Megachurch Pastor Reacts To MLB SCANDAL Targeting Christian Players | Live Free with Josh Howerton

- Never, ever, ever believe them. When they say that what they're about is tolerance. They are not about tolerance. They are about submission. If their primary value was tolerance, they would be very tolerant of Christian convictions. But they're not. Why? Because something else is going on. What's going on is tolerance for me, submission for thee. - Well, hey, Jeffrey 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. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to what is going to be a very interesting little spicy and maybe at times confusing bonus episode of live free. I am back from vacation with Jana and really good to hop in. It's been an event full week. I'm going to tell you right now we're going to talk about in the last week or the last couple of weeks. Three Giants players, guys and they're pitchers, Landon Roup or Ralph, JT Brew Baker and Ron Walker. During a Pride night at a ball game, there were three dudes that are apparently Christians that decided to write a Bible verse from Genesis chapter nine on their hats. Now Clayton Kershaw did that last year. By the way, I'm a sports guy. If you're listening, we're going to talk about all of this stuff. Even if you're not a sports dude or a sports girl, this, what we're going to talk about right now is the intersection of the LGBT thing in our culture and how that intersects with Christianity, the things they get thrown at you, how we need to think about these things and not think about these things, how we need to talk to our kids about these things and then what we should want, how Christians need to play this moment. So let me track for you what has happened, lead you up to this moment where we are right now, and then I'm going to respond to, he's got a mic, I think it's called Cruck Out. I think it's how you pronounce his name. A giant picture that became a giant's broadcaster that put these dudes on blast. And he just, he says a lot of this stuff is going to get thrown at you. Now, two disclaimers. One, without naming, it's actually kind of, it's a little surreal, without naming any names to protect, to protect live free listeners or social media interactors. We have reason to believe that some of this may have happened because of some things that we encourage professional athletes to do on live free or on our social accounts. There are a bunch of professional athletes to start to listen to live free recently. And we hear from those dudes. And so leading into June, we kind of gave a heads up, like, hey, here's a play that we think you could run as a Christian, and we are aware of some professional athletes that have kind of tried to run with this in their discipleship. And we have reason to believe that some of what's going on in our culture right now, we may have been a little pebble that helps start what has been an avalanche. OK, so quick disclaimer, and then I'm going to get in. Some people will listen to what's going to happen in the next few minutes, and they're going to think this, it feels unloving. What you got to remember in the Bible, let's do a quick theology of what we're doing right now. We have two commands. Jesus said to love people. The second greatest command is to love your neighbor. We must do this regardless of who they are and whether they love Jesus. But then we also have a command in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. It says, we destroy arguments. So Christians, especially pastors, have a command to do two things. Love people and destroy arguments. Now, what I've noticed as a pastor is that when you destroy arguments, people accuse you of being unloving towards the people who believe the arguments that you're destroying. And then when you love people who believe the arguments that you ought to be destroying, when you're really loving towards those people, people accuse you of coddling the arguments. And I'm just going to say, I reject both those things. At Lake Point, I live free in my life. What I try to embody is that we love all people. I don't care who you're at, man. I don't care what you believe. I don't care who you sleep with. I love you. But we are also commanded in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 to destroy the arguments that enslave people and destroy their lives. So that's what we're going to be doing for the next few minutes. Caviaz out of the way. Let me talk right now how we got where we're at. And what's going on is kind of this national moment we're having in our culture. OK, so it all started right here. I'm going to toss this up on the screen. This is the athletic. This is what they said. They said, covered it the first night it happened. Several Giants players wrote Bible verses on their caps to respond to pride night. Now, listen to this language. This gesture echoed a familiar pattern, meant making a night meant for inclusion about something else entirely. Now, first of all, let me just pause and completely object to the framing of what they just said. Throughout this episode and in your life as a Christian, what you're going to notice is you've got to get really good at using the Bible like a lens through which you evaluate the world in front of you and watch to evaluate biblically the frameworks that people try to put arguments inside of, OK? So they said that these dudes, these Christian dudes that put a Bible verse on the cap, they tried to make the night about something it wasn't about. What I would say is nope, the Giants tried to make a night that was supposed to be about baseball about something else entirely, trying to force Christians to publicly deny their 2,000-year-old convictions about gender or marriage and sexuality. That is when somebody made something that was supposed to be about something else entirely, OK? Now, let me show this. This right here, I want to give you an image. When these three guys, everybody else around them is wearing the little pride flag, the little flag thingy. And these three guys are like, hey, man, I can't do it. I want to show you this because it's a powerful image. Check this out. This is those three dudes that night. That is an image from the beginning of the book of Daniel when three young men, Shadrach, Misha Ag and Abednego, who were young, strong, smart, probably athletic, because it says that they were physically fit guys. An entire culture said, bow down or else. And they said, man, we must obey God rather than men. And when everybody else is bowing down, they refused to do the thing. That is what three guys, Landon Rope, JT Brew Baker, and Ron Walker did that night at that game. Now, before I dive in any farther and talk about where this is snowballed in our culture, what I want to point out to you, there's a reason and a significance behind that image right there, because these people in Babylon, they were commanded to bow down before an idol. So it's like an alternate religion. Now, one thing that I don't think Christians understand is check this out. Now, dude, we're going to do a deep dive, and this is something that's going to blow your mind, just track with me, dude. The whole LGBT movement, what you got to understand, is it, honestly, and I'm going to use some sharp language, it functions like a sex cult, like actually like an alternate religion, and there's a reason for that. This is very biblical. So let me take you back. The whole rainbow flag, they try to get these dudes to put on their cap. It originated in 1978. It was created by Gay Drag Queen artist. I got the guy's name here or somewhere