Live Free with Josh Howerton - The Strategy Satan is Using to DESTROY Our Christian Nation | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

What if spiritual warfare isn’t only personal—but can also influence entire cultures and nations? In this candid and provocative conversation, Pastors Josh, Carlos, and Paul explore how sin and spiritual deception can work their way into societal structures, cultural values, and public policy. They examine religious liberty, immigration, competing belief systems, and the responsibility of Christians to recognize values that conflict with Scripture. This episode is not about viewing people as the enemy. It is about remembering that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood” and learning to identify the spiritual forces and ideas shaping the world around us. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why spiritual warfare can be both personal and societal How sin can become embedded within cultures and institutions What Deuteronomy 32 may reveal about nations and spiritual powers Why shared religious values matter within a society How Christians can oppose unbiblical ideas without treating people as enemies Why believers must recognize the enemy’s schemes and stand firmly on God’s Word Stand firm. Think biblically. Live free. 🧢 Want a Live Free hat of your own? Visit LiveFree.shop 📲 Looking to grow deeper in your faith? Check out the Lakepointe App to access our Discipleship Guide, daily Bible reading plan, and more. Text APP to 20411 to download

If you were Satan waging spiritual warfare at a nationalized level, this is how you would destroy a largely Christian nation. Well, hey, Lifree Nation. Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. But the Liv Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this. We want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online.

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All right. So this is, I wanted to get to this, the first part of the episode. I'm going to warn you right now. This is a little spicy. I'm going to preface this for all of our listeners. Carlos and Paul's names are not on what I'm about to say. Okay. Okay. Okay. I don't want you to get pinned on this. So it's really interesting. Honestly, prepping for the episode, there's large. on spiritual warfare. Dude, I'll be honest.

People typically think about individualized spiritual warfare. What you see in the scriptures, by the way, especially if you start getting into Heiser stuff about, hey man, God has determined times and seasons, nations, you have, I'm actually going to look at this real quick.

It's Genesis 11 is not the only passage that talks about the Tower of Babel. Deuteronomy 32. I'm going to read this real quick. So here's what I do. And we may never air this. because it might be too un-PC. I don't know how to say it.

So I want to talk about what it would look like for spiritual warfare not to just happen at an individualized level, but at a national and societal level. And I want to give a theory. I want to give a theory. If you were Satan, waging spiritual warfare at a nationalized level, this is how you would destroy a largely Christian nation.

So, and here's why I'm doing this. So there's a bunch of things that I think people, a lot of times, they're like, they see it and they're like, well, that's bad. Hey, that didn't look real good. That didn't look real good. What I don't think people realize is how the stuff fits together. Okay. So I'm going to show a few videos that are a little mind-blowing, but what I want to do is connect some dots, potentially, potentially connect some dots. Now, just for fun, I'm going to do the Heiser little, let me do this.

So this is Deuteronomy 32. So Deuteronomy 32 is commenting in retrospect about what happens at the Tower of Babel. Okay, this is the theory. So it says this, when the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind. That's what happens to Tower of Babel, divides people into different nations, confused the languages. That is really the Genesis theory on the origin of nations and languages and people groups by and large. Okay. So it's commenting on this. He fixed the borders of the peoples according to the, now here's where you get into Heiser. According to the number of the sons of God. And I'm pretty sure the Hebrew there is Elohim.

See, this is where it depends because there's some like there's got, I forget which is which. So forgive me, I don't know. I'm not the stuff on my head. You've got Masoretic text. Then you've got subterian. Some would say the sons of God, Elohim. That's right. Others would say the sons of Israel. That's right. And that's where the debate is. Real quick, two problems with, if you say sons of Israel, here's the problem. Israel didn't exist. Exactly. So number one, Israel didn't exist. Number two, when I was reading about this, the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yes, that was it.

Yeah, and the Dead Sea Scrolls has Sons of God, and that's the earlier text. Yes, that's, yeah. Which is why, by the way, we're Bible nerding out for a second here. That's why, by the way, the ESV, last time I checked, the ESV chooses sons of God. What's the verse? Deuteronomy 3289. Check it out real quick. Now, here's why that's interesting.

