Pastor Plek's Podcast
Pastor Plek's Podcast
Heart, Politics, and the Gospel
Have a question or comment for Pastor Plek or one of his guests. Send it here.
368: A stadium filled with worship, national leaders in the room, and the gospel preached without flinching—some moments refuse to stay “cultural.” We unpack why Charlie Kirk's memorial became a spiritual inflection point and how it’s stirring unexpected courage, repentance, and renewed interest in church across the country. From claims of martyrdom to the evidence behind motive, we grapple with the costs of public truth-telling and the conviction that it’s better to face danger than to live afraid of speaking what’s true.
Text your questions to us at 737-231-0605 or visit pastorplek.com. We talk faith, culture, and everything in between.
Like, share, and subscribe! We love seeing and responding to your reviews and comments.
Support the show: https://wbcc.churchcenter.com/giving
And welcome back to Pastor Plex Podcast. I'm your host, Pastor Plek, along with Pastor Holland, and we're glad you're here. Thank you. Glad to be here. You know, listen, hey, we've had a lot going on in our country of late, and I just want to kind of give a quick update on on kind of what's all happened, where we are, and all the things. So basically, we're coming. This is right now, just a couple days after the memorial service of Charlie Kirk. And did you get to observe that?
SPEAKER_00:I was at church all day on Sunday. ECC in the morning, and then uh, you know, the branch in the evening. And so uh watch a bunch of clips of it though. Watch some of it afterwards. What was the highlight view of the experience? Uh I love that there was worships for so much of it. Um, and it was Chris Tomlin. Uh I know we have some Chris Tomlin haters. There's a lot of Chris Tomlin haters out there, but listen, he's pretty solid. You know what? It was cool to see like kind of a mainstream worship guy. Um Phil Wickham was there. Yeah. Is he mainstream? I think so. He at least used to be. Yeah, Brandon Lake, he's like Elevation Church, right? I have no idea. But I just I love that there was so much worship. There was so much um straight up gospel preaching. There was um, you know, scripture, there was Erica, you know, forgiving um the shooter, uh, just her own personal forgiveness, right? Um, and really, I think showing the heart of Jesus on the cross or Stephen when he was being martyred. Um, all of it was just so powerful. To see public officials there, to see, you know, pastors and apologists, worship leaders, it was awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Brandon Lake is from Seacoast Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Oh, okay. But yeah, it was really cool to see all those worship leaders. And then when has there ever been like the president, vice president, secretary of state all been at the same event?
SPEAKER_00:Uh that was wild. Yeah, good question. I was MLK's memorial. The pr uh the president was not there, but the vice president was, and other public officials and members of Congress or something like this.
SPEAKER_01:This was, I mean, crazy. And the gospel was shared like a bunch. Yeah. Like uh and so there was, you know, roughly, I think 200,000 people there, I guess in person. In person is kind of weird because they're they have the in-person inside the uh Arizona uh Cardinals Stadium, and I don't know how many of that held, but there were several stadiums around Arizona that had overflow, which was just wild. Yeah. Wild that they had that many overflow stadiums I don't know, I don't know if it was stadiums or what, but I think it was 200,000 people in person. And then um when I was watching, and I don't know what you know, like when I was watching on on I think Turning Points Stream, yeah, stream. I think it was like 600,000 uh like at whenever I was, you know, looking at it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So and not only was the gospel preached, but like Christian values that have you know not really been promoted culturally, yeah, um, were really being promoted. So, like you know, one of the things Erica said, Women, I have a challenge for you. Be virtuous. Our strength is found in God's design for our role. Wow. We are the guardians, the encouragers, the preservers, guard your heart. Everything you do flows from it. And if you're a mother, please recognize that is the single most important ministry you have. Saying the value of motherhood and God's design for the role of women being publicly promoted. Man, that was crazy. Um also said to the men watching, um, accept Charlie's challenge and embrace true manhood. Be strong and courageous for your families. Love your wives and lead them, love your children and protect them, be the spiritual head of your home, be a leader worth following. Just like, dang, that that was so awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So uh update on those numbers, about a hundred thousand people, 70,000 in the stadium, and then 30,000 overflow. But yeah, that is that is such a uh not what you would expect in our culture. And but you know, such a young man, uh, such a guy that that led people to Christ. Um, so I've heard this, I think Josh Howerton posted this. I don't know where he got it from, but it was just really cool. Uh, that that Charlie Kirk is a martyr. And the reason why we'd say that is we'd say that John the Baptist was a martyr. Right. Right, and John the Baptist, why did he die? For telling uh Herodias that her marriage to Herod and leaving uh Philip was wrong. And yeah, and calling out Herod himself for having her right, right, and calling out Herod himself, and then so he got his head served on a platter uh for that, which that's you know, like was that a political assassination? Yeah, but I mean there's not one Christian who doesn't consider John the Baptist a martyr.