The Eric Metaxas Show - Pastor and TPUSA Board Member David Englehart on Revival and the Church in America

Episode Date: September 20, 2025

Pastor and TPUSA Board Member David Englehart on the need for revival and and a active Church in America.

Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. It's a nutritious smoothie of creamy, fresh yogurt, vanilla protein powder, and a mushy banana. For your mind? Drink it all down. It's nummy. I wub, vanilla. I wub, I wop, I wap, vanilla. Here comes Eric Metaxus.

As you know, I'm friends with Lucas Miles, who's the pastor, who's the head of TPP USA Faith, who is a friend of Charlie's. He has a book out called Pagan Threat, Confronting America's Godless Uprising with a foreword by Charlie Kirk, our dear, dear, dear friend. What do you want to say about that we weren't able to talk about the last time about your book and about where we are in the nation at this time? You know, a lot of people have referred to Charlie, and we've seen this all over the news, you know, you hear words like he's provocative or he's a, you know, conservative activist. and I don't think any of those things are really the best way to describe Charlie. I think the best way to describe Charlie is he was a Christian. He was a disciple of the Lord Jesus. To be a Christian means that you stand up for the truth.

To be a Christian means that you are willing to put your own life in danger for the sake of the gospel. To be a Christian means that you're going to say things that are going to be an effect. to people who are in rebellion of, you know, to God and, and who are, you know, living their lives counter to the truth. Charlie was a Christian. That's the best way to describe him. And, and I think that, you know, of everything he did, he showed us that, you know, what it looks like really to follow Christ to give it all. He talked, I mean, all the videos coming out. I mean, of just how it's eerie, how many times people asked him about the risk and the, you know, the threats, the threat of death. And, you know, and every time it's just like, it doesn't matter.

This is what we do. This is where we go. Charlie, one thing that he understood is he understood how to develop an apologetic for Christianity to properly defend the faith. And in this new book, Pagan Threat, really in that spirit, and obviously long before I had any inclination, this is going to be the situation that we're going to find ourselves in or the the the uh conditions at which my book would be released in um i i set out to really write what i call a new apology for the church of tomorrow as we move forward confronting this pagan threat this pagan threat that killed our friend charlie court so i i go through this book and try to lay out a plan of what does it look like in the same way that the early church developed um what is known as an apology not a i'm just a i'm just

telling, you know, not I'm saying I'm sorry, the way we think of the word apology today, but a defense of the faith that we have people like Jerome and Justin Martyr in church history that defended Christianity against a pagan Roman state. And Charlie did that so well. And I hope to honor him with this book to really be able to help empower this generation to stand up the way that he did and to live their lives with that new apology as we are the Church of Tomorrow. I just want to throw in here two things because because I'm Greek and because I run something called Socrates in the city. We've heard of Socrates's apology. The word apology, the Greek word apology is apollo. Loja, loya are words. Apos is of the preposition of. So it's of words. In other words, a defense through words and argument and discussion and reasoning, a defense.

defense in words. So an apology is really actually an explanation. So when you hear, you know, apologetics, it's about explanation with words giving a defense in words of the faith. And so that is what apologetics is. And that is when we talk about the apology of Socrates, he was giving a defense of his life. And as Christians, we need to understand what we believe is reasonable, is rational, true. It's something we can talk about. I can't argue you into believing, but maybe it can help with words. And so apolloia, as a card carrying member of the tribe of Greeks, I can say it means it means with words of words. So always important because so many times people are I don't get it. Why are we apologizing? We're not apologizing. We're explaining. And that's what an apology is. So

keep going. So the book is pagan threat confronting America's godless. Uprising. You were talking last time we were together about the Holy Spirit. And you and I understand this. We don't have some desiccated theology. We worship a living God who's alive, who wants to speak to us and communicate with us. And that can look like different things. But we need to be open to that, to the power of the Holy Spirit. Absolutely. I mean, look, ration and logic and reason. These are all great tools, but we can't do anything really effectively without the Holy Spirit. And I think this is something that Charlie, you know, truly understood. I mean, he's the epitome of the logical thinker who can just rationally, you know,

go through and just, you know, really just, I mean, nobody could prove him wrong. I mean, right? That's the whole, the whole nature of what he was going around. He was never actually. And by the way, by the way, that's why they said he was provocative. You're provocative when people can't shut you up and when they can't win a debate, they say, well, he's a provocateur. Yeah, he's provocative because instead of saying, oh, yeah, you're right, maybe I need to change my thinking, you just get angry. And so that's why they-

