“Your Future is Whether or Not You Know Christ” — Live with Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle at Freedom Night

Hey everybody, happy Sunday. My conversation with Cliff and Stuart Connectly.
They're amazing ministers for the gospel. We have it at Freedom Night in America at Dream City Church.
It was our largest ever attended Freedom Night in America. You're going to love it, and it was a phenomenal conversation.
So send me your questions you have, freedom at charliekirk.com. That is freedom at charliekirk.com.
And subscribe to our podcast. Open up your podcast application and type in Charlie Kirk Show.
Get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa.com. Buckle up, everybody.
Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country.
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.
That's why we are here. Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com. That is noblegoInvestments.com.
It's where I buy all of my gold. Go to NobleGoldInvestments.com.
Thank you, guys. Thank you.
Please take a seat. I have to say, Luke, it feels good to have a president again, doesn't it? I got to tell you.
It's like a weight has been lifted

off our shoulders. I want to just say this night that we have here at Freedom Night in America

is so important. And we've been doing it.
It will be four years, four years in May. And this has

become, and thank you to Dream City for continuing to host it and continuing to make this so powerful. I think it is one of the most, if not the most powerful monthly gathering of Christians in the state, if not in the country, because this is broadcast all over the place.
I want to say thank you to all of you that tuned out the noise of the media this last year and a half,

that went to work, that registered voters, that chased ballots, that got your friends to go vote.

You know, we have not gathered since what happened in November and, of course, a couple weeks ago.

And I want all of you to just kind of take a moment and rejoice and say, you know what?

You played a role in taking back this country and saving this country for your kids and your grandkids. In fact, Arizona, best performing swing state of all the seven swing states.
Biggest improvement of any state, 2020 versus 2024, five and a half point victory and you look across the board guys it's also it was president donald trump's best performance ever in the state of arizona 2016 2020 2024 and for those of you that maybe got some criticism in your local church had some people say oh why are you getting involved in this now you can say well let me kind of go through the list in just the last couple of weeks we have a president that is doing so much that the left can't even remember all the reasons they're mad they can't keep up with him he's going at Trump speed. Let's just go through the list.

Pardoned the pro-life warriors that prayed outside of abortion clinics.

Rescinded the Mexico City policy. Signed executive orders saying no more funding of DEI or CRT

in our schools. Declared that there is only male and female.
There are no more genders besides that. National emergency on the southern border saying we're no longer going to allow the drugs and the crime and the guns to come into our communities here in Arizona.
Mobilizing the military to help with that assistance, also dropping all the federal charges around the whistleblowers that blew the whistle on all the chemical castration. And one of my favorites, President Donald Trump said in his executive order, we are no longer going to allow the butchery of our children under gender-affirming care.
We're going to put that in the rearview mirror. A prohibition on this trans nonsense that has been sweeping our schools and going after our kids.
And that is just in the last two and a half weeks. Today, President Donald Trump signed an executive order saying that men will not be allowed to compete in female sports.
And if you do that, you lose all of your funding. Now, I know most people are surprised by this because what I have just listed off is just everything he said he was going to do.
We're not used to that. We're used to saying one thing and then doing the other.
Promises made, promises kept. But especially, let this be a teaching moment to anyone that might be a Christian in your life that either did not vote or they were skeptical about President Trump.
You can go back and say, which is it God's purpose or plan for America? Is it that kids get butchered in clinics or that it's outlawed? That the pro-life community is stood alongside where we have J.D. Vance speak at the March for Life or that we have the most pro-abortion administration in history.
All of you can now rest easy and say, you know what? All that work paid off, that our country is improving. We have a lot of work left to go, everybody.
There's a lot of work remaining. But in these last two weeks, we see this rapid speed of which we are operating.
And not to mention you got Elon Musk doing Elon Musk stuff, just shutting down departments and deleting stuff. You got to kind of love it because though you guys did not work as hard as you worked, and we did not deliver this mandate just so that we could have more of the same.
We wanted a restoration of the power going back to the American people. Now, let me close with two thoughts, and then I wanna introduce our amazing guests here tonight.
The first thought is this, is that although we had this amazing victory presidentially, let's be honest, here in Arizona, we especially have a lot of work to do. A little sad sub-note on this celebratory theme is that this state is now one of the most pro-abortion states in the country that passed Proposition 139.
And it's not because of all of you, but the church here in Arizona was largely silent on trying to defeat Proposition 139. We could not get most pastors or most churches to care about speaking out against it.
I see so many people here in the audience tonight. Pastor Luke in Dream City were amazing.
Pastor Mark from Trinity was amazing. And so many other people spoke out against 139.
But if we are honest about bringing people to ultimate purposes, not just them voting correctly, but bringing them to Jesus, which is the most important thing, then we must look honestly and say, why is it that not every church in Arizona spoke out against 139? So let this be, yes, a celebration, but also motivation that we're going to continue to do this work. And the work will start with the most important demographic that moved to the right so significantly.
You know baby boomers moved two points to the left while younger voters moved 15 points to the right? It's hard to believe, but it's true. There is a harvest waiting to happen.
And the church needs to step up and stand up and realize that Gen Z is the most conservative generation in history. But they're not yet the most Christian generation in history.
But they can be, because conservatism can lead you towards Christianity. And the church is just waiting, hopefully, to do something to bring these young people that are curious about ultimate topics and ultimate purposes.
They're asking the right questions. By what moral code do you live by? What is right? What is wrong? What is a man? What is a woman? What is holy? What is profane? By what standard do you operate? What are the Ten Commandments? Is it right to murder? Is it okay to steal? Because what they have been fed is a non-stop diet of materialistic moral relativism.
That do whatever you want whenever you want to do it and just get as much stuff as you can. And what is the result? The most depressed, suicidal, anxious, alcohol addicted, and drug addicted generation history.
When I show up to campuses, we're drawing 5,000, 6,000 students that are interested in these things, but they're not hearing from the local church near enough on this. However, our guests tonight are two incredible people that are reaching Gen Z.
I can tell you right now, I know what it takes to reach the next generation. They are some of the most well-known, followed, and let's just say respected leaders in the Christian space that have been doing this for 40 years.
And what an amazing example, by the way, of just doing the right thing, not seeking internet stardom, not doing it just to be famous. And then one night, all of a sudden, you just kind of go super viral and it kind of cascades.
They do a similar version of what I do. How many of you have seen me go to these campuses and debate these kids, right? Okay.
Now I do it on all topics, politics and religion, but they, they go there first and foremost, primarily for Jesus. And they'll just hold court and they'll do it for three, four days in a row.
That's why they're here in town at Arizona State University. And they'll film it.
And these videos will go bonkers on TikTok. And they'll go viral on Instagram.
And then I have the question is, why is not every pastor in America doing this on their local college campus in the open air the way Jesus used to? Holding court, taking questions, trying to say, what do you believe? Why do you believe it? Let's go after the truth of the matter. And so this father-son duo, I've got a chance to know over the last couple of months, I've seen their impact.
I see how they moved the dial and they're very well known, but they've never wanted to be well known, which I think is a perfect example of two people that are servants for God's purposes,

that have acted obediently,

that want to see this country come back to Jesus.

