Live Free with Josh Howerton - The LGBTQ+ Agenda Behind Netflix EXPOSED!! | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

If the Church is not discipling people, the world will. This week on LIVE FREE, Pastors Josh Howerton, Carlos Erazo, and Paul Cunningham dive into Acts 22 to reveal how Jesus saves us from both rebellion AND religion. They explore the dangers of spiritual pride, the myth of “boring testimonies,” and provide hope through the timeless truth that God can save anybody. They also expose the hidden LGBTQ+ agenda behind recent controversial Netflix content. This episode will equip parents to disciple their kids wisely in a media-saturated world. This bold conversation will be key to guarding the next generation and standing for truth in today’s culture.   👍 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! Did you recently accept Christ? It's time to take your next step! Click the link to register for baptism here: https://lakepointe.church/baptism/   ⛪ 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 Erasso, and Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Paul Cunningham. The prophet. The prophet.

We're still going for a nickname. We'll stick on one at some point. Actually, wait, listeners on YouTube, please drop your suggestions for Paul's nickname in the comments. There we go. We will give a free, live-free hat to whoever comes up with the best Paul Cunningham nickname. And then if you see a good one in the, I'm making this up on the spot, car. If you see a good nickname suggestion in the comments, like it. And then like, we'll see what wins.

If you know me, please be kind. Yeah, don't be a turd. That's amazing. Man, we're going to have, first of all, are you guys doing good? Yeah, man. It's been a great week, dude. been an amazing week. Good. I'm going, hey man, I'm taking Jan on a date tonight. As soon as this pot ends. That's a good day. We're going on to date tonight as well. Where are you going? Yeah, we don't

know yet. We literally just, it's been a busy time and so it's like, hey, we need a date. You're going to where? It's called Rise in one. It's a suffra. Yeah, it's, how did you know that? Have we been? No, but you, I went because you told me it was good. Did you think so? I liked it. I liked it. It's This one that she's like on the other side of town. It has like both savory and like sweet. It's like all soufflis. It felt more dessert place to me, not so much like an actual meal. I'll be super honest.

This is where Jana wants to go. And I. There you go. So I have decided that's where I want to go to. Good. Yeah. So date tonight and then I'm going to try to go hunting this weekend finally. I was going to go last beginning.

Archery season started. And so we're going to try to go out this weekend. Yeah, bow season. Okay. Where are you going? Kind of the Greenville area. just up by Greenville and by Lake Tawakeney. And so I got some public fan up there.

That's awesome. Yeah, it'd be good. Bro, that'd be awesome. That's great. We're going to have a... This is going to be a spicy episode. Oh, yeah. That's right.

We got, first of all, we got, the pot is crushing. It's been really cool. Then we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about at the end of the pod. We may hit the Pope's comments. Here's my question, Paul. Is the Pope Catholic? Like, that's actually my question now, because the Pope is like saying things. that contradicts like 1,600 years of Catholic Christian ethics.

So we'll talk about that. But then the big one is the Netflix transing the kids stuff. That's right. And I've never talked about this. I've been wanting to get to this message forever. We're going to, the secret that is not now so secret, plot of gay rights activists launched in 1987 to overtake American culture with LGBT doctrine. and they succeeded, and a lot of people don't know where the strategy came from. We're going to talk about that today.

Let's say, man. Well, a lot of good question. Let's see. Well, that and, yeah, abortion, capital punishment, immigration. Yeah, it's the public stuff. Your typical live free podcast episode. So it's going to be great. Shout out to everybody.

By the way, thank you for liking, subscribing. You said it, number four on Apple podcast this week on religion and spirituality. That, by the way, if you don't know this, this happens. because you like it and share it. That's literally why this happens. So thank you. I think we have a screenshot. Trinney, you got that one.

There you go. That's religion and spirituality. And then there's another one for all categories right there next to Glenn Beck. Us and Glenn. Wow. And then, man, we got to beat Rachel. We got to get Rachel Maddell. We got to defeat the Mad Owl thing up there.

We've had people asking about the live-free hats. And so this is a public service announcement. this coming weekend at the Rockwell location at the bookstore. We will actually have Live Free Hats, brand new Live Free Hats available. And for people that maybe are outside of the driving location, or we are now within a driving distance from our locations. We will also be working on making these available online.

By the way, we had some comments. We had some comments from people joining from Canada. It's awesome. Shout to the Canadians and South Africa as well. So let us know where you're joining us from right now, no matter where you are, we'd love to know. And by the way, every episode, we also compile all key takeaways,

everything, all the wisdom from these two gentlemen over here, all the main highlights, the additional content. And we add discussion questions as well for you to take this content to your life group after the podcast because we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. And so your next step after this podcast is community. So to get the show notes is what we call the show notes.

Text the word notes to 20411 or go to lake point dot church slash show notes. Now what did not get mentioned is that Carlos priest this week. First of all, man, what a... Great job. Killer. Great job. What a joy. Thank you. Thank you. What a joy. Well, you're a good man. You're a good disciple. You're a great dad. And you're a good friend. And you're a great Bible teacher. Yes. And so, man, our church is blessed. You did a good job, man. And the people of Lakeport are honestly the best. They're wonderful. I love that so much.

So, man... So, hey, Carlos, can I ask you? Please ask me. Hey, man, Acts 22. Paul gets arrested, just like he was told that he would in Acts 21. And then in Acts 22, he makes his speech defending himself before a riotous mob. Carlos Saraso, what didn't make it into the sermon? Man, there's so much. By the way, I know you're like this too, but I love sermon prepping. Dude, it's the best. Like, some people are, they like to preach, but they don't like the sermon prep because you learn so much. And so anyways, I actually read a lot this week. And so obviously in the sermon, we talked about how Jesus Christ is the most life-altering person in the history. And history of humanity. And we didn't have time for this, but man, when you start like studying all the

different aspects of society and culture where before Jesus is it was one thing and then after Jesus is something else, it's fascinating. So like women, children, science, education, sports, medicine. And so let me just give you two things and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. And I bet you a lot of people don't know this. So one, Jesus changes history in how most people today view, they view children. We're going to talk about this once we started addressing the Netflix situation. So before Jesus, people in the first century Roman Empire, they actually had a very low view of children. It was actually not uncommon for children that were not wanted to be basically just like left outside. It was called exposure. And people would pick them up and they would become slaves, gladiators

or child prostitutes. Or they would just die. Yeah. Or they would not. It's like an early form of abortion. That's right. That's right. So because society did not put a high value on children. But then Jesus comes, here's the son of God, the eternal God becoming a baby. And, Just for, that would have been already crazy for somebody to hear that the creator God would become a baby. Later in his ministry, Jesus rebukes his disciples when they were stopping children coming to Jesus. And then Jesus literally says, let the children come to me. And then there's this huge statement for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. He grabs a child and he says, whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble.

And again, we're going to talk about this in a little bit. It would be better for him to have a great millstone humming. around his neck and be drowned in the sea. That is harsh language from Jesus defending children. This is why, as Christians, we are passionate because we have a high view of children. We want to fight to protect them at all cost. That's the first one. I thought it was crazy. A lot of people don't know that. And again, it makes a lot of sense. Second thing, Jesus changed history and how people view education and learning. Before Jesus, again, people don't know this. Generally speaking, education and learning was not a normal thing for normal people. But then Jesus comes, he,

calls himself a rabbi that means teacher. His ministry was not just about miracles, but also about teaching and learning things, teaching truth. Truth matters. That's why we are passionate about that. He opened scripture. He invited his disciples to learn from him. Great commission, go and make disciples teaching them. We like teaching. Christians are called people of the book. And so wherever the gospel spread historically speaking, literacy literally went up. And so because people wanted to read the Bibles, Christian missionaries have been pioneers of written languages because they're trying to translate this into different languages. They had to learn.

1455, Johannes Gutenberg, a devout Christian, invented the printing press. First major printed book was Bible. The Bible. This led to the Protestant Revolution. Hey, can I say something cool about that? Please. So this is one of my favorite little Bible facts. Dang.

Paul, help me remember the guy's name. Who was the guy that wrote, he mockingly wrote the best. of all possible worlds. Oh, dude, it's like English AP literature. It'll come. It'll come. Hang on, hang on. I need to pull this up because this is a really cool.

Wait. It's a book. Best of all possible worlds. He was making, no, he was making fun. Voltaire. Oh, yeah. Okay, Voltaire. So on the printing press, this is really, so Voltaire was a devout atheist.

