The Charlie Kirk Show - Stop Waiting for Preachers to Speak the Truth — Demand It: My Interview with Pastor Allen Jackson

00:00:00.000 Okay, everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show, my friend Alan Jackson joins the show.

00:00:04.000 A special thank you to Alan Jackson Ministries for presenting this episode and for people to go to alanjackson.com.

00:00:11.000 You guys should go to alanjackson.com.

00:00:14.000 Great supporters of this program.

00:00:17.000 Pastor Alan Jackson is phenomenal.

00:00:19.000 We talk about Israel.

00:00:21.000 We talk about the gospel.

00:00:22.000 We talk about where churches have erred and more.

00:00:26.000 So email me, freedom at charliekirk.com, and become a member today, members.charliekirk.com.

00:00:32.000 That is members.charliekirk.com, and get involved with Turning Point USA. At tpusa.com.

00:00:39.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:41.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:42.000 Here we go.

00:00:43.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:45.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:47.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:50.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:53.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:55.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:56.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:00:58.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. 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.

00:01:13.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:41.000 Hello, everybody.

00:01:42.000 Special episode of The Charlie Kirk Show today.

00:01:45.000 One of our great partners and really great men that I learned from and look forward to learning even more from.

00:01:52.000 It's Alan Jackson from Alan Jackson Ministries.

00:01:54.000 Alan, great to see you again.

00:01:55.000 Good to be with you again, Charlie.

00:01:57.000 Remember, we had you on the program maybe six to nine months ago, if I'm not mistaken.

00:02:00.000 Yeah, it was about that.

00:02:00.000 Before the election, I know that.

00:02:02.000 That's right.

00:02:02.000 So, why don't you take a second just to reintroduce yourself to our audience.

00:02:07.000 Yeah, I'm a pastor.

00:02:08.000 I serve a congregation just outside of Nashville.

00:02:11.000 I've been there for almost 40 years, from a tent until today, so we've seen a lot of change there.

00:02:18.000 Really, since COVID, I think we've been a lot more engaged with culture.

00:02:22.000 You know, it felt like the curtain got pulled back when COVID happened, and places that I had trusted for information, places that I thought were like rock solid, like the CDC, proved to be a little less so.

00:02:32.000 And it really started me on this adventure of trying to engage our culture from a biblical worldview.

00:02:36.000 And so your voice is such an important part of that.

00:02:39.000 It's an honor to have some time with you.

00:02:41.000 Thank you.

00:02:41.000 Well, I look forward to continuing to learn more.

00:02:44.000 You're in Murfreesboro.

00:02:47.000 Tennessee, is that right?

00:02:48.000 That's it.

00:02:48.000 World Outreach Church.

00:02:50.000 So I got it the first time.

00:02:51.000 I deserve points for that.

00:02:52.000 So tell me about your ministry journey.

00:02:55.000 You said you started in a tent.

00:02:57.000 How old were you?

00:02:58.000 And was this a church that you started with your wife?

00:03:01.000 Tell me the story.

00:03:02.000 The backstory is probably worthwhile.

00:03:04.000 I'll even go back further than that.

00:03:06.000 My parents had a Bible study in their home for 12 years, and the church came out of that.

00:03:10.000 But the real root of that was...

00:03:13.000 When I was eight years old, my mom gave birth to my youngest brother.

00:03:16.000 I've got two brothers.

00:03:17.000 We went to church every Sunday, but we weren't Christians.

00:03:19.000 Sitting in church doesn't make you a Christian.

00:03:21.000 And when she was in the hospital, the doctors diagnosed her with cancer and said she had six months to live.

00:03:27.000 And they wanted to do some pretty dramatic surgery, so my parents scheduled a flight to Mayo Clinic.

00:03:31.000 In Rochester, Minnesota?

00:03:33.000 Yep.

00:03:34.000 And on the flight, my mom said a prayer.

00:03:36.000 They were the youth leaders, actually, in the Methodist Church at the time.

00:03:40.000 The pastor came to visit her and he didn't believe in heaven or hell.

00:03:43.000 The problems we have in the churches today are not new.

00:03:45.000 They've been there for a long time.

00:03:47.000 Wow.

00:03:48.000 So she's flying to Mayo Clinic and she said a prayer that if there was a God, he would let her know the truth before she died so she could tell her sons to be Jewish or Baptist or Catholic, whatever that truth was.

00:03:57.000 She didn't have any imagination that God could heal.

00:04:00.000 And they did a four-day workup at Mayo and the doctor came in her room late at night and said, Mrs. Jackson, you had cancer.

00:04:05.000 We have pictures of it.

00:04:06.000 But we've looked for four days.

00:04:08.000 We can't find it.

00:04:09.000 Go home and raise your babies. 0.97

00:04:11.000 So my mom lived to be 88. The doctors missed that by 50-plus years.

00:04:17.000 That's not six months.

00:04:18.000 That started our journey into Christianity.

00:04:21.000 And so my dad brought us to Middle Tennessee for the Tennessee Walking Horses and started a vet practice, and they opened their home for a Bible study.

00:04:29.000 And when we moved to Middle Tennessee, the schools were still segregated.

00:04:32.000 It was a very different place than it is today.

00:04:34.000 And so they opened their home.

00:04:36.000 It looked like the Isle of the Misfit Toys.

00:04:38.000 People from different nations, different colors.

00:04:41.000 Most of their lives had some pretty gaping holes.

00:04:44.000 And that was the genesis of the church.

00:04:46.000 So for two or three decades, I just put my head down and served people.

00:04:51.000 And then I really, I didn't like television ministries for a lot of apparent reasons that we could probably all talk about.

00:04:58.000 And I certainly didn't want to be one of them.

00:05:01.000 And I understood that the assignment was directed that way, so I started to change some of my behaviors and patterns, and we started getting involved with some things in the media.

00:05:10.000 But at the end of the day, it's hard to see people engage with God.

00:05:14.000 God changes lives.

00:05:15.000 You know, when I grew up in church, ministers wore long black robes and vestments.

00:05:18.000 I never remember seeing a pastor smile.

00:05:20.000 And I thought, you know, I can't do that.

00:05:22.000 I was on my way to medical school, because I thought I couldn't do that.

00:05:26.000 But I realized that faith was the most important thing in my life.

00:05:29.000 And so we just pushed all the chips in the middle of the table and said, let's go.

00:05:32.000 And we're still playing that handout today.

00:05:35.000 And so explain to me how it has grown.

00:05:41.000 You guys started with, what, 100 people?

00:05:43.000 They started with 29. 29 people.

00:05:47.000 And what is the size you're at today?

00:05:49.000 On a typical weekend, there's about 15,000.

00:05:52.000 Wow.

00:05:53.000 And not counting the millions you reach.

00:05:56.000 No, that's not the broadcast side.

00:05:57.000 But the community's grown.

00:05:59.000 Middle Tennessee's grown.

00:06:00.000 It didn't happen in a vacuum, so that would be misleading.

00:06:03.000 And to be honest, for the first 10 years, nothing changed too much.

00:06:06.000 We had about 200 people, and it stayed that way.

00:06:08.000 I had to learn.

00:06:09.000 I thought church was a mystery.

00:06:10.000 I thought God was a mystery.

00:06:12.000 And when I came to understand that spiritual change is as intentional as making a medical diagnosis or putting together an effective political campaign.

00:06:21.000 It's really not a mystery.

00:06:23.000 It's hard work, and it's intentionality, and it's incremental, and it's a choice you make every day.

00:06:29.000 And when I understood that, then I began to understand how to help people.

00:06:32.000 And the more that happened, the more people show up.

00:06:35.000 So part of your cultural change project is to bring a biblical worldview to the country.

00:06:41.000 Yep.

00:06:41.000 Is that correct?

00:06:42.000 Which I totally share.

00:06:43.000 You said something quite interesting that I want to spend some time on.

00:06:46.000 Okay.