Not just vote the right way,

which obviously we care about,

but that is only a means to an ultimate end.

So join me in welcoming Cliff and Stuart Connectely, everybody.

That's an impressive move, isn't it?

One more time, everybody.

How great are these guys? So we are going to do a short dialogue here and then extended question and answer because I think they're known for it. I've answered a couple questions in my life.
so we're going to have some fun. And so Cliff and Stuart, as I mentioned, you guys go to these campuses, you engage in these dialogues.
Why don't you quickly tell your story to someone who is not aware, doesn't follow you. Who are you? What do you believe? Please, the floor is yours.
Stuart and I had the privilege of talking with Charlie on his podcast this afternoon. And Charlie embarrassed me royally.
He asked me a bit about my past and how I on earth got into doing this. Well, when I was in seminary at Gordon-Conwell in Massachusetts, I got really bored.
Because everybody was a Christian at Gordon-Conwell. And God has called me to reach non-Christians.
So I would leave seminary on Friday night and go down to inner city Boston and I would go into bars to share my faith and there would be the Boston Celtics or the Bruins playing on the TV screen in a corner and every time the Bruins or Celtics lost some half-drunk guy would stand up and curse God at the top of his lungs. So I figured equal time.
If you're going to stand up and curse God at the top of your lungs, I'm going to stand up and say something positive about God at the top of mine. And so I picked out the bar I was going to preach in in inner city Boston, parked my car and started walking towards the door.
And with each step, I got more and more intimidated. And I finally got to the bar door and I walked right past that bar door.
My knees were knocking. I was so scared and intimidated.
And I walked around that block for about half an hour. And finally I said, Cliff, you're defeated.
You're scared. So I went back to the car and I was just about to open the door when the Holy Spirit brought to my mind the words of the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews chapter 11

verses 32 to 38

where he writes, and what more shall I say?

I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Samson,

Barak, Samson, Jephthah,

David and the prophets

who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered

justice and gained what was promised

who shut the mouths of lions

quenched the fury of the flames and

escaped the edge of the sword whose

weakness was turned into strength

Thank you. And I'm saying, okay, bud.
That's what they did. and you don't have the guts to walk into a bar in Boston and tell a bunch of men on vacation

we're looking for hookers that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. So convicted of my lack of faith, I turned around, walked into the bar, stood up, and started.
Excuse me, guys. John writes in 1 John 4.10, This is love, not that we love God, but that God loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Bartender comes running down to bar. I said, excuse me, sir.
I'm just trying to tell these guys what means most in life, knowing God as a personal friend. He said, you want to know what God is? God's at the cash register.
And I said, man, thank you for putting it so bluntly. And I'm convinced that God is not the cash register.
And I said, man, thank you for putting it so bluntly. And I'm convinced that

God is not the cash register. I'm convinced that's a hollow idol.
And God loves us because

God's a personal God and money's not personal. God is personal.
Money doesn't love you. God loves

you. And money can't give you life after death.
It takes a supernatural God to do that. Well,

he'd heard enough. So he came around the bar, grabbed my elbow and escorted me out.
I never knew that God was going to open the door to do open air dialogues on university campuses. But that was one of the ways that God used me, Charlie, in my past to prepare me for standing up on university campuses and doing what we do.
And you've been doing this for how long? That's a very personal question, brother. Before you were born, Charlie, I've been doing it for 44 years.
Well before I was born. And I want to ask, you were doing this well before you were able to easily film them, before there was an internet to spread them right at what point did you realize the wrinkle that these videos can go viral and reach millions of people outside of the dialogues on these campuses i never realized that i still don't even know how to turn this stuff on to watch it it's this guy right here who god used to put it all on these social media platforms.
And I still don't know how to use my cell phone very well. And he helps me.
I still believe that the gifts are active, whether that's tongue speaking or prophecy. I do not claim to have the gift of prophecy though myself, but the one potential time I had it was 10 years ago, I said to my dad, dad, eventually this is going to get way past those who just show up way past.
I don't know how. And so guys on his board even tried BET, black entertainment to get, give me an answer on black entertainment that did not work so well.
And many other avenues they tried, but I knew that there was something about TikTok and other social media platforms that had the potential to reach many, many more college students. And that there's that tremendous hunger, that God-shaped hole that needs for every single person to be filled if they don't want to be depressed, if they don't want to be alcoholics, if they don't want to buy into a type of self-narcissism where they walk away from their marriages.
And sure enough, they've really grabbed onto that and they want to be honest truth seekers and they chase after somebody called Jesus Christ oftentimes. So walk us through to someone who's not aware, how does this work? You show up, you'll take questions.
It's kind of, it's a open air circle. What is the, how does this look in practice? Well, it's really embarrassing to start.
That's why usually I have my dad, or he's narcissistic, you know, not narcissistic, masochistic, thank you. And he'll start and he'll say, Stuart, here we go.
Because of social media, it doesn't happen the same way anymore. But before social media, we would go out and there would be three people standing there watching us.
And so Cliff would stand up and he would say, I've been invited by this small organization to speak. And he'll start speaking to me and three other people.
And we just look at them and feel embarrassed ourselves. But surely enough, people would start to gather and the debate would begin

but now we show up thanks to social media and there's already a few hundred people there in Arizona there were already like 500 students waiting when we showed up so that is a total godsend from because of social media and your pastor introduced me to his wife. She's called Angel, I think.

Well, I'm married to an angel also.

Let me tell you why.

Rutgers University, they invite me to speak there and nobody showed up.

Nobody.

So I said, okay, love, it's you and me.

So she stood about the edge of this platform here and I started preaching, speaking you know how dumb i felt speaking to one person and she stood there and nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders and and all of a sudden the doors of the cafeteria opened and all these rutgers university students came out of cafeteria after having eaten lunch and they all began to pile up and they all begin to fire questions so i got an angel also brother and uh she uh she's been amazing we were at uc santa barbara and she would mingle in the crowd and talk with the students about jesus and uc santa barbara she's walking up to one woman who's sitting at the bottom of a tree and the woman looks, my angel, my Sharon, and says, if you're coming to talk to me about Jesus, I don't want to get lost. And she sort of swallows her tongue and turns around and walks away.
So it's not like everybody puts out the red carpet for us, needless to say. But we're called to be faithful.
And no, we're not successful as America defines success. As our culture defines success, we're not successful.
But as Jesus defines success, which is faithfulness, he who's faithful in little will be faithful in much. And he who's unfaithful in little will be unfaithful in much.
And so that's what we try to do. We try to be faithful.
So when you visit these campuses, you encounter different counterfeit religions. And there's the religion of earth worshiping, you know, the religion of the cult of diversity manifests in certain ways.
The one that you've really pinpointed is narcissism is of self. As it says in the book of Judges, man will do whatever is right in his own eyes.
Is that the predominant worldview that is now monopolizing the minds of college students and young people in America?

