Live Free with Josh Howerton - Should We Make America a “Christian Nation” Again?! | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Should America Be a “Christian Nation” Again? In this episode of LIVE FREE, Pastors Josh Howerton, Carlos Erazo, and Paul Cunningham dig into Acts 21 to unpack how God still speaks today and what it really means to obey even when the path ahead is costly. Learn the difference between Old and New Testament prophecy, how to test prophetic words against Scripture, and why spiritual discernment matters more than ever. They also continue the conversation on Christian nationalism and how believers can stand firm in truth without losing sight of grace. If you're wrestling with how faith fits into culture today, this one's for you.   👍 Like, Comment, & Subscribe for more life-changing podcasts! 🔔 Turn on notifications so you never miss an update!   📝 SHOW NOTES Subscribe now to receive the show notes directly in your inbox with each new episode. These notes are filled with key insights and scripture to help you reflect and grow deeper in your faith – https://lakepointe.church/shownotes    👇 DON’T MISS OUT! Ready to step into God's call on your life? Join a serve team today! Click the link to get connected: https://lakepointe.church/serve/   ⛪ ABOUT LAKEPOINTE CHURCH:We believe that Lakepointe is a movement for all people to Know God, Find Freedom, Discover their Calling, and Make a Difference. With 7 DFW locations and programs for all ages, there's something for everyone.  🤝 Support this ministry and help us reach more people with the Gospel: https://lakepointe.church/give    STAY CONNECTED:🌐 Website: https://lakepointe.church/👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lpconnect/📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lpconnect 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lakepointechurch   FOLLOW PASTOR JOSH: 👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowertonJosh/ 📸 Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/josh_howerton/?hl=en 🎥 TikTok:  https://www.tiktok.com/@howertonjosh 🎧 LISTEN ON THE GO! ▶️ Live Free on Spotify / https://open.spotify.com/show/353ryGdZNlebaiqkCcy3Yc▶️ Live Free on Apple Podcasts / https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/live-free-with-josh-howerton/id1669321198

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton. We're so glad you're here. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And this weekly podcast is all about helping you do just that. Each episode is a deep dive into the Word of God, tackling life, culture, and faith with truth and clarity so you can be equipped to live free in Christ.

Thanks for tuning in. And be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and follow us on all our social platforms to stay connected to everything happening with Live Free. Now, let's dive into today's episode. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free podcast. My name is Carlos Arasen. I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Paul Cunningham. Where's Paul?

I can't see Paul. Oh, my goodness. And where's your head? Why is there a New York thing floating on top of your head? But we had Carlos with the Camo last time. Let's go, man. We're taking turns here. Yeah, dude.

It was trying to be invisible. Hey man, I'm excited for today. It's going to be a great episode. We have a giveaway here with a baseball. Stop that. Stop that. There's going to be a great episode. Man, comment baseball. Can I go ahead and do my show and tell? Please. Go ahead. All right. So before we, by the way, we're going to hit prophecy on this episode, the actual legitimate gift of prophecy. What does that mean? What does it not mean? And then we're going to talk all things scary Christian nationalism. That's the new thing that everybody's talking about. But wait, so you want me to do this? All right. All right. This is my show and tell. You got to be on YouTube to see how cool this is.

Which camera I'm on? On that camera? All right. So this is what this is. I literally have been carrying this around with me like a eight-year-old because I'm so excited about it. So I grew up around Cincinnati in the 80s. No, never mind. There's no chance you're going to know.

Wait, wait, wait, test me. Test me. Let's go. Every time we do, we're disappointed. Who in the early 80s? Who was the sports icon of Cincinnati? There's no way. idea. That'd be an unfair question. That'd be like you asking me who was the sports icon in El Salvador in 89.

So, but it was Pete Rose. It was Pete Rose. So I grew up, like earliest memories going to Reds games with my dad. So a couple weeks ago, a person that I love very dearly, but I won't use their name here because I don't have their permission. They gave me as a gift. This is a Pete Rose signed to baseball. And then I'm going to, y'all, y'all, I'm going to mess up. It probably won't work for the camera. But can I, if I go close to the camera, nah, it's not going to focus. So what this says is signed by Pete Rose.

And bro, it literally says, I wish I were in the Hall of Fame. That's incredible. Do you know what that's referring to? Actually, I heard you tell this story a while back. He got, so the short story is when he was a manager, he got caught betting on his team, which was, and I think he always bet for his team.

Yes, he was betting for his team. So this is not what the podcast is about. But obviously that's against the rules. So they gave him a lifetime ban from the Hall of Fame, even though he's got the hits record, and it's like not even close. And it will never be touched. It will never be touched.

Never be touched. And so his entire life, Charlie Hustle, that's what they call him, never in the Hall of Fame. But he had a good sense of humor. So he signed baseballs and would say, I wish I were in the Hall of Fame. Now, word on the street is they're going to post-humously let my guy in. Yeah, because they just lifted the ban, right?

Did they? Did they? Did he? I think he had a little thing where maybe he... His interpreter, took the fall sounds bad because it makes sense like I'm saying Joe Hayo Tani was guilty. I'm not saying that. But yeah, there was something close to him.

Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Carlos is like, oh, what are you? I love sports. I've never heard of this. Baseball is not one of them. Oh, brother.

Isn't baseball a thing in El Salvador? It's not. No. It's only soccer? It's mostly soccer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're probably thinking like Cuba, Puerto Rico, like a big baseball. A little different.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. We're not baseball. Well, that's my show until. It's all right. Yeah. That's cool. Wait, so you brought it because you...

Just because I wanted to, man. I'm really proud of it. Is this a baseball? I'm going to put it, it's going to be memorialized. On a live free podcast. That's amazing. Yeah. That's awesome.

Right there. You're obviously not going to sell that. But hypothetically, if it was sold, how much would it be worth? Not as, you know, I mean, not as much you might think. Okay. But I don't know. I don't even know. But, I mean, it wouldn't be cheap.

No. But it's a really, really cool thing. It is, man. It is. So, man, we're going to have to put extra security here. We don't want everybody taking it over here. We got cameras all over there. I think we're pretty safe.

That's true, man. Hey, it's going to be a great episode today. Like you said, man, we're going to go prophetic words. We're going to be asking, is America truly a Christian nation? And should Christians advocate for Christian nationalism and a theocracy? We got some videos to respond to. We featuring Hillary Clinton. We do.

Hillary Clinton's going to make an appearance. Okay. On the podcast. Hey, thanks for everybody. By the way, we've had a whole wave of new viewers of the pod. Welcome. Welcome. Thanks for watching.

This is episode 43. Thanks for liking, subscribing, commenting as well. And for the people that might not know, for every episode, we actually compile all key takeaways of this episode, main highlights, additional content. And we make it into a document that includes discussion. questions that you can take to your life group. And this is what we call the show notes. And we do this because we believe discipleship happens in relationships. We want to model what it looks like to go deeper into the word. And so your next step after this podcast is community.

Over 3,000 people have already downloaded the show notes and subscribe. So to get the show notes, to text the word and notes to 20411 and we'll send them straight to your phone. I'll go to Lakepoint that church slash show notes. There you go. Good job, Carl. Thank you, man. Did I get that in for the people. We passed, yeah, I'm looking at it. We passed 300,000. subscribers. It's pretty remarkable, man. Wow. I think we gained over 30,000 in the last week or so. Jeez. That's awesome, man. Man. These people are really fun. 30,000 people, welcome. You're brand new. All right. And let's talk prophecy and Christian nationalism. Should Christians be advocating for Christian? Before we go there. Oh, oh. Oh. Hey, great sermon this weekend. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'm curious if there's anything that they didn't make into the sermon. There is a lot of things to to making them a sermon. Actually, before that, can I just talk about what's happening in our church and churches? Thanks too. So like, bro, ever since the Kirk Martyrdom, there is, and we hit this obviously on the bonus episode, there is something very obviously spiritually happening in our nation. So like, just to put this in perspective for listeners who might not be Lake Point folks, so like before, I'd say like last semester, like normal in-person attendance at Lake Point,

maybe 23, so probably in that 23, 24,000 range. The weekend after the Charlie Kirk assassination, it was 26,000. The next weekend, so last weekend, in person attendance was 27,000. And that's the weekend that we baptized nearly 700 people. College students sitting on the stairs, just like stairs covered with college students' bibles in their laps.

Yeah, it's just like, dude, I noticed anything like it. We saw that same kind of thing this weekend. I haven't gotten the domo yet. But just something's happened to man. So it was an honor to preach on this spiritually intense thing in that intense environment. Yeah. Yeah.

I told you earlier this week. I actually got a message from a friend of mine from when I was living in Washington. And daughter had been apathetic towards Jesus for many years, but they actually were able to go to the memorial. And it just moved her. She was just sobbing. She got to hear the gospel multiple times at Memorial. And so like my friend basically is just saying, like he's seeing how it's impacted her life.

She actually tuned into a sermon of their pastor back in Washington for the first time in years. And so it's just an example of how God can take an awful thing and yet turn it for good. That's just what God does. Right.

And it's interesting too. You mentioned this before, but we were going to go on a different sermon series, but then you changed it literally like the day, the morning of that event. 9.29 a.m. That's right. That's right.

Four hours before. And this is what we're studying right in the book of Acts chapter 21. Which I just, and I thought about this while I was doing this message, because obviously you're preaching about prophecy. What you're preaching about is the reality that God still speaks directly to people. That was an example of that. There you go. Yeah.

Like that was an actual real life example of that. Yes. There you go. All right, stuff that did make it in. That's cool. All right. So, Acts 21, here's what you got. If you don't know, context here.

Paul's in his death sequence. I'm recapping here. Basically, from here to the end of the book of Acts is Paul going, how do I get, basically, I want to stand in front of Caesar himself and I want to preach the gospel of Caesar. So that's from here to the end of the book of Acts. Sounds political. It is honestly, dude, that's a whole thing. Yes. Because, bro, that's actually a great observation.

What Paul does from now to the end of the book of Acts is he's going, I want to proclaim the lordship of Jesus to the political leaders of Rome because they need to submit themselves and their rule to the lordship of Jesus. I'll just, we'll come back to that. Christian nationalist, man. Paul, Paul, the Christian nationalist. We'll talk about that. Paul the Christian nationalist.

Okay. So what you have in Acts 21 is very interesting. In Acts 20, dude, this is really interesting. So I'm coming back to this. At the end of Acts 20, Paul says, for I am now constrained by the spirit to go to Jerusalem and Rome. Then you get into Acts 21. And I'm literally going to read it here for a second

because this is really interesting. Oh, dang, I need my Bible. Can one of you guys grab my Bible out of that? out of my backpack real quick. You got it, Acts 21? All right, then I'm going to read Acts 21, 1 through 4. You got it. Thank you, Arthur.

So it says, dude, this is Acts 21 through 4. Yeah, here we go, Acts 214. And having sought out the disciples, thank you, Arthur. Having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days. And then it says this. and through the Spirit, they were telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem. So this is very interesting. You have Paul apparently receives a prophetic word in Acts 20 that specifically says,

constrained by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. You have the apostles apparently giving a prophetic word, quote, through the Spirit, telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem. So honestly, this is the passage for anybody who's ever had a spot where it's like, man, I felt like God told me this, but God told them that, and they contradicted each other. Now what do I do? So this gets into the whole issue of what is New Testament prophecy. What is it? How is New Testament prophecy different than Old Testament prophecy? The the theologian is going to talk about that here in a second, which gets into the really

interesting theological concept of continuity and discontinuity between the Old Covenant and the New covenant, whichever Christian needs to understand. That's actually a big deal. So it gets in all this stuff. So anyway, let me give a couple fun facts about this, because in this chapter, a dude named Agabus, I always, I always like the name. He walks up to Paul. This is an actual prophet. In Acts 11, Agabus is the only time he's mentioned. In Acts 11, he prophesies that a famine is going to come on Rome, which actually happened under the reign of Claudius, if I remember right? Yeah. So his prophecy was fulfilled. By the way, after the events of the book of Acts, if I understand correctly.

