00:01:07.000I mean, these speakers, hold your phone.
00:01:10.000Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, Patrick Bett David, Candace Owens, Rob Schneider, Roseanne Barr, Dennis Prager, Allie Beth Stuckey, James O'Keefe, Riley Gaines, Ben Carson, Jason Whitlock, Gad Sad, Brandon Tatum, Seth Dillon, Jack Pesovic, Benny Johnson, Yan Mee Park, Michael Seifert, James Lindsey, Steve Bannon, Eric Metaxas, Donald Trump Jr., Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gates, and bigger names than even that to be announced soon.
00:02:19.000This four-day event is packed with empowering speakers, hundreds of patriotic partner organizations, and the America-loving community that you have been searching for.
00:02:28.000Don't miss on the amazing concert two.
00:02:32.000Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Rob Schneider, Roseanne Barr, Dennis Prager, Allie Bethstucke, James O'Keefe, Patrick Bett David, Glenn Beck.
00:02:40.000I mean, just drop everything and come to Phoenix.
00:03:06.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:03:12.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:03:59.000It's easy to point our finger at the secular world, but if we do not have strong churches, then who are we to point the world at, point our finger at the world that doesn't have the truth?
00:04:19.000It is race, gender, and sexual preference.
00:04:23.000And when the church decides that what the unbelievers think about us is more important than what God thinks about us, when the fear of man dominates versus the fear of God, you get wokeness in the church.
00:04:36.000And so that, so race, gender, sexual preference.
00:04:41.000So Ryan, kind of talk about at your church when you started to see these elements either brought in through not maybe elders, people in the church, just kind of where you started to see it laced in with Christianity, not just from a political standpoint, but when someone said, well, you know, wouldn't Jesus be okay with the transgender thing?
00:05:01.000When did you start to see things change?
00:05:04.000Yes, we all became more aware of this, I think, during 2020.
00:05:08.000And what I've realized in hindsight is that I think the devil used the Trojan horse of compassion to bring wokeness into the church.
00:05:17.000And a lot of well-meaning pastors who wanted to be compassionate, loving, fair, justice-oriented were susceptible to these deceptions of the enemy and not really understanding the play that the enemy was running on the church, which is supposed to be a light shining in the darkness and a bastion of truth.
00:05:38.000And I think a lot of Christians don't really understand what the devil has been doing to deceive them and pull them into critical theory-based wokeness.
00:06:07.000I mean, today, pastors have to be okay with congregants leaving the church over this issue.
00:06:13.000And some pastors have a disproportionate desire to keep everyone they can.
00:06:19.000And in reality, sometimes leaving people who are committed to false ideologies is actually a pruning process that Jesus wants to take his church through.
00:06:28.000And so, Caden, tell us about your church, your experience with what we describe as wokeism.
00:06:34.000I probably would just start with my own journey over the last year and a half.
00:06:37.000I read, heard a teaching, then I read Jeremiah 36, talks about the prophet Jeremiah brings the word of God to the people, eventually makes its way to the king.
00:06:48.000The king doesn't like what it has to say, starts cutting it out, burns the word of God, essentially.
00:06:53.000And I got convicted in that moment and basically thought, man, this is our culture.
00:06:59.000And I realized I need to start talking about the truth and start equipping our people to understand what we believe and why we believe.
00:07:08.000And I was met in that moment with gratitude from people in our church rather than just a bunch of picketers and boycotters.
00:07:16.000I mean, the people in our church were like, man, thank you for talking about why we believe what we believe, and giving us a foundation and an understanding and scripture so that we can share that with the, you know, so that was kind of what I was met with.
00:07:27.000That's been the journey that I've been on.
00:07:28.000I had a mindset shift where I would have been a person that I'm like, I just, I don't necessarily want to bring anything up, ruffle feathers.
00:07:35.000And I realized, no, I need to equip people with the truth.
00:07:39.000And that's kind of just been my journey over the last year and a half.
00:07:42.000And it's been awesome to see people be a little bit more emboldened to live that out, walk that out, and understand what they believe.
00:07:50.000So, Caden, I'm going to play a lot of devil's advocate because obviously I think so highly of all you three.