I can't find it. He was associated with a guy named Harvey Milk that dabbled in like even pedophilia stuff and super nasty stuff. But he was Gay Drag Queen artist. He created the original pride flag, and it had eight colors. Now, check this out. This is going to be important. Eight colors denoting sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, art, harmony. Here's the last one, and a spirit. What spirit? There are two types, the Holy Spirit and unholy spirits. So from the very beginning of the creation of the pride flag, it's woven into the fabric of the emblem that there is an unholy spirit associated with this thing. All right, now it's a rainbow. Now let's go a little deeper. What we know in the Bible is that there is an unholy spirit it all begins with Satan, who is the original unholy spirit. What we know in the Bible is this Satan was filled with pride, the Bible says. And what he did is Satan saw God on his throne in heaven and Satan went, man, I actually don't like worshiping somebody else on a throne. I want to be worshiped on a throne. He was filled with pride. And then he began a rebellion he got now. This is some of the lot of Christians have never understood. In Ezekiel chapter one, we are given an insight into the throne room of heaven. I'm gonna show you something you've probably never noticed before. So here's what Satan would have seen when he was filled with pride and looking at the throne room of God in heaven. This is Ezekiel chapter one. Above the vault over their heads, talking about angels, was what looked like a throne of lapis lazusy. And high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. So it's like a pre-incarnate. It's like a God man, okay, God. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up. He looked like glory. lowing metal as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire, and brilliant light surrounded him, brilliant light surrounded him, keep going. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God. So from the very beginning in Ezekiel 1, Satan, full of pride, looks at the glory of God, and as he's filled with pride, he goes, I want that glory. And when he's saying, I want that glory, do you know what he's pointing at? Something that had the appearance of a rainbow, huh? That's interesting. Now let's go a layer deeper. These dudes wrote on their caps of verse from Genesis chapter 9. Now here's just going to remember, whatever God creates, Satan tries to commandeer. That's all throughout the Bible. Whatever God creates, Satan tries to commandeer. So God creates the rainbow, Satan for holy purposes, Satan tries to commandeer the rainbow for unholy purposes. Now here's the verse these dudes wrote on their caps, this is from Genesis chapter 9, and God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come. I've set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind, all right now. Let's go a layer deeper. So what God does here, this is absolutely, this is like mind blowing. What God does is right after the noake flood in the early parts of Genesis. What God does is He finishes, and He goes, hey man, I'm going to put a bow in the sky, and that bow in the sky is going to be a sign, I'm never going to destroy the earth specifically with a flood again. God will destroy the earth. He will bring judgment and wrath on the earth at the end, but it's going to be fire not flood. Okay, by the way, there's a whole thing about the, there's actually some spiritual elements to the the whole global warming and just notice and all that stuff. The eschatology of the whole global secular global warming thing is the earth's going to end with a flood. I just, there's a whole thing there's a whole different episode. But what God does is He goes, hey, I'm going to make you a promise and I'm going to give you a sign of the promise or the covenant that's never going to happen again. Now, what He does is if you hunt a little bit, you know this, what a lot of hunters do is they'll take their bow and when they're not going to use their bow anymore, they hang it up on the wall. It's like a dude that puts like a rifle that's special to his family over the, over the mantle in his house. God goes, hey man, I'm hanging my bow up. So I'm not using this anymore. And then do this is so great, man, and this is how much Jesus loves every sinner, every where, including people who have committed sexual sin, like you and me and every person that's dabbled in the same sexual activity. Notice that when God puts his bow in the sky, it's pointing upward. And what God was doing is He was foreshadowing the fact that, hey, in the future, I know you guys are going to keep rebelling against me. But there's going to come a day when you rebelling against me, it is actually going to trigger my wrath again. But someday when my wrath is triggered because of your sin again, that bow of my wrath will shoot upwards towards me instead of down at you. And when Jesus came at the cross and the wrath of God was poured out on him at the cross in his crucifixion, what was happening is our sin had triggered the wrath of God again. But the arrow of his justice and wrath hit him instead of us for everybody that believes. Live for you, man, we're all about to gospel, so I'll say it more time. God loved so he gave. And if you believe you will receive eternal life. So that's it. Now, that's what the rainbow originally was for. Now notice whatever God creates, Satan tries to commandeer. What you as a Christian have to understand, and then I'm going to get into kind of talking about what's snowballing our culture. Is it the whole LGBTQIA plus two, there's like 47 letters now. It functions like an alternate religion. And here's what's happening our culture right now. Is there is a war between Christian theology and the LGBTQ, it's, honestly, dude, it functions a little bit like a sex cult and it's, it's rival religions. It's a zero sum game. They're locked in a cultural cage match and either one will kill the other or the other will kill the one. They cannot, it's ironic, I'm going to say this, coexist, okay? So what I want you to notice is that literally everything, it's the satanic inversion of Christianity in like the LGBTQ religion thing. So check this out. So in the LGBTQ religion thing, it's all about self expression. In Christianity, we're all about self denial. Jesus said, if you want to follow me, you must deny yourself. In the LGBTQ, it functions like a religion, it's worship sex. It's the most important thing about you build your identity on sex and the pinnacle of joy is the, is sexual expression, worship sex and Christianity, we don't worship sex, we worship God. In the LGBTQ religion thing, it's all about treating man like a God. It's like everything needs to order itself around you and your desires and everybody bow down before what you need and want and cheer and affirm you. Christianity is not about treating man like a God. Christianity is about God becoming a man. In the LGBT thing, they celebrate pride and Christianity, we celebrate humility. In the LGBT thing, we go, hey man, what they say is we were born this way. In Christianity, Jesus says, yeah, but you must be born again. In all LGBT thing, it's like, I'm perfect exactly the way I am. In Christianity, we go, man, actually, I'm a sinner that needs to be a man new and I'm not having things not right about me and I need Jesus to fix me. So again, what you need to understand is this is not just some little cultural nuance thing. It actually functions like the LGBTQIA thing. It functions like a religion. The, the, the act of coming