So you got Agabus mentioned two times, Acts 11, Acts 21. He walks up to Paul, takes off his belt. It's kind of an Old Testament prophet vibe, takes off his belt, binds his own hands, and he says, in the same way that I am being bound right now, you're going to be bound when you go to Jerusalem. So this is really interesting. So you got this going on.

The apostles are telling Paul, bro, don't go. The spirit's telling us, don't go. All right. A couple fun facts here to shed some light on this. Let me open to this. One, Acts 218, there's some really interesting little Bible nuggets here that people can miss. So in Acts 218, it mentions Philip the Evangelist and it says, who was, I'm going to read it. Enter the House of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven?

A lot of people don't know. They're like, what the heck is the seven? Was that a Brad Pitt movie? What is this? What's the seven? It's going back to Acts. Is it, it's Acts 7? Six.

Seven is Stephen. Six would have been where they actually had. Sixth was seven chosen to serve. It's going back to Acts six. When they choose the original seven deacons, this dude was one of the original seven like volunteers that the church chose. What's interesting is it says he had these four daughters who all prophesied. One, we just want to point that out that the Holy Spirit, he does not gender specify gifts he gives. So this is one thing you got right here. Now, we do firmly believe that there are roles, gender roles, in the fact.

family and the local church. But there are not gender distinctions among the gifts that are given. That's right. So you got these four daughters that are prophesying. It's kind of like the supernatural school of prophecy in Phillips House, you know, whatever it is. All four of his daughters are prophesying. I would say the Brady Bunch, but I don't know that Carlos would even catch that reference if I gave that. I heard about it. Okay. Sorry, but I'm still entering about it. No, you're not. That's, don't say that. If you said anything about El Salvador, we're the That's right. Now here's what's, dude, here's what's interesting. Church history, early church fathers, did you know this? Early church fathers talk about these prophesying daughters?

Dude, this was fascinating. So you have two things, a dude named Papius. Oh yeah. Papius records that these four daughters were informants for Luke of some of the things that were happening in the early church. So there's speculation that as Luke is writing the book of Acts, these four prophesying daughters were informants. were filling him in on things that were happening and that they contributed to the compilation of the book of Acts. The other thing that's interesting, early church father Eusebius records that these daughters, oh, it's actually Eusebius that was doing that. These daughters were conveying divine revelation to Luke as he's writing Acts.

What's interesting is that these four daughters apparently were pretty renowned in early church history of spirit-filled women, which is pretty cool. Another thing that's interesting, This is the kind of stuff like, and this is why we do this pod to deep dive stuff, this kind of stuff you miss when you're reading the Bible. So if you go to Acts 21, 7, and 8, it's really interesting.

It says, when we finish the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemus, and this is what people miss. We greeted, it says, the brothers and stayed with them for one day. Paul's never been here before. He pops in, and there's brothers. So here's all we know. Christianity was spreading so fast now that Paul shows up in this place he's not been before and there's Christians there. That's just, it's very interesting. Another one, dude,

this passage is full of little Easter eggs. In 2116, it mentions this dude named, it's pronounced nasen, but it's spelled M-N-A-S-O-N. It says, Nason of Cyprus, and your English Bible translates it, an early disciple with whom we should lodge. Most Bible scholars say the reason it says early disciple is it's designating. This dude was one of the vintage disciples of Jesus that were among the 120 that were the only disciples when Jesus concluded his ministry and that that language is denoting like this, this brother's an OG. So it's like, it's kind of cool. Like this guy is early disciple. It's just cool stuff, man. And then the Easter egg of all Easter eggs, which was a big part of the sermon, is the, it's the big contradiction.

that we already mentioned. The contradiction about Acts 20, the Spirit tells Paul to go to Jerusalem, Acts 21. The Spirit seems to tell the apostles, tell Paul not to go. So that's what you got, man. And we can get into all that here and all the things. Well, I'm not, what do you got, Paul?

You got a thought on that? Oh, I mean, I didn't know if you want me to dive into that now in terms of the difference in Old Testament. No, wait on it. But just, yeah, to echo everything you're saying, so many, people sometimes forget, is Luke was a doctor. So he's heavily detail oriented.

So he loves putting these nuggets in. And part of it is to actually show the hystericity. That this isn't just stuff he's making up. These are real people in real places that he's thoroughly research. One just small thing, but I always love it. You know, you talk about Philip, one of the seven, Stephen is one of the others is in that story, you know, when they're appointing deacons, it's like, all right, the apostles, we're going to devote ourselves to prayer and the preaching of the word, which some people say, oh, like, they're really important work. And then, like, these other people, the deacons, they're going to wait on tables. But yeah, what's interesting is Stephen preaches.

the longest recorded sermon, the book of Acts. In the whole book of Acts. Phillips going around preaching. And it's just an example of, hey, if you're serving in the community, especially if you're serving in your local church, don't think, number one, that's insignificant is so insignificant because you're serving the living God. And number two is that often God will use those opportunities where you're serving,

including in things like being a greeter or wherever as a platform from which you can then share the gospel with people. So just remember that. That's fantastic. Because like, both with Philip and Stephen, like when the Bible says Deacon, it's literally just the word servant. So like at Lake Point, when we're talking about volunteers and serve team members, personally, you know, it's not, this is a whole different discussion. I don't think that's necessarily referring to an office in the church. I think it's just saying, hey man,

if you serve in the church, this is the kind of person you need to be. It just means deacon. So like, just for everybody that's listening, like to put this in perspective, these guys were like essentially the equivalent of guest services team members who are passing out communion elements to the church. And stop and think about that. for a second. The guy that preaches the longest sermon in Acts is the first Christian martyr. And then Philip right here who's raising up these spirit-filled daughters, guest services team members passing out communion elements. Jesus men, men of courage, men of faith, spirit-filled men. So like, if you're a volunteer at your local church, elevate your vision for your life.

That's good. Let's go. Do we want to talk prophecy? Let's go, man. Yeah. So somebody's listening to this and be like, okay, well, yeah, that's the Bible, right? This happened to Paul and the daughters and the OG guy that was one of the 120 originals, right? But what about today? Like, this is the thing. Like, does God really speak to you today? I mean, because I've seen some of the clips on social media of people or some of the televangelists as well, and I'm not so sure. What do you got? All right. Let's do a quick, and Paul, you can kind of hop in and riff on anything here. Let me do a quick overview of biblical prophecy. I didn't have time to do this as much of the message. And then we'll get into the Christian nationalism and all this, the brewing.

By the way, that's going to be the fight for the next five years in our country. That is going to be the fight. So let's go ahead and tease it, but we'll get there. But let's talk prophecy first, because to have a God-honoring nation, we need God-honoring spirit-filled people. So let's talk about this first. So a quick overview of prophecy. First of all, in the Old Testament, you know, you have these dudes named, they're called prophets. And just to give a quick overview of this, they're generally designated into minor prophets,

major prophets and minor prophets. The major prophets, that doesn't mean that they're more important. It means, honestly, it just means their books are longer. That's right. It's not J.V. and Varsity. It's not J.B. Varsity. It just means their books are longer. So that's Isaiah, Jeremiah, who also wrote Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel. Those are the major prophets. And I'm going to talk about why they're called prophets here in a second. And then you got the minor prophets, Zika Dan. And then those are Josea, Jol, Amos Obadiah, Jonah, Jona, Jona, Gai, and the Italian prophet, Malachi.

And the Italian prophet Malachi. I always like to do that. I always like to do that. What is he going? Ah, the Malachi. That's right. That's right. That's Malachi. Was that offensive?

Not at all. Not to you. He's not Italian, so I don't know that he can be able to frenzated. I cannot imagine, speaking for my fellow Italian brothers and sisters, I can't imagine that would be offensive. Well, let me just say, This is a side note. So we just got back, Hudson, if you didn't know, for the listeners, all three of my kids are adopted.

So Hudson, you know, we're still learning about his biological heritage. We just got his 23 and me back. And like one of the, it's like the, one of the most prominent things, he was like predominantly Italian. And he's like telling everybody. He's like, he's like running up to people he doesn't know, I'm Italian. That's amazing. And so now his new nickname, that's my Italian stallion. Well, this runs on my Italian stallion.

That's great. All right. So anyway. So it's okay for you to speak about it times because you know, you're related. That's right. That's right. You got family. I'm allowed.

You're Italian family. There you go. So you got those. Now in the Old Testament, and Paul's going to get into the difference because there, I think, I'm interested here what Paul says, I think there is a clear distinction between old covenant prophecy and prophets and new covenant. prophecy and prophets. And we'll talk about that in a second. In the old covenant, what the prophets do is they say things like, you'll see these two phrases, thus saith the Lord and the word of the Lord

came to me. And that is their way to denote, hey, bro, I don't write the mail, I don't edit the mail, I'm here to deliver the mail. And basically, every word that I'm about to give you is direct inspiration from the living God and put up or shut up. That's kind of their vibe. Let me do this fast here. I think you got three functions, three kind of species of prophecy in the Bible. You have the biblical authors themselves. That's one form of prophecy.

The Bible says carried along by the Holy Spirit. We believe in the inerrancy of the Word of God, all the things. I think you have another function that is, by the way, that one is done. We have no more biblical authors. The canon is closed, so that one's done. The other two, I think, are still active.

One, I think some people are uniquely spiritually empowered by God to take God's timeless word and apply it in an extremely timely way. It's good. Like there's some guys that are friends of mine. Honestly, Josh McPherson, my buddy that's on the pod sometimes, he's like this. We're like, he will hear a scenario or he'll read a headline. And bro, it is like the exact biblical story that just overlays. like a puzzle piece on that thing will come straight to his mind in a way that is supernatural.

I think that is a function of a type of prophecy. And then the other one is that I do think is still, in effect, is when God speaks special words where he's revealing words for you to share with someone to a person or a church, I think that's still a thing. Now, we've covered this on the pod, so I'm not going to talk about it. there are some people who would say that third species is also done. It's the theological position called cessationism, which means to cease. And they will put, they'll point to First Corinthians 13, that says, as for prophecies, they will cease. But then, as we've pointed out before, and I want to remind our listeners, because I think this is really important. First Corinthians 13 says that because when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. And then it says, now, we see as through a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face. So it's not talking about, okay, New Testament era, it's talking about when Jesus comes back, this stuff sees. Until then,

we need prophecy because Jesus still needs to speak to his people. So last thing, you know, I'll say here, and then we can start kind of getting into this, is there is very much the reality of there's true prophets and there's false prophets. It's in fact a dominant theme of the New Testament that there's going to be false teachers and false prophets. That goes back to the theology that whatever God creates Satan counterfeits. God creates true prophets and true prophecy,

and Satan tries to create confusion by counterfeiting with false prophets and false prophecy. Now, that goes back to what you were talking about, Carlos. Because there's some people, it's like, they see the guy hawking holy hankies on TV. hey, send me $600 and I'll send you a healing handkerchief with a word from the Lord. Or they've had somebody honestly, harshly and manipulatively used God told me to tell you language to do very frankly like evil, dark things. And so a lot of times those people are like, dude, I just, I don't want to have anything to do with them.

And I just want to remind people who are listening, this is really important, that the abuse of a thing does not negate. the use of a thing. That's right. So it's kind of like the girl that had an abusive dad, and then she grows up and spends the rest of her life hating and avoiding all men. Well, hey, actually, man, instead of avoiding all men, let's differentiate between good men and bad men. And a lot of times, the healing for a bad man comes through a good man. Same thing with people who are hurt by a church. And then they go, I just hate the church. Well, man, actually, let's understand that there's good churches and there's bad churches. And then if you had a church wound,

man, a lot of times you need a church cure. So it's the same thing. And we can get into how to evaluate this stuff what we want to. I think it'd be helpful. But something you said, though, on that is that sometimes cessationist will make the argument of one of the reasons,

in addition to appealing to 1st, 13, 13, is that these gifts have been taken away because they've been abused. But what's convenient is, you know, preaching hasn't been taken away, even though that's definitely very important. Way more abused.

