00:00:00.000Hey, everybody, on this most holy day of the year, I wanted to share an episode I did about why I'm a Christian, why I believe what I believe.
00:00:08.000The gospel in four words, three words, two words, one word.
00:00:11.000Jesus took my place, him for me, substitutionary atonement, and grace.
00:00:15.000I go through a rational, logical argument why you should believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, why he died and rose again.
00:01:25.000Noble 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.
00:01:35.000Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at Noble Gold Investments.com.
00:01:52.000I'm doing this podcast on Easter Sunday to communicate.
00:01:56.000To everyone who's listening, obviously, but to Christians, to non believers, atheists, people in the secular world, I think we as Christians, and yes, I am a Christian, I'm a proud Christian, we don't talk about why we believe what we believe enough and exactly what does Easter mean and the gift that it is to every single person in the world.
00:02:18.000I mean, no offense by anything I'm going to talk about in this podcast at all, but I'm going to give you a very rational, analytical, fact driven, compelling case.
00:02:29.000Of why you should believe in Christianity.
00:02:32.000I'm going to start with talking about the spiritual side and the argument for an existence of the Almighty.
00:02:40.000And then I'm going to get pretty granular.
00:02:43.000I'm going to talk about the one thing that the entire Christian faith hinges on.
00:02:47.000And that's the thing that we're celebrating today on Easter Sunday, which is the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, who was killed, executed for three days, rose from the dead.
00:03:01.000So, we as Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
00:03:05.000We believe that Jesus was the fulfilling of a promise and a fulfilling of the covenant.
00:03:10.000If you're familiar with the composition of the Bible, it is the greatest book ever to exist in the history of the world, the most important book ever to exist in the history of the world.
00:03:19.000And I believe it is the Word of God, not just a piece of literature.
00:03:26.000For my Catholic friends out there, they have a higher number than that.
00:03:31.000Faith and tradition, and we had a great conversation with Michael Knowles in a previous podcast.
00:03:36.000But in the beginning portion of the Bible, we call it the Old Testament as Christians, it talks a lot about God promising that a Messiah will come and save the Jewish people and the people of the world.
00:03:50.000Specifically, you can go to Isaiah 53, which is some of the most explicit imagery of the Messiah coming like a root out of dry ground.
00:04:02.000And you can go through Ezekiel, you can go through Daniel and a lot of the prophecy of the Old Testament through the major and minor prophets talked about that there would be a Messiah that would come to save the people of Israel, God's chosen people, but also save the people of the world.
00:04:19.000And for those of you that just might dismiss this podcast as being, oh, this is just another religious talk, bear with me.
00:04:26.000Just let the podcast run and listen to it.
00:04:29.000Even if you don't think you'll be convinced, which hopefully I'll be able to convince some people.
00:04:33.000And if there's Christians listening to this podcast, I hope I can strengthen you in your faith and fasten you in.
00:04:41.000But even if you don't think you'll be convinced, you as an informed citizen of America should know all of these things.
00:04:47.000You should know the arguments for and against the authenticity of Jesus Christ, the execution, and so on and so forth, of Jesus and so on and so forth.
00:04:57.000So we believe that Jesus Christ was a gift from God, that when Jesus was brought into this world, it was the fulfilling of the covenant, fulfilling of the promise, and a new covenant was made.
00:05:09.000Now, we as Christians, first you have to realize that accepting a gift can be really hard.
00:05:22.000That's a little fast fact for you around the Easter dinner table.
00:05:26.000Yes, Jesus was all of those things, but he was also a sacrifice a sacrifice and a gift that we do not deserve, we did not earn, we did not work for it, and we won't even act well enough to get even close to it.
00:05:43.000Everyone listening to this podcast, I'm sure many of you have looked up to the stars or looked up to the moon, and sometimes you just ask very simple philosophical questions Who am I?
00:06:13.000Have answers for every single one of those questions.
00:06:15.000I won't be able to answer all those questions in this podcast today on Easter Sunday, but I am going to get to the most important question that any human being can ask themselves.
00:06:24.000And we have answers to those questions in the Holy Bible.
00:06:27.000We have answers to the question of who you are.
00:06:35.000We have answers to all those questions.
00:06:37.000But the one that is more important than any other, the one that is the top of the tributary that flows to every other question, is the question of who.
