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Aug. 30, 2020 - The Charlie Kirk Show
52:08
Why the Eyes of the Nation Are On the Church

Charlie delivers a sermon at Calvary Chapel Godspeak in Thousand Oaks, CA as the congregation continues to defy local Ventura County ordinances against public gatherings of houses of worship. Before a packed house, Charlie makes the case...

Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Fighting Back Against Tyranny 00:04:40
Thank you for listening to this Podcast 1 production.
Now available on Apple Podcasts, Podcast 1, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.
Hey, everybody.
Happy Sunday.
How do we fight back?
This Sunday, I want to share with you a sermon that I just gave right here on the Charlie Kirk Show exclusively on how we can fight back against tyranny.
Email me your questions as always at freedom at charliekirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com.
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Buckle up, everybody.
Sermon I just gave, I think you're going to enjoy.
Here we go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
That's why we are here.
Thank you, Rob.
It is great to be with all of you.
And for those of you that actually are here for the second service, this will be similar, but I always try to make every one of them different.
The first, a little different, the second, the third.
Whether you guys know it or not, you guys are now the eyes of the nation around this church.
And that's a good thing, by the way.
So I want to talk about that for a second.
I've been reading a lot of the news articles kind of describing what is happening here at this church.
And I think it's an incomplete picture because it keeps on mentioning Pastor Rob, Pastor Rob, Pastor Rob, which is, of course, correct.
But as I travel the country, I was in Michigan last week speaking at a church in Maine two weeks before that.
I realized that it's an incomplete picture just to say it's Pastor Rob kind of just going as a cowboy out into, you know, doing this.
It's different than that.
It's the congregation that is standing with Pastor Rob.
I mean, it would have been very easy for you guys to have abandoned Rob in the midst of all this.
It would have been very easy for you guys to stop showing up, to be like, oh, we don't know who that is.
We don't want to deal with it.
We don't want to deal with that.
And instead, all of you are putting skin in the game as well.
You keep on showing up.
You keep on rewarding Rob stepping boldly.
And it was not without cost.
I mean, Rob gave up his seat on the local city council, something he worked very, very hard to get, because he recognized and realized that this is actually more important than just that one specific city council position.
And so as I travel the country, I'm met with two different kinds of answers as to why the church is not open, because this is the exception, not the rule, as you well know.
In the Chicagoland area, there's almost no churches open at all whatsoever.
In New York City, they are barely open, if at all.
And if they were to open police and everyone would come, you know, criminally come after them.
And the answer is interesting.
One portion of the answer is the congregation will say, my pastor refuses to open.
That's one of the answers.
The other is pastors come to me and they say my congregation doesn't allow me to open.
Now, I actually, if I were to wait that equation, I would say, look, the pastor is supposed to be leading the church, okay?
So it's not exactly a democracy, right?
And I get the pressure.
I mean, the pastor should be, we're open.
If you don't like it, find another church.
And guess what?
The little secret for all the thousands of people that are watching at home, if these pastors actually open their churches, they'd be flourishing like never before.
People demand this right now.
They need it.
They want it.
And that's kind of the great ironies, is that these pastors I communicate with, not all of them, and we have to, you know, as Rob says, you know, love on these people.
They say, we're going to lose financially if we open our church.
And first of all, since when does that matter at all?
Like when you're running a church, right?
I mean, it's either salvation is essential or not.
It's like, well, I might lose my little Christian incorporated empire.
Okay?
Let's just put that aside.
The irony is if they actually opened, they would actually have probably more support than ever before.
They would have more backing.
The Cost of Silence 00:14:46
And so they're actually self-defeating their own aims there.
And so I want to just make sure that you understand that you deserve credit when you show up every Sunday.
When those of you that are driving and traveling across the country, I've met people from Oklahoma, from Texas, that have come from all across the country to come to a church that is actually open and is meeting with regularity.
And so all of you here are playing a role in something that is really waking up the American church.
I mean, I mention you guys on my podcast very often, and people message me and they're saying, wait, there's a church in Thousand Oaks, California that is opening, that's open with no social distancing, trusting its congregants, understanding the value of liberty and responsibility.
This stuns people all across the country.
You understand what?
You understand what you're doing.
And because of the internet, it spreads like that.
And so now you're the example for the rest of the country.
And it's still an ongoing thing, as you well know.
And it's kind of this whole thing about tyranny, right?
And we're going to talk a little bit about that today.
What exactly is a tyrant and why do these people do what they're doing?
And a lot of you have probably experienced something that I have coined as micro-tyranny recently, which is when you have widespread fear, when you have propaganda everywhere you look, what ends up happening, then the government edicts come down and you have these things called micro-tyrants start to pop up.
Now, all of you know a micro-tyrant because they probably work at the TSA.
I'm half kidding, by the way.
But you know exactly the type of person I'm talking about, where their job and their livelihood is trying to enforce some sort of measure to try to limit your freedom.
Now, some of it might be very well-intentioned, but it happened to me this morning at Starbucks, right?
So I ordered a drink that required a straw, and it just so happened there was a line that I did not know that was enforceable behind some sort of plastic shield.
So I went and I grabbed the straw, right?
I got admonished and just completely and totally scorned for such a violation of going the extra eight inches to grab the straw because that was going to cause the entire Ventura County to die, right?
So because I went those extra eight inches, right?
And this young woman, I feel for her because, but she was very serious.
I mean, she was, this was the most important thing that could have possibly happened because those eight inches were compromised, right?
And she said, if you need a straw, you ask us for a straw the next time you do it.
And again, she's not the enemy.
She's the opportunity.
I feel for her.
