The Charlie Kirk Show - Is America on the Verge of Another Great Awakening? With Pastor Greg Denham
Aired: 2020-09-17
Duration: 01:19:24


=== Evangelistic Atheism in America (14:42) ===

[00:00:00]  Thank you for listening to this podcast one production.
[00:00:02]  Now available on Apple Podcasts, Podcast One, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.
[00:00:08]  Hey, everybody, Chris Cross in the country, as always.
[00:00:10]  I'm excited to share with you an exclusive conversation now made public that I did at Rise San Marcos Church, Rise Church in San Marcos with Pastor Greg Denham.
[00:00:20]  You guys are going to really enjoy this conversation.
[00:00:22]  We talk about what young people are missing on the moral landscape right now, how to get your life together, and also what is socialism and how we fight against it.
[00:00:31]  Email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:35]  Type in Charlie Kirk Show to your podcast provider.
[00:00:38]  Hit subscribe.
[00:00:38]  Give us a five-star review.
[00:00:40]  Screenshot it and email us, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:43]  Freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:46]  Also, please consider getting involved with TurningPointUSA at tpusa.com, tpusa.com.
[00:00:51]  And if you guys want to help support our program, go to charliekirk.com/slash support, charliekirk.com/slash support.
[00:01:01]  You guys are going to love this conversation.
[00:01:02]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:01:03]  Here we go.
[00:01:05]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:01:07]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
[00:01:09]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:01:12]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:01:15]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:01:16]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:01:17]  His spirit is love of this country.
[00:01:19]  He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
[00:01:24]  Turning point USA.
[00:01:26]  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.
[00:01:35]  That's why we are here.
[00:01:38]  Charlie, thank you so much for being with us.
[00:01:40]  I could have sat and listened to you for another couple hours.
[00:01:42]  Oh, thank you so much.
[00:01:43]  Charlie, you're on a Sunday.
[00:01:45]  Thank you so much.
[00:01:45]  My children are here, and that's going to go a long way.
[00:01:49]  Charlie, listen, I have heard you say that you see atheism on the rise.
[00:01:54]  Of course, the idea of atheism is that, you know, we came from nothing, we are nothing, we're headed nowhere, or we came from mindless nature at best, educated beefsteak, and there's no authoritative, there's no authoritative answer to the meaning of life.
[00:02:09]  I'd like for you to talk to us a little bit about this rise of atheism that you see and why it matters.
[00:02:17]  Why it's important we understand and what maybe we can be doing about it.
[00:02:20]  Yeah, first of all, it's honor to be here.
[00:02:22]  Thank you.
[00:02:22]  And I love, yes, I mean that.
[00:02:24]  And so I love coming to California and I love being around California Christians and conservatives because you're in such the ideological and spiritual minority.
[00:02:32]  It almost warrants a more exciting and more bold form of Christianity and conservatism.
[00:02:36]  So God bless you guys.
[00:02:37]  I love that.
[00:02:38]  So it's awesome.
[00:02:42]  I mean, I do love speaking in Wyoming, but it's a little different, right?
[00:02:48]  Everyone's conservative and Christian.
[00:02:49]  So there's something rebellious and exciting about advancing the kingdom and, I don't know, our country in California.
[00:02:55]  It's really exciting.
[00:02:56]  So that's number one.
[00:02:57]  First of all, I want to divide atheism into two categories.
[00:03:00]  I think that there's an evangelistic atheism in our country.
[00:03:03]  And then I think there's kind of a passive atheism.
[00:03:05]  And I've said this before, and I'll say it again: that the fastest growing religion in our country is atheism.
[00:03:12]  And if you've sent your kid to public high school or to university, they have been proselytized by people that are trying to get them to believe in nothing.
[00:03:19]  And when we really boil it down, it's a very depressing worldview.
[00:03:22]  And we don't talk about this enough.
[00:03:25]  We that are Christians, we're not just talking about something that is true, because we are.
[00:03:29]  We're not just talking about something that is moral.
[00:03:31]  We're also talking about something that's very exciting and full of joy.
[00:03:34]  But if you believe in nothing, there's no afterlife.
[00:03:36]  There's no creator.
[00:03:38]  You're never going to see your loved ones again.
[00:03:39]  Justice is nothing more than an aberration.
[00:03:42]  And if you extrapolate that, it gets very quick into nihilism, which is a belief in nothingness.
[00:03:47]  Well, and if you believe in nihilism, then you'll very quickly get into hedonism, which is self-indulgence.
[00:03:53]  You see that all across our country, right?
[00:03:56]  Where people are just trying to find the next substance or the next alcohol or the next drug that is going to give them that high.
[00:04:03]  And so I think that we as Christians have a couple learning lessons here.
[00:04:06]  And I go to campuses all across the country, so you don't have to, right?
[00:04:10]  I mean, I've spoken at Brown, Stanford, UCLA, Boulder.
[00:04:14]  You name a campus I've been there.
[00:04:15]  I've spoken at more campuses in the last five years than any conservative in the country.
[00:04:20]  And I run a whole organization represented on college campuses.
[00:04:23]  And I can tell you that the Christians on campus have nowhere near the evangelistic zeal that the atheists have.
[00:04:30]  And there should be no reason for that, right?
[00:04:32]  It should be that the atheist, I always, I have some fun with atheists.
[00:04:36]  I have some friends that are atheists that are actually, I think they're really trying to seek out truth.
[00:04:40]  They just come from the wrong default position.
[00:04:43]  And then there's also bitter and arrogant and deceitful atheists.
[00:04:46]  I want to make sure that that distinction is very clear.
[00:04:49]  But I always joke around with atheists, and you want to drive them nuts.
[00:04:52]  You say, without God, there would be no atheists.
[00:04:54]  Like, they can't understand that, right?
[00:04:58]  And at all.
[00:05:01]  That's a really nice way to frame the beginning part of the argument, right?
[00:05:05]  Without God, you would not be able to believe that there is no God.
[00:05:09]  And so the second part of it, which is very, I could dive into it further, but is it, do you want to believe in atheism?
[00:05:20]  It's a very important point, right?
[00:05:21]  And Dennis Prager, who's an American treasure, he really is, he taught me this, and he has so much wisdom, which is so lacking.
[00:05:29]  And he said it so well.
[00:05:30]  Another thing he would say, which is without God, there is no wisdom.
[00:05:33]  We have no God, therefore our culture has no wisdom.
[00:05:35]  And which is, you ask an atheist, do you hope you're wrong?
[00:05:39]  It's a very important question.
[00:05:41]  Because a lot of atheists should hope that they're actually incorrect about the world, right?
[00:05:46]  They should hope that they actually do want to be able to have eternal life and that love is something that is real.
[00:05:52]  It's not just a combustion of chemicals.
[00:05:54]  But here's a really interesting question for an atheist.
[00:05:57]  And maybe there's an atheist watching on our live stream that's here tonight.
[00:06:00]  I just want to first say that your life has meaning.
[00:06:03]  You are more than a collection of atoms and chemicals.
[00:06:05]  You have a spirit.
[00:06:06]  God wants to come in a relationship with you and that there is hope for you.
[00:06:10]  And we should say that more often and more clearly.
[00:06:12]  Really?
[00:06:13]  Well said.
[00:06:14]  But let me say one final thing, though, which is which the atheists don't have an answer for this.
[00:06:20]  They have theories.
[00:06:20]  They've written books on this, but it's something that a first grader can understand, which is what is music?
[00:06:27]  What is music to an atheist?
[00:06:28]  And we don't think about this.
[00:06:30]  Have any of you ever cried after you hear a certain song?
[00:06:32]  Of course you have.
[00:06:33]  The longest book in the Bible is the book of Psalms, which is literally a book of songs.
[00:06:41]  The last part of the book of Psalms, last chapter, is to praise God using instruments and drums and trumpets.
[00:06:48]  Music is not just a passive activity.
[00:06:50]  I really believe that God gave us music to be able to tap into the higher levels of spirituality.
[00:06:57]  I really believe that.
[00:06:57]  It's not something insignificant.
[00:06:59]  But for the atheists, what is music?
[00:07:01]  Why do people feel something outside of themselves when they listen to music?
[00:07:05]  Explain this to me, and they can't.
[00:07:07]  Because for them, it's just nothing but just chemicals firing.
[00:07:10]  And the reason why, when you hear a beautiful concerto from Mozart or from Bach, that you feel something that is beyond what your words can possibly put into articulation is because God gave it for a reason to be able to demonstrate his love, his mercy, his compassion, something that is broader than just linguistics can dive into.
[00:07:33]  So they'll say, well, it's animals use music.
[00:07:36]  That's not correct.
[00:07:37]  So birds, there might be songbirds, but the social Darwinists, they cannot explain that they might, the songbirds might make noise, but they don't make music.
[00:07:47]  It's something very different.
[00:07:49]  And so I love that as an example because we have an answer to that.
[00:07:53]  There's so many things that the atheists have to answer for.
[00:07:56]  And I say this, we as Christians have a couple things that are tough for us to answer.
[00:08:00]  And we do have answers for them.
[00:08:01]  Natural disasters, why certain people are born with certain troubles.
[00:08:04]  We struggle with them.
[00:08:05]  And rightfully so, and we admit that as Christians, but we have answers for those things.
[00:08:08]  We do.
[00:08:09]  The atheists, they have to answer for everything else.
[00:08:12]  They have to tell us what love, mercy, compassion, why this world that we have.
[00:08:17]  What is math?
[00:08:18]  Why do things...
[00:08:20]  Why are we able to make sense of the natural world?
[00:08:22]  Where does this come from?
[00:08:23]  What is anatomical physics?
[00:08:24]  Why do we have the laws of nature?
[00:08:26]  Maybe there was a God that put in the laws of nature.
[00:08:28]  Why do we have the perfect composition of oxygen and nitrogen in the air so that we're able to be able to breathe and we're able to actually thrive in this world?
[00:08:38]  Maybe it's because God breathed us into existence that we're able to breathe ourselves.
[00:08:42]  And so the final point I'll say with this is that we as Christians need to, I think, take a step back to go a step forward.
[00:08:50]  And in a lot of different ways in this secular world that we're living in, because it's very, very secular, we have lost the zeal and the passion and the excitement of the early church.
[00:09:02]  We've almost gone into a position of negativity and defensiveness.
[00:09:07]  And when I see more people that are committed to bringing people to believe in nothing, the atheists, than Christians, I know that's a problem.
[00:09:15]  And so I'm happy to talk into where this actually leads us societally, but this is really something that's happening in our country, which is a theological debate in our country.
[00:09:23]  And this is something that is very missed.
[00:09:25]  People say, oh, we're so politically divided.
[00:09:26]  I say, no, we're not.
[00:09:27]  We're theologically divided.
[00:09:29]  It's either you're going to worship God or worship man.
[00:09:31]  It's that simple.
[00:09:32]  And we choose to worship God.
[00:09:34]  Awesome.
[00:09:34]  I love that.
[00:09:35]  Fantastic.
[00:09:40]  Beautiful.
[00:09:40]  Charlie, I want to talk to you about ecclesia, but I want to get a little running start.
[00:09:45]  Here's the reality.
[00:09:46]  The reality is we have no idea who God is, and we have no idea who we are and why we're on planet Earth unless he reveals it to us.
[00:09:55]  So let's get a little running start to a little different aspect of faith because as Charlie will talk a little bit about, ecclesia is a community of those who worship God, a community of faith and the true and living God.
[00:10:10]  Okay, so just track with this real quick.
[00:10:13]  I mean, when we talk about faith, we're going back to a father, Father Abraham, who's been in the news these days because of this Abrahamic kind of pact now that Israel is entering into with the UAE and the Bahrain.
[00:10:29]  Okay, but look, the Lord has revealed himself.
[00:10:32]  There's a plan unfolding from eternity past to eternity future, through Abraham, through David, in the Messiah of the Lord Jesus.
[00:10:41]  When we receive communion as Jesus Christ's followers, we are celebrating this genius plan from eternity past to eternity future through Israel and the Messiah of Israel, and ultimately believing that Jesus is returning to Israel where one day the nation of Israel live her full potential among the nations.
[00:11:02]  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:11:06]  Are you guys tracking with me on this?
[00:11:08]  Okay, so watch this.
[00:11:09]  So there's a divine plan that, in fact, is unfolding.
[00:11:13]  It leads to, like, where is it now?
[00:11:18]  And it leads to this generation, it leads to ecclesia.
[00:11:24]  And I would like Charlie to talk to us about that.
[00:11:27]  What is ecclesia?
[00:11:28]  Do we have a clear picture of it?
[00:11:30]  What is the responsible, what's the responsibility of ecclesia in this generation?
[00:11:35]  Well, yeah, it's such an important question.
[00:11:37]  And actually, this is now being really the forefront of the conversation in Christianity in our country and around the world.
[00:11:43]  And my pastor, Pastor Rob McCoy, is here, who's an American hero, by the way.
[00:11:46]  He's opened up his church.
[00:11:48]  He's phenomenal.
[00:11:50]  And We need to talk about this term ecclesia.
[00:11:56]  Let me be very clear in just simple language.
[00:11:59]  The church is more than a YouTube live stream.
[00:12:01]  The church is more than just sitting Sunday morning, 11 a.m. and turning on your television screen and watching your pastor.
[00:12:10]  What's happening tonight is ecclesia.
[00:12:12]  Do not forsake the gathering of believers.
[00:12:14]  Now, let me talk about a technical reason why this is true, because somebody tonight is going through something very difficult, and you're going to confide in somebody else tonight that will hopefully be able to help you.
[00:12:28]  See, what happens in church is it's more than just the 90 minutes or the two hours of the service.
[00:12:34]  It is congregants helping congregants through real-life problems.
[00:12:37]  All that is shattered completely when you just decide that the church is nothing more than a live stream.
[00:12:42]  Now, I am not saying that certain people need to listen to the radio to be able to consume service.
[00:12:47]  Everyone should have the liberty, which means you have responsibility, the agency to make the decisions that you see fit.
[00:12:52]  The problem is when you shut down all the churches and say, we know what's best for everybody.
[00:12:56]  No, you don't.
[00:12:57]  Have the liberty, open your doors, and trust your congregation to assemble.
[00:13:01]  And if they do, then they're making the right choice.
[00:13:04]  All of a sudden, what we've seen, and I've been very excited about certain pastors like yourself and like Pastor Rob McCoy, they've been opening their church.
[00:13:13]  And also, I'm challenging some of these other pastors in Southern California that are not opening their churches.
[00:13:18]  And I'm saying, you understand that this right now that we're living through is the greatest opportunity in our country's history to advance the kingdom of God that we have ever lived through.
[00:13:30]  And so, explain to me, and by the way, there's a remarkable and horrendous double standard right now.
[00:13:39]  Remember, if the left did not have double standards, they would not have any standards at all.
[00:13:43]  And so, which is they're allowed to have 600,000 people march down the streets of Los Angeles because they say the right phrase.
[00:13:51]  They're allowed to do whatever they want because looting, I guess, is an essential activity in the new world that they're trying to create.
[00:13:57]  However, the gathering of believers is something that they don't want.
[00:14:01]  I got very frustrated, and I have to stop myself and just kind of pray.
[00:14:06]  I was flying cross-country yesterday to be here with you guys, and every single seat on an airplane was taken up, every single seat.
[00:14:12]  And people were right on top of each other.
[00:14:15]  And I looked down the row and I said, this is coming from Chicago.
[00:14:19]  I was going to Arizona, going to Arizona, then connecting through to California.
[00:14:23]  But in California, Christians can't gather, and in Chicago, Christians can't gather.
[00:14:27]  But everyone is allowed to be slobbering on top of each other for four hours across the country in a confined air circuit.
[00:14:34]  Somehow, this is essential, and church is not.
[00:14:37]  Maybe it's because you're being targeted.
[00:14:39]  Maybe it's because they want the believers not to assemble.