counter to the truth, the truth is provocative to you, but it shouldn't be. When we hear the truth, it should be like, oh, you know, if you're lost in a desert and you have no idea where you're going and somebody comes up to you, it says, hey, I'm here to help you this way to, you know, a nice oasis here where we can get you saved and refreshed and everything else. Your response would not be, you know, how dare you say that to me and start arguing with them? If you don't know where you're going, you would gladly go. The only person who finds somebody guiding them to safety as provocative is the person who does not want to be found. And unfortunately, we have a lot of people who are living in rebellion who do not want to be found. And Charlie was an affront and an offense to them

as a result of that. But it was not because of his message. that he was shared. It was because of the condition of their hearts. There are so many people, I think mainly of young men, but all kinds of people who the death of Charlie is really causing them to think in a way they've never thought before. And to be able, it may be as a plan for me. What a beautiful thing that this young man, Charlie Kirk, was out there reasoning with people. And again, if you knew Charlie, the way you did, the way I did, you knew. what a dear soul he was.

So to kind of portray him as some have, who are ignorant and confused, oh, he was a provocateur, he was race-baiting, he was homophiles. That is just, those are lies. And again, folks, there are a lot of people out there, they're diluted. I mean, when Stephen King writes that Charlie wanted a stone gaze,

like, do you understand how insane that? That's so insane. Stephen King actually believed that. He actually believed that. Rosie O'Donnell actually believe this. Now, this is not a reason to hate them, but it's a reason to pray for them because they really believe this. They're that lost. They don't understand what a kind soul Charlie was and how, you know, people have said vicious things about me.

They're just not true. What are you going to do? People believe it. And they hate you based on something that's not true. But I think a lot of people, just because of the death of Charlie, they're being caused to say, like, maybe I miss something. the watching videos. The timing of you're writing this book, of course, this is God's timing. It's called Pagan Threat Confronting America's Godless Uprising.

And that's what we're seeing right now, is we're seeing evil. We've got less than a minute. Just final thoughts on the book. You mentioned young men waking up, and that's something that Charlie was very, very passionate about. And I actually addressed this in the book. The challenges we're seeing young men become more conservative. When you look at their role models, it's people like Charlie Kirk.

you know, Jordan Peterson, you know, it's the Joe Rogans of the world. There's a lot of younger conservative guys that have, you know, a Christian worldview or at least starting to explore Christian ideas that they've been able to look to. But for women, it's much different. Younger females have been really sucked into a pagan worldview. You start thinking about Beyonce and Taylor Swift and, you know, people like, you know, Sabrina Carpenter and all these different, you know, figures that are out there, Nikki Minaj. and a lot of these are people who have talked about their own, you know, experimentation with the occult and pagan practices.

And so young women disproportionately are being affected by this pagan threat. I think where guys are becoming more conservative. Again, those are stereotypes that doesn't mean everybody. I'm hoping that even the events of this last week are going to wake a lot of people up. But we have to understand the pagan threat that's out there. And if we can't understand why it's happening, we're not going to know what to do about it. We're at a time. Lucas Miles, thank you.

book is Pagan Threat. God bless you. Thank you. A major retail chain just canceled a massive order, leaving My Pillow with an overstock of the classic My Pillows, and this is your gain, because for a limited time, my Pillows offering their entire classic collection at true wholesale prices. Get a standard My Pillow for just 1798. Want more upgrade to Queen's size for only 2298 or King Size for 2498? Snag body pillows for 2998, and versatile multi-use pillows for just. 998. Give your bet a whole new pillow set only while supplies last. Visit mypillow.com today. Use promo code Eric or call 800-9783057 to score these amazing deals while they're in stock. Plus,

when your order totals $75 or more, you'll receive $100 in free digital gifts, no strings attached. That's right. Premium pillows at unbeatable prices and bonus gifts to top it off. Don't wait. Head to MyPillow.com today or call 800-9783057. Now. Don't forget to use promo code Eric. to grab you your standard, my pillow for only 1798, only while supplies last. Folks, welcome back. As I mentioned earlier, my guest right now is my pastor, my very, very dear friend, David Englehart, the pastor of the King's Church in New York City. If you visit New York City, I would go to the King's Church.

