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Is the Common Sense Christian channel, and it's Tuesday, so we're going to be talking about famous patriots, and the patriot that I want to talk about today is a man by the name of Rush Limbaugh. Now I suppose there have been few patriots that have been as polarizing as Rush was during 40 odd year career because he, mind. The thing that really was kind of off putting about him was that he was so forceful in his opinions. There was also a certain amount of brashness, arrogance. Some would say in his delivery that really kind of turned a lot of people off. And I have to admit when I first started listening to him, I was a little bit unimpressed by the way he delivered things. He just, he just seemed way too proud and, and I was I just wasn't impressed with that type of a personality. But the more I listened to him, I found two things. One was this, I agreed with about 97 percent of the things he was talking about. He had a lot of the same concerns that I had been having for a number of years. Obviously he had looked into them a lot deeper than I had, but I was very impressed with his arguments and his conversations on different topics that I found to be very important. And the second thing I found out was that his his arrogance was something of his shtick. It was something that he used. in order, I believe, to gain attention. It, it indeed had a polarizing effect to a certain degree, but nothing compared to his political opinions and his conservative opinions. One of the things I have noticed through the years is how many people in the political realm have taken everything for their own. And so If you differ with them in some sort of opinion, then you're politically on the wrong side of the aisle. When a lot of these opinions have nothing to do with politics, rather they have to do with what's right and wrong. I suppose, I really started first coming across Rush in 1992 when his radio program started to be syndicated across America. And then about the same time he had a television program that appeared late at night that, that my wife and I really enjoyed watching. And again, there were some things that he talked about, and there were some ways that he presented it that kind of turned us off, but As we would watch more and more, we really enjoyed being informed on some topics that a lot of people, especially in the mainstream media, as it's sometimes called just weren't addressing, or if they were addressing it, they were just addressing one side of it. I remember when I first got out of college and, and I was a real estate appraiser, and so I spent a lot of time in the car, and I would listen to the news. at the top of the hour, and it dawned on me after a while that the same three news stories had a way of coming up on a regular basis. And these news stories were on the topics of abortion, they were on the topic of the environment, and they were on the topic of people's sexuality. And that kind of seems strange to me for them to be emphasizing these things so much. And instead of talking about the national news, and when they did talk about the national news, they just talked about it as it related to these three topics, and, and so I was starting to get more and more concerned about the direction that the country was taking. It seemed to be being taken over by radicals on both sides of whatever political argument that that people were talking about. It just didn't seem like, like most people were being represented in that and most people's views were not being discussed. And this was one of the talents that Rush had was being able to discuss The things that people really wanted to hear discussed when there was something going on in the nation that just wasn't right. He would tackle it head on when many other people would just leave it alone for fear that they would become on the outs with some group or another that they wanted to, to keep in good favor with. And that was never Rush's style. As a matter of fact, through the years he lost an awful lot of advertisers on his radio program and on his television program because he was so outspoken in his views that were sometimes unpopular. I guess what really solidified me as to the importance of Rush Limbaugh was when I read a book called The Way Things Oughta Be, and that actually came out in 1992 as well, and I was just fascinated with that book because he talked about social issues, moral issues, political from a moral standpoint, and he would always seem to take the moral side of the argument, whereas when you looked at society, they always seemed to take the immoral side of the argument. As a matter of fact, that's what pushed a lot of people towards some of these conservative programs that we have today was because they were so sick and tired of the mainstream media always taking a position that seemed to be opposite of what God's word talked about. And so whether it was talking about sexual immorality or abortion or, or, Or whatever it was, it seemed like they always seemed to take Satan's side instead of God's side. And so it was very refreshing to have somebody come along and say that there are some things that are just right and there are some things that are just wrong. That was something that I became very much familiar with as I started to read the Bible, was that there's not a lot of gray areas with God's commandments. He points out that there are some things that are just sin, and we can't take part in them no matter how much we want to, or no matter how much people who we like and want to keep friends with are taking part in it. And so this was something that Rush was very talented at. He would, he would he would speak on, on difficult subjects. As a matter of fact, he would literally seek out controversial subjects. And I'm sure that certainly helped his ratings. But I think to a large degree, it