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Podcast 21 - A Social Issue
40 Plays8 days ago
Join us as we discuss a current news topic.
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Transcript
Introduction and Weather
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome back to Grove Hill Church podcast. We're excited to have you back with us. We are a little stir crazy. We've been... uh housebound for the last few days because of snow and ice here in tennessee it's been nice but it's uh it's been good to be out today a little bit of sunshine some stuff starting to melt away and we want to catch up with our podcast conversations we want to talk about something that's been in the news the front of uh the news segments of probably every every source of media there he is days uh recent days um
00:00:43
Speaker
you know I'm trying to think probably when it probably became the biggest item in the news, all the way back into Obama's administration, Biden's administration.
Immigration in News and Politics
00:00:51
Speaker
Now Trump has brought it back to the forefront. It's the subject of immigration. Immigration is one of those topics where there's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of...
00:01:02
Speaker
debate There's a lot of mixed signals coming from both the church as well as from the culture. Of course, a lot of people protesting and screaming at each other, and I don't feel like that's very productive. and So we want to take a look at it today. We want to examine it a little bit and try to talk about...
00:01:20
Speaker
um in a level-headed
Biblical Perspective on Immigration
00:01:22
Speaker
way. What does the Bible have to say about this? What does it teach us about immigration, about refugees, the sojourners, another word that's used to in the Bible to describe them.
00:01:33
Speaker
What we don't want to do is we do not want to demon demonize the immigrants. There are some who are legitimately here for legitimate reasons. They have honest intentions. We want to talk about it in relation to respect for law and order. And we also need to know that in the next 20, 25 minutes of the podcast, we're not going to fix things. Right.
00:01:58
Speaker
We're not going to do what politicians have been unable to do, although... There's a lot of places I feel like we could do what politicians can't do. But anyway, why do you think this is such a hot topic right now? And why do you think it's one that specifically keeps the Christian church divided in these days?
The Christian Dilemma
00:02:16
Speaker
i I feel like the society makes a Christian have to feel like they have to choose, like whether they love people or they want immigration laws. Right. And so it puts you in a position where it's like, oh, if you don't want these people here, you don't love them. Right. And so um it puts us in a position where we we're supposed to love everybody. And so I'm going to.
00:02:35
Speaker
I'm going to accept everybody, right? And so putting us in that position of of choosing makes most people go, well, I'm going to on the side of love and therefore I'm going to erase any idea to have any laws or structure, which is dangerous. Yeah. I think, too, it's the gray matter. i think there's a matter of ah placing something and saying that it has to be absolute whenever the facts lend itself towards ah discretionary.
Discretion in Immigration Laws
00:03:03
Speaker
Because I do think, and what we'll talk about today, I know there's going to be some things that are discretionary depending on nation. Nations are allowed to defend themselves. But then you also have the the biggest part of what we do to make the discretion of how we love, how we adopt,
00:03:21
Speaker
ah those who are from another nation and how we do that in a Christlike manner. So I think people want you to make those absolute decisions for a mass amount of people. And that's just not ideal, nor is it, I think, realistic to be done in ah a very well manner if we're going to just put a blanket. I understand laws are broad in the sense of they apply to the nation, but we have to be so, so careful about in this situation, because it is truly a case by case basis, where you have different situations from different countries. And so to hear people out, I think is where my biggest thought is today. i think if you were to do an opinion poll or survey and get the honest feelings of most Americans, I think most
00:04:05
Speaker
and i And I mean by a wide margin, a huge, huge portion of our country supports the immigration system. They recognize the value of it. They just want it done with some kind of order to it, abide by some laws, those kinds of things. and And I think we have to get past some of the things that probably are misconceptions.
Balancing Kindness and Truth
00:04:30
Speaker
The Bible never makes you choose between kindness and compassion versus truth. Right. they can coexist in fact should coexist in the in the economy of god logical truth along with tender compassion can exist inside the same person the same kind of feelings um so talk about this just a little bit pro-immigration if you were to stand up and make that statement does that mean that you are for open borders No.
