Ep 209 | 'I Will NOT Submit to an Evil Government': Juggling Politics & Faith | Josh McPherson | The Glenn Beck Podcast

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Here's a question.

Should pastors talk politics?

Should they share their opinions on topics like abortion, gender identity, or even the southern border and the economy?

Are there political topics that should be off-limits in church?

Well, our next guest is the pastor the New York Times has been warning you about.

He loves God, he loves his country, which means he's got to be some sort of Christian nationalist extremist.

I think you're going to find this man fascinating.

And we talk about Christian nationalism and what it really is.

This is one of my favorite conversations we've had so far this year.

And I know it's only February, but

while America has become squeamish about bringing God into the public square, our next guest is telling God, come on in.

The question is, do do we still have a place for God in America?

Or better question, does God still have a place for us?

Welcome the lead pastor of Gray City Church, somebody I can't wait for you to meet, Pastor Josh McPherson.

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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.

Discounts not available in all states or situations.

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Josh, welcome.

How are you?

Thanks for coming in.

I know you traveled a long way to be here.

It's an honor to be here.

Yeah, good.

I saw a clip of yours, maybe over the holidays, and

kind of went down a rabbit hole.

And you are

very outspoken

and

shoot from the hip, call them as you see it.

And

you,

I think your excoriation needs to be heard by the church and us Christians who are kind of fat and lazy.

Let's go.

So, what, so, what is your

main message to people?

You're just a, I mean, you're a regular pastor, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm still trying to figure out what I'm even doing here.

So

I scrolled through the list of some of your podcast guests, and

I was looking for backwater blue-collar hick from the stick pastors, and I didn't see any.

So

I feel like one is not like the other here.

Well, but if that's the way you describe yourself, then you would be a first.

But

I I think

this podcast, we try to look for

thinkers.

We look for people who are saying things that should be said, need to be said, even if I don't like them.

But,

you know, the country is in real trouble, and

it's, in my opinion, it's not a political problem.

It's a deep, deep spiritual problem.

Amen.

Yeah, no, I agree.

When I think about the state of the kingdom of God in the church, there's two ways I think about it.

The first is on one hand, and theologians would break it up in different categories.

There's the visible church and the invisible church.

And so the invisible church, the true church, the people filled with the Spirit of God, they're doing great.

They're kicking tail and taking names.

They're loving people, caring for people, being generous and kind and patient and sweet.

The kingdom of God is advancing steadily forward, which is exciting.

So it's not a question of whether or not our team is going to win.

It's a question if we're going to be on the team when they do.

And so.

What do you mean by that?

Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords.

And he has a plan, and he's advancing all of history toward his intended purposes.

He will get his glory.

His plan will come about.

And so it's...

Every knee shall bow and

everyone will be bowing.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So it's not as if we're in a game wondering of the outcome.

How is this going to go?

And so in one sense,

I have, I'm a man full of hope because we know

the outcome of the end of the game.

And then there's the other side where we look at the visible church and there is reason for concern and cause for concern.

And so you asked me what's my message or why do I shoot from the hip?

I think about it.

When I come to cultural issues, political issues, how to address them as a man of God, I never wake up thinking, what will people think if I say this?

I never wake up thinking, how will this play with my audience or my church?

I never wake up thinking, will this build my brand or put my brand at risk?

I wake up worried and concerned about one thing, and that's offending the holy God.

So I don't wake up thinking about, are people going to like what I say?

I wake up worried about losing the anointing of God.

Because if I have the anointing and favor and blessing of God and no one's favor, I'll be fine.

But if I...

And that doesn't mean successful.

No, not at all.

You're successful in his work, but not necessarily worldly successful.

Yeah, my goal isn't to be successful.

My goal is to be faithful.

And so I was even reading this morning Isaiah, and you have this incredible picture where Isaiah is talking about woe to those who call evil good and good evil woe to those who take what is sweet and make it bitter and he's talking about a country and a nation and a culture that's turned everything upside down so take marriage marriage god designed as sweet

and now we have this this contorted counterfeit perversion

redefinition of it.

Now we've taken what's sweet and we've made it bitter.

And God says, woe to the nation that does that.

And then later in the text,

God opens up a vision of himself to Isaiah.

And he says, I saw the angels.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.

And in the presence of God and with a vision of Jesus sitting on the throne,

Isaiah responds, woe is me.

I am undone.

For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people.

of unclean lips.

And he realizes in the light of a vision of Christ, he is totally exposed as the sinner and fraud that he is.

And so I think if a pastor is living in light of that vision, the first message isn't, hey, all you idiots, get your act together.

The message is, woe to all of us.

Repent, believe, follow Jesus.

So later in the text, the angel touches his lips with the hot coal, and he's purified in a sense symbolically.

And the Lord says,

who am I going to send?

And he says, here I am, send me.

And so when I get up in the pulpit every Sunday, in a sense, it's a response to what I see in me in terms of brokenness and sin and the need for repentance and faith in Christ and the need for rescue and redemption.

And it's the need I see in the culture.

And so

it might look like I shoot from the hip, but

it's intentionally prayed over, studied, prepared.

And

my concern with today, and I don't want to be a critic of the church because it's Jesus' bride, and so be careful, but my concern with the American church is that pastors are being too calculated and they're being too measured and they're being too nuanced.

And we are not in such a days that need,

we don't need nuance.

We need the gospel set forth plainly.

We've been nuanced to death.

Yep.

Yep.

I want to get a teacher during COVID, like, stop being reasonable.

Stop being measured.

They're ruining people's lives.

They're shutting down businesses.

They're destroying children's education.

They're destroying mental health.

I mean, all these implications of just radical, crazy teachers.

Tell me what you did as a pastor during COVID.

We're going to go there?

Yeah, we're going to go there.

Oh, we got more than this to go to.

We sued the governor of our state.

That's the punchline, I guess.

March 15th, like everybody else, the world shut down, and we went from gathering in a rented facility to online.

And I looked into the camera and I told my church in these days, and I quoted Romans 13, the most explicit

instructions that Paul gives us on how to relate to the government.

I said, it's our job to believe the best, to honor the king, and to make his job a blessing to rule us and lead us in times of crisis.

And then about six weeks later, we sued the governor.

And I was working from the same premise that Paul gives us in Romans 13.

And what led up to it was, at least in my state, and I talk with pastors all over the country, and it's super weird because pastors in the South, more red states, they're like, COVID, COVID, COVID.

Oh, yeah, it was like two or three weeks.

I was like,

we were in a state of emergency.

A governor declared emergency.

Because you're in Washington state.

In Washington state for over two years.

It was a gross misdemeanor to leave my house for months.

for anything or that was deemed by the governor as essential.

Wow.

And of course, religion is not essential.

Absolutely not essential.

