Live Free with Josh Howerton - Megachurch Pastor Reacts To MLB SCANDAL Targeting Christian Players | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

What happens when Christian conviction collides with cultural pressure?In this bonus episode of Live Free, Pastor Josh Howerton reacts to the MLB Pride Night controversy involving San Francisco Giants players who wrote a Bible verse on their hats instead of participating in Pride messaging. Josh explores what this moment reveals about faith, courage, religious freedom, and the challenge of standing firm without losing compassion.In This Episode: Why the Giants Pride Night controversy exploded nationally The meaning behind Genesis 9 and the rainbow in Scripture The difference between loving people and affirming beliefs What Romans 1 reveals about truth, culture, and conviction How Christians can stand for truth with both grace and courage You can love people deeply without approving of everything they do.You can stand firmly on biblical truth without losing compassion.And in a moment like this, Christians must do both.Stand firm. Think biblically. Live free. 🧢 Want a Live Free hat of your own? Visit LiveFree.shop 📲 Looking to grow deeper in your faith? Check out the Lakepointe App to access our Discipleship Guide, daily Bible reading plan, and more. Text APP to 20411 to download

Never, ever, ever believe them when they say that what they're about is tolerance. They are not about tolerance. They are about submission. If their primary value is tolerance, they would be very tolerant of Christian convictions. But they're not. Why? Because something else is going on. What's going on is tolerance for me, submission for thee.

Well, hey, Lifery Nation. Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. but the live free nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this. We want to invite you to take a simple next step and that is join us for church online.

Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook and our church online platform and it's more than just watching a service. There are a live host in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church or just looking for a place to start.

Church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend, and now enjoy the podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to what is going to be a very interesting, a little spicy and maybe at times confusing bonus episode of Live Free. I am back from Vacation with Jana and really good to hop in. It's been an eventful week. I'm going to tell you right now what we're going to talk about in the last week or our last couple weeks, three Giants players, guys, their pitchers, Landon Rup or Raup, J.T. Brewbaker and

Ron Walker. During a pride night at a ball game, there were three dudes that are apparently Christians that decided to write a Bible verse from Genesis Chapter 9 on their hats. Now, Clayton Kershaw did that last year. By the way, I'm a sports guy. If you're listening, we're going to talk about all of this stuff, even if you're not a sports dude or a sports girl. this what we're going to talk about right now is the intersection of the LGBT thing in our culture and how that intersects with Christianity, the things they get thrown at you, how we need to think about these things and not think about these things, how we need to talk to our kids about these things,

and then what we should want, how Christians need to play this moment. So let me track for you what has happened, leads you up to this moment where we are right now, and then I'm going to respond to, he's got a mic, I think it's called Cruckow, I think is how you pronounce his name. A giant's pitcher that became a giant's broadcaster that put these dudes on blast. And he just, he says a lot of stuff

that's going to get thrown at you. Now, two disclaimers. One, without naming, it's actually kind of, it's a little surreal. Without naming any names to protect, to protect live-free listeners or social media interactors, we have reason to believe

that some of this may have happened because of some things that we encourage professional athletes to do on Live Free or on our social accounts. There are a bunch of professional athletes that started listening to Live Free recently, and we hear from those dudes. And so leading into June, we kind of gave a heads up, like, hey, here's a play that we think you could run as a Christian. And we are aware of some professional athletes that have kind of, you know, tried to run with this in their discipleship. And we have reasonably the sum of what's going on in our culture right now. We may have been a little pebble that helps start what has been an avalanche. Okay, so quick disclaimer, and then I'm going to get in. Some people

will listen to what's going to happen in the next few minutes, and they're going to think this, it feels unloving. What you've got to remember in the Bible, let's do a quick theology of what we're doing right now. We have two commands. Jesus said to love people. The second greatest command is to love your neighbor. We must do this regardless of who they are and whether they love Jesus. But then we also have a command in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. It says we destroy arguments. So Christians, especially pastors, have a command to do two things, love people and destroy arguments.

Now, what I've noticed as a pastor is that when you destroy arguments, people accuse you of being unloving towards the people who believe the arguments that you're destroying. And then when you love people who believe the arguments that you ought to be destroying, when you're really loving towards those people, people are not. accuse you of coddling the arguments. And I'm just going to say, I reject both those things. At Lake Point, on Live Free, and in my life, what I try to embody is that we love all people. I don't care who you're at, man, I don't care who you believe, I don't care who you sleep with, I love you. But we are also commanded in 2nd Corinthians, Chapter 10, to destroy the arguments

that enslave people and destroy their lives. So that's what we're going to be doing for the next few minutes. Caviots out of the way. Let me talk right now how we got where we're at and what's going on is kind of this national moment we're having our culture. Okay, so it all started right here. I'm going to toss this up on the screen. This is the athletic. This is what they said. They said covered it the first night it happened. Several Giants players wrote Bible verses on their caps to respond to Pride Night. Now listen to this language. This gesture echoed a familiar pattern meant making a knight meant for inclusion about something else entirely. Now, first of all, let me just pause and completely object to the framing of what they just said. Throughout this episode and in your life as a

Christian, what you're going to notice is you've got to get really good at using the Bible like a lens through which you evaluate the world in front of you and watch to evaluate biblically the frameworks that people try to put the arguments inside of. Okay. So they said that these These Christians, these Christian dudes that put a Bible verse on the cap, they tried to make the night about something it wasn't about. What I would say is, nope, the giants tried to make a night that was supposed to be about baseball about something else entirely, trying to force Christians to publicly deny their 2,000-year-old convictions about gender, marriage, and sexuality. That is when somebody made something that was supposed to be about something else, about something else entirely. Okay, now let me show this.