00:05:02
Speaker
I'd agree, no. Okay. Well, are on the same page there. Yeah. So, um I mean, you'd you'd have to be really, really ignorant and have your head in a hole in the ground to not recognize that this country is in part what it is because of an effective immigration system. um Ellis Island, stories of people coming to New York City years ago by the droves and making this country what it is. That's why we have whites and blacks and Latinos and Asians and and just all kinds of people represented here in our country. It's a beautiful example of what happens when people come together without misconceptions and without lies.
Media's Role in Immigration Debate
00:05:40
Speaker
I'm going to throw this out there, and we're jumping way ahead in the conversation. I feel like that most of the animosity that exists between those who are pro-immigration and those who are against immigration is based on lies that are fed to us by the media. Sure, absolutely.
00:05:56
Speaker
So talk to that a little bit. Well, ah there's always an agenda behind everything. There's a lot that goes on that we never hear about. But when there's an agenda that wants to be pushed, they air it to the front of the media. And so whether that's an election coming up, you can always see an election coming because there's different things that are elevated. in the media. And so immigration has been one of those things that goes right to the top because it's such a hot topic. There's a lot of people either for or hard against and so people use it as a platform. Yeah, let's insert buzz.
00:06:28
Speaker
is that's That's exactly the job of news outlets. I spoke with someone a little into the mid part of last year. And this lady, she was one of the ones that would insert content into a news ah outlet on a daily. And so she told me, she said, that was our job to insert buzz, whether it be good, bad in between, right? What's going to get the viewers eyebrows raised. And so I think that's what they're doing. And whether that's on the liberal agenda, whether that's conservative agenda, we want to make it to where it's
00:07:04
Speaker
overstimulated or overemphasized, whether the person meant it or not, we're gonna go ahead and make it a buzz ah type topic so we can get the views. And I think In turn, you get a narrative that's blown out of proportion. So let's make this statement. I think we can agree on this too. Both sides spend an inordinate amount of time lying about each other. sure Yes. Okay. um Whether you voted Republican or voted Democrat or just stayed out of the last election, shame on you for that. Yeah. but I feel like everybody has their person they listen to, and the person they listen to is not telling the whole truth about this subject. The truth is usually found somewhere in the middle.
Political Misconceptions
00:07:44
Speaker
You've got Democrats who obviously benefit from an open border immigration system. That's what they're trying to push for. They want unlimited numbers of immigrant immigrants.
00:07:52
Speaker
For two reasons, I think. Number one, because that turns into voters for them. But number two, many Democrats are right there on that border are fully into the socialist camp. And the way to get socialism in place is to overwhelm the capitalistic system that we have. So I feel like that's a logical statement there. I think on the other side, there's been missteps, there's been problems, there's been lack of backbone there, and the Republicans want to point fingers instead of doing what they committed to do, what they were voted in to do by the majority of American people in the last election. So there's a lot of lying, there's a lot of misconceptions, there's a lot of blowing things out of proportion, and I feel like we really have to work as Christians to try to find the truth. It's an obligation we have, a responsibility we have.
00:08:39
Speaker
ah ah Logically when you're talking about this, people, especially unchurched people, want to remind you about biblical statements. They want to come in kind of like the idiots who walked into the church last week, and I will call them idiots. They are completely out of line. It was illegal what they did. Don Lemon and his crew. i hope Don Lemon never comes in our church because I'm going to turn him over to our deacons and let him see how far he gets with that. um but here The reality is what they did was illegal, but they started quoting scripture. You know, Jesus did this. Jesus one of those. And what does the Bible say? Well, what does the Bible say about the sojourner? The Bible says to obey laws. i Let's start right there. What the Bible says about sojourners is to take care of them, love them, support them, all those things. But the Bible also is very structured around laws and yeah structured around the law of the land. And so something we have to separate is the United States of America is not the church. It's it's it's a
Church vs. National Law
00:09:35
Speaker
country and the church responds differently than the United States of America. And so where we take a stand is we take a stand on biblical principles and
00:09:45
Speaker
not enforcing laws is actually not loving to the majority of people. Exactly right. Right. And so even when I was a cop and I would be arresting someone, even fighting someone, right? They're resisting arrest. I'm fighting them. I get them in cuffs.
