have, you know, your faith, you vote your convictions. I mean, you don't just leave Jesus outside the voting booth. So you vote not personality, but you vote policy who's closest. They're all potentially vulgar, pagan people you're voting for, but you're voting your convictions, you know, and, and, and for life and for liberty and for freedom.

And at the end of the day, pastor Graham, I mean, someone might get their candidate elected and they might get all their policy passed and they might, the economy might be good and we might have triple numbers in the stock market, but if they don't have Jesus, it's not going to turn out well for them. Right. That's right.

And it's all about Jesus. Appreciate you, man. God bless you. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. You're welcome.