And I think probably the turning point for me was

you're trying to figure it out.

You're like, this is crazy.

They're telling us two weeks to flatten the curve, and it's been six weeks.

This is nuts.

The hospital is going to be overrun.

They're not overrun.

I have people I trust in my church, at hospitals, saying,

you know, the whole thing?

We're testing for positive cases.

And if we test under 80 positive cases a week, they'll let us out of phase one, which is total lockdown.

He said, we had a guy come in last week with COVID.

I test him five times a day, hoping to get

a negative test.

And the second I do, we can let him go.

My manager came to me and said, you're miscounting.

And I said, what do you mean?

And he goes, he goes, you only have one positive case here.

And he says, that's because there's one person.

How many times have you tested him?

He's like, 36 times in the last four days.

That's 36 positive cases.

Oh, my gosh.

And so these are men I trust.

These are men I had a dear friend who runs an ambulance business business and a dear, dear, trusty friend.

His father was in politics all his life.

He said, so we brought a guy in today from a head-on car collision, 36, and they charted as a COVID death.

Because we were told from a press conference in the White House that they're going to chart died from COVID and with COVID as the same thing.

And so that's when we started realizing, like, this is not

maybe what it seems to be.

This maybe isn't like the black plague, like we're being told.

And so, of course, we're not meeting still.

And

Thomas Soule put it this way he said liberals look at the problem solution conservatives look problem trade-offs and so we were looking at it from like okay yes this is potentially dangerous but let's look at the economical ramifications the mental ramifications the emotional ramifications the educational ramifications the spiritual ramifications let's look at all these these things and and it was like

which is worse and it was like an elephant being afraid of of a cat and so to avoid the cat he jumped off a cliff and died

and so um we began looking at what we could do as a church to help our community.

So I was sitting at my dining room table with my family, and just we're kind of in it, right?

And because you're trying to figure out, because every week, press comments from the governor,

and it's just scare tactics and fear-mongering and shelter, like shelter in place is the language that's being used.

And we're building a church, a building.

in the process.

Our construction project gets shut down.

$15 million construction project dead in the water.

And across the way is is a government construction project firing on all fours.

And we're like, well, that's not cool.

And then it's like all local small businesses closed down, but Costco is having record quarters.

Amazon, because all the brick and mortar stores are closed down, because Jet Bezos is like, this is dangerous, skyrocketing.

I've built almost 100,000 square feet of commercial square footage in the last five years.

We've had to change our roof plan three times.

Because Amazon is building 20 million square feet of new,

what do we call them, holding centers for their delivery centers in the last three years.

It's crazy.

So we're sitting at our dining room table

and

we're sitting at our dining room table

with my kids,

four children who are remarkable, the discerning, the Spirit of God fills them all.

And they started asking me questions.

And it wasn't coordinated,

I don't think.

The first question was, hey, Dad,

is it true, and they would name someone in our church, that they can't open their small business?

I said, yeah.

Is it true?

And then they named someone else, so-and-so, can't go to work and do their job.

Yeah.

Is it true that they're still having to pay taxes even though they can't go to work?

I said, yeah.

And then my daughter, who was born with spina bifida, she's in a wheelchair.

She's very passionate about this issue of life

because in utero, we had a genetic counselor try to convince us that my daughter would be a burden on the world rather than a blessing and did everything they could to talk us into aborting her.

And that's the only time I've heard my wife cuss.

And so my daughter knows

that

she's not a burden, she's a blessing.

And she said, is it true, Dad?

That even though these local businesses are closed and kids can't go to school, that the abortion clinics are still open?

I said, yeah.

Is it true that the alcohol stores are still open?

I said, Yeah.

Is it true that the casinos are still open?

I said, Yes.

And then just kind of this, this, this sweet pressure smell you've probably had with your kids at times.

They just kind of looked around and they looked at me and they said,

I didn't mean to get a little shot.

I think we're going to talk about this.

They said,

Well, what are we going to do about it?

And I didn't have an answer.

And I said,

well, ask me tomorrow and I'll have one.

And so I began calling elected officials, mayors, sheriffs, state representatives,

county commissioners, going like, hey, what's going on?

What do we do?

And to the man, to the woman, Olympia's closed.

No one's responding.

Nobody's talking.

They've shut it down because the danger that we saw was they centralized all of the authority going in Olympia.

They decimated local government, which is what I think America is built on.

The genius of America

is local government.

It is bottom-up.

That's right.

And so

when bureaucracy grows, everyone loses because bureaucracy is nameless, faceless powers behind the curtains that you can't get at with a vote, telling you how to live apart from being held accountable to the standards they make everyone else live down to.

And so when you have someone in power making rules for everyone else they don't have to live by, recipe for disaster.

And so we're like, why are are they telling us what to do in Chelan County when they're 400 miles away and they have no clue what's going on here?

And so

to the man, everyone told me, we think the only way to get out of this is to sue the governor for illegally putting us into an emergency that only he determines when we get out of.

So no

legislature can meet like nothing.

Meanwhile, they're shoving through crazy legislation regarding law enforcement, regarding public school.

I mean, like,

it was a political boon for Governor Inslee and his ilk.

And so,

so I said, what should we do?

And they said, well, there's two options.

You can sue him for religious freedom or you can sue him as a citizen.

So our elders talked and prayed, and we thought,

if we play the religious freedom card so we can gather and meet, that would be a win, and that is good.

But it won't be everybody else.

But it won't help everyone else.

And here's the thing: historically, what people understand is that the church has always been

the best of friends

for the benevolent government and the worst of enemies to the tyrannical dictator.

And that's by design and by jurisdictions.

And so like I explained to our church, the jurisdictional lanes of God's design, the jurisdiction of the individual is

I have the gift from God of making autonomous decisions that have real consequences in time and space history.

And that's the

honor that God gives you and I

as free will beings.

Then there's a jurisdiction of the family, and they have both responsibility and authority as the cornerstone of society

with the marriage of one man and one woman at the center of it.

They have the responsibility and authority to raise, shelter, protect, raise, and educate their children.

And then you have the jurisdiction of the church, which is responsible for preaching the gospel and faithfully administering the sacraments.

And then you have the jurisdiction of the government.

And God has designed all those jurisdictions with certain roles and responsibilities and authorities to exercise and walk those things out.

And when everyone runs in their lane, it's beautiful.

The problem is we start mixing lanes, and it's a traffic jam, and it's a cataclysmic car wreck.

And so what I explained to our church was individuals are in sports cars, families are in SUVs and minivans, churches are in party buses, and the government is in a massive 18-wheeler driven by one or two bureaucrats.

And when the government begins to swerve out of their lane, it's the responsibility from the Word of God and constitutionally, I believe, for the church to stay in their lane and honk their horn.

Say, hey, hey, you stay over there.