But it was kind of an example of she's like become a micro-tyrant where, and you guys all experience this, right?
Whether the department store or all this, where people who are not elected, people that were not voted for, people that were not sworn into office, are all of a sudden, they have as much power as police officers now, right?
In fact, they have more power than police officers in some of these places.
And that is not healthy for a republic.
That is a form of chaos, by the way.
And so that's a really important thing.
When you have chaos, then tyranny can ensue like that, right?
And when there's a great quote by Cicero, and you guys should all study Cicero, he was a one-year Roman consul.
He predicted the fall of Rome, and he actually helped design the American system of government.
They derived a lot of our government from him.
He said this beautiful quote.
He said, the more laws, the less justice.
I mean, what a great quote.
The more laws, the less justice, right?
Because then all of a sudden, you can just enforce whatever you see fit against the people that you don't like.
So, for example, they have this mass gathering edict, right?
We don't want mass gatherings.
They don't believe that for a second.
It's a lie.
They are lying to you.
Why?
Because we saw 200,000 people organize up close to each other with no masks for BLM Incorporated all throughout the month of June.
They don't believe in that.
They don't.
They're continually doing this all across the country.
Now they say, well, we also don't want people to come in close contact with each other.
We want to make, well, then why is the cannabis dispensary open?
They say, well, we want to save lives.
Well, then why is Planned Parenthood open and the church is closed?
Why is it that we've allowed abortions to be legalized during this crisis?
I thought it was about saving life.
And we know it's not true.
And this is something that's really interesting.
It's a term that we kind of use sometimes.
And I want to kind of actually tell you exactly what it is and it'll kind of click.
It's a term called gaslighting.
You guys might have heard this before.
So gaslighting is something that it's so Orwellian, where they say that we as conservatives do it when they're really doing it.
This actually comes from a 1938 play called Gaslight.
It's actually a really fun play, where it took place in late 1880s London, where a wife was being manipulated by the husband, where the husband was trying to convince the wife that she was going insane, where he was turning down the light of the apartment incrementally every evening, and she would go to the husband, why is it getting darker?
Why is it getting darker?
And he would say, it's not getting darker.
You're losing your mind, right?
So it's a term called gaslighting.
It's widely used in psychological circles of someone who's manipulating another person.
This is exactly what is happening right now in the news.
We're like, wait a second, why is it that we are allowing 200,000 people or half a million people in the streets to scream and go up against each other, but I can't go to church?
You're like, oh, no, no, you're not actually seeing that.
And it's almost, we're in this very abusive relationship with the American press where they're trying to manipulate us.
And you almost are questioning yourself sometimes, right?
You're like, am I seeing things?
Like, wait a second, we're supposed to believe that it's about the children, yet we keep the schools closed.
Like, it's about the mental health of the country, yet one out of four young people have contemplated suicide in the last 90 days.
Drug use is on the way up.
Sexual abuse is on the way up.
Domestic abuse is on the way up, but this is all about health.
Like, you have to take a much more holistic view of health.
And it's really the term, and really the idea here is this: that there are always people that look for opportunities to be tyrants.
It's a very important lesson.
No matter what happens, these are generally sociopathic people.
These are people that are very miserable.
They have very little meaning no matter what happens.
They're always looking for an opening or an opportunity to use strength to exploit the innocent, right?
Or to try to get in the way of individuals that have liberty or have freedom.
This last 90 days has been one of those opportunities, right?
And we're living through that.
And so why the schools are still closed and the department stores are open and Lowe's and Home Deep are open is incredible to me.
And so we have to look at this, and I'm going to kind of get four little takeaways and four lessons that I have derived from my traveling here.
And two are kind of really depressing and three are not depressing.
Okay, so, but they're all honest, okay?
So the first of which is this, and this is just a very honest assessment.
We are closer to the tyranny that we said would never come to our country than ever before.
I mean, we kind of braggadociously stick out our chest.
We're like, eh, Cuban socialism, Soviet Union, that'll never happen here.
We're America.
Like, get that out of your mind right now, like, completely, okay?
We are closer to the tyranny that we think we are better than than ever before.
And that kind of leads to a second point that's really, I want to challenge a lot of people here, which Dennis Prager said this, and I completely agree, which is that freedom is a value.
It's actually not natural.
It's not.
And this is hotly debated.
Some people in Christian circles think that freedom is natural.
Some people not.
I don't.
I think that people want to be taken care of.
I think people will obey if they are told.
And I think you have to communicate freedom.
I think you have to teach freedom.
I think you have to get young people to yearn for freedom or else their natural state is going to just want to be taken care of.
I would not have said this five years ago.
Not everyone agrees with this, by the way, and that's fine.
But I've come to this conclusion during this shutdown that most people actually do not seek freedom.
They don't.
They seek comfort.
And again, some people see that differently.
I have drawn convinced by how much we have abdicated our rights and freedoms as human beings in the last 90 days.
I say, what we have been given, received, right, where we are the recipients of a gift, human beings don't actually yearn for a state of freedom.
We actually are in a state of fear.
And when we want to choose, we will choose to be taken care of.
We'll choose the safer option.
Now, mind you, some of that is justified.
I'm not completely throwing that under the bus, but I think that if we don't communicate the ideas of freedom, people aren't going to naturally stumble backwards into them.
In fact, this was the byproduct of hundreds of years of thinking and fighting and gradual movement towards Western civilization that we're enjoying today.
And that's completely different than actually how some people interpret it.
They say, freedom is the natural state.
That's actually, I don't think that's biblical either, by the way.
I don't.
And that's why we need Christ, because we have freedom from our sin in Christ.
