Live Free with Josh Howerton - What Christians MUST KNOW about Islam in America | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

In this timely episode of LIVE FREE, Pastors Josh Howerton, Carlos Erazo, and Paul Cunningham tackle three major cultural & spiritual tension points: pride, Halloween, and the rise of Islam. Through Naaman’s story and bold gospel insight, they reveal how humility opens the door to God’s freedom and challenge believers to stand firm in truth amid cultural confusion. From understanding Islam’s political influence to discerning what it means to surrender to Jesus alone, this conversation equips you to walk in conviction, clarity and freedom.   👍 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! God can use your 'YES" to make a difference in someone's life! Click the link to learn more about our Annual Missions Offering and how you can be a part of life-change!: lp.social/amo   ⛪ 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 Erasm. I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and the Epistle Missile, aka Chat G.

Chat G Paul T. Chat G Paul C. Oh, Chad G Paul C. Let's go back. Yeah, I've also heard this week chat GPC. I'm like, okay, let me sit that. Whatever floats your boat. I'll take them all.

Some people said Paul GPT. Oh, okay. Listen, again, whatever floats your. He's like, I'll take him all. I've heard a pistol missile Probably the most. It's really hard to beat a pistol missile missile. Whoever did that one, like, yeah.

Hey, ma'am. Thanks for letting me know that we were going to wear a camel today. Here you go. Are we going hunting after or is that? No. I've been trying. I wasn't going to say, I'm actually, I'm having dinner with Glenn Beck tonight. Oh.

Oh, I am. Whoa. Okay. I forgot. I wasn't going to tell you. I'm sorry. That's fine. And I just thought, man, I want to blend in.

Wait, no date night tonight? There's a, I'm taking Jana. Oh, there's got. It said a fundraiser for a cool thing. But we're at, we're at his table. It's going to be cool to meet him. I don't know a ton about him. Are you wearing that?

No. Okay. I mean, you're good, right? Maybe. Yeah, okay. Probably not. I didn't plan on sharing that. There you go.

That's exciting, though. I'm curious to hear more about it after. Me too. Hey, we're going to have a great episode today. We are going to talk Naiman and Second Kings. Pastor Ernest brought the word. Bro, he crushed. Come on.

And we're going to go as well, Islam? Yeah. What is happening right now in New York with Zoran Mamdani? And I know you got some thoughts. We are going to deep dive on Islam real quick. And we're going to talk Halloween. Should Christians? should Christians participate in Halloween?

That's right, man. And also, what's going on with the Nigerian genocide? Well, that's related to the Islam thing. That's right. I'm giving away some things there. That's right. It's going to be a great episode. Man, before we keep going, we have a hat giveaway right now.

Let's go. So in the comments section, if you're joining on YouTube, I won't put it on. You can comment an emoji of the blue hat. A blue cat. If you want to participate and we'll pick a winner with a live free merch hat. So I can tell you, when you ask people to comment emojis, my dad pointed out, man, that's a real high, it's a high bar for the boomers. It's making this difficult.

They could also just type cap. That's it. That'll look bad. If right below our video, it's just cap, cap, cap, cap, cap, cap, cap. That's right. For the older people, cap means lie. Yeah, that's right. Well, that's right, that's right.

Wait, I mean, I'm a geriatric millennial, Carlos. So explain to me what cap means. I think I'm a little too old as well to claim that language. I genuinely do, but cap means lie. So when people say no cap, it means no lie. So you don't want, comment no cap. No cap. Because we're not going to lie in this episode.

All right, you can comment whatever you want, man. We'll pick somebody for the comment section. Oh, you're saying because you don't want a cap. Because then it seems like they're going, I don't want that cap. Well, you know, you can comment anything. Come in whatever you want, cap or no cap. Hey, by the way, before we dive in, man, we believe that discipleship happens in relationships. And if you're listening, whether you're on YouTube or wherever platform you are in,

your next step after listening to this podcast is community. And so to help you with that, what we've done is we've actually compiled all key takeaways of this episode, highlights additional content and discussion questions coming from the conversations that we're going to have today. And we're putting that together so you can use it as a tool to continue this conversation with your life group. And so to download the show notes, also known as the discipleship guide, by the way, that's going to be a thing you're going to hear us more about it.

Talk about it. To do that, text the word notes to 20411 or go to lake point. com. Church slash show notes. All right, man. You guys ready to dive in? Let's dive.

Hey, for the people that have not yet listened to the sermon, we are going to be, we talked about the story of name and Pastor Ernest brought the word. And this is the story. So wait, can I explain who Pastor Ernest is? Please,

because this honestly is one of the cool things of the week is we just came off Strategic Launch Network, Lake Point started a church planning network years ago that only plants churches in the hardest-to-reach cities in North America, like primarily kind of like secular urban centers. So like, you know, there's great church-plant networks that plant all over, you know, they're planting in Alabama and, you know, and Texas, and those places need Jesus. Yes. But we only plant in urban post-Christian cities, Boston, Portland, San Francisco.

New York City. So we had like 300, 400 pastors in this week. It was amazing, by the way. It was amazing. That's why, if I seem a little groggy, it's from staying up around a fire pit with those guys until midnight, every night. And Ernest, one of our amazing church planners in Colorado,

absolutely crushing up there and doing some good things. So Ernest preached incredible passage on Namon. Are you summarizing the passage, or am I summarizing the passage? I'm happy to do it because I know you got some plenty of things today. By the way, did you know my second name is Ernest? No, it's not. It is. It is.

It is. It is. It is. Carlos Ernest. Ernesto. Arrano. Arresto. That's right.

How do you say it? How do you say it? You want to give you a full experience? Carlos Ernesto Eraso. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. That was awesome. Way better than us.

It's awesome. I'm telling you, man. It's a thing. when you come from a different country, you have to, like, tweak your name. Technically, my name, I'm used to, you know, it's Carlos. But I don't ever say that. Carlos. That's right.

That's right. But no, but when I came here, people would be like, what's your name? And I'd be like, Carlos. And I'd be like, what? Huh? What? So Carlos is what, you know, how it is. So Ernesto, Ernesto or Ernest.

Can I try? Yeah. Yeah. Never mind. I was, I'm here to help. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I was like, oh.

I was like, here we go. We'll work on there. Well, hey, well, for people that don't know and maybe you miss the sermon, you can go check it out. But if you haven't yet, the story of Nameland is found in second kicks. Actually, oh, you're right. Wait, wait, okay, hang on. Before you do this, so there was actually a really cool archaeological discovery this week that ties a little bit to this. So before you, this is one of the coolest pastures of the Old Testament.

So before you talk about this, Trinity, will you go ahead and toss that to the, it's the headline up? So this was this week in, I think like the Jerusalem Times, correspondence. between the Assyrian Empire and the King of Judah discovered in Jerusalem. This is actually a big deal. Subtitle archaeologists screamed with excitement and once in a lifetime find of tiny pottery fragment dating back 2,700 years. Now, so this is really cool, man. I'm going to read. Here's what this was. I'll read about this. Now, really quick. Actually, I'm going to read about it. So this is from the article. It's pretty cool. The small pottery fragment bearing a cuneiform inscription in the Akkadian language from 2,700 years ago,

was found near the western wall of the Temple Mount. Here's another quote. Israel Antiquities Authority Excavation Director, name I can't pronounce, said the inscription, quote, provides direct evidence of official correspondence between the Assyrian Empire and the Kingdom of Judah. It appears this area served as a center

for high-ranking officials and ministers. Now, show the actual little piece of pottery they found, or this, okay, I know that, is that cool? That's amazing. That's amazing. That's really cool. That's why they scream with excitement, because it's super cool. Paul, will you scream with excitement?

If you'll pronounce his name. Browns it, pronounce it right now. Carlos, Ernesto Arazo. So if I'm in our couch, they're like, Ah! Oh, gosh. Now, here's what this is. Experts believe the fragment was once part of a royal bula.

I probably pronounce that wrong, too. A seal impression used to authenticate an official letter or shipment from the Assyrian royal court. So here's what this is. This is, now this was likely sent from the king of Assyria. What happens in Second Kings 5 today, it involves the Syrian. It involves Syria. This was probably about 100 years later from the Assyrian Empire and was written to one of the three Israeli kings, Hezekiah, Manessa, or Josiah.

So, I mean, you start, bro, that, like, thing was literally written to one of those dudes in the Old Testament, Hezekiah, Manessa, or Josiah, and it's about, and I find this actually, you know, kind of funny. Analysis of the inscription as content suggests that the sealed document sent from a distant location dealt with a delay in the payment of taxes. Shocker. So, man, I just, so I just want to point this out. We could do this like literally every week. There has literally never been an archaeological discovery that has contradicted or disproved any aspect of the Bible. So I point that out just because I want to say the Bible really happened. The real Jesus died on the real cross, the real you.

And if you give him your life, he can really change your life. That's right. So I just, there you go, man. All right. Now, Carlos, summarize an name for us. Yeah, so for people that don't know, so Naaman is the main character of this story. He is, like you said, a Syrian military commander. And obviously, he is a big deal, status, rich, success.

But at the same time, he also has leprosy, which is a skin disease that's basically uncurable. And so at some point, a young Israelite servant girl gives the message to Naaman, hey, there's a prophet named Elijah in Israel who can heal you. And then Naiman travels there with lots of money as gifts. He's like, well, we'll check it out. but then Elijah doesn't even show up in person and he just sent a message and says hey go to the Jordan River and wash yourself

seven times and you'll be healed and so at first Naiman's like who do you think you are like well how dare you do you even know who I am he's angry because he didn't even show up and he's like I don't even want to go watch myself there and then at some point his servants basically just say hey just do it like you've got nothing to lose so he does it he's humbled he is healed and he ends up proclaiming

now I know there is no God in all the world except in Israel So, Neiman goes from searching for healing and experiencing faith in the one and only true God. Okay. So fun little facts about this passage, and then we'll talk about some of the, you know, the spiritual implications for us as met of God. So number one, the commander of the army thing is like you said, it's a big deal. Later in the passage, the king of Aram literally writes him personally writes him a letter to the king of Israel. Like this guy, think like modern day four-star general or a field marshal in the modern military. It's actually like a really, really big deal.

You didn't point this out, but it's a really interesting part of the passage I want to come back to. The woman that encourages Naiman to go, hey, seek out Elisha was a victim of human trafficking that he had captured. Like the passage says that in the first few verses. So I just want to point that out, man. And he apparently had defeated Israel in a bat, Israeli military in a battle previously. And I know this, man, I don't know how to say it in a different way. Essentially, it sounds like this woman would have been taken as like a sex slave or a victim of human trafficking. And she is still advocating for his good, trying to bless him, trying to bring the, you know, presence of God into his life.

So, dude, I will say this. People read this passage and they talk about, you know, who's the hero? Is it Neiman? Is it Elisha? Maybe the Ghazi got, that's like, I think it's this nameless servant girl. Like, dude, just otherworldly supernatural love for her enemy. Also want to point this out, I think it's kind of cool. Because Carla, I want to show that picture real quick.

