The Eric Metaxas Show - We’re in a Sacred Moment in America | Eric Metaxas at TPUSA's Pastors Summit

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

Live from the TPUSA Faith Forward Pastors Summit, Eric Metaxas speaks about revival in America, and many examples throughout history that point to God's hand on America. "When you speak Godly biblical... truth, God is using you! God will use nonbelievers to shame the believers who are too cowardly to say what He wants said. Now is the time for the Church to speak loudly. If you love Jesus, you will love your country, and you will be a blessing to your people."

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:09 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. Here comes Eric Metaxus. Hey there, folks.
Starting point is 00:00:31 Welcome to the program. Today we thought we'd do something interesting. At least, we hope you find it interesting. I was in California for a TPSA faith. conference and I spoke on a lot of the stuff that I often speak about, but many people said, oh, Eric, that was like the best I've heard you on this stuff. And everybody said that, and I thought, okay, I have no idea why, but I'm glad they thought that.
Starting point is 00:01:02 And I thought, well, maybe we should play it on the program. I do tell a story that I have never told on this program about my experience, and you will be interested in this, at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2012, suddenly over 13 years ago. I tell a kind of a behind-the-scenes thing, which was creepy. I don't know if I do the creepiness of it justice. I try. but you, you've never heard it before. And so that's part of my talk. So we're going to air that right now. So this is about two weeks ago.
Starting point is 00:01:44 I was speaking California at TPSA Faith Conference. And I, as I say, so many people said, Eric, that was the best you've ever spoken on this subject. And I don't know why they said that. But if enough people said it, I thought maybe there's something to it and we should play it on the program. There are a few things that I do talk about. I hope it will be an, it will inspire you.
Starting point is 00:02:08 If you would like the video of it, go to YouTube channel. Eric Metaxus, I have a YouTube channel. It is there. It's been getting a lot of views. Here it is. Praise the Lord. I don't want to follow James Ward. I don't want to do that.
Starting point is 00:02:22 I got nothing. I got nothing. God bless you. It's good to be here. Let me start on a positive note. Donald Trump is president I think sometimes if there's a lot of Biden people here
Starting point is 00:02:39 I apologize in advance for my comments but you know sometimes we have to like we're going through a lot of we're always going through a lot of crazy stuff I'm just talking to a friend backstage it's like yeah it's a crazy time and you're like no it's not a crazy time it's a time of insane blessing
Starting point is 00:02:54 that we do not deserve do you know you don't deserve it yeah you don't deserve the blessing of what we have right now any more than we deserve to be saved. You know, we don't deserve it. We don't deserve to live in America. God is blessing.
Starting point is 00:03:09 God is blessing this nation. And as you know, if you're a Christian, he only blesses us to be a blessing. You know that, right? It's not for us. It's to bless us so that we can be a blessing. And that's the story of the United States of America. Last night, did you hear Greg Lorry last night?
Starting point is 00:03:29 Yeah, he's not that. good, but... Yeah, he's a friend, and I can say that. I could say that. No, I love Greg Lorry. We've been friends for a long time, until now, I think. We've been friends until today. But somebody said to me, maybe Greg said to me, texted me that he'd referred to my book if you can keep it. Did he... Anybody remember him saying that? Did you buy the book? Yeah. Well, I live in New York. We pay a lot of rent. It wouldn't kill you to buy a few copies of it. In all seriousness, I could joke around. The book, if you can keep it, I wrote it, came out in 2016.
Starting point is 00:04:05 It is about the link between faith and freedom. Now, those of us who love Jesus, anybody love Jesus? Yeah, oh yeah. I don't care if you're a Christian. I care if you love Jesus. There's a difference. Have you ever noticed that? Yeah, there's a difference.
Starting point is 00:04:26 But anybody who loves Jesus, is, you know, it's like pro-faith, pro-freedom. But it wasn't until around 2015 that I made the intellectual link between them. And when I understood it, it absolutely blew my mind. Now, notice I didn't say it literally blew my mind. Do you understand? You don't? Can I explain it to you?
Starting point is 00:04:47 I'm a yell English major. I want you to get this. You only use the word literally when it's literally true, right? So if it literally blew my mind, I wouldn't be here. You understand that, right? Yeah, yeah. So, but when I understood the link between, some of you know Oz Guinness, right? He wrote a book, I guess 2014-15.