00:06:49.000Was Jesus Christ just a rebellious Jew that kind of overstepped his bounds and was killed by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governing authority at the time, because of the orders of the Sanhedrin and the ruling class, if you will, of the Jewish intelligentsia?
00:07:08.000Or was Jesus Christ something more than that?
00:07:10.000Was he a magic man that maybe had an above average connection?
00:07:34.000And this is a lot of the reason why Jesus stirred up, quote unquote, so much trouble while he was doing his witness and his testimony throughout Judea and Samaria.
00:08:37.000And remember, YRefi doesn't care what your credit score is.
00:08:40.000Just go to yrefi.com and tell them your friend Andrew sent you.
00:08:47.000Now, if you say who is Jesus Christ, I say he's the Son of God and the resurrected, fulfilled promise as the Son of God.
00:08:56.000But even more than that, the entire quote unquote case for Christianity, the apologist Lee Strobel talks about this better than almost anyone else.
00:09:06.000And his own personal faith journey was around him as an atheist and a Chicago Tribune legal award winning reporter trying to disprove Christianity.
00:09:18.000And he zeroed in on the entire question.
00:09:22.000As if I can disprove the resurrection, I can disprove Christianity.
00:09:30.000Easter Sunday, everybody, our whole faith, the faith of over a billion people worldwide, hinges on this day.
00:09:37.000This is the most important day in Christianity and the most important day in the history of the world.
00:09:43.000Whether or not a miracle working individual who was wrongly executed rose from the dead or not.
00:09:54.000The gospel in four words, three words, two words, and one word.
00:09:58.000We as Christians believe that, yes, Jesus took my place.
00:10:03.000Four words, three words, him for me, two words, substitutionary atonement, one word, grace.
00:10:10.000So that when Jesus came here and died for our sins, it was something that we didn't work for.
00:10:15.000It's something you have to surrender and accept.
00:10:17.000I'll get more into that in just one second.
00:10:20.000But why would, Charlie, you're so rational.
00:10:24.000I love listening to your podcast because you're so fact driven.
00:10:27.000We get a lot of those emails, we get a lot of that feedback.
00:10:31.000And I could just hear right now people saying, oh, here goes Charlie into that hocus pocus mysticism mythology.
00:10:38.000I think Charlie's out on a reservation here and convincing himself of something that isn't true.
00:10:44.000But let me make the case for you humor me.
00:10:52.000The first three Gospels are called Synoptic Gospels, they were written roughly in the order of Mark, Matthew, and Then Luke, then John, but it's debated whether or not Matthew or Mark came first.
00:11:04.000I can tell you and make the case for Christianity by using the three E's.
00:11:13.000First and foremost, we have to dispel this myth that, well, maybe Jesus didn't actually die.
00:11:21.000Maybe Jesus was wounded, put inside of a tomb, and then he came out afterwards.
00:11:29.000But between independent scholars, there is no dispute that Jesus actually died.
00:11:35.000Did you know that we have five ancient non biblical sources from Tacitus, Josephus, Lucian, and even the Jewish Talmud that do not dispute the fact that Jesus was executed, that Jesus died?
00:11:50.000This dispels the idea that Jesus was just wounded.
00:11:56.000In the Bible, it tells us Christians that Christianity must be an investigative faith, that the more we look into it, the more we are going to find that this is true.
00:12:06.000In John 10 30, Jesus Christ said that I and the Father are one.
00:12:13.000What Jesus was really saying is that I am the divine.
00:12:17.000This is what caused so much backlash and eventually led to the execution of Jesus Christ.
00:12:27.000The next E, if you will, if we accept that, okay, Charlie, got it.
00:12:32.000And to go even a step back, just to understand some of the nonsense that is taught about Christianity, there is a Jesus truther movement that even questions whether or not Jesus Christ existed at all whatsoever.
00:12:45.000This is total balderdash and nonsense.
00:12:50.000Just to put this into perspective, not only do we have Tacitus, Josephus, Lucian, and the Talmud independent outside of the Bible, but we have the four.
00:12:59.000Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that were written by Jews, mind you, that had no reason to go out of their way to try to defend the veracity and the authenticity of the story of Jesus Christ.
00:13:13.000So, this idea that Jesus didn't exist, some people believe it.
00:13:16.000Even true committed atheists say, okay, I'll give you Jesus existed.
00:13:24.000But to give you some context for how much ancient sources we have to corroborate the story of Jesus Christ, do you believe Alexander the Great existed?