And when they do that, they're doing that as a friend of the government, not as a scoff law, but as a friend of the rule of law.

Hey, hey, we're grateful for the Constitution,

and you realize that you're in your position of authority as one who's been put there by us

and by God.

So you're in authority as one under authority.

The rules of the game from the Word of God and our Constitution say you stay over there.

And every once in a while, the church might need to rub some paint.

And so what I told our church was, if we hit the brakes and back off so as to not rub any paint, then there's nothing standing between the government and decimating the family and individual.

And that's what we saw churches doing

over and over and over again.

We're going to misinterpret Romans 13 as to honor God, we should do whatever the government says, even if it's devastating to ourselves, our churches, and our communities, because that's what it means to honor God.

And we had a very different conviction in relationship to that.

And so the path we chose was to rather go at it from a point of a citizens, because if we only had the right to meet as a church, that would be a step in the right direction.

But no one in my church can go back to their work.

And so we led, our elders and I, we led a team of 46, we call them the Noble 46 plaintiffs.

And here's the crazy thing, Glenn.

I talked to a constitutional attorney, Jill Ard.

He's a wonderful Catholic brother and super sharp, super intelligent.

He gave me a download education on the Constitution.

And

I hung up with him and I said, I think we need to sue the governor.

We prayed about it, Unified Elder Team.

I sent out four texts.

I said, we're thinking about suing the governor on civil grounds to break

this hold of emergency powers to open our county to go back to work.

And I said, if you're interested, come to my house.

And two hours later, there were 46 strangers I'd never met on my back porch.

Breaking the law, eating apple pie.

These are the people that makes America great.

I'm not kidding.

Like the unheard of, unseen, unsung heroes who get up every day and run their small business, provide a product for a price.

So it was fun because all of these like legendary local, you know,

like the windmill, you know, legendary steakhouse had a thousand steaks there.

I'd never met the owner.

He was on my back porch.

And it was just like,

you own the windmill?

I love your steaks.

Thanks so much.

So it was just a super fun Americana moment, you know, and it's kind of like this 1776, like, we're breaking the law.

Isn't this awesome?

You know, it's crazy.

Oh, it was wild.

And

that's what bothered me so deeply, I think, Glenn, is like, shame on the government.

Shame on bureaucratic officials drunk on their own power that they would turn these law-loving and law-abiding citizens into criminals.

Yes.

And so I said, hey, glad to see you.

I have no clue what we're doing.

What if we sue the governor?

And they're like, tell us more.

And so I walked it through.

I said, look, we're not scoff laws.

So, bro, while we're having this conversation, it's illegal to meet meet as a church.

And at the same time,

Black Lives Matter is marching in the streets of Seattle, unmasked, shouting, screaming.

And our governor is saying, there's patriots.

Look how they're exercising their First Amendment rights.

But you can't sing in church.

It was, quote unquote, illegal to sing in church in my state for months.

That's wild.

You could go to Seattle game and cheer on Russell Wilson.

So we're meeting on the back porch there, there and I go, look,

we're not scoff laws here.

We're going to play the game by the rules, which is always the conservatives' weakness, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because we play by the rules and

they don't sometimes.

And they don't.

So our rule says we go through the court system.

They just give themselves power, declare executive powers, and then just make crap up.

And

it was destabilizing our community.

And this is what I learned from Joel Lardis, the reason third world countries don't have growing small businesses is because there's no consistency of rule of law.

Exactly right.

So I'm not going to go buy property

in

a place where, I don't know, the law of the jungle, who's in power next week?

I'm not going to apply for a business license if I build my business and the next week somebody can come in and say, you know what, your business license is no good because of this.

That's right.

That's right.

So we had over a thousand LNI officers added to the payroll in three months and their sole job as a weaponized arm of the tyrannical government branch was to bully law-abiding citizens into obeying these crazy, like every press comments on a Friday, a new edict was passed down.

You can't do this, you can't do that.

It was impossible to keep up with every law.

I think, and I'm going to this number, but like, I want to say like 2,000 or 3,000 edicts from on high,

from the governor's office of things you couldn't do, and you'd be considered

a lawbreaker if you didn't.

So all of a sudden now we're cheapening the rule of law because law enforcement is going, I'm not enforcing that.

I didn't sign up and put the badge on to shut down small businesses.

Like this is crazy.

So it's just causing division and chaos.

Interrupt me whenever you want.

I can't keep on.

No, just tell me, just tell me the end story.

What happened?

Did you?

So we got together.

We put the lawsuit together.

The basis of the lawsuit that I love so much wasn't that we weren't sued on the basis of COVID.

The COVID isn't real.

It's like, no,

let's.

You're going for the Constitution.

It's like we're fighting for the right of locally elected officials to do their job because their eyes are on the ground, they see what's going on, and if they can make decisions that cause the flourishing of the city, we'll support them.

And if they make poor decisions,

we'll act as a representative democracy does and we'll vote them out, but we still have a say.

When you take that away and centralize it in Olympia, we have no say.

So a lawsuit was to break the emergency powers and to ask permission from the governor to just be allowed to live our lives.

And so we got right to

the one yard line, and

the judge essentially told us, if you can get confirmation from your local health district that they can handle this pandemic, I'll rule in your favor was basically kind of the legal code words that she was giving us.

You got a picture of the optics.

We have a volunteer pro bono attorney.

that's driving three hours to be at every hearing.

They keep changing the dates of the hearing, the location of the hearing.

They have four of their crack attorneys.

So Inslee has the largest attorney general office in the country.

Four attorneys that we're paying the salaries of with our taxes, that we're asking for permission to go back to work so we can pay taxes to fund their jobs.

And they're fighting against us.

And the judge, who's an Inslee appointee, has COVID.

Those are the optics.

And it was this kind of Dave and Goliath moment.

So

the day before the final trial, she said, you know, hey, if you have a letter signed by the local health district guy, we're good to go.

And he'd been with us the whole time.

Now he's not answering phone calls, emails.

Long story short, he totally weaseled.

We found that he'd been talking with the attorneys from Washington and kind of had a sweetheart deal going.

So he weaseled and wouldn't give us the authority.

He was quoted in the paper the day before saying, there is no pandemic, there is no threat in our valley, we can handle it.

And the next day, he won't talk to us.

We go back to the judge, say, he said this in the paper.

She's like, that's not admissible in court.

And I'm like, we don't know what to do.

And she's like, I'm sorry.

And so she ruled against us.

And

that was it.

This is

a real problem.

People are offered all kinds.

I mean, the one thing

I've learned, when your back is up against the wall

and

you're standing up for what is right.

Everything you've ever wanted will be offered to you.

And it is so seductive.

Well, it's just me.

I don't, I mean, it's not going to, and we're, so many people are falling

for

these seductive outs.