00:07:54.000I want to, you know, because our audience has these questions.
00:07:57.000What would you say to someone like Andy Stanley that would, you know, your favorite, where he would say, but you're turning off young people to the church.
00:08:08.000You're going to turn off, this is not, I'm not, am I misrepresenting his view, Ryan?
00:08:56.000And so I just, I don't agree with that.
00:08:58.000I don't think that there's, you know, maybe to some extent we could see that, but we are not doing right by people if we don't speak and give them a foundation of what we actually believe.
00:09:16.000John, you're turning people off if you talk about biblical things they don't like.
00:09:21.000So what we have to understand, evangelicalism is a movement almost 100 years old now that started with the idea that we need to impact the culture in the sense that we need to be relevant.
00:09:33.000We need the culture to look at us and say, they have really smart people there.
00:09:38.000They have really good people in that church.
00:09:40.000And so what we did was we began to capitulate.
00:09:44.000We began to say, okay, we can take some of the teachings of the world and mix it with Christianity so that we can become more relevant.
00:09:51.000So when somebody says something like, hey, you're going to lose the kids, you're going to lose young people.
00:09:58.000Young people are flocking to clear, courageous, convictional truth teaching.
00:10:04.000Number one, and number two, if you believe in the scriptures, which is what all these evangelicals say they do, if you believe in the scriptures, the scriptures are clear that it is the preaching of the word that saves people.
00:10:16.000So if you're going to, if you're worried about, if you're going to edit the Bible in order to reach people, then you're not really reaching people.
00:10:24.000And you're going to stand before God and he's going to say, why did you edit my word?
00:10:28.000Like, who do you think you are coming to my word as an editor?
00:10:55.000And I'm going to come off as very passionate, which is going to be interpreted as mean and fundamentalist and all of that stuff by all the woke pastors.
00:11:03.000But the bottom line is that it is the most loving thing that you can do to share the truth in love.
00:11:09.000The problem is a lot of pastors think it's their job to be nicer than Jesus actually was in the scriptures.
00:11:16.000And I would point to that example of the rich young ruler and the woman at the well were two people who were seeking truth.
00:11:37.000Jesus was willing to point out this woman's sin issue, even though it was a sensitive issue, because he knew that that was an issue that was rooted in a deeper need for himself.
00:11:49.000And pastors have to trust the word of God, what it ultimately says, and know that it's the word that brings conviction, that leads to change, that leads to life.
00:11:57.000And we don't have to soften up the word or be Jesus' PR man to make him a more palatable version of himself to the world in 2023.
00:12:06.000Katie, do you have a thought really quick?
00:12:08.000You don't actually love people the way that you're saying you do if you don't tell them the truth.
00:12:11.000If you don't tell them the truth and you're saying, I love you, but you're going to spend your eternity in hell, you don't actually love them.
00:12:16.000I mean, that's what you guys are saying.
00:12:18.000You love yourself, really, is what you're saying, because I fear your backlash.
00:12:22.000And so I'm protecting myself from your backlash by neutering Jesus, by creating a feminized Jesus rather than doing what Jesus did, which was he was tough and tender.
00:12:33.000He knew how to speak to the right kind of person and he knew how to be tough.
00:12:37.000And we don't live in a day when men are supposed to be tough.
00:12:41.000We've been feminized and pastors have become the most feminized because they want everybody to like them.
00:12:47.000They are not thinking I'm going to stand before God and give an account for everything I say and do.
00:12:52.000Let me kind of give you an example here then.
00:12:54.000An organization that people think very highly of that raises a ton of money, Crew, C-R-U.
00:13:00.000And I could be a little bit spicier in this than you guys because I know that you guys have a lot of probably students that are involved.
00:13:06.000Campus Crusade, you know, they raise $600 million a year lot in dues and stuff.
00:13:10.000They have recently come under fire from Ali B. Stuckey and other people because it's been revealed that it's the standard operating procedure at Crew to use somebody's pronouns.
00:13:49.000To use false pronouns is to reaffirm a fantasy or an ideology that we know is contradictory to God's truth and ultimately leads people further away from the Lord.
