Rock or Sand—On Which Foundation Will You Build This Year?

GUEST: MATT MORRELL, Pastor, Fourth Baptist Church (Plymouth, MN)

As we start the year, we don’t know what lies ahead, whether with world events, the economy, personal health, and many other things. Just consider the horrific wildfires causing destruction and death in Los Angeles and remember to pray for those impacted.

The bottom line: Life is uncertain but storms are certain.

Jesus concluded His most well-known sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, this way:

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall” (Mt. 7:24-27).

The beginning of a new year provides a good opportunity for Christians to self-examine. Are you and I making choices to build the house of our lives on the foundation of Christ and His Word?

This weekend Matt Morrell, pastor of Fourth Baptist Church and president of Central Seminary in Plymouth, MN, will join us to discuss two of his recent sermons about our foundation in life and personal sanctification. Matt is also one of the featured teachers at The Overcomer Course for Young Adults this coming June 20-21.

Later in the program, Andrew DeBartolo, host of Liberty Coalition in Canada, will join us to discuss the resignation of prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Later in the program, we’ll hear from Andrew DeBartolo of Liberty Coalition Canada about the resignation of prime ministry Justin Trudeau.

Transcript

Rock or Sand—On Which Foundation Will You Build This Year?
SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 2025 at 8:00am CT

Host: David Wheaton:
Rock or sand? On what foundation will you build this year? That is a topic we'll discuss today on the Christian Worldview Radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. I'm David Wheaton, the host, and our website is TheChristianWorldview.org.

Well, we hope you had a Christ-centered Christmas and are ready to serve Him in this new year. On behalf of the staff and board of the Christian Worldview, I'd like to thank you for all your notes of encouragement and financial support to this non-profit radio ministry, that you sent in at the end of last year. I also want to thank those who expressed that you've been praying for me after my heart attack in late November. I'm thankful to the Lord to be feeling well and that my fitness is continuing to improve. I even played some ice hockey over the break, so that's good.

As we start the year, we don't know what lies ahead, whether with world events, our economy, your health. Consider the horrific wildfires causing destruction and death in Los Angeles right now. We need to pray for those impacted by that. The bottom line is life is uncertain, but storms are certain.

Jesus concluded his most well-known sermon, the Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew chapters 5-7 this way: "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house and yet it did not fall for it had been founded on the rock." Verse 26, here's the contrast. "Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house and it fell and great was its fall." Verse 28. "When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at his teaching for he was teaching them as one having authority and not as their scribes."

The beginning of a new year provides a good opportunity for the Christian to self-examine. Are you and I making choices to build the house of our lives on the foundation of Christ and his word. Today, Matt Morrell, pastor of Fourth Baptist Church and president of Central Seminary in Plymouth, Minnesota will join us to discuss two recent sermons about our foundation and our personal sanctification. Matt is also one of the featured speakers at the upcoming Overcomer course for young adults in June. Later in the program, Andrew DeBartolo, host of Liberty Dispatch out of Canada, will join us to discuss the resignation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

But first let's hear from Matt Morrell on rock or sand, on what foundation will you build this year. Matt, thank you so much for coming on the Christian Worldview Radio program today. You gave two recent messages toward the end of last year as a precursor to come into the new year. And the first message you gave was titled A Firm Foundation, and you started that message with a story about the Leaning Tower of Pisa, well-known place in Italy, and you gave the history there that the tower was built on a shallow and shifting foundation hundreds of years ago. And yet today we still see that tower is tipped over a certain number of degrees and I think it's almost unusable because it's so much leaning.
The parallel you are making is that we all as human beings are building our life on a certain foundation and your text for that message came from Jesus' final words in His Sermon on the mountain in Matthew 7:24-29, which I just read. Everyone is at a certain stage of life with its own preoccupations in building so to speak, whether teens who are in school and friends and activities or thirties and forties somethings, marriage, perhaps raising kids, work, travel, recreation, older people, sixties, seventies, eighties, they're involved in retirement and health and grandkids and downsizing. So what does Jesus mean to be building your house on the rock in the midst of all these different stages so that the storms don't topple it?