And nobody is thinking about the Constitution.

No one's thinking about, like you said,

their responsibility as a citizen of another kingdom.

And we just flush them down.

And I don't see our churches, they failed in COVID.

And I still,

my church, I go and I'm like, is anyone talking about,

let's say, the border?

I don't want somebody to tell me politically what to do, but I want to know what God would, God would say something

about the border, about COVID,

about

spending so much money, about our treatment of

illegal immigrants.

No one will put that in.

They'll tell me what it meant in the first century.

Well, that's good.

I want to know that.

But does that apply to today?

It's like the difference between

applied science and just theoretical science.

I don't care about the theory.

Show me how to apply this.

How can it make my life better?

Yep.

Yep.

And one of the things that attracted me was you, you were, I mean, you went on, you went on quite a rant, quite a rant.

And you were talking about the church needs to talk about,

you might have even said politics, but you defined it differently.

You know,

it's not politics.

But in today's world, everything is politics.

The pastor has to think in terms of not left or right, but up and down.

And so it's not left, it's not right.

It's kingdom of light, kingdom of dark.

So I never think in terms of is this going to play to the left or the right?

I think in terms of will this please God or displease him?

And

there's an interesting reality.

Aaron Wren wrote an article a year or two ago and he kind of framed the current evangelical church in kind of three epochs of time.

Now, I'm all cards and table, I would consider myself an evangelical Christian if there even is such a thing anymore.

I think in large part it might be argued evangelicalism is dead and over because it's been co-opted kind of mind virus woke craziness or like angry mega like burn everything down.

But let's say that there is an evangelical Christian left.

I would define that as,

throw out some big words, like, I believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture.

Verbal every word, plenary, authoritative, inspired by God.

The word is the inspired word of God and authoritative for all of life.

And there's a key there.

All of life, right?

I believe in the penal substitutionary atoning work of Jesus.

Penal, and that was he was punished, punished, substitutionary in my place, atonement to win something for me I couldn't do myself.

The salvation from God's wrath, right?

I believe that heaven is real, hot, and long.

I believe that heaven is available and glorious and open to all.

who would accept the invitation of Jesus as their personal Savior.

I believe that salvation is by grace alone, through faith, alone, in Christ alone, according to the word of God, for the glory of God alone.

And I believe Jesus is coming back to judge the quick and the dead and usher in for once and all the the kingdom he inaugurated when he came in his first coming.

So those are my cards.

That's my lane.

That's my team.

Having said that, then

the three epochs of time Aaron Wren identified his article was positive world.

He's like 1950 to 19, I think, 94, he said.

And in the positive world, it was culturally advantageous to be a Christian.

Eisenhower adds under God

into the

Pledge of Allegiance.

Entertainment aligned with family values.

You know, Andy Griffith's show, I love Disney.

Walt Disney himself, incredible genius, drawing so much

material from the kingdom of God analogies.

And then you have, you know, birth control, sex revolution, the crazy 70s.

And then what happened when all the

hippies went off their acid trips, they went to academia.

Yes.

Right.

And so things began shifting, but no one noticed it yet because it was, if you want to run for office, you got to be a Protestant, Catholic, Christian, or you got nothing.

And then things shifted, and he identifies it in 1994, entertainment turns.

You have friends celebrating illicit sex and pornography and broken relationships.

You have will and grace celebrating open homosexuality.

You have all these things turning.

And at that point, evangelical world moved from positive world to neutral world.

People didn't hate you for being a Christian, but they didn't love you for being a Christian.

They were just kind of indifferent.

It wasn't under God anymore.

It was like, with or without, we don't care.

And so there was a season of neutral world for the Christian where

people didn't hate you, but they didn't love you.

It was just kind of whatever.

Then he identifies the third epoch of time starting in 2014, Ferguson, right?

Some major evangelical Christian voices canceled, and then the Abergel ruling, where it was codified into law by the Supreme Court that the Christian ethos and value in regards to the sexual ethic and definition of marriage was no longer relevant to us as a society.

And he's like, at that moment, the tables turned, and now we're in negative world reality.

Right.

Okay.

So it's not advantageous to identify as a Christian anymore.

You're not going to get social points for it.

You can say the same thing in negative world that would have got you cheered and supported and loved by your community in positive and neutral world that now gets you shot at.

And if your highest value as a Christian or a leader is to be liked and to be nice, getting shot at is a weird experience.

Right.

Right, yeah.

And so the messiological impulses of the leaders that grew up and were mentored and did ministry in the positive world, neutral world no longer translate to a negative negative world so the the two things we talk about in the bible glenn is contending and contextualizing so paul says in

first corinthians 9 i became all things to all men that by all means i might win some he's contextualizing he's trying to take the the heavenly message of the gospel and make it intelligible to men on earth which is exactly what you're saying does the bible have anything to say about the clown show we're living in right right yeah and then in jude the the same Paul says,

I exhort you, contend for the faith.

Once and for all, pass down to the saints.

So there's this tension that a pastor feels.

I have to contend for the truth and I have to contextualize it in a way people understand.

We are living in a time and day and age when the church, I believe, and this is my opinion,

and I could be off and I say this humbly as a man fails and broken and trying to.

Gospel of Josh.

Oh, yeah, wow, yeah, I got it.

Woe is me, a man of unclean lips.

That's my starting place.

My concern for my brothers is that we are over-contextualizing and under-contending.

That we're using contextualization as an excuse to be quiet and to compromise.

Give me an example.

Romans 13

says we should obey the government and honor the government.

And the government says we should be okay with all these things that are explicitly against the scripture.

But what we don't want to rock the boat, we need to be nice.

And if we say the things, people might leave our churches, so we're going to contextualize the gospel by not addressing it.

To which I would say, wrong.

Number one,

people walked away from Jesus every day.

More walked away than stayed.

Oh, yeah.

So don't try to have a higher retention rate in your preaching than Jesus had in his ministry.

Number two, it's all of Christ for all of life.

If the word of God doesn't speak,

there's not an atom in the universe that Jesus Christ doesn't declare mine, which means the word of God is relevant and applicable to sex, money, power.

Everything.

Everything.

Politics.

Right?

Like, like, in many ways, I think you could take the word of God, and

there's a mainline theme you could tie through scriptures where one of the key tensions that's driving the story is the people of God in tyrannical government.

Moses, Egypt.

Daniel, Babylon.

Esther, Persia.

Paul, Rome.

They murdered Paul because they deemed him a threat to public health and safety.

And so what I see pastors doing is

they take Romans 13 and then they go, I need to contextualize this so we got to obey the government.

And what they miss is they disconnect the writing of Paul in the epistles from the life of Paul in the book of Acts.

And when you disconnect the writings of Paul from the life of Paul, you miss the message of Paul.