00:06:47.000 Sitting in the church doesn't make you Christian.

00:06:51.000 A lot of people think it does.

00:06:53.000 Yeah.

00:06:53.000 The label I usually use is a generic Christian.

00:06:56.000 You don't declare yourself Buddhist or Muslim or agnostic.

00:07:00.000 And in our culture, Christianity is still the predominant, probably, spiritual voice.

00:07:06.000 So people just self-identify as Christian.

00:07:08.000 But being a Christ follower is an intentional choice to yield the authority of your life to Jesus of Nazareth.

00:07:14.000 It's not about joining a church or a denomination.

00:07:17.000 Or a style of worship or even a day of the week when you get together or a building you sit in.

00:07:22.000 It's a decision about a person, a historical figure.

00:07:25.000 And your relationship with Him is what defines you as a Christ follower.

00:07:29.000 If Jesus isn't Lord of your life, it doesn't matter to me where you sit on Sunday morning.

00:07:35.000 And I think there's a great deal of misunderstanding around that.

00:07:38.000 And I think the reason our nation is in such trouble.

00:07:41.000 You know, for several election cycles, I would hear people talk about the sleeping giant of the church if it woke up.

00:07:47.000 And I'm not really certain that sleeping giant lives there.

00:07:50.000 You know, I've read enough of Dr. Barna's statistics.

00:07:53.000 Yep.

00:07:53.000 Enough to make you a little depressed.

00:07:55.000 And I think we have to understand that it's informed our heritage, but that is the nature of faith.

00:08:00.000 It's the story of the Bible.

00:08:02.000 God does something remarkable for a group of people, and they enjoy the opportunities that brings, and then they wander into the weeds.

00:08:08.000 And they get in trouble, and then they cry out for help, and God raises up a voice, and He delivers them.

00:08:13.000 That pattern is repeated throughout the story of Scripture, both Hebrew Bible and New Testament.

00:08:18.000 And I think we're the 21st century edition of that.

00:08:21.000 We just about lost the freedoms and liberties that generations before us sacrificed for, because we lost our worldview.

00:08:28.000 We lost our grounding.

00:08:29.000 We got so confused, we were reluctant to say that there's only two biological sexes.

00:08:34.000 And I mean, that's like Bible 101A. That's not political.

00:08:38.000 That's like fundamental Christian stuff.

00:08:40.000 And so we've got to bring life back into that biblical worldview or the political changes that we're seeing happen in Washington are not sustainable.

00:08:47.000 If we don't have heart change amongst the people...

00:08:50.000 This will be a very temporary blip on the radar.

00:08:53.000 If we have one of those seasons where there's a significant realignment along values and character and family, then I think what we're watching could actually bring wonderful things for our children and our grandchildren.

00:09:05.000 I agree with all that.

00:09:08.000 The battle between good and evil seems to be escalating.

00:09:11.000 It is easy to blame politicians, government or poor leadership, but behind all of that is a spiritual battle.

00:09:18.000 Pastor Alan Jackson's new book, Angels, Demons, and You, talk about the reality of this battle and the spiritual realm that exists around us.

00:09:28.000 It has a real impact on us every day.

00:09:30.000 As you read, you will discover that angels and demons are not imaginary.

00:09:35.000 They actually exist.

00:09:36.000 You can find them playing a variety of roles throughout the Bible, and they're still influencing the world today.

00:09:41.000 We don't need to be afraid, but we do need to be aware and prepared.

00:09:45.000 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.

00:09:58.000 Get your copy today at alanjackson.com slash angels.

00:10:03.000 Hear from people whose faith directly impacts our culture on Pastor Allen's Culture and Christianity Podcast.

00:10:09.000 Find it wherever you get your podcasts.

00:10:14.000 Let's talk about the church, which is a big category.

00:10:18.000 Yep.

00:10:18.000 A lot of different buckets.

00:10:19.000 There's some that are true and courageous, some that are trembling and fearful, some that are traitorous, I could even say, that are against God's wishes.

00:10:30.000 Give me your analysis of the landscape of the current Western or American church.

00:10:36.000 Wow.

00:10:36.000 Well, let's talk about church with a capital C. So we're not talking about a particular congregation or even a particular denomination.

00:10:43.000 We're talking about all those people that would stand under that umbrella.

00:10:46.000 And there's two or three things that I think really define your status in that place.

00:10:52.000 And they aren't the traditional things.

00:10:54.000 Our theology schools, most of our theology schools, we lost them long ago.

00:10:58.000 Totally agree.

00:10:59.000 So if you accept the authority of Scripture as being our rule of faith and practice, and you believe in the uniqueness of Jesus, the incarnation, that He was the incarnate Son of God, that He died on a cross, that He was raised to life again, that's the redemptive work of Jesus.

00:11:17.000 If you accept those things...

00:11:19.000 We'll call it Christianity, Big C Church. 0.99

00:11:22.000 If you don't accept those things, I think we have to—it isn't popular, but I think we have to have a different set of language.

00:11:28.000 It's a false church.

00:11:30.000 You know, they may have ecclesiastical language.

00:11:33.000 They may have ecclesiastical architecture.

00:11:35.000 They may use religious words.

00:11:37.000 Good music.

00:11:37.000 They may have good music.

00:11:39.000 But absent the authority of Scripture and absent the uniqueness of Jesus, it doesn't meet the biblical standards for church.

00:11:45.000 And that's an awkward place because we have major expressions now of mainline American Christianity, evangelicalism, that are denying the authority of Scripture.

00:11:55.000 I don't want to say it's a majority.

00:11:56.000 I don't think we're there yet.

00:11:58.000 But it's a growing minority.

00:12:00.000 It is.

00:12:02.000 I hope you're right.

00:12:05.000 So yeah, please interject and disagree.

00:12:08.000 Well, I live in a small town outside of Nashville, Tennessee, which is about as close to the buckle of the Bible Belt as you can get.

00:12:14.000 Right there.

00:12:15.000 And we have many of the historically leading churches in the community where I serve who have rejected biblical authority.

00:12:22.000 They'll endorse same-sex marriage.

00:12:25.000 There's been a tremendous amount of cultural—you know better than I do how much cultural pressure there has been to go along.

00:12:30.000 I shouldn't be shocked, but I would think in the greater Nashville area, churches wouldn't be embracing homosexuality.

00:12:38.000 You would think that, but the reality on the ground is we have.

00:12:42.000 And I've been in more than 20 cities in the last 12 months, 18 months, doing pastor's conferences.

00:12:47.000 And when I go in with the message that the church has to engage our culture with biblical authority and the truth of this, not in an angry way, not in a belligerent way or a condescending way, none of those things.

00:12:59.000 The audiences are about 50-50, about half accept it and half get mad.

00:13:03.000 Sometimes they follow me the car and say, you offended all of us.

00:13:06.000 Pastors will say that.

00:13:08.000 Pastors will say that because they've been educated that way.

00:13:11.000 In the same way, I think the challenge we have in education is our teachers have been educated in universities where they have a woke ideology far too often.

00:13:20.000 Many of our pastors have been educated in systems where they don't respect biblical authority.

00:13:24.000 I'll give you a fun example.

00:13:26.000 CRT, critical thinking started in biblical studies long before it made it into the racial arena.

00:13:32.000 And so they started breaking the Bible apart, trying to deconstruct it, to take away its authority. 0.62

00:13:38.000 One of the books that got so much focus was the book of Isaiah.

00:13:42.000 And the scholars in the most celebrated universities, Vanderbilt, said there was no Isaiah.

00:13:49.000 You know, there was a school of Isaiah.

00:13:51.000 So there was three or four or five or six or ten Isaiahs. 0.96

00:13:54.000 And the book of Isaiah is a compilation of all these Isaiahs.

00:13:57.000 And you can't trust it.

00:13:58.000 It's not authoritative.

00:13:59.000 The oldest copy we had of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, was from about 1,000 A.D. Hand copied by scribes.