I'm going to show the picture of the river. So, you know, Neiman at first, he essentially goes, I'm not getting in your river. I'm not getting your dirty. Yankee River. He's like, our Aram Syrian rivers are way awesomer than your rivers. And, you know, if you've ever been to Israel, the Jordan River is nasty. It's not wrong. No, dude, it's nasty. So like, no, no, that, yeah, yeah, that's a picture I took. That's the, almost certainly the spot where Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, like that spot right there, uh, is nasty. It's all, it's very muddy. It's very shallow. It's, it's a gross river. So there's a reason

Naman's like, I'm not getting in your nasty river. I just think that's interesting. Here's the last thing that I think is very interesting. By the way, it's ironic. The irony of Naiman saying, oh, that's dirty. I don't want no part of it. And yet, bro, like, you're dirty. He's a leopard. Like, you're a leper.

It's just so ironic. We're going to talk about this. Obviously, you know, pride almost cost him his healing and salvation. Wow. And so it's just ironic. I didn't catch that. That's amazing. That's a good catch, man. The other thing that's really interesting is so Naiman brings Elisha a whole bunch of money

to pay him for healing him. Elisha turns it down and then really weird part of the passage, Naiman goes, well, if you won't take my money, he essentially says, I'm going to serve your God. And then he goes, would you please bring, it's a very interesting part of the passage, would you please at least let me bring as much dirt from your area

as two mules can carry. Do you guys look up why this is? Bro, this is so interesting. So the reason he did this is back then, all the nations believed in territorial gods. The gods were confined to like specific regions and nation states. By the way, when you read the Old Testament,

that's why over and over again, the Old Testament refers to Yahweh, the one true God, as, quote, the God of the hills and the valleys. Because all the other nations that were essentially worshipping demonic false gods, they believed, well, there's a god for the hill, and then there's a different god for this valley,

and then there's a different god for that nation and this nation. So when the Old Testament goes, our God is the God of the hills and the valleys, it's going, your gods, you're a little demonic false gods, they might be confined to a region. Our God is the God of the entire world. Hills and valleys. So, bro, this is interesting.

So why did Naiman ask for two truckloads of dirt to take with him back to Aram? Here's why. because back then, because they believed in territorial gods, what Naiman was trying to do is he was trying to bring the presence of the one true God with him back where he went. And it was a way that they would try to worship a different God without offending their territorial false God. They were like, kind of like they'd bring the dirt back, put it on a ground in their home or whatever like that. and then they would stand on it to worship this foreign god as if to say to the territorial false god around them hey i'm not betraying you because i'm on the ground of this other god

so i just i just i just it's super interesting super interesting wow huh there you i've never heard that before it's fun little fact i love that fun little fact now do we got any we got any we got any little fun facts about this passage before we talk about pride here did you Paul see what you got mine was actually just just going to be a play on the thing. You gave the textual details. I just love that it calls him a great man. Yeah. Because that's even setting up the issue of pride here in this passage. It's like intentionally from the get-go setting it up for this turn. Although I love your observation of how he's actually unclean. And yet he won't even go into a river that's unclean. But the thing I've always

thought with name in this phrase coming in my mind before is that he was too great for his own good. It's like, man, because of his high position and what he was, he was almost too great for his own good. his pride list to his downfall. In fact, this is a common theme throughout the Old Testament. One of the haunting passages is it's not here. It was also in Kings is about Uzziah, who was actually a good king. It was a great king. And there's this verse that haunts me talks about how he was greatly helped by the Lord until he became powerful. And then his pride leads to his downfall. So nothing unique. I think it's just that little detail of just the scripture nodding of, hey, it's setting him up for saying, hey, this guy was too great for his own good. There are so many layers to this story. It's pretty wild. I mean, one thing I will say here often is every page of the Bible points to the gospel.

And again, you see this in so many different ways in the story. Like at first you see, Namen is sick with an incurable disease called leprosy. When people do not know Christ, and this is where we all start, we are all sick with an incurable disease called sin. Neiman eventually surrenders his pride, and he goes into the Jordan River in obedience. And basically, he got baptized. When we surrender our pride, we trust in Jesus, in obedience, we also get baptized. Naiman starts, it's interesting at the beginning of the story, he's being described as a, quote, great man or a mighty man in verse one, but then towards the end in verse 14, the Bible says he went down

and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child. So you start being a great man, good catch. And you end up being a little child after you go through the water. And Jesus said this in Matthew chapter 18, unless you become like a little child. you will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then Nathan comes out of the water and, oh sorry, not Nathan, Naiman comes out of the water and confesses there is no God like the God of Israel.

Romans chapter 10, verse 9 says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. The Greek word for saved in Romans 10 is the same word for healed. And so salvation and healing, that's the same Greek word.

Nathan wasn't just physically saved, wasn't just physically healed. he was also spiritually saved. That's good. And so there's a whole gospel proclamation throughout the whole story. All right. So like here's a,

I want to tag on that because this is stinking awesome. So there's this whole theme of like leprosy in the Bible. And it's what you said. Like if you go back to the Old Testament laws and Deuteronomy, Leviticus, all the passages, what they do is their cleanliness laws.

And they delineate, okay, if you do this, touch this, say, you know, experience this, you're unclean.

And it takes what your cleanliness status. Okay, so one, here's interesting. Throughout the Old Testament, God will give somebody leprosy as an external indicator of an internally diseased heart. So you get it with name in here. He's going, man, you're an arrogant man. And that's on the inside of you. Now, there's something unclean on the inside of you.

Let me bring it to the outside so that you and everybody can see. Same thing happens with Moses' sister Miriam. And she's struck it. I think that struck down, but she struck with it. She struck with leprosy because she commits actual racism against, she has a prejudice against Moses marrying what essentially would have been a black woman, if I understand it correctly. Egyptian? Yeah. Oh, Egyptian? Was she? Oh, I've always known more of what you just said, Josh. Yeah, I always thought it was a black woman. I don't know. Yeah. But anyway, but she commits. Well, in Egypt, right, like their skin would be darker. I want to go look at it. I want to go look at it.

But she has actual prejudice against that person. And then. God strikes her with leprosy. You have Gahazi at the end of this passage. Naman's... Servant. Naman's leprosy gets transferred to Gahazi, primarily because of his greed. And then Moses even has a thing where he puts his hand inside of his cloak.

And he draws it out, and his hand has leprosy. And it's really, God, it's really a demonstration. of his unbelief. So here's a big principle. By the way, sorry, Ziphora. She was a medianite, not Egyptian. Okay, there we go. So the big principle is God, in the Bible, will often, leprosy is an external symbol of internal uncleanliness of the heart. And here's this really interesting. You get to the New Testament, and obviously the Old Testament laws were like, hey man, if you touch a leper, then his uncleanliness makes you the clean person become unclean. So in Jesus' time, all the lepers, there was kind of a little law.

They would stand at least 50 paces away from everybody. And there's kind of all these traditions about them holding their hands over their mouths and yelling unclean, unclean, and warning people. What's really interesting is when Jesus heals lepers in the New Testament, he walks up to them and he touches them. So think about this. It's the exact reversal of the Old Testament principle. In the Old Testament, if a clean person touched an unclean person, the unclean person's uncleanliness made the clean person unclean. But then here comes Jesus. And Jesus walks right up to the unclean leper.

And because Jesus is the son of God, when Jesus, the clean person touches the unclean person, the clean person makes the unclean person clean. He reverses the flow of the cleanliness. It's amazing. That's amazing, man. All right, man. Well, that's good.

You want to, you ready to jump in Islam? Oh, my goodness. matter. I want to do one quick thing because just to like for a discipleship thing, the big theme of earnest sermon in this passage is the eradication of pride and that really the blessing of God, the love of the father in one sense, and unity with God is all on the other side of us surrendering our pride. So I just, I want to point this one thing out real quick and then we can on. I don't think we realize how deadly pride is to every aspect to who we are, to our relationships, to our relationship with God. Pride is the thing I sat and kicked out of heaven. It's very interesting.

In Isaiah 655, it talks about pride being like, quote, think about this, listen to his language, pride being like, quote, smoke in the nostrils of God. So think about this. It's almost like when God sees a proud person, it's almost like he's like, just like, oh, gross, man. Smells like hell. Smoke in the nostrils. Something's burning. That smells like hell.

Doesn't have anything to do with it. And obviously the New Testament says that God opposes the proud, but that he exalts the humble. So that God lifts those who lower themselves, Naiman. And he lowers those who have lifted themselves, also Naiman. Yeah. So, dude, the one thing I do want to point out is the elimination of your pride, my pride, our pride. That is what ushers in the blessing of God into our relationships and our relationship with him. So here's your one point out.

What you'll notice in your relationships with people is there's really three kinds of relationships. If you've got a relationship where it's a proud person and a proud person, the relationship always feels like a battle. or it's like, my will, no, my will, it's a battle. You'll get these relationships where it's like, it's a proud person and a humble person, and the relationship can sometimes feel like abuse, where it's like one person's always giving up, their will, and one person's always taking their will,

and it kind of feels almost abusive. But when you get relationships, a marriage, a friendship, a working relationship, and you have two humble people, it doesn't feel like a battle, and it doesn't feel like abuse. It feels like a blessing. Yeah.

It's just like, man, there's such a blessing, a joy in that. And so even this deal with Naman, where it's like he has to give up his, I mean, dude, think about the image of like a decorated four-star war general in front of everyone stripping himself of his regalia, his military regalia,

and in front of all the people who are subservient to him, all of the decorum, and in front of them, he just walks down into a muddy river seven times. seven times. He gets in, he could tell, whatever that was, that was a humbling experience. Humbling. And it was on the other side of him humbling himself that all of the blessing of God came. And so, man, for every dude, a person listening, what you're going to find your entire Christian life is that the other, it's on the other side of some humbling act, usually that

requires faith, that there is a unique breakthrough of the blessing of God. And I got a ton of examples that. Then you can actually be used greatly by God. And that's the thing is that it's that you humble so that you can be used greatly. I like to think of it as humility is simply the fruit of knowing who God is and who I'm not. Amen. I mean, that's really just it. It is who is God and who am I not. And then with that, you know, our series is run to win, right? And so part of that is how do I make my life count? And so there's really two options. I can live for myself and for my glory, or I can use my story and put my story in God's story and live for him and his glory. And one thing that helps me remind me of how small I am and who I'm not, is even just the concept of time.