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, right. And so I Because his political um, you know, his yeah, his stance, his uh what's it called, rebuke of a political figure came from a place of faith and the morals of scripture. Wild. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So Charlie Kirk then, for whatever you know, let's say, you know, I think it was a guy that was dating a trans dude. He killed him probably for his uh view on marriage, oddly. It's kind of odd that it's sort of someone's view on marriage is what might get them killed. Isn't that wild?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, we don't we don't know, right? No, there's nothing, no statement of like why or anything. We just have kind of speculation. But yeah, you you assume it's views he held that he was public about. Um but uh yeah, what um what John the Baptist did was uh speak out publicly to a public leader and political figure about immorality, you know, and and proclaimed essentially the Christian truth of Scripture, and he died for it.
SPEAKER_01:And uh Yeah, there clearly we got the evidence for his motive is after the shooting, Robinson allegedly texted his romantic partner. Uh, I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out. And he also left a note under his keyboard saying, I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I'm going to take it after the shooting. Uh Robinson probably told his father during a phone call that he had killed Kirk because there's too much evil and Kirk spreads too much hate. So essentially it's wild that it's uh and one of his things was there was one bullet that said, Hey, fascist, fascist catch, interpreting interpreted as targeting Kirk Kirk's far-right ideology. Anyway, it was it was kind of wild to see that as being uh the the incentive uh or incentive motive. Uh Robinson's mother also told investigators he had become more political over the past year, leaning left and supporting pro-gay and trans rights. And at a family dinner shortly before the event, he expressed hatred for Kirk's views on these topics. His Discord chats hours before the arrest and social media also show scattered anti-conservative comments.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Well, related to, you know, turning this toward like the spiritual, one of the things J.D. Vance said was um at the memorial, uh Charlie suffered a terrible fate, but I think it is not the worst fate. It is better to face a gunman than to live your life afraid to speak the truth. Wow. It's better to be persecuted for your faith than to deny the kingship of Christ. Better to die a young man in this world than to sell your soul for an easy life with no purpose, no risk, no love, and no truth. I think that kind of reality is what is really sparking a lot of spiritual revival.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Um, because one thing I think is really interesting, so Charlie Kirk would say um that he would use politics to get to Jesus, something that a lot of people were um would really warn against. A lot of pastors would be like, don't bring that up. And you know where that came from.
SPEAKER_01:Billy Graham during his crusades would say, I stay out of politics because I don't want to alienate someone from hearing the gospel message. However, I think now, I think the culture has moved so far out of that realm that nobody wants to have a conversation unless it gets to like, here's what God would have to say about that and why you need to repent. Uh, because we're so far from a um a culturally Christian worldview. So that when he spoke of ideas and then he rooted them back to the Bible, it blew people's minds.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, speak apologetics and politics became like uh, you know, a really powerful way to actually point people to Christ in the gospel. So um that's pretty huge. Yeah. I think we can learn a lot from that as pastors, as Christians, even, to say, like, hey, you know, this doesn't mean that everyone needs to go out and start, you know, like initiating these conversations with everyone. But to be able to say, like, no, it's a legitimate way to reach people with the gospel is by starting with something, you know, that is culturally relevant and tracing the logic of it back to eternal truths that are found in scripture. All legislation and politics and government and stuff is related to eternal moral principles at at if you trace it all the way back, right? Um and so, yeah, when you when you're debating a political issue, you can yeah, use that as a way to talk about the truths of scripture and then eventually point to Jesus in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01:And that's essentially I know this sounds wild, right? It's essentially being all things to all people that you might win some. You're uh hitting a felt need, which is a political answer that then drives back to the deeper need, which is ultimately spiritual. Uh and so I think that's just true of all evangelism. It just feels like it's relationally uh distancing when you start with an argument.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um and that's not always the best way to start. That was his deal. He'd go and it'd be like, hey, argue with me, prove me wrong, you know. But in our personal relationships, you know, that's it's not always the best way to start.