00:14:05.000 About 1,000.

00:14:06.000 No, I know.

00:14:06.000 When did they say this?

00:14:08.000 Recently?

00:14:08.000 Yes.

00:14:09.000 Really?

00:14:09.000 This has been leading scholarship in...

00:14:14.000 And so they said that that copy was corrupted because it had been hand-copied and Christians made insertions into it and yada, yada, yada.

00:14:22.000 So when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948. Well, that's how I was going to ask what year this was, because 48 changed everything. 0.88

00:14:28.000 So this was prior to 48. Yes.

00:14:30.000 But it still feels—they didn't back up.

00:14:32.000 They're just like the Russian collusion media.

00:14:35.000 Nobody ever apologizes.

00:14:36.000 The Dead Sea Scrolls are 3,500 years old, if I'm not mistaken.

00:14:39.000 So they found this copy of the Scroll of Isaiah intact.

00:14:42.000 It was more than 1,000 years older than the oldest copy we had.

00:14:46.000 And it was almost letter for letter verbatim to the one we had.

00:14:49.000 So it blew up 100 years of scholarship, and nobody apologized.

00:14:52.000 They just doubled down on the stupidity.

00:14:55.000 And so I think it's much easier to believe there is a God than believe there's not.

00:15:00.000 And to invite people into that arena is the assignment of the church.

00:15:03.000 God doesn't want to take something away from you.

00:15:05.000 God doesn't need anything I have.

00:15:07.000 I heard Elon Musk do an interview at CPAC a week ago.

00:15:09.000 He's getting closer to Christianity.

00:15:11.000 I could say that.

00:15:12.000 So they said to him, people say you're stealing your social security numbers and they're afraid you're going to get into their accounts.

00:15:17.000 And he dropped his head for a minute and thought.

00:15:19.000 He looked up and he said, I think I could buy some pretty good things without your money.

00:15:22.000 And I feel that way about God.

00:15:25.000 I don't think he needs the money.

00:15:26.000 No, I don't think he needs my check.

00:15:28.000 You know, I don't have anything that God needs.

00:15:30.000 The invitation is all one-sided.

00:15:33.000 The creator of heaven and earth has invited me into a relationship.

00:15:37.000 And that's the greatest honor of my life.

00:15:39.000 So being a Christ follower isn't a diminishment.

00:15:42.000 So I don't think of it in terms of a set of rules or regulations.

00:15:44.000 It's like I have the designer's manual for how to flourish in my journey through time.

00:15:49.000 Why wouldn't I pay attention to that?

00:15:51.000 That's beautifully put.

00:15:53.000 Let's talk about pastors, if you don't mind, a little bit more for a second.

00:15:57.000 And by the way, your website for people to check is alanjackson.com.

00:16:00.000 It's just alanjackson.com.

00:16:01.000 It's A-L-L-E-N. I want to make sure we plug it throughout, alanjackson.com. 1.00

00:16:05.000 When you deal with pastors, do you come walking away with the opinion that the problem with Capital C Church is their boards, the seminaries, or the pastors themselves?

00:16:16.000 Because we've diagnosed the problem, but what is the root cause of such problem?

00:16:22.000 That's a really good question.

00:16:24.000 And I think all three of those contribute.

00:16:26.000 People frequently say to me, my pastor won't talk about current events.

00:16:30.000 And I say, well, I don't really think the pastor...

00:16:32.000 I wish the pastors all had the courage to say, I could lose my job and they'll do the right thing.

00:16:37.000 But I don't think that's a realistic expectation as a general rule.

00:16:40.000 Most churches have a board, a presbytery.

00:16:42.000 There's a group of business people that are the decision makers.

00:16:45.000 Because in most churches, the pastors rotate three years, five years.

00:16:49.000 And the authority structure there has seen many pastors come and go.

00:16:53.000 They see this person as a temporary assignment.

00:16:56.000 And in most systems, if you're in a denominational system, you can get a promotion if you just don't cause disruption.

00:17:02.000 So there's a real emphasis to come in and maintain the status quo, make the power brokers happy.

00:17:06.000 So if you really want to change a local congregation, you've got to change the attitudes of the business people that control the church.

00:17:12.000 So there's a board issue.

00:17:14.000 The pastors ideally would be leaders.

00:17:17.000 Of strong enough character and great enough faith that they would be change agents and they would initiate that change.

00:17:24.000 But that's not the reality on the ground in most places.

00:17:28.000 There are some notable exceptions.

00:17:30.000 I think many pastors go into the ministry because they have a sincere desire to help people.

00:17:35.000 But they have to run the gauntlet between the formal education that's required and it usually isn't helpful.

00:17:40.000 Then they run into these administrative boards that are meat grinders that want to control the speech. 0.99

00:17:46.000 And it's career suicide if you buck that system in most places.

00:17:50.000 I serve an interdenominational, independent congregation, so I don't have an overlord.

00:17:55.000 I mean, I have an administrative board that sets boundaries and limits.

00:18:00.000 So there was no advancement for me if I was a good boy in my little place.

00:18:04.000 Yeah, there's no FPC USA or whatever.

00:18:06.000 No, it's like we landed on the island and we burned the boats.

00:18:08.000 If we were going to have anything good, we had to make it for ourselves.

00:18:12.000 And most people aren't in that circumstance.

00:18:14.000 So typically, though, throughout the history of the church, the awakening, the renewal, the vibrancy does not come from with the institutional system.

00:18:23.000 Right now in our culture, the voices for truth, for the biblical worldview, are not rising mostly from the churches.

00:18:28.000 They're coming from desks like yours.

00:18:32.000 Brandon Tatum, Allie B. Stuckey, I mean, this band of merry people that you spend so much time with, they're speaking more truth into our culture right now than most of our pulpits.

00:18:42.000 And it's biblically-based stuff for the most part, but they're engaging culture with the truth that will bring a better future to the kids and the grandkids, and they're having to do it because the church has failed.

00:18:51.000 And that really is closer to the model of how God's brought renewal to His people in every generation.

00:18:56.000 Talk about that.

00:18:58.000 Well, we know a bit of the story, I think, here.

00:19:00.000 The United States, the First Great Awakening.

00:19:02.000 You have a picture of it right here.

00:19:04.000 We have the sinners in the hands of an angry God.

00:19:06.000 We have it framed here for a reason.

00:19:07.000 It was the founding before the founding.

00:19:10.000 It was the founding of the founding.

00:19:11.000 It was the moral authority that made the American Revolution possible.

00:19:14.000 Without the Great Awakening, no America.

00:19:16.000 Second Great Awakening precedes the Civil War.

00:19:19.000 We had a moral change of heart that gave us the courage and the fortitude to do the hard work that the Civil War represented to change the trajectory of our nation.

00:19:28.000 I think we're at another one of those pivot points.

00:19:30.000 That's not new to me by any means.

00:19:32.000 I totally agree.

00:19:32.000 But I think it's one of those inflection points.

00:19:34.000 I think what's happening in Washington today, as wonderful as it may be with Doge, I don't believe it's sustainable unless we have a heart change of equal and greater magnitude.

00:19:43.000 I couldn't agree more.

00:19:44.000 And the founders agreed.

00:19:45.000 The Constitution was written only for a moral and religious people.

00:19:49.000 That's totally inadequate for the people of any other.

00:19:51.000 Our system won't work if the people don't have a heart change.

00:19:54.000 And I don't even think it takes a majority.

00:19:55.000 There is an authority in truth.

00:19:57.000 I know you need the majority in the election, so I don't want to diminish that at all.

00:20:01.000 But the truth is there is an authority when the truth is told.

00:20:06.000 One of the most recent examples to me that I thought really was when Trump said about Gaza, what we've done in Gaza for 70 years hasn't worked.

00:20:14.000 We need a new plan.

00:20:15.000 Once he said it, it was so clear.