Absolutely, yes.

But because we're here in the great state of Arizona, and because I just got to talk about my angel,

we were at the University of Arizona.

University of Arizona in Tucson. the wrong university here of Arizona, right? The wrong one.
All right. Not a fan of Tucson.
The crowd was kind of small, but a very thoughtful, more liberal Muslim student said, stepped out of the crowd and said, Cliff, I'm really struggling with Islam and Jesus Christ. What do you think? And I started answering his question when suddenly a more devout Muslim student behind me said, that's wrong.
Jesus is not God. So don't believe that.
And I tried to explain to him why I thought Muhammadhammad was wrong well my wife was there my angel and suddenly she steps out of the crowd and says well i know this guy who's speaking pretty well and i know he doesn't want to offend you guys but let me tell you why i don't believe in muhammad and she began to outline some of muhammad's sexual practices well I mean there was one father of a Muslim student in the crowd

who went ballistic. And his son had to drag him off.
He was so angry. And it ended well, but it was intense.
And Sharon, my wife, began to understand, Cliff, the reason you don't go after Muhammad directly is because you want to try and show philosophically why Muhammad made a huge mistake in denying the deity of Christ. Because Muhammad was born in 570 AD, lived to about 632 AD, which means he obviously never met Jesus.
And he says Jesus is not God. But the eyewitnesses who saw Jesus, who heard him, they insisted Jesus claimed to be God.
Now who are you going to trust when you want to find out about an historical person, a guy who lived over 500 years after him, never met him or the eyewitnesses. That's a no brainer guys.
You're going to trust the eyewitnesses. Sure.
So individualism is growing The individualistic nature of man and woman, it's all about self-improvement. So get a life coach and improve yourself.
Some of that's great, some of it's not so good. And so the culture of narcissism, that was actually a book that came out a few decades ago, is more relevant now than ever.
There's something called client-centered therapy, which is if you're having a tough marriage, turn to pornography. If you're having a tough marriage where, you know, your wife is really, really getting in the way too much, just divorce her.
And so these people come to me sobbing because a spouse left, because their therapist said to leave, because it's all about you. It's client-centered.
So it's just about the client. So they come to church and they're wondering what in the world happened.
Well, Jesus Christ says the opposite. Jesus Christ says, it's not about self.
It's about the other. And we see when that occurs, well, now you're going to have an incredible connection with your spouse, with your friendships.
Those relationships will remain resilient. They will remain sticky.
You're not just going to depart and just leave whenever you want because it's all about the focus on the self that's the challenge when you have a Caitlyn Jenner say in order to get through the pearly gates you have to find yourself Caitlyn I don't really know what you mean by that find myself you have to yes you have to find your authentic self okay well my authentic self is to skimp on my taxes. My authentic self is to throw way more elbows and haymakers on the

basketball court when you tick me off. My authentic self is to live selfishly.
That's my authentic

self, Caitlin. Jesus Christ says, no, that's your fleshly side.
Walk in the spirit, which is love

other people, even love your enemy. And that's how you try to truly find your true self.
I would add that Jenner's authentic self is named Bruce, but that's a separate issue. So I do want to get to some Q&A.

Let's talk about all the ways that this manifests, though, because the ultimate form of self-expression or narcissism, and this will sound provocative, but I think you'd appreciate this with your psychological background, is self-indulgence, then self-harm, and then suicide. would you agree that eventually if you only think about yourself

and not about serving others

then you could extrapolate how you get to be the most medicated, the most alcohol addicted, the most depressed, the most self-centered, and then, yes, the most suicidal generation in the history of the species? Absolutely. The book Meditation of Hope by Andrew Delbanco, that incredible sociologist at NYU, just chart the history of our country.
First, we were living for God. Then it switched more so to patriotism and living for a nation.
That was the focus. And now it's focused on self.
And so that self-indulgence, you look at any country and the countries that have more material wealth and comfort, those are the countries that have higher percentage of suicides and depression. So when that self-indulgence begins, now all of a sudden you have that focus on me, myself, and I.
And we know Jesus was exactly right. If you don't focus on something outside of yourself, especially the God who created you, things are going to fall apart.
In modernity, it goes even a step further, though, that if you are to ever claim that there is an objective right or wrong or an objective path for a person, then you are a hater and that you shall stop. That is the birth of moral relativism.
Would you agree that that is one of the top objections that you see on the college campus? Absolutely. Yes.
But then you think of the irony. The professor stands up in the morning and says, we're all beasts.
There's no God. It's all evolution.
He says that to his students in the morning and morality is relative. But then the professor goes home at night, turns on the news, and oh, blast of all.
Stinking Hamas and Hezbollah and Israel. Wow.
What a bunch of evil people. Excuse me? We're all just beasts, professor.
That's what you said in the morning. But you see, you can't live that out.
You go home, you watch what Hamas and Hezbollah do to some Jews, and all of a sudden you're realizing it's not all relative because my blood is boiling because my conscience has kicked into gear, my rational mind has kicked into gear, and what they're doing, murdering each other, slaughtering each other, attacking each other is really evil. Oh no, I've got a violent contradiction in my life.
I taught a bunch of university students this morning that it's all relative. They're all just animals evolved to a higher order, but I cannot live that out because my conscience kicks into gear when I'm confronted by grotesque evil.
I don't care if it's in Ukraine or in the promised land or wherever it is, my home, my backyard, evil is real. And that's why I don't look into my wife's face and say, well, from my perspective, when you were mean to me, it didn't really matter because it's all relative.
I can't live that way. If my wife is mean to me, if I am mean to my wife, we will use the word should and ought.
And when we use those words should and ought, we're appealing to a standard outside of ourselves and we're saying you should not have been mean like that. You should be loving and kind.
So we can talk all we want about how relative morality is. It's impossible to live it out.
So I think moral relativism, you can go back to the Declaration of Independence. When Thomas Jefferson originally penned, it was not self-evident that all men are created equal.
It was actually sacred. It was the sacred nature that all men are created equal.
And then And Benny Franklin comes in and says, no, let's make it self-evident. And so now there's the opportunity for moral relativism and subjectivism to come in and say, well, yeah, it's obviously self-evident.
We can just come from our rationale that you and I are created equal. No, where do you get that from? If there is no God, if you're not created in the image of God with indelible amounts of worth and value, then there's no reason why I can't say, I have more money than you, so I'm more valuable than you are.
And that's the challenge, which I like Thomas Jefferson more than Benny Franklin because of that. I agree.
And to go a step further, that's exactly what the prophet Isaiah would say. Man, woe to those who would call evil good or good evil.
Because at some point you need objective definitions of these things. Second point on that, and then we'll wrap and go to questions.
Moral relativism is inherently tyrannical. Because if you're teaching an entire generation that there is no right or wrong, then eventually a strong man will rise up and say that I am right and this is wrong.
It is the gateway drug towards a dictatorship, which is the plan, by the way. How do you then prevent against the dictatorship? Well, just look at the nation of Israel.
They had no king. They had no government.
They had no police force or a standing army for 400 years. Why? Because everyone knew the law in their heart and they self-policed it.
So again, that's an extreme example. However, look at the context of which our country was founded.
It was a virtuous and religious citizenry. In fact, Adams wrote that the constitution was written wholly for a moral religious people.
It's wholly inadequate for the people of any other. And the reason why we are now entering a post-constitutional moment, and we're trying to bring it back, is because our country is not moral and religious.
Therefore, the Constitution is inadequate. It doesn't fit.
It is the great problem of our time, because, well, you can't trust people that own guns because they're not moral and religious, or you have to spy on them all the time because they're not moral and religious.