This right here, I want to give you an image. When these three guys, everybody else around them, is wearing the little pride flag, the little flag thingy. And these three guys are like, hey, ma'am, I can't do it. I want to show you this because it's a powerful image. Check this out. This is those three dudes that night. That is an image from the beginning of the book of Daniel when three young men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedigo, who were young,

strong, smart, probably athletic, because it says that they were physically fit guys. An entire culture said, bow down or else. And they said, man, we must obey God rather than men. And when everybody else was bowed down, they refused to do the thing. That is what three guys Landon Rope, J.T. Brewbaker, and Ron Walker did that night at that game. Now, before I dive in any farther and talk about where this is snowballed in our culture. What I want to point out to you, there's a reason and a significance behind that image right there because these people in Babylon, they were commanded to bow down before an idol. So it's like an alternate religion. Now, one thing that I don't think Christians understand is check this out. Now, dude, we're going to do a deep dive

and this something that's going to blow your mind. Just track with me, dude. The whole LGBT movement, what you've got to understand, is it honestly, and I'm going to use some like sharp language, it functions like a sex cult, like actually like an alternate religion, and there's a reason for that. This is very biblical. So let me take you back. The whole rainbow flag

they try to get these dudes to put on their cap. It originated in 1978. It was created by gay drag queen artist. I got the guy's name here somewhere. I can't find it. He was associated with the guy named Harvey Milk that dabbled in like even pedophilia stuff and like super nasty stuff.

But he was gay drag queen artist. He created the original Pride Flag and it had eight colors. Now check this out. This is going to be important. Eight colors denoting sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, art, harmony. Here's the last one. And a spirit. What spirit?

There are two types. The Holy Spirit and unholy spirits. So from the very beginning of the creation of the Pride Flag, it's woven in a into the fabric of the emblem that there is an unholy spirit associated with this thing. All right, now, it's a rainbow. Now, let's go a layer deeper. What we know in the Bible is that there is an unholy spirit. It all begins with Satan, who is the original unholy spirit.

What we know in the Bible is that Satan was filled with pride, the Bible, says. And what he did is Satan saw God on his throne in heaven, and Satan went, man, I actually don't, like, worshiping somebody else on a throne. I want to be worshipped on a throne. He was filled with pride and then he began a rebellion against God. Now this is something a lot of Christians have never understood. In Ezekiel chapter one, we are given an insight into the throne room of heaven. I'm going to show you something you probably never noticed before. So here's what Satan would have seen when he was filled with pride and looking at the throne room of God in heaven. This is Ezekiel chapter one, above the vault over their heads, talking about angels, was what looked like

a throne of lapis lazuzi, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. So it's like a pre-incarnate, it's like a god man, okay, God. I saw that, I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up, he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down, he looked like fire. And brilliant light surrounded him. Brilliant light surrounded him. Keep going. like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day,

so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God. So from the very beginning in Ezekiel 1, Satan full of pride looks at the glory of God. And as he's filled with pride, he goes, I want that glory. and when he's saying, I want that glory, do you know what he's pointing at? Something that had the appearance of a rainbow.

Huh, that's interesting. Now, let's go a layer deeper. These dudes wrote on their caps a verse from Genesis chapter 9. Now here's what you've got to remember. Whatever God creates, Satan tries to commandeer. That's all throughout the Bible. Whatever God creates, Satan tries to commandeer. So God creates the rainbow, for holy purposes, Satan tries to commandeer.

Satan tries to commandeer the rainbow for unholy purposes. Now, here's the verse these dudes wrote on their caps. This is from Genesis chapter 9 and God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come. I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind. All right now, let's go a layer deeper. So what God does here, this is absolutely, it's like mind blowing. What God does is right after the Noahic flood in the early parts of Genesis.

What God does is he finishes and he goes, hey man, I'm going to put a bow in the sky, and that bow in the sky is going to be a sign. I'm never going to destroy the earth, specifically with a flood again. God will destroy the earth. He will bring judgment and wrath on the earth at the end, but it's going to be fire or not flood. By the way, there's a whole thing about, there's actually some spiritual elements to the whole global warming. and just notice in all that stuff, the eschatology

of the whole secular global warming thing is the earth's going to end with a flood? There's a whole thing there. That's a whole different episode. But what God does is he goes, hey, I'm going to make you a promise and I'm going to give you a sign of the promise or the covenant that's never going to happen again.

Now, what he does is if you hunt a little bit, you know this. What a lot of hunters do is they'll take their bow, and when they're not going to use their bow anymore, they hang it up on the wall. It's like a dude that puts like a rifle that's special to his family. over the mantle in his house.

God goes, hey man, I'm hanging my bow up. So I'm not using this anymore. And then, dude, this is so great, ma'am. And this is how much Jesus loves every sinner everywhere, including people who have committed sexual sin like you and me and every person that's dabbled in same-sex sexual activity. Notice that when God puts his bow in the sky,

it's pointing upward. And what God was doing is he was foreshadowing the fact that, hey, in the future, I know you guys are going to keep rebelling against me, but there's going to come a day when you rebel against me. It is actually going to trigger my wrath again. But someday when my wrath is triggered because of your sin again, that bow of my wrath will shoot upwards towards me instead of down at you. and when Jesus came at the cross and the wrath of God was poured out on him at the cross in his crucifixion what was happening is our sin had triggered the wrath of God again but the arrow of his justice and wrath hit him instead of us for everybody that believes and live free man we're all about the gospel so i'll say it one more time god loved so he gave and if you believe you will receive eternal life so that's it Now, that's what the rainbow originally was for. Now notice whatever God creates, Satan tries to commandeer.

What you as a Christian have to understand, and then I'm going to get into kind of talking about what snowballing our culture. Is it the whole LGBTQIA plus two, there's like 47 letters now, it functions like an alternate religion, and here's what's happening in our culture right now, is there is a war between Christian theology and the LGBTQ is honestly dude it functions a little bit like a sex cult and it's it's rival religions it's a zero-sum game they're locked in a cultural cage match and either one will kill the other or the other will kill the one

they cannot it's ironic i'm going to say this coexist okay so what i want you to notice is that literally everything it's the satanic inversion of christianity in like the lgbcule religion thing so check this out So in the LGBTQ religion thing, it's all about self-expression. In Christianity, we're all about self-denial. Jesus said, if you want to follow me, you must deny yourself. And the LGBTQ functions like a religion. It's worship sex. It's the most important thing about you.