00:20:17.000 It unwound all the debates and all the arguments.

00:20:22.000 It completely recalibrated what we're going to do in Gaza and I think in all of the...

00:20:26.000 Israel proper. 0.73

00:20:27.000 And that's a statement of truth.

00:20:30.000 That's the assignment of people of faith.

00:20:32.000 Stop waiting for the preachers to do it.

00:20:33.000 Start doing it at your own kitchen table.

00:20:35.000 Do it in the bleachers when you're sitting watching your kids and your grandkids play ball.

00:20:39.000 You go to the school board.

00:20:41.000 You tell the truth.

00:20:42.000 I think if those people who have had...

00:20:44.000 We've been cowards.

00:20:46.000 We've been afraid of the pushback from the culture.

00:20:50.000 We don't want to be canceled.

00:20:52.000 Cancel culture is not new.

00:20:54.000 By the time you get to Acts chapter 4 and 5, they're bringing in Jesus' closest friend saying, if you don't stop saying this, we're going to do to you what we did to him.

00:21:03.000 And they said, you do what you need to do.

00:21:05.000 We're not going to stop telling the truth.

00:21:07.000 The 21st century edition of the church needs the same courage as the 1st century edition of the church did.

00:21:13.000 And I'm excited to be able in some way to be a small part of that.

00:21:20.000 If you are a patriot in this audience, And you have private student loan debt, or your brother does, or your niece does, or your nephew does.

00:21:28.000 Maybe you're just thinking back to Christmas or Thanksgiving, and someone's like, oh my gosh, I have these student loans, and I took them out, and I shouldn't have, and it was a private loan.

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00:22:08.000 YREFI.com may not be available in all 50 states.

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00:22:25.000 So you make a very profound point that the voice of, let's just say, moral guidance, with the gospel also peppered in, which I do, but it's not the only thing I do, is coming from a community of podcasters, social media influencers.

00:22:41.000 Thankfully, church attendance is going up slightly.

00:22:43.000 Slightly, we've seen the last couple years, but I wouldn't give the church any credit for that.

00:22:47.000 I think it's a work of the Lord, if anything else.

00:22:49.000 You and I both, I almost assuredly agree that...

00:22:52.000 In order to have revival, you must have repentance.

00:22:55.000 In your, what, 30 years of ministry, 40 years?

00:22:58.000 Yeah.

00:23:00.000 When you see mass repentance amongst the people you deal with, what message do you deliver to be able to prompt repentance from your congregation or from any individual?

00:23:15.000 That's a good question.

00:23:16.000 I'd say it a little differently.

00:23:17.000 I don't think there is meaningful change without repentance.

00:23:20.000 I couldn't agree more.

00:23:21.000 Okay.

00:23:22.000 Repentance carries two meanings.

00:23:24.000 The Hebrew word for repent is to physically change directions.

00:23:27.000 It's an old language and it's very earthy.

00:23:29.000 In Greek, it's a change of mind.

00:23:31.000 So together, Greek's the New Testament language, Hebrew's the Old.

00:23:35.000 Together, repentance is a change of how we think about something and then how we behave.

00:23:41.000 Without repentance, there really is no significant change.

00:23:45.000 You may get caught doing something and there's punishment, and so you think, well, I don't want to keep doing that for the moment, but I'm not going to stop doing it.

00:23:51.000 I'm going to go right back to it.

00:23:53.000 So the biblical prescription for a better pathway is repentance.

00:23:57.000 If you're engaged in some behavior that's self-destructive or some relational habit that's punishing a family, the reason we're invited to repentance is not to diminish our fun.

00:24:07.000 It gives us a change of thought and a change of behavior that puts on a pathway towards a better outcome.

00:24:13.000 And it's what's been missing in our culture.

00:24:16.000 When the mainstream media screams for three years, Russian collusion, and it's proven to be completely false, there is no repentance.

00:24:24.000 Nobody comes forward and says, we were thinking the wrong thing and we said the wrong thing.

00:24:28.000 They just move right along.

00:24:29.000 So we try to live through our mistakes.

00:24:33.000 And if you live through your mistakes, you carry the baggage of them.

00:24:36.000 You're like Jacob Marley when he came to visit from the ghost of Christmas past.

00:24:41.000 You're dragging all the chains of your sins along with you.

00:24:44.000 And the beauty, the invitation of our faith is that if you will say, I was thinking wrong, and that led me to behave in a wrong way, you can be free.

00:24:52.000 You can have new thoughts and new behaviors and a new future.

00:24:56.000 And I think that's what we're all striving for.

00:24:58.000 We want to see our kids educated in a way that sets them up for the best possible future.

00:25:03.000 We want to see some of the absurd things that have been dominating the public conversation for too long now to be turned back.

00:25:11.000 It's not that we're angry at people.

00:25:12.000 Those pathways don't work.

00:25:14.000 We have to think differently.

00:25:16.000 And it's not arbitrary.

00:25:17.000 It's not just what Alan thinks or Charlie thinks or what we sit down at the desk and hammer out.

00:25:21.000 There's an authority beyond ourselves that we have embraced.

00:25:25.000 Because we believe there is a God and that he is the creator of heaven and earth.

00:25:28.000 And there's a lot I don't know, but there is some I do know, and I'm going to build my life plan based upon that.

00:25:34.000 And from there, so repentance is such a powerful thing.

00:25:38.000 If we could just say as a nation, we've been uniquely blessed.

00:25:41.000 We've had more freedom and more liberty and more opportunity, and we have squandered it in the most selfish, absurd ways.

00:25:47.000 But we would like to come back and accept the responsibilities of those freedoms and liberties so that the generations who follow us have even greater opportunities than we had.

00:25:55.000 I think we'll see God move in a way that will change not only our communities, our nation, but it'll impact the world again in a positive way.

00:26:02.000 Is there a sermon or a message that you give, and I'm asking for a reason, where you see repentance that follows?

00:26:09.000 What is the essence that a pastor needs to say or teach?

00:26:15.000 To foster a culture of repentance?

00:26:18.000 Well, I think we have the same challenge in the church that we've had in the political realm.

00:26:22.000 We've had some really bad messages.

00:26:24.000 You know, seeing Mr. Trump willing to say the clear truth, the plain truth, is so disruptive because we've lost that ability.

00:26:31.000 And we've got to bring that back into our churches.

00:26:34.000 We've had a gospel of salvation that we've said to people for a long time now, if you'll repeat this sentence after me, you will have accomplished your God business.

00:26:43.000 And perhaps we'll chase that with a dip in a pool.

00:26:46.000 And we'll call it baptism.

00:26:49.000 And then here's your certificate.

00:26:51.000 Welcome to heaven.

00:26:52.000 And you're good to go.

00:26:53.000 It's life insurance.

00:26:55.000 It is.

00:26:55.000 It's fire insurance.

00:26:56.000 It's eternal fire insurance.

00:26:58.000 That's even better.

00:26:59.000 You're right.

00:27:00.000 And it's really a misrepresentation of the gospel.

00:27:04.000 Because being healthy spiritually is like being healthy physically.

00:27:07.000 I make a decision every time I pick up a fork.

00:27:10.000 And I make a decision every day if I'm going to be healthy spiritually.

00:27:13.000 And I think if we come back and say to the people, listen, there is no free ride, but there is a better way to make the journey.

00:27:19.000 And let me show you that.

00:27:21.000 Life creates enough stress points that if you'll talk to people truthfully when there's points and say there's a better way than keep doubling down on stupid, you can make life great again.

00:27:31.000 I mean, that is the gospel message.

00:27:33.000 And it's not about joining my church, or where are you at Sunday morning at 11 o'clock?

00:27:39.000 Allow me to interject.

00:27:40.000 So there's a big pastor, Rick Warren, whatever, and I followed him growing up, and he'll always say, hey, I'm responsible for 130,000 baptisms or whatever.

00:27:51.000 Good for him, right?