00:14:00.000And I think it's possible when you talk to someone who's living a transgender lifestyle to be kind, to be gentle in the way that you speak to them and represent the love of God in your interaction.
00:14:11.000But using pronouns would be to lie when they're incorrect pronouns for a person's biological sex.
00:14:18.000Yeah, from the very beginning, Satan has attacked God's distinctions, and this is one of them that he's been attacking forever.
00:14:24.000So this person who's transgender is living under a satanic lie.
00:14:29.000And so by affirming that, you are keeping them in that stronghold, keeping them captive to Satan rather than freeing them with the truth.
00:14:40.000And I think this is a great example because I don't doubt for a second that the heart and the intention of the people at Crew is to try to win people over Christ.
00:14:48.000So their justification after Ali B. Stuckey did a whole episode is, well, hold on.
00:14:52.000You know, we have found that this is a proven way to get conversations going with trans people to then lead them to Christ.
00:15:00.000And so if we just lie a little, then we'll be able to save them big.
00:15:18.000So to say, I'm going to just lie a little because I have good intentions, man, it's just misguided thinking my wisdom is better than God's wisdom.
00:15:26.000And yet at the same time, I would just add that what Christians have with God's Spirit, what Christians have with the love that God has shown us, is the answer that the woke are looking for.
00:15:39.000The people who are going after the entire society over race, sexual preference, and gender are looking for the love, the community, the kindness that only the church has because we have Christ in the dead.
00:15:53.000And I want to make sure that we're clear about this.
00:15:56.000I know all three of you, and I know your hearts.
00:15:59.000If a transgender person showed up at your church, you guys would welcome them in, but you would not affirm the lie that they're living under.
00:16:09.000Yeah, I mean, for instance, I spoke directly to that, and the person, well, a couple people came up and they said, hey, this was their response.
00:16:27.000And I don't know if we realize, if believers realize how deep this attack is on the family, God's intention from the beginning of time, male and female, have kids, family, that whole dynamic.
00:16:41.000The truth, I don't know how we realize how deep that attack is and how important it is that we continue to speak the truth in regards to men.
00:18:53.000I'm going to ask Ryan, you could start with this.
00:18:55.000How widespread is what we'd consider to be wokeism in the church, the seminary, the Christian music industry?
00:19:02.000Diagnose the success the enemy has had in advancing this heresy.
00:19:08.000Yeah, wokeism, which I would root again in critical theory, is kind of creating a constellation of issues that affect the church and Christians.
00:19:20.000I'd add another one, which is the subject of abuse, comes up a lot.
00:19:24.000And it really frames every relationship in the gridwork of oppressor and oppressed.
00:19:30.000And that's what clouds are thinking a lot of times.
00:19:33.000And the secular approach to justice is anyone who's an oppressor, like me as a white Christian heterosexual male, I'm basically Darth Vader, according to wokeism and intersectionality.
00:19:47.000And anyone who's viewed as oppressed, we should automatically believe and advance their agenda.
00:19:53.000And then when you bring intersectionality into the mix, a big word that's part of critical theory, it's just basically a way for people to layer their grievances on top of each other.
00:20:02.000So a black lesbian would be a more oppressed person than me.
00:20:07.000And then a black lesbian deaf woman would be the most oppressed, for example.
00:20:13.000And the more oppressed someone is able to claim they are according to intersectionality and critical theory, the more we should automatically believe them and embrace whatever they're saying.
00:20:23.000So in the church, this comes up a lot because we're dealing with hurting people.
00:20:27.000We're dealing with people who've been legitimately abused or traumatized.
00:20:32.000And so as pastors and as Christians, a lot of times we're just left confused.
00:22:57.000I would assume with the same as these guys that just preaching the word of God, all of it, not just part of it, is what people are seeking, not the same things that they're seeing in every other avenue of culture, schools, all that stuff.
00:23:14.000I would say that that is what is growing our churches.
00:23:17.000Just the hunger for the word of God, the hunger for the truth, the hunger for I want to understand what's going to help me in life, and then finding that out.
00:23:25.000I really think that's the bottom line.
00:23:27.000Yeah, that's, I just, I point that out because it's obvious to you three, your churches are flourishing.