And we can't have you say whatever you want to say whenever you want to say it,

because it's the First Amendment, because you're not moral and religious.

And so the framework of our government is incompatible if you have that kind of moral decline.

Let me just ask this question, and we'll open it up to the audience. What gives you the most hope that you are seeing on these visits that you're making?

Well, the most hope is the student who comes up to me last night in the dark and says, I came to faith in Christ within the past year. And he's from India.
And I've come here to ASU to study. And I just want to thank you.
And he gives me a big hug and he starts crying his eyes out. What gives me the most hope is, last fall at the University of Mississippi, a young woman steps out of the crowd and says, my professor this morning told me that God is like Santa Claus and the Bible is a good fairy tale.
And with tears coming down her cheek, she says, come on, help me. And so we talk about the evidence for the reliability of the New Testament gospels.
And she begins to realize it's not mythology. It's not a fairy tale.
It's historically accurate, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And there's evidence that God is alive and well.
God is not Santa Claus. There's no support, no evidence to support Santa Claus coming down your chimney every Christmas Eve.
And if you do have some evidence, I would love to hear it afterwards. There's a boatload of evidence that God exists, that he's real.
The psalmist puts it to poetry in Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands, day after

day they pour forth speech, night after

night they display knowledge, which is simply

a poetic way of saying

this universe is too finely

tuned for it

to be the result of chaos

and accident. There's

got to be an intelligent mind

behind it all. I'm just really excited about how serious these kids are taking their faith, how they want to break out of habitual cycles of sin, how they want to break out of something like pornography, which is rampant on college campuses, how they want to be salt and light in such a way where politics, obviously, Senator Bass said, is the only thing that politics can't heal is loneliness.
That's where faith comes into play. And so when we are salt and light, salt gets into other people's painful issues.
And that's what these students want to do with each other as they grow in faith. We have others who come up to us sobbing, many of them saying that what you shared with the gospel has actually saved our lives.
We wanted to take our lives, but because of this gospel and what Jesus did for us, we now have a foundation, a real reason to live. Okay, so we want to get to the open mic.
A couple things. I see a lot of students in the audience, way more than we usually.
So sorry, boomers. This tonight is not your night.
Secondly, though, they get so mad when I say that, but please. Secondly, we do not want to turn this, obviously, into a debate.
But if you are searching or have serious, challenging questions for you personally or someone you care about,

please try to tell our question ushers.

We wanna try to move you up in line.

I see a lot of familiar faces.

That's great.

We're gonna keep on doing these Freedom Nights throughout the year.

But if you're here questioning or wrestling with something

that our two amazing guests can help with,

let's use this platform here tonight.

I think you guys would agree

that's the best use of our time tonight.

So let's go to the young man in the blue shirt and then we'll go to the young lady here. All right.
My name is Joey. I'm a vice president at our high school for the Turning Point chapter of Raffolder Creek.
My question is, when we have teachers preaching to us something that we don't believe in politically and religion, how do we counteract that since everything is based on a GPA point and that's how our future is, with us writing something like an essay and we get a bad grade based on that? All right. I got bad news for you, sir.
When you have a professor who is against God, against Christ, I think it's great that you write a paper why you do believe that God exists, why you do believe in Jesus Christ. But I can promise you, sir, you're going to have to study harder to pull that kind of paper off.
Because right from the get-go, that professor is not going to be totally objective. Now, there are a few exceptions to that.
But the majority of professors who I talk to are not totally objective. It's called the myth of objectivity.
I'm totally open-minded. I'm totally objective.
Really? I'm not. I doubt you are.
We all have our prejudices, beginning with me. We all have our biases beginning with me.

So yes, objectivity is something I strive for. And it's good to be objective.
And I want to be objective. But come on, I've got my own biases.
So because of that, you're going to have to study harder, work harder, think harder, and write that paper better in order to get a good grade on that. But I think you should do it because that's the way you learn.
And that's the way I learned. I got blown out of the water by my teachers in high school.
I got blown out of water by my professors at Davidson in North Carolina. They were far more intelligent than I will ever be.
But you see, they forced me to think. They forced me to work through these issues and come up with better answers.
I would just add, you said something that I'm going to challenge. You said, well, our future is your GPA.
Your future is not your GPA. Your future is whether or not you know Christ and your character.
Your grades mean nothing, actually. They don't mean anything.
So I just encourage everyone in the audience, if your parents are telling you your grades matter most, your parents are not doing a good job raising you. Your character matters way more than your GPA, your character.
And so if you're going to be graded down for proclaiming Christ, blessed are you who are persecuted in the name of Jesus. So keep fighting.
Hi, my name is Kaylee. I'm from Tennessee originally.

I just was wondering, I've been going through some personal issues lately,

and I was thinking, I was having a battle with myself the other night.

How am I able to tell if what I'm going through is God, you know,

strengthening me and teaching me a lesson?

How can I tell if it's that or if it's just the devil trying to reach me?