out is that religion's form of baptism. So this is how I go public with my newfound faith. All the different letters in the thing, LGBTQIA plus all the stuff, they're different denominations in the religion. And let's take it down to what's going on our culture right now. If you're asking like, hey dude, why are they always going to do like pride nights for like games that kids, little kids like to come with their dads to? And why do they always do like the drag queen story hours in libraries for little kids? Well, you know, if you're a notices, they're never trying to go to nursing homes and read those books. It's always like with the kids, the kids, the kids. And you're like, man, why are they like, if you're watching what's going on in court systems right now with public school systems, why are they so insistent on books promoting like, I'm going to, you know, I'm quoting like gay sex in elementary schools. Well, here's why because eventually every religion has to get into kids ministry. So there's a reason I use that picture of the three guys refusing to bow down before another religion's idol, well, guess why? Because this whole movement, it functions like a religion, and it's driven by an unholy spirit. The Bible calls saying, okay, so these guys refuse to do it now throw this next thing up. This is another thing from the Atlantic, by the way, I'm increasingly, I'm not loving what I'm seeing from the Atlantic, like the way they're covering this. So here's what it says, after three San Francisco Giants pictures appeared on Friday's game with Bible verses written on Pride Night Caps, listen to this language really close. You need to begin to understand what's happening in our culture and what's going to happen to you. The MLB issued a warning that similar behavior, listen to this language will not be tolerated. Now wait just a second, I thought the whole thing was tolerance and inclusion. Now here's what I want to point out to you, never, ever, ever believe them. They are not about tolerance, they are about submission. If their primary value was tolerance, they would be very tolerant of Christian convictions, but they're not. Why? What's going on is tolerance for me submission for the, that's what's going on, okay. Now here's what happens, cowardice, baguettes, cowardice and courage, baguettes, courage. So these guys so far, they have refuted, they have, they've been, honestly, they've been awesome. They've been humble, they've been loving. They haven't been like belligerent, they're not like attacking anybody, they're just quietly expressing faithfulness to Jesus Christ and they refuse to bow to the mob, okay. This is yesterday, check this out right here, this is from NBC News. So in response to the courage of these dudes, minor league-based ball team in Pennsylvania, cancels Pride Night game. after players refuse to wear jerseys with rainbow sleeves. So now, hey, watch this. Now you've got the vice president, I didn't show this. You get the vice president of the United States, this tweeting about this. You got the attorney general of the United States saying, hey, MLB, we may need to look into this because it feels like you're practicing in form religious discrimination. Now you've got people, other ball teams, Christians on these ball teams. They're not being jerks for Jesus. They're not doing that. They're just quietly going, hey man, I'm a Christian. And man, I must obey God rather than men. And I'll play any game you want me to. But I can't bend my knee to something that Jesus doesn't affirm. And now, we got something going on in our culture. So here's what I'm doing the next few minutes as fast as I possibly can. I'm getting ready to play for you an audio of this guy, Mike Cruckow. So I'm gonna play this as people call him Cruck. He is now, like I said, I think he's the primary, if I understand it correctly. I think he's the primary broadcaster for the giants. I'm gonna play this for you. And I'm gonna react to this. But then I want to answer the question because we do have reason to believe that all of this may have started out of a legum, live free episode or Instagram post. So then I want to answer the question, what should, so we got a little momentum on the field. What should Christians do now? Okay, so what you getting ready here for Mike is about four and a half minutes of audio. I'm gonna pause and comment on this a couple times and help you understand what's gonna get thrown at you. And then I want to answer that question. What should Christians be doing now? So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let me pull up some old Mike. Cruckow, here we go. Mike, before you let you go, I did want to ask you about the conversation surrounding majorly baseball, the San Francisco. By the way, this is radio, not TV. So it's just audio. You're nothing's wrong with YouTube channel. Giant's and Landon Roop and multiple players putting Bible verses on their heads during Pride night, last Friday night at Oracle Ballpark and just open the floor to see if you had any thoughts on this topic and the situation. Well, I do and it's really, really a subject that is so impassioned. And I, we're gonna talk about why it's so impassioned in a minute, the Bible exactly predicts this. So you respect the right for these guys to voice their opinion. I mean, that's with a lot of men and women gave their lives released for these ball players to do. Now, I just want to pause and say this. That's what a lot of men and women gave their lives to these ball players to do. The most deaths that have happened in any recent war is obviously World War II. There's 416,000. I'm a, I'm a, I like to, I sleep terrible. So I wake up in the middle of the night and are usually World War II history. 416,000 Americans were killed in World War II. And I just want to put this out. If you think that like your heterosexual great grandfather that 96% of America was Christian around right after World War II, if you think that your heterosexual Christian grandfather died in World War II so that Christians could get publicly canceled and hazed because they wouldn't affirm two dude sleeping with each other, I would gently suggest you might need to go read a history book really close. In fact, Landon Roup, JT Brew Baker and Ryan Walker, they're the ones that did what your great grandfather died to have happened. Just want to point that out. - Do I agree with it? We'll know. And I think that once you've lived in the Bay Area for a number of years like we have, you understand that the strength of this city is its ethnicity, it's its culture. It's the freedom for people and to be able to come to a city and be free. - Oh, that's very interesting. That'd be great if it was the city where everyone went. Man, we would love for you to come here and be free. How about what about this? What about being free not to be forced to publicly violate your Christian conviction? So again, the thing that you as a Christian need to get and you need to get with humility, is you understand that they don't care about freedom. What it is is this freedom for me, submission for thee. So I want to point that out. Now, I also just want to point this out. What he said is, dude, what can happen is what CS Lewis, he calls it chronological snobbery. It's when we look at the current age and we're like, we're the smart enlightened ones and everybody from the past. All your ancestors were evil and they were idiots and they were so primitive. That's called what CS Lewis called chronological snobbery. There's a little chronological snobbery going on here in what Mike Crockow