was because these were things that he believed in very much. And you could hear the sincerity. as he talked about it. And again, I want to say that he was very polarizing. There's a lot of people, probably some of you listening today, that just really are ready to turn this off because you absolutely despised the man. But let me ask you this, did you listen to much of what he had to say? Or did you listen more to people who talked about what he had to say? Because a lot of times we will get a point of view about somebody, not from actual experience, but from things that are little, little more than gossip or hearsay, or sometimes that are just absolutely from a, from a perspective that are antagonistic to the other person's side. And so a lot of times we learn to hate people. people and loathe people that we really don't know that much. And so I found this is true with, with Rush Limbaugh through the years. And that's okay. I enjoyed listening to him. I agreed with most of what he said. There were some things I didn't and I don't mind saying that. But for the most part, I think he was very important. Well, this man, Rush Limbaugh, was born, I believe, February the 12th of 1951. And the reason I can remember February the 12th is that was my father in law's birthday. And it was actually my father in law that introduced me to Rush Limbaugh. He asked me if I'd ever heard his radio program. And I said I didn't think that I had. And he said, well, you really need to listen to it. And so. When I started listening to it again, I was a little bit put off by it, but I kept on listening and, and realized that I had a lot of agreement with what he said. So I appreciated my father in law who shared that Patriot's birthday with with him, although my father in law was born many years earlier in 1929. But anyway, Russia was a, was a sports enthusiast. He, he was actually a commentator for the Kansas City Royals, or an announcer for them, and I loved baseball. He loved football, and I loved football, and so we had that in common. But again, it was his views on what was right and wrong and, and the way things ought to be that really attracted me to his message. And I have to admit, there are some things about his personality that I wished he had tamped down a little bit so that he would have had perhaps a broader appeal. But at the same time, I realized that had he sought to get a broader appeal, appeal that in many ways he would have been compromising some of his values that, that I shared with him. And so maybe he went the right direction and, and maybe he was a little too blunt at times and, and especially in his early career was actually rude to different people. But as the years went by, His demeanor mellowed considerably. And we all do that with age, don't we? As he got older he started to lose his hearing to the point where he was nearly completely deaf. And finally with I believe it was those cochlear implants, he was able to start hearing again. And I noticed that his voice started sounding like it used to sound before he lost his hearing. And so obviously something worked on that. He was certainly a flawed individual. He had, he had problems in his own life. He got addicted to painkillers after, after some medical problems that he had had. He was divorced at a time. And, and so he had a lot of different things that, that he was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But I believe he was a patriot because he loved the country and he was concerned, deeply concerned, about the direction. He knew that we were spending way too much time on peripheral issues and so he talked a lot against the environmentalists, the radical environmentalists. He wasn't against the environment. by any stretch of the imagination. And if you listen to him talk, you, you soon found that out. But as far as those who were seeking to gain power by using the environment as the lever to get that power, as well as a lever to separate people, because many politicians have found that the best way to rule is to divide the people and get them to arguing amongst one another, and then you can rule the people who agree with you. And, and Rush recognized that that was being used to a certain degree in the environmental movement, as well as other movements that were very popular at the time, and, and so as his career went on he again became more and more mellow in his speaking and more and more mellow in his tone, but he certainly became more and more convicted on what was right and what was wrong, and I think that was an admirable trait. I believe at times that he could be too political. But I also understand that sometimes the only way to accomplish certain things is through politics. And I have no qualms with those who are attempting to use that to, to get their point across and, and to get their the things that they're concerned with more prominence and, and. for the problems that are involved with the different issues to be resolved sometimes can only be done through a political way. And so he was very politically oriented. And again, sometimes I feel like he was too loyal to one side when the one side didn't deserve loyalty. For instance, I felt that there was a number of candidates on one side that he would support that didn't appear to be good men. to me. On the other hand he supported some candidates that at first I didn't think were very good men. And then as I got to, to investigate them and look into them, while they may not have been all that moral in their younger years, they appeared to be to have corrected much of that. And so some of the people that he supported that I didn't initially I became very avid supporters of. Well, as, as time went by, Rush developed cancer. And, and that took a great toll upon him. He had to have a lot of days where he missed as he was getting his cancer treatments. I believe one of the most poignant