=== Conscience for a Broken Generation (09:48) ===

[00:14:42]  And for pastors not to realize that for thousands of years, we've had ecclesia, which, and this is a very important thing.
[00:14:51]  Ecclesiastic means assembly.
[00:14:53]  Saints assemble.
[00:14:54]  That's what saints do.
[00:14:56]  And Christ said, on this rock, build my church.
[00:14:59]  But it really was ecclesia, which is together we're all one.
[00:15:03]  When you heard that worship earlier, you realized I'm actually feeling something, a higher connection than if I was just sitting in my living room right now.
[00:15:12]  And if you didn't feel that, then okay, but I'm sure a lot of you did.
[00:15:15]  And there's a reason for that.
[00:15:17]  It's because when two or more are gathered, we should not forget that.
[00:15:23]  Here's the call to Christians across the country.
[00:15:25]  If you go to a church and your pastor hasn't opened, look them clearly in the eyes and say, open your church.
[00:15:32]  It's that simple.
[00:15:33]  Open your church.
[00:15:34]  Yeah, let me say something real quick.
[00:15:35]  I love it.
[00:15:37]  Good job.
[00:15:42]  So we were talking about how at times the way forward is the way back.
[00:15:46]  Sometimes to get right perspective, it's good to go back to the early church, get context, which gives us clarity to the course that God has intended for our lives.
[00:15:54]  So if we go back 2,000 years, just real quick, you had Jewish followers of Jesus who were being mistreated.
[00:16:01]  They weren't the only ones being mistreated, but they were being terribly mistreated, terrible injustice, some being put to death.
[00:16:06]  So that was the trial.
[00:16:07]  And James writes about the first book pinned in the New Testament is believed to be written by the half-brother of Jesus, Yaakov, James.
[00:16:15]  So he addresses a trial, which is something we fall into, adversity, pushback, difficulty.
[00:16:20]  Then he addresses temptations, actually, which is different, which is an enticement, which is like a lure, but there's a hook in it.
[00:16:27]  And it's enticing me to go outside of original design or my conscience or the will of God.
[00:16:33]  But sometimes trials can lead to temptation.
[00:16:35]  So watch.
[00:16:36]  The trial was pushback persecution, trying to marginalize Christians.
[00:16:40]  The temptation was don't gather with other believers.
[00:16:45]  That's why the Hebrews writer said, don't forsake the fellowship of the brethren.
[00:16:51]  So watch this.
[00:16:52]  Today, the trial is COVID.
[00:16:54]  The temptation is not to gather.
[00:16:58]  And that cannot be the case.
[00:17:00]  We are the church.
[00:17:01]  We are a counterculture to a culture that is breaking down.
[00:17:05]  A culture and community that Jesus is building for which will last forever.
[00:17:11]  So this is an important perspective.
[00:17:13]  In fact, Timothy, Paul wrote to Timothy, said, the church is the pillar and ground of truth.
[00:17:17]  And I want to lead to something else I'd like you to comment on.
[00:17:21]  And that is, look, here's the thing.
[00:17:22]  God has given us a conscience that accuses or excuses our actions, but only it works as if, only if it knows what is right or wrong.
[00:17:31]  We live in a culture that is increasingly relativistic, and that the conscience that God has given us to protect us is not even operating properly.
[00:17:42]  Therefore, it's one of the things that we have to understand as Jesus Christ's followers, we are a conscience.
[00:17:46]  We are the conscience to a generation that is breaking down.
[00:17:52]  So look, here's the thing.
[00:17:54]  We're part of a very big, beautiful, unfolding plan.
[00:17:58]  In the West, we have a way of making Christianity so consumer-driven.
[00:18:02]  We are part of a covenant, an unfolding plan, guarantee that is in the sun.
[00:18:11]  That's an important perspective we must never lose.
[00:18:14]  Can I hear an amen to that?
[00:18:15]  Okay.
[00:18:15]  So I'd like to ask you, your response to Martin Luther King's statement, kind of what we're talking about.
[00:18:20]  And that is, the church must be reminded that it's not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.
[00:18:27]  It must be the guide and critic of the state and never its tool.
[00:18:31]  If the church does not recapture the prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.
[00:18:38]  Your thoughts.
[00:18:39]  Sounds like what we're living through generally in the Christian landscape in our country with obvious exceptions, and that's Jack Hibbs and that's yourself and Pastor Rob McCoy and Ken Graves and so many other terrific pastors and Pastor Jürgen down the street who's doing an amazing job.
[00:18:52]  And when I say this, List, it's not an exhaustive list, but they are the exception, not the rule.
[00:18:57]  Look, he's onto something here, and we have to be very clear about our history in our country.
[00:19:01]  I went to public high school in the suburbs of Chicago.
[00:19:04]  So I know what your children are learning if you've sent your kids to public school.
[00:19:07]  I debate the products of left-wing indoctrination at the highest levels of colleges.
[00:19:13]  I've spoken at Brown.
[00:19:15]  I've spoken at Stanford.
[00:19:16]  I know what your kids are learning.
[00:19:18]  And they are learning that our country never has been, never should be, anything close to a Christian nation.
[00:19:24]  This is wrong.
[00:19:25]  We were founded right after the first great awakening.
[00:19:29]  We were founded because of activist pastors and churches that all of a sudden talked about it's sinners in the hands of an angry God.
[00:19:36]  You guys want to watch?
[00:19:37]  You guys want to listen to a sermon tonight that will just wake you up?
[00:19:41]  Go read that sermon.
[00:19:42]  Jonathan Edwards, who was preaching activistically across the eastern seaboard, it was the sons and daughters of the Great Awakening that all of a sudden took these Christian ideas and principles where we saw the greatest return to the kingdom where alcoholism was on the rise, where debauchery was on the rise, where criminality was on the rise, but it was the great awakening outside of the state.
[00:20:03]  And you saw the British monarchy be very confused by this new evangelistic Protestant religion that was growing throughout the colonies.
[00:20:13]  But then what happened was this.
[00:20:15]  There was a direct connection.
[00:20:16]  This is something that we have to do a much better job of explaining to the general population.
[00:20:21]  But first and most importantly, explain it to Christians.
[00:20:23]  Is when you all of a sudden believe that we're all made in the image of God, that we're depraved by nature and we need Jesus Christ to literally raise us from the dead, then all of a sudden we're all equal in sin.
[00:20:34]  We're like, huh, why is King George bossing us around so much?
[00:20:37]  Who gave him a mandate to control us?
[00:20:39]  All of a sudden, this idea of first principles articulated by John Locke started to make real sense.
[00:20:44]  Where then all of a sudden people that were reading, that were writing, because everyone had the Bible then.
[00:20:49]  Thank you, Martin Luther, for distributing the book that allowed literacy to grow at such an exponential rate.
[00:20:55]  All of a sudden, a monarchy became something that was very easily challenged.
[00:21:00]  Thomas Paine in February 1776 publishes Common Sense for the Working Man, the highest and best-selling book per capita.
[00:21:08]  It sold hundreds of thousands of copies when there was like only 10 million people in all of America.
[00:21:13]  Okay, this guy was prolific.
[00:21:16]  Thomas Paine argued very clearly that it has now come time to rebel against this tyranny, but only worked because the people had the moral foundation for it.
[00:21:27]  And then Ben Franklin said it so perfectly.
[00:21:29]  You just couldn't have captured it better.
[00:21:31]  When all of a sudden the Constitutional Convention was ending in Philadelphia, they come up to him to write the newspaper.
[00:21:37]  They say, so, Benjamin Franklin, what is it?
[00:21:39]  Is it a democracy?
[00:21:40]  Is it a dictatorship?
[00:21:41]  Is it a constitution?
[00:21:43]  Is it a republic?
[00:21:44]  And he says, it's a republic, if you can keep it.
[00:21:47]  If you can keep it.
[00:21:49]  And what he meant by that, and it's so clear what the founding fathers said.
[00:21:53]  They said in the Federalist Papers, this thing's going to work only if you guys stay on a moral track.
[00:21:57]  You guys can screw this up really easily.
[00:21:59]  This thing is just basic firewalls that if you guys make some mistakes, it should hopefully catch you.
[00:22:03]  But here's the elemental and fundamental point is the church that has always prevented us from allowing these Marxist insurgent forces from taking root in our country.
[00:22:13]  We've taken this for granted.
[00:22:15]  This is why the Soviet Union, this is why Italy and other countries that did not have the Protestant ethic built within it were so quick to follow Marxism and communism.
[00:22:25]  It was activistic pastors.
[00:22:26]  It was the communal gathering of believers.
[00:22:29]  It was ecclesia.
[00:22:30]  All of a sudden, if you forsake that, in 90 days, have you felt like your country has turned in a direction you never have seen before?
[00:22:36]  Maybe it's because we shut down the church and we stopped gathering.
[00:22:39]  Maybe it's because we muted the pastors.
[00:22:42]  We turned it into a YouTube live stream.
[00:22:44]  They took Easter and Palm Sunday and in a lot of churches, Pentecost from us.
[00:22:48]  So it's very important that we speak clearly that where do we get liberty from?
[00:22:53]  Of course, it's from God.
[00:22:54]  God is the source of liberty.
[00:22:56]  And we throw around this word, oh, yeah, I love liberty.
[00:22:59]  We love liberty.
[00:23:00]  Of course we do.
[00:23:01]  But it says very clearly that where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is liberty.
[00:23:04]  We are free because Christ sets us free.
[00:23:07]  We forget that.
[00:23:08]  You can lose everything that you love in an instant.
[00:23:11]  The church built this country, and God willing, it'll save this country.
[00:23:14]  I love that.
[00:23:15]  Fantastic.
[00:23:21]  From tight muscles, tough workouts, sign of aging, to simply make it through each busy day, everyone understands what it feels like to be tense and sore.
[00:23:29]  So everyone can benefit from Thera One CBD products.
[00:23:32]  Started by Dr. Jason Wurstland, Thera Body exists to provide you with the best scientifically validated natural solutions to help you soothe your body and relax your mind.
[00:23:41]  Started with the revolutionary Thera Gun percussive therapy device when Dr. Jason saw the benefits of using CBD in his treatments.
[00:23:48]  He created Thera One to bring you the CBD products done right.
[00:23:51]  A lot of CBD products claim to be organic, but they contain up to 30% filler, and these fillers are potentially toxic.
[00:23:58]  So, right now, go to TheraGun.com/slash Kirk, Theragun.com/slash Kirk.
[00:24:04]  If you don't love what you get from Thera One, send it back for a full refund of a 30-day purchase.
[00:24:09]  This is not something that TheraOne is likely to do again.
[00:24:12]  So, TheraGun.com/slash Kirk, Theragun.com/slash Kirk.
[00:24:20]  Dennis Prager said, I was shocked in a way when I heard this.
[00:24:25]  And maybe I shouldn't have been shocked, but he said the church will be the deciding factor to the survival of America.