Build your identity on sex. And the pinnacle of joy is sexual expression. Worship sex. In Christianity, we don't worship sex. We worship God. in the LGBTQ religion thing is all about treating man like a God. It's like everything needs to order itself

around you and your desires and everybody bow down before what you need and want and cheer and affirm you. Christianity is not about treating man like a God. Christianity is about God becoming a man. In the LGBT thing, they celebrate pride. In Christianity, we celebrate humility. In the LGBT thing, we go, hey man,

what they say is we were born this way. In Christianity, Jesus says, yeah, but you must be born again. And all LGBT thing is like, hey, I'm perfect exactly the way I am. In Christianity, we go, man, actually, I'm a sinner that needs to be a man new, and I'm not having things not right about me, and I need Jesus to fix me. So again, what you need to understand is this is not just some little cultural nuance thing. It actually functions like the LGBTQIA thing. It functions like a religion.

the genuflecting the act of coming out is that religion's form of baptism so this is how I go public with my newfound faith all the different letters in the thing LGBTQI plus all the stuff they're different denominations in the religion and let's take it down to what's going on our culture right now if you're asking like hey dude why are they all why do they always got to do like pride nights for like games that kids little kids like to come with their dads too. And why do they always doing like the drag queen story hours in libraries for little kids? You know, have you ever noticed this? They're never trying to go to nursing homes and read those books.

It's always like with the kids, the kids, the kids. And you're like, man, why are they like, if you're watching what's going on in court systems right now with public school systems, why are they so insistent on books promoting like, I'm going to, you know, promoting like gay sex in elementary schools? Well, here's why. because eventually every religion has to get into kids ministry. So there's a reason I use that picture of the three guys refusing to bow down before another religion's idol. Well, guess why? Because this whole movement, it functions like a religion

and it's driven by an unholy spirit. The Bible calls Satan. Okay, so these guys refuse to do it. Now, throw this next thing up. This is another thing from the Atlantic. By the way, increasingly, I'm not loving what I'm seeing from the Atlantic, like the way they're covering this. So there's what it says. After three San Francisco Giants pitchers appeared on Friday's game with Bible verses written on Pride Nightcaps,

listen to this language really close. You need to begin to understand what's happening in our culture and what's going to happen to you. The MLB issued a warning that similar behavior, listen to this language will not be tolerated. Now wait just a second. I thought the whole thing was tolerance and inclusion. Now here's what I want to point out to you. Never, ever, ever believe them when they say that what they're about is tolerance. They are not about tolerance. They are about submission. If their primary value is tolerance, they would be very tolerant of Christian convictions,

but they're not. Why? Because something else is going on. What was going on is tolerance for me, submission for thee. That's what's going on. Okay. Now, here's what happens. Cowardous begets cowardice and courage begets courage. So these guys, so far, they have, They have, they've been, dude, honestly, they've been awesome. They've been humble. They've been loving. They haven't been like belligerent. They're not like attacking anybody.

They're just quietly expressing faithfulness to Jesus Christ and they refuse to bow to the mob, okay? This is yesterday. Check this out right here. This is from NBC News. So in response to the courage of these dudes, minor league baseball team in Pennsylvania, cancel's Pride Night game after players refuse to wear jerseys with rainbow sleeves. So now, hey, watch this.

Now you've got the vice president. I didn't show this. You get the vice president of the United States. This tweeting about this. You got the attorney general of the United States saying, hey, MLB, we may need to look into this because it feels like you're practicing informed religious discrimination. Now you've got people, other ball teams, Christians on these ball teams. they're not being jerks for Jesus.

They're not doing that. They're just quietly going, hey, man, I'm a Christian, and man, I must obey God rather than men, and I'll play any game you want me to, but I can't bend my knee to something that Jesus doesn't affirm. And now we got something going on in our culture.

So here's what I'm going to do in the next few minutes as fast as I possibly can. I'm getting ready to play for you audio of this guy, Mike Krukow. So I'm going to play this. People call him Kruch. He is now, like I said, the, I think he's the primary, if I understand it correctly. I think he's the primary broadcaster for the Giants.

I'm going to play this for you. And I'm going to react to this. But then I want to answer the question, because we do have reason to believe that all of this may have started out of a dagum live free episode or Instagram post. So then I want to answer the question, what should, so we got a little momentum on the field. what should Christians do now? Okay, so what you're getting ready to hear from Mike is about four and a half minutes of audio. I'm going to pause and comment on this a couple times and help you understand what's going to get thrown at you up. And then I want to answer that question, what should Christians be doing now?

So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let me pull up some old Mike. Crook out. Here we go. Mike, before you let you go, I did want to ask you about the conversations surrounding Major League Baseball, the San Francisco By the way, this is radio, not TV, so it's just audio. Nothing's wrong with your YouTube channel. Giants and Landon Roop and multiple players putting Bible verses on their hats during Pride Night, last Friday night at Oracle Ballpark, and just open the floor to see if you had any thoughts on this topic in this situation. Well, I do.

And it's really, really a subject that is so impassioned. And I obviously... We're going to talk about why it's so impassioned in a minute. the Bible exactly predicts this. I actually respect the right for these guys to voice their opinion. I mean, that's what a lot of men and women gave their lives for these ballplayers to do. Now, I just want to pause and say this.

That's what a lot of men and women gave their lives to these ball players to do. The most deaths that have happened in any recent war is obviously World War II. There's 416,000. I like to, I sleep terrible, so I wake up in the middle of the night and I usually read World War II history. 416,000 Americans were here. in World War II. I just want to point this out, if you think that like your heterosexual great

grandfather that 96% of America was Christian around right after World War II, if you think that your heterosexual Christian grandfather died in World War II so that Christians could get publicly canceled and hazed because they wouldn't affirm two dudes sleeping with each other, I would gently suggest you might need to go read a history book really close. In fact, Landon Rup, J.T. Brubaker, and Ryan Walker, they're the ones that did what your great-grandfather died to have happened. Just want to point that out. Do I agree with it?