And you have to, I had to read it in English AP literature in high school. his little essay about quote unquote the best of all possible worlds because he was surrounded by these Christians who believed in the providence of God. And I don't think they did a very good job if what came across to him was this is the best of all possible worlds because this is the most fallen of all possible worlds right now. The best of all possible worlds comes when Jesus returns. But anyway, so he writes this essay that many Americans have to read in AP English and high school, mocking Christianity and Christians that believe in the providence of God. So devout atheist at the end of his life, he makes a prediction that within one generation of his death, that no one would be reading the Bible. This is during the Renaissance. No one would be reading the Bible.

Everyone would know it's a myth. And that it would be laughed at, scorned, and out of print. Literally today, this is not a joke. Literally today in Voltaire's old house is a Bible printing press. Bro, that's not a joke. Like the providence of God. Yes. That's literally not, that's a thing.

God has a sense of humor. So Carlos is talking about, I interrupt you, I'll just keep going. This is like a lot of Christians will get thrown in their face sometimes like, ah, here's the bad things that Christianity has done. The Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades, by the way, the Crusades were completely a just war, zoomed out. That's a totally different podcast. Someday we'll do that.

It's zoomed out, not everything that happened, but zoomed out. It was defensive just. war. Anyway, so people are here's all the bad stuff Christianity has done in history. The first hospital and the first school in virtually every country in the world built by Christians. First, I'm going to say it more time. The first hospital and the first school built in virtually every country in the world, Christians. So you keep going. Change the way of our Ivy League schools. Say it again. Almost all for Ivy League schools started as Christian schools. I mean, we can go on and on and on. Yeah. Puritants. Obviously, mass literacy,

more Bible. Puritans come to the U.S. would Paul is saying out of 100 colleges, universities in America, almost all were founded by Christians. Harvard, 1636, founded by Reverend John Harvard. He literally put this in the founding vision, let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider the main end of his life and studies is to know God in Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern. Literally, they're all Christian school to train pastors, missionaries, and teachers.

I got another cool thing. All right, so this is another cool thing. So Harvard, I think it's their philosophy building. When they were building their philosophy building, I think it was early 1900s. It was sort of when Harvard was making the shift from being an explicitly Christian education to a secular one. And I guess it was the dean of philosophy. I'm going to get some details wrong, but the outcome of this is true. The dean of philosophy when they're building, the building suggested.

He said, they asked him, what should the quote be that we've been? that we put on the top of the philosophy building at Harvard. And he suggested the secular philosophy, quote, man is the measure of all things. But at the time, the president of Harvard was still a Bible-believing Christian. And I think without telling the dean of the philosophy school, he decided to put the Bible verse at the top of the philosophy school, what is man that you are mindful of him?

We could literally do this. You know, ironically, by the way, on that note, many of the institutions that now stand at odds with historic Christianity and Bible teaching were actually birthed by it. Yes. So that's the big irony. Progressives infiltrate institutions built by conservatives

and then wear them as skin suits. Let me just say that. Progressives never build anything. That conservatives build, progressives infiltrate, and then wear them like skin suits. That's a whole different podcast. Anyways, we could go on and on. I'm sorry.

I'm not like, Carlos. That's great. No, you're good. You're good. You're getting excited, though. This is great. Well, honestly, this is super, this is crazy. Like, it's just how Jesus radically, radically changed history.

Some people think that Christianity is only like your private, you know, religion and your heart. It is, it is your religion and your heart. It also, it will be what will change absolutely everything from politics, science, sports, medicine, justice. Abraham Kiper, you know this quote. There is not a square inch in the whole domain. of our human existence over which Christ who is sovereign over all does not cry mine. That's fire. That's fire.

I didn't make it to a sermon, unfortunately. That's good. What do you got? I know you got some nuggets, Acts 22. Let's do a couple things in Acts 22, because this is, I had fun studying this just because, just for the pod. Number one, Paul, is really interesting. This is one of the few things that is recorded in the New Testament as Paul speaking in

Aramaic. A lot of people don't know this. A lot of people think the Bible's written in two languages. It's not. It's written in three. There are three recorded languages, Greek, Hebrew, and then segments in Aramaic. This is one of the ones that Paul originally spoke in Aramaic, which was the language Jesus Homa certainly spoke. That's interesting.

Paul says in verse three, this is kind of, you just kind of get to know who Paul is. Paul says in verse three that he was educated in Tarsus. Tarsus was like the Ivy League spot in Rome. It was like Alexandria, Athens, Tarsus were the three. So what he's essentially saying is, hey, bro, I didn't go to Juko. Like, I'm serious. I'm serious. Like, he's, hey, bro, this ain't no Juko.

He's like, I went to, this is Princeton. Wait, sorry, I don't know what Juko is. That's amazing. It sounds funny, but I don't know what it is. Jukos Junior College. Hey, no offense to any junior college, no graduates. That's not what I'm saying. But Paul's gone, now I went to like Princeton, Yale, Texas A&M.

Shout out, shout out. Wow. Verse three. This is actually very important. He says he was educated at the feet of Gamaliel. Gamaliel is mentioned one other time in the New Testament. He's mentioned, and then he's mentioned by Jewish history. He's mentioned in the Mishnah, an extra-biblical Jewish resource.

Essentially, Gamaliel was that, dude. Like he was Dumbledore, he was Yoda, you know, whatever. In the Mishnah, it actually, which is a Jewish, extra-biblical Jewish history, and ethical teachings? Yeah, commentary. They say that when Gamaliel died, this is a metal quote. They say when Gamaliel died,

quote, the glory of the Torah ceased and purity and piety died. So Gamaliel was like that guy. And he personally disciples Paul in Judaism. So that's interesting. Paul says he was a Pharisee of Pharisees.

Essentially what he's doing right there is he's going to hey man, there's the Navy and there's the Navy SEALs. There's the Army, there's the Army Rangers. He's like, there's the Pharisees. I was like a Pharisee of Pharisees. A couple other things I think are super interesting. Trinity, will you toss the Saurigan inscription up here?

So if you go back to Acts 21, the question becomes like, why is Paul getting arrested? And in Acts 21, there was like a big riot with the temple. Paul brings a dude in in Acts 21 that precipitates the events of Acts 22. He brings a dude into the temple named Trophemus, or Trophemus, depending on who you were listening to, who was Ephesian. He was a Gentile. So this is really interesting. If you ever go with us to Israel, I think we see a replica of that thing you're seeing right there. That is called the Saurig inscription. here's why this started a riot. So in Second Temple Judaism,

this is the time of the New Testament, under the era of Judaism where the temple Herod built was, so the second like big time temple, there was a, it was called the Court of the Gentiles. If you were a Gentile and not a Jew, you couldn't go farther than the court of the Gentiles.

And that was like a big deal. So much so that literally that stone right there when, like, that's not a replica. That actual stone still exists. That's the stone that Paul would have walked underneath every time he walked into the temple in the Book of Acts. They recovered that thing. It's called the SORIG inscription.

Now, they know what it says. I'm going to read it to you. Every time somebody walking in the temple, they walked under this stone that read, no stranger is to enter within the balustrade round the temple and enclosure. Whoever is caught will himself be responsible for his ensuing death.

So now, Paul did not. It was a false accusation that he brought Trofemus up on there. But that kind of gives you insight into how big a deal it was for the Jews to think Paul dragged a Gentile dude up there. So, and then you can see it again at the very end. It's in verse 22 of Acts 21. Everybody's tracking. All the Jews are tracking what Paul.

And they're like, oh, we kind of like this guy. Like, oh, he's Gamaliel. He's Pharisee of Pharisees. This guy's kind of cool. We like this guy. But then he says that Jesus told him go because I'm going to send you to the Gentiles. And then the very next verse says, up to this word, they listen to him. And then they start screaming and say, he should not be allowed to live.

So it ties into that sorg inscription. And so when he's sharing about, yeah, persecuted them to the death, they're cool. And then the second he says the Gentiles are like, whoa, he's got to die. Out. Yeah, they're out. They're out. And then that's it. So it's a big deal. That precipitates these events. Why is Paul having to give his defense? It's because of these events. Last thing I'll say, because I guess it was four weeks ago now when it was the Charlie Kirk sermon the weekend after his death. I preached that message about the stoning of Stephen, Stephen being a potential turning point in the book of Acts. And there were people who listened that were like, hey, Josh, it never says that. It's actually in Acts 21 that is the reason that many Bible scholars think that the stoning of Stephen was. the turning point in Paul's life.

You're going to see it. If you check out verse 16 of Acts 22, he's describing, I think it's 16. Ah, dang, I can't find it. But it's in this chapter, I think, where Paul says that when Jesus appears to him on the Damascus Road, Jesus says, it is hard for you to kick against the goads.