00:13:34.000Do you believe Alexander the Great did what you're taught in school?
00:13:38.000Well, did you know that the first biography of Alexander the Great was not written until 400 years after his death?
00:13:47.000Yet we accept the teach, yeah, Alexander the Great, young ruling king.
00:13:52.000He was taught by Aristotle, didn't really take his teachings, and 400 years later we write the book.
00:13:58.000Yet with Jesus Christ, this is the next E, early, we have early accounts that Jesus rose from the dead.
00:14:05.000This dispels the whole idea that it was a legend and mythology and it grew over time.
00:14:10.000Within one to three years after the execution and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Paul converted to Christianity, who wrote the majority of the New Testament.
00:14:21.000Paul then went to Jerusalem and met with Peter and James, who were eyewitnesses to the resurrection.
00:14:27.000We'll get to eyewitnesses in just one second.
00:15:31.000Now you can build your own box with the cuts your family loves steaks for grilling, chicken for weeknight dinners, or whatever you reach for the most.
00:15:40.000Start your plan today and you'll get free meat included with every order.
00:15:44.000And with our code CHARLY, you'll get $25 off your first order.
00:15:48.000That's free meat with every order and $25 off your first order with code CHARLY when you start your plan at goodranchers.com.
00:16:09.000Well, because the Pharisees and the members of the Sanhedrin didn't say that, oh, the tomb was never filled with anyone.
00:16:16.000Instead, they said, oh, the disciples probably stole the body.
00:16:20.000So even the early accounts, when they tried to discredit the resurrection, they said, no, no, no, no.
00:16:28.000The tomb had somebody in it, but the disciples came and stole it.
00:16:31.000But it's important to remember that disciples didn't have the means to even go and do this.
00:16:37.000It was a heavily guarded tomb by the modern day equivalent of the Roman Secret Service, it was protecting this tomb.
00:16:46.000You're trying to tell me that former fishermen in the middle of the night challenged the Roman Secret Service and rolled away a multi ton rock, stole Jesus without any of the Roman soldiers able to tell about it?
00:17:56.000Women were considered to be secondary in society.
00:18:00.000It was a highly misogynistic or chauvinistic way of structuring society back then.
00:18:08.000So if I was trying to falsify a narrative to say that Jesus Christ was.
00:18:14.000Risen from the dead, I wouldn't use women witnesses at all.
00:18:17.000I would stay away from women witnesses.
00:18:19.000Those were the first eyewitnesses of Jesus.
00:18:21.000Did you know, according to biblical and non biblical accounts in the four gospels, Jesus Christ was seen by over 550 people over a dozen times by men, by women, in daytime and nighttime, all across Judea and Samaria.
00:18:39.000There is no rhyme or reason to the people that saw Jesus after he was killed, the resurrected Jesus.
00:18:45.000So if I was trying to create a conspiracy, It would be really hard to get 550 people to agree that, especially men and women, and daytime and nighttime.
00:18:55.000Nine ancient sources corroborate the different eyewitnesses that said they saw Jesus.
00:19:00.000Now, a skeptic would say, Charlie, people believe silly stuff all the time.
00:19:04.000Yeah, maybe they saw Jesus, but maybe they really wanted to use this as a way to enrich themselves, as a way to get power.
00:19:13.000That argument might stand with some footing if the newfounded religion of Christianity was met with wealth.
00:19:23.000Instead, early Christians were persecuted and murdered for what they believed.
00:19:29.000Even worse than that, the individuals that believed it most fervently, that were spreading the good news of Jesus Christ, the disciples, almost all of them died a brutal death.
00:19:41.000So it's one thing to believe a lie, but who would willingly die for a lie?
00:19:48.000Who would willingly go to the very last breath and be given a chance to denounce something they knew was a falsehood?
00:19:56.000We also know in 1 Corinthians 15 3, the immediate creed of the early Christians, where they recited over and over again Jesus Christ died for our sins and he was risen from the dead.
00:20:12.000The eyewitnesses that said they believed in Jesus and they saw Jesus rise from the dead suffered a brutal and horrible demise.
00:20:23.000Why would anyone die for something that you know is a lie?
00:20:27.000So, when you talk about ancient sources, see, we don't debate the authenticity of Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle, or the autobiography of Alexander the Great.
00:20:38.000We don't debate Homer's work, the Odyssey.