Starting point is 00:05:03 I read his book. He's a friend. And in the book, he talks about what he calls the Golden Triangle of Freedom. And I never understood this before. And it was such a revolutionary idea. I want to share it with you, even if you've heard it before, it's worth saying. Because it is so central. And when I understood the concept of the Golden Triangle of Freedom, I was blown away that
Starting point is 00:05:24 I had never understood this before, that there's a moment. a link between faith and freedom, but it's an intellectual link. It's not just like, I'm pro-faith, I'm pro-guns, I'm pro-God, I'm pro-drown. You know, like, no, no, no. We're talking about an intellectual link. Why is it that real faith in Jesus Christ leads to liberty? It does, because it does, okay? So I'm right, actually right now I'm writing a huge book on the American Revolution to come out next year. I'm very excited about it because it's the story of the birth of the greatest nation in the history of the world. And it's an exciting story. It's a beautiful story. And even in that story, even if you're not trying, there's just no way for you to avoid the fact
Starting point is 00:06:04 that unless you have people who love Jesus in the mix, who are living out their faith, you don't get America. It's not possible. But Osgenus's story, I mean, the concept that he put out in this book, when I read it, I thought, how have I lived my life, never understanding this before? And so the basic idea, he calls it the Golden Triangle of Freedom, is that I'll say quickly and then I'll explain it. Freedom, freedom or liberty or self-government requires virtue. Virtue requires faith and faith in turn requires freedom. Okay. So I never really even understood. People talk about liberty, freedom. What do we mean by that? Like, we really need to understand. And a lot of times you can go through decades of your life without ever really focusing in on
Starting point is 00:06:54 what does that really mean? What is liberty? What do we mean by that? Liberty to do what I want? Liberty, we know it's not that. Liberty, freedom on the founder's model is that I will not be governed by anyone. I will govern myself, right? We will govern ourselves. So we don't need a bureaucracy, a deep state, a tyrant to govern us. We are free. And that is a wild idea in history. You understand in the history of the world, there have never really been free people. You're always going to be governed by someone. I have to go back to, you know, ancient Israel to see that, right? So that had never existed in history, and why would we expect that it could exist? Because the fallen nature of man, people are bad.
Starting point is 00:07:35 They need somebody to, you know, stand over them with a sword or a gun to tell them, you can't do this, can't do that. That's normal, right? What was it that happened in the 18th century in America that people thought maybe we could govern ourselves? What a wild, insane idea, right? doesn't make sense. How do you, how do you, how do you do you do you do you do you do you do that? How can you say, I am free? Well, it's a long story, but the short answer is that they knew all of the founders, not some of the founders, not Christian founders, all the founders fundamentally were
Starting point is 00:08:09 Christian. And even the ones that weren't really Christian, very few, they nonetheless totally understood this, absolutely understood this, okay? And the idea is that if people are virtuous, which is to say, if you do the right thing when nobody's looking, you don't need a cop or somebody with a gun or a sword making you do the right thing, you're doing the right thing on your own, you're virtuous. Why would you do that? Now, that's the second question. But the point is, if people are virtuous, if they do the right thing without being forced to by some government,
Starting point is 00:08:38 well, they can govern themselves, can't they, right? Well, the founders all understood this. And there's tons of quotes in the book, if you can keep it, which I recommend. It's actually a good read. You think I'm just making this up. I dare you to read it, you'll see. You'll feel bad. You'll say, we doubted him.