We'll know. And I think that once you've lived in the Bay Area for a number of years like we have, you understand that the strength of the city is its ethnicity. It's its culture. It's the freedom for people to be able to come to a city and be free. Oh, that's very interesting. That'd be great if it was the city where everyone went, man, we would love for you to come here and be free.

What about this? What about being free not to be forced to publicly violate your Christian conviction? So again, the thing that you as a Christian need to get, and you need to get it with humility, is you understand, they don't care about freedom. what it is is freedom for me submission for thee so i want to point that out now i also just want to point this out what he said is dude what can happen is what c s louis he calls it chronological snobbery it's when we look at the current age and we're like we're the smart enlightened ones and everybody

from the past all your ancestors were evil and they were idiots and they you know they were so primitive that's called what CS Lewis called chronological snobbery. There's a little chronological snobbery going on here in what Mike Krukow just said, because he said, man, everybody in San Francisco knows that the strength of the city is this culture. And he's especially talking about like the conquering of San Francisco by the sexual revolution. I'm going to talk about that here in a second. And all the, you know, LGBT affirmation stuff. That's the strength of the city.

Well, what I want to point out is, first of all, if you go look, if you go look, I should have grabbed one. you'll see these pictures where they're side-by-side pictures of San Francisco in like the 60s and San Francisco now. And man, honestly, it doesn't look a lot better. That's not what it looks like. The other thing I'll point out, and dude, there's a mountain of data on this, is people do not want to reckon with the reality that ever since the sexual revolution, infiltrated the United States, and really honestly has won the culture war, really until this, this is the first cultural flashpoint in my lifetime.

I'm 42, where it's like, whoa, the sexual revolution is losing and people are against them. So here's what I want to point out. So sexual revolution and all the LGBT affirmation stuff, it really primarily started in the 60s and really gained power in the 70s. I just want to point this out. I read this recently. happiness levels in America peaked in the 1960s and have been in decline ever since. Divorce rates have doubled since the 1960s. In 1960, this is mind-blowing.

In 1960, 5.3% of births in America were to unwed mothers. today in 2006, between 40 and 50% of children are born out of wedlock. Suicide rates are somewhere around three times as high as they were. Listen, I could go on and on one. But when people point at like the modern era and they're like, oh man, everybody sees the strength of this city or the strength of our culture is what we're doing now over and against these obviously bigoted, unintelligent, primitive, rubes from the 50s and 60s. Well, hey man, seems like families were a lot better. People were a lot happier. Things were not perfect. There were obviously problems we had in our culture.

But it's really chronological snobbery to go, well, things are awesome in 2006, and they were obviously awful in the 1960s. Ah! Okay, let's keep going. And that's a powerful thing, and that's the thing about San Francisco that I love the most. and I think when you're a player and you come into... Okay, listen, bro, listen really close. This as a Christian, what you're getting ready to hear,

this is what you've got to settle in your heart before it happens in your life. This environment, it's your responsibility to know just how sensitive this city is in regards to that cultural freedom and religious freedom. Okay, now, first of all, this is a little mind-blowing.

He's saying, man, these players that refused to put on the pride caps, they should have been more sensitive about how much this city cares about. And then he says, religious freedom. That's one of my, I beg your finest pardon, my brother, these are the guys who are exercising religious freedom. Now, let me go back and just, because this is something that, like, as a Christian, you've got to settle in your spirit, man, okay?

So what he said, and I'm going to quote him again, he said, when you're a player and you come into this environment, it's your responsibility to know how sensitive this city is in response to that freedom. Listen, dude, what you got to understand is, hey, man, what I would say to Mike Krukow if I was hanging out with him is like, hey man, what you got to understand is when these dudes are Christians, he says, when you're a player. Well, they're players, but they're not first players. They're first players. They're first Christians and they're way, way, way, second players. So what this guy's not understanding is these guys, and you've got to understand, is that you're a Christian before you're a player. You're a Christian before you're an employee.

You're a Christian before you're a student. And listen, he says they've got to, they've got to, Let me make sure I get this right. It's your responsibility to know how sensitive this city is. What you as a Christian are going to have to decide in your heart at the beginning of your life as a disciple is who you are going to be the most sensitive to, God or man. This is Galatians 110. It sits right above the desk where I write every sermon. Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God?

or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. And do what you're going to notice is that there are some people who they're so sensitive to not offending people that they become very offensive to God. And we have to decide in our lives at the outset

as Christians like, hey bro, if I got to choose, offend God or offend people, I already made that choice. Ten toes down. I already made that choice. So let me just do one little other theological framework, and then I'll move on. So here's what you need to understand as a Christian, is Jesus said there were two great commandments, but he gave the order of the great commandments.

He said two greatest commandments, love God number one, love people number two. So two greatest commandments, but also an order. And here's what some Christians, well-meaning but naive Christians do, is they'll end up emotionally calibrating themselves to sensitivities towards people in an effort to love people, but they get the order wrong. They're more emotionally calibrated towards making people feel loved than they are about making God feel loved. And if you get that order wrong and try to love people first,

you're going to end up failing to love God appropriately because in order to appease the feelings of these people, you will offend the feelings of God. And then you're going to end up affirming things that are very unloving to people because you didn't believe that God's commands were not burdensome, and they're actually what's best for people. So what I'd say is no.

It's actually, I just want to put it like this. Mike Krukow said, when you're a player, you come into this environment, it's your responsibility to know how sensitive the city is in response to that freedom. I would say, no, gently no. Jesus Christ is Lord. It's actually Mike Krukow's responsibility to know how sensitive God is in response to obedience to his commands. Okay, let's keep you on.

And just the way that you live your life. And I think they were in for a rude awakening with the response, and it wasn't just from the gay kids. Okay, dude. Now, I just want, okay, I need a pause here. And man, there's a lot of Christians who I love you. You're just really naive, man. I love you, but you're really naive about especially the LGBT thing.

