you Good afternoon everyone and welcome to today's focus for Thursday, April the 20th, 2023 at 12 p.m. Central Time. I have waited for a couple of days to talk about what we're going to be talking about for today's focus. I've been kind of waiting and waiting and waiting. I mean, it feels like, in some ways, it feels like I've been waiting for years to talk about it. I know I've mentioned it here or there. I've tried to be extremely careful. I know I did mention it a little bit in one podcast episode. So in some ways, it's only been, you know what, 24, 48 hours that I've been waiting. But in another way, I feel like I've been waiting for years to turn on the microphone and speak about this maybe in a more direct way. I know I've done some episodes where I've been somewhat direct, but I've tried to stay out of it as much as possible. On one hand, it's because I want this podcast to be more obviously theological. not political. I want this podcast to be about Bible study exercise, the exposition of Scripture, church history, theology, doctrine, keeping an eye on the church, where it is, where it's going. That's kind of the direction I want to go, but there are times Obviously, we will turn on the microphone and offer commentary on the news. I do that a little bit. I try to be very careful because if you're not careful, or at least if I'm not careful, this podcast basically turns into a news commentary podcast. That would change everything. I've been there, done that. And you can blame it on my personality, but then you almost become like, that's your life. You're watching the news, commenting on the news, watching the news, commenting on the news. And then next thing you know, I feel like I need to be basically broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and try to keep up with the major news agencies, even though I'm supposedly a theology podcast. You can lose your focus quickly. So I always try to go, okay, When should I step over just a little bit? I should cross that line and talk about it. And my one clear, I think one thing that makes it clear, one clear guideline is whenever I cross that line to try to deal with something over in the news world, political world, it's when it clearly has a connection and an impact on the church, it clearly has a connection and an impact on the body of Christ, it clearly has a philological and biblical connection, then I definitely, I feel like I have the green light to step over there and discuss it. Now obviously I don't have anyone controlling what I say, so I have complete freedom. It's not like someone's going to go, well, you can't really broadcast on that. So far, I've never had a problem. The only place I've ever had problems is YouTube, who, if you put anything in your title that is somewhat controversial, it will immediately get taken down and they will accuse you of violating rules, even though the content doesn't actually violate the rule. It's just that in your title, you have one of the buzzwords that they don't want you talking about. other than YouTube, I've not had a problem anywhere else. I've had lots of freedom, editorial freedom to say and do what I want. Well, Christian Radio, I got kicked off Christian Radio, so I didn't have much freedom there, even though they never told me what the rules were, so I digress. So I don't have anyone telling me what to do. So it's my own struggle. When do I talk about it? When do I talk about it? So I think that the subject we're gonna be discussing today has clear connection and implication and is relevant to Christians and the church. I don't think there is any way to get around that. I think that's just an absolute provable fact. It's a dogmatic effect. It's not only is it dogmatic, I mean, it's not a theory, it's not an opinion. Clearly, this relates to millions and millions of Christians around the United States of America and the church at large, and Christian radio and Christian podcasters. So, this definitely has a connection. So, alright, I have the green light. But there's another reason I have kind of avoided and waited to when should I talk about this? When should I talk about this? Now again, there are, you can go back and listen and there are broadcast at times where I do mention something and there may be some podcast episodes where maybe I was somewhat direct, but for the most part, I've avoided this. One, because just struggling to make sure it's relevant. And now I've got the green light on that. So I'm good to go there. But the next thing that was holding me back is, and I have to say this, is this voice deep inside of me that is saying this over and over and over, what's the point? It's a waste of time. It's useless. You're not going to change anyone's mind. You're not going to help anything. You're not going to benefit anyone. Oh, maybe you'll spark a little bit of controversy and it may increase your downloads and streams for that one episode. But for the most part, you're wasting your time. It would be better for you to turn on the microphone and just just sit there and hum, it would probably, I mean, it's about, it would be, it's going to be about as useless as that. If you just turned on the microphone and hummed for one hour, like people would be like, what is that? That's a, that was the, that was a waste of my time. Well, I feel like that no matter what I say in regards to this subject, it's just going to be a waste of time. No one's going to change their mind. Their minds are made up. And it's sad. It is really, really sad that that is where we have really gotten inside the church. Now, you know, the one thing I haven't been hesitant to talk about as I've said over and over and over, that the American church has become politicized, that the American church has become hijacked, that the American church has laid itself down and gave itself over to political parties so that they would have power and influence in order to