I just dawned me this past week as we were prepping for this and even just prepping. I was thinking about the passage and everything is I one time just did a brief calculation of just, okay, if you shrunk the history of the universe down into the life of a 78-year-old person, so about average life expected here in the U.S., how long would my life be in the grand scheme of that? And so obviously you have different theories and beliefs of how old the world is. But here's either way, if you go with more of a young earth theory of creation, so about 6,000 years old, our lives in the grand scheme of the universe would be about

370 days. So even if it's young Earth, that means you and I got about, yeah, and you and I've got about six months to live now at this point, but you're not too, a little less than sick. Carlos, you got a little bit longer, but like, even on a younger, it's like, man, it's so small, if you believe in an old Earth creation and the universe is very old, your life would be 14 seconds long. Wow. And so either way, like, it should humble us and make us feel small. But I would also, though, say is that it should not necessarily make you feel insignificant as long as you're not living for something insignificant. If I'm living for me and for my story, I'm a small piece

of history and small piece of the universe. But if I plug my life into God's story, he is eternal and he is infinite. And therefore, if I give him my life and I'll humble myself and let him use me greatly, then my life is infinitely significant, even if I'm not going to be remembered for very long, because the God of the universe will know my name. And so that's just the thing I encourage people. That's always helped me is that if I remember how small I am, it humbles me, but then it also makes me want to live for what matters most, which is what God is doing in his story. Yeah, I've shared this with you before, Josh. Like, I actually have a holy fear of that verse that says that God opposes the proud. Like I, when I, when I, when you think about what that actually

means that God would actually oppose me. Turn you into his enemy. Yeah. You're my enemy now. Because of my pride. Like I genuinely have a fear of that. I'm like, I got, what do I need to do to never be in a spot where you oppose me because of my pride?

And, you know, I think at the end of the day, again, people will ask, oh, well, how do you remain humble? You know, ultimately, you don't want to manage your pride. You want to kill it. That's right. The Bible says, if you're a Christian, you want to crucify your pride. You want to bring it to the cross and it's a daily death to self. That's why Jesus said if you want to be a follower of mind, you need to daily take up your cross.

And so at the end of the day, anything in my heart that could be a reflection of pride, I want to take it to the cross and surrender it on a regular basis. And it's not like, oh, I did that and, you know, now I'm a guy, I'm a humble person. Like it's a daily, regular, constantly bringing that pride to the cross and saying, Lord Jesus, I never want to be in a spot where you will pull. me because of my pride. That's the thing of it's like, you know, because it said, I'll oppose the proud, you know. God lifts the humble, but opposes the proud. There's a million guys that have said this, but it's essentially what God is saying is you pick. You can either do humility or I'm going to do humiliation.

You pick. You get to choose. Which one are you going to choose? You're going to live in humility or are you going to make me humiliate you? And I will just say, like, let's make an application for every person that's listening. and then let's move, let's move to air war stuff. Is if you start asking the question, I paused while I was prepping for this podcast.

I was like, man, what are signs? How do you know? Because pride blinds the person to its presence. How do you know if it's like, man, I think I got some arrogance here. If you're unwilling to do humble and humiliating things, you know you have pride. So like, honestly, man, here's what I did.

Here are five things. I'm not going to talk about them. I'm just going to list them. Here are five things that, like, you will say if you're a humble person. All right. Number one, you'll say things like, I was wrong. Will you please forgive me? Proud people don't say that.

By the way, that one thing is going to heal a lot of marriages. For real, man, I mean this for real. Whenever we start seeing marriages get healed, there's two things that people start saying a whole lot when a marriage starts getting healed. a whole bunch of I'm sorrys start getting said, and a whole bunch of, I completely forgive you, start getting said. Every time. All right, so number one, I was wrong.

Will you forgive me? Number two, will you please help me? Like a proud person can't say it, and sometimes they're saying that to God. Sometimes they're saying that to a person, but proud people won't say that. Will you please help me? number three is just any form of praise is like just like the most humble people in a church service

they're the ones who like usually and I'm not saying you got to worship like this I'm just saying like they're the people they got their eyes closed they got their hands in there they got tears streaming down their face they're singing their faces off and they don't care what anybody else thinks because they're just like man like the whole world is about God and his glory he's been so dang good to me and I'm going to show him Humble people praise. Not about me, it's about you. Number four, humble people, they say thank you.

Mike Bro, one of our teaching pastors, he's got this thing, I sleep terrible. And when I'm having trouble, fall in asleep. I've started doing what Mike says. He starts trying to go through his day and just say, thank you, God, for every single good thing that happened. And he's like, dude, I find myself doing a lot of time,

man, thank you, Lord, for this amazing house that we didn't deserve, and we couldn't have afforded, but you somebody helped thank you for my kid thank you that thank you last thank you that hudson got two goals in his soccer practice tonight thank you that felicity joked with me about my stupid sunglasses while she was sitting next to me at the soccer practice you know just thank you lord and then the last thing that humble people say is they look at other people and they ask the question how could i bless you because proud people are always like how can i get them to bless me humble people are just they just walk

through the whole world kind of going like, I wonder how I could bless you. So there's five things. I was wrong. Will you forgive me? Will you help me? Any form of praise. Man, thank you. How can I bless you? There we go, man. Let's lean in. That's great. Good. On that note, man. You want to talk Halloween? You want to talk Islam? Let's go Halloween and then. Let's go Halloween. I like it. All right. Who's going first? So is it a pagan holiday? All right, Carlos. So the reason we want to do this is we want to pastor Christians who are asking the question. So if you're listening for the next four minutes, just because you want to get mad at our wrong response,

just click the skip 30 seconds forward thing eight times. In the internet? No, it's not a place of rage ever. Ever. Not here, though. All right. So Carlos, state the objection. Yeah.

So the objection, the objection to the question. What are people asking this question? Yeah, man. I mean, I think the main question every single year, and I've seen this question quite a bit, like literally throughout the last 10, 15 years, should a Christian celebrate Halloween? And why is that a question? And that's a question because it seems like when you go outside and you see the skulls and the witches and, you know, you watch the Netflix shows, it's all dark. It's so death and dark and the occult and stuff like that. And so I think, you know, it's just a dark holiday more and more, even, especially in the season.

And so I think people are asking, can a Christian participate in it? But I think the more nuanced would be, you know, well, if I dress up as my kids as this or that and it's just we go candy and we do a little party or if I'm invited to a friend's house and it's like a quote unquote Halloween party. Before you answer it, let me just give you, if that's helpful, like a little backstory of the history of what we call today Halloween. This is like super quick. People don't know this, but the word hallow in Halloween is it actually, it actually, means to make holy. Like this is where we get in the prayer. Hallowed be thy name. It just means, you know, and so it's like people don't know that. Halloween comes from all Hallows Eve. Yeah, okay. So this is what, all right, can I set something up and then you keep on?

So here's what, when Christians are asking a question like this, and then I want to go where are you're going. When Christians are asking a question like this, should we celebrate Halloween? Here's a threefold. I got this from another Bible teacher. Here's a threefold little taxonomy that Christians can approach every issue. There are three R words, receive, reject, redeem. So with everything, there are some things that Christians can in the world that Christians can receive. That's a good blessing that God's given, common grace, we should receive it. There's some things Christians should explicitly reject, like pornography. There's like nothing about pornography that you can either receive or redeem. It's just, it's evil. You reject it.

And then there's some things that can be redeemed, which is where you're going to, Carlos, I'm asking you to keep talking. Christians throughout human history have taken some things that the world created and gone, you know what, bro? We're going to redeem this thing. We're going to make this our thing and turn it into something that's God glorifying. Now, a little bit of the origins of what we now call Halloween are an example of where Christians in history tried to redeem something previously that had been pagan. So Carlos, talk about all Hallows Eve. So Halloween comes from all Hallows Eve, which literally means the evening before All Saints Day. And this is a, so just like, if you think about it, just like there's a Christmas

Eve that comes before Christmas Day, all Hallows Eve comes before all Hallows or All Saints Day. And this is a Catholic, traditionally Christian holiday to remember, established by the church to honor all the saints and martyrs in history. And so at some point, Christianity in history, it spread into the Celtic regions. By the way, by the way, I just learned how to say that word today. I thought it was the Celtics.

I just learned how to say, Carlos. So we're even, we're even. I now want to know why the Boston Celtics are... Not the Boston Celtics. Not the Boston Celtics, that's right. I don't know.

They won a lot of championships, apparently it's working for him. So back in the day, at some point, Christianity spread into the Celtic regions, and it overlap with another pagan holiday called Soen. That's spelled Samhain or Soan. And this is a pagan festival in which,

and this is pre-Christian Ireland, Scotland, and parts of Britain, they basically, it was the end of summer and harvest. And at that point, it was believed that there were spirits roaming in the earth. And there's this whole idea where, like, there are times throughout the year where there's, like, the boundary between the physical and the spiritual world kind of, it's a little thinner. And so potentially there's a little superstition there

that spirits could come and visit. and cause mischief. And so at some point, Christianity reaches these areas, this Celtic lands. And the missionaries didn't just say, hey, you know, you're wrong about everything. And here we come with our beliefs. They basically, they redeemed and reframed that date. And they said, hey, like, this is a, we're going to celebrate, remember those that have gone before us and the martyrs and the saints.

And again, this is how it evolved into an all hallows Eve or all saints day the night before. And so at some point, some of the practices of going house to house and candy and dressing up, there was a mixture of superstition with what was already celebrated before on the pagan regions and Christianity. And then at some point it came to America and it became a business and a holiday and now it's candy and shows and entertainment. And so that's the background. Hey, hey, hey, is candy corn good or not? No. Carlos, is candy corn good or not?

Nandy corn. I have no idea what it is. Oh, my gosh. That definitely, bro. Candy corn. Next week, we will bring you some as a gift. Actually, bro, here's what you need. I don't do candy at all. Oh, that's right.

He's healthy. I forgot that. Have you ever done that thing where you mix candy corn with peanuts and it tastes exactly like a Snickers? No. Dude. Is it work? For real.

Somebody told me about it. And I was like, there's no way. And sure enough, if you mix candy corn with peanuts, it tastes exactly like a Snickers. So you a candy corn fan. like on its own? No. Yeah. Candy corn, Tutsi Rose.

How do I not know this? I've been in the, I'm chagipitin. What is candy corn? Look, Google Candy corn. As soon as you see, you know, all the listeners right now are like, what the heck are they doing? Bro. Tell us about Halloween. You've never seen this?

Bro, I've been in the U.S. for 15 plus years. I've seen these. Okay. I've seen these. I didn't know what was the thing. The worst candy as a kid that you could get was that or what were those little generic? They were wrapped in either brown. or orange wax.

Yeah, and they were like gum or taffy. It was like that, I don't know, man. Anyway, sorry, I got to talk. So candy corn. Was it like the thing, the best candy or something? I don't know. It came to my mind. It's what you give to people if you don't want to bless them.

Yes, yes. Or real quick, if I get connected and then, Peter, you can take us away in terms of maybe how to approach it. To connect to that dot, though, to what you said earlier about that taxonomy of why this can be contentious and why I can. be a little bit of a heated conversation every year is that the reject and receive categories are usually pretty obvious and pretty easy. It's like, oh yeah, this is something that we can receive. I don't have to pray whether baseball is evil or sinful or not, even if it's unique to this culture. And that's one example. There's many. There's other things that are pretty obviously sinful. I need to reject that and not take part in it. The redeem category gets tricky because

some Christians may feel like they can redeem it and that it doesn't make them feel sinful, doesn't violate their conscience before God. Other Christians, though, because of whatever reason, it does violate their conscience. And so then it begins this conflict. Well, wait a second. Why doesn't it violate your conscience if it violates mine? And so the redeem category can get a little bit more contentious because it's usually something that is not as clear. And it's almost the example I give, redeeming something is almost like if I'm panning for gold.