=== Questioning Western Civilization's Roots (03:12) ===

[00:24:30]  Without the church, it's over.
[00:24:32]  Let's talk about ecclesiastic in a little different way.
[00:24:35]  And that you mentioned just a little bit, but in our history, in our history, do we understand the significance of how Jesus Christ's followers or the church have impacted the civilization in which we know?
[00:24:52]  And are we, I think you may mention this, but are we on a verge of another great awakening?
[00:24:58]  Which actually I actually believe, because I believe that's what the Holy Spirit is doing.
[00:25:01]  Awakenings aren't like gold rushes.
[00:25:03]  You don't discover them.
[00:25:04]  You have to work at it.
[00:25:05]  You have to open your church.
[00:25:06]  You have to talk to people.
[00:25:07]  You have to get up early and stay up late.
[00:25:09]  Like, oh, I found a great awakening.
[00:25:11]  Like, that's not how it works, okay?
[00:25:13]  You have a little skin in the game.
[00:25:15]  You travel the country.
[00:25:16]  You put a little on the line.
[00:25:17]  You risk a little bit.
[00:25:19]  We act as if it's like, oh, I found it.
[00:25:21]  Okay, it's not that way.
[00:25:22]  So we have to understand that.
[00:25:25]  That's the first part.
[00:25:26]  The second is this.
[00:25:27]  I love that.
[00:25:29]  Hey, listen, would you come back here on a Sunday morning preach?
[00:25:31]  I sure would appreciate it.
[00:25:32]  Okay.
[00:25:33]  Oh, you said yes.
[00:25:34]  Okay, I'm calling Sarah.
[00:25:36]  I will speak at any church that will have me.
[00:25:37]  I mean that.
[00:25:38]  Okay, very good.
[00:25:39]  Not every church will have me.
[00:25:40]  That's a different conversation for a different time.
[00:25:44]  So we live in a very short experiment.
[00:25:48]  We live in something called Western civilization.
[00:25:50]  We don't talk about this enough.
[00:25:52]  I said in my RNC speech that President Trump is the bodyguard of Western civilization.
[00:25:57]  Immediately, it just like volcanic reaction from the activist media.
[00:26:03]  It's very delightful to see in real time.
[00:26:08]  I wasn't sure what part of it they hated the most, the bodyguard or the Western civilization or the President Trump part, but it was just like a beautiful, just perfect, right?
[00:26:20]  So, but what is Western civilization?
[00:26:24]  It is, it's really this incredible experiment of self-governance where we have created the government that we're the sovereign, we the people.
[00:26:36]  It's a republic, values private property rights, biblical.
[00:26:40]  Abraham bought land in Hebron.
[00:26:42]  You guys can go visit it in Israel.
[00:26:45]  Free enterprise, biblical.
[00:26:46]  Where's your favorite place to visit?
[00:26:48]  I'm curious.
[00:26:49]  One and two.
[00:26:50]  Just rank them.
[00:26:51]  No, your favorite trips that you take.
[00:26:53]  Rank them.
[00:26:53]  Yeah.
[00:26:54]  The best trip I ever took was to Israel, and the second best trip I ever took was to Israel.
[00:26:58]  Okay, there you go.
[00:26:58]  And I've only been there.
[00:26:59]  I've only been there twice.
[00:27:02]  So free enterprise, which is biblical.
[00:27:04]  Happy to dive into the biblical defense.
[00:27:05]  And I'm announcing tonight that Charlie and I are going to take a tour to Israel leading it.
[00:27:09]  And Charlie and I are going to do it, right, Charlie?
[00:27:12]  Okay, no, there we go.
[00:27:13]  No, sorry.
[00:27:13]  It's such an opportunity.
[00:27:14]  It's okay.
[00:27:14]  I had to throw that in.
[00:27:15]  No, it's great.
[00:27:16]  No, go ahead.
[00:27:17]  So the hundreds and then eventually thousands of years for the West to be born.
[00:27:26]  But really, The fuel, the gasoline on the fire, I guess you could say, was the Protestant Reformation, where all of a sudden you had the widespread dissemination of the word of God, which actually allowed for literacy rates to expand dramatically.
[00:27:41]  And as people were able to read, they were able to question.