And what a lot of Bible scholars think is happening is Jesus is using, like goads are like spurs that they would use to, you know, prompt an animal or whatever. A lot of Bible scholars think that what Jesus was saying was like, hey, Paul, like, your conscience has been torturing you ever since you helped murder that man whose innocence you saw, and you saw how he died. You know that he was a holy and innocent man. A lot of people think Jesus is saying, it's hard for you to kick against the goats.

In other words, it's hard for you to go against your conscience has been convicting you since you saw the death of Stephen. So if four weeks ago you were like, Josh, made that up. No, I didn't. That's where a lot of Bible scholars point. Well, and I would even, yeah, that actually goes with a little Easter egg I was going to bring. There's another illusion actually to Stephen, I believe, in Acts 22. It's in the first verse. It says, Paul is beginning his defense.

He says, brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you. That phrased is used another place in Acts and is in Acts 7. where Stephen says, brothers and fathers, hear me. Really? And so, which even like gives me chills. Because even with your sermon before and after Christ, like Paul there is alluding in a sense, hey, before Christ, I was this person who persecuted this person

who was actually trying to share the gospel with you. And now here I am trying to share the gospel with you because of what Christ has done in me. I've never caught that before. It's almost as if Paul was ready to, man, I bet you whatever happened is Stephen. It's going to happen to me. Oh, yeah.

It seems like he's like, okay, this is what's going to, you know. I'm ready, yeah. Dude, that's really interesting because as we know from the last few weeks, it was prophetically revealed to Paul when he got to Jerusalem. You know, you know what was going to hit the fan. It was going to go down. So actually, to your point, Paul, bro, I bet you're right. I bet Paul's inner monologue was like, man, this is it.

I want to go out like Stephen. For real. I want to go out like Stephen. Yeah. That guy did it right. Wow. That's amazing. Wow.

I love the Bible. So Pastor Josh, in the, obviously in the sermon, we, wait, you got any other stuff here? That was, no, that was the big thing. That was the big thing. In the sermon, you know, we addressed one of the points was, you know, Jesus saves you from your rebellion, but also from your religion. You know, and we kind of went into it a little bit, but I want to hear from you on that note, you know, if somebody's asking him, man, like, why are you talking about religion?

Like, I know it makes a lot of sense for Jesus to save me from my rebellion, but why, why would he want to save me from my religion? Yeah, this is really, really important. Um, because, like, let's just all acknowledge something really quick. Some of the meanest, most manipulative people I've ever met are super religious people. And they'll call themselves Christians. And they're mean and they're self-righteous. They're angry. They're manipulative. And what the Bible is pointing out, so like, this is really good. What Paul essentially does in his speech is he looks at a bunch of religious people and he goes, I was more religious than you. And Jesus had to save me. And, you know, we know this, that Christianity is not trying, is trusting.

What saves somebody? Faith in the accomplished work of Jesus Christ, not works. That's like the whole New Testament. Faith not works. So if somebody is the type of person, and Paul's saying that he was that dude, if somebody's type of person is like, you know why I'm going to heaven? Because I try really hard to be really good. Then actually you need saving from your religion because your religious obedience is

actually the thing that's keeping you from casting the weight of your trust onto Jesus. So this is, we can riff on this just for a second because, you know, the Puritans especially would talk about how spiritual pride is actually the most dangerous. They would call it the chief, like the chief of all sins, spiritual pride. And a lot of Christians do not have a watchfulness for that in their hearts like they have for like lust or adultery or, you know, whatever it is. this is a big deal. So I'll just point one thing out, and this is like vintage, repackaged Keller.

So the best example of this, there's two in Jesus teaching. When Jesus does the parable, the Pharisee and the tax collector, obviously, when we, through the lens of 2,000 years of church history, when we hear Pharisee in our minds, we're like, well, those are the bad guys.

Boo, hiss. But you've got to remember in Jesus time, and he's talking a bunch of Jews, when they heard Pharisee, they were like, well, those are the good guys. Yeah, they're the heroes. They know the Bible. They apply it to their lives. They got it going on. So they would have been going, Pharisees. Yay, good guy. So when Jesus tells his parable of the Pharisee, it's like one of my favorites that walks in, and he's like, Lord, thank you that I'm not like these tax collectors. And then he lists like

his little spiritual curriculum vitae about all the good stuff he does. And then the tax collector won't come anywhere close to the temple, stands far off. He won't even look up because he's so full of condemnation, guilt, shame, conviction. And then he beats his breast and he just says, God have mercy on me a sinner. And Jesus says, I tell you this man, not the other one, went home justified. And his, why? Because the way that we are justified, which means when God looks at us, it's just as if I'd never sinned. Is not by any of our own human. effort. It's by placing our trust in Jesus and being clothed with what theologians have historically called the alien righteousness of Christ. Yes. It's called the imputed righteousness

of Christ, another word. So that's one. The other one is, you know, we'll talk about the Jesus tells in Luke 15, the parable of the prodigal son. And Keller, this was very wise. colors of men, your Bible should not say parable to prodigal son. It should say parable to prodigal sons. Because if you go back and read that, the context of that parable, Jesus is talking to Pharisees. They're like, why is this dude eating with tax collectors and sinners? And if you go back and read that parable,

both of the sons are estranged from the father. A lot of people read it and think, well, there was a good son and a bad son. Well, if you go back and read it, the parable ends with the quote-unquote good religiously obedient son. He's mad at dad and he's standing outside mad. Like, how could you forgive this wicked son who wasted all your money on prostitutes and drinking? And you're going to accept him. And then it's actually the religious and obedient son that finishes the parable outside of the father's home. angry going, where's my goat?

And Jesus' point is that there's two ways. There's two ways to miss the father through rebellion and through religion. Because in both of them, you're refusing just to trust Jesus. So let's riff on it. What do you got, Paul? Yeah, if you go through the gospels, I mean, the people who most readily came to Jesus were people like tax collectors, prostitutes. those are we think, oh, those are the people far from God.

And yet they were the ones that were most apt and quick to come to Jesus. And yet it was the people who had everybody thought they were the closest to God that were actually stiff-armed Jesus the most and drove them away. And even like bringing this into our days, almost like with that, you know, whenever we hear these incredible life-change stories, by the way, they are incredible. You know, we usually always privileged like the really insane ones. Like, you know, I was a Coke snorting person who killed dogs for fun and was a witch and all that kind of stuff. And then I came to know Jesus.

dogs. Yeah, puppies. I almost said cats, but then I thought that Josh might actually think that was a good thing. So I had to edit and that's why I said, done. I don't think anybody's noticed our cat picture up here yet. There's a hidden cat on set. Some of the people that built this set trolled me by putting a cat picture up on the set. I don't know if any of the camera.

Honestly, I'm not surprised you still here. There's Pete Roseball over there, cat over here, you know. All right. Anyway, sorry, Paul. You're good. Oh, yeah. So when we tell these stories about it, we should applaud and we go crazy. when we hear those stories and there's tears and there's clapping.

But actually, if you think about it, it's actually harder for the person who doesn't think they need Jesus to come to Jesus. So when we hear stories, people like, yeah, I grew up in church and was a pretty good person and all of a sudden, you know, like faith came in a lot of me, got saved. We should give those people standing ovations. Amen. Because it's like, man, it actually, in a sense, was harder for them to actually come to true faith. Amen.

So, yeah. Yeah, Jesus literally said, unless your righteousness surpasses the righteousness of the Pharisees, you will not be saved. I mean, that's Matthew 5. And his point was, newsflash, nobody's righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees except his. That was his point. That's right. Man, so on that note, Paul, like if somebody here says, obviously, as we, Paul shares the story.

There's a before, there's an after something significant happen in his life. He met Jesus, changed everything. Somebody's like, well, yeah, but, you know, Paul told his story because he did all those things before. He was terrible. But I have a quote, a boring testimony. Like I was kind of, you know, we're going to church. And so I don't know that I have a story for me to tell. What do I do?

I'm going to defer to Fatasor Josh here just a minute because I know that this is a big thing for you because that's part of your story. And by the way, it's part of my story. But a few things I'll say initially, we should prize the Apostle Paul story. It shows us that no one is too far from God. That God is able to save anyone, including in this case, like we've said, the most religious and rebellious person that we see. And yet we also have to remember is that for the Apostle Paul, you all. also had other disciples, other apostles, who were with Jesus for three years. And their life change story happened more gradually.