just said. Because he said, man, everybody in San Francisco knows that the strength of the city is his culture and he's especially talking about like the conquering of San Francisco by the sexual revolution. I'm gonna talk about that here in a second and all the LGBT affirmation stuff. That's the strength of the city. Well, what I want to point out is, first of all, if you go look, if you go look, I should have grabbed one. You'll see these pictures where they're side-by-side pictures of San Francisco in like the '60s and San Francisco now and man, honestly, it doesn't look a lot better. That's not what it looks like. The other thing I'll point out and do there's a mountain of data on this is people do not want to reckon with the reality that ever since the sexual revolution infiltrated the United States and really, honestly, one has won the culture war really until this is the first cultural flashpoint in my lifetime. I'm 42 where it's like, whoa, the sexual revolution is losing and people are against them. So here's what I want to point out. So the sexual revolution and all the LGBT affirmation stuff, it really primarily started in the '60s and really gained power in the '70s. I just want to point this out. I read this recently, Happiness Levels in America peaked in the 1960s and have been in decline ever since. Divorce rates have doubled since the 1960s. In 1960, this brother's mind blowing. In 1965.3% of births in America were to unwed mothers. Today, in 2026, between 40 and 50% of children are born out of wedlock. Suicide rates are somewhere around three times as high as they were, at least I could go on and on and on. But when people point at the modern era and they're like, oh man, everybody sees the strength of this city or the strength of our culture is what we're doing now over and against these obviously bigoted, unintelligent primitive robes from the '50s and '60s. Well, hey man, seems like families were a lot better. People were a lot happier. Things were not perfect. There were obviously problems we had in our culture. But it's really chronological snobbery to go. Well, things are awesome in 2026 and they were obviously awful in the 1960s. Ah, ah. Okay, let's keep going. - And that's a powerful thing and that's the thing about San Francisco that I love the most. And I think when you're a player and you come into-- - Okay, listen, listen really close. This as a Christian, what you're getting ready to hear, this is what you've got to settle in your heart before it happens in your life. - This environment, it's your responsibility to know just how sensitive this city is in regards to that cultural freedom and religious freedom. - Okay, now first of all, this is a little mind-blowing. He's saying, man, these players that refuse to put on the pricats, they should have been more sensitive about how much this city cares about. And then he says, "Religious freedom." That's one of my, "I beg your finest pardon." My brother, these are the guys who are exercising religious freedom. Now, let me go back and just because this is something that like as a Christian, you've got to settle in your spirit, man, okay? So what he said, and I'm going to quote him again, he said, "When you're a player and you come into this environment, it's your responsibility to know how sensitive this city is in response to that freedom." - Listen, dude, what you got to understand is, "Hey, man, what I would say to my crook elf "I was hanging out with him and he was like, "Hey, man, what you got to understand is when these dudes "are Christians," he says, "When you're a player." Well, they're players, but they're not first players. They're first players, they're first Christians and they're way, way, way second players. So what this guy's not understanding is these guys, and you've got to understand is that you're a Christian before you're a player. You're a Christian before you're an employee. You're a Christian before you're a student. And listen, he says, "They've got to, let me make sure "I get this right. "It's your responsibility to know how sensitive this city is." What you as a Christian are going to have to decide in your heart at the beginning of your life as a disciple is who you are going to be the most sensitive to. God or man. This is Galatians 1-10. It sits right above the desk where I write every sermon. Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God? Or am I trying to please? people. If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. And do what you're going to notice is that there are some people who they're so sensitive to not offending people that they become very offensive to God. And we have to decide, in our lives, the outset is Christians like, "Hey, bro, if I got to choose a fenn God or a fenn people, I already made that choice." 10 toes down, I already made that choice. So let me just do one little other theological framework, and then I'll move on. So here's what you need in our standards of Christian is Jesus said there were two great commandments, but he gave the order of the great commandments. He said, "Two greatest commandments, love God number one, love people number two." So two greatest commandments, but also an order. And here's what some Christians, well-meaning, but naive Christians do, is they'll end up emotionally calibrating themselves to sensitivities towards people in an effort to love people, but they get the order wrong. They're more emotionally calibrated towards making people feel loved than they are about making God feel loved. And if you get that order wrong and try to love people first, you're going to end up failing to love God appropriately because in order to appease the feelings of these people, you will offend the feelings of God. And then you're going to end up affirming things that are very unloving to people because you didn't believe that God's commands were not burdensome and they're actually what's best for people. So I say, "No, it's actually, I just want to put it like this." Mike Cruckow said, "When you're a player, you come to this environment, it's your responsibility to know how sensitive the city is in response to that freedom." I would say, "No, gently no. Jesus Christ is Lord." It's actually Mike Cruckow's responsibility to know how sensitive God is in response to obedience to his commands. And just the way that you live your life. And I think they were in a rude awakening with the response and it wasn't just from the gate. Okay, dude. Now, I just want, okay, I need a pause here. And man, there's a lot of Christians who I love you. You're just really naive, man. I love you, but you're really naive about especially the LGBT thing. And I get it. You've got friends, you've got family members who go down that path. Hey, man, me too. Me too. And so you think, man, is it really that big a deal? You know, hey, you know, what do we do? We really need to, you'll start a thing like this. Do we need to enforce our beliefs on the rest of culture and that kind of thing? So let me talk about this real quick because it ties into what he said. So Mike Cruckow said, "These guys are in for a rude awakening." And actually, I think Mike Cruckow, he might be surprised because I think these three dudes are probably they're like actual disciples of Jesus. And I say, man, actually, they weren't in for a rude awakening. They knew exactly what they were signing up for when they bent their need of Jesus and joined Jesus. They were not surprised. You know why they weren't surprised? Because first John 313 says, "Do not be surprised, my brothers, when this world hates you." So