The Charlie Kirk Show - What the Bible Tells Us About "Social Justice" with Pastor David Engelhardt
Aired: 2021-04-25
Duration: 55:42

[00:00:00]  Happy Sunday, everybody.
[00:00:01]  This is an exclusive conversation that you'll find only on our podcast, advertiser-free, with Pastor David Engelhart, pastor of King's Church in New York City, the big apple.
[00:00:10]  If any of you live in New York City or are near New York City, go to David's church.
[00:00:14]  He is awesome.
[00:00:15]  This is a unscripted, free-flowing, somewhat all-over-the-place conversation, but we land the plane.
[00:00:21]  It's a lot of fun.
[00:00:22]  It's as if we were just talking as friends in a long car ride.
[00:00:25]  You're going to love it.
[00:00:26]  David is phenomenal.
[00:00:28]  Great friend of mine.
[00:00:29]  Please consider supporting this advertiser-free episode at charliekirk.com slash support.
[00:00:34]  Email us your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:36]  Pastor David Engelhart is here.
[00:00:39]  Buckle up.
[00:00:39]  Here we go.
[00:00:41]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:00:42]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
[00:00:44]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:00:48]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:00:51]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:00:52]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:00:53]  His spirit, his love of this country.
[00:00:55]  He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
[00:01:00]  Turning point USA.
[00:01:02]  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.
[00:01:10]  That's why we are here.
[00:01:14]  Hey, everybody.
[00:01:14]  Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show special Sunday edition, advertiser-free.
[00:01:19]  Thanks to all of you that support us, charliekirk.com slash support.
[00:01:22]  I'm hanging out with my friend, Pastor David Engelhart.
[00:01:25]  Let me just say hard stop.
[00:01:26]  If you are in the city of New York, the tri-state area, go to King's Church.
[00:01:30]  It might be the fastest growing church in New York City.
[00:01:32]  Is that right, David?
[00:01:33]  I think it is.
[00:01:34]  I think it is mainly because of Charlie Kirk.
[00:01:37]  A little bit of my preaching, but mainly.
[00:01:39]  It's your preaching, very little of me.
[00:01:41]  But go there, everybody.
[00:01:42]  Everyone says, I want a non-woke church in New York City.
[00:01:45]  Well, there are millions of people in New York, and we have tens of thousands of listeners in New York.
[00:01:50]  Therefore, go to King's Church.
[00:01:52]  Where are you guys located in New York?
[00:01:53]  We are between the two bridges.
[00:01:55]  So if you know where the Brooklyn Bridge is, you're almost a stone's throw away from our church, really that close.
[00:02:00]  So you're in Manhattan now.
[00:02:02]  Downtown Manhattan.
[00:02:02]  So you're in Wall Street area.
[00:02:04]  So we live like just a block north of Wall Street.
[00:02:07]  It's technically like three quarters of a mile from Wall Street to this other neighborhood called the Two Bridges.
[00:02:12]  And that's the churches at Church.
[00:02:14]  King's Church is right there.
[00:02:15]  So check it out.
[00:02:16]  King's Church NYC.
[00:02:18]  Yes.
[00:02:18]  KCNYC.org to check out our website and podcast.
[00:02:22]  KCNYC.org.
[00:02:24]  Yeah.
[00:02:24]  Pastor David Engelhart, one of the best guys on theology, what's happening in the world, taking a stand.
[00:02:31]  You know, David, I do a lot of interviews, and I first got aware of you because of Erica, my fiancé.
[00:02:36]  She's like, you have to have this guy on your podcast.
[00:02:38]  And I was like, okay.
[00:02:40]  I told you the story because it's great.
[00:02:41]  No, I took it seriously, but I was exhausted, right?
[00:02:44]  And she knew you from a previous, you know, whatever.
[00:02:46]  Yeah.
[00:02:47]  And yeah, and she was like, he's so good on this.
[00:02:50]  And I get recommendations all the time.
[00:02:52]  And not every interview I do, I'm super enthused about, you know, but I'm not, we have amazing guests.
[00:02:57]  And I shouldn't say it that way, but you know what I mean.
[00:02:59]  But I was like, all right, whatever.
[00:03:01]  And after five minutes, I was so into what you were saying that I was like, I wish we had more time.
[00:03:05]  I want to get to know you better.
[00:03:06]  It's like, let's fly this guy out.
[00:03:08]  We're going to have a lot of fun.
[00:03:09]  And we've had a relation, you know, a really good relationship ever since.
[00:03:11]  And you're a turning point, you say, board member now.
[00:03:13]  Yes.
[00:03:14]  And things are going really well.
[00:03:15]  So introduce yourself because our audience has nearly quadrupled since the last time you've joined our podcast, which was back in December when you came on the panel and then before that.
[00:03:27]  So just introduce yourself and then let's get into some fun stuff.
[00:03:29]  Yeah.
[00:03:29]  So I'm from New York State.
[00:03:32]  I grew up upstate.
[00:03:33]  My dad has been pastoring a church in New York State my whole life.
[00:03:36]  So I grew up as a pastor's kid.
[00:03:38]  And then I went to, got my degree in philosophy.
[00:03:42]  And then I was on staff at a couple of churches for about 10 years in the Northwest between Portland, Oregon, and a couple of places in Washington.
[00:03:52]  And then at that point, I went to law school, really felt a call of God to transition and go to law school.
[00:03:58]  And, you know, some great preachers have gone to law school.
[00:04:01]  Charles Finney, the great revivalist, he was a lawyer.
[00:04:04]  And there's something about using that analytic ability in the scripture.
[00:04:08]  You know, a lot of our preachers are very passionate, compassionate, and passionate.
[00:04:13]  And that's great.
[00:04:14]  But if Jesus, you know, one of the things he said to the Pharisees, Pharisees, he said, you know neither the scripture nor the power of God.
[00:04:22]  There's a combination between the power of God, that life, power, passion, and like an analytic ability to understand the scriptures, not just on a surface level, but go into what does it actually mean.
[00:04:34]  So that training was really, really valuable.
[00:04:36]  And I think it's really was, I mean, to get it to be in New York City and to be a pastor and say, you know, a lot of people think like a pastor's degree is like a degree in fairy dust, right?
[00:04:45]  Truly, right?
[00:04:46]  So now we have guys that are really, you know, all over the place with finance and science and law and a lot of high-end people.
[00:04:55]  And they see a legal degree as something that's a little bit more, has a little bit more weight to it than a standard M. Div.
[00:05:01]  And while I have theological accreditation, really what's sharpened me in the word, believe it or not, has been the ability of law to go in there and chop it up.
[00:05:11]  Calvin was a lawyer.
[00:05:13]  I'm not a Calvinist, but he was a lawyer.
[00:05:14]  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:05:15]  So there's something there.
[00:05:16]  My dad says, I'm a Calvinist for me and not for you.
[00:05:19]  So I believe that I'm chosen by God, but I don't know about you.
[00:05:23]  You got to work that out.
[00:05:24]  That's funny.
[00:05:24]  Yeah, that's funny.
[00:05:25]  So as in Isaiah, I think the first chapter, let us reason together.
[00:05:28]  Yes.
[00:05:29]  Let us use our mind, our faculty.
[00:05:31]  Yes.
[00:05:32]  And we shouldn't only use our mind.
[00:05:34]  God gave us a spirit.
[00:05:36]  But the Lord made us thinking beings because he made us speaking beings.
[00:05:41]  Aristotle articulated that probably better than any other philosopher.
[00:05:45]  Well, love the Lord with your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
[00:05:48]  So there's, I mean, and this is a bifurcation we see.
[00:05:51]  We see a lot of guys that are loving the Lord with their mind, but then they leave their heart out of it.
[00:05:57]  And then you have guys that have their heart fully in it, and then they say wacky things.
[00:06:01]  Their mind is not in it.
[00:06:03]  And we are, you know, John chapter 1 says, Jesus was full of grace and full of truth.
[00:06:08]  He wasn't half truth and half grace.
[00:06:10]  He wasn't half heart and half knowledge.
[00:06:12]  He was fullness.
[00:06:14]  And that's our obligation is to pursue the mind side with the fullness and the heart side with the fullness.
[00:06:21]  And love John 1 because it's a creation narrative.
[00:06:25]  There's only two creation narratives.
[00:06:26]  They're both the same, by the way.
[00:06:27]  They're not contradictory.
[00:06:29]  They just talk about the same thing differently, which is in the beginning there was the word.
[00:06:34]  Yes.
[00:06:34]  And it's amazing in the beginning and Genesis in the beginning.
[00:06:37]  And you have these rhyming, harmonic creation stories.
[00:06:42]  And so this is something that people don't get.