SPEAKER_01:Right. But uh yeah, and it's wild though that it worked. I mean, I've been seeing, you know, testimony after testimony of someone watching Charlie Kirk talk and defend his position. Now, it didn't reach the person he was interacting with, but all the people that sort of tuned in to watch the argument that had the same belief system, it connected them.
SPEAKER_00:So I also think internally, we in our just spirit and our the way that we subconsciously think, you know, this this kind of internal um uh processing and um discerning and stuff that we that we do without even realizing it. We know in our gut there is a connection between politics and um Christianity. I think we know um that there's a connection between politics and spirituality, politics and God, religion. And so I think the reason you know, so many people are are kind of uh hungry for and interested in this right now is because there's like, you know, he was this person who said, yes, there is, and here's what it is. You know, he would connect these things. Whether you agreed with him or not, it's just acknowledging, like instead of hearing from your pastor, don't bring up politics, or hearing from politicians, don't bring faith into this. Rather, you know, it's this idea of like, no, these things are definitely connected together. Um, and to act like they're not is like disorienting internally. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, because what we're wanting is law, right? If we want, and politics ultimately gets us to a political system, which ultimately gets us to what laws are right, what is right, what is wrong. So if you are legislating what is right and what is wrong, right, you are legislating morality. So therefore, where you get your morality from matters. And I think that has that has been the struggle for me personally, for me personally, I didn't want to engage in the political fray because and I think this is where I in the in the or the in the teens, oh you know, 2013 to 2019, I I was struggling wrapping my head around um the culture push. And I think back was it 2014 or so, whenever we legalized gay marriage. 2015. 2015. I think it was at that point where I stopped punching up at the church, so to speak, like you know, like big bad church, and I started punching up at the culture, just me personally. Like you're always kind of you know, what do you what are you arguing against? It was, I think before that, I was like, hey, legalism, bad, trusting Jesus, good. And then when all of a sudden the there wasn't there there wasn't a Christian culture, you know, to kind of push back against, all of a sudden you realize I am now pushing against culture that is an enemy toward the gospel because we don't even agree what right and wrong is because we've abandoned that.
SPEAKER_00:And so some people have said to me, um, the New Testament doesn't say anything about, you know, politics and government. It's all about, you know, just like the church, right? And I think that's really interesting that people think like that now. It's not how Christians have tended to think about things um for most of church history. Um and but but it's interesting because in America we have um a uh constitutional republic and democratic republic. And so we are voting for elected officials who will represent us, right? And so we have a lot of say in what the laws of the land are, as opposed to like a monarchy where a king just decides. So where the the Bible has a lot of instructions for kings. Here's how you ought to rule, here's what's right, here's what's wrong. Proverbs is full of that. Um, the book of kings, first and second kings, right? Examples of what's right and wrong. Um, Deuteronomy uh has a whole, you know, a whole section, Deuteronomy 17, 14 or 17. Uh check me on it. But uh the law for kings. Here's what it, here's what a king ought to do and what he ought not to do. And so all of that, we we go, okay, in a place like United States of America, we um we are essentially like who are in charge. You know, we're the people. It's uh it's the people who make the laws of the land. Therefore, all of that wisdom about how kings ought to operate um is applicable to us as citizens who vote in this republic. And so the Bible actually does speak a lot to um how you ought to rule and legislate and govern and things like that. Um, it just used to be relevant to a king of the whole people, right? But for us, it's relevant to every citizen of America. So here's I think the the push. That makes sense. Yeah, no, totally bad. That's mainly Old Testament, though. But I would say that, you know, the New Testament, um Well, Jesus is a king, therefore inherently political.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, exactly. Like no matter what you do, you're gonna have a political situation because you can't like if you're gonna you're not gonna as a Christian, you're not gonna go, I want innocent babies to die. Like you you would that is you that you can't um take that away from your um personal view, even if it gets political, that's just they're entwined. Yeah. Okay, so but here's the the I think the pushback has come. Okay, right here. I feel like here's there's always been, or at least in the past, let's call it 70 years, the the pushback has been um don't you think that uh the wars of the past, all these differences in religion have caused so much bloodshed, and so many people have died, and so many people were um persecuted for their faith, non-faith, you know, the witch trials, uh, you know, Christian, Catholic Inquisitions. Uh what if you if you go down this road, it's inevitable that you get to this corrupt world where you use Jesus to kill off your enemy, and then there's a this very evil bed partner of religion and uh politics. I think that's where people just think they always go there. Um and I don't know if it necessarily has to go there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Uh