supposedly bring about the change in culture that we've given up on the gospel as making, that the gospel is ineffective. We've given up on the gospel. So what do we do? We need a political party. We need a political ally. So the church laid itself down, gave itself sold itself almost like a prostitute to political parties so that we could possibly, you know, we can get things done in society so we can implement Christianity upon the unregenerate through political force, power, bills, laws, etc. And that somehow the church lost its mind there. Instead of relying on prayer, fasting, and preaching, we did like, no, politics, Republicans in general, Donald Trump, that's what we need to make the world great again. Our vision for the country was this mixture of Christian nationalism and political, I don't know what it was. It was a mess. And I have railed against that over and over and over and I will continue. When the church becomes nothing more than an arm of a political party, then the church ceases to be the church. We've prostituted ourselves and given ourselves over to a political party so that they can gain power and they can gain influence. And I have definitely had my issues with that. And I don't apologize for that. Because the church is supposed to be the church. We're supposed to be the bride of Christ. We're supposed to be trying to please Him. We're supposed to be trying to serve Him. And we've lost our focus. It's like, you know, hey, scripture's not doing the job. Prayer and fasting's not doing the job. Preaching's not doing the job. All right, we've got to come up with another way to get what we, to make the world look, to recreate the world into our own image. I think that that's a problem. Now, as this has been happening, I have felt over and over and over that Christians were losing sight of basic basic biblical passages, basic Christian ethics. We had been so hijacked by political ideology that we were forgetting the basics of Christianity, things that are very simple, things that don't require you know, seminary, Bible college, Bible institute. It doesn't require Greek. It doesn't require Hebrew. It doesn't require hermeneutics. I mean, it's just, it's like a child could read the verses and go, okay, we can understand that. But for some reason, because political ideology became our God, we forgot the actual words of God because they're very, very simple. Let me just read you two. They're so very simple. Here's Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20. These are very simple words. Exodus chapter 20. These are the 10 commandments. Exodus chapter 20, verse 16. Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor. thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor. That seems pretty straightforward, right? Do we need some help on this? Do we need some help? Well, let me see if I can help us. Let me see if I can help us even just a little bit. Let me see. Let me see if this works. Hang on. Let me try this, all right? Let me try this. Let's look this up. All right, okay, here we go. False witness, just so that we can make this clear, because I'm assuming you know what it means not to bear false witness against your neighbor, but it is a person who deliberately gives false testimony. All right, thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Here we go, here's another definition, a false witness. It is a deceptive or misleading witness. A deceptive or misleading witness where you're talking about someone and you're lying. You're saying false things about someone. You're using deception, misinformation. You are not speaking the truth about someone. You're taking half-truths, full lies, whatever the case may be, and you're speaking it about someone else. That is something Christians should not engage in. I mean, it's not like, oh, I don't know what that, you know, I don't know. Don't bear false witness. If you don't know for sure if something is true, if you don't know for sure if something is accurate, the Christian way would be, let's not speak it. If I don't know, I don't speak it. And I'm going to verify, verify, verify, verify before I post, before I speak, before I make accusation. I mean, this is just like basic stuff. I mean, there shouldn't even be a debate within Christianity. Hey, how should Christians act in regards to other people? Well, we don't bear false witness. So if I hear something about someone, I'm not gonna speak it, share it, unless I can 100% verify it's true, and I'm gonna check primary sources, secondary sources, or I'm just gonna stay out of it. That's not hard, right? Oh wait, there's another one. There's another scripture. Again, so simple. Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians 4, verse 25. Ephesians 4, verse 25. Wherefore put away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. That's simple, straightforward. Don't bear false witness, put away lying, and speak the truth. So when it comes to Christians engaging the culture, what do we do? We don't bear false witness, we stop lying, and we speak truth. That's what we do. We don't engage in misinformation. We don't engage in slander, false witness, half-truths. No, we don't do that. We're like, no, no, no, no, not going to play that game, not going to play that game, not going to play that game. That's like basic Christian ethics 101. And every church should be teaching this. Hey, look, while the world is going crazy and being hijacked with political ideology, and everyone's fighting and screaming and making accusations, we just don't engage in that. So don't be making accusations against any president, against any political party, against anyone about anything, unless you have your facts straight. That seems pretty simple and pretty straightforward. And we started seeing that this was becoming, at least I did, a major, major problem. leading up and and i'm not saying it's not always been a problem it's always