Guest: Pastor Matt Morrell:
Jesus as the master teacher, he illustrated so well the building of a house that can withstand the storms of life and that is the story of life, a life of storms. And in each of those stages as you just identified, we are preoccupied with events and activities and such, but we endure storms during each of those seasons of life. And the threat of the storm isn't just damage but it's actually to destroy. In fact, in Matthew 7 when Jesus described the foolish man who built on the sand, he doesn't say there was damage to the house. He says, "Great was its fall that of the foolish man that built on the sand." And so Jesus' point is that we must ground ourselves on a bedrock foundation if we are going to stand to the storms of each stage of life.

Host: David Wheaton:
You went over three different kinds of builders in this message, and by the way, we have this message linked at our website, TheChristianWorldview.org if you'd like to hear the entire message. We're just going to touch on a few points of it today. But you talked about three types of builders, the wise builder, the foolish builder, and the non-builder. Let's start with the wise builder there in verses 24 and 25 of Matthew chapter 7, Jesus's Sermon on the Mount again. "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house and yet it did not fall for it had been founded on the rock."

You brought up two points under this and I thought the second one was particularly interesting. You said the foundation here, the rock is the teachings of Jesus Christ. Hearing these words of mine, as Jesus said and acts on them, builds on them. You said there's stability of a life founded, based on God's word. If I want to be grounded in life, we need to anchor ourselves in this book.

Then your second point went from the teachings of Jesus Christ to the person of Jesus Christ. You said the error that can be made by Christians is that we think we can have stability in Christ's teachings without Christ Himself. In other words, morals are good enough. Christianity is a way to live. So explain what you mean by Christianity is not a moral code of conduct that we check certain boxes, but rather must be focused on pursuing the person of Christ.

Guest: Pastor Matt Morrell:
The context of the wise man and the foolish man who built their house is at the end of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7, beginning of course with the Beatitudes. Many people approach the Sermon on the Mount or the Beatitudes, this high point of Jesus' teaching as a code of conduct or ethics and are convinced that following after Jesus' moral or ethical teaching is sufficient. However, Jesus said there in Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7, He said, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you won't see the kingdom of God.
So even if you were to follow a moral code of conduct, even if your self-righteousness was greater than the scribes and Pharisees, it's still insufficient. And so that was my caution in recognizing that this rock that we build upon is beyond just Jesus' teaching. It is the person of Christ Himself, which Paul to the Ephesians said that Christ Himself is the chief cornerstone. In the book of Acts, Jesus is the stone which the builders rejected. Peter talked about the stone in Zion, that precious and chosen cornerstone that the builders had rejected. So Jesus Christ Himself is the rock and it's more than just his teaching.

Host: David Wheaton:
Matt, let's go from the wise builder to the foolish builder there in verses 26 and 27 of Matthew chapter 7, Jesus says, and here's the contrast, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house."

Same kind of storms happened and it fell and great was its fall. And you commented on that particular point by saying, how disrespectful are we when we hear the words of Christ, when we hear the words of scripture and we do not act on them? What are some common examples that you see of building our house on sand? And I'm assuming that a believer can sometimes get drawn or misled into building the house of their lives on the wrong kinds of things rather than the rock of Christ. So tell us how a believer can be misled into that.

Guest: Pastor Matt Morrell:
The key distinguisher between the wise man and the foolish man is they both heard the same message, they heard the same teaching, but they did not act on it. They did not do what Jesus taught them. And what's stunning at the end of Matthew chapter 7 there is the acknowledgement that Jesus was teaching as one having authority, and yet there was no obedience to follow and thus the foundation of sand. But believers can be those who hear, perhaps every Sunday, perhaps on the Christian World Radio program, perhaps other preachers and teachers that are hearing the word, but they're not heeding the word and that's the foundation of sand.

So a believer, just as Jesus' disciples in this case in Matthew 5, 6 and 7 are in peril of disobeying Jesus' words. So strictly speaking, it's disobedience to God's word whether you're an unbeliever or a believer. I think for believers in most cases it isn't active disobedience, but it's a passive neglect of God's word unwittingly in favor of other influences and other attractions and other philosophies that bewitch us. Of course, I think of Colossians 2:8 "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ."