00:23:33.000And by the way, you guys aren't alone.
00:23:34.000The top churches we work with at TPSA Faith, they all have parking problems, right?
00:23:39.000They're like, I'm trying my best to preach my church down to a manageable size.
00:23:42.000And I'm sure this Christmas, you guys are going to break records, right?
00:23:45.000And yet, I talk to wokey pastors or people, and they say, Yeah, we've never had lower attendance.
00:24:05.000Here's the story: historic 46-acre Bible college on Marietta Hot Springs sells for $50 million to a wellness resort and spa.
00:24:15.000Now, I'm sure there might have been other things involved, but just, you know, Chuck Smith with his great work, he had a vision and 279,000 square feet of infrastructure, including existing hot springs, 38 buildings, dozen guest lodges, 200 rooms, large auditoriums, commercial kitchens, restaurant facilities, and they had to sell it away.
00:24:32.000But what I'm getting at is the excuse that they've given is that this is what's happened at all churches.
00:24:43.000There are so many people in our society that are hungry for the truth.
00:24:47.000And there are Christians who probably realize for the first time in their lives how important a Bible-teaching church really is.
00:24:57.000In a lot of ways, I feel like the devil has kind of out-kicked his coverage with the transing of kids and the men and women's sports.
00:25:05.000And so, even people who are maybe kind of casual Christians, they're kind of waking up and looking around in society and going, Who's going to teach my son that he's a boy and will always be a boy, as Mr. Rogers said, and grow up to be a man?
00:25:18.000Like, who's going to teach the truth that I'm longing to hear?
00:25:22.000And people are going to those churches and they're staying and they're becoming live, engaged church members, and they're growing in their faith.
00:25:32.000And I think there are really three categories of churches: there are the woke churches that are fully compromised on God's word and, in a lot of ways, have gone apostate.
00:25:40.000There are soft woke churches which are sensitive to woke issues and woke people.
00:25:46.000And so they haven't necessarily abandoned conservative biblical theology, but they'll just be quiet about the controversial issues.
00:25:54.000And then there are not woke churches, which are just trying their best to preach the truth with grace and represent the word of God to the best of their ability.
00:26:03.000And those churches, God is blessing them.
00:26:05.000And they're seeing a massive wave of revival, I believe.
00:26:10.000So, any of you guys want to chime in on that?
00:26:12.000Yeah, people are starving for pastors who are going to be clear, are going to have conviction, are going to show courage, and at the same time, going to be compassionate.
00:26:24.000So, what happens is that liberalism says, hey, we're going to be soft on the truth in order to love people.
00:26:30.000Legalism says we're going to be soft on love in order to truth people.
00:26:33.000And the churches that are doing well at this time, just like in every era of history, are the ones who have both, truth and love.
00:26:40.000This is a rerun of something that happened 100 years ago.
00:26:43.000And that gave us the mainline denominations in the apostate direction that they all went in.
00:26:49.000And then evangelicalism was the response.
00:26:51.000Well, now evangelicalism is splitting between liberals and those who are going to be faithful.
00:26:59.000What is the commonality you've seen between pastors who embrace wokeism?
00:27:03.000Is it that, like if you had to kind of create a checklist of things they have in common, is it they have like over-domineering wives?
00:27:13.000Is it that they go to super liberal seminaries?
00:27:17.000I mean, is it that their theology is bad?
00:27:19.000I'm just trying to find some sort of formula.
00:27:22.000I mean, again, I'm asking you to generalize, but there has to be a form because what you're right, John, is that evangelicalism is rooted in the inerrancy of scripture.
00:27:32.000That's basically if you had to combine evangelicalism.
00:27:37.000And there's a lot of different flavors of that.
00:27:58.000That's something that comes to mind, as well as for several decades, there's been a tendency of evangelical mega church pastors.
00:28:07.000If they get attacked by the right and by conservatives, they'll take that as a badge of honor and say, those are the Pharisees attacking me because I'm just like Jesus here representing the love of Jesus.
00:28:17.000But a lot of these same pastors were very sensitive to woke mobs that would bring attack against them.
