The Charlie Kirk Show - January 14, 2024


Why Affirmation Is Not Love: A Conversation at the Pastors Roundtable


Episode Stats


Length

29 minutes

Words per minute

194.7099

Word count

5,705

Sentence count

509

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

14

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Pastor Rob McCoy of God Speak in Thousand Oaks, CA and Pastor Jesse Bailey of Legacy Family Church in Canoka Park, LA and Pastor Neil Hoffman of Foothills Christian Church in San Diego, CA join us in this episode.

Transcript

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Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, happy Sunday.
00:00:01.000 It's a pastor's roundtable that we have with some of our favorite pastors.
00:00:05.000 We'll be putting the names and churches in the bio.
00:00:08.000 You can also find them at charliekirk.com.
00:00:10.000 Some courageous pastors brought to you by TPUSA Faith at our Pastors Summit in San Diego, California, just from a little while ago.
00:00:17.000 But now we're just airing this.
00:00:18.000 I think you'll really enjoy it.
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00:00:38.000 That's tpfaith.com.
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00:00:53.000 Here we go.
00:00:54.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:56.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
00:00:58.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
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00:01:52.000 All right, everybody, welcome to our pastors roundtable.
00:01:55.000 Let's go around the roundtable and everyone introduce themselves.
00:01:57.000 Rob, you first.
00:01:58.000 Rob McCoy.
00:01:59.000 I'm the pastor of God Speak Church in Thousand Oaks, California, and I also work with you.
00:02:03.000 And who's my pastor?
00:02:05.000 Richard Vega out of Houston, Texas Community Transformation Church and Addis Feet Ministries.
00:02:09.000 He's the best jacket.
00:02:10.000 Yeah, seriously.
00:02:12.000 Jesse Bailey, pastor of Legacy Family Church in Canoka Park, Los Angeles.
00:02:16.000 Awesome.
00:02:16.000 All right, and I'm Neil Hoffman.
00:02:18.000 I am pastor of Foothills Christian Church right here in San Diego, and we love being a part of TP.
00:02:23.000 Awesome.
00:02:23.000 So, Richard, I'll start with you.
00:02:25.000 Let's say that you have someone in your congregation comes up to you and say, Hey, I don't like that you talk about politics.
00:02:30.000 I just come here to go to church, not to hear about the news.
00:02:32.000 How do you respond to something like that?
00:02:33.000 Well, I tell them that throughout scripture is, you know, a government all throughout scripture.
00:02:39.000 You know, for God is the one who created government, right?
00:02:41.000 And policies and laws and all of those things.
00:02:44.000 We can look in the book of Exodus.
00:02:45.000 We can go into the book of Romans, wherever you want to start, Old Testament, New Testament.
00:02:49.000 You know, we read about kings that are presidents.
00:02:52.000 We can look at it that way, right?
00:02:54.000 And so everyone that you read, there's government and political officials all throughout the scripture.
00:02:59.000 Do you get pushback when you speak about these issues, current events?
00:03:03.000 Some.
00:03:03.000 Some talk about say that it's too much, but I think in this world right now, you know, we have to be on the offensive side and we got to be able to address what's in the room.
00:03:13.000 That's right.
00:03:14.000 So in LA, is it easy to speak out on these issues?
00:03:20.000 Not at all.
00:03:20.000 Yeah.
00:03:20.000 Not at all.
00:03:21.000 Tell us all about it.
00:03:22.000 Well, there's a couple of dynamics.
00:03:24.000 One, the area of LA that I'm in is particularly liberal.
00:03:28.000 So to have a pastor to speak out, especially one being an African-American, because there's a certain expectation that you go along with the cultural norm.
00:03:35.000 And when you break that, you're worse than an infidel in the culture's eyes a lot of times.
00:03:41.000 In 2016, I spoke very boldly about the issues that were being addressed and the election that was coming up.
00:03:49.000 And as a result of that, there was a departure from the church, let's just say.
00:03:52.000 So it is difficult. 0.78
00:03:54.000 However, as we heard today, when you're a coward, cowardice is contagious, but so is courage.
00:04:02.000 So even through that, even speaking up boldly in that area, it drew more people who were looking for answers from the pulpit.