And not all of them were crazy, rebellious people. And yet Jesus also changed their lives. We also have other people. Like I resonate with the story of Jacob in the Old Testament who had encounters with God when he was young. But he was actually when he was older that he wrestled with God. And it's not that he came to salvation then. But there was just something about a faith-defining moment that was just as significant. So people had different stories.

And so, man, we should prize the Apostle Paul story. also not think it's the only paradigm, the only example of a story we have. The other thing I'd say is this, is, you know, it's interesting that usually for ourselves, a lot of people wish we would have a more dramatic story. And yet for our kids, we hope they have a really boring story. Yeah, that's, that's, yep, you're going where I'm going. Is that, just being frank, I hope my kids change the world without first having the world change them. That's right. I say that one more time. That's great. I want my kids to change the world without having to first have the world change them. Amen. And so just no like, man, if you have a quote unquote boring story,

I would actually say there is no boring story because scripture says in Ephesians too that you, each of us were dead in our sin. So every single person, when they look in the mirror, if they are a believer in Jesus, they're a resurrection story. You were once dead and now you were alive. You're a walking miracle. That's right. So, yeah. So, man, he kind of went where I was going on. So that's great. No, no, man. That's actually great. It goes over the verbal highlight. You want to pray for us and we're done here after that. No, no, no, no. Then we'll talk about get right strategies in 1987.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get there in a second. So one thing I say, because I love where you took this, the message, Carlos, because somebody being able to share their, you know, the big Christian word is testimony, you know, and I've heard it said, like, hey, man, what's the difference between a biography and a testimony? A biography is where you tell your story with you at the center,

and a testimony is where you tell your story with Jesus at the center. Right. That's what a testimony is. Learning how to share a testimony like is a big deal. Because what you're going to find when you're sharing with your one more, by the way, at Lake Point, everybody at Lake Point has this thing that we're not about reaching tens of thousands of people or huge crowds. We just want every Christian to be used to reach one more. Just one more person. Who's the person that's closest to you but farthest from God? And I've got one more right now. When you're sharing with your one more, there comes a moment,

with 90% of the time, it's like your story becomes like the lynchpin. So let me just say something real quick, because I got a relatively boring testimony, and then let's move on. So this, Jan and I have used this evangelism paradigm. A lot of people are like, they want to be evangelist, they don't know how. This little thing that I got years and years ago,

it just dummies it down for an idiot like me, and it's like, okay, I can do that. So here's what I would say to every Christian is like, how do I share my faith with somebody? What I would say is remember the acronym, Bless, B-L-E-S-S. When God speaks to Abraham by saving the world in Genesis, he says, through you, the nations will be blessed. So just remember, bless, okay?

So here's the acronym. This is like super helpful, man. Begin with prayer. It's a spiritual condition first. The God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing. the light of the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.

So you got to begin with prayer. That's why we have this little one more cards. We're like every day, twice a day, when I'm brushing my teeth, I'm praying for one more because it's on my mirror. Begin with prayer, L, listen. So it's like, connect before you correct, listen. So I want to hear your story before I share mine.

So let me listen. Oh, dude, do you have a faith? I got that from Pocluta. That's such a good question, dude. He's amazing at that, by the way. It's such a good question. Hey, do you have a faith? It's a real non-threatening.

Yeah. Man, what's your, what's your background with, what's your background with faith? What's your background in church? So listen, eat, and this is the whole thing in a lot of the gospels, I think it's, is it Mark? There's one of the gospels where I've heard that there's literally not a verse where Jesus is not going to a meal, add a meal, or leaving a meal until the crucifixion account. And even that, he's leaving the last supper. So eat, there's just something about, hey, man, come. Why don't you all come over?

Let's spend some. So B-L-E-S-S-serve. So this is a little hack. Jan and I started this years ago. We still do it. We have a little pocket in our budget that we call it our blessed budget. And whoever is our one more,

we're not allowed to spend that money on anything except blessing our one more. So we'll just come up with, I did it two weeks ago. We'll just come up with little things like, oh man, we should send them a gift car. Oh, man, she likes Amazon. Let's give her a, I bet she needs some book money.

There was a single mom one time that was our one more. And we were like, hey, she lived out of town. Jana was like, hey, we got your child care. Why don't you, you're tired, why don't you go out? We're going to pay your baby, so then serve, BLE. And then the last one gets to what you're talking about, B-L-E-S-S, share. So share your story. So begin with prayer, listen, eat, sir.

share. So the last thing I'll say on this, because you go back your original question, what if you got a boring testimony? First thing I want to say is praise God. Praise the Lord. Bless God. And here's where this becomes really powerful to Paul's point. If you're trying to share Christ with somebody that's a parent, your boring testimony is a lot more powerful than you think it is. Because God very often reaches the parent through the kid. and it's not necessarily the kid gets saved first, but the Lord will use your father's or mother's heart for your kid to prick your conscience for your need for the power of God

in your life and their life. So I've just, so, you know, when I'm sharing, I literally did this with a one more, it was my hunting guide. With, I don't know how long ago. And dude, he was awesome. I could tell, like the Lord was, hand was on this guy. After this hunt we went on. and he's asking me questions.

And I literally, I was like, hey, man, I got a boring testimony. I always start my testimony with my parents. Man, honestly, I've had an incredible, here's how I do it. I've had an incredibly blessed life because my dad got saved in college when he was struggling with some alcohol abuse. My mom, my mom's dad died when she was seven, and her mom had a mental breakdown, and she got shipped off as an orphan. And she got saved when she was.

was, you know, eight, nine, ten, and the Lord radically saved them out of these things. And because he redeemed them, he protected me. And I'll tell that story. Now, I always get to, like, where I had a head-on collision with my depravity, you know, and I'll get there. But I would just encourage that person, your boring testimony is probably more powerful than you think, especially when you're sharing Christ with another parent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And even if you're a Christian, if you became a Christian at a young age, you know, obviously, and you want to share your story, but you think it's boring. Well, your story's not over. Like, God is still doing stuff in you today. Like, if you're a Christian, you are called, every Christian is called to grow and mature to be more like Christ.

It's Romans chapter 8. Everybody's called to be conform to the image of his son, which means that if you're a Christian, you should look back five years ago, compare yourself with today. There should be a significant change of God working in you, character, maturity, you know, discipline, all the things. And that's a story for you to tell us well. That's the last thing I was going to say. You pick your area. Pick your BCAD area. Yeah.

You got that. I want to think that's tied to that. It really goes with what you said even of listening is that, you know, even as I've talked to people before about how to share their stories, I don't know that I've even had an opportunity like, hey, can I show you my host story with you? Maybe occasionally, but a lot of times it's just snippets. And so what I actually got this coaching from a guy who was a missionary in the Middle East of what he would do with people was listen to them and listen to what they're going through right now

and listen to their stories. he would be looking for for pain points or tension points. Great. And then he'd be like, well, hey, like, I've experienced the same thing. So for almost all of this, like, if you're a parent, you have common parent problems that every parent has and or troubles in marriage or just whatever, like troubles with anxiety. And so he would just say, hey, listen to what that is and then do something along these lines, put in your own words.

They say, well, hey, I've gone through the same thing. You mind if I share what I've gone through. You share that. And then you say, can I tell you what helps me and what got me through it? And that's where you've been Christ into the story. So even if you have a quote unquote boring testimony, I think we've established you don't. And just know also you can just be looking for things like that.

And then find those common pain points and then talk about how Christ, to your point, Carlos, has made a difference in its changing your life still. And then at that point, that can kind of be a bridge to sharing the gospel with them. I love because this is so practical. So this is amazing. Thank you. Hey, we have some hats coming. Literally, they just come in.

Arthur. Off the truck. What's up, Arthur? Thank you, thank you. There you go. Man, there we go. Come on. Let's go.

Oh, dang. My coffee. Oh, no. No, no, I got it. Okay. Got to go for the sun. So we got, so online merch shop coming, right? That's right.

Coming soon. So let us know in the comment section. You guys can walk around and you can help us defeat the Rachel Maddow show. This is going to help us get up there. Well, hey, guys, one of the reasons we are intentional 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 wanna challenge you to test drive one.

To do that, just text the word group to Tuesday, 0411 or you can also go to lake point 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 so I used to be very picky about like my hair I would never do this I got a tiny head so I got to break this in. I don't have to be picky about my hair, Carlos. Carlos has amazing hair. Totally unfair. I may or may not break the 10th commandment of coveting every time I see him.