00:27:53.000 Great.

00:27:53.000 But is that, therefore, the church can say we've baptized tens of millions of people.

00:28:00.000 Are you...

00:28:01.000 Contending, of which I would agree, that it's actually much deeper than that.

00:28:07.000 It's much deeper than just having a bunch of people show up and check the box and then show up once or twice a year.

00:28:13.000 Yes.

00:28:14.000 I mean, the short answer is absolutely it's deeper than that.

00:28:16.000 What does it look like?

00:28:17.000 I think the analogy would be...

00:28:19.000 Jesus described it as being born again.

00:28:21.000 So there's a new birth.

00:28:22.000 There's a spiritual birth when a person comes to faith.

00:28:25.000 It's the greatest miracle that will ever touch a human life because it changes destiny for you.

00:28:30.000 It moves you from one kingdom to another.

00:28:32.000 It's in John 3. It is.

00:28:36.000 But it's a point of initiation the same way physical birth is.

00:28:39.000 I've been to the hospital and see hundreds of babies that were born.

00:28:42.000 You look through the little glass wall and the little bassinets and they're red and they're wrinkled.

00:28:46.000 And the grandparents look through and go, they're geniuses.

00:28:49.000 But it would be, we all understand how naive it would be to say, you know, that life has been fully expressed.

00:28:55.000 It's going to take nourishment, care, training, growth, maturity.

00:28:59.000 There's going to be difficulties and challenges and disappointments.

00:29:02.000 Sickness, yeah.

00:29:03.000 But everything is in front of that life.

00:29:05.000 It's not a fait accompli.

00:29:07.000 I love that.

00:29:08.000 And I think the mistake we've made is we've said to people, if you'll do this, if you'll walk to the front of the church with me and you'll say this prayer, which I believe in conversion, initiation, salvation, the new birth, whichever label is preferred.

00:29:20.000 But that's the beginning point for a journey of growing up spiritually.

00:29:24.000 And we have been reluctant to say that to people because we have this microwave culture that we want everything in a drive-thru bag, supersized.

00:29:35.000 Then we want to move on to the next thing.

00:29:36.000 And we don't really want God intruding on us.

00:29:40.000 And so I think we've got to have the courage to come back and go, no, this, you know, the ground at the foot of the cross is level and it's free access, but it's not cheap.

00:29:50.000 There's so many things where we've capitulated to the culture.

00:29:54.000 People say to me frequently, you know, Jesus came to bring unity.

00:29:56.000 That's not what he said.

00:29:57.000 He said, I came to bring division.

00:29:59.000 Turn father against son.

00:30:00.000 Yeah.

00:30:01.000 And, you know, we've wanted so badly to be accepted by the culture that we've stopped confronting the culture with the truth.

00:30:07.000 It's like a doctor that doesn't want to tell any of his patients bad news.

00:30:10.000 We call that malpractice, and we'll pull your license. 0.98

00:30:14.000 And we have been operating as people of faith, and we don't want to say to the culture around us, that's a destructive habit. 1.00

00:30:20.000 You know, all of us have weaknesses and failures and struggles, and, I mean, none of us have a perfect resume, myself included, for certain.

00:30:28.000 But that's why we are stories of redemption, and that's the hope that we hold out to the world, that no matter what broken place you find yourself, it's the ironic part of Mr. Trump.

00:30:39.000 And I don't think there's any question God's using him to make an impact in our nation.

00:30:42.000 No different than Cyrus.

00:30:43.000 Or Samson.

00:30:45.000 You know, Samson's my favorite.

00:30:47.000 In Hebrews.

00:30:48.000 Samson's my interesting character, because he had this crazy strength that nobody could explain.

00:30:51.000 He's got great hair.

00:30:52.000 And he had this moral character that maybe you didn't want your kids always to completely duplicate, but God used him in a powerful way to bring freedom to people.

00:31:01.000 And we're watching that, and I'm most grateful for it.

00:31:04.000 I don't have any criticism for that.

00:31:06.000 So the message to people is, we're not asking you to submit to a set of rules.

00:31:11.000 We're asking you to choose a way of life that will bring a hope and a vitality to you and your future that you can't find any other way.

00:31:21.000 If you want to make sense of the change and the chaos happening around us, you're going to need God's help.

00:31:26.000 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.

00:31:37.000 Millions of people also listen to Pastor Alan Jackson's powerful sermons each week, I do, on radio, television, satellite, and online.

00:31:45.000 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.

00:31:57.000 We can't afford to be complacent.

00:31:59.000 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.

00:32:08.000 Go to alanjackson.com slash charlie.

00:32:12.000 That is alanjackson.com slash charlie to find recent podcasts, shows, and sermons.

00:32:18.000 Be informed.

00:32:19.000 Find encouragement.

00:32:20.000 Hear the truth delivered in a way that just makes sense.

00:32:23.000 You'll also find books, studies, prayers, and other tools to help you grow in your faith.

00:32:28.000 Again, that's alanjackson.com slash charlie.

00:32:31.000 alanjackson.com slash charlie.

00:32:32.000 This is our time to make a difference.

00:32:34.000 Check it out right now.

00:32:37.000 So kind of going more to current events here, the...

00:32:41.000 Everything you teach, you always say through a biblical worldview, that the authority is Scripture.

00:32:47.000 And we try to do the same here on this program always.

00:32:50.000 We call them conservative principles, but if you go a layer back, they're biblical principles that express themselves via conservatism.

00:32:57.000 Right.

00:32:58.000 And I do that on college campuses, which is a mission field, as you can imagine, right?

00:33:03.000 And by the way, we've brought thousands of kids to the Lord.

00:33:05.000 It's amazing.

00:33:06.000 And that's an unintentional downstream effect.

00:33:11.000 And I will agree with what you said earlier, that we're not pastors, and I am not a pastor, but the result or the fruit is things that pastors should be doing.

00:33:20.000 I agree.

00:33:21.000 Going into the campuses, speaking these hard truths.

00:33:24.000 And at least from our experience, I don't care what people call me.

00:33:28.000 I don't care the names.

00:33:29.000 But I will say, though, the vast majority of people are not nearly as offendable as you think they are.

00:33:36.000 And they are willing to hear things that might be a little bit politically incorrect.

00:33:41.000 And especially young men want to be challenged towards becoming a better version of themselves.

00:33:46.000 Yes.

00:33:47.000 Do you find that as well?

00:33:48.000 I do agree.

00:33:50.000 I think the church has failed men.

00:33:53.000 This is one of the things I know you...

00:33:55.000 Masculinity is not toxic, and it's an embarrassment the way the church has dealt with it.

00:33:59.000 You know, for most of history, there have been two categories.

00:34:02.000 There have been boys and men.

00:34:03.000 And almost every culture has had a transition point.

00:34:07.000 I was in Kenya, and I spent some time with the Maasai, those warriors that you see on National Geographic that jump like they have springs in their shoes.

00:34:17.000 And they've stopped it now because of our conservation.

00:34:20.000 But there was, for hundreds of years, when a young man was a Maasai, When he was going to move from being a boy to a man, they gave him a spear and he had to go kill a lion.

00:34:28.000 The Spartans had a similar initiation.

00:34:30.000 Exactly.

00:34:30.000 In Judaism, it's the bar mitzvah.

00:34:32.000 Well, we have, in recent decades, we've created a third category.

00:34:35.000 It's adolescence.

00:34:37.000 That you're not really a boy or a man.

00:34:39.000 There's this nebulous place where you have all the physical attributes, but you're not asked to take any responsibility.

00:34:46.000 And because we...

00:34:47.000 We didn't have an entry point and an exit point.

00:34:49.000 Now we have people that are well into life and they're still behaving as an adolescent.

00:34:53.000 And the church has betrayed men.

00:34:55.000 We have a responsibility.

00:34:57.000 Men have three primary assignments in life, as I understand it, to be the spiritual leader of their home, to provide for their family and to protect them.

