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Oct. 11, 2020 - The Charlie Kirk Show
56:18
10 Reasons Christians Should Vote for President Trump

Charlie sits down with Pastor Frank Ramseur of Calvary Chapel Chattanooga, to discuss why he believes now is the moment that Christians need to engage in the cultural and political battles and stop "partitioning" their faith from...

Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Enjoying Exclusive Speeches 00:01:43
Thank you for listening to this Podcast 1 production.
Now available on Apple Podcasts, Podcast 1, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.
Hey, everybody.
This weekend I had the amazing opportunity to speak at Calvary Chapel Chattanooga.
We covered everything from critical race theory to 10 reasons why Christians should vote for Donald Trump to so much more.
I am honored to be able to share this episode with you.
It has been widely remarked as a very positive sequence of speeches.
You're going to hear the best of that.
Also, listen to our sister Ask Me Anything episode.
And as of today, we are live on radio stations across the country.
So check us out at charliekirk.com.
And as always, email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.
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Very important topics here discussed.
People really have been enjoying this sequence of speeches aired to you exclusively here on the Charlie Kirk Show.
Buckle up, everybody.
Here we go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
That's why we are here.
Well, so we talk about, you say, I would just, if I had it, my mission and simple is to see young people love our country again.
Fighting for Campus Freedom 00:15:20
Well, why would that matter to the church?
Why should that be something that...
Yeah, how much time you got, Jesus.
Well, we're going to go till 9.30.
Perfect.
It's just about enough time.
Do you just get started?
Yeah, I mean, boy, I mean, this country, first and foremost, was founded after the First Great Awakening in our country when activist pastors were rising up against widespread debauchery, drunkenness, and moral disorder.
And out of the first great awakening of Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards.
And if you want to just read a very, let's just say, strongly worded sermon, read Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards, and you might reconsider some life decisions you've been doing.
Definitely more Old Testament-centric than New Testament-centric wrath of God.
But no, out of the Great Awakening, all of a sudden, the kind of the religious underpinning of our country was reawakened, which this started, you know, very about 130 years before that as separate religious colonies.
And the question started to be posed, especially in 1763 as the French Indian War ended.
Where do rights come from?
Like, who are we?
Who are we in the state of nature?
And these questions really hadn't been struggled with very much yet on the planet.
The Greeks wrestled with it a little bit.
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
They had Greek democracy, but that ended within a couple of generations after Alexander the Great and just turned into a bunch of city-states.
And they had Athenian democracy.
But the idea of like, where do rights come from and self-governance and being able to create a government that first and foremost recognizes rights come from God, not from the government, was just so incredibly transformational.
And John Locke did a lot of that work for us.
And so here's the one thing.
Why should Christians care about anything outside of the church?
And not every Christian holds this view.
And this is my view, is that I do not believe in compartmentalized Christianity.
I believe in comprehensive Christianity.
I believe who you marry, how you act, where you shop.
And yes, whether or not you're involved in politics should all be a reflection of the most important thing in your life, which is your relationship with Jesus Christ.
And I don't think there should be anything that should be untouched by the gospel.
Amen.
Well, let's kind of jump right in.
Evidently, there's an election here soon.
Yeah, I didn't know that.
And were you unaware?
Yeah, thanks for reminding me.
That's good.
So here we come, and it is a common sort of position.
I know as you speak at churches, as you say with the leadership there, that you deal with this sort of pushback of, I can't believe that they're bringing politics to the, you've defiled the pulpit because you're going to talk about something other than 12 verses, you know, tonight.
And so what place does politics have within the context of the church or vice versa?
I mean, this is something that you go, well, taboo.
Let me just state the obvious, which is the question every person should ask, especially anyone over the age of 40 or recent mothers out there and fathers is, am I leaving a better country or a better place for my kids than I had?
And that should just be a very simple question, right?
And if the answer is no, then what are you doing about it to fix it?
Or if the answer is you don't care, then I mean, come on, you might be giving something that might have almost assured suffering or difficulty for the loved ones that you have that are younger.
And so, and if some people say, well, it doesn't matter at all whatsoever.
Who cares?
It's no different.
Oh, no, it matters.
Let me tell you why.
What you're doing right now, you would all be arrested if you did this in California right now.
Politics matter, everybody.
Like your governor in Tennessee is different than the governor in California.
Calvary Chapel, Thousand Oaks right now, Rob McCoy, my pastor, is under criminal prosecution after criminal prosecution because he's doing exactly what you get to enjoy right now.
You think politics doesn't matter?
Go to California and go try to go to church service right now.
You'll be in criminal defiance of what's happening right now because they say it's not safe.
Meanwhile, they keep abortion factories open, weed dispensaries open, home improvement stores open, liquor stores open.
You can march in the streets, no masks, no social distancing if you have a sign that agrees with the Los Angeles mayors on certain, you know, certain issues.
So yeah, I mean, I mean, if you don't think it matters, I mean, come on.
I mean, what more evidence do we need right now?
Because, for example, in Calvary, Calvary Chapel is the perfect place to be talking about this.
And so Calvary Chapel started in California, you know, the Calvary Chapel Crusades by Chuck Smith.
There are 350 Calvary Chapels south of Van Nuys in California, 350.
There's more Calvary Chapels than Dunkin' Donuts in California.
Okay?
It's true.
And that one part of the area.
In fact, they said you are not allowed to start any more new Calvary Chapels because there are so many of them.
They said you can't have more than one in every like 10 square miles everywhere.
What do they have to show for it?
California has aborted more babies than the entire population of Canada.
They're the authors of no-fault divorce, transgender bathrooms.
They're leading the nation in poverty, homelessness, divorce, discord, social unrest, inequality, you name it.
And so as the church exploded, did the country or the culture around them improve?
And now when all it comes to a head, the church wants to reopen.
John MacArthur, Jack Kibbs, and Pastor Rob McCoy are all under criminal prosecution right now because they're doing what you're enjoying right now.
What's the difference?
Same country, different state, different politics.
Tennessee has made better, not perfect, choices that say, hey, maybe church is more important than a casino.