actually, I don't think they were in for rude awakening. I think they were like, "No, man, I counted the cost and I decided that I'm gonna follow Jesus." And it may cost me a few things, but I think Jesus is worth it. Now, let me talk real quick. What I need to do, let me connect some dots real quick. And this gonna take me a second, but it's gonna be really important. So, rude awakening, and he's talking about how now where we are in our culture now, when somebody refuses to bend the knee on this thing, it has a lot of consequences culturally and even vocationally. And it might have for you too. Okay. Let me explain to you how we got here because a lot of Christians aren't awesome at thinking about this stuff. Okay. Now, check this out. If I'm an 80s baby, but the 90s made me. So, I grew up in a world where our nation and the laws of our society defined a marriage in a generally biblical sense. One man, one woman, one woman in a covenant that's at least intended for a lifetime. Okay. That changed. Obviously, I think it was 2014 when Obergefell got handed down. And that set off a chain reaction in our culture that led to where we're at now. Now, this is like, this is OG man. Like, this little internet meme was going around when I was in college. So, let me pull this up right here. Let's check this out. And people used to dunk on any Christian that opposed the legalization of gay marriage. And they would throw this little meme in your face. It's like, what happened if gay marriage is legalized and it's all green? And then it's like, gay people will get married. And that's the green. A third world war, world war, will break out. Various plagues, locust frogs, et cetera, will erupt. Schools will begin teaching kids how to have gay sex. The terrorists will win. And what they were doing is they were making fun of anybody who was like, guys, actually don't think this would be good for culture. And they're trying to say the only thing that'll happen is gay people will be able to get married. And none of the other bad stuff you guys are saying will happen is going to happen. Well, I want to say two things. One, one of the things they used to mock Christians for saying is schools will begin teaching kids how to have gay sex. Well, newsflash, that's exactly what happens now. So exactly what people predicted is one of the things that happened. Now let me explain why and do this is where Christians like have to lovingly be humbly become clear thinkers. If there's a phrase you need to you need to cement in your head. The phrase is ideas have consequences. Ideas, there's an old philosopher that said that ideas have consequences. Whoever originally says a must biological consequence eventually say B. So let me just point out to you. Once a society redefines marriage away from one man and one woman, that's a biblical definition from Genesis to what we did is we took that definition we threw God's definition out the window and went you know what marriage is now we're going to say it's any loving relationship between consenting adults where they want to enter into that type of commitment. So we went from one man, one man, one woman with the intent of lifetime covenant to any consenting adults. Well, I'm just going to rapid fire these for real quick about some things that have happened at one of them's a little hard to stomach. So this just happened a couple weeks ago this is in New York City or in New York State. This is Kathy Hocal, New York's governor considers a bill to remove mother and father from family law and they're replacing the words mother and father from family law in the state of New York with just stating parent and non-just stating parent. Well, why would you do that? Well, because if you redefine marriage in the family unit to consenting adults and you take away the biological distinctions male and female, well now we actually can't say that parents have to be a mom and a dad because we redefine the family and when you add kids through surrogacy or adoption, which is really gross for same-sex couples to do that. When you do that, well, now we just need to go just stating parent or not just stating parent because we don't believe these things. Now the other thing you're starting to see if you're paying attention. I'm a little bit of a news junkie is now all of a sudden because we redefine it for male and female to consenting adults. Well, you didn't just take the biological distinctions out. You took the two people distinction out. Why does it got to be two people as long as they're consenting adults? So I'll show you this. You're starting to see a huge push for the legalization and destigmatization of polyamory. That's like a quote-unquote marriage with four people in it that have sex together or three people or seven people. That's polyamory. So this is like and these are mainstream sources. This is New Yorker. How did polyamory become so popular because we redefine marriage in the family? This is New York magazine. Polyamory, a guide for the curious couple. This is New York Times. How a polyamorous mom had a quote-unquote big sexual adventure and found herself. This is USA today. Swingers want you to know a secret. A secret swinging is not just about sex. First line of the article. Open relationships are having a moment. Polyamory, ethical non-monogamy, and similar terms are becoming a bigger part of our cultural lexicon. Why? Well, because ideas have consequences. And once you redefine marriage, you redefine the family and all the doors fly open. Now, this next thing I'm getting ready to show you right here, I'm a future real straight. This is hard to watch, but again, if you're a, listen, I would just gently say this, a well-meaning but naive Christian who's just like, you know what, man, just, just, you know, can't we just, you know, just let them do what they want. And I, you know, it really hurts people's feelings when you don't affirm those things. Remember, ideas have consequences. And God's commands are not burdensome. They're good. When God says don't, he means don't hurt yourself. And that goes for individuals, families, and societies. Now, what I'm getting ready to show you is one of the hardest things to watch I have seen in the last few years, which you're getting ready to look at is a, a gay, quote unquote, married couple that bought a baby, the surrogacy to baby. So it's too do, it's too dads. And one of the dads is holding the baby. And I'll be honest, man, it's going to be hard for my eyes not to sweat while I watch this. Listen really close to the exchange. One of these two dads has with the baby that he's holding. Now, let me pull this up real quick here. Who do you want? Deja or pop? Okay. So what? What he's going to say, I want you to hear it clearly. He's going to ask baby a question. Who do you want? Has it kind of grossed to even say data or pop? listen to the response who do you want dad or pop baby go do this map has a dad's tough who do you want dad or pop and the baby says mama mama day I watch no mama he says no mama do you want dad or pop who do you want dad or pop watch this is tough mom again mom again do you want dad dad or pop watch there is no mama you have dad dad there is no baba and baby just starts we pick watches two choices no mama mama mama listen to me ideas have consequences you may go well man if we just redefine things like marriage oh man it's not gonna hurt anybody yet is you had is you know his suffers kids because every kid deserves to have a mom and a dad and I just want to point this out to you in that picture one of the dads says do you want data or pop