so where the New Testament does speak to this, I think, um a couple of ways. Romans 13 and Matthew 28, when you think about the Great Commission, make disciples of all nations, what what is the what is the end goal of that look like? If you what does it look like to thoroughly disciple a nation? Obviously, that is going to um uh uh impact its laws, customs, traditions, leaders. You go into you go into a country where um they sacrifice children, for instance. Yeah. There's a law where, hey, if you um want to, you know, be an elected official, you have to sacrifice one of your sons. Yeah. And so not only do you teach them spiritual things, but you also would aim to change the laws of that land so that you don't have to sacrifice your child to be a civil leader. Right, right. So discipling a nation involves the spiritual church level stuff, but also um works its way into the laws, customs, traditions, leadership of those nations to where what does a thoroughly discipled nation looks look like? It's self-consciously Christian from um uh the leadership all the way down, you know, from the grassroots up and leadership down. Um and so what what um people are afraid of though, what you brought up, yeah, is that okay, then don't you have like um power corrupting those Christians and them using um their power to kind of like kill off their enemies, right? So how what how do you how do you stop that? Or does that mean that you should just not even seek a Christian nation at all?
SPEAKER_01:Right. Yeah, and I I think that's the problem, right? I think people are looking at if if I if we have a Christian nation, then that Christian nation then's gonna outlaw other religions and then m kill them for blasphemy. And I think that that that fear might even be wise to say, like, hey, we need to prevent that from happening. But yeah, yeah, at the same time, you're gonna get your laws from somewhere.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. And if you're not gonna have a Christian nation, you're gonna have some sort of nation. Yeah, you're gonna have a pagan witchcraft nation or Muslim nation. There's no such thing, a lot of people like to say, you know, a neutral, there's no such thing as neutral. Your morality comes from somewhere. Uh every nation has a God. And and if you go, well, no, we don't. If we're we're atheists, we're secular, what well then the state becomes the god, and whoever's in charge makes the rules, and you know, um you can't, you don't have any, they're not accountable to anyone in a you know, in a human level. They're just accountable to themselves, and that's like a total setup for tyranny, you know. Whereas with a Christian nation, you you have a standard of God's word that leaders are held accountable to, to where if they start acting like tyrants, you can go, no, you're not operating as Christ would have you operate. Um that's very relevant to the um American Revolution. It's relevant to um, you know, the abolition of slavery in America. It it it was because of a Christian culture that they were able to say, hey, don't we believe that the Bible says all people are created equal in God's image, Genesis 1, that we all come from Adam, Acts 17? Well, if that's true, then people shouldn't be subject to lifelong hereditary race-based slavery. Right. That was Lincoln's argument. Um uh MLK, when he you know protested uh racial inequality, he rooted it in uh, you know, Isaiah's vision, um he rooted it in Genesis 1, he rooted it in scripture. With without a Christian culture, those arguments disappear. Right. But with a Christian, self-consciously Christian culture, you actually have a standard to appeal to to say, hey, we shouldn't treat people differently because of the color of their skin, because the Bible says this.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Without the Bible says this in a culture or a nation, then it's just your opinion versus mine. It's subjective. So okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I think that gets the problem of like, or maybe was this addressed in the early days of the United States? And Thomas Jefferson writes the letter to a church, right? He writes his letter about separate there's a wall of separation between the church and the states. And what that meant was the church with this, the government was not going to interfere with the church. It wasn't a the government will never have the the church involved in it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. So he's writing to Danbury Baptist Church, right? And reassuring them government's not going to interfere with your worship. Remember where America came from, American Revolution, you had the Church of England requiring you to um be Anglican, essentially, right? Yeah. You had to like, you had you had to do, you had to do the sign of the cross, you had to um, you know, be baptized in this particular denomination. Right. Um, so forcing a particular um uh form of Christianity on people where Baptists would say, that goes against my conscience. I don't want to baptize my babies. Right. I I want to baptize, you know, believers' baptism. I don't want to, you know, have this view of communion. And if you don't have that view, then you know you're in big trouble with the state. Right. And so the formation of America, the freedom of religion was not meant to be interpreted as freedom to be Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, et cetera. Freedom to worship the God of the Bible, the Christian God, according to your conscience and your interpretation of scripture and your denomination. So Presbyterians, Baptists, you know, you had a bunch of different denominations at this point, even some Catholics. Um, but so uh they were getting away from that. Thomas Jefferson is encouraging Danbury Baptist Church, hey, don't worry. Your constitutional right to freedom of religion is going to remain protected. No one's gonna force you to be Anglican.