00:04:08.000 So I think we have a demand on us and a command from the Lord to make sure that we're speaking on these issues because it's not just political.
00:04:16.000 It's not really political issues.
00:04:17.000 They're moral issues.
00:04:18.000 And as Christians, we have the truth.
00:04:21.000 We have the moral compass.
00:04:23.000 So we have a responsibility to speak on those things.
00:04:25.000 And if we don't, then our people and the flock suffer.
00:04:28.000 Our country suffers.
00:04:30.000 Charlie, just to add to Jesse, he was the only pastor in the San Fernando Valley to remain open during the lockdown orders and defying the governor.
00:04:38.000 Praise God.
00:04:40.000 That guy's fearless.
00:04:41.000 And do you receive pushback for that?
00:04:43.000 Quite a bit.
00:04:44.000 Quite a bit of pushback.
00:04:45.000 You know, you shouldn't be talking about politics.
00:04:47.000 You know, you should just stick to preaching the gospel.
00:04:49.000 And I said, you know, we do preach the gospel, very much so.
00:04:53.000 But Jesus said to teach everything that he taught us.
00:04:57.000 So part of what we teach is morality, the command of God, the value of life, the importance of equality, not equity, but equality, that we love everyone the same, regardless of race.
00:05:09.000 And we don't allow that to come in and divide the church, the racial politics that are at play, even within the church.
00:05:15.000 Foothills Church?
00:05:16.000 Yep, Foothills.
00:05:17.000 So Southern California, kind of...
00:05:19.000 Behind enemy lines?
00:05:20.000 Yeah, I mean, it's kind of just like live and let live culture around here, right?
00:05:25.000 So let's say you have a congregant that comes to you and they say, you know, my daughter thinks that she's a man.
00:05:30.000 How do you handle that?
00:05:33.000 Well, first, we meet, we've got counselors.
00:05:35.000 Is this a situation you've experienced?
00:05:37.000 Many times.
00:05:38.000 Okay, if you're at liberty to tell us, I'd be curious.
00:05:38.000 Oh, wow.
00:05:41.000 So one of the things is our counselors, they're not licensed counselors because if you're a licensed counselor, then you are not allowed to pull people out of the homosexual, transgender lifestyle. 0.97
00:05:52.000 So we actually do not hire licensed counselors.
00:05:55.000 So we got the, this has happened a number of times.
00:05:57.000 In this particular situation, the young man came in.
00:05:59.000 He got counseled, you know, and came out, praise God, on this certain time, believe in the truth.
00:06:07.000 It's a lie that is implanted in these kids.
00:06:11.000 A lot of them are just, they're searching for the truth.
00:06:13.000 They don't know where to find it.
00:06:14.000 They go on to social media.
00:06:15.000 They get some, you know, some people encouraging them in a certain way.
00:06:19.000 They lean into it.
00:06:21.000 But the truth is not there.
00:06:23.000 You know, the Bible says, it says, fathers do not provoke your kids to anger.
00:06:26.000 I think this is a big part of this because when we don't train our kids in the truth, they grow up.
00:06:32.000 They learn about transgenderism, homosexuality. 1.00
00:06:36.000 They go down these gender-confused aisles or any of the other aisles. 0.97
00:06:39.000 And as they grow up, they find it to be hollow.
00:06:42.000 It doesn't work.
00:06:43.000 They fail and it provokes them to anger.
00:06:46.000 Our job is to stop them before they get there.
00:06:48.000 Wow. 0.90
00:06:49.000 How many of these transgender kids are going to wake up? 1.00
00:06:52.000 They're going to open up their eyes in five years and say, I wish someone would have told me the truth.
00:06:57.000 That's right.
00:06:58.000 And it hadn't lied to me.
00:07:00.000 That's right.
00:07:00.000 Yeah.
00:07:01.000 Yeah, and affirmation actually is not the loving thing to do.
00:07:05.000 That's right.
00:07:06.000 Right, absolutely.
00:07:07.000 So Rob, I can do that because I know you the best.
00:07:09.000 So Rob, speak to this.
00:07:11.000 We have an amazing summit here, 1,100 pastors.
00:07:13.000 Unbelievable.
00:07:15.000 You inspired me and us to do this.
00:07:18.000 Kind of give a little bit of a scorecard the last couple of years, at least on this, your opinion of the journey we've been on.
00:07:26.000 Yeah.
00:07:26.000 Well, I've always desired to see the church step back in the ecclesia, the public square.
00:07:32.000 Now, we think that word means church.
00:07:33.000 You and I know better because we've done a deep study, a deep dive study on it.