You have a strong devotional life. You're tethered to the word.
You have a very strong group of Christian friends. And then you understand what is God's real purpose for your life.
And that's directly out of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, to be sanctified, which is character, to grow in the fruits of the spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And as you do that, then God reveals his purpose through that.
So don't go directly to, oh gosh, what is God doing here? Or is this the devil? No, grow in wisdom. And the more you grow in wisdom through those four steps that I was giving, now you'll understand, no, this is definitely God.
But remember, Paul at Troas and at other places had open and closed doors. Well, look, sister, if Paul had closed doors, you and I are probably gonna have some closed doors.
And so some will be open and we'll know that that's God's purpose. But then at other times they'll close, but know that he's going to have a purpose beyond those closed doors.
And I'll just add one thing that is far more technical, which is, I'm not gonna put you on the spot, but I imagine you're on social media and you use social media. We dramatically underestimate the torment that social media has on young women.
I encourage you to read the book Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. If you read that, you would say that we should not allow any young lady to have social media on their phone.
The psychological damage that it is doing. And so I encourage you to do one thing.
I'm not going to tell you to stop using it. Find out and track every day how much time that I spend on social media apps.
If it is more than 20 minutes collectively, then the studies show that you're going to be much more in places of self-doubt and depression. And also you're living more through a screen than in real life.
So I hope that's somewhat helpful because it actually might be a source of a lot of the issue. So thank you.
Hello. So what do you think about churches that preach the prosperity gospel? Are you familiar with preachers like Joel Osteen? If so, do you agree or disagree with their teachings? How would you approach preaching to those who follow them? And how would you teach about the concept of long-suffering in contrast? I make it a real clear point in my life not to critique other preachers.
So I'm not going to say anything. And I'll tell you why.
I'll tell you one of the reasons. When I started doing open air on college campuses, there were hellfire brimstone preachers who went out there and told everybody they were going to hell in a handcart.
And Christians were in shock. And I didn't agree with their approach.
But I met people who came to faith in Christ through those hellfire brimstone guys. So therefore I learned God uses a lot of different people a lot of different ways.
And I am not going to put myself in a position of superiority and judge others. Second point, do I have some very real strong disagreements with a lot of ministers, with the majority of religion professors on campuses, every state university campus in the United States.
Absolutely. If I want a hard debate,

I don't go to the science department. If I want a hard debate, I go to the religion department.
And I debated a religion professor at Columbia University in New York City who was an atheist. And it was an intense debate.
I hope you caught the irony. Religion professor who's an atheist.
okay so now the prosperity gospel I have no problem addressing.

It's really, really sad that Jesus didn't have enough faith.

It's really sad that Jesus died such a horribly painful death.

You know, Jesus, if you just would have believed a little more deeply,

God would have saved you from the cross.

Guys, that's ludicrous.

Totally ludicrous.

Let's be real clear.

I worship a suffering God who became man in Jesus Christ

and he got the snot kicked out of him

and he was nailed to a cross and he died one of the most miserable deaths possible. Now let's talk about the demographic in the world.
What has the highest percentage of followers of Jesus? Women of color. Now let's talk about the demographic in the United States that has the highest percentage of followers of jesus african-american women why because it's amazing how when you're getting a snot kicked out of you and you look at a suffering servant jesus christ and all of a sudden the lights begin to go.
There is a God who is willing to suffer and enters this world filled with suffering. And on my behalf, he sacrifices his life on a cross.
You see, ma'am, when I stand before a statue of Buddha, it's incredible. there he is little Little smile across the face.
Arms folded, legs crossed. And we're supposed to say, oh, wow.
But then I stand before the cross and I see a God who became a human being and got the snot kicked out of him. He sacrifices his life.

And he goes through the hell of the cross.

So I don't have to go to hell.

Instead I can go to heaven.

And I can promise you.

My knees begin to shake.

And then I read the negro spirituals.

Were you there?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Ah sometimes it causes me to tremble. Tremble.
Tremble? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Ah, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Now, I don't know what kind of life you live, but I can promise you my life has a lot of good in it.
Thank you, Lord. And it's got a boatload of suffering in it.
And I can connect with a suffering savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you.
How are we doing, man? Hi, my name is Micah. And I just had a question about tithing because in the Bible, it says give 10%.
But back in the olden days, that also covered your taxes and your charity so would it be different for now?

So the Levites, for their good work in the Old Testament, the tithe was supposed to be 23%. But I wouldn't get too caught up on 10% or 23%.
I would look at the woman with the two might, and that she gave out of her poverty, not out of her wealth, that she was willing to make that kind of sacrifice because of the joy of knowing Jesus. And so when it comes to your giving, make sure it's out of that joy rather than a type of obligation.
Because so often Christians will focus on, I just got to tithe. And they feel guilty if they can't hit the 10% or 12% or 15%.
But understand if Jesus went through the hell of the cross, if he really did that for us, then a natural heart response should be, wow, I want to give. And I want to keep giving.
So it's a great way to figure out, are you maturing in the faith or not with how quickly you joyfully are able to give.

And that's not just monetarily, by the way.

I would also look at that relationally.

How quickly are you able to forgive somebody because of what Jesus did for you?

So I always look at monetarily as well as relationally,

how quick are you able to joyfully respond

to somebody who criticized you, who bullied you at school?

How quickly are you able to give despite it even hurting at times? Cliff, Stuart, thank you for coming. My question is, how does one escape the cycle of shame and guilt when you slip up? Not to say that we shouldn't learn from experience,

because it is inevitable that we all do sin,

but rather instead of starting from rock bottom,

like a lot of people tend to think and subject themselves to,

how can we pick ourselves back up from where we left off

and continue our spiritual journey?

Great question.

First point.

Oh man, you're into self-degradation. You're into

repenting. No, no.
I'm into understanding that when God created us, he did a beautiful job. We have been created in the image, in the likeness of God, and we have horribly defaced that image.
when I repent, I'm saying, I am not perfect. I blew it.
I did wrong. My guilt convicts me of that.
And because I'm responsible for what I did, I am asking God to forgive me. I'm asking you to forgive me for the dastardly thing I did to you.
That is an emphasis on the value of my life, the value of your life. And it's an emphasis on how God created us for a purpose.
And sin is violating that purpose. And I want to get back into the purpose for which God created me.
Second point, after repenting, I have to accept the forgiveness of God.

And to be honest with you, at times that's difficult for me.

The reason it's difficult for me is because I can be a bit of a perfectionist.

And I can say, oh no, I can't believe what I did yesterday.

I never thought I would do that.

I am a total loser. I'm a total hypocrite.
And it goes down from there. It ain't pretty.
But notice what I'm doing. I am elevating the approval of my perfectionistic approach to life above the approval of God.
I want my perfectionistic thinking to say, oh Cliff, you're a great guy. So I'm going to go through the approval of God.
I want my perfectionistic thinking to say. Oh Cliff you're a great guy.
So I'm going to go through the depths. Of shredding myself.
Which is really false guilt. Because I want the approval of my perfectionistic standard.
That I have created. See that's wrong.
Because the approval of God is far more important. Than the approval of my perfectionism.
Or the approval of my family. or the approval of God is far more important than the approval of my perfectionism or the approval of my family or the approval of my culture or the approval of my society.
It is the approval of God that I need to value most highly. And Jesus communicates, you repent of your sin and I forgive you.
And I've got to accept that forgiveness, rejoice in that forgiveness, turn away from the sin and by God's grace, live a different way. Thank you.
Hi there. I was just gonna, I have a buddy that's living a 50-50 life basically he's going to church and saying he's a Christian but also when you see him on non-Sundays any other day he's out vaping drinking and just living a non-Christian life I was just asking for the best advice you could give So we talked to a few different quarterbacks who were recently in the playoffs, the college level.
And they were talking about how they were living that lifestyle. And they said all the other teammates were doing as well, but calling themselves Christians.
So it's cultural Christianity. They said when they started, I'm thinking one specifically, when he started dedicating his life more so to Christ, they just followed.
And so what's gonna speak loudest to your friend is how you live. You know, it's preach Christ, use words if necessary.
So man, if you are living in a way where you're dedicated to Christ, wanting to grow in him, especially if your buddy sees when you hit really downfalls in your life, when you suffer, and he sees that you have a type of buoyancy about you, a type of joy, despite the suffering, he's going to want to start living a more consistent life. He's going to finally find, wow, the light is way more attractive than the darkness.
Even if it's kind of cool right now to mess around, even if it's kind of cool right now to drink underage, drink, whatever it might be. Eventually, the light is always more attractive than the darkness.
So just hold out hope, correct when you can, but ultimately support him and love him. That's gonna be more attractive for his own change than just trying to change him by berating him.
I've been a believer for a few years now and I've started to become more lukewarm even though I know Christianity is the truth and