been a problem because as human beings we have a sinful nature and our hearts are desperately wicked and deceitful above all things so the greatest source of lying is inside you and is inside me Right? So we lie to ourself, we lie to others. I mean, we are a walking, you know, some people quote Calvin as our hearts are idle factories. I would say our hearts are lying factories. We create lies. The factory that produces lies comes from inside us. The liar is inside us. So we have to be alert, we have to be sober, we have to be watchful because we know that inside we will lie to ourselves, we will lie to anybody else. The truth is not in us. We have to know that. That's just the reality about it. We all struggle with it. We all lie constantly in some way, shape, or form. So we have to be on the lookout that, hey, we've got a problem here. We got a problem here. So it's always been a problem. It's always been a problem. As long as human beings, as long since the fall, it's been a problem. We all know this. Now, wait, just wait for it. As we get around 2015, 2016, the church, I felt, was becoming more and more politically hijacked. And next thing you know, the church was like, we must, especially in the white evangelical world, we must get Donald Trump elected to president. We must. We've got to turn this country around. We've got to. Instead of, let's not focus on prayer, fasting, and preaching, we went to politics. And it was Donald Trump was the savior. Donald Trump was here to save us all. He was here to rescue us. And the church went full-blown Donald Trump over and over. And then the next thing you know, as Donald Trump would, it's almost like the church followed Trump more than we followed Christ. Hard to get around that. And then you could just see it. Now, I've always struggled with it, but it just felt like the church began to lose its mind, and it stopped believing in scripture, like, don't bear false witness, put away lying, speak the truth. It just started, it almost like the church became this hub, not of human trafficking, but of trafficking of misinformation, slander, gossip, false witness, and lies. And there was no topic the church would not get involved in and talk about. It didn't matter if it was conspiracy theories, if it was misinformation, if it was fraudulent information, the church was just like lapping it up like a a dog dying of thirst. It was just like, you know, just give me more, give me more, and we just, and I would turn on the microphone at times, whoa, why are we saying this about COVID? Why are we saying this about the election? And then when Trump lost his re-election bid, oh, Christians were like, no, he did not lose. The election was stolen. These Dominion voting systems, they were swayed and all and Smartmatic and all of these other things. It was stolen. It was stolen. It was stolen. It was stolen. And this was wrong. And this is horrible. And I can't believe this is happening. And we got to fight for our democracy. And all the next thing you know, I was like, whoa, wait a minute, Christians, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? And I started playing clips from Christian radio where they were letting the Sidney Powell's and the Rudy Giuliani's and the Mike Lindell's and all of these people just throwing out every crazy, wild-eyed, bearing false witness lies about the election and about what was going on. And I kept saying, this is just so wrong. This is so wrong. The church, Christians cannot be engaging in this. And I would get emails, people trying to argue with me. No, you're wrong. You're wrong. The election was stolen. you're wrong! You're wrong!" And it's like, you know, what is happening? And I'm like, this, like, we've jumped the shark. We've lost the plot. Like, I don't know what has happened to Christianity. And it was bad. And so, I played a lot of that. And I want to remind you, I don't care if the world's out there lying. I don't care if the world's out there sharing false information. That's irrelevant. They don't believe in whole to biblical morality. The Bible though tells us as Christians, no, no, we don't bear false witness. We put away lying and we speak the truth. That's what we're called to do, right? That's what we are called to do. In theory, right? In theory. Now, again, we all fall short. I'm gonna, just stay with me because this is gonna come full circle. This is gonna come full circle, right? But just stay with me. So, this kept unfolding little by little, little. And obviously, what became, and it's been true for a very long time, the dominant source of information, the dominant influence in the lives of many Christians, was something called Fox News. There's no way to get around it. That Christians would spend, especially older Christians, would spend more hours watching Fox News than they would listening to sermons, reading the Bible, memorizing scripture. They won't do Bible study. They won't do Bible study methods, but they'll watch Fox News. They won't keep up with podcasts, but they'll watch Fox News. They can't remember last week's sermon, but they can remember everything Tucker Carlson said. They can remember everything Sean Hannity said. You just go throughout whoever the next big person is on Fox News. Fox News was beginning to become more of a source of influence on Christians than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, more so than their church, more so than the sermons, more so than Christian podcasts. And then over in the Christian world, Christian radio and other things, they were constantly playing clips from Fox News, meaning that Christian radio and Christian news sources were being more influenced by Fox News than they were anything else. And so you could just see there was a recipe for disaster, as Fox News was obviously and clearly erring lies, Christians were repeating those lies and sharing those lies and promoting those lies without