00:35:05.000 The conversation between men and women is not about better or worse, greater or lesser, weaker or stronger.

00:35:10.000 We're different.

00:35:11.000 And I happen to think the differences should be celebrated.

00:35:15.000 If the government made human beings, we would all be the same.

00:35:18.000 We would all be gray.

00:35:19.000 I just came from San Francisco.

00:35:21.000 That's their goal.

00:35:22.000 It's androgynous men and women that look like men. 0.94

00:35:27.000 There is a oneness that they want to try to achieve.

00:35:30.000 You're exactly right.

00:35:31.000 There is a deterioration of the distinct.

00:35:36.000 Absolutely.

00:35:36.000 It's a mind-numbing, disruptive...

00:35:39.000 And it's also very ugly.

00:35:40.000 I mean, not just physically, but spiritually ugly.

00:35:43.000 There's a darkness to it.

00:35:45.000 It's evil.

00:35:46.000 If we really get to the root of it, it is so destructive to the human being that God created.

00:35:51.000 Because in our differences, there's something to be celebrated.

00:35:54.000 Of course.

00:35:55.000 And there's a complementary component to that.

00:35:58.000 When God created man, he said he's not good.

00:36:00.000 It's incomplete.

00:36:01.000 There's something that's not finished yet.

00:36:03.000 And he created a woman.

00:36:06.000 And that's God's design.

00:36:08.000 And again, when you rage against the design of something, you're not going to get to the best outcome.

00:36:13.000 And I think the church hasn't had the courage to say to the men, I think the reason we got to the point where we have men and women competing in sports together is the church didn't have the courage to talk about gender roles.

00:36:24.000 Please keep going.

00:36:25.000 I completely agree.

00:36:26.000 I mean, I don't blame the Democrats.

00:36:29.000 I blame the church.

00:36:31.000 Absolutely.

00:36:32.000 This is not a political problem.

00:36:34.000 This is a spiritual problem.

00:36:37.000 We have assignments by God.

00:36:38.000 We have roles to play.

00:36:39.000 Again, not greater or lesser, not diminishment one or the other.

00:36:42.000 There are times and seasons where life circumstances means we stand in other roles.

00:36:46.000 I get all of that.

00:36:47.000 I'm not issuing an edict.

00:36:50.000 But those differences are inherent within us.

00:36:52.000 We're not the same.

00:36:54.000 We're not the same physically.

00:36:57.000 We're different emotionally.

00:36:58.000 We have different strengths.

00:37:00.000 We are complementary.

00:37:00.000 We need one another.

00:37:02.000 The church's unwillingness to do that.

00:37:05.000 I live in the midst of people of faith all the time, and I hear the parents say to their daughters, you can do anything a boy can do.

00:37:11.000 Don't ever let anybody tell you you can't do it.

00:37:13.000 That's just not true.

00:37:16.000 It's absurd.

00:37:17.000 And you may want your daughter to play with the local high school football team, but the principle that you're putting in place is what has landed us at the place.

00:37:26.000 Well, now we're at the theater of the absurd watching men and women boxing in the Olympics.

00:37:30.000 That's exactly right.

00:37:31.000 You know, I went to Vanderbilt Graduate School of Religion, and inclusivity was a very celebrated thing.

00:37:43.000 But if you say to a man that it's inappropriate to ever use physical violence against a woman, which I would agree with. 1.00

00:37:49.000 I don't have any problem with that.

00:37:50.000 I have a principle of that, unless it's in extreme forms of self-defense, which is incredibly rare.

00:37:54.000 Okay, so if you put that on the table and you say that to boys, you can never use physical strength or authority against a girl.

00:38:01.000 And then you show them the Olympics, and there's a man in the ring beating the love of Jesus out of a woman in the ring.

00:38:08.000 20 seconds in.

00:38:10.000 You have created seeds of confusion in all the boys and the men that are watching.

00:38:15.000 Those two things are not compatible.

00:38:17.000 And so...

00:38:18.000 If you don't start with a moral base, if you don't have an absolute that's guiding your decisions, you wind up in these absurd places.

00:38:26.000 And it's been the church's absence in the dialogue, because we've understood that our buildings were conflicted, that we had people that were not consistent, and we didn't want to lose any of our audience, so we would avoid the discussion.

00:38:38.000 The truth is not always comfortable.

00:38:40.000 Sometimes it is disruptive.

00:38:42.000 Often it is disruptive.

00:38:44.000 But we're going to have to have the courage to come back and say, we need one another.

00:38:47.000 We complement one another.

00:38:49.000 We help one another.

00:38:49.000 Men have behaved abysmally towards women at different points in history.

00:38:53.000 But we've arrived at a point where the discussion is so absurd, we need the church to help recalibrate.

00:39:00.000 So if you're at one of your pastor's conferences and a pastor raises his hand, Pastor Allen, it sounds great.

00:39:05.000 I'm afraid of losing my congregation, losing my audience.

00:39:08.000 How do you reply?

00:39:09.000 Well, I think you have to decide the audience that you are working on behalf of.

00:39:14.000 You know, who is it you're trying to please?

00:39:18.000 If the message that I'm delivering, I think, honors God, and it's in accordance with the principles of Scripture, then I have to tell the truth and find an audience that wants that message.

00:39:30.000 If you look at your audience and you take a poll and then decide what you believe, you can be welcomed into the uniparty, but you're not going to be welcomed into the church.

00:39:38.000 And unfortunately, we've all been behaving that way.

00:39:42.000 We've allowed the cultural...

00:39:45.000 Values to shape what we said we believed.

00:39:48.000 And we're watching.

00:39:50.000 It's uncomfortable for me when Roe v.

00:39:52.000 Wade was overturned and there weren't celebrations in the street.

00:39:56.000 I couldn't agree more.

00:39:59.000 For weeks I walked around and go, we've got a lot more work to do than I understood.

00:40:03.000 In fact, Pastor, we estimate at TPUSA Faith, based on some research, it's not too in-depth, About 80% of churches didn't say anything.

00:40:15.000 In fact, we could point to more churches in Phoenix that gave a, I know this is a very traumatizing week for you, sermon, than a hallelujah, hallelujah, praise the Lord, hallelujah.

00:40:25.000 Right.

00:40:26.000 But that's understandable.

00:40:28.000 We gave up our moral authority in the church a long time ago.

00:40:30.000 We've been winking at fornication.

00:40:33.000 You know, we thought, well, boys will be boys and girls will be girls.

00:40:37.000 You know, people will be people.

00:40:39.000 And so we didn't want to talk about biblical standards of human sexuality and behavior because it was uncomfortable.

00:40:44.000 You don't have to be filled with anger or hate or condemnation.

00:40:47.000 You don't have that at all.

00:40:48.000 It's not the best way to go.

00:40:49.000 It's not going to bring you to the best outcome.

00:40:51.000 And because we abandoned those things, then we arrived at the point where abortion has touched all of our lives, directly or indirectly.

00:40:59.000 Everybody's been touched by it.

00:41:00.000 60 million children, no family has escaped this at some level.

00:41:05.000 And there's so much guilt and shame that people just don't want to say anything.

00:41:11.000 They'd rather look the other way or act like they don't notice.

00:41:15.000 And I think we've got to come back to our word repentance again.

00:41:18.000 You see, it doesn't matter where you've been.

00:41:20.000 You can say, I thought wrong and I did wrong and I'm sorry.

00:41:25.000 And you have a fresh beginning.

00:41:27.000 And if we can help people come back to that, you can be free of guilt and shame, no matter how dark the past, no matter how far we have wandered, no matter how intentional the misbehavior, we can be free.

00:41:39.000 That's all of our stories.

00:41:40.000 That is the good news of the gospel.

00:41:43.000 But it's a different way to walk.

00:41:45.000 And the church is going to have to have the courage to bring that back to the forefront and lead with our faith in all the arenas of our lives.

