The Charlie Kirk Show - The Greatest Threat to Tyranny is the Activated Church—LIVE from TPUSA Faith Pastors Summit
Aired: 2022-08-29
Duration: 29:20


=== History-Making Moment for Liberty (14:54) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey everybody, today in the Charlie Kirk Show, super important episode.
[00:00:03]  Stop what you're doing and listen to every word of this.
[00:00:05]  You are going to love it.
[00:00:06]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:00:08]  Here we.
[00:00:09]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:00:10]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
[00:00:12]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:00:16]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:00:19]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:00:20]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:00:21]  His spirit, his love of this country.
[00:00:23]  He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
[00:00:30]  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.
[00:00:38]  That's why we are here.
[00:00:42]  Welcome to San Diego, everybody.
[00:00:43]  It is such a blessing to have all of you.
[00:00:46]  And just the Turning Point USA team has worked so hard this summer.
[00:00:50]  For those of you that kind of follow us and have been seeing, we did our Young Women's Leadership Summit in early June for 2,500 young women.
[00:01:00]  Just a couple weeks ago, we had our Student Action Summit, 5,000 students in Tampa, Florida.
[00:01:05]  Last week, we nearly doubled the size of our staff.
[00:01:09]  And just to add all of that, we have this amazing pastor summit here.
[00:01:12]  And so the TPUSA staff, if you see them, thank them.
[00:01:16]  They are doing such a remarkable job for liberty and for freedom and for our country.
[00:01:21]  So I want to just start by kind of framing these next couple days.
[00:01:26]  What is TPUSA faith?
[00:01:28]  What is that exactly?
[00:01:30]  Well, a year ago, we launched this project and this program with a heart and a desire to try and help you, America's pastors, to speak boldly with conviction and clarity as our liberties and freedoms seem to erode seemingly by the hour now.
[00:01:48]  If the American church does not rise up with boldness, Western civilization will be something that we tell our grandkids about.
[00:01:56]  Now, a couple years ago, I met my now pastor Rob McCoy, who you'll hear from in just a second.
[00:02:01]  And Pastor Rob's amazing.
[00:02:04]  And I was always kind of uncertain about talking about these sorts of issues, you could say.
[00:02:09]  And then I met Pastor Rob at an event at Liberty University.
[00:02:13]  And Rob challenged me.
[00:02:14]  He said, Charlie, if you're a Christian and you're fighting for liberty every single day, that's the same cause.
[00:02:20]  He said, it's God's heart for his people to set the captives free.
[00:02:25]  And so Rob invited me to speak at his church.
[00:02:28]  I'd never spoke at a church before, by the way.
[00:02:30]  I was originally raised Presbyterian, where, you know, let's just say the congregation would never go and give a speech.
[00:02:36]  You just kind of attend and leave.
[00:02:38]  And then I went to Harvest Bible Chapel.
[00:02:40]  I think Landon is here somewhere in suburbs of Chicago.
[00:02:42]  It had an amazing impact on my life and really led me closer to the Lord.
[00:02:47]  But I was always uncertain about speaking at a church.
[00:02:50]  And be honest, I don't get very nervous speaking, but I was super nervous before speaking at Rob's church.
[00:02:57]  And it was amazing.
[00:02:58]  I realized that the church community at Godspeak was hungry for this message, that they wanted to be told that it's okay to care about current events, that they should do something about their local school boards, and that Christians have a moral and biblical commandment to actually contest in the public square.
[00:03:17]  And so one church led to another.
[00:03:19]  I spoke at Jack Hibbs Church.
[00:03:21]  And then, of course, COVID happened.
[00:03:23]  And I've never been more wrong in my life about something.
[00:03:27]  I made a public prediction that the American churches were going to resist lockdowns and be the leaders against all this nonsense.
[00:03:34]  I said, oh, no way.
[00:03:35]  I mean, the American church won't put up with this.
[00:03:38]  Now, many of you did, and you deserve to be thanked and encouraged for that.
[00:03:41]  That's why you're here, by the way.
[00:03:45]  So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
[00:03:47]  I see so many of you here.