And I get it. You got friends, you got family members who go down that path. Hey, man, me too. me too and and so you think man is it really that big a deal you know hey you know what do we do we do we really need to you'll start a thing about like this do we need to enforce our beliefs on the rest of culture and that kind of thing so let me talk about this real quick because it ties into what he said so my crook out said these guys are in for a rude awakening and actually i think my cruck out he might be surprised because i think these three dudes are probably they're like actual disciples of jesus and i say man

actually they weren't in for a rude awakening they knew exactly what they know exactly what they were signing up for when they bent their need of Jesus and joined team Jesus. They were not surprised. You know why they weren't surprised? Because 1st John 313 says, do not be surprised my brothers when this world hates you. So actually, I don't think they were in for Rood Awakening. I think they were like, no, man, I counted the cost, and I decided that I'm going to follow Jesus.

And it may cost me a few things, but I think Jesus is worth it. Now, let me talk real quick. What I need to do, let me connect some dots real quick, and this is going to take me a second, but it's going to be really important. so rude awakening and he's talking about how now where we are in our culture now when somebody refuses to bend the knee on this thing it has a lot of consequences culturally and even vocationally and it might have for you too okay let me explain to you how we got here because a lot of Christians aren't awesome to think about this stuff okay now check this out all if if I'm an 80s

baby but the 90s made me so I grew up in a world where our nation and the laws of our society defined marriage in a generally biblical sense one man one one woman in a covenant that's at least intended for a lifetime okay that changed obviously i think it was 2014 when obergafel got handed down and that set off a chain reaction our culture that led to where we're at now now this is like this is o g man like this little internet meme was going around when i was in college so let me pull this up right here look check this out and people used to dunk on any Christian that opposed the legalization of gay marriage and they would throw this little meme in your face. It's like what happened if gay marriage is legalized and it's

all green? And then it's like gay people will get married and that's the green. A third war war world war will break out. Various plagues, logos, frogs, et cetera, will erupt. Schools will begin teaching kids how to gay sex. The terrorists will win. And what they were doing is they were making fun of anybody who was like, guys, I actually don't think this would be good for culture. And they're trying to say, the only only thing that'll happen is gay people will be able to get married and none of the other bad stuff you guys are saying will happen is going to happen well i want to say two things one one of the things they used to mock christians for saying is schools will begin teaching kids how to have gay sex well news flash that's exactly what happens now so exactly what people predicted is one of the

things that happen now let me explain why and dude this is where christians like have to lovingly but humbly become clear thinkers. If there's a phrase you need to submit in your head, the phrase is, ideas have consequences. Ideas, there's an old philosopher that said that, ideas have consequences. Whoever originally says A, must by logical consequence eventually say B.

So let me just point out to you. Once a society redefines marriage away from one man and one woman. That's a biblical definition from Genesis 2. What we did is we took that definition. We threw God's definition out the window and we went, you know what a marriage is now? We're going to say it's any loving relationship between consenting adults where they want to enter into that type of commitment. So we went from one man, one man, one man with the intent of lifetime covenant to any consenting adults. Well, I'm just going to rapid fire these for you real quick about some things that have happened. And one of them is a little hard.

to stomach. So this just happened a couple weeks ago. This is in New York City or in New York State. This is Kathy Hokel. New York's governor considers a bill to remove mother and father from family law, and they're replacing the words mother and father from family law in the state of New York with gestating parent and non-gestating parent. Well, why would you do that? Well, because if you redefine marriage in the family unit to two consenting adults and you take away the biological distinctions, male and female, well now we actually can't say that parents have to be a mom and a dad because we redefined the family and when you add kids through surrogacy or adoption, which is really gross for a same-sex couples to do that. When you do that, well, now we just need to go gestating parent or

not gestating parent because we don't believe these things. Now, the other thing you're starting to see if you're paying attention, I'm a little bit of news junkie, is now all of a sudden because we redefine it from male and female to any consenting adults, well, you didn't just take the biological distinctions out. You took the two people distinction out. Why has it got to be two people as long as they're consenting adults? So I'll show you this. You're starting to see a huge push for the legalization and destigmatization of polyamory. That's like a quote unquote marriage with four people in it that have sex together or three people or seven people. That's polyamory. So this is like, and these are mainstream sources. This is New Yorker. How did polyamory become so popular because we redefined marriage in the family?

This is New York Magazine, Polyamory, a guide for the curious couple. This is New York Times. How a polyamorous mom had a, quote, big sexual adventure and found herself. This is USA Today. Swingers want you to know a secret. Swinging is not just about sex. First line of the article. Open relationships are having a moment. Polyamory, ethical non-monogamy, And similar terms are becoming a bigger part of our cultural lexicon. Why? Well, because ideas have consequences. And once you redefine marriage, you redefine the family and all the, all the, all the doors fly open.

Now, this next thing I'm getting ready to show you right here, I'm going to shoot you real straight. This is hard to watch. But again, if you're a, listen, I would just gently say this, a well-meaning but naive Christian who's just like, you know what, man, just, just, you know, can't we just, you know, just let them do what they want. And, you know, it really hurts people's feelings when you don't affirm those things. Remember, ideas have consequences. And God's commands are not burdensome. They're good.

When God says don't, he means don't hurt yourself. And that goes for individuals, families, and societies. Now, what I'm getting ready to show you is one of the hardest things to watch. I have seen in the last few years. What you're getting ready to look at is a gay, quote-unquote, married couple that bought a baby, the surrogacy to baby. So it's two dads, and one of the dads is holding the baby, and I'll be honest, man, it's going to be hard for my eyes and not to sweat while.

Watch this. Listen really close to the exchange one of these two dads has with the baby that he's holding. Now, let me pull this up real quick here. Who do you want? Dadda or pop? Oh, whoa. Okay. So, what?

What he's going to say, I want you to hear it clearly, he's going to ask baby a question. Who do you want? And it's kind of gross to even say. Dada or pop? Listen to the response. Who do you want? Dada or pop? Nama.

No. Baby go. Dude, this is, Matt. Has it dad. That's tough. Who do you want? Dad or a pop? And the baby says, mama, mama.