[00:06:44]  Like when they think of what is a word, right?
[00:06:47]  A word is a vehicle of meaning.
[00:06:50]  So when you say dog, you hear that sound, the D, the O, the G, and it carries with it this furry, waggy tail beast.
[00:06:59]  It carries with it meaning.
[00:07:00]  And so if we think about it from a definitional perspective, in the beginning was meaning, and that meaning was God.
[00:07:08]  And all things were created through God's meaning.
[00:07:11]  And evolution tells us exactly the opposite.
[00:07:14]  It started with no meaning, with a random cacophony of atoms that exploded.
[00:07:20]  Craps table.
[00:07:20]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:07:21]  Throw the craps, see what comes up.
[00:07:23]  And instead, the exact opposite is John 1.
[00:07:25]  In the beginning, God created all of this through his meaning.
[00:07:28]  Every part has meaning inside God's plan.
[00:07:32]  And so this is what's called the common noun miracle.
[00:07:36]  And not to harp too much on Aristotle, but it's hard not to when we talk about things that make sense because that's really what he focused on.
[00:07:43]  So sometimes I'm in private groups and people say, Charlie, explain to me what Aristotle argued.
[00:07:52]  And again, none of our teachers talk about this properly, but this is exactly what we're talking about.
[00:07:56]  So words have meaning.
[00:07:57]  So, for example, if I said, David, go in the other room and find me a pen.
[00:08:03]  You've never seen that pen before, but your mind has the ability to know what a pen is, and then you'd be able to recognize it easily, get it, and bring it back to me.
[00:08:11]  This is light work for human beings, but it's a common noun miracle.
[00:08:16]  No other species except human beings are able to organize things based on their meaning, therefore the good.
[00:08:22]  You're right.
[00:08:23]  And then you have philosophers that, you know, they leave the basic, like guys like Aristotle had such a profound understanding of ideas like good and virtue.
[00:08:33]  You come into, you know, our last century, you got guys like Wittgenstein that are saying, like, meaning is only a, it's a beetle in a box.
[00:08:40]  And you say, well, what is the beetle?
[00:08:41]  And the answer is, in Wittgenstein, it doesn't matter.
[00:08:44]  I have an idea and a concept.
[00:08:46]  It's a hidden box.
[00:08:47]  You'll never be able to know what it is.
[00:08:49]  You have some other kind of meaning inside of that box.
[00:08:52]  And there's not that kind of sense that there's something that we can agree upon.
[00:08:56]  We're all just chaos, matter, banging into each other, hoping that we agree.
[00:09:01]  It's totally godless.
[00:09:03]  It's totally void of purpose and meaning.
[00:09:05]  Yes.
[00:09:06]  And Nietzsche, probably better known for kind of pioneering this.
[00:09:12]  And Nietzsche's philosophy only makes sense if you accept his proclamation that God is dead.
[00:09:19]  Nothing else that he says about creating the Übermensch, the superhuman person, the will of a person, that what you the way he described the will in German was not even the way we understand it.
[00:09:33]  It's this almost supernatural desire to bring yourself from the random chaos of particles to something above yourself.
[00:09:42]  And we have an entire generation now that has basically been fed Nietzsche and not the idea of ethics or virtue or God-breathed existence.
[00:09:52]  Yeah, I can't remember the entire quote, but a God is dead.
[00:09:55]  It is we who have done it.
[00:09:56]  His blood is upon our hands.
[00:09:57]  What shall we do to atone for?
[00:09:59]  That's right.
[00:10:00]  It was a man in the public square.
[00:10:01]  It was written in a fictional narrative, screaming to the skies.
[00:10:04]  It's often quoted, but people don't actually know the framework that it was in.
[00:10:08]  Yeah, and it's our fault in the context of humanism, in the context of rejection of God, rejection of morality, and this sense of self now, experience, and flesh being all that we have, and there's nothing that goes beyond.
[00:10:25]  There is no meaning.
[00:10:26]  It's just immediate physical experiences.
[00:10:29]  And if we can have those, then okay.
[00:10:30]  But if we don't, it's not a big deal.
[00:10:32]  So you read guys like Kafka who are influenced by this.
[00:10:35]  Their writings are so dark and so there's no afterlife.
[00:10:40]  There's no purpose.
[00:10:41]  There's no direction.
[00:10:42]  There's no great judge who will judge me for my acts.
[00:10:46]  It's let me let me pile up the physical experience that I can have and then I'm done for, which is the culture we currently live in.
[00:10:53]  So I can trash foot locker because there's no God that's ever going to judge me.
[00:10:58]  I want 29 pairs of Air Jordans and I want to burn down the system because they're bad.
[00:11:02]  But, you know, that's it.
[00:11:03]  We all end at the end of the day.
[00:11:04]  And so the word purpose is my new favorite word of the month.
[00:11:08]  And it comes from a Greek word, telos.
[00:11:12]  And that's where we get the word telescope from, which means far out in the distance, that which we are aiming for, right?
[00:11:18]  Aim, direction.
[00:11:20]  Teleology.
[00:11:20]  Exactly.
[00:11:21]  Precisely, right?
[00:11:22]  And so I love going back to the Greek.
[00:11:25]  Not that I speak Greek.
[00:11:26]  I don't.
[00:11:27]  I know a small collection.
[00:11:27]  Just pretend.
[00:11:28]  I just pretend.
[00:11:29]  But I know a small amount of Greek words and it's expanding every day.
[00:11:32]  And actually, I think one of the greatest disservices of our education system is I never learned rudimentary Hebrew, Greek, or Latin.
[00:11:38]  I wish I had to.
[00:11:39]  My boy's actually learning because they're homeschooled.
[00:11:42]  Hopefully, I don't learn Chinese.
[00:11:44]  No, because they're homeschooled and they're in this classical conversation style of education.
[00:11:48]  They do basic Greek so they can understand language, which is yeah, and it's so just basic word structure.
[00:11:55]  So many of our words come from Greek terms, especially the important words.
[00:12:00]  And so purpose.
[00:12:01]  You're a pastor.
[00:12:02]  You deal with broken people.
[00:12:03]  You deal with people in a city that is about climbing a social ladder, living in a small apartment and trying to be very, very either rich or important.
[00:12:17]  And you're ministering to broken people.
[00:12:20]  Do we have a purpose crisis in our country?
[00:12:23]  I think we have a wrong purpose crisis.
[00:12:25]  You know what I mean?
[00:12:26]  Like there's purpose.
[00:12:27]  People have purpose.
[00:12:28]  The purpose is to climb the ladder.
[00:12:29]  If you think about the ancient cities, you think about Egypt, you think about the Aztec cultures.
[00:12:34]  You see these great monolithic structures that all are like these triangular.
[00:12:40]  They reach high.
[00:12:41]  And it reminds me of the Tower of Babel, this tower that was as high as they can possibly build it.
[00:12:47]  And cities create these atmospheres of competition where people are fighting with each other to be the best.
[00:12:54]  C.S. Lewis says that pride at its essence and core is competition.
[00:12:58]  And you see the devil saying in his mind to God, I can be like you.
[00:13:02]  I can be better than you.
[00:13:03]  I can take your position.
[00:13:04]  And so cities breed that competitive nature.
[00:13:08]  In some sense, it's really good to have competition if it's healthy.
[00:13:11]  But obviously the manifestation we have in a place like New York City is not healthy.
[00:13:15]  It's really dangerous.
[00:13:16]  I have a whole theory about this.
[00:13:17]  And so funny you mention it.
[00:13:18]  I say the higher the buildings, the more godless the city is.
[00:13:21]  It's always.
[00:13:22]  You look at Hong Kong, you look at Singapore, you look at Beijing.
[00:13:25]  Let's say that there are no Christians, but there's something to the point of this physical, I'm going to get as close to the heavens.
[00:13:33]  Absolutely.
[00:13:34]  And it's interesting, the most godly parts of America are actually the places without the big buildings.
[00:13:40]  You know, J.R.R. Tolkien in his masterpiece, the trilogy, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I was reading some of this Catholic thinker, his name is Benjamin Weicker.
[00:13:50]  He wrote a book called The Ten Books Every Conservative Must Read.
[00:13:53]  Incredible book.
[00:13:54]  What are the 10 books?
[00:13:57]  Burke, Reflections on the Revolution.
[00:13:59]  Easy.
[00:13:59]  C.S. Lewis, the Evolution of Man or Abolition of Man.
[00:14:07]  Either evolution or abolition.
[00:14:08]  I think it's abolition.
[00:14:08]  Abolition of Man is that one.
[00:14:10]  He's got a handful of others that are really incredible.
[00:14:13]  It's in my suitcase, actually.