[00:03:48]  Pastor Todd and Pastor Joe, I see so many of you here.
[00:03:51]  But let's be honest, you're in the minority.
[00:03:53]  So when I started to speak at many of your churches here, Steve Smotherman's church for one in 2020, many of you started to tell me something similar.
[00:04:03]  I'm the only one.
[00:04:05]  I don't know one other pastor, maybe one or two, that are fighting against this.
[00:04:09]  I said, really?
[00:04:10]  I was just in Albuquerque with a guy that's talking just like you.
[00:04:14]  I was just in Bangor, Maine, or I was at Pastor Gary's church.
[00:04:17]  And it seems as if you guys need to get to know each other because you might feel like you're the only one, but that is a tactic from the enemy to try to make you feel as if you're in isolation and confusion.
[00:04:30]  And so we got to thinking, we prayed about it, and we never had any sort of plan to do this before.
[00:04:36]  We said, what if we start a program where we use some of the expertise that we had on college and high school campus organizing and just try to do something meaningful in America's churches?
[00:04:47]  Now, when you try to do anything in the faith space, the immediate question you get is, Charlie, what is your stance?
[00:04:53]  Are you pre-trib or post-trib?
[00:04:55]  I was like, okay, really?
[00:04:56]  That took you about 30 seconds.
[00:04:58]  In fact, there's a pastor who's not here who refused to attend because he said we were not clear enough on our theology before this.
[00:05:06]  And look, we believe in the Nicene Creed.
[00:05:08]  We believe Jesus is king.
[00:05:10]  We believe in the inerrancy of scripture.
[00:05:13]  And I'll allow you guys to settle all the other theological differences.
[00:05:19]  It's not my field.
[00:05:20]  We're here for liberty, everybody.
[00:05:21]  We're here to set the captives free, okay?
[00:05:25]  And I love those theological disputes.
[00:05:27]  I think it's fun.
[00:05:28]  It's spirited.
[00:05:29]  It's important.
[00:05:30]  However, if we just focus on that, we're going to be having those debates from prison.
[00:05:35]  And we're just going to be disagreeing on, you know, pre-trib, post-trib, you know, see you in the yard tomorrow.
[00:05:40]  Okay, great.
[00:05:44]  And so when we started TPSA Faith, we were very focused on the Nicene Creed, inerrancy of scripture, and allowing you, the pastor, to find whatever theological perspective you want to bring to your congregation.
[00:05:56]  But here's what we can agree on.
[00:05:58]  We can agree on that the most important thing is to win souls for Jesus Christ.
[00:06:03]  And the second most important thing is to make sure we can still do the first thing.
[00:06:10]  And that second thing is what I do every day.
[00:06:12]  We do it on high school campuses, radio, podcasting, and that's our mission here at TPUSA Faith.
[00:06:17]  So this is going to be a little bit different for some of you.
[00:06:19]  In fact, I had someone come up to me and they said, Charlie, I'm very suspicious.
[00:06:22]  I said, why is that?
[00:06:23]  They said, you guys are treating me way too well.
[00:06:25]  Like, where's the ask?
[00:06:26]  Like, and look, this is what we do here at TPSA.
[00:06:30]  There's no membership dues.
[00:06:32]  We're not going to ask you to join some association.
[00:06:35]  We're not going to ask you to kind of come in and put your name on something.
[00:06:39]  We're here to actually do something that is not done a lot in church world.
[00:06:42]  We're just here to offer you stuff.
[00:06:43]  If you like it, please take it.
[00:06:44]  And we want to build a relationship.
[00:06:46]  We want you to be convicted.
[00:06:47]  We want you to be empowered.
[00:06:48]  We want you to be encouraged.
[00:06:50]  We want you to be filled up with information these next couple days and go back to your church and feel compelled to do something.
[00:06:58]  So just understand the power of what's in this room right now.
[00:07:01]  Over 400 pastors and wives attended for this conference.
[00:07:04]  We did the math.
[00:07:05]  Over 215,000 weekly attendees, if you count all of your churches together.