have Christian friends around me which makes me want to be more faithful but I still lack that motivation. How can I and others who have become lukewarm get off the fence and gain the motivation and discipline to become more in line with the Christian that I want to be? Thanks for your vulnerability and honesty.
I respect that highly.

First point, think.

Think hard.

Albert Camus, the great atheistic existentialist philosopher, wrote a book called L'étranger in French, The Stranger.

The first lines of that book are the words of a young teenage boy who says,

Yesterday mother died.

Or was it today? Life is there is no god your birth is an accident your death is an accident and the only thing that lies between those two accidents is another accident your life my life jesus christ says no jesus christ says you're not an accident. you're a human being created by God for a purpose so what you got to do is you got to think if Jesus is telling the truth then my life is not meaningless I was made for a purpose I better not waste my life but if Jesus is not the truth then I better do exactly what Albert Camus said when he said, the only question modern man must answer is, why not commit suicide? Because if it's true that you're just an accident, if it's true that your life is ultimately meaningless, why continue to suck wind? Why continue to eat three meals a day? It's all a colossal joke.

And David Hume, the great Scottish philosopher, pointed out,

do you know that the universe doesn't think you matter any more than an oyster?

And he's correct in his atheism.

If there is no God, it really doesn't matter whether I step on you or an oyster.

You both are meaningless.

And we'll see you next time. atheism.
If there is no God, it really doesn't matter whether I step on you or an oyster. You both are meaningless and you know you can't live that out.
So it's that type of thinking that has helped me think through the issue. Secondly, emotionally, you think about love.
You think about the ability to care. And if you come from a home where mom and dad didn't love each other and they didn't love you, I'm really sorry.
I know that hurt. But I can promise you there's a God at the center of the cosmos who really does love you.
And when you begin to watch people who really sacrifice for each other and who really love each other, that is incredibly powerful. And the reason that I'm excited about Jesus is because he loves me so much.
And so when I get to hold his little daughters in my arms as little babies and walk up and down the driveway, I sing to him. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.
Now, why on earth are you doing that, Cliff? because I know they're going to go to school at some point and I know they're going to get the snot kicked out of them because they're not pretty enough or they're not smart enough or they're not athletic enough or they're not artistic enough or they're not a good enough ballet dancer or whatever and they got to have as the bedrock of their life the fact that there's a god at the center of the cosmos who really loves them and if they have that they got the most valuable thing in the world well think about your life what is the most important thing in your life it's your friends it's your family who loves you and if there is a god who really loves you gosh you can't be lukewarm you gotta love him passionately because that's the most important thing and then thirdly the way you get out of lukewarmness is not just by thinking it's not just by working through emotions it's also through your will you've gotta learn to submit to God's will oh that's dirty submitting to God's will no Oh, that's dirty, submitting to God's will. No, it's not dirty.
It's the path to freedom. You see, if a train is running along two tracks, and the train says, I find this existence very limiting, two metal tracks, and I've got to stay right here.
The moment that train flips off the tracks, is that a flip to freedom? Nope. That's a flip to destruction.
You and I were created to run along the tracks of God's will. To flip off the tracks of God's will onto the land of self-centeredness is not a flip to freedom.
It might be thrilling, but it ultimately leads to destruction. God is good.
And because he's good, I want to do his will. I want to surrender to him.
I want to live a life of purpose, the purpose he created me for. I think those three things will help you move out of lukewarmness as you think, as you get in touch with your emotions, and as you handle your will wisely.
What do you say to a newly born Christian? Keep growing. Keep growing and going.
And for a newly born Christian, it's important to let him or her know not to get caught on the ecstasy wheel, the emotional high. Because there are too many newly born Christians who all of a sudden, I got baptized.
I got baptized, Cliff and Stuart. This is the most amazing thing.
Three weeks later, well, I don't feel it anymore. So I don't know if God even exists.

So firstly, help that person understand

it's not just about this emotional high.

We wanna grow in the joy of the Lord as our strength.

That is crucial, that is the bedrock.

But our emotions come and go, they fade.

And that's why David throughout the Psalms,

when he prays, why are you downcast on my soul?

Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God for you. Praise him, my Savior and my Lord.
Praise the Lord, O my soul. All my inmost being, praise his holy name.
See, his emotions were dying because his son was trying to kill him. His boss was trying to kill him.
He went through an adulterous relationship. He had a lot of reasons emotionally to take off and leave God.
So help your friend understand it's not about the emotional high. You want to be happy in Christ for sure.
Don't get me wrong on that. But at times you're going to feel distant from God and just rely on his promises.
Rely on the evidence of something like the resurrection and how that occurred rather than it's always just going to be nice flowers. So start there and then move to help him know that Christianity is all about relationships and community.
It's all about what's going on right here, right now. It's not a lone wolf trip.
If it turns into a lone wolf trip, that's how the devil gets to you. After Jesus' baptism, what happens? He is immediately led by the devil, by the spirit, even into the wilderness.
He is by himself. The devil wants to get you when you're by yourself.
He wants to tempt you, and he wants to accuse you. And then he wants to ultimately get you to disbelieve.
And yet Jesus conquered that by what? Quoting scripture at the devil. So that would be the last one.
Get your buddy to memorize scripture. He did it with me.
I hated it early on, but I couldn't be more grateful now. And my grandma died with scripture on her lips.
The only thing she could say was memorizing the scripture that she had learned. Oddly enough, a little fun factoid, Friedrich Nietzsche, the king of atheism, died quoting scripture, oddly enough, talking to God.
He didn't want to, but there's something about scripture when it's in your blood, it automatically will come out of you and will chart your life in such a way where you will remain in the faith if you honor God with it. Firstly, I love y'all.
I've spent so many nights like listening to the wisdom you guys speak and I just want to ask I have a lot of friends who used to be really close to Christ and are now turning away and or have fully turned away I still care for them and I go to ASU and I have to work with and be around people who have interesting views on life with God. So I just want to ask, how do you respond to someone who says that they don't need God to live a moral and fulfilling life? Okay, you're right.
You don't need God in order to define your own purpose in life. You can create your own purpose, your own meaning.
But what you have to acknowledge is, it's just a taste. Like, I prefer broccoli to asparagus.
I prefer loving people to hating people today. But tomorrow, if I choose to prefer hating people to loving people, that's cool.
One is not right. The other is not wrong.
It's all just a cosmic crapshoot.