Starting point is 00:08:54 We doubt it. But the fact of the matter is that the true story is that all of the founders got this idea. And a lot of it goes back to ancient Rome, and it's a whole story. But they got the idea that people could be free if they could govern themselves if they have virtue. So the founders knew that liberty, freedom, self-government required virtue. But they also saw that virtue required faith. why? Because why do you do the right thing? Why? Because you're answering to a higher authority, right? And so whatever that is, now in most cases, that's faith in the God of the Bible,
Starting point is 00:09:30 but even if it's not, even if you had some kind of idea of, you know, you picked up some cultural idea of Roman virtue, because you get a lot of that in the 18th century, right? You know, with George Washington, whatever, they really, they held up the Republican virtues of Rome and the story of Cato and, you know. But the point is that if you believe, in some higher order. Even if you're not calling it Jesus, it is Jesus. It is Jesus, right? You believe in some high order and you answer to that high order. You say, I'm going to do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. 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
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Starting point is 00:10:44 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 800-978-3057. Now, don't forget to use promo code Eric to grab your standard MyPill for only 1798 only while supplies last. Welcome back to the Eric Metaxa show. You're listening to Eric's speech at TPUSA. The founders saw that communities that are filled with faith, which almost always was Christian faith, they can govern themselves. They have virtue. We don't have to worry. about them. Now, George Whitfield, the great George Whitfield, who really was, without him, you don't get America. He was such a great evangelist that he effectively, I mean, he was such if you know this story of George Whitfield, he was such, it's, I find it funny, actually.
Starting point is 00:11:44 Like, he basically preached himself to death. Have you read his story? Like, he was one of these people, he would be guilty. And we all know Christians like this. Maybe some of you are those. like you're kind of like if I'm not preaching or do something like that I'm in sin that that's not true brothers sisters right it's not true but I think George Whitfield had a little bit of that right like if I don't preach four sermons a day I'm serving the devil so I better get to preaching so he was this preaching maniac and he was so anointed and by the way anointing is important he was anointed by the lord he wasn't just talented he was made by God and anointed by God to preach and preach and preach he preached up and down the colonies in such a way that it changed America. Now that sounds nuts. And you're not going to read that
Starting point is 00:12:31 in most history books in public schools, that's for sure, even in my, and when I was a kid, because it's too God-focused. It makes people uncomfortable. They're like, that can't be how America got created. Well, it is. It is. There was so much revival up and down the 13 colonies. It doesn't mean everybody, but enough people that something caught up in the culture. And it was a profoundly Christian culture. Now, to some extent, it had been from the beginning, from when the Puritans came, the pilgrims, but that really changed dramatically in the 18th century. So you get all these people that love Jesus, so you don't need to force them to do the right thing. They're going to do the right thing because they fear God. They love God. And so it leads to the possibility that we
Starting point is 00:13:14 could have a country where people govern themselves. So the founders understood that freedom requires virtue. Virtue requires faith. So if you get a lot of people running around loving Jesus, they're going to have virtue, and they're going to be self-governing. We could do it. But then freedom across virtue, virtue requires faith, but then faith in turn requires freedom.
Starting point is 00:13:35 And that's the key. And that is if you have state-mandated religion, state-mandated religion, state-mandated Christianity, is really no different than state-mandated atheism. Or state-mandated is Islam. If it's mandated by the state, if you're forced to do it in your heart, you're not going to do it. It has to be free. We all know this. We all know. In fact, sometimes if you're not allowed to do
Starting point is 00:14:01 something, you'll do it. Right? So the state has a role where the state can encourage faith, but it cannot mandate faith. And so the founders understood that we have to have religious liberty. We cannot impose faith because if it's really imposed, I mean, you get a lot of countries, even to the state, when I go to Greece to visit my relatives, right? Everybody there is Greek Orthodox, which really means almost nobody's Greek Orthodox, right? It's kind of if you go to Italy, everybody's Catholic, nobody's Catholic. You know what I mean? You start noticing, like, no, if everybody's that, and of course, that's the ultimate story of Dietrich Bonhofer.
Starting point is 00:14:36 Bonhofer is in Germany. Everybody's Lutheran, which means what? Nobody's Lutheran. Like, how many people really love Jesus? If everybody's Lutherans, oh, we're saved by faith. we don't need to do anything. We're just saved by faith. We're Lutherans. We're done. No, that that's wrong. That leads to heresy and that leads to opening the door to the Holocaust is what it frankly did, right? So, faith has to be free. And I noticed the other day, I don't know if you saw this the other day.
Starting point is 00:15:03 In fact, I think yesterday the day before Franklin Graham put out a tweet, an ex post, which was a great post. But I had to give pushback because what did it say, I agreed with what it said. It said, how wonderful. that President Trump declared in a presidential memo. Did you see this? That everybody in a government job is free to display a cross or a Bible or to preach the gospel. And I thought, how pathetic that we need a presidential memo to tell us that we have freedom of speech and freedom of faith. And I need to be told by a presidential memo, oh, it's now okay for me to talk about Jesus? That church is a dead church.
