The Eric Metaxas Show - Erwin Lutzer (Encore)

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

Erwin Lutzer has a new book that is a rallying cry to the Church, "No Reason to Hide: Standing for Christ in a Collapsing Culture." (Encore Presentation)

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Eric McTaxis show with your host, Eric Metaxus. Folks, welcome back. I continue my conversation with John Zemirik. John, we're talking about some disturbing stuff right now, but it kind of falls into the theme in my book letter to the American church. I'm saying, ladies and gentlemen,

if you do not recognize the evil you're dealing with and you do not understand that God is calling us to fight this evil, you are complicit. And what you're writing about, John, it's just more evidence that most Americans, we have to be clear. Most Americans have no idea. They're busy. They don't even want to know how bad things are. But what you wrote about in this article at stream.org, it tells us that the left, it's not the left. that we grew up with folks. These are

these are explicitly anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-family voices. When I say explicitly, I don't just mean they have a different point of view. I mean,

they are being extremely aggressive. And it's just so dark that it's difficult to look at. But you remember? Right against it. Remember when they were tearing down statues of George Washington? That meant something.

They meant that. When they tore down, Thomas Jefferson when they attacked Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, they meant that. The goal of that was to obliterate any connection to America's past so that they are not bound by our Constitution, which protects the rest of us from them. They want to demonize the founders so that they can trash the Constitution so that you can't argue for free speech, freedom of religion, gun rights. Those are all leftover vestiges from a document written by slave owners.

We've already torn down the statues. Why do you expect to be protected by their amendments? Didn't you understand what you were doing when you let us get away with that? When you let us take over Portland and Seattle, when you let them prosecute Kyle Rittenhouse, you didn't understand what you were signing up for. When the Nazis attacked Jewish stores and got away with it, That told people persecution, real genocidal persecution is down the road.

Right now in America, our government and the leftist institutions that support it from the Ivy League to large numbers of churches to the mainstream of the Republican Party, which supports it by being afraid to fight it, it's reminding me of the buildup in the 1990s in Rwanda, the buildup. towards genocide. The Hutus were the majority, but they weren't as wealthy or successful as the minority Tutsis. So they resented them. They wanted their stuff. They wanted their power. They wanted their money. And they started demonizing the Tutsis, calling them cockroaches on radio shows. News hosts would refer to Tutsi cockroaches. The way I see people talking about white people, about Christians, about so-called Christian nationalists, they talk about us the same way. Okay, John, I want to interrupt. I wrote an article, folks, I think it was back in April or May.

It was published at the stream. And it was written by Russell Moore, who's the head of Christianity today now. Okay, think of this. The head of Christianity today. And it was an article in very highfalutin language doing exactly what John. just said, demonizing people who are culturally or politically conservative, who are white, demonizing them in the pages of Christianity today. I wrote a response to it, which John published at stream.org, but I want to tell you, we're not making this up. If you ignore this now,

you become part of the problem. Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. This is really where I want to be honest. I want to be clear. This is really wicked. John is not exaggerating about this. Yeah, I think I thought it was really funny when Russell Moore was put in charge of what the magazine I called Churchianity yesterday. But it tells you where we are. This used to be the mainstream organ of the evangelical world founded by Billy Graham. It has gone over to. to embrace the madness to appoint someone like Russell Moore who has shown his colors. And I have to say that there are many people, John, many pastors. Again, it's why I wrote my book letter to the American Church. There are tons and tons and tons of pastors that want to pretend this is not happening,

that they can take the middle ground, they can take the safe ground. Folks, there is no safe path. The safe path is to help the devil in the middle of this battle. If you think you're taking the safe path, you're in fact, complicit in working with these evil forces. It is time for the church to wake up. People are always worried about not being like the Pharisees, and that's important. You don't want to be a self-righteous hypocrite. You know what's even more important? Not being like the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the religious liberals, the modernists of their day, who denied basic truths of the Jewish scripture, didn't believe in an afterlife and collaborated with Caesar. They were close to pilot. They were close to the Roman occupiers.

And it was their job to make sure that the Jews never did anything to upset the Romans. That's what your never Trump Christian is. He is a Sadducee working for Punches Pilate, making sure that nobody offends the authorities. I would say Christianity today should change its slogan to we have no king but Caesar. That's in the Bible. We have no King with Caesar and then give whatever verse it is. And that can sit under the logo because that is their real slogan. Well, I mean, but again, you're underscoring the point that ladies and gentlemen, you have to choose.