When I'm in New York City, I go to the King's Church. David Englehart, welcome. Hey, Eric, great to be on with you. under such tragic circumstances being on here. And before we get started, I just want to say that we are praying a lot for Erica Kirk and her kids and the Turning Point staff who loved Charlie dearly. And for those of your listeners,

I want to support Charlie and what's happening, they can go to Fightforcharley.com to do that. Fightforcharley.com. Okay. I didn't say it. Or maybe I actually, I said it at the beginning of hour one today, but I met you through Charlie Kirk. I also, I think I said that you're on the board of TPSA. So you're right in the middle of all that's been going on.

And we both, you know, there's so much to say. I mean, you're in Rome right now to perform a wedding. since you're a pastor, you get to perform weddings and exotic locations and you're in Rome, but I know you'll be back soon. I even think you'd be staying at our house in Manhattan, and I'll get to see you in person. But I wanted to talk to you today just because you knew Charlie and you're on the inside at TPUSA. And a lot of people are wondering what's going on. How do you go on?

You know, because it's such a funny thing when people say, who's going to replace Charlie? that is, first of all, it's a banal kind of question. Like, why does anybody need to replace Charlie? Nobody can replace Charlie. He's like, who's the next Bonhoeffer? I mean, look, we are all called to be Bonhofer. We're all called to be Charlie Kirk. We're all called to walk the way Jesus walked.

But no one could replace Charlie Kirk. Like, he was an extravagantly, preposterously gifted human being, a gift from God to this generation. for such a time as this. And so it seems to me that going forward, it's going to be, one thing that I'll just say that I've been impressed with is that everybody senses that his murder is, God is going to make this message explode, that the famous quote, you know, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. I believe that the faith will grow, that that we're on the verge of an extraordinary moment in our history. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more, Eric, on all of those fronts,

and you just covered all of the substantive fronts or points that we can unpack. I think the first thing that is really special, as related, as you mentioned, about our relationship with Charlie. I mean, I remember being on the Charlie show in August of 2020, and he said, you know, at the end of the show, you know, Englehart, you did a great job. Will you please start traveling with me? And I thought he was, like, joking. I thought he was saying something nice at the end of a show, you know? And then he, and then literally that next weekend, he sent me to be with him in Liberty University, and that's where you and I met in the backstage. And you said, I can't believe you live in New York and I live in New York out of this. We cross paths. It made no sense to me. I mean, we are in Lynchburg, Stinking Virginia. like I'm in Lynchburg and I meet this pastor and I start talking to you.

It's like, hey, where do you pastor? New York? What? I know all the Christians in New York, you know? Like, are you kidding me? And then you took it. So it was such a thrill. The truth is, Eric, I was of no account. I was of no stature in the world.

I mean, other than being a huge fan of people like you and Colson and all of these great thinkers and having an incredible dad. that trained me how to think. I was totally unknown in every possible capacity in Chinatown with the church that had fallen apart and everyone left because we stood with righteousness on the BLM issue when everybody else had bow to the socialist demonic oppressor oppression narrative that's going on in our culture right now.

And then that's one of the things Charlie did so well was like he could see people and he said, you're brilliant at this or Eric Metaxus is a genius at this and hear these voices. And it's like the body of Christ. Like nobody's got all of the parts down. Nobody's perfect. Everybody's got brokenness and weakness. And that's why when the joints come together,

the scripture says that every joint supplies, which is why I need an Eric and I need a Charlie. And now I need a million Charlie's as the seat of his license has been sewn into the ground and young leaders to arise. and, you know, the older ones of us, if I fit in that category right now, you know, Malachi chapter four, that the hearts of the fathers would turn towards those younger men and say, how can we springboard you into positions of influence that you can charge forth with your brothers at arms to stand for the kingdom of God in an hour such as this?

It's interesting to me because what I have, I guess, sensed prophetically from the Lord, for a long time, and I see it happening now, like the fulfillment of what God spoke to me years ago, is the convergence of Christian faith and the culture. We've been living in a culture in my lifetime where the culture, the elite culture, was utterly hostile to any actual expressions of robust Christian faith, and all that goes along with that. Traditional values, marriage, you know, family. And the elite culture was always strongly against that. And so the more serious Christians were kind of on the outs.