I have to sift out the bad so that I can get the good. But some people can't do that. And so it becomes a little bit more contentious because I just want to connect that before you do it. is that that's why when we talk about these things, things that are redeemed, that we need to redeem, there's usually more division because people approach it differently. And the All Hallows Eve origins. And I want to talk about whether or not we should apply that

to modern Halloween in America here in a second. And isn't there a major Hispanic holiday that's like overtly evil? It's something, what is? So I think it's a, I'm not Mexican, but I think it's a Mexican thing. It's called Dia de los Mueros de dead. Yeah, yeah.

If you ever seen the movie. Is it on October 31st? I'm pretty sure. Actually, my wife and I, we were in Mexican. Mexico City on October 31st and bro, it's a thing. Like it's a, oh yeah, it's a big thing. It's also very spiritual. It's like overtly demonic, like, it really is.

Not redeemable. Nope, nope. And there's people doing witchcraft in the street. It's full and it's a parade. It's a mixture. Again, it's a mixture of entertainment and music and food and spirituality. Yeah. And so it is a thing.

November 1st and 2nd, although sometimes they'll start it on the 30th. But right, right, right, connected to it. So they're on the redeem category, this is what Christians tried to do with all house Eve. It was like, hey, man, all these pay. who just got converted to Christianity. You know, they're used to taking a vacation day on October 31st, and mom already made the casserole, and everybody's off work,

and grandma and grandpa are traveling in for the pagan holiday that we used to celebrate. Now we're all Christians now. And they're like, well, everybody's off work, casserole's made, and, you know, football's on TV. We might as well turn it into a new holiday. The corn candy is available. Candy corn, there you go. It's ready.

Corn candy. Thank you. And so this is what Christians tried to do is they tried to redeem it. That's right. Hey man, let's celebrate all the saints and martyrs. Okay. Now, let me talk about what Christians should do. Should, so here's a question.

Should Christians redeem modern American Halloween? Okay, let me say a couple things here. First of all, we actually have a really good analog in 1 Corinthians chapter 8. Yes. So in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, you have all these Christians who just got converted to Christianity out of paganism. That's the same. And what they used to do is they would go to their pagan demonic temples and they would offer sacrifices there. and then they would take the meat from the offered sacrifices that were offered to demonic false gods home, they would cook it and they would eat it.

And it was, if I understand correctly, number one, obviously it came from an offering to a demonic false god. But number two, in their pagan, you know, background, they used to believe that there was actually some demonic, you know, yeah, well, actually, demonic, quote unquote blessing on the meat they were eating because it had been sacrificed to a demonic false god. So all these people in the Corinthian church, they become Christians. Now they're like, hey man, when we go to the, when we go to Kroger, when we go to the Roman Kroger down here, there's still this meat sacrifice to idol section, and it's a little cheaper. You know, I'm contextualizing. It's a little cheaper. Are we allowed to get to bacon, you know, from the, you know, from the death section and eat it, you know. And what you had, listen, this is really interesting, exact same situation because you had some Christians going, absolutely not.

this was part of a demonic thing, and there's a demonic thing about that meat. We're supposed to have nothing to do with things that come from demons. Then you have these other Christians who were like, well, bro, we actually believe that idols are not even gods at all. You're like, it's just a hunk of wood or stone, the Bible says. Like, I think it's fine. And we can take the 30% sales, you know, the sale on the bacon,

and we can redeem it. Now, if you go to 1 Corinthians 8, that's the question, okay? And it's very similar. People today are like, hey, Halloween seems demonic. Christians shouldn't have anything to do with anything that's demonic. And then other people are like, yeah, man, but like, it's just kids dressing up as a fireman. And I'm going out with my Christian buddies. And actually, I'm trying to share Christ with some neighbors who are coming by.

Can't I redeem that? All right. Well, Paul's principles in 1st Corinthians 8 are, number one, he says, the meat is fine. That Paul just comes down on the side of the meat is fine. That's what Paul does in 1 Corinthians 8. But then he says, everyone needs to be convinced in their own conscience.

So his second principle is you should never violate your conscience. I would apply that here. If there's anything inside of a Christian that's like, I don't think I should have something to do with this. Don't. Yeah. Don't.

Because actually, New Testament categories, you will defile your conscience if you feel like it's wrong and you do it anyway. The third thing he says is don't bind other people's consciences by your own. So on a debatable, disputable matter, Paul's like, hey man, don't apply your conscience principle to everybody else, not fair. And then the last thing he says is don't look down on other

people. So people who do, and I'm going to talk about what my family does here in a second, people who do kind of maybe some form of how, there are some things in modern American Halloween, we should have nothing to do with. I'm going to talk about that here in a second. But maybe there are some Christians who do some things about it. They should not look down on people who do those things and be like, you, you pagan compromise, da, da, da, da. And then people who don't do those things shouldn't look down on people who do, or people who do those things, shouldn't look down on people who don't and be like, you, annoying homeschool, legalist, you're a weaker brother conscience, you shouldn't do that. So here's, well, I'll tell you what we do in the Howard and family.

way y'all we're big boys you're a lot to disagree with me i'd love to hear if you're like oh we approach a different not going to hurt my feelings we're all trying to follow jesus here's what we do we have explicit biblical commands to have nothing to do with sorcery darkness evil things so in our family we we have nothing to do with uh with movies or dressing up as things like warlocks and witches and you know vampire dark thing we just don't do it man because we're like, nope, we don't take part in deeds of darkness on the Howard team. We don't do that. Number two, here's what we will sometimes do.

I think that's what we're doing this year. We'll sometimes grab a bunch of Christian friends and we'll, like we had a little corner of our neighborhood in our last neighborhood. It was all Christians. Nobody was putting up dead bodies. It was just a bunch of people's kids dressing up as a firefighter and going to these seven houses and getting candy. And literally the parents, God bless you all, have a great night. Like, it didn't feel real demonic to me. when we're doing that.

And the reason that we do that is just think about this. Romans 14 says if one person considers one day more sacred than another and another considers every day alike, each of them should be fully convinced to their own mind. Whoever regards one day a special does so to the Lord. What is saying is, is saying Christians should not consider one day more holy than another. They also shouldn't consider one day more unholy than another. So here's kind of our thing. man, if I'd be fine with my kids dressing up as a fireman and going to getting candy at their

friend's birthday party on May 12th, I'm going to be okay with them dressing up as a fireman and going to their Christian friend's house and getting candy on October 31st because that day is not more unholy than another day. But we don't have anything to do with the darkness, with evil things. We don't mess with that stuff. And then the last thing, like what we're doing this year, I think, is we're having a bunch of Christian friends over to the house, the parents are bringing candy and we're just going to have a good time around a fire pit makes morse. What I will say is when we lived in a neighborhood, we're out in the country a little bit now, is we still wanted to be a blessing to people. And so we and some other Christian neighbors,

we would find little ways like one year we cooked a bunch of hot dogs. We passed those out with, I know this sounds kind of stupid to some people, but I didn't think it was stupid. We passed out hot dogs with invites to our, to church, to all the parents that would come by. And it was like, Hey man, y'all want to hang out. Awesome. Here's a hot dog. Dude, come hang out with this sometime over at Lake Point, whatever. And what you didn't give them was candy corn.

No. Or Twizzler. Because we don't do demonic things. Okay, that's all I got. Paul, you got anything? No, I think it's interesting because you went to Romans. That's where I was ready to go. But Romans, similar situation, and Paul gives similar advice, just slightly different words.

He basically says, hey, don't judge each other. So don't think that you're better than each other because of the stance that you take. He also, though, does say don't put a stumbling block in front of each other. So it's like saying, hey, if doing something or doing it in a way, even if it's not sinful, it leaves other people to sin or it hurts your witness, then definitely take that into account and don't do it. And then even to kind of put the verse on that you're mentioning is he also says in Romans, anything done without faith is sin. So the idea is like, hey, if God has convicted you in your conscience and maybe not someone else and theirs, and because of peer pressure or you don't want to look legalistic and you're afraid, oh, people will think I'm lame if I don't do this. no, if God has convicted you, man, then you need to have faith in that and not do it. Or in that case, you are sinning.

If you were not falling a conscience that God has put on you, then you are sending. But to your point, be careful not then to say, oh, it must be the same way for every other person. And so I think the only thing maybe in addition to that I would add is really what you said, which is, hey, part of redeeming is, part of it is rejecting what is bad in something. But then part of it is also, how can I turn this for good? How can I actually use this for good to bless others and also just to celebrate? the good things that God has given us. And so I think in general, just I think we would do a lot better if we were a lot more graceful,

showed a lot more grace to each other, assumed the best in each other. Actually, I do want to add one more thing. I will say this, because when you were mentioning, hey, we don't do like the warlocks, we don't do this and that. Conscience is an important topic. I know at some point you even mentioned wanting to go a deep dive in the different categories that Paul uses. But I have met people at times in their life who are like, well, I can dress up as that

because it doesn't make me feel bad and I don't feel convicted. I would be careful not to use that as an excuse to do anything. Because at some point, you do have to ask, why is it that I don't feel bad about that? Why is it that my conscience isn't sinch? Getting off Halloween for a second, you know, for me, I remember when I was younger, Game of Thrones came on. It's a very violent, very sexualized show and was watching it. But I just, it made me feel like, eh. I just never felt joy.

And at first I was like, oh, it's just a show. I can reject. I can fast forward the bad parts or whatever. but eventually I'd say, man, that I like what this is doing to my soul. And if I'm not feeling convicted, that might be a bad sign that I'm desensitizing myself to evil and sins. I just will say, if you're out there and like, well, the dark things don't bother me. You might at least want to stop. I don't, I'm careful.

Don't want to judge your heart. But I would say at least stop and say, hey, is maybe this a sign that I'm becoming desensitized to what God would not have me become desensitized to? So that's just a little word I'd put in. That's good, man. I think also just, you know, especially like in this, our younger generations, it's easy. easier in entertainment to kind of slide. I mean, witchcraft, divination, the occult, speaking to the dead, horoscope,

sodiac signs, tarot cards, psychic readings, Ouija boards, new age spirituality, like explicitly demonic symbolism. And again, a lot of this time, a lot of this is packaged in some sort of like, oh, it's a fun movie or for kids. And so again, to echo what you just said, Paul,

we don't, as Christians, we don't want to glorify sin and we don't want to be entertained by the things that Jesus died for. and so it is important to I'm personally and so I agree with what you said I also want to be very sensitive I'm actually very sensitive to man I want to be sensitive to the holy spirit and the Bible says there is a holy spirit and there are unholy spirits and so anything that might get me a little closer to man I'm not sure but it's so much fun or man I'd rather go the opposite direction man how can I be filled with the Holy Spirit not that's what I'm asking not how can I get closer to whatever that might be questionable

for me. You know, this is Ephesians chapter 5, verse 11, have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness but rather expose them. First John chapter 4, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits

to see whether they are from God. And then Matthew chapter 5, verse 14, you are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamb and put it under a bostle. That means you don't hide because, oh, everything is, I don't touch it. I don't want to get there.