[00:07:11]  Over 5 million digital and social media followers and weekly listeners on podcasts altogether.
[00:07:17]  This room can change the country.
[00:07:18]  It's that simple.
[00:07:22]  This room can change the country.
[00:07:25]  And by the way, it's not even a matter of numbers.
[00:07:27]  If you're a pastor right now and you have 50 in your flock, God bless you.
[00:07:30]  I'm so glad you're here.
[00:07:31]  Or if you're a pastor Steve and you got, I don't know, 50,000 in that auditorium in Albuquerque, God bless you.
[00:07:36]  Or Pastor Gary, doesn't matter.
[00:07:38]  We're all one together.
[00:07:39]  Now, the reason why so many of you, I know, traveled across the country to be here is you feel a sense of urgency and a massive lacking in this moment of time that the church is not currently doing enough.
[00:07:52]  What I also noticed on my travels during kind of the thought process and reflection of before we launched TPSA Faith is people would say, I'm the only one, and also privately be like, Charlie, what exactly do I do?
[00:08:07]  I agree with you, but how do I give a sermon properly on the Constitution?
[00:08:12]  Is America a Christian country?
[00:08:15]  How do I go and do an election day sermon?
[00:08:17]  What are the legal parameters for me as a pastor?
[00:08:21]  Because I'm told by all of my pastor friends that we must be Romans 13 and never question the government at all.
[00:08:29]  Every one of those questions will be answered for you in these next couple of days.
[00:08:32]  I cannot think of a better group of experts that you're going to hear from Bill Federer, from Dave Barton, from Larry Arn, from pastors, from legal experts.
[00:08:44]  There'll be QA time.
[00:08:45]  There'll be fellowship time.
[00:08:47]  Because some of you right now are saying, well, Charlie, what's the boundaries I can push?
[00:08:50]  So you're going to hear it all.
[00:08:51]  You're going to have the Jack Hibbs model, who's just total cowboy, where he mails his sermons to the IRS, asking them to audit him.
[00:09:00]  That will be on the buffet line for you to choose.
[00:09:05]  Or you'll get the Liberty Council update of, we're here to represent you.
[00:09:10]  And if you want to challenge the IRS, or here's some safe harborways.
[00:09:14]  So you're going to have all of that presented in front of you.
[00:09:17]  But, you know, one of the verses we want to focus on these next couple of days is Jeremiah 29, 7, which is, demand the welfare of the nation that you are in, because your welfare is tied to your nation's welfare.
[00:09:29]  That is the Lord speaking in Jeremiah 29, 7.
[00:09:32]  I am not saying that the welfare of the nation is the most important thing.
[00:09:37]  No one will make that contention these next couple days.
[00:09:39]  Eternity is the most important thing.
[00:09:42]  But if we act as if this does not matter, as if this is a component that is not a prerequisite or an ingredient, then the tyranny that I think a lot of us have been warning about that we're all of a sudden shockingly see on the news, especially in the last couple days, I'm not going to be able, I'm not going to live with myself if I inherit a free country and pass down an unfree country, especially us as Christians.
[00:10:08]  And here's the thing that I think that so much we have to get better at articulating and challenging our friends lovingly and gracefully is we are the inheritors of a nation that was founded by courageous Christians.
[00:10:22]  Let's be courageous Christians as well.
[00:10:28]  And so the next couple days, I want to challenge you to meet people you haven't met before, to ask questions that might push your own boundaries, and ask yourself, what can I bring back to my church to advance the cause of liberty?
[00:10:45]  What can I bring back to my church to maybe open up my church to allow pod schooling or homeschooling to allow at our church?
[00:10:52]  What can I do at my church to educate my congregation on their civic right to vote?
[00:10:57]  Calls to action in every single way possible.
[00:10:59]  Because here's what I can guarantee, and this is the one thing about pastors' conferences that I know that, you know, some of you, just from some of the feedback, is pastor conferences are interesting.
[00:11:09]  I'm going to steal one of Rob McCoy's lines.
[00:11:11]  It's like having a porcupine.
[00:11:12]  Great point.
[00:11:13]  Keep them away from me, right?