ever stopping to go, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Is this true? Are we bearing false witness? Are we speaking No, no, no, no, no, no. It's just like, hey, Fox News said it. It's got to be true. It's got. And if you tried to call it into question, if you try, oh, you're one of those liberals, you're a socialist, you're a communist, you're probably a homosexual, just the nonsense that would happen with it at that time. And you could not look, people who watch Fox News. There are many of them, you cannot speak to them like a rational person. They live in an alternate reality. They're on some other planet and you're just like, nevermind, nevermind. It's like a waste of time. It's like right here, this wall next to me, I got a better chance talking to that wall. I have a better chance of that wall changing its mind and it doesn't even have a mind. Talking to people who watch Fox News like that, it's just like, nevermind. This is just, it's useless. So you could just see all of this building, and all of this building, and all of this building, and if it wasn't Fox News, it was Newsmax, or One American Network, OAN, or it was Family Radio, American Family Radio, and their news source, and all the different news, Christian news sources, and all of the conservative radio, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Mark Levine, you can go on and on and on. It was just like, what is happening here? And as you listen to Christians, they sounded like Fox, they did not sound like scripture. And you could just see, we've got a problem, we've got a problem. And then it was announced that Dominion Voting Systems was suing Fox News for like $2.1 billion. And then guess what started happening? started finding out that because of Discovery, wait a minute, Fox News, they were saying things behind the scenes where they knew what they were saying on the air. They knew they were lying. They knew that they were lying. They were lying to their audience, but the audience didn't care. And again, I don't care about the lost audience. Christians and most Christians don't care. They lie, like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, these things that they were saying off camera completely contradicted what they were saying on camera, meaning they knew what they were putting forth was lies. And why were they doing so? Because they were afraid they were going to start losing people to go to Newsmax or OAN or other news sources. So to keep their audience, they had to keep feeding their audience what the audience wanted to hear, meaning that the audience didn't care about truth. Now, again, I don't care if lots of people don't care about truth, but shouldn't Christians at least somewhat care about it? So the trial, the discovery was going, and it was building, and it was building, and it was building, and I, for one, could not wait for the trial. I could not wait. And then, literally right when the trial is set to begin, all of a sudden, Fox News settles with Dominion Voting Systems. They settle for the largest amount of money ever paid in a defamation case in like world history. Absolutely astronomical, like 700 and something million dollars Fox News is paying. Just insane. Here's a little audio from some reports that were happening about what went down. I've got another article here, and then I'm gonna offer some points, and then I am gonna bring it full circle, right? Because you know what I like to do with news. I don't wanna just point out everyone else's issues, because this is a point to all of us, right? This has more to do, again, this is about Christians, not Fox News. And people are not going to understand that, but just stay with me. Here we go. Let's listen to some reports that were coming in. on the day that this all went down. Good evening from New York, I'm Chris Hayes. Well, this afternoon, on their very first day in court, Fox News reached a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems for more than $787 million. It is one of the largest settlements we have ever seen in a defamation case in this country. It's second only to the $1.4 billion verdict judgment against right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones last fall. So, As of today, we are in truly uncharted territory. Fox News has joined the Alex Jones category of especially pernicious conduct. This is also, we should know, not the end of the legal or financial road for Fox News. Remember, there's another voting company, Smartmatic. They make voting machines as well. They were wrapped up in the lie and conspiracy theories. They are also suing Fox. They're suing Fox for $2.7 billion, also accusing them of airing false statements about their company in the context of coverage of the 2020 election. Now, in the wake of the news of this settlement with Dominion, a lawyer for Smartmatic immediately released a statement saying, in part, quote, Dominion's litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox's different information campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest. Now, Smartmatic is going to go after Fox for over 100 false statements. And it was a disinformation campaign. That's the thing. They literally were selling you disinformation and Christians were sitting there like, yeah, give me more. Like Christians did not have the discernment to go, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. These are some crazy claims. These, I mean, just go listen to what Sidney Powell was saying. I mean, she was saying insane things and Christians were eating it up. Christian Radio kept playing clips of Sidney Powell and how amazing she is. And she speaks the truth. And guess what? When it all started unraveling and falling apart as not being true, Christian Radio went silent. They didn't. And not only that, in some cases, they just kept promoting the same lies, just not playing clips of Sidney Powell or Rudy Giuliani. They