Instead, they put it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. And I think with that that did joke, maybe one more thing we could say. Now, what I'm about to say? This is probably very seldom and rare, but it does happen is that in the Corinthians passage, Paul does say, hey, if you're at a dinner party

and someone who's not a Christian there says, this has been offered and sacrifice to Zeus. Paul says, don't eat it. Yeah, don't eat it. He doesn't say, well, you don't want to offend them and you want them to come to know Jesus. Oh, just do it. Your heart is clean and pure.

Because if that person knows you're a Christian, And Paul's concern is basically like, hey, they're going to think, oh, so they can worship Zeus and Jesus. They're compromising the gospel. So in your situation, your own neighbors, that you're not worried about, they're not going to confuse the demonic. But some of you might be listening to this. And you might live in an area of the city or the country where it actually is very present, where people celebrate Halloween, not for candy, but because of its attachment to, in this road, in the way that you say, Carlos, to evil spirits. Maybe they have a background in Wiccan or whatever. then I would encourage you, don't do it then.

If you're around people or if you practicing, it will make other people think, oh, you can worship both Jesus and these things. Then at that point, you would also be violating that Corinthians passage. So that's maybe the one thing. And that's very rare in something. I do think it's important for some people to know. Well, hey, before we jump back in,

I want to take a quick moment to tell you about something close to our heart here at Lake Point. It is something we call our annual missions offering. Every fall, we set aside a season of radical generosity where 100% of what's given goes straight to missions. And this goes to help plant churches in some of America's hardest-to-reach cities, strengthening local churches around the world, meeting needs in our own communities,

and even sending students to camp to encounter Jesus. And so here's what you need to know. Your giving fuels real stories of life change. And so to be a part of spreading God's love farther and faster than ever, text the word give to 204-1. or visit lakepoint. That church slash give A.M.O.

Well, hey, Liffrey family, together, let's make this a season where our generosity moves the mission of Christ forward. Let's transition right now to Islam. And speaking about different spirituality. Pastor Josh, what should we make it like to? So here's why we want to talk about this. First of all, you've got in New York,

York City. Can you go ahead and pull up that polymarket? Yeah, the polls there. So you got in New York City, is Zoran Mamdani or Mom Danny? I think it's Mom Donnie. I think it's Mom Donnie. Donnie. Yeah, this dude, oh, is that? How recent is that? Is that today? That's like literally like 10, an hour ago. Yeah. Okay. Holy Moses. Whoops. Look it. Huh? Whoops. Yeah. Dude. I mean, yeah, it's like right now, it looks like Zoraaumomom Dani, who is is a you know he's a uh an islamic communist um and i don't use that word lightly like he actually like actually uses explicitly communist language we want to he uses the phrase seize the means of production um you know just overtly you all these things he just he was uh

i don't i don't got a picture of it it was like a big deal like three days ago he uh he is on the cover the New York Post. This guy's like literally posting a selfie with a guy that was part of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing like jihad Islamic, you know, got in, and if you watched some of the debates in the New York City mayoral election between like him and Como and there's some of the guy's name. I can't remember. Silwa or something like that. Yeah. Like, bro, like they spent like four minutes debating who was, who had attended mosques more often as a positive? And it was essentially like if I can prove that I'm more committed to, you know, mosque attendance and Islamic, you know, activism, well then all be, by the way, can I just say like, dude, if you'd have told me as a college student in 2001 right after 9-11 that I would fast forward 24 years and New York City would be, it looked like a 98% chance of electing like an openly Islamic. communist. I'd have been like, you're crazy, but here we are. And I don't think Christians

know how to think about what do we think about and do about, you know, Muslim leaders seemingly infiltrating and targeting governmental leadership positions. I don't think Christians don't think about that. The other thing that is, no kidding, it might be the greatest human rights issue right now is the systematic slaughter of Nigerian Christians, like an actual genocide taking place. Toss that clip up. This is a Nigerian pastor standing in, a lot of Christians don't know this happening, standing in the grave of men, women, and children from his church who have been slaughtered by Nigerian Muslims. I guess Nigerian Muslims. I guess Nigerian Muslim. kind of own the area.

And just go ahead and toss that up there real quick. We are tired to be outside performing boria every day. And they expect us to silence now is another. Nigeria government cannot openly and denied there is no massacre. There is no genocide of prison in Nigeria and look at it today. Is there any Muslim? No. Not that nation, I know you're watching you.

American Senate, you are watching what I'm doing. I'm saying here. Special advisor to Trump. Now, please, they're trying to save our life in Nigeria. They are killing Christians in Nigeria, massacre Christian. If they say they kill Muslims,

His Muslim are thinking by who? By Muslims? Yeah, that's his point. So some people are saying, ah, some Muslims are getting killed too. We, yeah, yeah, by the other Muslims. Yeah. Yeah.

So what's the stats on this thing? Just to put some numbers on it. According to Open Doors, they're a leading NGO that tracks persecution. More Christians are currently being killed for their faith in Nigeria than the rest of the world combined. Since 2009, Muslim groups have murdered over 62,000 Nigerian Christians, destroyed 18,000 churches and raised 2,200 schools. Open doors calls Nigeria.

It's basically the epicenter of targeted violence towards Christians. Okay, so I want to talk, like, I don't think Christians know how to think about this real quick. That right there is the greatest human rights issue that maybe happened in our nation, in our world right now. Let me just talk real quick about some of the origins of Islam. I don't think people really understand, like, how, like, spiritually and theologically tied in. this is and then I want to talk about so here here's a little here's the little hook um I've heard it said before that progressivism is a religion disguising itself as a political ideology islam is a political ideology disguising itself as a religion and there's some serious

truth to that now if you if you're asking the question um if Christians are asking the question man why is it that Islam in general seems to have a radical targeting of both Christians and Jewish people. Like, obviously, that's the whole globalized the Intifada. You know, why is Hamas in Gaza, like, openly committed to the extermination of Jews worldwide? Like, that's in their written charter. Like, okay, like, we actually have Bible verses for this. And I don't think a lot of Christians realize this.

So if you go back, this is a theological snapshot. If you go back to the Old Testament when God comes and he establishes a covenant with Abraham, he tells Abraham he's going to establish his covenant. and it's going to have three things as part of the covenant that he gives him. He says, man, I'm going to give you this land as, quote, an everlasting possession. That's theologically significant, talking about the nation of Israel then. And then he says, I'm going to give you a lineage. Through your lineage, the whole world is going to be blessed.

And when he says, through your lineage or through your offspring, singular, the whole world is going to be blessed. He's saying, through your lineage is eventually going to come the Lord. And the Lord Jesus Christ is a descendant of Abraham, obviously. So the three parts of the covenant are, this is really important, land, lineage, and Lord. Now, what God tells Abraham is I'm going to give you a son. And the whole story, it gets kind of weird. Abraham has a wife named Sarah. They have to wait a really long time and the son's not coming.

Abraham gets nervous and begins to lack faith in God's promise. So Abraham, I do not recommend this. Abraham ends up sleeping with one of his servants named Hagar. actually Sarah, his wife, encourages it. Little, that's a little bit of a miss. Yeah. She encourages him to sleep with Hagar, his servant. She's like, well, maybe we'll fulfill God's covenant, you know, through offspring that comes through Hagar.

All right. So there's a child born to Abraham and Hagar named Ishmael. Bookmark that name. That's going to be really important here in a second. Now, eventually, that child was not supposed to happen. So you can think of that as the child of the flesh. Now, eventually, God comes through on his promise like God does with all of his promises. and Abraham and Sarah end up having the child of the promise, his name was Isaac.

Okay. Now, here's your problem. You got one covenant, but you got two sons. That's your problem. That's a recipe for strife. You got one covenant, you got two sons. Now, way back when, bro, this is insane. This is what thousands of years ago, God said would happen to the lineage of Ishmael and the lineage of Isaac.

Now, real quick before I read this. the Jewish people are the descendants of Isaac. Most of the Arabic nations that became the Islamic nations are the descendants of Ishmael. So now, thousands of years ago, this is what was prophesied what would happen to Isaac and Ishmael. The angel of the Lord also said to Hagar, you are now pregnant and will give birth to a son, Ishmael.

You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. Listen, he will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him. And he will live in hostility towards all his brothers. So the Bible is literally prophesying thousands of years ago. The descendants of Ishmael will be at war with the descendants of Isaac, the Islamic, Arabic people and the Jewish people. and guess what you have right now.

You are dealing with 4,000 years, however many thousand years of prophesied enmity between these people. Now, it actually can go a layer deeper. So then you start going to where to Islam come from. All right, so in Galatians 1, the Apostle Paul warns the Galatians. Remember, the Bible says that Satan will masquerade

as the angel of light. The Apostle Paul warns the Galatians in Galatians 1-8. He says, or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let them be under God's curse. So, bro, Paul is literally telling people. Hey, watch out because there's going to be angels that look like angels of light that come and they reveal false gospels, other demonic religions.

Don't listen. It's going to be a curse. Okay? Well, then you fast forward to 610 AD. Dude named Muhammad wanders into a cave and guess what he says. He's like, man, it's real weird. I was in his cave and an angel of light appeared to me and started revealing to me a new path to God. Everybody else got it wrong.

It's literally the fulfillment of Galatians 1-8, an angel from heaven preached to him a different gospel. And that angel supposedly revealed to him the message of the Quran. That's exactly the fulfillment of the demonic warning from Galatians 1-8. an angel from heaven reveals this. What are you got? You're going to say something here? I mean, just even connected has nothing to do with the Halloween thing. But when you're coming out of First Corinthians earlier, when people hear that, oh, it's demonic,

they immediately think bad. But I remember demonic is a fallen angel. And literally in Corinthians, it talks about the false gods, or actually not gods, but they are demonic spirits who are fooling people to worship them. So just to connect in those for people is the law. We talked about in Galatians, if an angel does it. That includes a fallen angel, which we would call a demon. And then in 1 Corinthians, Paul says that the false gods that exist are actually demons. That's right.

Now, some people would say, oh, we worship the same God. No, we don't. That's right. We could maybe get into that later if we have time. But no, we would just say, no, we do not worship the same God at all. Allah is a demon. Yeah. Allah is a demon.

Yeah. So then, bro, you fast forward even more. This is, I mean, do this stuff gets, now let's start thinking about the future, like eschatology and times. Now, this is like, whenever you're talking eschatology, you're making your, best biblically informed guess. So that's what I'm doing right here. It is interesting to me that in Revelation 20, it says there's going to be a whole bunch of Christians, and it doesn't say killed, it says beheaded. There is one religion in history of the world that has gloried specifically in beheading as this form of execution of infidels in there, and it's Islam. Okay, now I'll do one more.