baby says mama dad says no data or pop baby just begins weeping and I will quote a Bible verse out of the mouths of babes okay so what I point out of you is ideas have consequences now let me take it down to this thing with the deal going on right now okay so way back pre 2014 some of y'all listen you know you remember that that time everybody's like what bad things are gonna happen if we reject the biblical definition of marriage and just do consenting adults well now what you got is you have a legal and societal demands that are made on Christians so now it's bake the cake design that website say the pronouns put it in your email signature at work or where that had been the Nissan or else so this is what I'm pointing out man ideas have consequences might crack out when he says hey man now if somebody won't bend the knee these guys should have known there'd be massive societal opposition he's right because ideas have consequences and a core in the language of the book of Galatians laws have a didactic function they don't just legislate what's right and wrong they instruct and calibrate the consciences of a culture about what's right and wrong so when you legislate evil as good you're training the consciences of an entire generation to treat evil things as good and good things as evil that's how we got where might crack out is talking right now let's keep going they were in for a rude awakening with the response and it wasn't just from the gate community it was from the Northern California community that supports the gate community moved to Texas that's a joke this is what has been incredible the way that that the reaction has centered around the emotion that that northern California has for the gate community and Killian this article was brilliant it was full of outrage and if you read the comment now I'm gonna point some out of you and I'm gonna show you the Bible predicted this 2000 years ago all right notice these use in language like this outrage emotion keep listening to the language he uses and I'm gonna show you this in the scriptures comments from the people that had written in expressing their opinion and their disappointment and the science players and it was impassioned and it wasn't just a bunch of trolls screaming BS this was written by people that had deep thoughts and it was well written it was an educated opinion and and it was something that I think everybody should should read when you come on and you put on a uniform and you represent the San Francisco whether it be in football baseball hockey fastball whatever you have to be aware of just how impassioned the people are here you have to be aware of how impassioned the people are here so now let me point some out of you and then I want to show it why is this well dude the Bible is not an old book it's an eternal book and because it's eternal it's always timeless which means it's always timely the Bible tells us exactly why they're full of outrage emotion impassioned disappointment how impassioned people are now makes my way that is what you need to do is here's your homework is go read Romans chapter one Romans chapter one basically is a lens that goes it essentially goes here's modern America unless we as a culture begin to repent before God now I'm gonna read a lot of Bible if you listen to live free you get the top person I think likes a lot of the Bible but this should help us understand like okay why are we seeing what we're seeing our culture now listen really close this verse you just have a wit coming out of it because every time you read it it kind of explodes in your face so this is Romans 118 it says the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people I just want to point this out notice this we're always okay with our wrath so we're okay with wrath being poured out on three guys who won't bend any we're okay with us expressing outrage and mobs and violence if it's directed to the right people we're okay with our wrath but we're never okay with gods so I just want to point this out the same people who are like justice justice justice those people tend to forget we as mankind are on the wrong side of the greatest injustice ever committed we killed God Romans chapter one is saying now in some societies the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of these people okay now watch this check this out who here's what it says suppress the truth here's a big idea all this going to start to explain our culture to you when an ideology becomes an idol truth suppression always happens so it says when a culture goes we're going to love this evil thing and we're going to replace the truth of God with a lie at different ideology what Romans once says what immediately begins to happen is that culture begins to suppress the truth okay so this is why when Abigail Shrier writes a book exposing the evils of the transgender movement this is why all the books get banned from Amazon suppress the truth this is why some of my own content has had content violations on YouTube and we'll have stuff pulled truth suppression this is why some biblical truth or some biblical truth that we used to hang in every classroom in America or teach every kid in America you can't teach that anymore in classrooms why because we suppress the truth and this is why they're now saying don't you dare put those Bible verses on your hats because evil cultures suppress the truth and here's what it says by their wickedness since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them for since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so the people are without excuse all it's saying here is that that the the nature of creation makes the obviousness of a creator non-ignorable this I don't have time to go into this this is why sociologists have literally never discovered any civilization or society in all human history that didn't have some spiritual truth some religion something why because what the fact that there is a creator is just obvious when you look around now verse 21 for although they knew God they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened for although they watch this they claimed to be wise they became fools in other words people with a lot of knowledge but no wisdom this is what listen this is why when somebody wants to believe something they can always listen to I don't care it doesn't matter what you want to believe it doesn't matter you can always find a college professor somewhere with more degrees than Fahrenheit that will affirm the thing that you already decided you wanted to believe that is what this verse is saying claiming to be wise they became fools and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles now here's what I'm going to point out this starts bringing us into this specific issue it says when we do this what cultures do they exchange truth for a lie so they exchange doctrine for ideology but then they exchange the glory of the immortal God for images watch this made to look like mortal human beings so here's what it says when we stop worshiping God we don't worship bad things we take good things and make them ultimate ultimate things so we take take created things and we put them in the place of the creator now check this out if you look at our culture you'll notice we worship lots of things but the thing that we tend to worship more than anything else is sex it is the thing and look open your eyes it is the thing in our culture that people are like I'm going to build my whole identity on this I'm going to build my entire shot at happiness on this. If you won't cheer in a firm, this one thing, then we're going to consider it as if you've transgressed blasphemy laws, you have to be kicked out of society. Now, why is that? Why is it that more than anything else we worship sex? Because when God created everything, he said everything was good, but when he created the human body, he said it's very good. So this goes back to Genesis. So this is why we do this. Now, verse 24, now we start getting into why what's happening in our culture is happening. Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to now when he says God gave them over just stay with me and I'm getting back to this. This is what theologians call the passive wrath of God. There's a difference between the active wrath of God and the passive wrath of God of the Bible. The active wrath of God is when God actively pours out some judgment, you know, fire falls from heaven on cities or, I mean, there's a thousand different things. God strikes, anisons, fire dead in act of fire. That's the active wrath of God. The passive wrath of God is when you look around, God has created sin where sin is a punishment unto itself. That when you go off into sin, you, in the words of the scriptures, pierce yourself with many pangs. So see us, Lewis wisely said, manage only two types of people. There's people who've been their need of Jesus and say to God, thy will be done. And then there's people to whom God eventually says thy will be done. I'll let you do exactly what you want. You can wander off into that, do that, sleep with that, affirm that, cheer that. He's going, man, bad things are going to happen. That's the passive wrath of God. God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for what for the degrading of their bodies for one another. So this is saying when a culture begins to get to its highest forms of rebellion against God, you get rampant sexual impurity and degrading of their bodies with another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve creative things rather than the creator who is forever praised on men. Now the next verse I'm getting ready to read, pastors don't even have to try to be controversial. They just got to read Bible verses like this. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts, even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. What this is saying is when the passive wrath of God is poured out on people or a society, what this is saying is you're going to see an increase in participation in an affirmation of same sexual activity. That's like a Bible verse. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, God gave them over to a depraved mind. So they do what ought not to be done. Now listen, we're going to get back to why there's so much outrage, disappointment, impassioned opposition to what these guys did. This verse is going to tell you. They had become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, depravity, therefore of envy, murder, strive to see Him, Alice, their gossip, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. Some people call this Roman Romans 1. I just call it 21st century America. They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Watch this. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death. Listen, this is not saying that, oh, people who struggle with, who commit same sexual sin. They deserve death and you don't know, all have sinned and death is the penalty for sin. So it's saying everybody sinned and death is the penalty for sin. They not only continue to do these very things, but they approve of those who practice them. That my friends is saying in a culture where the passive wrath of God is poured out in unique measure. You're going to get, hey, man, a bunch of hashtags, a bunch of pride parades. This explains all the pressure day unless I celebrate you and support you. Well, then I'm intolerant. This is why he's going in my truck. I was going there was an impassioned outrage over these guys. Why? Because Romans 132 specifically predicted it. They will not only do these things. They will give approval to those who practice them. And I would just gently say this. What a lot of people say is, man, unless I celebrate you and support you, well, then I'm intolerant. And I would just gently say, if you're so insecure in your beliefs that you need my approval, maybe you need to reconsider your convictions. Now, let's keep going. So that explain we're just we're biblically walking through what's going on here. Let's finish it up here. This is a truck out. And I, you know, again, it is there is an irony to it. There's an irony to it because the giant organization is getting dumped on as well. And that hurts me. That's just that. Now, do people sin in their anger and Christians absolutely be jerks for Jesus, which I think and hate it, man. I hate that. It's not my thing. It's like some people took their Myers breaks and it came back J. E. R. K. That's like not our thing, man. We're supposed to humbly. We're supposed to boldly stand for truth. But do it with love respect. Love and respect. I will say the giant's organization getting dumped on is a is a symptom of something generally zoomed out moving in the right direction. I'll explain that in a second. It hurt me because I saw in 1994. They were the first team to ever take on the challenge of going against public opinion and the outrage of even associating with the gay community and in they openly went out and said we support the gay community. We support until there's a cure day. We are going to raise money to fight AIDS. We support the community. By the way, man, as Christians, we obviously want to see the elimination of human suffering. We're we're opposition to AIDS, health care, all the stuff. Dude, we're we're four of that stuff. So it may just be really clear about that. And they did it with love. And it's happened the entire since 1994 every year annually and the chance for the first team at the ballpark to wave the pride flag. And that took on criticism from around the country. So I just you know, it hurt me to see that there was criticism directed towards the giants because of all that they have done to help the gay community and the relationship between the giants of the gay community has always been. You know, we talked about this in my house last night, we had dinner with Sunday, his wife's leaner and their two children. Our grandkids are calling his 15 and Reagan who's 13 and it was quite a discussion. And one of the things that came out of it from Reagan was cramp, but we're always so happy at the ballpark. And that's that's true. And she said, I'm sad. I just gently say, man, what the vast majority of families want is they just want to go to the ballpark and it be about baseball and not like promoting gender marriage and sexuality ideology. I'm sad that these guys did what they did, but I'm also sad that the 21 players that were the hats that stood tall and supportive of the of the gay community. They were not applied for what they did, but people were really, really. Now, what you see in here is the difference between what some people have called an upside down culture versus a right side up culture. When a culture is, when a culture is right side up, evil things are stigma, are stigmatized. Let me, let me get this. My wife was right, righteous things, sinful things in a right side up culture, sinful things are stigmatized culturally and righteous things are applauded and rewarded. That's in a right side up culture. That's how our culture was maybe 50, 60 years ago in general, not perfectly in general, where it was like man, in general, righteous things were applauded and rewarded