And we built an entire civilization around this idea.
And so when we think about it, we should also then, then the extension of that and the inverse is that if freedom is not a value, you should ask the question, freedom is a value, are we communicating that value effectively to young people?
The answer is, of course not.
Oh my goodness.
We're doing the opposite.
We're actually communicating that you should be taken care of your entire life.
And so, you know what's really hard about freedom?
It's a hard thing to grasp.
You can't have freedom without responsibility.
Freedom without responsibility is just indulgence.
That's what it is.
So if people are not willing to take responsibility for their actions, for their family, or for their community, then you actually can't have freedom.
The other thing that I've learned, and Dennis Prager also said this, and this is a very, very interesting thing.
And again, the politicians, they don't even talk about the issues that are actually hitting home for most people.
Children are also a value.
Now think about this for a second.
So having children is not the natural state of humanity.
You might say, of course it is.
People have been repopulating generally for the last 2,000 years.
Let's keep this PG.
The participatory act of creating children is natural.
The actual creation of children is not.
Our birth rate is going down so dramatically this year, we've never seen it before.
Like anything like this.
You know, we're having 500,000 less babies this year than last year.
500,000.
We're on the verge of a civilizational collapse, a population collapse the likes of which we've never seen.
Now, why?
Well, it's because some people say, eh, children, I don't want to have to deal with that.
Okay, and that's fine.
If that's your decision, I'm not trying to criticize you.
But it's not the idea that all of a sudden that having children is the natural desire of every human being.
I don't think that is the case.
I don't.
In fact, there's evidence to show the contrary: is that when you introduce the capacity to not have children, birth rates will go down dramatically.
In fact, you see that all across the European world where they are not being able to replicate their culture and their birth rates are going down.
In fact, our birth rates are going down so quickly here in America for reasons that are the opposite.
Now, if you would have asked a prognosticator or a pundit or an expert in February, what's going to happen to the birth rate because of the shutdown?
The conventional wisdom is the birth rate's going to go up, right?
Remember, it's like everyone's going to be at home, all this.
What happened to the New York City blackout?
Wrong.
We're seeing it go down more than ever before.
That's a tragic thing that's happening.
And it's happening for a variety of different reasons.
People consider children to be an inconvenience in most major cities.
They just do.
It's an inconvenience for their ambitions.
It's too expensive in a lot of major cities.
And the third reason, and this is something that we have to be very honest about, the world is so uncertain, some parents don't want to bring young people into this world.
And that for every Christian, you guys got to pause and be like, what have we done to our country?
Where we are having less 500,000 less children this year than last year.
I mean, that's a crisis the likes of which should just pause everything, right?
And I'm not saying that we're not living through a crisis right now with the virus.
It affects everybody differently.
But our reaction to this virus has put us on a civilizational collapse where one out of four young people want to self-exit from this planet, just so you understand.
Where we have created things to be so miserable that more people have died of suicide in the state of California, young people, than of the virus under the age of 30.
And so that's something that is very, or we just have to have an honest assessment about.
Just ask ourselves the question, like, hold on a second, what exactly are we doing here right now?
Are we creating quiet and peaceable lives like it tells us to do in 1 Timothy?
Or are we creating chaotic and uncertain lives?
And especially for young people.
And when you design public policy and you're not able to have a civilization that is capable of replicating itself, that should be a fire alarm.
Here's the good news.
Here's the three and four, which those are not so good.
And you guys know this, but it needs to be said: is that the tyrants that are enforcing these measures are weaker than we originally thought.
And they're far weaker than anyone would have thought.
These people generally, when they are confronted by decent and reasonable patriots, they will back down.
They have just been amazed at how easy this has been.
You understand that, right?
In fact, the tyrants cannot believe that they canceled Pac-12 football and Big 12 football, Big Ten football.
I can't believe they got that done.
So here's the I'm a huge college football fan, massive.
And of course, I'm, I'm just to be honest, selfishly really upset they canceled Pac-12 football.
And my whole family are Oregon Ducks fans, and so it's like really, but here's what I understand.
And like, this is how just big of frauds these people are.
And I hate to use that language.
They say, oh, well, we have football because we want to protect the kids' health.
Like, hold on a second.
Football is way more dangerous for an 18-year-old than getting the virus.
Like, let's just be honest, right?
Like, long-term concussive threats.
Let's just be honest.
You've seen people play football.
So is it a war on football or is it a war on public health?
Number one, they say, well, it's because we want to stop the spread of the virus.
They say, wait a second.
So you cancel football and you're a player for USC.
Do you think they're more incentivized or less incentivized to try to not get the virus if they're playing football or not playing football?
If they're not playing football, they'll go to every party, they'll get up close to everyone, and they have no care and they'll be as reckless as they possibly can because you've removed what?
You removed meaning or responsibility from their life.
There will be more outbreaks for college athletes because they canceled college sports than if they had college sports.
It's so incredibly foolish what they have done.
But they don't care.
For them, they've been, by the way, they wanted to cancel football for 30 years and they finally have an opportunity to do that.
And so, and what's really upsetting is that these student athletes and these families, that quite honestly, a lot of them need a senior college football season to be able to play and participate in, might be robbed from them.
They might not actually be able to have an athletic career.
But these tyrants, when confronted, will back down.
I've seen this in the micro and in the macro.
The problem is, is we've been way, way, way too complicit, like incredibly.
This church being the outlier, but we have allowed, in my opinion, one of the greatest and most concerted efforts of a religious freedom, the attack on religious freedom in the history of our country.
And generally, the American church has just sat idly by, generally.
In fact, they've participated in it.