were playing clips from Tucker Carlson then or someone else from Fox News. I mean, they're in Alex Jones territory. When Fox News, I mean, which is not a surprise because Tucker Carlson has promoted Alex Jones. So, I mean, when Fox News promotes Alex Jones, you should know you're no longer listening to a news channel and you should turn it off unless you just want entertainment. So, FOX will not only have to deal with another likely damaging set of facts, they may also have just advertised what their price is, how much they're willing to pay to make them go away. We don't know yet. We may never know anything about the details of today's settlement beyond that dollar amount. It is very likely that Fox's statement this afternoon is as close as they will ever get to issuing some form of an apology or acknowledgement of their wrongdoing, writing in part, quote, we acknowledge the court's rulings finding certain claims about dominion to be false. Fox also laughably asserted that the settlement, quote, ready for this? Reflects Fox's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. Oh, absolutely sky high. While it was not the ending that a lot of people were hoping for, Dominion's lead attorney said it did represent a tangible victory over the lies that Fox knowingly spread. The truth matters. Lies have consequences. Over two years ago, a torrent of lies swept Dominion and election officials across America. into an alternative universe of conspiracy theories causing grievous harm to dominion and the country. Today's settlement of $787,500,000 represents vindication and accountability. Now, the reason that there was so much attention on this case, the reason it was such a big deal, the reason that so many members of the media were down in Delaware to cover it, is because of the unique role that Fox plays. And this is the most important thing to understand here. Fox has a kind of monopoly. Now, I don't care if Fox News has a monopoly in the conservative political world. They should never have a monopoly in the world of Christianity. They should have zero influence in the life of believers who care about the truth. Christians should not seek out news sources just because supposedly these news sources agree with your political ideology. What you should want is to hear news from as many different perspectives and sources as humanly possible so that you can seek the truth, find the truth, speak the truth, and not spread lies, speak lies, and bear false witness against people. And Christians, when you're on social media spreading false lies, you're bearing false witness, it's a sin. When you're posting things online that are not true, it's a sin. When you're slandering and gossiping, it's a sin. When your actions lead to death threats against people working at the polling stations, when your actions lead to death threats for those who work for Dominion or Smartmatic voting systems, that's a sin. They are the sole source of news for huge swaths of the American electorate. They dominate conservative media and they dominate the information to tens of millions of Americans in a way that has no equal on the other side of the political spectrum. Fox News is the dominant source of information for Republican voters. The vast majority of conservatives in this country trust them and very few others. Now remember, I don't care if Republican voters trust them. I don't care if Republican voters get that from their sole source of information. I care if Christians do. If Christians do, and when you've got the host off camera admitting that they're lying to you and you continue to watch it, then you continue to not care about truth. And I'm gonna get, what about CNN? What about MSNBC? Please show me where they've been sued for $2.1 billion and had to pay out 787, 500,000, whatever it is, million dollars. And it's not over for Fox. Not only are they going to be sued by Smartmatic, not only they're going to be sued by their shareholders. There's a very high probability of it. Not only that, certain individuals at Fox News may be sued. This is not over. And if they keep losing and losing and losing and losing and losing, at what point do you go, man, clearly they're in a league all by themselves. Now other news agencies have had at times to either issue retractions, apologies, and have had to pay out money because of their defamation. But nothing to this level. This is a level never seen before. I mean, when I kept, I listened to all the depositions for the Alex Jones case, and I watched all of that because there was a time I had way too many Christians emailing me who were citing Alex Jones as their source of information for crying out loud. You talk about how broken the church is. And guess what? Off camera, in deposition, a whole different story than all the big bravado on camera and behind the microphone. The issue is how this has impacted the church. That's the, how has it impacted Christians? That's why so much of the world looked at as Christians and Christians, they just immediately associate Christians with a make America great again, red hat, Donald Trump, Republicans, conspiracy, like what? We don't want to be associated with any of that. I don't want to be as, I'm a Christian. Do not associate me with Donald Trump. Do not associate me with the Republican party. And for crying out loud, never associate me with Fox news. I want to be associated with something else. My identity, I want to be a Christian. None of those other things. They live in a tiny universe of information. Liberals, on the other hand, and really not just liberals, like the broad center left, people across the ideological spectrum that aren't conservatives, consume and trust a whole wide variety of sources. New York Times, NPR, this network, there's loads of competition. One of the things that many people hoped would come out of this trial is that Fox News would be held accountable in some