The Charlie Kirk Show - Be a True Church, Not a Trembling Church

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, my conversation at the TPUSA Pastors Summit in Georgia.

00:00:05.000 I talk about what the church needs to do, the different types of churches, and what you as a believer need to do to stand up, to fight for what you believe in, and to fight for truth, and to fight for Christ.

00:00:14.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:17.000 Subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page and get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa.com.

00:00:23.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:25.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:32.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:34.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:37.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:40.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:42.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:43.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:00:44.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:00:51.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:00.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:03.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.

00:01:13.000 Learn how you can protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:01:20.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:01:22.000 It's where I buy all of my gold.

00:01:24.000 Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:01:28.000 Thank you, everybody.

00:01:29.000 Please take a seat.

00:01:31.000 But I'm going to actually probably have you stand again.

00:01:33.000 Can we give a thanks to Jensen Franklin and Free Chapel for allowing us to do this great event here?

00:01:39.000 What a beautiful campus this is.

00:01:41.000 Amazing hospitality.

00:01:43.000 Thank you, Jensen, truly.

00:01:44.000 We're excited to hear from you later on tonight.

00:01:46.000 Welcome, everybody, to our TPUSA Faith Forward event.

00:01:51.000 This is one of our favorite events to do, all about equipping you.

00:01:55.000 The pastors of this country to be better prepared to be able to speak about liberty, speak about God's truth, both in your church and in your community.

00:02:06.000 And if we look at the American church right now, there are three types of churches.

00:02:11.000 You're going to hear from Lucas Miles here in a second.

00:02:13.000 There are true churches.

00:02:15.000 You're sitting in a true church right now.

00:02:17.000 Free Chapel Church is a true church.

00:02:23.000 Most of you are running true churches right now.

00:02:26.000 Here's the test of whether or not you're a true church.

00:02:29.000 Did you, after the repeal of Roe versus Wade, host a celebration prayer service afterwards?

00:02:35.000 Or did you kind of just say, yeah, a thing happened in the news this last week.

00:02:39.000 Anyway, in other events, a true church is one that says, thank you, God, for your providence for helping save this country and give us a reprieve.

00:02:50.000 But most importantly, a true church, outside of those, are ones that say, I know I might lose some people and they might have some blessed subtraction during the sermon, but I first and foremost honor the Lord when I deliver my sermon,

00:03:06.000 and I don't care if I might lose 5 or 10% of tithes or offerings.

00:03:12.000 A true church is one that looks at the Word of God and says, I am going to deliver it.

00:03:17.000 I know almost all of you are true churches.

00:03:24.000 The second category are the trembling churches.

00:03:28.000 They know what is true, but they shake like a leaf whenever they have to say anything too controversial.

00:03:34.000 Now, maybe some people here might fall into that category, and that is okay.

00:03:38.000 Our hope is that actually through hearing these speakers and hearing the trainings, you'll be motivated to go from a trembling posture to a true posture and speaking out and saying that you're going to speak out on the top cultural and major societal issues of the day.

00:03:55.000 The issue for the trembling pastor, and let's be honest, the vast majority of American churches are in the trembling category.

00:04:02.000 They know what is biblical.

00:04:04.000 They privately will tell you what is biblical, but publicly it goes through a filter.

00:04:11.000 Publicly it goes through a lens that isn't always as pure and as clear as the scriptures.

00:04:19.000 For example, they know.

00:04:21.000 That the scriptures say very clearly that life begins at conception.

00:04:24.000 That abortion is wrong. 0.76

00:04:26.000 But when they get on stage, it's not always as clear.

00:04:30.000 It's a little bit wishy-washy.

00:04:32.000 Or it's, well, we don't do politics around here, folks.

00:04:35.000 And we just do the gospel.

00:04:37.000 The answer always should be, well, hold on.

00:04:40.000 It's not political.

00:04:41.000 It's biblical what we are asking you to talk about.

00:04:43.000 That is always the most important thing.

00:04:46.000 And the final category.

00:04:48.000 Which I can't imagine we have somebody in that category here, but I'm sure you all know somebody like it, is the traitorous churches.

00:04:55.000 We're not going to spend that much time on them.

00:04:57.000 Those are the ones that fly the gay pride flag outside of their church.

00:05:00.000 They're the ones that march in the BLM parades.

00:05:04.000 We'll just kind of leave that aside.