Way more abused. You know, pretty much every spiritual gift has been misused and abused at some point. And so it's like, but we want to say, hey, these two or three gifts are the ones that have been taken away because they've been abused. And so I just, I think you're right on. It's like the abuse of something does not negate the right use of it. I think something that can be even helpful here is so like Old Testament, prophecy was direct revelation from God to designated prophets. And it was authoritative. So it was on par with scripture.

So to reject the prophet was to reject God. Okay. New Testament is different. So Old Testament, that was the Prophet. The New Testament office that's the equivalent of that is not prophets. It's apostles. So they are now the authoritative representatives of Christ. Go ahead.

Oh, go ahead. Well, no, I'm clarifying. Yeah. So you're saying the Old Testament, the New Testament, the New Covenant equivalent to the Old Testament Prophet is the New Covenant Apostles. Exactly. Bro, I've never heard that before. That's fantastic.

It's the apostles. They're the authoritative people in terms of when they speak to reject what they're saying about Jesus is to reject Jesus. And Paul, for somebody that's not as familiar with all the terms, when you say apostle, you mean. People like Matthew, Mark, Luke John. You're talking capital A apostles. Capital A apostles. Capital A apostles. The actual 12.

So like the apostle Paul. The 12 plus Paul. Yeah, the 12 plus Paul. And so New Testament, prophecy is given as a spiritual gift. That can be given to everyday Christians who don't necessarily have an office in the church. spiritual gift given to people. Now, the difference I think, here's I like to say it sometimes. Old Testament, even to clarify, like, was, thus says the Lord. New Testament is more like, this may be what the Lord is saying, because when, even though the person has the gift, man,

any gifts, it's not that you can be abused, but man, you get wrong sometimes. People who have the spiritual gifts of evangelism every time they share their faith, the person doesn't actually come to Jesus. In the same way, someone might be feeling, hey, I feel like the Lord has put this in my mind and heart, but they may be wrong, or they may interpret it, or, wrongly. And so a key thing now is to make sure that whoever is giving a prophecy or receiving it weighs it most against Scripture. Because the Holy Spirit is never going to say something now that would contradict what he has said once and for all through the prophets and through the apostles and the other writers of Scripture. So I just want to read the passage because obviously we hit this in

the sermon, but this is important enough to hit again. So he said, hey, we should weigh it against the scriptures. This is 1 Corinthians 14, 29, 31. So it's saying, hey, if if you're in a service and people start going, man, God's giving me a word. Here's what you should do. It says two or three prophets should speak. And the others, this is, the others should weigh carefully what is said. The implied question is against what? Now, what's interesting is we call the New Testament. This is a little theology nerd thing. We'll call it the New Testament canon. Canon literally means measuring rod. So when it says weigh what it said, it means measure it against the canon, the measuring rod of scriptures. What do we weigh it against?

Well, our measuring rod. And if a revelation comes to someone who's sitting down, the first speaker should, then it gets into the orderly stuff. But then you have two times where it's really clear in the New Testament. If prophecy is claimed to have come, stop. The elders of the church need to weigh what's being said. And I'll just say this. We've had this before. We've had people who they felt like they had this.

spiritual gift to prophecy, and let's say they were on the worship team or something like that, and they wanted to give a spontaneous message they felt like was a prophetic word. And just very gently and very lovingly, we just had to say, no, you can't do that. Because we're not going to let a prophecy go out to the church without being able to weigh what is said first, because that's what the Bible tells us to do. Yep. Anything else there, Paul, on the continuity, difference between New Covenant and Old Covenant prophecy. Yeah, no, I think even, you know, just a few things I don't even just to add a passage to what you just said. First, Thessalonians 519 to 21,

because I think this captures a beautiful tension here. It says, do not quench the spirit. And then immediately it says, do not despise prophecies. That's a big deal. So, like, in other words, one way to quench what the spirit is doing

is actually to pretend that he doesn't want to speak to us in specific ways now. So we need to be very, that's why honestly, just while I love my cessationist brothers and sisters in Christ, you and are the same, Pastor Joshua, that can kind of drive me crazy.

because I believe in many ways they're quenching the spirit. But then it does, says, do not despise prophecies, but test everything. So it says, on the one hand, don't despise prophecy. Don't add like it's not something that the spirit still wants to do through people. On the other hand, don't immediately swallow everything that someone says and said, weigh it against scripture, but then also even just weigh it against what you feel. It kind of goes back to the passage of, hey, do you feel like the spirit is saying the same thing to you? And does it resonate with your spirit as well?

So that's just something I'd say, you know, besides that, think of it like this. Old Testament prophecy demanded obedience. New Testament prophecy or prophecy today invites discernment. So those are the two key things. Old Testament prophecy, if a prophet says something, I don't have to discern whether I get to obey that. And it's like, all right, that God said that, I'm going to do it. New Testament, though, invites us to pause, stop for a second

and discern whether this is actually from God or maybe the person just had a bad burrito or something. That's right. Yeah. Dude, I'll point this out because this is where you can see even the Bible treats treats New Covenant and Old Covenant prophecy

differently. So in the Old Covenant, if somebody claimed to be a prophet and they predicted something and were wrong, isn't it a death penalty? It was serious.

They are a false prophet. Wasn't it a capital offense? It could have been. I know. Somebody grok it. The for real prophets, the true prophets, let's just say

they did not have kind things to say about false prophets in Israel. Because to your point, there were false prophets who were telling kings to do things.

that God would not have them do. And they had some harsh words for him. Are you looking it up? I am. Yeah, look at it quick. Yeah, man, Deuteronomy Chapter 18. I mean, there's quite a bit over here. Death penalty, Deuteronomy 1820.

Read the passage real quick. Yeah. Deuteronomy 1820 says, But a prophet who presumed to speak in my name, anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods is to be put to death. Okay, there it is.

So, okay. So here's where you can see the difference, even in how the Bible treats old covenant prophecy and new covenant prophecy so old covenant prophecy bro you claim to be a prophet and it didn't come to pass public execution in the new testament you even see it in these passages it says hey weigh what is said hold fast to what's good and release anything that's not so you can even see the bible itself is treating old testament and new testament prophecy differently and here's the distinction this was helpful to me in sermon prep this week in the old testament you judged the

prophet. In the New Testament, you judge the prophecy. That's right. That's a very, very different thing. That's a very, very different thing. Now, let me say, because this begs the question, I hit this a little bit in the sermon, but this is actually a big deal. If you want to be a person, a family, or a church that invites, the Bible says we should eagerly desire the spiritual gift of prophecy. If we want to be a person family church that does it, we need to know. how to weigh it. Okay? So let me just say three quick things. If somebody comes to you and says something to the effect of,

by the way, if you feel like you have a word for somebody, never come up to him and say, thus saith the Lord. There's been a few times where God's giving me words for somebody, and I'll say something like this. I'll say, hey, you can totally take this or leave this. I felt this in my spirit when I was praying for you. If this doesn't align with your spirit,

then take it or leave. Give them an easy off the hook. But I would say, number one, evaluate the message, three things. Number one, evaluate the messenger. Is this a person that is a mature Christian? Is this a person that's a disciple? They demonstrate the fruit of the spirit. If they're not demonstrating the fruit of the spirit,

but they claim to have the gifts of the spirit, that at least gives you pause. Number two, evaluate not just the messenger, but the message. So this said, let the others weigh what is said. So how the Bible does it is it's almost like the spiritual gift of prophecy in the New Testament relates to the canon of scripture like lower courts in the Supreme Court, where it's like, hey, somebody can make a judicial decision in the lower courts in America, but then somebody can appeal to the Supreme Court. And if the Supreme Court disagrees with the lower court, it doesn't matter what the lower court said the Supreme Court wins. So as an example, this is probably more for personal, but if someone said, hey, God told me to tell you that it is. okay for you to leave your family.

Okay. It's like, yeah, stuff like that. It's like, hey, well, actually scripture says, don't do that. And actually, Paul, and I say this gently because it's emotional for a lot of people. In my experience as a pastor, what you just said is by far the most frequent way that people either accidentally or on purpose manipulate the voice of God to disobey the Bible. There, I've nothing, as a pastor, nothing, nothing, nothing with a capital. in is more frequent in this realm than a man or a woman saying, man, God told me that it was

okay to go forward with his divorce. And I would just say, hey, man, remember, lower courts, higher court, unless the Bible agrees with the quote unquote word from the Lord, then the word, the quote unquote word from the Lord is not a word from the Lord. So number two, evaluate the message. And then the last thing I'd say is just be careful to evaluate the person's motive. You see this in the Old Testament. You got Balaam. And, you know, sometimes very frankly, it is both popular and profitable to be a false profit. And so I would just, here's my little thing that I would say is, you know, 1st Corinthians 14 says that what prophecy primarily does in the New Testament, it uses three words, strengthen, encourage.

and build up. So I think it's fair for you to go, man, is this a strengthen and courage and build upward? Now, I'm not saying that every single word from the Lord will be, but in general, I do think generally, but if you start noticing, man, this person's bringing this to me in a way that feels harsh and manipulative, I think it's fair for you to go, let me pause and evaluate something. So I would just say evaluate messenger, message, motive.

That's great. Can I even just give us a specific thing of that even for people in case? We're like, okay, how did this work in regular life? Sometimes people do have specific words. They feel like are from God they give you. They can be very specific to a situation. But multiple times, I'll just be, you know, at church or something else. And a few times where, you know, especially one of our staff has just taught a lesson or something like that.

And I just felt like a sense of, hey, you need to go up to them right now and just say, man, I hope you know God was pleased with that because you were so faithful. And so I just went and I did that. And so in other words, it doesn't have to be misquare the word. I can just say, hey, I hope you know, like, you just preach, reclaim the word faithfully. I hope you know God is pleased with you. And you can see their countenance changed because my sense is they felt like they had done a terrible job or they're like, what did I mess up. And so that's just an example of, hey, this doesn't have to be out there. So I can just be simple words of encouragement and not building like that.

Yeah. And just a second, I want to ask you guys, obviously, from a personal experience, too, you know, what are some of those times in your life? I know for me, growing up in Latin America in a Pentecostal setting, actually giving or sharing words of prophecies very common, like very common. Like not... Would they do it in the public service? Or personally privately? Sometimes they will.

Not in like a Sunday gathering, but like, you know, if it's like a midweek thing, like much more. But even just in a more personal, like even like amongst Bible study, smaller group, that is extremely common. Like so common, so much so that coming to the U.S. has been such. which it's a night and day difference. Hey, I'm curious. Can I interrupt to ask? Looking back, was that a net positive experience or a net negative experience for you? So I thought about this because we were, you know, a thousand percent net positive.

I love that. A thousand percent net positive. And I'll tell you more in just a second. But honestly, like even today, even today I'll have people come to me and say, hey, I have a word for you. And so for me, there's three things. And I think what you shared was really helpful, Josh. for me it's really when you discern you discern with the help of the spirit of God alongside the word of God and surrounded by the people of God right and so you know when somebody

gives you a word you have the Holy Spirit in you as well and so you can ask Holy Spirit it is from you and so let's do start there and so one he will confirm or he will be like actually you know he'll lead you towards a yes or a no two like you guys said obviously the word of God the Spirit of God does not contradict the Word of God and then three Josh just to emphasize what you said, surrounded by the people of God. What you don't want to do is receive a word and then not share with anybody and make a decision by yourself. You want to share that with other people that can give you wisdom and protect you from

maybe somebody that's maybe trying to take advantage of you or for you not to miss out on what actually God has for you. And again, we'll share some personal stories. I got some to share, but we'll go from there. So the big question that we all started out with is, well, how do you reconcile that Paul says, God told him to do this one thing in Acts 20, but then in Acts 21, it says that God told him not to. What do we do with this? So let me solve this little, what Paul said, Paul, this Paul, Paul. Paul the Theologian. Paul the Theology. Paul the 2025 theology. Yeah. Please don't call me the

apostle. We can't, well, we could call him Prophet Paul. Oh, Prophet Paul. Prophet Paul. Prophet Paul. What Paul said a second ago is P-R-O-P-A. H-E-T, probably. What he said a second ago about the distinction between Old Covenant and New Covenant prophecy is the solution to the apparent contradiction in Acts 2021. So let me explain this real quick, this contradiction. Then I'd like each of us to share one example of where we have either received or given a prophetic word.