California doesn't have that belief.
So for Christians, better dive right into this political discussion right now because it is impacting the body in this country right now.
Pastors in your Calvary Chapel community right now, in California, from Pastor James Cadiz to Pastor Jack Hibbs to Pastor Rob McCoy, three Calvary Chapel pastors right now are dealing with criminal prosecutions, court hearings, and judges because they're doing what all of you take for granted right now.
I'm not saying you take for granted, but I'm sure someone in this room didn't probably recognize how unique it is just in this state to be able to enjoy what you're doing right now, where your amazing pastor had the boldness to reopen the church.
Other Calvary chapels joined, and they're met with that kind of backlash.
Why?
What's the difference between Tennessee and California?
Well, Tennessee, your income rate is what?
Income tax rate is zero.
You vote for, hopefully, leaders that want you to live quiet and peaceable lives.
And in California, they are now decriminalizing pedophilia, SB 145, where now all of a sudden pedophiles no longer have to register in the sex registry database.
So in California, you could be living next to a pedophile, and they don't have to do that any longer.
So why is that the case?
Well, it's because this amazing constitutional republic that we've been given is a participatory government.
It's not a spectator government.
And you might think it's messy, so it's the church.
What's the point?
You might say that, oh, both sides are awful unless Jesus Christ himself is running for office.
You're always going to be voting for the lesser of two evils.
The question is, are you going to contest for the good, the right, and the moral in every single vertical of your life?
And people say, well, again, they say, well, I can't move the dial.
I just demonstrated to you there's a difference between Tennessee and California.
Justin, something that you're enjoying right now.
So I think all those arguments are fickle and fragile and kind of fall apart upon cross-examination every single time.
And I'm not arguing that there is perfection out there.
I am arguing there's better.
Amen.
And it's a big difference.
And I also think that we have a moral obligation as believers and as Christ followers to, of course, first and foremost, spread the gospel.
Most important thing we can do.
Second thing is make sure you can spread the gospel.
Amen.
Because you can't, right now in California, it is illegal to do what you're doing right now.
Amen.
Amen.
So you've started with a good point.
Just as we look at this next election, you look at, I think the reality is, it should be an unmistakable reality, but seemingly still a little foggy, as to just on whose chest is the bullseye as it relates to a conflict, a struggle between right, wrong, life, death, darkness, light, truth, and error.
So you start off by saying there is a certain liberty that we're enjoying here right now tonight than somewhere else in another political environment.
In our country, guys, this is not Korean.
This is not North Korea or China.
This is our country.
And so, yeah, it matters.
Jeez.
You know what Pastor Rob McCoy would give to be able to have the local government that you guys have right now?
He would give jail time, literally, because that's what he's facing.
And so for Christians and believers out there who just think you can just cash it in, your brothers in Calvary Chapel church could go to jail because of bad politics.
And so let me just build this out even further.
How did we get here, right?
How do we get to a point where cannabis dispensaries are valued more than churches, where casinos are valued more than churches, where abortion is deemed essential, but the body of Christ does not, and salvation has somehow been put to be debatable?
How did we get here?
Well, the Calvary Chapel is actually the perfect example of this because Calvary Chapel has a heavy emphasis on an eschatological belief that Jesus Christ will return.
I hold that belief.
However, every eschatology comes with a liability and an asset, every single eschatology.
So a big belief in the Calvary family is that the house is on fire.
We've got to get kids out, right?
Jesus is coming next Thursday.
I always joke around.
You sure it's not next Friday?
Because, you know, I think the time and the hour is unknown, but there's this belief that there's an eminent collapse.
The times of Noah are here.
That very well might be right.
I think none of that warrants an excuse for non-engagement in the public square.
None of it.
And so I think in some ways the eschatology breeded apathy.
And a lot of churches just kind of said, it's all awful.
It's all falling apart.
I don't have to get involved.
It's all messy.
We're just going to focus on kind of this myopic view.
And now you're starting to all of a sudden see the consequences of this, where people that were secular, atheistic, and hedonistic in nature, they cared much more about the public square than those of us that had truth, those that actually were ambassadors of light and the word of God.
And that never should have happened, to be perfectly honest with you.
It never should have happened that those people that are the ambassadors of darkness are contending more in the public square than those of us that are the ambassadors of light.
Amen.
And so that kind of collision right now should be happening.
You're always going to have conversations of good versus evil.
And I don't think I really have to make it more clear.
Like, oh, wow, in California, SB 145, you have cuties on Netflix.
They're teaching 10-year-olds the most graphic sexual education things you could possibly imagine.
I could go on, but I'm going to keep it PG.
And so if that does not elevate your sense of awareness, I mean, I would challenge you and ask, well, what exactly would?
And again, I understand it's messy.
I understand it can make you uncomfortable.
People say, I don't like it.
It's this.
I just kind of vote.
I kind of cash it in.
But I guess I make the intergenerational argument, right?
I'm 26, so I can look at this kind of from a younger and an older perspective, right?
So I look at it where I want to start a family, and just 10 years ago, I was a teenager, right?
And I could tell you right now, there's a mess being handed to young people where we are really kind of for the first time in our country's history, handing over a country that will be less free, less prosperous, and further from a moral center.
And so that should take every person that has been reborn in Jesus Christ should pause of concern and say, what are we doing about that?
And then some people say, this is one of my favorite things.
I'm just kind of playing devil's advocate throughout all this, so we can kind of dismiss it so we can get into the meat of it.
Where people say, well, it doesn't matter what I do doesn't actually make a difference.
I'll say, that's an unchristian view because everything you do matters to God.
Everything you do, to how you act, to what you say, to who you marry.
If you all of a sudden believe that God gives you a hall pass for certain actions, then kind of tell me where the parameters of God's providence don't shine down.
Please, like, inform that to me.
That's compartmentalized Christianity.
It's like, oh, he doesn't matter what I do in this specific realm.
It doesn't care if I lie, really?
So all of a sudden, like, what part does God's almighty dominion over earth not touch?
And whether you signed up for this or not, well, guess what?
You're part of it.