Starting point is 00:15:52 Anybody who is like that, and I'm telling you, folks, the reason we got into the problems we did in the United States of America up until so recently, and of course we're trying to dig our way out, is because of those kind of Christians. It's like, what can I say? What is okay for me to say? Why don't you ask God what it's okay for you to say? And if you don't have a relationship with the Lord, but I'm saying if you're not living fearlessly? You're failing. You're failing. And by the way, this is not a guilt trip. God created us
Starting point is 00:16:21 to live that way. He created us to live freely and to rejoice in him. So you don't apologize for your faith. You rejoice. What are you sharing with people? You're sharing food with starving people. When you share your faith. But the idea that people are like, oh, Donald Trump, he did this religious Trump does stuff like this all day long, and I praise God that he's doing it. How amazing that he's doing it. It's wonderful, right? But I thought if that, if you need that to tell you, oh, it's okay, I can share my faith, if you are not, first of all, if you're in a place where they're telling you can't share your faith, you should be getting in trouble. By the grace of God, you should be looking for trouble, and you should say, God gave me this job,
Starting point is 00:17:03 and I'm not, now listen, I'm not talking about being one of those annoying Christians, okay, because we know, we know people I get you like, excuse me, I'm born again and I need you to shut up, right? Have you ever seen that? Or you meet somebody like a street preacher, you're like, brother, I don't see anybody getting saved here, whatever you're doing, I don't know. We know what that looks like, okay? So it doesn't mean that Christians can't be annoying and religious and, you know, sometimes the best thing you could say about Jesus is nothing. Just be quiet and live your faith. There's a place for that. But the idea that we're living in a place where Christians, like, what am I, what can I say? What can I say? This actually, I remember in 2016,
Starting point is 00:17:44 when Trump was running, I live in New York City with my wife and we, my wife have lived together pretty much since we've been married now. And so we live in New York, and I heard that there was some event in New York that Trump was going to be appearing and all these pastures were going to be there. So I was at the event. And at the event, for the first time in my life, this is kind of like, Again, I'm not shy to say how stupid I am, right? I'd never heard this before. Donald Trump referred to the Johnson Amendment. Now, you all know what that is?
Starting point is 00:18:13 Okay, now we know. I'll bet you, before 2016, almost nobody knew what it was. I never heard it. Okay? So it takes this kind of like, I don't know, real estate developer from New York City, who's running for president, takes him to figure out why is the church being silent? because he said that he shared he had shared with a bunch of pastors, I guess,
Starting point is 00:18:35 sometime before this, and they were all psyched about what he was sharing. And he's like, so you're going to support me, right? And they all kind of like looked at their shoes. And Donald Trump was genuinely mystified. He's like, I don't get it. Like, I can read an audience. They loved what I was saying.
Starting point is 00:18:50 But when I asked, will you support me, they kind of looked at their shoes. Like, what's going on? So he looked into it. And he got somebody to explain to him like, oh, yeah, they came from the pulpit, they're not allowed to, da-da-da-da. You know, and Donald Trump, again,
Starting point is 00:19:00 And this is what I love. So, like, sometimes pagans or people that aren't part of the, you know, the Christian group, they get reality better than Christians. Like, they just say, wait a minute, that makes no sense. Explain that to me, right? He said, what do you mean they can't? And so he looks into it, and he realizes that an unbelievably evil, corrupt politician named Lyndon Baines Johnson, like one of the most wicked politicians in our history,
Starting point is 00:19:25 who almost certainly had JFK murdered. I just said I throw that in. for the nice Christian group. LBJ really didn't like what was going down in Texas when he was a senator, so he thought, oh, I'll fix these Christians or these churches that are ready. And so we'll just say you want your tax exempt status, right? Well, if you say anything politically, we can take that away from you. So he silenced the churches.
Starting point is 00:19:52 Now, I say, did he silence the churches? No, the churches agreed to silence themselves because they were cowards. because they were cowards. And I'm telling you, when things have been crazy in the last few years, I have seen more pagans show a love of truth and courage than many Christians. And just as God used the Gentiles to provoke the Jews to jealousy, he has often used pagans to provoke the church to jealousy. Because they get it better than a lot of Christians and a lot of pastors, right?