00:28:23.000And they had a disordered desire to be respected and liked and approved of by the left.
00:28:30.000And that means left politically, left theologically.
00:28:33.000And that's what I think led a lot of these guys into compromising on sexuality and a compassion muscle that wasn't really well established.
00:28:43.000They kind of get duped by a lot of these different schemes of the enemy when it comes to race and gender and all the issues we've touched on.
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00:29:25.000Maybe you're already wondering about end of the year giving and want to give every dollar, get the most results.
00:29:30.000Or maybe you just want to know that a girl making this decision deserves the truth.
00:29:33.000So that next year at this time, she's picking out a Christmas stocking for her baby's first Christmas.
00:30:27.000And I absolutely do you think when you, Caden, you kind of think that some of these pastors, they'll read the Bible and they're like, nah, I don't like that part.
00:32:05.000You guys are bringing politics into the church.
00:32:07.000In fact, so Morning Joe quoted Russell Moore last week, and he said, well, Russell Moore believes that church attendance is down because pastors are worshiping Donald Trump more than Jesus Christ.
00:32:56.000He is a leftist operative who does this.
00:32:58.000He says, okay, we've got truth and we've got error.
00:33:02.000And so what we're going to do is we're going to take truths that every evangelical believes and we're going to relativize them.
00:33:08.000And we're going to move the window a little bit to the left and create a new synthesis.
00:33:11.000And this is what he's been doing, Christianity today.
00:33:15.000Tim Keller and others, this is what they've been doing.
00:33:18.000They've been moving, systematically moving the church to the left so that now he feels justified in punching millions of Christians who are going, wait a minute, I don't want to trans my kids.
00:34:06.000And we should speak to these things because this has been a war from the garden between truth and error, light and darkness, right and wrong.
00:34:13.000Like, this is what we exist for, to call these things out.
00:34:17.000There is a prophetic voice the church is supposed to have.
00:34:19.000We're not supposed to look at the world and say, hey, you guys are doing things great.
00:34:23.000Just add Jesus to it, and everything will be even better.
00:35:06.000You know, but if it's, you're going to die and stand before God and Allah is not going to save you.
00:35:10.000Like Allah is a demon and Muhammad is a false prophet and you need the real Jesus.
00:35:15.000Like if you hear that and God opens their eyes, it's like, well, yeah, I don't care.
00:35:20.000Like, it's the difference between getting on an airplane with a parachute that says, hey, this is going to make your flight better, versus, hey, you're going to need this parachute because this plane's going down.
00:35:29.000This is totally different when it comes to Christ.
00:36:14.000So if people want to understand Christian nationalism in a nutshell, it's not as complicated as it sounds, and it's not as scary as it sounds.
00:36:22.000You basically look at the world and you think, how did God order the world?
00:36:25.000And what we see is there are nations, there are countries that tend to exist.
00:36:30.000And Christian nationalism would really start with looking at how do we want our society to be ordered and governed?
00:36:41.000Neither of those things are really ideal or desirable for a litany of reasons.
00:36:45.000So a more practical and realistic option is nationalism or countries forming, and they could be small countries, large countries, anything in between.
00:36:54.000And then if you have a society like we do in the United States of America, we're a nation, and we have to look at our society and say, what values are going to govern our society and guide the way we govern ourselves?
00:37:06.000Now, some people would say, well, we want secularism to be our ideology and our guiding values.
00:37:14.000And the myth of secularism is that it's neutral and that this neutral environment, everyone can kind of just do their own thing and we'll all thrive together.
00:39:02.000And so people glom onto that term, but the government has glommed onto that term and said, hey, all of these people are Christian nationalists if they pray at an event, if they're anti-abortion.
00:39:12.000And that's being used to turn Christians into domestic terrorists.
00:39:15.000I mean, that's not me being hyperbolic.
00:39:57.000And so that's where I would add, like, Christian nationalism as a movement is seeking to, it's very nefarious.
00:40:03.000It's doing exactly what Russell Moore does.
00:40:05.000He accuses the right of liberation theology when that's what he's pushing.