I see my friend David Lane here, who does a great job of activating the American pastors.
And there's a fair amount of pastors that are speaking out, but not near enough.
Standing for Truth 00:10:00
Not near enough.
And I can tell you from first-hand experience.
And this is the fourth lesson that I've learned: is that when we fight, we win.
It's that simple.
I mean, when we defended in the Senate hearings, it's so funny.
I get Republicans ask me, they say, well, Charlie, what do you want to see more of?
Let me give you a great example of one just test case of what the entire movement, for those of us that believe in a moral order, whether it be Christians or anyone watching on this live stream, here's the playbook.
The playbook is what we did with Brett Kavanaugh.
It's that simple.
Let me walk you through it.
You stay, our negotiating position is he's going to be on the Supreme Court.
That's our opening offer.
Guess what?
It's a non-negotiable.
Like, that was basically it, right?
What ends up happening?
They go after him.
They attack him baselessly.
They persecute him.
Guess what we do?
We say, our negotiating position is he's going on the Supreme Court.
Like, we don't give an inch, right?
And an innocent man with 30 years of flawless service in the circuit court and the D.C. court was completely attacked baselessly, right?
What did we do?
We said, our negotiating position is he's going on the Supreme Court and we are going to fight.
And if you dare go after this man, you're going to have the full wrath of decent and reasonable people.
Brett Kavanaugh's hearing was 49%, his approval rating.
Post-hearing, 58%.
So he went up nine points in the general public opinion, right?
So what ends up happening?
He gets confirmed.
Okay.
They raise all this money to get all this fear.
You know that throughout their entire convention last week, they did not mention Brett Kavanaugh once.
It's so unpopular, they don't even talk about it with their own base.
It's so unpopular to mention the Supreme Court that they thought they were going to bork, that they're ashamed of it.
Because when we actually stand for something, when we organize ourselves, we say our negotiating position is we're opening our church, no social distancing, no masks, come arrest us.
What are you going to do?
These tyrants run away.
It's that simple.
And that's, and we see it.
And so, so, and then we just forget about it.
It's like we did this one thing where Lindsey Graham, a friend of mine, not exactly the spiciest politician, he had this beautiful moment, right?
With the Kavanaugh thing.
He comes out.
He's like, Bob, he's firing all.
And all of a sudden, public approval goes up.
People say, like, yes, I want that leadership.
And then we come in contact with another point of crisis, like we are right now, and we just forget the playbook of what happens when we stand for truth.
Actually, public opinion goes in our favor when we do that, right?
And not the opposite.
When we cower and we run to the hills, the same happened in early June when no one decided to speak out against BLM Incorporated where they want to destroy the American family, just abolish prisons, abolish the police.
As soon as people, very few people, like myself and Dennis Prager and Candace Owens, started to say, wait a second, let's talk about this.
All of a sudden, they went from 68% approval to now they're at 41% approval in the eyes of the general population.
Now, not the phrase, but the organization.
I want to make it very clear.
And we know when we do nothing, when decent people do nothing, that's when evil spreads like wildfire.
So let's talk about tyranny.
Almost always, tyrants, by definition, they will lead unstable regimes, right?
And that's a very interesting thing to think about because when you have tyranny, you will always have some form of chaos happening throughout your society.
Three big things about tyrants.
Number one, they believe in nothing except power.
They don't believe in truth.
They don't believe in God.
All they believe is assuming more power for themselves.
Their source of meaning is getting more power.
This is the second thing I've learned about tyrants.
And all of you guys know this.
They prey on the willing.
Think about that.
They actually stay away from the unwilling.
They go to the people they know that are going to abdicate freedom to themselves.
So in some ways, the American church, absent, again, I'm talking to the live stream audience, not you guys.
I want to be very clear because there's, you know, I don't want to confuse you guys.
You guys are the outlier here.
But the American church, because of, I believe, poor theology and what I call comfortable Christianity, I think that Christianity should always be in the public square taking tough stances that make the mainstream culture criticize you.
I think if you're not doing that, you're not in the right place as Christians.
That's my opinion.
I think as soon as you're in the place as Christians where every celebrity thinks like, oh yeah, let's go, then you're doing something wrong, actually.
In fact, it's guaranteed.
And I love this.
Matthew 5, 11, blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil, dot, dot, dot, here comes the mic drop moment because of me.
So within that little verse, one verse, Matthew 5, 11, you can almost logically infer, in order to be blessed, You should be getting persecuted.
You should be getting insulted.
And if you're not because of that, then you should ask yourself the question, why?
Maybe because I'm not saying the church is essential and salvation is essential and Jesus Christ is essential.
And I think that a lot of modern day, like the big American church, which God willing is going to wake up, it's become this place where they're unequipped for the fight.
And I want to give them the benefit of the doubt here.
And so one of the reasons why you guys have supported Rob and one of the reasons why you guys have been able to enter into this very uncertain moment is you guys have the muscle memory of a fighter.
What do I mean by that?
It's not the first time you guys have been through something like this, right?
Rob has run for office.
You guys have dealt with local issues.
And so for a church that's active and participatory, you guys are like, okay, this one now, we're ready.
But most of the church, they kind of, most of the American church, they kind of get into this moment.
They're like, we've never taken a stand for anything.
How do we do this?
Like, just shut it down.
Just live stream at YouTube.
It let's go.
Like, right?
And they're totally disorganized.
They have disunity into the body of the church where Rob has trained all of you for years to almost not just be, not only how to handle it, but it's going to happen and here's how we're going to deal with it, right?
Because he's had strong biblical teaching for a decade for many of you where this fight actually reaches you.