00:09:58
Speaker
As soon as I did, I would switch. I'd say, hey man, is there anything I can get for you before I put you in the back of my car? There's AC back there. do you need some water? Things like that. Right. I can still be loving and I can still enforce laws. Right. And so this doesn't mean that we go and yell at people that we know aren't legal immigrants into this country. It doesn't mean we we treat them poorly. We still love them, but we have a standard of legal authority here that we want them to obey, right? If if my family, they obeyed the law and they got into this country legally,
00:10:31
Speaker
and pro-immigration, right, but not open borders. And so and there's there's this, it's not an either or, it's like this, I can love, but I can also enforce at the same time. Yeah, one out of every seven, and I looked this up a while ago, one out of every seven persons in this country had some bit of immigration story, that they were from another
Hospitality vs. Security
00:10:52
Speaker
country.
00:10:52
Speaker
Get that. But if I were to go to your house, I would say that you're a hospitable person. You you enjoy and you love the stranger, somebody who comes to our church, somebody who needs help.
00:11:06
Speaker
But you're also going to protect your home whenever it's nighttime, whenever there's a possibility that somebody's going to come straggling off the street and They don't really care about you. You're going to go protect your home. So I think they pit those two things against each other that, oh, well, if you're hospitable, then you, you know, you should just be open to everything. Right.
00:11:27
Speaker
But in turn, they're not realizing that you can do both, that you can be hospitable, but you can also protect the welfare because on the other end of the token, how well are we as Christians if we're not protecting those in our care, spiritually, physically? So there's a balance to yeah sure. So the the two things I would point out about this whole idea of taking care of the alien or the sojourner, depending on what you know translation you're reading, Number one, when God is speaking that, he is not speaking that to the nation of Israel. He's speaking it to individuals. He's saying on an individual level, you're supposed to take care of the alien sojourner. This is not a command for the nation. This is a command for people who who say they're going to follow me. I think the second thing that's really important there is that there is nowhere in Scripture where God ever says, take down your borders.
00:12:16
Speaker
In fact, God's the one who commanded Israel
Biblical Support for Borders
00:12:19
Speaker
to fight against those who tried to invade their land. Heaven has a gate. Heaven has a gate. Jesus himself said, wide is the way that leads to destruction and narrow is the way that leads. So there are restrictions. There are places where there are legitimate reasons to to keep people away or out of certain things. um The law does not mean,
00:12:42
Speaker
and does not it does not make you an evil person for obeying the law. And loving the stranger at the same time does not do it with way way away with the concept of citizenship. Again, the Bible says your citizenship will be in heaven. So that leads to this uncomfortable question about the law. um This is where people tend to think, okay, well, if you obey the law, then you just don't have any love and you don't have any compassion. So talk about that just a little bit. How how do you balance the two as a true follower of Jesus Christ?
00:13:09
Speaker
You both have talked about this and referenced The Bible says there is a law that that should be followed, that those government authorities have been put there by God. Romans chapter 13 tells us that.
Law Enforcement as Love
00:13:21
Speaker
But at the same time, we do have these commands to love those who are not like us and to take care of the alien. Yeah, so let's bring up a severe example just to kind of make a point. But if there was a murderer loose in the town of Chapel Hill and the cops were aware of it,
00:13:37
Speaker
and they did nothing to enforce it. They saw him, they didn't arrest him, and they let him go. How loving is that to the rest of the city of Chapel Hill? It's not. It's actually hateful towards it because they are aware of something and they're allowing it to happen. um Arresting that guy is not an unloving action.
00:13:54
Speaker
That's protecting him from doing something stupid to someone else. It's protecting the town of Chapel Hill, right? And so you're being a loving person by enforcing a law. Now that's a severe ah example, right? But it's it's the same thing.