And then let's talk about the coming battle in our nation over Christian nationalism. This is a fun little thing. So here's how you saw this, okay? So you already explained the distinction between Old Covenant and New Covenant prophecy. So here's what you have to understand. So the question people are asking, how can the Spirit tell Paul in Acts 20 go to Jerusalem? And then how can it say in Acts 21, through the spirit they urged Paul not to go to Jerusalem in Acts 21 for. Okay.

Well, here's the deal. In New Testament prophecy, this is a little nerdy for a second, but it explains this. in New Testament prophecy, there's three aspects of the function of the prophecy. Revelation, interpretation, and delivery. All three are involved when in the new covenant, which is what we're in, somebody receives and gives a prophetic word. So first of all, revelation, interpretation, delivery. The first part, that's God's job. The Holy Spirit does the revelation.

It's always perfect. There's never anything wrong. not one thing's wrong, when the Holy Spirit reveals something to a Christian for a prophetic word. But the second two parts are up to us, so they are often imperfect. We, the Holy Spirit, will speak to us, Revelation.

Then we've got to do interpretation. Man, I have this sense on my heart, this thing, or I have these words that the Lord is bringing to my mind. Now I've got to interpret those things and now I've also got to deliver those things. Well, even if the revelation's perfect, the interpretation and the delivery can be imperfect because I'm the one that's doing them. So actually, if you nerd out on this passage, you actually figure out exactly why there was an apparent contradiction. So God correctly, the Spirit correctly reveals to Paul in both, I think in both Acts 9 and Acts 20, that he's going to Jerusalem and he's going to experience persecution.

But that doesn't mean he's not supposed to go. the Holy Spirit's just warning him to prepare him, right? One Acts 21, what I think happened for both Agabus and the other disciples that were there is the spirit was telling them the same thing he told Paul in Acts 20, and he was revealing to them, Paul's going to Jerusalem and he's going to be persecuted. I think that was the revelation. But then because of their love for Paul and their emotions, they just automatically interpreted the revelation that Paul was going to suffer.

Their interpretation was, well, then that obviously means he shouldn't go. And their interpretation of the revelation was incorrect. And that's why when they keep saying this, and Paul's like, nope, if you read the passage, Paul's like, nope, I'm determined. And finally, they relinquish. And I just want to pause and point this out. go back to the three things that we said, all right? So they're evaluating Paul's word of prophecy, and they're going,

let me look at the messenger. Well, dang, Paul is a godly man. I mean, a lot of fruit on the vine over there. Then they're evaluating the message, and I think that they were going, man, Jesus was called to go do something and die too. That seems like that lines up. And then I think they were evaluating his motive.

And I think they're going, man, doesn't seem selfish to me that he wants to go to Jerusalem and is willing to trade his life for the spread of the gospel. And I think that's why they, at the end, they go, you know what? The Lord's will be done. So if you're going, why is there a contradiction? It's because in New Testament prophecy, you have all three, Revelation, interpretation, and delivery. And we are imperfect interpreters and imperfect deliverers.

Good. Wow. That's quick. Honestly, man, that's really convicting because it shows you how Paul is so much more led by his calling more so than his comfort. Like at any point, if somebody's like, hey, man, like, the Holy Spirit told me this danger is ahead of you if you do this. Anybody would think, oh, well, thank you for letting me know. I'm going to avoid that.

But Paul's sense of calling was so much stronger. And, you know, at the end of the day, he was not called to comfort. He was called to the cross, ultimately. And so he's just so decisive and, you know, committed. No, I know where I'm going. I know what my calling is. I'm going to move forward. Let me kind of do one other thing, and then we'll do the Christian nationalism thing.

Yeah, yeah. because this is another helpful little thing I did not get to in the sermon. Trinity, will you go ahead and toss up that first Wesleyan quadrilateral thing? This is like a super nerd thing. And it's real pixelated. Sorry.

So it's called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. And basically what Christians throughout history have done is they've triangulated among four different things. And Christians have to figure out how do these four things relate to each other? Because all of them are quote unquote sources of revelation and the four are, you know, for, YouTubers can see it, but I'll say it for the podcasters.

The four are, what did you guys, a box here? And on each side of the box are the four things, reason, tradition, experience, and scripture. Now, one thing that I absolutely hate about how the Wesleyan quadrilateral is typically drawn by Wesleyans, by, I should say, by some Wesleyans. Is this drawn like this, where it's just like four equal things around a box?

And it's like, ah, we'll just kind of triangulate among these four things, you know, what God wants us to do. Well, then, like, better theologians, they reconfigured the Wesleyan quadrilateral like this. Go to that next diagram. And really, this is what should happen, how Christians should arrange these things in their hearts. That at the very bottom, the foundation of how we determine God's will is scripture. That's the foundation is most important. Then tradition, second important, hey, people have been doing theology for like two,

thousand years. Like, we don't need to sit in in our basement and write a book called a new kind of Christianity. And I'm just, I figured all this stuff up on my own and everybody's gotten it wrong for 2,000 years, but I figured it out. I read that book. Yeah. That guy became a total her apostate enemy of the faith. Why? Because he jettisoned scripture and tradition for his own reason and experience. Which by the way, that's our culture. The culture flipped it. You're getting ahead of me. Okay, go ahead. Okay. Just kidding. You're just going to pull my punts. So what Christian is is they go, scripture is most important. Then second tradition, let's look at what theologians have said for 2,000 years. We got creeds, Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, Council Trent, all the

things. Then reason, like, let's use some logic, and then last experience. Now, here's what I want to point out. What Catholics do, I love you Catholics, but you're wrong. What Catholics do is they will very frequently treat tradition as more authoritative than scripture. So there are like things that have been edicts out of the Catholic Church that like are in direct contradiction of clear teachings of the Bible. And they're like, well, the Pope said, and he was in his little, what's that thing called when the Pope speaks in a fourth? Ex-Cathedral. He was ex-cathedra. From the chair.

And Jesus literally, yeah, that's right, from the chair. And Jesus literally said not to do that. He was like, hey, here's what's wrong with you is you are teaching, what do he said, you are trading the commandments of God for the church. traditions of men. Yes. He literally said, don't do that. So what Catholics will do is they'll sometimes elevate tradition over scripture. Now, what progressive Christians will do is they'll elevate reason and experience over tradition in scripture. Oh, man, it's that whole new kind of Christian thing. Oh, I got this, I thought my way into this, or I had this, my lived, my lived experience was, and people, oh, oh, wow, wow, your lived experience. Hmm. And, and, and,

And they'll, they'll, they're like jettison 2,000 years of theology and clear teaching the Bible because they had a feeling. Yeah. Or this is my truth. This is my truth. Or I wanted to have sex with that person. So I'll rearrange my entire theology and the tradition of 2,000 years to fit the experience of my sexual proclivities. That's what they'll do. But let me do one last one people don't talk about. You know, I think I use the difference between charismatic and charismatices.

sometimes what some very unhealthy charismatics will do, they'll do the same thing and elevate their experience over tradition and scripture, and they do it through quote unquote prophecy and prophetic words. And they'll, like in some crazy, cookie corners of charismaticia, is they'll be like, God told me, and they'll give this word from the Lord that actually contradicts 2,000 years of theology and clear teaching of the Bible. and it's spiritual abuse and manipulation.

This happened this past week. I don't know if people saw on social media, this thing went around saying, oh, the rapture's happening. The dude from South Africa. Who was in Africa who said, oh, this is, you know, been revealed to me and everything. And that directly contradicts what is in the Bible,

which said, no one will know. Oh, there's a verse. No one will know. They keep doing it. And so I was just literally, and the thing is that it's awful because, A, for a lot of people that inspired a lot of fear and I'm like, oh, you know,

and I've got family members. I literally got an email from, from someone this week because they were scared for their family members. And so in gender's fear in people, but then also, frankly, it makes this look like idiotous and then when it doesn't happen. So it's like, oh, see, this is all made up. Yeah, CNN posted about it. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I commented. I didn't see it. I'm sure it made a huge difference that I commented. But one thing real quick, and I know we've got to get to Christian nationalism, just a little fancy term, but it's actually really important is a lot of times Protestants who use the word of solo scriptura, the phrase, solo scripture. And to the point of this quadrilateral, what Soliscriptura does not, actually mean is that is the only source of revelation or authority. That's not what it means.

It actually means it is the final arbiter and the final standard. High authority is the highest authority. So traditions can't have an authority. Reason and experience. They have something that God can show to us too. But scripture is the, it's the Supreme Court. So we use what you used. Before we go Christian nationalism, I want to make sure we got a lot of theology. Let's make it practical. Man, we need at least one. Hey, how did it happen to you? Oh, yeah. Let's see this quick. Let's see as quick. Man, I've got like seven stories here and I need to pick one.

Okay. I'll give, I'm trying to give one that I didn't use in any of the services this week. Okay, I'll do one. And some people may think this is weird, but it was not weird at all to me. In 2019, when I had the eight months of the anxiety attacks when I was teaching, nobody knew that. I didn't tell anybody publicly because it would have made teaching even harder. I was afraid if I told people,

then when I'd be teaching, people would be sitting there nervous for me and I would sense it and it would actually make me more anxious. So I didn't tell anybody. Well, I was at a, of all things, I was at we were doing a resource initiative and we were at this gathering

and this young couple came up to me I'd never met before and they said, Pastor Josh, we had a dream about you that we feel like we need to share with you. And I've learned, I've had enough true prophetic words come to me that I was like, you know what, I'm here to receive this. And Acts chapter 2 says, your young men shall dream,

your young men shall dream dream, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I'll pour my spirit and they'll prophesy. So they said that, and I was like, okay, what's the dream? And they said, in this dream we had of you. And I wonder how that worked, because they talked about a dream they had in the plural.

So actually, I would love to ask them. they said you were really scared but they said then what we saw was it was almost like that there was like forces of darkness trying to attack you but then in the stream it was almost like and this gonna sound a little weird but just go with me they were like it's almost like we saw like a bubble like a presence that was over you and below you and beside you and before you and behind you and it was like a light and that while you were there, it protected you and the darkness couldn't penetrate. Well, when they said that, like something just broke inside of me. And it was like a word to strengthen and courage and comfort, a word in season. And, you know, Bible says deep calls to deep. When they

said that something inside of my spirit just said, yep, that was for you. Well, then the next week, I went to this very godly Christian counselor over in Indiana, and he was praying for me, and he said, Josh, there's something that I feel like I have for you that you need. I just feel like when you're teaching, you need to envision almost like it were a bubble around you. Dude, this guy didn't know anything. His name's Rich Plas.

He didn't know anything about it. You need to envision like it was a bubble. And then he quoted the verse that, hey, God will be before you and behind you. And he's beside. Dude, I lost it, bro. I was like, oh, buddy. Oh, man.