Politics is a huge part of now the country that you live in.
You don't like it, you're free to leave.
But if you're going to stay, then you should engage and double down because now everything is touched by politics.
And if you don't get involved, other people will.
And those other people probably don't share the same worldview that you do.
They probably don't believe that God is real.
Most of them don't.
They probably don't believe that exploitation of children is wrong.
They don't believe that there's something wrong with showing cuties on Netflix.
Do I need to give you more cultural red flags or fire alarms that there's some need for engagement?
Because even five years ago, I wouldn't be able to list off the things that I'm listing right now.
And that's just the beginning starting point.
Where in Georgia, it should have been the number one news story.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation working with other agencies, they rescued 47 children from being sex trafficked in Georgia.
A lot of you probably didn't even know that.
You can look up the story.
That should be national news.
You get covered under the activist media.
Who's sex trafficking our children in our country?
You know that people say we abolish slavery.
I say, a form of slavery, yes.
There's more slaves on the planet now than there were when slavery existed legally in America.
We have legal sex slaves coming across the southern border every day.
And some of them, through Hartfield Jackson International Airport, the number one hub of sex trafficking in the North American continent, so that women that are innocent are being, and I'm going to use more PG terms.
You guys know exactly what I mean by that.
And it's not even worthy of saying, but what are you doing to contend to try to fix that, right?
So I think the reawakening is so important, right?
And so I will not stand idly by when some of these things that are so incredibly urgent to a moral society, and even more than that, has the world become a better place because of America?
And the answer is absolutely yes.
It's not even a question.
America's made mistakes, but America is not a mistake.
America set the standard for Western society, which is one that respects speech, respects the rights of the innocent, respects the rights of minorities, allows family formation to succeed and thrive.
America not only was the first in flight, the first to the moon, brain surgery, open heart surgery, the absolute expansion of life expectancy.
However, not only, all those things are absolutely true, but it's America that gives $500 billion away to charity every single year.
When there's a natural disaster, flood, hurricane, or earthquake, they don't say, let's call the Belgians.
They say, where are the Americans?
South Korea exists because 32,000 Americans went and died, what they call the forgotten war in the Korean Peninsula, and we pushed back the evil Chinese Communist Party forces, North Korea.
Now, 100 million people live free in South Korea.
Guess what?
One of the most Christian nations on earth.
So the kingdom has advanced because of the United States of America.
Again, I'm the first one to admit, I'm the first one to admit we've made plenty of mistakes.
Vietnam wore a mistake.
Iraq wore a mistake.
We have the sin of slavery.
We're still trying to be able to move forward of all those sorts of things.
But I will not tolerate a professional, well-rehearsed, pathological narrative that this country is an awful place.
It's not true.
There's a waiting list to get into this country.
There's a reason why there's 36 million people trying to come right in the seat that you're in right now.
There's a reason why 3 million legal black immigrants came to this country since 1980.
Because despite challenges and difficulties and legitimate prejudices that existed, it's still the best place for people of any skin color, any language, and any culture to be able to exist in this country.
And what ends up happening is that valid critiques quickly turn into pathological resistance, which then translates into hatred.
So all of a sudden, what turned into valid critiques, of which I share many in this country, all of a sudden, next thing I know, five years later, the very same people that were offering valid critiques about the country were all of a sudden saying this place is awful.
I said, hold on a second.
Five years ago, you were just critiquing.
Now you're trying to debase and disintegrate.
And that is a no-go zone for me, because if you do not have appreciation for gratitude for this beautiful gift that we have been given, which is this country, which was divinely inspired, by the way, and God was mentioned four times in the Declaration of Independence, four times.
Empowerment Over Pathological Resistance 00:14:47
Laws and nature and laws of nature and nature is God.
We had four great awakenings in this country.
The first founded it.
The second continued it.
The third borderline almost allowed us to almost saved us from total disintegration.
And the fourth that all of you are most familiar with, the Billy Graham great awakening of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, which led so many people to Christ, which was an international awakening, which made that one so unique.
And so look, the failure to acknowledge, understand, appreciate, and defend this gift, I am afraid, will be one of the most regrettable suicides ever of a country to exist.
Because never before have so many people had it so good that wanted to stop.
That's amazing.
So when you look on at this particular juncture, you know, everything's so sort of polarized.
What do you say to the son or to the Christian who says, I'm just going to sit this one out?
I just.
Yeah, I mean, I just exercise my right to sit this one out.
I mean, you absolutely have a right to do something foolish.
No doubt.
That is a constitutionally protected right in this country.
It is.
No, and that's what's so beautiful about liberty is you can make a fool of yourself, right?
As long as you're not harming somebody else, right?
Which is what was always the number one case for reopening the church for me is like, you're not going to force people to come.
They could still live stream it.
Allow the people that want to come the ability to come, right?
That's the whole idea of liberty is you cannot have liberty without responsibility.
Liberty without responsibility is called indulgence, okay?
That's just called like just basically, I'm going to do whatever feels good and not actually take responsibility for it.
Everything in life has a cost.
Everything does.
So what do I say about that?
I would just challenge it.
I'd say, look, first of all, if you're, people say, I don't want to vote.
And I just kind of laugh.
I'm like, have you waited 10 minutes in a Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks line and you're willing to do that?
You're not allowed to just go and mark a couple boxes that better reflect your worldview and say everyone running is every single person running is a sinner.
Let me just be very clear.
The person running from dog catcher to city council to state rep to senate to the president, like 100% sinners, 100% depraved, 100% need Jesus.
Not all of them reflect the biblical worldview, though.
And that's the difference.
And so find the one that best fits.
Some of them will be like, oh, it's kind of a tough fit, a little incongruent.
Okay, then ask advice.
That's why you got pastors, right?
It's why you have elders.
It's why you have mentors.
If you're confused, awesome.
You should be because it's kind of confusing out there.
It's why I do two podcasts today, one on Saturday, one on Sunday, and it seemed to be a national radio show.
I try to make clarity out of the clouds, right?
I try to have some people make sense of all the incoming.
And I don't do a perfect job, but we do a pretty good job, right?