00:07:38.000 And yet the church abdicated its responsibility in the public square about 50 years ago.
00:07:43.000 And they don't do politics.
00:07:44.000 Politics is dirty.
00:07:45.000 They hate the word politics.
00:07:47.000 And as you and I both know, politics is the highest form of community, morality, sociability.
00:07:52.000 And so when I met you, I was a city councilman and a pastor.
00:07:56.000 And that's what connected us.
00:07:58.000 That you can be a Christian and be in politics.
00:08:01.000 I never knew it existed.
00:08:03.000 That's actually what I said to you.
00:08:04.000 Yeah.
00:08:04.000 And the idea is good government happens with good people.
00:08:07.000 And the reason why we have bad government is because good people aren't participating.
00:08:10.000 Yes.
00:08:11.000 And all that's necessary for evil to prosper is for good men and women to do nothing.
00:08:14.000 And you have to step into the middle of it.
00:08:16.000 And I've always loved the line that politicians are actors performing a script written by the audience.
00:08:22.000 And if the church isn't writing the script, they have no role in it.
00:08:25.000 Thus they have no say in it.
00:08:26.000 So let me ask any one of you guys can chime in here.
00:08:30.000 The way you're pastoring your churches is still the minority in the country.
00:08:33.000 Bold, courageous, speaking on public issues.
00:08:36.000 Being in the community, I guarantee you guys know 5, 10, 15 other pastors that you still probably get along with.
00:08:41.000 And they see things differently than you do.
00:08:43.000 Oh, yeah.
00:08:44.000 What are the top objections you hear from them as to why they're not contesting in the public square, not taking these stands?
00:08:50.000 The biggest one I always hear is I've got a divided congregation.
00:08:53.000 I got, you know, guys on this side and they've got their Trump hats.
00:08:57.000 And then on this side, they've got their BLM hats.
00:09:01.000 And I'm always trying to dance.
00:09:04.000 I have to do the dance.
00:09:06.000 So actually, can I ask you guys this question real quick?
00:09:08.000 What would you tell the pastor that feels like he has to dance between two sides of his congregation?
00:09:14.000 How can you give him the courage to, well, like what we were talking about, just be bold and be courageous?
00:09:21.000 There's different rules if you're in the ministry, right?
00:09:23.000 It says this in the book of Jude.
00:09:24.000 It says this in Titus, that if you're going to be in charge of a church, you're going to be in the holy.
00:09:29.000 Leviticus, the whole book is basically about this, from priestly garments to pre-ritual ceremonies, which is you have different rules.
00:09:36.000 And that doesn't mean if you're not cut out to be that, that's okay.
00:09:40.000 You can go sell insurance or go be a developer.
00:09:43.000 That's fine.
00:09:44.000 But to use the word preacher, pastor, counselor, shepherd, and then be a coward, I don't consider you to be somebody worthy of the ministry.
00:09:53.000 And I get attacked for saying that.
00:09:56.000 On my side, what you asked the group was, is a lot of pastors are fearful of losing their 501c3.
00:10:02.000 And they're scared to speak against what is the, I guess, the norm of government versus biblically.
00:10:12.000 I mean, you know, not a single church has lost their C3 in the last 20 years.
00:10:16.000 We tell them all the time.
00:10:17.000 And it's just an excuse to get.
00:10:19.000 I don't even know if they believe it.
00:10:21.000 This fear of man is a snare.
00:10:23.000 Yes.
00:10:23.000 Yeah.
00:10:24.000 Yes.
00:10:24.000 I heard you say that, Jenzie.
00:10:25.000 I bet we can make a list, right?
00:10:26.000 I'm sure you guys hear this.
00:10:27.000 I could lose my 501c3.
00:10:28.000 I have an elder board, right?
00:10:30.000 I got bills to pay, right?
00:10:32.000 I don't know how to speak out on these issues.
00:10:34.000 I don't want to be political.
00:10:35.000 I only preach the gospel.
00:10:36.000 What am I missing?
00:10:37.000 What it boils down to, Charlie, is fear of man.
00:10:40.000 They've lost their fear of God, and now they just fear man.
00:10:44.000 And, you know, I'm speaking as a pastor, and I know the difficulty.
00:10:48.000 We all know the difficulties.
00:10:50.000 We've watched churches shrink.
00:10:51.000 Yeah, absolutely.
00:10:52.000 And then grow.
00:10:53.000 Or grow.
00:10:53.000 But one of the things that we have to remember is a lot of times we will not speak truth because we understand that there are nuances in certain members of our congregation's life.