SPEAKER_01:So what at what point did we move from, like, hey, we want this to be a you know, a nation full of Christians or a Christian nation, as like several presidents say it's a Christian nation. Uh what shifted? What made it like kind of leave the um hey, we're we love Jesus, you know, Abraham Lincoln, you know, he's calling for like a national day of humiliation prayer and like April 30th of 1863 or something. Yes. Like it's wild to watch that. Like he's saying we need to repent. I mean, as a nation, repent.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So naming God Almighty and that the you know, the Senate's behind this, Congress is behind this, saying we all need to do this because they viewed civil war as God's judgment on them for their national sin and saying we need to get right with God and seek his favor and blessing again. Wild. Yeah. Calling for the entire country, and and no one said that that was unconstitutional. Yeah, no one even blinked an eye. Like, all right, cool. 75 years or so after the First Amendment, uh Bill of Rights.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Okay, so so then you you move forward, let's move forward a little bit further. At some point, things start to drift off the cliff where um the world is influencing government more than the church is influencing government. Where do you feel like that shift happened?
SPEAKER_00:Well, and so um like 10 years before um that proclamation of prayer from Lincoln, there was this report that came out by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee where they were already warning about um they're they're responding to public, you know, the public calling for m stricter separation between church and state. Essentially, what what it says in the report is that um the government and Christianity would be entirely divorced. And so people were calling for that in the 1850s. Yes. And so you have a legislative body in the 1850s saying that would be um self-destructive if we did that. Christianity has always been a part of this country. Um, freedom of religion was not about removing Christianity um from the public life or our identity as a nation, it was about having unity between the different denominations. If and so what they say in this report, um actually, I'll just I'll read part of it. I have it pulled up. Yeah. Um it must be considered um Christianity must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure of this country rests. Laws will not have permanence or power without the sanction of religious sentiment, without a firm belief that there is a power above us that will reward our virtues and punish our vices. In this age, there can be no substitute for Christianity. That in its general principles is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions. This was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants. That's wild. Okay, so very strongly, you cannot separate this thing. That's not what the First Amendment means.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And then um so what happened, okay. Let's just I w I was just thinking, probably one of the things that also people push back on like Christianity involving in laws is prohibition. I don't know if you remember this. Yeah, not that you were there. Uh but prohibition came from the temperance movement of women. Women who were sick and tired of their husbands just being drunk all day, right, uh, or hanging out in the saloons, and so they go and start protesting all over the globe, or all over the globe, all over the country, and they're tired of their husbands being drunk, they're tired of you know alcoholism being all-time high, and they're just they're they're pressing politics, change this, because you know, shut down saloons, shut down the alehouses, shut it down. It's a complete mess. Um, our children aren't being raised. We need men back in culture. Isn't it wild? Yeah, the women were saying, we need men, and that's where it kind of came from. They're all their men were drunk. And now, to be fair, you know, there wasn't women's suffrage, but that fact that women's suffrage came from a lot of abuse and them saying, like, hey, how come like this pathetic guy that I'm married to who's an alcoholic, I need to go and provide. I need I need wages that are equal. I need to be able to vote. And anyway, so that's that's really what kind of came about is women grew really strong because of a temperance movement, and then eventually banned alcohol in the United States, which was a complete mess uh in so many ways. But it's wild to see how um I think what people are afraid of is like, look at that. That's what religion did. Well, it it leaves out the background of the complete disaster that men were uh in the late 1800s, uh, even into the early 1900s when it came to alcohol. Anyway, I don't know where that I think that's a pushback of like prohibition is too much. You're now getting into my personal life where religion has no business in a sense.