00:14:07
Speaker
um Governments function in a certain way and you see what brings the demise to government and a lot of times open borders is what ah what causes something to crash because the system can't handle that. And so there has to be structure, there has to be legal laws in place, and they have to be enforced properly in order for things to to take place. And so, yeah, you you mentioned it earlier with Ridley, you know, being a hospital person, but at night,
00:14:32
Speaker
it's a different story, right? So there's like this like feeling towards it where if someone came up to Ridley's door in the daytime and said, hey I'm hungry, he'd say, hey, here's some food. If someone came pounding on his door at three in the morning, he's not unlocking that deadbolt, right? it is It's a different feel. And so, ah yeah.
00:14:48
Speaker
Well, and and I'm a rule follower. That's just me by nature. A system that's put in place that rewards people who cut in line punishes people who obey the rules, which only encourages people to disobey the rules even more. yes So again, to me, i mean if i were if I were elected president tomorrow, God help us all, I did. But if I was elected president tomorrow, the first thing I would do is do away with the IRS and make all those IRS agents go work the border. yeah And we we would we would, what's the word? We would bring people in faster. Are you going flat tax then? Yeah, flat tax, baby. I'm a flat tax person. I feel like that's a yeah yeah that's a whole other topic here. Let's get that started. but um But I feel like if we would put more emphasis on trying to get people checked out, checked in get them immigrated in the right way, It would take pressure off the others. But then you have ah you know the last president who basically said, throw open the doors and let anybody come in. And we got drug smugglers. We got sex so sexual exploitation has gone through the roof. Many, most, I would say very nearly all of the people that they've been trying to to get out of the country are people who are in lawbreakers right and already have warrants for their
Case-by-Case Immigration Approach
00:16:01
Speaker
arrest. It's not like we're taking the sweet little, you know...
00:16:05
Speaker
Javier from Mexico who's here with his family and send him out. They're arresting people who have raped people, who've shot people, who brought drugs into the country. yeah Why would anybody be against that? right yeah yeah I think it's wild how we we want to put the broad brush on everything. yeah and And I say both sides, there's gotta be, and as much as I know that you can't do this to every extent to do case by case, that's what America does. They do a case by case. As soon as that person comes in, they don't just bring a swath of 500 people in and say, okay, you're in. And the next swath of 500, you're out. So it literally is a case by case basis. So how are we walking alongside those border agents? And I think to your point, Let's get people where matter matters. And so rip the things out in government where, ah again, the church has got to play the role of the church and the government has to play the role of the government. And if we as believers can interject ourselves into to government where it's needed, then
00:17:07
Speaker
by gosh, let's do it. But we have got to address those issues with a sense of rationale and discretion where there's not a whole lot right now. But to your point of Ellis Island, I go back to that. I'm i'm a big history guy. And i love as I walk through the the processing that they would go through and they would ask questions like, what do you do for work? yeah What do you do for these things to sustain your family, to sustain your existence here in this country?
00:17:37
Speaker
And To be honest, I don't know if we do that to to this day. i I look at the the very, very detailed walk that they walked through as they went through processing because it was very likely. yeah ah There was a strong possibility that you could have come over on a boat from Europe.
Immigration Processes: Then and Now
00:17:54
Speaker
and then went through amount of processes, stage one, stage two, and guess what? You get rejected. But there is the benefit for the American people at that time because of that process. And I think we're not submitting ourselves to that process whatsoever. and this Again, that seems like such a logical question. You're coming here to this country to benefit from it. How are you going to give back to it?
00:18:18
Speaker
and yeah That should be a basic question we ask everybody. um you know The question that gets asked in this from the other side now, though, is what is the church doing and how should we be reacting? What could be doing better to take care of those who are the sojourners in our country?