00:40:09.000It's the same exact thing that Christian nationalists, what's happening is that you're forcing Christians to go, well, I'm a Christian and I'm a nationalist, so I guess I'm a Christian nationalist when that's not what they're pushing.
00:40:29.000What they're trying to say, in other words, is they're trying to call us Nazis without actually saying exactly that it's a dog whistle there.
00:40:36.000So, yeah, so Russell Moore, Russell Moore continues here.
00:40:39.000So what scriptures would, you know, Kate and I can go to you, do you point to that largely instruct how you view politics?
00:40:48.000Well, I think you mentioned it earlier.
00:40:50.000I mean, you look at the Ten Commandments, you look at the law, you look at some of the foundation of our faith.
00:40:58.000I think I heard you at one point talk about how our founding fathers quoted Deuteronomy more than any other book, secular or religion.
00:41:05.000So I think that they were on to something early on in this experiment of America that we need today, and that's a healthy thing.
00:41:13.000So I would just look at the whole of that and the Ten Commandments in the law and say, what is the plan of God for humanity and for a nation like ours?
00:41:33.000And then you think about how Jesus taught us to pray.
00:41:35.000Lord, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
00:41:38.000So if you're a Christian and you believe you have new life in Jesus, that new life, Jesus being your king, should shape your view on every issue that involves life.
00:41:50.000And that's why people often accuse pastors of being political.
00:41:54.000In reality, we're not trying to be political.
00:41:55.000It's just that every political issue stems from a life issue.
00:42:00.000And God has something to say about how we should handle every aspect of our life, our money, our sexuality, our work ethic, our family, our prayer.
00:42:43.000The holidays and big family feasts are upon us.
00:42:46.000But in D.C., it seems as if there's no bigger turkey than Senate Bill 1339.
00:42:52.000S1339 is Bernie's latest attempt to sneak in a backdoor takeover of more of our health care.
00:42:59.000He falsely claims it will lower prescription drug prices.
00:43:03.000But S1339 will actually do just the opposite.
00:43:08.000It'll handcuff pharmacy benefit managers who are currently saving millions of Americans an average of $1,040 a year.
00:43:17.000Bernie, the trickster, the Marxist, is hoping that thousands of your fellow Americans are already going to lowermydrugprices.com to stand up against S1339, that you'll be too busy making holiday plans or getting ready for a year-end vacation to stop him from a power grab on your health care.
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00:44:53.000We're not supposed to overthrow our country.
00:44:55.000We're not supposed to overthrow our Constitution.
00:44:56.000We're supposed to work in it, just like everybody else does, to see a biblical worldview flourish, just like through our laws, through this whole system that we've been given.
00:45:05.000God really established three spheres of governance in the family, in the church, and civil government.
00:45:12.000And a Christian looks at that, a pastor looks at that and go, okay, God gave me a leadership role in the church.
00:45:18.000It's not my job to try to govern society.
00:45:20.000I'm here to teach and disciple Christians.
00:45:22.000Or as a father, I look at my family and go, I'm here to raise my daughter, and I don't want the government telling me how to raise my daughter.
00:45:28.000These are separate spheres of governance.
00:45:31.000All of these spheres of governance, ultimately, we hope, will recognize Jesus as king, but remain independent spheres.
00:45:38.000Yeah, in Jeremiah 29, 7, you have to demand the welfare of the nation that you are in because your welfare is tied to your nation's welfare.
00:45:45.000And so to kind of put a bow on this, when Christians will say, I don't care about my nation, is that biblical?
00:45:53.000You can't point to any scripture to justify that.
00:45:56.000You can, like you just did, point it to one that's against that.
00:45:59.000So that would be using biblical truth.
00:46:02.000And you're going to pray for your nation.
00:46:03.000It's biblical truth in an unbiblical way.
00:46:09.000So one of the things we hear a lot, and I know that you guys probably have differences, so I go in this with great caution, and I don't actually want to get into the differences.
00:46:18.000I don't want to get in the preachhib post-trib.
00:46:19.000That stuff, I don't find that to be a useful discussion right now.
00:46:23.000What I want to get into, though, is how some of our rank and file, our fellow believers in Christ, are disengaging in the fight because they believe the end is near.