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, so like I think a good way to think about it is you know, people have seen maybe some of the disastrous results of um using of the Christianity um fused with state power, right? And have said we don't want Christianity fused with state power. Um and instead, let's go the neutral route. Right. It's not really a real route, though. There's no no there is no neutral. So, you know, it you you either end up something fills that spot. Something has to decide objective truth, morality, what's right and wrong, what laws are gonna be. So it it it'll either be secular humanism that will lead to um declining birth rates, abortion, suicide, self-destruction, or it'll lead to um uh Islam or Hinduism, like something will fill that spot. So instead of seeing, this is my take on it, instead of seeing the you know bad things that have happened in you know certain times with um Christian nations or Christian laws and stuff like that, and abandoning that, saying, what is a better way to do Christian laws, Christian culture, Christian nation? What is a way that is going to be pleasing to God that's going to be good for all people, whether you're Christian or not? Um because if laws are based on morality, well, who has the best morality? Christianity. The Bible. It is. It is weird. I think Tim Keller.
SPEAKER_01:If you can abandon it completely, you hit to reform it. Right. So Tim Keller pushed back on this idea of Christians like involving himself in politics primarily because he saw how much damage in the European world Christianity ruling, whatever, did. And I'm like, but that is such. So let's say you become the president. Would you then say he said actually he said the the Christianity grows best and does best in an oppressed world? And that well, what happens when you become the majority and you're no longer oppressed? Then what do you do? Just hand over authority to a godless person to say it's an unsustainable vision.
SPEAKER_00:It makes sense for a time. Right. It is true that Christianity can thrive in oppressed situations. Obviously, we see that in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01:And we see it currently like in Iran or China or wherever. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But if you go, okay, well, what happens when we're successful at making disciples and we start to become the majority culture? Um, then do you, yeah, like you said, do you hand over all authority? You step down. So you have to think about Paul really remember when he tried to lead um King Agrippa to faith. And Agrippa was like, Are you trying to get me saved? Yeah. And Paul was like, I would love to get you and everybody here saved. Right. Um, and uh you you go, okay, what would have been Paul's plan after that? And what what was he after? And what would he have based it on? Well, he would have based it on an understanding of um Matthew 28, disciples. Yes, and also everything the Old Testament taught about kings and government and wisdom and how nations ought to be. Read the Psalms. Psalms is clear. All nations praise the Lord, right? All kings serve the Lord with fear. Old Testament is very clear what the duty, this is how the founding presidents of America spoke, the duty of nations and their rulers was to serve God with fear.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and there's you know, there's three institutions that report to God the family, the church, and the government. Yeah. And the government is God's servant to bring justice to a nation. And so again, what are the laws that you're bringing justice to is up to the government and its responsibility to God. And this is where it gets into it's not a theocracy where you have like one person representing Jesus, like, you know, as the Holy Roman Emperor or whatever. But that the government should have the guiding principles of God's word to say, like, this is law for the specific reason to ensure the justice and equality amongst people.