Starting point is 00:20:28 And if you're one of those pastors, consider yourself rebuked. Right. Okay. And if you're going to one of those churches and tithing God's money to a church like that, consider yourself rebuke because that is God's money. And he expects us never, ever, ever to go along with this lie that we're not supposed to be political. We're not supposed to speak up. Even to the point where I was talking to some pastor who I love, who agreed with me.
Starting point is 00:20:50 But he said, but we would never endorse anybody from the pulpit. And I thought to myself, okay, as a Christian, I go, oh, right, right. And then I go, wait a minute, why? Tell me why. The pulpit, any place in America, patriots have bled and died so you can say whatever you want. It doesn't even have to be true. You can speak your mind on anything because we have religious liberty and freedom of speech in America. And you're telling me the one place that I've got to be, well, I better watch it from behind the pulpit.
Starting point is 00:21:19 That is demonic. That is so sick that it's unbelievable. But the church has bought it, folks. And so I've been going around the last three years talking about my book, Letter of the American Church, because when I really understood, I said, this is exactly what happened in Bonhofer's Day. It's exactly the same thing. It's the church being religious, religious in the negative sense. Like those, the Pharisees who persecuted Jesus, Jesus were religious.
Starting point is 00:21:44 They were ultra-religious and they hated God. Welcome back to the Eric Metaxus show. You're listening to Eric's speech at T.P. USA. And so you're seeing, you saw it in Germany where they said, we don't want any trouble, we just want to preach the gospel. And you kind of think, well, what gospel are you preaching that you cannot speak against evil? You see satanic evil. You don't think it's your job description as a Christian to speak against satanic evil.
Starting point is 00:22:30 You're supposed to believe Jesus defeated death on the cross. You're not supposed to have any fear of death. Or maybe you don't believe that. And you start realizing a lot of Christians don't really believe that. They're hedging their bets. And so we're living in a season where I know the Lord has been waking up his church. And I know that there are many people, this is the blessing of. COVID, right? Romans 828. All things work together for good, including every evil thing,
Starting point is 00:22:54 like a fake China virus, a bio weapon, all of that stuff. God can make it work together for good for those that love him and are called according to his purpose. And what's one of the things that we saw happen during COVID? What happened? Tons of people stopped going to the churches that all they shut down. But then they got a little, you know, I need a little God. So like they turned on the internet and they found, oh, I don't know, Jack Hibbs. Greg Lorry, Rob McCoy, whoever. The point is they found stuff, and they start thinking like, huh, I never heard anybody talk like this. This is pretty good.
Starting point is 00:23:29 And before you know it, they were addicted to that. And so a lot of the churches that ceased being brave, preaching the word of God, whatever, they withered and died, praise the Lord. Because it's just like Jesus cursing the fig tree. If you're not bearing fruit, if you're not really living out your faith, Ultimately, God will judge you and say enough is enough. Shut your doors. You're not doing what I've called you to do.
Starting point is 00:24:01 I've got to tell you, you know, it's kind of a funny thing. Some of you know, I mean, I wrote my book on Bonhoeffer. It's 15 years ago now, which is insane. But when that book came out, I kind of became, you know, like the flavor of the year in the evangelical world, right? For a little while. And I was invited to speak until I came out for Trump. I went to the dark side, you know, then it didn't last so long. Because don't you wish Hillary Clinton had been elected? Come on, be honest, right?
Starting point is 00:24:29 Yeah. No, of course. Of course. Of course. Of course. Because Trump is so pagan. We really needed Hillary. So basically, I was invited to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast. And this is kind of like a chilling little story. I don't know if I've ever told this publicly before. Seriously, I was invited to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast. And the National Prayer Breakfast, when I got the invitation, I said, this can't be right. Like, they can't invite me to be the speaker. You know, they had like, you know, Tony Blair and, you know, Bono and, I don't know, Sting or I don't know, somebody.