and sinful things were often appropriately stigmatized. But when a culture exchanges the truth about God for a lie, it flips from right side up to upside down in an upside down culture, righteous things are stigmatized and cast as evil. Good things are called evil and sinful things get rewarded. So I will just point this out. This guy's having conversations with his kids to calibrate the consciences of his kids. Honestly, away from righteousness and towards evil, Christian parents, we need to be doing that with our kids. The dinner table is not just for feeding is for leading. And we need to be having conversations about this because somebody is going to disciple our kids, either the word or the world. Okay, now let's keep going to respond to the players that didn't and it just gives you a perspective of how we think of things and how we look at things. And I would just encourage everybody to just, you know, support. Support the right support the right. You're going to see him say we're going to finish this up right here. This is like the last thing he says, you're going to see him say something right here that is often very confusing to Christians. I don't want it to be confusing to you. Listen close. He's going to put two things together that Christians have to have the ability to hold a part. And it's hard to put it into perspective when you have so much emotion and so much of love for people who have been pinged out and oppressed. and there was so much prejudice at. - Okay, first of all, notice this. He uses the words, "Pregidist and oppressed." You just need a no man. If you're a Christian that's faithful, you're gonna get that thrown at you. You're prejudice, you're oppressed. And they're gonna say, "Hey man, you have two choices. Either you're affirming or you're prejudiced." And here's what I want you to see. There's a play getting run on you, you don't know as getting run on you. It's called choice architecture. This is, he's doing choice architecture. Choice architecture is when somebody manipulates the options presented to you in order to force you to their desired conclusion. That's choice architecture. Here's what it sounds like. Hey man, do you practice prejudice or are you loving and affirming? Well, man, you can be loving. You can be loving. In fact, in order to be loving, you shouldn't be affirming of things that are damaging, okay? So here, I'll just do them. Choice architecture sounds like this. Man, are you affirming or do you practice hate? Are you pro choice or are you against women's rights? Are you for the organization BLM? Are you for it? Or are you one of those bigoted white supremacists? On the trans thing. This is what a lot of, man, this is rough man. This is emotional terrorism. You had parents walking into medical institutions and having people say things like this, hey man, do you want a living son or a dead daughter? Like they're gonna commit suicide unless you affirm everything, okay? These things, that's choice architecture. They're manipulating the options presented to you in order to force you to their desired conclusion. The fact of the matter is, hey man, you can be for all of women's rights as expressed in the scriptures and be pro life. You should be, in fact you should be. You can be loving and not affirm things that are not good, that are damaging, okay? So this is choice architecture. I just want to gently say this. As we're in Pride Month, here's a general reminder to Christfowlers that affirmation or hate are not your only two choices. And if anybody tells you that or tells your kids that, they're using choice architecture to manipulate you to a demanded outcome. You can love somebody without approving of everything they do. Jesus did and we must. And you can disagree with somebody and still deeply love them. Now watch what he does next. - You know, the gay community has had to deal with, with issue as the black thing or the earth. - I noticed this is what he does. He's put in the quote unquote gay rights issue and making it one thing with the black rights issue. This is gonna get thrown at you constantly as Christians, okay? You're gonna see it. - Any minority community has had to, and so what he's doing is he's conflating a quote unquote sexual, conflating a sexual practice and a perversion with an ethnic minority, okay? This is a trick that gets thrown at Christians and they're like, oh, I guess I'm supposed to be for equality and justice, so if I'm for this, I have to be for that, no, no, no. So they're making them a package deal. The racial justice issue and the sexual deal, okay? So what people do is they go, hey man, racial justice and LGBT affirmation and they'll go yes or no. And Christians have the ability to go, well yes to this, but no to that. Rightly defined, yes to this, no to that, okay? - So I was a part of the gay community or minority and there was hate directed towards me. If there was a opinion that was prejudiced directed towards me, I would stand tall and I would scream as loudly as I possibly could and I get this, I do. - Yeah, now let me, he's done here. Let me just finish this. What I wanna make sure every Christian everywhere understands is he is right that we are commanded by the scriptures to love all people. And man, if you're somebody who is experienced or you have somebody in your family that's experienced same-sex, sexual sin or same-sex sexual attraction, now what I want you to know is this world is lorded over by the father of lies and the number one lie that your enemy wants you to believe is that you are your activity. So you just need to know this. He's gonna get in your ear and he's like, hey man, you are your abortion. You are your addiction. You are your sexual orientation and listen, he'll go, hey man, that's what you are. But listen, only Jesus gets to tell you who you are. And you may look at me and be like, yeah, Josh, but that's the biggest thing that ever happened in my life. No, it ain't, it is not. If you're a Christian, Jesus done on the cross for you is the biggest thing that ever happened in your life. That is what defines you and nothing else. So I wanna finish with this. In the words of Francis Schaefer biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world. And then Randy Alcorn said it like this. Truth without grace crushes and ceases to be truth. And grace without truth deceives people and ceases to be grace. Let those things sink in. And the question we need to ask is, well, what should we be doing right now? Guys, we've got momentum on the field as Christians in our culture for the first time in a long time. Right now, it needs to be all gas, no breaks. So for the professional athletes that listen to this thing, I'm gonna strongly encourage you. Find it in your way, in your voice. Refuse to bend your knee to the mob. And gently flex and oppose what these guys did. Absolutely refuse it. And man, when you get a microphone shoved in your face, man, I would just gently say something like this. I would just gently say, I do not think that Christians should be forced or pressured to violate 2000 year old convictions that they have. You should say, nobody should. Something like that. Man, we got momentum on the field. All gas, no breaks, the glory got in the good of people. There you have it. Bonus episode back from vacation of lifrey. If this is helpful to you, honestly, it'd be really awesome. To like, comment, share, drop a comment, and YouTube. On the YouTube channel, that helps me know that this is actually worth the extra time, 'cause it does take a lot of time. Hope this helpful. Love you guys. Peace.