00:11:05.000 Well, if I speak on this truth, I don't want to offend this person because I know they've been through something and there's some nuance to them.
00:11:10.000 So we have a difficult time separating what needs to be spoken publicly from the pulpit and then our private conversations that we have with individuals.
00:11:18.000 And what we end up doing if we do that too much is we will no longer speak the standard of God from the pulpit.
00:11:23.000 And what we will do is we will speak to just to the individuals who we know in the congregation.
00:11:29.000 And as a pastor, our job is to feed the flock good food.
00:11:32.000 That means we feed them the word of God and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.
00:11:36.000 But when we start fearing man and their response to that, then we completely give our authority over to the flock.
00:11:41.000 The flock doesn't direct the church.
00:11:44.000 The pastor's job is to direct the flock and lead them the way God does.
00:11:47.000 And that's why there's different rules for the shepherd.
00:11:49.000 Yes, right?
00:11:50.000 Exactly.
00:11:50.000 It has to be different rules, criteria, standards.
00:11:53.000 Pastors think that peace is the absence of conflict.
00:11:55.000 Oh, yeah, right.
00:11:56.000 But it isn't.
00:11:56.000 It's the presence of Christ in the midst of the conflict.
00:12:00.000 So, not to pick on this guy, but he is awfully popular, and Andy Stanley.
00:12:05.000 And he has some strong opinions about this.
00:12:07.000 And so, again, we'll give him the respect that a lot of people have of him.
00:12:12.000 I certainly don't.
00:12:13.000 But I'm going to read his quote: The reaction of evangelicals to political and cultural shifts in recent years revealed what they value most.
00:12:19.000 Lurking beneath our Bible-laced rhetoric, faith claims, books, and sermons is a relentless drive to win.
00:12:24.000 But the church is not here to win.
00:12:25.000 By every human measure, our savior lost.
00:12:27.000 Pause.
00:12:28.000 I don't even know what he means by that.
00:12:29.000 That's a very strange thing.
00:12:31.000 On purpose with a purpose.
00:12:33.000 We are his body.
00:12:34.000 We are not in it to win anything.
00:12:35.000 We're here in it for something else entirely.
00:12:38.000 That's what this book is about.
00:12:39.000 And the book is not in it to win it by choosing sides sidelines the church.
00:12:43.000 So he's saying that the church should never make truth claims.
00:12:46.000 What is your reaction?
00:12:47.000 Because I'm sure you hear some guarded variety of this talking point.
00:12:52.000 Yeah.
00:12:52.000 The Bible says that the church is the pillar and ground of truth.
00:12:56.000 So for us to not make truth claims or to not pick a sides is to take a passive position and to allow evil to continue.
00:13:02.000 We cannot take that position.
00:13:04.000 When we go out and say, well, I just want to play both sides, then what you're in effect doing is you're playing wickedness.
00:13:09.000 Because if our job is to stand for truth, then you have just relinquished all truth and you turn your flock over to Satan because they're going to listen to someone.
00:13:18.000 And if you won't lead them, somebody else will.
00:13:21.000 He says, Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth, and life.
00:13:24.000 There's one way to father.
00:13:25.000 There's one way to bring our churches.
00:13:27.000 When people stop standing up and speaking for something, then the cost of speaking rises, which further causes people to stop speaking.
00:13:35.000 And then that rises until you have a nation of churches that don't want to say anything at all.
00:13:40.000 See, some churches think that if they don't speak out, they're being neutral.
00:13:43.000 There is no neutrality.
00:13:44.000 No.
00:13:45.000 You're either raising the cost or lowering the cost of speaking.
00:13:48.000 The more we talk, the less the cost of speaking out is.
00:13:52.000 And that's what you guys are doing right now.
00:13:54.000 That's what we're doing at this conference right now.
00:13:55.000 Reversing the spiral of silence, right?
00:13:57.000 Right.
00:13:58.000 A spiral of courage.
00:13:59.000 Right.
00:14:00.000 Yeah.
00:14:00.000 At the end of the day, you know, God hates evil.
00:14:02.000 And it's very clear in what he hates, right?
00:14:04.000 If we look at Revelation 21, 8, he talks about, he gives a whole list of what's going on of who's going to burn the lake of fire.
00:14:10.000 And the beginning of that verse is the cowards.
00:14:13.000 Amen.