Right now, you can no longer sleepwalk as though there's some middle path or some safe path. You have to understand that silence in the face of evil is itself evil. We are now delineating for you the evil. And these are just parts of it. You remember when they closed our churches but kept the abortion clinics open? And they gave a bunch of pastors money, PPP loans, and so they would shut up. Remember when they forced us to take a dangerous vaccine made from dead babies? And most religious leaders said, okay, well, it's all right.

It's ethically okay. Hell, my own church of Vatican issued a coin celebrating the dead baby vaccine being given to kids. It shows a mom with a doctor vaccinating a kid wearing a mask. I mean, you can't make this up. Let's be clear. There are many good people that got this very wrong. I'm not confusing Pope Francis with good people, but I'm saying there are good people, whether it's Donald Trump or Franklin Graham.

We now know that these vaccines are creating tremendous, harms. The evidence is now coming out. They're going to be lawsuits, folks. They're going to be lawsuits. People have lost lives, loved ones have lost lives. People have gotten sick. Soccer players, professional athletes are dropping dead out of nowhere. And all of a sudden, oh, wait, oh, they were double-vaxed and boosted. How could they die? Oh, maybe that's why they died. They rushed something into production without testing it and demanded that everybody take it or lose their jobs. It was the most unprecedented act of tyranny. In American history since World War I, Woodrow Wilson put anyone who opposed the war into prison.

That was the last time our Constitution was this outrageously violated. That's right. Well, that's why we need to, we have to educate ourselves. folks. We've got to understand. I've been watching the, I guess it was produced by HBO, the mini series on John Adams. I've been reading all kinds of books on American history lately. And when you really understand our roots, it is a wake-up call. You begin to understand how far we have moved from this beautiful vision. And so we need to re-educate ourselves on the truth of what is America, what is liberty, what is our duty. And that's what we try to

do on this program with folks like John talking about these things. John, we've just got 25 seconds left. Final comments, my friend. Everybody needs to pray, pray for our enemies. In fact, I got a text from Steve Bannon the other day. I was checking in with him after his arrest in New York. And I asked him, if there's anything I could do and said it was in our prayers. And he said to me, he wrote back, pray for our enemies. And I thought that was inspiring, even on his way to do. That's what Christians do, folks, because there are a lot of people out there. God's going to reach them. John, thank you.

When we come back, we're talking to Erwin Lutzer. In case you haven't been paying you baby. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed. And when oil prices go up, the cost of transportation and shipping spikes

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standing for Christ in a collapsing culture. Erwin Lutzer is my guest. Dr. Lutzer, my friend, welcome to this program. So glad to be with you again, Eric. And yes, I think that we do share a lot in common. As we look at our nation, it's very important that we encourage people to stand against the darkness. Well, you know, I always joke around about my books. And in effect, the book that I have coming out in a couple of weeks, which you kindly read and endorsed is called Letter to the American Church.

In that book, what I don't do is exactly what you do in this book. You get into specifics about really what are the biblical issues, how they relate to where we are today. And I want to get into that because there's so many people going to churches that avoid what you write about in this book. Actually, it's astonishing, it's horrifying. but by God's grace, people will wake up. I think when things get very, very bad, it's God's mercy. People begin to wake up who've been sleepwalking. Well, you know, Eric, as a pastor, one of the issues that we always face is, should we talk about these issues? I have never endorsed a political candidate or a political party.

But there's no way that we can avoid political issues for the simple problem. fact that all world views have a politics, and politics is based on world views. So unless we understand the fact that we need a basic morality, which of course rests upon the Judeo-Christian religion here in America historically, unless we recognize that it is so important for us to realize we cannot move on. I remember a congressman in Washington said to some of us, expect us to enact righteous legislation, but how can we do that unless you send us righteous people? Now, in the first chapter, I make the point that evil never retreats on its own. It only retreats when it is confronted by a greater power.