=== Defending Moral Centers Against Hate (15:05) ===

[00:27:43]  And then you saw the Enlightenment, both you had the Scottish Enlightenment and what we consider to be the traditional Enlightenment.
[00:27:48]  But then the West was this incredible fusion of reason and revelation, right?
[00:27:54]  So revelation and the Word of God, but not forsaking our capacity to be able to make sense of the natural world.
[00:28:02]  So this is something that's very important.
[00:28:04]  So if you go to India, for example, they have three religions that are bigger than Christianity, or at least they used to be in traditional times: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.
[00:28:15]  Now, in India, if you go to Calcutta or Hyderabad, you will see, up close and personal, human suffering that we in the West would never tolerate.
[00:28:27]  Now, some people will say it's because of colonialist rule or it's because of the lack of resources.
[00:28:35]  While there might be some merit to that argument, they also do not have the same sort of moral-centeredness that we have in the West.
[00:28:42]  Unfortunately, because of the Hindu moral construct, if someone's on the side of the street in the caste system, they're meant to be on the side of the street.
[00:28:50]  In fact, there's some value in that.
[00:28:52]  We don't have that in a Christian worldview.
[00:28:54]  We say, it is my duty to go help that person.
[00:28:57]  I'm going to go out of my way to compassionately and lovingly lift that person up.
[00:29:01]  We take that so much for granted.
[00:29:03]  The rest of the world, not the rest of the world, most of the world, whether it be in China, the world's largest country, or India, the world's second largest country, lives without Western values.
[00:29:12]  They have hundreds of millions of people that do not have freedom of dialogue, speech, or basic technology that we hold near and dear.
[00:29:19]  For example, if you go to an African village and a woman has to wake up before the crack of dawn and walk six miles to go get water and walk back six miles, we in the West say, that's not right.
[00:29:31]  However, unfortunately, some cultures would say, why is that not right?
[00:29:35]  That's just the way it is.
[00:29:36]  Well, no, it's not right because you're not able to spend the time necessary for your kids, not able to lift yourself up to a higher socioeconomic status.
[00:29:43]  So I could go chapter and verse of exactly how the West was created, but without diving too far into the philosophy of it, what we're experiencing right now is so miraculous, we don't even realize it.
[00:29:52]  In fact, we are at the later end of modernity where we have things so good, so incredibly abundant, where we throw more food away than we consume.
[00:30:02]  We have an obesity problem, not a starvation problem.
[00:30:06]  We have more information out there, yet we're lacking in wisdom.
[00:30:10]  We have piles full of plastic in our garage so incredibly overwhelming.
[00:30:15]  We have dollar stores to sell us that garbage back to us.
[00:30:20]  And then we have garage sales where we ask people to sell it away from us.
[00:30:24]  And then we have a whole cottage industry of self-storage where we're like, I have so much garbage from the last decade, I just need to go find another place to go put on my garbage.
[00:30:32]  And so we should not forsake that there have been incredible developments in Western society, thanks to free enterprise, that has made life sweeter and better.
[00:30:42]  But life is not sweeter and better because of those developments.
[00:30:45]  For example, the ability to operate on a brain tumor, have open heart surgery, be able to eradicate polio, diagnose infant mortality, make that go down.
[00:30:53]  All those things are positive things.
[00:30:55]  However, that's the reason side of it, right?
[00:31:00]  Now, if you just focus simply on the mechanical and the technological advancement, then what do you get?
[00:31:05]  Well, you get a society with a bunch of stuff and no soul.
[00:31:10]  So that's where the West always was.
[00:31:12]  It was that blend of the reason and the revelation.
[00:31:15]  And you could see where the society goes when it loses that moral-centeredness.
[00:31:20]  That moral relativism is chaos.
[00:31:23]  I can give you two examples in the last week, if that's okay.
[00:31:26]  The new Netflix series called Cuties and SB 145 here in California.
[00:31:33]  If you do not have a moral center in your society, protection of the innocent, protection of children, understanding the passage of a young woman or a young man to adulthood, then all of a sudden you're going to have the sickest people that I can think of all of a sudden to take levers of power in culture and in politics.
[00:31:56]  And that's what's happened here in California and also in Hollywood.
[00:31:59]  This is not a mistake.
[00:32:01]  It's not a surprise.
[00:32:02]  And it will only intensify and worsen.
[00:32:05]  And so I'm here to tell you the optimistic part of it is that we have such joy to sell.
[00:32:11]  We really do.
[00:32:12]  Sell is the wrong word, but to be able to communicate the troubling truth.
[00:32:16]  So this is just the very beginning of a country and a civilization that is losing its moral center.
[00:32:22]  And you could see this playing out.
[00:32:23]  And I see people that message me and say, Charlie, I thought you were alarmist two years ago, but this cuties thing on Netflix is just too much for me.
[00:32:30]  And I say, good that you have woken up.
[00:32:33]  Now it's time to do something about it.
[00:32:36]  Because just this is not a spectator sport.
[00:32:38]  The West, you have to be involved in everything that you do.
[00:32:41]  Happy to comment on that more.
[00:32:42]  One final thought on it, though.
[00:32:44]  It is the Bible and the teachings of the Bible that built Western civilization.
[00:32:49]  Here is the evidence for that.
[00:32:51]  Here's the evidence of that.
[00:32:54]  Countries that do not have a biblical worldview and have nothing but technological advancements will get into a state of chaos and will not be able to get the same sort of socioeconomic and also moral success with being able to join the West.
[00:33:08]  Beautiful.
[00:33:08]  Thank you so much.
[00:33:09]  Hey, you know, it's interesting to me.
[00:33:12]  I know you love the book of James, James chapter 1, verse 5: that the Lord, if we ask Him, He'll give us wisdom, which is like right application for life, He'll do so generously.
[00:33:21]  You know, it's interesting in that context, the first application of a genuine faith, righteous shall live by, could someone tell me, faith, can be informed by the truth of who God is, His genius plan in His Son, in the personal work of Jesus.
[00:33:35]  Jesus, the evidence of that will be the movement towards protecting and fighting for the most vulnerable and needy amongst us.
[00:33:46]  Pure and undefiled religion is to care for widows and orphans.
[00:33:51]  Now, 2,000 years ago, I mean, those were the poster children, I hate to use it that way, but of vulnerability and need, okay?
[00:34:00]  So I would like to ask you, like, in terms of application today, we look at the landscape of our culture.
[00:34:09]  If it's in the context of James, that the first application of a genuine faith, in other words, being rightly aligned with the true and living God, that it would then translate to a horizontal level to care for, to fight for, to protect the most vulnerable and the most needy.
[00:34:29]  What do you think that looks like in application today?
[00:34:31]  Well, that's such a good point.
[00:34:33]  And that's contesting in the public square.
[00:34:36]  And this is something that I do.
[00:34:37]  So I want to be very clear.
[00:34:38]  My day job is politics.
[00:34:40]  It is two podcasts a day, one on Saturday, one on Sunday, traveling to college campuses, working through our political vehicle.
[00:34:46]  And I'm a Christian while doing it, right?
[00:34:48]  And so I'm in the political space.
[00:34:51]  And the reason why I'm speaking in as many churches as I can is I'm saying, guys, why is the church generally so silent and non-active and non-mobilized when you have the truth, you have the comfort of knowing what comes next?
[00:35:07]  You should be the most mobilized and the most active and the most vocal on every single one of these issues.
[00:35:13]  And so What it looks like applicationally is this, is that every church in the country and every Christian should be doing something about the fact that in California they have passed SB 145 to normalize and decriminalize pedophilia in this state.
[00:35:30]  That should bother you so beyond anything I could put into words as a Christian, as an American, any with a moral center, then do something about it.
[00:35:38]  Because you know what?
[00:35:38]  How they got that passed is they obsessed in a religious fervor, by the way.
[00:35:44]  Every single day they met, they gathered, they focused, and they got it done.
[00:35:48]  And so while we rightly gather around biblical truths of what the text tells us, if there's no application in the public square or the decaying world around us, I do not believe it is fully living out the great commission that Christ gave us, truly.
[00:36:04]  Number two is this, which is, what does it look applicationally?
[00:36:10]  I think that in a lot of different ways, Christians and the church, and let's just talk about just Americans in general.
[00:36:18]  And I talked about this a little bit.
[00:36:20]  It can't be a spectator sport, right?
[00:36:22]  And so many of you, and this is why I want to call out Pastor Rob McCoy, who opened his church, who has been criminalized by the city, state, and local government, and has just been punished for fully opening his church and has taken a stand and has refused to back down from these tyrants because that's what they are at every single turn.
[00:36:43]  And this is Rob McCoy.
[00:36:46]  Pastor Rob McCoy, stand up, turn around, let him see who.
[00:36:54]  Yeah.
[00:36:57]  And so, look, it's here's the long and short of it.
[00:37:02]  How about we live out those Instagram buzzwords that all those Christian Instagram accounts are always posting?
[00:37:07]  Be bold in your faith.
[00:37:08]  How about you do it?
[00:37:10]  Okay?
[00:37:13]  Be fearless.
[00:37:14]  Totally agree.
[00:37:15]  Like Daniel and the Dennel Lions.
[00:37:16]  Great.
[00:37:17]  Why is your church closed?
[00:37:18]  Yeah.
[00:37:19]  We know how this all plays out.
[00:37:21]  Do you?
[00:37:22]  Why is your church closed?
[00:37:24]  I'm going to speak, proclaim truth on the mountains.
[00:37:27]  Okay, why is your church closed?
[00:37:29]  Do you get how I get it?
[00:37:30]  How about you apply these sound bites that you wear on the shirts that you post on social media?
[00:37:37]  And this is a great trial.
[00:37:39]  And you said it best.
[00:37:40]  It is a trial.
[00:37:41]  And I understand that you have to pray and you have to reflect.
[00:37:45]  But now that we're in mid-September, everybody, right?
[00:37:49]  I could tell you this.
[00:37:50]  I get messaged, thousands of messages on my podcast every single week.
[00:37:53]  And the messages that get me the most angry are from people that are searching for Christ, that have been, all of a sudden they have some interest.
[00:38:01]  And they send me, they say, Charlie, I now have interest to commit my life to Jesus Christ.
[00:38:08]  One problem.
[00:38:09]  There's not a church open with a hundred mile radius of me.
[00:38:12]  So for the pastors that have kept your doors closed, you are complicit in secular people not finding the kingdom.
[00:38:19]  It is that simple.
[00:38:20]  It is that simple.
[00:38:21]  Love it.
[00:38:29]  Charlie, thank you so much.
[00:38:30]  Listen, I'm really excited because we got a bunch of other questions.
[00:38:33]  So I would like to ask you, give a little perspective because I have a dear friend in Israel, and he's a leading rabbi.
[00:38:40]  He's an Orthodox Jew.
[00:38:42]  I love him so much.
[00:38:42]  He's a dear friend.
[00:38:43]  And so I told him that you're coming.
[00:38:46]  And he was so excited about it.
[00:38:48]  And he says, you know, Ben Shapiro next?
[00:38:50]  And I'm thinking, I hope so, you know, but you know, I mean, only if Charlie could get him here.
[00:38:54]  I mean, I don't think I could.
[00:38:56]  Anyways, John, I want to ask you, you're on the front lines during the university.
[00:39:01]  And I want to ask you this too.
[00:39:02]  Do you see a rise of anti-Semitism?
[00:39:04]  Do you see a rise of anti-Israel?
[00:39:07]  And would you just comment briefly on that?
[00:39:10]  Of course.
[00:39:11]  And what can we do about it?
[00:39:12]  That's one of the questions.
[00:39:13]  There's a huge rise of anti-Semitism.
[00:39:15]  It's a massive problem in our country.
[00:39:18]  And I've been to Israel twice.
[00:39:20]  I understand the issue of Judea and Samaria and the nation-state of Israel and not just its geopolitical importance, but its moral importance in the world.
[00:39:28]  And what's incredible to me, and I've joked around with Dennis Prager, who's amazing and Ben Shapiro about this, is when I go to college campuses as an evangelical Christian, I have to debate American Jews about why Israel should exist.
[00:39:40]  Like, how did this happen?
[00:39:41]  It's like, that's weird.
[00:39:45]  That is weird.
[00:39:46]  But that's a whole different issue.
[00:39:48]  That's a completely different issue, but it's a real thing.
[00:39:51]  And so, look, there's just talking about the state of Israel and why we have to continually defend it and the rise of anti-Semitism, or your question was, is that there's a great book that Dennis Prager wrote called Why the Jews?
[00:40:06]  And it talks about the historical repeating of the persecution of the people of faith and the people of the law.
[00:40:13]  It's a phenomenal book.
[00:40:14]  And it talks about that this is not a mistake, is that the Jewish people have been long persecuted for multiple different reasons.
[00:40:22]  But I believe that we as Christians have a moral prerogative to defend anyone that is persecuted, to defend anyone that is wrongly accused.
[00:40:32]  In the public square today, you go to a college campus and they say, We stand against hate.
[00:40:40]  I hear all their buzzwords, right?
[00:40:42]  We stand against any sort of bigotry.
[00:40:46]  And five minutes later, you could turn to your right and see the boycott divestment sanction Palestinian authority, Muslim Brotherhood group walk through campus with a eliminate Israel from this river to the sea, which is a euphemism for basically destroying all of Israel.
[00:41:04]  And it's so Orwellian.
[00:41:06]  I thought to myself, Didn't you just say there's no hate allowed on campus?
[00:41:10]  And they say, Well, but Israel's an apartheid state.
[00:41:13]  Don't you understand that?
[00:41:15]  Which is one of the biggest, most disgusting lies.
[00:41:18]  Everyone's up in Israel.
[00:41:19]  It's just such an easy way to dispel this apartheid state thing.
[00:41:22]  So I was driving from Jerusalem to Hebron, and I was with my amazing girlfriend.
[00:41:26]  And I'll never forget, I didn't get that much sleep the night before.
[00:41:28]  And we were driving down, I was asking our great guide from Im Tritsu, which is a great group in a pro-Israel group.
[00:41:34]  And it was this yellow sign, and I don't speak Hebrew.
[00:41:36]  And I said, That's a really graphic sign.
[00:41:38]  It was a line in the middle with a red line to the right and a red line to the left.
[00:41:43]  And I asked him, I said, Well, what does that mean?
[00:41:45]  And he said, Well, we keep going straight, everything's fine.
[00:41:49]  And he said, If we, and he said, We go left, we die.
[00:41:52]  We go right, we die.
[00:41:53]  It's like, what are you talking about?
[00:41:54]  We die.
[00:41:56]  It's like, so blunt.
[00:41:57]  And he's like, we get killed.
[00:41:59]  I said, what do you mean we get killed?
[00:42:01]  And he's like, like a Westerner, like right in your face.
[00:42:04]  Like, I know I only have four hours of sleep, but this is a lot to comprehend.
[00:42:08]  And so he said, he said, well, that's controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
[00:42:11]  And he said, if we drove another mile down that road, past one more warning sign, they'll throw rocks at our car.
[00:42:19]  200 people will come in and they'll kill us and they'll drag us through the streets and we'll be left to fend ourselves.
[00:42:23]  It is a no-go zone for the Israeli Defense Force.
[00:42:26]  I said, what happens if an Arab goes into Jerusalem or into Israeli occupied area or Israel?
[00:42:32]  And he's like, well, we probably give him the right to vote and some food and some welfare.
[00:42:36]  This nonsense that Israel is an apartheid state is such a lie that is sold to overly privileged, clueless Western students that have no idea what oppression actually is.
[00:42:48]  No clue at all whatsoever.