Okay, now watch. No mama. He says no mama. Do you want dad-da or pop? Who do you want? Dad-da or pop? Watch this, this is tough. Mom again, mom again.

Do you want dad-da? You want pop. No way, Jose. Well, watch this. I think, oh. Watch. There is no mama. Oh.

I'm so sorry. You have dad dad. There is no baba. And baby just starts weeping. Watch this. You have pop. Two choices. No mama.

Mama. Mama. Blu. Listen to me. Ideas have consequences. You may go, well, man, if we just redefine things like marriage, oh, man, it's not going to hurt anybody. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is.

You know who suffers, kids? Because every kid deserves to have a mom and a dad. And I just want to point this out to you. In that picture, one of the dads says, do you want data or papa? Baby says, mama. Dad says no data or pop. Baby just begins weeping.

And I would quote a Bible verse, out of the mouths of babes. Okay. So what I point out of you is, ideas have consequences. Now, let me take it down to this thing with the deal going on right now. So way back pre-2014, some of y'all listen, you don't even remember that time. Everybody's like, what bad things are going to happen if we reject the biblical definition of marriage and just do consenting adults? Well, now what you got is you have legal and societal demands that are made on Christians.

So now it's bake the cake. Design that website. Say the pronouns. Put it in your email signature at work. Or wear that hat. Bend the knee, son, or else? So this is what I'm pointing out, man. Ideas have consequences.

Mike Krukow when he says, hey man, now if somebody won't bend the knee, these guys should have known there'd be massive societal opposition. He's right. because ideas have consequences. And in the language of the book of Galatians, laws have a didactic function.

They don't just legislate what's right and wrong. They instruct and calibrate the consciences of a culture about what's right and wrong. So when you legislate evil as good, you're training the consciences of an entire generation to treat evil things as good and good things as evil. That's how we got where Mike Krukow is talking right now. Let's keep going.

They were in for a rude awakening with the response, and it wasn't just from the gay community. It was from the Northern California community that supports the gay community. Moved to Texas. That's the job. This is what has been incredible, the way that the reaction has centered around the emotion that Northern California has for the gay community. And Killian's article was brilliant. It was full of outrage. And if you read the...

Now, I'm going to point some out of you, and I'm going to show you the Bible predicted this 2,000 years ago. All right. Notice he's using language like this. Outrage. Emotion. Keep listening to the language he uses. And I'm going to show you this in the scriptures.

Comments from the people that had written in expressing their opinion and their disappointment in the Giants players. And it was impassioned. And it wasn't just a bunch of trolls screaming BS. This was written by people that had deep thoughts, and it was well written. It was an educated opinion. And it was something that I think everybody should read. When you come on and you put on a uniform and you represent San Francisco, whether it be in football, baseball, hockey, basketball, whatever.

You have to be aware of just how impassioned the people are here. You have to be aware of how impassioned people are here. So now let me point some idea, and then I want to show it. Why is this? Well, dude, the Bible is not an old book. It's an eternal book. And because it's eternal, it's always timeless, which means it's always timely. The Bible tells us exactly why they're full of outrage, emotion, impassioned, disappointment, how impassioned people are.

Now, let me explain why that is. What you need to do is, here's your homework, is go. read Romans chapter one. Romans chapter one basically is a lens that goes, it essentially goes, here's modern America, unless we as a culture begin to repent before God. Now I'm going to read a lot of Bible. If you listen to Live for Ego, the top person who I think likes a lot of the Bible, but this should help us understand like, okay, why are we seeing what we're seeing our culture? Now listen really close. This verse should just have a wick coming out of it because every time you read it, it kind of explodes in your face. So this is Romans 118. It says, the wrath of God,

is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people. I just want to point this out. Notice this. We're always okay with our wrath. So we're okay with wrath being poured out on three guys who won't bend the knee. We're okay with us expressing outrage and mobs and violence if it's directed to the right people. We're okay with our wrath, but we're never okay with gods. So I just want to point this out.

The same people who are like, justice, justice, justice, those people tend to forget we as mankind are on the wrong side of the greatest injustice ever committed. We killed God. Romans chapter one is saying now in some societies the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of these people. Now watch this. Check this out. Who, here's what it says, suppress the truth.

Here's a big idea. All this is going to start to explain our culture to you. When an ideology becomes an idol, truth suppression always happens. So it says when a culture goes, we're going to love this evil thing and we're going to replace the truth of God with a lie, a different ideology. What Romans 1 says, what immediately begins to happen is that culture begins to suppress the truth. So this is why when Abigail Schreier writes a book exposing the evils of the transgender movement, this is why all the books get banned from Amazon, suppress the truth. This is why some of my own content has had content violations on YouTube and we'll have stuff pulled, truth suppression.

This is why some biblical truth or some biblical truth that we used to hang in every classroom in America or teach every kid in America. You can't teach that anymore in classrooms. Why? Because we suppress the truth. And this is why they're now saying, don't you dare put those Bible verses on your hats? Because evil cultures suppress the truth. Now here's what it says, by their wickedness. Since what may be known about God is plain to them

because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so the people are without excuse. All it's saying here is that the nature of creation makes the obviousness of a creator not ignorable. I don't have time to go into this.

this is why sociologists have literally never discovered any civilization or society in all of human history that didn't have some spiritual truth, some religion, something. Why? Because what, the fact that there is a creator is just obvious when you look around. Now verse 21. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. For although they, watch this, they claim to be wise, they became fools. In other words, people with a lot of knowledge,

but no wisdom. This is why, listen, this is why when somebody wants to believe something, they can always, listen to it, I don't care, it doesn't matter what you want to believe. It doesn't matter. You can always find a college professor somewhere with more degrees than Fahrenheit

that will affirm the thing that you already decided you wanted to believe. that is what this verse is saying, claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles. Now, here's what I'm going to point out.

This starts bringing us into this specific issue. It says, when we do this, what cultures do, they exchange truth for a lie. So they exchange doctrine for ideology, but then they exchange the glory of the immortal God for images, watch this, made to look like mortal human beings. So here's what it says.