[00:14:15]  But he says that the orcs come from the cities with the buildings and the machines and the towers.
[00:14:23]  And he's writing and he's going out to the country with his family or as a child and having to come back to the city.
[00:14:30]  And the Industrial Revolution is chaos throughout the city and wage stuff is horrible.
[00:14:35]  And so his whole idea was that in the city, there's a place where you're anonymous.
[00:14:40]  You're not known by family.
[00:14:42]  You're in competition for material products for those around you.
[00:14:45]  And you're becoming like an orc, like some kind of beast.
[00:14:48]  But it's the shire, the place that's family and food and friendship.
[00:14:54]  That's the place where real strength comes.
[00:14:56]  And Burke says that.
[00:14:57]  And Chesterton says that.
[00:14:59]  He says, we love, Chesterton says it really clearly.
[00:15:01]  We love our country because we love our family.
[00:15:04]  And because I love my family, I love my community and I love my city and I love my nation.
[00:15:08]  And of course, like we like America also because of the ideal.
[00:15:11]  But I hope if I lived in Ireland, I would still love my family and my neighborhood and my country.
[00:15:17]  Like we were talking about that earlier, about Paul in Romans 9 through 11, the incredibly deep love.
[00:15:23]  It was so deep that he said he had for Israel that he said, I would be willing to give up my salvation for these people, that I would be damned for them.
[00:15:32]  So talk about Romans 9 through 11.
[00:15:34]  A theme there, most American pastors will say, that means we must love Israel like Paul loved Israel.
[00:15:41]  I'm very pro-Israel.
[00:15:42]  So are you.
[00:15:43]  But that's actually not what he's saying.
[00:15:45]  Yeah, I really like Israel.
[00:15:47]  I like Israel for geopolitical reasons.
[00:15:50]  And Paul says, what benefit does Israel have?
[00:15:53]  There is much.
[00:15:53]  They've been given the law, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:15:55]  But Paul is speaking, you know, in the book of Romans, he's talking about how much he loves personally the nation of Israel in an incredibly deep and passionate way.
[00:16:04]  Now, you've got to remember the context of this.
[00:16:06]  They have just completely and totally rejected Christ, except a very, very small sliver of them.
[00:16:12]  And that small sliver will essentially lead into the Gentile world, and the Gentile world will go ablaze with Christianity, not the Jewish world.
[00:16:19]  They'll mostly reject Jesus.
[00:16:21]  And Paul is seeing this and he's burdened by this.
[00:16:25]  And he's like, and so he's got this incredible burden for his nation.
[00:16:28]  And we don't understand that.
[00:16:30]  The applicable context to us is we're, it's also godly for us to have a burden for our nation, for our people, for our, again, mothers, brothers, sisters, family.
[00:16:42]  And that's that's a Christian ethic to love your land, to love the place that God gave you.
[00:16:47]  And to care for the welfare of it.
[00:16:50]  And so in Jeremiah, and I actually don't know the context of this verse, and I should, but I think it's Jeremiah 29.
[00:16:58]  But the essence of what is being said, and you hear this quoted probably quite often, is show concern or seek, right?
[00:17:07]  Which comes from the Hebrew word, I think, badrash, the welfare, shalem, or shalom of the city of which you are in, or the nation of which you are in.
[00:17:15]  Because your welfare is tied to the welfare of the nation.
[00:17:18]  And we actually know that's a true biblical principle.
[00:17:20]  That's right.
[00:17:21]  Because the Soviet Union's welfare was tied to its citizens' welfare.
[00:17:24]  Absolutely.
[00:17:25]  And it's bifurcated in the scripture.
[00:17:27]  It says two things.
[00:17:28]  It says to do two things.
[00:17:29]  And this is the thing that this frustrates me about many Christians.
[00:17:33]  The scripture says, seek the peace, seek the peace and pray.
[00:17:37]  Two different things.
[00:17:38]  And we have a lot of Christians that are happy with praying.
[00:17:41]  They're writing prayers.
[00:17:42]  They're going to say that.
[00:17:43]  Yes.
[00:17:43]  Praying for the nation, but they won't seek the peace.
[00:17:46]  They won't actually physically act and engage in local politics like Rob McCoy does.
[00:17:52]  And so that word, Badrash, means demand.
[00:17:56]  It doesn't mean just like go try and find it.
[00:17:59]  No, demand.
[00:18:00]  So are you demanding the peace of your city?
[00:18:02]  Right, right.
[00:18:03]  And how do you demand the peace of your city?
[00:18:05]  This is important because when I read about justice throughout the Old Testament, I can't wait to get into this with you.
[00:18:11]  I don't see it as the same thing as mercy.
[00:18:14]  We're so confused as a society.
[00:18:16]  We think mercy is justice.
[00:18:18]  Now, the scripture says that God's throne is established on justice and mercy flows forth from him.
[00:18:25]  And that's how the earth, that's how the moral landscape actually is.
[00:18:30]  If we don't have justice, we can't then exercise mercy.
[00:18:33]  So if I steal something from you, it's not merciful for me to give that to another person.
[00:18:41]  It's unjust.
[00:18:43]  Now, if you said, David, you know what?
[00:18:46]  You're a pathetic poor person.
[00:18:49]  I'm going to allow you to keep that.
[00:18:52]  You're reckoning that I did something wrong.
[00:18:54]  That's justice, but then you're doing some greater act of love directed towards me.
[00:18:59]  That's mercy.
[00:19:00]  And so we have a culture that's totally ejected justice.
[00:19:04]  And we have, you know, for instance, we have people.
[00:19:09]  I just read a story in Vodie Backham's new book, Fault Lines, about a young black lady that she alleged really incredibly dark, racist allegations against this other white person in her school.
[00:19:25]  And they found out they were totally false.
[00:19:27]  And they did nothing.
[00:19:29]  There was no penalty to this lady.
[00:19:31]  Now, you probably.
[00:19:35]  So this is what it says.
[00:19:36]  I think in Leviticus, it says, to the person that does that with bearing false witness, whatever punishment they were trying to bring on that person, bring it back upon the person that did it.
[00:19:48]  So the fear of the Lord will come and you'll get rid of that darkness from the land.
[00:19:52]  And that's a darkness that we're allowing.
[00:19:54]  We're saying, well, there was slavery.
[00:19:55]  So I guess we're going to allow injustice to run freely in our nation.
[00:19:59]  So let's get really specific.
[00:20:02]  What is justice?
[00:20:03]  This word is thrown around all the time.
[00:20:05]  We have our department of justice.
[00:20:06]  We need social justice.
[00:20:08]  We need racial justice.
[00:20:10]  We need environmental justice.
[00:20:12]  What is justice?
[00:20:13]  Yeah.
[00:20:14]  Justice is essentially, justice is giving to each his due.
[00:20:18]  So if you kill someone.
[00:20:20]  Under God's law.
[00:20:21]  So getting what you deserve.
[00:20:23]  It's getting what you deserve.
[00:20:24]  So action.
[00:20:25]  That's right.
[00:20:25]  Punishment.
[00:20:26]  Or action.
[00:20:27]  Or reward.
[00:20:28]  Reaction.
[00:20:28]  Or reward.
[00:20:28]  Right.
[00:20:29]  Reward.
[00:20:29]  So you stay loyally married to your wife.
[00:20:32]  You're going to live a happier and peaceful life.
[00:20:34]  That's right.
[00:20:35]  So justice is getting what you deserve.
[00:20:38]  Yes.
[00:20:38]  Meaning there is a reaction to an action.
[00:20:40]  And God, Charlie, is perfectly just, which is why every man and woman will get what they deserve ultimately.
[00:20:49]  Which is eternal damnation unless they received the grace or mercy of God through the gift of Jesus Christ, who took that punishment because God, if God is good, then he's perfectly just and everyone gets exactly what they deserve.
[00:21:07]  So let's dive into this more.
[00:21:09]  So a young person listening to this right now, one of our turning point USA high school chapter leaders, maybe one of our turning point college leaders, they just had to hear their college professor tell them, we need social justice.
[00:21:21]  What is that?
[00:21:22]  Yeah, social justice is a misnomer.
[00:21:25]  What do you mean by that?
[00:21:25]  A misnomer.
[00:21:26]  By that, I mean it's a wrong name.
[00:21:29]  You take a word like justice and you apply it to something that is actually social.
[00:21:35]  We were talking about this early, equity versus equality.
[00:21:37]  It's actually social re-engineering based upon a set or a caste's set of beliefs.
[00:21:44]  So there's a certain educational caste, right?
[00:21:46]  These leaders, and they say, this is how we believe Ibram Kendi X, right?
[00:21:51]  That Harvard Ibram X. Kendi, right?
[00:21:54]  X. Kendi, right, exactly.