way, publicly, that would penetrate the hermetically sealed university of creative reviewers. Now, it's not clear that would have worked. I mean, just take a look at the homepage of Fox News this afternoon after the settlement was announced. Yes, if you're squinting to be like, do they have the news of the settlement there? You're not wrong. It doesn't appear to be there. It was breaking news Yeah, when this news broke, it was everywhere. If you were watching the Fox News Twitter account, they just kept posting one news story after another news story, and they would not even acknowledge or admit that they just paid out over $700 million because of their false information. They didn't even acknowledge it. because they don't want their viewers to even, they want to protect their viewers. And those viewers are not going to get any information from anywhere else. Because here's what, if you mention news source anywhere else, here's a Fox News viewer. That's fake news. That's false news. We don't listen to anybody else but Fox. Okay, maybe not with that accent, but you get the idea. You can't break, they're sealed in a safe room and you can't get in. And it's like, just give me Fox News. Just give me Sean Hannity. Just give me Glenn Beck. Just give me Mark Levin. Just give me conservatives. La la la la la la la. I don't want to hear anything else. Don't tell me. Just keep telling me lies. Keep telling me sweet little lies. I don't want the truth. Don't need the truth. Don't love the truth. Don't like the truth. Don't care about the truth. Now again, I don't care for people who are not Christians. I don't care. It's how this impacted Christianity. And then pastor standing behind the pulpit saying things that sounded like it came from Fox News clearly didn't come from scripture. And you saw this over and over during the pandemic and after the election. everywhere else, push notifications and the like, not on Fox's website. Now on air, we must note, it was slightly different. Media analyst Howard Kurtz, who previously said the company banned him from covering the case, did get a couple minutes of airtime to speak about the settlement. This had to do with the idea that Dominion voting machines, and former President Trump and his allies made this case on Fox and elsewhere, were somehow stealing votes from Donald Trump and flipping them to Joe Biden. That's obviously false. Those were conspiracy theories. But the case would have revolved around, you know, whether Fox had done due diligence, whether it was reckless, whether it was simply reporting, as the network contends, on an extremely newsworthy matter argued by the former then-president of the United States himself. Can you hear the tightness in the vocal cords there? So if you caught that parenthetical emission of truth, right, like it was obviously lies, comma, go on. In the middle there of that little segment, briefly, That's what you got on Fox. Now, again, the hope or promise, and it did seem possible I think at some levels, that if this trial had gone on, if it continued, it would have inevitably penetrated that Fox News bubble to some degree, whether the network covered it or not, and they probably wouldn't have. But I have to say, it's also possible that that wouldn't have happened, that Fox has so completely monopolized their viewership, and particularly instructed their viewers to distrust other possible competing sources of information, they could have just shut their viewers out of the whole story. And that's the stuff cults do. The cults are like, everyone else is bad. You don't read their information. Don't listen to their sermons. Don't read their books. Don't do it. And Fox News is like, everybody else is false news. Everyone else is fake news. Just listen to us. Just listen to us. Please keep your focus on the screen. Don't look anywhere else. We tell you the truth. You need us. We are the source of truth. We are the truth. You don't need anything else. Surrender your will to us. Surrender your mind to us. And they're like, yes, I must watch Fox News. Oh, it's a Fox News alert. Oh, oh, panic. Sell me some panic. Sell me some fear. Let me know that I can't look anywhere else because I'll be who knows. And it's like literally it's like a cult. What is clear, however, is that Fox News was entering this trial today massively on the defensive. I mean, basically every observer across the ideological spectrum who looked at this in good faith concluded that. Now, in part, that was due to the vast amounts of evidence that are already made public, evidence that we've reported on the show, showing that Fox executives, Fox hosts, and Fox producers knew the things they were saying about the election were not true, knew they were having guests on to spout lies about Dominion. There was also the judge's summary judgment, which he reiterated today, declaring that the evidence developed demonstrates that it is crystal clear, all caps, that none of the statements Fox made relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true. So according to that ruling, everything Fox said about Dominion, the machines were hacked, they flipped votes from Trump to Biden, that the ghost of Hugo Chavez or Italian satellite spyware was somehow involved, all of it was legally, as determined by the judge here, false. They couldn't argue the facts here. Going into the courtroom, it was already established and stipulated, those were all false statements. And then things only got worse for Fox this morning when the judge formally appointed a special master to investigate Fox's conduct during the discovery phase of the suit. Now, he had already sanctioned Fox for withholding evidence. That process ends, though, with the settlement. So the bottom line here is that on their first day of this trial, much anticipated, Fox News has agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems a truly ungodly amount of money for one