And so I guess the argument, the only argument you could be to have to not vote is you really have no care whatsoever about what happens next.
And so if you're here, you're probably not a nihilist.
And if you are, welcome to church.
Seriously.
And so that's fine, by the way.
But don't do that.
I mean, come on.
Every single person here should vote.
I'm going to make a suggestion of how to vote if you want.
That's fine.
But I'm not going to say.
No, it's a very personal thing.
You might have your own reason.
I'm not going to say you're wrong or condemn you or all those sorts of things.
But if you're feeling a little uncomfortable and like, I don't like it, that's just evidence that we got to talk about these things more, right?
That you have to have more of these dialogues and more of these discourses, right?
And if there's only one issue for a Christian that you should vote on, and this is the one that I just think is just so obvious, is just like, when does life begin?
Like, when does life begin, right?
And there's so much, I mean, I believe that if you cannot agree that life begins at a specific moment of the fertilization of the egg, and that maybe there's something wrong with 61 million abortions since Roe versus Wade, then I just, you right?
And I just say, look, what do you do for those that can't defend themselves?
And that's kind of the whole Christian doctrine, right?
Which is that we're supposed to stand up for the innocent.
And I get a lot of the other issues can be messy.
I'm going to try to make sense of some of those issues because they take nuance and they take data.
This one I don't think is actually that complicated.
I really don't.
I understand it could be very emotive.
I think it could be very personal.
I think the church has to do a much better job of adoption, much better job of counseling people that made that decision, and a much better job of not making women that have made that decision the enemy at all because I believe they were deceived by people that knew a lot better.
So I'm the first one to say that.
However, I think it's an awful thing that 61 million souls never got the chance to experience birthdays, breathe this beautiful air that we have.
And I think that we should do something about that.
In fact, I think we as Christians now have an opportunity to do something like that.
And whether you came tonight, you're like, I didn't really want to hear about this tonight.
Well, you are.
And Amy Coney Barrett is now nominated to Supreme Court.
So for the first time in anyone's lifetime in this room, there is no one old enough that can say you had an opportunity to do something about the end and termination of innocent life in this country.
You have an opportunity to do it.
And if it's not your DNA, quite honestly, it's not your choice.
It's not.
It's a sovereign being that will never be created again, where there's a unique form of deoxorbonucleic acid that is created at that moment that still science can't explain, but the Bible can, where we are made in his image.
I knew you before you were in the womb.
That that is made for a specific purpose and reason.
And we as believers have a moral obligation to do everything we can to protect those that cannot protect themselves.
Real quick on that point, what you just described is what is getting a little bit confused today, the difference between biblical justice, like the real defense of the defenseless, and social justice.
Social justice sounds great in the same way that BLM sounds great, in the same way that women's rights sounds great.
And just for me to even touch on any of those automatically, you know, these days puts me in a position of like, well, you don't champion women's rights.
You don't like, you're against black lives.
So you look on it and go, what you just described would be the Micah 6.8.
What does God require of you?
To do justice, to do justly.
We have a unique opportunity right now as the church in this particular issue of abortion.
But what about, so you got this social justice and justice, which are really, really murky in the minds of a lot of church people and church leaders.
Talk about that for a second.
I'd be happy to build that out.
And first of all, just on the women's rights thing, half of all abortions statistically were women.
So 30 million women are not on this earth because of what we did with Roe versus Wade.
So let's just be honest that if you're for women's rights, then, well, 30 million women aren't living because of Roe versus Wade.
So I don't understand how you could be on the side of women with that.
Secondly, just kind of building out that kind of idea of justice and what we do about it.
Look, justice is supposed to be blind, and that's what, at least earthly justice, and that's the idea of Lady Liberty having a cloth over her eyes, where the idea of justice is supposed to be deliberative with the idea of cross-examination of witnesses, with the idea that you must have done something, that you must have done something worthy of being cross-examined and possibly, you know, being held accountable for that.
So it's a very interesting thing.
Social justice, environmental justice, and racial justice, none of which are biblical.
They're not.
There's just justice in the eyes of God.
Amen.
So let me just be very clear that when you start to pick and choose these different types of justice, none of that is supported at all by the gospel.
Now, let me be very clear, though, that we are all called individually to go forth into the world and to feed the hungry and to take care of the sick and to nurture the disadvantaged.
And I think we sometimes conflate an individual mandate to go do that and a governmental and civic one.
In fact, I would go further and say some of the well-intentioned public policy programs that have been passed over the last 65 years have hurt the very people that were designed it was actually trying to help.
I mean, let's just go back to the issue of abortion.
The black birth rate stagnated as soon as Roe versus Wade was passed.
Blacks are about 14% of the population in our country, and they still were back when Roe versus Wade was passed.
In New York City, if you see a black woman on the subway, it's a higher likelihood she's heading for the abortion clinic than for the delivery room.
The black abortion rate is higher than the black birth rate.
It's kind of stunning.
Truly.
The black population in this country is about 14%.
Half of that is 7%.
Half of that is infant-bearing age, about 3.5%.
Yet the black community comprises 48% of all abortions in this country.
The idea of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, the original author of abortion, was eugenicist.
She was an avowed racist.
Just look it up yourself.
She wanted to have population control against black and brown communities.
So I grow fatigued with this argument that somehow you're perfectly okay with $500 million of our taxpayer dollars going to Planned Parenthood every single year.
Meanwhile, the black birth rate remains stagnant.
The black fatherlessness rate is at 77%.
So I guess the question is: what do we do to try to help people?
Because we should.
We want to help people, right?
What's the best way to help people?
Well, thankfully, we actually have some data, right?
God gave us a heart and a brain, reason, and revelation.
We put it together.
Let's look at the data.
We did a lot through taxpayer funding to try to help disadvantaged communities post the Great Society Act passed in the 1960s.
Over $20 trillion have been spent in the urban cities of our country trying to abolish the war on poverty.
Did we win?
No, poverty won.
In fact, we subsidized bad behavior and we reinforced bad incentives.
The fatherlessness rate in the black community at the passage of the Great Society Act was 22%.
