You’ve Been LIED TO About Trump’s POLICIES Being “Un-Christian” | Live Free with Josh Howerton

The entire increase in abortions after the overturning of Roe happened before Trump took office under Biden, literally all of them, media outlets are actually calling it the most openly religious world cup in recent history. Some people are even calling it the world cup of faith. The world is constantly telling your kids stories, but watch whoever tells the best stories wins. Well, Hey, live free nation. Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake point church in Dallas, Texas. But the live free nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we want to invite you to take a simple next step and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform, and it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat prayer teams, ready to stand with you and people all around the world, worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake point, we would love to see you in the chat this weekend and now enjoy the podcast, Hey, welcome back to another episode of the live free podcast. My name is Carlos Orozco. And today I am here with the one and only pastor Josh Howerton. Hey, and our friend Paul Cunningham, who is here wearing this shirt that says someday I will go to Israel. I can't believe y'all did that. Man, that's a, that's a team right here. That was, that was definitely the team. Shout out Paul.

Amen. You're here in spirit, my friend. Paul, love that you're here. Thank you for joining us today, bro. That's hysterical right there. Hey, so here's what we're gonna do in the next few minutes, by the way, I'm just gonna be a heads up. We're gonna, uh, we're gonna, uh, we're, we're gonna speed run this thing. We're gonna try to speed run this thing because we have, I'm pretty geeked out about it. We have like one of my favorite authors period coming in, uh, Raymond Ibrahim to do a, I think it'll probably end up being a bonus episode. If I had to guess, uh, talking about, uh, some Islam stuff, dude, do you know who this guy is? I've seen it, but I've just heard you talk about his books. Okay. So like, dude, so little backstory, I sleep terrible. I wake up from like usually two to 4 AM. Like, so what I do is to try, I read myself back to sleep. I read military history. So a few years ago, dude, I pick up this book, sword and scimitar and it's Raymond Ibrahim. He's an Egyptian Coptic Christian. Who's I don't want to, I don't want to spoil anything. Uh, that he studied, he did Arabic studies at Georgetown during nine 11. He's in the back stacks of, he gets a job at the library of Congress. He's in the back stacks. I remember when this happened, like I remember him first being the news. He's in the back stacks of, uh, the library of Congress where he's got access stuff nobody else got access to.

So then Bin Laden back in the day, do you know who that is? You're like 19 years old. I was there. Okay, good. All right. Like alive. I mean, how old were you in 2001? I'm pretty sure I was in fourth grade. Yeah. You? I was like 37. Okay. Then I'm just, okay. So Bin Laden, okay. We gotta get past this, but I do want to set this up. Cause I'm pretty geeked out about it. Bin Laden was sending communication to like, you know, some pretty progressive media outlets throughout the world, BBC, American news outlets about like, Hey, these attacks are because of American colonialism and you're racist genocide. And, and, uh, and dude, honestly, a bunch of media outlets just ran with it. So this dude, Raymond Ibrahim Arabic studies, Egyptian Coptic Christian. He stumbles across in the back stacks of library of Congress. The era, the actual Arabic communication that Bin Laden was sending to other Muslim groups. And it's the exact opposite of what he's sending to all these media outlets. It's essentially like, Hey, we're doing this because we're supposed to kill the infidels and so like, so then he comes on the scene. Ibrahim did, uh, because he wrote a book called the Al Qaeda reader. Where he was like, Hey guys, here's what they're actually doing.

And he, because he read Arabic, he translated all of it. So then he blows up on the scene. So then he, so he's in America. So for podcast listeners, I promise we're going to get to the podcast here in a second. He I'm just geeking out that we get a half a mile apart. He's in, he's in America and he starts noticing that all of these, he'd, he would never say this, but like all these dumb Americans, they're teaching all their kids that the crusades were just evil, racist, genocidal Christians that just attacked a bunch of Muslims for no reason because they're evil, racist, genocide, or colonized. And because his whole thing is, I think he did his senior dissertation on the battle of Yarmouk or something like that. That was the first Muslim conquest. So anyway, his whole thing is knowing the first five centuries. Uh, and he's like, he noticed this is what America is telling all their kids. And he writes this book going, Hey, everybody, everything you're being. about the Crusades is a lie. Here's what actually happened. So I read this guy, it's about the first five centuries of Muslim conquest leading up to the Crusades, and then Defenders of the West, and this is a hardcore book, dude. That's crazy. This is just, it's 10 little vignettes of these guys that were essentially the Christian men that defended the Christian West against Muslim conquest. So anyway, that's amazing. I'm pretty geeked out. So anyway, we gotta speed around this. That's right, that's right. Man, we're gonna have a great episode today. We're gonna go Hebrews chapter 12, because we're coming off of week one of At The Movies. We're gonna be asking, hey, Pastor Josh, how do you run the Christian race faithfully? What are some watch out pitfalls and temptations? You have a lot of wisdom here to share in just a second. I wanna ask you as well, why do some Christian leaders make it and then others fail very publicly? And then at some point also, I think you will be exposing some mega church pastors today in this episode, and you're gonna be sharing some things that most people don't know. There are some guys that need exposing. That's right. We also have an Air War segment where we're gonna be reacting to a video where we have Vice President J.D. Vance sit down with Ross Douthat. Yeah, we debated on how to pronounce

this. I've been watching and reading Ross for a long time. I've actually read his book a long time ago. Douthats? Yeah, something about religion and heretics. Yeah, I appreciate him. He's a Catholic guy, works for the New York Times. So the reason I wanna talk about this is, honestly, he makes some good points. So I'm gonna pull our punch. He did this interview with J.D. Vance, it was super interesting, where he went, hey man, I know that you guys are saying that you're legislating some Christian things. Thank you, you know, because Ross is a Catholic Christian. But he went, there's three ways. I'm just gonna tell you where he's going because it's actually really interesting. Because when he said it, I watched it, I was like, I wonder what's true and what's not about that. Because he said three things. He said, there are three things you're doing that are explicit not Christian. And he said, you just gutted USAID, so foreign aid, welfare and humanitarian aid. He said, you're distancing yourself in some ways from the abortion thing, pro-life costs. And then he said, your tone. And we'll show it to you in a second. It's gonna be interesting. Yeah, and like, dude, I did some pretty deep dive research on this thing, so it's kind of interesting. That's right, it's gonna be great. Man, we just came from week one of At The Movies. Bro, this is, if you're new here, this is a very unique sermon series we do once a year where we, whoa. You know what, you hit it so hard that it like shook the whole room. It's the recent arm workouts. Oh, there you go. Okay. We went to At The Movies. We had the movie F1 with Brad Pitt. Yeah. And it was great, man. I will just say, if you're in Live Free Nation, you've never made it to Lake Point. These are not online. It's in person only. That's right. And if you're ever going to come hang, this is when you want to come hang. That's right. Make it to a campus you want to come. And come early because we have literally like thousands and thousands of people coming in here. Dude, this week, I haven't gotten the numbers yet, well over 30,000 people in person. It was stupid. Great first week. I also want to ask you though, because this is a little bit of a different sermon series, Pastor Josh, and I got some questions for you if you're okay. I will allow it. Okay. Well, here's my first one, Pastor Josh. What are these questions? These are objections slash coming from a place of skepticism, perhaps out in the internet where people are hearing about this sermon series and they're like, man, I'm curious, but at the same time, I'm not sure about some things. People don't do that on the internet, Carlos. That's right. That was back in the day. They're uniformly encouraging and approving. Especially an ex. That never happens. And so here's the first one, Pastor

Josh. Churches shouldn't be preaching worldly movies. Why are you doing this? Okay. So first of all, let me take away the worldly part. You read those questions like I told you to. Wait, you know what? You're absolutely right. Churches shouldn't be preaching movies, Pastor Josh. There you go. So here's my point. First of all, that's not what this is. So what I want to make is for people who have never done this, this is not preaching movies. It's using movies to illustrate biblical truths. And here's what I would say is literally, here's all this is. What Jesus did in it, we call them parables. Like all it is, a parable is two Greek words mashed up into one, para, which means alongside, bale means to throw. So literally Jesus, the vast majority of Jesus' teaching ministry, all he's doing is he's taking stories, some of which, by the way, dude, this is really interesting. We should actually have Chad G Paul C tell us which ones. Some of Jesus' parables were modern day stories that were already popular in culture, sort of like fables, that kind of thing. And then Jesus would take them and either twist them or change the ending to intentionally illustrate a biblical truth. That's literally all we're doing. We're taking popular stories in our culture and then throwing them alongside of the Spirit's truth and then using it to illustrate. illustrate those things. So, I just wanna say this, it drives me nuts when people are like, you're preaching movies? No, dude, we preach a Bible. We use little clips from the movies for these four weeks to illustrate the biblical truth and you may think it's dumb, and I don't care. Okay, so a lot of people come, obviously, yeah, yeah. Don't try to be holier than Jesus. There's a lot of Christians, they're constantly trying to be holier than Jesus. Don't try to be holier than Jesus. If Jesus is really good, making a whole sermon, a story, don't try to be holier than Jesus. That's a good word. Yeah, but, sure, okay, movies, fine,

but Pastor Josh, what you win them with is what you win them to. Yeah, I've heard that said before by all my Reformed brothers on X. All the people are gonna come for the movies and then, you know, like, now you gotta use movies like literally every single weekend for the rest of the year, and so. So, dude, this is, you know, that little phrase, what you win them with, you win them to, that's the thing that, I will say, it drives me just a little bit crazy, because, here's what I would just say, just because a phrase rhymes doesn't mean it's true. So, like, I will say, you all notice that, I looked this up last year, it's something called the Eaton-Rosen effect, and it's basically this little psychological effect that people have where when something rhymes or is, like, really catchy, they're just like, oh. And so, like, here's what I would say, roses are red, violets are blue, if you make something rhyme, people think it's true. Okay, wow. And I would just say, like. That must be true. It's not true. Okay. Like, the whole thing of what you win them with, you win them to, I would just say,

well, great, man, if you're gonna say that, I look forward to your church taking away all of its AC units and microphones and screens, because, brother, what you win them with, you win them to. And I will just point out, dude, like, the Bible, like, explicitly tells in the New Testament huge crowds start following Jesus because he's healing people and feeding people. And it's like, hey, man, that's not how, he didn't just win them to healings and meals. That's why they initially came, and then they met Jesus, and they were converted to Jesus. That's right. He met them where they're at. Okay, this is probably more from a Catholic, our Catholic friends kind of asking this question. Man, there's a, why does it have to be such a lack of reverence for holy things in church? It's too, yeah, too entertainment. It's too entertainment. Yeah, it's too much entertainment. Come on, man, it's church. What I would just say, so here's the biggest thing I would say is here's what's really holy to God. People getting saved. That's what's really, you wanna know what's holy to God? People getting saved. So that's the whole thing of there's more rejoicing in heaven when one person repents

than when 99 people stay really righteous. That's right, man. And dude, whenever I feel like, we'll probably see in the next few weeks, I mean, no joke, thousands of people in some way indicate a first-time decision to follow Christ. Now we gotta disciple them, we gotta help them evaluate those things. But that's very holy. That's right. On that note, we just finished week one. We got three more weeks left. Boom. We'll see you here. Hey, every single week we do a giveaway. So if you're on YouTube or Spotify, which by the way, our platforms are growing every single week quite a bit, comment hat, and we love to pick some of you for a giveaway. Also, if you want some of this merch as well, this shirt from Paul that says, someday I will go to Israel, we might, this might be a merch. And if, and Paul Cunningham can actually sign it for you as well. We're going to send one to Nick Flinnis. There you go. And some other people online as well. So also subscribe, follow us, like all the things. If you are here also,

I want to invite you to download the Lake Point app if you want to find the show notes for this, the daily Bible reading plan, an early release of this episode as well, text the word aptu20411, or go to Apple or Google Play store. Hey, Pastor Josh, have you been watching the World Cup? Dude, so I hate- Are you a fan of soccer? Not at all, man. Okay, I figured. It's like, it's just not my thing. Okay, so no games. Dude, it's like, so watching soccer. So I'm going to build up to this real quick. Watching soccer most of the time, it's like, how many people are on it on the field at a time? Is it 11 per team at a time? I think so, honestly. It's like watching 22 like NBA flop artists at the exact same time. I can't do it, dude. I can't do it. I think we got a little softer and softer over the years. And then it's hard to watch like 90 minutes of stuff and they score like twice. All right, but so that said, but for every four years when the World Cup comes around, all of a sudden I'm like, I'm the biggest soccer fan.