[00:11:14]  And you have a lot of people where all of you are leading every single day.
[00:11:19]  I totally get that.
[00:11:20]  The one thing I want to challenge you, though, is that every speaker might be able to give you one or two or three things that could change your church, change your community.
[00:11:29]  And it's also going to say, you know, you might not like that person's theology.
[00:11:33]  You might not like what they have to say at one point, but they're on the stage here to hopefully bless you and give you the expertise and give you the information to allow you to become the best pastor possible.
[00:11:44]  Let me just kind of close with this before I invite Rob up.
[00:11:49]  Look, the country's in trouble.
[00:11:50]  We know that.
[00:11:50]  It's falling apart.
[00:11:51]  Nothing in these next couple days is political.
[00:11:53]  People say, Charlie, why should Christians be political?
[00:11:55]  I think Christians should be political.
[00:11:57]  We're actually going to go a step even further than political.
[00:12:00]  I think Christians need to be talking about morals, right and wrong, philosophy.
[00:12:04]  What type of government do we have?
[00:12:05]  That's really what we're here.
[00:12:07]  That's why we're here.
[00:12:08]  And so in the next couple days, I know that there will be moments where some of you want to then apply this into action.
[00:12:19]  That's the next thing that we offer here at TPUSA Faith.
[00:12:22]  So as I mentioned, we have 32 full-time people all across the country that are there to literally help you make this possible.
[00:12:30]  So for example, if you feel convicted and you want to bring a biblical citizenship class to your church, we're there to help you make it happen.
[00:12:37]  We're already doing it with some of you in the audience here.
[00:12:39]  If you want to then do a Freedom Night in America like we do at Steve Smotherman's Church or Pastor Troy's Church in North Carolina or Pastor Luke Barnett's church where we do a weeknight gathering focused on current events around a biblical lens, we're there to help you do it.
[00:12:52]  If you see a speaker here on stage and you're like, boy, I'd love to have that speaker come to your church, we're more than happy to help make that happen.
[00:13:00]  So it's all in front of you and we want to make it possible where all of a sudden next year we don't just have 400 pastors and wives.
[00:13:07]  Why not 4,000 pastors and wives from across the country?
[00:13:12]  And so let me tell you about how this conference came to be.
[00:13:18]  The person who helped underwrite this conference, we have amazing donors at Turning Point USA.
[00:13:23]  It was one donor and one meeting.
[00:13:25]  And I would say she's a Christian, but she doesn't necessarily attend church regularly.
[00:13:30]  And she sat down, we sat down and said, Charlie, what's the most impactful thing that is not yet currently funded that you need help with?
[00:13:37]  I said, boy, if we could get hundreds of pastors together in August before a consequential fall, I think it could help change the course of the country.
[00:13:46]  And she said, sure, I'll fund the whole thing.
[00:13:48]  And I wanted to just go a step further.
[00:13:50]  I said, well, really, you don't really seem that interested in church and all that.
[00:13:54]  She said, listen, she was raised Catholic, tough experience, long story.
[00:13:58]  The point, though, is that she said, I've done the math.
[00:14:01]  If the church doesn't actually start to grow a spine, the country's done.
[00:14:08]  And I want you to think about that.
[00:14:12]  That coalition of liberty that is there to try to bless you for the next couple of days to make it easier for you to be able to have hopefully some rest and some comfort and enjoy the scenery and the beauty.
[00:14:22]  But also, from our picture as a country right now, the forces to be, they want pastors to do nothing right now.
[00:14:31]  They want pastors not to speak out.
[00:14:33]  They want pastors to be okay with this.
[00:14:35]  The greatest threat to tyranny in America is a church that does not put up with it.
[00:14:45]  And so you're at a history-making moment.
[00:14:48]  Millions of people will be impacted by this, the ripple effect, the network effect.
[00:14:53]  And isn't that awesome?

=== State Intruding on the Church (07:05) ===

[00:14:54]  Praise God that this is able to come together the way it did.
[00:14:56]  And so challenge yourself, challenge your friends, and just love on our speakers as they present to you what I think is just an amazingly robust program.