People will ask me and bro, I've had the same haircut since like I was 13. Yeah. You're one of those. I guess. I guess. All right, there we go. There we go. We can do it for the rest. All right, man. Now that we have our heads on, I'm ready to talk about the Pope. You? You want to go Pope or you want to go Netflix? Let's go Netflix first because I want to make sure we got time on this. There you go. That's right. Okay, so we'll set this is going to take a second.

We'll set this up. So I guess, wait, you want to say it? Sure, yeah. I mean, if you're ever on social media, you will probably know. If you're ever on X, actually, you'll probably know that this whole Netflix showing shows with transgenderism and sexualized episodes for kids went viral because slowly but surely people started sharing it and then Elon Musk basically like made it blow up and so far I actually had the notes here hold on. He was like internationally trending last night. I think Netflix stock

I think they lost like Jason you know how much 15 billion 15 billion. Yeah and market value 15 billion and market cap yeah. It's like lost 15 billion in market value since like it's like a day. Yeah. Yeah. So a bunch of episodes sexualizing children again packaging explicit sex topics as children entertainment for seven-year-olds, gay marriage, transgenderism, pronouns. We got some videos that we want to see. Anything you want to say before we jump on those videos? Well, so here's what I want people understand. So first of all, I want to talk about, like, how to, as a Christian parent, how do you parent in the midst of stuff like this? That's where we're going to land. But before that, man, like, people do not realize this is the fruition

of a very cleverly devised strategy that was hatched in 1987. I'm going to talk about it and show it real quick. And they have successfully run the exact covert strategy they outlined 50 years ago. So like you today are sitting in the outcome of a successful covert activism strategy

and everything you're seeing on the Netflix stuff, they are literally running the play that was outlined in 1987. So let's show a couple examples of this. Trinity, I don't, whichever one you want to start with. So like, here's what we're talking about. It's kind of gross. Is this Coca-Mellon?

Who is it? Welcome to your crash course. Strawberry shortcake. Okay. You look amazing. But what does this have to do with frightfall? Hello. Frightfall, costumes.

Dressing up. Wait, is that a dude? Yes. Yeah, that's a dude. Okay. See? Honeybee lightly's dress for my fave movie. Breakfast at mulberries.

It's perfect. Yeah, that's enough. Yeah, so, I mean, that's it. So you got a dude. It's a dude dressed up as a woman, obviously, and then it's glorified and normalized. And that shows, like, very obviously targeting young kids. And, by the way, the creators of the show know,

mom and dad aren't around. Like, they know that. It's like, somebody put an iPad in their kids' hands. All right. Do the cocoa melon one, because, Jan and I, wait, pause real quick. So Hudson used to be like super, that he was into cocoa melon.

This is a huge show if he didn't know this. So then this is slipped into a cocoa melon episode on Netflix. Something that we know about you. A couple of dads. How about you break out those moves for your two biggest fans. So that's a boy, by the way. And he just added that, like, to his wardrobe. Like, he wasn't wearing that before.

And then listen to the lyrics. Think about all the things you like to do. Just be you. Okay. Okay. Okay. So one thing I need people to understand before we go to the next one. These are not just shows. They're sermons. Yes. They're demonic anti-sermans.

Like, it's reverse discipling your kids. So that's what people need to understand. So through the old Puritans, they would say it's catechizing your kids. This is catechizing your kids around what is true, right, good, and normal. So two dads, very normalized, and then a young boy walking in, dressing up as a girl. And then the lyrics are, what do you like? Just be you. All right. Go to the, what's that other one we were doing, the Transformers one?

Yes, this Transformers. And by the way, the reason, pause it real quick. The reason that, can you not pause it? Do you have to take it all the way down? You got to take it a little later. Oh, you do. Sorry. The reason I'm showing, these are like shows that Hudson

for boys. Transformers for boys. Yeah, and then I'm like, ah. And that if you're a parent, you see Transformers. Oh, yeah, true. Let them watch it. It's good. It's good.

All right, toss head, Transformers one up. Martin, can you switch? This is ridiculous. Nice shade pronouns are they that. No, she just doesn't fit to why now. Apology. Please switch their peace. Stop. All right.

It's like, it's evil, but it's like also comical. Yeah. We're like in a, we're in a Transformers episode, an Optimus Prime is apologizing for misgendering a robot. Yeah. Like, like, people talk about clown world. Yeah. This is what we're talking about.

Okay. And then there was one more. What was that? What's that? Hang on, hang on. Monster High. Monster High. All right.

So this is more like a tween or tween age show. Super popular. Do that one real quick if you got out of Trinity. The school totally customizes a re- Wait, pause real quick. Can you put, okay, good. First of all, I just want to point this out. This is a totally different discussion.

So one thing that I would encourage Christian parents towards is when you're evaluating what your kids watch and how you process it with them. what a lot of well-meaning Christians will do is they'll just look for content. So they go to something like Common Sense Media, are there cuss words? Is there sex in it?

Was there violence? Oh, if not, then we're good. So I just want to point this out. Really what you're looking at what Satan does is he, the Bible says, he calls good things evil and evil things good. He's a master, deceiver. So what you want to watch out for as a Christian parent is,

is this a show that depicts good things as good and evil things is evil. When I'm with my kids, I drive my daughter's crazy. Before we watch something together, I always say, hey, man, y'all have your lie detectors up, and when we're done, I want to see what your lie detectors picked up. Like, we went to see the movie Wicked one time. And I was like, lie detectors, and we get it on the truck,

and we're like, let's talk about it. Okay, so I just want to point this out before we even talk about the trans stuff. You have a show right here where witches, witchcraft, warlocks and overtly demonic evil spirituality are the good guys. So what you got to watch out for as a parent are my kids constantly watching things

where people and things the Bible says are evil are portrayed as good and good guys because that, as parents, what we're doing is we're calibrating the consciences of our kids. All right, so anyway, let's keep going. So cozy. I'm Frankie. Pronouns, they them. I'm only 15 days old.

So weird. Taldeen, she heard. Nice to me. My full name is Frankie Stuy. Did she say furry? I was just created by my parents, but not in the way that others are created by their parents, like werewolves. I was actually made in the lab using some of the... All right, I got no work. I got no words.

Okay, now we can keep going. So the reason this became internationally trending is people started digging up like, oh, this is like in tons of Netflix kid shows. So again, here's our big thing, Christians and parents. If the church won't disciple people, the world will. These are not TV shows. They're sermons is what they are. Now, this is where like, dude, you want to get a little crazy.

What I want to do real quick, this is going to take me two or three minutes, and this is going to blow your mind. What you are seeing is the outcome of a covert strategy that was hatched in 1987 by two gay rights activists, and they set out to decide way back in 80s. How do we turn LGBT ideology into the official doctrine of America? So, all right, here, let's do some show and tell real quick. This is a book, which camera am I at?

All right. This is a book right here. It's called After the Ball, Subtitle, How America Will Conquer It's Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s. Written by two dudes, Marshall Kirk and Hunter Mazden. And this was either written in 87 or 89. All right, now. this book, by the way, one of them was a neuropsychologist, and the other guy was an advertising exec, I think, in Manhattan.

Now, what they did is this is pre-internet, so they were like, we can write this book, and this will stay among, like, our little crew. They didn't know what was coming. This was what they wrote in the late 80s about they developed a strategy, a covert activist strategy. How are we going to turn all of America? into like pro-LGBT, like the official doctrine of America.

And bro, I'm going to read you some quotes from this thing. You are about to have the veil pulled back on the exact play they got ran on your culture for the last 50 years without anybody knowing. Now, here's what's crazy about this book, bro. Once people figured out what was going on and that like the little covert strategy was in this thing, they tried to memory hold this book. So like they, from what I understand, man, they started purchasing up all these things so that nobody would be able to find it.

So this paperback book cost me, I think it was like $200. Because I was like, I'm going to get one before they're gone. So this is, I got this one of them. Okay, bro. Now this is going to take me a second, but this is really going to freak you out. I'm going to read you some quotes from their strategy starting in 1987. Some of this should sound familiar, okay? some quotes here we go this was during the AIDS epidemic of the 80s

AIDS gives us a chance however brief to establish ourselves as a victimized minority legitimately deserving of America's special protection and care gays must be portrayed remember these are marketers that are setting the marketing strategy how are we going to market ourselves towards our end goals Gays must be portrayed as victims in need of protection so that straits will be inclined by reflex to adopt the role of protector. Now I'm going to say something like super, super duper un-PC. I'll just point this out. Right now, especially like in the progressive, more progressive segment of America, what you have is this really dominated by predominantly white single childless women.