It's just like my inner patriotism comes out and I'm like, I'm all in. So yes, I have been. Did you watch the last USA game? I did. Okay, okay. It crushed my soul. Me too, it was a little painful. Bro, but I would say this, something is happening in this World Cup that a lot of people are asking, and there's just something very different and unique about this World Cup. And media outlets are actually calling it the most openly religious World Cup in. recent history. Some people are even calling it the World Cup of Faith, and the reason is because you see this all the time, more than any other World Cup, you see all these players and coaches and people publicly proclaiming their faith in Jesus, or whenever they're asked, they're like glorifying God, they're praying together. Literally, I wanna show you some examples. So this right here is a photo of the USA team prayer huddle in the middle of the field, and literally this became like a tradition before and after the game, whether they lost or whether they won, they're like, hey, we're gonna give God glory.

That's super public. Here's another example. This is right here, it's two teams. It's Germany and Curaçao. After Germany beat Curaçao, they came together and they started praying together, and people were asking them, hey, why are you guys praying together? You're supposed to be on the opposite sides of each other. And what Felix Mecha, one of the German players said, he said, man, in the game, we are opponents, but after the game, we're all Christian brothers and sisters and Jesus is glorified when we do this. And then another video right here, this is Felix Mecha. He's doing, before we play it, he does a gesture where he literally falls on his knees. He takes his crown symbolically and he puts it in front of Jesus. This is the video. I wanna see it. Who is this? Bro, injected into my veins. Germany, Felix Mecha. And so here's what's interesting. This right here, what you're seeing is so unique in history, like the speed and the scale at which the name of Jesus is being proclaimed. We've never seen this before. And what people don't know, the Bible actually prophesies this

literally like 2000 years ago. If you think about this right now, we don't think about this often, but the World Cup is actually the most watched sporting event on the planet. Every single game, literally, there has like 175 million people watching. Last World Cup in 2022, we've had over like 5 billion people tune in. People are expecting already for this World Cup to break more records and maybe 5 or 6 billion people listening and tuning into what's going on. And it's interesting, somebody could be asking, how is it possible that 2000 years ago, Jesus said in Matthew 24, 14, he said, and this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Acts chapter one, verse eight, and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses, where? To the ends of the earth. Revelation chapter seven, John sees his vision, and he says, after this I looked, and behold, a great multitude from every nation, from all tribes, all peoples and languages standing before the throne crying, salvation belongs to our God.

And so if somebody's asking, how is it possible that 2000 years ago, we heard about this, here's how it's possible. The Bible is true, Jesus is who he said he is, and there is not a single country, a single culture, a single territory, a single group of people that Jesus doesn't look at and he doesn't say, mine. And one day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is King of King and Lord of Lords, not just of your heart, but of every single nation. Boom. That's what we see, man. Dude, you know what? So this is one thing, it's like, sometimes you're so familiar with something that the magnificence of it is lost on you. So when Christians see people, they read about every tribe, tongue, nation, among all nations, I will say, dude, Christians, a lot of times, we're so used to seeing stuff like that, dude, when those prophecies were made, you're talking about like, there was a hundred, and some of these prophets, there was 120 Christians, like in the whole world, disciples who were following Jesus, and the entire area in which all of the, basically the entire Bible takes place

is in an area the size of New Jersey. So it's like, dude, when you start seeing literally every tribe, tongue, nation doing that, and then you remember those prophecies took place? They took place. When there was like fewer people than some of our life groups at Lake Point. And now that's happening. Why? The Bible's true. The Bible's true. Jesus is who he said he is. Hey, I wanna ask you a question. I will allow it. What did it make to the sermon? A lot, okay. A whole lot, because on these, at the movies we used to say, so here's what we did. One of the passages that we really hit, I'm just gonna read it, because one of my favorite passages in the Bible, this is Hebrews chapter 12. Now remember, Hebrews chapter 12 comes after Hebrews chapter 11. My goodness. You're really welcome for this. This is such a great podcast, bro. Incredible exegetical insights. But this is-

Man, we don't need Paul anymore. We got you. We got this. Wow, that's it. He's on vacation. He's on vacation. He is, yeah. Here's what it says. Therefore, since we are surrounded- Not in Israel, sorry. Not in Israel. I'm so sorry, go ahead. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and the sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Here for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame. to the right hand of the throne of God. Now, a lot of what we're talking about, obviously F1, it's kind of like using F1 to illustrate race dynamics. Let me just say a few things. First of all, what I love about this passage, when it says, so again, here's why I pointed out Hebrews 11 before Hebrews 12. Hebrews 11, obviously, is that chapter a lot of Bible scholars will call the hall of faith,

or the hall of fame of faith. And it just riffs through 20 or so of the great people of the faith throughout the ages. Here's what I love. When you get to Hebrews chapter 12 and it says, we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. Obviously the image that it's giving us is like all these guys that I just wrote about in Hebrews 11, they're in the stands watching you, cheering you on. I will say, dude, Bible scholars have pointed out this passage is one of a few that make it at least seem like your dead relatives that were in Christ or the dead saints that went before us, that in some way they might actually be able to see us. And dude, I'll be honest, that like deposits a weight inside of me where it's like, hey man, like Moses and Noah and Abraham, like, man, these guys are watching Carlos Arazo and they may be watching Josh Howard and watching going, hey, keep going. Like it's every sacrifice is worth it. You know, give it everything you got, you know, to the very end. So one, it's a comforting and encouraging thought to me. There's at least a hint and a possibility here that all your dead loved ones who knew Jesus, they're watching and they're cheering you on

in your holiness. Okay, number two, there's a couple of things that are super interesting here. It says, lay aside every weight. Now this is kind of a little, we'll probably have to actually censor this when we do the pod. So what a lot of people don't know is in the Greco-Roman Empire, when they did their races, obviously athletics were a big deal as Olympics originated in this culture. Go ahead and toss that up, Trinny. This is like an actual, it's a Roman pottery deal that was very well preserved of the, you know, of the races and athletics. And you gotta see it, it's kind of awkward, but they're naked. You know, it's like, and that's legit how they did all their athletics. So what he's doing here is that was their mentality. Like literally the phrase that they would use is, hey man, before you run a race, you gotta lay aside every weight. And what they're doing is they're trying to strip away anything that's not gonna make them run faster, okay? So what I will say, this is a little side note, is it says not just lay aside the sin that clings so closely, it says lay aside every weight. There are some things in our lives as disciples where it's like, hey man, that's not sin.

It's just stupid. And man, if I'm trying to fix my eyes on Jesus and run a really good race, man, it's not sin, but it is stupid. And there's some things that are not sinful that you still need to discard. You know, it's just little stuff. Like I've noticed in my life, here's what I'll say. I don't wanna deep dive on this specific thing. We can maybe talk about it later, how to run a good race. Like I've noticed in my life that the more time I spend in front of a screen, the less time my soul spends meditating on the things of God. Hey man, is it a sin? No. Is it stupid? Yeah. Like there've been seasons in my life where I've never been drunk in my whole life. But I will, you know, this is a whole, you guys already covered this on a podcast. Like every now and then, man, you know, again, never been drunk in my whole life. I like a bourbon. I do, I like a bourbon. Never been drunk in my whole life. There are some little seasons where it's like, I've been, you know, under more pressure or whatever.

And Jan will be like, hey man, instead of just having one this week, you had three. And it's like on three different nights. And we're talking about one drive, again, never been drunk in my life. There are some little seasons where, is that a sin? No. Might it be stupid? Yeah. Yeah. So I will just say, I wish I'd had time to talk about that. Like examine the areas of your life and go, man, I'm not just asking, is this a sin? I'm asking, does this help me run my race well? And if it's not, let me get rid of it. Now, one of the things I want to point out here. So when it says in Hebrews 12, it says, you know, to run the race. So this is really just, I want to riff on this for a second because there's something here. So this is a super dominant analogy in the New Testament. In fact, right after At the Movies, we're going into a Fight the Good Fight series. We're just preaching verse by verse through 2 Timothy. It's going to be awesome. One of the analogies he uses is race running.

You get the same thing in 1 Corinthians. It's over and over in the scriptures. It's run a race, run a race, run a race. Okay. What's really interesting, especially in Hebrews, the word that gets translated race is the Greek word agon or agon. That literally is the root word from which we get our word agony. Okay. So here's what it's doing. What is really clear in the text is it's not talking about like, dude, it's like, you know, if Hudson's like, dad, let me race you down the driveway. It's like literally a 10 second race. There's no agony. This is talking about a sustained, long-term struggle type of race. It's like Eugene Peterson, dude who wrote the message. Yeah. By the way. also had a like disciple Bono. There's a little thing there. We should tell that story someday. He wrote this book. I love the title. He just called the Christian life a long obedience in the same direction. Okay.