00:14:14.000 If we don't stand up and start preaching truth and we cower down, you can consider yourself being thrown in the lake of fire.
00:14:20.000 And at the end of the day, it's very clear: evil is evil and righteous is righteous.
00:14:25.000 And what they do is we don't recognize the progression that happens.
00:14:30.000 We think we're being kind and gentle and welcoming to everybody, but it's the exact opposite.
00:14:36.000 When you're passive, that leads to being permissive.
00:14:38.000 You start permitting these things.
00:14:39.000 Once you start being permissive, you start protecting.
00:14:41.000 Well, that's their right.
00:14:43.000 And then eventually you start promoting it.
00:14:44.000 Now you have a black square on your Instagram or a rainbow on there.
00:14:48.000 And then once you start promoting it, then you start participating.
00:14:51.000 And then participation leads to perdition.
00:14:54.000 And that is the subtlety of Satan.
00:14:57.000 And it all starts with being passive.
00:14:59.000 We cannot take that stance.
00:15:01.000 So then let's go a level deeper in this in particular.
00:15:05.000 Then since it's so clear to all of us, we're allegedly all reading the same book as Andy Stanley is: how could he come to a conclusion like this?
00:15:12.000 What is motivating him?
00:15:14.000 And I hate to go too deep into intentions, but it's worth exploring, right?
00:15:17.000 Because it's not just him.
00:15:18.000 It's a whole community of big Eva, of Ed Stetzer, of now deceased Timothy Keller and Rick Warren, of people that parrot this.
00:15:27.000 So are they reading a different book than we are?
00:15:29.000 No, but I think their mind has been shifted because their eyes have been shifted and what they're feeding their soul and their mind and their spirit.
00:15:36.000 You know, the blinders have been put on, and so they're being able to receive what is not truth.
00:15:44.000 At one point, they might have known truth or never really had developed a relationship with truth, but read about truth.
00:15:51.000 There's a difference between having the relationship with Jesus and knowing Jesus.
00:15:56.000 Well, being pastors and having the same Bible, there's no excuse.
00:16:00.000 You can be deceived, but eventually it turns into a decision and then it turns into delusion.
00:16:05.000 And as a pastor, you can't claim, oh, I've been deceived.
00:16:08.000 No, you have the same word of God.
00:16:09.000 And what's happened is that something has come in and become more valuable to you than truth.
00:16:15.000 What might that be?
00:16:16.000 Sorry to interject.
00:16:17.000 More than anything, it's man.
00:16:20.000 The praises of man, the fear of man, the income, the income.
00:16:24.000 You know, the Lord writes in Timothy that many have departed from the faith in pursuit of fame and fortune.
00:16:31.000 And you look at these individuals who have large church followings.
00:16:36.000 They have large bank accounts.
00:16:37.000 Lots of books.
00:16:38.000 Lots of books.
00:16:39.000 And they sacrifice truth for that.
00:16:43.000 You know, it's interesting, too, when you look at, especially since COVID, the churches that have really focused in on the cultural winds and the sails of their ships and have really joined in what society is dictating, and a large part because of the finances, because the butts and seats.
00:17:02.000 It's so interesting, though, that the churches that stood up, they're the ones growing.
00:17:06.000 The ones that allowed culture come through, they blew through and they're low in numbers.
00:17:11.000 Their finances are going down.
00:17:13.000 I mean, God raises up those that are obedient to him, regardless.
00:17:17.000 But their counter-argument, if they were to be here, and I, you know, texted with Rick Warren back and forth, and he's a very forceful person.
00:17:27.000 And yeah, I'll just leave it at that and has some very strong opinions and doesn't see it the way we do.
00:17:32.000 And he will say, but Charlie, I have the baptisms to prove it.
00:17:36.000 And we need to get a lost world in through the door.
00:17:41.000 And speaking about politics will not get the lost through the door.
00:17:44.000 It will not get the broken through the door.
00:17:47.000 It scares me that pastors would say this because are they not preaching on sin?
00:17:52.000 No.
00:17:53.000 I mean, clearly they're not, right?
00:17:54.000 Clearly they're not.
00:17:55.000 So what are they, what are they, what are they preaching on?
00:17:58.000 I mean, are they preaching on redemption?