And then, can I be honest? I had, you know, those anxiety attacks. And what would happen to me is right before I was teaching, I'd throw up in my office or whatever it was, and my body, my nervous system would do the thing. But then the second I would walk out on stage, it was like, wow. And I was good.

and I honestly think in this in the spiritual realm that was actually happening and God gave this person that revelation praise God for those the people that were faithful to share that with you it's amazing and that's literally a verse it's there to encourage you to build you up and to allow you to continue in your ministry and it aligned with an actual verse yes before you behind you there you guys got a quick one pa yo I'll do mine fast I mean for me it was just when I was a teenager I'd gone through a really really tough time of my life walked away from the Lord but then it'd come back and was wrestling at that point of whether I was called a ministry. My dad was a pastor, and so for a long time in my pride, I was like, no, I'm going to be my own guy growing up and do my own thing. But around that season, when I was around 16, I just had multiple people. So student pastor, I was at a private school at that time of my life, chapel in my school, and the older circumstance, like, hey, I just see God's hand in your life and specifically

whenever you're, and then they wouldn't mention when I would be teaching or whenever I would do yourself. And like, they would just listen it out and basically like, hey, I really feel like you might be called to ministry. So, you know, so just an example where it wasn't like, hey, I had a dream. And so I'd give that as an example to say, hey, sometimes it can literally happen like that. Oh my goodness. There's multiple people. How can do that? But then also, again, it's just a good example of just people randomly coming up to me when they don't even know if I'm wrestling with this at the time and then multiple people affirming it and the fact that it was multiple people. And then I had felt in my heart. I'm like, all right. And then I surrendered my life

to the ministry. And then literally here I am today with you guys. So yeah, can be stuff like that as well. That's good, man. Yeah, real quick. I mean, again, there's so many for me, probably the easiest one. I was, you know, I was born and raised in El Salvador. I'm a kid. I grew up listening to this by different people, the same thing. Man, at some point, I would leave my country. I would marry an international woman. I would travel and preach to many people around the world as a pastor and evangelist. This is me as a kid growing up in the 90s. You received these prophetic words? I don't know if I knew this. All throughout my adolescence, bro. Like, different people. And I thought it was normal. I thought people just probably say that to

encourage, you know. And but literally, like, leave the country, marry an international woman, travel and preach to many people around the world as a pastor and evangelist. I'm like, I'm, I'm a kid in the 90s growing up in El Salvador. And so, and these are like, by the way, my mom, shout out to my mom. She would always like, whenever there's like a American missionary coming to El Salvador, she'd be like, I'm going to take you there. And then she would take me to the preacher and be like, pray for my son. Like just pray for my son. Like literally, honestly, like, she's just that good job, mom. She's that way. And, uh, and I heard this all over. By the age of 22, I've left my home country.

I made an international woman. Brooks over there, by the way. Shout out to Brooke. At that point, we already had a crazy growing social media platform and ministry where I teach the Bible and got a lot of my wife and I to basically travel for eight plus years nonstop, all throughout the world teaching and preaching the Bible. And by the way, before I met you, again,

I had a God spoke to me through a prophetic word that my lead pastor would call me to be a part of whatever he was. doing. And at the time, we just started, we weren't even at Lake Point. We were, and literally like, it was like a year after met you exactly what I was told. You were like, hey, let's do church online. Let's do Lake Point. And that's where, which was two weeks before COVID. That is providential timing. And honestly, like, we weren't looking for that. And so for God to speak to my wife and I, that way, it was just a confirmation. It is time to change some of the things we're doing and serve the local church. And so again, man, we got stories. We got crazy stories, but

God speaks that way. And like I said, that's been an absolute net positive because it's blessed me. There's some things that people have shared to me that we've seen happen. And honestly, a lot of things that we've received that we have not yet, but I believe I'm going to see them. And so again, we could, you know, that's just a quick example. So I was, I don't know, that's amazing. Number two, I know we got to transition here in a second, but I just think for people who are listening to this, I like to say this sometimes when we're talking about either prophecy, but then also things like healings and miracles, you hear these stories, and we could tell dozens more just in our lives, and then hundreds and thousands more we've heard from

others. And I'm like, oh, these sound weird. I'm like, well, hey, at some point, there's too many of them just to be coincidences. There you go. The weirder thing would be literally if all these were just random coincidence. And so that's what's actually more weird. It's like, it's really just you hear more, most of it's like, no, no, no, the Holy Spirit is still at work in our generation in our time. So I just, I just want to tell people like, I know sometimes individually these sound weird. I hope you hear more. It's like, no, no, no, what would be weird is if they were all just coincidences. So let me say a last thing and then transition us here. So the application points are, first of all, you should eagerly desire this gift, ask God to begin giving you words of

encouragement for people around you. If you ever have a sense on your heart of an encouragement for somebody, say it. Yes. You're not going to get more of it. You're not going to get more of spiritual gift, you will not exercise. So say it. When somebody brings something to you like that, don't default to cynicism. At least pause and go, man, okay, let me listen here. Last thing I'm going to say, Paul, we show them those two books. Every, I'm especially talking to the dads, but this is for everybody. I'm going to strongly encourage, especially every Christian dad, but this is just good. There's two books that you want to have on hand where it's like when an issue, a theological issue or a cultural issue comes up, these are good books.

to have on your shelf so you can be like, as a dad, okay, my kid just asked me a question. Let me go, let me go get the good answer. You don't know the answer. You've got to know where to get the answer. You got Wayne Grudham's systematic theology, and then you got Wayne Grudom's Christian ethics. The systematic theology, when you come up on an issue like prophecy and you're like, what the heck am I supposed to think? This is a good reference book. Like, you're probably not going to read through this. It's a good reference book. I'm like Paul. You're probably not going to read it. Paul's a home memorizing chapter eight right now. You but you can, you can, that's a That was a joke.

So this is a good reference book to have for theological issues on cultural issues. Your kid asked about transgenderism, abortion, death penalty. The Christian Ethics book, Grudem does a great job of filtering all those things through a biblical lens. So I would just encourage you grab those things, have them on your shelf for everybody, but especially Christian dads, moms and dads. For when the family asks questions, your job as the pastor or executive pastor of your house is to be able to answer those questions. So there you go. Well, hey, guys, one of the reasons we are intention.

in creating these kind of podcast episodes is because we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. Having said that, what we want to do through the Live Free podcast is we want to model what it looks like to be in a discipleship group where we come together and open up the Word of God together and honestly just grow together as followers of Jesus to live free in Christ.

For this reason, we love that you're tuning in, but honestly, we don't just want you to be a passive listener. we want you to be an active participant. And so if you have not yet joined a group, whether that's in person or online, I want to challenge you to test drive one. To do that, just text the word group to 20411, or you can also go to lakepoint.

that church slash groups, because listen, you're not one podcast away, one habit away, one decision away, one book away, one sermon away. You are one relationship away to experience. freedom in Christ in community. And now let's get back to the podcast.

Pastor Josh, there's been a lot of talks since the memorial from Charlie Kirk. I would love to hear your thoughts, worries your mind out right now. Yeah. So here's a heads up for Christians. The prediction, this is going to be the fight in our culture for the next four years. You're going to hear the phrase,

Christian nationalism, scary Christian nationalism, You're going to hear phrases like dangerous fusion of Christianity and politics, dangerous welding of the Republican Party to a specific interpretation of the Bible. You're going to hear phrases like that. So what we want to do on this podcast is prepare Christians to be salt and light out in the world. You need to know what's coming. Listen, I would bet my retirement account that this is going to be the thing for the next four years. So I don't want you to get gas lit and play to fool. So let's talk about it. So let me

set this up. And we, this is a clip that I showed on the bonus up this week. I'm going to show it again for a specific reason. So at the Kirk Memorial, it was the most, it was the most spiritually significant thing, a moment that's happened in our nation in my lifetime. I believe that with my whole soul. You had the leaders of our nation explicitly proclaiming the exclusivity of Jesus and the explicitly Christian gospel six times. By the way, one of our former podcast guests, friend of the pod, Frank Turrick, was one of the seven or eight speakers because he was Charlie's mentor. Wow. And Frank crushed. Yes, he did. And Frank crushed. But you had the leaders of our explicitly proclaiming the gospel, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, said this, and it was awesome.

There are people watching here tonight that didn't know much about Charlie Kirk until 11 days ago. Maybe they were disengaged from politics. Maybe they were partially engaged. I hope one of the things they take from this is that the movement Charlie Kirk led and started and gave fuel to was about politics, but not only about politics. It was deeper. It was broader. And I would say that taking the liberty, but I'm confident he would agree. This is so good. One of the things he wants us to take away from this, from all of this, is the following.

His deep belief that we were all created every single one of us before the beginning of time by the hands of the God of the universe and all-powerful God, who loved us and created us for the purpose of living with him in eternity. But then sin entered the world and separated us from our creators. And so God took on the form of a man and came down and lived among us. And he suffered like men. Wow. And he died like a man.

But on the third day, he rose unlike any mortal man. Wow. And to prove any doubt is wrong, he ate with his disciples so they could see and they touched his wounds. He didn't rise as a ghost or as a spirit, but his flesh. And then he rose to the heaven, but he promised he would return. And he will. And when he returns, because he took on that death, because he carried that, cross, we were freed from the sin that separated us from him. And when he returns, there will be a

new heaven and a new earth, and we will all be together. And we are going to have a great reunion there again with Charlie and all the people we love. Thank you and God bless you. Bro. Bro, drop the Nicene Creed in his speech. My man can throw. And here's what, here's a point I'll make. I want to make this. There is one, listen, I don't care how awkward this is. There is one political party in our nation that will elect, cheer for, and platform that. And there is one political party in our nation that will oppose it and vilify it with everything that they have. And people need to know it. Yeah. So number one, I just want to say that. I just, I want to say that. So for, I just gently want to say this. I want to say it to pastors. Like, man, it is past the

point where you can morally equivocate between the representatives, the ideologies, and the policy platforms of the two parties. Like, number one, I just, that's not what I want to talk about here. And I know it's awkward and I know it freaks people out every time I say it, but like that's our job. Our job is to provide moral and spiritual clarity for people. The days of the gospels neither left nor right. We don't serve a red elephant or a blue donkey or slain lamb. Those things are true, but they're incomplete and misleading truths because they obscure the fact that there is moral asymmetry between the ideologies, leaders, and policy platforms

of the two parties. So number one, I just want to point that out. There's one party that will platform elect and cheer for that, and there's one party that will oppose it and vilify it with everything that they have. Case in point, okay? Immediately after the Kirk Memorial, number one, go ahead and show that New York Times headline at Kirk Service, extraordinary fusion of government and Christianity.

I showed that in the bonus pod, but I want to take this a different direction. And then it uses, people have been using the word dangerous, a dangerous fusion of government Christianity. And then this was like within the last 12 hours. You had Hillary Clinton come out and she gave this interview. Now, before we toss this interview up, she uses language. You know, you got to watch out for this. Watch for people who are speaking to be misunderstood.

And this is actually become very helpful for me. What you're watching for is when politicians, in particular cultural commentators, sometimes even pastors, where they are using language to intentionally obscure the clear meaning of what they're implying. In this clip, you're going to see Hillary Clinton speaking to be misunderstood to sort of, let me say something without saying it clearly so that I can imply something without freaking everybody out. So play this clip, and she's commenting on stuff like this from the Kirk Memorial. And the idea that you could turn the clock back and try to recreate a world that never was dominated by, you know, let's say it, white men of a certain. persuasion, a certain religion, a certain point of view, a certain ideology. Okay, first of all, the idea that she says, speaking to me misunderstood, let's just say it,

white men of a certain persuasion, she means straight, that's what she means. Of a certain ideology, she means conservative, or in general conservative. And then she says, of a certain religion. It is very obvious. She's saying Christian. So before we go on, before you hear what she says next, she's specifically. specifically saying the idea that you could turn, listen to what she said, turn back the clock to something that never was when a nation was founded by straight conservative Christian men.

Well, wait just a second. I wonder what our nation was founded by. Okay. So number one, let's say that. But then watch what she says here about Christian men leading. ideology. It's just doing such damage to what we should be aiming for. And we were on the path toward that. I mean, imperfectly, lots of bumps along the way. But I agree with you, we were on the right trajectory. So let me just point this out. What you have right there again, you have the leaders of one party who will platform, elect, and cheer for an explicitly Christian worldview and message. And then you have the leaders of another party that will oppose it and vilify it with everything that they have. Why? Because she instinctively knows that the Christian ethical system

is opposed to a huge number of her goals. Okay. So this is what you got right here. Now, what you're seeing in the New York Times and in leaders like Hillary Clinton and a million people in the last two days, a whole bunch of people, is what is this the, the scare label of, oh, no, what we're seeing is scary Christian nationalism. Do you guys have anything to say before we move on here? Scary Christian nationalism. You want me to keep going? Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. There's some good stuff there. So let's start talking about this. So when I was in high school, did a little debate team. And in debate, what we would always say is whoever controls the terms wins the argument.

Whoever controls the terms wins the argument. So for instance, think about like the abortion issue. One side calls it pro-choice and the other side calls it pro-life.

Well, you know, that's packaging. Okay, whoever controls the terms wins the debate. If somebody has no idea what you're talking about and they just say, hey, Paul, are you pro-choice?