reason. Why? Why did they strike this deal today? They desperately wanted to keep their people, including Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch, who is slated to testify as soon as tomorrow, and host Tucker Carlson, and Maria Bartiromo, and Sean Hannity from having to go under oath. They didn't want their executives or their hosts admitting in sworn testimony what they did, that they knowingly and repeatedly pushed one of the most dangerous falsehoods in American history. Stephen Shackelford serves as co-lead counsel. And there you have it. That's one of the reports. And it's just, it's, it's again, I'm not, I don't care about Republicans' politics. It's the church that bothers me. Oh, and to add to this, while all of that was going on, oh, someone else lost in court. You may know him because he sells lots of pillows. Yes, you all know him. Mike Lindell. He's ordered to pay $5 million. to the person who debunked his election lies. This story is crazy. Fox News isn't alone in having to pay millions of dollars for lying about the 2020 election. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was ordered Wednesday to pay $5 million. to a voter who debunked Lindell's claim that China interfered in the election based on data that Lindell himself provided. It's a strange story. It started in August of 2021 when Lindell, and we did I think a podcast episode about this, claimed during a cyber symposium in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, that he had data proving China interfered in the election. He announced he would pay $5 million to anyone who proved him wrong, dubbing the contest, naturally, the Prove Mike Wrong Challenge. Now, Mike Lindell, he's been on Fox News, he's all over, you know, conservative media, you know, many Christians think, you know, he's a good Christian godly man who's doing all of this great things for the name of Christ. Well, he made this challenge. Well, guess what? Someone signed up for the challenge. Which required only that the contestants prove that data Lindell provided didn't have anything to do with the 2020 election. This individual was a computer forensic specialist, did just that. He found that the data was total nonsense and Lindell who made the challenge refused to pay. He's like, no, no, I'm not going to pay. Wait, your whole thing is a lie. You're lying about the whole election. You're lying. So obviously the person took him to arbitration. The arbitration panel ruled that he did indeed prove the data in question unequivocally, did not reflect the November 2020 election data ordering Lindell to pay within 30 days. The truth is finally out there," said the individual who proved it wrong. Lindell doesn't seem very keen to abide by the decision. It will end up in court, Lindell said in a statement to Rolling Stones, just another attack to try to stop us from getting rid of the electronic voting machines. He loses, but now he's gonna keep fighting it. He's gonna keep fighting it. No, man, you lied. You lied. Fox News lied. Christian radio lied. Christians were lying so fast that nobody could keep up with the number of lies. But more is coming. Smartmatic's gonna get their day. The shareholders may get their day. Here's what I want. Here's what I would hope. First, I would hope that every Christian radio station that supported and promoted this lie would just simply come on the air and go, hey guys, look, the Bible gives us clear instructions. Don't bear false witness, put away lies, speak the truth. The end. We failed. We did not do that. We let you down. As a Christian radio station, we should keep our eyes and focus on Christ. We should keep our eyes and focus on the preaching and teaching of God's word. We should keep our eyes and focus on prayer, fasting, discipleship, hermeneutics, church history, and theology. And we allowed ourselves to be hijacked by politics. And because we were so hijacked by politics, we were blinded about the very basic elements of Christianity. and we allowed our airwaves to be used to promote lies. And we shared those lies, we promoted those lies, and we defended those lies. There was no excuse for what we did. We are sorry. We will do better in the future. And you know what? I would be fine. I wouldn't say, lose your job. That's it. You're disqualified. I'd be like, well, thank you very much. Praise God. Thank you. So far, nobody has done that. All the people who emailed me saying, it's true. The election was stolen and it's time that we take up arms. Nobody has emailed me back in an apology. No, no one, because they're not. All it would take is Fox News to come on the air and go, hey guys, look, we're supposed to be a journalistic enterprise. We're supposed to be a news agency. And we became a partisan hack. for the Republican Party, and all we did was put forth their lies, and we apologized. We messed up. They're not going to apologize. Christians who got all over social media saying nonsense, I would just wish that today they would just say, hey, guys, remember back in 2020 when I was mad? You know what? I was wrong. I apologize. That wasn't very Christ-like. I allowed myself to be so politically hijacked that I forgot the basics of Christianity. That's all I want. That's all I want. Now, you know what it does show me? It does show me that all of us, not just Fox News, not just Republicans, not just Trump supporters, but all of us, our hearts are deceptive. We will deceive ourselves and we will deceive others. We all struggle with telling the truth, living the truth. We all struggle with living lies, believing lies, and promoting lies. It's just something that is inside of us. I know I have lied. I know I have made false statements. I know I have not always been accurate with the truth in my life. And come on, don't act shocked. You've not always been truthful in your life as well. We all find ourselves lying in some way, shape, or form. This is a reminder