And of course, that greater power is the Church of Jesus Christ. It's the gospel. But the question is, it was this. And then one other comment, and then you can begin, specific questions. Today we're told we should not be involved in the culture wars. But Eric, we as Christians did not go looking for culture wars. The culture wars came to us. And if you're talking to people who are sending their children into a school, if you're in business, one of the longest chapters in my book is entitled diversity, equity, and inclusion, and how it works against

in race relations. I give five or six reasons. Unless we understand those things, how do we answer the question of, oh, you're living on stolen land because people want us to think negatively of the United States? These are the practical issues that people are up against every single day. So it's possible to avoid them on Sunday, but Monday they're confronted with a culture. And I wrote the book, there are so many pressure points that we are facing. Of course, the cancel culture, the demonization of those who don't go along with orthodoxies that are considered to be the right ones of the left. We have to speak to these issues and think clearly and biblically and then seek the courage to stand against those kinds of issues. To me, that's the issue, Pastor Lutzer,

is the courage. In other words, I mean, for example, your first, and some of this, stuff is stuff that I do touch on in my book because I talk about it all the time. I know you talk about it all the time. So you cannot help but see the same things because it's simply what is real. And in your second chapter, you say, will we be intimidated by collective demonization? That's exactly what I see. I see people lacking the courage to stand because someone has said on the news typically these days, that your extremists, Christians are extremists, Catholics are being demonized. The rosary, praying the rosary is being demonized in the secular magazine, The Atlantic. And if you do not know what you believe and have the courage to stand for it, many people that would call themselves evangelical Christians, born again believers, they have allowed themselves to be silenced because they're being

demonized. And as you know, and you've written about it, more than I've written about it, what happened in Germany in the 30s, the way the Nazis brilliantly, satanically demonized those groups with whom they disagreed, it is happening now. That's the most chilling thing anyone could say, but it's true. And you know, in that chapter that you referenced, it's so important for us to realize that we are being Sovietized, if I might put it that way. You might. I begin by talking about that speech that a deputy gave for Stalin, where everyone stood up and clapped. They clapped for 11 minutes. Finally, the director of a paper factory sat down, and everybody was glad to sit down. But that night, the director was taken and thrown into prison, and he was told

in his interrogation, don't ever be the first one to stop clapping. So if you ask the question, Eric, how does freedom die, the answer would be with thunderous applause. Very quickly, I point out that there are two ways that this is happening. First of all, in the Soviet system, promotion was not dependent on your ability. It was dependent on loud enthusiasm for the Soviet cause. It used to be, Eric, years ago in America, if you applied to teach chemistry, for example, in a university, as long as you had the credentials, you could apply and you'd probably get the job. Today, that isn't enough. The question is, do you go along with multiple pronouns? Are you willing to accept the entire LGBTQ community agenda? In other words, people now have to ask themselves, am I woke enough

to be seen as virtuous that I belong. That's one way we're being Soviet-tized. The other way is, of course, what you have in Russia is the blending of the media with the prevailing narratives. And you and I don't need to talk about that. You yourself, of course, have been blocked. And the reason for that is because the left wants to control the narrative. One other thing, in my book,

there's a chapter on how language is used. when it comes to propaganda. And I point out that the intention, the intention is to narrow the realm of thought in such a way that we actually don't even think improper thoughts. One illustration, I'm sorry I'm giving a long answer, but you know me well enough, and I know you well enough. Here's something, one of the universities gives a code.

You know, you're not. supposed to use the word freshman, victim, and it goes on and on disabled. And it says, if there's a barbershop in your area, don't say that he takes in walk-ins because that might be offensive to those who can't walk. Eric, what is going on there? Is it to elevate the discussion? Of course, it is to silence the discussion. We don't even know if it's proper to go into a restaurant and ask for men you. So the point is I'm even offended by your having just

said that. I can't believe we would have on a guess that would use a term as divisive as menu in any event. We always will edit that out because we don't want to offend anyone in our audience. Is audience the word that I can use? So far. So far. Continue, please. I think so

far, as long as it is filled with persons, I think that we can get by with that. By the way, some of the stuff out there is so foolish. You know, I quote the words of George Orwell, who said that there are some ideas that are so absurd that only intellectuals believe them. And one of them is that not even mathematics is objective. Princeton University, I quote it there. They have a thing that says that if you believe in mathematics having only one right answer, that's racist. That's white math.

A professor who stands against it wrote an article entitled, There's No Such Thing as White Math. And speaking of white supremacy, I show that it's not just white supremacy now. It's Christian supremacy. So these are things we're up against. But Eric, as a pastor, as a minister of the gospel, my desire is to help Christians to say, I'm going to oppose the culture, but I'm also going to represent Christ. I'm going to represent the gospel.

I'm going to do all that I can to help people to understand that there is a redeemer in heaven who came to die for our sins and who can save us from our sins. But if we don't act like we believe it, if we don't act fearlessly, people know we don't believe what we claim to believe about the so-called Redeemer.