You're like, oh yeah, I know how to do that.
We're going to stand for truth.
I'm not going to let tyrants rule us.
We're going to pray.
We're going to ask for counsel and wisdom.
We're going to open the church and here's where we are.
And you kind of look at the American church.
They were so incredibly unprepared for this moment.
Unprepared is the word.
So I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, right?
I'm like giving them rope here because they, in a lot of different ways, did the kind of rock and roll concert with a TED Talk Christianity, right?
Where, fine, but we're never going to say anything that might have the live stream viewer count go down by less than 10, right?
It's nothing but feel good, feel good, feel good, feel good, lights, camera, action, boom, give some money, and that's it, right?
And that's not the gospel, right?
That's not the Bible.
That's not life either.
And it actually creates, in my opinion, doesn't create disciples.
It might create converts.
It doesn't create disciples of all nations, right?
However, here's the question is that for these churches that are opening, praise God that they're opening.
And that actually shows how Rob's true intentions.
See, if Rob was really just all about creating a selfish Christian empire, you'd want those churches to stay closed, right?
Because he's actually one of the few shows in town.
He actually cares about what's good for the world and for the kingdom.
That's why he wants the churches to be open, right?
So, but as the churches are open, memories will fade because that's the way that human beings are built.
The question should be this to every one of these pastors.
And I hope that your pastors, those that are guests here at this church, I hope that your pastors that are reopening can answer this question.
Are you going to be prepared for the next one?
Are you going to be prepared when they really come after us?
Like, this is just a trial, Ron.
Like, this is, but you see their venom.
You see their contempt for believers.
You see how they consider to be an obstacle to their power grab.
Are you guys ready?
And the answer is most of these churches are just going to hope it doesn't.
They want to be eaten last, quite honestly.
They're like, well, just kind of shut us down last, please.
And I don't think that's biblical.
I don't think that's theological.
I don't think that's moral at all whatsoever.
And for the pastors that are still not opening, I just have one question.
And this should be the number one question you guys ask.
What is your line?
Very simple.
If the line is not now to get involved, what is the line?
And if they cannot answer that in 10 seconds or less, then that's a problem.
So, for example, some pastor will say, I will never get involved in politics.
Foolish answer.
Very foolish.
Because if you're not going to get involved in the gulags get started up in the Soviet Union, because that's a real thing, like we killed 130 million people in the 20th century.
Okay, not just famine.
We intentionally murdered 130 million people, we being human beings.
We can do awful things to each other.
Awful.
So if the line is, I'm never going to speak up, I think that is immoral.
As someone who leads a church to say, I will never do anything.
Now, if the line is like, well, I'm going to start speaking up when the rail cars arrive.
Like, okay, now we know when your stance.
Okay.
When the rail cars come and people are put on trains, that's your line.
Okay.
No, this is a definitely serious thing.
But if pastors haven't thought through what their line is, and if the line is not now, then they have to be able to articulate it.
But if you're trying to tell me if the line is not when the abortion factories are open, the cannabis dispensaries are open, BLM Incorporated is allowed to go in the streets and do whatever they want, you can riot and loot and commit acts of arson likes we've never seen, but the body of Christ was limited to more than 10 or 20 people, whatever arbitrary thing they think, that's like beyond the line.
Like that is a demonstrable violation of any sort of compact that we have with our representative governments.
And so every single pastor, in my opinion, that you come and lovingly and compassionately do this, by the way, doesn't have to be condemnation.
Do not do it publicly.
I'm not saying that.
But they have to be able to answer it.
What?
Very specifically.
If not now, then when?
And if never, goodbye.
It's that simple.
If the answer is never, then that is, in my opinion, reason to disengage.
Defending Homeschooling Freedom 00:05:01
I'm going to take some questions because that's the most fun.
But I want to mention one or two other things.
People ask all the time, what can I do?
What can I do?
Well, you being here is actually doing something.
You being here is actually not just supporting the fighters.
Now you're in the fight.
You all know that.
There's a price for being here today, right?
So now all of a sudden you guys have incredible amounts of courage.
And so good on you for that, because that's a big deal.
Also, what you can do, and I said this, I've said this a lot, this is kind of my whole shtick, is, my goodness, double the seriousness of how important you value the education of your children.
Please, do not, this is a participant sport.
A couple of things on this.
Right now, I think God can make good out of all bad things, I really believe, of all things.
Right now, we are seeing a crisis happening in our country, but it's an opportunity if we view it as like, wow, they're shutting down all the schools.
They're not allowing special needs kids to go to some of these schools.
And by the way, that's the thing that really bothers me.
These people that say, oh, we care for the children and all this.
I'm like, hold on a second.
I get these emails that are parents that have taken out second mortgages on their home that go to move to a special school district so that their child can go learn at a special, special needs school, right?
It's a very real thing.
They go into that school district just for that reason, and they're shutting down the school.
And these parents of special needs kids are saying, I have to go work so I can pay this property tax bill so my handicapped son can learn.
What am I supposed to do?
And they say, oh, we don't have the teacher union, forget it.
I'm getting these emails that were just all across the country like you wouldn't believe.
That is so incredibly immoral, I can't even put it into words.
Immoral is the word.
And so, but here's the opportunity.
We have a chance to better education in a way that can actually save our country in this opportunity.
Number one, I hope you're all realizing the absolute scam and fraud that public education has become in our country.
I hope you're all seeing that.
Because, man, I'm so pro-education, it's literally all I do.
But if we think that endlessly sending taxpayer dollars for teachers that are protesting perpetually, man, I think it's such a disservice to young people in this country.