00:05:06.000 The emphasis and the focus are for those that know what is true but are not saying what is true in a position of authority.

00:05:14.000 Now, I visit college campuses so you guys don't have to.

00:05:18.000 And we've done some...

00:05:19.000 And honestly, let me say this again.

00:05:21.000 It's not that we at Turning Point USA have done anything that amazing.

00:05:24.000 It's God that is doing amazing things on these college campuses, and he deserves all the credit and the glory.

00:05:30.000 And what we are seeing and experiencing is monumental.

00:05:34.000 If you're not aware of it...

00:05:36.000 You guys should be as pastors.

00:05:37.000 In fact, I think you have a biblical obligation to see what is happening with the youth of this country.

00:05:42.000 They are desiring and hungering and thirsting for leadership spiritually.

00:05:47.000 They are rejecting so many of the lies of modernity and looking to get down to fundamental truths, to anchor themselves in things that last and to shed the trappings of the...

00:05:59.000 One-liner narratives that their entire world has been built around.

00:06:03.000 However, one of the reasons why we started TPSA Faith, and my pastor Rob McCoy, who you'll hear later from in this conference, is we saw a great failure of the American church during COVID.

00:06:14.000 We saw the American church remain rather sheepish, kind of fall to biblically illiterate arguments saying that the church must be submissive to the government.

00:06:25.000 Let's be very clear, everybody.

00:06:27.000 You should never be submissive to tyranny.

00:06:29.000 That is not biblical.

00:06:30.000 It is nowhere in the scriptures.

00:06:33.000 And so it was born out of that.

00:06:35.000 And as I think we've made a lot of progress at TPSA Faith to try to convict churches to speak out more boldly, to try to get more pastors more equipped and understanding biblical citizenship and understanding the foundational roots of our country that are rooted in Christianity,

00:06:52.000 which far too often we forget that we were founded as Christians in a Christian context and a free society will fail to continue to survive.

00:07:01.000 If Christianity does not survive, is that I look at what's happening on these college campuses, and there is a revival waiting to happen in your communities, but the church is not ready to receive it.

00:07:12.000 And let me tell you that these two things are currently incongruent.

00:07:15.000 Now, if you guys are already doing the right thing, then this message will just be...

00:07:19.000 Affirmation for what you're already doing.

00:07:21.000 It will be me telling you good job and encouraging you.

00:07:24.000 But if you right now do not have dozens of young men showing up to your church every Sunday, then you're doing something wrong.

00:07:31.000 Because they're there looking.

00:07:33.000 And I say young men for a reason. 0.97

00:07:35.000 Young men especially are gravitating towards the church, towards religion, towards conservatism in record numbers that is shocking people that study this stuff for a living.

00:07:48.000 One of the reasons why, and we don't have to overcomplicate or overthink it, young men are starting to go away from a political movement and a worldview that hates them.

00:07:57.000 Not that hard.

00:07:58.000 They're starting to go towards a political view and a worldview that says it's okay to be a man and that there is such a thing as a man.

00:08:06.000 Not difficult, right?

00:08:09.000 But hear me out.

00:08:10.000 The number one thing I hear from young men on campus is my local church is way, way, way too soft for me.

00:08:17.000 They're not telling it like it is.

00:08:18.000 Now, I say this, and I hope you guys understand, with as much humility as I possibly can express.

00:08:24.000 Because, again, it's not Charlie Kirk that is drawing these crowds at University of Tennessee or 5,000 people at UGA.

00:08:30.000 We got a single volunteer fan here.

00:08:33.000 Great.

00:08:35.000 It's always good to hear from them.

00:08:38.000 But it is the Lord moving.

00:08:39.000 But I will say this, and I want you guys to reflect on it.

00:08:42.000 Is that how many people that are Christian ministries professionally that raise hundreds of millions of dollars can go to campuses and draw 5,000 kids on a five-day notice?

00:08:52.000 Very few.

00:08:53.000 And I'm going to tell you why.

00:08:54.000 Because we're spreading the gospel when we go to these campuses.

00:08:57.000 It's not the only thing we do.

00:08:58.000 But it's one of the things that we do.

00:09:01.000 Because everything we do is rooted in biblical truth.

00:09:03.000 Whether it's that God created man and God created women.

00:09:05.000 Borders are biblical.

00:09:07.000 That markets are good and private property must be protected.

00:09:09.000 America is the greatest country ever to exist.