So to try and take people what they say seriously, and then take what they say to its logical conclusion. And a world without God logically leads to despair, meaninglessness, hopelessness, Yes, even suicide.

And so once again, I'm trying to rattle people's cage to explain what do I believe? Why do I believe it? I was invited after doing open air Columbia in New York City to join a class. And it was a fascinating class at Columbia on the difference between Zwingli and Calvin's view of war.
And the teacher was brilliant. He was a postdoc student from England.
And after the class, I walked with him down the stairs out of the building there, Columbia. And I said, excuse me, sir, can I ask you one question? He said, sure, fire.
I said, what are you living for? And what's the evidence? Because that was an amazing class you just let in there. And I'm very impressed with you, sir.
And this young gentleman said, I'm not a good person to ask that of. Well, that's scary.
That's called an unexamined life. What are you living for? And please don't tell me, oh, I'm agnostic.
I'm not living for anything. Oh, no, no, no, no.
Look how you're dressed. Look how you articulate.
You are living for something or someone. You're highly motivated.
So please don't give me this line. Oh, I'm not living for anything.
I'm just agnostic. I don't know anything.
Well, you wouldn't be a student at this school if you weren't living for anything. You're motivated.
So the challenge for me is, and I think for you as well, to ask hard questions and then to listen, to feel around the rim of a life come to the crack which is exactly what Jesus did with a woman outside the town of Sychar in John chapter 4 and he basically finds out and tells her you know ma'am you've been trying to fill that God-shaped vacuum at the center of your being with the deepest human relationship possible possible, the sexual relationship. It's failed five times.

You're on your sixth man.

How does it feel?

Pretty empty.

Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.

But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give him will become a spring of water,

welling up to everlasting life.

All right. Let's think together what are you living for what's the evidence of what you are living for is true I live for Jesus Christ because the evidence of his life teachings death and resurrection the evidence of his sinless life ethical genius as expressed in the sermon on the mount Matthew 5, 6, and 7 Evidence of the way he died Nailed to a wooden cross beam

Instead of cursing his enemies the way I would

He prays, Father, forgive them

For they know not what they do

And the evidence of his resurrection

Clearly points to his trustworthiness

His credibility

In a way that no other option

Is supported

You're going to live for something

You're going to have motive

You're going to define your life

Go ahead, define it

Thank you. I just wanted to say real quick, thank you for all three of you guys for what you've done.
Charlie, thank you specifically. You've been really huge for me, especially in the election cycle.
And I just wanted to ask a question from my non-Christian friend. He couldn't be here today, but I'll just quote what he said.
If you are able to ask him a question, which is just all three of you guys, ask him one for me about whether heaven is a real physical place you live in like paradise, or is it more of like a figure of speech and there isn't a place that you literally see and are, excuse me, and are in. If I can borrow one of his lines, I do not know.
And I don't think anybody can give you a specific picture of heaven. The Bible's pretty quiet about it.
And yet I love when Jesus talks about in John 14, in my father's house, there are many rooms and I go and I prepare a place for you. Okay.
I love that. I don't know if there's literally going to be a house with rooms, but I believe that that's a very beautiful picture.
So that's one, very metaphorical terminology. Two, heaven is not going to be some type of floating ethereal dimension out there.
No, heaven is going to be this earth redeemed, changed, and made new again. Thirdly, it's going to be relational.
See, a lot of these atheists out there love showing up and saying oh yeah you believe in this little kind of ethereal existence after you die where we're all going to be strumming little hearts on clouds and we're all going to be babies no we're going to be able to recognize each other and it's going to be relational connection we're actually going to be to have relationships there. That's why you were created to love and to be loved.
And that love would last forever. Well, you can't have love if you don't have physical bodies and relationships like we do.
So there's a reason why Jesus created us as such. Lastly, and this is more so for you, just remember Philippians 3.20.
Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. Bro, you've got to remember that one.
Because for me, too often I think my citizenship is here. Too often I am like the disciples who went out and cast out demons and then came back, and they were all pumping their chest.
But Jesus said, rejoice not that you're able to do so. Rejoice that your names are written in the book of life.
Your citizenship is ultimately in heaven. And if you know that to the bottom of your heart, that will always give you an identity that is secure in Christ and can face anything.
Hi, I'm Addy. I'm 13 years old.
And I wanted to ask, how do you deal with students who try to disregard your religion or how to learn how to back up your faith and represent yourself as a Christian? If they're standing and feeling a little secure and okay, And if they're obnoxious enough,

I like to go after them.

And the way I'm most recently going after them is the following.

You want peace, and I want peace.

Inside and outside.

The peace that's offered

in a secular world is don't think about your death.

Instead, party, party, party.

Have sex with as many people as you can.

Go on as many expensive vacations as you can.

And don't think.

Jesus Christ says no. Jesus says you got to think because life can be very good and life can be very painful.
Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.
I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled.
Do not be afraid. Now, why are you and I afraid? Because we made the mistake of thinking we don't need God.
Because we made the mistake of thinking we're tough. We can handle anything.
We're autonomous. We're all American.
But all of a sudden, we're confronted by our finiteness. We're finite.
We got a date with death. The elasticity is leaving my legs.
I used to be able to jump higher and run faster. I'm decomposing.
I'm still moving some dirt around, but one day the dirt will be moving me around. Like it or not.
I'm very finite. I'm very temporal.
And when you grapple with your finiteness, with the fact you do have a date with death, all of a sudden you begin to realize, oh, shoot, I can't ultimately control it. And all of a sudden you've got to go back and you've got to ask, do I need God or don't I? And you begin to realize, oh gosh, I really do need God.
I really do need Christ because I'm very finite. And if there's an eternal, all-powerful God who's faithful and just, who really loves me, then I need to know him.
And I need to rest in his love, in his hope for eternity in heaven, as Stuart was just talking about.

And that is where peace is found.

So it's ironic that peace in our culture is do not think versus Jesus who says, think.

Think about reality, which is you are finite.

God is the influence of God. versus Jesus who says, think.
Think about reality, which is you are finite.

God is the infinite, eternal God.

Build your life with him as your foundation,

for that is where real peace is found. Hey, my name is Powell.
i'm a big fan my question was so like have sometimes i'm praying i'm like dear god but then like in the back of my head there's like a voice that says like god ain't real and I'm like is that my fault or like and if it is could I

like head there's like a voice that says like god ain't real and i'm like is that my fault or like and if it is could i like is there a way i could help with that well that's the class of 3000 2035 stewart go to it thank you sir i get that same thing and i'm a so don't worry, buddy. You probably just haven't been sleeping enough, or it could be your own neurochemicals in a different way.
It could be any number of reasons, or it could be the devil tempting you in some sort of way. But oftentimes, when I get up on a stage to speak or a Sunday morning to preach, I'll have a voice in my head saying, you don't deserve to be up here.
You can't preach. You don't believe this stuff.
So that's the voice I have. So I am totally with you when it comes to this voice of doubt that's nagging.
Look, if we believe that God is real, you got to believe that the devil is real.