[00:21:55]  He's part of that whole cabal of Robin D'Angelo.
[00:21:58]  That's right.
[00:21:58]  The race baiters.
[00:21:59]  So he looks at private property held in the United States and he says, well, you know, 60 to 70% of white people have private property and only 30 to 40% of black people.
[00:22:07]  So what would be social justice is if you took from the landowners and you gave it to all the people that are renters so there's equal, so there's equality in home ownership.
[00:22:17]  Because there's not equality in home ownership, it proves that there's racism in the system.
[00:22:22]  It's unbelievably shallow and it's more than that.
[00:22:24]  It's unjust.
[00:22:25]  You know, in Matthew 25, Jesus comes and he gives these guys these talents, right?
[00:22:30]  He's like, here's, you get one, you get three, and you get five.
[00:22:34]  And to the cabal right now, they would say, how dare you, God, be unjust?
[00:22:39]  How dare you give this person one and this person five and this person three?
[00:22:43]  God, you're inequitable.
[00:22:45]  Wow.
[00:22:45]  Right?
[00:22:46]  Yes.
[00:22:47]  And God comes to the guy that had his one and buried it and didn't say, bro, so sorry I didn't give you five.
[00:22:54]  You would have done so much better with five.
[00:22:57]  And so I'm going to take you off the hook.
[00:22:59]  He says, no, to you who had the one who had nothing, you're forever in trouble, permanently forever in trouble.
[00:23:06]  And give your one to the five and that he may, you know, work well with what I gave him.
[00:23:11]  And that's the kind of culture we live in.
[00:23:13]  We live in a culture that sees one, three, and five across spectrums of private property, cash ownership.
[00:23:19]  And they say that's unjust.
[00:23:21]  Wrong.
[00:23:21]  That's not unjust.
[00:23:23]  So we were talking about this earlier.
[00:23:25]  When you're born, you're born and you owe people something already immediately.
[00:23:31]  You owe your parents because you now exist.
[00:23:33]  That's why the fifth commandment is honor your father and mother.
[00:23:36]  It's the only commandment with a promise.
[00:23:37]  The only one with a promise.
[00:23:39]  Honor the people that just gave you life.
[00:23:41]  So that you might live prosperous in a nation of which you are in.
[00:23:44]  Totally.
[00:23:45]  And so this is how, check out the symbiosis.
[00:23:48]  You are honoring the people that gave you life.
[00:23:50]  So, God gives you more life.
[00:23:53]  Isn't that great?
[00:23:54]  Yeah, it's amazing.
[00:23:55]  Honor the like.
[00:23:56]  And it's the only commandment that is applied to a nation.
[00:23:58]  That's right.
[00:23:59]  Because if you stop honoring your parents, like Mao and Joseph Stalin did, you break the chain of a nation.
[00:24:04]  Yeah.
[00:24:04]  Which is what's happening in America.
[00:24:06]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:06]  And we're disintegrating the family structure.
[00:24:09]  We're saying mother and father are not even important.
[00:24:12]  We're saying, why not have three fathers and we don't even need a mother?
[00:24:15]  Like that.
[00:24:16]  That's a thing now in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
[00:24:18]  Just for everyone listening, it's legal for three fathers to get married and have a child in Harvard, right near Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
[00:24:26]  Look it up.
[00:24:26]  Yeah.
[00:24:27]  And you know what's funny about the Trinity is you have three distinct entities that are separate in position and unified in relationship.
[00:24:37]  And that makes like you think about a chord, a triad that has three different parts, like right, a C, an E, and a G, and it makes this beautiful sound.
[00:24:46]  If it's all the C note, it doesn't sound good.
[00:24:48]  It sounds monotonous and gross.
[00:24:50]  And God made man and woman to be distinctly different.
[00:24:54]  So when they're unified, it's this beautiful thing.
[00:24:56]  Not that we're all the same, not that we're fungible units.
[00:24:59]  And out of our difference comes new life.
[00:25:04]  So justice, you're writing a book on it.
[00:25:07]  Yeah.
[00:25:08]  Why do we have such a hard time with this word?
[00:25:12]  Yeah, I think we have a hard time with it because it's really hard to execute justice.
[00:25:17]  It's scary, it's dangerous, and it takes a lot to actually.
[00:25:20]  Why is it scary and dangerous?
[00:25:22]  Because you're well, if we look at the Old Testament, God says, here's the set of rules, right?
[00:25:27]  And then if people break these rules, this is the punishment that you have to give them.
[00:25:32]  When justice is not done, what the people deserve does not take place.
[00:25:38]  So let's take our criminal justice society for instance.
[00:25:42]  We have these mass institutions where thousands and thousands and thousands of mostly fathers, right, mostly adult men are incarcerated for mostly their life.
[00:25:52]  Do you know in the Hebrew system of law, there were no prisons?
[00:25:55]  Do you know if you search the Hebrew scriptures, there aren't any prisons.
[00:25:59]  They don't have prisons in God's order.
[00:26:02]  If you steal, then you give back.
[00:26:04]  If you punch somebody in the face, you get punched in the face.
[00:26:08]  You received, remember, justice is receiving what is owed to you.
[00:26:13]  So if, you know, if you do something wrong, that wrong is either done or you replace the wrong with right because you've taken something.
[00:26:20]  And so when justice doesn't take place, and we just say, well, we're just going to throw you in a cage and throw you in a cage and throw you in a cage and throw you in a cage.
[00:26:26]  We have whole societies that are fatherless, right?
[00:26:30]  And then justice doesn't happen more.
[00:26:32]  It perpetuates a cycle of chaos and violence and communities without order and structure.
[00:26:38]  So at the beginning of this piece I'm writing, I said, father kills, mother nourishes and father kills.
[00:26:44]  Father brings order, the sword.
[00:26:47]  You know, he says, these are the lines you're not allowed to cross.
[00:26:50]  And he also protects his family from things that would harm it.
[00:26:54]  And on the contrast, you have this mother who nourishes, who gives life, who's the lifebringer, who's incredibly valuable.
[00:27:02]  And our culture doesn't believe in the value of women anymore.
[00:27:05]  They tell women they're only valuable if they look and act like men and behave like men and are CEOs of the cog factory.
[00:27:12]  But in God's system, value comes from our distinct roles.
[00:27:15]  And when we don't have father, when father stops being revered, honor your father and mother, we lose justice in a society.
[00:27:22]  We lose the sword, we lose execution of justice, and we take all of those concepts and make them derogatory.
[00:27:29]  And then society begins to corrupt from the inside and we don't have appropriate execution of crime.
[00:27:35]  So do you believe that the founders' view of justice was a profound one or what was it rooted in this kind of biblical view of justice?
[00:27:43]  Yeah, 100%.
[00:27:44]  The founders believed in freedom, right, from tyranny, and they believed in freedom to contract, and that inside of those systems, the actual community would execute justice on an individual that was acting out of accordance or congruence with the community.
[00:28:00]  The other thing about the fathers, founding fathers, is the local churches were so strong that you would be disciplined because you would be a part of a church community.
[00:28:08]  You may be kicked out of not only the church, but really relationship with the whole community for not acting in accordance with basic scriptural integrity, like holding fast to the vows of marriage that you made before the whole world.
[00:28:21]  That's a crazy thing.
[00:28:23]  I did a wedding recently, and people don't even know what a wedding is anymore.
[00:28:27]  It's, I'm making the most important promise, and you're about to do this, Charlie, with Erica, in my life.
[00:28:34]  And the reason it's, I'm going to show you how important it is.
[00:28:37]  We're going to dress in the best possible clothes.
[00:28:39]  We're going to exchange jewelry, these incredible gifts to each other.
[00:28:43]  We're going to have our favorite people, our parents, the people that are super important.
[00:28:46]  There's going to be a guy representing God, and we're even going to have a symbol from the state.
[00:28:51]  And in the church.
[00:28:52]  It's going to be in the church.
[00:28:54]  It's all of the most sacred things at the same time signifying that this vow is the most important possible thing that I could ever do.
[00:29:04]  And because we don't even know that anymore, we don't know what that means anymore.
[00:29:07]  We throw the whole thing out.
[00:29:08]  You can just like, I made a promise.
[00:29:09]  I can break the promise.
[00:29:10]  No big deal.
[00:29:11]  You made a vow in front of everyone that's important to you.
[00:29:15]  And now you're throwing it in the trash.
[00:29:17]  Isn't that incredible?
[00:29:18]  Like, that's how important that was that marriage is supposed to be.
[00:29:22]  And it's the foundation of our societies.
[00:29:25]  So our inability to communicate justice, I think, is one of the biggest problems we're facing right now.