00:20:42.000We might debate the contents, but we don't debate that's what they wrote.
00:20:46.000We don't debate that that's what Homer was actually the one that said these things or believed these things.
00:20:53.000When it comes to the Bible, we have by far the most independently corroborated and authenticated sources.
00:21:01.000Of any considered ancient document to exist.
00:21:23.000And not only that, we had eyewitnesses, we have eyewitnesses that went on the record to go and prove it.
00:21:29.000So now, another skeptic argument is well, Charlie, the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we can't really trust it.
00:21:35.000We can't really trust when it was written and how it was written.
00:21:39.000And I have a lot of respect for Joe Rogan, but Joe Rogan miscategorized the Bible in one of his podcasts where he said, well, it was written hundreds of years after Jesus' life.
00:21:51.000The letters that Paul wrote were in the early church as soon as a decade or two decades after the death of Jesus Christ.
00:22:00.000The Gospel of Matthew and Mark were written 30 or 40 years after the death of Jesus Christ.
00:22:06.000So that would basically be like somebody writing today a book about Ronald Reagan.
00:22:12.000They would get a lot right about Ronald Reagan if they were in their 20s, if they served the administration under Ronald Reagan.
00:22:19.000So, just that adds some very important context.
00:22:26.000We've been really fortunate to work with a lot of great partners over the years at the Charlie Kirk Show, but some relationships are just different.
00:22:33.000Noble Gold Investments is one of them.
00:22:35.000They've been a longtime friend of this show.
00:22:38.000They were here during the growth, they helped many of you in our audience take real steps to protect your wealth.
00:22:44.000And now we get to build an even stronger partnership together.
00:22:46.000I have a tremendous amount of respect for Noble Gold.
00:22:50.000And honestly, it's just great to get to work with people you can trust.
00:22:53.000If you've been watching what's happening out there, the instability, the uncertainty, and you're wondering what you can do to protect yourself, Noble Gold is your answer.
00:23:02.000Whether it's purchasing physical precious metals or rolling over a portion of your retirement account into a gold IRA, Noble Gold will help you reach your financial goals in the simplest, safest way possible.
00:23:13.000And they tailor every plan to your unique situation, not somebody else's.
00:23:17.000Give them a call today at 877 646 5347.
00:23:22.000Let me say that one more time 877 646 5347, or head to noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:23:30.000Noble Gold Investments is standing by and ready to help.
00:23:33.000These are great people, and we're so glad to be working with them again.
00:23:40.000So, that's just a small picture of the evidence that we have of just the resurrection.
00:23:45.000And I went through some of the skeptical arguments, but it gets to something deeper than that.
00:24:24.000And then I also ask myself the question, what makes Christianity different than all these other religions in the world?
00:24:31.000And I'm sure many of you have that question because when it comes to religion, you have to have origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.
00:24:39.000Those are the four things you have to have.
00:24:41.000And people say, well, Christianity is similar to Buddhism.
00:24:46.000Christianity is similar to all these other world religions.
00:24:48.000I'm going to tell you how Christianity is different.
00:24:52.000Christianity is different because every other religion in the world is about what you do to grow closer to God.
00:25:00.000In Buddhism, it is the multi levels of enlightenment as you try to get up to the Buddha.
00:25:08.000In Islam, it is following the commandments that are put forward, whether it be praying five times a day or honoring halal, whether it be Implementing Sharia law in certain practices of Islam.
00:25:23.000In Hinduism, it's all about performing good enough in this life so that in the next life I can get to a better caste, essentially a spiritual caste system.
00:25:34.000What's so different about Christianity is of course, God gives us specific ways of how we should act.
00:25:40.000Jesus was explicitly clear about how you should treat the least of these and you should tell the truth and the type of thoughts that you should have and not have.
00:25:51.000God is explicitly clear of that in the Bible.
00:25:56.000It's not a tally card for you to accept Jesus Christ.
00:27:04.000You can literally go to the church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus was buried.
00:27:09.000You can go walk the stations of the cross.
00:27:12.000This is a real thing I'm talking about.
00:27:14.000And yes, Jesus represents metaphorically things as well.
00:27:20.000But there is actual blood spilled for you.
00:27:24.000And I'm sure some of you say, oh, Charlie, I can get to that religion thing later.
00:27:29.000I've never really heard of a great response to that other than you're wrong.