Well, yeah. I don't want to be anti-choice, you know, whatever it is. Okay, because it's packaged in a way. It sounds good. But then, on the other hand, if somebody goes, hey man, are you pro-life?

Well, of course, brother. I'm not pro-death, unless I'm in Canada doing the maid program. That's a whole different discussion. So here's the point. Now, when people do, the strategy is label to dismiss. Yes. Let me label it in such a way. It's a scare label.

Let me label it in such a way to be able to dismiss it. Okay. Now, what you've got to watch out for, Christians are going to have to understand this because for the next four years, this is going to become the thing. Here's my prediction, and I could be wrong. My prediction is that in the next four years,

you're going to see the left, progressivism, become more and more overtly anti-Christian. Like overtly anti-Christian. You saw it right there teased in Hillary Clinton's own language. Men of a certain religion are damaging. That was her words, okay? Then I think what you're going to see, what I pray you see,

you saw it begin at the Kirk Memorial, I think what you're going to see is that conservatism in general is going to become more explicitly Christian. As that happens, progressives are going to need a way to oppose that movement. So what they'll do is they're going to need a label

to be a scare label to keep people away from it, and the one that they have chosen is Christian nationalism. Here's what you understand. Every Christian needs to understand this. 99% of the time, when people use the same, the phrase Christian nationalism, it is an intentionally misleading scare label that implies the following. I can advocate for my godless values in the public square, but you Christians can't

advocate for your godly values in the public square. So if I advocate for my values, well, man, this is a secular democracy. We believe in religious liberty. And so I'm allowed to advocate for my beliefs because there, you know, but if you advocate for your beliefs in the public square, it's scary Christian nationalism, it's anathema, it's to be opposed. Okay. So let's break it down real quick. Let's talk Christian nationalism really quick. First of all, what I want to say, if somebody accuses me of being a Christian nationalist, 99% of the time, my response is going to be, well, yep, I'm a Christian and I love my nation. Yep, I'm a Christian and I love my nation. So let's talk about this real quick, the phrase Christian nationalism. So first of all, my question to somebody that opposes

Christian nationalism is, well, which term are you opposed to? The Christian or the nationalism? Okay. So when you talk nationalism, this is where some people get freaked out. When we say nationalism, all we're talking about is span of government. So some people say, ah, nationalism is idolatry. When anybody says Christian nationalism, they're not literally saying you should love your nation more than Jesus. Nobody's saying that. When we're talking about nationalism, they're talking about span of government. When you talk about span of government, you have three options. There's globalism, nationalism, nationalism, or tribalism. Tribalism is when the span of government is just what we had before the United States was settled, things like that. It's the span of government are little autonomous tribes. Usually it results in nothing but chaos. It's just a bunch of warring tribes. And that's tribalism. I'm not aware of anybody that's advocating for tribalism now. So we can dismiss that one. So now our two choices are globalism or nationalism. Globalism is kind of the, is at least the vibe. It's not always explicitly stated, but it's at least the vibe. What we really want is a one-world government with a one-world shared values, honestly, very frequently, one-world shared

immigration strategy. It's just one-world redistribution of resources. It's one-world government. Now, I just want to point this out. Who in the Bible does globalism? You have two times in the Bible where globalism is attempted. It's in the book of Genesis at the Tower of Babel when Satan brings the nations together to try to rebel to rebel to build a tower to heaven in their pride. So you have Satan doing globalism there. And then in the book of Revelation, it seems like it's implied that what may happen towards the end is that Satan or the Antichrist once again will attempt a one world government. That's at least one prominent eschatological viewpoint. So I just want to point this out.

And then in the Bible, what you have is verses that specifically say that God has created nations and he's established borders. Acts 17. Acts 17. So what I just want to point out is in the Bible, Satan does globalism and God does nationalism. So when you're talking about the span of governments as God has designed the world, God has designed the world to be broken down into nations with established borders and clear governments. Now, we could go into why on this because it's actually kind of interesting. I'll do this really fast. The reason for that is because man by nature is sinful.

And so in our sinfulness, what we will do is what happens at the Tower of Babel is when mankind aligns in one way, globalistically, we will always use that unified power in a globalized way to rebel against God because we're sinful by nature. So what nations do is you have all these nations that serve, it's actually brilliant, it's a brilliant design of the Lord. You have these nations with competing interests that serve as natural checks and balances on the wickedness of other nations. And it actually restrains evil in the world. So if you're going, okay, so let's just get this. So as far as national, nationalism, nobody that I'm aware of that is a thinking person has a problem with span of government being nationalism.

So the next question is, well, is your problem with the Christian part? Okay, some people would say that. Oh, I got no problem with nationalism. My problem is with the Christian part. Well, here's the point, man, and this is really important for Christians to understand. We're going to do some species of nationalism. Yes. Which one do you want?

Do you want secular nationalism? Do you want Islamic nationalism? Which worldview is going to dominate the nationalism that you are advancing? If you are a Christian, then you should want Christian principles and a Christian worldview to drive the nationalism that all of us are agreed should happen. So if you want to break it all the way down, that's why we would go. Somebody goes, hey, Josh, are you one of those evil, those evil, Christian nationalists. I'm like, absolutely. I'm a Christian and I love my nation. Let me pause there. We got thoughts. Well, I can keep, there's a million things we could say. Yeah, let me channel

some, some objections. Oh, if you're okay with that. Are you going to be the ex-vangelical representative? I won't, but I will communicate the things that are being said right now. All right. But so, so here's what, here's what some people would say when they hear that. They'd be like, okay, Josh, so are you advocating for a theme? And for people that don't know, Theo's means Godocracy, instead of democracy, a theocracy. So you're a Christian. You want to impose your beliefs on everybody in the U.S. All right. Well, I would say a few things. Some people would say, hey, man, you're trying to impose your morality in other people. My response to that is, yep, absolutely. And so are you.

Yeah, and then I always say, and so are you. So first of all, I just want to point that out. This is what secular people, it's the move they've been pulling on Christians for 50 years. years and well-meaning but naive Christians keep falling for the same thing over and over and over. It's secular people like, Carlos, why not you because you're the resident ex-Vangelical right now. You're like, Carlos, you're trying to impose your morality on other people. It's like, but they're hiding the fact. That's what they're doing. So take abortion, for example, okay?

If you say, hey, man, you're trying to out, you're trying to make abortion, somebody is illegal. You're trying to impose your morality on other people. Okay, yeah, that's true. But you, in advocating for the legality, and spread of abortion, you're saying, Josh, you're imposing your morality on the mother. Yep, you're exactly right. But when you advocate for the legality of abortion, you're imposing your morality on the baby. Yes. By the way, lethally. So the question isn't, is morality going to be imposed? The question is whose morality is going to be imposed. And if you mind cutting in here

for just a second. I think with that, what's been sold and people have swallowed us for a long time is the myth of secular neutral. Talk about this. So there's this myth out there that, oh, secular values are just neutral. That's the idea is, hey, we want to be secularists because it's just neutral, which is just a total far. So even just like going back to a few years ago when I was in Washington state, man, extremely far left state. People's Republic of Washington. People's Republic of Washington. And so we had to wrestle with what do we do for education for our kids because it is extremely expensive to live up there, so not easy, even on a two-income family,

to be able to afford private school or even to homeschool then because then you're on one income for the most part. But then if we go to public schools, I mean, Washington was very much like, they let you choose your gender as young as kindergarten. They would weave in LGBTQ stuff in all parts of the curriculum.

So it's not as easy as, oh, you can just take them out of health class. No, they're going to hear it all throughout. No, they're going to hear it all throughout. And they're going to celebrate. And by the way, if you oppose it at all, then you're known as a biggest. So, I mean, they actively are trying to push it into kids.

And so when I was a pastor up there, I'd have to talk to people in passing around what do. And then I had some people like, well, it's neutral, though. They're just teaching them, you know, like math and science. It's just neutral. And I just, I would usually hear what I would do is I'd say, okay, so would you send your kid to an Islamic school or to a Buddhist school? That's a great question.

And I said, well, because, you know, they're going to teach you math. They're going to teach you science. Those are neutral things. And they're like, well, no, of course not. I'd be like, well, why? Because in addition to those things, they're also going to be trying to teach them specific beliefs and specific values that contradict what I believe. And I'm like, okay. So here's the deal. If you send your kid to public school, by the way, I'm not hating on public school. My kids went to public school there. I said, hey, when your kids are taking those math and science courses, right? And when we were there, my kids, we had to sit into public school. But I'll get to them what we had to do in a second. So I'm not bashing public school at all. But my point was really just to try to open there. I say, hey, when your kids are taking those math and science courses, what they're also going to be doing is being disciples in a secular worldview that directly contradicts ours and directly contradicts our values and beliefs. And it was not when I was doing that to try to get them to take their kids out of public school. I'm like, hey, if you're going to send them in there, you've got to know

they are being disciples in something that is completely the opposite of what you're doing. Because secularism is not neutral. It has an agenda and it is actively trying to do it. In fact, if anything, when you see secularism's true colors is the second you push back on their agenda. Then all of a sudden, and they start flinging things like Christian nationalism and other stuff. No, they start flinging things like bullets. Bullets, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Words like homophobic because then it's like, oh. And so I'm just saying, we just got to be careful and just really get rid of this notion that, oh, secularism is neutral.

You're trying to push into it. No, no, no, they are as well. Sorry, a little too long-witted on that, but I just think it's important to say. It's very important to say. So to go back to your question, hey, are you advocating a theocracy? First of all, I want to say, what do you mean by theocracy? That's what I would say, because if you want, it's a super, it's a super, nerd. It's a super Christian nerd discussion about something called theonomy and which parts of the

Old Testament do we apply to new covenant governance of nations. That's a totally different discussion. But here's what I'll point out is in one sense, when you're talking about Theo, you're talking about God. That's the Greek word for God. Really what you're just talking about is the highest authority. That's what that word stands in for. So here's the point. Every government is some form of a theocracy. The question is who's Theo? So if you go to an Islamic nation, a demon, a demon demonic false god, Allah, is Theo. In a purely secular democracy, the people are Theo. Whatever they decide is what, you know, comes to pass. So what I would say is in one sense, I just own it. Yeah, absolutely. I am advocating for a governance in which the true principles of the true

God that lead to human flourishing and blessing, yes, I am advocating for a nation that are governing God by those. And let me just go ahead and point this out. that is how our nation was largely founded. So this is, I didn't mean to do this right here by my show right now. And with, you know, it's always a good time right now for a good old Charlie Kirk clip. By the way, this clip just shows this guy's brain was a computer.

This is sick. It's amazing, this guy can do this. All right. So honestly, I've never seen anybody answer this question better than Charlie. And this is one of my favorite clips. So a lot of people don't realize, like, oh, was our nation? founded as a Christian nation. You're going to see Charlie answer that right here. Go ahead, Trinity.

Our country was shot on common law because the declaration only refers to God four times the Constitution. It doesn't refer to God at all. And it only articulates the structure of government. So first of all, remember that we were a collection of states and colonies. And you need to read the state constitutions before anything else. 13 on 13 required a declaration of faith. In almost every single one of the original state constitutions, they had, I profess Lord and Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Secondly, 55-56 of the original signers of the Declaration were Bible-belief in church attending Christians. You ask about common law. Let's go to three principles of common law.

Presumption of medicines. Due process and jury of your peers. All three are biblical principles. And all wrapped into the ultimate biblical principle that you shall not favor justice if you are richer or poor, which is in Leviticus 19, which is the idea of blind justice, which is incorporated also in the New Testament ideal, neither slave nor Greek nor Jew, you are all one in Jesus Christ, which we have the idea of human equality. These are all biblical ideas, but more importantly than that,

they say that God was only mentioned four times of the Declaration of Independence. Well, that's a big deal. John Adams seamlessly said the Constitution was only written for a moral and religious people. It was wholly inadequate for the people of any other. The body politic of America was so Christian that our form and structure of government was built for the people that believed in Christ our Lord. One of the reasons we're living through a constitutional crisis is that we no longer have a Christian nation, but we have a Christian form of government, and they're incompatible.