Somehow over time, the re-election of Trump has had something to do with that. You can see these two things finally connecting so that you have people like, you know, Paul McCartney and Jay Leno and a lot of other mainstream voices being will to say that it's a tragedy what happened with Charlie Kirk. They don't say, oh, you know, he's some right wing, whatever. Like, you see things have gotten bad enough that there's, there's some healing going on and people who ordinarily would not have been interested in these kinds of things in faith are somehow moved by it. I mean, even in Jamie Lee Curtis yesterday was, was weeping, thinking about Charlie's faith. She is as liberalism.

it gets. But somehow there is something going on that I think a lot of people have been praying for for decades. Yeah, I think we saw that also with yesterday, J.D. Vance, you know, declaring the Nicene Creed on Charlie's show, the whole thing. I was like, oh, my gosh, when have I ever seen or heard of this in my lifetime? One of the great leaders of the free world declaring the primary orthodox statement of our faith. And there is something amazing that's happening. It's like this prophetic picture of where Charlie was struck in the throat and his voice being released from that place in the public square back out into the public square. In the church world, everything has been ecclesiastic. We've said all of our strongest statements.

I've always thought this horrible thing, like the greatest orators of our time are locked behind their pulpits and they won't bring the message of the cross out into the square. and it's like Charlie being struck has unleashed this ability for people to want to direct it. And it's happening. And Paul, Acts chapter 17, too. Every town he goes into, it's as was his custom, he goes into either the town square or the synagogue where they're having open debate. And he begins to bring with logic and wisdom, he brings the gospel truth. And, you know, I had never seen that in my life. I saw a guy standing on the corner yelling at people.

I never saw engagement with another person. Why? Because that's way scarier to do. Because what if I'm wrong in this argument? There's way more delicate. I'm way more insecure about that. But I think, I mean, that's what's going to happen. We were, King's Church, New York City was in the subways, literally last Sunday.

We were seeing people come to Christ. We were seeing a response in the subways during our evangelism Sunday this last week, greater than we've ever seen before. So in case people are thinking you're speaking metaphor, because I have done this with you literally, you decided a couple of times this Sunday, our church service is going to be in the subway, not on the subway, not on the train, but on the subway platform, 42nd Street, Times Square, you go down into the subway. There's big areas down there.

And you had church there. I was there with you, I guess was a year ago in the hot summer. I preached for a couple of minutes. It was an amazing New York thing, and it's powerful. And it's really brave of you, David, to lead your flock into the subway, say, like, we're going to live our faith out in the middle of the city. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And I want to say to people, you know, before we go to the break here, your church is really special. When people say to me, where do you go to church in New York City?

King's Church, New York City, for many reasons. One of the main reasons really is you, David Englehart, you're a unique individual, tremendously gifted, prophetically gifted, open to the gifts of the spirit, open to speaking truth into the culture, not shying away from politics. That's so rare. It's unfortunately, extremely rare. So, folks, check out King's Church, New York City. we'll be right back talking to Pastor David Englehart. Welcome back. We're talking to my very dear friend, Pastor David Englehart. He's the pastor of King's Church in New York City.

That's the church I attend in New York City, King's Church. So, David, where do we go from here? What do you see happening? I mean, what you just said, for the Vice President of the United States to declare the Nicene Creed, that's a level of boldness. I mean, listen, I'm pretty sure Mike Pence would not have. have done that. It's an amazing thing to have figures in government who are not ashamed of their faith and who not only are not ashamed of their faith, but who have the wisdom to understand

that there is nothing unconstitutional about declaring your Christian faith as a public figure, as an elected leader. As I'm writing my book on the revolution, I am absolutely astonished at the public faith of all of the founders. At the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1774, they prayed in a way that is just wildly evangelical, Jesus-centered. The Continental Congress, this wasn't like, oh, the Christians got together and prayed in a side room.

The Continental Congress prayed. They were all there. All these leaders. Nobody said, well, wait a minute. You know, we're all, no. This kind of public expression of faith, I believe, is going to happen more and more and more and more. It's where we are, prophetically speaking, in the culture. Something is happening that's never happened in our lifetimes, and we're seeing it, and it's beautiful,

and the darkness is not going to like it. But this is God's will for this season. Yeah, Eric, you said, as you started, you know, what do we do? and I think the answer is to repent. I think it's like the famous Chesterton quote that he wrote when the London Times said, what's wrong with the world? And he said, sir, it is I.