So the same guy that said, honor the emperor, spent the last 10 chapters of Acts suing the government, calling him out, preaching the gospel, and they finally cut his head off.

But isn't that, I mean, you can't obey the government if the government has become anti-biblical.

Yeah, so I agree 100%.

So if we had time, I'd read through Romans 13.

When Paul describes honoring

the governor of the king, he's assuming a righteous government.

Correct.

Because he says they're here for your good.

Right.

Stop there.

What's good?

He says, they're here to punish evil.

Stop right there.

Who gets to define evil?

So the question the Christian has to ask is, by what standard is the government called to rule?

The moral law of God.

He says, they're here for your good.

They're here to, and he spells out, ironically, in Romans 13, the limitations of government.

They're here to punish evil.

and to reward good

and to protect us from, I would say, incursion and outside invasion.

Very, very limited lane.

They're doing the opposite and they're not.

They're punishing good.

They're rewarding evil.

And so now we're back to Isaiah.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.

So at that point, what you have is an illegitimate government.

And what the Christian had to say is, I'm here to honor the jurisdictions of God, but I'm not going to submit.

to an evil government because I'm submitting to a higher authority.

Correct.

Because every government is still one under authority.

And here's the thing I love, Glenn.

And, and, and, and Bible guys will get on me for this, but, but listen to these words.

If I read Romans 13 and Paul says, you are to submit to the highest power in the land,

and you should be the best citizen of a nation, then my question is to our church was, who's the highest law in the land?

And many Christians answered, the governor, which I said, no.

And then they answered, the president, to which I said, no.

It's the constitution that represents the.

So we're not under Roman law.

So that's how I would contextualize.

I would take Romans 13 and go, okay, Paul said to submit to the highest law of the land, which was the emperor.

And when the emperor acted unjustly and in evil manners, Paul was like, no, no, no, you don't get to do that.

You're under God's authority too.

And if we lose the definition of good and evil, you can't do your job.

When I take Romans 13, I contextualize it and I say the highest law of our land, thanks be to God, is the Constitution, which I think in my very limited redneck, backwater, blue-collar, hick from the sticks pastor's opinion, is the greatest document in the English language apart from the word of God.

I believe it's American scripture.

I mean, it was...

It was the finger of God

is all over the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights.

So then people say, well,

now

you're making politics your idol.

And that's all just psychops smokescreen smokescreen to keep pastors quiet from speaking the truth in the face of evil.

And so when pastors tell me that we need to be Switzerland, we need to be neutral, I'm like, all you get is when you're neutral in an evil culture is a sore crotch.

And then people are confused because if there's silence in the pulpits, there'll be confusion in the streets, right?

If there's cowardice in the pulpits,

there'll be evil in the streets.

If there's an unwillingness to talk about the very thing that's kicking everyone else's butt, we're not being helpful.

So Martin Luther said, I think it was Martin Luther,

he said, if I believe all the tenets of scripture and yet am unwilling to defend that which is being attacked, I'm not being faithful.

He's pointing to C.S.

Lewis's courage as the highest virtue because it's that which upholds all the virtues.

And so, but back to the contextualization of Romans, I'll make this final point.

I don't want to lose it.

Oh.

Think about these words, and they're just remarkable.

We hold these truths to be self-evident,

that that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

That among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And everyone stops reading for the next sentence.

That governments shall be established to protect these rights.

Established by men.

And that those governments...

shall draw their just powers from the consent of the governed, which means means I then have an obligation, not just constitutionally, but biblically, because Paul said obey the highest law in the land,

which for us is the Constitution.

And the Constitution tells me

that if government acts out in an evil way, I have an obligation constitutionally, but more important, biblically, to say, no, no, no,

we

do not

consent.

Because, bro, they only have as much power as we give them.

And if they're acting out in an evil way, and this is what I say off to my church,

we may not be able to stop the tide of evil from coming, but we can keep the tide of evil from changing us.

And when Jesus comes back, I don't want to be confused about where I stood in these muddy times in relationship to his truth.

And so for no other reason, to make sure that Jesus knew where I stood in these issues, I'm going to verbalize it.

I'm going to preach it.

I'm going to proclaim it.

And if I could say anything to my brothers in the pulpits of America today, which that's a pretty big statement, but as I'm learning to do, brothers, be bold, bold, be courageous, be brokenhearted, walk in humility, walk in love, walk in the power of the Spirit, don't lose your spine, don't turn over your voice, open the Word of God and show your people the radical application of God's Word to every corner of their life.

Set forth the truth plainly.

Don't take things that are simple in the Word of God and make them overly sophisticated.

Don't take things that are clear in the Word of God and make them muddy.

Don't make the people think that God does not speak to the moment we're in as a culture because he does.

Don't get caught up in partisan politics.

Don't try to make the word of God palatable.

Endeavor to make the word of God intelligible and plain because that's what's going to help Glenn Beck.

Back with Josh in just a second.

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but i have to tell you you said to me i don't even know why i'm here

i mean

have you been listening to yourself

there are very few people in your position that are even saying this this plainly this this clearly we are uh entering a time where um we have the freedom of religion yes but we are losing our freedom of religion to freedom of worship yes tell me the difference um

Freedom of worship was pushed by

one of the presidential candidates a few elections ago.

And

it's a psych out smokescreen to silence and contain the church.

So this doctrine of containment is

it's okay to do your thing as long as you do it in the building.

But then don't bring it out here.

Just this week in London,

people were

They tried to arrest them.

Thank goodness it didn't happen.

But they were told they could not sing hymns outside of their church.

Yeah, they were out front.

And the police came and said, You guys got to go back in church.

You're not allowed to sing those songs outside of the church.

That's freedom of worship.

That's right.

That's right.

Freedom of religion is I have the freedom to practice my religion in the public square.

And it goes further than this.

You know, there are certain things,

you know, that I cannot change because I deeply believe them.

Yes.

You know,

you just said it's very unpopular now to be a Christian.

Yeah.

Well, I am a Christian.

Yeah.

And it is unpopular.

Yeah.

And I could make a lot more money if I had gone the other side.

Yeah.

I don't because I believe these things.

Yeah.

So when they tell me you have to go along, keep that in the church.

I can't.

Yeah.

Otherwise, I'm not who I am.

I'm living a lie that will tear me apart.

Yep.

Because because then I have to reject everything I believe is true that's right yeah Paul said Galatians 1 10 if I was living for the approval of man I could no longer be disciple of Christ and so whether it's it's a it's a confliction in philosophy or or a crisis of nerve Like I've had pastors call me and tell me, I wish I lived where you live so I could say what you say.

Oh my gosh.

And I think to myself.

You're in Washington State.

Yeah, bro, look around.

It's very sporty up here.

And we get shot at, blogged about, lied about, smeared.