00:41:51.000 We've got to bring it back to the corporate boardroom?

00:41:53.000 I'm ashamed.

00:41:55.000 I truly am.

00:41:56.000 I'm ashamed that on my watch, the years that I have provided a voice, that we so quietly withdrew from the public arena, the corporate boardroom, academia.

00:42:07.000 You know, they said to us, if you bring your faith to work and one person raises their hand and says they're offended, that you should withdraw.

00:42:16.000 And yet we found ourselves today where the corporate setting or the academic setting or the political setting, they all bring a worldview.

00:42:22.000 And they drive it down the heart of the organization, the institution, professional sports.

00:42:28.000 And I think they've got more determination promoting their worldview than I had promoting mine.

00:42:33.000 And I'm embarrassed.

00:42:35.000 But I have repented.

00:42:36.000 I've changed how I think and how I speak.

00:42:39.000 And here we go.

00:42:40.000 And I think I know where that came from.

00:42:42.000 I'm not saying for you, obviously.

00:42:45.000 The private student loan debt market totals over $300 billion.

00:42:49.000 Why refi, by the way?

00:42:51.000 Phenomenal supporters of our campus tour.

00:42:53.000 They just do a great job.

00:42:54.000 About $45 billion of private student loan debt is labeled as distressed.

00:43:00.000 They provide you with a custom loan payment based on your ability to pay.

00:43:04.000 YREFI does not care what your credit score is.

00:43:06.000 Many clients aren't even able to make the minimum monthly payment on their private student loans when they first contact YREFI. Go to YREFI.com.

00:43:15.000 That is Y-R-E-F-Y.com.

00:43:17.000 Call 888-YREFI-34.

00:43:18.000 Log on to YREFI.com.

00:43:20.000 That is Y-R-E-F-Y.com.

00:43:23.000 May not be available in all states because of private student loan debt.

00:43:26.000 So many Americans feel stuck and helpless.

00:43:28.000 They can help you guys get out of debt.

00:43:30.000 They are not a debt settlement company.

00:43:32.000 Instead, they are...

00:43:33.000 Far more sophisticated than that.

00:43:35.000 So they provide you with a custom loan payment.

00:43:37.000 If you have private student loan debt, if your brother, your sister, your friend, your aunt, your uncle, you've heard them talk about it recently.

00:43:43.000 You're like, oh, I just can't get out of this.

00:43:45.000 I took out this loan.

00:43:46.000 I'm not sure I wanted to.

00:43:47.000 I know a lot of people with private student loan debt.

00:43:49.000 I'm sending all of them to Y-Refi. 1.00

00:43:51.000 Phenomenal patriots.

00:43:52.000 10 out of 10. They love America.

00:43:54.000 Go to YRefi.com.

00:43:56.000 That is Y-R-E-F-Y.com.

00:44:00.000 There's this belief that Christians must be nice, which is a word that does not exist in the Bible, and that somehow there's—and I was raised around this hypothesis of modern Christianity.

00:44:13.000 So this was in the suburbs of Chicago, gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade, Christian Heritage Academy, amazing institution.

00:44:20.000 The guy who ran it now works for us at Turning Point, amazing.

00:44:22.000 But as I started to get a little bit older, the kind of cultural Christianity—here was the equation.

00:44:29.000 The world, we're in the majority.

00:44:33.000 The world doesn't like us a lot.

00:44:36.000 So we need to be really nice to them and never point out any faults or any moral guardrails or not.

00:44:41.000 And that we're going to win the world for Christ, not by challenging, but by affirming everybody and being everybody's best friend.

00:44:52.000 Has that worked, Pastor Allen?

00:44:55.000 I wish it had.

00:44:56.000 We'd be having a different discussion.

00:44:58.000 But we see the almost complete deterioration of the family.

00:45:01.000 We see our educational system failing.

00:45:05.000 There's a verse in Isaiah that says, truth has fallen in the street.

00:45:08.000 In our culture, whether it's politically, it's in the media, we don't even recognize the truth any longer.

00:45:14.000 We don't even imagine that's the standard that we strive for.

00:45:18.000 All of those are failures of the church because we have accommodated evil.

00:45:21.000 That's why I think we have to talk in terms of a true church and a false church, not based on denominational labels.

00:45:27.000 Not based upon styles of worship or the wardrobe of the person leading the room, but on our orientation towards the Scripture and our orientation towards the role of Jesus.

00:45:37.000 So I have just a very easy left-hand side true, right-hand side false.

00:45:43.000 I could switch them, but what would be three characteristics of a true church and three characteristics of a false church for somebody in the audience to apply this?

00:45:54.000 I have a little practical formula in my head, which doesn't.

00:45:57.000 If you and I could disagree on a point and we would both still enter the kingdom of God, then I'll extend to you a hand of fellowship.

00:46:04.000 We may disagree on when we take communion, what style of music we sing, whether we worship on Friday or Saturday or Sunday, whether we can come in shorts or we have to wear a suit.

00:46:14.000 But if we disagree on who Jesus is, if I say He's the Son of God and you say He's not, that's going to change destinies.

00:46:23.000 So on those points, we can't afford to disagree.

00:46:25.000 We have to engage the dialogue until we understand the difference and work through that.

00:46:29.000 So if I were going to give you three that define the true church, it has to do with the role of Scripture, that it is authoritative in our lives.

00:46:36.000 It has to do with the uniqueness of Jesus.

00:46:38.000 He said, no one comes to the Father except through me.

00:46:41.000 So Jesus, Buddha, and Allah cannot be seen as equal options, many pathways.

00:46:47.000 And then I think we have to understand His redemptive work, that it was something that was done on our behalf.

00:46:52.000 That we don't earn it, deserve it, qualify for it.

00:46:55.000 It's not merit-based.

00:46:56.000 It's a gift.

00:46:57.000 And then my life is what I'm willing to exchange.

00:47:00.000 I'm willing to use my life as an expression of gratitude for that amazing gift.

00:47:05.000 You have here in this prompt, and I know that we're running low on time, but I just wanted to get to two or three more topics, if that's okay.

00:47:11.000 Yeah, let's roll.

00:47:12.000 It says, demons and evil spirits have one purpose, to deceive, diminish, and destroy God's people.

00:47:17.000 That's you and me.

00:47:18.000 What, how do demons, what does the Bible tell us about demons, and how do they manifest in our political space, in our world?

00:47:25.000 Because whenever you talk about demons and evil spirits, some people get a little on edge.

00:47:31.000 Explain biblically.

00:47:32.000 Well, we just published a book on demons, angels, demons, and you.

00:47:35.000 That's why I'm bringing it up, because we're helping promote it, which everyone can find at alanjackson.com.

00:47:39.000 Angels, demons, you, and the most important part of that title is the and you part.

00:47:43.000 You know, if we talked about diet and exercise.

00:47:45.000 That's a safe discussion.

00:47:47.000 But if we talk about diet, exercise, and you, now it gets really personal.

00:47:51.000 Don't involve me in this.

00:47:52.000 It's the and you part.

00:47:53.000 And I think my objective in the book was to help people imagine more fully that there is a spiritual dimension to our lives, that we are dimensional beings.

00:48:03.000 We have five senses.

00:48:04.000 My academic career started in the basic sciences.

00:48:06.000 My dad was a veterinarian.

00:48:08.000 I'm good with science.

00:48:10.000 But our five senses are how we interact with our material world.

00:48:13.000 You're incredibly naive if you don't understand there are things that exist beyond the scope of your five senses.

00:48:18.000 There are things I can't see that are real.

00:48:20.000 The coronavirus.

00:48:22.000 There are levels of sound that my human equipment can't hear.

00:48:26.000 We all understand that.

00:48:28.000 Well, in the same way that you have a body with those physical senses, you are a spirit, and your spirit is eternal.

00:48:34.000 And the theory of the book, the thesis of the book and scripture is that the spiritual world engages us on a daily basis.