And so unwittingly a believer can be laying a foundation of sand because they are not heeding what they are hearing from God's word. And building our house on sand, it's like anchoring ourselves to the trends and fads of politics and financial markets and relationships and career paths and all of those things shift and change, especially as we move through the different seasons of life or stages of life as you introduced our conversation today. So believers need to take heed to this as well.

Host: David Wheaton:
The issue of change. We often think about that at the beginning of the year. What are some resolutions? What are the things I need to change coming into the new year? Change is hard because we get settled into the way we are. We find ways to live our life the way we are. And so what would you advise listeners today, me included as to how do you go about changing things in our Christian lives that need to be changed so that we are building on the rock with God's help?

Guest: Pastor Matt Morrell:
I think first, David, as you even acknowledged the spirit of God prompting us regarding matters, even as we're having this conversation today and your listeners are hearing these things, I would encourage all of us to be quick when we are prompted, perhaps the spirit of God convicts us maybe through the hearing, the preaching of God's word or the conversation with a Christian brother or sister and the spirit of God convicts us of something. I think we need to be quick to change in the moments in the small steps on a regular basis. That ought to just be perhaps business as usual for us as believers on a daily basis.

But then how to help us change the larger foundation with God's help. I would suggest we need to identify the big rocks that we need to stand upon and by the big rocks, I'm using the illustration at issue here, building upon the rock. What are the big rocks? The person of Jesus Christ, absolutely. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. That's an unchangeable foundation that we have to build upon the person of Jesus. Then I think the words of Jesus or the word of God, it doesn't change. It's true. And so we're people of the book, we're like Bereans in Acts chapter 17. We're always searching the scripture. That is a big rock to stand upon.

So the person of Christ, the word of God, the character of God, he's immutable, he's faithful. His mercy endures forever, so that when life happens and things go sideways and my world is turned upside down and I can't explain why, the storm is raging, I fall back on what is sure. And I stand firm on what is true, and I am changing it in this way that I'm running back to the rock. I'm looking back to the foundation and I think this leads us in of course to the whole process of sanctification looking forward. But before we do that, we've got to have the foundation to start with before we start erecting the superstructure that might look pretty or fancy or novel.

Host: David Wheaton:
Okay, Matt, let's go over to your other message her, trying to get this all in one interview with you. We're going quickly through it, but again, we have these two messages linked in our website, TheChristianWorldview.org. This message was in later November as you closed preaching through the book of Galatians, and this was that portion of Galatians. It's a very well-known Galatians 5:16-26, and the title of that message was In Step With the Holy Spirit and it was really about sanctification and how we pursue that.

I'm just going to read the passage to give listeners a sense of what we're talking about here at Galatians 5 starting in verse 16. "But I say," Paul talking now to the Galatians. "Walk by the spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh for the flesh sets his desire against the Spirit," this is the Holy Spirit, "against the flesh. For these are an opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please." Verse 18, "But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law."

Now we get these contrasts here, the works of the flesh verse, the fruit of the spirit, and first is the works of the flesh. He says in verse 19, "Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing and things like these, he says, of which I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you," Paul writes, "that those who practice," kind of a regular pattern of life, "those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." They're not even believers if you practice those things.
And then here's the contrast in verse 22, Galatians 5. "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Holy Spirit, let us also walk by the Holy Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another."

What a powerful passage that is on so many levels, one that's very worthy of memorizing to know what the battle that we're facing, and this passage it's about the inner battle that Christians face between the flesh and the indwelling Holy Spirit. So Matt, what is this irredeemable part of us, this flesh inside of us?

Guest: Pastor Matt Morrell:
The flesh is the fallen human nature of man, and our flesh is at enmity with God. Romans 8:7 tells us as you just read in Galatians 5, the flesh and the spirit war against each other, the works of the flesh you listed. They're the expressions of our fallen human nature. And Paul complains about his own flesh in Romans 7 and 8. But here's the funny thing. Sometimes we like to blame the world for our wickedness or we blame the devil for deceiving us. The devil maybe do it. And that may be the case. It may be that the world is tempting us. It may be that the devil is making us do it.