Now, we're not saying this. They do. They do? Okay, ESV, Sons of God. So Elohim. So Eam in Hebrew, for our listeners who were not subjected to two years of Hebrew like I was in college, that's the only, that was the only C I got in college was Hebrew. Eam is like an S suffix in English. So how do you make something plural in English?

You put an S. How do you make something plural in Hebrew? You put an Eam. So Elohim, Sons of God, is talking about spiritual beings. So now, me and Paul and Carlos, we're not saying this. But what Heiser does is he implies that it is a possibility that what you have for the rest of the Old Testament is, man, you really have this concept of essentially territorial spirits, which is why is it Daniel 8, 9, and 10 when it talks about the Prince of Persia? I think, yeah, let me look it up for you. Now, this is all tinfoil hat stuff.

Like, I'm not going to put this in a sermon. This is like a bunch of guys sitting around drinking bourbon and talking about the Bible, and you're like, what if? That's kind of what you got here. I always say this. I've never been drunk in my life. We're not talking about drinking to excess, all the caveats. But that's the theory, is that you may have that, that God is the God of Israel and the Old Testament, that most of the other nations were really largely overseen by demonic spirits. And it goes back to Deuteronomy 32, understanding of what happened to the Tower of Bible.

What do you spend? Yeah, so verse 8, in the standard Masoretic text, the traditional Hebrew Bible used for most translations, it is not the word Elohim. But in older manuscripts in verse 8 for like the Dead Sea Scrolls, that is the word Elohim. It's the Masoretic versus the Dead Sea Scrolls. And the Dead Sea Scrolls obviously are the older text. The other problem with gone sons of Israel, we already mentioned it, Israel doesn't exist in Deuteronomy 32. too. That's right. So it's hard to say something. You see what they're doing there. Okay. All right. Now, what we actually want to talk about? And potentially nothing to do with this. It's fun. I can tell

Carlos and Paul are like 5% nervous. It makes it even more fun to do this right now because they have no idea what I'm going to say. I'm excited. This is fun for me. So this is what I will say. If you wanted to ask the question, how would Satan wage spiritual warfare not just at an individual level on a person, but a societal level on a nation, let me connect some dots for how that might possibly happen. Now, when I start to say some of this stuff, you may go, what the heck does I have to do with it? Just wait until the end.

And I'm going to have to show two quick, maybe three quick videos. So this begins to make sense. Okay. So here's what you might do. This is the one where you go, what are you talking about, Josh? What's I got to do anything? And then it'll make sense maybe in two minutes. So first of all, you might begin with, in 1935, beginning the American welfare state.

And you might not understand how this can connect. It's going to make sense here in a second. So a lot of people don't know this. Before 1935, I kind of checked this out right before, made sure I wasn't just shooting from the hip ear. Before 1935, there was no such thing as federal welfare. So if you were just a normal, you Scotland or Ireland, where's your family from? Yes. Okay, all right.

I'm half and half. I think Howardons are English and Scottish. I can't remember. Cunningham, for sure. Cunningham is Scottish. There's a castle Cunningham there. That's right. Okay. Before 1935, if you're, before 1935, if you're just a random Scottish immigrant below poverty level, the federal government gives you nothing. Okay, it was really, federal government really worked off the principle of, man, if you won't work, you can't eat. Now, this is not to say that there's, that there's something necessarily biblically wrong with a thin social safety net.

but this is what I'm driving at. This is going to make sense here in a second. It's the thing that people always do is they convince the role of the individual, they confuse the role of the individual, the role of the state. Jesus commanded people and churches to care for the poor, okay?

He did not command governments to forcibly redistribute people's wealth at gunpoint and call that generosity. So that's when Christians say generosity, they mean using their own resources to help people in need. A lot of times when progressive people use the word generosity, they mean vote for someone else to use the government

to forcibly redistribute wealth at gunpoint against other people's will. So in 1935, what you have is you have the creation of the U.S. welfare state. That's the first time in American history, somebody can just go, hey, man, I'm below a certain income level, and, you know, there's a federal hand out there. Okay, now you may be going, what's that got to do with anything? Okay. what a lot of people do when it comes to immigration debates right now in America that are very emotional

is they'll point at the Statue of Liberty and they'll go, hey man, what's to say right up there? Literally, we founded this whole thing, 17 whatever on give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, desiring to be free. Yeah, yeah, but remember, that was before there was any welfare state. Yeah. So before 1935, when it was like, hey, man, you know, this is a land of opportunity, any immigrants come in, It was a welcome. After 1935, what an open border became was a command for the citizens of the United States to fund the lives of anybody who gets here. Because you have the creation of the welfare state. So step one, 1935, creation of American welfare state.