More with Erwin Lutzer when we come back. Is the government the best mechanism for fighting poverty? Are there any real-life examples of communities successfully combating addiction and homelessness today? How can we best deliver hope to our nation? Those questions get answered September 23 on SalemNow.com in an inspiring new motion picture from Kingstone Studios based on a true story. In no vacancy, a demoted journalist finds her cynicism slowly transformed as she befriends a recovering addict while working a story about a church struggling to purchase a motel for homeless families. No Vacancy, Stalling, T.C. Stallings, and Sean Young is based on the true story of First Baptist, Leesburg, Florida, and a real location in the Samaritan Inn. Movie reviewers are saying movies like this bring purpose to the big screen, well-produced and the acting is tops.

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That's inspireadvisors.com slash Eric. Advisory services are offered through Inspire Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the SEC. Folks, I've got the joy of speaking with Pastor Erwin Lutzer, L-U-T-Z-E-R. Lutzer, the new book is called No Reason to Hide Standing for Christ in a Collapsing Culture. And I was just saying, Dr. Lutzer, that what I see as the problem among Christians is that many Christians say, I believe this and this and this and this, but they don't behave as though they believe it.

They behave fearfully or they seem to be so. troubled by the division in the culture that they have been silenced. And what I say is that most people looking at those Christians say, you know what, I don't think they believe anything. If they really believe those things, they would stand boldly because people who have believed in these things through the centuries have given their lives, have suffered for what they believe. I don't see these American Christians really being willing to pay any price, which tells me they don't believe what they claim to believe and they're not fooling anyone. And I as a Christian would say they're certainly not fooling God. They're not fooling the devil.

How you behave and whether you show courage tells anyone who's looking whether you actually believe. So you can't say I have faith without works. Yeah, that's right, Eric. But I'll tell you something. What you've said is very difficult. Let me give you an illustration. Here at the Moody Church, someone who teaches in the Chicago school system, said that he was told it is not enough if you simply tolerate same-sex marriage. If you don't celebrate it, you could lose your job. All right. Now, let's suppose, and he can't celebrate what God has condemned, so that for him is a line in the sand. Let us suppose that because of the fact that he can't celebrate it, he loses his job.

The question is, will the rest of the church come around him? Will the church say, hey, we have to support you through this. You have a wife and family that you have to take care of. We're going to stand with you. So, Eric, in the midst of what you're saying, we also have to rethink the role of the church. We have to hang together, as the saying goes. We have to hang together because individually out there,

If your job is on the line and you have a family to support, the pressure is absolutely huge. Now, blessed are those who don't violate their convictions. I get that. But at the same time, we have to be very careful here because some of these decisions are gut-wrenching, especially if you think of the fact that your reputation and your livelihood might be at stake. But I mean, isn't that the question? What's your reputation in heaven? What's your reputation with those who know what is right and see anyone as a Christian shrinking from, I mean, the way I would see it is what you're really doing is you're not trusting God, right? In other words, you're saying that, well, I might lose my job and you think, my goodness. In history, people have lost so much more than their jobs. It is gut-wrenching, but there's a freedom in living that way. I would even say that, there's a freedom in giving the church an opportunity to stand up for you, or to shrink into the shadows and be forever disgrace.

Because you know, as well as I do, what happened in Germany. What we're describing is precisely how the church was silenced in Germany. People were worried about their jobs. But if you know what is going to happen down the line, if you put your faith in your job, it's chilling. And so I think that in a way what you're doing in your book and what I do wherever I go is we're trying to warn people, there are worse things, far worse things,

than losing your job or losing the approval of your woke neighbor. The book is no reason to hide standing for Christ in a collapsing culture. What you talk about language and propaganda, to me that's really telling because that's exactly what's happening now. Talk more about that issue of how the church has been silenced because of propaganda. Well, one of the things that the left does is it uses emotion and it uses psychological states rather than facing the truth. So, for example, if you're opposed to abortion, you hate women. If you're opposed to same-sex marriage, you're a bigot.