=== Courageous Nations Know Their Cause (04:31) ===

[00:42:49]  It is Israel that allows the three monotheistic faiths to openly express their religion, to be represented in the Knesset, to visit their holy sites.
[00:42:57]  The Palestinian Authority, which is nothing, they are no greater morally than the Mexican cartel run by a money laundering maniac by the name of Mahmoud Abbas, who has not been democratically elected in over a decade, who has laundered the West's money, played victim while launching rockets at Israeli children while subsidizing terrorism.
[00:43:18]  We have to do a much better job of explaining what's happening in the Middle East because we have totally abdicated our role in that.
[00:43:24]  And I believe Christians have a moral responsibility to contest for that and to go against the ugly and disgusting movement of anti-Semitism that is now normalized and funded at the top levels of Hollywood culture, athletics, and education.
[00:43:39]  Fantastic.
[00:43:40]  I love that.
[00:43:41]  Excellent.
[00:43:42]  A moral and theological responsibility.
[00:43:46]  Beautiful.
[00:43:46]  Proud of you.
[00:43:47]  Hey, listen, we're going to transition and talk about courage, okay?
[00:43:50]  So let's talk about courage.
[00:43:52]  You know, I just think it's interesting.
[00:43:53]  Like, the Lord told Joshua, you know, in this transition to lead the children of Israel into the promised land, speaking of the land of Israel, unfolding plan, that he told him three times to be courageous.
[00:44:06]  You know, and I, even though he's like, I'm fully backing you, Joshua, it's just like set your feet on the piece of real estate and it is yours.
[00:44:13]  But the implication is because he's saying, you know, have heart that you're not necessarily always going to be feeling like this rush of adrenaline.
[00:44:22]  Like, to be honest with you, because we had some coffee before we got here, you know, in the morning, I feel particularly courageous after I had about four shots.
[00:44:29]  You know what I mean?
[00:44:30]  And so, but he's saying, look, you may not feel great or what you see may be stumbling you, but you need to press in and press on.
[00:44:38]  And I believe that we are living in a season the Lord is calling us to courage.
[00:44:44]  It was asked, John Wayne, you know, what is courage?
[00:44:47]  And he said, it's being scared to death, but saddling up anyways.
[00:44:50]  You know what I mean?
[00:44:50]  You just got to keep moving forward.
[00:44:53]  And it's been said you can't steer a parked car.
[00:44:55]  We need to keep moving.
[00:44:57]  My question to you is: what are the components to courage?
[00:45:01]  Why is courage so important today?
[00:45:05]  I think it's probably the most lacking of the greater traits in America today.
[00:45:12]  And you think about that.
[00:45:15]  There's a lot of things lacking.
[00:45:16]  I think we're lacking honesty, integrity.
[00:45:19]  I think we're lacking all sorts of things that we consider to be fruits of the Spirit.
[00:45:24]  But boy, are we lacking courage right now?
[00:45:26]  And I'm not saying that there's not courageous people, but a courageous nation is one that, first and foremost, you have to know what you're fighting for.
[00:45:37]  So that helps when you know truth, right?
[00:45:39]  The second thing is, I get asked this question a lot.
[00:45:42]  You know, I was at a meeting recently.
[00:45:44]  I've just traveled the country.
[00:45:46]  I was just, where was I?
[00:45:48]  I'm having a Joe Biden moment.
[00:45:50]  So, oh, yeah, that's right.
[00:45:55]  So I was in Arizona, Florida, Virginia.
[00:46:03]  In my defense, I've actually left my basement in the last month.
[00:46:07]  So all across the country.
[00:46:10]  I was at an event in Virginia, and I was either in Virginia or somewhere else, and someone asked me, they said, Well, Charlie, do you think we are going to win?
[00:46:17]  I knew exactly why they were asking the question.
[00:46:19]  I could see it because I've been asked this question many times.
[00:46:21]  I speak over 300 times a year.
[00:46:23]  What they were really asking is: if you answer no, can I stop fighting?
[00:46:28]  Oh, yeah, right, right, right, right.
[00:46:30]  That's why they were asking the question.
[00:46:32]  So, before we judge whether or not we are going to get involved in this very brutal but necessary struggle for our civilization, we have to just disregard the probability of winning or losing as a completely irrelevant metric.
[00:46:50]  It does not matter.
[00:46:52]  Courage is putting aside the probability of whether you're not going to win and proceeding anyway.
[00:46:57]  That's what courage is.
[00:46:59]  Yeah, it's good.
[00:47:07]  Good Ranchers began with the standard of bringing top quality, 100% American-born, raised-and-harvested meat to families across America.
[00:47:14]  This vision was instilled into them from their grandparents that owned community grocery stores and believed in trust, charity, and family values.