Jesus in John 162, he's talking about the end, the end times towards the end of history. I'm going to read you exactly what he says. Now, before I read it, a lot of people in our culture for the last 50, 60 years, they've thought, man, the world's going to get darker and darker and darker, and everybody's going to become secular and atheistic, and then the end will come. Nope. Nope. Here's what Jesus said in John 16, too. The time is coming when whoever kills you, talking to his disciples.

will think he is offering service to God. Secularism is not the final threat. The final boss that will face Christians before the return of Christ is not atheism, it's not secularism. That says it will be another religion who they think that killing Christians, killing the people of God,

is actually a service to their God. And that is exactly what Islam has historically prescribed. Very interesting. Now, before we keep going, let's say a few things. Let's talk about whether some people will do that. Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

And they just have some things wrong. Let's talk about that. And then I also want to be really, really clear about one thing. Christians are called to love people, but destroy the ideologies that enslave and damn people. So what we're not saying and no Christians should do, Christians are commanded by the Lord to love Muslims as individuals. We are also very much commanded to oppose Islam as a false religion and ideology. So Paul, do you want to talk about why are you saying Christians and Muslims do not worship the same God?

Before you do, let me face it for you. This is what people will say, well, hey, Pastor Paul, but the word Allah is just the word, God in Arabic. And also the Muslim people believe that Allah is the same God of Abraham. So isn't, don't we have the same God? Yeah, I think a few things there. Number one, we can use the same words but mean very different things. That's really important. That's good. I mean, the joke that I sometimes make people, and this is true, by the way, if I'm talking to people about Mormonism or other stuff, is that we'll use a lot of the same words, but we mean very different things by them. And the joke I'll say is like, all right, if someone I met in class,

says I really love football. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. So like, what's your favorite position? And they say goalie. And I'm like, oh, that seems kind of weird. And like, oh, we're going on. Eventually, I realize we're using the same word, but we actually mean very different sports. We mean very different things.

That's just the thing. And then we may trace our origins back to Abraham. But again, it doesn't mean that we're using, that we're talking about the same God. Because even if you look, fast forward to the worship of Israel and the book of Exodus, most people don't get this, but the Golden Calf incident. You know, we usually think, oh, they were worshipping a false god and they were. But what's interesting is they actually say when they make the golden calf, we will worship Yahweh. They use God's personal name. And if anything, that almost

ticked God off more. Wow. They were worshipping a false god falsely, but using his name. And so just because people use the same names that we do does that mean that they are worshipping the same God that we do. And here's all I'd like to go about this. I mean, in a second, I'm going to put up four points, but we won't do that yet in terms of why we don't. There's a lot of reasons. why we don't. There's a lot of places we don't have. I tried to condense it down into four things. But for a way to that, here's all I like to usually go about this, is that I actually have to talk about my wife. So let's say we're sitting here and I'm just talking about wife and how much I love about her and I talk about her character and things. But eventually I just start describing

and like, man, I love that she is like a Norwegian, six feet tall, blue eye, blonde hair. She's actually got a European accent and stuff like that. And if you're listening to this and you don't know me, these guys are laughing because they know where this is going. You're like, oh, man, she just must love hearing this on the podcast right now, wherever she is at. Let me tell you that my wife would not love that. That's right. I would be in a lot of danger and a lot of trouble because my wife is not six feet tall. It's not a blue eyes and blonde hair.

In fact, I think we got a picture up over for those of you who are watching this on YouTube. My wife is drop dead gorgeous, by the way. But she is about five, two or three. She has got brown eyes, brown hair, and has a cute. little country southern accent. Yeah, she does. And so the thing with this is that the reason my wife would be angry and would be upset with me, if anything, she would be thinking I was having an affair is, um,

by the way, good analogy. I'm doing that intentionally. I'm doing that intentionally is because my wife is a person, as a person. And people want to be known and loved for who they really are in the same way. God is a personal being who wants to be known, loved, and worshipped for who he, really is. And using this analogy, now listen, I might get some things wrong about my wife. I might, you know, get our anniversary date wrong, might think her favorite color is green, when it's purple, might say her favorite team is Duke when it's actually UNC. I'm a Duke fan. So that's fun

during March season. I actually did not know that. That makes this really rough. I know. I know Kentucky, right? Dang. Yes, Kentucky fan. Yeah, well, okay, we won't chase that rabbit. We'll do that another time. Anyways, so there's some things I can get wrong. So what we're not saying is that, hey, you have to have perfect theology and beliefs about God to know him. But what we are saying is, hey, there would be a line that if I crossed, I'm no longer talking about my real wife. I'm loving a figment of my imagination that I'm giving my wife's name to. In the same way with God, for sure.

None of us have perfect theology this side of heaven. But there are enough major mistakes that if we cross and if we get them wrong, we're no longer talking about loving and knowing worshiping the real God who created us, but a fake God that we have created in our image. That's right. And he is a figment of our imagination. All right, that being said, I'm going to try to go through these quickly as we can, even though they touch on some of the greatest mysteries of our faith.

Here's kind of a four-step thing that I created in terms of why we don't worship the same true God. All right. First thing is there is one true God who wants to be known, loved, and worship for who he truly is. That's what I just said a few minutes ago. Number two, that one God has revealed himself as Father's Son and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons.

So we can do a whole podcast in the Trinity. We don't have time for that. But a few important distinctions here because Muslims completely reject this. And this is essential to the identity of God. This is essential to who God is. When we say three persons, a lot of sometimes people think of persons of like us, like, oh, we're three persons right now at this table. We each have our own mind, each have our own will and personality. And then when we use this terminology for God, like, oh, so we're saying like Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

they each have like different minds and wills and personalities. No, that would be triathism. That would be polytheism, which Muslims, by the way, accused. us up, but that's not what we mean. They all have the same mind, same nature, same will. But God eternally exists as three distinct persons. Eternally, meaning the Father's Son and Holy Spirit, have always existed. There was never a time when the Son of God did not exist for the Holy Spirit. They have always existed. And yet they are distinct. Here's how I like to say it, because I think while this is the greatest mystery of our faith and we never can get our minds around it,

I actually think Christians do instinctively get this. Like if I was praying right now and I said, Father, thank you for dying on the cross. You'd feel weird because that's not who died on the cross. The son of God, Jesus Christ died on the cross. Or if I said, Jesus, thank you for being poured out at Pentecost. You would feel weird because the Holy Spirit was. So the idea is that there are three persons, one God. Muslims can completely reject this. And at that point, they're rejecting the essential identity of who God has revealed himself to be in Scripture. Point number three, that one God has provided one mediator, his son, Jesus Christ. In 1 Timothy 2, it says, there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men,

the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all. What scripture tells us is that man, though, was not just a man, that Jesus Christ was the eternal son of God, who was incarnated in human flesh, who died and rose again to bring us to himself, to bring us to God. This is an issue for Muslims because Muslims actually believe that Jesus didn't die on the cross, that he was taken up into heaven. Muslims would say Jesus was a prophet, but they would say he was not divine. He did not die on the cross, and therefore he was not raised from the grave. So they reject him as a mediator.

And so that leads us to point number four. To reject numbers 233 is to reject number one. You cannot reject the essential identity of God and the essential activity of God, his death on the cross to reconcile us, and then still be saying that you worship the same. God. It would be the same thing as if I could describe someone completely different than my wife, but still gave her the same name and thought, oh, I love the same person. At that point, no, using that affair analogy. You're having a fair. You're talking about a different person. You're loving a different God. And God is not pleased with that. Can I give one more thing? I know I'm taking probably a few more minutes. Two minutes. This actually, if Muslims truly read the Quran,

this puts them in a big dilemma. People have increasingly been highlighted. This is called the Islamic dilemma. And what the Islamic dilemma is is that the Quran actually says that the Old Testament and New Testament is the Word of God. It doesn't use that exact terminology, but I've got here a few verses from the Quran. And Surah 3, 3 through 4. It says Allah revealed the Torah and the Gospel. Old Testament, New Testament.

And he revealed the Quran. So it uses the exact same words for the Quran as it does for what he did with the Old and New Testament. You may know the answer to this. So I've started reading more about the history and origins of Islam as the political conquest has increased. If I understand it correctly, the earlier writings of Muhammad are considerably more friendly towards Christianity and Judaism. And then it evolved and obviously became extremely violent in the later writings. So I'm assuming that was from earlier writings. It's from earlier.

And then this is also what it says in Suraw, 547, that the people of the people of the gospel, so Christians, should judge by what Allah has revealed in it, meaning the gospel of the New Testament. And whoever does not judge by what a law is revealed, then it is those who are defiantly disobedient. Here's the dilemma. I think we actually, yeah, we got this on the screen for us. The Quran affirms the Bible as the Word of God. Well, here's the problem with that. In the Word of God, O, it says, when we see that God has revealed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that Jesus Christ was the divine son of God who died and rose again. Yet Muslims also then reject that. The Quran says to reject to that. So you really only got two options. Well, the Bible is the Word of God, and so you must

therefore receive the truth about Jesus' divinity and his crucifist and resurrection, but those can't reconcile with each other. Or you say the Bible is not God's word, but if you say that, that specifically those things I just said did say it was. So either way, you lead to this contradiction if you actually take the Quran just at face value. So I just say that because at the end of the day, we do not worship the same God. And even if you take the Quran seriously, it leaves itself to of a contradiction that I cannot read scripture, our sacred scriptures, and believe what Muslims say about God. So obviously, that's really helpful. So obviously not the same thing. Josh, you called it a political movement. Why? Yeah, let me say, so here's what I think has been said

that people need understand. Again, let me go back to the little hook. Progressivism is a religion disguises political ideology. Islam is a political ideology disguised as a religion. So what people need understand is that the stated goal of Islam is political and national conquest. That is the stated goal. That's what it always does. So that's why people are like, huh, I got a little check engine light going on when all of a sudden you've got people like Ilan Amar and Rashida Taleb. And now you've got Zorn Mamdani who's like, wait, the leader of the largest city in our nation is kind of like our little. gemstone is going to be like an openly

like this was a word I'm going to show you two clips that just kind of put this in perspective go and toss that first clip up there not that one yeah do that do that guy just and I'll tell you when to stop keep so I'm sorry I cheated I cheated okay so

this is here's what this is this is an imam explaining I mean there's again what I want to show is that this is the stated goal explaining their plan to take over the United States so go ahead and do this real quick one day you're going to be the president of the United States of America. No one, go to Michael Ali, who can stop you from becoming a president.

Dream big. Have a vision. Because if Barack Hussein Obama can be a president, So Heb Javad cannot be a president. Tell him. He's going to be a president. He's talking about that the Muslims will take over Mekka. They used to laugh at him.

Pause real quick. So what he's saying right here is obviously Mecca. Mecca once upon a time for really quick. All right, so here, before we keep going, I just want to put this in perspective. I don't think most Americans, especially American Christians, we've grown up with an entire ocean

in between us and really the center of Islam. I don't think most Americans realize how aggressive the conquest is. So, for instance, I will give you one, I bet you're going to be able to, you're going to guess it. You all are going to guess it.