00:09:11.000 That we must defend Israel and recognize its existence.

00:09:14.000 That life begins in conception.

00:09:16.000 All of it is rooted in scripture.

00:09:17.000 All of it is rooted in scripture.

00:09:19.000 But it's not the only thing that we don't only talk about Jesus, but everything points to Jesus.

00:09:25.000 But the thing that draws the attention.

00:09:28.000 And this is where the church is so off base right now.

00:09:30.000 There's only one thing you remember what I say is that the young kids, they don't want you to kind of sanitize all this stuff for them.

00:09:37.000 They will come in flocks for you to say the blunt truth that you think is going to offend them.

00:09:43.000 What you think is going to offend them will actually draw 10,000 more to your local church.

00:09:49.000 What you think is going to repel them will actually say, you're the only one that has the spine or use some other anatomy.

00:09:57.000 Willing to say the thing that no one else is willing to say.

00:10:03.000 Because everybody else is just walking around on politically correct eggshells.

00:10:08.000 Including the church.

00:10:12.000 The battle between good and evil seems to be escalating.

00:10:15.000 It is easy to blame politicians, government, or poor leadership, but behind all of that is a spiritual battle.

00:10:22.000 Pastor Alan Jackson's new book, Angels, Demons, and You, We do need to be aware and prepared.

00:10:49.000 Angels, Demons, and You provides valuable insight, practical tools, and biblical truth to help you recognize the spiritual battle around us and become a difference maker in our generation.

00:11:02.000 Get your copy today at alanjackson.com slash angels.

00:11:06.000 Hear from people whose faith directly impacts our culture on Pastor Alan's Culture and Christianity podcast.

00:11:13.000 Find it wherever you get your podcasts.

00:11:16.000 Music

00:11:16.000 And so if you go to church and it ends up being...

00:11:22.000 A TED Talk mixed with a rock concert with above-average coffee and good organized parking, why should a 19-year-old go wake up at 8.30 on a Sunday morning to go to that?

00:11:37.000 The food is better on campus.

00:11:40.000 You can go hear a motivational speaker for free.

00:11:43.000 It's all paid for.

00:11:45.000 Instead, you're going to draw them into your churches, and this is the greatest revival, and the church seems uninterested right now to seize it, say, you know what?

00:11:52.000 Yes, you need Jesus, but do you know why?

00:11:54.000 You see, the reason why it's not yet being translated into revival is that they say, of course, Jesus is your Savior, but we're not connecting the dots.

00:12:02.000 How do you know you need a Savior if you don't know what you're saved from?

00:12:07.000 And you only know what you're saved from if you talk about sin.

00:12:10.000 So we focus everything on the fact that someone's going to save you from drowning, yet we don't tell a generation that they're drowning.

00:12:16.000 And they're so obviously drowning.

00:12:18.000 It's the most suicidal generation in history, the most drug-addicted generation in history, the most porn-addicted generation in history, but objectively the most miserable generation in history.

00:12:30.000 And yet we say, you're just perfect the way you are.

00:12:33.000 They don't feel perfect the way they are.

00:12:35.000 They're telling you that everything is not okay.

00:12:38.000 They're telling you that something is wrong.

00:12:40.000 And the message that Christianity gives you is, well, he gets you or whatever that commercial is. 0.86

00:12:45.000 Everything's fine.

00:12:46.000 No, that's actually not how you win young people over.

00:12:49.000 You win them over being like, you know what?

00:12:50.000 You know why you're miserable?

00:12:51.000 Because you're not following God's laws and commands.

00:12:54.000 That's why, actually.

00:12:57.000 And you'll never actually follow all of them.

00:13:00.000 And that's why you need a savior.

00:13:01.000 Because if you don't have a savior, then you're going to end up in a not very good place.

00:13:05.000 And you won't end up being enough.

00:13:07.000 Boom.

00:13:07.000 Mind blown.

00:13:08.000 By the way, this is not like the Charlie Kirk thing.

00:13:10.000 This is how the gospel was taught successfully for 2,000 years.

00:13:14.000 And the last 40 years, we decided to hyper-modernize it.

00:13:17.000 And it's been a failure, everybody.

00:13:19.000 And that is the most important thing, is that we're living in a moment.

00:13:23.000 Where we should be seeing a mass revival.

00:13:25.000 Now, good news, church attendance is ticking up a little bit.

00:13:28.000 We've stemmed the curve a little bit.