[00:15:06]  We are here to help and serve you.
[00:15:08]  I know many of you met some of our TPUSA faith staffers.
[00:15:12]  Anything you need in the next couple days, from dinner reservations to just an errand run, we are here to bless you in any way possible.
[00:15:18]  Because honestly, pastors that are taking stands on these issues, which you are, you guys get a lot thrown at you.
[00:15:25]  Local media, backlash.
[00:15:27]  It's about time someone honors all of you for the stands that you've been taking.
[00:15:31]  And that's part of what we're trying to do here these next couple days.
[00:15:34]  And so I can't think of anybody better to help open this conference.
[00:15:38]  And the man who helped inspire TPUSA Faith, the co-chair of TPUSA Faith, join me in welcoming Pastor Rob McCoy.
[00:15:47]  So Rob, I just wanted to kind of open up with a conversation here.
[00:15:50]  What an amazing group, right?
[00:15:52]  Yeah, it's really cool.
[00:15:53]  Seriously, I've been meeting so many of them, and they travel from all over and new faces.
[00:15:58]  And there's some folks here that are not really sure.
[00:16:01]  Yeah, that's right.
[00:16:02]  So, and that's what welcome, by the way.
[00:16:03]  Yeah, there's a lot of people here, and we're so glad you're here that have messaged me and messaged Rob.
[00:16:08]  They said, I follow you guys.
[00:16:10]  I don't agree with everything you say, but hundreds of pastors in the room in a couple days in Coronado, California.
[00:16:15]  I think that was probably the draw, but that's okay.
[00:16:17]  Um, by the way, mission accomplished, they're here.
[00:16:19]  Boom.
[00:16:20]  Um, and that's okay because, Rob, how many stories have we seen of pastors that were, boy, I'm uncertain about speaking about this, but now two years later, they're vocal, they're empowered, they're leaning in on these issues.
[00:16:33]  Yeah, and talk a little bit about that.
[00:16:35]  I was thinking that the first person came to mind was John Randall.
[00:16:38]  He's in here the last couple days, and it was his kids that said, You got to listen to Charlie Kirk.
[00:16:41]  And he's he was the ATPs like me, and you're just looking at it going, Well, I'm not really sure.
[00:16:45]  You know, I just preach the gospel, I don't do politics.
[00:16:48]  And then all of a sudden, John starts to realize that even if you believe in a separation of church and state, you're watching the state come into the church.
[00:16:55]  And wherever you are on that, we're seeing you know this.
[00:16:58]  It's never been done like this in the history of our country.
[00:17:01]  So, watching John take a stand and seeing San Clemente blessed by that movement.
[00:17:07]  And I think, like I've told you, pastors are peace-loving, but the misconception is that peace is the absence of conflict.
[00:17:14]  And it's not, it's the presence of Christ in the midst of the conflict.
[00:17:17]  And we think, well, you know, we're submit to authority like you had alluded to with Romans 13, but that doesn't mean unlimited submission to tyranny.
[00:17:25]  And we have to learn that.
[00:17:27]  And I was assembling the airplane while I was flying.
[00:17:29]  You and I were dealing with this because I felt like I was going through my life with two left shoes and you were wearing two right shoes.
[00:17:35]  And then we met each other and we, hey, wow, this is-you can help me.
[00:17:38]  Yeah.
[00:17:39]  Because I remember when I first met you at that conference at Don Dix, who's gone to be with the Lord, he had put on at the conservative radio thing in Ontario.
[00:17:46]  And you said, I didn't know a guy like you existed.
[00:17:48]  I said, What's that?
[00:17:49]  A pastor and a politician.
[00:17:50]  I said, I didn't know a guy like you existed.
[00:17:52]  26-year-old, you know, conservative going on campuses.
[00:17:55]  Like, you have a death wish or something.
[00:17:58]  And it just from there, we started to realize there's a part missing.
[00:18:02]  And the church desperately needed what you were sharing.
[00:18:06]  And I, being in politics, I had to understand the issues better.
[00:18:10]  And I'm grateful for what God's done with you.