Number two, then you go to mass migration. Okay. So now there's two things here, and I'm not an expert on this. I'm just starting to read what I can. pre-1965 in 1965 in 1965 you had something called the heartseller act are you familiar with this it's been a long time okay heart seller is really interesting heart seller is really interesting so before in 1965 and you know I think I know what I think about this but I got to got to think about it before 1965 basically this uh the before in 1965 how the United States chose

where immigrants would come from what they did it was based on a quota system that was based on the national, that was based on the national share of the American populations, countries of origin, based on the most recent census. So basically, before 1965, was like, oh, man, we got 13% Irish people and 27% Italian people and da-da-da-da, and they based the immigration on those percentages from the census. Now, from what I understand the thinking was, we need to preserve shared values in the nation because, you know, if you just import large competing values, a nation divided against itself cannot stand. Like we got Bible verses for that. Okay. So now what you got is you got welfare state. Then you have the incentivization of

mass migration. Okay. So I'll check this out. Like this will blow your mind. If you, if you have not necessarily been paying attention and you don't know how significantly American governing perspective on how to approach immigration has shifted, if you're not aware of this, what I'm getting ready to show you is a video of Barack Obama explaining his immigration policy in 2008. It will sound a little familiar. Okay. So this is Barack Obama, 2008. This administration, the Bush administration, has done nothing to control the problem that we have. We've had five million undocumented workers come over the borders since George Bush took office. It has become an extraordinary problem. And the reason the American people are concerned is because

they are seeing their own economic position slip away. And oftentimes employers are exploiting these undocumented workers. They're not paying the minimum wage. They're not observing worker safety laws. As president, I will make sure that we finally have the kind of border security that we need. That's step number one. Step number two is to take on employers. Right now, an employer has more of a chance of getting hit by lightning than be prosecuted for hiring an undocumented worker. That has to change. They have to be held accountable. Start shedding some light on the problem, and we can once again be a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. So that's what I intend to do as president of the United States.

Bro. That's Barack Obama. Like, that's Trump's policy. I was about to say, did he just copy and paste the speech? Like, you know, X many years later? I know, dude. Okay. So it's like clearly something shifted.

Yeah. Clearly something shifted along the way. Now, again, if you start to go, man, once you create the modern welfare state, and now you're financially incentivizing anyone from anywhere to get here because if they get here, then there's a mandate on the United States to fund at least a baseline lifestyle. Well, that's how you get things like this. What you're getting ready to see is this is happening in Spain right now. Like you're having lots of problems with especially Muslim majority countries having massive amounts of migration into other countries.

So check this out. What you're getting ready to see is in Spain this week, there was a governmental leader in Spain that was like, hey, essentially, you know, encouraging migration, generally open borders. Okay. So then literally today, Spain declares a state of emergency because this happens, okay? So this is today in Spain, and it's just, it's just mass. I mean, honestly, the best way to say it is, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. invasion is what it feels like. This invasion. So just take this in. So today as a result of this, they end up declaring state of national emergency. Now go to that next video, Trinity, because you can

see a little more closely. This is who, so this is it. Now dude, look close. You know what you don't see there? Women and children. Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. You don't see women and children. It's dudes. Okay. And to give a little context to the city is Sauta in Spain. This is a It's not in the mainland of Spain, but it is a territory of Spain next to Morocco. Morocco. So this is primarily Morocco. That's where it's happening. Now, that's just an example.

Okay, now, that's an example. Now, so then step three, so you got this, you got incentivization of mass migration via creation of American welfare state. Then you go to step three. Then, dude, honestly, you get to a spot where it happened gradually, but somewhere along the way between the 1700s and the creation of our nation and now you get a reinterpretation at some level of what religious liberty means okay so originally what you got is you got the first amendment congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion now think about that the actual language is congress so there's only one body in the entire american government system they can violate that congress

congress the only one okay shall make no law respecting so it's talking about essentially we don't want a national church. Yeah. Let's not do, we already did England, didn't work out. That's why we just fought a war. That's what they're like, hey, let's not do that again. Okay. So before, honestly, before, it's kind of happened gradually.