So what it's saying is, now here's, let me go a layer deeper on this. So it's making really clear in a text. It's going, hey man, the Christian life, it's not a sprint. But what some Christians do is they go, hey man, it's like, I was told this. Hey, it's not a sprint. It's a, what is it? Marathon, that's what people say. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon. I honestly think if you zoom out and look at the entire scriptures, it's really, it's not a sprint. It's actually not also a marathon. The advance of the gospel throughout the ages, it's not a sprint, it's not a marathon. It's a relay race. Okay. Here's why I say this. Judges 2.10. So bro, this is the kind of thing that will keep you up at night. So you get the whole book of Joshua. You got all the miracles God does. You know, he's marching around walls seven times. They're falling down. And you know, every battle that God gives them and you know, all the things. They spend, this is the generation that sees all of the miracles of God

for the conquest of Canaan. Literally in the first part of the book of Judges comes right after Joshua. Here, I'm gonna read you this verse that'll keep you up at night. It says, in all that generation, they saw all that stuff. All that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And then dude, this is the verse to keep you up. And then there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work he had done for Israel. So bro, what happened is that generation, they did fine. Wow. They ran their quote unquote race. They ran their marathon, but they, dude, this really bugs me as a dad. But they didn't, they thought, they only thought of their Christian life as a marathon and they did not think of it as a relay race. And they dropped the baton of faith. They did not pass it to their children. And so the kids of the same people who walked, who they, their dads walked seven times around a wall and blew trumpets and the thing fell down and God gave them everything. That generation's kids didn't know the Lord and they didn't know any of the stories of what he'd done. Now, how's that happen? All right, let me, let me,

I want to connect some dots people usually don't connect. Okay, there's this verse in 2 Timothy 3, and hey man, we don't know the dates or times when Christ's gonna return. We're gonna know the times and the seasons. So it tells us something about that. And it says in the last days, it says there will be terrible times. And what it says is, so there's gonna be a great falling away. There's gonna be an apostasy. People who used to say they were on team Jesus, now they're not on team Jesus anymore. It's an apostasy. It says in that time, people will, watch this, they will have a form of godliness, but denying its power. So dude, here's what I've seen. And this is for like all the moms and dads. And actually, if we want to talk about this, I'd like to talk about it for just a quick second. But for all the moms and dads and all the grandparents and all, and the people who are gonna have kids someday, here's the thing. What I've seen is, okay, it said form of godliness, but denying its power. That's why they fell away. Here's the three generation slide from a generation of people who are like all out walking with Jesus to their grandkids don't know the Lord

or the things he'd done. The first generation, they know God and they see his power. The second generation, anytime there's like the power of God, move of the spirit, all that stuff, there's some weird stuff. That's how it always works. Any move of the spirit, this is a little takeaway. In any revival or move of the spirit, it's gonna be 80% God, 10% man, and 10% Satan. They're gonna try to get up in there and do some weird stuff and make people. So the second generation, they'll see some weird things done in the name of the power of God, in the name of the Holy Spirit. And so they'll know God, but then they'll reject the power. They're like, I want God, but don't do the power. The weird stuff happens when you need the power. I don't want the power. But then the third generation, they reject God because they saw no power. Three generation slide. That is why, and I got a whole little thing on this. In my opinion, charismatic Christians, like people who, high belief in the power of the spirit relationship with the Holy Spirit. In my opinion, bro, just watching over the years, charismatic Christians don't deconstruct their faith as much.

In my opinion, the reason I say that, dude, is my little thing is if an argument got you into the faith, then a better argument can get you out. But nobody can argue you out of an encounter with a living God. Yeah, I see that. I mean, I came from obviously charismatic Pentecostal background, but I've seen some things and experienced some things. But at some point, I will never forget this. And I have zero explanation, unless the Lord is real, I'm not going anywhere. Same dude, same dude, exact same thing. So, when this passage is talking about a race, as a dad, when I open my Bible and I read those verses, I gotta have a bigger vision than just my race. My job is to make sure that the next generation, to the best of my ability, is running their race. It's funny, this morning, so I'm reading the Bible in order, and so literally, I'm just in the Old Testament right now, and I finished reading- Are you doing chronological order, or are you just reading like- Oh, just my Bible. Like literally- Just like straight through Genesis- I started like, I go slowly, so I started like two years ago in the New Testament, and literally just like read it in order,

and I'm in like the prophets right now in the Old Testament. I just finished reading Jonah, and we all know the Jonah story. He goes to Nineveh, preaches the gospel, and basically everybody repents. It was like a whole revival. In a very, quote, wicked city. Then, I'm now, I just started today the book of Nahum, which, you know, nobody, it doesn't get a lot of, it's not a very popular book. Not a lot of people woke up this morning. You know, I'm hoping they talk about Nahum today on the podcast. Yeah, yeah, there you go, Nahum. So I just started the book of Nahum, and the first, like the title is like a condemnation over the people of Nineveh, and I'm like, wait, Jonah already preached repentance, and it was revival happening all over. Bingo. And then I'm like, and then I'm researching a little bit, and it's like, oh, that was a different generation. So revival happened, and then over time, what you said happened happened. The baton was not passed, and then here comes Nahum, and he's preaching basically, hey, God will judge you for your behavior because you fell away from basically your parents. That's right. And so anyways, I wanna ask you this.

A generation arose that knew not the Lord nor his mighty ax. That's what happened. Chaos happened, and then Pastor Josh, this is not a parenting podcast, but I do wanna ask you, man. I feel like you know a lot about this. How do you pass the baton to your kids? Like give me something practical for people to know, man, as a parent, this is what I need to keep in mind, and this is what I need to do for my kids. Yeah. Well, let me just say, I feel like honestly, dude, I feel like we need to talk about this more on the podcast. We probably should. The reason I say that is, by the way, I'm just gonna shout out Live Free Nation. These guys, all these kids like Carlos and everybody over here, so we did a little SWOT analysis of the pod this week, and these guys are giving me data. I didn't know this stuff, dude. I just kinda walk in and do my thing in here. I think there were a couple, last couple months, it's been like almost six million downloads of this dumb little podcast. So, and what our data shows is this a whole bunch of like younger guys and dads. So honestly, heads up, we probably need to hit this more often.

We might. So let me say a few things here, because right now, there's like nothing more important in my life. First of all, let me tell you a mentality shift that I've had. When I was a younger pastor, and maybe there's nothing wrong with this, dude, I would travel over land and sea if there was a pastor whose church was blown up and he was faithfully preaching gospel and seeing a move of God. Like dude, I would, for real, I've slept in parking lots. I've driven 16 hours in a day for a 30 minute meeting. You know, all the things, if the guy's doing that. I'll be honest, dude, at this point in my life, I don't care if your church is 50,000 people. Honestly, I don't care. If there's a pastor who his kids are grown and they love him and they love the Lord and they love each other, I'll be honest, I'll plan entire vacations to spend time with that guy. In fact, just shout out, Jan and I twice have taken vacations, and by the way, if you're listening, please understand, this is not bragging. I'm trying to put things in perspective. You know, it's like Lake Point, we'll have, I don't know. I bet when the numbers come in,

we'll have almost 35,000 people here this last week. Twice, Jan and I have flown to this remote corner that's nearly impossible to get to of Wenatchee, Washington. Shout out. Yeah, the People's Republic of Washington. To spend time vacationing in the home of a guy named Josh McPherson, whose church is, I don't know, 2,000 guys, which is, by the way, that's an amazing church. Let me just say that. In Washington. Yeah, in Washington, man. But I think a lot of people will go like, well, why would you, where your church is that size, go over there? Well, you know why, man? Because, dude, honestly, great, cool, man. Your church, 50,000 people, that's so cool. When I'm an old man drooling on myself in a rocking chair and holding my wife's hand on the back porch, do you know what I'm not gonna care about a whole lot? If my church made it to 50,000, you know what I am gonna care a lot about? My three kids, do they love Jesus and do they love me? And so now, dude, I'll travel over land and sea. So I'm right now, I'll just shoot you real straight. It's a weird, honestly, dude, we didn't plan to maybe talk about this part. It's a weird part of my life where like all these opportunities are opening to me

that honestly, when I was a little kid and God called me to ministry, it's like all this stuff that I was like, man, someday, what if Lord do it in my, you know? And honestly, dude, I'm saying no to like, seriously, I'm not joking. Like almost all of them. I see it, I see it, yes. And you know why? It's because I got three kids who are 15, 11 and seven. And what God has given me a responsibility for those three kids that is different than the responsibility I have for anybody else. And so like right now, the thing that I'm focused on is running this race, the relay race, not just my part of the race, the relay race. The race that has been set before you, not that race or some other race out there. Bingo. So like, let me just, all right, for the dads, I'm just gonna like, first of all, I'm in it with you. I'm failing forward with you, all the things, I need all the grace you have. And I always wanna give a quick caveat that there are, I do not think, I do not see in the Bible a promise that is a math formula. If you do this, God promises this will happen for your kids. There's a whole little thing that I could do, I'm not gonna deep dive it, but if you go back to the Garden of Eden,

you have a perfect father, like God's literally the father. You have a perfect environment, Eden. There's not even any sin in Eden. You have perfect children with no innate sin nature. And yet, perfect father, perfect environment, perfect children, still equal to rebellion. Oh, wow. So I just wanna point out, if there's a parent that like, maybe, or a grandparent, and maybe your age starts with a five, six, seven, and your kid, it's not like you wish it was, I just wanna lift a little shame on you. That, hey man, kids got their own, they make their own decisions. That said, that said, our job is to do everything we got to transfer the thing. So I'm just, I'm gonna give you three little hacks. Right now, Lord willing, oh Lord, make this be true for the next, till I'm dead, till all of my kids are dead. Right now, all three of my kids, Hudson just gave his life to Christ. I have not announced that on the podcast. That's amazing that we're celebrating. It's big, he went to the new Christian classes last week. It's been so awesome, dude. Bro, can I tell you a story? All right, I know this is getting, let me just belaborate this thing. We wanna know.

It was the best, dude. So Hudson, this was the best, dude. Hudson's seven, praise on the back porch with Jada, to trust Christ, all right. So he tells you all about it, he's all excited. So the next week, we fly over to a high school camp, and we take Hudson. And just to let all the Christian families in on how it works, Hudson is, he doesn't have the natural disposition to just like church. He's a seven-year-old boy that wants to run around and pee in the yard and throw sticks at things. So like, so far, we're doing the thing that you gotta do as a parent, where it's like, well, we don't care if you like it or not, we're a Christian family. And so yeah, and so we just are constantly like, oh, buddy, we get to go to church. So we're doing that anyway, all right, so all this. So we go to high school camp. And we're getting ready to bring him to worship. This is one week after he became a Christian. And he says at high school camp, do I have to go to worship? Do I have to go to worship? And I do the thing I've always been doing. Oh, buddy, we get to go to worship. It's gonna be so fun, you know, that kind of stuff. So we get there in the middle of the deal.