However, most often I would argue it's the lust of our own flesh that lead us to sin. And there's no one to blame other than our own fallen, sinful human nature, the flesh, and it is thermonuclear war as the flesh and the spirit are contrary. And so as we think going back to building on the rock, as we look forward to progressive sanctification in this coming year, we have got to walk in the spirit and not follow the flesh if we're going to have victory as believers.

Host: David Wheaton:
I'm just going to read one verse over again. It says "Now those who belong to Christ Jesus," that means that you're a believer if you belong to Christ Jesus, "those who belong to Him have crucified," what a word that is crucified as Christ was crucified in the cross, "have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." You said because of our affluence and our creature comforts, we can indulge our flesh so easily today. If we want food, entertainment, pleasure, we can easily please our flesh. We live in a virtual vanity fair referring to the Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, but we don't mortify the flesh. Instead we gratify the flesh. This part of us that does not get redeemed even when we are soul and our spirit have been redeemed, our flesh never gets redeemed. It's always pulling us in the wrong direction.

Now Matt, I know you're aware of this. There's a major debate in the evangelical, let's say even the more conservative side of Protestantism at this point about the desire of the flesh not being sin, that the flesh has desires, but they may not be sinful because this is just who we are. They say that one can be a same-sex attracted Christian or a gay Christian. You can be a Christian. These desires aren't wrong as long as you don't act on them. The difference between desires and actually deeds. That the desires are okay, that's just who you are because that's the way God made you. And so that's why you can be a Christian who's attracted to someone or has desire for someone of the same sex. How do you respond to that particular ideology? And then I think even the bigger question is how do you do what Paul says there is how do you crucify the flesh with his passions and desires?

Guest: Pastor Matt Morrell:
What's tricky for us is perhaps trying to make a distinction without a difference. In arguing for the distinction, some would appeal to James 1:15, when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin. And so the desire is that the sin, it's acting upon it, it becomes a sin. On the other hand, Jesus spoke directly about the lust of our hearts and the hate of our hearts being adultery or murder within our hearts. And so can one be given a pass by saying, "Well, I'm only an adulterer in my heart or I'm only a murderer in my heart, or I'm only same sex attracted in my heart, but I'm absolved of culpability because I haven't actually committed the sin?"

We ought to be focusing on how can we slay the flesh in every way? I don't want to think, I don't want to feel, I don't want to fantasize. I don't want to imagine anything that would be contrary to the spirit of God in my life. And so I need to mortify, to kill, to slay, to put to death every impulse of my flesh, of my mind, of my heart. My heart is deceitful above all things desperately wicked, as I seek daily to mortify the flesh and to slay the desires of my heart. I don't want to allow room for that in any way.

Host: David Wheaton:
Well said. Matt Morrell is our guest today, the pastor of Fourth Baptist Church in Plymouth, Minnesota, also the president of Central Seminary. In Galatians 5:25 Paul writes, "If we live by the Holy Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." And you brought up two different kinds of people, two different kinds of Christians who pursue sanctification or pursue holiness, becoming more like Christ, shall we say, in really two different ways, that are almost two different ditches that I think you would maybe describe them.

There's the quietest, they say, well just let go and let God be very passive. And you said that that sort of mentality leads to lazy or even carnal Christian living. There's no energy in our own part, that we don't have a strong place in our own sanctification. Just be quiet and let go and let God. On the other hand, there's the pietist, and this is the person who thinks that they have to be very aggressive in pursuit of doctrinal and moral purity. So more Bible study, self-discipline. Its sanctification is a matter of my personal achievement. I'm going to do these eight things and I'm going to be sanctified. Well, you said that leads to pride, and you went on to say just as salvation is a divine work of God, so also is sanctification. You said God has a purpose for the believer to like Christ.

And this is where we live once we're saved between the moment of salvation or justification being declared righteous by God and where a believer ends up in the end glorification being in the presence of God without sin. So there's a whole life in between justification and glorification. So we live in the struggle you said for sanctification. Now you are going to be teaching two sessions at the Overcomer course this June, and one of them is going to be session four on sanctification, this topic, pursuing God's means to grow and disciple. So maybe you could just give a little preview on how you would explain sanctification and why is sanctification the top purpose of the Christian life?