00:13:29.000 We're seeing a little increase in religiosity.

00:13:32.000 Nothing too noticeable, but the decline has thankfully plateaued.

00:13:35.000 Praise God that we are not going the way of Europe.

00:13:37.000 Praise God we're not going the way of a lot of the secular West, but it's not reason for over-celebration.

00:13:42.000 God is giving us a little bit of grace and mercy.

00:13:44.000 If you look at, and I study these numbers every year when they come out, the New York Times tracks this stuff, and the New York Times like begrudgingly had to publish.

00:13:52.000 America's still kind of religious, and like 80% of people still believe in God.

00:13:58.000 Like, okay, 65% of people go to church.

00:14:01.000 You read this article, they're like begrudgingly going through the data.

00:14:04.000 They still believe in this mystical celestial being.

00:14:08.000 But despite all of that...

00:14:11.000 And you go deeper into the data.

00:14:14.000 What young people especially are screaming at is they say, give me a structure that I can live my life by.

00:14:22.000 Give me a rubric that I can follow.

00:14:26.000 Don't just affirm every bad decision I've ever made.

00:14:30.000 In fact...

00:14:31.000 It's okay if you tell me I've messed up because you'll be the first person to tell me I've messed up in my life because my parents won't tell me that anymore.

00:14:39.000 My professors tell me I'm the greatest person ever.

00:14:42.000 In fact, the modern church has been led to believe this secular lie that what this church needs, what the generation needs is a better pump up.

00:14:50.000 You know, yeah, you're enough and you can do it because we think since they're depressed, they need to be pumped up more.

00:14:56.000 It's, you know, it's kind of obvious, right?

00:14:58.000 When in reality, they have Everybody telling them the most narcissistic thing ever.

00:15:03.000 You're the greatest.

00:15:04.000 You're the most awesome.

00:15:05.000 Take more pictures of yourself, more selfies, more Snapchats, more TikToks, more, more me, me, me, me, me.

00:15:10.000 And all they do is they think about themselves all day long, right?

00:15:13.000 And if you have anything wrong with you, you have to go claim mental health issues and go talk to a counselor, some of which are legitimate, some of which are obviously just concocted by the environmental factors around them.

00:15:22.000 And they get in this endless spiral loop, when in reality, we have to do less affirmation, and especially with young men, more challenging of them, more saying, you know what?

00:15:31.000 Honestly, I'm not going to talk down to you.

00:15:33.000 Stop being a boy and become a man.

00:15:35.000 You want to learn what that means?

00:15:36.000 Come to church, and I'll tell you what it means to become a man, because we have the greatest story ever told of what it means to be a biblical man.

00:15:43.000 We can tell you exactly what that means, and we're not going to sugarcoat it or sanitize it, because properly understood, The Bible is not a playtime book.

00:15:53.000 The Bible is one, as of course all of you guys know, is one that teaches us at every moment of our life in the chapter that we are in with the struggle that we are currently encountering.

00:16:03.000 And yet the predominant zeitgeist, if you go to most seminaries...

00:16:08.000 That can't draw 100 kids on campus.

00:16:10.000 If you go to most some of these Christian conferences, all of these supposed experts are like, well, you know, Gen Z tends to be very pro-LGBT.

00:16:17.000 Can we just stop with this nonsense?

00:16:19.000 Pro-homosexual agenda. 0.55

00:16:20.000 Okay, can we stop with this nonsense?

00:16:21.000 They're very pro-LGBT.

00:16:23.000 Again, stop using the acronyms of the left.

00:16:25.000 Okay?

00:16:26.000 Like, oh, they're very pro-environmental.

00:16:27.000 Okay, whatever.

00:16:28.000 So they say, therefore, we must then water down our approach to go meet this generation that is in favor of these things.

00:16:37.000 Or...

00:16:37.000 We can say, no, we're never going to compromise on truth, and we're going to win them over from the false deception that they're living.

00:16:42.000 Like, hello?

00:16:45.000 As evidenced by what we have seen over the last couple of months.

00:16:48.000 What we've seen the last couple of months, again, this is just a political example, but I do want to say it's an amazing move of God.

00:16:54.000 The impossible was done where President Donald Trump did 13 points better with younger voters in a way that no one ever thought was possible.

00:17:02.000 Kamala Harris did worse with baby boomers. 1.00

00:17:05.000 I understand, you know, it might not be some of you guys don't want to applaud for that.