[00:29:32]  And we're so long past the time of churches or communities actually being a check or a balance against people.
[00:29:41]  We're so past that.
[00:29:43]  The state is so heavily involved.
[00:29:45]  And so the only thing that could possibly happen is the church rising and being a moral check on the nation.
[00:29:50]  Yeah.
[00:29:50]  The church is the hope of the world.
[00:29:52]  And it's the hope, it's the hope of the world.
[00:29:54]  There is no legislation that, you know, Biden's going to pass.
[00:29:58]  There's no legislation that second term Trump's going to pass.
[00:30:01]  There's no legislation that, you know, whoever your favorite politician is going to get up there and pass that's going to fix the soul of the nation, right?
[00:30:09]  Who is it?
[00:30:09]  Was it Franklin that said, you know, when the culture becomes more tyrannical or becomes more corrupted, it necessitates the need of more masters to dominate, which is more and more law, more and more regulation.
[00:30:24]  That doesn't fix the heart.
[00:30:25]  It slows down the corruption, hopefully, hopefully.
[00:30:29]  But the heart is an internal and personal issue that is dependent upon only the individual, which is why the CRT stuff, which is why the BLM stuff, which is why blaming people seven generations doesn't work.
[00:30:41]  Because we can't fix society unless we fix our own hearts, which is what Jesus said.
[00:30:45]  Why are you pointing at the speck in your neighbor's eye?
[00:30:47]  The real issue is the giant beam in your own eye, right?
[00:30:51]  The giant log.
[00:30:52]  And that's something like there's a beam in your eye.
[00:30:55]  That's something structural.
[00:30:56]  That's something you build with.
[00:30:57]  That's something that your life is built with that you think is A-OK.
[00:31:02]  And it's not.
[00:31:02]  It needs to be torn down.
[00:31:04]  So many churches are going woke.
[00:31:08]  In fact, it seems as if that's the new normal.
[00:31:12]  And very few pastors are speaking out against it because I don't think they know how or they lack the courage.
[00:31:17]  Yeah.
[00:31:17]  You've spoken out against it.
[00:31:19]  So we talked, we spoke last June or July.
[00:31:22]  Has it gotten better or worse since last summer?
[00:31:24]  I think it's gotten much worse.
[00:31:25]  I think it's better.
[00:31:26]  Really?
[00:31:26]  I think the woke news is spreading like a virus throughout churches that are trying to get people into their doors.
[00:31:34]  The church was never meant to be a mousetrap for the unbeliever.
[00:31:39]  And that's what it's become, right?
[00:31:40]  So it's like lasers, and I'm cool.
[00:31:42]  I love lasers.
[00:31:43]  I love lasers, but lasers, smoke, all this stuff is a mousetrap to get unsaved people in to say a prayer, and they think that's a conversion experience.
[00:31:51]  And it's just, first of all, it's not a conversion experience.
[00:31:54]  Is it a conversion experience?
[00:31:55]  That's between God and you.
[00:31:57]  It's not one prayer that you pray.
[00:31:58]  You know, you have a heart change before God.
[00:32:01]  That's a conversion experience.
[00:32:03]  Anyway, but the point is, the church has stopped doing what the apostles said, which is to rebuke, reprove, and exhort.
[00:32:11]  It says, Paul says to Timothy, look, Timothy, I'm telling you to do these things before Christ Jesus, the judge.
[00:32:18]  He's insinuating, you will be judged one day, Timothy.
[00:32:21]  This is your job.
[00:32:22]  Reprove, rebuke, resort, exhort.
[00:32:24]  And most of our churches in America, most of the big ones, don't rebuke.
[00:32:28]  They don't reprove.
[00:32:29]  They only exhort.
[00:32:30]  Only tell you how great you're doing, pump you up, get you going.
[00:32:34]  And then let's get your friends in.
[00:32:35]  We're going to have like a giveaway slurpy Sunday.
[00:32:38]  It's going to be so fun.
[00:32:39]  And that's just failed.
[00:32:40]  That's failed.
[00:32:41]  And we have, this is so crazy.
[00:32:43]  In the last nine months, 90% of the churches have been shut down and America hasn't blinked.
[00:32:49]  That shows how little power that the churches have over this culture because they haven't been speaking truth.
[00:32:57]  If their liquor store is closed, riots.
[00:33:00]  Riots in the streets.
[00:33:02]  Yes.
[00:33:02]  For sure.
[00:33:02]  If the abortion factory is closed.
[00:33:04]  Riots in the streets.
[00:33:05]  Exactly.
[00:33:06]  The churches did close, the vast majority of them, and most people did nothing.
[00:33:12]  They approved of it.
[00:33:13]  Exactly.
[00:33:14]  In fact, certain pastors wrote in favor of it.
[00:33:16]  Yep.
[00:33:17]  Yeah, I've had kickback in my community from guys because I'm like, we're open.
[00:33:22]  We're doing it.
[00:33:22]  Good for you.
[00:33:23]  We're preaching the gospel.
[00:33:25]  We're saying the hard stuff.
[00:33:26]  And people are like, how dare you be, you know, treat people's lives like this.
[00:33:31]  And, you know, the truth is their lives are way more in trouble because of sin than because of.
[00:33:37]  But it's also a false accusation.
[00:33:39]  It'd be one thing if I'd say, you know what, we're going to do as a church?
[00:33:41]  We're going to go knock on doors and breathe in people's mouths at old folks' homes.
[00:33:45]  Yeah, you're opening up the door so people can voluntarily.
[00:33:48]  So this is what liberty is: the capacity to seek virtue.
[00:33:53]  So you have the religious liberty.
[00:33:55]  This is a false definition of liberty we have.
[00:33:58]  If I ask a random person, what's liberty?
[00:34:00]  The ability to go smoke weed or do whatever it is.
[00:34:02]  Right.
[00:34:03]  No, actually, liberty is you pursuing virtue, absent the government getting in the way of you being able to become virtuous.
[00:34:10]  That's what liberty is.
[00:34:11]  Well, our founders' concept of liberty wasn't whether I could get hammered or not.
[00:34:16]  It was that government coercion wouldn't stop me from exercising my rights to be a good citizen.
[00:34:20]  That's exactly right.
[00:34:21]  It wasn't like John Smith.
[00:34:23]  It was actually the government who has the sword, who has the ability to stop us.
[00:34:29]  And yeah, I think it's really good.
[00:34:33]  I know it sounds crazy to say that when 90% of the church is shut down and nobody cares, it's a good thing.
[00:34:38]  I think it's a really good thing.
[00:34:39]  It's a refiner's fire.
[00:34:40]  Absolutely.
[00:34:40]  And to close a point on that, Madison and Washington, when they convened the Constitutional Convention, and these were prayerful Christian men.
[00:34:46]  Don't let anyone tell you any different.
[00:34:48]  They were deliberating about the Ninth Amendment, which I think is one of my favorite amendments.
[00:34:52]  And no one ever talks about the Ninth Amendment.
[00:34:54]  I don't even know what it is.
[00:34:55]  That's okay.
[00:34:56]  And I'm a lawyer.
[00:34:57]  For good reason.
[00:34:58]  Because no one talks.
[00:34:59]  It's actually never been used in any decision ever.
[00:35:02]  Once, and it was not even used correctly.
[00:35:04]  I'll tell you what it is in a sec.
[00:35:05]  So Bork said it was a stain blot on the U.S. Constitution.
[00:35:10]  Because at its first reading, it's just kind of a weird amendment.
[00:35:13]  It says, not every right that's out there is in this document.
[00:35:20]  That's a really kind of weird thing, right?
[00:35:22]  It was basically kind of like you read it.
[00:35:23]  You're like, okay, obviously.
[00:35:25]  But no, it's really interesting because the founders were fighting over this.
[00:35:30]  And Madison was getting heat from the religious folks.
[00:35:32]  And they said, we have a right to prayer.
[00:35:35]  We have a right to contact our creator.
[00:35:38]  And Madison's like, yeah, but that's articulated in the First Amendment.
[00:35:41]  They said, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:35:42]  But you have to make an amendment to make sure that it's known that this is not an exhaustive list because we have a right to our sacraments.
[00:35:49]  It's great.
[00:35:49]  It's brilliant, right?
[00:35:50]  It's great.
[00:35:50]  It's great.
[00:35:51]  It's so true.
[00:35:51]  And so then Washington Madison had this as a big, like, okay, we'll put the Ninth Amendment in.
[00:35:55]  So everyone knows that there's other rights that are not clearly defined here.
[00:36:00]  But guess what?
[00:36:00]  What it says is that therefore, if the government can't take those rights away unless there's an act that puts it forward.
[00:36:06]  For example, your right to worship.