I mean, it's the craziest things get said about me.

And

the internet and COVID leveled the playing field.

It used to be there was the Bible Belt that was nice and the Northwest that was crazy and then small rural towns that are like Americana.

That's all gone.

There is no small town America.

The Internet and all of the things that comes with it, all the problems, all the addictions are everywhere.

COVID took progressive minds that had gathered at the urban centers, stepped on it like a boot, all the rats scattered off the ship, and now they're in small town rural America voting the way they voted, taking the thing.

They're running from places that they destroyed

with their politics.

Here's the thing,

politics matter because it affects real people.

Now you're just starting.

It affects real people.

And so it's like, no, no, and like, call it

call it who you want, but when you say, oh, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're becoming a voice

for the radical right, you're playing into their hands.

There are people on the left and on the right who, if they die apart from Jesus, will spend eternity in hell.

I'm an up and down heaven, hell guy.

So let's talk about Jesus.

And Jesus is, God's word speaks to all of this.

So the move of the progressive left is to take moral issues and frame them as political.

So let me say this.

Abortion is not political.

It's moral.

So-called gay marriage and the redefinition of marriage is not political, it's moral.

This whole transgender LBTGB2 alphabet soup garbage where we're mutilating children as a step towards mental health is immoral.

You go down the line, right?

And so it's like they're in our lane now because God's word has things to say to that.

And if in framing it as a political issue, we say, well, I can't be political.

I just got a man of God.

We're voluntarily laying down our sword and we're voluntarily shutting our voice when God says speak.

So rather than being prophets of God in a day of darkness and chaos,

we've become those who are with their silence, giving permission, and I would say even participating in the lie.

You know, Alexander Soltonitson, when he was being exiled from Russia, right?

Live not.

What does he say?

Live not by lies.

Live not by lies.

He writes his last essay and he says, You may feel downtrotted and beaten.

You may feel oppressed, outnumbered, outmanned, overwhelmed, but you are not victims.

You may not have guns and tanks and ammunition,

but you you have your voice.

And what he told them was,

they can put you in prison, they can put you in chains, but only you can shut your mouth.

So live not by lies.

Here's the problem with that.

America has not exercised its religious muscle for a long time, maybe 100 years.

And it's just gotten weaker and weaker and weaker.

We don't have to be.

I remember I read Immanuel Kant back in 95, and this stuck with me because it was so odd to me.

I thought, what kind of world do you live in?

He said, There are many things that I believe that I shall never say, but I shall never say the things I do not believe.

And I thought, what kind of world do you live in where you say that?

And it stuck with me.

It's this world.

It's this world.

And no one has the, we are all all so spiritually weak.

Yeah.

And even in good times,

people don't want to, look,

they don't, it comes even at school.

You want to be with the cool kids.

You don't want to be at your table.

That's right.

And you'll sell that table out in a heartbeat to be at that table.

How do you give people the courage when they're, when everything in them is sit down, shut up, up just be cool just be cool yeah um

live in light of the fear of god

that sounds cheesy and cliche and and such a pastor um

cop out but the beginning of wisdom is the fear of god and if i wake up more worried about what people say about me than what god thinks about me

I'm forfeiting the anointing and favor and blessing of God, and I'm dead in the water anyways.

And here's the thing is pastors say, well, if I say that, it'll be harsh and people will leave.

I say, no, no, actually, what what people are looking for is the truth, they're starved for the truth.

Stop voluntarily silencing yourself.

And again, I take it back to not right or left, but up and down.

God's given us a message, and people need to hear the good news of the gospel is that all this is going to burn up and be destroyed.

And part of it is it's exciting to be alive right now because God has always done his best work in the darkest of times.

I truly believe that we are on the brink of an absolute supernatural breakthrough where Jesus is like, I'm going to come down

in Joshua chapter five.

Moses has died.

He's passed on his mantle to Joshua.

And he says to Joshua, and this is the word of God,

God says, be strong and courageous.

Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave to you.

Do not turn, this is funny, to the right or to the left.

Then you will be blessed.

People have to wake up and go,

Do I want the blessing of man or the blessing of God?

Do I want the approval of man or the approval of God?

Do I want to to live in fear of being canceled by man?

Or do I want to live in fear of being canceled by God?

And as a man who speaks for God

from the Word of God, I'm terrified of

misstepping or silencing or softening what he would say.

So, Joshua chapter 5.

You and I have a lot in common.

I may not be speaking on behalf of God.

Yeah.

In your way, but we all are.

And

when you've actually received his grace

and you know what it was like before his grace, I'm terrified of, especially now, as things get darker,

because even the very elect will be misled.

There are, there's clear black and white, and then there are things that you're like, wait a minute, well, wait.

And you just have to stay so close to the Spirit.

Yeah.

It's terrifying.

The more we say no to the Spirit of God, the less he speaks.

We're grieving the Spirit of God.

So I believe that we are to live our lives according to

the verbally inspired, authoritative word of God.

And then the Spirit of God speaks to us in our conscience.

And every time we say no or we violate our conscience, we're just turning the dimmer switch down in the voice of God.

And what I'm terrified of is turning it down so I don't hear it anymore.

Right?

And I think God has been, is doing, is going to continue to do a great work in your life, Glenn.

I believe that all my heart.

As you're pursuing truth, what is true?

Not what does man say, not what are those social religious constructs, what does the word of God say in relationship to my sin and his holy savior and how I'm going to do business with God, the judge at the end?

Like, that's all we care about, right?

Because if we get it right, if we live comfortable lives in the short term, like let's take social justice.

If we feed people, this is a

harness nest to kick.

If we meet people's temporal needs and don't meet their eternal needs, we have done them no service.

We need cosmic justice to replace social justice, or else nothing else will work.

But back to Joshua 5, what I love is this, and this is what one of my life verses was just buried in the text, no one even thinks about.

Moses has handed it off to Josh, and he has said,

Don't turn to the right to the left.

Why would he tell Josh to be strong and courageous unless it was going to be difficult and terrifying to be faithful?

Right?

Because anointing follows courageous obedience, not cowardly appeasement.

And so if I may quote Yoda,

I'm not afraid.

You will be.

Exactly.

And that's where I think leadership is pain tolerance.

It is.

Leadership is pain tolerance.

And so your influence will only go so far as the pain you're able to tolerate.

And so

and God by his spirit can increase our pain tolerance threshold to the point where we actually don't fear it.

We embrace it.

Not in some misogynistic, like sick way.

But to say with Paul, hey, throw me in prison.

I'll just write songs in letters to the church.

Hey, murder me, to live as Christ, to die as game.

And they're like, crap.

We can't stop this guy.

The people,

what is it, six that are facing 10 years in prison because they just stood at an abortion clinic, they weren't

doing it.

I don't hear about it.