Actually, Chad G. Paul C. is sitting next to Hudson at high school camp, and he texts me this picture. This has never happened before. I wish I'd have had it, dadgummit. He texts me this picture of Hudson is in the front row of the balcony, hands in the air, singing. I saw that. Yeah, I posted on IG story. So he's singing. So then we get done, and I ask Hudson the same question I've asked him every day for seven years. Buddy, how was worship? And usually he's like, I was ready to get home. Are we gonna play Mario Kart, dad? You know, whatever. So this time, for the first time ever, Hudson goes, it was so fun. Okay, so here's what I did. I stopped, and I'm like, hey, buddy, can I explain something to you? So Hudson, here's what happened. Do you know why worship was never fun for you? And then this week it was fun for you for the first time. Let me see where I'm going. Well, here's why, buddy. Because you just became a Christian. And when you gave your life to Jesus, God filled you with his spirit. and the Holy Spirit inside of you, buddy,

he likes to worship Jesus, and now he lives in you, and that's why you like to worship Jesus for the first time in your life. And he's like, you're right, Dad. You're a seven-year-old, you're right, Dad. And dude, then he said this, this is the best. Chachi, Paul, see, we didn't plan to talk about any of this. I'm just telling about this. So if you're a dad or a parent, hopefully what you're doing is you're like, let's hear the story, this is what it looks like to do this stuff with your kids. So Chachi, Paul, sees up there, and it's the night Clayton King gives the invitation, and 170 students give their lives to Christ at the same time. All the students are walking back, and Hudson, after the service, Paul asked him, what did you think of all the students giving their lives to Christ? And Hudson tells Paul, man, I got a whole bunch of new brothers in Christ, but then he said this, but my favorite one's my dad. He actually said that. He actually said that. And I was like, I'm not a big emotional guy. My eyes are sweating. I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever. All right, so anyway. And that speaks to you living out your faith at home,

and he gets to see that first hand. So let me give, on that note, let me give three little parenting hacks, okay? So I'm a third generation pastor's kid. I grew up, you know, 80s, baby, 90s made me. When I was in high school, it was like, it was like sort of the edgy, cool thing for pastor's kids to rebel. That was like, oh, that's cool, man. I'm gonna bronze my hair and go emo and rebel against. Yeah, that was kind of like the vibe when I was in high school. I'll be honest, I never understood that. Like, it made no sense to me, because I stinking loved being Pastor Rick's son. It was like the greatest thing ever. I loved being a pastor's kid. I loved being Pastor Rick Howard and son. So dude, here's what I'm gonna give you. I'm not surprised, by the way. That's it, you know my dad. I know your dad. I had breakfast with my dad right before this. There you go, wow. So there are three things that when I look back, I'm like, my dad did those three things, and that hooked me, and I didn't even know it hooked me when it happened, okay? So I'm gonna rapid fire these. Number one, and I'm doing these with my kids.

Number one, your faith doesn't gotta, let me start. Number one, your faith doesn't gotta be perfect, it does gotta be real. All right, so here's what I mean by this, dude. My dad's a pastor growing up, so I'm watching him growing up. He's in the front row of every service all the time, and we're forced to sit in the front row as a result. So like, dude, this was a normal occurrence for me as a kid. I'd look over, and my dad's getting ready to do something in the service. It's in the middle of worship, and I look over, and my dad, who's also not a naturally super emotional guy, there's just little tears coming while he's singing the hymn or whatever the thing is, okay? Okay, well, here's the deal. I'm watching him, and what I'm seeing is he's not leading a service, he's worshiping a savior. And as a little kid, what I'm thinking is, man, I really wanna know who he knows. So here's the thing. Did my dad seem perfect? Nope, and I guarantee, my kids are looking at me as, is dad perfect? Nope, capital N with a nope. Your faith doesn't gotta be perfect, it does gotta be real, okay, number two. And dude, this is super counterintuitive, all right? So you're a young dad, so internalize these, Carlos.

Sure, amen, I'm receiving it. So this is, okay, so here's the other one. All right, so what everybody tells you when you're a younger dad, and the grandparents, you need to think about this too, is, hey, man, here's the secret. You gotta get down into your kids' worlds. Carlos, are they into cocomelon? You need to get into cocomelon. Yeah, Carlos, are they into Mario Kart, whatever it is, okay. Now, let me just say, there may be some truth to that, maybe a good strategy until they're like six, seven, somewhere around there. But what I'd say is, hey, listen, there comes a point where you don't need to get down into their world. Here's what you need to do. You need to pull them up into your world. Here's why I say this, dude. We got Bible verses for this. Listen, if you're kids, you're listening to this, I love you, but you are a fool. And that's not even mean. That's literally a Bible verse. Literally, the book of Proverbs says, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. And if you disagree or you get offended, it proves the point. Yeah, that's right.

It proves the point. All right, so here's the deal, man. All right, dude, this is like total parenting hack, okay. So kids' worlds are full of rebellion and foolishness. So you don't wanna get down into their world. You need to pull them up into your world. So in fact, Carlos, this is, and Miles is over there, all the dads, everybody's over here, okay. This is like, whenever you see one of your kids, that they start getting a little wobble in the wheel. Okay, this is so- One more dude, this is really, really important. Little parenting axiom. If you wanna change the outputs, you gotta change the inputs. If you wanna change the outcomes, you gotta change the inputs. So anytime you see one of your kids, it's like, bro, they got a little wobble on a wheel. Okay, here's what's going on. If you wanna change their outcomes, look at their inputs. What kind of music are they listening to? That's great. What kind of TV shows are they watching? Here's a big one. Who are their friends? Honestly, that's like literally the biggest one. You determine your kid's friends, okay? Ah, but they're kids and they have their own. No, no, no, you're the parent.

You're the authority, okay? So it's like, so now let's apply this to this concept. If you wanna run the race well, you wanna run the relay race well, pass the baton well. What you wanna do as they get older is you don't get down into their world, you pull them up in your world. Here's what my dad did. When I turned like 13 and I started being a little interested in ministry, dad would have church staff lunches and he would sometimes literally pull me out of other stuff and be like, hey, Josh, do you wanna come? The whole church staff is going out to lunch. You wanna come with us? So here's what I'm doing. I'm growing up, watch, who am I surrounded by? Not evil, foolish idiots. He's pulling me up into a world of wisdom and righteousness. So now I'm looking at wise, righteous people. And what that does when you're 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 is you're going, hmm, I'm like looking up to these people. What type of life do I need to live to fit? This is how a 13 year old thinks, to fit in with the people that I respect the most. And it's not foolish, rebellious idiots. It's wise, righteous, godly people. Listen, bro, that right there changes everything. Let me just say one last thing on this

and I'll do the third one. Hillary Clinton wrote that book years ago it's like about parenting, it takes a village. Okay, that's totally wrong. And here's why I say this, man. People, it takes a village. I just need to get them around people. Okay, well, here's the deal, Carlos. We didn't plan to talk about this. We're gonna talk about it. Here's the deal, Carlos. If the village is full of pagans, then pagan villages result in pagan children. So check this out. It doesn't take a village. Do you know what it takes? It takes a redeemed village. The Bible calls that a church. So what you need is, hey man, as your kids get older, you're not getting down in their world, you're pulling them up into your world of righteousness and wisdom. You want your kids, when they're around their peers, you're a leader, your friends are righteous adults. You wanna try to construct that world. Okay, last one, last one. Who, I got this from Josh McPherson, these little things, good little highlights. Whoever tells the best stories wins. So bro, this is super interesting.

You go back to Joshua, and it's like, man, I wonder how in the world did a generation arise who didn't know the Lord or the mighty works thereof? Well, a generation failed to tell the stories. If you go, dude, this is interesting. If you go read, go read, this is actually very interesting. What I'll do a lot of times when I read the Bible every year is I'll almost walk into it with a lens that I'm reading through. So like there was one year where I was like, I'm reading the whole thing through the lens of being a dad. There was one year where I was like, you know what, I just wanna, I'm gonna read kind of the whole thing and think about how does this apply to governance and civilizations? And you know, it's kind of like, okay. What's the lens right now in this season? It's the second one. Right now, I'm halfway through Exodus, and I'm watching how God in his wisdom constructs a nation. Wow. So it's actually, it may turn into a sermon series someday. We'll get there. So, but here's what's interesting, Carl. Okay. The year, it was like three years ago where I read the whole thing through the lens like the dad lens. Bro, if you go read it on the Testament constantly,

God will do something awesome. And do you remember, so, okay. You know that hymn, Come Thou Fount? Yeah. And one of the lyrics is here I raise my, remember? Ebenezer. Ebenezer, okay. So the word Ebenezer, it's an English transliteration of a, I think it's a Hebrew word, Evan Azar, it means stone of help. So every time you see in the Old Testament, God will do something awesome. He'll be like, hey guys, before you go anywhere, will you please pile up a bunch of rocks right here? And then the Hebrew that it says is these rocks, they're gonna be your Ebenezer, your Evan Azar, your stone of help. And this is literally what it says. I love talking about this. This is literally what it says. It says, hey, I want you to do this so that every single time you and your kids pass by this spot, you remember what God did here. year. And what it's doing is it's acknowledging forgetfulness is the greatest enemy of faith, because when we forget what God did, we stop believing what He'll do. Okay, so let's check this out. Say that one more time. This is really important, dude. Okay, forgetfulness is the greatest enemy of faith, because when we forget what God did, we stop believing what He'll do. So God literally constructs in the family systems of the nation that He establishes all of these little piles of rocks all over the country, so that every time you as a dad,

Carlos, walk past that little spot, you tell your son, hey, buddy, this is where Joshua walked around the wall seven times, and they blew the trumpets, and the Lord fought for us, and we didn't have to do anything. Hey, buddy, did you know that when you're in trouble, the Lord will fight for you too? You see what he's doing. So when you read Deuteronomy, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, all these things, it's literally telling them over and over and over, tell all the stories to your kids. Now, here's the big idea. The world is constantly telling your kids stories, but watch. Whoever tells the best stories wins. When I was growing up, dude, and I didn't realize it was making an effect on me when I was growing up. Again, here's what we're doing. We're just talking, how do you apply Hebrews 12? That's all we're doing right now. I didn't realize this was making an effect on me when I was a kid. My whole childhood was sitting around the dinner table, and just to brag on my mom and dad, and them sitting down, and them going, hey, guys, there's this widow in our church that is in need, and she just lost her job, and we're not going to tell her that it was from us, but what would you guys think if we secretly gave her $1,000? And to be honest, in the family I grew up in, $1,000 was a big dadgum deal. Big deal. What would it be like? What if we gave her $1,000, and hey, just heads up, guys. If we do that, there might be a couple things we can't buy this month, but do you know what a blessing it'd be to be able to drop this check off, and she'll never know it was us? Or here are the stories of my mom and dad. That happened growing up? Oh, dude, constantly stuff like that happened. My mom and dad, stuff like this. My mom and dad, they got married in college. My dad, pretty brand-new Christian, got pretty radically saved out of some alcohol stuff and all this stuff, and so they don't got any money. They qualified for government assistance. This is the type of guy my dad was, but my dad was like, I'm not taking it, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm dignifying my dad. I'm not downgrading you if you do receive something like that. My dad was like, no, man, I'm going to be responsible for my own family. So that's just the financial situation right now, but my dad decided, hey, we're a Christian family. We're going to tithe, and so even though they couldn't afford it, they're giving their first tenth to the Lord, and growing up, dude, around the dinner, we're constantly hearing stories like, and then, hey, Josh, hey, Lee, do you know what happened? Somebody slid a check into our mailbox with exactly what we needed for rent. Somebody dropped off groceries at the exact time. Dude, I've heard those stories a hundred times, dude, or we would hear stories about that dad was a