=== Truth Is Necessary For Elections (15:14) ===

[00:47:20]  Goodranchers.com partners directly with only American ranchers from across the United States to bring the highest quality meat straight to your door.
[00:47:27]  Goodranchers.com gets 100% American-raised beef right to your door, beef the way it used to be.
[00:47:32]  Get America's best grass-fed grain, finished beef delivered straight to your door.
[00:47:36]  Goodranchers.com is 100% American beef, chicken, and more, and support American farmers to support the economy.
[00:47:43]  Don't waste your money on cheap cuts and overseas beef buying from the other guys.
[00:47:48]  Get the American beef cuts your family deserves with Good Ranchers.
[00:47:52]  Buy today at goodranchers.com/slash Charlie.
[00:47:55]  It is the promo code Charlie to save $20 off your purchase.
[00:47:57]  Goodranchers.com, promo code Charlie.
[00:48:03]  So there are values that are of value, and that's why we value them.
[00:48:10]  I mean, right?
[00:48:11]  Life is not like always a means to an end.
[00:48:13]  I mean, did that make sense?
[00:48:15]  Okay.
[00:48:15]  Yes.
[00:48:16]  And so, like, love is an end in itself, really.
[00:48:20]  I mean, we should love because it honors God and because God is love.
[00:48:23]  We are to forgive.
[00:48:24]  We're to be pure.
[00:48:26]  We're to make the gospel known.
[00:48:29]  These are right, we do it because it's the right thing, right?
[00:48:34]  And therefore, we're committed to it.
[00:48:36]  That's partly what you're saying, isn't it?
[00:48:37]  And also, in Matthew 5, I think 28, I'm paraphrasing here, but Christ has one of the greatest mic drop moments in the Sermon on the Mount where he says, and I'm paraphrasing here, but he says, Blessed are you who are persecuted and condemned.
[00:48:51]  And then it's the dot, dot, dot, because of me.
[00:48:53]  And so you should consider a blessing if you're being attacked right now.
[00:48:56]  And if you're not being attacked, why aren't you being attacked right now?
[00:49:00]  Yeah.
[00:49:00]  And let me just say, you know, remember, remember when the Lord said, you must pick up the cross, deny yourself, and follow me.
[00:49:08]  In context, I mean, he's speaking to the Jewish boys who are following.
[00:49:13]  I call them boys because, you know, I'm much older than they were.
[00:49:16]  And he's saying, look, here's the thing.
[00:49:19]  You think this is going to be a popular movement initially, but the reality is, is this movement is going to start like a grain of mustard seed.
[00:49:28]  And you think I'm going to go to Jerusalem and I'm going to knock out the red coats and establish my kingdom or something.
[00:49:34]  And no, first I'm going to give my life.
[00:49:36]  I'm actually, I'm going to defeat the darkness behind the darkness because the core problem of man is a broken relationship with God.
[00:49:43]  And that's why Jesus gave his life on the cross, really giving us the chief penicillin of what is needed for man, the cure for man.
[00:49:51]  Can I hear an amen to that?
[00:49:52]  All right, dying for our sins, paying the debt, resurrecting from the dead.
[00:49:55]  But he's just saying, look, here's the thing.
[00:49:57]  You need to be willing to be the minority.
[00:50:01]  And your difference actually is the strength and what is needed in a generation.
[00:50:07]  You're going to be a counterculture to a culture that is breaking down.
[00:50:12]  And so just remember that our difference is what is needed.
[00:50:17]  And we need to be willing to stand alone, if you will.
[00:50:22]  Of course, we're never alone because the Lord is with us.
[00:50:24]  I just want to encourage someone.
[00:50:26]  I wouldn't be surprised if someone has come in here and is like, man, I just need some help when it comes to courage.
[00:50:31]  Just know that the Lord has not given us the spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind.
[00:50:36]  That is the Holy Spirit, and that's the spirit of the risen Christ.
[00:50:41]  And we need His help to be those examples and embody that love and that courage today.
[00:50:49]  And it's available to us if we ask.
[00:50:52]  Yeah, and two things on that.
[00:50:53]  Number one, it's a lot worse in your head than it usually ends up being in real life.
[00:50:57]  Number two is you're a lot tougher than you think.
[00:51:00]  Do not underestimate how much toughness God has given you.
[00:51:04]  You can shoulder a much tougher burden than what someone might be whispering in your ear incorrectly about what you're able to do.
[00:51:13]  We are built to be able to endure a ton of suffering.
[00:51:17]  And so do not underestimate yourself.
[00:51:19]  Why?
[00:51:20]  I might be called all these names and all this.
[00:51:22]  Again, it's usually worse in your prediction than in the reality.
[00:51:26]  And secondly, you're a lot tougher than you think.
[00:51:28]  I love that.
[00:51:29]  Awesome.
[00:51:34]  I'd like you to comment on this.
[00:51:35]  You know, November 3rd is obviously the election.
[00:51:39]  And golly, how many, we have, what, 365 million people in our country.
[00:51:46]  So I divided that earlier, and I can't remember.
[00:51:49]  I'm terrible with math.
[00:51:51]  But the point is, is that there's going to be a lot of people who are really, really happy after the election.
[00:51:56]  And there's going to be a lot, a lot of people who are really, really bummed, right?
[00:52:01]  And that's just the way it is.
[00:52:04]  And it reminds us, does it not, that, and faith reminds us of this, is that, look, an idol is a God replacement.
[00:52:13]  And the reality is that we need to remember that the Lord made us to have our identity in him, right?
[00:52:20]  So no matter what happens, we have security and our identity in him.
[00:52:25]  Can I hear an amen to that?
[00:52:27]  That's very, very important.
[00:52:29]  So we need to keep marching on.
[00:52:31]  But I wanted your thoughts on this.
[00:52:35]  And that is, you know, getting back to James, interesting, which you were studying on Sunday morning.
[00:52:40]  I know you love the book of James.
[00:52:42]  One of the concerns that James had, Jesus' half-brother, is that the adversity that they were experiencing would lead to the temptation of reactive anger and that they might fight evil with evil.
[00:52:57]  All right.
[00:52:58]  So therefore, he emphasizes what the wisdom of God is, which is first pure and first peaceable.
[00:53:07]  Right?
[00:53:07]  So it does take courage to love.
[00:53:12]  You know, I think Peter and John, like when they were rebuffed when Jesus was moving through a Samaritan city and the Samaritan city would not welcome with hospitality as they were making their way to Jerusalem, they turned to Jesus and asked, do you want us to call fire down from heaven upon these liberals?
[00:53:28]  You know what I mean?
[00:53:29]  It's like, I mean, and he's like, that's not the spirit of the Father.
[00:53:34]  So I just, look, it's crazy.
[00:53:37]  We live in a time, it feels like there's these mob mentality that exists.
[00:53:42]  And as believers, we're not to get caught up in that.
[00:53:45]  Could you comment on that?
[00:53:46]  I mean, that takes courage and of itself.
[00:53:48]  I'm happy to.
[00:53:48]  I'll talk about the election too.
[00:53:50]  Look, not all elections are made the same.
[00:53:52]  And it's a hard thing to talk about.
[00:53:54]  Everyone says it's the most important election of my lifetime.
[00:53:56]  It's probably true because you want to live in the moment.
[00:53:58]  You want to live in the present.
[00:53:59]  I have a unique opportunity.
[00:54:00]  I'm 26 years old.
[00:54:02]  And so I can look at things a little bit more intergenerationally than most people.
[00:54:05]  I travel to churches and campuses.
[00:54:07]  I travel and meet CEOs.
[00:54:09]  I meet pastors.
[00:54:10]  I meet middle-class families.
[00:54:11]  I meet with 14-year-olds and 80-year-olds.
[00:54:13]  So I can look at things a little more intergenerationally.
[00:54:16]  One of my earliest childhood memories is 9-11, which we just remembered a couple days ago.
[00:54:20]  I remember the financial crisis.
[00:54:22]  I remember Barack Obama getting elected twice, being from the suburbs of Chicago.
[00:54:25]  I can tell you it truly was a political movement, having the front seat to history in 2016 and now the potential for re-election.
[00:54:32]  I can see the cultural tidal wave and the tsunami and the hurricane that is coming.
[00:54:36]  I can see what happens if these people get power.
[00:54:38]  The one thing I've learned about the left, when they tell you they're going to do something, believe them.
[00:54:43]  They're just doing it for some sort of self-healing exercise.
[00:54:47]  So when they see that, when they say that they want to double the amount of abortions in America, they actually mean it.
[00:54:52]  That's not something that they're just saying for the sake of saying it.
[00:54:56]  So first on the election, I'm a huge supporter of the president, and I'm a friend of his.
[00:55:01]  I think he gets such an awful misrepresentation.
[00:55:06]  I think that, so if I could dive into this for a second, I'm really glad you guys applauded.
[00:55:13]  For what's happening in our country, it's great.
[00:55:16]  And if you're not a supporter of the president, I'm glad you're here tonight.
[00:55:19]  Maybe I can persuade you.
[00:55:20]  And so, and I will seek to do that.
[00:55:25]  First of all, just on the kind of the idea of expressing your support for something.
[00:55:29]  For almost our whole country's history, we've agreed that you can tell someone that they can or cannot do something.
[00:55:35]  Okay, you can't sleep in the middle of a crosswalk.
[00:55:37]  That's probably a reasonable law, right?
[00:55:40]  It used to be you can't publicly do certain things in the streets of LA, but apparently now that's not allowed, right?
[00:55:46]  But for a long time, we had some sort of mechanisms of what you can and cannot do.
[00:55:50]  But what now we are really flirting with in our country is now we're telling people you can't think something.
[00:55:59]  Never happened before.
[00:56:00]  And it's not that they're proposing it governmentally as much.
[00:56:03]  They will.
[00:56:04]  But now it's, if you dare say something, I'm going to crush you.
[00:56:11]  If you don't say something, I'm going to crush you.
[00:56:14]  If you don't post that black square, I'm going to find you.
[00:56:18]  I'm going to crush you and destroy you and find your family.
[00:56:24]  We have to just kind of take a societal deep breath and then just center ourselves and say, what is going on right now?
[00:56:31]  And there's a lot of different contributing reasons to it.
[00:56:34]  But if you cannot think, as Renee Descartes said at the beginning of the Enlightenment, I think, therefore I am.
[00:56:42]  If you cannot think, you've lost your identity.
[00:56:45]  And if you've lost your identity, you will go back into tribalism, which is a dangerous, disgusting thing that Christ brought us out of quicker than you can imagine.
[00:56:53]  And so what is really happening in our country, it's not just political, it is theological.
[00:56:57]  And I'm happy to get into the president, and I'll talk about that in a second.
[00:57:00]  But this is now a referendum on whether or not you can think something that the ruling class does not think.
[00:57:09]  Can you believe something vocally?
[00:57:11]  Can you wear that hat without having your business burned down?
[00:57:15]  Without being kicked out of school, without having to worry that a brick is going to throw through your living room window.
[00:57:20]  That is now all things that we don't know.
[00:57:23]  And I can give you countless amounts of examples.
[00:57:25]  And I'm going to tell you right now that conservatives are decent and reasonable people.
[00:57:30]  It's a good thing.
[00:57:32]  But if in November it looks like the president wins on election night and all of a sudden they find a bunch of ballots to, if it's a red mirage, as the Bloomberg group said, that's a very dangerous thing for the country, I'm telling you.
[00:57:49]  And I don't want to live through that moment where people think something happens and then they reverse it almost instantaneously.
[00:57:55]  The founders gave us voting as a pressure release valve.
[00:57:58]  It's the best way that we have prevented ourselves from tearing each other apart.
[00:58:03]  Because the one thing that all of you have, you're just screaming at the TV and you say, at least I can go vote, right?
[00:58:10]  At least I can go show up and do something about the founders knew that.
[00:58:14]  But if that pressure release valve goes away, we human beings are a lot more simple in the state of nature than I think we give ourselves credit for.
[00:58:22]  And I'm telling you right now, if they are allowed, if they're allowed to just say, you can't think that, you can't do that, there's no gap between civilized society and chaos.
[00:58:34]  There's not a transitional state.
[00:58:36]  And you can see they're almost trying to provoke it in the streets, right?
[00:58:39]  Where two police officers in Compton 48 hours ago were shot.
[00:58:43]  And what did they have to hear as they were fighting for their life in the hospital?
[00:58:46]  Did you hear about this?
[00:58:47]  They were fighting for their life in the hospital.
[00:58:50]  And they could barely hear it.
[00:58:52]  And they asked the doctors, what is that?
[00:58:54]  It was 200 BLM Incorporated rioters saying, I hope you die.
[00:59:00]  I hope you die.
[00:59:02]  By the way, if your pastor endorses BLM in Inc., that's who they're endorsing, just so you understand, wishing death among our police officers.
[00:59:09]  Truth can be hard sometimes, but it's necessary.
[00:59:12]  American Christianity has embraced these people, just so you know.
[00:59:14]  The Southern Baptist Convention has embraced critical race theory.
[00:59:17]  And I am not going to be patient.
[00:59:19]  I'm not going to be silent any longer for these pastors that pander to BLM Incorporated.
[00:59:23]  Not going to happen.
[00:59:33]  And I want to reinforce what you said, which is so true.
[00:59:37]  The statement, Black Lives Matter, is absolutely true.
[00:59:40]  However, it's almost semantic overload because it's three things at once.
[00:59:44]  It's a true statement, an organization that wishes for rioting and crime to happen, and also an incantation that is used so much that if you do not say that when we say it, we're going to punish you.
[00:59:54]  It's like, whoa, all these three things are happening simultaneously.
[00:59:58]  Right?
[00:59:58]  And so it's like semantic overload.
[01:00:00]  It's actually linguistic brilliance on behalf of the left, right?
[01:00:04]  We're not plastered on the NBA and you have to watch it if you watch a basketball game.
[01:00:08]  So let me just say one thing about the election really quick.
[01:00:10]  Of course.
[01:00:11]  Look, I'm a friend of the president.
[01:00:13]  I've gotten to know him over the last couple of years, and I could go on a lot about it, but there's something about him that I think gets really misrepresented in the media, which there's a caricature of him where they're trying to make it seem as if he has no care for the office or for the country, and he's just trying to either enrich himself.
[01:00:36]  It's this very bizarre caricature, right?
[01:00:38]  And I can tell you this: that I've been around a lot of politicians.
[01:00:42]  Congress and ISA is the exception to this.
[01:00:44]  But this president, quite honestly, has been so targeted by the opposition, spied on, impeached at every single turn.
[01:00:53]  And I understand it's very hard for certain Christians, and maybe there's some people in this room, they're like, well, I don't understand how a three-times married, twice-divorced, former cover of Playboy magazine is someone that I should support.
[01:01:03]  Well, he's also the most pro-life president in American history.
[01:01:05]  So go figure that one out.
[01:01:07]  He's also moved the embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Golan Heights, canceled the Iran deal, Gorsuch Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, 200 circuit court judges before the virus, the best economy in American history, lowest black, Latino, and Asian American unemployment, deregulated the American economy, gone after child sex trafficking in record numbers, first step act, VA Accountability Act, also the Right to Tri Act.
[01:01:30]  I could go on, right?
[01:01:32]  And so here's the state that we're in in our country, which is people say, well, I don't like his tone.
[01:01:40]  I don't like this.
[01:01:42]  I'll let other people talk about that because I think it's actually somewhat, I think it's such a distraction.
[01:01:47]  It's so inconsequential.
[01:01:48]  It's very simple.
[01:01:49]  Elections are binary, whether we like it or not.
[01:01:51]  We don't live in a parliamentary system, okay?
[01:01:53]  So you can either say, I'm going to invote.
[01:01:55]  I'm going to go vote for Senator Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, the most liberal senator in the United States Senate, who decides to go out of her way to go do all sorts of things that all of you know in the state.
[01:02:08]  Or you could go vote for President Trump and Mike Pence, who stand fearlessly as the most pro-life president in American history.
[01:02:14]  And presidency stands for people of faith and for the state of Israel.
[01:02:17]  I could go on through the list of accomplishments.
[01:02:19]  And so the last thing I'll say is this, is that I believe every Christian has a moral obligation to show up in record numbers in November.
[01:02:26]  Every single Christian.
[01:02:27]  I agree.