Now it's 77%.
77% of black children in this country will be raised without a stable father in the home.
That means gang membership will increase, crime rates will increase, prison recidivism will increase, literacy rates will go down, and that cycle that all of us understand and know will only explode.
It wasn't just the black community.
In the white communities across the country, fatherlessness is now about above 40%.
The divorce rate is plus 50%.
It's not just one group that this is focused on, but in urban areas in particular, it was more.
It's been more.
So, the question is, what do we do to help people?
Well, I truly believe the best way to help people, and this is a biblical principle, is empowerment, education, is being able to give people the idea that you're actually a lot tougher than you think, that you can actually endure a lot more suffering than you might have convinced yourself of.
That with the proper empowerment, the proper values, the proper character, that you can achieve a lot on this earth.
And yeah, it's going to be hard.
It's going to take a lot of difficulty.
You're going to encounter a lot of opposition.
But I also actually don't think that continually getting another $20 trillion in stuff, which is what we did since the 1960s, is going to make anyone richer.
In fact, it hasn't.
The black community, per average per capita, is poorer today than it was before we spent $20 trillion in the urban cities.
What do we spend the money on?
Well, we spent the money by subsidizing bad behavior.
Single motherhood is subsidized by our federal government.
Or if you're a single mother, you get more money from the federal government.
That might sound like a good idea.
We want to help single mothers, but it only incentivizes bad behavior even further.
The things that we should focus on more is: are we able to educate children properly in this country?
And the answer is absolutely no.
Our public sector, the public sector system in our country is an absolute outrage and disgrace.
Our public schools are a moral travesty.
And a lot of it is because of public sector teacher unions.
Not all of it is because of that, but that plays a huge role in it.
The second is the disintegration of the family.
So we should say, we want to cut fatherlessness rate in half in the next five years.
Make a moonshot goal.
What is it going to take?
Well, it's going to take, I'll handle this side.
For young fathers out there, if you impregnate a woman and you abandon it, you're a coward.
You take responsibility for your life and you don't all of a sudden abandon the woman that has a child and you act as if that's okay because they'll get government benefits.
Young men need to learn to take responsibility for their actions in this country.
They need to be able to control themselves.
We need to teach our children self-control, not self-esteem.
We need to be much more clear with young men that.
And so, look, the idea of social justice, I think, actually has kind of a tenderheartedness in the approach.
I think some people want some good in the world, see some good in the world.
First of all, you embody exactly what want to see happen in the world.
I laugh because I deal with this a lot on college campuses, and this is just a stereotype that's absolutely true.
Where these guys that are completely disheveled, they haven't showered in a couple weeks, they're coming up and telling me that everything's wrong in the world.
First of all, first of all, it is a biblical concept.
It starts with the self, then family, then church, community, state, federal, nation, right?
It goes from that progression.
And finally, if we can get our act together enough, we can deal with the world.
My goodness.
However, I think that we've kind of lost this idea of what does the individual journey look like?
What does it mean, especially for young men?
And we've hyper-feminized our country, and there's a war on men in this country, which is not good for men.
It's not good for women.
It's bad for everybody.
And it's resulting in many unintended consequences.
And I'm happy to build that out even further.
But basically, it's, are we trying, do we have a school system?
Do we have a culture that tries to create young people that are more likely to be able to endure suffering and become tougher people or more likely to point out the injustices and be better at complaining?
So are we creating better complainers or tougher people?
The answer should always be tougher people because life is a really suffering-filled place.
It just is.
The Buddhist principle is life is suffering.
I think that's probably not exactly biblical, but it's close.
No, that's the first universal Buddhist principle.
And it's probably the first time Buddhism got mentioned in this church in quite a time.
It is actually.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very clear.
I'm not a Buddhist.
I'm a Christian.
That's the first universal Buddhist principle is that life is suffering.
Things are awful.
Okay, what are you going to do about it?
You kind of have two choices.
You can engage in this kind of nihilistic, self-indulgent, you know, awful, you know, way of thinking.
Or you can say, yeah, I'm actually a sinner.
Creating Tougher People 00:12:36
I'm not enough.
No matter how hard I try, I can't get to, you know, get, I can't check enough boxes.
I need Jesus Christ.
I'm born new.
And then you also say, my goodness, that also means I got to start taking responsibility for my life.
I am born new.
I have that connection to Christ.
What I do matters.
How I act matters.
Every word that I say is a reflection of the gift I've been given, which is in Jesus Christ.
Amen.
That's why I'm going to tell the truth because Christ is truth, right?
I'm going to embody that.
And I think we've kind of lost this.
And especially with young people that are kind of living in this very misleading kind of pool of just, you're just keep on doing whatever substances you want.
Just keep staring at the screen and kind of, you know, keep your digital pacifier right next to you.
And somehow you're going to find happiness, which is what I call smartphones digital pacifiers, by the way.
They are.
It's like, I can't get away from it.
I can't get away from it.
And I'm happy to build that out in future services.
And by the way, if you're interested, every service is different.
I have to say, this one's completely different than the one we just did, right?
Which is fun, right?
But what kind of what it gets back to, and I can't even remember the question of what we were talking about.
That's how we know we're having fun.
Yeah, exactly.
All right, we'll come back.
You left us with a lot of great things there.
Let's go, let's come back.
So I have, we kind of started with just the why would, why should we talk about abortion?
There are some issues right now that are sort of pressing that should matter to every child of God.
And they are on the line in this particular, they're always, but in this particular election.
So build out a couple more.
And then you are a bit of a, you are a supporter of our president.
Yes.
And a whole bunch of people are not.
But I would like to, let me talk, all right, I'm doing what you do except for and go all over the place.
Just with my question.
This is my question.
So because I want to talk about some of the issues that should matter to us.
Then I'd like to talk about your particular perspective on what it is that we've actually seen.
And I'd like to talk about what it is that we've seen with this current president, the difference between intention, intention, like this is I'd like, versus an actual, you've got intention versus actually, there's a track record now that we can take a look at and go, well, what could we expect as we go forward?
So I know what you're asking.
I'm going to be much more blunt.