pastor. That addict got freed, and that marriage got healed and that kind of thing, and watch this, man. Whoever told the best stories won, and the word stories they were telling were better to me than the world stories I was hearing. So now, listen, here's what I'm saying, okay? Your faith doesn't got to be perfect. It does got to be real. Don't get down in your kids' worlds. Pull them up into your world. Whoever tells the best stories wins, okay? But listen, listen, parents, the most significant thing you do with your life, it may not be something you accomplish. It may be some one you race. Run your relay race well. Pass Abbaton. Well, that's really good. That's amazing. That's extremely helpful. We need to talk about stuff like that for dad. We probably need to do more deep dives on parenting. That's extremely helpful. Speaking on running that race faithfully, let's do this before we jump into the JD Vance video. Well, hey, before we get back to the episode, I want to tell you about something coming up at Lake Point that we're really excited about this summer. We're hosting Add the Movies, a four-week sermon series where we'll use movie clips and stories to illustrate powerful biblical truths. It's one of the most fun and creative experiences we do all year here at Lake Point, and it's designed for the entire family. And so every weekend at our physical locations, we'll feature unique movie-themed experiences, fun characters in the lobby for both kids and adults, incredible worship and practical teaching from the word of God, and of course, popcorn and drinks for everyone. So whether you are here, and maybe you're a long-time churchgoer, someone who's been away from church for a while, or maybe you're looking for an easy way to invite a friend, neighbor, or coworker to church, this right here is the perfect series for you. For you at the movies is an in-person only event and begins July 11 and 12 and continues through August 1 and 2. And so if you're in the Dallas area, we'd love for you to join us at one of our campuses. You can find service times, locations, and more information by texting the word ATM to 2-0-4-1-1. Now let's get back to the conversation. Let's do, let's share one thing just to, Hey, this, if you're, let's talk to the younger folks joining right now and then to the older folks that here's one

thing to keep in mind, uh, this is how you go to distance, especially today. Cause you know, when it comes to running a race, uh, It seems like we see, and we don't, we might not have time to deep dive this, but basically like there's a lot of people that we've seen run the race and then at some point they don't make it or they fail. And so the number of people that finish well is small. It's not about starting the race. It's about finishing the race. Right. And so, um, let's help people finish the race well, or at least be set up so that they can go for the long, uh, long obedience in the same direction. Um, young people, old people, I got a thing for young people, but I'm gonna let you start with, uh, maybe with where you want to start it. Okay. Okay. You, you, you do younger and then actually wait, let me do a, yeah, yeah. All right. You do younger. I'll do older. Uh, so first of all, I'm, I'm 34, uh, and 34 is not old, but I will say this, Josh, uh, when you're 34 and you hang out with somebody that's like 21, then you don't feel young. It's like, you know, you know, you're not, you're young, but then you're like, okay, I feel very old. Bro, can I say something funny? Yes. I've noticed, so when I first started preaching, a lot of times it'd be like, Hey man, you know, if you're older and then I would be like, if your age starts with a three or up, you know, it's like every year when I do that at a sermon, Hey man, raise your hand if you're, whatever it is, every year it creeps up.

So like now I'm like, Hey man, raise your hand if, uh, if you're under 35. Yeah, bro. I've heard somebody said that thirties is the freshman year of adulthood. So, um, I, so here's what I would say. Here's what I want to share. I honestly just want to share for people that are listening to that are kind of in their thirties and even younger. Um, this is probably the most impactful thing in my life, uh, that I think I've experienced recently, and I just want to share it. So here's, would be my advice. We live, especially in the culture that we live in today with like, bro, we have so many more opportunities than I think any other generation to build stuff, to create, uh, something worthy, to have influence, to, to do something that's like worth doing, uh, with digital, all the things, AI, I'm sure there's going to be more. Honestly, a lot of people, this is probably a hot take. A lot of people complain about like with AI, yes, there's going to be some change, but this means there's going to be even more opportunities than ever. I'm positive on it. You net positive on it. There you go. So that, that would be for especially the younger generation now that are kind of leaving college and a opportunities are like 10 X tripled. Anyways, um, here's what I would say. If you are a younger Christian or in your thirties or below, um, probably the, the, the biggest advice that I would give you is find someone or a few group of people that are older, wiser, and more godly than you and submit to their authority. So, uh, this is probably not what people were expecting to hear. Uh, but this could be again, a mentor or a group of people or your small

group, whatever that they're older and younger and ahead of you, and literally have a mindset of, I will be open to submit to your authority. And here's what this does not mean. This does not mean that you're now shy. This does not mean that you have to ask permission for literally everything you do, it means that in one, it literally means go build whatever you need to build, run your race, go dream big, do whatever God has called you to do. And in one way or another, still be under the authority of somebody else. And here's why somebody might hear that and set and say, that sounds inhibiting. It's actually empowering and it protects you. Because submission, if you think about that word submission, it's sub mission. It just literally means being under the mission of somebody else. And the reason why this matters is it, the reason why this matters is because sub mission under the mission of somebody else. The reason why this matters is because if you're younger, you are probably very gifted. You probably have a lot of drive, but you don't have a lot of wisdom. And you need to be around people that love you enough that at some point, if they see you going in a specific direction, they can call you out and they can be like, bro, that is not it. You need to stop. You need to change. You need to take that thing down. And, uh, the problem with people that are like, well, I don't want anybody telling me what to do. I don't want anybody stopping me. I don't want to be asking for anybody. Is that if you, you think you know better at some point, if you keep going, you're not only going to hurt yourself. You're also a very dangerous person to other people.

And, uh, by the way, the idea of submission, it's not just a Christian husband and wife thing. And it is, by the way, it's a Christian thing. If you look at the Bible, you literally see every single person that God uses mightily there are under the authority of somebody else, Moses was under the authority of Jethro, Joshua under the authority of Moses, Samuel was under the authority of Eli, Ruth under Naomi, David under Saul. Timothy was under Paul. Jesus, the Bible literally says that at some point in his life, he was submissive to his parents and then all throughout his ministry, you see him being submissive to the will of the father, not my will, but your will be done. And so again, when you see all these people in scripture, what you find that they have in common is that the more humble and submissive they were to the authority of somebody else, the more blessing they found and the more God elevated them in influence. And so again, it protects you. It empowers you, run your race, build your thing, do what God has called you to do. Dream big, do not limit what God wants to do in your life and still be under the authority of somebody else. And I'm going to brag on you and you're going to hate it. Of maybe every 34 year old I've ever met, Carlos Arazo is running the best race. Like you are a good man. You're a good disciple. You're a good friend. That's been really fun. You're a good friend. And man, it's like Carlos Arazo loves Jesus. He's a man of integrity. He's a great husband, father, all the things. So I'm going to say something Carlos is not going to like me to say, but this

is an example of what he's saying. When I met Carlos, if you don't know anything about Carlos, you're like, oh, Carlos, you know, people, if anybody knows who Carlos is, it's because he hosts Live Free. Now, Carlos, my little joke that Carlos hates is he's like the Hispanic Logan Paul, except he's a Christian pastor. Shout out to Logan Paul, by the way. Shout out to Logan Paul. We'd love to have you on Live Free. We'd love to hang out. Carlos, when I met you, I think you had like 800,000 YouTube subscribers. And I think somewhere around six or 7 billion Instagram followers. And dude, I literally, when I got to Lake Point, somebody told me like, dude, there's this guy, he's like a part-time Lake Point en Espanol youth guy over at our Mesquite campus, got like 14 kids. And I said, dude, I was like, there ain't no way. And I looked you up. I was like, oh, this guy's like actually a big deal. And then you were just like humbly, faithfully behind the scenes, submitting to the leadership of other people, serving where no one could see a pastor in your little heart out for 15, 20 kids. And it's like, why? Because you did. To this day, I love those kids. That's right. Yeah. Why? Because you did what you just said. That's it. And those who humble themselves, the Lord will lift up.

And that's what happened. Appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, man. Well done. Well, uh, it is a joy to be here and that's God's grace. Am I designated to talk to the older people and then we'll talk about JD Vance? Because you have a lot more wisdom. All right, I'll do this and then we'll speed run this thing. Talk about, yeah, we'll call some balls and strikes on, uh, Trump administration. This'll be fun. Yeah. If somebody's like, here's what I've seen. First of all, I am not equipped to speak from experience to quote unquote old people. Uh, you know, I'm, I'm 43, just turned 43. Um, here's what I will say that is an undefeated principle. Uh, you do not rise to the level of your aspirations. You fall to the level of your habits that, that nobody beats that. Uh, there's a reason that the Bible calls your relationship with Jesus, a quote unquote walk. Well, what is a walk? It's just putting one foot in front of the other front of the other. So here, here's what I would say. And it's like, this ain't, it's not sexy. It's not glamorous. It's reality and reality is undefeated. I think what I would say the longer somebody walks the Lord, uh, it's going to sound a little weird when I start just stick with me, understand this, there is nothing special about reading your Bible.

There is nothing powerful about praying. There is nothing super special about worshiping. There is nothing incredible about discipleship doing discipleship. Meet with some guys, there's nothing amazing about fasting. You know, it's amazing. You know, it's powerful. You know, what's special doing them every day, doing it every, every single day. So do like the guy who wakes up and he reads his Bible one time every three weeks, or he's like, man, every now and then he's traveling and he's like, you know what, I'm alone and I thought about God today, I'm a thank the Lord for this meal real quick. And he prays like once every three weeks. I'm just gonna shoot you straight, man. That guy is not going to have a long obedience in the same direction. You know who will? The guy that wakes up every day, reads a chapter of the Bible every day, prays every day, and then he acts like it. That guy's going to go, that's going to go real good. So you do not rise to the level of your aspirations. You fall to the level of your goals. And obviously I'll just throw this in. Obviously there is something powerful about reading your Bible and praying. In fact, that's the point I'm trying to make is you do not rise to the level of your aspirations throughout the decades. You will fall to the level of your habits. That's great, man. Okay. On that note, let's talk about JD Vance. All right, let's do this. Here's why I want to do this, man.

This, um, this is. Actually, so here's my quick caveat. Let me set up why I'm doing this. We say the same, this is, let me just disciple us when we're talking about politics and culture. So here's the thing. You've gotta decide, every Christian has to decide, are you a conservative Christian or a Christian conservative? Those are really your two choices. It is simple, listen, man, I'm gonna shoot you straight and some people hate it, I get in trouble with this. Right now, there is simply no other way given the publicly stated policy proposals of the two parties, you know, neither of them are perfect. But when you translate a Christian theory of governance and morality into policy, it's simply, if you just, let's just be honest, man, it is simply true that that is going to look and code conservative in our culture more than it's gonna code liberal progressive. It just is, I'll talk about that here in a second. People hate that, I get crushed by all the time, it's just reality, it's just straight. But then you gotta decide, hey man, does my Christian come first or does my conservative come first? Is if your conservative's here and your Christian's here, then when whatever seems conservative contradicts what's Christian, the conservative will win and it'll trump the Christian.