Starting point is 00:25:04 But, you know, it's a big thing. It's a big thing. So I said, let me see, can you send me some of the DVDs? It's like a little bit before YouTube was huge, right? So they sent me some DVDs of previous speakers. And the whole idea is it's very bipartisan, right? You know what that means? Bipartisan? Yeah, dead, boring. Right? It's bipartisan, you know, it's like a happy religious prayer thing, you know, whatever. So I watched the videos, and I'm not kidding, they were genuinely boring. And I was shocked.
Starting point is 00:25:37 I said, they're saying nothing. They're saying nothing because they're afraid to offend somebody, right? Because somebody could be demon-possessed, and you don't want to offend them, you know? Like, you're supposed to be, it's a prayer breakfast. You're supposed to bring freedom, you know, from, from, from, from, darkness and sin, you're there to preach the good news, right? But I watched a ton of these, like a whole bunch of them, and I thought, they're saying nothing. They're being bipartisan. They're being nice. And I thought, again, I'm not saying you need to be a fire-breathing jerk, no, but
Starting point is 00:26:10 I was really shocked. I thought it's so bipartisan that nobody's really saying anything. And then I watched the video from 1994, Mother Teresa. And let me tell you, I was blown away. That woman spoke with the authority of God coming out of her mouth. You can't fake that. When the Lord has anointed you and you have no fear because your trust is 100% in Jesus, you're different. And so she spoke and she was not nasty.
Starting point is 00:26:47 to the Clintons, she was not, you know, like beating her chest, like I'm right, you're wrong. Crisis King, woo, woo, you're a jerk. No. It was humility and love of God and the authority of God. And I was so blown away. I said, wow, if a four foot 10 nun can speak like that, I better have something to say. And so I was so inspired by that. And so, but then the folks running the prayer breakfast,
Starting point is 00:27:19 want to meet with me in New York City to kind of tell me, like, you know, give me the lay of the land or whatever. So a couple of the leaders met with me. And at the dinner, they said, it's all about bringing people to the person of Christ. And so we want to draw people to Jesus. We want to do it. So you can say Jesus, but just don't say Jesus Christ. And this is like where you think, am I in a horror movie? Like, did it, I'm like looking around. Did anybody hear that? Like, it was so creepy.
Starting point is 00:27:57 And they said, because Christ, like, that's a title. And that's, you know, in other words, it's going to offend. There's Muslims there. There's people from all these countries. And we just want to draw people to the person of Jesus, right? And I thought, I have a problem with this. Like, I want to be polite to my host, but that's a little weird to me. But what it did is make me understand that there are people that they want to create a
Starting point is 00:28:21 formula, right? And it's like the formula to get people saved, this is the formula, and don't ever go outside this line, because you'll offend somebody, right? So you just want to drop people to people, you want to draw people to the person of Jesus, but don't like, you know, don't refer to his, the fact that he's Messiah or Lord or don't go there. And I thought, that's, that's, like, not only preposterous, I'm offended by that. Welcome back to the Eric Metaxa show. You're listening to Eric's speech at TPUSA. And then before I went, they said, oh, by the way, we're going to need your speech for all the translators.
Starting point is 00:29:20 We need your copy of your speech. Yeah. You're quick. It's a quick crowd. You're fast. I thought, oh, you want to copy my speech? Really? So I thought, so you mean you can find this stuff that I say about a biblical view of sexuality and about the sanctity of unborn.
Starting point is 00:29:38 And you can say, oh, please don't say this because, you know, there are people. there that we don't want to offend, you know, and I said, so I gave them my speech, but I left out those lines. Yeah. And, and I think the Aramaic term for that is, ha, ha, I think that's, I'm pretty sure that's the Aramaic term, ha, so, but then what amazed me, too, so when I gave my speech, I was not like, again, some fire breathing, whatever, I was, I tried to be winsome, I try to be loving. And even as I'm sharing the truth of God, I am aware as we must be that I didn't earn this. This is a gift from God that I even know the right side of these issues. I don't deserve it. I'm a sinner saved by grace. I don't deserve to know that the unborn are sacred. I don't deserve
Starting point is 00:30:34 to know that we're called to a biblical view of sexuality. But by God's grace, I know those things. But I remember not knowing those things. Because I remember before I was born again that I did not know these things. And I was a sinner and sinners sin. But Jesus loves sinners. And so I spoke what I spoke graciously. But what then finally amazed me was when it was all over, when I really didn't say anything amazing, I just kind of, you know, said some stuff.