And then, hundreds of school districts across the country, one in Missouri in particular, are making their parents sign waivers saying they will not go watch their kids' Zoom calls.
You guys hear about this?
Because the teachers are so worried that the parents might actually learn what they're teaching your kids.
I want to re-emphasize that.
They are making parents sign a waiver to the state saying you don't get involved in what we do to your kid.
And that's what you're paying for as taxpayers, by the way.
And so then, here's the opportunity.
Millions of parents across the country have finally realized what I have to deal with every single day.
It's actually awesome.
So it's awesome because I feel like I'm not alone.
Parents are coming up like, I had no idea my kid was learning that America is the worst country ever and that men are the problem.
I'm like, well, okay.
Praise God that you know now.
Like this, okay, right?
That's how I could, because I'm like, I've been talking about this for six years, but God's timing will make all things right.
So, I mean, but at least that's a positive out of all this, right?
So then what do we do about it?
And here's where the church can get involved.
We have to double our homeschooling population in this country as quickly as possible.
Quickly as possible.
The church, instead of building another mausoleum to something or whatever, we should be helping homeschooling parents in every way possible, financially and otherwise.
We have to double the homeschooling population.
It should be a pillar of the Republican Party.
We are going to double the homeschooling population in the next five years, as quickly as possible, then double it again.
That's one of the few things, by the way, they're going to criminalize homeschooling very soon.
They're coming after it like you wouldn't believe.
They are going to try to arrest parents that homeschool their kids and say, you have to bring it over to the state.
That's the next fight.
They're already entertaining it.
They're talking about it.
There's drafted legislation.
It's coming.
Again, if you're not going to fight now, then when, right?
If you're not going to fight now, then when?
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is this, man, I pray for those of you that are sending kids off to these, actually not sending them anywhere this semester.
For those of you that are opening up the laptop for these kids that are learning from some overly priced institution for a Zoom call, maybe now we can have a real conversation at how colleges are ripping off middle-income families.
Like maybe.
Because the fact that they are not doing any tuition adjustments for families that are going endlessly into debt so that they can get that diploma, we need to have a real serious movement and say, I'm not doing it.
You know, I am not going to pay $38,000 in tuition so my kid can learn a Zoom call of which you are not allowed to record.
You're not allowed to publicize.
And I thought these professors thought they were all rocket scientists.
Confronting Micro-Tyrants 00:06:26
Don't you want more people to know about what you're talking about?
Of course not.
Because they're afraid that if people see what they are saying, people might actually know what they are saying and push back against it, which is one of the things that is the last takeaway, which is tyrants need lies.
They need lies.
When there is truth, when there is visibility, tyranny cannot exist.
You think about that.
It's like, wow, that makes sense.
It's actually that lies are one of the core roots of all evil.
The lack of truth.
What is Christ?
Christ didn't just say true things.
He was truth, the embodiment of truth.
Therefore, the opposite of Christianity is dwelling in perpetual deception, right?
Christ truth, that's the Christian ethic, the pursuit of what is true and whatsoever is true, as articulated in Philippians.
The opposite is endless deception, right?
Deception being one of the favorite tools of Satan.
So when teachers say, you can't go see what I am teaching, that allows them to be tyrants, right?
When all of a sudden you're like, why can't I go see that peer-reviewed study and data that says we have to close the schools?
It's confidential.
That allows tyranny.
When things are allowed to be cross-examined, truth, dialogue, truth, all of a sudden, you're able to have a peaceful and stable life.
We take that for granted, right?
Because we've had it for the last 20 years.
We never haven't even challenged it.
We're like, yeah, usually the best idea wins, freedom of speech and dialogue.
When you remove that, tyranny is allowed to exist.
And decent and reasonable people have very little to no voice.
And that is why you must contest for truth in every single arena.
And even the little things matter, by the way.
The things that you might seem like inconsequential, that's actually the most important fight.
I think conservatives need to think bigger by thinking smaller.
What do I mean by that?
Like, okay, yes, we need to win the presidency.
Okay, I'm so focused on that.
I got, like, I understand it.
However, the little things are actually sometimes what leads to the macro tyranny, right?
It's the neighbor that says you're not allowed to have that yard sign that says that.
It's in violate, right?
It's the person who comes up to you and keys your car because you have a bumper sticker they don't like.
That little micro tyranny, if it goes unaddressed and you go subservient to it, that's where you get a country that lives under the macro tyranny.
And so I think conservatives need to think bigger by thinking smaller.
And actually, the smaller stuff is actually harder at times because you actually got to look at people in the white of their eyes and communicate clearly, right?
Sometimes it's easier to go send out the Facebook post about re-electing a president.
I'm fully supportive of that, by the way, as you well know.
It's literally my day job, right?
Through our political vehicle, not our nonprofit vehicle.
I have to make that very clear.
So think on your own level where there is someone using their position of strength to prey on the innocent.
That is a tyrant.
Especially when it is rooted in deception, arrogance, and bitterness.
That is the evil triad, right?
Bitterness, arrogance, and deception.
Those three things combined together is exactly what we're living through right now.
How you dare question me?
I'm the most important person in the world.
You see all these degrees I have, shut down America again.
Like, what?
Like, they're deceiving you, and they're so arrogant about it, and they have bitterness within them.
Those three things combined together is exactly what we're living through.
So, the takeaway is this: for those watching at home, my goodness, open the church.
It's okay.
We're here for those watching on the live stream.
I'm in front of a packed congregation here.
Everyone is enjoying themselves and we're worshiping Jesus.
That's what every church should be doing this Sunday.
Ernest Hemingway had a great quote: things happen gradually than suddenly.
I love that.