=== The Cost of Christian Freedom (13:36) ===

[01:02:35]  Today's sponsor is one we've been working with for a while now, Vincero.
[01:02:38]  Vincero creates the most incredible-looking watches for an incredible price point.
[01:02:42]  Seriously, watches that are stunning and that are under $200.
[01:02:45]  The guys on their team sent over some watches that Mr. Producer, he wears them all the time.
[01:02:50]  It's Vincero, V-I-N-C-E-R-O watches.com.
[01:02:53]  Vincero offers free shipping, 30-day returns, and guarantees your watch for two years.
[01:02:59]  There is a reason why they have over 20,000 five-star reviews because you won't find a better-made watch for this good of a price anywhere else.
[01:03:06]  So take advantage of 15% off everything on their website.
[01:03:09]  Vincero has styles for men.
[01:03:11]  It is vincerowatches.com, B-I-N-C-R-O watches.com.
[01:03:15]  Like I said, these timepieces you will enjoy every single day.
[01:03:18]  If you don't, Vincero will make it right.
[01:03:20]  That is their promise.
[01:03:21]  If you don't love it, they will make it right by you.
[01:03:23]  Go shop Vincero, vinceroatches.com.
[01:03:25]  Do not pay full price on these beautiful timepieces.
[01:03:28]  Take advantage of your exclusive discount and get up 15% off your order.
[01:03:31]  Vincerowatches.com.
[01:03:36]  So we're still talking about courage.
[01:03:38]  We're going to get to freedom.
[01:03:39]  I want to say this.
[01:03:40]  Look, there's no person in all of history as courageous as the Lord Jesus, right?
[01:03:45]  So, I mean, he came for a specific hour.
[01:03:47]  And I want to ask you a personal question because I want to ask you how his life, in terms of courage, that's my question, has influenced you.
[01:03:54]  But look, I just want to say, look, he knew coming into Jerusalem on Passover, biblical calendar, Nisan 14, historically, the same day that the Lord delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt, right?
[01:04:08]  So that was a precursor to the ultimate Exodus and salvation impact the entire world, which would be in the Son, in his Son, the Messiah, who John the Baptist said is the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world, right?
[01:04:23]  So he's focused in on Jerusalem.
[01:04:25]  He knows what's going to happen.
[01:04:26]  He's always going to be treated as if he committed every stinking sin in human history, from the killing fields, the Holocaust, to the rapes, the murders, to my sin, because I'm a sinner.
[01:04:35]  He knows it all.
[01:04:35]  He's going to bear the sin of the world by his stripes.
[01:04:38]  We are healed.
[01:04:40]  And despising the shame of the separation he's going to experience on the cross and being treated as if he committed every stinking sin in human history, he endures it for the joy set before him.
[01:04:51]  So therefore, from the most terrible injustice comes the greatest, beautiful shalom and healing.
[01:04:59]  And he was just like courageousness times a billion.
[01:05:03]  And I just want to say before we leave to move to freedoms, excuse me, how has Jesus's courage been an inspiration to you?
[01:05:12]  Well, the thing that we actually all have in common in our country and in civilization on the planet is that we're all going to die.
[01:05:20]  This is actually, you all have a time clock, and we don't know how long it is.
[01:05:24]  And some of you have longer.
[01:05:25]  Some of us say, we don't know.
[01:05:26]  And so actually, at the root of all of it is that there's a lot of anxiety for people that know they're going to die and they don't know what comes next.
[01:05:32]  There's a lot of malevolence that can come out of that, actually.
[01:05:35]  A lot of misery.
[01:05:36]  A lot of dissatisfaction if you have no, if you have just nothing but uncertainty.
[01:05:40]  And so then, if you also understand, in my opinion, this, a lot of what's happening in our country, again, goes back to a miscalculation of human nature.
[01:05:49]  I believe that human beings, because of original sin in the state of nature, were nasty, brutish, and short to each other.
[01:05:55]  We're worse than we could ever put into words.
[01:05:57]  That we're depraved by nature and we're dead.
[01:06:01]  And God gives us life through his son, Jesus.
[01:06:04]  Once you realize, I mean, if you kind of want to realize how broken you are, just sit for an hour by yourself, no phone.
[01:06:12]  Just think of all the awful things you've done.
[01:06:15]  Seriously?
[01:06:18]  Do it.
[01:06:19]  I tell young people to do this all the time because they hear nothing about how great they are from everybody.
[01:06:24]  Like, no, you're actually pretty awful.
[01:06:26]  And that's an awesome thing, actually.
[01:06:28]  It's very liberating.
[01:06:29]  It's actually more liberating and a better gift to be given than saying you're the best thing ever, the self-esteem nonsense that we tell our kids all the time.
[01:06:39]  It's garbage.
[01:06:42]  Think about all the things you've done wrong, all the lies you've told, all the ways you've deceived people.
[01:06:46]  And all of a sudden you realize, I'm a pretty awful person.
[01:06:48]  You're like, you're right.
[01:06:50]  And I am too.
[01:06:51]  We all are.
[01:06:53]  I'm never going to be able to satisfy the necessary prerequisites.
[01:06:58]  I'm not going to be able to get the points on the board.
[01:07:00]  I'm going to keep on falling.
[01:07:01]  I'm going to keep on just, it's non-stop.
[01:07:05]  That's why God gave us Jesus.
[01:07:07]  Jesus was God.
[01:07:08]  Where you just have to surrender and accept that gift.
[01:07:11]  And so once you truly do that, where you just not just say the words, but you're born new, that's why we call it born again to a new person.
[01:07:18]  You're given eternal life.
[01:07:19]  I think there's great comfort in that.
[01:07:21]  And so when I travel the country and I have people coming after me and all these sorts of things, I say this to Pastor Rob and to my girlfriend and people, if I wasn't a Christian, I don't know if I'd be able to do this.
[01:07:31]  I really don't.
[01:07:32]  That if I did not have Jesus and at least some sort of way to make sense of all this for myself, it'd be very hard, much harder than it is now.
[01:07:42]  And so, and if there's somebody out there right now and they say, I don't know, this is all just mythology to me and all that sort of stuff, and I don't quite get it.
[01:07:50]  And I'm happy to talk experientially or I can talk from a reason standpoint.
[01:07:54]  But here's just the, here's just something that I've learned.
[01:07:58]  Go out for a year, and if you find anything better than Jesus, tell me.
[01:08:04]  Well said.
[01:08:05]  Well said.
[01:08:06]  Excellent.
[01:08:09]  Good job.
[01:08:11]  Okay, we have a few more questions.
[01:08:13]  We're going to get to freedom now.
[01:08:14]  Earlier, we made the statement that we live in the greatest country in the entire world.
[01:08:18]  Thank the Lord for the United States of America.
[01:08:20]  But it is not the salvation of the world.
[01:08:22]  Jesus is the salvation of the world.
[01:08:25]  Okay, he brings true freedom from the debt of sin, power over sin.
[01:08:30]  In his resurrection, it's a demonstration he's making all things new.
[01:08:34]  One day he returns, and the world knows the righteousness, justice, shalom, potential that God has intended.
[01:08:42]  Now, you talk about freedom, right?
[01:08:44]  That whom the sun sets free is free indeed.
[01:08:47]  So he is the great freedom fighter times a billion.
[01:08:51]  All right, the question I have for you is this: is there a cost to freedom?
[01:08:56]  And if so, why is it important that every generation understands this?
[01:09:02]  Absolutely, there's a cost of freedom.
[01:09:04]  I mean, the natural state, as I mentioned, and Thomas Hobbes hit this perfectly, who wrote The Leviathan, one of the most important books that people understand, where man in the state of nature is nasty, shortish, and short and brute.
[01:09:17]  Nasty, short, and brutish to each other.
[01:09:20]  Okay.
[01:09:21]  So we're awful to each other.
[01:09:22]  This is written in the English Civil War.
[01:09:23]  I completely agree with it.
[01:09:25]  And actually, he found great commonality with John Calvin.
[01:09:27]  That's why you get the cartoon Calvin and Hobbes because they both, that's actually where it came from.
[01:09:32]  Because they both agreed in the state of nature, man was completely depraved.
[01:09:36]  And so when you have that belief, you realize when you create a society with first principles, when you have any sort of freedom at all whatsoever, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom to own property, we're in the rarity of human history.
[01:09:56]  So most of human history was living under a non-elected, hereditary dictator that abuses their power.
[01:10:04]  You live to maybe you're 27, you're lucky you get married, and you're probably going to fight some war halfway across the continent for something foolish.
[01:10:12]  That's the arc of human history for almost all time.
[01:10:17]  And so now when you have self-government created, you see human flourishing increase.
[01:10:22]  life expectancy, medical advancements, technological advancements, not the least of which is because when you have truth as an agreed upon idea in a society, you're going to have the most patents, the most excellence, the most breakthroughs, the most entrepreneurs, because everyone's trying to find truth, which in a micro sense, of course, we know what real truth is, but also, it says in Philippians, whatsoever is true, they want to find the best way to get in the air and fly an airplane or go to the moon.
[01:10:49]  I mean, when you have those agreed upon centeredness, all of a sudden you have an entire society that gets up every day and tries to find the best way to do things, where it's a Christian principle to say that we as men or mankind are here to actually overcome nature.
[01:11:06]  That it's a good thing that you can fly halfway across the country.
[01:11:09]  That is us using technology to be able to overcome nature.
[01:11:12]  It's a good thing that we can operate and have brain tumors removed, right?
[01:11:16]  And so we're living in this very short time in human history, very short, incredibly.
[01:11:23]  And so, but here's the thing about freedom that is so incredibly important.
[01:11:27]  We do not teach our young people this.
[01:11:28]  We teach them a misapplication of freedom and a complete misinterpretation.
[01:11:32]  They think of freedom as, awesome, I'm free from my parents.
[01:11:36]  I can do whatever substances I want.
[01:11:38]  I can do whatever moral decisions I want.
[01:11:40]  I can stay up as late as I want.
[01:11:41]  We all know that that is not freedom.
[01:11:43]  It's the opposite of freedom.
[01:11:45]  And so there is a necessary precursor to freedom that we don't talk enough about, which is responsibility.
[01:11:51]  That if you do not have responsibility, you actually are never free.
[01:11:55]  And so in fact, you're always going to be in bondage to either the sin or held captive to the false promise of whatever that is going to give you.
[01:12:07]  And so the founding fathers recognized this.
[01:12:09]  They knew that if you do not have responsibility, you cannot have freedom.
[01:12:13]  That is why you have a generation, my generation, Generation Z millennial right in between it, that have been given the freedom to do whatever they want to do.
[01:12:21]  Sure, go smoke marijuana.
[01:12:22]  It's legal now.
[01:12:24]  Go on the internet and stay up to 3 a.m.
[01:12:26]  And they're the most miserable generation in American history.
[01:12:29]  One out of four of young people have contemplated suicide in the last 90 days, according to the Center for Disease Control.
[01:12:34]  Antidepressants, alcoholism, drug usage, sexual abuse, domestic abuse.
[01:12:38]  We're going to face that 500,000 less children next year than this year, but they have everything at their disposal.
[01:12:44]  Whereas 50 years ago, you wouldn't be able to commit the same sins that you could do in an hour.
[01:12:49]  It would take a year to do what you could do in an hour now.
[01:12:52]  But yet it's the most directionless, chaotic generation.
[01:12:56]  Why?
[01:12:57]  It's because so many young people are responsible for nothing.
[01:13:01]  They don't have a relationship they're responsible for.
[01:13:04]  They don't have a job they're responsible for.
[01:13:06]  And so we have to define what freedom is.
[01:13:10]  And I think we've done a poor job of that generally.
[01:13:13]  Well, excellent.
[01:13:14]  I love that.
[01:13:14]  I loved every second of that.
[01:13:16]  So we can take freedom too far, right?
[01:13:20]  I mean, well, like we broke away from King George and from the tyranny of King George.
[01:13:26]  I mean, is it possible to actually shake our fist at the Messiah king?
[01:13:32]  And is that taking place increasingly so in our culture?
[01:13:36]  And, you know, because the USC Supreme Court reflected this in the Planned Parenthood versus Casey case, at the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.
[01:13:52]  And it's like, whoa.
[01:13:54]  This is typical leftist wordplay.
[01:13:57]  If you want to finish, I'm not sure.
[01:13:58]  No, no, and it's almost like self has become the new sovereign.
[01:14:02]  Well, yeah, so this is a secular lie, that somehow that your liberty is found in indulgence.
[01:14:09]  Of course not.
[01:14:11]  I mean, just look at any sort of practical example of that.
[01:14:15]  If you go look at a person who lives in Skid Row in Los Angeles, are they free?
[01:14:23]  I mean, they might be free to go put heroin in their arm, but are they living on a plane of freedom?
[01:14:29]  Of course not.
[01:14:30]  And so, first of all, in order to have freedom, you cannot have moral relativism.
[01:14:35]  It's such an important point.
[01:14:37]  If you do not believe in God, right and wrong is just an opinion.
[01:14:41]  It's a very important point.
[01:14:43]  If you do not believe in God, then it's just a matter of an up or down vote.
[01:14:46]  Abortion, what do we have to say?
[01:14:49]  And then you get even a more dangerous place, which is what the postmodernists believe and what your children are learning in public school, private school, and in college, which is even more dangerous than this, where everyone has their own truth.
[01:15:00]  It's my truth, which I always love playing out.
[01:15:03]  I say, so you believe that there's no such thing as absolute truth.
[01:15:06]  They say yes.
[01:15:07]  Say, do you believe that absolutely?
[01:15:11]  That's the first thing.
[01:15:11]  The second thing is I say, okay, you believe in your own version of truth.
[01:15:16]  Let's go test that out.
[01:15:18]  Go to the top of a building and show me that gravity is just your truth.
[01:15:23]  Disprove force equals mass time acceleration.
[01:15:26]  Disprove that an object at rest will stay at rest.
[01:15:30]  Disprove that.
[01:15:31]  They can't.
[01:15:31]  Of course not, because there's the laws of nature and nature is God.
[01:15:33]  That's why in the declaration, our birth certificate, the founders put that in there, right?
[01:15:37]  Because it was that blend of reason and revelation.
[01:15:41]  Because all of a sudden they were in this time when all this scientific discovery was coming.
[01:15:45]  And guess what?
[01:15:46]  Christians loved it.
[01:15:47]  And we should.
[01:15:48]  Because the more we learn about science, the more it actually affirms what we already believe.
[01:15:52]  The more we have mapped the human genome, the more we realize that there's no way this is a mistake.
[01:15:57]  The more we learn about our environment, the more we realize there's probably a creator behind all of this, right?
[01:16:02]  The more we dive into what DNA actually is and the miracle of life.
[01:16:06]  And so I'll say this, is that that is a false idea of freedom.
[01:16:10]  I think it's actually serfdom and it is bondage.