When we stop worshiping God, we don't worship bad things. We take good things and make them ultimate things. So we take created things and we put them in the place of the creator. Now check this out. If you look at our culture, you'll notice we worship lots of things, but the thing that we tend to worship more than anything else is sex. It is the thing in, open your eyes. It is the thing in our culture that people are like,

I'm going to build my whole identity on this. I'm going to build my entire shot at happiness on this. if you won't cheer and affirm this one thing, then we're going to consider it as if you've transgressed blasphemy laws. You have to be kicked out of society. Now, why is that? Why is it more than anything else we worship sex? Because when God created everything, he said everything was good,

but when he created the human body, he said it's very good. So this goes back to Genesis. So this is why we do this. Now, verse 24, now we start getting into why what's happening in our culture is happening. Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts. to now when he says God gave them over just stay with me and I'm getting back to this this is what theologians call the passive wrath of God the there's a difference between the active wrath of God and the passive wrath of God of the Bible the active wrath of God is when God

actively pours out some judgment you know fire falls from heaven on cities or I mean there's a thousand different things God strikes anonais and if I were dead in Acts chapter 5 that's the active wrath of God. The passive wrath of God is when you look around, God has created sin, where sin is a punishment unto itself. That when you go off into sin, you, in the words of the scriptures, pierce yourself with many pangs. So C.S. Lewis wisely said, man, there's only two types of people. There's people who bend their need of Jesus and say to God, thy will be done. And then there's people to whom God eventually says, I will be done.

I'll let you do exactly what you want. You can wander off into that, do that, sleep with that, affirm that, cheer that. He's going, man, bad things are going to happen. That's the passive wrath of God. God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for what, for the degrading

of their bodies for one another. So this is saying when a culture begins to get to its highest forms of rebellion against God, you get rampant sexual impurity and degrading of their bodies with another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and serve created things

rather than the creator who is forever praised. Amen. Now, the next verse I'm getting ready to read, pastors don't even have to try to be controversial. They just got to read Bible verses like this. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations

with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. what this is saying is when the passive wrath of God is poured out on people or a society, what this is saying is you're going to see an increase in participation in an affirmation of same-sex sexual activity. That's like a Bible verse. That's a Bible verse. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think,

it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. God gave them over to a depraved mind. So they do what ought not to be done. Now, listen, we're going to get back to why there's so much outrage, disappointment, impassioned opposition to what these guys did. This verse is going to tell you. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, depravity. They're full of envy, murder, stride, deceit, and malice. There are gossip, slanderers, god-haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful, they invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. Some people call this Romans I just call it 21st century America. They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Watch this. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things

deserve death. Listen, this is not saying that, oh, people who struggle with same, who commit same sex sexual sin. This is not, oh, they deserve death and you don't. No, no, no. All have sinned and death is the penalty for sin. So it's saying everybody's sin and death is the penalty for sin. They not only continue to do these very things, but they approve of those who practice them.

That, my friends, is saying, in a culture where the passive wrath of God is, is poured out in unique measure, you're going to get, hey man, a bunch of hashtags, a bunch of pride parades. This explains all the pressure day, unless I celebrate you and support you, well, then I'm intolerant. This is why he's going, my cruckow is going, there was an impassioned outrage over these guys. Why? Because Romans 132 specifically predicted it. They will not only do these things, they will give approval to those who practice them. And I would just gently say this. what a lot of people say is, man, unless I celebrate you and support you, well, then I'm intolerant. And I would just gently say, if you're so insecure in your beliefs that you need my approval, maybe you need to reconsider your convictions.

Now, let's keep going on. So that explains, we're just, we're biblically walking through what's going on here. Let's finish it up here. This is gruck out. And I, you know, again, it is, there is an irony to it. There's an irony to because the giant's organization. just getting dumped on as well. And that hurt me.

That's just, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, now, do people sin in their anger and can Christians absolutely be jerks for Jesus, which I, I stink and hate it, man. I hate that. It's not my thing. It's like some, some people took their Myers-Briggs and it came back J-E-R-K. That's like, not our thing, man. We're supposed to humbly, we're supposed to boldly stand for truth, but do it with love, respect, love and respect.

I will say, the Giants organization getting dumped on. is a symptom of something generally zoomed out moving in the right direction? I'll explain that in a second. It hurt me because I saw in 1994 they were the first team to ever take on the challenge of going against public opinion and the outrage of even associating with the gay community. And they openly went out and said, we support the gay community. We support until there's a cure day. We are going to raise money to fight AIDS.

we support the community. By the way, man, as Christians, we obviously want to see the elimination of human suffering. We're for opposition to AIDS, health care, all this stuff. Dude, we're for that stuff. So let me just be really clear about that. And they did it with love. And it's happened since 1994 every year annually.

And the jazz of the first team at the ballpark to wave the pride flag. And that took on criticism. from around the country. So I just, you know, it hurt me to see that there was criticism directed towards the Giants because of all that they have done to help the gay community. And the relationship between the Giants and the gay community has always been, you know, we talked about this in my house last night. We had dinner with the son, Bacon, wife, Salina, and their two children, our grandkids,

Cohen, who's 15, and Reagan, who's 13. And it was quite a discussion. and one of the things that came out of it from Reagan was Grandpa, we're always so happy at the ballpark and that's true. And she said, I'm sad. I just gently say, man, what the vast majority of families want is they just want to go to the ballpark and it be about baseball

and not like promoting gender marriage and sexuality ideology. That these guys did what they did. But I'm also sad that the 21 players that were the, hats that stood tall and supportive of the of the gay community. They were not applauded for what they did, but people were really, really. There's what I want to point out, what you're seeing here is the difference between what some people have called an upside-down culture versus a right-side-up culture, okay? When a culture is up, when a culture is right-side-up, evil things are stigmatized.