So you kind of go, hey man, late 1800s, or we go to 1940s. You get a reinterpretation of what religious liberty in the First Amendment mean that end up getting reinterpreted to mean, man, what we're going to do now is treat every world religion equally. So we're going to treat, hey man, we're Christians. So let's just, I'll just kind of speak plainly. There's one religion that's true, and then all the other religions are not true. There's one religion that is led and inspired by the Holy Spirit.

And then all the other religions are Galatians 1-8. They are creations of demons. So then when you get the reinterpretation of religious liberty, it's called equal footing. That's what they call it in jurisprudence from what I understand. then all of a sudden when you get is now the American government is not just saying, hey, we're okay with private expression of different people have different religions. Okay, they can privately express that. Then what you get with equal footing concept is now we're going to treat all religions

as equally valid from a legislative perspective. We're going to treat the one that is led and inspired by the Holy Spirit on the same footing as the religions that are led and inspired by demons. Okay. Now, before that reinterpretation of what religious liberty meant, honestly, dude, you just got to acknowledge it. From a legislative perspective, from what I understand, the United States generally treated Christianity. It was just treated differently. Yeah. Our laws were simply created and affected by Christianity in a way that they were not from any other religion. I'll give a couple examples. I think it's like nine out of the 13 original colonies. They had religious. tests for people who could hold office. It was like, you had to, and this is after the Declaration of Independence. So like, you had to do things like, I could pull some of these up. Pennsylvania was one of them, where you had to like publicly proclaim that you believe

that Jesus Christ was Lord and that the Old and New Testaments were inspired by God to hold public office in Pennsylvania. Why? Because the First Amendment says, Congress. shall make no law respecting the establishment. Now, we're kind of nerding out for a second here. So essentially, it was like states can do that. That's fine if states do that.

But we're not going to let Congress create a national church. So you had that, you had Sabbath laws. Christianity is the only religion in the world that treats Sunday as a Sabbath. The blasphemy laws in our nation. They were largely, it was really just, it was essentially Christian blasphemy laws. You can't blaspheme God. Think about how marriage is structured in the United States has always been. structured until 2014 in Obergefell. Marriage is one man and one woman, and it's covenantal.

Now, no fault divorce, bad idea in the 60s and 70s, mess that up. But you got all this, that is a Christian concept of marriage. For instance, that's not an Islamic concept of marriage. In Islam, it's, hey, man, you can have up to four wives is fine. You know, America went one man, one woman, one lifetime. That's a Christian thing. This whole other thing. if you want to do a fun little deep dive, the Supreme Court in 1800s, it's the court case was Church of the Holy Trinity versus the United States. They just ruled, they based their entire ruling, the written opinion of the majority ruling, they based their ruling on the fact, quote, this is a Christian nation. That's the United States Supreme Court in Church of the Holy Trinity versus the United States. So here's my point.

Here's a sale to say. When you reinterpret religious liberty, so what I'm trying to point out is these things, begin to stack. These things begin to stack. You got a creation of a welfare state, 1935. Then you have a heartseller starts, hey man, now we're going to, hey man, really large groups of people from nations that are predominantly not populated by people who are Christians. What that did is that shifted the immigration sourcing from primarily nations that were filled with lots of Christians in Europe to Asia and Africa. So that's when you start shifting those things.

Now, what some people do is they hear that and they're like, well, dude, what you just said is racist. No, no, there's a difference between race and religion. And what some people do is they'll racialize what is actually based on religion and then they'll call it racism to sort of emotionally blackmail you. Is that what they do?

That's not what's happening. So then you reinterpret religious liberty. Now, honestly, dude, what you could do is we just had old Raymond Ibrahim on. And Raymond Ibrahim is pointing out, hey, man, really nobody in the history of the world until the last 30, 40 years has done what Western Europe and the United States have done when it comes to mass Islamic migration. In fact, man, those countries fought entire wars. Like, we just looked at Spain. Yeah.