You know, we have this word repentance. It means to have a change of mind. It comes with emotion, but fundamentally it means to change your mind, have a turning point, to repent, to go another way, a way of boldness, a way of declaring virtue, You know, it's so frustrating I have friends on the right. I don't have many friends on the left. You know, people in the left have what we call TVF, which is Trump derangement syndrome.

I find that people on the far right have IDS, which is Israel derangement syndrome, where like on the one hand, everything is Trump's fault. And on the other hand, everything is Israel's fault. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Everything is my fault because I advocated my role because I didn't stand for righteousness because I could have went out another time and treats the gospel. because I ran from that opportunity rather than leaned into it. And it's like, I can't change some foreign nationality a million miles away.

I can't fix international geopolitics. But the devil wants you to focus on the things that you can't change and get really upset about them and really get riled up. Oh, if only these geopolitical matters would be different. No, no, no, no. If we would take the log out of our own eyes, then we could see clearly. It's like, what do we need to do? we need to change. We need to turn to God. We need to be spurred on to righteous acts in our community,

which go to church, get engaged, preach the gospel, stand for righteousness. Don't be a dirtbag. All things I have to do. And those are the things that I encourage. And that's repentance. That's national repentance that will bring national revival. And I think I've been talking about this, that the churches that have been silent, or at least quiet, maybe not completely silent, but they've been a diffident. They have been shy. They need to repent of their shyness, of their lack of boldness, of their shame, because they act like, well, I'm ashamed to share my faith, because, oh, I don't know. You need to be bold as a lion in your faith. And I have a sense, David, that that is happening in some churches, that there are some churches that the murder of

Charlie Kirk is going to rightly make them feel ashamed that they weren't bolder. That if I had been bolder, maybe he wouldn't have been singled out as so radical for speaking what? Common sense and scriptural truth. Charlie Kirk, I mean, it's kind of funny how moderate he actually was. And people make him sound like he's so radical. He was really loving to his enemies, all the stuff that we're supposed to be, right? And so what I, what I, what I keep saying is that if to people, if your church did not do a screening of letter to the American church, which was offered free to every church in America, I would say that's a litmus test. You'd say, well, why? Why would you not screen it? Charlie Kirk is in it. I am in it.

David Englehart is in it. David, you have a prominent role in letter to the American church. Obviously, you saw the film. And how many pastors in America said, oh, that's too much for me? What's too much? What do we say that is too much for you? People's lives are being destroyed and you act like, well, I don't want to get involved. I believe that the murder of our friend is going to force a lot of the pastors and Christians to get the boldness that they have lacked to find it, to say now is the time, I'm sorry, Lord, I repent. I'm going to be bold. Yeah. Why is it that we have the biggest churches, and I mean churches of 30,000 and 40,000, the biggest churches, the biggest churches, in the history of our nation, yet people are farther than God than they've ever been in the history of our nation. Well, that's because we

played this strategy, which is don't offend anyone. That's your number one job. And then the second thing is, it comes from, it's substantiated by this idea, this telos, that we're supposed to, the church's primary job is to get people safe. And it's not.

The church's primary job is for people to bring a sacrifice of praise into a house of the Lord, and then receive his word, and then, you know, third or fourth down the list is to do the work of the evangelists, but primarily Ephesians chapter 4 says that the five-fold ministries, apostles, prophets, pastors, evangelist teachers are to equip the saints to the work of the ministry. The pastors are not the people doing the ministry. The saints are supposed to do the ministry.

We're so far from that era. Okay. When we come back, I want to talk to you about that exactly, because that is a very important point. I learned this years ago, and I forgot it. This is important. We'll be right back. to David Englehart. Welcome back. I'm talking to my friend, Pastor David Englehart. He's the pastor

of King's Church in New York City. That's my church in New York City, which means you are my pastor, David Englehart. And you were just talking about something that I remember hearing when I first got saved. In 1988, I remember the Reverend Terry Fulham. He was a spiritual giant, Darien, Connecticut. I remember him preaching from that passage. and saying that it is the job of the pastors to equip the saints, to equip the people in the pews to do the work of the church. It's not for the pastors to do the work of the church. It's for the pastors to equip the saints,

to equip we the people in the pews to be the body of Christ. That's a completely different model than the sort of passive, you know, entertainment kind of Christianity, where I go and I show up and I get some stuff and I leave, that's wrong. Yeah, it is wrong. And as we mentioned earlier, I'm in Italy right now. And I really, I hate what I see with these large cathedrals that are hollowed out and then to see, frankly, a servile hollowed out people throughout Europe.