[00:18:12]  Yeah, on the Romans 13 deal, I got this from Bill Federer, who you'll hear a couple tomorrow, I think, which is, you know, a lot of pastors will say, hey, we have to submit to Romans 13.
[00:18:22]  Well, the founding fathers gave us an amazing gift, which is, you know, it says in Romans 13, submit to all rulers and those in authority.
[00:18:28]  Well, we, the people, are the rulers and the authority in the Constitutional Republic.
[00:18:33]  And so technically, the mayors, the governors, the congresspeople, and the presidents, they should submit to us.
[00:18:40]  And, you know, in the time in Rome, okay, you know, whoever's the emperor of Rome, Nero after that.
[00:18:46]  But in this country, the people are the sovereign.
[00:18:48]  That little civic education, I know, inspired some pastors in this room to feel even more empowered to take a stand against the tyranny.
[00:18:56]  And you're right, Rob, you know, for a long time they said, you know, separation of church and state, which is not in the Constitution.
[00:19:02]  And, you know, one, a single letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Convention, which actually was trying to tell the Baptists the state wouldn't come after them.
[00:19:11]  However, even if that was true, you're so right, Rob.
[00:19:14]  That means the church never should have been shut down.
[00:19:16]  That means the church never should have been subject to vaccine mandates.
[00:19:19]  That means the church never should have been subject to mask mandates.
[00:19:22]  If separation of church was actually ever true, what they're really trying to say is, hey, you Christians, please don't get involved because you outnumber us.
[00:19:29]  That's right.
[00:19:31]  I learned this from not only Bill Federer, but also David Barton and Rick Green, Jonathan Mayhew, who died in 1766.
[00:19:39]  But John Adams attributed this exegetical work of Romans 13.
[00:19:42]  He attributed the War of Independence to Mayhew because he looked at Romans 13 and he said that God appoints all positions of authority were to submit to him.
[00:19:50]  But he said, but they're there for our good.
[00:19:52]  And when they cease to do good, they cease to be the authority.
[00:19:55]  And he coined the term disobedience to tyrants is obedience to God.
[00:19:58]  And that's what John Adams said started the War of Independence.
[00:20:01]  And they needed the politicians, politicians are actors performing a script written by the audience.
[00:20:07]  And God gave the sovereign in this country, we the people, a president needs a cabinet, a king needs counselors.
[00:20:14]  Our founders in their wisdom gave the people a counselor in the First Amendment.
[00:20:18]  The press, the pulpit, the freedom of speech, and the freedom to peacefully assemble for right of redress of grievances.
[00:20:24]  The press is to report the truth.
[00:20:26]  The pulpits are to proclaim it, and the people are to live it.
[00:20:29]  And if the press is bought and the pulpits are silent, the people are rudderless and the king has no counselors.
[00:20:34]  And only a moral people can govern a republic, a constitutional republic.
[00:20:39]  It's a bottom-up form of government where the First Amendment, and I'll stop with this.
[00:20:46]  The First Amendment was prohibitive.
[00:20:48]  You know, you see the eloquence in the Declaration of Independence when, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary.
[00:20:53]  And then you see the preamble of the Constitution, we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union.
[00:20:58]  They establish the three branches of government, and the one branch which is most powerful, that holds the purse strings, is the one we directly elect, which is the Congress.
[00:21:06]  And then they write the First Amendment.
[00:21:07]  The first 16 words is prohibitive.
[00:21:09]  Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof, period.
[00:21:16]  And they were saying, no government comes between God and man ever, period.
[00:21:22]  That was profound.
[00:21:24]  And then that.
[00:21:26]  Now, Rob, some pastors will say, if I speak out on this, I will lose attendance, I will lose tithes and offerings, of which I say, so what?
[00:21:37]  But that's actually not true.
[00:21:45]  No.
[00:21:46]  Because I look around the room right now that the pastors that I know that have taken the boldest stands over the last two years have actually seen their attendance grow.
[00:21:55]  They need bigger buildings and their tithes and offerings have increased.