So you cannot have liberty if you do not have a Christian population. Yeah, there it is. There it is. So I just want to point this out. The reason that we've had generally, people call us a democracy. The United States is not a democracy. It's a constitutional republic. But the reason that we've had a democracy for a long time, and it's worked until recently, is because you talk about.

about, okay, Theocracy just means who's the highest authority? Well, honestly, the reason that it's worked for so long is until maybe the last 30 years, the populace was very, very, very, predominantly Christian, or at least possessing a Christian worldview and ethical set of assumptions. And so it worked. But what he's saying right there is, bro, this thing, it's like if you try to put software that into something that's incompatible with a hardware, if you start trying to insert a secular populace into a Christian hardware, like this whole thing was built on Christian hardware, it's like, brother, it breaks.

So I think the question therefore a lot of people would be, okay, well, great, if you're a Christian, but how does this Christian nationalism benefit the non-Christian? So all the other people that don't believe. What about people who don't agree? Yeah, yeah, I think they would portray it as if it harmful or it like hurts other people. Is that true? if you're a Muslim or a Hindu or just that you're not a Christian.

There's a few things I want to say. Some people say, well, then if you say that, then you have to be okay with Muslim people advocating for their own theocracy. My response to that is, man, just because I'm okay with the right answer doesn't mean I've got to be okay with the wrong answers. Like, honestly, man, here's my thing. There's a lot of Christians that are afraid to simply act like what they believe is true and what other people believe is not true.

I just want to let that sink in. like, hey man, what we believe is, and listen, you just need to say, like, you got to say it in a clear way so that people can let its implications sink into their spirits. What we believe is that every other religion is a satanic counterfeit and is demonically inspired to lead people away from what is true. Jesus said that he came that we might have life and have it to the full and that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. There is a reason, bro, go look at this. It's actually incredible. Go look at where in the world you've had the most religious liberty, the most prosperity, all the things. What's best for both genders, all the things. What you're going to notice

is this all of the nations where there has been the most Christian presence in history. That is not an accident. There's blessing to obey. Even if you're not a Christian, there's a grace that goes over you. And I think what you're saying, Josh, also Glenn Scribner wrote a book called Deeruery. It's fantastic. Highly recommend it. And he basically explains how most people today, they don't realize that everything that they're quote unquote striving for or even the irony of Hillary Clinton saying what she said, as she's opposing Christianity in the name of freedom, progress, equality, and justice. The irony, what she doesn't know is that the reason that today we have those things is because all those things comes from the Bible. They are borrowed

values from this book. And so if you look at this nation, historically speaking, generally speaking, because we've embraced a biblical worldview, basically everything that Charlie Kirk said and what you're saying, this has allowed this country, again, relative to the rest of the world, to move towards order, stability, righteousness in a way that other countries just have not been able to because they have not had this biblical worldview. And so this is why you have like atheists, like Richard Dawkins saying things like, he literally said this, I like to live in a culturally Christian country, even if I don't believe a single word. So he's not a Christian, obviously, but he's saying, I'd rather be here. And then in another interview, he said, same with Tom Holland. I was about to say,

Tom Holland's book Dominion, it's longer than Scrivenors, but it's also amazing. Elon Musk this week is tweeting. Man, actually, I think I'm coming to the conclusion that we need a Christian nation to be better for us. So the whole point is, and again, when Dawkins was talking about Islam, because you ask, okay, if you don't want Christian nationalist, what do you want? And so Dawkins said, if I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, again, this is an atheist. I choose Christianity every single time because he knows that biblical values, even if you're not a belief, you will be blessed by the thriving, flourishing, and righteousness that comes with really just obeying God's word. Truth is truth, no matter what you believe. Yeah, what were those values?

You said, you said freedom, what were the ones you listened? Freedom, compassion, progress. So the idea even, even of like, again, the idea of favoring or helping those that are in a weak position, that's a Christian idea. That's literally against. That is not Islam. Islam is the powerful dominate the weak. Well, and even like, like, to my second, Friedrich Nietzsche, like he hated Christianity for that reason. It's, oh, it's a religion of the week. Opiate of the masses. Opium. That was his thing. It's like he hated it. Human rights. Again, Genesis. We're all made into the image of God or in the image of God and therefore you have dignity. You're a human. And so again, we could literally, this is a whole not the podcast, but basically like people don't realize,

again, when you're opposing Christianity, you're opposing the things that God is where we are today in terms of like the freedom and everything that we have. Totally. Dude, so what you, yeah, I just want to point that out. So those values you're talking about, about as like freedom, equality, compassion, human rights, secular and Islamic nations never produce those things. They never produce those things. Now, some people point to like Western European countries now that are largely secular and they're like, well, they have some of those things. Yeah, where do they get them? Yeah. They all started and were founded as incredibly Christian nations. And so it's like this, it's cut flower syndrome. You can, and this is what you're

seeing in both those nations and our nations. When you, it's like, if I, cut a flower out of our garden in the front and I bring it into our kitchen. That flower will, if I stick it in water, it'll remain beautiful and look alive for a little while. But after a while, it's going to die pretty fast. It's the same with civilizations. It's like, man, once you cut the fruit, the fruit and all the religious liberty and the freedom, the equality, the compassion, the human rights, that's the fruit. Once you sever them from the root, which is a Christian ethical system, Christian worldview Christian beliefs, you're going to get some cut flower syndrome.

You're going to have some Western European countries. Like, oh, dude, they're doing pretty good right now. See, you don't need it. But eventually, they died just like the, it's cut flower syndrome. That's right. That's right. So I just want to point that out.

It never, ever, ever, ever, ever produces that. Let's say, just to cut in for a second. And I know you got to go back to being devil's advocate, Carlos. But, um, resident ex-gons. That's right. But, you know, in a lot of these conversations, you know, kind of hit on it a little bit here and there. but when you're talking to people, sometimes you're like, well, what do you mean by that?

Like, what are like, what are you, like, what are you, like, what are you, like, what are you even saying a lot? Like, hey, what do you mean when you say Christian nationals? Because if it's like, oh, define that for me. Yeah, and like, it's like, hell, so you're like trying to impose morality where you are to. So yeah, I'm going to vote based on my ride that I get from scripture. Yeah, we all do. We all have a moral framework.

If it's like, hey, well, then are you okay with your politicians sharing their faith in public? Yes. Of course. Absolutely. Because, by the way, they have freedom of religious expression, too, and a number of other things. And then I think, though, they're eventually like, well, are you telling me that you were like, one a state or one a nation where they're going to impose a specific religion on everybody, and everyone has to go to specific church with specific beliefs and specific worship practices.

And if you worship the same, if you don't worship the same way you're punished, I'm going to say, absolutely, not. That's right. Because, like, in other words, like, depending on how you define Christian nationalism, I might say, hey, yeah, I'm for that. But then, yeah, you might say some things on like, well, if you mean that, then, of course I'm not for that. And so I think it's just a good example, though, also of, like, people, love to create a phrase or a word and then immediately lump all beliefs under those things.

And so a lot of the conversations for our people listening and watching, I would just encourage if you ask these kinds of questions or if you're seeing these interactions, it's like, what do you mean by that? Because depending on what they say, you may agree or not. But I'll let you go back to being the evangelical. Well, wait, I just want to point this out real quick. So when he's talking about, we're talking about religious liberty, I was just like a Christian understanding religious liberty, let me say two things real quick. This is important because a lot of Christians do not understand this. And because they misunderstand religious liberty, they'll see things like Marco Rubio or J.D. Vance, like actually, Pete Hegseth, like actually declaring

the Lordship of Jesus Christ, declaring the gospel. And they'd be like, man, as a Christian, I think I'm supposed to want religious liberty. Am I okay with this? Well, here's what a Christian, this is just postage stamp. There's a lot more that could be said. A Christian understanding of religious liberty is that we want the government to protect freedom in religion. But, listen, but we also want the government to promote the true one. Yeah. So here's why I say that. The idea of religious liberty, that is distinctly Christian.

Listen, bro, there ain't no religious liberty in an Islamic country. So Islam is a religion of imposition. Christianity is a religion of invitation. Islam does convert or die. Christianity does, he has come that you might have life and have it to the full. Conver because Jesus died. Conver because Jesus died. Dang, that's so freaking good, Carlos. That's so good. So let me say that one more time. What we should be, and it's been so long since we've seen this in our nation, like literally never in my lifetime until last Sunday, have we seen this? That even Christians are like, huh, what do I think about this? I'm going to say one more time, we should want the government to protect freedom in religion, but we should want the government to promote.

the true one. Why? Because we treat true things as true and false things as false. Because we love reality. And because we love people. Yeah, because we love people. Well, and so am I saying, this might be one of your things, I'll say it for you. But it's like, well, what about separation of church and state? So let's just go ahead and demethorpe. Yeah, do that. That's actually not in the Constitution. That's phrasing. I have it right here. I send Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist. And so there's what's called the Establishment Clause, which is actually in the first amendments to the U.S. Constitution. And it says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. So that clause was really more about the idea of,

even what I said a few minutes ago, that, man, for sure, our government or the arts politicians should not establish an official religion or official church with these specific beliefs to make everyone do that. We don't want a state church. Exactly. Exactly. And even in this, I think it's important, especially as we did have so many politicians openly sharing the gospel, you need to distinguish between the person and the office. There's a difference between Marco Rubio or vice president or anyone saying, Jesus is Savior and he is Lord versus them as an, basically from the office of the president or Senator whatever saying,

Jesus is Lord and he has to be your Lord or else. There's a difference between those and you have to carefully distinguish. Okay, yeah, but somebody would say, but Pastor Josh, Jesus clearly said that his kingdom is not of this world. And it sounds like you, it sounds like you're advocating for your own little kingdom here in America or whatever. Jesus didn't say that. Are you an Anglican? You sound like an Anglican. Hang on. Let me just, let me go. I'm somewhat familiar with reform theology. So, you know, before I answer this, let me go back to one thing about the government promoting the true one. So I'm going to read, I'm going to read you,

my buddy John Tyson put this in an IG story a couple days ago. Bro, this is really interesting. All right. I'm going to read this. This is awesome. I just pull up his little IG story here. Okay. Okay, the issue of civilization edited by Havel.

Stick with me. This is really good. Contained a report on an exhibition opening at the Library of Congress. Now, here we go. Quote, religion and the founding of the American Republic. All right, here we go. One of its displays featured a report by a man who encountered President Thomas Jefferson on his way to church, carrying a large red prayer book.

The friend asked why Jefferson would attend church since he didn't believe a word of it. Now, that's actually a stretch. Thomas Jefferson was kind of like a religious deist. So he did believe, especially the ethical teachings of the Bible. And he would have generally described himself as a generally vaguely Christian man. But he did not believe in the entire Bible like we should and do. Jefferson Bible. Jefferson Bible. That's, yeah. Now, Jefferson replied, this is really interesting. Sir, no nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion, nor can it be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man, and I, as chief magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example. Jefferson, the exhibit noted, attended church every Sunday during his presidency, a church that met in the House of Representatives.

lives. Wow. Boom. Wow. Boom. All right. That's all I got to say. All right, man. So, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but I mean, that's great. I'm glad they did that. I'm glad they did that. But Jesus clearly said, my kingdom is not of this world. Why are you advocating for this?

So this is what Christians say who just want evil to advance and don't want righteousness to advance. And I seriously, I love you, but I really mean that. I think 98% of the time Christians say this. They're embarrassed, honestly. I think they're embarrassed by Christians wanting Christian principles to advance because what will loss people think? And by the way, why would we care what people who hate God think about you? So this is why I would say, yeah, people say it. What, Carlos, Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world. And Jesus said, give to Caesar, what's Caesar and give to God was God. Well, what I would say is, hey, Carlos, in that same part of the Bible, Jesus did say my kingdom is not of this world. He also prayed

for his kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. And so think about this. This is what drives me crazy when people do what says give to Caesar, what's Caesar, and give to God, what's gods, as if what that were to mean is that, oh, just let the government be secular and do evil things. And then we'll be over here in our little Gnostic Christian ghetto and never the twain shall meet.