If you believe like I do that the border should be secure, well, then you're nothing but a racist. So what they do is they say, you disagree with me, see a therapist. So it's very difficult at times to actually have a conversation about ideas without it collapsing into these kinds of accusations. And that is part of the whole issue also of how propaganda works. Remember, the purpose of propaganda is to so shape people's view of reality that, even when confronted with a mountain of evidence, they will not change their minds. That's very critical, and the best kind of propaganda is where people are being deceived but don't know it. And one of the things that propaganda does, and certainly Gables did this under Hitler, as you well know,

he said that propaganda has to bypass facts and the mind, and it has to get to emotions. You have to get people angry. You have to get people believing in a cause. And if you paint the picture correctly and you get them on board, they'll never change their mind. You know, Hitler believed that if you have 100,000 people all shouting the same slogan in a stadium, nobody is going to stand against it. Everybody who opposes it is going to be silent because of this huge cultural thing. And I quote in the book, the words of Booker T. Washington, who says that evil doesn't become good and wrong doesn't become right just because the majority believe it to be so.

But this is critical. Our desire to believe something oftentimes is exactly what leads us into propaganda. We so want to believe something. That's what we do. We'll be right back talking to Dr. Erwin Lutzer. The book is no reason. to hide. My Pillow is having their biggest sheet sale of the year. You've all helped build my pillow into the amazing company it is today. Now Mike Lindell,

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So order now with promo code Eric at mypillow.com. promo code Eric at mypillow.com. Stop talking to Dr. Irwin Lutzer. If you're not familiar with him, you should be. Here he is. He's the author of a new book, No Reason to Hide, Standing for Christ in a collapsing culture. Dr. Lutzer, you know, we are encouraged every day to compromise what we know is true. And when we participate with lies, we are sinning. There's no, you know, that's the Christian. word. We're participating. If somebody is forcing us somehow to go along with something that we know is not true, we're compromising, we're dirtying ourselves. It's an opportunity to stand, but we live in a culture. America is classic in this sense that we love for everybody to get along. And to some extent, that's a good thing. But we know that those who stand with evil can use this against us. And it's been, it's being used against serious Christians in America today. People are being told

Bruce Jenner is now a woman. If you don't go along with that, even if you call him Bruce Jenner, you're violating some code. And I thought, my goodness, is that all it takes somebody to tell me that I need to say X or Y or Z? I mean, this is political correctness, which I remember, when I first started going to Yale in the 80s, I first encountered it. You can't use that word. You have to use this word. You can't be it. To some extent. I get that. But at some point, we have to rise up and say, excuse me, no, this is an issue of my faith. I believe God created men and women. I'm sorry, that's it. That's the deal. That's what the book says. How do you counsel Christians to deal with that?

Thank you so much for asking that question. One of the reasons I wrote this book that we're talking about is to help parents to know what do you say to your child who comes home from school and says, you know, I think I'm trans. First of all, you have to point out that self-perception is not always an accurate guide to reality. You may go into a psych ward and find somebody who believes that he is Napoleon and believe it sincerely, but that doesn't mean that he is Napoleon. And furthermore, let's talk about Bruce Jenner, since you raised the question. He actually said on Father's Day,

I heard him say this, that one of his biological daughters sent him flowers and said that he was a great father. And he calls himself a father and that he is a father. Now, here's the question, Eric, when did he become a woman? Can we say that a woman can now father a child? Furthermore, to be honest, should he even have participated in men's sports? If he felt that he was a girl back when he was eight years old, strictly speaking, he should not have participated in those sports. He needs to give back the gold medals. That's right. That was unfair what he did. That's right. So the point is what we have to do is to help people think this through.

A young woman, for example, who has anorexia looks into the mirror and thinks that she is starving. that she is really overweight, when in point of fact, she is starving herself to death. Should we tell her, well, your perception is accurate? We're not going to try to tell you that you're wrong on this.

I make the point that there's one man who says that he wants his birth certificate changed because it says that he would be 67, but he actually feels 47, and who are we to judge him because only he knows who he is. So in answer to the question of our friends who say, you disrespect me if you don't use my preferred pronouns

because you assume you know more about me than I know, the answer is, yes, I do, because you have self-deception. Now, speaking about that, there are those who have some genuine issues regarding their identity. I've read statistics that say it's either between 1 and 10,000 and 1 and 30,000 really do feel that they are the wrong body.

But here's the point. Children go to school today. They're shown pornography. They feel guilt. They feel shame. They're told you shouldn't be ashamed. You shouldn't have guilt, but they do because of their consciences. All right.