[00:36:09]  Now, that's in the Constitution, right?
[00:36:10]  That's religious, free expression clause, and the right, the free expression clause and the establishment clause.
[00:36:16]  But the point is that natural rights and how we are made in God's image is such a difference that we have this recognition in our country versus any other.
[00:36:28]  And so, anyway, I can't remember how he got on the Ninth Amendment issue.
[00:36:30]  There was something.
[00:36:31]  Well, this reminded me of this reminding me of something that that point of the Ninth Amendment is talking about the Ninth Amendment.
[00:36:37]  I like it.
[00:36:38]  There are things that are not mentioned that are still vitally important.
[00:36:41]  And it's like that debate that's like, well, Jesus didn't talk about abortion, so therefore it's totally fine.
[00:36:47]  And you're like, well, yeah, my friend Gabe Finocchio said he also didn't talk about beating people in the head with the attack hammer.
[00:36:55]  Therefore, we don't say that's also fine.
[00:36:58]  He does these memes on Instagram.
[00:37:00]  Yeah.
[00:37:00]  And you sent them to me.
[00:37:01]  I don't laugh out loud.
[00:37:02]  I laughed out loud for like an hour.
[00:37:04]  They're so good.
[00:37:06]  No, they're actually beautiful.
[00:37:08]  Turning point USA coffee table book with woke Jesus Christ.
[00:37:11]  Woke Jesus.
[00:37:11]  No, he should actually publish a picture book called Woke Jesus.
[00:37:15]  It would do so well.
[00:37:16]  And it's good because it's sarcastic.
[00:37:18]  So he's making fun of what the Timothy Keller and the John Piper people are doing and the Andy Stanleys.
[00:37:24]  And it's these pictures of Jesus, like the old ones you'd see in some Methodist or Lutheran or Presbyterian Catholic church, right?
[00:37:30]  Yeah.
[00:37:30]  From the late 1800s, early 1900s, of Jesus with his hands up in front of a flock of people.
[00:37:35]  And he says, Hear ye, disciples, that if you are not liked by everyone, you're doing something wrong.
[00:37:41]  Like something so ridiculously sarcastic that the church actually believes now.
[00:37:45]  And it's so frustrating.
[00:37:46]  And it says, woke Jesus.
[00:37:47]  It's like, it's so good.
[00:37:48]  You're like, we're actually doing that.
[00:37:50]  That's the incredible part.
[00:37:51]  You're like, oh, wait, we did substitute truth for popularity.
[00:37:55]  And that's the beauty of, that's the beauty of a parable.
[00:37:58]  Because a parable is this tale that stings you, but it kind of comes around the side because most people are too arrogant.
[00:38:04]  Like if you tell somebody to their face what they're doing wrong, most people are so arrogant they cannot hear it.
[00:38:09]  Yes.
[00:38:09]  But a parable can sneak in.
[00:38:11]  A story can get in and start to work inside.
[00:38:14]  Well, the parable uses the common noun miracle, right?
[00:38:17]  So a word has meaning.
[00:38:18]  For example, when you know sheep and you hear wolf, you know what the archetype it represents, right?
[00:38:23]  That's the common noun miracle.
[00:38:25]  And that goes back to what we were talking about earlier.
[00:38:27]  So the church is at a very interesting point right now.
[00:38:30]  And Rob McCoy and Joe Pettick and Juergen and Greg Denham, the Barnett family, Steve Smotherman.
[00:38:37]  I mentioned them by name because they deserve to be mentioned because they're courageous.
[00:38:39]  And this is not an exhaustive list.
[00:38:41]  Some pastors are starting to speak out.
[00:38:43]  Your church is flourishing.
[00:38:44]  Yeah, we are.
[00:38:45]  It's been amazing.
[00:38:46]  And it's a funny thing because most guys, I know the fear.
[00:38:49]  The fear is like, it's all going to be over.
[00:38:51]  It's going to crash.
[00:38:52]  This isn't going to work.
[00:38:53]  We're standing up against, you know, and people just want to do church and be left alone.
[00:38:58]  And I talked to you about this last summer, Charlie, but, you know, when we had this kind of Black Lives Matter explosion, I just had a snapping point.
[00:39:05]  And I said, I don't care what anyone thinks ever again.
[00:39:08]  I'm just going to preach the truth of the gospel.
[00:39:10]  In New York City.
[00:39:11]  In New York City, and I'm not going to pull any punches at all.
[00:39:14]  And when I'm preparing my message and I feel like I should pull a punch on any cultural issue, I actually double down on it to fight against that oppression.
[00:39:22]  That's in a place like New York City.
[00:39:23]  That's like, no, you will submit.
[00:39:24]  No, you will not challenge me.
[00:39:25]  You will wave the flag.
[00:39:29]  It's almost they're using a religious story of the Passover against us.
[00:39:35]  Where it's like, if you do not have the BLM flag outside your church, we're going to take your firstborn.
[00:39:40]  Yeah, exactly right.
[00:39:40]  Exactly.
[00:39:41]  It's like if you do not have the LGBT flag, you're a bad person, and we're going to send the investigators after you.
[00:39:46]  Yeah, this Kendi had this, he's got this whole case.
[00:39:51]  Did you read his amendment to the Constitution that he wants to know?
[00:39:54]  But I've been reading this guy for years.
[00:39:56]  Please enlighten me.
[00:39:59]  He says we're going to have this amendment, and in the amendment, we're going to say that racism, in their definition, which is ubiquitous, right?
[00:40:05]  And you can't find it.
[00:40:06]  It's in the air.
[00:40:06]  It's in the sky.
[00:40:09]  will be established in the Constitution and then you will be forced to do something about it.
[00:40:15]  And if you don't, there'll be a department created, the Department of Action, whatever, stopping racism, Department of Anti-Racism.
[00:40:25]  And we're going to come after you if you're not actively pursuing anti-racism.
[00:40:32]  And I just couldn't help but think of the Department of Truth from 1984.
[00:40:36]  Well, I want to get into this.
[00:40:38]  And so two thoughts.
[00:40:40]  First of all, he doesn't even understand what an amendment is.
[00:40:42]  Absent an amendment targeted for Congress.
[00:40:46]  I could be wrong here, but I don't think I am because this is actually philosophical consistent.
[00:40:49]  The amendments, at least the Bill of Rights, are not mandates for citizens.
[00:40:53]  They're rules for government.
[00:40:54]  Big difference.
[00:40:54]  There are limitations on the federal government.
[00:40:56]  They're not like the citizen shall now eat.
[00:40:58]  No, no, no, no.
[00:40:59]  It's the government shall not.
[00:41:01]  We have determined by the Constitution that racism is everywhere.
[00:41:05]  Like, you can't do that.
[00:41:06]  No, that in some sort of strange French Revolution document.
[00:41:10]  Yeah, truly.
[00:41:12]  And the founders are so brilliant because it was written for people like Ibram X. Kendi, whatever his name is.
[00:41:17]  So you mentioned 1984.
[00:41:20]  I think we're already living it.
[00:41:21]  Yeah, we are.
[00:41:22]  And there's a different book, though, that I think is better summarizing where we're heading.
[00:41:28]  And that's Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
[00:41:32]  You're probably familiar with it.
[00:41:33]  Yeah, approximately.
[00:41:34]  I'm more familiar with 84.
[00:41:35]  You tell me what well, the short summary is it's this idea, and he was really into psychedelics and all this, but not exactly one of my favorite writers.
[00:41:45]  But he was right about this where people are going to sacrifice freedom for pleasure.
[00:41:49]  And he went through technology.
[00:41:51]  Yeah, that's right.
[00:41:51]  Through technology.
[00:41:52]  That's right.
[00:41:52]  And insofar that people are just going to sit at home, put on their glasses, transport to a different portal.
[00:41:59]  Yeah.
[00:41:59]  Insofar they can just keep on getting the next dopamine rush.
[00:42:02]  Incredible.
[00:42:02]  And now you have today, Mark Zuckerberg comes out at the new Facebook shareholder.
[00:42:07]  You see this new shareholder meeting, and he has these glasses.
[00:42:11]  And he says, these glasses will transport you to a new world.
[00:42:15]  Wow.
[00:42:15]  And you'll never have to leave your home.
[00:42:17]  Wow.
[00:42:18]  Again.
[00:42:18]  Incredible.
[00:42:19]  Where is this headed, David?
[00:42:20]  Living in a stimulant fiction.
[00:42:22]  You know, somebody said to me one time, he said, people think of the mark of the beast, 666, and the world, chaos, chaos, chaos, you know, government takeover, shooting Christians in the street.
[00:42:33]  He said, 666 is man at its height of perfection, absent God.