The whole point of this give to Caesar what Caesar. Remember, Jesus holds up the coin with Caesar's face on it. And he goes, he looks at the dude and he goes, hey, whose likeness in inscription is on this coin? And they go, well, Caesar's is. And he's using the language of Genesis where it says that mankind was created in the likeness and the image of God. And that's when he says, give to Caesar what Caesar's and gives to God's what's God. So what he's literally saying is Caesar was created in the image of God. Therefore Caesar belongs to God.

He's literally asserting his lordship over Caesar. Oh, and by the way, over Caesar's rule and reign. Because Jesus is the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. Therefore, every king, president, lord, and emperor must is commanded by Jesus to bend his knee and his rule to the Lordship of Jesus. That's what you got. Here's last one. Well, Josh, yes, okay. But.

I love it when he does it. But he's good at it. You're a pastor. and you're out here making all these podcasts about politics and I've seen your social media as well. Oh, man. And man, you're supposed to be preaching the gospel. You're supposed to be focusing on the Great Commission. All right.

This drives me nuts because we get this a lot. So let's put a bullet in the head of this thing and be done with it. I can do this anymore. So a few things I would say that. Number one, the Great Commission says go therefore into all nations. baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. And then it says, teaching them to obey all that I've commanded. So, like, I just want to point this out.

It says that we're supposed to teach who, nations. We're supposed to teach nations to obey all that Jesus has commanded. So what some people want to do is they want to bifurcate the Great Commission to, like, okay, what we're only supposed to focus on is people getting saved. And we're not actually supposed to disciple them into the actual real world implications of what it means to be a disciple. No, no, actually what we're supposed to do is teach those people how to apply the whole word of God to the issues of the whole world. And we're supposed to extend out the Lordship of Jesus. This is Abraham Kuyper's thing.

There is not one square inch of the universe over which Jesus does not stand and cry mine. Mine. He stands over the White House and he cries mine. So number one is the whole great commission. Number two, in the Bible, God is establishes three institutions. And when these three, God establishes them for the right ordering of society in the world. And when these three institutions are rightly ordered, it results in blessing. I have come that they might have life and have it to the full. Those three institutions are the family, the church, and the state. So what some people want to do is they want to like, it's almost like, gnostically cut off the gospel and turn it into

only an individual salvation thing. Yes. But actually in the Bible, God's established these three institutions, family, church, and state for the advancement of his purposes in the world, for human flourishing, all the things. So the gospel is not just an individual salvation force. It's a family building force. It's a church building force. And it's a civilization building force. Yes. It's all three of these things.

Were you going to say something, Paul? I'm just saying, amen, you're on the roll. Okay. I mean, I was going to quote Kuiper if you didn't, but you beat me too. There is. So you just keep going. Come on, Kuiper. Sphere sovereignty.

That's the little theology nerd thing, sphere sovereignty. If you're a Christian that's inclined politically, which we need more of, not less of, by the way. If you're a thoughtful Christian that's inclined that way, you should do a little Google search on Abraham Kuyper sphere sovereignty. It's so good. And it's a little thick, but it's good reading. It's important reading. Now, the last thing I'd say on this, and this is where I would gently push back on some of my fellow megachurch pastor, this is like, this is the thing that I feel like my. world of like large church pastors sometimes we'll miss. Trinney, will you pull up that chart from,

I think it's Ryan Burge. Yeah, Ron Burge. So bro, here's what I'm going to say. Let me say it and then let me explain it. The advancement of righteous governance in a nation is actually mission critical to the advancement of the gospel and the completion of the Great Commission. Now, I know some people hear that and be like, well, bro. Say that one more time. the establishment of right governance, of good governing, authorities and principles, is actually a lead measure to the accomplishment of the Great Commission. It's not a distraction from it.

It's a lead measure and a help to it. Now, let me explain what I mean here. So, dude, this data, there's avalanche data coming out that shows the same thing. So Ryan Bird, she's like the best follow on X. This is one of my favorite follows. So here's what he says, and then you see the chart below. People who go to religious service more often are less likely to identify as liberal. This is a fundamental fact of American religion and politics.

And then this is really important. It's not just white people. It's every single racial group. Higher attendance equals less liberal. There is no racial group, no demographic in America where that is not true. Now, start doing some misiological thinking with me for a second. What that means, this is a little bit, controversial, but the more I think about this and read, the more convinced of this have become.

What this means is that good political engagement and good political outcomes are actually pre-evangelism. They're pre-evangelism. Because what that is showing is that when political conservatism, and I know this sounds like super weird and even cringe for like my secret sensitive of mega church pastor or world. That's the world I came from, and I have a lot of affinity for that world. But a lot of people cringe at what I'm saying right there. But actual data is showing us this, that when political conservatism spreads, more people become Christians, and when political progressivism spreads, less people become Christians. There's a reason for this. The New Testament talks about laws. The book of Galatians talks about laws. It talks about the law

as a teacher. You remember this? Galatians. The law as a teacher. It's called the law a tutor. What people do not understand is that laws in a nation, they have what Christians have historically called a didactic function. Laws do not simply legislate right and wrong. They teach the populace what's right and wrong. Laws calibrate the consciences of a nation to feel what's right and what's wrong. So here's what happens, bro. What conservatism is generally built on conserving a generally Christian understanding of ethics and principles. So when political conservatism spreads, the reason more people become Christians is their consciences, unknowing to them, are in general, more calibrated to what is true, right,

and good from the Bible. Well, here's what you get, man. If you start swimming in the streams of truth and liberty, you're eventually going to find its source. So, like, conservatism in general calibrates the conscience in such a way that it pushes people toward the God from whom the principles came. Progressivism, whether you like it or not. This is just a fact. Progressivism is built generally upon a secular Marxist view of human nature, economics, governance. So what progressivism does, particularly secular progressivism, is it calibrates the consciences of people away from what is true right and good, and it teaches people to call evil things good and good things evil. So, and you can do that with abortion, with gay marriage, with trans stuff, with

redistribution of wealth, all the things, literally all the things. So then what happens is, and I'm going to, if people who are skeptical of what I'm saying, especially fellow pastors, I'm going to checkmate you here in a second. What happens is when progressivism overtakes a state or a city or a nation, it is training the consciences of people to view significant aspects of Christianity as harmful, bigoted, evil, and oppressive. That's an environment that makes it real darn hard to plant churches and see the gospel spread. Now, for people who are skeptical of what I would say, especially fellow pastors, I would simply ask you this question. I help lead a church planning network called the Strategic Launch Network.

We only plant churches in essentially, the places where there's the highest need, secular progressive urban centers. Literally any pastor in America knows what I'm about to say is true. They just have not grappled with the reality and the implications of what I'm about to say. Two questions. Actually, I'll just do one question. I'll say it like this. Show me a map of the most progressive areas in our nation.

Then show me a map of the areas in our nation that have the fewest, churches. It's the same map. It's the same map. So my point is that, again, to go back, that the advancement of generally and correctly defined political conservatism, it is a significant and powerful force for pre-evangelism because it installs a plausibility structure in the populace that leads to intuitively understand. Christianity is true, right, and good. So I would say in order to accomplish the Great Commission, we need to advocate for it at the political level.

Last thing I'll say, last thing I'll say. If you want the advancement of the gospel and the growth of the church to get significantly smothered in your state or your city, here's all you got to do, let it go blue. That's simply what data shows. Josh, would you say that would you say, was true 10, 15, 20 years ago?

Or did something change at some point? 10, 15 or 20 years ago? Yeah, I think it was. Now 60, 70 years ago, I'm unsure. Here's what the uncomfortable reality is to like, you know, like some of my grandparents, some of Janice grandparents. They were like Blue Dog Democrats.

Yeah. I was like, bro, back in the day, once upon a time, the two political parties agreed on the destination that they were trying to get to. They just disagreed on the path to get there. Now we simply have to be honest. The two political parties now, they're advocating for fundamentally opposed to moral universes. We have two different visions of reality. That's right. Yeah. Keep going. That's all I got. That's all I got. So answer your question, Carlos, 10, 15, 20 years ago, actually, I do think it was, that was still true.

50, 60, 70 years ago might not have been as true. You're saying something has shifted and this is a new reality now. Yeah, dude. It is becoming, it's becoming a, a vaguely Marxist, secular, progressive vision of morality and reality and a generally conservative Christian view of morality and reality. I can just add some of this last question. I don't we've probably got to wrap up here in a few minutes. But I mean, one thing I just would love to say if someone asks this question is, why can't we do both in this sense of it's like you can walk and chew gum at the same time?

It's like saying, hey. That's great, Paul. Why don't we both? And I would say this both, by the way, to pastors of churches. then also to any individual, listen to this who's maybe not in Vietnam, the church staff, is by all means, share the gospel with people. Of course. That's our thing.

In fact, I'd actually say, with love, to a lot of my brothers and sisters, especially pastors, that are really pushing for Christian nationalism, one reason I think in some of them is because they can't reach a person for Jesus worth crap. Bad. Bro, this is a whole different podcast, but that's a great observation. It's like, hey, I can't actually reach someone with the gospel. So you know what? Instead, I'm going to go shake.

society for voting. It's much easier kind of a thing. And so I'm like, man, like, yeah, I mean, go to the voting booths. And why don't you also go out to the streets, go to your communities, and share the gospel of people? Dude, so I want to, wait, I need to riff off this. That's interesting you brought that, because it is. And it's, you know, I got friends that I would, they're like good friends that I've probably put in that category is like some of the churches and church leaders that are the, and they're right. Let me just say, when it comes to the issues of governments and political applications of Christianity or the gospel, they're right. and they're terrible evangelists.

And here's my point. I'm like, bro, it doesn't matter how many righteous policies you put forward. Unless we're great at evangelism, we don't have anybody to vote for them. Yes. And so even just I'm biased because I love Lake Point, but that's one thing is, as we're talking about this, just like, man, we're seeing so many people who come to faith in Jesus and we celebrate that all the time. So this is not an either or. This can be both.

And I'd also say that. It must be. It must be. It has to be. It has to be. And so I think, with that, I'd also say it's like speaking deep in people who are not in church world, not pastors, is say, hey, so with all this being said to kind of even bring it all together, it's like, hey,

go into the voting booth and make your voice heard and vote your beliefs and vote your values. And do not feel bad about that. And then go share that faith with your family and your neighbors and everybody around you that you can who need Jesus and salvation from him even more than they need a transformed government. So do both. Do both. Amen. It's interesting that I know we need to do it. that with this, but last thing. Before, I feel like people would say, hey, vote your conscience, but you just said vote your convictions, vote your values. Amen. And so it just seems like that.

That's shift that. Pastor Josh, would you pray for us? Well, let me say one last thing. Okay, there you go. I just want to say one last thing. When I saw Marco Rubio do that monologue, I just like, and this is a little weird, but, you know, nobody may ever watch this. but I just want to say for anybody that leads our nation, for anybody that is considering a run in politics, and for anybody that has any influence in political realm at all, I want to say on behalf of millions of Christians, what we saw on Sunday at the Charlie Kirk Memorial,

if you will give us more of that, we will give you everything that we have to come behind you and see the purposes of God advance in our nation and our generation. If you'll give us more of that, we will rally to you like the brave heart scene. So I just say, you give us more of that.

We're going to be all in. Thank you for your service. That's a great movie. It is a good movie. What'd you prefer? I would love to. Father, thank you for being a God who loves us so much that like we started the podcast talking about,

you come to dwell in us personally and you speak to us as sons and daughters. So, Lord, we just, we delight in our sonship and our daughtership of having a heavenly father that is the living God. And above all earthly powers, what we care about more than anything else is that our names are written in the book of life. Father, I pray that you would pour out your spirit in a unique way in our churches and that like your word says, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Give us more Lord. Father, I do pray that the same power would sweep over our families, our churches,

and our nations and our leaders, and that we would see the glory of God cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, not just for your glory, but for people's good, that every knee would bow before the king. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thanks for tuning in to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton.

We pray today's episode helped you take a step forward in life, culture, and faith as you live free in Christ. If it encouraged you, be sure to rate, review, and share the podcast, and don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. Join us for Lake Point Church online every weekend and find more resources at lakepoint. dot church slash live free. We'll see you next time.