Hummingway is one of the greatest authors.
He has such a gift.
And you look at what's happening in our country.
This thing can turn against them like this.
If the church is open, Christians speak out, you stand for truth, you stand up against the micro-tyrants, all of a sudden, things that you wouldn't have dreamed will have a total and complete reversal.
But it takes an activation, right?
It takes this, you might be fired up now to do something, then that's exactly what you have to go do, then to go do something.
So let's do some questions, Rob.
So, all right, thank you guys.
A little different.
Charlie, you said micro-tyranny.
Yeah.
And I want to, before we go to questions, this is my responsibility.
The greatest micro-tyranny of all is anyone who allows themselves to sit on the throne of their life instead of Jesus Christ.
He's the author of life.
You've been fearfully and wonderfully made.
He came that you might have life and life more abundant.
And when we think we can run our life better than he can, we're in trouble.
Because we're living on his dirt, breathing his air, drinking his water, eating his food.
And we need to live by his rules.
I'm not talking about dominionism.
I'm not talking about a theocracy.
I'm talking about an individual heart realizing that for which it was created.
Good is defined by the object accomplishing that for which it was created to do.
A cup is good because it doesn't leak.
And we've been created to bring glory to God.
Imago Day, we've been creating his image.
And liberty comes.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty.
Now we all know that the tyranny is we've been trying to run things.
And deception is what tyranny is fueled with.
And we deceive ourselves thinking that we're without sin.
Sin is just missing the mark.
There's no one in this room perfect.
And we have to address that in our own lives before we start carrying a banner of conservatism as though we're going to place that on someone else when we ourselves haven't resolved our own life and reconciled with our own creator.
Conservatism is void and empty and brutal without the heart of God.
And so those things need to go together.
Amen.
Anyone who thinks that I'm in this for political reasons, I will tell you that what we do, in a sense, is spiritual.
Let me correct that.
What we do, in a sense, is political.
But the reality is it's all for the byproduct of spiritual.
We want people to know Christ that they would be set free.
And that's for all of you and those listening.
Amen.
All right.
The Need for a Documentary 00:10:45
Question.
And by the way, let me qualify this.
I'm not asking for a statement.
I don't want you to blow the 8.
We already have a preacher.
We brought him in.
I want your question to be short.
And I will say we will do a very extended Q ⁇ A after the third service that will become the live stream tonight for those of you that want to hang around.
Right here, yes.
As soon as you're old enough to be, please, please consider running for president.
Please.
Very kind.
My question is, there's a new.
I'm happy where I am.
There's a new law, and it's now in the Orange County School District.
I don't know if any of these parents know.
I know, but it's to take your kid out of your control, send him to a doctor because the little boy mentions I want to be a ballerina when I grow up.
So now they're sending him with a Lyft or somebody to a doctor to give them hormones that are irreversible.
So are you aware of that?
That's not...
No, but it does not surprise me.
That's only going to accelerate.
You give your kids to the state, you may never get them back.
Okay.
If you had an opportunity to produce a documentary this year, what would it be?
Produce a documentary?
All the material that we have.
Yeah.
On the whole documentary, I mean, I think that if there was something, the story that needs to be told is the human cost of the lockdowns.
It's a very important thing.
See, I have a rule for myself, and my girlfriend Erica will tell you.
I try not to be sitting around things that could become projectiles around televisions because I just get so angry about certain things.
One of them is when people say, Mayor Eric Garcetti is the worst at this.
And the other day I was watching something with him on television, and he's like, yeah, how has the virus impacted your business?
They tell us, I say, wait a second, hold on a second.
The lockdown impacted their business, okay?
Your reaction to the virus impacted their business, okay?
And they're conflating the two as if there was not a lesser choice that could have been made for these small business owners.
The decision that needs to be made is the kids that committed suicide during this, the drug use that is up, the broken families, the sexual abuse, the domestic abuse, the business that will never come back, the hopelessness and the absolute disruption of America for what?
And did it actually do what they said it was going to do?
That's the documentary that needs to be told.
I'm going to throw two questions at you.
The first one was: if we're dealing with micro-tyranny, can't our response be this macro response to micro-tyranny and then as people of faith and engaged in the process?
And then, secondly, the separation that we're seeing in the country with church and politics, from your estimation, what's the best way to marry that and bring it back together?
Yeah, well, the first thing is, yeah, I mean, of course, a macro response in November would be a great thing to all these micro-tyrannies.
I'll tell you what, that would be great.
But in a lot of ways, that won't guarantee the micro-tyrannies will go away.
And so I don't look at that.
I think it's more placebo than anything else.
I actually don't think that will solve it.
I think that most tyrannies arise, and we saw this in the Soviet Union, is because decent people don't actually have dialogue with tyrants.
And that's a very interesting thing to think about.
It takes a lot of courage.
And you think right now, you're like, man, you're right.
My neighbor is out of line right now, but I've decided to say nothing.
Well, then you're allowing that tyranny to only go to another person.
You're allowing the predator to continue on.
And so don't look for that kind of, God willing, a triumphant victory in November.
And all of a sudden, the person in Starbucks is going to be pleasant.
Like, that's not exactly going to be the case, right?
It's not.
And by the way, that's a great opportunity to share the gospel, right?
And we see this at Turning Point USA.
I mean, people, if you have compassion and love and truth with somebody, it doesn't mean you have to be intolerant of lies.
All of a sudden, these people are actually looking for that, especially the people that indulge in that.
Have you noticed, especially with Prager Hugh, and at Turning Point USA, that the tech oligarchy has just rampant censorship.
And it's beyond censorship.
It's beyond censorship, where they're just taking them off platforms.