And I know that that's the responsibility of the church. The moral state of the people is the responsibility of the church. And I see a church throughout Europe whose primary, philosophy was that we are the saints, we are the priests. And the Bible says, no, you are the priests. There is a priesthood of the believers that you partake in and the job of the pastors, the leaders, are to equip you to do the work of the ministry. It is, I call it an ontological error in the modern church. The ontological error is like, my being is to just simply be a sheep that's fed. And it's like, oh, yes, on one hand, you're a sheep. But,

on the other hand, you're a part of the army of God. So both of those things have to be seen to. And one is about quipping and training and sending you to war. And that's exactly what Charlie Kirk did. In love, in grace, in wisdom, we would, Eric, you and I, we would be on trips with Charlie. We'd be asking us deep, hard questions so he could figure out how to communicate with young people on the ground. I think we both played a little role, but a role nonetheless in just even Charlie's equipping for him to battle some of these ideas, a subset of these ideas. There's other people like Frank Turrick and other incredible apologists that also helped Charlie. But what were we doing? Equipping the saints for the work of the ministry, not saying, I must have the spotlight.

It must be me. I get a special robe. I get a special hat. If you don't have the hat, you can't do the ministry. No, wrong, opposite. You know, Jeremiah 31, which is like the new covenant, which is God writes on our hearts. And it says like the end, end, end, time fulfillment is that no one will teach his neighbor saying, know you the Lord. For you shall all know him from the least of you to the greatest. That's the, that's the aim of our Christianity that we're equipping our sons and daughters that even the least know him intimately as we know him. I tell you, I've been guilty of anything we can talk about here. And I have recently noticed that I am being much more activated in my faith. I don't just mean this last week, although for sure. But to realize we are to do what is called spiritual warfare, God has given us tremendous power. When the Holy Spirit comes to live inside me, when I say I accept Jesus, he says, okay, now you are gassed up and you are ready to go.

And if you don't go, you're wasting, the whole point is to be an activated Christian, to be doing the work that God has called you to do. And you need discipleship. And so I think of the people who have been valuable in my walk over the years. Most recently, I think of Dutch Sheets, his ministry, and I think of my friend Mike Tom who has written a book called The Lions Army, and both of them, Mike Thompson and Dutch Sheets, they talk about us being activated, declaring what God says, understanding that our voice has power, declaring what God says, which is going to war against what the devil says. And that voice

is all through the culture and what God says has to be magnified. And I have been doing that much more. And I think something is happening where people are waking up and saying, I need to be an activated warrior for God. And that's so beautiful because lives will be touched. People's lives will be touched and changed. And it's happening. And you're that kind of a pastor. You're equipping your flock to be activated where they are, and not just to say, that's where I go on Sunday. Yeah, I mean, you're exactly the right, Eric. It's it's discipleship. It's knowing the word it's being bold, but we cannot forget the element of the Spirit of God. It's not. It's not just, I'm going to, I have a new belief system and it's, this is my ascent to this new

belief. No, John, Jesus said in John three, I truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. He needs to be born of water, that's of flesh and born of the spirit. What is that, what is, what is that symbol? We have to, like, think of the symbol of being born. That's a brand new life. That's a brand new, like, that's what it is to be born. A brand new life force is created inside of me by the Spirit of God. It's not only that I believe that Jesus died and rose again. Yes, amazing. Great start. But one of the apostles, I think, in Acts chapter 11, he went to this group of people, Peter did, and he said to them, hey, have you guys been baptized in the Spirit? And they say, no, we've only been baptized into John's baptism, which is the

baptism of repentance. And then it said, Peter laid his hands on them and said, be baptized by the spirit, and then they began functioning in the gifts of the spirit. It wasn't so they would be marked as the apostles. It's because when new life gets birth inside of us, God's divine life and power, it comes with God's goodness and beauty, which brings healing and deliverance and encouragement and words for our direction. And all of those things are our portion today, if we'll seek them from the Lord. And you know, it's interesting, David, because some people think, oh, Eric Metaxos is cerebral. David Englehart is cerebral.