Okay. Now I just want to point this out. if you look at that segment of the populace progressive white childless single women what you have is you can't turn off your instincts that are hardwired into you toward a husband and your maternal instincts towards children so what that segment of the population a lot of times does is they start looking to the government to step in the role of their husband i need you to provide for me i need you to protect me i need you to lead and that kind of thing and then here's what you got to watch out for it. This is exactly what this book is playing on right here is what that segment of the populace

does is they aim their mama bear maternal instincts. A lot of times it's the LGBT community. And what you'll notice is that white single childless women, they get real protective for LGBT people. What that is is this maternal instincts because they don't have kids aimed somewhere that they weren't designed to be aimed. So this is what's talking about. Now, let me keep going. Bro, this is nuts. Wait, I'm going to save that because that one's nuts. Okay.

By the way, this book and these strategists are where the entire, now, it's what's interesting, Carlos, I'm curious if your generation still says this. Because now the research is in the opposite direction. So people say this less. When me and Paul were in high school, what people said about same-sex attracted people is they would say, hey, man, we were born this way. Yes. That was like the line, born this way. Is that still as much a thing?

That was a debate like 10 years ago. I don't know that I hear that anymore. The reason you don't hear that anymore is because now like mountains of research are in the opposite direction. Yeah. Honestly, too, and because of the transgender movement, too, which is literally like the opposite. And they sometimes bore with each other a little bit on that. Which is literally says the complete opposite. Well, it doesn't matter what you were born because you can just, you know, transition.

Okay. Well, even though there has, to my understand, never been evidence. of genetic predisposition towards same-sex attraction. The concept of born this way came from these dudes. That was the strategy. They didn't have the research. They were just like from a branding perspective. I'm going to read you the quote.

We argue that for all practical purposes, gay should be considered to have been born gay, and they even acknowledge this, even though sexual orientation for most humans seems to be the product of a complex interaction between innate predispositions and environmental factors during childhood and early adolescence. So you have these marketers, these covert activist strategists in 87 going, we know the research doesn't say it,

but we need to figure out a way to brand in American culture that this is a born this way thing. Why? Here's what they say. So that we can suggest in public, to suggest in public that homosexuality might be chosen is to open the can of worms labeled moral choices and sin. So they knew in order for us to get away from the historic Christian understanding that actually there is morality to this. We have to rebrand it as a genetic disposition and born this way. That came from these activists in 1987. Now, let's talk about churches.

They had a strategy. What do we do with the churches? Quote, conservative churches defined by the authors, they need to be defined by the authors as homo-hating. So do you know where the word homophobic was popularized? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Wow. This movement. We need them portrayed as antiquated backwaters badly out of step with the times with the latest findings of psychology.

Now, again, I want to point this out. They're not saying we have new findings of psychology. They're deciding what the outcome needs to be for branding and activist purposes and then going, now we'll go find. it. Now, I'm going to keep reading quotes, but if you're like older than 30, as I read these quotes, you should be thinking back through your life and you're going to notice, Holy Moses. This is exactly what happened. All came from this, okay? Let me keep going. So they're still talking about churches, quote from the book. So again, these are marketers and advertisers. They're coming up with the type of advertising that they want people to run to

stigmatize churches as homophobic. For example, Marketer Dude writes in this book, he's describing a commercial or an ad. For several seconds, an unctuous, beady-eyed Southern preacher is shown pounding the pulpit in rage against those perverted, abominable creatures. While his tirade continues over the soundtrack, the picture switches to heart-rending photos of badly beaten persons

or of gays who look decent, harmless, and likable. And then we cut back to the poisonous face of the preacher. The contrast will speak for itself and the effect will be devastating. Now, bro, like, this is what you've been seeing for like 50 years. Okay, let me keep going. Now, what we're talking about is, man, you may be going, man, why is it?

Dude, why is it? They're like every, it's in every TV show. it's in every commercial. Why has Netflix got to stick this in like every kid's show? Well, let me help you. All right, let's keep going. So these guys start talking about what's going to be our media strategy. The author's boldly state early on in the book,

quote, The campaign we outline in this book, though complex, depends centrally upon, listen to this, a program of unabashed propaganda, firmly grounded in long-established principles of psychology and advertising. I'm going to keep going. They sought to build on people's primal instincts whereby, quote, we need a flood of gay-related advertising presented in the least offensive fashion possible.

This will get the job done. Listen, if straits can't cut off the shower, they may at least eventually get used to being wet. So they're laying this out in 87. We're going to shower them with a bombardment of constant propaganda in every TV show and every commercial they watch so that it will desensitize them to the fact that this is not right, true, good, or normal. Okay. So that's what they're saying. Now, dude, again, the quotes keep getting freakier. Okay.

We mean conversion of the average American's emotions, mind and will, through a, This is their language, planned psychological attack in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media. Now, dude, okay, what's going to be the strategy? Remember, this is 87. Paul and I remember 87? This was not like, bro, Carlos, you don't even understand. This was like not a thing. In 87, this was not a thing.

I believe, yeah. It was not a thing. Our culture was very heteronormative in 87, which is a good, true, and righteous thing. Okay. So, bro, this is nuts. So then they go, okay, what are we going to do with the media bombardment propaganda strategy? Listen to this quote. First, we will get our foot in the door by being as similar as possible to the straits.

In other words, we're going to put people, if you remember, we were talking about Will and Grace earlier. The first thing we're going to do is we're going to put same-sex couples in TV shows that look exactly like. heterosexual couples. Okay, so they say, we need, by being as similar as possible, listen, then and only then, when your one little difference, orientation is finally accepted,

can you start dragging in your other peculiarities one by one? You hammer in the wedge, narrow end first, as the saying goes, allow the camel's nose beneath the tent, and his whole body will soon follow. So if you're asking the question, Oh man, why is it that in the last 10 years, 20 years,

it went from just like normal same-sex couple on Will & Grace. And now we're doing like furries. And like we got trans people in kids cartoons. And like we got pride parades in Portland where like they're getting city permits to walk around naked in BDSM paraphernalia in front of children. One, 1987. somebody outlined a strategy, get the camel's nose beneath the tent first, and then his whole body will soon follow. Keep going.

They write this. In practical terms, this means that cocky, mustachioed leathermen, drag queens, and bull dykes will not appear in gay commercials and other presentations. In other words, let's hide all that stuff. Let's just get the nose under the tent first, and then we'll drag the other stuff in. conventional young people, middle-aged women, and older folks of all races are to be featured, not to mention the parents and straight friends of gays. This is what they're outlining 87. Now, last one, this is my last quote, I think.

At a later stage of the media campaign, now, before I read this, this is, they're playing defense right now. Like, this whole team is playing defense right now, and that's a good thing. But if you remember, even just eight years ago, bro, you would have a situation where, like, I remember CEOs getting found out they had donated $1,500 to an organization that defended a biblical definition of marriage and huge public pressure being so big, they get fired from their position. Like, that's a thing. Okay, well, I wonder where that came from. Let me tell you, straight from this book, 1987.

At a later stage of the media campaign for gay rights, long after other gay ads have been commonplace, then it will be time to get tough with remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be vilified. Wow. Our goal here will be twofold. First, we seek to replace the mainstream self-righteous pride about its homophobia with shame and guilt.

Second, we intend to make the anti-gays look so nasty that average Americans will want to disassociate themselves from such types. And ladies and gentlemen, you have just had the history of American culture since 1987 prescribed to you in advance from that book. Wow. That's crazy, bro. Yes. That's wild. Thoughts? And it was executed. Well, even if it's terrible and tragic, I'm saying they execute.

And even what we were talking about before the show was, even if you see gradually what was in media, even at first, some of the stuff that was same sex was at least, okay, aha, I can laugh at that joke. But part of that was intentional that they're trying to get you so familiar with it. You're laughing at it. And then eventually it's normal. It's normal. This is also obviously pre-social media. So these guys had no idea the power and the influence of social media around again, 2007, when YouTube kind of became a thing, 2011, when like smartphones became a thing. which has obviously advanced their costs like significantly. Oh, metastasized. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, there's a couple things, you know, man, there's a few things I'd say about this because the question then is like, all that stuff's going on.

What do I do? I'm a Christian dad. Yeah, before you go there, can ask something? So somebody might be asking, there's two questions. I think you're about to answer the second one. But before, somebody might be asking, hey, but we've seen a bunch of LGBTQ content out there.