=== Bold Stands Grow Attendance (05:44) ===

[00:21:59]  So talk about even if that were true, or if one day that will be true, who cares?
[00:22:04]  Secondly, Rob, your church has been blessed beyond imagination since the government came after you.
[00:22:12]  Yeah.
[00:22:14]  So when we were given the restraining order by the county and the state, I asked our attorney what we would lose, and there was a legal pad full of, you know, you lose your house, you lose your church, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:22:25]  You're going to get, you know, your son loses NRTC scholarship, all these things.
[00:22:29]  Long legal pad.
[00:22:30]  I called my wife and she repeated what Victor Marx's wife said.
[00:22:35]  Basically, I'd rather be a widow than be married to a coward.
[00:22:38]  And my kids were all in because, amen.
[00:22:45]  My kids were all in because they know you're fighting for their generation.
[00:22:51]  And, you know, and then the staff was in, but the elders were the toughest ones.
[00:22:54]  And this is where you guys will have struggles.
[00:22:56]  We have 15 elders.
[00:22:58]  And I went before them and I said, look, I'm planning on violating the restraining order tomorrow.
[00:23:02]  But unless the decision is unanimous, I gave you all a letter that has my resignation.
[00:23:08]  Because my wife and I had counted the cost, and nothing's more valuable to us than freedom for the next generation.
[00:23:14]  Because if we don't secure this, it's all gone.
[00:23:16]  If you bind the strong man, 86 cents of every dollar in evangelism comes from the United States, we bind the strong man, it's over.
[00:23:23]  And so we did that, and the landlord was all in too.
[00:23:27]  And so when we stood, we had nothing to fear.
[00:23:30]  And people said, well, you're going to lose everything.
[00:23:32]  Okay, some people left.
[00:23:35]  That's a given.
[00:23:36]  He's too political.
[00:23:36]  I used to say the largest church in the Canaano Valley is a church of the people that used to go to our church.
[00:23:43]  And I have a gift.
[00:23:44]  I have a gift of preaching a church down to a manageable size.
[00:23:49]  But lo and behold, they say, we love the worship.
[00:23:52]  The messages are good, but you're too political.
[00:23:54]  COVID hits.
[00:23:55]  Their whole world, the elderly are dying alone.
[00:23:58]  The abused are quarantined with the abuser.
[00:24:00]  65% of our small business is destroyed.
[00:24:01]  Schools shuttered.
[00:24:03]  And they all come back.
[00:24:04]  We're the only show in town.
[00:24:06]  We baptized more people in a year than the attendance of the church was a year ago.
[00:24:16]  The accusation I got is we preach the gospel as though insinuating I don't.
[00:24:21]  You want to hear some of the stories of the folks who come to Christ, agnostics.
[00:24:25]  There was an atheist who owned a gun store, and he came out on the day that we violated the restraining order when they were going to give a thousand citations.
[00:24:31]  He had a sign that said, it took this SHI, and then you can fill in the last letter.
[00:24:36]  He said, it took this SHI to get this atheist to come to church.
[00:24:44]  He's been in church ever since.
[00:24:46]  We've watched Jews come to Christ.
[00:24:48]  One woman said, my father, who survived Oshwitz said, don't get on the train.
[00:24:52]  She said, you defended our business.
[00:24:54]  I baptized her.
[00:24:55]  She knows Jesus as her Messiah.
[00:24:57]  These are all significant conversions of people that would never darken the doors of the church.
[00:25:03]  But God has intrinsically placed in our heart a desire for liberty, and we stood on their defense, and they came.
[00:25:07]  We love our neighbor.
[00:25:08]  Amen.
[00:25:14]  So, Rob, in closing here, before we welcome Pastor Juergen, can you just talk a little bit about kind of the buffet line we've developed at TPUSA Faith of different options, different takeaways that they'll hear the next couple of days.
[00:25:26]  Biblical citizenship, Freedom Night in America, the different speakers, the regional pastors' events, the booklets, the materials, and how your church has incorporated some of those things.
[00:25:36]  Yeah, so when Charlie and I were just conceiving or thinking about getting a room full of pastors that, you know, theologically are, I call it the island of misfit toys.