The devil comes up quite a bit in the Bible. And so the devil is going to be tempting you.
He's going to be messing with you. But also take that voice, which is some doubt.
There's probably some intellectual side of that. You seem like a smart kid.
There's an intellectual side of that, which is you're doubting your faith. And don't let that doubt gnaw at you in such a way where you beat up on yourself.
Let that doubt push you like it pushed doubting Thomas. Thomas doubted at first.
He doubted what his friends were telling him about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then he obviously doubted Jesus himself.
But then Jesus shows up right in front of him and physically presents his body to him and says, check out these nail prints in my hand. Check out this wound, the spear wound in my side.
Stop doubting and believe. But Thomas wasn't scolded for his doubt.
So your atheist buddies sometimes will say, oh, see, doubting Thomas, you're not allowed to doubt. You're not allowed to have that voice.
But no, Jesus slowly brought Thomas along and then said, stop doubting. So allow that voice to ask questions about faith, about Christ.
For that way, it's going to grow you in the faith. But don't ever let that voice just remain that voice in terms of doubting to the point of saying, oh, I can't believe this anymore because this voice is here.
Thank you. We're going to do two more.
And then would you be willing to help lead maybe an altar call? There's a lot of guests here and maybe Luke can come up as well. So let's do two more and then we'll do that.
Yes. Hey guys.
So I actually was at ASU the other day, so I might not be one of your favorite students because he didn't pick on me, but this is my attempt to ask you guys a question. So yeah, I just want to see if you guys could talk about how confident you were in like the Bibles that we use every day, just because there's, uh, even in our historical findings, like the Dead Sea Scrolls or Codex Sinaiticus, they don't really contain like the book of Revelation or Esther, for example.
So I just want to see what you guys thought about like how confident we can be as Christians in the scriptures that we do have. If anybody ever asks you, why do you trust the Bible to be the word of God? I wouldn't answer that question.
I said, I'm not asking you to believe the Bible is the word of God. I could never show you that any book is the word of God, but I can give you evidence that the gospels are historically reliable.
I have four tests that I use to determine historicity of any book. If you don't like my tests, no problem, but you better come up with your own tests to determine whether any book, the Bible, the Quran, U.S.
history, African history, whether the text is reliable. My four tests are internal consistency.
Are there contradictions within the text? No. No contradictions in the gospels.
Different perspectives, you bet. Two angels at an empty tomb, one angel at an empty tomb.
Different perspective. The dude is not saying there was only one angel at the empty tomb, and the other guy says, no, there were two.
No, there was an angel and there were two angels. Different perspective.
We want that second test. Literary style.
Once upon a time in the land of Nod, Wink and Blink and the Nod took a boat ride. Yeah, that's sweet.
Sweet fairy tale. That's not the way the gospels are written.
The gospels are written at this time in place, with these people around. Jesus said this and did that.
It clearly reads like reportage. Historical narrative is the literary style.
Third test, archaeology. Are we talking about the island of Atlantis out on the ocean that none of us can verify? No.
We're talking about Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Rome. Archaeologically verifiable places and people.
Tiberius, Caesar, Pontius Pilate. Fourth test.
Oh, but come on, man. Come on.
You played the game telephone. You know, you whisper the secret in the ear of the person next to you.
They whisper it in the ear of the person next to them. And by the time the secret reaches the end of the circle, it's totally perverted.
Yes, I played that game. No, it's not the way we have the gospels today.
The gospels that we have in English today are based on over 5,800 Greek manuscripts or pieces of manuscript dated from the 2nd through the 10th century AD, all agreeing to an infinitesimal degree. Have I shown you the Bible's a word of God? No, I have not.
Have I shown you that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are reliable? Yes, I have. Therefore, simply read the Gospels as history and ask yourself, does the historical evidence of the way jesus lived his life the content of his ethical teaching the way he died loving and forgiving his enemies and the way he rose from the dead point to him being trustworthy or does it not does the evidence point to him being a quack or the truth it's a no-brainer you die and from the dead, I promise to listen very carefully to everything you have to say.
Last question. Hi, guys.
Thank you for coming. I just wanted to ask, I have this Mormon friend, and we get into a lot, we debate, and it's kind of hard because they already consider themselves a Christian.
And we basically came up this deal where I go to his church, he goes to my church. And I was going to ask, is that okay? Like, am I going about this right? Is there another way that I can show them the light without necessarily going to church? Is that a bad thing? I was in a Hindu temple not too long ago.
So no, I don't believe it's a bad thing. I think it's a great way to witness and start a healthy discussion.
Get on his turf. Be all things to all people.
Be in the world, but not of the world. Be like Jesus.
Go to the parties and understand that there's an ultimate wedding feast waiting for us, but that a lot of these parties here are going to be experiencing at ASU are not those ultimate, that ultimate party, which is the wedding feast. And so yes, enter into all of those difficult, awkward situations, environments, and share truth, and be willing to put it all on the line for Christ.
Awesome. Thank you.
Can you lead us in a... Possibly you're here tonight, and maybe this bit about Jesus is making more sense than ever before to you.
And possibly the Holy Spirit is tugging on your heart for you to make your own decision to put your faith in Christ. I'm going to lead in a very short, simple prayer.
It's not a magical formula,

obviously, but it is a genuine heart cry to ask Christ for forgiveness and to accept that

forgiveness, to put your faith and trust in him that he really did die on a cross for you, for me,

to pay the penalty for your wrongdoing. And you're going to trust him for heaven.

And thirdly, I'm going to lead in a prayer for you to say, all right, Lord, please help me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit.
Give me the power to become the beautiful person you created me to be. And if you're at the point in your life where such a decision would be appropriate, I would encourage you to pray silently after me.

This is between you and Christ and nobody else.

Let's bow and pray together.

Lord Jesus, my conscience has informed me

that times I've done wrong.

I am genuinely sorry.

Please forgive me. Thank you that you promised to.
I want to accept that forgiveness. Lord Jesus, I trust that when you bled and died on that cross, you did it for me, for everyone, to pay the penalty from my wrongdoing I trust you Jesus for the gift of eternal life thank you from the bottom of my heart that I matter so much to you that you want me to spend eternity with you.
And now, Lord, I've got some bad habits, some addictions. I need your help.
Please put your Holy Spirit in me. Transform me from one degree of glory to another into your image, the image you created me to be.
Thank you that you promised to. In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen. Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. Thanks so much for listening and email us as always freedom at charliekirk.com

thanks so much for listening and god bless