00:17:09.000 It's fine.

00:17:10.000 I get it.

00:17:10.000 But it is a phenomenal movement when you see young people go in that direction in a way that you could never have expected.

00:17:19.000 And so the modern myth is this, or the modern context, is that the worst thing ever is that someone will send you a nasty email saying that you offended them.

00:17:31.000 We live under...

00:17:33.000 Or we used to live under.

00:17:35.000 In fact, you only live under this, by the way, by choice.

00:17:37.000 We largely live under the soft tyranny of the offended peoples. 0.98

00:17:44.000 And every one of us are victim of this.

00:17:47.000 The soft tyranny of the offended peoples are a hyper-minoritarian, loud vanguard that control our sermons. 0.99

00:17:57.000 I'm not a pastor, but you know what I mean.

00:17:59.000 That control our messages.

00:18:01.000 And control our outward displays.

00:18:05.000 That's that little voice in your head where you are crafting a sermon and you say, oh boy, Karen's going to be really mad about this one. 0.78

00:18:14.000 Or whomever.

00:18:16.000 Suzanne, whatever.

00:18:18.000 Sorry, it's almost never, Mark.

00:18:20.000 It's just never.

00:18:22.000 See, people didn't like that.

00:18:23.000 It's almost, you know who I'm talking about.

00:18:25.000 The complaints.

00:18:26.000 And that's fine.

00:18:27.000 And it's that angry word in email.

00:18:29.000 Oh my goodness!

00:18:30.000 I thought that this was this kind of church and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:18:33.000 And then your answer should be simple.

00:18:35.000 I don't care.

00:18:42.000 Thank you.

00:18:44.000 If you want to meet with me, I will lovingly tell you why I believe what I believe in the scriptures say.

00:18:50.000 I want you to keep on attending my church.

00:18:52.000 But if you are offended by something the Bible says is true, Then I'm not going to dilute or weaken that stance.

00:19:00.000 That I will not do.

00:19:03.000 However, you are more than welcome to keep on showing up and receiving the word and listening to the worship music, all of that.

00:19:11.000 And that's the difficulty, is that the American church has largely been a victim of its own success.

00:19:20.000 If you want to make sense of the change and the chaos happening around us, you're going to need God's help.

00:19:25.000 That's why Alan Jackson Ministries, a friend of mine, created the Culture and Christianity podcast, the Culture and Christianity conference, and their weeknight news show, Alan Jackson Now.

00:19:37.000 Millions of people also listen to Pastor Alan Jackson's powerful sermons each week, I do, on radio, television, satellite, and online.

00:19:44.000 In today's world, there's desperate need for truth, and Alan Jackson Ministries feels a sense of urgency to deliver God's truth and a biblical perspective to anyone who will listen.

00:19:57.000 We can't afford to be complacent.

00:19:59.000 Their mission is to help people become more fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, which is the most important thing, giving your life to the Lord, including here on The Charlie Kirk Show.

00:20:08.000 Go to alanjackson.com slash charlie.

00:20:12.000 That is alanjackson.com slash charlie to find recent podcasts, shows, and sermons.

00:20:17.000 Be informed.

00:20:18.000 Find encouragement.

00:20:20.000 Hear the truth delivered in a way that just makes sense.

00:20:23.000 You'll also find books, studies, prayers, and other tools to help you grow in your faith.

00:20:28.000 Again, that's alanjackson.com slash charlie.

00:20:30.000 alanjackson.com slash charlie.

00:20:32.000 This is our time to make a difference.

00:20:33.000 Check it out right now.

00:20:36.000 I can say this as an outsider insider, right?

00:20:39.000 Because I do politics professionally.

00:20:41.000 I do youth outreach.

00:20:42.000 I do a podcast.

00:20:42.000 And I do the church outreach as a professional thing, but it's not the only thing I do.

00:20:48.000 So I'm able to look at the church from an outside perspective, but also be on the inside.

00:20:51.000 And the analysis is this.

00:20:53.000 As the church grew so popular and Christianity was the predominant and still is, thankfully, but it's slipping as we know. 1.00

00:21:00.000 View of the West is that we needed so many churches and we need so much infrastructure.

00:21:05.000 So many people went into the ministry.

00:21:06.000 And as so many people went into the ministry, far too many people went into the ministry that, quite honestly, were not ready for what happens when you have to say controversial stuff.