What is the most common baby name in the three following cities? London, Dublin, and Copenhagen. One guess, what is the most common baby name in London, Dublin, and Copenhagen? I'll defer to. I think we're thinking the same thing, but I'll defer to you, Carlos. I think it's probably Muhammad. It's Mohammed.

It's not Carlos. It's not Carderlos. Nope. And it is not some British name like Ewan. I don't know. It's Mohammed. Again, so what you're seeing right now. You said London, what are there?

London, England, Dublin, and. Copenhagen. So what you're seeing right now is through mass migration. I want to talk about that here in a second, is you're seeing previously Christian European areas. They're just getting overrun. And even to connect a dot, like the largest Muslim nations, people think, oh, they're in the Middle East. No, they're in Asia. It's places like India, Indonesia, in other words, places that were once not Islamic Muslim nations, that that's what happened. So here's the thing. like it wasn't that like you know hundreds of years ago there were no predominantly Muslim nations and now there are an enormous number so for instance before we've watched the rest of this clip

it's a religion of conquest that's the stated doctrine of the hadith is to quote take over new lands so that's why you're going to see these dudes use the language they use so egypt israel assyria algeria jordan saudi arabia iran afghanistan now europe like these are areas that have just either have been or are being taken over. These are the new lands being taken over because it is, it's a religion of political conquest, which is why he says this. Keep going.

What happened? What is Makkah now? It's coming. Change is coming to America. And what is Allah telling us? You are the best of nations. You're better than everybody else. That's what Allah is saying.

Let's work towards that. Let's work towards a Muslim mayor. Next election that comes in, nominate people for the School Board of Education. Next election that comes here, nominated people for the local township. Begin. Stop, you're good there. So he said that pre-Zoran Mamdani.

And then that's what they did. So let's go for the mayor. Now let's get the school board. Because again, what you have to understand is Islam is inherently the strategy is political conquest. So you have to see that. Now, let's do one more. Go to that other clip. This guy says it in a different way.

But he's saying, he's saying the same thing. Check this out. The future is ours. Every ideal nightmare of a Muslim Europe will come true. They can be as mad as they want. I don't care. America will be a Muslim country. Russia will be a Muslim country.

Islam will enter every house. We have to be a part of that change. We have to be a part of that Dawa. We have to be a part of those grubah who stand firm on our aqida and our practice and our dean. You're good there. But you're just seeing it. Like you could play literally a million clips. And it's just that's the state of strategy.

So here's why this is a big deal. Because when it comes to like especially Protestant evangelical Christians in America, really like for the last 50, 60 years don't have a political theology. We have no theology of politics. here's what we're aiming for, here's our strategy, and here's why we do what we do. So what you have right now is you have Muslims have a plan

and they're aggressively working their plan where what you have is like, well-meaning but naive Christians who have no political theology are actually discipling their people towards political sort of pacifism. And I just want neither right nor left and let's stay up by the fray

and don't hurt your witness by getting involved in politics. Well, they have a plan and they're aggressively working the plan. And then the people of God are actually disciplining their people in like a different direction. Throw up that the screenshot of the dude in Dearborn, Michigan. Obviously, Dearborn Michigan, you know, I think it's just essentially a Muslim city now.

And what you have right here, dude, think about this. Like, think about this in the United States of America. This guy was a Dearborn resident asking the city council, hey, you're playing the Muslim calls for prayer that happened five times a day, like over the city. city speakers like very loudly. Could we maybe not do that? In the United States of America, the Dearborn mayor in Michigan, this guy's name is Abdullah Hamoud, says, you do not belong in this city, Islamophob, get out.

So he's saying to an American Christian dude, you don't belong in this city. Get out. This is what you got. Now I'm going to keep going. Go to that next little, the Apple Maps with the red dots on it. So again, I don't think people realize, here's what this is. that's a Apple Maps search of the DFW area. Those are, from what I understand, all of the mosques that have been built in the DFW area in the last five years.

Yeah, so some of this is natural. And what I mean about that is in the sense of the way it works is often when people will immigrate, that you typically will go within about a mile of a mosque or where they go. And so some of it is, oh, it's just not just what happens. Of course, you know, if we were moving to a place, we would try to find a good church and it would be next to. But what people need to see is it's not only natural, it then becomes intentional. Because then around that, there's a community center built, things are taken over, and eventually, to your point, laws begin to try to get changed and things like that. That's the goal.

That's the goal. Well, and even something, you know, it's just important to say on this is that, you know what the word Islam actually means? Submission. People say, oh, it means peace, magna. It shares a common root word, but in its form, it actually means. submission in a Muslim is one who submits. Now, you can say, oh, they submit to a lot, but yeah, but if you actually look to your point of the earliest conquest of Islam, even like you said to Southeast Asia, now, the way

that happens inevitably is that those who are actually leading it try to move into an area or forcefully conquer an area to then force people to submit. Yeah. And one of the major differences, Trinity, I just dropped another thing in the drop zone. That's one of the major differences between Christianity. in Islam is a religion of imposition and Christianity is a religion of invitation. So, you know, it's like, hey, Islam generally and historically does, hey, convert or die, we will force you to submit. And Christianity historically, we do Christian missions.

We do, hey man, we want to invite you to the Lord Jesus Christ. So toss that up there real quick if you can. So what you have right there, that's like people are starting to track this because they're going, huh, well, this is like, we're starting to see a little pattern here. These are all the elected Islamic officials by state, and, you know, it's hard to see, but already you've got 200, it's pushing 240 Islamic elected officials. Now again, remember, it's like, ah, well, you know, religious liberty, that kind of thing. But again, built into the religion is the goal of political and national conquest. I read a crazy interesting book. This guy's name is Raymond Ibrahim. He's a, I think, Egyptian Coptic Christian.

And the title of the book was The Sword and the Cimitar. And essentially, it's like when I sleep bad and I wake up between two and three, I read military history. So this is what I was reading. And it's a history of the Muslim conquest that leads up with the Crusades. And like what we, or at least us, I don't know about you. What we grew up hearing in high school is all you hear about are these, these, these, stories of the horrific evil Christians who committed genocide in the Crusades and look how bad Christianity is. Okay, that's what you get. Toss up that little graphic of the Muslim conquest

battles versus the crusade battles. So Rima Ibrahim, so this is what you have, bro. If you go read this book, it is fascinating. Brose, fascinating. He essentially, again, Egyptian-Coptic Christian, he comes to America and he's like, wait, they're telling people the Christians were the bad ones for the Crusades. He's like, I think I need to write about this. And what you have is the top, all the red dots on the top, those were the Muslim conquest battles where they were like, hey, we're going to, again, stated part of the religion is to force people to submit political conquest, jihad.

Those are all of the Muslim conquest battles where they invade Christian territories unprovoked to slaughter, mass slaughter Christians and take over their lands at the top. And then the tiny, sparse amount of red dots at the bottom that you could barely see, those are the crusade battles, which, oh, by the way, were almost exclusively defensive political conquest. They were trying to defend their lands from all of the red dots on the top so that the men, women, and children that were their families didn't get slaughtered and enslaved. So the crusades, again, this is like, like, you got to reverse, you got to undo all your high school. education. The Crusades were almost exclusively like just wars that not everything that happened in the Crusades. Wars are bad. Bad things happened during wars, of course. But they were almost exclusively

just wars that were defensive battles after like 700 years of mass unprovoked slaughter. What were you going to say, Paul? Well, I think, again, I think what we said towards the beginning, but reiterate, we're not saying that all Muslims have this attitude for sure. And we would also say, You've always got to be careful of comparing our best against someone else's worse. But I think this is maybe where you're going and I'll at least highlight it. What you do, though, have to at some point ask is, hey, if something gets repeated from the beginning of its inception, then for the next few thousand years, and then wherever it spreads, it does the same thing.

At some point, you have to ask, is there something about this system of belief that this is actually a feature of that belief? So again, every case you get there. It's a feature and not a bug. Yeah, because at that point, listen, even in history of Christianity, people have done stupid things by way, for which we should be sorrowful, repentant that we misrepresented Jesus is wrong. But there's a difference when saying,

hey, that seems to be an exception and not the known versus, hey, this other thing seems to be a key feature that keeps repeating itself. And even that's where it's kind of, even if not all Muslims have this attitude, you at least have to ask, why does the system of belief

seem to repeat the same thing over and over again wherever it goes? That's right, yeah. I would, like, we should probably, let's be, hey man, whether it's politically correct or not, We just need to be committed to, like, actual facts and data. Yeah.

And throughout human history, and again, we started this segment off watching a clip from a Nigerian pastor where I think, would you say, 90,000? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, no, I mean, in the last, sorry, I'll miss, 62,000 Nigerian Christians, 18,000 churches. I mean, 2,000 schools. Yeah, it's like, is it like all throughout human history, what has happened? Is it, is conquest of a nation, a city, a state, a region? and that's what it always does. And again, it's not like, wow, that's a historic aberration.

Like, no, like, we literally started off this segment, like, watching a clip from a Nigerian pastor where 70,000, 60,000 Christians. Happening right now. I'll give you one more. So here's a little homework. It's a little fun thing. And again, it's like, dude, now, to Paul's point, nobody's saying that every single Muslim person believes the same thing. There's the same thing where there's, like, more progressive and more moderate, that kind of thing. But at some point, you just have to go, hey, man, this seems to be a feature, not a bug.

So here's what I did. I went in chat GPT, and the question I asked chat GPT, you can do this at home. I just typed in, list the 20 largest religious terrorist organizations in the world, rank them by approximate size and specify what religion they adhere to, no explanations. Okay. Toss the little chat GPT up. Okay, there it is. There's the 20.

And 20 out of 20 are Islamic. Wow. 20. Now it's like, I know what happens is well-meaning but naive Christians are like, ah, I feel weird talking about this. Like, aren't we're supposed to love people? And it was like, you know, we're supposed to love people. We're supposed to destroy ideologies that harm and enslave people and that lead them to hell. So it's like what we're, it says don't take parts and deeds of darkness, but instead expose them.

So that's what you do. Now, we also want to be super, super clear, Jesus. loves Muslim people and he wants to save them. In fact, bro, it's insane. The number of Muslim people that are now converting to Christ because there's these stories all over the world of, quote, this is how they describe it, the man in white. I get chills just talking about it.

You read like, you know, Revelation, the Book of Revelation and Jesus appears in robes, white as snow. And people who like, their whole life, they were just trying to submit to the God that they believed existed. I think God saw the earnestness and humility of some of their heart, and he went, let me show you who I really am. And all over the globe, we actually have some of these people in our church, by the way.

All over the globe, there's these stories of Jesus appearing to people in dreams, the man in the white robe, and revealing to them that Jesus Christ is God and them converting. There's a massive revival happening right now in Iran. Iran. If I remember right, more Iranians have been baptized in Christianity in like the last 20 years than the previous five centuries combined. And because of this, Paul, do you have something on this? Do you want me to read? Read a few stories for us? Before you do, because I know that's going to be, that's going to help a lot. I was listening to Lee Strobel, talking about this. He was coming on live free soon. Oh, that's right. There you go. Coming soon. And Lee Strobel was saying that more Muslims have come to faith in Jesus in the last 20 to 30 years than in the previous 1400 years combined.