Guest: Pastor Matt Morrell:
Well good, David, I'm looking forward to that this next June, and I hope some of your listeners will be there for that. Sanctification is the purpose for the Christian life. It's God's will for us, 1 Thessalonians 4:3, this is the will of God, even your sanctification. Okay, so what is that sanctification? The word hagias means holy God is commanded us to be holy as he is holy. And sanctification is the purpose and the pursuit of our Christian life, for God has predestined us to be sanctified, to be conformed to the image of his son. And so we have again this tension maybe between the two ditches, the quietest and the pietest, the passive or the active. I think of Philippians 2:12-13, we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, but it is also God who works in us both to willing to do for his good pleasure.

And so we don't have these contradictory ideas, but rather complementary ideas. And our responsibility is to become holy, to become set apart, to be pursuing the character of Christ. And I think it's the daily active consecration of ourselves to the Lord. Positionally, we know that we're holy because of the work of Christ and we stand robed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That is the foundation.

But then as we're building our house on that rock, that superstructure of our house of sanctification practically increasingly conformed to his image. And I hate to oversimplify it, but it is a matter of obedience to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in every area. My thoughts, my heart, my money, my time, my relationships. Hearing God's word and doing it is building that house on the rock. And we are then conformed to the image of Christ. And so when we think about the external appearance of the believer, what does the superstructure, the building look like? Well, it ought to look like Jesus Christ. And that's what we want to look like, and that sanctification is progressive. It's a step at a time, a day at a time through the course of life and my desire, as I age humanly, I will mature spiritually in those baby steps.

Host: David Wheaton:
And I like what someone said, I can't remember who, but this is a common way of describing sanctification is done through God's ordinary means of grace that He gives us within the context of the local church, through reading the word through prayer, meditation on the word. Just basic, simple, ordinary means that are available to every believer. There's not some elite group or some secret society you have to enter to be sanctified. God gives us these ordinary means of grace. And then finally, He also gives us the Holy Spirit.

And that's my last question for you today because you mentioned this in the latter part of that message, you said the secret, here's the secret to the Christian life is the Holy Spirit of God within us, the believer against the Holy Spirit, the moment of salvation. This is God's gift to us, to empower us to be able to live out and progressively be sanctified in our Christian lives.

And you said there's a divine and human synergy here. In other words, there's action on the part of God and there's action on the part of us. You recorded that passage earlier, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you, both the will and to work for his good pleasure. So which is it? Well, it's both. There's that divine and human synergy. The spirit gives us the power, but as you just said, we must obey and walk by Him. So I know that could be a whole program talking about what it means to walk by the spirit, but just give us a little idea of what that means. How can a believer walk in or walk by the spirit?

Guest: Pastor Matt Morrell:
Many times this is where things get abstract, subjective, squishy. In the mind of a believe,. What does that look like? I would say it can actually be very concrete. If we are walking or living in obedience to the written word of the Spirit, we know that we are walking by the spirit. And when we walk by the spirit, we won't fulfill the lust of the flesh as we reference in Galatians 5. And so the abstract or the subjective or the squishy part is trying to discern the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

But I would say before we concern ourselves with that, let's obey what is black and white in writing, preserved for us in His word, the word of God is the word of the Holy Spirit who gave it to us. And so again, at risk of oversimplifying the Christian life, it can be a matter of trust and obey. And then we experience the fruit of the spirit as opposed to the works of the flesh and we can grow in our Christian lives.

That's what I want for myself. I know David, that's what you want for yourself and for your listeners really, maybe the greatest illustration is there in Ephesians chapter 5. Paul says, don't be drunk with wine but filled with the spirit. Don't be under the influence of alcohol or any other substance or any other influence. Be under the influence of the spirit of God each and every day.