Oh, you didn't hear this?

Oh, in Nashville, a jury just convicted them of the FACE Act.

And because of the games the government is playing, it's gone from like six months penalty to 10 plus years.

I just had one of them on my show, and he was like, hey,

we're with Christ.

You know, you win some, you lose some.

In the end, we win.

And they're facing 10 years in prison, and that's the kind of Christian I want to be to where.

It doesn't matter where you are or your circumstance.

You are so aligned with him and you're like, dude, as long as I got him, I'm good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, there's there's a...

Doesn't mean it's not scary at times, I'm sure, but.

No, but it can become exhilarating.

Yeah.

Because God's power flows to those who need it.

And when we take the safe road of appeasement or the safe road of silence or the safe road of softening the message, God's power doesn't go there because it's not needed.

So I got to get this Joshua 5 text out.

It's my favorite.

And then you can move on and talk about something else.

Joshua chapter 5.

Joshua has the mantle of leadership.

He's leading the people of Israel into the promised land, which I tell my church is aka

battleground, because God does this mighty work.

He halts the Jordan River.

Israel crosses the Jordan River.

Now they're in their promised land.

They still got a lot of work to do because it's full of enemies and rebels of God.

And so, first of all, it took a miracle to get the Israelites even onto the battlefield.

And the same is true of us.

It takes a miracle of salvation to break through our hard, stubborn, sinful by nature and choice to God wake us up to the good news of the gospel, the glory of Jesus, the Lordship of Christ, that we should lay ourselves down for Him in repentance and faith.

Gets in the promised land, and the first thing they see is Jericho.

And it's like, well, crap, there's the bad guys.

Like, we're in the promised land now.

Like, how's this going to go?

But the perspective from my church, I say, you got to flip it around.

The story isn't, what's God doing leading us here?

There's the bad guys.

The story is Jericho is looking down from the walls

of their encampment

and they're like, where are the Israelites?

They're on the other side of the river.

It's at harvest time.

It's flooding.

There's no way they can get across.

We're tactically failing.

We're good.

Next morning, where's the Israelites?

Oh, crap, they're on our side of the river.

How'd that happen?

Sir, the water just stopped flowing.

I think that Jericho knew they were defeated before the Israelis knew they had a victory.

Because it wasn't that the people of God saw the enemies of God.

It was that the enemies of God saw the people of God under the anointing and power of God and were trembling.

And so we have to remember as a church is God has built us as an offensive vehicle.

And I mean that in every sense of the word.

What we say is offensive, right?

But you can't,

if you work so as to take the offense away of the gospel, you take the power away of the gospel.

You take the power of the gospel away.

And so Paul says, don't come in wise and persuasive words, but in a demonstration of the Spirit's power.

We preach Christ and Christ crucified.

So pivot back to Joshua.

Joshua chapter five.

Joshua's out on his own because later you got to get time away, right?

I don't know how you do this.

Your assistant told me your schedule.

It's mind-numbing.

Hours and hours on the radio, hours and hours doing this stuff with people you've just met.

And she's like, he can absorb an insane amount of information, synthesize it in his head, and then he's naturally curious, which To be honest, I haven't even watched much of your stuff recently, though I'm aware of your voice and grateful for it.

I watched a couple of interviews and what hit me about you is that you are insatiably curious.

And I love that because that's a measure of humility.

It's like, I don't know everything.

I got a lot to learn.

I started here.

I'm moving here.

I'm shifting there.

Like that's contagious.

And so thank you for being a curious learner.

I think that's come to me as a child.

Why?

Why is this this way?

Yeah.

Once you say, I know it, you're done.

It's over.

It's over.

But as a leader, I'm sure there's times you got to get away, shut off the noise, turn the phone off, stop watching cantankerous redneck pastors on Instagram and just kind of be alone and like read the word of God if you have a Bible, listen for the Spirit of God to lead and guide.

And that's what Joshua is doing.

And the Bible records this encounter.

He says a giant man with a sword approached him.

And so Joshua's in enemy territory, okay, leading the people of God on the mission of God to go to battle.

And Joshua's a fighter.

He's a warrior.

It says the text that Joshua drew his sword and he said, which I love, Joshua wasn't like, you know, security breach, come home, guys.

Joshua's like, I got this.

I'll take care of this.

No, no, this guy's big and hairy.

This one looks fun.

And

he says, who are you?

Are you for us or against us?

You know the answer?

The man said, neither.

But as the general of the army of the Lord, I'm here to do business.

Most theologians think that that is a pre-incarnate vision of Jesus,

the general of the Lord's armies.

And what's so crazy is when Jesus come to Joshua, Jesus didn't say, I'm here to take sides.

Jesus said, I'm here to take over.

So the question isn't, am I on your team,

right politicians?

The question isn't, am I on your team, progressive radicals?

The question is, are you on my team?

That's the only question that matters.

And as an individual, am I on his team?

That's right.

And so, are you for me or against me?

Neither.

I'm for me.

And that's the repeated testament of scripture, is that God does all he does for his glory.

And therein is the only reason he could love us and worthy as we are.

And so the question is, are we going to get on the God's glory team?

And

if we are, then it's exciting.

G.K.

Chesterton, that great, happy, jovial Catholic, once said,

and this would be be my encouragement to the church in America, to pastors who are maybe discouraged,

I would say, don't give up hope.

Jesus wins.

Make sure you're on his team.

Don't live so as to avoid controversy.

Live so as to be faithful, right?

I mean, you look at the Anglican bishop who said,

I find myself deeply troubled as of late.

Friend asked why.

He said, because when I read the New Testament in the spirit-filled apostles of Jesus, in the spirit-filled life of the Christian, everywhere Paul went, he caused riots.

And everywhere I go, they served me tea.

And there was a sense of holy conviction that

I think there's something inherent in the word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ that is offensive.

and that stirs offense.

And if we're not preaching in such a way so as to stir offense,

then we're probably not preaching the pure gospel because the ones that preach the gospel that are our examples, Jesus, Paul, Peter, the apostles, they all got their head cut off by a government who said, you're being too political.

Because, and here's the thing, they were preaching and proclaiming, Glenn, a different kingdom.

They were proclaiming,

like I was reading a friend, he said,

He said, I have issue with the phrase Christian nationalist.

And my problem with the phrase is the nationalist.

I'm a Christian imperialist.

God's kingdom.

There is an emperor.

And that emperor has a body and a face and hair and hands.

And that emperor's name is Jesus.

And he is still in bodily form of the right hand of God.

And I serve him and him alone.

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To tell you, it's so funny I happen to be wearing this today.

This is

my personal logo.

Yeah.

It's the skull and crossbones.

This is a prototype.

It left off the crown.

There's supposed to be a crown there.

Okay.

This is a colonial symbol.

Yeah.