00:18:32
Speaker
You're looking at me to answer that. I'm looking at anybody. and so ja i let jeff answer I would say on an individual basis, we i mean there's some people ah close to this area around here that aren't legal immigrants, right? um That does not mean we go beat them up and throw them behind a building. No, we love them, we take care of them, um and extend the the love that Jesus tells us to. But at the same time, there's laws. We've got to encourage them to
Church's Role in Supporting Immigrants
00:19:00
Speaker
obey laws. I think there's a lot of simple things we can do as churches and as Christians. I mean, little things like many churches in our area offer English as a second language. It's a great program, not only to help establish friendships and relationships, but to help people to adjust to living in this country where English is the primary language. Benevolence programs. We have people come to our church on a regular basis asking for assistance. We don't sit down and go, are you an illegal immigrant or we're not going to serve you? We serve all who come, regardless of where they come from. Having gospel relationships with them to try to help them get established and get their place set up. I don't even...
00:19:37
Speaker
For me, i don't even feel like it's a Christian responsibility to go, hey, I found out you're a legal immigrant. I'm to call the police. That's their job to find out. I'm going to love you as my neighbor. I'm going to care for you as my friend. I'm going to try to teach you the gospel, and and I'm going to stand for you as a human being for that reason. um I think the church needs to be again be reminded when when God commanded them to take care of the foreigner it was on a personal level one by one every follower doing what they can to help take care of this um the government's job is to restrain evil our job is to tend to the hearts of people though um so some of the common complaints that you hear from people wasn't Jesus himself a refugee ever heard that one yeah yeah
00:20:19
Speaker
but Jesus was in a particular situation where he was running from state-mandated evil and terror.
Jesus's Refugee Status Clarified
00:20:25
Speaker
right He temporarily went to another country and then returned back to his homeland. um It was not an argument for open borders. That's not what Jesus was trying to do. He wasn't carrying a protest sign on the donkey as he went down there to say, hey, open up the borders or else. um The question gets asked many times, shouldn't Christians just love people?
00:20:45
Speaker
And now our job, shouldn't we just love people? Well, the most loving thing you can do is say to somebody, well, there's a law against this. yeah A law that was established by the authorities who are there. um So when we love people, don't we have an obligation to tell them the truth? Yes, sir.
00:21:02
Speaker
We love people. Don't we have an obligation to encourage them to live by the same laws that we live by? Yes. And when we invite people into this country, isn't it okay for us to have a a standard of if you're going to come here, to some degree you need to adopt the same kinds of values we have?
00:21:17
Speaker
that you need to adopt the same kind of standards that we have. yeah we don't We don't marry 14-year-old girls. we don't give them away in marriage. We don't steal from people things that don't belong to us. I mean, it's the same standard our culture has lived off for years,
00:21:33
Speaker
And i would say one of the reasons we're in the mess we're in is because we stopped holding people to
Government vs. Kingdom Laws
00:21:38
Speaker
that standard. Yeah, and if you look at every organization from the the home to the school to the church has a structure and it's coordinated in some way. And so why wouldn't the immigration laws be the same thing? Have some type of structure or foundation to them.
00:21:52
Speaker
And yes, we want people to come into the the country. A lot of the people who are upset at illegal immigrants are legal immigrants because they spent the 10 years going through the process, for this the 15 years going through the process, and then here's someone who's, like you said earlier, there cutting in line. yeah And we go back to Romans on this whole the government law and then kingdom law. right like And you've mentioned this multiple times. Yes, kingdom law always will supersede. If there's tyrannical government, if there's something sketchy going on, then yes, by all means, disobey if the government is fully oppressing what God states in his word.
00:22:33
Speaker
But I think a lot of what we're seeing is not the fact that our government is being tyrannical. I think they're just being process-driven, although not perfect. That goes to the part of where you you see all these news channels, the one... mishap of one agent that makes a a mistake and I'm not referencing any situation recently, but I'm saying, say you're down at the border and there's mistreatment in this one area. We like to put the whole blanket on all agents and say, oh, all agents are bad. Well, have you gone down there and had a conversation with each one of them? So we have to make sure that we are having discretion, having discernment and and not jumping to conclusions.