Yeah, I mean, look, this is, I mean, again, we could get into this after the third service in greater detail.
But I say this, and I don't say this lightly.
I am a free market capitalist who believes the tech companies need to be broken up.
And I don't say that lightly.
I don't.
I think that what was my whole speech about tyranny, right?
Well, when you can concentrate so much power in the hands of a group of companies that are more powerful than your government, then what is the proper reaction to those companies?
So the question is, are we going to allow freedom of speech and dialogue to be just destroyed by 25,000 at most hyper-educated secular leftists that are earning $300,000 a year that will eventually destroy everything we believe in through search results, video manipulation, search engine optimization, and all that?
So I don't say that lightly.
And I think that as we become more digitized, we need to be on the right side of this.
And the right side is that there should almost be like a digital civil rights act that says that you as a human being have the right to expression, exploration without people manipulating within your own search of information.
And that is not the case right now.
I mean, I'll give you a great example.
I had those nine doctors on my YouTube feed that spoke out in a contrarian fashion with data.
And YouTube, of course, took it down.
Now it's back up on the YouTube channel because we negotiated with them.
I'm streaming live on YouTube right now.
And so it's a tricky dance that I dance, but I also am very clear with my position.
I have benefited from social media, but I know that they will shut me off if we do not make changes.
Like, I will digitally disappear at a moment's notice as soon as they want that to happen.
And by the way, that is a form of assassination.
Our little church, so the governor requests that we do strictly live stream.
So we do live stream and we had in our live stream embedded without announcement a small two-minute clip of one of the frontline doctors.
YouTube found it and took our video down, censored it.
Could you imagine if they applied that kind of focus towards pedophilia in the country and taking it off the internet where we would be?
True.
I mean, so I challenge everyone watching this and everyone here to think of these tech companies.
What would you think of them if they were a government?
Just thought exercise.
You wouldn't tolerate this for a second.
Why is it different?
It's a private company.
I get that.
It is a higher standard.
But that is not an excuse to allow tyranny to exist.
People have said create a competitor.
Not realistic.
People have said to wait for an entrepreneur to disrupt them.
They're going to fall flat on their face.
That's not going to happen.
Because of technology, because how they can work themselves out the Matthew principle and buy companies on a huge multiple, they are on pace to be a super government within our own country.
I don't have tolerance for tyranny nor should anyone else.
Yeah.
Folks, what we're going to do, I'm going to have the worship team come up.
I've got two questions here.
We might be able to get them both answered.
I don't know.
But this service is critical because the parking lot gets slammed.
But I'm going to tell you, if you want to stick around for the one o'clock, at the conclusion, or even come back, at the conclusion of the one o'clock service, Charlie and I are going to stop the live stream and then we're going to recalibrate the cameras and we're going to pre-record what will be tonight's live stream at seven.
So we'll be able to answer dozens of things.
And we're going to sit on and we're just going to answer questions until he's wheels up out of Camarillo to head back.
So if you want to stick around for that and you have questions, bring them.
The one question we did have was, how do we show the difference between the candidates running for office with a biblical worldview?
And my answer was, we're producing voter guides.
We'll provide that for all the folks.
Wherever you go to church, they should be providing voter guides.
We break it down by biblical standards and where they stand on each of them by their own statements.
Do you have anything you want to add to that?
Yeah, I mean, look, yes.
So I wrote a whole book on it.
So, which is actually, can I do a shame?
I'll do a shameless plug, Rob.
So the one thing I ask out of you guys is please subscribe to my podcast.
If you don't know how to do that, ask a millennial around you.
But every one of your phones has a podcast app.
If you just type in Charlie Kirk Show and you hit that subscribe button, it helps tremendously.
Seriously, it's free of charge.
I do two podcasts a day and one on the weekend.
No podcasting team produces as much content as we do.
And it's made possible when you guys just subscribe.
That's all you do.
We are the most productive, hardest working podcast team out there.
Okay, with that being said, look, I mean, if you want to hand over our entire government and civilization to a group of bitter, arrogant, secular leftists, then Joe Biden is absolutely your candidate.
If you want someone who has been the first candidate to speak at the March for Life, the most pro-life president in American history, appointed Dorsich and Kavanaugh, 200 circuit court judges, moved the embassy to Jerusalem, recognized the Golan Heights, is unafraid to have pastors pray around him, who has contested in the public arena for religious freedom before the shutdown actually called out China and continues to do, which is the number one enemy.
That's exactly right.
Number one enemy of religious freedom across the planet and is the greatest threat to those of us that believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It's not even a question.
It's not even the same ecosystem.
In fact, I am trying to find, and this goes out to the public, I want to find a Christian pastor who supports Joe Biden.
I would love to have a conversation with them filmed.
Love that because I do not understand how anyone who can believe in the gospel and believe in the truth of the Bible then can go vote for someone who supports a million abortions a year, closing down the churches, is increasingly open-minded to the most horrific aspects of our society, wants to put younger, more radical versions of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on our courts and also persecute Christians.
That's someone, I think that we as Christians should be louder and more confident of how we should not stand for this secular, humanist, leftist nonsense to get even close to the U.S. presidency.
A Call to Action 00:00:28
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Please consider supporting Turning Point USA by going to tpusa.com, tpusa.com, get engaged, get involved, start a chapter on a high school or college campus across the country at tpusa.com, and please consider supporting our program at charliekirk.com/slash support.
Email me your questions for the Ask Me Anything coming tomorrow.
If I select your question, you win a signed copy of the New York Times bestseller, The MAGA Doctrine.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
God bless you.
Talk to you soon.
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