So look, and just I'm going to give you all trigger warning, you know, like just permission to be provocative if you're offended, like, oh, you're awful kid and just whatever.
Your church, so just fine.
Okay, so look, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you 10 things.
Look, I'm a friend of the president.
Please pray for him regardless of your political affiliation.
He's fighting a virus right now.
That is a very real thing.
And you might hate him.
You might think he's the worst thing in the world.
I've had the opportunity to know him over the last four years, and I do publicly support him.
I'm going to give you 10 things, though, that every Christian should know about President Trump and what he's done that reflect the biblical worldview, and many of which you might not know.
So we'll start with number one, most pro-life president in American history, right?
First president, first president to speak at the March for Life, slash Planned Parenthood funding, recented the Mexico City policy, which is no more international funding of abortion, has been outspoken about life beginning at conception, has also appointed Gorsuch Kavanaugh.
We'll get to that in a little bit in a second, and also Amy Coney Barrett.
Most pro-life president in American history.
Number two, Israel.
Every Bible-believing Christian should care about the state of Israel.
President Trump has just signed one of the most unbelievable, miraculous peace deals in the history of geopolitics between Israel and the UAE.
Now, you might hate him, but you got to love this deal.
You might not like his style, but you better love this deal because he has brought the Emiratis and the Arab world to the table and they've signed a peace deal with God's chosen people, which we are told in the word of God is the Jews, the state of Israel, moved the embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Golan Heights, kept the Palestinian Authority in check, rescinded the Iran deal.
And finally, for the first time in a couple decades, we now have the most peaceful atmosphere between the state of Israel and the Arab world, which was told to be impossible.
That's something worthy of applauding.
Number three, judges.
We have a whole book about judges, don't we?
We believe that fair and correct interpretation of the law is a biblical principle.
Not what you want it to say, not what you think it should say, but what does the law say?
We find that in the Bible, right?
200 circuit court judges, the most ever since George Washington, has been confirmed to the federal bench under President Donald Trump.
Many of these people are God-fearing.
Many of these people will defend life, and they do defend the right for religious liberty and for Christians to assemble.
Also, Gorsuch Kavanaugh and a third, the trifecta Amy Coney Barrett, that will contest for first principles and, yes, the fight for life.
Fourth thing, we believe in second chances, right?
That's part of the whole idea of redemption.
President Donald Trump signed the most historic and transformative prison reform in our country's history called the First Step Act.
A lot of people don't know this happened, but it wasn't the Democrats, it wasn't Barack Obama.
He signed the First Step Act a year and a half ago saying people that have these very long life sentences, not life sentence, but multi-decade sentences, and they've proven good behavior, good credit system.
They've earned the goodwill of the prison guards.
And it's obvious that they are ready for re-entry.
There should be a way to do that.
1,800 prisoners that were never given a second chance at life have been successfully re-entered into society using the First Step Act under President Trump, many of whom are black and brown people in our country.
That's President Trump.
Many people don't know that.
Fifth thing, we love our veterans and those people that have served in our military, and we should.
It is something the ultimate sacrifice to bleed and to die for America.
President Trump signed the VA Accountability Act to give better health care to our veterans.
40 years they talked about it.
He finally delivered it.
It was historic being able to fire bad people to veterans' affairs.
And finally, the delivery of care is going up tremendously.
Number six, the Right to Tri Act.
We all believe that terminal diseases is one of the hardest things for us to be able to reconcile as believers.
A lot of things that we just struggle with, right?
And like, how could a child be given a tumor that is just not able to be treated?
For years, the pharmaceutical companies were trying to get Washington, D.C. to be able to pass something called the Right to Try Act, where people that have terminal diseases, they've been given a death certificate, are able to try drugs that would be deemed more risky.
What's a better patient to try it on than an actual human being?
Before President Trump, someone was not able to use these drugs.
He got everyone in a room together, got rid of the liability measure, and people, real-life stories that I have met, have had their lives saved due to the Right to Try Act passed under President Trump, pretty extraordinary, unbelievable.
Number seven, the Tax Reform Act, the biggest middle-class tax cut in American history, which included an expansion of the working mothers' tax cut and, yes, paid family leave.
I think that we as conservatives and Christians, I don't know if you're conservative, we as Christians should make it easier to have children in our country.
It's a biblical principle.
It wasn't Obama, it wasn't the Democrats.
It was President Trump that signed paid family leave for eight weeks so that you can borrow or take from your Social Security money, which is a very fiscally sound way to do it, and say, I want to be able to have children.
I want to be able to be with my children for a couple months, paid family leave.
A lot of people don't even know this exists.
My gosh, I don't know that.
That's interesting.
Number eight, probably one of the least appreciated things that happens on the landscape, but President Trump has reasserted American sovereignty.
For decades, we have eroded America's role in the world, kowtowing to internationalist organizations such as NATO, such as the United Nations, such as the World Trade Organization, and basically eroding America's role in the world.
Retreating from those and reasserting first principles and the Constitution has resulted in a lot of these sinister and secular internationalist and globalist forces being confounded that all of a sudden America makes choices for America.
Number nine, prior to the shutdown, we experienced the greatest economy in world history.
You might say, I don't care.
I don't care about finances, but you might care about this.
Six million black people got off food stamps and into meaningful work under President Trump.
That's a good thing.
Off of government assistance, onto self-reliance.
Beautiful.
That all of a sudden that they didn't have to look for governments for their next paycheck, but they had a paycheck or for some form of government or financial assistance.
And the fifth and the tenth thing I should say, 10 things that Christians should care about is, of course, he has gone out of his way to surround himself with people of faith.
He's unapologetic to speak at churches.
He serves with an outspoken man of faith, Mike Pence.
He has people pray over him every single day.
I equate him in a lot of different ways.
I understand this can be confusing for people.
How can a three-times married, twice-divorced playboy from New York, some sign says things, you're like, ah, I don't like that.
Be the most pro-life president, surround himself with people of faith, stand with Israel.
How does that work?
Well, of course God is going to work in a way that confuses you.
That's called Samson, Cyrus, King David.