[00:42:39]  So you take man and all its best technology and all his best ideas, absent God, throw God away, and that's what you have.
[00:42:46]  That's the ubermensch.
[00:42:46]  It's the ubermensch.
[00:42:48]  It's the glasses on where I'm in, it doesn't matter.
[00:42:51]  I'm at the height of technology.
[00:42:53]  I'm having the height of experience, even though my real life is a total disaster and stands against the world.
[00:42:58]  And it's a complete mirage.
[00:42:59]  It's false.
[00:43:00]  It's a dream.
[00:43:01]  It's an illusion.
[00:43:02]  It's the serpent in the garden telling you: if you eat this apple, you'll have all of your wildest dreams fulfilled.
[00:43:09]  Put on the glasses, have all of your wildest dreams fulfilled, and atrophy in your actual body and atrophy in your eternal body.
[00:43:16]  Yeah, your spirit will atrophy.
[00:43:18]  Yes.
[00:43:18]  So that's what they're releasing.
[00:43:20]  And so I encourage everyone listening.
[00:43:22]  I don't actually wouldn't encourage young people to read Brave New World unless you really know what you're doing.
[00:43:27]  Yeah, no, but it's a dangerous book if you're like 10 or 11.
[00:43:30]  It's very graphic at times.
[00:43:32]  But for parents, you have to be aware of this because this is the new cycle.
[00:43:36]  If you really look at it, one of the things that the Bible talks about is delayed gratification.
[00:43:40]  It's a biblical principle.
[00:43:41]  It's how we built Western civilization.
[00:43:43]  I'm going to work hard today so I can have a little bit more tomorrow.
[00:43:46]  Sacrifice.
[00:43:47]  Really simple, right?
[00:43:48]  Yep.
[00:43:49]  Simple principle.
[00:43:50]  But now the cycle is no immediate pleasure.
[00:43:54]  Yeah.
[00:43:55]  Right.
[00:43:55]  Immediate dopamine rush.
[00:43:56]  Immediate dopamine rush.
[00:43:57]  As soon as you put the thing on your head.
[00:43:58]  That's right.
[00:43:59]  The thing on my head, the substance in my body.
[00:44:02]  And so what is sometimes described as a political issue is actually a spiritual issue, and I'll prove it to you.
[00:44:09]  A nation that's regularly attending church, a nation that understands the biblical value of work would be repulsed by everyone getting a stimulus check just because a politician's offering it.
[00:44:22]  From who, though?
[00:44:23]  Like, nobody's even asking that.
[00:44:25]  But it's mortgaged from the fiat currency.
[00:44:28]  You mean from who?
[00:44:28]  From your children, from tax, whatever.
[00:44:30]  Or from inflation.
[00:44:32]  From inflation.
[00:44:33]  But even if it was paid for, right?
[00:44:34]  Even if it was paid for, and it was like, you know, we're balanced the budget.
[00:44:37]  We're just going to give everyone something.
[00:44:39]  That's a pleasure kick.
[00:44:41]  Don't get me wrong.
[00:44:41]  I mean, don't kill yourself.
[00:44:44]  Again, I...
[00:44:45]  Bread and carnival from the Romans in another package.
[00:44:47]  When you saw that stimulus check come into your Wells Fargo or your Chase Bank account, you're listed this.
[00:44:53]  You know, this is true.
[00:44:54]  Yeah.
[00:44:54]  You got a little dopamine rush.
[00:44:56]  You got a little bit of power.
[00:44:57]  How people have Bitcoin because our currency is going to inflate.
[00:45:01]  Yeah, well, of course it is.
[00:45:02]  35% of all U.S. dollars ever created having been created in the last year.
[00:45:06]  35%.
[00:45:07]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:45:08]  We went from $22 million in our circulation.
[00:45:10]  Trillion.
[00:45:10]  $22 million.
[00:45:11]  Sorry, Yellows.
[00:45:13]  We have $22 million.
[00:45:14]  We got a lot of dollars.
[00:45:15]  I'm rich.
[00:45:16]  I was going to say, we have a lot more purchasing power than I might have.
[00:45:19]  $22 trillion.
[00:45:20]  And we added an additional $7 trillion in the last two years.
[00:45:23]  That we know of, yeah.
[00:45:24]  That's our last one.
[00:45:25]  Not to mention the release of the interest rates.
[00:45:27]  And by the way, that's just an economic example of a spiritual problem, which is that if people were somewhat correctly rooted or oriented, they'd be repulsed by it.
[00:45:38]  I'm not saying people don't need it.
[00:45:39]  That's not what I'm saying.
[00:45:40]  That is not the argument.
[00:45:42]  It's a lot of things people need, by the way.
[00:45:44]  It's a question of how does it delivered to you, if at all, right?
[00:45:48]  Yeah.
[00:45:49]  Well, and then you go into the purpose of a government, right?
[00:45:52]  What's the purpose of a government?
[00:45:53]  Is the purpose of a government to provide your needs?
[00:45:55]  And where do we decide what the purpose of a government is?
[00:45:58]  In my humble opinion, you look to scripture.
[00:46:00]  Yes.
[00:46:00]  And you say, what is the form that God gave?
[00:46:03]  And how can we, as close as possible, that's exactly what they did.
[00:46:07]  They said, oh, it looks like in the book of Judges, it looks like there was very, very limited government.
[00:46:13]  There was a set of law that you had to obey.
[00:46:15]  But as far as governance, the judges only functioned when there was a military incident or when there was a civil action that made its way up, just like an appellate court, all the way up to the top judges.
[00:46:26]  But everyone knew the law.
[00:46:27]  Everyone knew the law.
[00:46:28]  Exactly.
[00:46:29]  And if you didn't obey the law, then the community would execute judgment upon you.
[00:46:34]  And this is the other thing that drives me crazy.
[00:46:36]  Like when someone gets punished in our society, they go off to some faraway place.
[00:46:41]  It is like 1984.
[00:46:42]  They get picked up in the van and you never see the punishment.
[00:46:45]  Punishment is not a part of our cultural life.
[00:46:48]  We've destroyed punishment.
[00:46:49]  We've destroyed punishment.
[00:46:51]  We get a brat society.
[00:46:52]  And brats.
[00:46:53]  Well, it's even worse.
[00:46:54]  It's the people that do deserve more punishment get very little of it.
[00:46:58]  The people that don't deserve it get locked away forever.
[00:47:02]  And if you are of the wrong political stripe, you are going to have the full weight of the government coming after you.
[00:47:08]  Absolutely.
[00:47:08]  Yeah, and that's terrifying.
[00:47:10]  And you have people that are out on weapons charges, rape, arson, first-degree murder for cash bail.
[00:47:18]  And so the church needs to rise up.
[00:47:21]  How's that going to happen?
[00:47:22]  Well, the church needs to rise up in a couple of ways.
[00:47:24]  The first way that it is always the same way every time is personal repentance.
[00:47:29]  Like the church doesn't first rise up by fixing the culture.
[00:47:32]  The church first rises up by me repenting that I'm not seeking the peace of the city, that I'm not living in God's way, that I am living only for my own dopamine rush, that I am seeking my own pleasure at all times.
[00:47:45]  I need to repent of that first, and then God can direct me in righteousness to be a change unit in my community and culture and all those other things.
[00:47:54]  So, every person first needs to repent themselves.
[00:47:57]  Exactly.
[00:47:58]  Exactly.
[00:47:58]  And God said that.
[00:47:59]  He said, if you come to me and you repent, I will heal the land.
[00:48:03]  I'll remove the curse.
[00:48:04]  Like, I'll change what's happening in your country.
[00:48:07]  The country is never ever too far away from the blessing of God if we are willing to repent.
[00:48:12]  What gives you hope?
[00:48:14]  What gives me hope is the change and language that I'm seeing through the shaking that's happening in America.
[00:48:20]  People are realizing.
[00:48:21]  I talked to a pastor in my city of a church, of a multi-thousand person church, and he said, David, I realized what we were doing.
[00:48:26]  He essentially said, David, I realized what we were doing was not right.
[00:48:29]  We were only trying to get salvation and grow the church.
[00:48:32]  And now, through he said this, he said, through the last six months, I've seen people totally leave not just my church, but relationship with God at all.
[00:48:40]  And I realized we weren't doing it right structurally.
[00:48:43]  So they were doing converts, not disciples.
[00:48:45]  Yeah, there's no change.
[00:48:46]  There's no real change.
[00:48:47]  There's say the prayer, you get the ticket to heaven.
[00:48:49]  And people are like, great.
[00:48:50]  Well, then I can sleep around.
[00:48:52]  I can get hammered.
[00:48:52]  I can steal from my boss.
[00:48:54]  Nobody's telling me to show up to work on time or be a good husband or sacrifice.