SPEAKER_00:So you have the institution in order for it to like what's the goal? What should we aim for? You need a the institution of the government to be submitted to God and the church to be submitted to God. Um, if you have the government submitted to God, but not the church, not the people. Right. Uh John Adams said this our constitution was formed only for a moral and religious people. It, you know, it is um uh what was this quote? Uh I want to get it right. Um hang on. Scrolling down, I just saw this. Okay. Our constitution was made only for a moral religious people, it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Right. Meaning you can have a great constitution, a great system of government, but if the people um are not religious, not moral, don't love God, don't fear God, don't, then that government's all you're gonna do is manage chaos and you know it's not gonna be effective as a nation. At the same time, if you have a church who's making disciples, preaching the gospel, but a government that hates God and wants to kill Christians, well, everyone you lead to Christ now, you know, gets martyred. Right. And so, um, which, hey, praise the Lord that when they're martyred, they go to heaven and you have the hope of eternal life. But ideally, you want both. You want a government submitted to God and a church submitted to God. And I think that's what Paul would have been after in Rome, why he wanted so badly to go to Rome and um, you know, to be able to establish the Roman church and also to speak to Caesar and try to lead Caesar to Christ.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Okay, so I I love the where we're going with that. I think there's we could probably express that for an hour or some hours. But let's just talk about one thing we've noticed since Charlie Kirk's assassination, just the aftermath. It's been a couple weeks now. Like, have you I think we've noticed spiritual talk is people are are excited about God. Yeah, uh we're having more conversations about Jesus. Uh, we're seeing people wanting to respond to the gospel. Isn't that kind of a wild reality? Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. I guess unless you know a seed dies, it it cannot, you know, produce fruit. And so what we're seeing is like this seed, obviously I think that was in terms of Jesus, but here another one in terms of uh Charlie Kirk dies, and then the gospel goes forward because his videos have probably exploded since I mean because I knew several people who had no idea who he was, and but since that they've watched hours of footage of him. So like the the gospel message is is clearly going forward. We saw the gospel proclaim over and over and over again at his funeral and then beyond. So where do we see um Christianity in American Christianity going from here? What do you what do you think?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think um that aspect of being, you know, boldly bringing Christianity to the public square has inspired a lot of people to say, I want to, you know, be more bold about my faith. I think the way that he reasoned from natural law and scripture um has attracted a lot of people to go, huh? You know what? What he's saying makes sense about laws and what you know, his arguments and like I follow that. Where is he getting that from? Oh, the Bible. Right. Um and he went to church and look, he had a you know, an amazing wife and these two beautiful children. Right. I want to be like that. I want to have a godly family. So I think there's so much that kind of attracted to where now, you know, church churches are receiving a lot of new people. Um it's kind of like reports I've heard from all over, is that there's this increased interest. And so this is really good because everything we're talking about, you know, praying for reform for national leaders, and uh that's that's very important. But also you need we need our churches to be committed to the gospel, our churches to be bold, our churches to be raising up.
SPEAKER_01:Um and here's what I'm sort of seeing I'm seeing like those that sort of went, I don't know how to put this, those that sort of went uh left during COVID or you know, and the all the the George Floyd stuff and the BLM stuff, or they went silent. Um have have I think people are gonna leave those churches and come to the the Christians that like I I want to see the gospel proclaimed. I'm feeling this urge and I want to be led in that direction. What I'm what I'm seeing is that I think people are gonna leave churches that aren't boldly proclaiming the gospel, uh aren't calling repentance of sin, um and they're gonna start going to churches that do that. Which I mean, I don't think we've our message has really changed um here, uh maybe clarity-wise, I think for me I've grown a lot in. But um, I don't know. I I think you're gonna see that across the spectrum of churches that people are gonna be longing to be led to a place of boldness and conviction and a a public square posture that is no longer afraid.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think when God stirs someone's heart, they look they become hungry for his word and they want to boldly proclaim it. And so when that's you know what you're feeling God doing and you know inside of you, it's it's um, yeah, you want to be in a community where that's valued and encouraged. And um, yeah, I think that people who, you know, are had never been to like I've had a few people reach out who's like, man, I've never been to church or I haven't been to church since I was a kid, but I'm gonna start going now. And I just feel like, you know, God is is using these recent events to like pull me back to church and faith. And the kind of church they're gonna look for, though, is one that's gonna not pull punches, speak the truth, to do it with gentleness and respect, to do it with love, but to be direct when directness is needed and to be clear when clarity is needed.
SPEAKER_01:What do you think for for people who are at churches that are not getting a clear, bold communication of the gospel, is that reason enough to leave?
SPEAKER_00:Man, that's a tough question because if what I don't want to encourage is people just kind of willy-nilly. I don't, my church didn't do this or didn't say this, and even though I've been committed here for years, I'm out because I they didn't do what I wanted them to do. Right. That's not the kind of spirit and character I want to develop in people in my church. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Um I want to be submissive to the process.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, submissive, patient, committed, um, long-suffering, right? You know, if I don't do or say everything you want me to do, and you're just gonna leave the at the drop, you know, drop of a hat. That's not really how you build a community. And so I think we should be careful and people should exercise patience and be prayerful, to be humble. Maybe talk to your pastor, say, hey, where do you land on this? How here's how I'm feeling. You know, don't just like up and leave because you didn't get your way.