00:18:00.000 I mean, are they preaching on what salvation really was for and what the cross was for and all these other things that go with the blood of Jesus?
00:18:09.000 What are they preaching?
00:18:11.000 Yeah.
00:18:12.000 You can make anything an idol.
00:18:13.000 That's the thing we need to know.
00:18:14.000 You can make biblical principles idols.
00:18:16.000 And sometimes we can make salvation an idol, the idol of just focusing on salvation and nothing more.
00:18:23.000 And that's just going to produce baby Christians that cannot stand when the storms come. 1.00
00:18:28.000 We have to focus on discipleship.
00:18:30.000 Disciples make other Christians. 1.00
00:18:32.000 Disciples make other disciples.
00:18:34.000 And when we stop focusing on that, we become paper thin.
00:18:37.000 It's not about politics.
00:18:39.000 It's about morality.
00:18:40.000 Abortion is a moral issue.
00:18:43.000 Racism is a moral issue.
00:18:45.000 All of these things are moral issues.
00:18:47.000 And we speak on moral issues because we have the moral compass, the word of God.
00:18:51.000 So that's one problem.
00:18:52.000 The other problem is to list out your baptisms is to steal away credit from the Lord.
00:18:59.000 One sows another waters, but the Lord gets the increase.
00:19:03.000 So for me to brag on that is to steal glory from God.
00:19:05.000 And that is a dangerous place for anyone to be.
00:19:08.000 We cannot do that.
00:19:10.000 So that is a very, and look, I don't know, Pastor Rick, but I will say this: that statement is very arrogant and very prideful to steal God's glory like that.
00:19:20.000 And that is an indication of where the mindset is.
00:19:22.000 If you're going to actually say that, I would never say, I got this person to say, look what I did.
00:19:27.000 We don't do any of that.
00:19:29.000 The Lord gets the increase and we leave it right there.
00:19:31.000 Our job is to preach the truth of the word of God.
00:19:33.000 So just kind of more broadly then, that is a question.
00:19:37.000 Church attendance has done the last 20 or 30 years.
00:19:39.000 Big Eva says we have to try and show ourselves to a world more welcoming, be all things to all people.
00:19:46.000 And our opinion would say to spread the truth.
00:19:50.000 That's actually what a broken culture needs more than ever.
00:19:53.000 This is it.
00:19:53.000 You guys have lived through in the last 20 years the most seeker-sensitive movement.
00:19:59.000 Has it worked?
00:20:01.000 I don't think at all.
00:20:02.000 In fact, we got a motto at our church, and our motto is offend regularly, offend often.
00:20:07.000 That way, when people are offended, they're not surprised.
00:20:10.000 You know what I mean?
00:20:12.000 It's our job.
00:20:14.000 That's our calling as pastors.
00:20:15.000 It's not to just get pats on the back.
00:20:18.000 Yeah, give offense.
00:20:19.000 We've got to call out the devil that's trying to get inside of everyone.
00:20:23.000 So if all we're doing is trying to get people saved, then we're definitely not hitting what God has called us a shepherd.
00:20:32.000 You know, politics is done by addition and multiplication, not by division and subtraction.
00:20:36.000 And when I'm saying stuff like speaking about Rick Warren and the influence of my life, it's not because I'm advocating for his departure from the centrality.
00:20:46.000 But I look at some of these guys and I have to just say that what they're trying to communicate is, we don't want you to go up and defend Trump from the pulpit.
00:20:59.000 I don't do that.
00:21:01.000 What I'm doing is I'm saying this is how the gospel clearly speaks to the issues we're dealing with.
00:21:06.000 But there are pastors that go up and it's all one party and they're making it, you know, it's a litmus test.
00:21:11.000 They're throwing red meat.
00:21:12.000 I get that.
00:21:13.000 You don't want that.
00:21:15.000 But what we do is completely different than what it is they say we're doing.
00:21:19.000 Yes.
00:21:19.000 We're equipping saints under ministry.
00:21:21.000 So let me ask you a question, guys, to go around the horn.
00:21:24.000 What is one message, one verse, one chapter of one of your go-to sermons that if every pastor in the country internalized it and gave it, country would be in a better place.
00:21:32.000 Sir With you, Richard.
00:21:33.000 Oh, wow.
00:21:34.000 Yeah, so I would have to go back on Revelation 21, verse 8.
00:21:37.000 Don't be a coward.
00:21:38.000 Get out there and speak truth. 0.95
00:21:40.000 You know, if you preach on sin, you're going to pull out.
00:21:43.000 That's what got me saved.
00:21:46.000 I walked into a church.