I mean, like, let's just get used to this, right?
And I will say this.
Let's use the Samson example.
He's my favorite.
I can't go to your children's ministry right next door and teach the story of Samson without some sort of edits.
God came to Samson twice while he's with a prostitute.
I'll just stop there, okay?
Samson contested for truth.
And eventually God came to him in the later form of his life, and he earned a part in the hall of faith that we all know in Hebrews.
So this idea that like he's a bad guy, I don't like him.
So they said, what is he contending for?
He's contending for the rights of the unborn, for Israel.
He's contending against child sex trafficking, which would be a nice 11th on that list, doing more to end the scourge of child sex trafficking in our country than any other president in our history.
$100 million just got reallocated to ending child sex trafficking in our southern border.
So look, I get it as Christians, it might be a very blunt thing, and I'm not trying to turn this into a political rally, but understand, those are 11 very clear differences right there.
And I don't act, I'm not saying that puzzle piece should fit perfectly, but does it fit better?
Does that align better with your worldview, with what you want to see that happens right in the world?
And finally, I'll say this.
I'm an evangelical Christian from the suburbs of Chicago.
Didn't go to college.
There's no reason why someone like President Trump would take me seriously.
But I've been with him on Air Force One.
I've been with him in the Oval Office.
And every human being that comes up to him is a subject matter expert.
I'll never forget someone was coming up with a Diet Coke to him.
And he turns and he says, so what are you hearing?
And I started to say, not you, you.
And the guys bring the Diet Coke, what do you mean?
What are you hearing on the ground?
What's big?
What's happening?
Do they like it?
Well, Mr. President, I don't know how to answer.
He's like, tell me, I want to know.
They say, well, healthcare is the biggest issue.
And they had this discussion.
And I saw this repeated time and time again.
I saw, this is a man who lived his entire life where he believed every person out there possesses one piece of wisdom that he needs to know.
And they say he's the least humble.
He's all these things, whatever.
You can accuse him for braggadocia and all that.
I'm not going to get into it.
But this is a guy that I've seen personally firsthand that has learned more from carpenters, electricians, and welders than the ruling class in this country that has gotten so, so much, so wrong for the last couple of decades.
I think he gets so misportrayed in our media.
I think he gets so misrepresented.
And this is a man that has just been persecuted and assailed and is now obviously going through a health trial that none of us would have possibly expected.
And so he's my friend.
I'm honored to call him a friend.
And I'm also able to say that this man has done more for the priority list of evangelicals or for Christians, more so than any other president in my lifetime.
That's true.
That's true.
Good.
Rising Against Dark Power 00:11:50
Any other issue there that you'd say those are 10, you got the 11, yeah, the other you say that you should sort of sort of.
Yeah, can I add like a 12?
Sure.
Which is more like opposing, right?
Which is, I mean, there's a growing socialist movement in this country, and socialism violates two out of the 10 commandments.
Thou shalt not steal and thou shalt not covet.
And look, socialism has only been tried 100 times in the last hundred years, resulting in 100 million people dead.
If only we had more of a test case, name a cotton in any cotton except Antarctica, I could tell you how it's failed, right?
Everywhere it's been tried, it's failed because it goes completely at odds with how God made us.
God made us in a certain way, and then we fell from that.
We have original sin.
So we believe human beings in the state of nature, we're nasty, brutish, and short to each other.
Thomas Hobbes articulated this the best in a book called The Leviathan, where he saw the English Civil War.
He agreed with John Calvin on this.
That's where you get the cartoon Calvin and Hobbes from, where it's kind of dark humor almost throughout the entire cartoon.
The question is this: should one person have a lot of power without any sort of checks and balances?
No.
We say that's obvious, right?
It's not so obvious to a lot of other people.
It's not.
Because the idea of socialism is not, it's not the workers owning the means of production.
That never actually happens.
We operate in hierarchies, right?
We know this.
The ultimate hierarchy is God over humanity.
And he gave us a chance to be able to connect to him through his son.
But also there's hierarchies of brute force that happen here in the earthly domain.
And if you end up with a socialist example, you're like, well, I think healthcare should be run by government.
Well, who exactly would you trust with that decision?
Can you give a name and face to that?
And what if they abuse that power?
And the question, and Montesquieu talked about this the best.
He was one of the top architects of the American system of governance.
He was a French judge, the only good guy ever out of France to have some good ideas.
Almost all bad ideas come from France, except Montesquieu.
And he said it so well.
He said, if you wouldn't trust a random person on the side of the street with absolute power, then decentralize it.
That's a great way to put it.
That's not to say you have no government.
You should have checks and balances.
You're the first one to say that.
In a socialist type example where you say, we're going to take the weapons, we're going to nationalize the health care, we're going to administer all educational decisions.
Well, all of a sudden, of course, that power is going to be abused.
It's one of the most obvious things for those of us that know how human beings are hardwired.
And Lord Acton said it the best.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And so, what President Trump, he's a firewall against that kind of governmental totalitarian power grab.
And if you're a Christian, you say, oh, that doesn't affect me.
The church is always primary target number one.
Always.
They will always go after the church.
And if you just want to talk about it from a spiritual plane, do you notice how they almost have a pathological obsession with the church?
That it's no other gathering, it's nothing else.
It's just always the church and the believers that bother them the most, right?
It's the most like provocative art that's always making fun of our symbology, right?
It's always the rap songs or the curse words that always must make our Savior be condemned.
Do you notice that?
It's not ever Allah, it's always Jesus.
It's because that is just that struggle that we know is going to exist of good versus evil, of light versus dark.
And so if you give power to these people, the church is on the chopping block.
Leave us with a bit of a jeeze.
Wow, that went fast.
Yeah, we did good.
Leave us, you did at the last service, and I've heard you talk about this before, and it just is an appropriate high note.
You know, my conviction is that what we face isn't just political.
It isn't just ideological.
It's darkness.
It's sinful, evil, and that there is a particular role that only the church can play because we happen to be those that are actually filled with one greater than that evil.
We're filled with God Almighty.
We're filled with the Holy Spirit.