Host: David Wheaton:
Yeah. Well, this is why we just thought your messages in this topic would be such a good way to start the year, to put us on the right foundation, to evaluate our lives, to see what foundation we're building on, to really try to build on the rock, the teachings of Christ and the person of Christ, and then also to start the year knowing what our purpose is as believers, that the purpose of the Christian life is sanctification and God gives us the Holy Spirit to help us to be able to pursue that and to become more like His son.
So Matt, thank you for giving these two messages. We hope listeners go and hear them. They'll be very helpful to listen to. And we're very much looking forward to having you come to the Overcomer course for young adults. I'm sure we'll be maybe talking about this again as we get closer. That's of course June 20th and 21st, and we do have information on our website about that now. But we're looking forward to having you come and teach two sessions for that. So thanks again, Matt and all of God's best and grace to you in this new year.

Guest: Pastor Matt Morrell:
Thank you, David. It's my pleasure.

Host: David Wheaton:
Well, we so appreciate Matt and his faithfulness to living out and preaching God's word. In addition to being a pastor and seminary president, Matt is also the pastoral advisor to the board of the Christian Worldview. You can find links to him at our website, TheChristianWorldview.org.

In this final segment, Andrew DeBartolo, host of Liberty Dispatch in Canada, joins us to discuss the resignation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Andrew, it's so good to have you back on the program. I want to start out with a sound bite from Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. He recently said this.

Audio Sound Bite: Justin Trudeau:
I'm a fighter. Every bone in my body has always told me to fight because I care deeply about Canadians. I care deeply about this country and I will always be motivated by what is in the best interest of Canadians. And the fact is, despite best efforts to work through it, Parliament has been paralyzed for months. That's why this morning I advised the Governor General that we need a new session of Parliament. Over the holidays, I've also had a chance to reflect and have had long talks with my family about our future. So last night over dinner, I told my kids about the decision that I'm sharing with you today. I intend to resign as party leader, as Prime Minister after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process.
Host: David Wheaton:
Okay, at least here in America. Andrew, this was a big shock coming in advance of Donald Trump being inaugurated, coming up here very shortly. What led to Justin Trudeau's resignation and did Trump coming into power in the US have anything to do with it?

Guest: Andrew DeBartolo:
Well, I want to start off by saying that essentially every single statement that he made in that clip was a lie. There was nothing honest about anything that he said. He's certainly not been a person that's fought for Canadians, certainly not for our freedoms. I mean, maybe he's fought hard to push the Overton window leftward and advance a woke globalist agenda. He's been fighting for that. So if that's what he meant, sure. But in terms of fighting to protect the freedoms and rights that the Lord has given us and make Canada a prosperous, flourishing nation, he's done the opposite of that. I'll say that first.

Second of all, parliament hasn't really been frozen, and the reason is Justin Trudeau has a minority government, but with what's known as the supply and confidence agreement with the New Democratic Party, basically they have the votes to do whatever they want in parliament, even if the conservatives oppose them. The reason why Justin Trudeau is resigning now, there are two levels. There's what's happening on the surface that we see and I think behind that, what's really going on. So on the surface, Justin Trudeau's popularity and the liberal Party's popularity is the lowest in the history of the party. So recent polls even coming from left leaning media outlets puts the liberal party, the people saying they're voting for them and their popularity at about 16%, one-six, which is abysmal.

So the party's not very popular in Canada, even his own members of parliament are calling him to resign because the party is in such rough shape. There is no way that the Liberals will have any chance of coming anywhere close to maybe even having official party status at the next federal election. Certain people are saying that the liberal party might get lucky if they get six or seven seats. It's going to be a conservative party blowout. So it's bad for the liberal party. So in a sense, he has to resign because if he doesn't, all he'll do is continue to run the liberal party into the ground more and more. It just looks really bad for him. I mean, they recently added another 324 firearms to the prohibited list simply because they're semiautomatic with magazines and just kind of for fun because you don't need these for hunting. So just a terrible, terrible leader. So that's on the surface.