Like Spain fought wars to keep, you know, let's keep Muslim, uh, uh, Islam. from being able to overtake the nation, okay? Well, what you could do is you could go, man, how do you destroy a nation like that? Well, step one, you incentivize mass migration. Step two, you flood the zone with 20 million people who come from a lot of nations that largely aren't Christian, that by the way, they will end up voting for people

that are not Christians. Step three, you remove anything through the reinterpretation of religious liberty that would keep people opposed to Christianity out of office, and then step four, you could do this. Let that cook for a few hundred years. and you might end up with things like this. So, dude, before I show you this, this thing blew my mind.

What you're about to see, and it didn't get a lot of traction because it was originally in Arabic. Now, we made sure, capital M, capital S, that we had the correct translation of what you're about to see, and I'm just telling you, we do.

So what you got right here is we've already talked before about how engine, general, Muslim people in general at scale, we're not talking about every single Muslim, but that's not what we're talking about, we're talking about what happens at a macro level when large groups of people who come in, honestly, they do. They have values that are fundamentally diametrically opposed to the Christianity that the nation was largely shaped by. That's what we're talking about. Okay. So then you let that cook for a few hundred years, and what you're about

to see is our friend Mom Dani is up in a few weeks ago he's up at a a prayer gathering an Islamic prayer gathering bro so you're going to see him at the beginning of this clip and then watch what is prayed with him present while he is there as he's in and seeking further office check this out before you as the first Muslim mayor in our city's history and this year as the first juma that attended in that new position. And watch close. And the killing on Muhammad and

al-Muhammat watch the very next sentence read closely. And the killing of the infidels, another translation is non-believers, non-Muslims

by your sort. Bro, you have the mayor of the largest city most influential city arguably in the United States giving his blessing to a Muslim imam publicly praying for the killing of the infidels non-Muslims by your sword let the clip play out. Now all I'm saying is if you were to ask the question, man, we have to be wise and understand

that hey dude, spiritual warfare does not just happen at an individual. visual level. It can happen at a societal level. And if you were to ask the question, how would you destroy a nation that was largely a largely Christian nation populated by lots of Christians? Step one, step two, step three, step four. And dude, we have to understand. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, and spiritual forces of evil in high places. that is how you might destroy a largely Christian nation. Right. Carlos is so nervous to say things.

No, not at all. No, we just... It was fun watching the U.S. be very uncomfortable. No, well, I think to the point is to helping people think of it this way, not to all the points that you made, but just the idea of you said it a minute ago, most people in the West think of sin is merely personal. It's me and my sin, which, by the way, that is a huge thing. So I alone am going to say before God one day, and I can't believe on anyone else. or say my society was sinful, I'm going to have to own my own sin. But we also have to be aware that sin works its way into structures of different societies

and cultures. And I would even say going back to, there is something to Deutonimo 32 about the different things. There's something to it. Because I will say each culture and each society has its different biases and strongholds that others might not have. And so we got to be aware. There's a great verse in the New Testament we talks about. We are not unaware of his schemes, meaning the devil.

So part of anything what we're trying to say is that we've got to be aware. not only is how the enemy going to try to take you out personally, but how is he going to try to take us out corporately, including as a society. And you've got to be aware. And that's why it's not just enough to fight your sin and to stand against it. It also has to be of, hey, if we see values contrary to the word of God, starting to take hold societally,

it is our duty to try to go against that, not against Muslims, but against the values that are behind their beliefs. There you go. Yeah. That is also why, like, you know, we've pointed this out before on the pod that is why

honestly it's very different when you see man it's like I don't know how to say it's funny when you have these conversations there's no way to have it where it doesn't feel awkward but honestly dude

when you have a lot of Hispanic immigrants now obviously legal immigration over illegal immigration yes yes obviously but when you have Hispanic immigrants that are largely Christian there is a cultural synthesis because there are shared

baseline values that honestly dude it's just different. When you start importing, now I think it's around 2% of the American population is Muslim, if I remember correctly. It's just different.

And things begin to operate differently. And again, it's not about race. It's about values, and it's about religious convictions. And it's about culture. About culture. All right. So there you go.

That was most awkward, however many minutes. It was fun, man. I like keeping you all on your toes. I thought it was great. Yeah, very good. great man uh one two through break