So, and, you know, people are, like you said, we kind of, culture has accepted it in some, in some sense. But why is this, I've heard people say, this is evil. Why is this in particular evil? Because it's intentionally preying on and stealing the innocence of children. Yes. So like, let me just, so let me ask you this question. All right. So why are they so adamant about getting it in shows that are marketed towards. six-year-olds. Why is it that drag queen's story hours that were a thing? Why is it always

in libraries and they want to read to the kids? Why do they never want to go to nursing homes and read their books to the elderly? What you have to understand, man, is that in one sense, the LGBTQ movement is a religion. Yes. And you need

to think of all the letters in the LGBTQ thing. Those are different denominations. within the religion. And if you're asking the question, like, man, why are they always going after the kids? Because eventually every religion has to get into kids' ministry.

They know that. They also know, just speaking very bluntly, same-sex couples cannot create kids. So they got to convert yours. They know that. The success of the movement in the future depends on converting your children to their religion. Literally depends on it.

literally depends on it. Wow. Okay. So a second question. So what should Christians do? People are boyconding Netflix. You know. First of all, before you get, Paul, did you have something you're going to say there?

Oh, no. I think that's exactly what I was going to say is I think it's because it's targeted towards kids. And I think there's just something about that that's like, oh, okay. Like it's one thing if you come to have that view when you're older, but don't try to put that into their minds. But to your point, it's very intentional that you do that. And I think even like it's been interesting.

I've heard all these stories and. seeing this research where they'll take kids and they'll try to introduce these concepts to them. And the kids naturally reject it because it just doesn't seem normal to them. But the more that they can keep it, push at them as normal, the more than they'll grow up. And then they're trying to basically change about going after a new generation. So that's exactly what I was going to say. That's it, dude. Man, there's a couple things I'd say here. First of all, if you are somebody that experiences same-sex attraction, let me just talk about this real quick. Christians get really confused on this because it's emotionally confusing. You've got

let's say you got a friend, you got a family member who is in a same-sex relationship or struggle with gender identity, and you love that person. And like, dude, this is like a very emotional, very personal thing for them. What Christians have to remember is the Bible tells us to love people. Jesus said, love your neighbors yourself, love people, but then the book of, I think it's first Corinthians. It's First Corinthians or Colossians. We destroy arguments. We Destroy arguments. We Destroy Arctu, Colossians. Colossians. The book of Colossians says, we destroy arguments in every idea that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. So what Christians are called to do is this is really important. Love people, but destroy arguments.

Why do we want to destroy arguments? Well, Jesus said, then you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. How's the truth set you free? The truth only sets you free if you've been enslaved by a lie. So why do we destroy lies and evil ideologies? Because they take people captive. It's actually very unloving not to destroy the ideology that takes people captive. So first of all, if somebody experiences same-sex attraction, we love that person because we are Christians. And Christ Jesus died for that person and wants them to be in heaven with him forever. Yes. So one, to that person, I would say, hey man, the condemnation of that idea is not the condemnation of you.

So you are not your orientation. I know you got a million people in your ear telling you what you shouldn't do with that. You are not your orientation. You are who Jesus says you are. So do not build your identity upon a sexual proclivity. Don't do that. That's one thing. Two, let me just talk about as parents and as Christians, you know what we do.

What we do as parents is we want to, we need to view every show they watch, real they watch, especially when they're young, the younger they are, the more true this is. Those are not shows, they're sermons. If the church won't disciple people, the world will. So what we want to do, 1st Corinthians 16 says to men, specifically men, and especially fathers.

It says, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, be strong, act like men, let all you do be done in love. Well, one thing that we do is dads being watchful is we're watching. How is the enemy trying to devour my family? And what I'm not going to do is stand passively by and just let the certain serpent get my family without me doing something about it. So that's what Adam did. Adam's got a serpent talking to his wife and he should have inserted himself between his wife and the serpent and been like, you want to get to her, you got to get through me.

So what we need to do with our kids when demonic evil ideas are trying to come for our kids, my job as a dad is to be watchful, know how the enemy's coming and go, no, no, man, you don't get my kids. You got to go through them to get, you got to go through me to get to them. So we need to be watchful and be aware.

Your job as a parent, very frankly, this is like super, not politically correct, but it is biblical correct. Your job as a parent is to calibrate the conscientious, of your kids so that things that are good, right, and true, feel good right and true, and so that things that are perverse, wicked, evil, and destructive feel perverse, wicked, weird, evil, and destructive. So Jan and I, very aggressively, very aggressively, we have sought to raise our kids in a radically heteronormative home, where they do not, especially when

they're very young, they don't see commercials with same-sex couples in them, especially when they're very young. Like if we're watching Survivor together, and they go into the little story montage, and it's somebody this same-sex relationship, we're skipping it. If there's too much in it, we don't do it. Now, as they get older and they develop discernment and they know how to think and feel, that's different. But at a young age, the concrete is still wet. And my job is to make sure that it dries in the right shapes. So I don't want you seeing any of that stuff. So when our kids see that stuff, like literally now,

when our kids see that stuff, their first response is gag reflex. And dad, that's weird. Hey, listen, that's good. Yes. It's good when people feel that weird and perverse things feel weird and perverse to them. So one is parents with young kids,

you know, that's what we want to be doing that aggressively. You know, number two, obviously, as our kids get older, we want to help and develop discernment. We got to talk about those things. And what I don't want is for them to talk about it first with all their little idiot, 11-year-old friends. And by the way, that's not even mean. The book of Proverbs literally says foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. So that's another little parenting thing. You need to have the mental framework that all your kids' friends are fools because that's literally what the Bible says.

all your kids friends are fools. So guess what we don't need. We don't need our kids getting all of their views about the world from a bunch of fools. So what we want to do is we're supposed to be people who are full of biblical wisdom. We need to be having, we want you processing that with wise people. Talk about that with mom and dad. So one thing you do want to watch out for is your kids get a little older, in my opinion. And then I want you guys to chime in here is we're really, especially at like,

the younger ages, and then when they get into like middle school area, what Jan and I really try to keep an eye on, and listen, you have influence, but not control. We all know that. You're going to do your best. We're really watching like there's a difference. There's kids who are parent bonded versus kids who are peer bonded. I think what you really want to keep an eye on is like, man, is there deepest relationship and highest emotional commitment? with their friends who are still foolish, or with their parents who are wise. That's good.

And whenever Janet and I will start to notice, like, oh, man, we're going through a little phase where we got a little wobbly wheel on a grocery cart over there. Then usually our first instinct is, aha. We need to make sure we're real parent bonded right now. So we're going to really lean in on time, fun, attention, conversation because I need you bonded to wisdom. I do not need you bonded to foolishness right now.

That's good. And that creates this emotional, pathway where now I've got the relationship to train to calibrate that sort of thing so that we align with God's work. Now, I just talk for a long time. What we guys got? Additional thoughts, comments. Yeah, I have a three-year-old. So I'm learning from both of you. So Paul? No, I think I'm just to add, and then I'll get maybe a paradigm that I've thought about recently in a different context, but I think it'll be applied here. But first, just off what you said, I think one thing I was taught in terms of the stages of parenting that I very much apply here is

that really from when your kid is born to about 10 or 11-ish, you're a cop. and not in the sense that you're mean, but say, you set the rules. If you break them, there's a punishment with that, but then also just a lot more strictures. But really starting around 10 or 11 to about when they're 18, graduated from high school, you're more of a coach. By the way, that doesn't mean that there's no punishment. There doesn't mean there's no discipline because a coach can make your own laps,

so you can put you on the bench and all that kind of stuff. The idea is that you're training them to be able to go out on the field by themselves. So even like to what you're saying is there does come a stage where I can't simply say, you can't watch anything, you can't do this, you can do that. Because at some point they're going to do those things. And if I haven't coach them to be able to do it themselves, the world's going to get them and they're going to fall hard. And then once you're 18 and beyond, basically you're a consultant. And even it's like what you talked about is really as you get older, it's way more about influence and less about controls.

That's just a simple kind of idea and concept that I think helps people, even as you're thinking about, okay, how are my kids? How am I filtering the content? How am I having conversations? It gets wrong whenever you flip the stages. So if you try to go coach your consultant mode when your kids are young, that's foolish. But conversely, if you're still trying to be a cop with a 16 or 17-year-old, frankly, you're not preparing your teenager for life. So I'll come back to another kind of paradigm to how to maybe sit through content. But Carlos, what do you got?

Yeah, man, I think, you know, I speak to a lot of parents that actually listen to this podcast with their children, you know, teenagers. And here's what I would say. I think what you said, Josh, makes a lot of sense. Like, hey, if you're a teenager or if you're a younger listener, just be aware that in a sense, it is true. your friends are foolish. And so if your parents love Jesus, if you're here listening with this with your dad or your mom is speaking truth to you

and they both love Jesus and you see Christ in them, like, it's smart. Listen to your parents more than you listen to your friends. You do not want to be taking advice from your foolish friends. You want to be listening to your godly parents and it'll bless your life.