Now I am of a tinfoil hat variety, and so I really believe that ultimately the reason why he's resigning the way he is because this essentially is what the power brokers in Canada and his globalist handlers have decided he needs to do. And I'll also say, while this is shocking for people, and I posted this on social media, it was about two years ago, I had a meeting with another federal party leader of a more libertarian leading party. And we were discussing two years ago that Justin Trudeau will not be running for the next federal election. He will almost certainly step down before that happens. And I remember sharing that with some people who thought "What are you talking about the liberal party just won the fairly popular," and I was looking what happened during Covid and I basically assessed that Justin Trudeau, much like Joe Biden is just a puppet. It's a figure that you can replace with someone else who really only does the job that he's told to do.

Justin Trudeau's role in Canada for the last nine years has been to push Canada as far left and progressive as the citizens can stomach it. But once the citizens could stomach it no more, it was time to replace him with someone else. It was time to see the conservative party come into power as the heroes and saviors of Canada, even though they're just as globalist and essentially just a rinse and repeat of the back and forth from liberals to conservatives. So personally, I wasn't shocked at all because I knew that this was inevitability two years ago. Because I know that Canadian politics is more like the WWF and less like real life, so that's why he stepped down. He was told to, but on the face of it, the liberal party is in shambles right now.

Host: David Wheaton:
Andrew DeBartolo is our guest today. He is the host of the Liberty Dispatch podcast. He's also a teacher in worldview specialist at Harvest Classical Academy in Canada. I'm going to play another sound byte. You touched on this a bit in your first answer there, but Justin Trudeau in that resignation announcement talked about some of the things that he really focused on when he was prime minister. And this is going back to 2015. He's been in office a long time, but here's what he said there, and I'll follow up with you about what he actually means by these things.

Audio Sound Bite: Justin Trudeau:
Every morning I've woken up as Prime Minister, I've been inspired by the resilience, the generosity, and the determination of Canadians. It is the driving force of every single day I have the privilege of serving in this office. That is why since 2015 I've fought for this country, for you, to strengthen and grow the middle class. Why we rallied to support each other through the pandemic, to advance reconciliation, to defend free trade on this continent, to stand strong with Ukraine and our democracy and to fight climate change and get our economy ready for the future. We are at a critical moment in the world.

Host: David Wheaton:
Could you Andrew, translate what he means by those things and what he actually did?

Guest: Andrew DeBartolo:
So he's done the exact opposite, or the liberal party has done the exact opposite of benefiting the middle class. The liberal party has essentially further destroyed the middle class and polarized Canada into the very wealthy and the lower class and below. In Canada right now, based on numbers I've seen recently homeownership and real estate, housing costs in Canada per capita as a percentage are significantly worse than in the United States right now. I know this because I live in a border city, and so there are people who are legitimately thinking about purchasing a house in the United States and then coming into Canada to work because of the costs of property tax and actually owning a house.

So the middle class has been thoroughly devastated, and it's ironic that he mentions the pandemic because that's when the real attack on the middle class and the real erosion of the middle class began because the only people that he fought for during the pandemic were either his elite friends who didn't play by the rules that they set for everyone else or all of the super national conglomerate, mega organizations like Walmart or Costco, nothing against Walmart or Costco themselves, but the fact that those are the people who benefited and mom and pop shops and small business owners, people in the middle class were essentially told to shut down and their businesses were lost. So he lives in opposite world.

When he says reconciliation, what he means is a little bit of racial reconciliation. It's different in Canada than in the United States. In the United States, the great "sin," the racial sin of the United States that you're never able to overcome, that's always a stain on your history according to the lefties, is the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery.
In Canada, our great racial stain as it were, would be our indigenous relationships. And so there was, I'm sure people who are listening are familiar with the residential school business that propped up a couple years ago, the claim that there were hundreds of mass graves buried underneath residential schools, and residential schools were programmed that the state and mostly the Roman Catholic Church instituted where they would kind of by force take indigenous children from their homes and force them to go to these schools to teach them literacy and math. And there's another sign of whenever the state gets too involved, it always destroys things.

But the pursuit of reconciliation essentially is the pursuit of continuing to make white Canadians feel guilty for the sins they didn't commit toward indigenous people that it turns out might not have actually been what they say because with millions of dollars and years and some excavations, there's no proof of it. So by reconciliation, what he means is actual perpetual division, and the opposite of reconciliation, which is separation between people because of class and ethnic group.