00:21:47.000 My pastor to this day, he was preaching on sin, and he preached, I mean, he preached me to repentance and complete transformation of my life.
00:21:58.000 You can't be worried about what people are going to say or how they're going to judge you.
00:22:02.000 God, when he released the word and the prophets and everybody wrote the Bible, they didn't ask me for my opinion.
00:22:11.000 They didn't ask me what I thought, right?
00:22:12.000 Just like Job.
00:22:13.000 The word is the word.
00:22:15.000 Preach truth.
00:22:16.000 Get out there and preach sin.
00:22:17.000 It is what it is.
00:22:18.000 God hates sin.
00:22:20.000 Call it out and let's heal from it and let's restore and let's transform our communities.
00:22:26.000 Why are churches so afraid to talk about sin?
00:22:28.000 Because they're going to lose people.
00:22:30.000 The headcount in their churches, you know, who they're going to offend.
00:22:34.000 We have gone to a society of where we care more about people's feelings than actually caring for their eternal life.
00:22:43.000 Rob, what's your go-to?
00:22:44.000 Matthew 18, 24, upon this rock, I'll build my public square, Ecclesia, city hall.
00:22:49.000 That's what Jesus, that's the word he used.
00:22:52.000 It's very simple.
00:22:53.000 And then I would also say Galatians 3, 24, the law is a school teacher, guardian to point us to Christ until faith comes.
00:23:01.000 So as we contend for the moral law in the public square, it causes people to be convicted of their sin and point them to the hope of Christ.
00:23:11.000 But if it's a culture that everything's go, what are you saving them from?
00:23:16.000 Nothing.
00:23:17.000 So it all works together.
00:23:18.000 Excuse me, sir.
00:23:19.000 Here, go-to.
00:23:20.000 I would say 1 Timothy 3, 15 says, I write to you that you might know how to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is a church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth.
00:23:32.000 Truth is the highest value because on truth hangs every other value.
00:23:36.000 Love, hope, peace.
00:23:38.000 We depart from truth, we depart from everything that makes us unique as Christians, makes us unique as a nation.
00:23:44.000 And if we depart from truth, we're in effect departing from Christ because he is the way, the truth, and the life.
00:23:53.000 I think all the way to the Old Testament for Samuel and just the story of Eli and how Eli was the high priest.
00:23:59.000 He was the judge.
00:24:00.000 I mean, if anybody was poised to take Israel down an incredible road, it was him. 0.87
00:24:04.000 But at the end, where do we find him?
00:24:07.000 He dies.
00:24:09.000 Israel is not in a good place.
00:24:11.000 The ark is taken.
00:24:13.000 And it's interesting when you look at his life, on all accounts, he was a good man, except for one thing.
00:24:19.000 He tolerated his kids.
00:24:21.000 He didn't stand for righteousness.
00:24:23.000 He didn't stand for the truth.
00:24:24.000 He didn't stand against sin.
00:24:26.000 He let his kids do.
00:24:27.000 I mean, if you read it, all the things.
00:24:30.000 And the truth is, is that his main sin was he tolerated what we tolerate.
00:24:35.000 We can't tolerate things like this.
00:24:37.000 And we have to stand.
00:24:38.000 What we tolerate, we allow.
00:24:40.000 And what we allow is going to destroy us.
00:24:41.000 And it destroyed them.
00:24:43.000 The Ark of the Covenant was gone.
00:24:45.000 So what I would say is we need to be careful.
00:24:48.000 You don't get to have a neutral ground.
00:24:50.000 There's no neutral areas.
00:24:53.000 You either stand against sin or you encourage it.
00:24:55.000 It's our only choice.
00:24:57.000 Jesse, you were saying, both of you guys were saying, I think actually the table, this idea that truth becomes more costly if we don't stand in defense of it.
00:25:06.000 And I think this last go-round, people didn't take the shot because they believed in its efficacy.
00:25:12.000 They didn't want to lose their job.
00:25:14.000 Well, that's the cost of truth.
00:25:16.000 And the government had the power to make you make that decision, even though you mentally couldn't process that.
00:25:16.000 That's right.
00:25:24.000 And you're going to lose your job.
00:25:26.000 The country doesn't have any business doing that.
00:25:29.000 Right.
00:25:29.000 You know, your authority ends where my skin begins.
00:25:33.000 Wherever you feel about that thing, whatever you've read about it.
00:25:36.000 But the more we contend for truth, then it's more accessible for the total of the populace.