Okay, bad, nope, we're out on that. What we wanna be is Christian conservative, that's how it kind of maps. So man, my Christian is over the conservative thing, so anytime the two are in disagreement, I'm Christian first, conservative second. So that's how that works. That's helpful. So what happens is then Christian's like, okay, well dude, maybe this is a politician that I voted for, I supported, and you'll hear stuff like this, that oh my gosh, how could any Christian support that, that sort of thing. And what you're getting ready to hear, the reason I wanna do this, is these are very frequent, very common sort of things that get lobbed at Christians that are conservative, especially right now. And what you're seeing here, Ross Douthit, I've been reading for years. Again, New York Times, Catholic Christian, kind of generally conservative, sort of like center-right, I might say, is how you might say it. What he did that was interesting in this interview with Vance, is he said, hey man, there's three things that, so you're saying, you're trying to govern in an explicit Christian way,

there's three things that, hey, you're not. And some of this stuff is, hey, I'm gonna just tell you right now, some of the things he acknowledges, as I'll point out, are true. Some of them are not, and are extremely deceptive things that get thrown at you, so we're gonna call some balls and strikes. Now, by listener request, we're gonna play the whole clip. Because people are always like, play the whole dang clip, and then respond to it, so we know what you're talking about. So here's what we're gonna do, Trinity, we're gonna play most of the clip, all the way through, so people know what I'm getting ready to respond to. Then we're gonna go back, and then I'm gonna have you pause a few, does that make sense? All right, so this is Ross Southett interviewing J.D. Vance, right after the release of his book, Communion, this about his Catholic faith, and all that stuff, here we go. We could have a longer argument about the economics, but I just wanna, let's stipulate that the Trump administration has, in some way, a kind of vision of rebuilding the working class

that's connected to Christianity. Was that hard to say, Ross? I'm stipulating. For the sake of argument, and the fact that you have not given us three hours to have this discussion, we're stipulating it. It also seems to me like the administration has distanced itself in different ways from some other sort of obvious expressions of Christian influence on politics, some of them more sort of liberal-coded, some of them more conservative-coded, right? Like, the administration has been more hostile than any prior Republican administration, to say nothing of Democrats, in the last 20 years, to the way we do humanitarian aid. That's number one. It has kept religious conservatives, pro-life organizations especially, at arm's length in a way that has led to a lot of criticism, and then, you know, let's be honest. The tone of the administration- Mean tweets. Is not consistently a Christian tone. There is a tone of aggressive uncharity to people who aren't on board with the administration's policies. So I would describe those as three areas where the administration has felt functionally post-Christian to me.

Post-Christian. And I'm curious what you think. Bookmark that. All right, now, pause. Okay, so we did it. We're gonna try this. Tell us in the comments, if you like me playing the whole clip through, and then going back and responding, or if you like me to respond as it comes, and then we'll use that as a feature for- I have a theory of who likes what. I feel like people that are on YouTube and are watching it, like the pause, pause, pause, pause, and comment, comment. People that are listening only they prefer to listen to the whole thing. I could be wrong, but I think that's my theory All right. Well comment. Yeah, we'll figure out. All right. So now Trini go back to the beginning and Then so so I'm gonna just pause throughout the thing and then we're gonna do the thing and you tell us in the comments Play it through or do the pause thing Yeah, and if you're listening on up you can jump to the comments cuz you're not even in the comments on YouTube All right. So here we go. I do it Trini. We could have a longer argument about the economics But I just want to feels redundant. Let's let's stipulate feels redundant that the Trump administration has in some way I don't like that kind of vision of Rebuilding the working class that's connected to Christianity. Was that all say was that hard to say Ross? I'm stipulate That that you have not given us three hours to have this discussion we're stipulating it it also seems to me Like the administration has Distance itself in different ways from some other sort of obvious expressions of Christian influence on politics Some of them more sort of liberal coded some of them more conservative code Like the administration has been more hostile than any prior

Republican administration to say nothing of Democrats in the last 20 years to the way we do humanitarian aid pause Okay, so this is he says is obvious so what here's what he's referring to in 2025 obviously Elon Musk and Doge Took a famously took a chainsaw to what is referred to as USA ID So by the way, let me just begin with a public miss misperception According to we did some deep dive research on this on this stuff is really helpful Public perception people were assuming that somewhere around 24 to 26 percent of the United States budget Was going to things like you humanitarian aid and they just chopped all this in reality, it's one point It's been 1.2 percent. Okay, if I'm understanding this correctly 1.2 percent now USA ID, bro this let me just say This is gonna blow some of your minds Carlos knows a little bit of where I'm going and it affects some of the region that she come from. Yeah, okay, so this is This will also care about and just to care about this Honestly when I started understand how this worked, bro, it honestly was a little enraging Okay, so what it's talking about is the thing called USA ID USA that was foreign aid Purportedly, this is how it was packaged as this is like mercy and humanitarian aid to other nations now let me begin right here with it with a little axiom because sometimes this is like a difference between conservatives and progressives is Progressives will judge policies by their intentions and conservatives will tend to judge policies by their outcomes. That's actually really important We should not judge policies by their intentions. Well, we were trying to help the poor interesting You don't judge. Well, if you were trying to help the poor or that was your heart, but you actually just created more poverty That's actually not good. It doesn't matter what your intention was. So we don't judge policies by intentions. We judge them by outcomes Okay, I'll just cut to the chase the actual outcome of a Significant part of USA ID Was just a tax pundit taxpayer funded way to export radical progressive ideology and left-wing politics To the nation's okay now, bro, dude This is this was like a scales fall off your eyes a little radicalizing to start realizing what was actually happening here And I'm gonna give you like actual data. This is not conspiracy stuff This is like I'm gonna read you actual government documents actual data. Okay, so here's how it started it started with the story I won't say, you know the guy's name. I'm gonna say his name. Was it Peru Peru? Okay So we had a well-known pastor from Peru who came and preached at Lake Point Espanol

I'm sure he listens by the way, so shout out shout out dude. We love you. Come again. Come again Who came and you were sick, bro? This is what this blew my mind We're sitting around dinner and I start asking him about how they're thinking about the election down there, dude He starts telling me that man, honestly, it's like man Honestly, we're really passionate about the election in America going a certain way and I won't make this feel awkward for him So I want him to say which way you probably figured out and he said he said it dude Here's why and he starts explaining that in the public schools in Peru in the last few years They had started teaching in the public schools Like LGBTQ queer theory and doing all the things and guidance counselors and all the classes and bro He start he and then he starts going. Hey, man, and here's the deal families in Peru very traditional like nobody's into that stuff down there and then he asked me he's like he honestly it was very Like I love my country a lot. This was like hard to swallow. He goes, do you know why? I'm like, what are you talking about? Why and he this is before any of this USA ID stuff happened He said well, here's why it's first time I ever heard about USA ID. He goes. Well, here's why because your government gives our nation a significant amount of USAID that we quote unquote need, or some people feel like we need. And he said, and the United States government has made our reception of USAID money contingent upon us aligning with some of the policy proposals of the previous Biden administration. And part of that was to advance LGBTQ representation and ideology. So bro, literally down in Peru, they're forcing this stuff into government schools. And this story is telling me because they're like, well, we're gonna stop getting the money unless we teach this stuff, even though none of the families want it. And dude, I'll be honest,

I'm sitting there at dinner at standard service, like one of my favorite spots. I'm sitting there at dinner at standard service. And you know that little meme, there's a little meme that's like, are we the baddies? It's like, honestly, dude, it was one of the first times in my life, I was like, wait, are we the bad guys now? Okay, now let me go a little deeper. Okay, so I'm gonna read something to you. Let me find this real quick. Yeah, okay, so here's an example. So millions of dollars, I'm literally reading this. This is read verbatim from our government's own award record that they put on, verbatim. Millions of dollars, for instance, were given to Guatemala via USAID to grant, how do I say that? Say that for me. Associación Lambda. Ah, marvelous, good, that's good. I'll give you the American accent too, Associación Lambda. That's how I was gonna say it. There you go. Associación Lambda, okay. So millions of dollars, USAID money, given to Guatemala. See, I'm gonna read what our government said about this.

To quote, strengthen trans-led organizations to deliver gender-affirming healthcare and provide economic empowerment opportunities from those people, for those people. So bro, what was literally happening is that they were incentivizing nations to teach overtly wicked and evil things. And the little carrot was, you're gonna get our USAID money. So Carla, you tell me, is that humanitarian aid? Nope, nope, nope. But you can take something evil and call it humanitarian aid and then anybody that opposes it, they look like the baddie. That's the play that's gonna run. Now, bro, this is, so again, we're doing deep dive research on this stuff. This is gonna stink and blow your mind and I'm gonna go to the next thing. So what people have figured out in the last six months is before USAID money got pulled back, in general, left-wing politicians, progressive politicians who aligned with all this, these stuff I just read, had been winning the elections in South America, Latin America, okay? Dude, here's what people are noticing is that once USAID money got pulled, now for the first time in ages, conservative candidates have won elections

in the following countries in Latin America, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Honduras, Colombia, Costa Rica. For the first time, now. Okay, so dude, and it's new. This is new, okay? So we looked all this up before the podcast. Is it Chile or Chile? Both, Chile if you're here and Chile if you're Latin America. Well, in Kentucky, we just said Chile. There you go. You're good, you're good. So for the last five elections in Chile, the political alignment of the person that won, left, center left, socialist party of Chile and a socialist. So there's one of them that won twice. That's the last five. USAID money removed. All of a sudden, for the first time, conservative candidate wins. In Bolivia, the previous 20 years a candidate had won under a socialist, an overtly socialist movement. USAID money pulled. In 2025, for the first time in 25, in 20 years, a conservative, Paz, Paz, I don't know how to pronounce. Paz, yeah. Paz wins, okay? Peru, the Free Peru Party

that is an overtly Marxist socialist party had won three out of the last five elections. USAID money pulled. All of a sudden, conservative candidate wins. Now, Carlos, let me ask you this question. Now, remember, what Douthat is saying is, hey, man, a Christian would really want this humanitarian aid to go out, and it's actually non-Christian for you to oppose this humanitarian. What I'm showing you is. is that according to the data, vast swaths of this money was not humanitarian aid at all. At all. It was gasoline funding overtly wicked ideologies among the nations to export them. Okay, so here's the question, Carlos. Well, you may be going, wait a second, dude. What does USAID money have anything to do with elections? Okay, well, dude, check this out. I'm reading this straight from the USAID's own fact sheet. Own fact sheet. So this is not, this isn't like Breitbart. This is like the USAID's, the government's own fact sheet. Okay, listen. In 2023, USAID funded and trained, bro, watch this, 6,200 journalists in Latin America, bankrolled 707 media outlets in Latin America, and backed 279 media NGOs across 30 countries, so not just in Latin America,

to the tune of, Carlos Erazo, $270 million per year. Okay, now, check this out, dude. So think about this. Okay, let's go back to the first story. What the schools started figuring out is, huh, we're probably not gonna keep getting the money if we don't teach stuff that aligns with the ideologies that they're wanting to advance. Well, hey, bro, what do you think the journalists were probably thinking? That, my friend, is how this money, according to this research, was getting used to, it was actually radically influencing elections to swing them progressive in Latin American countries, which, as you know, Latin American countries are not, by default mode, very progressive. Nope, and we don't want it. Not so much, my friend. In fact, bro, this will blow your mind. From, this fact's like, I would sit in my office dying. From 2020 to 2024, USAID money was 75% of all donor funding to the Latin American media. Wow. Bro, I'm gonna say that one more time. What? From 2020 to 2024, USAID money, 75% of all donor funding to the Latin American media. And then you wonder, huh, I wonder why a region that's not very progressive was constantly skewing progressive, okay?