Starting point is 00:31:06 People came up to me like, I can't believe. that was so bold, that was so bold. And again, it brings me back to, you know, the president's memo on that you're allowed to say this and allowed to say that. I thought, bold? I'm in a ballroom in Washington, D.C. I'm not in North Korea. That would have been bold in North Korea. I'm in a ballroom in Washington, D.C. Patriots have bled and died, so I could say whatever the heck I want, but you're so worried that you were, like, that was really bold. And I thought, if what you think, if you think what I said was really bold, the church is in big trouble. And I want to tell you, in parts of the world right now where people are dying for their faith, the church is not in big trouble.
Starting point is 00:31:51 We need to be living our faith out so that the devil is threatened by how you live out your faith. Bonhofer was a prophetic voice in the German church, right? And he was basically saying to the German church. Church, you need to be the church. You need to speak truth. And they said, no, no, no, no, we don't, we don't, we just want to preach the gospel. And we saw what happened. That's the theme of my book letter to the American church. We saw what happened then that for all kinds of religious reasons, and believe me, religious reasons are absolutely the most demonic. Because when you say, for religious reasons, I'm going to do what the devil wants, that's much worse than doing what the devil wants for your own reasons, when you have religious reasons and you're quoting scripture, right? And so
Starting point is 00:32:53 for religious reasons, the German church was silenced and Bonnever tried to let them know, no, no, no, church, you've got to live out your faith. And they said, no, no, no, we just want to preach the gospel. We just want to get some people saved. We don't lead people to the person of Jesus. That's all we want to do. Well, that's not what Jesus wants you to do. Jesus calls us to speak truth. When you speak any truth, especially bold truth, especially counterculture, and cultural truth. You know, that's when the demons tremble, folks. When Ronald Reagan, I think it's the last chapter in my book, when Ronald Reagan gets in front of it in the Berlin Wall, and he says, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. I'm here to tell you the demons trembled because the prophetic
Starting point is 00:33:41 word of God was spoken through a president's mouth. He didn't know necessarily. He wouldn't have been able to phrase it that way. But when you speak that kind of thing, you don't need to label it as Christian. It is Christian. When you speak godly, biblical truth, when you say anything that threatens the devil, God is using you. And God will use non-believers to shame the believers who are too cowardly to say what he wants said. And so when President Reagan said that, the demons trembled. And you know that all the powers that be said, oh, you can't say that. You can't say that. That's too divisive. Well, we need to know when it's time to be quiet. We need to know when it's time to speak. And I'm here to tell you, the church needs to speak loudly. The church needs to stop cowering and saying,
Starting point is 00:34:33 what am I allowed to say? And I'm here again to say that this idea that we're not supposed to be political, that is demonic, folks. That is absolute demonic nonsense. Because I'll tell you, what? You're not supposed to make an idol of politics. We know that. But guess what? I'm not supposed to make an idol of anything. Nothing. Okay? So imagine people say, and you know, you can get Christians. They're so Christian to be like, uh, you know what, don't love your wife and family too much. That's an idol. You're like, well, this is not an idol I'm struggling with right now. Okay? This is like, that's not my temptation. So, so you're telling me like, don't love your family. Don't love your country too much. That's Christian nationalism. That's good. That's the devil telling you, oh, you got to make a choice.
Starting point is 00:35:12 You've got to choose Jesus and the kingdom or America. That is a lie, folks. That is a lie. If you love Jesus, you will love your country. And I don't care what country you come from, any country you come from. If you love Jesus, you will love your people, and you'll be a blessing to your people. And if you love Jesus, you will love your spouse, and you will love your family. It's not a choice.
Starting point is 00:35:34 That's a lie. That's a demonic lie. But people have bought into that, that I don't want to be political. It's not about America. Folks, it's about everything. If you live out your faith, it's going to go, it's going to touch everything. And the classic example, folks, in 1860, there were plenty Christians from pulpits saying, oh, we don't take a position on slavery in our church.