00:48:42.000 So rather than be frightened about it, why don't we learn about it?

00:48:45.000 I think angels engage with us on a very regular basis.

00:48:49.000 The Bible talks about entertaining angels and not knowing it.

00:48:51.000 I can point to a number of places in my life where there were outcomes that I can't explain other than some force other than a human being was helping me get to an outcome.

00:49:01.000 And I don't want to deny that.

00:49:02.000 I don't want to be weird.

00:49:03.000 If you're pulling onto the interstate, don't pray. 0.85

00:49:05.000 Look, you know, Christians get weird, and I'm not interested in weird Christianity. 1.00

00:49:12.000 On the other hand, I want to acknowledge that spiritual forces exist.

00:49:15.000 And I don't want to go into places, you know, I have friends, do you believe in praying for the sick or doctors?

00:49:21.000 Yes.

00:49:22.000 You know, I'll go to the doctor if I need medical attention, but I'm going to pray before I go, because I want God to be engaged in the outcome.

00:49:30.000 God designed our bodies to heal.

00:49:31.000 If I cut my finger, I can put a Band-Aid on it.

00:49:34.000 If my mom's available, she'll kiss it.

00:49:36.000 And in two or three days, I'm good to go.

00:49:38.000 If the screen on my iPhone breaks, I can't put it in a dark room and it's going to heal.

00:49:43.000 God built us to heal.

00:49:45.000 We have denied the spiritual reality for so long, which is a relatively new experience in human civilization.

00:49:53.000 That's 100% correct.

00:49:54.000 Post-Enlightenment, Age of Reason.

00:49:56.000 Even the Aztecs and the Mayans believed in some invisible world.

00:49:58.000 Absolutely.

00:49:59.000 And I think we've got to come back to that.

00:50:01.000 Again, not to be weird or strange.

00:50:03.000 You know, don't stop putting gas in your car or plugging in your Tesla, whatever you prefer.

00:50:09.000 But to deny spiritual reality, good and evil, there are some things we watch in the world that I don't believe can be understood without acknowledging that evil exists.

00:50:17.000 I went to the Israeli embassy in Washington and watched the surveillance tapes from October the 7th.

00:50:22.000 That is demonic.

00:50:23.000 If you watch that and you don't believe in evil, I don't know how to have a conversation with you.

00:50:27.000 You can't explain that about human hatred.

00:50:29.000 You should come to these campuses.

00:50:30.000 They say, oh, I've seen the videos.

00:50:31.000 Nothing wrong.

00:50:31.000 I mean, it's...

00:50:32.000 It's unbelievable.

00:50:34.000 That's what they teach at these universities.

00:50:35.000 Mutilating our teenagers for profit.

00:50:37.000 Correct.

00:50:38.000 I don't know how to describe that other than evil.

00:50:41.000 There are things that human beings have done to one another that force us to acknowledge there are other powers involved with us than just the force of our will or social constructs.

00:50:52.000 And so Angels, Demons, and You is an important manual for helping us navigate a season where there's so much discontinuity.

00:50:59.000 We are trying to engineer a new future.

00:51:02.000 That we think will be better for our children and our grandchildren.

00:51:05.000 And we've got to bring a spiritual voice based upon the authority of Scripture back into that.

00:51:10.000 A political solution alone will not bring us to the best place.

00:51:14.000 Finally, you mentioned it's a perfect segue to the final topic I want to talk about here, which is Israel.

00:51:20.000 Yeah.

00:51:20.000 So I go on college campuses.

00:51:22.000 It's without a doubt the most widespread common question, meaning with...

00:51:28.000 Great predictability.

00:51:29.000 I will get one or two Israel questions on every American college campus, no matter where I go.

00:51:33.000 How should Christians think about Israel? 0.99

00:51:36.000 What does the Bible say?

00:51:38.000 And connect it to current events.

00:51:40.000 I'll give you the shorthand.

00:51:41.000 The book of Romans says, without the Jewish people, we have no Bible, we have no prophets, we have no Savior, we have no story.

00:51:47.000 So we are deeply indebted to the Jewish people.

00:51:51.000 And that God hasn't rejected them, which is a common theme among some segments of the evangelical community.

00:51:57.000 So I think we all owe a tremendous debt to the Jewish people.

00:52:00.000 They have suffered horribly.

00:52:01.000 Anti-Semitism, through history, has been persistent and inexplicable.

00:52:06.000 I don't think you can understand the history of the Jewish people without understanding angels, demons, and you, because there's been an irrational hatred of them.

00:52:14.000 15th century Spanish Inquisition, the Russian pogroms.

00:52:17.000 I mean, we can walk it back as far as we want to go.

00:52:20.000 We see today, one of the greatest shocks to me has been the anti-Semitism on American campuses.

00:52:25.000 Universities that I used to call elite, I refuse to call them that any longer.

00:52:29.000 You can't harbor that kind of hatred and refuse to address it and ask me to consider you to be elite anything.

00:52:36.000 They're propaganda institutions.

00:52:38.000 They're not elite training institutions any longer.

00:52:41.000 But I think the Jewish people have been treated very poorly.

00:52:46.000 And from the Christian community especially, we stand with them.

00:52:49.000 The New Testament says that we have been grafted in, that the status we have with God comes through the Jewish people.

00:52:55.000 It's not apart from them.

00:52:56.000 My Lord and King is an observant Jewish rabbi.

00:53:00.000 Who observed the Shabbat.

00:53:01.000 You know, heaven's going to be a really awkward place if you hate the Jews.

00:53:05.000 Because when you go see the boss, there is an observant Jewish rabbi sitting on the throne. 0.99

00:53:10.000 So I would make peace with that sooner than later.

00:53:12.000 How should we think about Israel the nation?

00:53:17.000 Yeah, that's a good question.

00:53:18.000 We'll come back and do that in more detail.

00:53:21.000 I believe God gave to Abraham a piece of territory.

00:53:26.000 The Jewish people were given a promised land.

00:53:29.000 The non-Jewish believers in the world were given the land of God's promises. 0.93

00:53:33.000 We don't have a territorial assignment, but we have the fullness of the covenants.

00:53:37.000 So that piece of territory, I believe, belongs to the descendants of Abraham.

00:53:40.000 There was a Jewish king on the throne in Jerusalem 1,500 years before Muhammad was born.

00:53:46.000 So if we're going to talk about origins, the Jewish people are going to win that discussion.

00:53:51.000 I believe they have a right to that land.

00:53:54.000 I don't believe everything they do is right.

00:53:56.000 I think they're as divided and as polarized as the American political landscape is.

00:54:02.000 So it's not that I look at them.

00:54:04.000 When you land at the airport in Ben-Gurion Airport, you don't hear the flutter of angels' wings.

00:54:09.000 Tel Aviv is the gay capital of Europe, and they advertise it. 1.00

00:54:11.000 And most abortions per capita of any country.

00:54:14.000 So they have all the same moral challenges and struggles that we have.

00:54:18.000 Having said that, God has a covenant with them and a commitment to them.

00:54:22.000 And so I think it's in the best interest of our nation and every individual listening to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

00:54:28.000 Not the absence of conflict, but peace between the inhabitants of the land and the God who has given them that peace of territory.

00:54:35.000 And we have a mural on the end of our building with a picture of Jerusalem that says, pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

00:54:42.000 And I think it's an important part of our assignment.

00:54:44.000 Alan, God bless you.

00:54:46.000 It's alanjackson.com.

00:54:47.000 Thank you so much, Pastor.

00:54:48.000 We'll have you on again soon.

00:54:49.000 Thanks, Charlie.

00:54:49.000 Keep up the good work.

00:54:50.000 Check it out, alanjackson.com.

00:54:51.000 Talk to you guys soon.

00:54:52.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:54:54.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - March 16, 2025

Stop Waiting for Preachers to Speak the Truth — Demand It: My Interview with Pastor Allen Jackson

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