Now, let me just do one last thing that's theological for Christians on this, because this trips people up, and then I wanna do the other two much quicker than this, but this is really important, okay? If you're a Christian, you're gonna get thrown this at you a lot, and Douthit does it here, but what people do is they go, hey, man, Jesus fed the poor and cared for the hurting and helped the homeless or whatever it is, and so you not voting for the government to do those things, maybe like socialist light or wealth redistributive policies, that kind of thing, high welfare concepts, if you're not voting for that, you don't care for the poor. And so, man, actually, that's un-Christian, that's kind of what Douthit's doing here, okay? Dude, Christians have to get, you gotta really internalize this. In the Bible, I'm gonna do my little riff that I do it all the time because I need Christians to understand this. In the Bible, God created three institutions that when working in the right way result in human flourishing, the family, the church, and the state. All three of the institutions, they have different roles. The family has a role, the church has a role, the state has a role, okay?

Poverty care, welfare, caring for the poor, in the Bible, that's primarily the job of Christians and churches. It is not primarily the job of the government. So when people are like, Jesus said to feed the poor, my response is Jesus did not command governments to do that. Don't throw that at me. So when widows needed feeding in Acts 6, Paul appoints deacons. He doesn't send an activist to Rome, okay? So in the Bible, this is really important. In the Bible, the commands to, and by the way, Christians must not, you're not allowed to let your heart harden towards the poor and stop caring about those things. Just because we have the sphere of sovereignty, you're not allowed to just go, ah, I'm hardened to it. No, that's our job as Christians, families, and churches, okay, we're all in on that, okay? But here's what you're gonna get. Romans 13, role of the state, the primary role of the state is to, quote, bear the sword, incentivize doing good, penalize doing evil. That's the government's job. Other than that, just kind of stay out of our way. That's kind of the job of the government. So the reason for that is with governments, you tend to get more of what you, incentivize and less of what you penalize.

That's really important. With governments, you tend to get more of what you incentivize and less of what you penalize. That is why, Carlos, you'll notice this. Just watch, you're gonna see all over the place. That's why cities and states that tend to throw the most money at homelessness, they do not end up solving homelessness. Do you know what they do? They create more homelessness. Why? Because with governments, you tend to get more of what you incentivize and less of what you penalize, which is why God designed individual Christians, families, and churches to be the ones who are like, dude, we're the ones who step into the gap and we care for the poor, we do charity, that kind of thing. So I go back to this all the time. Data shows, this literally came out like two weeks ago. There's an organization called Giving Pulse. Conservative Christians, so what people throw at you, like kind of this, doubt that it's not doing this, but it's a vibe that you'll get. If you're a Christian, that's a little more conservative theologically, culturally, what people throw at you is like, oh man, you're not generous to the poor because you vote this certain way.

Bro, the data literally, this is Giving Pulse, just came out. The data literally shows conservative Christians give 75% more. Some studies show up to three times more than progressives to the poor, that actually just give their money away to charity. 75% to three times more, okay. So you just gotta get this in your head. When conservatives use the word generosity, they mean generosity with their own money. When progressives use the word generosity, they mean vote for somebody to take somebody else's money away from them and give it away. So they mean generosity with somebody else's money. So anyway, I just want to boil all this down. The bottom line, when doubt is like, hey man, you're opposing USAID, you're opposing humanitarian aid, that kind of thing. Okay, opposing USAID, large swaths of it, that's not opposing mercy and humanitarian aid. It's refusing to call a progressive political slush fund humanitarian aid, and it's refusing to let Caesar eat the role of the church. Does that make sense? That makes sense, and honestly, by the way, by the grace of God, we are a church that we partner with literally churches all over the world, including Latin America,

and we want to empower the local church to be the people that help literally and bless the city. And so even with the Venezuela thing happening recently, like again, man, we give to our church because our church is giving continually and we have the right partners and the right people on the ground. And so it's a, how can I give? That's right. How can I be generous? That's right. Yeah, dude, yeah. It's, I mean, our missions budget is over $8 million a year. I drove to the church yesterday. There's the food pantry line. That's right. Is literally wrapped around the pier because everyone in this area knows if our family's struggling, the people of Lake Point will help us. We want to be a blessing to the city and to other people as well as the church. All right, let me do the other two much quicker because these do get thrown at you. Do the next one. It has kept religious conservatives, pro-life organizations especially, at arm's length in a way that has led to a lot of criticism. Okay, so that's the second accusation

is hey man, the Trump administration kept religious organizations and pro-life organizations at bay. I heard this a well-meaning but misinformed pastor on a podcast this week. Trump is actually pro-choice and he's approving the abortion pill to get mailed all over the place and abortions have gone up since Dobbs. Okay, this kind of thing people throw at you. So let me just, if you're a Christian, let me help you understand what's going on. First of all, let me concede some things that are true that I wish were different. This is where my Christian is over my quote unquote conservative, okay? Number one, honestly dude, I was disappointed. Like during the campaign, the Trump administration, they declined to endorse the possibility of a national ban on abortion. Like to me, murder, actually not to me, to God, murder is murder. It's like yeah, like we should be able to 10 toes down, doesn't matter if anybody freaks out, yes. We want a national ban on killing people. Yeah, we do, okay? That disappointed me. Number two, they dropped, in 2024, they dropped the national ban plank from the publicly stated policy proposals.

So until 2024, it'd be like, yep, we're trying to push for a national ban. This is a little weedsy. When they overturned Dobbs, kind of the Supreme Court, or they overturned Roe v. Wade, the mentality was, hey, we're pushing the decisions back to the states. I will say, if you want a history nerd out, the Federalist system, this is my little inner history nerd, the Federalist system was originally designed for states to really almost function like many nations with significantly more autonomy. So, you know, whatever. But 2024, they did drop the national ban plank from the proposals. I don't like it. I was disappointed. Number three, they did the thing of wanting to support IVF funding, and we don't have time to talk about this, not all. There are ways to, from what I understand, there are ways to do IVF that I will say are rare and can be carefully done, that will avoid the destruction of fertilized embryos that, you know, life begins at conception, all the scriptures. So I didn't like that. So I'm just conceding some things. Don't like it. I don't like it at all, okay? But it is insane for people to characterize the Trump administration as, quote-unquote, pro-choice. Man, they actually haven't done anything. You know, actually there's really no difference between the, you know, the Democratic Party and the conservative, you know. It's insane. Let me just rattle some things off. So one thing that you'll hear, again, well-meaning but misinformed or naive people, oh, Trump approved the abortion pill. No, that's not true. Trump and the, the Trump FDA and RFK ordered a safety review of, if I'm

pronouncing this correctly, Mifepristone. It's an abortion pill. They ordered a safety review, which they were legally required to do. So they just, all that is, there's a legal requirement, I read up on this this week, for the FDA to order a safety review if a generic drug that is the same thing or almost the same thing as a drug that's already been made, they have to order a safety review. It's a legally required. So that's what Mifepristone was. It's a generic, just they had to do it. Number two, the FDA has not restricted the pill, okay? That's it. Now, dude, here's the thing that people don't understand that's going on. Wait, I said that wrong. Yeah, yeah, actually no, I said it right. Here's the other thing people don't know that's happening that's gonna lead me to the next thing. What a lot of people are unaware it's happening is progressive states, blue states, they're enacting what are called shield laws. This is New York and California, states like this. They passed laws, bro, this is insane, promising doctors doing abortions. Hey, if you guys, remember, the claim is, man, under the Trump administration, they're just approving, mailing abortion pills over the place and that's why abortions are actually up since DOPS, okay? No, no, here's what's actually happening. Blue states like New York and California are passing shield laws promising doctors in their states, if you mail abortion pills to states that have banned them, we in our state will refuse to extradite you, we'll refuse to honor their subpoenas, and we will protect your license. So actually what's happening is Democratic leaders are enacting these laws, these, it's the progressive states are the ones that are that are max boosting and doing the mailing thing. Now, the other thing people say is abortions, they're like, oh, nothing he's done matters, abortions actually went up after the overturn in Roe because of DOPS. Okay, well that's extremely misleading. Toss that graph up there real quick, Trinny. The entire increase in abortions after the overturn in Roe happened before Trump took office under Biden. It's like, literally all of them. Look at, do you see, you can see DOPS overturn right there. June 2022. So literally all, so it's one of those things where it's like, hey, technically what you're saying is true. All of it happened under Biden, guys. And

then, so then you go, well, then how is it happening? You're like, how is it happening? Go to the next graph. Well, here's how it's happening. What's happening is all the blue states, they're doing things like the shield laws and max boosting abortion in response to these things. So what's happening is abortions have fallen sometimes very precipitously in states that have enacted a more restrictive laws appropriately. And then the other states, the blue states are max boosting it. So let me just finish this real quick. If you're going, hey dude, Trump's actually functionally pro-choice. This is not actually doing anything. Here's, here's some data. Number one, obviously he appointed three Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe. That's a big deal. Since then 41 states have enacted abortion limits. They were not able to do it before then. 13 of those 41 states protect life from conception. That's amazing. Appointed 234 judges just in his first term. Bro, that's, that's, that's a stinking big deal. That starts working its way through the entire, that's a big deal. They overturned something called the Mexico city policy where essentially foreign organizations that take US health money, they can't perform or promote abortions overseas. That's a big deal. It's kind of the same thing as USAID. The one big beautiful bill I think is it was called Defunded Planned Parenthood, which barred Medicaid dollars to abortion providers. They sued, and then they lost. So that stayed in place. And then there was a whole executive order that reinforced something called the Hyde Amendment that was about limiting or restricting government-funded abortions. So, dude, that's a stinking big deal. And then the last thing I'll say is what you'll hear some more progressive Christians do. It's like, hey, man, now that they removed the ban thing from the policy proposals, it's really just both parties are the same on this issue now. But honestly, dude, you got to actually lie to yourself to believe that. So the bill that the Democratic Party said they were going to pass, it's called the Women's Health Protection Act. More extreme than Roe v. ever was. In plain English, it would have done three things. One, bro, think about this. Forbid any state from restricting abortion before viability. So no state would legally have been about it yet. So no Harvey Bill, every 15-week law, every waiting period, all gone. Number two, after viability, so third trimester,

it would have allowed abortion whenever a single provider makes a, quote, good-faith medical judgment that the pregnancy risks the mother's, quote-unquote, health, a term courts have read to include. This is important. So all of us are like, hey, man, we don't have time to go into this. Sometimes people will call miscarriages abortions in order to weaponize it against conservatives sometimes. But what they did is they were writing into this bill, good-faith medical judgment, the pregnancy risks the mother's, quote-unquote, health. But then they were getting courts to read emotional health into what, so anybody could walk in and be like, I'm depressed because of this. So can I kill my kid? Yes. You see what I'm saying? The answer would have been yes. So it would have done that. And then number three, here's a biggie. Their bill would have overridden every single state pro-life law in the country in one vote. So, man, can we please stop pretend, like, dude, like we're either lying to other people intentionally or we're lying to ourselves to make it sound like these are moral equivalents. Okay, now let's do the last one. We're going to shut this thing down so we can talk to Raymond. All right, here we go. And then, you know, let's be honest. The tone of the administration... Will you pause real quick? Here's what's a little interesting is I get this sometimes about my preaching. So let's do this real quick. Keep going. Is not consistently a Christian tone. There is a tone of aggressive uncharity to people who aren't on board with the administration's policies. That's not what people say. So I would describe those as three areas where the administration has felt functionally post-Christian to me. And I'm curious what you think. Well, so on the first point, well, sorry, the third point I want to address first. You can work backward. So on the tone thing, this is it's very hard to rebut this because it's like fundamentally unfalsifiable. Because for every clip that you could show me of me, or the president, or some cabinet secretary saying something that in your view is un-Christian, I could show you another few clips of us doing something or saying something that is like very Christian. The nature of political communication in the era of mass media is that sometimes people are saying jokes that are taken out of context. Pause. You know anything about that? Any jokes out of context? I got a few right now. But I will say, this is actually a really good point.