Let me get this, my language, right. Righteous things, sinful things in a right. right side up culture, sinful things are stigmatized culturally, and righteous things are applauded and rewarded. That's in a right side up culture. That's how our culture was maybe 50, 60 years ago, in general, not perfectly, in general, where it was like, man, in general, righteous things were applauded and rewarded, and sinful things were often appropriately stigmatized. But when a culture exchanges the truth about God for a lie, it flips from right side up to upside down. In an upside down culture, righteous things are stigmatized and cast as evil. Good things are

called evil. And sinful things get rewarded. So I will just point this out. This guy's having conversations with his kids to calibrate the consciences of his kids, honestly away from righteousness and towards evil. Christian parents, we need to be doing that with our kids. The dinner table is not just for feeding, is for leading. And we need to be having conversations about this because somebody, is going to disciple our kids, either the word or the world. Okay, now let's keep going. The response to the players that didn't. And it just gives you a perspective of how we think of things and how we look at things.

And I would just encourage everybody to just, you know, support the right. Support the right. You're going to see him say, we're going to finish this up right here. This is like the last thing he says. You're going to see him say something right here that is often very confusing to Christians. I don't want it to be confusing to you. Listen close. He's going to put two things together

that Christians have to have the ability to hold a part. And it's hard to put it into perspective when you have so much emotion and so much of love for people who have been pinged at and oppressed. And there is so much prejudice at.

Okay. First of all, notice this. He uses the words prejudice and oppressed. You just need a no man. If you're a Christian that's faithful, you're going to get that thrown at you. You're prejudiced, you're oppressed. And they're going to say, hey, man, you have two choices. Either you're affirming or you're prejudiced.

Here's what I want you to see. There's a play getting run on you you don't know is getting run on you. It's called choice architecture. He's doing choice architecture. Choice architecture is when somebody manipulates the options presented to you in order to force you to their desired conclusion. That's choice architecture. Here's what it sounds like.

Hey, man, do you practice prejudice or are you loving and affirming? Well, man, you can be loving. In order to be loving, you shouldn't be affirming of things that are damaging. So here, I'll just do them. Choice architecture sounds like this. Man, are you affirming or do you practice hate? are you pro-choice or are you against women's rights? Are you for the organization BLM?

Are you for it? Or are you one of those bigoted white supremacists? On the trans thing, this is what a lot of, man, this is rough, man. This is emotional terrorism. You had parents walking into medical institutions and having people say things like this, hey man, do you want a living son or a dead daughter? Like, they're going to commit suicide unless you,

affirm everything, okay? These things, that's choice architecture. They're manipulating the options presented to you in order to force you to their desired conclusion. The fact of the matter is, hey, man, you can be for all of women's rights as expressed in the scriptures and be pro-life. You should be.

In fact, you should be, you can be loving and not affirm things that are not good, that are damaging, okay? So this is choice architecture. I just want to gently say this. As we're in Pride Month, here's a general reminder to Christ Fathers that affirmation or hate

are not your only two choices. And if anybody tells you that or tells your kids that, they're using choice architecture to manipulate you to a demanded outcome. You can love somebody without approving of everything they do. Jesus did, and we must.

And you can disagree with somebody and still deeply love them. Jesus did, and we must. Now, watch what he does next. You know, the gay community has had to deal with issue as the black community. I notice this way he does. He's putting the quote-unquote gay rights issue and making it one thing with the black rights issue. This is going to get thrown at you constantly as Christians.

Okay, you're going to see it. Any minority community has had to. So what he's doing is he's going to. conflating a quote unquote sexual, conflating a sexual practice and a perversion with an ethnic minority. Okay. This is a trick that gets thrown at Christians and they're like, oh, I guess I'm supposed to be for equality and justice. So if I'm for this, I have to be for that. No, no, no. So they're making them a package deal, the racial justice issue and the sexual deal. Okay. So what people do is they go, hey man, racial justice and LGBT affirmation. And they'll go,

yes or no. And Christians have the ability to go, well, yes to this, but no to that. Rightly defined, yes to this, no to that. Okay. If I was a part of the gay community or minority, and there was, there was hate directed towards me. If there was opinion that was prejudiced directed towards me, I would stand tall and I would scream as loudly as I possibly could. And I get this. I do. But I'm Now let me, he's done here. Let me just finish this. What I want to make sure every Christian everywhere understands is he is right,

that we are commanded by the scriptures to love all people. And man, if you're somebody who is experienced or you have somebody in your family that's experienced same-sex sexual sin or same-sex sexual attraction, now what I want you to know is this world is lorded over by the father of lies, and the number one lie that your enemy wants you to believe is that you are your activity. So you just need to know this. He's going to get in your ear and he's going to be like, hey man, you are your abortion. You are your addiction.

You are your sexual orientation. And listen, he'll go, hey man, that's what you are. But listen, only Jesus gets to tell you who you are. And you may look at me and be like, yeah, Josh, but that's the biggest thing that ever happened in my life. No, it ain't. It is not. If you're a Christian, Jesus Don on the Cross for you is the biggest thing that ever happened in your life. that is what defines you and nothing else so i want to finish with this in the words of francis shaffer

biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world and then randy alcorn said it like this truth without grace crushes and ceases to be truth and grace without truth deceives people and ceases to be grace let those things sink in the question we need to be asking is, well, what should we be doing right now? Guys, we've got momentum on the field as Christians in our culture for the first time in a long time. Right now it needs to be all gas, no breaks. So for the professional athletes that listen to this thing, I'm going to strongly encourage you, find it in your way, in your voice. Refuse to bend your knee to the mob and genuflect and oppose what these guys did.

absolutely refuse it. And man, when you get a microphone shoved in your face, man, I would just gently say something like this. I would just gently say, I do not think that Christians should be forced or pressured to violate 2,000-year-old convictions that they have. You should say, nobody should. Something like that. Man, we got momentum on the field. All gas, no breaks, the glory God, and the good of people. There you have it. Bonus episode back from vacation of live free. If this is helpful to you, honestly, it'd be really awesome to like, comment, share, drop a comment on the YouTube channel. That helps me know that this is actually worth the extra time because it does take a lot of time. Hope this is helpful. Love you guys. Peace.