to us. that the Bible calls us to speak the truth. Now, those laws in Exodus 20 and in Ephesians, they remind us. Remember, the law is there to expose the reality of what we are. We are liars. We come forth from the womb speaking lies because we have a sinful nature. We have to acknowledge that and praise God that my salvation is based off the truth of Jesus Christ because he never spoke a lie. He spoke the truth. He was the truth and his obedience is imputed to me by faith. So my salvation is based off that. But I need to be constantly reminded that as a Christian, I need to have a better relationship with the truth. I need to do what I can to try to pursue the truth. I fall short every single day. So this is just not me calling out Fox News. This is calling us all out. This is calling us all out. We need to love the truth, speak the truth, and try to live in a good relationship with the truth as much as possible. I fall short all the time. I fall short continually. So I don't want this to come across like I'm just bashing Fox News. The only reason I'm going after Fox News is because of how Christians engaged it. I don't care what Fox News does. I don't care. I don't care what Alex Jones does. I don't care. They can say whatever they want to say. I don't care. I really don't care. No means for censoring people, you know that. But I just wish the church would be like, we can't get involved in this. We can't do this. We just can't. We don't bear false witness. We got to put away lying. We speak the truth with our neighbor. We love our enemies. Now, I don't know where you fell in. I don't know how you interacted. with everything. I don't know where you fell, but I don't know what you were doing, what you were thinking, what you were saying, what you were promoting, or what you were believing. I cannot speak for you. But I think today is a good day to stop and focus in just how did this whole thing, where did you fit in in this entire narrative? with the election and the election being stolen. Like, where did you find yourself? Again, I was immediately going, wait a minute, this is just, there's no way, there's no way. And I began to call out Christian Radio right from the start, I called them out. Right from the start, I called them out. because I just like there's just this is just no no way maybe because I get my news from I don't know a hundred different sources and you think I'm exaggerating look at any of my podcast apps and look I subscribe to every news source that I can find on earth whether it's five ten minute news updates at the top of the hour whether it's hour-long programs 30-minute programs you name it every from from overseas everything from Al Jazeera to Sky News, to the BBC, you name it. Everything in America from MSNBC, CNN, NPR, PBS, Fox, everywhere. I subscribe to Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, I mean, Ben Ferguson, you just name it. I subscribe to Rachel Maddow, I mean, you just name it, liberal, conservative, in between, Christian, non-Christian. I subscribe to it all, everything. And I try to make sure that I balance out all the different sources that I'm getting every single day. And I try my best to not come to a conclusion or speak a conclusion until I can come up with what the facts are. I have a rule when it comes to music. I'm very big, if I'm going to review an album or say anything about an album, at a minimum, I have to listen to the album 10 times, right? First two, three, four times, I'm just focused on music, right? Music production, the instruments, just everything about that. Like that's really where I'm immersing myself into the sound of the album. the sound. Then starting about 5, 6, or 7, I start to focus on lyrics, lyrics, lyrics, lyrics, lyrics, lyric analysis, lyrics analysis. Really trying to take it apart. And then 8, 9, 10, I really focus on enjoyment. Like, okay, I'm now at number 8. Am I going to listen to this album anymore if I'm already deciding I'm done with this? Listen number eight or nine. I'm still loving it. Well now I'm gonna put that album probably and not beyond good now It's going into the great category. And if I listen ten, I still want to listen to it again now It's coming and it's getting classic a treat. I'm gonna call it a classic album. It's good So I have like well same thing with news I'm not gonna come to any conclusion when I hear something Fox says I'm or or NPR I'm gonna go. Well, wait, what are they? Well, why are they seeing these things? So radically different what's going on here? So I try to make sure I've probably listened to the story 10 times from 10 different sources. That's just to try to protect me from that. Now, but what the main thing is, just remember that the liar that I have to protect myself the most from is me. So whatever I have said about Fox News, let me make it very clear. I'm a bigger liar than Fox News. I'm a bigger liar than Tucker Carlson. I'm a bigger liar than Sean Hannity. I'm the bigger, because I have a sinful nature that constantly, I have a lying factory that produces lies inside of me. I lie to myself. I can lie at any moment in time. And don't think that you can't either. This is a wake up call because you or I probably will never be, you know, have to pay 787 something million, $757 million for our lies. But we know our lies can have devastating consequences. But I know this, I'm a liar and I'm willing to acknowledge that. And you know what? Sometimes all you can say is, I'm sorry, and it's my fault, and there's no one else to blame. Sometimes we just have to admit we got it wrong. Love to get your thoughts. Newsifatyahoo.com. Newsifatyahoo.com. That's Newsifatyahoo.com. You're today's focus. I don't know what you want to call this. Don't bear false witness, put away lies, speak the truth with your neighbor. As Christians, we need to be more influenced with scripture than we are political parties or a news channel. Bye!