00:46:46.000Yeah, every generation of Christians has believed they've lived in the last days that Jesus is coming back right around the corner and here we are still.
00:46:52.000And so we should live like he could come back tomorrow, but we should still plant trees.
00:47:10.000Thessalonians was written to a church that was struggling with this, and they wanted to disengage from society and run off into the mountains and wait for the Lord to return and stop working and stop laboring, quit their jobs.
00:47:21.000And the whole book that we have in our Bible today is Thessalonians was written.
00:47:25.000Part of the message that Paul sent to that church was, hey, stay busy.
00:47:29.000Keep doing what God's called you to do.
00:47:31.000Live with hope that Jesus is returning.
00:47:33.000And that's what all Christians, Orthodox Christians agree on: one day Jesus will return, regardless of when he returns.
00:47:50.000But when you read Matthew 24 and Jesus talks about the end times, there is a chance that for Christians, we could face increased hate, persecution, arrest, and even death.
00:48:01.000And I think pastors have to prepare people, prepare to be hated for the cause of Christ.
00:48:07.000Yeah, and there was 1948, the Jews go back to the land.
00:48:12.000Books were coming out, 88 Reasons Why Jesus Will Return in 1988.
00:48:49.000And while I appreciate the commitment to God's promises, I'm worried that it creates a sense of retreat and not fighting and not building robust institutions to try to pass down for the next generation or for people that come next.
00:49:05.000So anyway, I see that happening a lot.
00:49:07.000The other thing that I want to ask you guys is what for our national audience, your three amazing Arizona churches here.
00:49:25.000You know, we got a West Valley option all over the valley.
00:49:27.000I want to ask you guys, anyone who could chime in here, is what is the effective way that someone listening in Maine or Virginia or Florida can fight wokeism in their church?
00:49:38.000Or should they just find a new church?
00:49:39.000Is it worth trying to get a pastor who's flirting with this stuff, who might be neutral?
00:50:42.000At this point, we should know the play that's being run on us.
00:50:45.000But one thing people could do, if you feel called to a church and you wish your church was more bold on these issues, anytime your pastor does touch on these issues, encourage him.
00:51:35.000Like, if it's just going to continue to go back and forth and you've already maybe had coffee with the pastor or whatever, yeah, you might want to find a new church.
00:52:07.000There is a sense that we have to stick to what the Bible says.
00:52:11.000And so when a guy's teaching through a book and he skips a section because he knows he's going to get in trouble or starts waffling on different things, like if you're afraid to offend, you're spending a year going through the book of Romans and you skip the entire first chapter.
00:53:35.000Man, I've been really burdened for pastors around the country.
00:53:39.000And one encouragement I would want to give them is over the last few years, as my church has become more clear and truthful and bold on what this Bible says, there is an initial falling out and pruning season that a lot of churches have to go through.
00:53:53.000And for even individual followers of Jesus, individual Christians, when you really choose to follow the Lord fully, you're going to lose some friends.
00:54:01.000You're going to lose followers on social media.
00:54:03.000But what you find in the end is that when you're faithful to what God's word says, it's worth it in the end.
00:54:09.000For a church leader, a pastor, an elder at a church, you might deal with some initial fallout if you really lean into God's word and what it says.
00:54:17.000But in the end, when you make it through that difficult season, you're left with a healthier church that actually disciples the found and reaches the lost.
00:54:26.000And it's so worth it to get to that point.
00:54:29.000I want to reiterate what Ryan just said.
00:54:30.000I'm going to ask you a question, Ryan, as a follow-up.
00:54:32.000Whether I talk to a college conservative or a pastor where there's a decision and they say, am I going to speak the truth?
00:55:18.000Yeah, so just got back from Europe and especially Scotland and London and went to sites where Protestant forefathers were martyred and looked at these sites, went to these sites, took pictures, all of that, but realized like here these men were and women were ready to die in Edinburgh for liberty, ready to die for the truth of the gospel.
00:55:44.000And here we are afraid to get some bad things said about us on social media.
00:55:49.000Like we live in this, we have become very soft.
00:55:53.000And it is something where pastors, I have one pastor friend who says the problem with pastors is nobody's trying to kill them.