00:23:16
Speaker
i think that's a great point. If you read your Bible carefully, there are only three entities, three organizations, if you will, that were ordained by God for the existence of mankind.
Spiritual Attack on Institutions
00:23:29
Speaker
it is the human family, it is the church, and it is the government. And if you watch very carefully, those three things are the things that come under attack the most. And any time... I would argue any time that one of those three things is coming under attack, you can bet that it's not the Democrats, it's not the liberals, it's not the MAGA, it's not it's it's Satan who is coming after those things because those three things provide structure to humanity. So how do we respond? What is the best way for Grove Hill Church to step forward into next week looking at the immigration issue it continues?
00:24:05
Speaker
I'm going to look at my, ah most likely based on statistics, but also what I'm seeing at Grove Hill Church, I'm going to look at my white brothers and sisters and say, you need to lavishly love people that are not of the same race, that are maybe even from a different country. And sometimes quit throwing the broad stroke. And and I know this is probably going to step on some toes because we have jumped to the conclusion and said, we don't need no immigrants in this we need to lavishly love as scripture has placed a duty on us as believers and then leave
Church's Love for Immigrants
00:24:39
Speaker
the reform. Yes, go vote, go do those things to interject into government.
00:24:44
Speaker
But our first command personally is to love people lavishly. The the Greek word phyloxonia, the love of the stranger is what Christ compels us to do to just really, really Push down on that and make it an emphasis. He just threw down some Greek on us. Yeah, yeah. That's really good and I looked it up. Yeah, he did. Philoxenia. Philoxenia. Hey, phileo. It's kind of like a brotherly love. Very cool. But we've we've got to do that. We can't be just talking about it. We have to pursue it. Yeah.
00:25:15
Speaker
Very cool. Yeah, we are not agents of the United States. We're agents of the King. And so we we act on his behalf. And so this is our book, not the legal authority of the United States. so And so what this says, we do.
Scriptural Guidance on Immigration
00:25:26
Speaker
And so this this is high on the end of love. And like you just said, on a personal basis. I like what you said earlier, where it's not as a whole. You're looking at the individual. And so, yeah, love people are that around you.
00:25:38
Speaker
So I want to close out with two things that for you to think about if you're watching this today, listen to this. Number one, if you are... Let's just boil it down probably way too simply. If you are pro-ICE and you support what's going on, immigration, customs, those kinds of things, I would ask you the question, what are you doing to love people well who have been brought to our country for whatever reasons, legal or illegal, what are you doing as a follower of Jesus Christ to love people well and let them know that they are here um and in a safe place?
00:26:11
Speaker
Okay? other side of the coin, for those of you who I would basically say anti-ice, that you know the whole problem is ice, it's not anything else, I would ask this question. Ice operates in 50 United States and right now there's a problem in one. yeah Tell me why only one state is having a problem.
00:26:31
Speaker
and And the answer goes back to forces of evil who are working against the entities that God has ordained for our our humanity. so no um Obviously a hot topic. Again, too many people yelling at each other. Nobody's listening very much anymore. So thanks for listening to us. And I'm sure there's probably some differing viewpoints out there. If you want to throw em back at us, we'd love to talk about them a little bit more. Maybe carry this conversation a little bit deeper. The bottom line is this.
00:26:58
Speaker
and God loved the whole world. And we should have concern and heartfelt sympathies for people all around the world, whether it's an illegal alien who lives down the street from us or somebody in Eastern Europe who's under the throes of a war between Russia and Ukraine right
Global Love Beyond Borders
00:27:15
Speaker
now. Somebody in Asia who's starving to death because the government is suppressing the church in that area. I mean, you can go any place in this world and find there is a need for people to be loved. We won't ever run out of that opportunity. So find somebody to love today, and we'll join you back here next week. and Like, share, comment, whatever you want to do on our podcast. We enjoy doing this. We'd love to hear back from you. Y'all have a great week.
00:27:40
Speaker
Bye.