So we are that deterrent or not.
But as you look on, you travel the country, you're on college campuses, you are beginning to have more meetings like this.
And you've said something here recently that it sort of resonates with my heart.
And that is, to you, as it relates to what's happening in our culture, the church is a sleeping giant.
Yes, it is.
If we can wake up, if we can play our part, then a great tide of evil can be turned back.
And another generation and generations behind us, those of us that are raising little ones, may see extraordinary things.
What kind of just baby steps towards like growing a little spiritual backbone, standing up right now in this dark age?
Give us a couple of just practical things to go, I can go with this.
I can go forward with this.
Yeah, so first of all, I just want to kind of just thank you guys for allowing this discussion to happen.
It doesn't happen in a lot of churches.
You guys might have disagreed with everything I said, but at least you guys allowed it to happen and you internalized and processed it.
And that's what civil dialogue is all about.
We are the speaking beings.
That's what humanity is all about.
And that there's two ways to govern people.
You can govern them by speaking, persuasion, and talking or by force.
You can organize every government in one of those two buckets.
And what this is all about is trying to find the best ideas and to reason ourselves into being able to make good choices.
So here's just kind of a good thought experiment.
Some pastors say, I don't like politics.
I don't want to get involved in all this.
We talked about that earlier, but some Christians say the same.
And so then the question that needs to be asked is, what is your line then?
What is your line?
If you don't have a line that you will not get involved in politics, then just openly admit it.
But you should have a line.
If not now, when will you speak out against something?
Like, when will it bother you enough?
Because good is really hard to find in the world.
Evil is not.
And there's a lot of it.
And so I guess the question is, if you're born new in Christ and you are a Bible-believing Christian, when will you speak out against some of the moral decay you see around you?
And if you say, you know what?
Not right now, but I'll speak out when the rail cars show up.
It's too late.
It's like, okay, that's your line, right?
Got it.
Because that's happening in other countries across the world, just so you know.
And I don't deal in hyperbole.
Like, we have a whole track record of this.
Or I'll speak out when they say, I can't own a gun.
Okay, got it.
Fine.
It's like, it's just the idea, like, if not now, then I just ask when.
And of course, the reason I really ask is I'm challenging you, right?
Because you all know the moment is now.
You know it deep down.
You know in your heart of heart that no matter what kind of small reasoning you might have been giving, you know that this is actually the moment.
And what's so troubling, if you guys want to see how dark human beings can go when good people do nothing, read the Gulag Archipelago.
Every young person in America should read the Gulag Archipelago.
It is one of the most horrifying indictments of humanity.
You know, we kind of have this feel-good Christianity movement in the country where like everyone's actually a good person deep down.
I don't have that view.
I don't.
I don't mean to be like dark about it.
I actually think it's a really good thing because that shows the necessity for Christ, right?
But we can do awful things to each other.
We can.
And I am traveling the country, speaking at churches from Maine to Signal Hill, California, all across the country saying, this is that moment where, as Alexander Solshenitsyn said in the Gulag Archipelago, the pastors in the Soviet Union said, it's okay if they put those, you know, 10% of people away.
We don't mind.
And you saw exactly what happened.
Only 42 million people were murdered and killed.
And so look, it really is a question of what does the church ecclesia, the gathering of believers, what do you do when you see something wrong?
That's the question.
And so I know the answer for me, right?
I've dedicated my whole life to this.
And I'm traveling the country, we're speaking, we're persuading, we're communicating, we're doing all the, I'm trying to get people to dive deeper.
So people say, what can you do?
Can I give some application?
The most important thing you can do is to learn.
Learning is always a precedent for an awakening.
Always.
So if there's something that confuses you, you live in the greatest time in human history to learn, yet so few people choose to do it.
You have a supercomputer in your right-hand pocket with every answer to some sort of like philosophical question you could even make sure your sources are good, but there's plenty of good ones out there.
But also you could every make sure it's rooted in biblical wisdom.
But if you're like, you know, I don't really know kind of, you know, if it, maybe I don't believe freedom of speech should matter.
Like, okay, then I can recommend five things that you can go look at.
Learn.
Every Christian needs to heighten their sense of knowledge about the world around them.
Because sometimes churches are steeped in biblical literacy, but they are vacated in any sort of philosophical understanding of what we're contesting against, of civil government.
And you guys are doing this with your civics class, which is awesome.
And Christians should be unafraid to be kind of masters in understanding of all these sorts of different pieces and how they, because it can be very confusing.
The second thing is activity.
For young parents out there, I highly encourage homeschooling.
I'm a huge fan of homeschooling.
We should support our homeschooling parents out there.
Huge, huge thing.
In future services, we're going to talk about college and higher education because I think we're running out of time.
Sorry, you're likely to do that.
The final thing I'll say is this, is that we are a sleeping giant.
And if the church woke up, only half of church-going evangelical Christians in this country are registered to vote.
Only half of them actually vote.
So one-fourth of all evangelical church-going Christians actually vote in presidential elections, even lower that in midterm elections.
So every single person there should vote and you should vote most aligned with your biblical worldview.
I think I've made it clear what that actually is.
But more than that, it's a republic if you can keep it.
This country is disintegrating around you guys.
It is.
Do something about it.
Get engaged.
Run for office.
Get petitions.
Contest for truth.
Challenge deceitfulness when you see it, right?
Do it with love and do it with compassion.
But nevertheless, find the people that might be misinformed and lead them to the ultimate source of, remember, liberty is not man's idea, it's God's idea.
And the final, final thing I'll say is this, is take the education of your children very seriously.
Because right now they are the primary target of deceitfulness and of darkness.
Educate the children in the ways of truth.
And I'll tell you, I'm dedicating my life to this.
I'm visiting churches across the country and campuses.
What a beautiful opportunity we have, everybody.
We live in very interesting times.
Rise up, engage, and do something about it.
Thank you.
Amen.
Thank you guys so much for listening.
If you want to support Turning Point USA, go to tpusa.com, tpusa.com, the get engaged, get involved.
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Thank you guys so much for listening.
Talk to you soon.
God bless.
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