00:27:33.000No one knows when their time is, especially during this time where we see such an unpredictable amount of death happening around all of us.
00:27:41.000But even beyond that, it's either you have to come to the internal decision that I am not the most important thing ever to exist in the history of the world, that I'm not enough.
00:27:53.000And I could tell you this, and this is more just a personal testimony when you accept Jesus Christ into your life, you get less angry.
00:28:54.000I just recommend then just read the Bible for five minutes.
00:28:59.000If you think you're better than the Bible, you're not.
00:29:00.000It's the most important, most instructive, most informative book ever to exist in the history of the world.
00:29:04.000Just read the Bible for five minutes tonight and then ask yourself the question how could these authors be so committed that this is true and I could be on the opposite side of it?
00:29:12.000Maybe there's something that's in it that's true.
00:29:15.000But the most important question about Christianity for all of this, for skeptics out there, is would you believe it if it was true?
00:29:25.000Now, the obvious answer should be yeah, of course.
00:29:39.000If you're a parent, you don't need to be told that online safety is important.
00:29:43.000That's why TikTok has over 50 preset safety and privacy settings.
00:29:47.000And beyond that, parents can set up family pairing to help shape their teens' experience on the app.
00:29:52.000With family pairing, parents can get visibility into their teens' followers and who they follow, help restrict content that's not right for them, and set screen time limits.
00:30:01.000Parents can also set restricted times so they're not on TikTok when they shouldn't be, because feeling good about the time your teen spends online shouldn't come with guesswork.
00:30:11.000In addition to the already built in safety and privacy protections, Family pairing gives parents more tools to shape their teens' online experience based on what's right for their family.
00:30:20.000Remember, when safety comes first, discovery and creativity can follow.
00:30:24.000Learn more by going to TikTok.comslash Guardians Guide.
00:30:31.000Most people have been talked out of Christianity because most people have never been talked into Christianity.
00:30:39.000My great friend Frank Turek says that a lot on his podcast, Cross Examined, and we're going to have him on our podcast sometime soon.
00:30:47.000For every skeptic question you have about Christianity, there are really good answers about it.
00:30:53.000But I think a lot of the reasons why people don't accept Christianity is outside of the technical, rational, historical, archaeological mountain of evidence that's out there.
00:31:02.000Quite honestly, it's people that don't want to change their own specific lifestyle and get on their knees and just say, I've been really screwing this whole parade up.
00:31:15.000And what Jesus did when he died on the cross for us.
00:31:19.000Is he allowed us to say, I'm never going to get there?
00:31:25.000See, Jesus took a symbol of death and public mockery and has turned it into a symbol of a gateway to eternity.
00:31:36.000How's that for the greatest irony of Middle Eastern Roman Jewish rule?
00:31:45.000Totally changing a symbol that was the cross, which was meant to be nothing more than a symbol of the greatest shame of a criminal when you put someone up on that cross that never committed a crime and didn't sin ever, and you turn that into a gateway to acceptance and righteousness.
00:32:04.000Well, on Good Friday, we are told and we learn that salvation can be given to you in a moment's notice if you truly accept Jesus Christ as God and as king, a king over a dominion, building his kingdom.
00:32:21.000Next to Jesus on the cross was a bad guy.
00:32:24.000And that thief next to Jesus lived an immoral life.
00:32:30.000And Jesus granted him acceptance into eternity.
00:32:35.000So the stakes are pretty high with all this.
00:32:38.000And I can assure you and guarantee you that when you strip down all the earthly ambitions and dust around us, because everything, if you're an atheist or a secularist, and I don't mean this by any offense at all whatsoever, Comes down to nothing more than a specific subset of chemical composition and dust.
00:33:10.000But for those of us Christians, we believe in an omniscient, omnipotent, generous, gracious, good God that has given you a gift that's right on the table.
00:33:21.000And I encourage and I pray that every single person listening to this podcast.
00:33:29.000A gift of the ultimate sacrifice, of suffering, not just in the moment of the crucifixion, but the unburdening of all the sins, all the mistakes that you've ever made, and the mistakes you're going to make tomorrow because you're going to continually and repeatedly sin.
00:35:30.000Our country was founded by a group of people that believed this that Christianity is true and that Easter is the most important day in the history of the world, that the resurrection of the Christ is something that must be celebrated and told to every individual all across the world.
00:35:52.000Jesus is King, Jesus is the Savior of the world.