Let's go. And he said, it is estimated that a third of them has had a dream or a vision of Jesus before converting. I got to ask him about that. That's right. And so that prompts them to be like, well, I saw this. And then God providentially put somebody in their path and then they're able to share the gospel with them. So Paul, go ahead. I think it's just to remind you, like Jesus died.

He shed his blood for Muslims to come to faith. And scripture, it records in the book of Luke where Jesus, you know, I believe it was in Luke where he said, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. And yet in Acts, the call is to repent from what you're doing and what you believe. And so it's this both thing. It's the idea of, man, Jesus shed his blood to save Muslims. I'm going to read some stories of how he's doing that through some dreams and appearances. But then also, he calls your point, Pastor Josh. He calls people to repent of their false beliefs and of their sinful actions to believe in Jesus.

So here's a few stories I grabbed. Give us two. Yeah, I got to go pick up, Gene. I got you. We got to get you to Glenn back. And give you time to change out of your camo. This shouldn't say, though. Two stories. A friend of mine had heard the gospel in Athens, but she struggled to believe. This was a Muslim friend. One day she went home to spawned and hid behind the couch in her family's apartment. She began to pray. You know what, God, since I have absolutely no excuse, absolutely none, I've run out of excuses. I don't know what to do. But following you means I have to deny everything. I have believed in everything my family, a generation after generation has believed. I can't be in the middle. I have to either follow you or not. I can't do it myself. It's hard to make that step. I need you to help me. After she prayed, she did not know whether she was awake or asleep, but a man in white,

walked into the room. Her reaction was to blurt out, don't come close to me. You are holy and I am a sinner. I'm getting chills. Do not get close to me. The man replied, the young lady's name, I told you and I tell you again, I am the way and the truth. No one comes to the father except through me. Wow.

That day she believed the gospel and was saved. that connects to what we talked about earlier. Like, why we don't believe in the same God is like, she believed in Jesus as the mediator, and no one comes to God, the Father, except for Him. Wow. I love this other one, though. This one is about a Persian migrant who arrived at a refugee center,

about 6 a.m. in the morning, he was visibly upset. He told his story to a Persian pastor. During the night, he saw someone dressed in white, raised his hand and say, stand up and follow me. The Persian man said, who are you? By the way, Persian would be from Iran. Who are you?

The men in white replied, I am the alpha and the omega. I'm the way to heaven. No one can go to the father except through me. He began to ask the Persian pastor, who is he? What am I going to do? What did he ask? Why did he ask me to follow him?

How shall I go? Tell me. In response, the pastor held out his Bible and asked, have you seen this before? No, he replied, do you know what it is? No. The pastor then opened to the book of Revelation. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. The man started crying and said, how can I accept him?

How can I follow him? So the pastor led him in prayer and peace came over him. The pastor then gave the man a Bible and told him to hide it since the Muslims in the camps could cause him trouble. I love this. But the man replied that Jesus that I met today, he's more powerful than the Muslims in the camp. He left and an hour later returned with 10 more purgents and told the pastor, these people want a Bible. Oh, wow. Come on.

Jesus is saving. Acts chapter two. Your young men shall see visions. and your old men shall dream dreams. Wow. That's right. Let me kind of finish the couple things. Right.

So one, it's like, we need to get better at seeing that everything is more spiritual than we think that it is. So it's like, you know, so can I just like, here's a little mind-blowing thing. I don't think Christians understand clearly enough. So here's the question. In the United States, in general, progressivism is pro-Islam. so so the question that people always ask it bill marr does a good job he asks this all the time people ask a question like wait like progressive secular progressives or pro-Islam they're like now wait a second aren't those the people that are like all about women's empowerment and then they're like aligning

with the team that like beats women who appear in public without burqas on in some countries and stone women to death who in some country like or they'll go like wait, like, aren't progressives, like, they're doing like Queers for Palestine marches when, like, queer's actually in Palestine are getting thrown off buildings and publicly stoned to death and behead. Like, queer's for Palestine is like saying chickens for KFC. Like, so people are like, wait, so like, why are progressives like aligning, well, dude, okay, you think it doesn't make sense, it makes perfect sense. Because at their root, secularism, and Islam are the same thing.

Listen, bro, this is so important. The foundation of secularism is a rejection of Christianity. And the foundation of Islam is a rejection of Christianity. So check this out, bro. That allegiance, the allegiance that trumps all allegiances and the hidden tie that binds these two things together,

here's what it is. Anything but Christianity and anyone but Christ. That's the thing that puts, so different ideologies, same demons. So bro, it's just, once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's like the spirits work together. So here's the question.

And let me, anything on that? You know, let me keep going. Let me land it. So if you start going on like, okay, I think what Christians should do is we're people who we want to solve problems. We want to be salt and light in the world. So what do we do? A few things I'll say, and then let's shut her down is, number one, like what Christians do more than anything else is we do not, like the Bible says, we do not wage war as the world does with the weapons of the world.

But instead it says we destroy arguments in every ideology that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. So number one, what do Christians do? We do evangelism. We love everyone everywhere and we want to see every person in every nation bend their need to the Lordship of Jesus. And we do not do that via imposition. We do it via invitation. We are radical evangelists. One more, one more, one more.

So if you got a Muslim neighbor, like man, lean in with the love of Jesus Christ. You love that person with everything you got. and you pray for them, I want that person, I want that testimony in a lake point service about the man in white. Amen, many of those. Many of those. And we have them. Yeah.

We got the, those people are in our church. Wow. So number one is evangelism. Number two, we do, and part of this is why we do this podcast is like, just I'm cursed with, this is where my mind goes, is Christians do need to think a whole lot more clearly about having some kind of coherent political theology. Yes. Like, we, that is not something that really since like the, you know, it's been a couple hundred

years since I feel like evangelical Protestant Christians have had an actual political theology. So I will say this. So we won't go into it right here. But whenever people object to the whole idea of Christian nationalism that, hey, Christians should want their nation to be governed from a Christian moral viewpoint. That's how I'm defining that. And people object to it. My response is always, well, which kind of nationalism do you want, bro?

Yeah. Because some moral viewpoint is going to co-opt the legislative perspective of the nation. So which one do you want? Do you want to fast forward 100 years in our nation and have Islamic nationalism? Or do you want to do Christian nationalism? Your choice. There's one of those that is generally led to things like religious liberty, human rights, human flourishing, all the good things. And then there's two of them that haven't. So that's number two is Christians need to get out of this naive, immature thing of like, ah, we don't want to dirty ourselves by getting involved in politics. No, no, no, that's how we're salt and light in the world.

Number three is, and this is where it's like, it would take a much more thorough conversation. We're like, our nation probably needs to get its head around like a clear immigration policy so that we're not importing people who are walking into the nation with a stated goal of undermining the nation. So like Charlie Kirk did a good job. He pointed out that Islam is, it is funny. fundamentally incompatible with American values in three specific ways. It's like they do not believe in freedom of speech. They do not believe in freedom of religion,

and they do not believe in separation of mosque and state. So it's like you can click on each of those, but there's three things that are like fundamental to how our nation was constructed. Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and separation of church and state. And you would say, man, for them, they say mosque and state. They fundamentally, in general, do not believe in any of those three things.

So I think there's probably something where we need to figure out like, hey man, some sort of like, hey, here's who we are as a nation. If you want to come here and become a citizen to live here, you're signing off on these things. And if you can't sign off on these things, then yeah, man, we're not importing people

who are actually committed to the destruction and undermining of our nation. So we're going to have to figure that out. On that note, dude, I'll point this out. And this is like a very awkward thing to point out, but it's like, again, we're data people. So toss up that the New York City mayoral election poll. Yeah, that guy right there. So here's what people pointed out. So like Zoramam Dani,

the Islamic Communist guy, this about to get elected as the mayor of New York City. Dude, here's what people pointed out. So among American-born New Yorkers, he actually would get defeated by a long shot. Like, it's 40% towards Como and we don't have, we're not, we're not endorsing any of these people. It's 40% Como and only 31% of, and only 31%. percent mom dani and then a silway guy or whatever uh down at the bottom there among foreign born new yorkers 62 percent mom dani 24 is it 21 or 24 percent 24 percent 24 percent uh como so again you can just see it like hey man like you know christians again Christians will sometimes have a well-meaning but naive thing where they just read one

Bible verse that says you're supposed to love the sojourner. And then they think they can extrapolate from that one Bible verse out to like an unlimited immigration policy. Well, say, man, again, there's a differentiation between the role of the individual and the role of the state. An individual Christians should love every immigrant, but that doesn't extrapolate out to a, you know, a limitless immigration policy. Like we need to have wise, you know, thoughtful. I'm curious, and I got to let you go in like a minute, but I'm curious out of those that were foreign-born New Yorkers, what does that mean? What does that mean? Like, were they, like, are they residents? Are they citizens? Are they incorporated, like, or are they undocumented people? I'm assuming, broad. I bet it doesn't, you know, it's, you know, the boldest take place in New York City, they probably aren't differentiating between documented and undocumented.

I'd be very curious. Either way, they're foreign-born, meaning they were not born in this country. That's right. Well, I'm just saying, too, because if you're a resident or a citizen, you know, there is some sort of expectation that you're assimilating into the country that you now reside in or that you are now a citizen. and versus like if you're not, it's a little different. Well, and I think that's the, and dude, that's the thing, is that right now our current immigration process does not do a good job of the, what some people would say, doesn't do a good job of the assimilation aspect, where it's like entry without assimilation,

and obviously that's a whole different thing. So I can envision something where it's like, you know, I'm not a politician and don't want to be. But I can envision something where it's like, hey man, we have a stated, of values, who's who we are as a nation. And, you know, if you ever openly oppose these things, then right now you're here as a guest. And if you ever openly oppose those things, then thank you for your time and we will escort you elsewhere. You know, so it's like, man, if you're here as a, you know, you gain citizenship, but then on a college campus, you're walking around, you know, cheering death to America and globalize the intifada.

You know, it makes sense to me where there's something where it's like, all right, man, thank you for your time time for you to leave you know so you know you have to figure out a way to stabilize and gain coherence you know as a nation so I think those things I say any final thoughts here boys this is this is going to be a that what you're seeing right there that's going to be a major conversation for the next few decades so Christians need to start thinking biblically and wisely about those things there won't be the last time we talk about it right not Pastor Josh would you pray for us Jesus what we most want is for you to save them all. We want to see people from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language

bend their need of the Lordship of Jesus because God so loved the world. And I will say it like this, for God so loved the Muslim world that he gave his one and only son, that if they believe in him and bend their need to the Lordship of Jesus, they will have everlasting life. And so Father, we pray for that. Father, give us your heart and your love for all of the nations, all of the nations. And we pray that we would see the glory of God cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Father, I pray for the men and women listen to the pod that are the greatest beat of our heart would just be, man, we've got one more. May I bring one more person home to Jesus and use me to do it? So Father, give us wisdom. give us love and I pray that you mobilize us as your servants on this planet for your glory in Jesus

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