[00:48:58]  And I think there's, I think the eyes are opening and people are saying, no, we have to actually get people to repent, change.
[00:49:07]  That's that word means that people freak out about the word repentance.
[00:49:10]  It does mean to turn.
[00:49:12]  That's the Greek word.
[00:49:13]  Metamorphy or something.
[00:49:14]  Metamorphize.
[00:49:15]  Metamorphosis is part of that root.
[00:49:18]  I could have the wrong Greek.
[00:49:19]  I think I'm right though.
[00:49:20]  And that you are actually, you are actually turning away from your way and saying, God, you know what?
[00:49:25]  I'm going to follow your way now.
[00:49:27]  And if we do that, it's funny.
[00:49:28]  It's funny because God doesn't say, and then you'll go out and fix like the presidency.
[00:49:34]  He says, I will bless your nation if you do that.
[00:49:38]  He'll, by his sovereign will, he'll work through us.
[00:49:40]  He could end this ball game in a second.
[00:49:42]  Yeah.
[00:49:43]  And that's why, like, right now, the curse of God is upon our nation.
[00:49:46]  I don't mean that in some kind of horrible, gross way.
[00:49:48]  I mean that we have corruption, sin, chaos, debauchery, debauchery, wicked leadership, people doing gender mutilation to children, trying to pass it in Congress.
[00:49:59]  It's insane.
[00:50:00]  And justifying it in the Republican Party in Arkansas.
[00:50:03]  Yeah, that I saw that.
[00:50:04]  The chemical castration.
[00:50:05]  I saw that.
[00:50:06]  It was a Tucker interview and it's shocking.
[00:50:08]  It's shocking.
[00:50:09]  Yes.
[00:50:10]  And Tucker's saying, well, they can't even drink.
[00:50:13]  They can't, they can't.
[00:50:14]  And he's like, oh, I want the freedom.
[00:50:15]  I'm like, you don't know what freedom is.
[00:50:16]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:50:17]  That's the freedom we were talking about.
[00:50:18]  He's like, oh, I want limited government.
[00:50:20]  I'm sorry, what?
[00:50:21]  Yeah, right.
[00:50:21]  If government's good for anything, it should be prevent the chemical castration of a seven-year-old.
[00:50:27]  That's right.
[00:50:27]  It should protect the vulnerable from the role of the sovereign.
[00:50:32]  That's right.
[00:50:32]  Exactly.
[00:50:32]  That's the most fundamental role.
[00:50:34]  Yes.
[00:50:35]  And we've thrown that out.
[00:50:35]  We've said that, no, the role is you get health care, you get free education.
[00:50:39]  You're like, no, can we just please protect the innocent?
[00:50:42]  And if you're a trillionaire, you can do whatever you want.
[00:50:44]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:50:45]  And you're all scot-free.
[00:50:46]  That's right.
[00:50:47]  So I think if we would, if people would repent and say, okay, God is perfectly just, I will get what I'm due one day.
[00:50:55]  And that's not a great thing because I've done a bunch of chaotic things that are not good.
[00:51:00]  I've sowed a lot of seeds of chaos.
[00:51:02]  So I must personally repent.
[00:51:04]  And if I repent, God will bring his blessing upon my life.
[00:51:08]  That's how, that's, that's the formula.
[00:51:10]  And so that's something, I mean, I've been so in attractional churches, Charlie.
[00:51:15]  Like I, I was like preaching like happy Jesus messages for years.
[00:51:19]  I'm saying I actually have to preach repentance.
[00:51:21]  I have to start walking into the dark room of bringing the sword upon self and saying, Lord, will you let your word cut me?
[00:51:30]  The word is sharper than any two-edged sword, divides between soul and spirit, the thoughts and intents of the heart, that it shows me my dark intent, that it shows me my, you know, malicious ways.
[00:51:41]  And I'm like, man, that's horrible.
[00:51:42]  It's how Paul could say, I'm the chief of all sinners.
[00:51:46]  And that causes repentance to happen.
[00:51:48]  And then we walk in righteousness.
[00:51:49]  The blessing of God comes.
[00:51:50]  Our nation changes.
[00:51:51]  Jonathan Edwards, sinners in the hands of an angry God.
[00:51:54]  Yeah.
[00:51:54]  Right.
[00:51:54]  A repenting nation becomes a liberty-seeking nation.
[00:51:57]  And a blessed nation.
[00:51:58]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:51:59]  And every revival has repentance at its core.
[00:52:02]  Always.
[00:52:02]  Always.
[00:52:03]  And so Billy Graham, when he came onto the scene, first of all, he was an ardent anti-communist.
[00:52:08]  I'm a big Billy Graham fan.
[00:52:09]  I love everything about him.
[00:52:10]  And I know the Graham family well.
[00:52:12]  Sissy's terrific.
[00:52:14]  And he was big on repentance, big time.
[00:52:17]  And you listen to him, you'd always say, The Bible says that you must face your creator and repent.
[00:52:23]  And then, once once that cycle is underway, then all of a sudden things can start to move.
[00:52:30]  Bonhoeffer said, he said, if we tell our audience who Dietrich Bonhoeffer is.
[00:52:34]  Yeah, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a guy in 1940s, Germany, who's a brilliant theologian.
[00:52:39]  He actually came and studied in New York City while the George Washington Bridge was being built and stayed at a couple of churches.
[00:52:45]  I didn't know that.
[00:52:46]  Yeah, he obviously Eric Metaxa's book on Bonhoeffer is one of the best-selling books.
[00:52:52]  Absolute classic.
[00:52:53]  And he's got this concept called cheap grace.
[00:52:55]  And Bonhoeffer basically says, like, you can't say you believe something and then not live it.
[00:53:02]  You're disrespecting, you're shaming the blood of Jesus that was shed for you.
[00:53:07]  And he says, so grace can't be preached cheaply.
[00:53:11]  He said, because if Jesus said that you can't cast your pearls before swine unless they trample them and then turn and trample you.
[00:53:19]  And he says, the same gospel that frees must be the same gospel that binds.
[00:53:25]  So we have to say, look, my sin is an actual issue.
[00:53:28]  Me, 40-year-old pastor, I have sinned.
[00:53:30]  It's an actual issue.
[00:53:32]  And I have to repent of it.
[00:53:33]  And that binds me.
[00:53:34]  And that allows me to live in God's freedom and blessing in my city, my neighborhood, and my nation.
[00:53:39]  And then in a generation, you're going to look at my neighborhood in New York City called the Two Bridges, and you're going to see it flourishing with life, family, righteousness, because we're there calling people to walk in God's goodness.
[00:53:51]  I love that.
[00:53:53]  In closing, is there anything else in specific you really wanted to talk about that you're working on that we didn't cover?
[00:53:59]  Um, we're going to end up on like 17 rabbit trails, you and I. That's what's always so fun.
[00:54:06]  I love it too.
[00:54:07]  No, I am working on this book, Good Kills, and it's important because I want people to call them good kills.
[00:54:12]  Good kills.
[00:54:12]  Yeah, I want to, I want people to understand that God, like in the evangelical world, we sing the song, Good, Good Father, and He is a Good, Good Father.
[00:54:20]  But goodness doesn't only hug, it also kills the enemy at the gate, right?
[00:54:25]  Paul says that when I leave, wolves will arise among you, savage wolves from your own flock, not sparing, not sparing the body.
[00:54:35]  In your own midst, wolves rise up to consume yourself.
[00:54:39]  And good needs to bring a sword at times and stand up against woke theology and CRT and these crazy issues.
[00:54:45]  So that's something I'm developing.
[00:54:47]  You and I will talk about it more in the future.
[00:54:48]  But I want Christians to start thinking about it.
[00:54:51]  Good is not just God giving hugs out.
[00:54:53]  It's about God being perfect and in justice, giving to every man exactly what he's due.
[00:54:59]  It's terrific.
[00:55:00]  David Engelhart, King's Church, NYC, New York City.
[00:55:05]  It's been great.
[00:55:06]  Yes, it's always a pleasure, Charlie.
[00:55:08]  We covered a lot and we had no notes.
[00:55:10]  Yeah.
[00:55:10]  Everyone, check out CharlieKirk.com.
[00:55:13]  Email us your thoughts.
[00:55:14]  Freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:55:16]  This episode is brought to you, advertise your free for all of you that support us, charliekirk.com/slash support and get involved at TurningPointUSA, tpusa.com.
[00:55:25]  Thanks, David.
[00:55:25]  Thanks, Charlie.
[00:55:28]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:55:30]  Email us your thoughtsfreedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:55:33]  God bless you guys.
[00:55:34]  Talk to you soon.
[00:55:38]  For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.