=== Standing Against Micro-Tyranny (03:12) ===

[01:16:12]  And I know you're just quoting that, but yeah.
[01:16:14]  You know, some of you hearing the messages tonight and hearing about God and Jesus and things, I want to give you an opportunity to actually respond.
[01:16:23]  And I'd just like to private moment here, just in prayer.
[01:16:27]  And you say, Greg, what do you mean respond?
[01:16:28]  Well, and recognize what the Lord has done for you because you're not a mistake.
[01:16:32]  He loves you with everything.
[01:16:33]  You're geniusly made.
[01:16:34]  He created you.
[01:16:36]  And not only that, but he's revealed himself to us in his son at the cross and in the resurrection.
[01:16:43]  So important.
[01:16:43]  And he's coming again.
[01:16:45]  And he wants relationship with you.
[01:16:47]  He wants to give you something.
[01:16:48]  He wants to give you forgiveness.
[01:16:49]  He wants to give you hope beyond the grave.
[01:16:52]  Mostly he wants to give you himself.
[01:16:53]  And once you have him, you have those things.
[01:16:57]  And Charlie, listen, like, I just want to say, we're going to sing a song and we're going to end a few months.
[01:17:03]  Listen, you have the last word.
[01:17:05]  Would you like to share something?
[01:17:07]  Yeah, I mean, just a couple things.
[01:17:09]  First of all, thank you for having me tonight.
[01:17:11]  I mean that.
[01:17:12]  And look, the civilization that we are living in right now was built because of an active church.
[01:17:19]  It was built on biblical principles.
[01:17:22]  What we are living through is an incredible and remarkable experiment in self-governance.
[01:17:28]  And we can lose it.
[01:17:30]  We are losing it.
[01:17:33]  All it takes for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing.
[01:17:38]  And we have ways to do that.
[01:17:39]  It's voting.
[01:17:40]  It's getting involved.
[01:17:41]  It's standing up against micro-tyranny.
[01:17:43]  It is not allowing lies to go across your radar screen without confronting them, standing straight with your shoulders back, getting your words right, looking people in the eyes and saying, that is not true, and here is what is true.
[01:17:56]  And so, as Benjamin Franklin said, it's a republic if you can keep it.
[01:18:01]  And I'm 26 years old.
[01:18:03]  I give 300 speeches a year, two podcasts a day, one on Saturday, one on Sunday.
[01:18:08]  I'm going to go down fighting.
[01:18:11]  I'm not going to let this thing disintegrate.
[01:18:13]  And so, one thing is, if you guys removed by anything I said, one thing that would be awesome is if we could stick it to the New York Times by, if you guys could subscribe to my podcast, it's free of charge.
[01:18:28]  You just type in Charlie Kirk show to your podcast provider.
[01:18:31]  Everyone did it in this room right now.
[01:18:33]  We would beat the New York Times by the morning.
[01:18:35]  I do two a day, one Saturday, one Sunday.
[01:18:37]  We talk about the gospel at least once or twice a week.
[01:18:41]  And my call to action is: whatever you're doing now, fight harder.
[01:18:47]  If we rise up, we're going to win.
[01:18:49]  God bless you guys.
[01:18:50]  Amen.
[01:18:50]  Amen.
[01:18:50]  Thank you, Charlie.
[01:18:51]  Thank you so much.
[01:18:56]  Thank you so much, Charlie.
[01:19:06]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[01:19:07]  Please consider supporting us at charliekirk.com/slash support.
[01:19:11]  CharlieKirk.com slash support.
[01:19:13]  Please get involved with TurningPointUSA at tpusa.com, tpusa.com.
[01:19:19]  Thank you guys so much for listening.
[01:19:21]  Make sure to listen to our sister episode.
[01:19:22]  God bless.
[01:19:23]  Talk to you soon.