00:21:17.000 And when you have to, by the way, definitionally, you cannot coexist.

00:21:23.000 You cannot be a pastor and avoid controversial things.

00:21:26.000 It's impossible.

00:21:27.000 If you think that is possible, you are wrong.

00:21:31.000 You could go sell insurance, which is honestly also controversial.

00:21:35.000 So I don't know what you want to go do, okay?

00:21:38.000 But go find something less controversial.

00:21:41.000 But the temperament, and I want to try to meet those in the middle.

00:21:44.000 The temperament of a lot of people that go into ministry are agreeable personalities.

00:21:49.000 So if you were to break the world into disagreeable and agreeable.

00:21:53.000 Now would you say, is Charlie Kirk agreeable or disagreeable?

00:21:55.000 Pretty disagreeable, right?

00:21:57.000 If I have a problem with you, I'm going to say something.

00:21:59.000 Matt Walsh, very disagreeable, right?

00:22:02.000 Like, the most disagreeable.

00:22:03.000 He's awesome.

00:22:04.000 We're going to hear from him in a second, right?

00:22:07.000 Agreeable, by the way, and this is just an archetype.

00:22:10.000 It's not true at every spectrum of the continuum.

00:22:13.000 But the way God designed nature is that women tend to be more agreeable than men when it comes to conflict resolution.

00:22:22.000 They are less likely to challenge authority, more likely to try to conform to societal norms and customs.

00:22:27.000 Fine.

00:22:28.000 You could disagree with that.

00:22:29.000 You could say, no, I'll fight tyranny like Esther.

00:22:31.000 Great.

00:22:31.000 Fine.

00:22:31.000 That's not the point.

00:22:32.000 You're the exception, not the rule.

00:22:33.000 It's a generalization, and it's generalization for a reason because it's generally true.

00:22:36.000 The American church and the people that went into ministry the last 40 years tend to be people that were agreeable when it came to conflict resolution.

00:22:45.000 These are people that are phenomenal at the one-on-one type counseling and ministry.

00:22:50.000 They are very good at helping heal a broken marriage.

00:22:54.000 They'll spend the four hours till 1 a.m. of the guy that's dealing with substance abuse.

00:22:58.000 And by all objective measurements and metrics, they're checking all the boxes of what it means to be a good pastor.

00:23:05.000 However, when that agreeable person has to get up and do a sermon about, hey, we're going to go fight back against the Alpharetta City Council because they deemed our church non-essential.

00:23:19.000 For the agreeable pastor, that is a very difficult thing to do.

00:23:24.000 It is a temperament issue, meaning that it's just not really in their DNA to stand up to that kind of tyranny.

00:23:31.000 It's, I thought I got into the ministry to love on people and to heal the sick and to have compassion.

00:23:37.000 And that is true.

00:23:38.000 And that's why I think we need to meet a lot of these pastors in the middle.

00:23:41.000 And maybe some of you, I hope this is resonating with you, that...

00:23:45.000 The time right now for American Christianity, and the reason why we're seeing this refiner's fire, is that we are no longer in a peacetime Christianity.

00:23:53.000 And I know that is a difficult message to hear, but I was raised in a peacetime Christianity.

00:23:59.000 And the peacetime Christianity lended itself to a type of pastor that was more agreeable.

00:24:06.000 And more about the expansion of the non-controversial gospel.

00:24:09.000 But when you enter into a wartime Christianity, all of a sudden the people are desiring and hungering a metaphorical general like Jensen Franklin that is willing to, of course, help the people that are in broken circumstances, but also call out orders for the Christian flock to be able to go forth and...

00:24:30.000 Spread the gospel and spread truth in their community, in their home.

00:24:34.000 So that's the tension right now.

00:24:35.000 Is right now the current composition of the American church is largely a peacetime force.

00:24:43.000 And we are in a wartime moment.

00:24:45.000 And we're seeing this tension where the peacetime force is like, I didn't sign up for this.

00:24:51.000 I thought I was just going to do John 3, 16 every Sunday.

00:24:56.000 And then I'm going to retire and get a house in Destin.

00:24:59.000 Like, whatever.

00:25:02.000 And they're like, stop it with all this politics.

00:25:04.000 And in some ways, we should criticize them.

00:25:07.000 But you got to also love on them.

00:25:08.000 Like, they signed up for something that is completely different.

00:25:12.000 And so the way we handle that will be different in every one of your churches.