Like you're going to be ahead like 10, 15, 20 years and God's going to bless you even more. So just that, you know, again, just another side over there that I think makes a lot of sense. Well, even off that, and this connects something you said earlier about the kinds of content we're bringing in, which is if you think about most Disney or other kids movies out there, the resounding theme is the parents are the fullest idiots who are repressing you. And by repressing it means even to the clip that we showed earlier, you be you, you do you.

And if your parents are keeping that, that's because they don't want you to be happy. For you to be happy, you have to get what exactly you desire. And so that's a good example of even, like I thought when you were talking earlier, like I almost would rather have my kids watch Braveheart or same private Ryan a little too young than to watch kids oriented content that's actually discipling them. And they're on, see, he's getting it. A savior private Ryan. He's getting it.

Hey, that's a throwback to an old episode. Yeah, he's getting it. But because the point in those shows are showing. I'm like, man, values of land on your life and courage. Anyways, that was the thought on that. A paradigm that it's interesting, I actually taught our staff recently on, our student staff on, for how to evaluate and discern really theological and biblical teachers, whether that's pastors or books they're reading, things are listening to. But I think applies here is, I like to think of it three ways. There's some people, in this case, you can kind of substitute in shows or even networks, because like this even started with, man, should you cancel Netflix? But also you've got to think of things like, man, I've got YouTube TV. You've got even like social media networks like X. You've got to really think, not just through an individual show, but basically platforms as well. Some are like, like a road. Man, on a road, for the most part, I don't have to think about it too much. I can go running on a road. There's an occasional crack, occasional potto, but hey, for the most part,

pretty safe, don't have to worry about too much. And then there's a trail. Trails have a lot more rocks and watch out for it. You got to go a little slower and really actually build a little more skilled. I can send my kids out to run or play on the road. You still have to watch out for cars and watch out for some things to be safe. But when I fastened them on a trail, there's a lot more bad that can happen. And so if anything, I need to go out there first with them, make sure they can handle it. And even using that analogy, there's easy trails and there's really hard, dangerous ones. And then there are minefields. That's great, dude. And there's minefields where, man, you really got to be careful because, I mean, you can step out of mine and get really

hurt. And with that analogy, I would be an awful, foolish, even borderline evil parent if I sent my kids out into a minefield without me walking through it with them. And so, So I think as you're looking at the constant, go ahead, go, go. I'll just say one thing that you finish. Like, so if something is in minefield, you're really dumb if you walk through it. Yes. So, like, there are some platforms that it's like, honestly, man, there ain't no good reason. There is literally no good reason for you.

Like, I'll be honest, man. Like, I've literally never even, I've never had Snapchat. But like, what I've heard, read about Snapchat, I'm like, I don't, I don't, I don't, see any redeeming quality. Yeah. So there's some of those things like there's no reason to walk through minefields. No, that's right. But no, that's the actually, that's why I joked with our team is, man, whatever's on the other side of that minefield, it better be really worth it. Because if you just need to go get some toothpaste, well, guess what? You can go to a different

place and get that. Not worth going up. Anyways, my point in that is, as you're evaluating your kid shows, also the platforms that are exposed to you, really got to stop and think and do your research. Hey, is this more like a road? Is this more like a trail? Is this like a minefield? And then act accordingly. Act accordingly. Should Christian boycott Netflix? I mean, honestly, man, I don't know that I got a strong opinion. I'll be honest. Here's what I hear you say, Josh, if that's okay.

I hear you say it's not a bad idea if somebody wants to, would you say? I do not think it's a bad idea. Honestly, my first instinct, what I haven't thought through this extensively, my first instinct is that in a free market economy, which is what we live in as of now, in a capitalistic free market economy, every time you spend a dollar, you're casting a vote. Every time you spend a dollar, you're casting a vote for what kind of world you want to live in.

Now, dude, you can get real, like you can get to where it's like literally impossible to buy anything. Yeah. Oh, man. YouTube has a lot of content as well. It's probably questionable. I mean, there's a lot of things. Yeah. Well, this shirt, that shirt was outsourced to this company.

And that company in 1994 or one time employed people in Somalia. And those people one time had, it can get silly. But, I mean, in one sense, you just need. to know when you spend dollars, you're casting votes for what kind of world you want to live in here. So I don't think it's a bad idea. And let me just, I didn't plan. I canceled ours last night. I did. I was like, nah, we're out. So there you go. I think on that is this might be one of the situations is like it's a wisdom issue. And what I mean by that is, it's like, if you're not going to do it, then you better be wise. Because to your point, we're all, not just our kids, but we're all being

disciple it all day. And what simple discipleship means is the idea of you are being formed by someone or something into someone or something. And so at the end of the day, these shows are forming you and they're forming your kids. And so you've got to be really wise. If you keep Netflix, you better know, you've got to,

going back to my road trail and mindful analogy, hey, that's probably more like now an advanced trail. And so if you're not willing to walk through, like with it with your kids and be really mindful, then maybe you do need to cancel it. But if you are, maybe you don't have to. I think this is probably one of those things where it's maybe not a hey if you don't do it,

you're sending you. But if you do do it, you better be wise. That's why I was hesitant answer. I don't want to buy in somebody's conscience. I don't think it's a sin righteousness issue. It's more like a wisdom strategy issue. Can I say one last thing here, Carlos? So on this point, I hopped on his last week. I had a little 10-minute deal where I hopped on Jason Whitlock's podcast, which is, is that a podcast or a TV show? It's a TV show in the blaze. Fearless. I don't know what it was. Jason Willlock's a sports commentator for those people who to, be ESPN guy. And we talked a little bit. And he said on the show

that when we were talking, he was like, they will eventually try to legalize pedophilia. And he's been saying that for years and people laugh at him. Trinney, you got that thing I just dropped in there. Can you pull that up? All right, let me, hang on. It's tough to read, so let me I'm going to pull this up. So people

laugh at, people laugh and, oh, that'll never happen. People won't do that. So what you're seeing right here, this is, by the way, she's a really good follow. Yes, she is. Katie McCoy is a good follow on both IG and X. She's a good, solid Christian cultural thinker. So here's what you got.

I'm going to read it. Alert, a new peer-reviewed paper in the American Sociological Association's official Journal of Sex and Sexualities calls for the elimination of the idea of childhood sexual innocence and the social-stethical taboos against children engaging in sex acts.

And then it has a screenshot of the peer-reviewed, scientifically published paper. The title of it is childhood sexualities on pleasure and meaning from the margins. And basically it's, hey, we should have a strategy

to rebrand away from pedophilia because that's a morally charged statement towards things like a minor attracted person. Yeah, yeah. So dude, like... It's probably in the book, right? The strategy?

Yeah. The one you... I don't know. I don't know. It could probably very well could be. But that's exactly, I mean, let me just say, that's exactly what we said earlier. Let's get the nose of the camel under the tent with the things that look and feel more normal. And then we can bring in, I think it literally called the more the oddities and things like that. That's what that is.

Evil. Well, we're going to have to save the Pope conversation on death penalty. Dude, we were going to hit Pope Pete Hegseth speech to the generals and Stephen Miller speech. It's all related. Well, we suppose, you know, October is the time we celebrate the Reformation. So we've got a few more weeks that maybe we can bring them up another time. There you go. Okay. Well, make it a comeback. Well, on that note, Pastor Josh, would you please pray for us? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Jesus, first of all, thank you for your grace. And thank you that not one person who has dabbled in or been captive to any of the ideas that we have talked about in the last however many minutes is not deeply loved by their heavenly, by the, by you. you by the heavenly Father and that your arms are outstretched to welcome them home in the love and grace of Jesus Christ. So Father, yes, we love truth. Yes, we want to protect our kids, but also, yes, we know that you are Jesus Christ, friend of sinners and that you have bleeding heart and hands for their salvation. So, Father, I pray for that for mass salvation, for a sweeping way of the love of the Father over these things. Father, I pray for the parents. that you would give us, because we're all in this thing together right now,

that you would give a spirit-empowered wisdom, and that you would fill our children with a spirit of wisdom and of love, of righteousness, and of Jesus. From a very young age, we're praying for thousands and millions of quote-unquote boring testimonies because of mommies and daddies who were watchful, stood firm. They were strong. they acted like men and women

and they let all that they do be done in love. So Father, we love you and we pray those things in the name of a risen Christ. 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. combe.church slash live free. We'll see you next time.