And so what happens then is, They feel empty and depressed, and somebody says to them, you know what your problem is? The reason you're having identity issues is because you're trans. So boys come home and say to their parents, I think I'm a girl. Girls are having mastectomies ruining their whole lives and their inability to ever be biological mothers, all because even in their youth they're thinking they're trans. Eric, this is a train wreck for these precious children that are being led astray, and the schools are promoting this. Actually, Dr. Lutzer, I'm going to point my finger at the church. The churches in America, their silence has enabled these things to happen. They're the ones that are supposed to believe Jesus defeated death on the cross, therefore I fear nothing, and I will speak the truth. And the idea that,

that in our churches, we are kind of looking around nervously. What do I say? It's an astonishing thing when we think that our forebears, our ancestors in the faith, were thrown to wild animals. And we in the church are shrinking from speaking the truth and counseling our flocks to we must speak the truth. And if you're sending your kids to schools like this, I think it's time for people to say, wait a minute, maybe I ought to take my kid out of the school. Maybe the worst thing that's happening to my kid is that he or she is spending time in that environment every day. I guess what I'm saying is I think we have to get radical. We really do. And, you know, there are many public schools that Christian parents absolutely should

not send their kids to. In the book, I describe a book that was sent to me that is being used in some schools. It's every kind of sexual perversion fully illustrated for those who are 10 years old to 16 years old. This is horrible. You cannot do that. You cannot take your children and throw them to wolves. And, you know, speaking of the role of the church, yes, we must speak and have a very certain sound about this. On the one hand, we want to be compassionate. We want to understand. We want to understand the brokenness of the world, but we cannot submit. And that's why in the last chapter of my book, Eric, that we're talking about, you'll notice it is on rethinking our view of suffering. I have to cut you off, but when we come back, we're going to hear from Dr. Lutzer on rethinking

our view of suffering as Christians. The book is no reason to hide. We'll be right back with Dr. Irwin Lutzer. Get the blues. Come on get rhythm. Folks, welcome back talking to Dr. Irwin Lutzer, who's the author of another book, a new book, called No Reason to Hide. Dr. Lutzer, you just hit on what I think is the central issue. We Americans have become so soft that we have radically run away from the idea that maybe our faith, maybe God, would allow us to suffer. We reject that idea, and it has crippled us. It has silenced us, and it is allowing the enemy to run rampant. Talk a little bit about what you say in your book,

No Reason to Hide on the issue of suffering. We need to rethink this, because the average American believes this, that if we really live for Christ, we'd always have a government that would be in favor of us. We'd have judges that would be consistent with the Constitution and so forth. Well, you and I know that's not been true throughout history. Christians have always suffered. The freedoms that we have in America are an anomaly. Now, why do I say that we have to rethink this? Think of the words of Jesus. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake? Great shall be your reward in heaven.

So what we need to think is suffering prepares us for the next world. Suffering gives us a brand new opportunity to represent Christ in a different environment. That's why I think we need to rethink it. It becomes a platform where we have the opportunity to prove our love for Christ, and we need to rethink the whole idea of suffering for Christ, which, of course, is found in the New Testament, and throughout church history. Well, it's an extraordinary thing.

We've only got a couple of minutes left, but this strikes at the very heart of why so many people who they seem to think of themselves as serious about their faith. But when it comes to suffering, when it comes to persecution, when it comes to speaking out boldly, I believe their leaders, in many cases, have not helped them to understand what their role is. The role of Christians, through history,

has been pretty different. We've been so blessed in America with so much religious liberty that we've allowed these muscles to atrophy and we're in a very, very dangerous, vulnerable situation. I think that you've put it very accurately and what we need to do is to rethink that. And today's suffering may not be being thrown into prison,

though that's happening as well. Suffering may be the vilification of our reputations online, on social media. Everybody's mad about something. And so we have to count the cost, but we have to say that suffering for Jesus Christ is worth the cost and take the consequences. The issue is not on how we are thought of on earth,

but how we are thought about in heaven. And you know the great example is Jesus. Everybody wants to take up the cross and follow Jesus. Well, I think it was Bonhoff. who said it's a great idea until you realize that the cross led him all the way to Golgotha. So we must be willing to follow him in that direction. It's just extraordinary. I'm sorry we're out of time, but I'm so grateful for your voice. Unfortunately, it's a rare voice among Christian leaders today.

You, Dr. Lutzer, you were the senior pastor at the Moody Church in Chicago for 35 plus years and I'm just thrilled that you continue to write and speak. I want to encourage everyone who can hear my voice. Folks, follow Dr. Irwin Lutzer, L-U-T-Z-E-R. The new book is no reason to hide. We need to understand what it says and live it out and trust God. Dr. Lutzer, thank you. Thanks, Eric, and God bless you.