And this is the kind of leader who's obviously driven our economy into the ground, caused more animosity and division between people. I was just reading an article the other day, Justin Trudeau, in his nine years as Prime Minister, has acquired a greater debt than every single other prime minister in Canadian history combined. So he's quite possibly the worst prime minister we've ever had, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Host: David Wheaton:
Andrew DeBartolo is our guest today here on the Christian World View, talking about what's behind the resignation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. I'd like to play just a short soundbite of incoming US president, Donald Trump being asked at a press conference in Mar-a-Lago, Florida about the US's future relationship with Canada.

Audio Sound Bite: Reporter:
Mr. President, if you were working under the assumption that you're serious about making Canada 51st state of the United States, you said you are considering military force to acquire Panama and Greenland. Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Canada?
Incoming US president: Donald Trump:
No. Economic force, because Canada and the United States, that would really be something.

Host: David Wheaton:
Okay, so I heard this Trump say this or people on media talking about this. We thought it was a joke at first, and he was calling Trudeau, he could be the governor of the 51st state. And then even now that Trudeau has resigned, there's been continuing talk of some sort of merger or Canada being subsumed by the United States, which just seems way, way out there. What are your thoughts on this topic of discussion of Canada somehow maybe even merging with the US and uniting into some kind of North American Union economically? Is this real, Andrew, is there enthusiasm for this kind of thing in Canada and what would the implications be?

Guest: Andrew DeBartolo:
In certain circles there is enthusiasm. I think it's the same enthusiasm for people who've been devastated in the last five years and who've looked at the United States and said, at least in certain parts of the United States, there's freedom, there's liberty, there's conservatism, which is why many, many Canadians fled the country for the United States because they thought that we were just living in an increased tyranny. So I think there is excitement in some circles.

So Canada technically is still a part of the Commonwealth of Great Britain and the king, now, King Charles III is still the head of state in Canada. The likelihood of it happening I think is nil. I mean Pierre Poilievre who will win this next election with the Conservative Party has said that he's not for it. But there is something curious about all of this that again makes my tin foil hat tingle. And I don't know even David if you're aware of this or if your audience is aware of this, but a few years ago, Joe Biden, the president of Mexico and Justin Trudeau signed the Declaration of North America. Are you familiar with this?

Host: David Wheaton:
I recall something to do with that, yes.

Guest: Andrew DeBartolo:
So the Declaration of North America, which the three of them agreed on, was basically a kind of North American union without borders. Like why should there be borders separating us? We should be able to travel freely. And this got almost no play in the legacy media and no one knows about it. And the reason is because it screams European Union, which that's no bueno. We don't like that. So that happened.

What I have found interesting is that Donald Trump seems to be advocating for this idea of a North American Union, which to me in principle is deeply concerning. The idea of national sovereignty of nations and nationalism is I think more biblical than tribalism or globalism. I think nationalism is the best option of those three. And so to hear someone like Donald Trump advocate for what appears to be a kind of North American union, I find that interesting but also concerning.

I don't exactly know what to make of it because it seems like something that he would've never said four years ago or eight years ago, and something that I would imagine that very staunch America First, people who like the idea of national sovereignty would look at that and say, "This kind of feels a little bit like globalism light." And people rightly criticize the European Union for being a globalist brainchild of the UN and the WHO.

And so anything that reeks of that to me is problematic. I don't think it's going to happen, but just talking about it I think should give believers pause for concern that the president of the supposed freest nation in the world seems to be okay with forming our own kind of mini globalist European Union. I think that's troubling. Even the talk of it because if it were to happen, I think it would be an awful, awful thing to put into place to erase national sovereignty.

Host: David Wheaton:
Well, I think that's very well explained and well reasoned, Andrew, and we always appreciate having you on the Christian Worldview Radio Program and your stand for the church and for individual liberties, and we just appreciate you. Thank you so much for coming on the Christian Worldview Radio program today, Andrew, all of God's best and grace to you.


Guest: Andrew DeBartolo:
Thanks so much, David.

Host: David Wheaton:
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