And it was no king but Christ.

Wow.

That mortal king?

That's right.

No.

He might have the crown, but no king but Christ.

And they rejected him because he was demanding an allegiance that we can only attribute to Jesus.

Yes.

Inrupt you though.

No, no.

Did you make that up?

Or did you have that?

What is this?

No, I have this made, but it's just.

No, that's just

going to spiral out of control now.

That's a sick twisted freak for which I call my audience.

But

I just,

they had this understanding

back then.

And

you don't lose your first citizenship to save your second.

Amen.

That's a good word.

That's a good word.

And I'll tell you, to the Christian leaders who are listening,

people are starved.

for the truth.

Starving.

Starving.

They'll listen to Christian nationalists because they're saying something

and it may be wrong.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they're saying something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And like, I don't know how you define Christian nationalists, and I'm going to get, oh my gosh, in so much trouble, but I could tell you, like, yeah, I'm a Christian who lives in a nation.

Yes.

And I'm for my nation.

I'm for that nation.

And I'm for God.

I think the Bible calls us to be patriots.

I think every Christian in every country on the planet should think they live in the best country

because no family gets better and stronger and happier and healthy if they think it sucks.

And so I think personally, and no offense,

I'm married to the most amazing woman in the world.

Oh, yeah, I take offense.

And I have the most remarkable kids in the world.

They're smarter than yours and better looking.

Right, right.

And that's the source of my family's thriving.

I look at my wife and kids and go, I know who I am, Glenn.

And I know I have no business.

Oh, you got me thinking about my wife.

I'm going to cry.

I have no business being married to a woman like Sherry McPherson.

But for some reason, God's grace, he said, I'm going to love my boy by giving him this girl.

Now, that comes with a great responsibility, right?

To protect and provide and lead and love.

And I feel that and I carry that.

And that's good for me.

My buddy Mark says, men are like trucks.

They ride better with a heavy load.

And so I should carry that weight.

And my kids, my daughter, Elmay, my son, Levi, Gregory, my daughter, Amelia Claire, my son, Giddy, Joshua, they are the four.

best human beings on a planet.

They love me.

They're praying for us right now.

My daughter prayed for you this party.

If my daughter prays for you, it's in the bank.

Take it.

I have a daughter with cerebral palsy.

Same.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My daughter is born in spina bifida in a wheelchair.

The light of our life.

The light of our life.

Never met a stranger.

Never had a bad day.

Her daily regimen takes her through more pain and trials than most grown men go through in a month.

And I've never once heard her complain.

It's just, it's just, God's just filling with her spirit.

And she walks in that.

But I think we should think we live in the greatest nation on the planet.

Not because we're arrogant or not because we're nationalists, but because God's calls to live here.

And if you hate your yard, it'll never get green.

You got to weed it.

You got to care for it.

It's going to be,

you know, have weeds, and you're going to be part of the problem sometimes too.

But we're you want to love it to care for it so that it grows and thrives and flourishes.

But we are also different in our nation

because we have these documents

that are the highest authorities in the land, and they were God-inspired, and they unlock the rights that allow you to read that, allow you to preach that.

Um, which is so important to point out because in the text, the document gives us authority, right?

And then the Constitution says,

Though these truths be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life.

The Constitution is acknowledging

that government do not give men rights.

God gives men rights.

Government was not designed to give men rights, which means government cannot take men's rights.

Our government

was born to acknowledge sovereign rights given to man and then protect them.

And our insurance policy is the Bill of Rights.

That's right.

They're like, in case you didn't understand the first time,

here's the Bill of Rights.

I interrupted you, keep going.

Yeah,

I don't remember what I was saying.

It was amazing.

Yeah.

Well, let's leave it at the channel.

I've had a chance somebody's right.

And then I interrupt you.

I got to put that down.

I got to live with that.

Yeah, well, you live with it because I, you know,

I can't thank you enough for coming down.

Will you come again?

I want to talk to you about men because I know your hat says stronger man, nation.

Yep.

There is such...

a lack of understanding of men.

Yes.

And so I'd love to talk to you about that.

I'd love it.

I do remember kind of what it was.

It's important

because we've danced around Christian nationalism.

Yes.

And it's really important.

And I'm not even sure how people define it.

No, I know.

I'm

all my skis here.

Most people don't.

They don't know.

There's, like you have defined, I love my country and I love God.

Right.

But I have

this rule book called the Constitution.

Right.

And they work together.

But we're not a country that says you have to be this religion.

That's right.

You know,

our government should

and we shouldn't be.

Yeah, right.

We shouldn't be.

That's not Christian nationalism.

Yes.

Government can't change the heart of man.

Correct.

Laws can't change the heart of man.

It can stop punishing good behavior.

You know what I mean?

But it should not be the ruler,

the

measuring tape of good behavior.

What does it know?

That comes from the individual knowing who God is.

That's right.

The more a laws align with the word of God, the more human flourishing

more freedoms we can have.

100%.

So

is that what you have to do?

No, I just wanted to say that because I think that's the page you're on.

And the Christian nationalism thing is taking root.

And I don't think

by average person, they just don't know what the bad Christian nationalism is.

How would you define Christian nationalism like the most agreed upon definition of the phrase?

I think the most agreed upon is what we just talked about.

I think most people, when they are

hear Christian nationalism, they go like, well, what's the problem?

I love my country.

I love God.

What's the problem?

Black lives matter.

Yes.

But once you get past the BLM and the little black box, you're like, oh, wait a minute.

It means what?

Right, right, right, right.

Exactly right.

I think black lives matter.

I happen to think all lives matter.

Right.

You're attacking the nuclear family.

Exactly right.

Right, right.

and that's this whole theory of containment buddy was talking about in terms of of of uh if we can contain christians by guilt by association so for instance it's like you're going to glenn beck show yeah well do you know he believes this or what if he believes and i'm like i don't know i'm a bible believing spiritful dude up for a conversation with anybody let me speak freely and talk about jesus and see if we can move ourselves towards you know and let the chips fall and what i would tell pastors is like saturate your mind with the word of god walk in the power of the spirit of god

speak your mind live with a clear conscience go home have a steak and sleep like a calvinist on benedryl

right thank you my last word can i get one more word in yes gk chesterton that great happy catholic said

the one great glory

of walking by faith this side of sight

you know so our faith will one day be sight and what we see dimly through, you know, we'll see, behold the face of Jesus.

The one great glory

of living this side of sight and walking by faith

is to be called of God to participate in what feels like a losing battle

and never lose.

Because the kingdom of God advances steadily.

through a series of victories, cleverly disguised as defeats.

So, brothers out there, take heart.

You stick with Jesus, the general of the Lord's army, going to get his business done.

He's going to win, and we're going to be in his team.

Amen.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

It's been an honor.

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