00:25:15.000 Maybe it can be like, hey, we're going to dedicate you to a different ministry bucket in the church.

00:25:19.000 Maybe this is not for you.

00:25:20.000 And I say this as lovingly as I possibly can, that those of you that are cut out for the wartime.

00:25:25.000 Boy, it is time for you to step up even more because you are needed more than ever.

00:25:30.000 And I say this in the least judgmental way that I possibly can.

00:25:35.000 I don't mean this in a judgmental way.

00:25:37.000 Not everyone is cut out for the wartime stuff.

00:25:39.000 Some people are sunshine soldiers and some are patriots.

00:25:45.000 That's what the revolutionaries used to call the folks that used to go fight in the July and August.

00:25:50.000 Yeah, the British are terrible, but in January, all of a sudden, the army shrunk by half. 0.95

00:25:55.000 When smallpox was spread and you had to go march with no shoes in Pennsylvania on January 25th, all of a sudden you realize what a revolutionary force is cut out of.

00:26:06.000 And those sunshine patriots and those summer soldiers went home to their farms like, yeah, beat the British.

00:26:11.000 Let me know how it goes.

00:26:14.000 And we see that tension.

00:26:15.000 So how do we take a peacetime force into a wartime...

00:26:20.000 Infantry.

00:26:21.000 That, and of course, for all of my friends in the media, I'm talking metaphorically.

00:26:25.000 I'm not talking about taking up arms.

00:26:26.000 You guys know it's a spiritual battle I'm talking about here.

00:26:29.000 I have to clarify for all of our wonderfully accurate friends at CNN that always quote me right on edge, right?

00:26:37.000 And so here's my final call to action.

00:26:40.000 The final thing I'll say is this, and then I'm going to welcome up my great friend, Lucas Miles.

00:26:44.000 I've been doing this now, speaking at churches, and learning for the last five years.

00:26:50.000 And the biggest issue that I have finally seen is the question of what is the church and what should the church be?

00:26:58.000 And a peacetime pastor will view the church as a place strictly and solely for food pantries and for marriage ministries and worship music.

00:27:11.000 All good.

00:27:13.000 But in a moment that we are in, and properly understood this how the church should always be, is that the church...

00:27:19.000 Should be salt and light going into the community, changing the composition of the area around you.

00:27:26.000 Not just affirming the signs of the place of the times.

00:27:32.000 What is the church is the most important thing.

00:27:34.000 Christ told us what the church is.

00:27:36.000 In Ekklesia, to be in the public square, to be involved in the motion, to be involved in the laws and the customs and the community around you.

00:27:46.000 It is a Greek word that I understand.

00:27:49.000 That when Christ said, on this rock, build my ecclesia, it could have used synagogue, it could have used temple, but it actually used a secular term where otherwise a religious term would have been perfectly sufficient.

00:28:03.000 So you think about it, that Christ said, on this rock, build my church.

00:28:07.000 We only know this thanks to William Tyndale, who translated the Bible back from the original Greek into...

00:28:15.000 New King James English.

00:28:17.000 And that word ecclesia, it's a game changer because it wasn't a religious term because Christ, and this is not just, this is not exegetical.

00:28:25.000 It is a fact of his repeated commandments to us is that Christ did not want us to have a comfortable Christianity where we just kind of stay within our walls and we're very sanctimonious and prideful and saying we have the truth and if you want,

00:28:40.000 maybe we'll invite you in.

00:28:42.000 He wanted us to be expansionist.

00:28:44.000 He wanted us to be influential.

00:28:46.000 He wanted us to be in every single domain.

00:28:49.000 And you guys know this, is that if we want America to flourish and to prosper, the only way that will happen is if the church wakes up. 0.95

00:28:57.000 If we make that conversion from a peacetime to the wartime, if we wake up the sleeping giant in this country, because our founding fathers warned us that the Constitution...

00:29:09.000 is only adequate for a moral and religious people.

00:29:13.000 It is wholly inadequate for the people of any other. 0.98

00:29:16.000 I can win over as many possible kids on college campuses as possible.

00:29:20.000 We can make a lot of videos go viral, but it's all for nothing if the church remains a weak, feeble institution.

00:29:28.000 I hope you guys will rise up and speak the truth.

00:29:31.000 Thank you guys so much.

00:29:33.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:29:35.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - April 27, 2025

Be a True Church, Not a Trembling Church

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