00:25:44.000 The more we're silent, the more expensive it is.
00:25:46.000 And most people are afraid of the consequences of truth.
00:25:49.000 We need to fight until that's something that we're raised with.
00:25:55.000 Can I ask you a question?
00:25:56.000 Yeah, we've got 10 minutes in there.
00:25:57.000 We can open it up whatever you want.
00:25:59.000 You said something last night that was very good.
00:26:00.000 You said that the church really had an opportunity, a big open door at the start of COVID.
00:26:06.000 I mean, you knew where the church was going to go, but the church fell asleep.
00:26:09.000 It didn't take its opportunity to be the church.
00:26:14.000 My question is, and I thought about this last night.
00:26:17.000 What do you see right now as opportunities or big open doors for the church today?
00:26:22.000 Yeah, the transgender issue, I think, is the number one thing happening in the country.
00:26:26.000 The transgender issue is a war in God's design. 1.00
00:26:29.000 We're in parental rights.
00:26:30.000 It's coming politically.
00:26:31.000 It's coming culturally.
00:26:31.000 It's coming from children.
00:26:32.000 It's coming educationally.
00:26:34.000 Almost every aspect of the things that I spend my time in government, politics, culture, education, is the trans thing is not just on the fringes.
00:26:43.000 It's the dominant state-run pagan belief of our time.
00:26:49.000 So in Genesis 1 through 11, God laid out the distinctions that keep us free, distinctions between God and man, holy, profane, good and evil, man and woman.
00:26:56.000 The transgender goes after every single one of them. 1.00
00:26:59.000 It is one of the only things, even more so than even the abortion issue, does it go after the ultimate distinctions?
00:27:06.000 And I'm not saying the abortion issue is not important.
00:27:08.000 I'm incredibly pro-life.
00:27:10.000 But this one's a whole new wrinkle of demonic activity because with the abortion issue, a lot of it was done in the shadows, done in private.
00:27:18.000 You know, I don't see it.
00:27:19.000 Now this is forefront.
00:27:20.000 Now the evil's in your face.
00:27:22.000 Now the evil's advertised.
00:27:23.000 Now the evil's on TV.
00:27:25.000 And still people were forced to tolerate it.
00:27:28.000 It goes after the false God and the fake pagan God of tolerance. 0.99
00:27:32.000 It goes after the idea of how far is the church going to take it.
00:27:37.000 The fact that if you have people at your church where the kids are getting recruited into and groomed into the transgender lifestyle, this is in the church actively.
00:27:48.000 And I'll be honest, vast majority of churches are failing the test.
00:27:52.000 I got in a big debate recently with a pastor in Austin, Texas.
00:27:55.000 He said, I can't speak out about it until my elders have trans kids, 16-year-olds that had their breasts removed and they're in Lupron. 0.99
00:28:01.000 And I can't, I'm not, we have to just love them.
00:28:04.000 So the new position of the American Big Eva church is to love a child, is to cut off their breasts, give them hysterectomies, put them on Lupron, and then antidepressants that follow. 0.86
00:28:13.000 So they're basically an annuity for the pharmaceutical companies.
00:28:17.000 So that's the one where I say, if we cannot unite the entire body, I mean, the abortion issue, we were not able to unite the entire body, but at least most of it, there should not be a single dissenting voice.
00:28:28.000 If not, I hate to be self-righteous.
00:28:31.000 I doubt you're a Christian. 1.00
00:28:33.000 God bless you guys.
00:28:34.000 Any final thoughts?
00:28:35.000 Yeah, I just want to say thank you guys for everything you guys are doing.
00:28:37.000 Thank you.
00:28:38.000 The thanks is to you.
00:28:39.000 We'd be going a long walk without them.
00:28:41.000 Yeah, we just are challenging to you and all pastors out there, get other pastors to attend our events, especially the ones that need it, the ones that are not speaking out.
00:28:50.000 There are some great men that are leading churches right now that need to be speaking up and they aren't.
00:28:55.000 And we need to challenge them.
00:28:57.000 And I feel as if we're starting to create a community where that can happen lovingly and to get them into hopefully conviction.
00:29:05.000 God bless you guys.
00:29:06.000 Thank you.
00:29:06.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:29:07.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:29:10.000 Thanks so much for listening.
00:29:14.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.