moments in my life was at a time that was during a very political time very political event, and that was the State of the Union Address, which are always partisan political events. But the President of the United States in his 2020 address, President Trump presented Rush Limbaugh with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And I remember seeing that event happen and seeing how frail Rush looked at that event. He had lost a lot of weight. His face was just drawn in, you could tell that the cancer had been ravaging him. And yet that moment was so tender and I believe so genuine that I really that it just made an impression upon me. And the fact that he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, I think, was something that was very much deserved because, as I've already said, I believe that Rush was indeed a very important patriot in modern America, American history. I know with the last election and all the controversies that were surrounding the last election there were things that were going on that I was very concerned about that was only getting one side of the story told in the national media. And I appreciated Rush taking some time to present the other side. And again, I realize he was a partisan. I, I understand that. But I believe that the side that he was given was giving. was, was correct. And the side that so many were getting from the national media was not only flawed, but it was at times intentionally slanted in order to make events look like they were something that they weren't actually. And so when Rush Limbaugh died in 2021, And we lost that voice. And, and he died very shortly after the election of 2020. I think the election was held in, in, in November, they finally figured out after counting all the votes very carefully, who is the president. And then just a few months later, Rush Limbaugh died. And I've really missed that voice for, for several reasons. It's true that we still have some very good commentators who do talk about some very important subjects. But so many of those commentators I have noticed are really Partisan in their politics, and they're absolutely unwilling to look at both sides of the issue, and that was something that I feel like Rush was very talented at, even though many accused him of doing the exact opposite. I do believe that he was very careful to analyze an issue and then to talk about it in a very sensible manner, and in a very calm manner. He did get excited but again, I believe he talked about things that need to be talked about. Well, why include him in this series on, on Patriots? And, and maybe this will help you understand. When I started this channel just a couple of months ago and it's very new and I realize very few people have listened to it so far but, but one of the things that, that I was convinced of and convicted of is that our nation has been on the wrong track for, for quite a number of years and we need to talk about openly the problems that we have and we need to talk about them. Realistically, but we need to seek solutions from a Christian perspective. There's a lot of people who are handling the problems that we have today from a physical perspective only, and they're failing miserably. There's a lot of people who seem to have compassion for others, that their solution for these other people often end with disastrous consequences. Just think about how, how our nation is, is handling the drug problem that we have, not by trying to end the drug problem, but by trying to be more compassionate to those who are using drugs to the point where we actually fund their drug use, and then try to find places for them to live so that they can continue this drug use. I realize people all have a heart for immigrants. All of us have ancestors that came to this nation probably not too long ago. And so we have a heart for immigrants and yet now the compassion is so muddled that we're letting criminals come over that are, that are literally ruining this country. This nation right now, and we don't have a lot of good voices out there, and we don't have a lot of people talking about it, not just from a physical perspective, we have a problem, but, but also from a spiritual perspective, these are some of the things we can do to solve those problems, and so, that's the reason that I started doing these videos, I think we need to be looking at our videos. physical problems, first and foremost through a spiritual lens, because God's word has the solution for these things and we need to use those solutions. And again, I believe that Rush had a strong belief in God. I'm not claiming that he was moral and everything he did, But I do believe that part of the lens with which he viewed things was through that spiritual lens, and I believe that's something that is sadly missing in today, and I think we need to be doing our very best to handle that we have from a perspective of trying to figure out how God would want us to handle those problems. We've got a lot of problems in America, a lot of physical things that need to be taken care of. They can only be solved with the help of God. We need to find out what he expects us to do. We need to find out what his standard for right and wrong is. And then we need to seek prayerful solutions. Part of that, I believe, is by going back through history and finding out those men and women who were so successful in helping move the nation into a good direction. And I believe that Rush Limbaugh was one of those patriots, and I have to admit that I miss. Well, that's the lesson for today. I hope it was something that gave you something to think about and maybe some good thoughts from a nostalgic point of view towards one that, that really a lot of us appreciated and a lot of us miss. Anyway thank you for tuning in today and I pray that God will richly bless you as you seek to serve Him to the best of your ability.