Therefore, they're not open to the gifts of the spirit. And I'm here to say, I'm open to whatever God wants me to be open to be, to be open to. And so are you. And both of us have heard from God. We've had experiences where God spoke something to us. It just happened to me, bizarrely, you know, a year ago when the Lord spoke this super centennial idea into my head. I was like, what is that? And again, it wasn't like mystical, but I knew that God gave me that idea for President Trump, for the nation. I knew it. And I thought,

well, if that's true, God will open the door for me to tell President Trump and then President Trump will accept it and he will run with it. And that's what happened. And I knew it had to happen if it was really God. God actually speaks to us. He wants to speak to us. When we come back, plenty more with David Englehart, don't go away. Kings Church, New York City. And time stands to go back, folks talking to Pastor David Englehart. I was simply saying David using a recent example, but there are so many in my life where I know God has spoken. And I think we have to be very measured about it because there are people who say,

God said this. And it's like it wasn't God. It was your emotions. You need to have the discernment to know the difference. Because if God didn't say it, be careful. Don't say God said it. But you have experienced it. I've experienced it. I've experienced the miraculous. I have dear friends that have experienced

tremendous miracles. God has spoken to me twice powerfully in dreams that have come true. Like, you know, God is real, and I want people to know that. This is not about some dry, desiccated, sad religiosity. This is about walking in a supernatural adventure with the God of the universe who loves us. There is nothing more wonderful than that. And I think we're in a season where more and more people are opening their hearts to that God. Yeah, I mean, we know that God's word and voice is real, but there's an incredible scripture in the book of John where Apostle Peter says, Lord, you're the Christ. And Jesus says, flesh and blood has not revealed to this.

So it wasn't just your flesh. My father in heaven spoke to you. And Jesus is like, okay, next, I'm about to get crucified. And Peter says, no, Lord, not going to happen. And Jesus turns to him and says, get behind me, Satan. So in like a matter of a few verses, it's Peter's, like Peter's flesh, and then it's the father speaking, and then it's the devil speaking. It's like this whole cacophony of things. How do you discern between that?

Well, Hebrew chapter four, we know it says the Word of God is sharper than a two-edgedged stored, and it's able to split between soul and spirit, bone and marrow, the very, very, very sensitive, detailed things. The Word of God, the way of God, the structure, how God does things. things, all of that together helps us to differentiate, differentiate what's the voice of God, what's our flesh, and what's literally opposed to God? Is it destructive? Is it hateful against you? Is it making you feel guilty? Is it pushing you away from God? Probably not the Lord and probably not your flesh either. Probably the attack of the enemy. This is one of my favorite promises in the whole Bible. It's Jeremiah chapter 31. And it's again, the new coveted promise. It says, I will write my laws on your hearts.

You will be my people and I will be your God. And so does God take a pen and come into your arteries and hang out in your heart and start sprawling upon your heart flesh wall? No, of course not. It's a picture that means his word will be impressed upon your heart. He's going to speak to you in an internal way where you're going to feel his impression. It's not going to be out sitting on your shoulder. Hey, evangelize to that.

that person tomorrow. That's not how faith works. You have to be open to God's way, but it has to be guided by the scriptures and it has to be structured and hemmed in by the scripture. If we can be believers, but know God's truth, that are bold about it and that are led by the spirit, we will be an unstoppable force. And that's what I believe Charlie was on college campuses across the United States. I believe he was led by the spirit. He had impressions from the Lord and that he knew the scripture in the way of God. And that calculation in the power. public square was like gasoline to a match. And there are many listening today that have that same potential and are, they're feelingless stirring. And I just encourage you, you don't have to start

with all the right answers. You could just start by asking questions. Like, what do you feel about God? What do you think about Jesus? You don't have to have all the answers right away. But just start by opening your mouth and let the Holy Spirit fill you with his utterance. You know, again, I think that the death of our friend is opening the door to a new season in this country. You know, when you talk about, oh, a golden age of America, that's what a golden age of America looks like, not just energy independence and all that other good stuff. This is at the heart. This is really what it's all about, the golden age of America, that we're going to be a bold

people who love truth and love God and are not ashamed of it. My friend, David Englehart, I will see you in person this weekend. In the meantime, thanks for being my guest. God bless you. Thank you, Eric. Blessing.