[00:25:48]  We've got five-point Calvinists swinging from the chandelier, charismatics, and kind of in the middle.
[00:25:52]  Calvary's, we believe the gifts are today, but we keep them in the closet.
[00:25:57]  And we're varied on the eschatology.
[00:25:59]  And as Charlie so brilliantly said, if we don't get liberty right, we'll be arguing those differences from prison.
[00:26:04]  And what it's done is it's united us, and we've endeavored to keep the union of spirit and the bond of peace.
[00:26:08]  So when we sat down and said, what can we offer these pastors in the country?
[00:26:12]  We're going to equip you to contend with tyranny and to be able to stand strong because where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
[00:26:21]  Liberty is not man's idea.
[00:26:22]  It's God's idea.
[00:26:22]  So we've got biblical citizenship to understand historically, footnoted with absolute accuracy by the best scholars imaginable, an understanding of a history of this nation so that if you forget your past, Jesus always said, remember, the Lord always said, remember.
[00:26:37]  The longest running family meal in world history is the Passover.
[00:26:40]  Remember, you were once slaves, you're now free.
[00:26:42]  This is critical to remember who you are.
[00:26:45]  And that's what the Lord wants.
[00:26:46]  So we have biblical citizenship.
[00:26:48]  We also do this idea where we have this education that has been obliterated in California and brilliant Turning Point Academy where we can provide any family in America for $1,500 a year an education with certified teachers and pods that are, it's remarkable.
[00:27:04]  Your church can host it.
[00:27:05]  It will be revolutionary to change the landscape of the country.
[00:27:10]  What's taught in the schools in one generation will be the laws in the next.
[00:27:15]  And then a multitude of others where we have the pastors conferences.
[00:27:19]  We're putting together a website where you can download sermons, kind of like you do on Sermon Central.
[00:27:24]  Of course, none of you use that on Saturday night.
[00:27:27]  But you'll be able to, you know, if the bullet fits in your, no, that's bad analogy.
[00:27:31]  If you want it, it's yours.
[00:27:33]  And, you know, good preachers borrow, great preachers steal, steal it.
[00:27:36]  It's yours.
[00:27:37]  And you can preach it and say, I came up with this.
[00:27:40]  That's between you and the Lord.
[00:27:41]  You know, live with it.

=== Defending Preachers and Sermons (01:35) ===

[00:27:44]  But everything imaginable, I come to Charlie and I say, Charlie, it'd be really great if, and then boom, it's done.
[00:27:50]  When I, last part, it's when I was looking at contending with this restraining order.
[00:27:56]  After I made all those phone calls, I called this man.
[00:27:59]  I said, Charlie, it's going to really hit the fan in a minute.
[00:28:02]  He goes, Rob, I got your back.
[00:28:03]  I didn't know what that meant.
[00:28:04]  I need to write checks to my attorney, which, you know, it's cost us quite a bit.
[00:28:08]  I just knew that what he meant, what he said he meant.
[00:28:11]  And when we contended, he stood behind us 100 million views a week with every platform he's on.
[00:28:18]  And Turning Point memed the opponents until they cried, and then he memed them crying.
[00:28:30]  The church may not understand Turning Point or Charlie Kirk.
[00:28:34]  And you may not love him or appreciate him, but he loves and appreciates you.
[00:28:39]  And he's here, and so is Turning Point to defend you.
[00:28:42]  You'll come to appreciate that in time.
[00:28:45]  It's kind of like you hear the stewardess on the airline talking about, you know, the seatbelt and the, you know, the vest and the life.
[00:28:50]  You don't give a rip until the plane's going down, and you'll be going, where is that thing?
[00:28:56]  It's right here.
[00:28:57]  Turning point, Charlie Kirk.
[00:28:58]  God bless you, brother.
[00:29:02]  Thank you, Rob.
[00:29:03]  Thank you.
[00:29:07]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:29:08]  Email me your thoughts as always.
[00:29:09]  Freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:29:11]  Thanks so much for listening.
[00:29:12]  God bless.
[00:29:16]  For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.