Starting point is 00:35:55 That's too political. That's the devil speaking, folks. That is the devil speaking. And when you are cowed into silence on issues that are close to the heart of almighty God, you're serving the devil. And if you do it for religious reasons, that's the most demonic of all. Imagine the most religious people in Jesus' day. They knew the Bible backwards and forwards.
Starting point is 00:36:17 Better than any of us knows it. Imagine. They knew the Bible backwards and forwards. And when God showed up, they murdered him. You know what? I would rather that you never read the Bible. Then do you read the Bible and don't do what it says. And to worship the author of the Bible.
Starting point is 00:36:38 But it's possible to do that. That's what the enemy wants to do in the church. He wants to gut the church and so that we have the appearance of faith, but we lack the power thereof. Welcome back to the Eric Metaxa show. You're listening to Eric's speech at T.P. USA. There is a revival coming in America. And the spirit of revival in America, it really has a lot to do with loving Jesus. So if you or anyone you know does not love Jesus,
Starting point is 00:37:27 and has not had an experience with Jesus, I'm here to say, pray for that, folks. Pray that God would give you an experience of Him. Because when you have an experience, it's one thing to believe. I know people, people that are friends of mine that, they believe all the right stuff, but I know they don't love Him. And that ultimately is what matters.
Starting point is 00:37:49 Do you love him? Do you know him personally? And are you open to the whole? Holy Spirit leading you in everything you do. Are you open to the Lord leading you? Or you say, well, no, no, that's a little too Pentecostal for me. It's not too Pentecostal for the Lord. The Lord wants to lead us.
Starting point is 00:38:13 The Lord wants to speak to us. He wants us to hear from him. He wants us to expect miracles. Do you pray for miracles in your church? Yes. You pray for the sick in your church. Now listen, if they don't get healed, that's all right. That's on God.
Starting point is 00:38:34 Our job is to pray for the sick. You want to see revival in America? When sick people, you know, who've taken the vaccine and they can't get better because they've been messed up, when those people realize, oh, there's a church where they pray for the sick and people actually could get healed there, I'm here to tell you that church is going to blow up. And, you know, when Jesus healed the sick, we didn't say, oh, that was just a cheap trick to get people to follow him. That was the whole idea, wasn't it? Because God knows what we want.
Starting point is 00:39:08 He knows what we respond to. He knows what we long for. We long for him. We want to see him. We want to see him move in power. And I prayed and prayed and prayed. And oftentimes I see nothing. I say, Lord, why am I seeing something?
Starting point is 00:39:21 And we all have that question. But don't ever give up. Don't ever stop praying. Keep saying, Lord, I long to see you move. I long to see you do miracles. I long to hear from you. That is, that will bring revival in America. And folks, I'm telling you, we're on the verge of that in America. Okay? People call it different things. People, do you hear people say use terms like, oh, we've seen a vibe shift, right? A vibe shift is a secular term for a Holy Spirit move that a jesobes. spirit in America has been broken. A demonic Jezebelic spirit has been broken and the Lord raised up a thrice married New York real estate
Starting point is 00:40:07 developer to show American Christians what manhood and warrior courage looks like. And I'm here to tell you I don't care where God serves it up or how God serves it up I'm all in Lord. Show me. Show me Lord. And I want to say folks, listen, there is There is no doubt we're in a sacred moment in this country. And when I said before about the Golden Triangle of Freedom, the Lord created this country for his purposes in history.
Starting point is 00:40:34 I had the privilege of saying to President Trump a week before the election, I had a privilege of saying him personally, Mr. Trump, and I'm sure I'm not the only one he said it. Mr. President, I said, I want you to know. I was like I was talking to a teenage boy. I want you to know that God miraculously saved your life. life, miraculously saved your life for his purposes in history. You need to know that. And I'll tell you something, folks. I don't know who else said it to him, but I get the idea that he knows that.
Starting point is 00:41:10 Okay? And it's for God's purposes in American history. It's not for Donald Trump. It's not for you. It's for me. It's for God's purposes in American history. The Lord created this nation for his purposes. In the revolution, we were saved and came into being in the Civil War, the second existential crisis. We are now in the third existential crisis of our history. And the Lord saved Donald Trump's life for his purposes. And I want you to live with expectant hearts that we're going to see things in our lifetime that we don't deserve, but that God has ordained for his purposes. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.

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