SPEAKER_01:This happened a lot in COVID. Um, I think we took a slightly more conservative stance. For example, we had church without masks, like that was crazy back then. And people just they didn't, it's not they didn't talk, they didn't talk to me. They just they're out, they're done. I can't believe you're trying to kill people and that they post all stuff over the internet, you just want to you know murder grandma. And and then they're out. And I think there's a way to kind of go about saying, like, hey, I feel like a real pressing of conviction on my heart that our that the church should go a certain direction and being submissive to the process. A long time ago, um uh I met with Max Luceto of all people. Like, we had coffee, like I had coffee with Max Luceto one time in my life. Nice. And uh, and I I asked him, like, how did you get your church to leave the church of Christ? Like, he's like, Oh, that took forever. Because it wasn't, he had a heart desire, like he wasn't against music, you know. Like Church of Christ, you know, if you instruments, you mean yeah, yeah, not against like instruments in worship, and uh just more of a legalistic, like you could lose your salvation kind of thing. And he was kind of moving more towards a uh more broader evangelical church style. But to do that, he said it just took a lot of time and a lot of patience and a lot of conversations to get the leadership on board because there at the Church of Christ, once you're an elder, you're always an elder and everyone votes, and so you could have like 150 elders. And as the church grew, which through his preaching it did, and he, you know, there was just this thing where it it's it he had to wait patiently for it to change. That really inspired me. Not that I wanted to be like a church of Christ or leave the church of Christ, anything. I don't I had zero affiliation with that. Just the principle. Principle, yeah. Like I really feel like that to get a church to change, it takes a little bit of time and a little bit of a lot of conversation and a little bit of like without pressure, like to let me let's let's talk about this. Let's let's go back and forth. Because when you put it on somebody, they better make a decision now and they haven't processed it, it puts them in a real hard position.
SPEAKER_00:And there's no perfect churches. Whatever new church you go to is gonna eventually disappoint you in some way as well.
SPEAKER_01:Everybody will disappoint you.
SPEAKER_00:But I will say, if you know, you've kind of been like, whoa, man, my eyes are open to um some things, you know, now that I hadn't seen before. And I've realized the church that I'm at doesn't really preach the gospel, doesn't call people that that's that's different. And but I would still say like practice patience, exercise wisdom, seek wise counsel. Um don't just make a hasty decision about that.
SPEAKER_01:You know, plans fail for lack of counsel, but many advisors they succeed. And probably one of the things that you learn when you leave a church that you're leaving a lot of people that really love you. So there are there have been people that have come to our church because their church went gay, full on gay affirming. Yeah, they were at a church for 40 years, buried their parents there, and then the church went gay affirming and like full on, and they're like, We cannot, as people who love Jesus, go and uh affirm and be a part of a church that is engaging in uh declaring sin to be righteous, right? That I think that's a great understandable, yeah. Very understandable. That is a great reason to leave. Um, but if you just like they should have handled it this way when they should have handled it that way, I I really just I I just challenge you, just before you slow down. Yeah, before you just you you push the grass, say we're out. Don't run from something, run to something. And like, where is God calling you? You know, so there's God's word, God's spirit, God's people, and all three of those in general are going to come together for help you make a really good decision uh for where you should be at church-wise. And the people that are at your church probably want to love you through and probably have the ability to change. Because the last thing we need is shutting down churches left and right because all the solid Christians leave them. Yeah, yeah. Like we need solid Christians in churches to to evangelize those who might be going down a dark path and say, like, there is something better here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. All I have to say, that's a tough decision.
SPEAKER_01:It is it's a hard, it's so hard. It's it's such a it's a weighty thing.
SPEAKER_00:I understand both sides.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and like if you have a question on that, we'd love to hear from you. 737-231-0605. We'd love to hear from you, talk you through um how to process uh where your church is, and maybe give us a specific question, and we can give you a more specific answer. All right, I think that's all the time we have for today. Okay. Hey, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time. And uh, from our house to yours, have an awesome week. Oh fortune.