Like your normal person doesn't understand this. One thing I will just say very briefly, there are dynamics to mass scale communication that no one is ever going to understand unless you've had to do it. When you're communicating to, you know, it's like if, you know, I think if 6 million people downloaded the podcast last month. Yeah, or more. Or, you know, when you're communicating to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people, here's what you're going to learn really fast. I've learned this low these many years, is it doesn't matter what you say, there is going to be 5% of people because of their background, their emotional sensibilities, experiences that they've had, they're going to take something that you said, it's going to strike them in the wrong way, and it's going to anger them and maybe hurt their feelings. And listen, it is impossible for that not to happen. So the analogy I'll use sometimes is, by the way, I'm not saying, everything I've ever said is perfect, that's not what I'm saying, but the analogy I'll use sometimes is, man, if I were to walk up to somebody and tap a normal person on the shoulder, you would just turn your head. If I walk up to you, Carlos, and you have a gaping flesh wound on your shoulder, and I tap you on the shoulder, you're gonna freak out and you're gonna get angry and you may lash back. Yeah, it'll hurt. When you're doing mass communication, like no matter what you say, if I'm preaching a sermon on marriage and I just read a Bible verse about wives submitting to your husbands,

let's say 100,000 people listen to the sermon, there's going to be 5% of them who are in fringe cases or exception scenarios, they've experienced something very painful, we're just reading a Bible verse, it's tapping a gaping wound, and they're like, ah, why did you say that? That hurt me. Okay, so this is a principle of mass communication, and bro, I'll just be honest, it's literally impossible. You can't do it. There's other. That's right. So this is a good point, but keep going, he says something important here. Sometimes people are gonna make mistakes. I'm not saying, I make mistakes. I talk about this in the book a little. In my book, Communion, available where books are sold, I talk about the own mistakes that I've made as a Christian reader in America. There is an apology to childless cat ladies. That's hilarious. We don't need to get sidetracked by that, go on. But my point is, I'm not saying we're perfect because we're not. My point is that the tone argument isn't. Actually, pause. So I wanna say something.

He acknowledges, he said, we're not perfect. I wanna say he's right. Let me just concede something. There are things that sometimes the president will say that I'm like, a Christian man should never say that. Sure. Like many times, there have been moments where I'm like, that was a sin. Yeah, even on social media, I will say, I've seen some things, the way some. I'm gonna read you one. Okay, go ahead. I'm gonna read you one. Like Rob Reiner died. His son purportedly stabs him to death. And I'm just gonna read it. President tweets, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as Trump derangement syndrome. I do, I'm sorry. Like, dude, that's a sin. That's a sin. So as Christians, we don't have, don't defend things you shouldn't defend. That doesn't mean that you can't support, whenever you're voting for somebody, you're voting for, you know, which set of policies will best slow societal decay. So this doesn't mean like,

oh man, they did something wrong. I can't support them. No, you can. But you also need to maintain your integrity and character and go, hey man, am I generally supportive and really thankful for a whole lot of things? Yes. That's wrong. And I don't have to defend that. I like that he acknowledged that. Well, let's keep going. He says something really interesting and we'll shut this down. In some ways, I think people see what they want to see. And I also think that tonal arguments are ways of frankly policing working class ways of communication. This is a fact. And covering them in elite preferences. Okay, done. Now, did you hear what he said? He said, policing the tone sometimes is a way of essentially policing or opposing working class forms of communication. So Ross Douthat, it's New York Times, Intelligentsia, he's around Ivy Leaguers all the time. There's a certain way those kind of people talk. And I'll be honest, I'm a rural Kentucky kid who comes from like a formerly truck driving Ozark family. You say things like, let's kick this pig.

I say, that's like, yeah. I don't say, let's go children. I say, let's kick this pig. Let us initiate the podcast today. Yeah, that's not my vibe, okay. So now, what Douthat said there, he's dead on. He's dead on. What I'll point out is. You mean J.D.? J.D., sorry. What J.D. said there. What I'll point out is, give me someone who speaks in a rough way, but advances net good things over somebody who speaks in a dignified way and advances evil. There you go. And dude, I will say that Christians can be very naive on this, especially parents, man. Like with our kids, what we don't wanna do is evaluate everything through the lens of two categories, nice people and mean people. That's where people get caught up. They're like, ah, he says stuff like that about Rob Reiner, he's mean, and we're supposed to be for nice people. No, no, there's not two categories of people according to the Bible. There's four categories of people according to the Bible. There's nice people who do good things. There's nice people who do evil things.

The Bible literally says that false teachers that will send you to hell, they will flatter you with smooth talk and flattery, it says. There are nice people who appear very nice, who do very evil things. Then there are rough people who do good things, and there are rough people who do evil things. In general, if you zoom out, I'm not saying everything's perfect, but man, when I look at what they're advancing in general, I'm like, man. A lot of times, that administration is like a rough, is a rough, kind of rough guy advancing net good things. And again, give me a rough guy that does net good over a nice man who does net evil while being really dignified. That's right, yeah, I would say there's two things that matters. If you're a Christian, even practically speaking, because people wonder about, does tone matter? Can you say something to me like kind of a jerk? But it's true. Two things that matters. One, tone matters. Ephesians 4.15, speak truth in love. Colossians 4.6, let your speech be gracious, seasoned with salt. Tone matters. And, that is true, and at the same time, do you know what matters too?

Truth matters. Tone matters, truth matters. 2 Timothy 4.2 says, preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort. Titus 1, Paul tells Titus to rebuke false teachers sharply and with all authority. Tone matters, truth matters. We want both. Yes, by the way, Jesus used some pretty rough, rough dang language. That's right. Rough, rough language. So let me close with every now and then, you know, what I kind of try to do when I'm preaching is I kind of try to talk like just a normal guy. That's the kind of guy I grew up with, kind of my family I came from, you know, normal, little gritty, little blue collar kind of thing, without sinning. I will say there was another pastor that is a hero of mine that was constantly accused of, you know, bad humor and vulgar language. It was Charles Spurgeon. This is a fun little homework assignment. That's not what I thought you were gonna say, but go ahead. Charles Spurgeon. Who did you think I was? Martin Luther, maybe? Charles Spurgeon.

So it's a fun little homework assignment. If you go Google like Charles Spurgeon, vulgar language, there is, like he was getting newspaper articles written about him constantly about this, you know. He was heavily criticized by the media. Heavily, heavily criticized, heavily, for his language and his humor. Now, dude, I'm not a profanity guy. I'm not talking about telling dirty jokes. That's not what I'm talking about. But it's like, you know, I just, I don't know. Just the word of normal, gritty language. And by the way, vulgar, back in the day, that word just means like of the people, like normal people. It doesn't necessarily mean that it was perverted necessarily. Okay, that's good to know. I'm gonna read you two Charles Spurgeon quotes that make him one of my favorite preachers. Okay, the first one is Charles Spurgeon on effeminate pastors. Okay, this is Charles Spurgeon. There are silly young ladies who are in raptures with a dear young man whose main thought is his precious person. These, it is to be hoped, are becoming fewer every day, but as for sensible men, and especially the sturdy workmen of our great cities, they utterly abhor foppery in a ministry.

I don't know what that means. I got a feeling it might mean something. But that's what he said. Interesting. Wherever you see affectation, you find at once a barrier between that man and the common sense multitude. Basically what he's saying is, hey man, preach like normal blue collar dudes are gonna understand. That's really what he's saying. Few ears are as delighted, few ears are delighted with the voices of peacocks. It is a pity that we cannot persuade all ministers to be men, for it is hard to see how otherwise they will be truly men of God. It is equally to be deplored that we cannot induce preachers to speak and gesticulate. There's a word for you. Like other sensible persons, for it is impossible that they should grasp the masses until they do. All foreign matters of attitude, tone, or dress are barricades between us and the people. We must talk like men if we would win men. Charles Spurs, number one. Now here's the second one. In response to some of the newspaper articles, and this is to J.D. Vance's point of like, and sometimes sort of intelligentsia. Well, you know, stop being rough and abrasive

and you know, sort of thing. Be dignified while you advance evil things. And men will like you more, this kind of can be the vibe. So Charles Spurs is getting lit up for his sort of blue collar, gritty language by newspapers. This is how he responds. I am perhaps vulgar, but it is not intentional, save that I must and I will make the people listen. Now I'm gonna keep, the quote, he's gone. I feel this in my bones. Like when I read this, I was like that, he's putting words to exactly how I feel as a preacher. My firm conviction is that we have had quite enough polite preachers and many require a change. God has owned me among the most degraded and offcasts. Let others serve their class. These are mine, and to them, I must keep. Wow. I love it, dude. I love it. He had a specific race set before him. He ran his race, my friend. And he had to run it. So let me put a bow on it like this. What Douthit does is he's like, your tone and you chopping USAID. These are post-Christian things. And dude, I just wanna keep in a blunt, straightforward way reminding us. Okay, you're saying that's post-Christian?

Let me tell you, here's what's post-Christian. A political movement that redefines marriage, erases gender, mutilates children, passes laws that take children from Christian families who will not affirm their child's quote-unquote gender, cheer and max boost mass infant slaughter, open borders, jail abortion protesters preying outside of clinics, sprint towards Islamic socialism, and then use the government school system to indoctrinate everybody's kids into believing those things. My friends, that's post-Christian. Straightforward way, there you go. Thank you, Pastor Josh, would you pray for us? Yeah, sure. Lord, thank you. Thank you for a chance to open up the Word and look at both the Word and the world. And Father, would you make us men and women with clear vision to see the world through the lens of the Word? God, would you make us good Christian men and women? Would you make us good family men, church men, statesmen? And will we do that as we bend our knee to Jesus Christ? Father, thank you for the great harvest of salvation that we got to see at Lake Point this week. And Lord, I pray that in the next three weeks, you would do exceedingly abundantly more than we could ever ask or imagine.

And I pray that you do it in some of the lives of the people who are listening right now so that we can learn together as we learn to God be the glory, in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen, live free brother. Thank you, Pastor Vinny,